Khanversations — Cassey and Jacob
How neuropsychology, being an executive assistant, and not wanting to draw Mickey Mouse 1000 times might lead to your career in design
About Cassey Realubit
Cassey Realubit is a driven, reflective person who strives to balance progress with quality of life.
Not only does she challenge herself with quarterly goals to become healthier — entering races, becoming more informed and active in politics, volunteering, and facing her fear of needles — she’s also developing a growing interest in the field of design.
Cassey is an executive assistant — and undercover designer — at Khan Academy.
While preparing to enter grad school for a psychology degree and working as a neurofeedback technician and office manager at a neuropsychology clinic, Cassey had a self-described mini-crisis. Though psychology had long been an interest of hers, she discovered she wasn’t excited about the decision and was actually dreading the path ahead of her.
This led her to leave the clinic and enter the tech scene at Khan Academy. A few months into her new role, Cassey happened to catch a presentation on graphic design fundamentals from Khan Academy’s very own May-Li Khoe. It covered topics like the use of color and shapes, and how to convey information visually. For Cassey, the psychological aspect of design really connected with her. In fact, immediately after the presentation, she found herself noticing elements out of alignment on resumés. (Author’s note: Welcome, Cassey! You are now an official designer. You have a privilege of being haunted by these things for the rest of your life).
As her interest in design has grown, Cassey has been building up her knowledge and skills by attending design talks, picking up Illustrator, Sketch and Figma! She’s also been getting involved in some Khan Academy internal design projects with mentorship from Tatiana Salazar-Londoño, Raphael Arar, and others.
We can’t wait to see where Cassey’s interest in design will take her!
Written by Jacob Greif
About Jacob Greif
Jacob Greif is an artist, designer, father, husband, and secret comedian.
From an early age, art has been a big part of Jacob’s life. He’s always known he wanted to be paid to draw. He considered animation, but decided against it because he didn’t want to draw Mickey Mouse a thousand times. Jacob studied graphic design at Western Washington University, which eventually led him to work at Microsoft’s Interactive Design team, then as an independent contractor, then as one of Khan Academy’s talented designers. And I mean talented … just take a look at these cuties.
Jacob is one of those thoughtful, creative types. He’s soft spoken — but when he speaks, people stop to listen. He’s probably mastered the art of managing to get people to listen from being a father to two very curious and playful daughters. He shares his passion for art with them by doing watercolor and other creative projects on weekends.
Like many talented people, Jacob’s skills go beyond what you’ll find on the web and in his sketchbooks. He’s a natural public speaker and incredibly funny. He once gave the entire design team at Khan Academy a hilarious and informative lecture on how to give a successful best man speech. We hope he’ll share it with the rest of the world sometime.
Written by Cassey Realubit
Khanversations are a series of dialogues between designers at Khan Academy as a way of getting to know one another.
P.S. We’re hiring, if you’re interested, check out our job listings!
Links to the series
👉🏽 Here’s May-Li’s introduction to the series, including a list of all the countries that were involved in our formation.
👉🏽 Elizabeth and Vivek talk about sneakers, fashion, capitalism, how they got into design (they even share some vintage work) and MORE. These two have incredible taste BTW I always want to know where they look
👉🏽 Louis and Erica on rearranging the furniture, skeuomorphic icons, working in the federal government and more
👉🏽 Priya and May-Li in conversation about Hypercard, Mariah Carey, and Priya’s inspiring journey from being a receptionist to being a product designer
