Personally, I feel as though my online self is a decent representation of my actual self, if not a little skewed, since my media posts usually only show the bests parts of my life. But then again I think that is something that everyone does to an extent. We want to tell the world about the exciting and good things that happen in our lives and not our setbacks and failures. And while my overall online personality might not be spot on to my true character, since it is certainly lacking in some parts, I believe that my academic and professional side of my online profile is mostly accurate of who I am.
When posting online, I usually only post positive things about my life. Academically and professionally, this is when I hit major milestones or need to update my media pages to reflect my accomplishments. This general positive representation of me and of my achievements is mostly accurate because I have actually accomplished the things I post about. For example, in the last month I have updated my media pages to reflect my participation in commencement, my move to Nashville, TN., and my employment at an engineering company working with geographic information systems. All of those are accurate representations of me in terms of my accomplishments and show a bit into who I am as a person.
My achievements also show my drive and dedication in learning through high academic achievement and through my involvement in academic research. My profiles show that I am held in high regard amongst my peers and my professors, and I have received awards and praise in the past, not only in regards to my achievements, but also because of my enthusiasm in learning and dedication to tasks. But, while this is all true in describing who I am, these accomplishments are more a statement of facts than anything else. These achievements do not express the enthusiasm and joy of my personality. They do not display any of the emotions I feel about any of the successes I have had. They do not show who I am behind the computer screen, though I guess from a more professional standpoint, it does the job.
However, I feel as though I certainly come across as this highly accomplished person and that this highlight reel of achievements makes my life seem too good to be true. Underneath it all I have had a life filled with struggles and hardships, and I have fought tooth and nail to get where I am today. This is most likely why I have worked so hard in academics, because I want to make something of myself and gain something better from life. However, I do not necessarily want people to know of those struggles. I never want to become someone’s charity case or to be pitied for where I come from, and when looking at it from an outside perspective, I think this is why I do not post often about my hardships or my history. It is something that is very personal, and in regards to my academics or my career goals, my history is no one else’s business but my own.
In regards to my social media postings, however, this is where my online identity starts becoming a more accurate representation of myself. This is because my personal media pages are more of a hodge-podge of things I like, things I find interesting, and things I am passionate about. If you were to find me on social media and not a purely academic website, there would undoubtedly be pictures from the many adventures I go on, lots of environmental posts, a ton of Harry Potter related posts, and probably some animal videos. This would be in combination with any academic related posts because I post about my academic achievements on my social platforms as well. I think that these are the only significant deviations between my personal and professional/academic representations of myself, where they show a side of me that isn’t really expressed in my academic identity.
But, while my online identity may not truly show who I am in regards to my personality, I do believe that my accomplishments are representative enough of my most prominent personality traits: drive, dedication, and passion in academics. And even if this does not show my bubbly, enthusiastic personality, my hope is that it gives me enough of a wow-factor to get my foot in the door of whatever I hope to achieve, and that is truly the goal of the whole thing.