Dear first-year me,
Congrats for making it to the Interaction Design program! From what I can say now, your first year will feel like a breath of fresh air.
Want to take some time to self-reflect too? Grab your pen, journal or paper and try to write a letter to your first year self. Sometimes during midterms, or stressful times, we forget why we started and how excited we were to begin. This can be a fun exercise, and a great reminder. Another option is to write to your present day self and commit to reading it at the end of the term.
This program might be unfamiliar to a lot of people, but it’s actually a growing field that’s currently in high demand! You will learn some basics of coding such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in the first year, and you will need to do a lot of self-learning along the way. You might also be worried that you’re not “artsy” enough for a design program, and though having some basic graphic design skills is a desirable asset, it isn’t the main focus of this program! I remember you want to be able to make user friendly digital products and aim to be a UI/UX designer. This program will be able to equip you for that role, but it also gives you a chance to explore different areas of specialty within the umbrella of UX design.
Be prepared to present your work, and always try to make progress every week so that you can receive feedback and critique from your professor! That’s what the classes are for. Group projects are very minimal, but it’s really fun seeing other classmates’ work and being inspired by them.
My tip for your project management is that as soon as the project brief is handed out, please work on it as soon as possible. I know you feel like you just need a break after processing a lot of information at once, but please start working on the first step of the project. It will help you get a better feel of what the project is like and generate new ideas faster as you’re putting it in the back of your mind. I wish I had done this early on because it would have saved me a lot of late nights and created a better quality of work. This tip will also help you a lot for midterms. Getting quality sleep is most important for generating creative ideas, but also best for your mental health.
That’s all I have to say for now! It’s going to be an exciting year, and now that I’m having an extra responsibility to balance work with school and my personal life, I’m also excited to see what new things I will be learning.
Best wishes,
Second-Year Livia