Things you should do to prepare yourself before/during your Bootcamp studies
My experience at a design school bootcamp was great; but there are some things I would go back in time to tell myself to prepare for. If you are thinking or about to attend a bootcamp, have a read and maybe these things can help prepare you for your bootcamp experience.
Start your portfolio early
Case studies — start documenting your case studies early on by documenting your work from the beginning to the end. You can do this by taking photos and record some of your work in progress, even if you don’t think you’re going to use it. The worst part of doing my case studies was when I was digging through my phone for photos to use, I wish I had more photos documenting my progress. You can keep a diary by the day or week to outline what happened during the process. Outline what the team members were doing, the decision making process, what you was in charge of etc. Some recruiters in job interviews are interested to know what your role was in the team and how you tackled the project. By documenting all of this information early on, you allow yourself to turn it into a story for someone who has no idea what your project was about.
When I was doing my case studies I found it useful to gather inspiring designers portfolio to help me get a better understanding of what is expected in a case study, I did a quick google search or found them through LinkedIn and found their portfolios under their ‘contact information’. To find out more about case studies, I attended online portfolio events and watched some YouTube videos on UX/UI case study reviews/ critiques, this helped me understand how other people are designing their websites/portfolio, what is good/ bad but also what kind of portfolio I might be competing with. Competition is sooo tough; how can they ensure they stand out from bazillions of people? and how can I? If you have inspiring designers, mentors, instructors or cohort members shoot them a message and ask them to have a look at your work to see if there are any areas they think you can improve on. Be open to critique, sometimes it is hard to swallow.
Here’s an awesome article by Sarah Doody: What is the best format for a UX portfolio?
Website platform
Research and decide which website platform you want to build your website on. It took me a while to finally decide which platform I wanted to build my portfolio on. (I built mine with WordPress in case you’re wondering). I would recommend to look into this earlier than later as it may also take some time to set up and some time to get use to how it works. You have to stick it to, unless you want to recreate your work from scratch onto another website builder. Do your research and choose wisely as you might find some have monthly/ annual payments and some have limitations.
Start your online portfolio early, you might be surprised as they can be challenging to learn to use at first. Once you have chosen your website builder, start building! My advice is: use it as a foundation for your diary documentation, start inserting details of your case study even if you don’t have the right content, you can use placeholder imagery or text, this will help you visualize how you might lay your content.
Yes, it may seem like a lot to do, but it’ll be easier than racking your brains trying to remember what you did in the project 3 months ago! Also don’t forget this the MOST important part, this is what you will be showing to your future job employers, so you wanna get it spot on.
Networking
Don’t be afraid to network! (I know I was, and still am) but it will help you get prepared for when you graduate. By the time you graduate you will already have some industry experts already aware of you entering the field, it will leave them with a good impression and they might even be able to introduce to job opportunities in the future. It’s nerve-wracking at first but you gotta sell yourself sooner or later, better now than later right?
Find yourself a mentor, this could be an instructor, designers you follow or there are also free mentorship programs out there that that help you. They offer you real insight to the industry as well portfolio, CV, cover letter reviews etc. Stay and keep in touch with your mentor, they can be valuable at times when you need help.
https://www.adplist.org/mentors
Attend seminars and talks, I find this a great way to network but also a great way to learn and that is by listening to industry experts and their real-life experiences, these are valuable lessons that are hard to teach. If you have burning questions this is the best time to ask them, they might give you solutions as to how they would tackle it in the real world.
I’m sure you know about social media, you can join groups and tags on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn etc. There are tons of groups and hashtags you can join and follow, and by doing so you’re keeping up to date with current events and talk topics. #______
Online self study
So hard skills are pretty much anything you can learn such as software knowledge. During your spare time you can learn or update on your hard skills by watching tutorials. The best way to learn is practice, practice, practice. You know the drill, watch a tutorial and practice how to do it, apply it to your projects.
Be prepared to spend more time studying than you would normally, it’s better to do this now than later; after you graduate you want to be fully prepared to inject yourself into the job — imagine googling how to do things on the first day of your new job, you don’t.
Design challenges
As part of some interview process, companies will give you a design/coding challenge to complete, this could be a whiteboard challenge or a coding challenge. Get used to practicing these so you know exactly what to do when the time comes. If you have a chance, try the design challenge yourself and then challenge a friend or your instructor. This way you can see how you might adapt or change your approach to someone else’s challenge. In most cases the challenge isn’t to see your final outcome/answer but it’s generally more about your process and your approach to tackle to the challenge.
Whiteboard challenge
Free programs and materials
Make use of free programs and materials that your school or bootcamp can offer you, even if it’s 10% or 20% off — it’s better than nothing right? Use this opportunity to download these programs and learn to use them during your studies. During my bootcamp I would use a different software for a new project and each time it forced me to learn the new software, and after a few projects I learnt how to use various softwares.
