How I made ADPList my University
How this community changed my life forever.
How I got started ✌️
October 2021 was the month I received my admission to PACE University, New York for a Master in Human-Centered Design, and I thought I would go in Fall 2022. Before that, I decided that in the next 9 months, I would work on myself and become a UX Designer who has at least three projects in my portfolio and has already finished one project as part of my Google UX certificate.
Now I started to reach out to people on LinkedIn and landed a connection from Google who is a UX designer from India what was Manas. I tried to connect with him, and he told me to book a slot that was available on November 13th, 2021, and it was going to be a long wait for me.
Being a very curious human, I started exploring the different mentors of ADPList and then stalking their amazing LinkedIn profiles, sending out connection requests, and trying to book slots where they matched with my available time in my time zone.
My first ever session on ADPList was booked with Paul Blake, and I was so excited and prepared for all the progress I had made with one of my UX process design projects, which was an Event Booking App that could help you book apps globally and had a lot of accessibility features. Then came the day when we introduced ourselves to each other, and I couldn’t take my smile off my face; I finally understood how Paul could help me and how we could collaborate; we had already set a few goals for our meeting the following week.
That’s when it hit me…
Why not have one mentor for each of the UX design processes so I can learn more in-depth knowledge of each subject than just skimming the surface?
👋 Next, Lucy Xie, a user research specialist, was my mentor, and she would help me make my research process more efficient and in-depth.
👋 Then Andre, who started being my customer discovery and value proposition lead, meets me every week, so there is constant growth.
👋 Megan Dell is brutal and honest and does not waste a minute, giving the best critique for growth. I am pleased that she made suggestions for a few changes to my website during our first meeting.
👋 Felix Lee is another amazing person who showed me that not just going to a university will land me an amazing job, as he has not completed his undergraduate and was able to make an impact on people’s lives with ADPList when I also decided to maybe try out other things than just university.
👋 At the same time, Chaitali Pai, my mentor whom I met on LinkedIn and who is also a mentor on ADPList, showed me various other universities that were more aligned with my interests than PACE, making me realize that I needed to take a step back and first work on my resume and projects, and she is still actively helping me.
🔥 Ongoing: I interacted with amazing mentors due to the end of the year and their commitment. We have not been able to meet up again, but we hope that by January we will be able to meet them again.
During this entire process, I just realized that…
What a university offers in its master’s program is a good lineup of teachers who teach us a syllabus that aligns with the present UX standard or might be outdated, as well as a master’s certificate. And ADPList can be used to create the same university. I just had to choose my right lineup of teachers, who are my mentors, and that too, with updated UX knowledge in the present industry, each helping me with their expertise, and I do not have the pressure of an exam but only have to finish goals that make me better than a regular student.
Looking at the current job requirements of a User Experience or Product Designer, I can say that my path is leading me to perfect those exact skills that these professions require.
What’s next in my 2022 roadmap?
My next project is to make ADPList a platform even better for the mentors because, without them, this platform would just be a meeting booking website. I want to build and iterate on this platform to give the best user experience. This is more of my way of giving back to this university, even though I may be a very successful alumnus one day, maybe working for my university itself one day.
So I would say one thing to all the young dreamers out there: when there is the drive and passion for something, we can find out how unique and amazing it is. We can use a platform to tailor it to our needs.
Thank you to Felix Lee, Lucy Xie, Megan Dell, Andre, and Chaitali for inspiring my growth with ADPList and making my learnings so fun 🍾✨!
