Finding Home.

By Hayley C. Farmer

For some fortunate people, they know exactly what they want to do in life at an early age and they go and pursue that. My best friend, for example, knew she wanted to “create robot arms” in elementary school. She’s now a Biomedical Engineering student doing amazing things in Milwaukee.

For me, it was a different process, way different.

“I never felt a sense of passion about anything I was doing.”

I was the typical high school success story. I made straight A’s and had everyone telling me I was ‘special’ — that I was going to be one of the few from my small, corn-surrounded hometown to amount to something in life. However, I never felt a sense of passion about anything I was doing.

I ended up graduating high school a year early and taking a gap year to find myself. I took a plethora of introductory online courses at my local community college. Nothing sparked my interest. It wasn’t until I was an office intern at a home healthcare company in Chicago that I finally figured it out (or so I thought).

For a summer I was the personal assistant to the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Executive Officer for Cigna Healthcare. I learned more about the real world and myself faster than any introductory Psychology or Art class would have taught me. There were three things that really stuck with me during this experience:

1. People who work in offices drink a lot of coffee and they will tell you if you messed up their Starbucks order
2. There is a specific dynamic that goes on in big corporate offices and every job plays directly in to the “bigger picture”
3. I wanted to own my own company

This third realization is what lead me to The Kelley School of Business. At eighteen, I was on track to becoming a double major in Finance and Informatics at Indiana University. The Informatics part came from a recommendation from my high school HTML teacher, who told me I’d be stellar in STEM. At IU I was surrounded by people who were complete opposites — the extroverted, always right business students and the introverted, nerdy Informatics students. I had no idea where I fit. I wound up so frustrated and homesick that after a semester I was back in my country town. I felt like a failure. A college dropout is not what I wanted to amount to.

Once again, I enrolled in introductory classes at my local community college. I worked three jobs to get myself through it but nevertheless, I was unfulfilled. I was lost all the way until Purdue User Experience Design found me.

PXD Marks The Spot on This Journey Map

I was in a manic “What College Major Fits You Best” Google search when I stumbled upon Purdue Polytechnic. I saw all of the domains that Human Centered Design and Development encompassed and was instantly hooked after a quick visit of the school. HCDD, or present-day UX, seemed like the major for people who did not know what to major in. A major that encompasses Art, Design, Psychology, Entrepreneurship, and Computer Science? What?

Now, current day, I just finished my first year as a User Experience Design student. I no longer feel lost. I no longer am questioning myself everyday if I am doing the right thing. I found my passion.

Purdue UX has a community that makes it feel like a home away from home, something I never received in high school or at IU. My professors and colleagues care about me as a person. They tell me when I’m doing well and ask how they can help when they see that I’m any less than my usual quirky self. They teach me things that you cannot learn in a normal, boring lecture hall. Collectively, they’ve taught me to focus in on my strengths and pick at them until they are even stronger. They’ve expanded my mind much, much more but here are a few of the valuable things I’ve learned from my UX family:

1. There is always room for improvement
2. User Experience Design focuses on using empathy to create for other people. You’re a designer but you are not designing for yourself
3. Google Slides works better for collaboration on project documentation than Google Docs does
4. Knowing what Harry Potter house you are in is important for your team dynamic and you may just have to talk Harry Potter to your sponsored company’s CEO
5. The most successful people are the ones that work their ass off and truly love what they are doing
6. A closed door opens up a new one
7. Starting a professional Twitter can help you share, celebrate, and reflect on your growth. Mine is @haycfarmux
8. Animated Keynotes and Power Points are super cool but technical difficulties can and will come up during your final presentation
9. It is a form of self-care to put your Slack notifications on ‘Do Not Disturb’ past eleven PM
10. The smart, creative people sitting next to you in studio will become family to you

Yes, User Experience Design encompasses a lot of domains, but through our design studios I get to learn about each and every facet. I have the luxury of working on real world issues with real world companies. This past semester my team and I, along with the help of our sponsored company, designed and developed a new concept for a mobile application. Through this project I realized that my drive to be a CEO was never lost even though I once was. I plan on using my UX skill set, specifically in project management, to someday be my own boss.

A Quick Ideation Session For Our Experience Studio Project

Overall, this year I got to push myself so far out of my comfort zone that I did not even realize that I was out of it. The personal progress that I endured as a UX designer and as a person has been immense. I cannot wait to see how much more I grow throughout the rest of my duration in this program. My high school HTML teacher was right, I would be stellar in STEM, just not in the area of STEM that I once thought I would be in. Purdue’s User Experience Design is where I am meant to be.

I am home.

Hayley C. Farmer is currently a Sophomore in Purdue University’s User Experience Design program with minors in Communication and Psychology, as well as a certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation. She plans to use her UX skill set to become an entrepreneur that focuses primarily in the field of educational technologies. For business inquires or just to chat you can reach Hayley at @haycfarm on Twitter or at farmerh@purdue.edu.