From Operations Associate to UX Designer
Harsha grew up in India and studied Marketing in college. After moving to the San Francisco Bay Area, she discovered her love of UX Design. Now, with the help of Bloc’s Designer Track, Harsha is working as a full-time UX Designer in Santa Clara, CA. Become a UX Designer like Harsha with our $1 Million Close the Gap Scholarship Fund for women and check out our interview with this awesome student below!
What motivated you to pursue UX Design?
When I was growing up in India, I decided I wanted to work towards making the world a better place. After completing my degree in Marketing, my first job was at a bank where my first task was to teach people how to use the bank application. Through that job, I learned the importance of UX Design. This stuck with me and when I moved to the Bay Area, I did more research. I decided to pursue UX Design because it matters. There are innumerable UX touchpoints in today’s world, which can impact everybody. I want to make technology accessible to all. I want to build value by building wonderful experiences for people and make this world a better place.
What was your favorite part of Bloc’s curriculum?
I loved working on the projects that were a part of Bloc’s curriculum. It helped me apply the theoretical knowledge in an application-based setting. These projects helped me understand the nuances and the various aspects of design tools and methods. It also helped that my mentor gave me super helpful, actionable feedback. Bloc also updates its curriculum after a few months to incorporate new design methods making it a very dynamic knowledge resource.
What portfolio piece are you the most excited about? Tell me about the project!
I loved working on Nom Nom. This was an iOS application that I created for finding food trucks in the nearby area. This was one my first independent projects. I conducted a lot of user research and developed creative ways to strike up conversations with people to understand their pain points. My first pass with the visual design was bad. My mentor from Bloc gave me incredible and useful feedback to improve my design and I got back to it. In addition to the feedback, I spent time learning concepts of visual design to up my design skillset. It turned out to be a great learning experience and I still use the techniques I learned then to check my current patterns while designing medium/high fidelity wireframes.
How did Bloc prepare you for your new role?
UX Design is a mix of many fields like psychology, sociology, consumer behavior, marketing, humanities and much more. It is easy to get lost in the learning process. The curriculum of Bloc is very structured and helped me work on the skills that are relevant to today’s job requirements. Also, the 1:1 mentor meetings were useful and helped me to attain constructive feedback to grow my skills. I want to give a special shoutout to Bloc’s Slack channel, where I have spent a lot of my time asking for feedback on my work, discussing latest trends in technology with like-minded people, and getting inspired from fellow Bloc students who were going through similar struggles.
How was your job search process?
Being a novice in UX Design, I lacked real-world work experience. I applied to different companies in my first month and figured that I needed to work on my deliverables like a cover letter, portfolio, and resume. My mentors from Bloc gave me super helpful feedback and I worked through it. It was difficult at first, but then I started applying more selectively and started working on individual applications. I started attending meetups and interacting with like-minded people who answered my questions about their design careers. I finally started getting responses from companies and went in with full-force to face the various types of interview stages. I did not get a job in all the companies that I interviewed, but I learned a lot after meeting so many talented UX Designers. Meanwhile, many Bloc students on Slack gave me useful suggestions when I ranted about things not working out. After a lot of determination and grit, I finally got a job as a full-time UX Designer.
Become a UX Designer like Harsha with Bloc’s $1 Close the Gap Million Scholarship Fund for aspiring female coders and designers. Apply today and be on your way to a new career!
