Navigating the Remote Master's Degree Experience: My Journey and Insights
If you're considering starting the search for a master's degree, this post is for you. I'm going to talk about my experience, but keep in mind that everyone's is always different.
Firstly, how did I find my master's program? Initially, it was my friend and me exploring opportunities. I preferred something remote, while she sought an international experience. So, this is from a remote perspective.
Some of the pros I found include having more time to organize your schedule as you like and the ability to revisit classes and materials. However, you do miss out a bit on the in-person experience that professors try to convey.
Another significant reason is pricing; most remote opportunities tend to be cheaper, and not because they are less good. And of course, if it's remote, go crazy looking for a country and a university that fulfills your needs. In my case, Elisava was a university that I knew for a long time was a place I wanted to study, but that wasn't the main reason why I chose Elisava.
My university degree was in visual communication design, and my role in web design was self-taught, thanks to my love for reading, some extra courses I took, and a wonderful experience I had during an internship in Japan that taught me about the real picture of working with developers.
So, I had the idea that I wanted to have a more solid foundation in the UX and UI world. The program at Elisava for the master was specifically for that – a fresh UX experience.
Now, let's talk about the pros and cons of the experience while studying.
For pros, I loved the idea of working with people from all over the world. You may think that is not something relevant, but it is. My team was from Colombia and Chile, and I learned a lot from them. They had a totally different environment than me; one worked a lot with developers, and the other knew everything about how to design and organize big text documents, so in his case he had a baby perspective of UX. But that never stopped us from learning, and let me tell you, he had a wonderful outcome with all that we learned. Also, when we showed the projects we worked on to the professor, they were mostly from Spain, so it was amusing having their perspective as well. I was very proud because one of my professors was from Costa Rica, so a shout out to her for being a reference in this big community.
Now a con: if you do not live in the country you are having your masters, prepare for tons of paperwork. Haha, it takes forever, but just be organized, and everything will flow. Also, most universities let you start the master and then send the documents, so don't worry about having them from the beginning because each of them asks for different things, depending on the country.
I'm already done with my master, and my experience was lovely. If I could, I would repeat everything. Also, I was working while doing my master, so it's possible to do both, trust me. Just be organized and have a schedule. I hope it helps, and feel free to ask more if you want.
I hope this is helpful!
Here is the link of my master.
