What will you be…
By: Shima Kakoulidis
Tags: User Experience, Life Lessons, Design, Student Life, Interaction Design

…when you finish your studies?

….when you change your job?

…..when you grow up?

……when you do the things you love?

…….when the future is the present and the past is swirling behind you?

If all goes accordingly, I’m one year away from graduating and getting my Bachelor of Science in Informatics (yay!). Now and then I get questions about what I will do when I finish my studies. I’ve noticed that it’s not that easy to explain. ”I’ll be working with user experience / interaction design /human-computer interface / digital- and product design.” I might as well just squint instead of saying that because it’s usually no help at all for the one asking. And to be honest, for a while I didn’t really know how to explain it. I know for sure that when I can’t explain something it means I really don’t know what it is. So, it took me two years, a whole bunch of reading job descriptions, asking people within the industry, discussions with teachers at the university as well as reading books and articles before I came to the following conclusion:

When I finish my studies I will be an agent for the users with the super power of having two ears and one mouth to listen more and talk less.

Yes, I agree that one mouth and two ears are not particularly unique features to have but how you use them is. It doesn’t sound that fancy and it might not really explain a particular task from a job description, but for me it’s the most important characteristic to have, especially working with user experience — to listen more and talk less. Because it gives me the opportunity to paus, to learn and to respect and pay attention to the one sitting in front of me. Listening and not just hearing.

So, how did I end up choosing this new path? Going from social- and political science to informatics. Well, I’m a firm believer that your previous experiences, how you’ve handled setbacks and your will to develop is fundamental to how you form your life, in all that you do and experience. That includes what I myself do for a living. Which is a very important reason why I shifted my professional focus and chose to retrain myself. To take my experiences and form them into something that others can relate to and hopefully find helpful is fundamental to me, and that is also the main reason why I decided to swirl up the learning curve of user experience.

“Learning curve” by Shima Kakoulidis

By looking at my past experiences I can better understand where I want to go and what I can contribute. I know for sure that things don’t always go the way you expect them to. Over a decade ago I was diagnosed with a rare and serious form of bile disease that shook everything up that has to do with things going ”according to a plan”. The doctors (first second and third opinions) said it was bad. Really bad. With all the hard facts and statistics in place…I was doomed. So, what does this have to do with me wanting to work with user experience? I would say everything. It is the one experience so far in my life that has had the most profound effect on my whole being and on the way I approach problems and solutions, my everyday life and fundamentally why I listen more than talk. There was never a big halleluja moment where I felt enlightened. It was rather a process. When I came out from the doctors appointment into the corridor, the only thing that held me up was my mothers words and her firm hands: ”I won’t let you go! You hear me? We will find a solution!”.

“Fail is just an abbreviation” by Shima Kakoulidis

From there we took two steps forward and four steps back. At the beginning we saw the diagnosis as the problem and we put all of our effort into trying to make it go away. But it didn’t. The scans and the blood tests showed values way above the average level and to this date they aren’t perfect. But somewhere along the way I realised that I never seeked to be a perfectionist in anything I do. So why would I begin now?

Perfectionism is a kick in the but the wrong way.

I found peace in that my blood values didn’t have to be perfect. I really believe that perfectionism is a kick in the but the wrong way. Aiming for perfect values made me disappointed of myself and my efforts to reach something that was soaring in the horizon, like water in the desert. I have curly hair and believe me when I say that you can never get curly hair to be perfect. It changes and twists all day (and night) long. So the best thing you can do is to let it be, accept and make it your best asset. When I started looking at my diagnosis as a superpower it gave me the ability to look at problems like something that could develop into solutions. Somehow this brought me a peace of mind. It was a process of seeing and accepting things the way they are even if it means that it’s not the way I think it should be or how it is supposed to be. Prioritizing what is important. Taking and valuing time and not considering it as something I have or have not. Understanding how my mind can create stress and how it also can experience peace, clarity and focus. Through the fears that sometimes make echoes in my mind, when it’s time for my regular check-ups, blood tests, when I have a fever, head-ache or when I just generally doubt in myself. I always go back to thinking of my priorities and what I want to contribute to others. Tweeking thoughts and habits. Little by little. From problem to solution. Constantly evolving and attentive to contexts and changes. That is what I want to be now, when I finish my studies and in the future beyond that.