Bloggers Journal

Tons of us have Facebook accounts or are active members of Twitter!  However, how many people have their own personal website?  I honestly cannot answer that.  Whilst not very representative, but will do for the sake of argument, I reckon an absolute maximum of 5% of my friends have their own personal website.  Of this small percentage, how many of them actually have a website with regularly updated content?  That I cannot answer – but I’m sure it’s safe to say that there are plenty of websites on the net which are either out of date, or are infrequently updated.Of the friends I know to have websites, most are training to be (or are working as) web developers, or have some other sort of role in media.  They have a desire to develop websites, and more often than not, use their own sites as demonstration of their skills.

I, on the other hand, am trained in aerospace engineering, and my day job is again, in aerospace engineering.  So why a website?

I have an interest in web development, since I taught myself HTML, CSS, etc etc etc.  With such a technical skill set, I had no creative outlet.  Similarly, I enjoyed teaching people how to do things.  So I set about getting my own website.  I’ve had this domain for years.  It’s only recently that I have actually sat down and decided to do anything on my site.

Its purpose is to feature as an online CV, allowing prospective employers to learn a bit more about me.  Scary I’m sure, and I don’t want anything to be damaging to my career.  The site also allows me to demonstrate my self taught web skills.  After all, without any official qualification, what other better method of proving your knowledge than demonstrating it!

I also will use the site to blog about various things which ultimately are part of my life.  The starting topic of my blog is Surviving a PhD.  I am nearing completion of my own PhD research project, and I want to share the lessons I have learned.

I will see where the site takes me, or rather where I take the site.  Hopefully I will get more visitors each month over time.  Since March, I’ve had 128 unique vistors from 14 countries across 5 continents.