How to fork a private repository and make it public?

Question

My classmates and I did a project in school on a private repository that is connected to my schools's GitHub classroom.

I want to add it to my portfolio and resume so I tried forking it on my profile. How can I make it public so everyone can see?

If I cannot fork a private repository and make it public, then what are some other things I can do to add the repo to my own profile and make it public?

Answer 1

You can copy the code to a fresh Github repository.

Note that there might by copyright issues, for instance maybe that your classmates do not want their code to be public, in which case you're not allowed to make it public against their will. Or it could be that being a school project, your school is the one who has copyright, and maybe they don't want it to be public for some reason. Or maybe part of your code was given to you by your teacher, so you can't make it public without their permission.

So to be safe, I'd suggest asking both your schoolmates and your teacher for permission to make the project public, and then copying the code to a fresh public repository.

In any case, you can always add it to your CV even if the code is not public, I think it's somewhat unlikely a company will go through the trouble of digging into the code.