Experience Sharing: Learning Plan and Internship Journey as an ACCD Interaction Design Student
As an Interaction Design student at ACCD, I see my learning plan as a balance between creativity, technical skills, and real-world problem-solving. Interaction design is not just about making interfaces look good. It is about understanding people, identifying problems, and designing experiences that are both meaningful and functional. Because of that, I try to build my skills in three areas: design thinking, visual communication, and prototyping.
In school, I focus on strengthening my foundation through class projects. I pay a lot of attention to user research, storyboarding, wireframing, and building interactive prototypes in tools like Figma. At the same time, I know that being an interaction designer today also means understanding how products actually get built, so I have been learning more about front-end basics like HTML, CSS, and simple JavaScript. My goal is to become a designer who can not only generate ideas, but also communicate clearly with developers and bring concepts closer to reality.
When it comes to internships, I’ve learned that finding opportunities takes more than just submitting applications. A strong portfolio is the most important part, so I try to treat every school project as a chance to build portfolio-quality work. Instead of only showing final screens, I focus on showing my process: the problem, the research, the design decisions, and how the final solution responds to user needs. I’ve also realized that personal projects can be just as valuable, especially when they reflect problems I genuinely care about.
Another important lesson from the internship search process is that consistency matters. Applying for internships can be stressful and competitive, especially in design, but I’ve learned to keep improving my portfolio, tailoring my resume, and reflecting on each application and interview experience. Over time, I’ve become more clear about the type of work I want to do, especially in UX and product design, where I can create experiences that are useful, human-centered, and visually thoughtful.
Overall, my experience at ACCD has taught me that learning interaction design is a continuous process of making, testing, failing, and improving. My plan is to keep building strong projects, gain more real-world experience through internships, and grow into a designer who can create work that is both practical and meaningful.