Career Redirection; Portfolio Facelift
I don’t like to code. I’ve always known it in the back of my head, even before I went into software engineering. However, programming was just something that came relatively easy to me. And since neither English, accounting, economics, science, nor math were attractive alternatives, I went into computer science. What I really wanted to go into was art. So I entertained the idea of graphic and web design, but my parents were adamant about my going to UofT. I lost count of how many times we’ve fought over where I’d get an undergraduate degree. Long story short, here I am today a few years later.
This past semester has been hard for a number of reasons. I realized that I’m not indifferent towards programming, but I hate it. My marks may say otherwise, but I know I suck at it. And the marks that I deserve are catching up to me. I spent the last few weeks wondering what the hell I was doing here.
Fortunately, while one aspect of the program depressed me, another peaked my interest. I’m doing a course on Human Computer Interactions. It deals with the art of user-centered design, and the gap between user intentions and system responsibilities. I’m less focused on the back-end and geared more towards the client, the end-user, and the high-level, front-end specifications. It’s such a refreshing change of direction from micro-programming, memory models, data structures, and algorithms.
A few weeks ago, I attended a networking event that one of my professors set up. A group of my female peers and I had dinner with a few women in the industry right now. I got to talk to Jane Zhang of TechSoup Canada. As with most computer science graduates, she started off programming. At 3 in the morning, she broke down crying while she was in a cubical coding to meet a deadline. She’s now in project management organizing TechSoup Canada. She talks with the clients, determines the specifications and delegates the specs to different development teams. From her position, she has control over the application that is developed, and she sees the impact that the software has on other people. I want to be on that stage of the development.
The advice that she gave was: know your strengths, know your weaknesses, know what you’re passionate about, and know what you hate. They don’t always coincide. It’s obvious enough, but I think I’m only beginning to understand what it means. Partly because I’ve never been at something long enough to care either way.
When she asked me what was the proudest moment of my life, I couldn’t provide an answer. I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know what I want. But I wasn’t doing what I liked. Looking back now, I don’t know if it was the proudest moment of my life, but it was certainly something I felt accomplished about. That was when I received my first paycheck for my first job. To be paid for something that I had fun doing, to see a hobby that I picked up have practical applications, to have people love my designs enough to invest in them… I am proud of that.
Jay Goldman came in and gave a talk today on user experience design. He started off by giving a critique of the interfaces that we’ve been designing along with the development of our application. It’s quite similar to a verbal version of the WPRs I’ve wrote a few years ago. Now I’m am pretty damn sure that even if this isn’t the end goal, it’s the direction that I want to be heading.
- I’m doing a project course next semester with one of the professor. It’s an online marking tool that the university uses for some of their undergraduate courses. It’s written with Ruby on Rails, and there’s a good chance I’ll get to do some of the interface design.
- I’ll be attending CUSEC in January.
- I’ll be doing a year long co-op next year. One of the places I am going to apply to is the IBM user experience design labs. If it doesn’t go through, the professor that set up that dinner is also going to keep me posted on some related jobs.
- Because of my commitment to co-op, I unable to do Google’s Summer of Usability. However, if the market holds up and the program is still around by the time my work term ends, it’s definitely something I want to be involved with.
Gave the portfolio a bit of a facelift. I made the background brighter as a quick fix to make the layout more spacious. It’s time to blow off the dust now that I’m applying for jobs. As soon as the holidays begin, I’ll give it a plastic surgery.
Comments
Anataya (November 22nd, 2008, 2:22 am):
I don’t know if you remember me, but I used to own Animekandi Designs a few years ago (I think I may have even affiliated with you and your site DigiCreation? I don’t remember). I knew that we were both in Toronto, but I otherwise thought that I was pretty much the only person in the anime graphic community to go into design after high school, or even be interested in doing something related to all the design work we did online - everybody seemed to go off into business and accounting later and I never understood why when for years we’d all been having fun with design.
I’m at OCAD right now in the graphic design program and I really love it. Although I started off familiar with web design and designing with consideration to coding/implementation later, it was an easy and really enjoyable transition to graphic design. There’s also an interactive media program here, and as a graphic design student I have to take a couple courses in that, which is really fun; there’s some programming and animation involved, among other things.
Anyway, not to sound like I’m bragging, but if you’re unhappy with computer science then you should really consider coming to OCAD. I’m familiar with the pressure to go get a “real” degree as a lot of my artsy friends dealt with the same thing from their parents and my dad was concerned about that too, but designers that are successful often go on to make lots of money, and it’s a really good field to be in career-wise, if that’s what your parents’ concern is (I could even recommend some teachers at OCAD that they could speak with to try and change their minds).
I realize that you did just outline what your plan is going to be now and that you’ve found something within your field that you enjoy, but I just had to put it out there. I hope you end up doing something that makes you happy. :)
Veve (November 22nd, 2008, 10:13 am):
Hi Anataya. I don’t recall if we affiliated either, but I certainly remember AnimeKandi! I didn’t know we were both in Toronto, but that makes 3 or 4 of us including Lucy of DigiK, Shelly of what was Seasons.nu (Although that was her web site after she left AMC), and Shaza of McCurry (But she’s now in Silicon Valley doing front-end design). Li of Frozen-Rain is also considering CS if I remember correctly.
OCAD was one of the schools that I was considering. I was even putting together a portfolio at the time. But then some drama happened, and I ended up where I am. My plan was to finish my undergraduate degree and then pursue a two-year program in web design, either at OCAD or George Brown.
I’m not sure if that is still the plan after I graduate. I always thought it was “either, or”–if I went into computer science, I’d have to start over if I want to go into graphics. Now I’m discovering all these different opportunities in CS. I don’t have to sit in a cubical and code all day, and there’s a branch of CS that’s married to pretty interfaces. So I’m going to see where that takes me.
That’s not to say that I’ve wasted all these years. Some of the back-end theories are applicable in the area of web development. Trees, search algorithms, XML, SQL, modeling, software design principles, development tools and environments… They’re just not things I want to concentrate or specialize in.
Thank you so much for the offer to help and the wishes! It’s awesome to hear that you’re having a blast at OCAD.
Jay Goldman (November 22nd, 2008, 1:46 pm):
Verve —
Congrats on finding your path! It’s a very liberating feeling. I hope my talk contributed in some small way :)
Let me know if you have any questions about the UX field. Happy to answer them!
— Jay
Cat (November 22nd, 2008, 4:11 pm):
I was actually kind of the opposite of you. I loved programming, and thought that I would get a code monkey programming job. When I was interviewing, 2 companies told me that I might enjoy being a user interface developer and interviewed me for that position instead. I found that it really was for me, and accepted one of the offers, which is where I am now. I write much of my own backend, but I also control everything in the frontend for the feature I work on, from user flows to how it looks. People often have a hard time grasping what I do because it’s not completely design, and it’s not completely programming.
I think it’s great that you’re moving towards UI, and I really hope that you enjoy it. I wish I had discovered it earlier, so that’s awesome that you’ve found your interest already. I find that UI is very satisfying. When you get it right, it really makes a world of difference to the user. If you haven’t already, you should check out ‘The Design of Everyday Things’ by Donald Norman. It’s a great book on user experiences.
Anyway, best of luck to you!
Lynn Marentette (November 22nd, 2008, 5:54 pm):
Veve, I am sure that you will enjoy the user experience/HCI field! Don’t feel bad about discovering your path so “late”…
I’ve worked as a school psychologist for many years, but I’ve always been fascinated with technology. I decided to take computer courses part-time about five years ago at mid-life. At the time, I wanted to learn how to program so I could make interactive multimedia educational games for use on mobile devices as well as interactive white boards.
Human-Computer Interaction was one of my favorite classes. Before I took the class, I mistakenly thought that HCI focused mostly on usability and user-centered design of traditonal applications and web interaction.
HCI is a a vibrant and broad field, filled with creative, multi-talented people. I have a background that includes music, art, digital media, and dance, which sort of fits with HCI. My second major was Social Science, which has proven to be helpful, because HCI includes working with such as collaborative technologies and Web 2.0 applications.
By the way, I recently discovered that Donald Norman was the co-author of a textbook for a cognitive psychology course I took as an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan, called “Human Information Processing”. Back then, programming mainframe computers did not seem too appealing to me!
I started blogging a couple of years ago because it was a requirement for a class. My blogs serve as my on-line filing cabinets, and include lots of resources related to interaction, UX, UI, usability, accessibility, emerging technologies, interactive multimedia, and so forth.
http://techpsych.blogspot.com (TechPsych)
http://tshwi.blogspot.com (Technology-Suported Human-World Interaction)
http://interactivemultimediatechnology.blogspot.com
(Interactive Multimedia Technology)(You’ll see that I blog quite a bit about collaborative technologies and multi-touch interaction on larger displays and tables.)
Veve (November 24th, 2008, 10:23 am):
@Jay: Your talked helped very much in tipping the scales and making everything come together. Thank you!
@Cat: Thank you for your insights, Cat. I’m glad that you found your field, as well. “The Design of Everyday Things” is actually one of the textbooks for my HCI course. I haven’t touched it yet ^^; but I do plan on plowing through for the exams. Thanks for the recommendation nonetheless.
@Lynn: Thank you for the reassurance. I find it courageous that you were able to make a career change at midlife. I believe I’ll be much more adverse to change.
I want to get into HCI precisely because it seems like such a rich field, not only the people that work in it, but also the people that you’re designing for. I love the fact that you’re required to know a little bit about the client’s domain and design to accommodate the target users. It’s like even though I’m specializing in CS, I get to taste a little bit of everything as well.
Thank you for the links. I’ll be sure to check to out!
Azreen (December 3rd, 2008, 12:20 am):
I’m glad you’re happy with Human Computer Interactions. You know, there are challenges and tough times in anything you choose. I think that you’re a very capable person. Jane Zhang, although much happier with TechSoup, may have still been able to do programming, just that she wouldn’t have been happy. My point is, I don’t think you’d -fail- in anything you endeavour in your life. It’s just that when you choose a path that makes you happier with your life, and build upon your strengths, then you’ll be more satisfied with what you accomplish. I agree that you should know your weaknesses, it’s just that in your case, I doubt there are many — so the world really is yours for the taking. I wish you every happiness, and have fun at CUSEC!
Vera (December 9th, 2008, 12:47 am):
As someone who’s worked in the field for a year and a half, I have the following conclusions:
1) You get to do relatively a LOT of front-end development in web programming, though of course the back end takes up a larger percentage of the overall programming.
Depending on the company, they might have a webdesigner, but if they’re smaller (the one I work for has over 100 employees) you’re probably going to be the one who ends up doing it. Problem with that, is that your boss won’t care much how it looks. He’ll pat you one the head once or twice about it, but most of the time he’ll go “OK and the functionality??”.
2) You’d better damn well like programming and staying over time on a lot of days. It’s stressful like hell, you’re almost always under pressure due to some deadline or another.
3) You’ll be doing things in a team. Social skills and hanging out at a smoke are a good plus, to have a “relatively” calm working environment. I don’t do that, and am not really a social butterfly, so I had quite a bit of tiffs with them.
Sure the team counts, and the general atmosphere does as well (had to -.-; ).4)Being a Project Manager is extremely hard. In most of the cases, you’ll be having a truckload of projects on your head, but you won’t really have time to seriously look after one or another. But you’re still the one who’s responsible for them.
Of course, if you’ll work in a smaller company, this might be different. But in our company, Project Managers are… well mostly managers. They did once do the hard core programming, but now they have so many projects, that they can barely coordinate them all.
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November 22nd, 2008
12:27 am
Filed under 'Development, School, Signed by V'
