It’s intriguing how successful non-traditional education systems can be. I liberally place General Assembly into this category knowing full well that they have teachers with classrooms, borrowing heavily from the classic model of “listen and do” schooling. However, when I embarked on their 10-week UX Design immersive programme (UXDi) I was happily surprised to find it offered more beyond the core knowledge base around UX that could put me ahead of the competition in the real world.
Before I began this career-switching journey, I conducted a lot of due diligence to understand what I was getting myself into. I wanted to get the inside scoop and a feel for what GA did and the profession at large. So I visited their London campus and attended two key events: a free introductory seminar on UX and their Thirst Friday event. I attended UX talks, but most useful of all I spoke to people on the UXDi course and professionals already in the industry to gauge their point of view to really learn what it was like. After listening, note-taking and careful deliberation, being in the UX space was a natural fit personally. The logic and creativity demanded around problem-solving was perfect for me and the fact that it was a tech-based profession with a direct impact on people was the icing on the cake.
Furthermore, there was an added dimension I could capitalise on: having previously worked in much slower industries (finance and public services) I was grateful to receive auxilliary education on principles to complement the core UX skills. These were in the area of project and team management - skills typically found in a modern workplace dealing with quick-growing concepts in technology. The ideals of agile methodologies framed within a UX context imparted upon us the advantages of being quick and organised. Scrum, Kanban boards, lean UX, daily team standups and retrospectives all contributed to our professional well-being and making us more complete UX Designers. As a bonus set of skills, they would prove very useful later on in the real world.
Overall, the journey to become a UX Designer was intense but our class had a lot of fun along the way. I tried to document as much of it on Tumblr here. It briefly encapsulates thoughts across the fifty or so days of learning at General Assembly. For people reading this and considering embarking on a course with GA or a similar provider, this should be a useful glimpse of what you’re about to embark upon.
