Alumni Spotlight: Making a Career Change for Meaningful Work

After struggling to see a future in his career path, Cody thought a lot about making a change. Once Cody discovered user experience, he decided to enroll in Bloc’s Designer Track to pursue a career that he felt would balance his analytical and creative interests.

Tell me: what were you doing before Bloc?
I was a Quality Lead and Trainer at Cognizant

Why did you end up taking Bloc?
My journey to Bloc started in 2016 when I worked as a contractor at Twitter. I had a coworker at the time who asked to see my artwork and wondered why I abandoned my creative work. She encouraged me to get back into drawing or design, so over the next year, I thought a lot about where I might want to take my career. I ended up growing as a leader and had the opportunity to work with some incredible senior project managers, operations managers, and teammates. Around that time, I discovered user experience, and I felt it balanced my analytical and creative interests. I enrolled in Bloc in May 2017 for the mentorship, great community, and flexibility to do it while working a full-time job. The roadmap at Bloc made me love the process of designing products.

How did taking Bloc impact your career and life?
Before Bloc, what I struggled with most was not having a career path ahead of me. Transitioning over to product design gives me meaningful work to do now, a way forward, and direction to learn and grow. Bloc gave me the tools to be a lifelong learner, and I can’t wait to see how my life changes in the next few months and years. I’m also so excited that this career change will allow me to give more to people around me.

What was your favorite part of the Bloc curriculum?
The solo projects because of how much I was able to learn in such a short time with the help of my mentor Chris Gillis.

Share your favorite project!
https://codydennis.design/fruition.html