Ingressive for Good partnered with Geneza School of Design to help 1000 women build skills and careers in design. During the training, we realized the need and benefits of study buddies to better help the women learn and complete their courses. So we created study groups. At the end of the program, we recorded over 70% completions. Ogechi Abangwu tells us about her experience leading a study group, the impact she made and the impact it had on her.
“My name is Ogechi Abangwu, I’m a student of the department of Agricultural Economics, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. I’ve always loved creativity and for a while now design has been something I find fascinating. I started my design journey in 2021, when I came across a mobile graphic design course. I learnt a lot using YouTube and I started using photoshop to design flyers. At this point I had no idea what product (ui/ux) design was.
A few months later I met someone who was into design, and he told me about UI/UX design, I became interested but didn’t really know how to begin this journey, so I just let it go. In 2022, I came across the I4G Women in Design scholarship, I decided to check it out and when I saw UI design as one of the courses, I was filled with joy. I hurriedly applied for the scholarship and patiently waited for a positive reply from Ingressive for Good.
Few days later, I got a congratulatory message from Ingressive for God. I had gotten the scholarship! I quickly called my friends and family and shared the news with them. I was so excited and couldn’t wait for the training to start.
As the training was going on, there was a need for team leads, and I applied to lead. I applied to lead because I wanted the help out. I knew it was the right thing to do so that I could help my tech sisters and also give back to the Ingressive for Good community in the little way I could. The second reason I opted to help was to gain additional experience. This way, I wasn’t just learning UI design, I was also learning leadership.
Being a team lead wasn’t as easy as I thought. A major challenge I had was getting the ladies to respond, and respond on time. As team lead I learnt a lot, one of which was the fact that most people prefer to be related as individuals and not as a group. All those who weren’t responding on the group responded when I sent the DMs.
As a student I learnt about UI/UX design, I learnt how to use Figma to create icons, style guides, wireframes, I got to understand spacing and font uses, how to prototype and much more.
Learning design has added great value to me. I have gotten value that can be exchanged for wealth and used to solve digital problems for both users and owners of products. Learning design has given me skills that help me let out my creativity and uniqueness. I look forward to the journey ahead after the courses. I intend to learn more and make an impact.”
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