This article is for the Silver Congressional Award.
Why create a “professional” online presence?
According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, “professional” is used to describe something that “relates to a profession,” yet the word conjures up so much more than its short definition. When I think of something professional, I think of tall buildings and business suits. I think of financial management teams and lawyers; most of all, I think of stock images. If I could use three words to describe these stock images, they would be “clean,” “serious,” and “invested.”
Although my blog is about education, I want my blog to be professional. In other words, I aim for my blog to be clean in design, and serious in nature. The topics of my blog—education and career development—is what I am invested in. As a result, I would describe my blog as professional because I try to encompass my interests and talents in a professional manner.
So this website is just a “professional” blog?
Yes. The internet is an amazing place where people share there interests and values, but the internet is also permanent. I see regular-Joes on twitter being “cancelled,” and destroying their careers because of uneducated and uncompassionate statements. I do not want to be cancelled because of ignorant statements, so I decided to write only about myself, my actions, and my own personal development. In other words, I will only write about what I have experienced or learned. I will explain how sourced mediums effect my beliefs on topics.
This way, I can provide the context for why I think something rather than using a 140-character generalized statement to declare a fleeting opinion. I firmly believe that if I was able to look at the broader picture of other’s lives and beliefs, I would become a more tolerant and understanding person. I would learn how to take input from others effectively, and handle conflicting information. Furthermore, I want to promote my naiveness. In this blog, I embrace that I am far too naive to write about global warming, yet I can still explain why my dedication to buying used clothes stems from my beliefs about global warming. Put simply, I want to be an Adam Conover that writes a complete narrative, handles conflicting agendas, and corrects past mistakes.
I am a strong supporter of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), so I think hard before I use a non-FOSS platform. Unfortunately, LinkedIn is a non-FOSS platform. I felt pressured in to using LinkedIn because I was told that “I would be invisible to the job market without it.” At a result, I am not completely satisfied with my decision to use LinkedIn. I decided that I will delete my LinkedIn once I find a full time job. This way, I will no longer need to be “visible” to the job market.
I used the following articles to help create my LinkedIn profile.
- LinkedIn Profile Checklist by LinkedIn
- How To Use LinkedIn In High School by Kate Sundquist at CollegeVine
- LinkedIn Tips for High School Students by Judy Schramm at LinkedIn
Developing my website
Since I was not a huge fan of the LinkedIn platform, I decided to create my own resume website. I would have full control over what I post, and how I post it. In addition, WordPress is FOSS.
I started with a minimalistic WordPress template. I made an ‘about me’ page and a ‘resume’ page. Then, I created a basic backbone and build up from there.
Originally, I titled my site “Olivia A. Gallucci’s Personal Site,” but that was too long, so I went with “Olivia A. Gallucci.”
After that, I decorated my site with “glittered” images. I made most of my glitter images using the ‘magic select tool’ on ibisPaint. It was not a challenging task, but it was very time consuming. (Note: All I did was put pictures of glitter over art that someone else made. I did not design anything.)
I made a ton of glitter images and icons. One of my favorites was a portrait of Richard M. Stallman, the creator of Free and Open Source Software.

Here are some of the glitter icons and images on this site:
- Lancaster Country Day School Logo
- American Flag
- Habitat for Humanity Logo / FIRST Robotics Logo / United Nations Logo
- Charles III University of Madrid Logo / Linux Foundation Logo / Harvard University Logo
Unfortunately, most of the glitter images I made did not make it on to this site. I made around forty images total, but a lot of them did not look good on my site.
I also tried to create a website logo and site header. Unfortunately, the logos I made appeared grainy on my site. In addition, I could not change the size of my logo or site header in HTML because that feature is not allowed on (monetarily) free WordPress accounts. In other words, I would have to pay to get that feature. Since I do not need a logo or site header, I decided to stick with my free WordPress account. If I become very passionate about blogging, I may purchase a WordPress subscription. At the moment, however, I am just starting out, so I am fine with a (monetarily) free account.
After that, I began to decorate my website with photos and fun pages. I created a photoblog, a reading blog, and a blog. These pages give my website a personal touch.
🌸👋🏻 Let’s take this to your inbox. You’ll receive occasional emails about whatever’s on my mind—offensive security, open source, academics, boats, software freedom, you get the idea.
After these pages were developed, I created organizational pages, and rearranged my site menus so that my website would be easier to navigate. Lastly, I decorated the organizational pages using stock images from Pexels.com, which supplies photos with FOSS-like licenses.
At this point my website was complete. I would repeatedly check back to look for spelling and grammar errors.
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