Alison Garwood Jones

Ever the student, I decided to complete the Google Certificate in Foundations of User Experience (UX) Design with Coursera.

I took notes. Lots of notes! Junior High Alison is alive and well — behold the highlighters and outlined headers. Junior High Alison also likes that she received 97.41%.

I went through this course almost every morning over the past 4 months because I wanted to learn about building wireframes, how design sprints work, and the thinking behind designing with accessibility and equity in mind. 

But there’s another reason. As a writing and digital strategy instructor at the University of Toronto (SCS), I also wanted to study HOW online courses, outside of university and college continuing ed programs, are designed and delivered. What works? What doesn’t (Guh– Discussion Forums are a nightmare everywhere). 

The takeaway: None of us should be ignoring the fact that in the last three years a significant number of employers have dropped the 4-year degree as a job requirement, and are hiring candidates who have successfully completed these short, intense bursts of education. This includes Bayer, Deloitte, Accenture, T-Mobile, Best Buy, and AKDM. 

These companies are offering Google grads well-paid entry-level positions in today’s most in-demand professions: UX Design, Data Analytics, IT Support and Android Development, starting at $68K USD. 

Given the state of social media and its effect on democracy and civil discourse, if we actively care about each other and the common good we should upgrade our skills andcontinue to study the humanities (art, ethics, philosophy, history) to make ourselves better employees, better bosses, and better humans. Mark Zuckerberg famously skipped the humanities at Harvard.