A little context about me...
In 2019, I was busy graduating from UoW for my master’s degree and feeling greatly frustrated about the unknown future. I was supposed to land a job in traditional advertising and marketing industries after post- graduation.
No matter how promising these industries are, they are so competitive for a generalist like me. I don’t know how to sketch properly, am not proficient in Adobe suites although I had advertising and digital marketing background. All I had is a little internship experience in event planning and PR.
How I encountered into Flatiron School?
I knew nothing about UXI design before December 2019 and never think of being a UX designer in the future. One day my boyfriend saw the ad of Flatiron School in tube station and recommended to me afterward.
Flatiron School promoted its UX design learning sessions by declaring no background/ experience needed, everyone can be a UXI designer from scratch. I guess this played a big part why I chose it.
The other reason is that Flatiron is in partnership with AidEd, who offers loan to students and guarantees not to charge until you land a job. Plus, Flatiron assigns one career coach to tutor you land a job in design. Finally, I chose the full-time online UX design course that cost 720 hours and £1,2000.
My user journey at Flatiron School...
Where did the course took place?
Most of the time I studied on my laptop at home or café. Besides, Flatiron also granted us a one-year Wework membership so that we can meet other students there or simply to have a quiet place to work in.
Who did I work with?
Full-time and part-time learners stuck together for the first phase, there were for phases in all. My co-learners are literally from all walks of life, marketing researcher, pet blogger, graphic designer, full-time mom, podcaster...you name it. I was in the same team with almost same team members (one transferred to part-time and one took the break) so that our team cohesion was strengthened during the 3 phases. We worked very closely, almost used Zoom call every other day and always stayed in touch on Slack, because the project required us to.
Most instructors are very experienced professional in the UXI design industry. The instructors vary from each phase, so as the style of their instructions. For example, the instructor in the first phase was very strict and responsible with all the details, while those in phase 2 are very open-minded and carefree.
Overall, I would rate an 8 out of 10 for the instruction quality.
What did I do?
First thing first, be aware of the rapid pace of the course before you start. Although I was aware of this might be tough, I was still got caught and a bit lost in the first two weeks. With both the individual and group assignments that you need to submit almost every two days and great amount of design resources, materials and lecture decks to read and review, it was very hard to keep the balance.
However, the good about it was the immersive working environment. You were required to deliver various deliverables including domain research, competitive analysis, interviews, user personas, user journey map, site map, user flows, low-high fidelity wireframes, prototypes and usability testing. This may sound strange to a novice, however, along the process, the real fun lied in discovering the user needs, and everything is able to be traced down around the core.
My projects range from travel, education to home services and entertainment, which were all group works except the first one. In the last phase, me and my co-workers had a real client to deal with.
Outro:
I heard that Flatiron shutdown the London UXI design division a while ago because of Covid19, not sure if they are re-open or not. The fact I am probably a student from the last cohort makes me want to record this fulfilling and interesting experience.
I felt so glad and proud that I completed the course because there was thought of giving up. Considering of the insane time differences (the lectures were hold at US east coast time), intense timeline and design challenges, the sense of achievement is no need to explain. And I still keep in touch with two of my best team workers in the US, the fact that we were comrades once enhances the bond among us. Although we haven’t met one another yet, but I would always cheer them up from the bottom of my heart.
The biggest change this journey brought to me is confidence and the broader sights. Those projects let me know that I am capable of tackling different real-life design problems, working with others as a team and adapting to a brand-new area so quickly.
Finally, some head ups if you also want to take an online UXI design course:
· Never fall behind.
· Always start earlier.
· Stay connected with your co-workers.
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