What MDes and MHCI hides from the F-1 internationals
Disclaimer: I graduated from the Information Systems + BHCI undergrad program, so I was not exposed to the disadvantages stated below. CMU undergrad is truly an amazing program, and I loved every minute of it. I strongly recommend to all high school students/college transfer students considering it.
Alright, it’s about time to talk about the uncomfortable truth about CMU’s MHCI and MDes program. Why isn’t MDes declaring STEM OPT? And why isn’t MHCI a 2 years program, but BHCI is? …
October 2020 H-1B policy changes in plain English, for international students and current H-1B visa holders
I’m not an immigration lawyer or an expert. This piece is purely written with information compiled from various online sources. It is also not an official immigration recommendation — and purely my personal opinion. Please comment below if you see inaccurate information.
On October 2020, a substantial change to the H-1B policy was announced. The prevailing wage level just increased substantially across all job functions for all areas in the US. This basically means that the companies that hire internationals through H-1B needs to pay higher salary to the workers. Prevailing wage basically means the minimum wage an employer has…
All food is good and delicious… But if you sell a beef satay for $100, would anyone buy them?
“I’ve finally graduated from a university program/boot camp, so I applied for product designer roles, but I’m not getting any responses. I think something is wrong, but what is wrong?”
It’s easier than ever to get into Product Design today. There are more formal university degrees and programs related to Product Design being created worldwide, there are a lot of high-quality UX boot camps, and there are so many online courses and resources you can refer to when starting out on this path.
But many who just embarked on this path are also confused.
“I’ve finally graduated from a university…
Looking to do an undergrad or master’s in the US for UX Design? Before splurging on hefty tuition, please read this first.
June 2020 update: The White House recently announced the pause on H-1B immigration into the US. This does not affect F-1 visas nor the OPT program mentioned in the article. It only impacts those that currently hold the H-1B, and are overseas. The suspension is expected to last until 12/31/2020, and subject to potential further extension. Read the full proclamation here.
Disclaimer: I’m not an immigration expert, and this is in no way a piece of legal immigration advice. This article was written based on my personal experiences, and anecdotes from my international friends. …
Goodbye, overtime meetings!
Exciting update, Jan 2021 — Martin Carrica and Ivan Itzcovich was inspired by the idea and actually brought this idea to life, called Bluu. Check it out here!
It won’t be easy — the job market is becoming highly saturated.
I often get asked: How do I become a UX / Product Designer? In the year 2020, I feel obligated to warn you before you make that career shift.
I’ve been at Carnegie Mellon University since 2014, witnessed and experienced countless interviews for UX / Product design roles. Here’s my verdict: the job market is becoming extremely saturated and it’s actually very hard to get to a top-tier company.
All students are struggling to break-in to top-tier companies
I’m gonna try to be very honest in this article, only because I think such a candid voice is extremely necessary at this point. I’ve seen too many students coming into…
Modern smartwatches measure physical activities pretty well — but how about mental activities?
Disclaimer: Apple prohibits the publication of custom watchfaces on their App Store — this project is an exploration of an idea, not created for an actual deployment on the Apple App Store.
Know what you’re getting yourself into… They seemingly converge to the same career destinations — so where do they diverge?
A lot of people are looking into the MDes and the MHCI program @CMU to become some sort of a User Experience (UX) Designer / UX Researcher / Interaction Designer / Product Designer (not in the traditional industrial design sense, I mean the new “product designers” a.k.a. UX Designers in some tech companies like Facebook) / Web Developer… and the list goes on.
Well if you got into either (or even better, both) of the programs, congrats! You are well on your way to earn a median salary of $93,600–$108,000 as one of the positions mentioned above! Sounds all rosy…
Environments Studio IV, Spring 2019 — Antonio Song
Background
Visual language is universal — code is not.
While user-centered design principles have certainly made today’s products much more user-friendly and intuitive, we have also learned to protect users from the complexity of these products.
Features and functionalities that utilize complex computations and data relationships are practically concealed from users. Certainly, users benefit from such approaches. So far, this user-centered design principle has proven to be successful in the current product landscape.
Reviving Expiry with community stimuli and savings report.
By Antonio Song, Carnegie Mellon University, Class of 2020.
Information Systems + Human-Computer Interaction.
Design tools used: Sketch, Principle
Project Duration: 6 days
Design Challenge Brief
Introduction
Congratulations! You’ve been hired by Expiry. Expiry is a new food delivery service that only delivers food from grocery stores and restaurants that are just meeting the end of their shelf life — think that sushi box from Whole Foods or this morning’s pastries from the local bakery.
Expiry has been operating under a “mystery box” subscription that lets users set their preferences (e.g. …
