Retraning in UX Design at 49: Ludicrous?

[WhatAPatheticSpecimen]

I'm a SAHM. I want very much to get back to work.

I've been looking at retraining and there are a lot of online courses that propose a solid programme for a few months making you ready for junior roles.

Those in the know, is there any advice I should heed? Am I daft for looking to invest £££s at my age?

No you’re not daft to invest at “your age”

How long have you been a sahm for? What was your job beforehand?

I don’t think this one though.

you will get your qualification but with absolutely no real life experience… you will very much struggle to actually get work because your skills will be entirely abstract and unproven

There are a lot of 'return to work' type placements if you previously had some kind of profession. That's what i did to get back into accountancy. Decent salary too.

I'm retraining as a full stack developer at 40. No previous experience. It depends what your goals are and how realistic you are. I know I'm never going to get a top job coding for Amazon or Google but could definitely make a decent (for me) income building websites for people as a freelance web developer.

OP- I was on your other thread.

Last couple of weeks you have experienced an absolute shit show with your STBX. Added to which you haven’t worked for many many years.

Take it slow. Don’t make any big decisions and make a big investment in a training programme. You haven’t worked for years so why not get a local part time job and also study at same time?

Have a look at the Code First Girls courses. They are sponsored so you don’t have to pay. They do some longer ones which can lead to a job if you get a good mark and pass an interview.

Local part time would be great but language barrier.

I've been studying the languages over the last two years but not yet up to the level required.

@Stayingstrongish thank you. I will look

@WhatAPatheticSpecimen this is the website - codefirstgirls.com

think you might have to be in the U.K. though

So if you get the qualification, how will you get local work if you are not up to speed with the language (and business language is obviously next step up from being able to converse).

Because lots of the work is remote.

But you won’t have any experience other than abstract qualification that you paid to do. In a market that is absolutely saturated. You’ll be up against 26 year olds who have both the qualifications and a few years experience under their belt

OP - I would urge you not to invest in this at this current time given the massive upheaval in your marriage.

Is it saturated? I thought there was huge demand for more people to be skilled in this area.

Guess I'd better keep looking......

I read stuff like this. Is it just hype?

Op

This is an article from the qualification provider. It’s part of their sales and marketing. Of course they are going to say that’s it’s a wise choice

I have worked in a UX related field. Most UX practitioners had a computing related degree plus a PhD or MSc that was more UX-specific. I’d be very surprised if anyone hired you with just a three month course under your belt.

Not in my experience. For UX you nearly always have to be on site, because you're co-ordinating different groups of people, and doing fact-finding and user testing that requires a physical presence.

Right. Back to the drawing board......

No rash decisions OP. Tread carefully and ensure as far as your can that’s it is the right decision now and in the future and realistic

I retrained in instructional design at 50. Best thing I ever did. Love my work.

@Wallywobbles really? Good for you. That's impressive.

Looks interesting. What was your background?

How did you go about requalifying ?

Higher Education teacher with 25 years of experience so not exactly your situation. I did all the training I could find on LinkedIn and elsewhere that was mostly free. Then I did a micro masters through EdX. I made a website, created a portfolio etc. Did a horrible course in educational data analytics which is an additional fairly rare skill.

I practiced on all the job specific software. There is a lot!

I did every webinar I could and was active in the chat.

I'm on forums that are domain specific and really interesting and useful.

In your shoes I'd pay the monthly LinkedIn fee that gives you access to all their training and start with all the office suite stuff. Then try loads of courses. Keep doing them until you've ticked off as many key skills as possible from the job ads.

You can look on Fiverr or Upwork for gig work for experience.

OP if you haven't studied in the country you're in, then take a look locally at universities. There may be some masters in English. If you are a EU resident and were by the deadline after Brexit, you may be eligible to pay local fees - which are not high in some countries. If you find a masters with an internship, could be a good way to network and move into a job afterwards.

If your country doesn't have low fees, have a look at the countries around you. Often for a Masters you don't need to be on campus every day too (unless it's lab-based, but you'd probably not be eligible for that), meaning you might have more options in terms of travel distance.

Right now there are quite a lot of online Masters open days going on, so worth having a look asap.