I attended the UX Club at UT Dallas UXperience 2023: Pixels to Possibilities conference and met a welcoming, creative community! I formed so many new bonds and friendships with similar career goals, which makes working in the UX field much more fun!

I had the great opportunity to serve as a design track judge for HackUTD X Golden Hour, Texas' largest university hackathon. I had the privilege to evaluate the project designs for their accessibility and the level of how seamless user experience is presented. In addition, give critique to participants who were tasked to complete their project within a 25-hour.

Professor McKinney launched his first class titled "Topics in Design." I was prepared to apply all the knowledge and experience I had gained in less than a year in the UX/UI career path. With my role as lead researcher, our prompt problem tasked by IBM was to develop a mental health solution based on AI while addressing the challenge of users hesitating to rely on artificial intelligence.

I got to attend the HackUTD X: Golden Hour where I judged over 1001 hackers that developed solutions within 25 hours. Participants submitted 230 projects addressing real-world challenges presented by our sponsors, including platinum sponsor Goldman Sachs, gold sponsors Toyota North America, Fidelity Investments, Statefarm Insurance, as well as CBRE, EOG Resources, Fannie Mae, Frontier Communications, and PRHI.

My team and I won first place among over 130+ participants. We presented our mobile app to design professionals from Intuit and the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science at UT Dallas. It was an honor, and I am extremely grateful for this opportunity and proud of what my team and I accomplished.

We learned how to get started with UX from industry professionals. Featuring panelists with diverse experience— alumni, industry experts, and professors. A standout moment from the panel was Brittany, a principal product designer with a literature background, who changed her career after graduation. Her story inspired me to persevere in the UX community, despite starting later than my peers in my junior year of university.

Miranda Hurtado hosted the workshop at JPMorgan Chase & Co. My group and I presented the low-fidelity screens we created in three different versions for a to-do list settings app within 30 minutes. Mirando also shared insights on how to structure a UX case study and tips to make our portfolio stand out.

UTD UX and UNT UX Student Association members had the privilege of touring the Paycom Office. This memorable experience gave us invaluable insights into the Product Design Team and their Product Design Internship.