As a person who has experience working in a company and also as a freelancer, Kemi is an advocate for teamwork especially the way that it is done at Co.Lab. She appreciated that people at Co.Lab were patient and keen to help and this influenced her own people management skills. She was introduced to more terminologies in frequent use in the tech community and she learned to seek out others’ perceptions of a particular topic. 

Kemi was able to see how people felt and thought in a work environment and she discovered how she worked in a group setting. She learned to contribute at meetings and communicate her opinions without conflict. Where disagreements arose, the team had to learn to manage crises. As she found out not too long afterward, the Co.Lab experience mirrored a real-life setting.

“In my current job, sometimes you have a Product Requirement Document and your stakeholders are expecting you to design and produce all these features. The team needs to talk about what is feasible. Building a product with my Co.Lab team taught me how to handle all these requirements at work”

It was easy for her to work as part of a team at Co.Lab because her teammates were cooperative and so was their mentor. Their mentor, Sophia Sun, a Product Manager at Flipgrid, was exemplary and the effort she made to show up for the team even just to silently observe their work, did not go unnoticed. Interacting closely with Sophia and other members of her team allowed Kemi to gain knowledge even on issues outside the scope of their work. For example, by working closely with the Product Manager on her team, who had at one time been an international student in Canada, Kemi learned the importance of being flexible and receptive to change especially in a new environment. These lessons were instrumental as she relocated to begin a new job in a different country a few months after Co.Lab.

Kemi admits that moving from Nigeria to work as a Product designer in America would have been a more formidable task had she not first attended Co.Lab and learnt to work with people with whom she had cultural differences and had been taught in ways different from what she was used to. This prior exposure allowed her to settle quickly into her work instead of spending time trying to navigate an unfamiliar work environment.

At the time she registered for Co.Lab’s Cohort3, she had already begun nursing the idea for DesignPal. The work she does in DesignPal, an academy whose aim is to train junior designers or anyone whose desire is to transition into design is a problem solver. Having noticed a predominant problem in the job market whereby designers are half-baked and cannot often talk through the thought process behind their designs, DesignPal trains the designer in the area in which they have identified lack. You can be a professional UI designer or professional UX designer without feeling the need to combine the two. And if you do choose to combine the two, DesignPal will train you one after the other to equip you with the skill set required to succeed in the industry.

Certain strategies that Kemi learned in her time at Co.Lab were pivotal as she took her idea off the ground and started her company soon after completing her program.

“Collaborative learning, and I still use that in Design Pal. I am always telling my students that they are there to learn with and from others. I experienced collaborative learning at Co.Lab in a way that I had not done in any other Bootcamp or internship. You are part of a team in which you have meetings, brainstorming sessions, and you learn from one another. Working in a team helps tremendously and it is beautiful to see. I saw that at Co.Lab, I experienced it and I enjoyed it.”

Now, she applies this in her classes, allowing the UI and UX designers to work in teams on a single project.

Kemi was sufficiently prepared by Co.Lab for an actual workplace and feels fortunate to have worked with a team that was so impactful to her work and career. She advises anyone interested in learning design at Co.Lab to first be determined that it is indeed what they want to do and then be ready to commit time to learning. Design takes time and anyone who claims to be too busy to learn it will not learn it. 

She also emphasizes the importance of being patient with oneself and with teammates throughout the learning process. Attend team meetings, discuss with others and contribute because, in a real workplace, these are the things that affect your output.

Connect with Kemi here and visit the Co.Lab website or follow us on LinkedIn for more information on how you can join the Co.Lab team.