play
about

How I got into design?

I entered design from a very non-traditional background, which often leaves people puzzled as to how?

It wasn’t really the “engineering” bit, but my branch. Talking of how I made this transition and what inspired me to pursue design afterall, is not very straightforward and dates back to when I sat down to choose my college 5 years ago. 

Back in 2017, I got into an IIT. It was a big milestone in my life, but I somewhere felt that it wasn’t doing justice to what I really wanted to do. During college, one thing I knew for sure was that, I wanted to have a creative career and had no plans of working in the field that I was studying.

 Fast forward to my third year in college, I consulted a few of my friends about my plans, and they suggested I should try Web development. I did a little research and felt like going for it.

I started with Web development (front-end), learned and prepared for a few months, and got my very first internship for summer 2019. I wasn’t yet sure, so I did competitive programming on the sides as well. This was back in 2019 when I was unsure of what I wanted to do, so I set sails on a career hunt, trying things out to see what suits me. In fact, I was all over the place at this time, that I also tried Machine learning and Data science for a few months. But I soon figured out that my constant bias was always towards doing something that gets my creativity flowing. 

 Web development was fine, but it still seemed a bit abstract and out of place for me. Plus, many people suggested that I should rather shift my focus towards learning AI and coding since Frontend Web Dev won’t have much scope in the future (they said). When I started out with Web dev, I thought it was my call. But in the end, it wasn’t! 

 I requested a senior to guide me through, I was confused since everyone else, unlike me, was so sure of what they were doing and wanted to do (software engineering). I was already entering my crucial years of college.


It was in late March of 2020, that I was scrolling through my Facebook feed, and randomly an ad from the “Interaction Design Foundation” popped up. Just out of curiosity, I checked it out, and that was the day that made all the difference. I was introduced to UX design, a field that I didn’t even know existed! 

I still believe that this discovery has been the best thing that has happened to me so far. 

To this day, I thank myself for being curious enough to look that random ad up, which I could have easily passed by!

 I can literally talk for hours about why I chose UX design as a career. But to say the least, an intersection of social work and creative freedom was something I saw myself doing in the long run as a career. My end goal is to improve and leave things better than they were when I found them, regardless of what I’m working on. And, UX design was just the answer!
fin

Thanks for stopping by! <3