From Teacher to UX Designer Part 2: My Experience at General Assembly
In Part 1 of “From Teacher to UX Designer,” I explained my decision to leave teaching after almost a decade and pivot to a career as a UX designer. Here I’ll discuss my experience with General Assembly’s UX Design Immersive Program, which I just graduated from yesterday.
There is so much about my experience over the past 12 weeks that I would like to reflect on. But yesterday during our graduation proceedings, as I was trying not to get too emotional about the end of what has been a truly life-changing experience, someone contacted me on LinkedIn. He said he was considering the Design Immersive, and wanted to know more about my experience. This felt like a real full-circle moment. I started thinking about all of the people who might be where I was a few months ago, trying to figure out the right path, with so many questions.
So, on my first day as a UX Design Immersive graduate, I’d like to share some information for people who are considering signing up for the course.
The Admissions Process
When you contact GA about your interest in a program, an admissions representative contacts you, tells you about the program and the admissions process, and answers any questions you have.
The admissions task for the Immersive Program is a UX Design project. When I did the task ( April 2020) The prompts were basically, “Here’s a problem. Design an app to solve it.” They gave me about three days to perform user research, synthesize the research, design and prototype the app, test it, and put together a presentation. I then gave the presentation to that same admissions representative I had been corresponding with.
After I presented my project, the admissions representative conducted a short interview. There were mostly questions about my experiences working on teams and how I would handle the demanding hours of the Immersive Program. Basically they are looking for people who will take the program seriously and put in the necessary hours to complete it, as well as people who work well on teams, since a good portion of the course is spent on team projects.
On Demand Course
General Assembly’s UX Design Immersive program is full time for 12 weeks (480 hours). General Assembly also offers an “On Demand” course in UX Design. This is a self-paced introductory course. It took me about 8 weeks, but can be done in as little as 2 weeks.
I recommend taking the On Demand course before you do the UX Design Immersive, for three reasons:
- If you’re doing the immersive program afterwards, the On Demand course is basically free. It costs $950, but that can be applied to your design immersive tuition (If you get into the Design Immersive and complete the On Demand Course).
- The On Demand course gives you the foundation you need to do the admissions task.
- You’re going to have to do the On Demand course work anyway. The On Demand course is actually the pre work for the immersive program. So once you complete the On Demand course, you’ve also done your Immersive Program pre-work.
How to Pay
I took out an education loan from a credit union. GA is a for-profit company, but if you speak to your loan officer and share information about the program, they might be able to give you the education loan interest rate, which is a few points lower than a personal loan interest rate. I am scheduled to pay a little over $100 per month for a few years to pay off the tuition for the Immersive Program. When I get a job I will pay the loan off early. If you pay GA up front (and a loan from a bank counts as up front if they send GA a check for the full tuition), you get a nice discount.
If you want to do the program, but are worried about taking on the financial risk without a job guarantee, GA has an option for income sharing where you only pay once you get a job. There are also need-based scholarships. In short, if you want to do the program but aren’t sure how to pay for it, reach out to GA. There’s a way to make it happen.
Also, they will tell you you need a Mac computer for this program. You don’t. The reason they recommend a Mac is so you can use Sketch, which only works on Mac. However, we were never required to use Sketch during the course. Sketch was one option. Some students chose to work in Figma or Adobe XD instead. I used Sketch in the beginning of the course, but once we started working on group projects I switched to Figma because it’s more collaborative.
This program is expensive enough without the cost of a Mac on top of it. If you can afford it, great! If you prefer PC or it’s just not in your budget to buy a Mac, don’t worry about it!
Format of the Immersive Course
The entire class is online. We were on Zoom and Slack from 9–1, then 2–5 (EST Time) every Monday-Friday. We often had lectures in the morning and then worked on projects in the afternoon during studio time. There is a ton of work to be done outside of those classroom hours as well.
My plan was to take the in-person course in Boston. I really wanted to do the in-person class because I thought an online class would be too impersonal. I was accepted to the program in April, but decided to defer my admission for a few months hoping in person classes would open up.
When I realized there wouldn’t be in person classes any time soon, and I decided to do the remote course. I started the program on July 13, 2020. I am so glad I didn’t wait. I have found I actually like taking the class from home. I thought it would be more difficult to make connections with people, but that hasn’t been the case at all. Also, networking locally doesn’t seem quite as important now that so many jobs are remote.
Peers
My classmates were from a wide range of backgrounds, including graphic design, marketing, music, and social work. One of the reasons I was so happy with this boot camp was the chance I’ve had to learn from my peers, who brought a variety of different talents and perspectives to the course.
I don’t know if it’s a UX Design thing, or if it was my cohort, but these were some of the kindest, most dynamic, and talented people I’ve ever met.
Instructors
In a class of 32 students, we have two lead instructors and two instructional associates. It was great to have four dedicated instructors to deliver lessons, give us feedback, and answer our questions. My instructors are also responsive, quick to respond to slack messages, even outside of class hours.
I find the insight of the instructors, especially the two lead instructors, who have a wealth of industry experience, to be really valuable. It also feels like all four instructors genuinely care about us as people and are rooting for us to succeed in this field.
In addition to having instructors from the field of UX Design, GA brings in UX designers periodically to review our portfolios, give us feedback on our projects, give guest lectures, and answer our questions about the industry. This was extremely valuable. We were always encouraged to connect with these professionals on LinkedIn. The opportunity to get feedback from and make connections with UX professionals is definitely a selling point of the program.
The Curriculum
The curriculum for the UX Design Immersive was just updated at the beginning of this year. The program is now 12 weeks long instead of 10 weeks, and ends with a “passion project” that continues after the course ends.
GA instructional designers collaborate with industry professionals to be sure what students are learning is up-to-date, relevant, and comprehensive. For me, the biggest testament to the effectiveness of GA’s curriculum was when we had a panel of former GA students come in to talk about life after GA and how to be successful. I asked them if there was anything they didn’t learn at GA that they wish they had. Was there anything they felt unprepared to do in their new jobs? All four panelists said that the curriculum prepared them well, and there was actually nothing in their new jobs that they felt unprepared to do. The main learning curve for them was adjusting to the team dynamics of their new workplaces.
The curriculum is mostly project-based. That is the absolute best way to learn. Take it from a former teacher, we all learn by doing. If I have any critique of the program’s curriculum, it’s that lectures should be basically non-existent after the first few weeks, in favor of more project time. If there are any lectures after the first few weeks, they should be kept pretty short, 90 minutes or less. Longer lectures are fine in the beginning, because there is a lot of foundational information that needs to be delivered quickly, but once we had the basics I would have preferred even more hands-on time. It also would have been great to learn more about handing work off to developers, and to have practice with that.
I would encourage General Assembly to hire more former teachers (and this is not a plug for them to hire me, haha) to be involved in teacher training and curriculum development. One of the biggest pitfalls any educational program can make is not fully respecting how much expertise and experience goes into teaching effectively. GA doesn’t get it totally wrong, but there is room for improvement.
The Projects
We worked on six projects:
- You are assigned a classmate to partner with and you design an app to meet a need they have.
- Redesign an E-Commerce Website. Choose a local business with an e-commerce website and redesign their site.
- Team Project: Get a creative brief from a company and address their needs in a two-week sprint. The clients are real, but you don’t actually work with them. For example, our team had Newsy and we came up with solutions for them to inform and engage voters.
- Portfolio- Make your portfolio website. Include an “About Me” section and two case studies.
- Client Project- Work with a real client for three weeks to help them address their business needs and their customers’ needs.
- Passion Project- Design your own project. It should be something you could talk about with a hiring manager that showcases what sets you apart from other candidates. This project can be done individually or in teams.
The Time Commitment
What I said to the admissions representative in my initial interview, that I would be able to handle the long hours, even with young children, turned out to be true. I have been able to complete the program, and get a lot out of it. However, despite the admissions rep’s warnings, I was not prepared for how many nights I would stay up until 2 am or later. The projects have so many deliverables and the turnaround time is so quick, that even if you manage your time well and spend hours on your project every day, at the end of two weeks you’re going to be staying up the night before finishing up. Almost everyone in my cohort did.
I work fast and I think fast. But even working at a rapid pace, I pretty much never took a day off from working on a project, and I still was pulling those almost-all nighters. I’m in my 30s and I have two little kids (2 and 4 years old), so I was tired. But I did it. You can do it too. It all came down to drinking obscene amounts of coffee. There was also something else. I was in a state of flow for all of these projects, so even though they would sometimes take up every waking moment of my time and I’d work on them for hours straight, it felt like I stepped out of time. The hyper-focus would kick in, not because of the deadline but because of my fascination with the work.
Summary
I highly recommend General Assembly’s UX Design Immersive Program. I am so glad I did it, because I learned so much so quickly, met some amazing people, and now have access to career support and a network of GA grads I can reach out to as I search for jobs. I also fell in love with UX Design as a career. I know I still have a lot to learn, but I also know I have the work ethic, growth mindset, and a foundational skill set that will allow me to learn fast and continue growing.
I’m happy to chat about my experience with GA, and my career switch in general. If you have any questions about my experience, feel free to message me on here or connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolyn-pollack/
In future installments of “From Teacher to UX Designer,” I will describe my experience post-GA.
