My journey from being a Chemistry Freshman to becoming a Product Designer

What was I doing initially?

I am originally a chemistry graduate. I was put into chemistry since it was my scoring subject, which played a reverse card on me. I was scoring at the start, but later I realized, the chemistry was just not for me. I am interested in colors, sketching, writing, and technology. Even though I thought of changing my course in college, it was too late. So why not change my career stream myself? That’s when I started exploring the computer side. I tried out almost everything to know where my interest lies. I learned Machine learning, Data Science, AWS, Python, Front end development, etc., and I found out that I like designing websites more than coding them. So I started with basic HTML/CSS and learned WIX and WordPress platforms. I started by freelancing with small startups and made websites for them. While surfing on Youtube “How to create awesome web designs”, I found out there is actually a work for that, UI Designing, and it had a research friend, UX Designing. And then I went on searching for UI & UX, and that’s how I started in this domain. This domain had everything I liked; research, design, talking to people, sketching, problem-solving, and business analysis. It not only made sites and apps beautiful and easy to use but also added value and solved problems. With the world getting virtualized, we need people that will make this virtual world a better place. Now, since I found my soulmate, how did I make this relationship work?

How I learned to design

I did online courses from Accenture, IBM, Coursera, and read articles, tried out personal projects, reached out to fellow designers on Linkedin and ADPList, and finally, I secured a job at a startup, that wasn’t specifically UI & UX but did all kinds of design. Later, I was totally into UI & UX in my second and third jobs, and I kept on doing freelancing and personal projects and improved myself through that.

A leap in my career was when I joined a startup in my college as a Design Manager and a Managing Director, and mentored people about designing, and managed teams there. I worked on real-time projects, researched, collaborated, and did not only UI & UX but also analyzed business and the product. I learned new insights about product design and UX there.

So this is what I have been doing to become a product designer, from a completely different domain. Self-learning worked great since I went at my own pace, and got my doubts cleared with more insights, and working with people around the world gave me much more exposure to human thinking.

Key points of my journey

1. Start with YouTube to find out if you are interested in this area.
2. You can choose to get a formal education from institutes, do self-learning from online courses, or learn from YouTube, read articles, and start personal projects.
3. Reach out to designers on Linkedin, ADPList, Slack groups, or any other website for advice.
4. Recreate, redesign and redo your own designs to make them better. You will get new insights and learn more in the process.
5. Showing your work is important. You may use any online portfolio platform or have a website for yourself.
6. Don’t just show your pretty storefront projects, show your garage work too, so that people know that you have improved and all the work you have done to make yourself and the project better.

I hope this article will help you in finding your way into the UI, UX, and product design domains. There are much more inner domains in this. Find where your interest lies and specialize in it.

You can check out my website here!