Acquire, and begin to fill, a box or looseleaf notebook(s) in which to store papers and other items that might be relevant to your portfolio. Examples of such materials could be graded quizzes, homework, or papers (preferably accompanied by the sheet that describes the assignment); or other written (drawn/recorded/etc.) materials that you produced. Materials relevant to your extracurricular activities or personal life are appropriate too. You will decide what to share and what to keep private, so you can always decide later not to "publish" any item(s); the point now is to begin to collect all the raw data from the first few weeks of the term which might already be slipping into oblivion!
Please write about a page in which you discuss one or at most two of the following questions. It's better to answer one in depth than a number superficially. You may exceed the length limit if you want; the purpose of keeping it short is to limit the assignment to the time commitment of an hour every other week. For the moment, you are writing just for you, but in the next week you will be asked to share your writings with project staff, and ultimately you will be asked to produce a document for public consumption, so you might want to avoid writing about things that are so personal that you'd never want to share them with ANYONE.
Possible reflection questions (CHOOSE ONE OR TWO TO ANSWER):
What are your educational, career, and/or personal objectives for the next year? The next five years? The rest of your life?
Select a course or activity that you have taken/done at WPI that has been very meaningful for you. Explain why it was meaningful.
Reflect on your experience at WPI up till now (ever since you started here as a student, which may be a few weeks or a few years). You may discuss academics and/or personal growth and/or extracurricular activities. Don't make this just a catalog of activities. How has your WPI experience contributed to the accomplishment of your goals? Have your goals changed as a result of your experiences here?
And finally, please keep a log of the time you spend on this project, to assist us in adjusting the length of your assignments.
This site created by Kevin Pease (Portfolio Project Peer Learning Assistant) Last Modified: 12/12/97
