My Blog

Setting up my own WordPress install was actually a fairly straightforward process. I expected there to be more technical difficulties involved, but WordPress made the initial setup relatively easy to understand. Once I had everything installed, the main challenge was figuring out how I wanted the site to look and work. Choosing a template gave me a good starting point, but navigating through all of the customization options was sometimes a little rough. I would find an aspect of the template that I really liked and then have to be careful that changing something else did not accidentally alter or completely remove it. It became a process of experimenting with different settings while trying to preserve the parts of the design that already worked well.

I could see myself using my site primarily as a personal portfolio and blog. As someone studying Digital and General Arts and Humanities and cognitive science, I have a lot of projects that could benefit from having a central place online. I could use the site to showcase writing, coding projects, digital humanities work, and eventually game-development projects. Rather than having everything exist separately on different class websites or platforms, this allows me to create a space that represents my interests as a whole. I could also use it to write about games, technology, digital culture, or things I am learning throughout college and life in general.

Pros and Cons

One of the biggest benefits of hosting my own website is the amount of control it gives me. Social media platforms provide easy ways to share content, but they also determine how that content is presented. I have to work within their layouts, algorithms, and rules. Even website-building services can have limitations depending on the templates and features they provide. With my own WordPress installation, I have much more control over the design and content of the site. Even though customizing the template could sometimes be frustrating, I liked knowing that I could actually change things instead of being completely restricted to someone else’s design.

There are also some drawbacks to having your own website. It requires more attention than simply creating a social media account. There are updates, plugins, security, backups, and other technical issues to consider. A social media platform also comes with an existing audience, while an independent website requires people to find it themselves. WordPress gives me more freedom, but that freedom also means more responsibility.

(If you know what this post’s title is referencing, you’re the goat!)