Creating a Blog or Website: A High Schooler’s Guide
Websites are a fun, creative, long-term project that anyone, such as high schoolers, is capable of doing! I am currently working on a blog site myself, that can act as a portfolio that describes my passions, such as computer science, dance, and speaking Chinese. I can also use this website to write blog posts about my passions as well.
What are the Benefits of Creating a Blog or Website as a High Schooler?
There are so many reasons I wanted to created a blog website as a highschooler, and it could provide a lot of benefits to you:
It is a great way to tell people about yourself! By writing on your own website, you are able to highlight your current passions.
Additionally, it is a great way to show off your skills to business and/or colleges. If you are interested in seeking a career in computer science, creating a blog website is an effective way of showing other people that you are passionate about computer science and that you are constantly trying to learn new things and improve your programming skills.
If you are interested in computer science, creating a blog website is a great way of practicing your programming skills!
It is simply just a very fun project. I have a lot of fun choosing colors, pictures, and organizing and designing my website layout to make it look cooler!
It is a long term project. When I first started coding, I often found it boring to just work on a new project after a new project, since these projects are so short. I find long term projects really appealing because I can work on it over longer periods of time, and I can always come back to it. I feel like you can never truly finish coding a website or blog site, because you can constantly add more features on it, which is something I really like about long term coding projects.
In addition to improving your programming skills, creating a blog site develops other skills as well: problem solving, communication, and researching, since you may often face obstacles while coding your website and may want to consult the internet or a mentor for a solution.
Guide to Start your High School Blog Site or Website
It is possible to use website building platforms, which require less coding, but if you truly want a project that tests your programming skills, creating your website from scratch is a great idea, and is also very feasible.
Before starting the coding, make sure to do your research and find a way to make your webpage a real blog site that can be found be the general public if they were to look up your blog site name on the internet
The next step would be to find a coding platform on which to program your blog page. I used visual studio code, which can be downloaded from google, and I began to code my website using the languages: HTML, CSS, and Javascript.
Before you actually start to code, I find it very helpful to create a layout for each page, so I had a sense of what I wanted each website page to look like once I started coding. A drawing app or just pencil and paper would be good for this step!
Finally, you may start coding your website
Find nice pictures that will make your website look more appealing! Make sure that these pictures are either ones you took yourself or ones that you can use and don’t forget to cite them.
Make sure that each time you add new lines of code to run your program so that you can see if you are getting the results you wish to see. If not, seeing what the website looks like will give you more insight into how to change your code to make your blog site look more like the way you want it to.
If you find yourself unsure of how to code a specific function or feature, do not be afraid to find coding resources, tutorials or videos online to help guide you. (Tip: When I started my website, I also created a document where I kept track of new functions or techniques to coding that I had never known before. That way, you are still learning and not just copying code from the internet. This will help you be more likely to apply these new ideas to future projects!)
Make sure your coding is saved each time you stop coding your project for the day! It is a lot of work to re-code anything you may have lost by forgetting to save your project.
When you have close to what is a finished product, publish your website and have people take a look! Don’t forget that you can always go back to it and add more features or functions to the website.
My Experience Coding a Blog Site / Web Page as a High Schooler
I Have Learned So Much by Coding this Blog Site:
Coding my blog site is a project that I started this year, and I am still currently working on it. Overall, I think it is so worth it! I am really passionate about coding, and I feel like coding this website has been a phenomenal way of improving my skills. I have learned so many new and cool features that I can code using HTML, CSS, and Javascript. By coding this blog site, I feel like I can use my knowledge to start so many other endeavors and projects. For example, I can start working with my high school coding club to create a website that keeps track of all of our school’s clubs, which is a project I am really excited to possibly start!
It Has Not Made Me more Stressed In Terms of Time Commitment:
I feel like coding a website is a very manageable and easy project for a high schooler. As a high schooler, our days are often so busy. We cannot guarantee that we can work on our coding projects everyday, and having deadlines for coding projects can often make the project more stressful and less enjoyable. When I code my website however, I am more able to enjoy the process as I do not have a deadline. And, I can always come back to it and add to my code whenever I have the time.
It is so fun!
This blog site project has been so fun! I find that coding this blog site is a great way to pass the time. It takes so much focus, and often feels like a game for me. I find myself really enjoying seeing the different ways I could organize the website layout, or think of different colors or features that would make my website look even cooler! I also find a lot of fun in finding pictures of my own to add to my website. If you are a high schooler interested in computer science, or if you are simply just curious, then creating a blog site is the project for you!
About Inspirit AI
AI Scholars Live Online is a 10 session (25-hour) program that exposes high school students to fundamental AI concepts and guides them to build a socially impactful project. Taught by our team of graduate students from Stanford, MIT, and more, students receive a personalized learning experience in small groups with a student-teacher ratio of 5:1.
