I landed 2 paid UX internships my first year as a self-taught UX Designer

5 min readMay 1, 2021

The momentum I picked up into my first year diving into UX design and how you can make the most of a self-paced curriculum at a low cost.

UX design is getting more eyes onto it as people get burnt out from their current careers and see UX as “the perfect intersection of science, creativity, and technology”. I ran with that seed of curiosity my second year of University as a Management Information Systems major.

To thrive as a self taught designer, you should probably :

Have discipline
A hunger to learn
Resourcefulness
Endurance to fail(learn)
Patience in the process

How I started: Working backwards

I found myself in a good position to be in the immediate social network of a University to reach out to school alumni working as UX designers. To my dismay, people were very generous enough to help me gain more clarity into the current state of UX, give me exact resources to learn and apply the skills, and immediately start my resume. It was a 180 degree concept from what school has taught me so far, which was spend 90% on theory and 10% on application. This breath of fresh air into the low barrier of entry that tech had took me by surprise, but once I would repeat the pattern of learning and applying, it eventually clicked.

I watched these very basic Youtube videos to build a foundation of what I was getting into:

I also went on LinkedIn and Glassdoor to see current job listings of UX designers to see the expectations of what this role is expected to do in a team. From here, I worked backwards to gear myself up to apply for these roles via a self paced curriculum.

Then, I looked at online courses to get into specifics (UXR, Gamification, HCI, UI patterns, etc).

https://www.interaction-design.org
https://www.udemy.com/courses/search/?src=ukw&q=ux++design (Wait for the $10 specials, happens often!)
https://www.coursera.org (Apply for Coursera Financial Aid)

And what you get from these are certificates, but I wouldn’t say you can get a job from certificates. I used these to specialize my Linkedin and show people I was serious about this career path. Furthermore, it helped me understand design principles, methodology, and specific niches under a large UX umbrella. In the beginning, it is just a matter of absorbing this new lens of thinking, problem-solving, and seeing these principles applied in your everyday interfaces.

Putting pencil to paper

Ok, I wish I heard this quote earlier, because yes, it is discouraging to suck at UI in the beginning. I think it is the perfectionist in me at first that made me refrain from opening up Figma and get to work. But, what grounds me is having patience to trust the process. The action item here is to krank out projects, copy UI on dribbble or from your favorite apps to train your eye, and get a grip on the design software. The progress made here will be night and day. I am still not confident in my UI skills, but coming back to this quote humbles me to remember why I got into creative work in the first place. PLUS, most companies use design systems to keep things consistent, so it isn’t a matter of being original here.

Take inspiration from:

Showcase your hard work strategically — Portfolio Time

This was scary for me to begin, because I thought I needed more practice and credibility before launching my site. But, a mentor told me to just do it in order to apply for internships and get real work. I used a Squarespace template to organize the case studies I had been drafting out. My intention with my portfolio was to stand out from the crowd with a unique layout and clear BRIEF case studies that would nudge a recruiter to give me a call.

I bolded key action items under each headline and didn’t have every UX design methodology component under the sun in my case studies. This helped me publish case studies faster and get feedback from mentors as to what worked and what didn’t.

Portfolio branding is something I also took into consideration. In the beginning my projects were solving problems in the B2C space and I pivoted after landing a B2B internship and found this as a perfect place to position myself as a happy medium between my degree and UX aspirations.

Landing a role

Now I had a portfolio to add to applications. Half the battle is over! It is so critical to have a script planned to answer the behavioral questions interviewers ask to prevent being thrown off. Employers looking for interns that have initiative and ability to be coached. It is important to shine and be transparent on what you know/don’t know/relevant interests are.

Self learning as an alternative to learning from a bootcamp

I know many eager students are willing to splurge on a bootcamp education to hopefully land a UX role. I was lucky enough to discover UX while still in school and had a lot of free time during a pandemic to freely dive into it. If you are at a crossroads and choosing between a bootcamp or self-taught route, I hope this helps to show it can be done at a manageable pace!