How I decided to learn UX design
By: Regis Nascimento Camassola
Tags: Design, Bootcamp, Career Change, UX, User Experience

Nearly a year ago, after coming home from work, I was sitting on the couch outside the house overlooking the sea, with one thought in the back of my mind: What is the next step going to be?

Photo by Javier Allegue Barros on Unsplash

At the time I was living in Australia, where I had been for the past six years and where my mind changed so much since I left Brazil back in 2015. When I decided to experience a new culture and face new challenges, I never knew how much growth, baggage and friends it would bring me.

With two months left on my visa, I made up my mind and decided it was time to get out of my comfort zone and depart from down under, even if it would mean starting everything from zero. But this time was different from when I left my home country. This time I wanted to set a new goal. I wanted to pursue a career, I just was not sure which.

I needed to think about something that I enjoy, that would not take me years to learn and that I could transfer some skills that I have developed over the years. I started to think what that would be and for weeks I could not figure out exactly.

I remember reading articles and watching videos on how to discover your passion, to try and come up with an idea or plan for myself. If it did something for me, it only made me feel even more lost.

I was trying to understand myself and my motivations by looking in the wrong direction. It was not until I decided to look inwards that I felt that excitement again. My technique was to think about the time I was young, at the Uni or just before going abroad and remembering the things that genuinely made me happy. Voiola! A bunch of good memories came to my mind and I could now feel that I was going in the right direction.

There were two main stages of my life that used to bring me so much joy and challenges. The first was the time I spent working as Junior Graphic Designer in a Design Agency (back to CorelDraw times), and the second was the role of an Internal Sales representative for a transportation solution company.

In both roles, the team I worked with was extremely professional and would always find time to learn and teach others new skills. Cooperation was always such an important part of our daily roles.

The most rewarding part of these jobs for me was, undoubtedly, when the client was satisfied and the service/product we were providing them was a match for their expectations.

Even though I really enjoyed the learning process and cooperation between the sales and marketing departments, the selling process itself in some big companies can more often than not, overlook the real needs of the final consumer or client.

Convincing them to buy a bunch of stuff they didn’t need was not something I was happy with.

What I wanted was purely to understand the reason why they were reaching out to me in the first place. I wanted to know where they were coming from and their environment, so that I could offer them solutions that would match their needs, as opposed to just throwing them additional items without the need for it.

Knowing what would bring joy and being aware of my constraints at the time, I then decided to be very rational in my decision. I knew that tech is an ever-growing field, with opportunities all over the world and that I could learn it from home or by attending a Bootcamp.

I then started searching online and I found some platforms where I could try some short and free courses and find out how I would like different possible fields of study.

This was the first time I came across the term UX Design.

I liked all the aspects of the job, and one that pulled me in the most was the fact that it was all about trying to solve a problem. When I was looking for things I could study related to tech, I also did HTML and CSS but in the end, I felt it was a nice skill to learn, but I needed something more dynamic, where things would be different everyday and problems and solutions and would have to be discussed upon different and specific needs.

Now that I knew what I wanted to do, the next step was to structure my path and find the best way for me to learn.

Searching online I found so much information about the UX Design field and how I could start learning.

Among all the options I was present with, I decided the best way for me would be to find a mentor. As I was from zero, it would give some degree of accountability and some much-needed support.

It was not until July this year (2021) that I enrolled myself in a UX/UI Design Bootcamp called Mento Design Academy. With a team of experienced Designers guiding me through the curriculum and providing valuable tips and support, I am now much more confident and happy with the decision I made.

Even though I am still in the early days of my learning journey, I am happy that all the time spent thinking about what I would like to do for a career has brought me here.

The Bootcamp is self-paced and even though I am working full time at the moment, I come home every day excited to learn new things and hoping that someday I will be able to make people’s life a little simpler, more intuitive and accessible through Design.