On Jun 20, 2008, at 12:57 PM, Harvinder wrote:
We are a UX recruting firm and work with a lot of Fortune companies as
clients. I have recently seen that in a lot of UX positions
companies are
increasingly asking for a Master's degree in design, HCI or related
fields.
We recently got some body interviewed at Microsoft who has 8 years
of strong
experience in Usability and User Research and the comment that came
across
from the hiring manager was if she had a Master's degree it would
open up a
lot of doors for her at Microsoft.
Any person or company asking for a masters degree in design or HCI to
do work in the software industry at this point in time is making a
huge mistake. Having hired many people out of the best programs in the
country in the past 10 years, and seeing where these programs are at
this stage even today, it is clear people are still graduating without
enough of the proper balance of skills vs theory. There are some that
are exceptions to this rule, but not many.
I'm sure that will change like it does with all design professions as
this particular field matures over time. However, we're simply not
there yet. What people should be looking for is experience and example
of work that prove the person can excel at the job. At this stage,
that is all that matters.
As for needing a degree? Sure. It can certainly help, but like all
things in higher education, what you should be looking for is the
right school for you, and even more important than that, the right
mentors and teachers. The school itself or even the program is not
what matters. It's the person that is teaching you that does.
And for what its worth, I dropped out of college to get into the
software industry. Do I regret it? No. Back in 1990, no one was
teaching what I wanted to learn, so I had to do it myself. I went into
deep immersion mode about all things design and coding related and
haven't looked back since. Times have changed, which is nice, but
there are still a lot of people out there spending a lot of money and
learning the wrong things. If you are you looking at programs, make
sure you do your homework.
My only advice is this: If you are choosing design programs with the
intention of getting into the field of high-technology, desktop
applications, web applications, or pretty much anything in the digital
realm that uses software at its core, make sure the program you pick
is blending practical design skills (art, color, drawing, typography,
layout, etc) with computing skills (coding, scripting, algorithms,
database, etc.) And on the side, you'd do yourself a big favor by
picking up a hobby that requires craft or years of practice to master,
since at its heart, that is what this field is all about even if
people get so immersed into their digital devices they might forget
it. Things like playing a musical instrument, or painting, or building
furniture, or gardening, or any number of hobbies that require you to
use your hands and not a keyboard or mouse.
--
Andrei Herasimchuk
Principal, Involution Studios
innovating the digital world
e. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
c. +1 408 306 6422
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