Trying to break into this field seems to offer so much ambiguous information online that’s it’s hard to understand what a realistic approach is to start a career in it.
I have done some research over the past few weeks and I’ll summarize the conflicting points I have read
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A lot of designers will say take a few courses that are ideally free, grind on some quality projects for a few months, do some typical networking and then you might be ready for a junior position.
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Other threads say take a bootcamp and just distinguish yourself my studying beyond class and not creating a cookie cutter portfolio. While others say bootcamps are a major scam.
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The job market is basically over for juniors, either have a masters or you are toast in a sea of junior UXers.
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You can’t learn enough to get into this field in 6-8 months. Without internships you will have to probably work in other positions and make a career shift later on.
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Other threads say spend a few years taking low paid contract work or doing work for free just to build a portfolio, your own projects won’t be enough to be job ready.
The uncertain about me being able to get a job if I dedicated myself to studying this full time is what concerns me the most. I am an upcoming IT graduate. I wish I had found UX/UI earlier to try and get internships, but I only recently realized while doing front end projects, that UX/UI seems much more compatible with who I am.
I can’t afford to spend an entire year grinding away full time unemployed to try and learn UX. I need a reality check, does a college graduate with basically no work experience have any chance at getting a job within 8-10 months if they dedicate themselves to this full time? And what are the basic outlined steps you would recommend to them from scratch to attempt to achieve this? I already took a basic UI course so I have practiced the fundamentals of visual design and UI building in Figma.
If it isn’t realistic, It’s not the end of the world for me since I can probably go into front end development since that’s what I have been practicing, but I am trying my best right now to formulate a plan for my future.