My Breakup with Software Development and Finding my True Love: UX Design
At the beginning of my love affair with code, there were a few red flags I chose to ignore. I had never been particularly fond of math or discrete logic and it was considerably difficult to learn it at school. My natural inclinations were in social sciences, humanities, and the arts. But I believed that earning an adequate wage in those fields seemed meagre at best so I chose to abandon my interests.
Throughout my schooling I was always behind in every math class, even with the help of tutors. Of course one doesn’t need to be a calculus wizard to be an adequate coder, but some competency in higher level math can help. Almost all students who were happiest in my bootcamp had a history where they enjoyed math, and it seemed admirable to come from social sciences and learn how to code.
While I was in the middle of my coding bootcamp, a soft voice would question if coding was for me, and did I really enjoy learning about various methods or optimizing my functions.
It’s a well-known fact that coding is difficult. If you truly love programming, difficulty can be a small hurdle that gets easier to handle with time and experience, because your love for it is stronger than your battle with learning it.
My home was always in the humanities, but I was prejudice towards it for a long time, which was completely stupid. My admiration towards STEM folk existed because they were successful at something I wasn’t able to handle. And instead of honing in on my attributes and inclinations, I fought tooth and nail to become someone I just wasn’t. It was my own insecurity that drove me to learn how to code and soothe my ego.
As time went on the voice would inch closer and closer in my conscience to the point where I accepted ‘defeat’ and became miserable. At that point I was finished with my bootcamp and was preparing for technical interviews. I found myself struggling so hard. ‘Easy’ questions would take me hours to figure out, sometimes days. But coding is hard, right? I’d fight with my gut and keep pushing because I didn’t want to quit altogether. After all I was already more than half way done, and all my hardship would be for nothing. So I pushed on and I’m glad I did, because it earned me a certificate from a well-known bootcamp and I acquired skills that are desirable to some.
I don’t even remember how I got into UX Design. Maybe I read an article or I looked up what it meant on Wikipedia, or I watched a YouTube video, I don’t know, but I’m so glad I found out about it. I don’t want to get too gooey about it (because I got gooey about Software Development initially and I look what happened…) but it makes me genuinely happy. After I made the decision to stop preparing for technical interviews and start learning UX Design I noticed a few positive changes. First, I was able to sleep better. Before, I’d wake up in the middle of the night and have trouble falling asleep. I’d wake up exhausted and find an insurmountable amount of work waiting for me. I also found myself more relaxed and a knot in my stomach loosened up. Maybe it was my own body telling me that Software Development wasn’t what I was meant to be chasing, and now that I was listening to it, I was feeling better physically. Lastly, because I was able to sleep better, learning about UX Design was more enjoyable. I keep waking up feeling excited to learn about how to create products that will be enjoyable and useful for people.
Okay so I did get gooey, but I did find something that I’m genuinely happy learning more about. And learning seems enjoyable. I’m not saying that it’s effortless (there’s a TON of resources and material out there), but there’s no comparison. Anyway, I’ll end this here, and if you stayed with me long enough to see this, let me know if you’ve had a similar experience! I’d love to hear about it.
Take care of yourself.
Kat :)
