Career Transition into UX Design During Covid- A Time of Uncertainty

I’ve decided to take the big leap of faith forward to transition careers from teaching to UX Design. Throughout this article, I’ll be talking about the process of how I decided on the transition, which industry I chose to transition into, and what path I chose to take to get there. I am by no means giving advice, or advising against the teaching career. Some of the teachers I work with are the best and happiest people I know and I genuinely appreciate and admire anyone who enters the world of education.

Deciding to transition from teaching

For some background, this is my 3rd year as a math teacher. Around the end of 2019, I had a lunch discussion with some teacher friends- one who has been teaching for 20+ years and, let’s be honest, will probably will be teaching until retirement. My other teacher friend is a little older than I, approaching her 30’s, and was still deciding whether or not this was the career “for the rest of her life”, which sounded extremely daunting for me. It was at that moment that I started thinking about whether I can see myself teaching long-term.

I am currently in my mid-20’s. Throughout college and during my years teaching, I knew there was a creative part of me I knew I wanted to apply to my work someday. The lunch conversation I had with my teacher friends opened a door for me, in thinking about teaching long-term, and if I couldn’t see myself doing that, perhaps this was the time to explore and figure out which career I can truly see myself in for the long run.

There are aspects to teaching that I absolutely love- working with the kids and developing real and long-lasting relationships is something I find so priceless. On the other hand, there were parts of teaching that I felt was not a good fit for me. I love teaching math, but I don’t love math. And a lot of my favorite and most memorable teachers in the past have been those who were so excited about the subject they were teaching, with knowledge beyond the textbook, eyes lighting up when they talk about their subject. Unfortunately I feel that even though I love teaching math to students and forming connections that way, to truly be effective I needed to be more than that. I lacked that inner fire for math and quantitative curiosity to be what I believe a truly effective math teacher.

Deciding to switch into UX Design

As a creative at heart, I’ve gotten many close messages from friends and family over the years about exploring the art or design industry. I’ve always waved off the idea, not really believing that my creative skills can actually be utilized in a career itself- it had always been a hobby. After doing further research different options for the transition, reading articles and stories of similar people who have broken into the design industry with little to no experience, weighing the pros and cons, and talking to people in the industry, I finally saw it as a real possibility. And I was ready for it.

I did a ton of online research, emailed some of the people I follow on Instagram about their career story (and was happy to see that a lot of people were actually willing to share their design story and give advice!), and caught up with old friends from college who are now currently in the design industry. I even emailed people I’ve met once briefly at a holiday party who I knew were designers. After weighing my options, I decided that I was going to apply for an online Design bootcamp from DesignLab’s UX Academy.

The process (still in process)

With the start of the new schoolyear, I’ve decided to finish my 3rd year of teaching while taking Designlab’s UX Academy bootcamp part-time. Part of this decision is because my first group of sophomores from my first year of teaching would be graduating this year, and I wanted to be there for it. It also seems like a fitting closure to what may be a temporary or long-term break from teaching. I recently just applied to DesignLab’s UX Academy October cohort(after completing their pre-requisite short course for non-designers), and am waiting to hear back. I’m excited to see what new surprises are in store for this whirlwind of a year. To be continued…