Investing in Myself for a Change with Udacity DMND
Everything you’ve ever wanted is right outside your comfort zone. — Jennifer Aniston
After being a full-time graphic designer for over 10 years, I once jumped out of my comfort zone and founded an art studio, which was in business for three years. As a newbie in art education, I learned from others and developed my own teaching style to inspire my students. The number of my students grew by word of mouth. However, considering that the efforts I put in were not in proportion to the profits I made, I decided to close the business and worked as a full-time graphic designer again.
How did I fail?
Even right now, the parents keep asking me if I will teach art again. Due to the last unsuccessful business experience, I returned to my comfort zone. Recently, I just realized that I overlooked the power of digital marketing. At that time, I had to deal with all the things on my own, such as preparing the art materials and class content, teaching, accounting, maintaining the Facebook page and the website, etc., leaving me feeling drained, not to mention the time spent thinking outside of the box.
Where did I find the key?
Because of Covid-19, the manpower budget shrinks and my current role as a graphic designer needs to involve digital marketing, which is a great opportunity for me to jump out of my comfort zone. There are lots of new terms for me, such as Google Analytic, SEO, SEM, etc. But how to step out of the comfort zone? After digging into the research and watching some online courses, I need to implement the skills into the real world. With the nice and user-friendly course-taking experience at Udacity, I decided to take the Digital Marketing Nanodegree program as well. I want to gain not only a deep and thorough understanding of digital marketing, but also experience with real-world projects from industry experts in a flexible learning plan.
The failure is the nutrition of success.
After finishing my first project, I started realizing that everyone should gain their knowledge and skills in digital marketing. After I conducted several interviews, 2–3 of the interviewees have started their own businesses. As time goes by, we all need to plan our career paths. I cannot work as an employee for the rest of my life. What should I do next? How to improve my career? In current circumstances, “Roughly three-in-ten Americans and 48% of those ages 18–29 go online ‘almost constantly,” according to Pew Research. We need to face the impact of digital marketing. It would be better that we invest our time and efforts in digital marketing before running a business, so it can help reduce the possible problems we may encounter when dealing with the real numbers.
Right now, I am working on the unspecialized assignments, but I know with the hands-on practices it can elevate my digital marketing skills to the next level.
