---
title: My Design Apprentice Experience
teaser:
tags: design,apprenticeship
author: Lisa Sy
published_on: 2013-09-05
---

As the middle of September approaches, I am about to finish the last
week of my three-month Design Apprenticeship at [thoughtbot][thoughtbot]  in their San
Francisco office. It has been a summer of ample personal and professional
growth.

Before I joined the apprenticeship in June, I had just finished my last semester
in college. Because my American Studies major was perfectly unrelated to design
or engineering, I had prepared myself for this apprenticeship by bootstrapping
my own design education during my free time in school: I made Wordpress websites
for my friends’ clubs, created logos for student and campus organizations, and
led a student-run design consultancy. Despite these experiences, I knew that
there was only so much that I could learn on my own before I needed to gain true
professional experience to further my career. The next sensible step was to
participate in [apprentice.io][apprentice].

![''](http://media.tumblr.com/8c43b6d3b3470ae74bfb150f5c9f7065/tumblr_inline_msnw61rW0H1qz4rgp.jpg)

The apprenticeship focuses on training people in the skills required to become
a full-time developer or [designer][designer] on the team. thoughtbot
developers and designers not only possess technical expertise to create
products, but they must understand how to meet client needs as well. After all,
there are no project managers, so the developers and designers *are* the
consultants.

Given the structure of the company, I was placed in a professional learning
environment where I was expected to acquire the technical prowess needed to
implement my designs, interact with clients, understand their needs, and work
collaboratively with other developers and designers while directing my own
work.

I’ve learned a lot through my mentors, the open-source projects that I’ve
contributed to, and self-guided learning. Today, I collaborate with a team of
developers and designers using a [formulated Git flow][guides], write HAML and
SCSS using best practices, prefer [Vim][vim] as my go-to text editor, and much
more.  Aside from developing my technical abilities, I’ve also gained product
skills from real-life and hands-on exposure to client work. I co-led [five-day
ideation-based product design sprints][design sprint], conducted user
interviews and user testing, and learned how products and businesses grow.

![''](http://media.tumblr.com/bb77b3c48259a7653d3110873610199c/tumblr_inline_msnxafcZKl1qz4rgp.jpg)

It has been an incredibly rewarding three-month intensive learning period.
Given the intensive nature of it, I would primarily recommend the design
apprenticeship only to those who are 100% certain that they want to become a
product designer in the technology field. We encourage that our design
apprentice applicants to have designed and coded HTML/CSS websites before,
have a portfolio showcasing a solid grasp of visual design principles, and
understand *why* it is that they are interested in designing products and
experiences for people.

If you do not feel ready to apply for the apprenticeship, thoughtbot’s [Upcase][learn]
program is a great resource for those getting started. Also, some of the
designers here are available via email if you have questions about design, need
learning resources, or want to know how to get started on jumpstarting your
design career.

* Lisa (me): *lisa@thoughtbot.com*
* Alex: *alex@thoughtbot.com*
* General apprentice.io email: *apply@apprentice.io*

However, if you feel ready to take the next step to launch your design career in
tech, then apply for the [apprenticeship][apprentice]!

[thoughtbot]: http://thoughtbot.com "thoughtbot"
[apprentice]: http://apprentice.io "apprentice.io"
[guides]: https://github.com/thoughtbot/guides "thoughtbot guides"
[vim]: https://thoughtbot.com/upcase/vim "Learn Vim at thoughtbot's Upcase"
[design sprint]: http://www.designstaff.org/articles/product-design-sprint-2012-10-02.html "Google Ventures product design sprint"
[designer]: http://www.thoughtbot.com/jobs/designer "thoughtbot Designer"
[learn]: https://thoughtbot.com/upcase/join "thoughtbot's Upcase"