What is a Personal Project?

A personal project is any tech-related project that isn't connected with a class, an internship, or organized research. Essentially, it’s anything that you independently undertake on your own (or with others) in order to build skills, gain experience, and fill in your resume.

Why are they helpful?

Personal projects are extremely helpful when looking for Software internships because they show initiative, strong work ethic, and passion. They are also much more accessible than other types of experience because they are completely independent (i.e. you don’t need to be hired by anyone in order to complete one). While school projects are great to add to your resume, they often don’t reach the level of complexity that interviewers would like to see. This gap can easily be filled with a personal project.

Self-Doubt

You might be thinking: “I’m just a college student, how can I create anything cool and original in my free time.” Firstly, don’t worry about the originality of your project. You aren’t trying to make money, so it really doesn’t matter if there are other projects online that do the same thing already (in fact, these other projects might be a good source of help when you get stuck). But you can definitely make something cool, no matter your programming level! The reason why so many people are passionate about Software is that it allows us to build cool tools without much effort.

When you start a project, explore all of the options that the language/library/tool you’re using allows. You’ll almost certainly find some ways to make your project seem impressive and sophisticated without having to build the coolness yourself.

Bonus Tip: Github Copilot

If you want to make things even easier on yourself, register for student access to Github Copilot here. If you’ve never used Copilot before, we promise it will blow you away and significantly increase your productivity.