My wibbly-wobbly path to User Experience Research
By: Mary Beth Merrick
Tags: Career Paths, Internships, UX Research, User Experience

My wibbly-wobbly path to User Experience Research

AKA how I was the oldest intern at NerdWallet — or in other words, how I have mad amounts of student debt and no regrets Mary Beth Merrick Follow Sep 16 · 8 min read

I’ve finally found “the one.” I’m not talking about a human or my soulmate — but rather, my dream career.

It took six internships, 155 undergraduate credit hours, 67 graduate credit hours, a lot of freelancing, and endless soul searching to get here. But I finally found “it” at my last internship as a post-postgraduate user research intern.

As an aspiring researcher, I’ve done my fair share of journey mapping, but trying to put this journey into words was a doozy. Fortunately, as I looked back, I came away with a few realizations and the tiniest nuggets of wisdom.

Architecture to industrial design to…absolute chaos

In my high school, if you were good at math, you were encouraged to become an engineer. If you were good at math but also wanted something creative, you went into architecture. “Just” creative? Become a graphic designer. Because of this overly simplistic view on career paths, almost no one I know ended up where they started or intended to go, myself included.

True to form, I went into college studying architecture, and I quickly found out it was not for me. Without a clue what new major to pursue, I dropped architecture and began to feel a little lost at sea. But ahoy! I found my niche two floors below the architecture studios where my brother was studying industrial design. I was enamored with the flashy renders and models on display in his studio — and absolutely smitten with the thought of creating beautiful products that could improve lives. I put in my request to change majors and excitedly embarked on this new adventure.

Fast forward to three years later, when I realized industrial design wasn’t “it” either. It wasn’t that I hated design, but I always put way more effort into the beginning stages of a project (a.k.a. “the research”) than cranking out sketches or 3D models. This was a red flag, but I felt stuck. I had already sunk almost three years into my current major and four years into college. I should’ve been graduating. Instead, I had three more required internships to complete for a major I no longer loved. I needed a change of scenery and a chance to explore some options without changing majors. Luckily (again), my wish was granted: I scored two internships doing trend forecasting and strategy work for a branding agency in Cincinnati and the opportunity to study service design for a semester in Australia. No sketching, no modeling, just a whole lotta research. I was the happiest I had been during my entire college education.

Let’s fast forward another few semesters: year six of undergrad, only one internship and my capstone semester left. I accepted my final undergraduate internship doing custom furniture and luxury lighting design at a hospitality interiors firm, juuuust to really make sure design wasn’t for me. Well, I definitely confirmed it. Instant burnout. Four months of crappy post-it sketches and moving straight into Solidworks so I could skip ideating for hours on end. Four months of constantly volunteering to run our manufacturing errands just to get away from my desk. And four months spending as much time as I could get away with just reading design articles and finding ~***~*inspiration~*~*~~. I finished undergrad, spent months creating my website portfolio, and then applied to a whopping TWO design jobs before finally accepting that I didn’t see myself having a future in it.

Takeaway: Listen to your inner dialogue. If a career path doesn’t feel right, it’s not a terrible idea to give it one more shot (maybe it was that one class or internship that wasn’t working for you). But if it still doesn’t feel right, honor that feeling and pivot.

A man with (some semblance of) a plan

After having all these experiences in undergrad and finally accepting the fact that design didn’t make me happy, I was convinced I wanted to do user research. I had already wasted a lot of time creating a portfolio I wasn’t using and it felt like the clock was always ticking, yet I just couldn’t get my foot in the door anywhere. Every position I found was looking for someone with a doctorate and a background in cognitive psych, anthropology, or human-computer interaction. I felt pretty confident in my qualitative research skills as a designer, but I couldn’t land a single interview.

Almost a year passed and, finally, I made a rash decision to go to grad school. I decided to get my MBA, plus a Master of Science in Marketing, plus a certificate in Market Research. I had a logic for all of these things: I’d get an understanding of how business decisions are made, get access to graduate level design and data courses, set up a contingency plan in case I couldn’t get into UXR right away, and, allegedly, be more marketable. But deep down I had to ask myself, was I actually going back to school for two years because I couldn’t handle more career rejection? Nah…that’s just fiscally irresponsible.

Two years, two new degrees, and a Masters certificate later, I graduated…right into the pandemic. It felt like there were only 20 job posts for UXR in the entire United States and 400+ applications on each posting. I was also having no luck finding adjacent positions like I had previously hoped when creating contingency plans. My graduate assistantship was ending and soon I’d have no source of income. I needed a new plan. So, I moved from Ohio to California. If I was going to be unemployed and sad, at least I could do it in sunny Los Angeles.

After moving to California, I was, as expected, unemployed for a while. Once again I struggled with finding a start to a meaningful career, or even so much as a stepping stone. I accepted a position as a customer service representative for a higher-end furniture company — something I had the skills to do even though it was completely unfulfilling for me on a personal level. However, I knew (or desperately hoped) it was only another temporary blip in my path, so I still tried to find the good in it. Sure, the job was a little soul-sucking, but I did learn better time management skills and how to negotiate with clients who absolutely don’t want to negotiate. So while I will never add that position to my resume, it was still valuable (and I definitely left with some funny stories that I’ll probably whip out at parties when those are a thing again).

Takeaway: Even when you think you have it all figured out, there can be a lot of unexpected setbacks. And that’s okay! Taking a longer-than-expected path is nothing to be ashamed of and you can still learn valuable skills at a position that has nothing to do with your dream career.

The light at the end of the tunnel

In grad school, everyone says your network is your net worth, and turns out they’re right. In January of 2021, I was introduced (virtually) to the director of UXR at NerdWallet. We scheduled a quick, general chat to talk about portfolios, resumes, and finding a career in user research. A few months later, I saw that she had shared a post about a mixed methods internship at NerdWallet and I reached out to ask if I could apply even though I finished grad school a whopping eight months prior. I was told I could, but there wouldn’t be an opportunity for a full-time job at the end. I went for it anyway. It was finally a foot in the door to the world of UXR! I was almost more excited about the prospect of a three-month internship than a full-time job. I could finally try out user research without any long-term commitments (my journey had turned me into a true commitment-phobe). When I got the offer over Zoom, I immediately gave my verbal acceptance.

Then the doubt started to creep in again. I couldn’t help but think, what if I hated it? Everything I had done in the past few years led to this. I’ve already had five internships! I have 18 degrees! Okay, just three degrees and a certificate, but are you doing the math?! I would be the oldest person in my intern class by at least four (five? six??) years. Actually, don’t tell anyone, but I was 99.9% sure I was older than the university recruiter. Oh well, it was too late. I signed my official offer, there was no more backup plan. Turns out, it was the best decision I could have possibly made.

Takeaway: Sometimes a foot in the door is worth two in the bush, or however that proverb goes. It’s always a little scary pursuing something that isn’t exactly what you pictured, but it’s worth putting your ego aside and taking the leap. What I’m trying to say is, even if an opportunity isn’t perfect, it can still lead to something that is.

Dang, that’s one bright light!

Doesn’t it seem silly that we are pressured to choose what we’re going to do for the rest of our lives right out of high school? Or even right out of university? I have taken almost a decade to find what was right for me and then get my foot in the door, and I know plenty of people who have yet to be as lucky as I have been. But in my defense: internships offer a window into a new world, and as a lifetime learner, why wouldn’t I be excited about opportunities that expand my worldview?

As someone who has worn a lot of different hats, my final takeaway is this: turn every possible opportunity into a learning experience and turn those learnings into baby steps towards your dream. Those little steps can really add up. In a field where doctorate degrees in cognitive psychology reign supreme, I’ve managed to Frankenstein my background in design, business, and data together to end up at an inspiring company doing something I love.

So, how did the internship go? During my first week, I listed some goals for the next three months, and I also wrote a small paragraph visualizing my ideal future: where I was working and what I was doing, standard five year plan stuff. About midway through my internship, I realized that, though I didn’t know it at the time, I had described my exact role at NerdWallet and, surprisingly, NerdWallet itself. So while my internship may be over now, that foot in the door somehow led to the door swinging open and I was able to convert to a full time Nerd after all. My first day was on August 9th — my birthday. And that’s one hell of a 28th birthday present, if you ask me.