Fast, Quick, Faster.
It has indeed been a while since I have updated this blog. Maybe things have been going so well that I didn't feel the need to update this blog at all. Last time I posted, it was still about the AIGA Changemaker Series. A lot has happened since then and to be truthfully honest, things have returned to square one. I suppose I have somewhat gone full circle with certain abilities.
From July onwards, I have traveled to Chicago once again, and then back to my hometown Hong Kong. Both were rewarding and refreshing experiences. Since October, I have been working as a front-end web developer at a startup (truly a dream come true). Fast-forward to January 2017, I am once again looking for a job. This time it is a little more difficult. The big question here is What kind of work am I looking for? And even if I am able to answer that question, I still have to take the necessary steps to find that job aka refine my skills in a way to make myself once again more competitive in the tech scene. One thing I dislike (and like) about tech and design is that everything changes so quickly. We ditch the old technologies and we want to utilize the latest ones. I wish I have 48 hours in a day or perhaps, I wish I didn't have to get any shut eye during the 24 hours I have during the day. That way, I can probably accelerate my learning and do more things. Nonetheless, my brain does indeed need some shutdown time. It needs to be distracted and realigned in terms of trying to figure out how I want my future to look like.
I have once again started reading free online resources to dive into UX design (aka human-centered design). It still truly intrigues me. However, I feel like in order to succeed in today's industries, I have to equip myself with more skills in order to do better. UX is still my favorite and number-one option. But I don't have too much experiences under my belt. The good (and bad) about free online resources is that it has opened so many doors for all of us with a stable access to the Internet. But it also makes everything way more complicated and competitive than ever.
I have tried out resources such as Treehouse, Udemy, and Udacity. I feel like free resources sort of comes with a price. Because they are free, it is really up to how we want to utilize them. For far too long, I have always pressured myself to learn really fast and it also exists in job descriptions, they always want 'fast learners'. From my experience at a startup, 'learning fast' has no effect on me. It is mainly due to the fact that I don't want to simply spend a few hours on Stack Overflow and convince myself that I have learned something. To be honest, deep diving into a subject matter rather than brushing it slightly on the surface would benefit me in so many more ways. Perhaps it's the culture of moving fast and rapidly that creates the most pressure for me.
I have been 'unemployed' for roughly two weeks now. I've been using this time to not only look for jobs but to also flood my brain with new and existing knowledge. Let's hope this time round, I have found the niches to learning faster and perhaps learning faster.
Tonight, or this morning, I am dedicated to keeping track of what I have been reading and what I have been learning. I am currently reading this free e-book from UXPin. I know it comes from the first few pages of the e-book but this diagram is still a good depiction of how business needs, visual needs, tech needs, and UX coincides. Of course, it also points out the vast differences of each area. I personally think this diagram has clarified a lot of the confusions for me and has paved way to a more refined career goal for me ahead.
I am also dedicated to redoing my portfolio. I have currently hid all of the links to the past works I have done because they are rather outdated. You will see them resurface indefinitely but in the meantime, I do need this opportunity to reorganize and add more details to each project and what they each entail. I will perhaps move my site to wordpress (other options: Jekyll, Kirby, Craft, etc) or build the site from scratch like the static one that I have built for my web development projects. I promise myself that I will make everyday 'unemployed' as fruitful as possible.