Please give a brief background on yourself and your career.
I work as a User Experience Designer in San Francisco. I started out in design and research by interning at the MIT Mobile Experience Lab while a student at Wellesley. I ended up working there for four years, and it was an amazing opportunity to learn from tremendously talented people. When I started at Wellesley, I was relatively unaware of the capabilities of modern technology, and as I discovered them, I knew that was where I wanted to be. It’s really exciting to be at the forefront of all the technological changes taking place in the world.
After staying in Boston for a year after graduation, I moved to New York City with a friend, hoping to figure things out and find a job when I arrived. Six months in, I received I job offer from Samsung in San Francisco. I grew up in Northern California and was happy to move back. I’ve been in the Bay Area for the last two years working mostly in design for wearables and connected home products.
How has your career changed since you originally envisioned it at Wellesley? What other careers did you consider as a student?
I had no idea what I wanted to do when I went to Wellesley. I applied to Wellesley for Biology, because it seemed noble to want to be a doctor. When I arrived, there was some sort of department fair and the first table was for Architecture. I always loved art and art history, and I thought architecture might blend those interests with the other things I liked. At Wellesley, Architecture is a multi-disciplinary degree, and so while I never actually wanted to be an architect, studying Architecture allowed me to take classes in art, art history, geology, math, computer science, and a wealth of other classes at MIT too. I’m really grateful for that.
Part of me still wonders if I should have pursued something else. I love writing and being around art, and on the days when I don’t like my current job, I think of how nice being a curator or editor might be. Or I’ll listen to the radio, hear an interesting story about foreign policy and regret that I don’t work at the State Department. In other words, that feeling of not knowing what you want to do with your life never ends, or at least not in your twenties.
How has Wellesley contributed to your career?
I’m not shy, and I didn’t lack confidence growing up, but I would not have had the tenacity to pursue a career in tech if I didn’t go to Wellesley. Strangely enough, there were almost no classes in design and technology when I went there (compared to HCI lab now), but I had internships, and was in an environment that made me feel like I could learn anything.
Even now in my career I can feel isolated; I am often the only woman in meetings, and I rarely see women in leadership positions. Wellesley makes me persevere where once I may have given up.
What is a typical work day or work week like for you?
I don’t have a typical work day, which is something I really like about being a designer. I spend about half the day at my desk working on making models, coming up with ideas, developing scenarios, doing research, etc, and the other half of the day I spend in and out of meetings, which can be presentations, reviews, or just discussions and working with others. I travel a lot for presentations and user testing. I’m always making things to explain what I’m thinking, but those things can be sketches, animations, storyboards, diagrams, or anything really.
What piece of advice would you offer students looking to get into your area of interest and expertise?
The skills I use now are things I learnt through my time at Wellesley, but not in any class in particular. Design is about problem solving, but a large part of my work is identifying and framing which problems to solve. To do this, you need to be able to think analytically, quickly understand a scenario and break it down, present thoughts coherently – these are skills that you pick up everywhere, not in any particular subject matter. I speak with a lot of graduating seniors and recent grads who fear they don’t have the right major or experience to go into UX design or something similar, but most of the time those students are really impressive and just don’t know it yet. There is definitely a lot to learn, and decades of literature and past experience to study, but at twenty-two, people expect you still have a lot to learn. You shouldn’t doubt yourself; if you go in with confidence, other people will have confidence in you.
It’s also really important to intern, because you learn from the people you work with, you make valuable connections, and you essentially get to test drive jobs.
What do you wish you had known as a student?
As a student I told myself to not feel too pressured, to not feel like I should be doing more, to not worry about the future, but I was secretly terrified I was wrong and that I would be making decisions that would ruin the rest of my life. I was not. I wish as a student I had known to enjoy classes more.
If you could come back and take one class at Wellesley what would it be?
Something in Physics, Philosophy, or English, probably?
Most of the time (unless you’re devotedly pre-med or something), your grades or even your major don’t matter. I wasted time thinking my GPA could be .1 higher, or that perhaps I should have a second major. I took some classes at Wellesley that I felt pressured to take, and I avoided some classes that I thought might be too difficult. You shouldn’t. Aside from some architectural history seminars and a few art classes, my favorite class at Wellesley was studying Dante’s Divine Comedy, which was taught at the time by Dr. Rachel Jacoff. I can’t say whether it has impacted my career, but it certainly made my life more beautiful.