I am a 3rd-year designer who transitioned to UI/UX after working in graphics for about 3 years. Although I have 6 years of total professional experience, I had many concerns because I felt my career was strictly at a 3rd-year level in UI/UX, especially since there are far more job openings for Product Designers these days.
While I was struggling even to organize my thoughts in writing, I had a Coffee Chat with AnchaReady. They provided detailed guidance on what I was lacking from an external perspective and how to set my direction! So, I waited for the challenge to open and applied as soon as it did.
This challenge made me realize that my organization of quantitative and qualitative data was insufficient, partly due to the nature of my current company. The mentor's feedback was a huge help, but working as a team was truly great! It was an environment where thorough feedback was exchanged freely, and we looked out for each other to ensure no one lagged behind, allowing us to accomplish a lot over the 3 weeks. In particular, being able to see other students' work while progressing provided an environment where I could observe, contemplate, and develop my own work. If I had done it alone, I think writing would have been much more difficult than it is now.
In 3 weeks, I completed my resume, finished writing the main project for my portfolio, and completed the draft for my sub-project; I think I can start the visualization work soon. Despite doing this while working at my current job, I was able to get more done than expected, making it a very satisfying challenge. Even after the challenge ends, I plan to continue exchanging feedback with my teammates to finish the visualization and start applying for jobs.
I would recommend this to anyone considering a career move, not just aspiring Product Designers. While the process might be more specialized toward Product, I believe it covers all the core steps necessary for job change preparation, so there should be no problem applying it regardless of the field! Since the mentor has a background in the HR domain, I believe they will be a great help even if your job function is different, so I recommend this to everyone preparing for a career move!
