URM woman in tech, been in the UX industry for 10 years.
I’m curious, have you or do you know anyone who has made a career switch away from tech and pursued a law degree or a career in law? Since I was a kid, I’ve always felt a draw towards the legal field but couldn’t afford to pursue law school after undergrad due to financial difficulties and being the first in my family to go to college. I needed to prioritize making stable money, which I was able to as a UX designer. Now that I’m 10 years into my UX career, I’ve felt such a nagging feeling that UX isn’t the place for my career anymore. I feel like I’ve outgrown it so much to the point where not enough time away from work or the industry gets rid of that feeling. I’m not necessarily burnt out from working (yet?) but I just look around at where the UX field is going and I truly just want no part in it. It’s not necessarily just because of AI but I do think the way AI is getting shoved into any and everything design related is just surfacing up the underlying ick I’ve always felt about the state of design. It just feels like design is not set up to contribute anything meaningful to society and alteast working in law means there can be some meaningful changes made to the current state of the world.
I’m currently in the process of studying for the LSAT and I would love to connect with likeminded folks who feel the same way or folks who have taken this path before. I haven’t really mentioned it to my designer friends but hoping I’m not the only person who has made this shift before (and if I am, I’m happy to share my journey in making this shift!)
EDIT: I also want to add that I’ve worked across the gamut of tech companies with varying levels of design maturity (FAANG, start ups, old school tech companies like IBM, etc).