In a couple of weeks the cohort will have to go for their internships or look for volunteering opportunities. As a run up to the industry connect phase, the cohort is busy building their portfolio which would be a showcase of their skills, accomplishments to prospective clients and employers. They are also constantly looking at the relevant skills that are essential in their domain.
Sriya has been deep diving in designing with UI/UX as her focus. As part of her research, she found out that most employers prefer candidates with the knowledge of FIGMA, an interface design tool.
To learn FIGMA, she decided to build a tracking app that would help her cohort buddies track their activities and progress digitally. To start off with, she created a basic design draft of the screen without any details. She referred to YouTube tutorials by other designers to understand features, plugins, tools, icons used in FIGMA.
After this basic set up, Sriya felt stuck and confused on what exactly to do, how to do, where to start. She kept trying to push herself to think of more possibilities everytime she got stuck, but to no avail. After mulling over her confusions and looking at multiple videos, she realised the need to organise the interface the way designers usually do instead of plonking features randomly onto a screen. This understanding gave her some relief but the pace at which she was progressing still bothered and also distracted her. She also realised the need to move beyond YT tutorials.
She then spoke to Ratnesh, one of the guides, about how the lack of progress and pace was making her doubt her capabilities and whether she needed a mentor. This is when Ratnesh intervened asking her the objective of this project – was it to complete it under a certain time limit or to master a list of skills?
This was followed by a series of questions probing sriya to see her situation, needs and plans for herself. She realised she was being too rigid by expecting herself to master the skills instantly and not taking enough time to soak in the tool and play around with different features, make mistakes and enjoy the process. It struck her, she was standing in her own way!
The dialogue also gave her clarity to broaden her learning resources beyond tutorials and participate in forums, support groups before reaching out to a mentor.
On a CoVersity Journey, you will be stuck at many junctures since you are figuring everything out by yourself. But you also have ample avenues like cohort, guides, community to connect, share, express, have a dialogue that can help, push, comfort, nudge, question you.