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If you’re not familiar with the conservative traditional worldview for the young American woman, it goes something like this. Don’t date more than you have to (preferably not at all), get a college education to fall back on (in case you have trouble with the next part), find a husband, then be a great mom. I’m 75% of the way there, but the gap between step 3 and step 4 is making me wonder if there isn’t another way to play the game.
I have to be fair and admit that not only was Conservative Traditional Plan my Plan A, but it’s still honestly my Plan B. I believe in freedom of choice for everyone, and I am really looking forward to choosing children, and I hope the choice comes relatively soon. But in the meantime, in the 8 years since I graduated college, I hadn’t considered what that gap between step 3 and 4 would look like. I’ve spent 8 years pursuing a career with no long-term thought and no long-term goals.
Until now!
This January I started working at Pivotal Labs. The people here create an environment I’ve never seen before. Everyone here is in tune with their career goals. They consistently use their Pro Dev benefit, they share about what they’re learning, and they talk to me as if I have a legitimate career that’s going somewhere (which was news to me). Being around these folks, and having access to that same Pro Dev and also a tuition assistance benefit, made me realize that I do have opportunities available to me, I just have to go get them.
Before I started working at Pivotal, I had four months of reflection as I hunted down my next dream job. I thought about writing as a career, HR and onboarding, someday being a manager, and why not consider sticking to what I’m good at and applying to administration and operations roles, too. I’ve tried my hand at writing under a deadline a couple times and thankfully discovered it’s not for me as a constant way of life. The other options, too, may be in the cards someday, but Pivotal opened up a new door I hadn’t thought of yet.
What about Product Design?
These people really like what they do, and I wonder if I would like it, too. What if I could be trained to do the fun, interesting, making-the-world-a-better-place work my colleagues do?
So here’s my plan.
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#1 Learn if this is what I want to do.
Will I be passionate about this? Will it be more fulfilling than what I currently do? Can I maintain motivation amidst the constant challenges? I think the answers to these questions will come from trying out UX design and getting my feet wet. To accomplish I will continue reading design blogs, check out Sketch and some other tools, and take DesignLab’s Design 101 course when my Pro Dev kicks in this July.
#2 Learn if I’m good at this.
The Design 101 course lasts 4 weeks and should be a pretty good litmus test for whether this is something I want to pursue or not. I also want to sit down for lunch with my product design friends and pick their brains on what it’s like being a designer. I don’t think it’s fair to put the onus on someone else to determine whether I should be a designer, but collecting as much wisdom from others as possible will be a big help for me to make my own decision.
#3 Learn Product Design
The last step of my plan so far is to get the training I need. I think I’ll be going with DesignLab’s UX Academy course. They’re an online school that pairs students with seasoned Design mentors for 1-on-1 feedback paired with the curriculum and assignments. It’s also available part-time, which is especially attractive since I’ll still need to work in the meantime.
I hope I’ll get that far, but these first three steps are pretty big, pretty important pieces. I don’t want to gloss over any of these goals. If I’m going to do this, I want to do this right.
I believe I’m in a good place, a perfect storm for success. I worked at a coding bootcamp for 2.5 years and I know what it takes to make it through. I work at a software consultancy with excellent designer mentor friends. I have the financial benefits from my company to help me pay for everything. I’m even married to a software developer who can help me when I get stuck and who believe I could do a really great job at this.
Right now, the biggest obstacle is me. I’m afraid of failing, and I’m not sure if this is for me yet. But, New Step #1 will get that settled, and then I’ll go from there.
In the meantime, I’ll be sharing more about my journey. I write for fun about things I believe to be important, and I’ll be bringing my blog posts over here in time. I’m excited to eventually have a chronicle of this path, and I really do hope it ends up somewhere exciting. Somewhere fulfilling. Somewhere that isn’t just a way to make money while I wait for motherhood. Let’s do this.
