Hi! This is my first time posting here. My name’s Jake, I’m 19 years old and I’m a computer science major at Northampton Community College. I plan to transfer after two years of education here. This is my second semester of college, and ever since I started, I have been interested in pursuing UX Design as a career.
I first became interested in UX Design when an app I use a lot, Soundcloud, got a MAJOR update in 2014 that completely changed the app and the way everyone would use it… for worse. It wasn’t just me that hated it, literally everyone who has used Soundcloud could not stand the new iOS update, almost every single review was terrible. The update was supposed to add simplicity and a more modern design to the app, but it ended up removing TONS of essential features that users loved about the app.
Soundcloud as a company hasn’t been doing so well ever since. I was so frustrated by it and it made me pretty upset, so I thought to myself, “who is responsible for this?” I found the field of UX Design, which I have researched extensively, and found that UX Designers design products and software explicitly with the user and their experience with the product in mind. So, I concluded that it was possible that a UX disaster occurred at Soundcloud HQ. But this field fascinated me, and I have been pursing it as a career ever since.
I first chose Web Development as my major, but when I found that that major doesn’t transfer very well, and that most UX employers are looking for computer science majors, a major that most colleges offer, I switched to computer science. However, I have been struggling with the most important classes of the degree, calculus and computer science itself, and have been contemplating changing my major ever since.
Now, I still really want to do UX Design, and I found that there are quite a few other undergrad degrees that would still lead me to a UX career (since there are currently no bachelor’s degrees specifically for UX, since it is such a new field). MY QUESTION to you guys is, should I stick to computer science if I want a career in UX, or are there other majors I could study that would still lead to a UX career? If so, which majors do you guys recommend for me? Thank you so much for reading through my post, as I am in a very tough place right now and any advice would be greatly appreciated.
P.S. I have watched the UX Mastery video on getting started wth UX Design.