Jarell Alvarez is a Product Designer and Community Founder at Copperleaf. He has successfully mentored and inspired many mentees on the ADPList platform. You can read the great reviews here. Let’s get to know him more.
There was never an exact moment when I became a Designer. I’ve been unknowingly working on being one ever since I held my first camera at 6 years old. My intuition formed through dusty words on forgotten pages and abstract worlds. When you played with recipes in the kitchen while trying to study mythology and contemplating on how people think or why we’re here, the start wasn’t singular.
I got into this industry because my Aunt told me one day when I was panicking about what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. She told me about her nephew who’s a web designer and makes x amount of money. It struck me like a lightning bolt.
There were two aspects I found really appealing: logical thought process and creativity rolled up into one. I never dreamed of this wombo combo. My career prospects were sitting at a desk doing mundane 9-5 work because I can play on my computer for that long.
Afterwards I took a rigorous program in marketing, design and development where I learned about UX through Don’t Make Me Think. I wanted to be Steve Kreug and found UX extremely exciting.
When I first started mentoring as an alumnus through their program, I wanted to do one thing: Create a positive change in the world. How? Start with one person.
Ever since I started my local design community I was performing a lot of ad hoc mentorships with people interested in joining. I applied to several other places and got rejected to be a mentor and I was feeling discouraged.
After chatting with Winona for a few hours about being a mentor and chatting with Felix right after Christmas Dinner, I aligned with their mission to democratize mentorship for third world countries. That evening I became a mentor and have so many incredible memories and met so many people because of it.
There’s too many to count and I’ve felt the effects of my mentorship over and over again. Lately, I’ve been changing my style to provide a space that feels like a therapist coming in to coach you through your problems. I’ve found it’s the best way to remove my own biases and let the mentee solve their own problems in a meaningful way.
I’m really proud of one of my manatees understanding their value and walking away from a design challenge because they saw how immature the organization's UX is. Another manatee just got an offer for a Senior UX role as a Junior designer and navigated to get what they wanted.
I’m just really proud to see more people gain more confidence and understand their self worth.
Get really comfortable with being uncomfortable early on and don’t be afraid to seek help from others. There’s a lot of opportunities out there and even when things are overwhelming, try starting with one person and go through your career the way you want to.
Try not to get hung up on the over glorification of how shiny other people’s life seems and get down to the bare essentials of how values connect us all.
When in doubt, checkout these resources 👇 and hopefully it can help in the future or book some time with me through ADPList!
https://www.notion.so/Jarell-Alvarez-UX-Resources-2021-68fd20c7df224319ac1409be2fe6eabc
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