A review of the Academy Xi UX/UI Transform course

The start

Let’s rewind back to last year to the start of my UX journey. It was June 2021 and I was working in marketing for a real estate company.

Back then, I had decided that I wanted to transition into the user experience space and had started looking into the different UX/UI courses that were open for enrolment.

Being honest, I didn’t look at that many courses. General Assembly (GA) and Academy Xi were two companies that were well known for their bootcamps so it was a choice between them.

In the end, I opted to enrol in the 6-month Academy Xi UX/UI part-time Transform course.

Where I am now

Fast forward to the time of writing this (August 2021), I’ve finished my UX/UI course, completed a paid 3-month internship at Reece, and am now a permanent UX Designer within Reece.

Reece is Australia’s leading distributor of plumbing, waterworks and HVAC-R products to residential, commercial and infrastructure customers through 800 branches in Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

It’s been an adventure having made that initial decision to move into UX, do a bootcamp and then get my first role within the UX industry.

Why I’m writing this review

I do sometimes still reflect back at the UX/UI course I did.

I remember at our graduation ceremony, our mentor was asking us students for feedback on the course and shortly after I also filled in a survey to give them my thoughts.

At the time, I gave them a few comments but if you asked me now as a UX Designer, I’d give a slightly different review and feedback. Since graduating, I’ve gone through the job hunting phase, settled into a new industry and have been practicing UX design.

A few people have also reached out to me to ask for my review of the Academy Xi UX/UI course and so I think now is a good time to look back and provide some good, honest feedback.

Was the Academy Xi course any good? Did it help me to transition into UX?

This review is for anyone who is considering enrolling in the course that I took (part-time UX/UI Transform course).

These courses are expensive so hopefully this review will help you work out what else you need to think about to make sure you’re choosing the right course that suits you.

I’m also providing a reality check because student life is very different to someone wanting to break into the UX industry, which is the ultimate aim of everyone who enrols in these bootcamps.

Know someone who is looking at UX/UI courses, tag them in the comments so they can read this review.

Let’s get into it

Real life client projects gave me ‘real’ life work experience, which is what hiring managers are looking for.

I knew right from the start that I wanted to move into this new user experience industry as a UX Designer, which is one of the reasons why I chose the Academy Xi course.

The UX/UI Transform course included two real life client projects, and these projects were going to give me real life experience that I could show in my portfolio and talk about in interviews with prospective employers.

Of course, this is not completely “real” life experience as the client projects were conducted under the Xi environment but it was the best I was going to get to put on my portfolio.

Those 2 client projects combined with the personal project I did were enough for me to apply for UX Designer roles right after I finished the course.

To me, having just 1 personal project in a portfolio wasn’t quite enough to demonstrate my experience and the range of UX skills I had. 3 sounded like the magic number — not too little and not too many.

🤔 What do you think is the most important in helping you get your first UX/UI role?

Flexibility was important as I was working in my marketing role at the same time.

I didn’t really have the choice of deciding between an in-person or online course because we were in full lockdown due to the Covid-10 pandemic here in Melbourne.

I really did enjoy the flexibility of the course being taught all online so I could fit my studying around my work.

There was a dedicated Monday evening Zoom meeting where our class all gathered together to talk about our homework, have discussions, and ask for guidance and feedback from our mentor.

The entire course was broken down into modules that lived within a learning platform so I could go through the modules at my own pace. I didn’t really have much of a life as I was in full lockdown but at least I could study at times when I was free.

Having said that, it would have been nice to meet up with my colleagues and mentor in-person.

🤔 What’s your lifestyle like? Have you thought about how you’re going to fit in all of the studying? Do you have a full time job or kids?

Structured learning kept me accountable and meant I couldn’t procrastinate.

I know there are plenty of videos out there teaching you certain areas of the UX/UI process and the great thing about them is that they’re free to watch.

I watched a lot of them at the beginning when I was working out if the user experience industry was where I wanted to be.

Free does sound really nice especially when I paid $$$ for the UX/UI Transform course but when I thought about it, I knew it would be too easy to procrastinate as I was also working at the time.

The structured online classes allowed me to learn the whole UX/UI process from start to finish, without me missing anything and giving me the opportunity to practice what I’d learnt and seek clarification or guidance from my mentor.

🤔 What are your thoughts on the free online content? If they’re something you’re strongly drawn towards, what strategies do you have in place to make sure you learn and practice all aspects of the UX/UI process?

This leads to onto my next point:

Having unlimited access to a dedicated mentor was great.

I had a great mentor, who had years of UX experience, teaching the course and providing the support that I needed.

I could reach out to him via Slack and even book in 1–1 time to talk about anything really — questions about the course, get advice on jobs and opinions on companies to work for.

He was always approachable, friendly and there for me, which was reassuring as he was the only person I knew in the UX/UI industry before I did any kind of networking.

Forming new friendships that have continued now that we have gone in different directions.

I’ve formed some great friendships from the course, which has been so great because I didn’t know any other designers.

It made the job hunting process so much nicer and less lonely as we could talk to each other, share tips and experiences and pick each other up when we were down.

Although we’ve gone in different directions, we’re still in the same boat as we embark on our new UX Design journeys and are able to chat about experiences that are relevant to us and share our knowledge .

My thoughts looking back on the course now as a UX Designer.

It’s a bit like uni where they provide the foundation but there’s still a lot for me to learn.

Much of the course content is catered around UX/UI, which is exactly what I signed up for.

However, as a UX Designer who now works in a team with other designers, product managers, business analysts and software engineers in a large organisation, there are other skills that I use on a daily basis.

Skills that include but are not limited to communicating and working in a team, managing my time effectively amongst all the meetings that take some space in my calendar, presenting information, problem solving and providing helpful feedback.

These soft skills are equally important as the hard skills in order to be an efficient, successful and productive UX Designer.

Luckily, I was able to practice these soft skills in my previous jobs and bring them across to my new UX Designer role.

I also get to practice my hard skills daily. The course only provides you with the foundation and you still have to practice and improve on those skills after graduating and forever in my opinion.

If I wanted to meet other designers, I had to go out and do my own networking.

This was important to me because the UX process is slightly different for each company and there were other roles which I wasn’t familiar with (service designer, CX, UX researcher). We didn’t really go into this much depth on the course.

By reaching out to other designers, I was able to find out more about how user experience design worked at their company and what they did in their specific roles. This was crucial in hearing what it was really like working in the industry compared to the sheltered environment of the Transform course. It definitely helped me to define the type of company and the role I wanted to go for.

I did everything I could to land my first UX gig because there is no job guarantee (even if they say there is).

I remember there being a job guarantee statement on the UX/UI Transform course but I can’t seem to find it anymore.

Maybe they’ve removed it? I’m not too sure.

It doesn’t really matter anyways because I didn’t pay that much attention to it.

I know nothing is guaranteed, especially when it comes to jobs. Unless Xi is involved and had a say in the recruitment process of other companies, it was up to me to get that first UX job.

The course did provide some career support after I graduated but it was me who:

• Spent hours working out how to put together my portfolio
• Refreshed my CV and LinkedIn profile to make it relevant to the new UX job I wanted
• Networked on LinkedIn and attended meetups to connect with other designers

All of this was to find as many UX opportunities that I could apply for or be in a position to hear about potential upcoming roles.

Yes, there is general support from the course but it was down to me to work hard to get my first UX gig.

To summarise all of my thoughts, I wouldn’t be where I am now without doing the UX/UI Transform course.

Learning and applying the study to my personal project and client projects was super rewarding and a fulfilling experience, and I’m grateful that I had a supportive and approachable mentor.

Overall, I graduated with a good foundation in UX/UI and with projects that I could showcase and talk through during my interviews.

A paid UX Design internship was my first UX role and this only came about because I caught up with someone at Xi, who had lots of great connections and told me about the internship opportunity at Reece.

I wouldn’t have never heard about the role if I didn’t have that chat because it wasn’t being advertised publicly.

After that conversation, I proactively reached out to the Head of Design through LinkedIn and the rest was history.

Here I am today as a UX Designer working at Reece, which is a great company who genuinely cares about their employees and customers. I’m working on a project where I’m helping to craft a better point of sale solution for our branch staff, which is so fulfilling and rewarding.

Thanks for reading my journey.

If you’re about to start yours, let me know if you have any other questions in the comments below 👇