Professionally: I believe in the unique abilities of utilizing Recreation and Leisure modalities to help individuals remove barriers to improve overall quality of life.I’m passionate about disability advocacy, inclusion, and universal design. As an individual that is always looking to challenge themselves, I decided to pursue my Masters in Digital Innovation in Marketing to enhance my professional skill set.
My ambition is to transition into a career as a User Experience Designer. I want to combine my background in healthcare and newfound digital skills to help companies create accessible products for wide variety of users. In addition, I’m interested in Data Analytics, Digital Marketing, and Social Media. I love to learn new things and am interested in the intersection where technology, disability, and quality of life meet.
Personally: when I’m not at work or completing homework, I enjoy taking cooking classes and documenting what I create on my instagram or personal blog.In addition, I volunteer at Girl Develop It’s Philadelphia Chapter and Techgirlz as a Teaching Assistant.
I consider myself a musicophile and I’m always hunting for someone new to listen too! My current obsession is CTRL by SZA and while I’m driving to work I’ll often play 2 Dope Queens, which is a really excellent podcast by Jessica Williams and Phoebe Robinson.And I normally commit to working out 4-5x a week. I love Strength Training, Dancing, and Pilates to stay active!
Hi Melissa! I really enjoyed reading your interests page! I too am interested in learning more about UX design. What kind of skills for UX have you gained thus for?
Hello Mallory,
Nice to meet you and thanks for taking the time to comment on my interests page! Wow, excellent question. So in my free time I have been completing a lot of informational interviews with UX Designers in the Philadelphia area which has turned me on to some really good resources. I just completed “Lean Ux” by Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden and I highly recommend it! I feel like User Experience Design can be very board and the principles related to it are ever evolving. And as a result of reading that book I feel like I got a solid understanding of how to create a proper problem statement and craft a user persona for a targeted market. I’ve also taken some workshops with Girl Develop It and I felt like they were also really helpful in establish a baseline definition of what UX Design can be. I can’t wait to take a formalized course with this program for summer session! Is there a particular niche in User Experience that your interested in?
-Melissa
Hi Melissa and Mallory!
I would love to chat with you ladies, I am interested in UX Designing as well for a possible future career post the MS-DIM program. Melissa, I completely agree with your outlook that we can combine technology and parts of the healthcare sector to further the quality of life for those around us. I would really like to transition into the healthcare sector myself, do you find there are many places where technology can make the systems you interact with on a daily basis more productive?
My boyfriend is in his last year of medical school at Cooper in Camden and he is always saying how there has to be a better way to facilitate patient portals and patient management, and he recently went on rotation in NYC to a hospital that still had paper charts, can you believe that?!
Also, I love your cooking Insta pictures! I’m not sure where you are in location to the city itself, but I am in East Falls and love Hot Box yoga in Manayunk! It’s definitely worth a peak!
Hi Kiersten,
Thats great! Maybe the three of us could meet-up sometime for a study session and we can discuss UX as well. What role do you what to pursue in healthcare? Its funny that you ask that, because me and a colleague were just having that exact discussion the other day!
Absolutely! Overall, I feel like when healthcare service delivery is done right, it takes a holistic, person-centered, integrated approach to care. However, what I’ve personally see in my day to day is sometimes a very reductionist viewpoint about how things should be delivered, but it leaves out and does not seem to address the many shades of grey and complex human interactions that are at its core.
Congrats to your boyfriend! Oh,I can totally believe it. Where I work we were supposed to go electronic 5 years ago…we just started completing electronic progress notes this year and the other have of our paper work is still paper charting, which totally impedes staff productiveity. I’ve never heard of Hot Box Yoga, but as an avid Yoga and Pilates lover I will definitely check it out!! Thanks for the suggestion!
Hi Melissa,
It is great to know there is another person who knows HTML/CSS! Do you know any other coding languages?
Hey Michael,
Just HTML/ CSS…for now anyway. I wanted to learn python, but just haven’t has the opportunity to fit it in. Do you have nay particular language that you gravitate towards? How did you learn?
Hi Melissa –
I found your interests, both professional and personal, to be quite intriguing and inspiring. Your aspirations in User Experience Design are admirable. What types of companies are you looking to help out/get involved with? I am very interested in hearing more about your goals in this field.
PS. It is great to see another fellow dance lover!
Amanda,
So happy to hear that you joined this program! You’re gonna love it and I know you will do well. So, I definitely need to re-write my biography. I actually fell in love with Social Media Marketing at the end of Fall Semester and I was lucky to make my career transition this year! I now work as a Social Media Specialist at a local Real Estate Company. How about you? What do you hope to get out of this program? A career change or just expanding your skill set?