Additional Passions & Professions

When I went to college, I knew I wanted to study Cognitive Science because I was so fascinated by the brain and human behavior, but I did not have any clue what industry I wanted to go into after college. I explored the ideas of being a criminal psychologist for the FBI, doing music supervision for film and TV, working in social media marketing, and more. But one day in my senior year, during my time as an assistant science teacher for an after-school program that helped encourage young girls to feel more comfortable in STEM, an exceptional woman came to visit our classroom to teach the girls about the realm of STEM that she worked in: UX Design. Even as a 21 year old, I had never heard of UX either, but with every word she said, sharing how UX is all about empathy, understanding your users, and problem solving to find the best solutions for them, I became more and more excited. It was like a lightbulb went off in my head – I had finally figured out what field I wanted to pursue. I spent the rest of my senior year of college speaking with her, researching how to break into the field, and figuring out what kind of education or experience I would need to do so. I ended up finding a position as a UX intern and was fortunate enough to be trained by the lovely folks at that company. Ultimately I was able to stay on with the company as a Jr. UX Designer, and later even able to drop the Jr. title. A few years later, I transitioned my career a bit more toward strategy and away from design itself and found myself in my current role doing product/UX strategy work at Method, a digital design and engineering consulting company.