What I Know Now

When I enrolled at UW-Milwaukee in 2024, I had eighteen years of hair industry experience and zero formal design credentials. I knew I had skills that translated, I just didn't have the language for them yet. A year and a half later, I have a portfolio, two completed UX projects, a capstone, and a much clearer sense of what kind of designer I want to be.

Here is what I know now that I didn't know then.

Design is listening. The best thing I brought into this program wasn't technical skill, it was the ability to pay attention. Every client consultation I ever did in the salon was practice for user research. You learn to hear what someone is actually asking for underneath what they say, and you learn to make something that answers both. That instinct translates directly.

Constraints are a gift. Every project I worked on this year had limitations: time, team size, scope, resources. Early on, constraints felt like obstacles. By the end of the capstone, I understood them as one of the most useful design tools available. Knowing what you are not building is just as important as knowing what you are.

The details matter more than you think. Whether it was choosing tappable buttons over a dropdown menu in FoodBridge, or breaking a form into two steps instead of one in Good Neighbor, the small decisions are where the user experience actually lives. I came into this program with eighteen years of evidence that details matter. Design school confirmed it.

I am just getting started. I have a lot left to learn, and I know it. But I also know that the skills I am building, listening, empathy, attention to detail, and the ability to translate what people need into something they can actually use, are the right foundation. I am ready for what comes next.