How do you measure the impact of UX courses on your career?

It's important to set goals when you take on a new initiative of any kind. When you're talking about UX education, your desired outcome can be anything from learning something new about UX to getting a job as a UX designer. It's important to be clear about this outcome before you choose your course. This way you can tailor your course toward your desired outcome. It's also important to adjust expectations and refine the outcome as you get deeper into the course. It's good to have period check-ins to make sure you're on the right road to get to where you need to go. You may learn something new that causes you to want to redefine your outcome, or you may discover that the particular course you chose is only a piece of your UX education pie.

Another thing I'd add is to gather feedback not only after the fact, but also during your projects. Have a mentor or instructor leave comments and thought-provoking questions to help you think outside the box, learn what is working well and what can be done differently. What's more is to understand the level of performance you're at in order to look forward on where you'd like to grow into. What is expected of an early UX-er? Mid-level? Senior? A good mentor can guide you there, and a good instructor should be able to build solid foundations first before talking about trends.

Feedback is key. A sidekick to seeking out feedback, and learning how to take feedback as a designer, is learning the skill of filtering feedback. Everyone you speak to (especially designers!) will have a different opinion on something that you've executed. They may have preferences for tools, platforms, formats, what you should include in a case study, what not to include, etc. etc. It's part of your development to learn how to take this feedback and pick and choose how you'd like to proceed and iterate. At the end of the day, it's your work and you need to be able to stand behind it.

Feedback is the most critical component to learning UX writing and content design and leveling up your skills. Without feedback, you won't know if you're doing it "right," and you won't have any insight on how to improve your skills. That said, not all feedback is created equally. Look for feedback that's personalized, detailed, and actionable.

UX bootcamps can be a blessing and a curse. As someone who's been enrolled in these camps, I can vouch that they're not worth it. 1- There are many free resources online 2- They don't prepare you for the real work environment 3- They don't teach you about business goals. The only good thing they give you is applied design fundamentals that you can find in any book or free course. My advice is you should focus on building projects that combine business goals and user needs. Focus on research and how you articulate your decisions. And remember, the design process is not perfect as they project in bootcamps. It's messy and it's more like a back-and-forth rather than that linear process.

Compare your proficiency before and after taking the course. Evaluating how well you understand basic UX tools, methods, and techniques, and determining if you can apply them in real-world scenarios is another way to track your progress. Another way is by assessing your improvements in usability, aesthetics, and user satisfaction in your contributions to your UX projects at your company. Additionally, asking for honest feedback from peers, mentors, or colleagues in the UX field about how your skills have improved since you took the courses can also be helpful. It's so obvious that feeling more capable and comfortable is a great indicator of positive impact. Keep tracking your growth and remember that Rome wasn't built in a day!

Record yourself building a prototype in timelapse mode before and after you take a course. This is a great way to show your network how much you've learned.

Instead of solely focusing on UX courses, look for opportunities where you can get practical experience. This can mean working for a nonprofit to help update a website or looking at existing apps and giving it a refresh. You can also seek out other UX graduates and come together to work on an independent project. When you surround yourself with people who share the same goals, you're able to help motivate eachother and get valuable feedback on your projects.

Enrolling in a UX course is completely optional and not an essential step to launching a UX career. There are plenty of free resource online now in days. And if you're structured and dedicated, you can even create your own “curriculum” with all the free resources and teach yourself. That said, information is only one part of education. Without feedback and support, it'll be hard to have the education click and improve on the foundational knowledge.