Transitioning from Biology Major to Product Design
Meet Paulina Sodeke, who moved from being a Biology Major with no background in Tech to a product design guru.
Pauline graduated from the Department of Science and Technology Education at Obafemi Awolowo University. As a Biology major, her first introduction to digital skills and tech was venturing into graphics design. She started designing for fun and then picked it up as a hobby. Afterward, she began volunteering with NGOs as a graphic designer and turned the craft into a money-making venture.
As someone who studied Education & Biology as a course, Pauline felt like her career options were limited. The most promising career option available to her was teaching, not that this was a bad career path; it was just that in Nigeria and other developing parts of the world, teaching is not exactly a rewarding career path.
Considering this, Pauline started to explore other career paths, especially those connected to the skill she already had, graphic design. She came across product design and decided to explore it as a career path. She took as many free courses as possible until her friend told her about the Women Techsters Fellowship.
Knowing what was at stake, she put in her all and took advantage of the Women Techsters Community to improve her skills; it was not an easy journey, but she went from being a biology major to being a design guru, from having just graphic design knowledge to designing her very first mobile application.
Through the fellowship, she learned a lot about leadership and collaboration and how to take advantage of mentorship, among other soft skills. She was also able to learn so many design concepts like User research, User experience, User Interface Design, Wireframing, Prototyping, Usability testing, Storyboarding, User flows, Figma, Adobe Xd, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, InVision, Maze, Zeplin, Visual Studio Code, Sublime, and Awesome.
The experience wasn’t all rosy; she experienced some difficulties due to electricity and data subscription, but she was encouraged by the kindness and patience of her facilitator, Mona. Ultimately, one of her greatest motivations was making a facilitator and herself proud.
Aside from the technical training, the Women Techsters Fellowship highlights for her were the Tech Girls Drive, Soft skills sessions, and the heartwarming letter sent out to the fellows mid-training to encourage them.
After training, she hopes to embrace internship and volunteering opportunities that will help her hone her skills — at the same time, basking in mentorships from industry experts.
