Online Presence

GT 1000 · Lecture 8

Andrew J. Steinmetz

2026-10-16

Due dates

What	When	Points
Homework in LaTeX — Lastname-Firstname-LaTeX.pdf and .tex	Tonight, Oct. 16, 11:59 PM ET	50 (5%) · Academic Planning
Online Profile	Oct. 23, 11:59 PM ET	75 (7.5%) · Career Readiness
Advising Meeting & Spring 2027 Plan	Oct. 30, 11:59 PM ET	60 (6%) · Academic Planning
Team Project Slides and Presentation	Slides Nov. 6; talk Nov. 6 or Nov. 13	100 + 100 (20%) · Team Project

We share today’s period with the first Physics@Tech talk, so keep this to about 15 minutes. Team Leader check-ins for the Team Project are due Oct. 30.

Let them read it. The punchline: the two-year-old email was a LinkedIn invitation. The lesson for today is the opposite: connect within a day, while the person still remembers you. Source: (Munroe 2017), CC BY-NC 2.5.

Building your LinkedIn profile

• Photo: clear, smiling, uncluttered background
• Headline: who you are and what interests you
• Summary: a short paragraph is fine
• Education: Georgia Tech and your major
• Experience, projects, activities
• Skills you actually have
• Custom URL: linkedin.com/in/yourname

Less effective headline

Student at Georgia Institute of Technology

More effective headline

Physics first-year at Georgia Tech · Interested in quantum materials · Python, Arduino

Source: (Georgia Institute of Technology, n.d.)

As first-year students, they are not expected to have a long work history. Strong high school projects, clubs, and volunteering count. The summary can borrow from the resume they submitted in September. Skip buzzwords like “motivated” and “driven”; show those qualities through what they have done. LinkedIn is the focus, but a GitHub profile, personal website, or ORCID iD is a good addition for physics majors.

Connecting without being weird

• Personalize invitations: where you met and why you’re connecting.
• Connect within a day of meeting someone: a recruiter, a speaker, an alum.
• Join groups such as Georgia Tech clubs.
• Put your profile URL on your resume.

“Hi Dr. Lastname, I’m a first-year Physics major in GT 1000. I enjoyed your talk today, especially the part on solar wind.”

Connect with people early and often — it’s a “rolodex” of people you know professionally. Who knows when you’ll find a need to message them.

Source: (Georgia Institute of Technology, n.d.)

Swap in today’s speaker’s name and a real detail from the talk. Invitation notes are capped at a few hundred characters, and LinkedIn limits how many personalized invitations free accounts can send each month; re-check the current limits before class. A follow-up email works as well as a LinkedIn request, and a thank-you note after any meeting is never wasted.

The Online Profile assignment

Submit one PDF to Canvas:

1. Your LinkedIn profile, saved with Save to PDF
2. Optional URLs: website, GitHub, portfolio

Save to PDF (desktop browser):

1. Me → View Profile
2. More (or Resources)
3. Save to PDF

Don’t want LinkedIn? Submit the other professional materials instead.

Online Profile: due Oct. 23, 11:59 PM ET · 75 points (7.5%) · Career Readiness

Source: (LinkedIn, n.d.)

Save to PDF works only for profiles set to English; anyone who cannot use it should contact me for another way to document their profile. The optional URLs are encouraged but earn no extra points.

References

Georgia Institute of Technology. n.d. “LinkedIn, Thank You Notes, and More.” In GT 1000 First-Year Seminar Textbook. Georgia Institute of Technology. https://sites.gatech.edu/gt1000-textbook/linkedin-thank-you-notes-and-more/.

LinkedIn. n.d. “Save a Profile as a PDF.” Accessed October 16, 2026. https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a541960.

Munroe, Randall. 2017. “Email Reply.” August 7. https://xkcd.com/1873/.