A graduate becoming an official Rabbit

Before you start reading, if I had my way I would have written a book about this, but only have a few minutes to do so, so sit back and relax for the next 4 minutes. I am going to tell you about my experience during the Retro Rabbit Graduate Program.

So Enjoy!

Let’s start from the beginning, way back on the first day (like 8 months ago)…

If I have to be honest, so much can change in someone’s life, especially for me. Within the first day on the job, I was a nervous wreck. It felt like I was starting my first day of school: a graduate stepping into the real world and thoughts all over the place. If I had the choice I would go back in time and live the rest of my life studying but there was no turning back. After a few minutes (can even be the whole day) I realised that I was not the only one feeling this way.

I expected to sit down on my first day, get my laptop and immediately dive into different client projects and start designing. But it was the complete opposite. Retro Rabbit wanted to make us feel comfortable and welcome in the next few days, even the next few years.

For the next few days, we played different games from charades (I was not good at it) to team building activities. Those activities helped all the grads bond with each other even more (the devs especially).

Let’s skip to three to four weeks later, all 18 graduates were split into separate teams for our first client projects.

OHHHH EXCITING!

The game is about to begin.

But first, let me tell you a story from my college days. Living in my world, I thought software developers could do everything and had the easiest job in the world and code like in the movies using HTML. Easy peasy right? Boy was I wrong!

Back to the present

Working with them for the next three months opened my mind completely. For instance, I did not know that there were front and back-end devs, I thought of them as developers (basically a unicorn who can do anything). While working with them for the next three months, there were days where they talked to each other about Angular and C Sharp, and me being curious, minding my own business doing designs, wondered “what are they talking about.”

I have to tell you a team secret, there was one developer that shut out everything from the world around him, even when we called him. He would start talking to himself about what he should do next or figuring out how to finish a task within the project.

To be honest I gained a lot of respect for them, more than I had before. Not only do they have the hardest job in the world (in my opinion), they work their butts off day and night to be able to deliver.

Not everything was a fairytale, some days were rough. From developers questioning our design work, bothering the design team every minute all the way design changes. But we were here to learn and grow into someone you never thought you could be. And all I have to say is this: If I could go back 8 months I would not recognise myself at all.

I learned a lot from the graduate programs. It changed me into the confident UX/UI designer that I am today; I met people where some are becoming close friends, and I'm enjoying every moment working there. Never in my life had I ever thought I would say this “I LOVE MY JOB”, and Retro Rabbit made that happen.

Now that the program is finished, the probation period is over, and I'm happy to say I am glad to be part of the Retro Rabbit family.

THE END!