Back to the Podcast

UX Cabin Interns - Internship 2.0: the good, the bad, and the ugly

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

YouTube

Google Podcasts

Highlights

From the latest of our internship, the graduating UX Cabin interns spill on what they experienced during their time at UX Cabin. Read the blog below and listen to the full episode for more about the struggles, the challenges, and the benefits they experienced over the last three months!

🔥 UX Cabin has a unique approach that differentiates this internship from online learning opportunities.

By cutting the fluff and getting right to the point, this internship was designed to help our interns get the experience they need to launch into a product design career with practical experience to share with prospective employers!

💪 Challenge leads to change!

Each intern was challenged in their own way. The UX Cabin internship will help you to fill in your gaps and grow where you need to become a more well-rounded product designer.

🎯 The winning formula to success:

The right intern who is ready to commit to the journey
+ a jam-packed and organized training course
+ several hands-on learning activities and projects
+ a supportive mentor and team that all want the interns to succeed
Successful interns!

Internship 2.0: the good, the bad, and the ugly

In episode 17 of The Product Design Podcast, Seth Coelen interviews The UX Cabin interns, Muneerah Abdulrahman (aka Moon), David Applebee, Joe Montero, and Karen Mork. These four individuals were selected from over 800 applicants who applied to participate in the UX Cabin Internship 2.0 back in the fall.

During our interview with the UX Cabin interns, you will learn about each intern's unique experiences during their time at UX Cabin. In the full podcast episode, they share the good, the bad, and the ugly and how they feel about the field of product design now that they have finished this part of their learning journey!

Overview of the UX Cabin Internship 2.0

The UX Cabin Internship 2.0 opportunity is designed as a three-month, deep-dive into product design. We want to help our interns determine what aspect of product design intrigues them. Whether they prefer UI design, UX design, or UX research, we give them the information and practical experience to help them figure that out. Our goal is to have our interns come out of our internship with practical experience and knowledge to help boost them into their product design careers!

During the three months, our internship is broken down into three phases:

🎨 Month 1: UI design and Figma

During this month, our interns learn UI design fundamentals and put these fundamentals into practice as they learn.

📊 Month 2: UX Research & UX design process

This month our interns dive into the UX design process as a whole, including UX research. They collaborate in a Design Sprint.

🎯 Month 3: End-to-end design project

Our interns put everything together this month as they individually design their products. From identifying the problem through research to sketching & wireframing, designing a prototype, and testing it—they do it all!

What challenges did the interns face over the three-month internship opportunity?

There is a lot to think about when considering whether to join a Bootcamp, an online course, or an internship. Each comes with a different set of challenges and benefits. Along with that, everyone has a unique learning style. When we asked our interns what the most significant challenges were, they had varying opinions on what challenged them the most.With Moon and Joe, the more challenging part was learning the tools and finding how to best approach the workload. Moon found that she had a lot to learn in Figma, and Figma challenged her because the coursework was extensive and pressed her for needing additional time to get the hang of everything. Joe found his most significant challenge in learning how to present a project brief in a video to share with the team remotely. Both of them embraced the challenges and have grown tremendously from taking the time to dig in and learn the tools that will help them along their paths.Karen and David found the biggest challenges in learning how to navigate the realities of working in a 100% remote position. They were not used to spending as much time sitting at a computer or creating the boundaries that come more naturally with an office job. They had to learn how to take the time for breaks and take care of themselves while balancing the workload they managed during their three months with UX Cabin.

The most significant benefits to the UX Cabin Internship 2.0

Since the UX Cabin internship is a paid opportunity, we want it to benefit and support the interns and the company. There is an aspect of cutting out some of the fluff you may find in other learning opportunities. Because of this, our interns found that they learned so much more in their three months with us than they had learned by taking online courses or going the self-taught route. Here are some of the most significant benefits each intern found on their journey with us!

🌱 Realizing growth as it occurs is motivating!

Moon said she could see the growth as it was happening and shared how it really encouraged her along the way. Her biggest growth areas were in time management and in her Figma skills. Her time management skills were tested, and she had to learn how to adapt to the coursework. She also found that Figma helped her hone in on her creativity and become stronger as a product designer.

"There is nothing more exciting and encouraging than seeing yourself grow." -Muneerah Abdulrahman

🛠 Filling in the gaps!

Karen found that although she had been working on two online certificates before she joined us, there were still significant gaps in her exposure to the topics and information that was focused on during our internship. She shared that it was a wonderful feeling to be filling in those knowledge gaps to set herself up for success after the internship.

"The internship really solidified my interest and passion for the field. That was amazing because I've always experienced confusion in this realm of my life. This is the first time where I know exactly where I want to be." - Karen Mork

💪 Having a clearly defined layout and the support of a team makes a huge difference!

Joe found so many benefits of being involved in our internship. His favorite benefits include:
- How the coursework was organized
- Having a mentor to support and answer questions
- Working with the other intern and the team
- The supportive community that UX Cabin had to offer!

"This internship is the perfect opportunity to see what work would be like in a UX or product design environment." - Joe Montero

📢 Self-learning is awesome, but supported learning is even better!

David had focused on self-learning for over six months before joining our internship. He felt like he had learned a lot up to that point, but in month one of the training, David quickly realized how deep this internship would dive and how much he would learn in a very short period! He became very excited about the amount of experience the training would bring in only three months.

"I learned so much more in three months than I had when doing anything on my own." - David Applebee

Parting advice from our graduating UX Cabin interns!

We wanted to close out with a bit of advice, so why finish off by asking this graduating class of UX Cabin interns what they would say to the UX Cabin interns of the future?

💡 To any potential interns who may join in on the next internship round later in 2022:

"Just go for it." -Muneerah Abdulrahman

"Stay organized." - David Applebee

"Don't doubt yourself." - Karen Mork

"Stay committed and trust the process." - Joe Montero

Thank you so much, Moon, Karen, Joe, and David!

What a fun way to wrap up our time together after the internship! It has been such a pleasure working with and getting to know you all over the last three months. We hope that you see the remarkable progress you made along this portion of your learning path with us. We are blown away by the outstanding work you have done. We can't wait to see what comes next for each of you. We are sure you will all make an impact in this industry!

Don't forget to follow Moon, Karen, Joe, and David as they continue to move along their learning and career paths in product design! Below we have shared all of the places where you can connect and follow them!

Moon:

Karen:

Joe:

David:

📨 Get each podcast delivered to your inbox. No spam, we promise!

‍

Thank you! Your submission has been received!

Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

Share the Podcast