My first Meetup!

As I continue to push forward in my UX learning adventure, I am realizing that a career change is indimidating and lonely. Questions like, “am I focusing on the right things?” and “am I putting too much emphasis on ABC and not enough on XYZ?” are constants in my mind.

Regardless of how I’m feeling, I know I am not the only one experiencing these feelings. And so, I decided to surround myself with 100+ other women who are likely fresh in their careers and are boldly going where others have gone before (very loose Star Trek reference there). Yesterday, I spent my Tuesday evening at the School of Visual Concepts in downtown Seattle listening to a seminar on the daunting whiteboard interview.

Here’s what I learned (in a rambling, stream-of-consciousness-ish way):

1. A room that’s full of mostly women has an awesome energy! I studied math in college, and there were a scant few women in my classes. I have always attributed my intimidation of professional seminars, lectures, and conferences to big crowds, new topics, and tough-to-navigate buildings (all of which are still terrifying and exciting). I was surprised at how comfortable it felt to walk into a room full of women interested in tech, just like me. My intimidation and fear got turned on its head and replaced with excitement butterflies, and I want to surround myself with that energy more.
2. The topic of the discussion was “Rock the Whiteboard,” so naturally I learned a lot about the whiteboard section of the onsite interview process. What’s more, I learned a lot about the design process in general. Some of my biggest takeaways were: a) when you’re stuck in an interview, you can always resort to bad ideas; it still helps for you to vocalize why something won’t work, b) Designing with constraints will always be easier; ask your questions in the beginning and set the assumptions early, so you can have “boxes” to design within, c) know when to pivot! If you spend time moving forward with an idea only to realize it sucks, then admit it, point it out, explain why it’s bad, and backtrack; that’s part of the design process! and d) don’t be afraid to show your personality; that’s part of the reason why they’ll want to hire you. It was excitingto learn lots of new techniques, tips, and tricks to put myself at ease in an interview situation. I was also glad to have some reassurance about what I’ve been working on in my own time, which leads me to believe that…
3. I’m on the right track!!! (I think!!!) After listening to several, very successful women in the UX field talk about the design process and, particularly, how they approach whiteboarding interview sessions, I felt validated in my choice to pursue UX. The whiteboarding section, something I have been practicing on my own but was entirely unsure about whether I was approaching it correctly, seemed more fun than scary by the end of the evening.

I consider my first meetup a success; I learned a lot, it wasn’t as scary as I thought it might be, and maybe I’ll even stick around for the “30 minutes of mingling” at the end next time!