Career changes are very exciting but also very scary. Thinking about going through with one might send your body into a visceral reaction of sweaty palms, dilated eyes, and a rapid heartbeat; similar to if you were cliff diving. Or at least that’s what I experienced during both.

It’s pretty crazy to think I graduated from General Assembly’s full time User Experience Design course exactly one year ago last week. I took it because I was studying and working in healthcare, but found myself itching to do something more creative and collaborative. This is how I happened upon UX Design and GA’s bootcamp. And now if I were to reflect back on this and ask myself the one million dollar question, “Was it worth it?” Hell yes! It definitely was.

Initial panic.

I remember finishing the ten week course and being worried sick after having just shelled out thousands of hard earned dollars and wondering how I was going to get a job in the field (as well as the unfriendly reminder I was going to have to move and pay San Francisco rent soon). *Shudders*

I confided in one of my teachers that I didn’t feel like a UX Designer. He asked “Why not?” and I replied that 10 weeks just can’t “make” someone a designer and that I didn’t feel prepared for what lied ahead of me in terms of applying to jobs and actually performing the role if I was lucky enough to find something. He told me that I had accomplished more than I realized in those ten weeks, and to really think about all that I had learned and experience I had obtained since my first day of instruction.

Taking his words and repeating them to myself over and over, I realized I did learn an immense amount of information and picked up very valuable skills for this field along my GA journey. However, I felt I was still in the midst of figuring out how to use and apply them correctly. It was as if I was given a massive amount of ingredients, and had no idea what to cook or even how to cook. It felt like I had been watching hundreds of people cook and had been living and breathing the art of cooking for months, but now the time had come to finally prepare a meal and I suddenly found myself having no idea how to use the kitchen or what meals to even make with these ingredients. And if I did cook, my customers would hate my cooking and I would never be allowed in a kitchen again. Ever.

Diving in.

My first priority was to get more hands-on experience and more advice from people already in the industry. This was when I attempted to spruce up my portfolio and take on an internship as well as some side projects. To meet people, I started by talking to anyone that would listen to me ranging from mutual friends I knew were in the industry, to even my Lyft and Uber drivers. I met a lot of cool people this way, and even got a few leads as well. However, I found the most value in those I met at design-centered meetups. I met a lot of veteran designers in the field who I would basically harass for advice and how they got into design; 99% of whom were more than happy to offer any advice or words of wisdom they could. I would read endless amounts of blogs and articles from LinkedIn, The Muse, and Medium that were tailored to new designers and what it takes to be a great designer. I started listening to design centered podcasts such as Design Details and 99% Invisible (which I still love today, you should check them out!). The more I immersed myself into this world and learned from the people who were basically design wizards, the more I felt at home taking on this new identity of a UX Designer, allowing me to be comfortable interviewing and talking to potential companies.

The one.

Eventually, I had found a company I wanted to be a part of, and who also wanted me to be a part of them as well. Don’t you love it when that happens? I think it was a mixture of luck and hard work.

Fast forward to today, I am sitting at my desk at as a UX Designer at a wonderful company that I adore, which is something I only could dream about this time last year. I am grateful the people here saw I had potential, gave me a chance to become part of their team. This agency has allowed me to work as a designer for clients ranging from small startups to some of the biggest tech corporations in the world and I have learned so much from every project I am a part of. It is still very early in my career and am still very junior, but I know for sure making the leap was the best decision of my life, and is something I hope everyone can do when they are not where they want to be in their careers.