Rei

This is my journey into ui/ux design through the lens of an adult learner without a college degree. Thoughts on adult learning, psychology, tech, and design, with some personal updates in between.

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I. Got. The. Job.

All of my hard work to pivot in career has led to this moment. Goodbye to only have $20 in my bank account by the time I get my next paycheck.

I will be bumping from $42,000 to $62,500. Let's fucking go!

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It's been a long time but I haven't forgotten this place.

I don't have the bandwidth to write some long-winded post but here's (loosely) the gist of what's happened since I've been away - my blood, sweat, tears, and hope for a better future.

2023

June –

Graduated from bootcamp.

Sep 5 –

Landed an internship for Company Y.

Dec 6 –

Began freelance project for Person A for Shopify template themes.

Oct ? –

Left internship at Company Y after receiving inappropriate comments from internship facilitator about makeup.

Oct 17 –

Hired at Olive Garden (yuck).

Dec 28 –

First interview for an unpaid internship at a company I ultimately didn't move forward with.

2024

Jan 4 –

Interviewed with a scam company recruiting people for a fucking call center.

Jan 5

Second interview for an unpaid internship at a company I ultimately didn't move forward with.

Jan 8

Started Winter Semester at community college.

Third interview for an unpaid internship I ultimately didn't move forward with.

Jan 12

Finished freelance designs for Person A

Fourth damn interview for an unpaid internship at a company I ultimately didn't move forward with.

Jan 17

Inquiry from a paying client, left on read <- no follow through.

Last meeting with Person A to discuss compensation.

Jan 22

Quit Olive Garden.

Jan 24

Dropped Person A, revoked access to my designs after being exploited and lack of payment.

Interviewed for Graphic Design position at Company B.

Jan 26

Second interview with Company B.

Jan 29 ⭐️ Milestone 1

Hired at company B as Assistant Graphic Designer.

$20/hr, approx $33K annually – not much but we all start somewhere.

Oct 20

Boss had a heart attack.

Stepped into his role as Lead Graphic Designer with no assistant and a massive, sudden increase in workload. We're talking pushing work at 10pm kinda workload.

Now reports directly to owner.

2025

Jan 22

Owner of the company denies me an adequate raise and livable wage despite an increase in work, new job title, completing tasks that do not align with my job title, and no assistant - giving me only $21/hr.

Immediately updates portfolio and starts applying like a bat out of hell. Like my life depends on it (it kinda does).

Jan 28 (today)

First interview (virtual) with Person C at Company C.

Salary $60–$75K.

Jan 31

Second interview scheduled with Person C at Company C.

Fingers crossed. I made it this far.

(Updated) Feb 3

I got the job.

Bumping from $42K to $62,500.

I start Feb 17.

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What UX bootcamp are you in?

DesignLab

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Haven’t seen you post in a while, what’s happened?

I'm really busy 🥲 I've been in a UX bootcamp and am slated to graduate Feb 27 🥳

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This is my journey into ui/ux design & web development through the lens of an adult learner without a college degree.

I’m on Medium now!

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Laying the foundations of my career: how + why I chose community college to begin my transition into tech

A quick search will yield thousands of online resources to launch a career in tech, including bootcamps, courses, degrees, certificates, informative articles, and even YouTube tutorials. Yet the #1 dilemma people continue to struggle with when making the transition is not knowing where or how to get started. With all of the online and in-person options available, why does tech still appear inaccessible? Recognizing this gap, I decided to document my journey hoping to share helpful and relatable experiences to help others shape their own. Below is part two of my journey (between 2020-2021), written through the lens of an adult without a degree. This story outlines the personal struggles I faced with not knowing where to begin, and how I found solutions to them for laying the foundations of my career.

It was nearly a decade later after dropping out of college when I decided to pursue a career in tech. No matter how much searching I did online, getting a job in the industry seemed far beyond my reach. Despite endless pages of resources, there were very few (if any) success stories or relatable experiences from other women also coming from minimum wage jobs and night-life gigs. At the time, I was single, estranged from family, and barely knew anyone in LA, so moving forward with a career in tech meant carving my own path without a support system to guide me.

I spent over a month scouring the internet for helpful articles, investigating bootcamps, browsing local college programs, and reading a lot of Reddit posts. My searches into different fields and how to land a job looked like this: “Can I land a ___ job without a college education?”, “Do I need a degree to become a ___?”, “What programming languages do I need to learn?”, “Should I finish my degree?”, “Should I get a degree in CS/CIS for ___?”, “This bootcamp vs that bootcamp”, “This field in tech vs that field”, “Bootcamps vs college vs certificates vs studying on my own to land a job in ___”. After deciding on software engineering as my career path, I began racking up bookmarks, taking notes, and narrowing down my options by comparing them in a word document organized into two main categories: free vs paid. I (eventually) tried them all:

1. Bootcamps. I read reviews and researched job outcomes, full-time vs part-time curriculums, syllabi, mentor services, career coaching, and payment plans. They were selling me my dream: that their program would land me a job within a few months after graduation and I could kiss poverty goodbye forever. However, all of them were expensive, and their deferred tuition plans meant being locked into a contract that would take a percentage of my income after being hired. Nonetheless, this was originally my first course of action. I was desperate to find a way out of my current circumstances and rushed through the interview and admissions process. I even tested into the program and went as far as to fill out the deferred tuition form. However, when it was time to submit the application, I backed out. Even after all the research I poured into choosing a bootcamp, I was still uncertain, and debt scared me. I kept asking myself, “Did I really explore all of my options?”, and concluded that it was best to start with the free resources first, which led me to option two:

2. Self-study. I put the idea of joining the bootcamp on hold to give studying on my own a chance. I watched YouTube tutorials and dabbled in free + cheap online courses to explore different programming languages. I realized quickly into this decision that I would have put myself in a detrimental place (financially and mentally) had I joined the bootcamp without prior knowledge about any of the programing languages. I also discovered that my learning pace was too slow for a bootcamp at the time due to being out of school for so long. There was now an extra layer on top of trying to learn new material: I needed to re-learn how to learn. This was probably the most upsetting realization of them all, because it meant pushing back my transition into a new career even more. Eventually, learning on my own proved to be unsuccessful and my dream of getting out of a poverty hole felt impossible. By this point, I felt so low I was questioning whether or not software engineering was the right career path for me, which led me to my final option:

3. College (community college). After deciding that a bachelor’s degree was too expensive and would take too long to accomplish, I registered to complete a full-stack certificate. Although lockdown made orientation and the financial aid process a nightmare, my determination resulted in being able to attend with a pell grant. I was surrounded by people of all ages and various backgrounds that shared the same goal as me: to give myself more than what I had. Taking classes in Python, SQL, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and React connected me with a large network of people in CS/CIS Discord servers where I had access to other teachers, tutors, graduates, internships, and job-postings. Beginning my transition into tech with community college allowed me to get acclimated with learning again at the pace I needed, which ultimately solidified the idea that choosing this career path was indeed right for me. I was also not alone anymore, but part of a community where I could turn to the support of others.

In hindsight, the setbacks I faced in the beginning boiled down to three factors: 1) not having any prior exposure to the industry, 2) not knowing how to educate myself after being out of school for so long, and 3) not knowing what questions to ask to get started. At the time, my income, employment, education level, and overall poor quality of life reflected the demographic of my tumultuous background and familial relationships. I was living in a constant state of scarcity mentality, trying to survive unsafe living conditions, and battling toxic generational patterns. It was only because I spent my twenties addressing those issues that I was able to start believing I was capable of more.

Even though it was a decade-long, painful process, my life choices eventually led me to an inclusive community of people with diverse backgrounds also pursuing tech-related fields. Slowly, I began shedding harmful beliefs of who I was and where I came from, building a support network, and taking the first steps of my educational journey into tech.

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Relocating and finally closing a soul-sucking chapter of my life

A couple big things:

1. I moved to Phoenix, AZ a few days ago.

2. I decided to pivot into the direction of UI/UX design. While trying to cram JavaScript and React, I realized I was going to need more time studying web development to land a job. More time than I could give. By the time I had that realization, I was already maxed out: physically exhausted, with no more mental capacity or financial means to dedicate to studying. Night life is hard; my job was killing me. So, I made the decision to drop everything and head into a new direction. I needed something faster. I needed something years ago before I got swallowed up by the day-to-day, hand-to-mouth living. 

At the time what felt like “I fucked up, now I’m backpedaling” panic was just a change in direction. My biggest priority was still the same: leave my dead-end job/lifestyle as quickly as possible. For good. And never go back. So even though becoming a web developer is still a goal of mine, it has now become a long-term-goal that I will achieve after first making sure I achieve sustainable and reliable income. 

3. I am actively enrolled in DesignLab’s UI/UX bootcamp part-time. I’m on Week 5 of their 8-week UI foundations course and am slated to transfer into the UX Academy full-time July 25. I love what I’m doing.

4. I am seriously considering transferring over to Medium to continue writing

tldr; After years of working dead-end jobs, I saved enough money to last me the rest of 2022, quit my soul-sucking night-life job for the last time, moved to Arizona, and enrolled in a UI/UX bootcamp

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My journey into tech began with poverty

I had a lot of trouble finding work after relocating from New York to California in December 2019. I never had issues landing a job before. Basic, minimum wage jobs involving fast-food, customer service, and retail wouldn’t even hire me. After a couple months of sending applications every day, I got a callback from Denny’s to work part time as a hostess. I had no money left in savings, was barely scraping by with rent, and could only buy groceries with food stamps.

Shortly before the lockdown was initiated in March, I got t-boned by a van on my bike. My body was launched into an intersection, and all I could think about at the time while staring into the headlights of oncoming traffic was how I had no health insurance. I was screaming, trying to stand up to get away, begging people running over not to call an ambulance, but my body continued to slump over from dizziness. Paramedics arrived anyway and lifted me into the back despite me refusing treatment. By the time they took down my information and the police finished interrogating me, they left me standing on the side of the street once they knew I could stand. The woman that hit me was the one that loaded my dented bike into the trunk, helped me into the car, and drove me home. When I got into the shower, I cried while I bled from a puncture in my hip. The police claimed I was at fault despite being at a crosswalk.

By now, I could no longer afford my $40 phone bill when I received a $300 ambulance bill later that week despite refusing treatment. I had no family, no friends in Los Angeles, and wasn’t eligible for unemployment due to residency. When the reality of losing my place began to sink in, I turned to Reddit for advice on how to prepare for being homeless and began sorting out essentials. It was only thanks to a close friend in NYC who loaned me money that I was able to make rent and keep my phone active.

April. I joined a livestream on Instagram where a local clothing company was announcing that they were in desperate need of employees to help with emergency mask distribution during the global shortage. The host told me if I could make it there in an hour I’d be hired, so I threw on clothes, rode my bike to the nearest subway, and commuted downtown. I spent grueling hours lifting heavy boxes, sweating, and shipping orders for minimum wage, but I didn’t care because I had a job, which meant I could afford a roof over my head.

In the following months, I made a two hour commute between Pasadena and Downtown LA to work my 2pm-10pm shift, clutching a switchblade in my pocket late at night while men with sleazy grins yelled at me, masturbated in public in front of me, and even followed me. I began to bribe my coworkers with home cooked meals for lunch in exchange for a ride to the Metro Gold Line. When I worked a double until 2am and the lines were closed, I would give them the extra money I had for gas. Despite being underweight and exhausted, I was making it home safe every night, and even made a couple friends.

June 11th, 2020. With the money I saved working minimum wage, I bought a used car and found a second job. It was during that time when my life began to stabilize that I started thinking of ways I could improve it. Without knowing much about it aside from basic HTML and CSS, I decided on tech and began researching into different careers. All I knew at the time was that jobs in tech paid well, and I never wanted to be poor again. 

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Neuroplasticity and why nothing in life requires talent to be successful.

During my introductory course in Python, I discovered that backend languages are not my strong suit. This is because they require a high level of precision and critical thinking that I’m not used to implementing in my daily life. Most people aren’t, which is why most people find it to be difficult. There is also no room for error in programming. Even if you’re still new into your journey like me, you’ve probably discovered that if something in your code doesn’t work, the rest of the program breaks. It will not execute.

Python (and other backend languages) communicate directly with the computer, which only understands combinations of 1s and 0s (this is also known as binary code, or machine code). That’s it. To break it down even further: humans write code -> the code gets converted into 1s and 0s -> the computer understands this as a set of instructions and executes said code. This is why programming requires a much higher level of precision and critical thinking than other jobs: your work boils down to 1s and 0s. One mistake out of hundreds of lines of otherwise perfect written code will ruin all of your work.

If this makes programming sound even more daunting, don’t worry. The good news is that anyone can learn anything, and talent is not a requirement (or accurate indicator) of a person’s success. With enough exposure, practice, and repetition, our brains begin to enhance our existing cognitive capabilities and understand information it previously didn’t. This psychological phenomenon is known as neuroplasticity, which is the brain’s ability to grow, adapt, change, and evolve over time. Long-term exposure to environments, experiences, interactions, repeated practices, habits, and learning new abilities all influence the rewiring of neural networks in the brain. Neuroplasticity is so profound that it even aids in the recovery from trauma and brain damage.

The first and most important step in determining the outcome of your success when pursuing a new endeavor is understanding the difference between having a fixed mindset and a growth mindset, and then choosing the latter for yourself. Success, intellectual growth, and achieving a better quality of life starts with developing a growth mindset and believing that intelligence and talent are not innately fixed; they are malleable and improvable. According to The Neuroscience of Growth Mindset and Intrinsic Motivation:

“Students with growth mindset are likely to learn by a mastery approach, embrace challenges and put in effort to learn. For instance, growth-minded individuals perceive task setbacks as a necessary part of the learning process and they ‘bounce back’ by increasing their motivational effort. Learners with growth mindset tend to embrace lifelong learning and the joy of incremental personal growth. In addition, they do not see their intelligence or personality as fixed traits. They will mobilize their learning resources without being defeated by the threat of failure."

Choosing a growth mindset starts with praising hard work, the learning process in which you engage, and perseverance, rather than praising inherent talent and intelligence. By doing so, we redirect our attention from drawbacks and hardships to improving our learning process, discovering ways to be a better learner, and reinforcing good study habits.

The second most important contributing factor to success begins with developing a strong sense of intrinsic motivation. This encourages autonomous learning by inherent interest and enjoyment of the work itself rather than motivation through external reward or praise. Self-reliance and the ability to educate oneself is integral in the tech industry regardless of what branch you choose to pursue, because staying informed and up to date on constantly-evolving programming languages will keep you employable and relevant.

“In addition, intrinsic motivation is the propensity for individuals to learn about new subjects and to differentiate their interests, thereby fostering a sense of purpose and meaning. Recent empirical findings have shown that intrinsic motivation is a key factor in academic achievement and pursuit of interest, thus fostering learning and growth.”

Intrinsic motivation encourages us to rethink what reward means to us and assign deeper meaning to our work. By trusting our capabilities and choosing to immerse ourselves in new learning experiences, we stimulate curiosity, give birth to new ideas, and facilitate neuroplasticity.

As children, our parents often praise us for our inherent qualities and abilities. However, praising a child’s natural talents and placing less emphasis on their hard work and ethic stunts their natural inclination to explore other areas of interest due to fear of failure. This fear suppresses cognitive and sensory curiosity and often carries into adulthood as a fixed mindset: the belief that our personality and talents are unable to be changed. It then becomes exceptionally difficult to venture out of what’s already comfortable as adults and trust in our capabilities when trying new things. We begin to believe that we are unable to excel beyond our inborn qualities, which contributes to a self-fulfilling cycle of hindered intellectual development.

Nothing in life requires talent to be successful. Choosing growth mindset and developing intrinsic motivation dismantles the idea that talent is a necessary prerequisite to success. Praising your ability to work hard and trusting your capabilities to learn something new will nurture curiosity and promote autonomous learning, leading to increased exposure to new information and experiences. With sufficient time and practice, neuroplasticity will take effect, and your brain will grow. You are capable of learning anything.

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What did you do before tech? You're writing is well above average.

Thank you! My job history includes working at Taco Bell, waitressing in various restaurants and bars, freelance graphic design, serving bottles in clubs, and lugging boxes in warehouses. I am now a karaoke hostess while I study.

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Returning to college as an adult is more than just academic learning: it’s re-learning how to learn, too.

My first experience with Python was learning it through an inaccessible, apathetic teacher, who was so far removed from his own students that he was no longer effectively teaching a beginner course in a way new programmers could understand. By the time the semester ended, only 7 out of 30 students passed, and I was the only woman out of those 7.

The reality is that no matter where you go (especially in higher education), not everyone will teach you in a way you understand. It’s up to you to translate the material for yourself. This is extremely difficult if you’re returning to school as an adult after taking a long time off (for me, it was about 7 years). The issue is no longer just about trying to learn new academic material, but learning how to learn again, too. I realized that after being out of school for so long, I’d even forgotten how to study. Not only did I have to process new and difficult material as a returning student, I had to restructure my life and once again, learn how to learn.

If you’ve been out of school for a while and you’re considering furthering your education, pursuing a career in tech, or making any sort of advancement that involves learning for long stretches of time, accept the fact that what worked for you in high school might not work for you anymore, and that’s okay. For example, the memorization technique that you were previously taught to be most effective in retaining information is outdated. Repetition alone is not very effective. In order for information to be stored in long-term memory, it must be relatable, assigned a meaning, or cued in some way for later retrieval.

My own educational journey as an adult didn’t start with my first programming course like I originally thought it would, it started with learning how to learn again. For me, this involved having to research my ADHD and how it impairs my cognitive function, exploring different methods of studying through trial and error, forcing myself to develop discipline to look at code at least once a day, adapting to a new life that revolves around learning, and finally: 

Researching how to be a better learner, so that I could ask better questions, to be a better student.

At some point during my search I discovered cognitive learning, which encompasses different active-engagement styles of learning. The #1 method which stood out to me the most was metacognition. It essentially means thinking about a method of thinking. “This cognitive learning type involves us consciously deciding which learning strategy we plan to use when we engage in a learning experience” (Source). I believe this is the most important style to become a better learner, because in order to make that choice, we have to immerse ourselves in exploring all methods first. When we learn about learning, we equip ourselves with techniques that allows us to more easily retain and understand academic material. It grants us more power and ownership of our future.

Intellectual development also requires having the ability to introspect. Some level of self-awareness equates to having a better understanding of who we are and what’s important to us. Examining our own mental and emotional processes allows us to make better decisions that align with what makes us happy and fulfilled in life. Without doing this, we are unable to recognize our strengths, limitations, rationalize our actions, or make sensible decisions about life centered around learning.

Within the upcoming week(s), I will be providing links in the navigation bar to helpful resources, videos, tutorials, Reddit threads, and useful tips on web development and programming. I will discuss topics such as why I chose to begin my journey with community college and not a bootcamp, and how I decided on what specific languages to study. As a small life update, I’ve decided to switch from learning Python to JavaScript in order to focus more on mastering front-end development.

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Introductory post, the purpose of this blog, and backstory

Hello, I’m Ravyn (like raven). I’m 28. Currently, I’m pursuing a career in full-stack web development. I have zero prior experience with back-end languages and no college education. I have yet to decide if I want a degree in Computer Information Systems/ Computer Science, or continue learning on my own via online resources & taking individual classes at a local community college.

I decided to blog about my journey into tech to track my progress and hopefully inspire and educate others along the way. There is an over-abundance of misleading resources claiming that their classes, tutorials, bootcamps, and books are all for “beginners”, which are all coming from already-established people in tech that have fell out of touch with being able to effectively communicate coding jargon to those that have never seen print(”Hello World!”) in their life.

This blog will document what I learn as a completely new and inexperienced student in tech, how I’m learning and retaining the material, my processes, my failed attempts, and my little victories.

Now, some backstory:

I was forced to drop out of college in 2013 due to struggles with housing. My dream at the time was to do my first 2 years at community college, and then pursue graphic design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. Without getting into too much detail about my personal life, pursuing higher education at the time was no longer an option due to working full-time as a waitress and trying to survive. Nearly a decade later, I realized sadly that nothing had changed about my life. I moved around a lot, and I was still struggling with money and living hand-to-mouth. I decided that I was fed up, and since I spent a lot of time in front of my laptop anyway (and enjoyed it), web development seemed like the best career option to commit to.

My story is unfortunately common amongst millions of other people that could also not pursue a college education due to circumstances that were (and still may be) out of their control. Silver spoons in life are rare. The rest of us just work with what we got.

I dedicate this blog to people trying to overcome their hardships, leave dead-end jobs, those with underprivileged backgrounds, and volatile upbringings. This blog is for those like me, with no college education and zero experience in tech.