Should I Have a Website?
Yes.
At the very least you
should have a minimal website so you can be located.
It's like having a listed telephone number.
Include basically the same information you would
put in your C.V. And that does mean your email address!
In addition, if you have written something that is reasonably
good (be sure), put it up as a separate webpage and link
to it from your main or homepage. You might also include links to
some key sites that you like or use and that you want to be
associated with.
Remember that everything on a website
is very, very public. Do not treat it as a vanity
space with personal details about your life and family or your
hobbies. If you want to play in cyberspace, lease some space on a
private server and don't use the same form of your name that you
do for academic purposes. I have seen looks of horror on the
faces of appointments' committee members when they checked out a
candidate's website and found something more personal than
professional.
Don't even take the kinds of risks I do
on this site. I can afford to put up raw research
notes or voice controversial opinions; these are luxuries of
tenure, promotion, and a reasonably solid academic reputation
built over many years. Rights are not equally distributed in our
society (or any society). You may not like this fact, may even
want to work to change it, but you should certainly not ignore
it.
Now go do some good thinking and stop worrying so much about your degree or your career!