The most important thing I’ve taken away from my Drexel education has been a diverse skillset. I was interested in fine art in high school, and looked almost exclusively at art schools for college. I realized, however, that I didn’t want to hole myself into a specific area of expertise, and chose Drexel to chase after a more general education. This ended up being one of the best decisions of my life. I enrolled as an Animation student where I learned the fundamentals of effective storytelling and experience design, before switching to Interactive Digital Media where I developed my abilities in design and programming. I supplemented this knowledge with a minor in marketing to give me a better understanding of design in a business sense. The opportunity to develop such a variety of knowledge is what has made the difference for me professionally. 

I did my co-op with Oracle Primavera as a user experience intern. I helped to design and modify features for their project management software Prime, which meant doing a lot of design work in programs like Adobe Illustrator and Sketch. I could have gotten by with only a basic knowledge of design, but it was the additional skills that helped me to excel in this role. The size of the company meant that I had to learn to work closely with a variety of teams, including those in business, marketing and development. User experience requires an in-depth understanding of all aspects of a project, and the diversity of my education at Drexel helped me to excel at this. I am continuing to work at Oracle as a User Experience Designer, and will work to continue taking on new challenges there. I look forward to seeing the impact of my designs in the real world, and how I can create experiences that make a difference in people’s lives.