Career Audit, Portfolio Review & Track Selection
5 points extra credit · due Week 3, Tuesday, September 8
What this is
Three short pieces of work in the first two weeks that set up the rest of the semester.
You come into this course having completed Portfolio Development, so you already have an online portfolio. This is not about building one — it is about looking at it honestly and deciding what this semester needs to add to it.
That decision drives everything downstream. Your track determines your Project 1 source. Your portfolio gap becomes your Project 3 brief. Getting this right in Week 1 is worth more than any other three hours you will spend in this course.
Note: résumés, cover letters, demo reel assembly, networking, and interview preparation are covered in Portfolio Development and are not repeated here. This course assumes that groundwork is done.
Part 1 — Career Self-Audit
An honest inventory. Not aspirational.
Software. Every application you can use, rated:
- Professional — I could be handed a task in this tool tomorrow and deliver
- Functional — I can work in it, slowly, with reference open
- Familiar — I have opened it and followed a tutorial
Techniques. Every technique in your discipline you can execute unsupervised. Be specific — "rigging" is not an entry; "IK/FK arm setup with space switching" is.
Where you want to be in two years. A role, and the kind of studio or company. Specific enough that someone could tell whether you got there.
The gap. What stands between the first two lists and the third.
This document is between you and the instructor. Its usefulness is directly proportional to its honesty — an audit that flatters you produces a semester aimed at the wrong target.
Part 2 — Portfolio Review
Open your existing online portfolio and look at it as a stranger would. Better: open it on a phone, and give yourself ten seconds.
Work through these questions in writing:
- What is the first thing a viewer sees? Is it your strongest piece? If not, why is it first?
- How long before something impressive appears? You have about ten seconds of a recruiter's attention.
- Which pieces are actively hurting you? Nearly every portfolio has at least one. Name it.
- Is it obvious within five seconds what job you want? Show it to someone who does not know your work and ask them what you do.
- Does each piece show how it was made? Wireframes, breakdowns, texture maps, rig demos, debug views, process shots — or only finals?
- What is the newest piece? If the answer is over a year old, that is itself a finding.
- What is missing? Compare against the kind of work the studios you want actually produce.
Then write the gap statement. One paragraph, specific:
My portfolio currently shows ______. The roles I want require ______. The clearest gap is ______.
This paragraph becomes your Project 3 brief. Write it carefully. You will reread it in Week 11.
Part 3 — Track Selection
Choose your focus for the semester:
3D animation · character rigging · technical art · game design · game programming · concept art & storyboard · motion graphics · virtual production · other related area by approval
Two-track combinations are permitted where the combination is coherent and the scope is realistic. Settle this in Week 1 or 2 consultation.
Write a short track statement:
- The track, and why this one
- How it connects to the two-year goal from Part 1
- How it connects to the gap from Part 2
- Which technique or skill in this track you most need to develop
Your track determines the curated source list you choose Project 1 from. See the Project 1 page for track-specific sources, and the Track Resources pages for learning material.
Optional: one job posting
Not required, but recommended. Find one current posting for a role you want and save the full text — postings disappear.
It gives your Project 3 gap statement something concrete to point at, and reading a real posting is usually more clarifying about your gaps than any amount of self-assessment.
Submission
One combined PDF or Canvas page, due Week 3, Tuesday, September 8, before class.
Length is not the point — three to five pages is typical. Specificity is the point.
Grading — 5 points extra credit
| Points | Standard |
|---|---|
| 5 | All three parts complete. Self-audit is specific and honest. Portfolio review identifies real weaknesses, including at least one uncomfortable one. Gap statement is concrete enough to brief a project from. |
| 4 | All parts present; some assessments general rather than specific |
| 3 | All parts present but superficial, or the gap statement is too vague to act on |
| 1–2 | Partial submission |
| 0 | Not submitted |
The grading here rewards honesty over polish. A review that says "three of my six pieces are weak and the newest is fourteen months old" scores higher than one that says everything is going well, because only the first one tells us what to do next.
We revisit this
- Week 11 — you reread the gap statement to brief Project 3
- Week 15 — you check the semester's work against the portfolio
- Week 16 — you state what is still missing and what you will build next
The audit is a working document for the whole term, not a Week 3 assignment you file away.