Beginner example
One deployed project, documented properly
Second-year student. Three university assignments, no personal projects, nothing deployed. Applying for a first summer internship.
Target role
Front-end or full-stack internship
The header
The only job of the header is to answer “who is this and what do they build?” before anyone scrolls.
Alex Moreau — front-end developer
Second-year computer science student. I build web applications in TypeScript and React. Looking for a summer 2027 internship.
The projects
Two projects, ordered by strength rather than by date.
1. Module Deadline Tracker
A deadline tracker for university coursework, used by about 20 people on my course.
| Stack | React, TypeScript, Vite, deployed on Vercel |
|---|---|
| Evidence shown | Live link, 30-second demo GIF, source repository |
The technical decision it leads on. Stored dates as UTC ISO strings after a bug where deadlines shifted by an hour when the clocks changed. Added a test that runs the list across a DST boundary.
2. Library Lending System
A second-year Java assignment, extended with a REST API, a web front end and tests.
| Stack | Java, Spring Boot, PostgreSQL, deployed on Railway |
|---|---|
| Evidence shown | Live API with OpenAPI docs, source repository |
The technical decision it leads on. Moved loan-limit enforcement from the service layer into a database constraint after finding two concurrent requests could both pass the check.
Why this portfolio works
- The header answers who, what and what they want in one sentence.
- One project has real users — twenty people on a course is more convincing than a hypothetical market.
- Both projects are deployed and clickable. Neither requires the reviewer to clone anything.
- Each project names one specific technical decision with the reason behind it.
- The assignment is upgraded rather than hidden, and the upgrade is the interesting part.
What it would still improve
Every portfolio has gaps. Naming them is more useful than pretending the example is finished.
- Only two projects. A third small one — a CLI tool or a published package — would add breadth cheaply.
- No tests mentioned on the first project.
- The About section is still slightly generic.
The ten-second read
A second-year student who ships things and understands why concurrency matters. Worth a first-round conversation.
What to take from this
Copy the structure, not the content. The claim, the projects, the technical decisions and the voice have to be yours — those are the parts a reviewer is assessing, and a borrowed About section reads as exactly what it is.
If you want to work through your own version, the complete walkthrough is here and the free toolkit has the checklists and the case-study template that produce the project write-ups above.
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