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Student Testimonial – UX Design Certificate

Nov 27, 2023 | Alumni Success, Testimonials, UX Design Certificate

Through feedback and employment reports from alumni students, we have recently been able to connect with a few alumni to talk about their experiences as a DWC student, any current professional endeavors, and how their time at DWC shaped their professional lives.

Brenda Nies is a 2023 graduate of our UX Design Certificate program. With being in between jobs, a conversation with her local career services led her to discover she could upskill herself to become more marketable in the design world. After taking a look at other schools that offer similar programs, Brenda discovered that DWC has everything she was looking for. Now, the way she interacts with Adobe programs and software has been forever changed. Through working with our expert instructors, she was able to find better, more effective ways to go about designing her work. Continue reading to learn more about Brenda and her DWC experience in the UX Design classes.

student testimonial

What led you to choose DWC as the next step in your education? How did you end up in the UX Design Certificate Program?

Yeah, so where it started with the UX design was I had taken a program at a library and they were talking about career services that were offered through our county. I went to the county through worknet, and learned that I could get some skills to make me more marketable because I am kind of between jobs at the moment and with my job being a graphic designer, UX Design is becoming more prevalent. So I thought that it was a great time to pursue UX design  because a lot of the job postings I was seeing were asking for programs and things like that that were involved with UX.

I worked with my county and I started going through their list of schools and I had it narrowed down to a few of them, but then DWC; based on your description on your website, that’s exactly what I was looking for…the UX Design Certificate, the programs I was looking for, and the type of skills that I was looking for.

You mentioned that you’re a regular user of Adobe. What kind of jobs were you working before you came to us?

So I was daily in Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator. I’ve also done some web design, but I’ve done it through WordPress or through, you know, straight coding. With DWC and the UX program, I was able to learn a better way to create a website and I was able to learn Figma and XD to put together a website that was so much easier than the way I originally knew how.

Thinking back to your time as a DWC student and being in online classes, what do you remember being kind of the most influential part about the two programs?

Looking back at the intro to UX class, just because it was a smaller group. We were getting more personalized attention with our projects and we were able to go through a lot of stuff and focus on questions we had during class. We were able to take time and look at everybody’s struggles or see where they were with their projects. So I think that’s what was most memorable, being able to have that personal touch to the class because of our smaller group.

It was not just the personalized focus on each of our projects and our journeys through the class, but also being able to tailor the class, whereas a larger class size was okay, you have to go through everybody at different levels. You have to go through a universal syllabus, whereas with the smaller class sizes, like, okay, this is on the syllabus, but you guys know this so will move to this. So I think that was helpful as well.

So, what are you doing now? Do you have any current professional endeavors? How do you feel as though the programs prepared you for the workforce you are in?

Nothing in the works yet; I just had an interview last week. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out, but I think the classes at DWC definitely helped me build my website. I had a website before, but it was outdated, it was old. I didn’t really care for the design. With what I learned at DWC, I was able to add more of a personal touch and focus more on the content of my website rather than just get my work out there because I’m the designer, not the web developer.

With the classes at DWC, I was able to be the designer of my website and not have to worry about all the coding by using XD. I didn’t have to worry about all the coding that was behind it. I was able to focus on the design but still get a working website together.

student testimonial
You can check out Brenda’s digital portfolio here: https://www.brendanies.com/

How have you felt as though the skills you’ve learned impacted your personal life, being in between jobs? Do you feel as though you’re still using those skills on a daily basis or implementing them in other ways?

I’m definitely using them on a daily basis, and I think even though I had to take, as part of the program, Photoshop and Illustrator, those classes were easy. But at the same time, I learned some new stuff that the Adobe programs had implemented over the course of however many years. And also just learning different ways of doing things; I had my way of doing certain tasks within all these programs, but then seeing another way was very helpful and it was like, okay, I can be more efficient by doing it that way instead.

What advice would you offer to somebody considering us as a school, but also to those considering the Graphic Design and Digital Marketing Certificates?

Just be yourself and let your imagination come to life. Don’t try to compare yourself to others because we all have different styles, different journeys and we learn from each other too. So we have our styles and things that we like to design, but we can also share that with others, give others insight by what we create. And it is definitely worth it.

I was, to be honest, a little skeptical with the online classes, but it ended up working out really well because I was able to still get one-on-one attention in class and still learn. So it was like still being physically in class. So I’d say don’t let the online platform scare you away because you’re still going to get that personalized attention and still learn just as much.

Do you have any final thoughts as you reflect on your time as a DWC student? 

I really enjoyed my time at DWC. All the instructors were very nice and very personable. You didn’t have to be afraid of asking any question. And I think they just taught in a way that made everybody understand. And if you got stuck, they took the time to have you share your screen or they shared their screen and said, okay, here’s how we can fix this.

We learned a lot in a short amount of time, but it never felt fast paced. It always felt we were going at an even pace. And I think because of that, because of the instructors, I was able to not only learn a lot, but feel comfortable learning.

Brenda knew she had to find a way to upskill her design skills as the digital world of design continues to evolve at rapid speeds. What worked for her before didn’t work anymore and with the expert instruction and curriculum offered at DWC, she was able to become a more effective UX Designer.

For those interested in UX Design, our certificate program enables you to learn theory and technology to create effective designs and use all aspects of the end-user’s experience. You will work with design fundamentals, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and have a real-world capstone project that lets you peek into the real world of UX designing. 

student testimonial
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