At the same time, there were a number of upstarts that were hyper-specific to advertising copywriting and art direction: BrainCo in Minneapolis, Miami Ad School, Portfolio Center in Atlanta. Even Chicago had AdEd (where I was able to take courses with the amazing Kevin Lynch and Dave Lowe).
However, there were still many of us in advertising that had never taken formal advertising coursework and had no idea what a portfolio was (thank you, thank you, thank you Maxine Paetro and Bruce Bendinger). Personally, once I had landed a summer internship at O&M and started hearing about these amazing programs, my response was “%#CK THAT!, I just got out of college!”
Point is, there was so much conjecture about the value of those who went to a traditional university, those who pursued a focused (and expensive) specialty program and those who were self-made advertising creatives. Just like there is right now among UX practitioners. I do believe that it all evens out in the end. I have some friends who went through the specialty programs and are no longer in the business. And I know self-made creatives who rose to the top of their profession and are kicking ass as I type.
Other than a higher initial salary for the Portfolio Center grads, it eventually came down to raw talent, hard work, experience, self-promotion, connections/networking and the ability to get knocked down and get right back up without bitching too much (some bitching is always allowed). This is absolutely true for where we are now.
University of Michigan’s HCI program may be right for some of us... or Jared Spool’s Unicorn Institute... or simply reading the “polar bear book” and messing around with HTML.
If you’ve stumbled on this post and are trying to figure out what is right for you (i.e., just starting out or mid-career switch), make sure to check out what Fred Beecher is doing at The Nerdery, as well as this post and this post on Usability Matters.
If you can make it to Chicago this August, An Event Apart would be great experience no matter where you are at in your career. Finally, your local chapter of IxDA should be hosting monthly events. I try and attend both the Grand Rapids chapter and the Chicago chapter—each is well-run and plugged into its UX community.
UPDATE: Additional UX Resources & Training Opportunity
On February 4, 2016, IxDA Chicago co-hosted an event with General Assembly that featured a dynamic panel and lively Q+A. Local UX leaders discussed everything from leveling-up in a current UX/UI role to transitioning to UX from another role to getting started in the field.The deck from that event, which includes Chicagoland UX Directors noting what they look for when recruiting UX talent, recommendations on UX resources (books and training) and examples of great UX work, can be downloaded from Slideshare:
Transition to UX: Panel of Local UX Leaders Hosted by IxDA Chicago and General Assembly
Adding to the list of training options above, make sure to check out General Assembly’s 10-week, full-time career accelerator in Chicago: User Experience Design Immersive.
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