What I Want You to Do
Create a professional bio that tells everyone in your Project Group about your background, work, and interests. Since we are all Hokies, you can address your Ut Prosim beliefs and actions too.
Why I Want You to Do It
A professional bio introduces new employees in the workplace or updates staff when an employee takes on new responsibilities (like a promotion). On campus, your department or college may post professional bios when they give out awards and special honors.
We will use them to introduce ourselves. I want you to write something more than the boring self-introduction discussion thread, and this project gets beyond that kind of writing while also letting you practice a kind of writing frequently used in the workplace.
Where You Can Find Help
There are many options for help with your bio. Choose the ones that fit your career field and/or that seem most useful to you. I do not expect you to read all of these. You should definitely look at some example bios so that you know what your bio should look like.
- Websites:
- How to Write a Professional Bio as a College Student (Pullman Foundation)
- “Meet the Team” Pages: Examples and Trends (Smashing Magazine)
- How to Write a Short Bio About Yourself (Chron)
- How to Write a Snappy, Tight Professional Bio (NBC Chicago)
- How to Write A Bio- Tips for Building Your Personal Brand (Brand Yourself)
- Samples of Professional Branding Statements (Dummies.com)
- Example Professional Bios:
You can use Copilot if you’d like. This is a fairly low-stakes writing task, so I think it’s fine to test out AI on it.
Basically, you can upload your resume to Copilot and ask it to write your first draft. You will then revise the draft before sharing it with your group. Additional instructions provide more details and the prompt you can use.
Be sure to save the responses AI gives you. It’s your guarantee if any issues about how you used the tool come up.
Professional Bio Expectations
A short professional bio including this information:
- Your name
- Your major
- Your career intentions (e.g., what kind of job are you aiming for?)
- A photo (see details below)
- (Optional) Your social activities (e.g., clubs, Greek organizations)
- Your interests outside of school (e.g., hobbies, sports)
- (Optional) Your Ut Prosim beliefs and actions
- Your contact information
Length: 100–200 words minimum. You can write more if you like.
How You Do It
- Consider the audience and purpose for your bio:
- Audience: the classmates in your Project Group, whom you’ll work with most of the semester, AND me (Traci).
- Purpose: getting to know one another so we connect and collaborate smoothly.
- Write your biography statement in Canvas in the Introduce Yourself (Project Group Discussion). Write directly in Canvas so that readers do not need to download a document to find out who you are. The idea is to make it easy for your reader.
- Keep the following requirements in mind as you write:
- Include strong, specific details that tell readers who you are and help them get to know you.
- Use current information. Don’t make up anything. Your readers want to know who you really are.
- Add a photo to your bio that connects to the info in your bio. It doesn’t have to be a photo of yourself, but it can be. You can include more than one photo if you want to. Here are some examples of kinds of photos that work:
Tip: Avoid photos from prom, graduation, Ring Dance, and weddings. They look out of place because they are not from a setting that connects to your career field.
- A business-casual or business photo of yourself.
- A photo of a pet, and you mention the pet in your bio (especially useful if you are in pre-Vet or Animal and Poultry Sciences).
- A photo of yourself doing something relevant to your career (like working on a construction site if you’re a Building Construction major or participating in an obstacle course with the Corps).
- A photo of yourself participating in a hobby or special interests (like an outlook on a hiking trail for someone interested in hiking or backpacking—or majoring in conservation). Again be sure you talk about the hobby or special interest in your bio.
- End with contact information so that your group members can get in contact with you, following these guidelines:
- Include a first and last name.
- Provide at least ONE way the group can contact you: email, text messages, phone, etc.
- List ONLY the contact information you’re willing to share.
- Indicate your preferred method of contact if you’ve mentioned more than one option.