for people considering a career in ux

I was contacted on LinkedIn by a person thinking of doing a UX Designer bootcamp. And I have another friend going down the same route.

I know it's easy to think of the career choice as "UI for people who are too intimidated by front end programming" but that's not fair - there are a lot of skills a good fulltime UX designer has that I only have in a rudimentary form (my current job title of "UX Engineer" not withstanding... I do fear they are using the aspirational sense of UX vs UI vs the in the trenches one.)

My partner M. got a bit frustrated with her role as UX Researcher.  She finds Nobody told me UX would be like this to be pretty accurate. It's not meant to scare people off, but to have realistic expectations - many places don't embrace UX expertise as much as they should, since often it can run counters to the "gut knowledge" of developers and business planners.

A Day In The Life Of A UX Designer is a bit more sanguine.

Also M says if you're in Boston, check out some of the meetups (not sure if they are still operating in quarantine times in a virtual form or what) - UXPA Boston, BostonCHI, and Ladies That UX Boston.