How Did I Get Here: a Thirty-One-Year-Old Entering the World of UX Design

This is a short tale about a boy who went to college to ‘find’ himself, and about a man, whom, on looking back at the boy, is thrilled that the boy was as lost and curious about everything that he was curious about during that journey.

And you may find yourself
Living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself
In another part of the world
And you may find yourself
Behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house
With a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself, well
How did I get here?

From “Once in a Lifetime” by the Talking Heads

Knowing not what one wants to do with one’s life, even at the age of twenty-two or even thirty-two, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Sure, it’s pretty awesome if you know what you want to do when you’re a bright-eyed seven-year-old and nothing in the course of your development alters your mind; power to you! But others, like myself, had to first gain a clear sense of Self and Purpose before finding a profession that fulfilled our needs, challenged and inspired us, one that also met our financial obligations and desires.

I’m stubborn in this respect: I’ve single-mindedly been searching for a career that matched my abilities and paid well. But what abilities, what skills, does a liberal arts education equip a person with . . . isn’t it mostly just a bunch of soft skills that, perhaps, may be leveraged in the future but aren’t hard, marketable skills, like, say, engineering, coding, or medicine?

Well, that’s what I thought, too. So, after spending time absorbing and relishing all of the Comparative Lit, Drama, Art History, Philosophy, Sociology, Psychology, and all the other courses that I happened to find my nose in, I ended up in the workforce . . . in a career that didn’t even need a college degree. Welcome to the wonderful world of real estate.

This profession — and it is a profession, particularly for high-skilled brokers — is one that is loaded with plenty of baggage and opinions about, which are outside the scope of this post. Let’s leave it to say that I was fortunate enough to work for reputable companies, one of which is family run.

Although the earning cap is pretty much what you make it, real estate and all that it entails, is not for me. As I was able to work in a family run business, luckily, I was able to work more on the marketing and administrative side of the business, even finding myself in the role of a designer for a website that our company desperately needed to update (for mobile-responsive designs are a must have for any agency that wants to compete digitally these days). A website that sadly turned out to be nowhere near what I envisioned and wanted, because, the company that we hired to code it (we chose a comparably inexpensive one) did not have a UX designer or a UX process in place.

Of course, a contract is a contract, and so I did the best that I could with what I had. Knowing now what I’ve learned about UX: mockups; wireframes; sketches; to name but a few aspects, would have made all the difference in the world. But I did learn from this experience. Namely, designing is a whole lot of fun . . . and a whole lot of work. And I loved it!

Enter my brother-in-law. The president of a consulting and web design firm based out in SoHo. Well, I’m sitting on his couch in his newly furnished treehouse, way out in the suburban woods of Queens, NY, and, as sometimes is the case, find myself complaining. About the lack of career choices for a liberal arts grad (those that I’d be willing and suited to do) when he brings up UX design. “UX design? What’s that?” I ask eagerly. I’d never heard of it.

Well he breaks it down for me as best as he can, recommending that I look into it. Adding, mind you, that it would be perfect for me. An intriguing suggestion, considering that I’ve been looking for a career that would, at this point, simply be tolerable to my constitution and skills. And here it was!

Everything that I read about UX in the following weeks was like it was written specifically for me. Insatiable curiosity and lifetime learning? Check. Data-driven research methods of target populations? Whoa, whoa! Pinch me now, I think I’m dreaming. Do those Sociology courses I took way back when actually have leverage-able qualities? Check. Interview-based and observational research? You mean that ethnography study I conducted actually has real world applications outside of academia? Check. Psychology, Philosophy, Theater, Writing, why all of these disciplines feed into UX design. And then there’s the host of stuff like Typography and Graphic Design that’s got me soaring high like a space-saucer, which I’m thrilled to encounter and study and develop. Check, check, check.

Enter General Assembly. While feeding my mind with all of the stuff about UX that I could find on the internet, in books, from people I’ve spoken to, my good friend (that ol’ bro-in-law) recounts how a friend of his, which he’s currently collaborating with on a project, took the UXDI course at GA and without any background knowledge in Computer Science, now works for a reputable agency in NYC as a UX designer. What did he do beforehand, I asked. He was a writer, like you, but for a video game zine, my bro responded. Well look how that works out.

And here I find myself, about to get the education that I hope will catapult me into the city that guards those that’ve earned the title: user experience designer.

Bon Voyaaaaaage, kid! Finally. You get the fun that you’ve been looking for, and I, man that I am with responsibilities, gain a career.