How to Become a Self-Taught UX Designer

Creating your own curriculum, networking when you know nobody, and making what you need to get hired.

Breana Wallace
UX Collective
Published in
9 min readSep 30, 2020

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A woman draws out flows on paper with coffee off to the right
Photo by Green Chameleon on Unsplash

4 years ago I quit my job, learned how to code, built a design portfolio, and became a UX Designer at a top company. I tripled my income that year.

I didn't go back to school, I didn’t sign up for an expensive bootcamp. I was scrappy and figured out how to make it work. The goal of this article is to help you do the same.

You can even grab a mentoring session with me if you want some more personalized help.

Let’s jump right in:

The biggest benefits of being self-taught:

  1. Saving money (or even staying out of more debt like I wanted to after my undergrad experience)
  2. Saving time (bootcamps are less of a commitment than a Masters, but they’re still a good chunk of time. Save years of your life potentially by trying to get some experience before you commit to a career)
  3. The ability to curate your own education (No more spending time on classes you can’t get motivated to participate in because you might not be able to see how they directly impact your future career)
  4. People find you to be

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Top Writer | UX Designer, Innovator & Mentor to Passionate People | Enjoying my mini-retirement 🏖️ Join Medium Today: https://breanawallace.medium.com/members