“But I didn’t study this in college”
A story about Exploration, Architecture, and a quarter life crisis.
If you’re currently in university, chances are you’re learning a specific major that is prepping you to enter a specific industry once you graduate. This is just an assumption, but what if you’re not actually enjoying the major you are currently in? Sounds crazy right? Why would anyone continue to spend the next four years of their lives studying something they don’t care about? Unfortunately this happens to a lot of people.
Allow me to introduce myself
Hi, my name is Warren and I am currently working as a user experience designer at Blibli.com without a UX Design or Human Computer Interaction degree at hand. Fortunately for me and a lot of people in the industry, having a specific college degree from a specific major these days isn’t necessary to do well in the field. One example I could think out of my head is a friend of mine who worked as a front-end engineer at Quora, he has a degree in chemistry. There is high chance that you will meet UX Designers or Developers who studied in a different completely major back in college and that’s okay. If you’re in university, you are at the perfect point of exploring your options and have the leverage to take a risk.
As for me, I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Architectural Studies from the University of Illinois in the United States, which means I am kind of an architect who doesn’t like Architecture. As a person I’ve always loved to draw and wanted to study animation. However, my loving Asian parents had other plans for me. I understood their worry, they didn’t want their only son to be drawing cartoons from a cardboard box in the future. So what is something that relates to drawing but also has good dose of “math” and is more financially stable…ah Architecture! (I learned in my third year in college that only the big shot architects actually earn a good amount of money) One interesting thing in my architecture school was that they didn’t even force their students to be an architect. Many of my colleagues went on doing cool different things with their architecture degree like set design for Disney.
College life and life pondering
During my fourth semester of architecture school, I was brought to this terrifying thought: “I really do not enjoy architecture”. However at that point I was already halfway through my degree! I can’t quit now! Think of the shame I would bring to my family name! In the depths of turmoil I decided to continue explore my initial love, drawing illustrations and graphic design. I started doing commissions for the Indonesian Student Association and other organizations that needed my help. A commission I did for the Indonesian Student Association actually led me to meet a person who is now a really good friend of mine. He was doing a mini app project at the time, and asked me if I could assist him with the design related stuff. This person became my introduction to the world of User Experience Design, a term I would have never heard of beforehand. From that point it was an array of exploration sessions and a whole lot of self-studying. I found myself to be more interested in the world of responsive design and mobile applications in comparison to site plans and section drawings (I still think perspective sectional drawings are cool as hell, they were my favorite thing to make in college).
Tasting the real world, applying for internships.
In order to confirm any doubt I had in myself, I tried to cast away my fears and just jumped in any opportunity I could find to experience something firsthand. There was a point in my life that I thought I could be a software engineer, being enamored by the lifestyle of the valley. It was later on that I found myself struggling in “Introduction to Computer Science” that I knew it wasn’t my place. The same thing applies to my exploration in architecture. I initially wondered whether it was just architecture “school” that I didn’t like. I thought once I jumped in the real workforce, I would grow to enjoy working on real life projects instead of imaginary ones. So to quench my curiosity, I took an internship to work at an Architecture firm in Jakarta for my first year and in Tokyo for my second year where I worked on real-life projects. The experience alone was worth it, I learned to communicate with non-designers and executives which still applies to my current job today.
It was not until my final years of academia that I finally took the chance to do a UX Design internship at a tech company in Jakarta(It took some time to convince my parents). After going through so many internships during my time in college, it was easy for me to see that I enjoyed the UX Design internship the most. I was excited about the projects that were handed to me and found myself wanting to learn more about the field. In my final year in college, I pretty much decided to myself that I would work in the UX Design field after graduation. I did my very last internship in a small tech startup in Palo Alto and learned as much as I could before deciding to go back to Indonesia for good. Upon leaving the United States, I felt that I have minimized the regrets I would have if I didn’t force myself to explore and try as many things as I could. It have become clear to me that your major in college really doesn’t define you and there is much more opportunities out there to be grasped outside of the bounds of your degree.
So to all of you people in college who are going through your quarter life crisis, I’m here to say based on experience that you’re going to be fine. Just explore and try as many things as you can! Go do an internship, volunteer for a cause abroad, take that cool winery class you’ve always been interested in. Lots of hurdles to go through I’m sure, but at the end of it, If you look for it hard enough, there will always be something for you.
If you’re interested in applying for a full-time position or intern as an UX Designer or UX Researcher, Blibli.com is currently hiring! Send your resume to recruitment@blibli.com and get the chance to work with other UX Designers with their own unique stories.
