I've been wanting to write this particular piece months ago but impostor syndrome, procrastinating and life got in the way. I even wrote a few paragraphs already and just stashed it somewhere on MSword so I'm really glad I'm finally posting it. I started getting serious about tech in 2020. I was one of those people who thought tech majorly had to do with coding and I did try learning but that's another story for another day. Anyways, I stumbled upon product design one day and it piqued my interest. The word "design" piqued my interest because I’ve always loved art; drawing, painting, and writing. So school didn’t really give me the time to act on that interest but finally with an anti-self-sabotaging pill and an anti-imposter syndrome pill, I checked what product designers do. I’m not going to lie and say I fully understood it but I liked the idea of designing something aesthetically pleasing so why not? I think I actually made some research on how to start learning but all I was seeing were paid programs I couldn’t afford so I dropped the idea(a mistake on my part), fast-forward to 2022, I honestly can't remember where I saw the SideHustle info to learn the basics of UI/UX design for 6wks for FREE and I jumped at the chance. I wanted to know if I would enjoy it and I did. We were taught the basics starting from; Intro, the differences btw UI and UX, what makes a good/bad UX, areas of UX design, Design-thinking, how to conduct user interviews, how to do user research, and how to create User Personas, and more. We were introduced to Adobe XD and Figma, I absolutely love Figma and I’ve been playing around with it. It's such a bummer that I haven’t been able to work with Adobe because of compatibility issues with my PC. I took weekly quizzes and had capstone projects twice. My first group project was to identify a problem in my environment and write a problem statement about it and suggest solutions for the problem. My team members and I decided on a Gas delivery service. The second project was to create a User Research document for the problem we came up with in our first project and create a user persona that best described our target audience. I liked what I was learning so far and was stoked to enroll for the 6wks portfolio Bootcamp because I wanted hands-on experience on all I learned. When the Bootcamp started, I was honestly lost and I felt like I knew nothing, I mean nothing at all. It was very overwhelming meeting so many people who like knew so much already or were not new to designing. The imposter syndrome hit again and I hid for the first week. Real life didn’t make it any easier because I had to go to work while learning. The Bootcamp was very eye-opening and I learned so much by interacting and sharing ideas with team members. Youtube and chrome have been my very close friends these last few months and I'm not there yet but I love the steps I've taken so far. One of the reasons I wanted to venture into the tech space was to avoid as much interaction with humans and while learning UI/UX design, I realized that that was impossible because of its user-centricity and I rethought all my life choices regarding design but I like Design and I'm starting to come out of my shell regarding interaction, it's a big dilemma though but that's one thing I'm liking about design, bringing me out of my comfort zone and making me take big important leaps. The Journey has just begun, and I still have a lot to learn and I still want to learn a lot... I also want to try my best as possible to write on Hashnode regarding my Design journey so I promise myself to post once a week, once in two weeks, or once a month, or when I remember again, probably anytime I have the inspiration. Byeeee