My journey as the first Junior UX Design Apprentice, to join the team at Agile Collective, began at the start of March 2022, a feat I am undoubtedly proud of. A few months before, I saw a job ad for a design position in the company and thought, “Design? Yeah! I can do that”. It’s the one thing I know I do well. However, joining Agile Collective opened my eyes to a whole new world - UX Design.
I’d heard about UX/UI design before, seen multiple job advertisements for experienced UX/UI designers, but I'd never looked further into what that meant. I would describe myself as a ‘smooth brain’ coming into this industry and now, just a month in, there are so many lines of information that I’ve taken in, I feel like a walking cheat sheet of a (starter) UX Design quiz.
As a newcomer to this industry, the team felt it was important for me to gain an education in all things UX, with their support I am currently studying at the UX Design Institute, where in 6 months time I’ll have a UX Design diploma. My favourite aspect of this is that I get to learn everything from the ground up, share this knowledge with my fellow designers and work in an environment that allows me to put everything I learn into practice, so it’s a win-win.
The roles I’ve had before have stretched far and wide into varying industries but nothing has been quite like this. There’s a huge sense of community, learning is highly encouraged and there are multiple opportunities for growth. In my first month, I have attended client meetings, been introduced to different stages of the design process and logged my first billable hours with a user research session!
Initially, alongside a general excitement about starting a new job I was super nervous about what it would be like to work on something I know very little about, but the encouragement I’ve felt from the team has really put that at ease. The most important thing for me is that I wake up in the morning and look forward to starting my working day, gaining new knowledge and feeling really grateful that I was given the opportunity to be a part of it all.
