For context, I studied Graphic Design from 2015 to 2019, earning a Bachelor of Design Degree with a 2nd Academic Excellence Award. I’m not writing that to boast — but to underline that even when you’re doing great by academic standards, the real world will still trip you up in ways that make you grow.

We were a close-knit class of 45 — curious, bold, opinionated. When the time came to start thinking about college placements, we saw the writing on the wall: UI/UX was booming. The pay was better. The roles were more stable. But we resisted. Maybe out of pride. Maybe out of fear. Maybe because, at the time, our classes looked a whole lot more fun than the solemn UI/UX class comprising of only 8 students. We laughed in disbelief back then — 8 months to 2 years to finish one project in the real world? It sounded like torture to us — people who thrived on the adrenaline of tight deadlines (the decade-older me, with actual professional experience and two dark souvenirs under my eyes from the land of late nights, now says ‘ha!’), quick turnarounds, and the hit of satisfaction when the logo was finally revealed and praised, or the poetry chapbook got printed.

But when graduation came and reality set in, over 90% of my classmates jumped ship. The switch was instant. Suddenly, stability mattered. Money mattered. Being practical mattered. I was a stubborn one, though. I stood my ground (something I came to regret years later, when I realized my salary was one-third that of everyone else despite working equally hard).

I started with freelance, because my priority was to diversify my skillset. There were weeks of glorious design work… and weeks of deafening silence. Then I worked for a six-woman studio with the collective aim of spreading the concept of ‘happiness’ to people, which aligned with my goals at the time. In my eyes — considering I was the only designer at my workplace — I figured I was the free one with full creative control, while my classmates were stuck in the ‘corporate life’ (something I had no experience with but perceived as unfulfilling, based on everything I’d heard over the years). To be fair, while that perspective stemmed from a certain level of misplaced arrogance, one of said classmates (and now close friend) once told me her manager had advised her to quit early on, explaining that people who joined these corporate firms typically experienced all kinds of creative jobs first, and only applied when they were ready to settle down.

Then came the advertising agency life. I was working 80–90 hours on 20 or so projects a week, chasing the high of creative output but feeling the crash harder every time. The satisfaction was short-lived. And worse, I started wondering if any of it really mattered. My Portfolio, though appreciated, felt incomplete over time. I loved a lot of the work and the process of creation, but I yearned for a deeper purpose, one that went beyond pleasing my client, my boss, and even myself.