Black Stories/05: Jonathan Jolivette & Logan Douglas

Justin James Lopez:
Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of Amazon’s Black Stories, where we highlight the stories of black designers, researchers and creative minds from all around the world. I’m your host, Justin James Lopez. And today I’m joined by Jonathan Jolivette and Logan Douglas. And we discuss their experience with Amazon’s new UX Design and Research apprentice program. This program is a fully immersive 12-month instructor led and curriculum-based training that allows people to develop their research, design, and leadership skills outside of a traditional four-year program. Let’s hear their story!

Thank you both for joining me, Logan, Jonathan, and JJ I think, is it fine to call you JJ?

Jonathan Jolivette:
JJ is great.

Justin James Lopez:
Perfect. So, Logan let’s start with you to just give the listeners more of a perspective of where you’re coming from into this conversation. Let’s hear a little bit more about your background.

Logan Douglas:
Yeah, of course. Thank you so much for having us on this podcast. So, my creative journey started when I was in middle school and I forced my way onto the yearbook committee because I wanted to Photoshop my class portrait, because at the time I had really bad acne, so I was like, “I’m so embarrassed. I don’t want this in the year.” So, that was my first exposure to Photoshop. And then from there I started to learn a lot about graphic design and placement within a page and everything. And then I just fell in love with yearbook design. And so that’s why I continued it into my high school career as well. However, once I got to college, for some reason I felt like I needed to major in a hard science. And so I majored in nutrition with hopes of becoming a registered dietician one day.

However, after going through the dietetic internship, which I like to call professional hazing, because it was so stressful. And I remember thinking back to some days that I wanted a semi-truck to hit me on my way to work because it was just so nerve wracking every day going into the hospital. But I learned a lot from that experience and I think that experience is what helped me grow thick skin, and now I can handle anything that you X throws at me for sure. And I can deal with just about any personality type because I saw everything when I was in the hospital. And so let’s fast forward to the end of my nutrition internship.

I spent the next six months looking for a job in nutrition and I just could not find one at all. So, I became really embarrassed and ashamed because all my friends were going off and he had really cool jobs becoming doctors, and becoming lawyers, and stuff like that and then one of my friends was like, “Well, Logan why don’t you just get a job doing anything and then use your free time to study design.” And so I thought yeah that’s a good idea. So, that’s what I did. I got a random job and for the next year and a half

Justin James Lopez:
Wait, what were you doing by the way? What was your [inaudible].

Jonathan Jolivette:
Yeah, just skip right over that.

Justin James Lopez:
Like we don’t talk about that. What was it by the way? [crosstalk].

Logan Douglas:
So, I was an HR assistant at this company called Ingersoll Rand.

Justin James Lopez:
Okay.

Logan Douglas:
So, I was literally just like helping people with their retirement plans. Has nothing to do with design at all, so I did that for about a year and a half and in the evenings I would teach myself design and everything and then I became a member of the IXDA Charlotte chapter. And that’s when I gained the most exposure into UX design because I met a ton of people who were experience in the field and they really sat down with me one on one to help me build out my portfolio and to guide me throughout the UX process. So, that was pivotal for my career. And so I went through with the guided mentorship for about a year and a half or so, and then I finally had a solid portfolio and I landed my job as a junior product designer at a mental health startup based out in California.

Logan Douglas:
And so although I was self taught in everything and I had the job, I still felt like I had some gaps in my knowledge, so that’s what led me to apply for the apprenticeship program. And it’s so funny and I feel like looking back, like it was meant to be because I saw the listing for the program, four days before it closed and I-

Jonathan Jolivette:
Me too.

Logan Douglas:
Just felt like it was destiny-

Justin James Lopez:
That’s going to hurt some people that applied early.

Jonathan Jolivette:
Yeah, I just thought about that.

Justin James Lopez:
It’s like I just got to it.

Logan Douglas:
Yeah, because at the time I was like, “I’m going to do a social media fast, social media is not good for me” and I was thinking about not getting on LinkedIn anymore, but then I saw that post and I was like, “This is my chance. I’m going to run with it. I’m going to reach out to everyone who posted this and I just want to learn about their experience.” So, now I’m here at Amazon working on the AWS console team and I’m so grateful for this experience every single day.

Justin James Lopez:
Nice.

Jonathan Jolivette:
Everything happens for a reason.

Justin James Lopez:
Yes. That comment’s going to hurt a lot of people listen to this. So, JJ, what about you? So it sounds like from Logan’s story, she jumped back and forth between doing this graphic design to fix her yearbook photo because it just wasn’t up to scruff and then saying, you know what I want to do this thing that’s more secure, which actually I hear quite a bit from people that have been on the show and then jumping back and forth and then finally landing here, which we’ll talk about the program a bit more, which is why you two are here, but from your perspective and from your journey, was it similar? Were you always a person that was going to land in design or was it something that fell in your lap throughout your life?

Jonathan Jolivette:
Well, interestingly enough, when I was younger, I was one of those weird kids that just knew what he was going to do when he grew up.

Justin James Lopez:
Okay. What was that?

Jonathan Jolivette:
I wanted to clean teeth. I wanted to be a doctor of dental surgery. So, being a dentist and being a UX designer kind of hard to draw a straight line, but-

Justin James Lopez:
It’s a little different.

Jonathan Jolivette:
Yeah. It’s interesting. So, I will share this real quick. My uncle Lionel actually who passed away before I was born and my uncle Juan were both creatives. And I do remember when I was younger, that was probably some of the most interesting and impactful exchanges I had. And although I didn’t have the exchange with uncle Lionel, I saw the impact he had on my family and the things that he left behind and my uncle Juan, he used to sketch out concepts of vehicles. I used to sit there with microscope and look at it like how a person looks at the flaws in the diamond for this micro film that he had. That did leave an impact me, so interesting enough, I heard this in Logan’s story as well I never sensed that there was going to be any security in those things and those things, I just mean anything creative.

I think about a waiter who made that a career because they were trying to become an actor. That’s how I looked at design. I was like there’s no security in this, it’s going to be a hit or miss. So, I ended up focusing on my dental studies, going to become a dentist, it’s a secure environment, secure job, but sure enough during my time as a student, I was in the student government association and I ended up being afforded the opportunity to come up with some creative solutions that sparked my need to be empathetic and think of ways to come up with creative designs and solutions for people. So, that’s where the UX bug, I guess or the inspiration was sparked.

Long story short though, as Logan said fast forwarding, I started my own company out of a need at my university. We had a few things that we needed to have done and saw that there was an opportunity. Started this creative intelligence design firm and from there spent my every day and night just getting lost in how to solve problems for people, as far as a lot of startups and smaller businesses and how to create delightful experiences. It sounds cheesy because that’s what everyone says, delightful experiences, but I was in Houston, Texas and there were a lot of smaller mom and pop in startup businesses.

Primarily African Americans who didn’t have a lot of money, didn’t have a lot of resources, so we had to figure out how to make it work, that they had a beautiful website and branding and all that made them look so much grandiose than they were. And that was always a challenge. And I think it’s where I cut my teeth and it made me because when you have less, you learn how to do more with less. I think it requires you to be creative. So, it was great.

Logan Douglas:
JJ looking back at that story, what would you say was your favorite project that you worked on?

Jonathan Jolivette:
There are some people that jump into fields and spaces where we pretty much say all, some monolith like they’re the same as everybody else, but there were one or two clients they were trying to really serve Houston, not come up but just do what was right. And so brother was running for a state representative. I knew him, he went to school with me. So, it was almost hard to take him serious initially, but I could see it, I could feel it like he was serious and he wanted to do right. So, that was the difference. How could I not give 110%? I don’t care if you’re paying me $1000 or $10,000. I stayed up all day and all night trying to figure out how to make a site look amazing, how to get this branding to where it needed to be, how to reach out and create these dynamic viral videos and things like that.

And that’s what made me in terms of developing my creative acumen and what would be my UX acumen, because what’s really satisfying, edifying, and addictive is that you’re seeing your hard work in real time. The responses from the community, from the people, from that particular client or patron, what have you. So, I think it’s the same thing now where it may take a few months, even a year to see all of your hard work, roll out and touch people, but not everyone has that opportunity. And that’s what drove me for sure. But here it is I’m thinking in order to be in a feel like this at this level, you’re going to have the proper pedigree, which means I need to have the degree. I need to have the certifications all of that.

Honestly, I don’t have any of it. I left school my junior year. Like I said, I’m on my way to dental school, had a good GPA was handling my business, but I was so busy and I had fallen in love with what I was doing on the creative side that, that was it and I bet big on myself and you couldn’t tell me any different. So, when hit Houston and it disrupted my clientele significantly, it left me in a desperate state in all honesty. I ended up on the street, I ended up homeless, ended up in a place called Haven for Hope, which is a shelter here, well in Texas, currently in Seattle. And sure enough spent my time when I could, as often as could in the public library investigating what’s the next move? What’s out there? What was available? And I started searching for opportunities as far as internships. Here’s the thing, internships not to get too deep, there’s still this exclusive factor even though the intent is to afford people opportunities that they would not otherwise be afforded.

Logan Douglas:
I wanted to add on to that, I also, a lot of internships are unpaid as well, whereas with the apprenticeship program we’re actually getting paid to learn and it’s opened up so many doors for people who may not have been able to go down to this path unless they had that additional income, just support them-

Jonathan Jolivette:
Absolutely.

Logan Douglas:
While, they’re doing this program.

Jonathan Jolivette:
Good point, Logan. Good point.

Justin James Lopez:
Good. I was going to ask that so I’m glad that you brought that up.

Jonathan Jolivette:
But that’s just it, that’s also a part of it. So, here it is, I’m working at a grocery store. Like that was what I considered a come up at that point because again I was on the street. How do you get from the grocery store to I’m sitting on the 29th floor of the Device and Services Group Studio at Amazon.

Justin James Lopez:
Day one?

Jonathan Jolivette:
I’m in the day one building, headquarters of Amazon. How does that happen? So, in one sentence, the apprenticeships become available and I applied to the apprenticeship because it was the only thing that was even available for me, frankly. No one, I think they UX the heck out of this apprenticeship program ironically enough, because like Logan said, what were my main factors that were keeping me and probably keeping a lot of people from opportunities? Well, I can’t leave where I’m currently at because I don’t have the financial resources to do that. Which sounds crazy because you want a job, you want to improve your lifestyle and make more money, but you sometimes need access to resources and opportunities that cost you like going to boot camps or receiving a degree.

Justin James Lopez:
You need money to make money right?

Jonathan Jolivette:
You need money to make money. The apprenticeship took care of that. And also just for what it’s worth, there are people all over the country right now and think about it. If you were in Tampa, if you were in I don’t know somewhere in Boise, Idaho, it’s not going to be the same as being in San Francisco or in Seattle or in New York. So, what happens for me and for others is I was afforded through the apprenticeship, the ability to be provided the resources to relocate. And what’s really key is that they do pay us and don’t just pay us enough to get by, they treat us and I think respect us by taking care of us as regular full-time employees to include medical benefits and all that kind of stuff. And I know this is an advertising, I just want to be clear that you should know that.

Justin James Lopez:
Sounds like a really good advertisement.

Jonathan Jolivette:
Some people don’t want to move away from their space because they’re like, “Man, there’s so many other factors I have to consider.” I think that people have taken the time to consider those factors so that they can remove that friction for you so that you can focus on tooling up yourself, getting the skills necessary and then contributing to Amazon success as well.

Logan Douglas:
Another thing I want to add to that is the fact that I remember at one point, this apprenticeship program was going to be in person, so all of us would have to either move to San Francisco or Seattle, but when they made the decision to keep it remote, that just opened up so many doors for people and reduced a lot of friction for some people as well, especially those people who have families. Although, you’re getting paid for the program, are you in the position to sell your house right now to move your family, to find a new preschool for your kids or something like that. So, they did a great job of just accommodating our needs and making sure that we were comfortable throughout the 12 month for program so that all we had to do was just focus on learning and that there was no other distractions outside of that.

Jonathan Jolivette:
That was key for me.

Justin James Lopez:
So, and just to paint this picture, because I know that it’s spelled out in the information on the apprentice program, below this, but I’m going to... I’m straight from the actual site here, this is what the apprentice program is a program that is split up between two subsections, right? You said 12 months and it split up between a roughly seven and a half months of instructor led training. And we can jump into what that experience was like. And then from that point, then you shift over to on the job training where you’re basically working 40 hours a week with whatever team and that’s what the apprentice and to JJ’s point you are full-time employees at the company. What I want to ask before we jump in further is, who is this a program for? Because what I’m reading and you’re like, oh, here we go. But look because what I’m reading here and again, just straight from the information here, it’s for diverse non-traditional backgrounds that would otherwise not have an opportunity right?

Jonathan Jolivette:
It’s a little coded, I get it. It’s very politically correct.

Justin James Lopez:
Loading the question up right. So, what does that mean? And from your perspective, what does that mean? How diverse is this program or is this program just for diverse backgrounds?

Jonathan Jolivette:
Because I feel very passionate about it because I am definitely a benefactor, but here’s the thing, you should know there are 32 individuals, 80 to 90% of the makeup of these exceptional human beings are people of color and women and I think that’s worth noting. And also I want to be very clear, I came in thinking that I’m a charity case. That’s not the case. Again, 4,000 people apply, you were chosen because you showed that you had the capability to think and to contribute in a way that was valuable, maybe even invaluable. So, I’ll let Logan expound upon that but I just want to stress this, this isn’t Amazon doing something nice for the black folks. It’s prickly. So, we don’t discuss openly is whether this is more of a charity thing for some.

Justin James Lopez:
The program you’re talking about?

Jonathan Jolivette:
The program. Or if they recognize it as being what I believe it really is. You have a group of people who didn’t have access and now they do and they have just as much UX acumen as the most seasoned Amazonian. So, I guess what my super duper long question here is I like to ask Logan what her opinion is, do you feel like Amazon recognizes this as more of a diversity equity and inclusion, not charity but something that just needs to be checked off?

Justin James Lopez:
You said charity, we already got to go with it. We got to go with charity.

Jonathan Jolivette:
So, all right so being real-

Justin James Lopez:
Is this program a charity case for diverse communities? Is that what this is?

Jonathan Jolivette:
Interesting I’m just apprehensive even asking the question the way I did but yeah.

Logan Douglas:
In my opinion, I really think that there are researchers within Amazon who have found data that support the idea that having a diverse employee workforce improves work output stuff like that. There have been studies that show like the more diverse your team, the better that the team is and stuff. And so I think Amazon is looking towards the future in terms of what the world makeup is going to look like. And I think that they know it’s important that they need to start now with increasing their minority population so that we’re able to better communicate with our target audience and stuff like that. With that being said, I think the apprenticeship program is a great way to give people access to UX design and UX design and research as well. And also it allows us to look at seasoned designers so that we can emulate their path as well.

I was reading an article the other day and it was talking about how today only 3% of professional designers identify as black and stuff. And so I think that we are going to be the generation that grows up and then the next generation will be able to look up to us and follow our path and everything like that. Because I remember when I started out in design, I didn’t have anybody to emulate or anything. I wish I knew of someone when I was in middle school whose path that I could follow and everything like that, but I just didn’t. But I think now the reckoning has come and we’re going to be that generation or that group that other people can look up to.

Justin James Lopez:
That was an amazing politically correct answer. I think that-

Jonathan Jolivette:
Can I respond to it though?

Justin James Lopez:
Yeah, go ahead.

Jonathan Jolivette:
I’m not even challenging Logan, as far as my perspective, I do think that some people see it as a charity case. I don’t know that everything is where they spend the time to really think about what they’re saying, what they’re doing but I think their first response is okay, I see a group of black folks over here, by the way just to be clear, you have black and brown and white folks in this group. I would understand being empathetic why they see this as just a pure DEI play, diversity, equity, inclusion play. Just straight talk speaking very plainly, Amazon is metric driven. What are the numbers? What do we need? Also what’s going to look good? That’s a part of it, you’re not going to always make decisions that are purely financial because sometimes the marketing and branding come around in support what you’re trying to do on the back end of some other things.

You say this is all at chess moves, I get it, but here’s the truth. Look at who’s in the program, how long they’ve been in the program, and what the performance is thus far. You have individuals who have multiple degrees, are tenured in the sense they’ve done the whole trifecta. They’ve been to Microsoft, they’ve been to Apple, they’ve been to Google now they’re here what have you. Well, all that’s great and good but how is it then that folks who we’re working at grocery stores a few months ago, now, let’s not include myself like there’s really phenomenal people in this group who have were doing other things just didn’t have access to the [fame] club.

Now, they’re going to be product owners. They’re going to push some programs into another level of success that Amazon would not have achieved had these folks not been present and in the room. That’s not charity, that’s exactly what you pay good money to recruit people who have been to school for four and eight years to come in and do. So, if that’s what it’s about, then you can’t recognize that it’s charity. I only asked the question because, I do wonder naturally, it’s not even about being self-conscious. I can understand and appreciate why someone who has been in the space and sees things that’s working, then all of a sudden just sees a few lumps and clumps of brown folks just tossed into the mix as a DEI play and I just hope that it’s not mistaken as is just that.

Justin James Lopez:
Well, the thing is even if it is, let’s just play even if it is and I also want to be clear like Logan, my comment isn’t to say that I think anything you said was wrong either, I think that just the way you said it was extremely eloquent and I’ll say it this way even if it is just a DE and I play, the reality is anything that’s done at this point in time and at this point in time in our human experience. When you look at the timeline, the way our society has been made up, it’s been made up and designed and not pointing at any fingers you can point your own fingers, but it’s been designed to disenfranchise and disadvantage the people from these underserved communities at every possible facet of life.

So, every time a company, whether it is Amazon, whether it is one of these other big companies or smart companies, every time that there’s a program that’s going to be catering towards these underserved communities is always going to seem and come off as that charity play, but without these programs, we don’t actually change and move the needle to what Logan mentioned before. Without these programs, you don’t have that 3% changing. Without these programs you don’t have young boys and girls from all of these communities looking up and seeing themselves in these types of roles that they then can move towards in the future because you’re always going to miss a target that you’re not aiming for. And you’re never going to be able to aim at a target that you can’t see.

And that’s the way I look at it. So, I think this is an amazing play by Amazon to think about and this is my personal opinion. And just being outside not understanding the intimate details because I wasn’t attached to the program. I want the listeners to understand that it wasn’t a program that I was attached to, so this is my honest thought. I really do appreciate even from your accounts of all the resources that throw on behind this. So, it’s not just a play of like, hey, here we have diverse people, it’s we’re investing in diverse people, which is a very different statement in my opinion.

Jonathan Jolivette:
I actually would hope that people would see it, I don’t know that this is what it is, but I would hope that this is what it would be. This is in fact if you look at it, because we’re all about metrics to Amazon like notorious. Look at the people in the program, look at the amount of time they’ve spent here and look at their contribution already. You have some folks who are already leading meetings, you have some folks who are already contributing to the launch of products in time and who are writing one pagers and just doing like really incredible things that you expect of L fives, L six’s and the fact is they’ve just got here, so that means that you whomever are capable and as far as who this apprenticeship is for, it’s not a charity case here.

This is about numbers and Amazon is doing well to diversify its ranks because last thing if you look at it statistically, every company that is diverse and has become more and more diverse, they have been the companies who have proven to be the most successful financially in terms of revenue year after year.

Justin James Lopez:
Nice. When you think about the place that you’re in now, you’re shifting you’re currently and correct me if I’m wrong, you’re the first cohort of this program, you’re the inaugural cohort. So, it started what last June 2021?

Jonathan Jolivette:
June 1st.

Justin James Lopez:
June 1st, 2021. And so at this point, you’re shifting between that instructor led curriculum base training into the on the job of like, hey, we are going to give you a task I’m assuming, and you’re doing this for Amazon. This is a thing that you’re doing now. How do you feel the first half of that program has prepared you for the second half that you’re getting ready to walk into?

Jonathan Jolivette:
Real quick is the thing though, and we’ll answer the question, but you should know that there are people who are so far ahead of the game which I think speaks to the apprenticeship and to the quality of the individuals they brought in. And what I mean by that is you have individuals who are already contributing to their teams when the intent was to complete the virtual classroom training for the first seven and a half months, then it’s like, okay, well they know what UX is, now we can expect them to start training on the job and we’ll show them how things work here. No, no, no, no, you have folks came in and said up, I see something, let me say something about that. Well, what do I need to do in order to contribute to changing that? And they’ve done that.

And in turn it’s not folks being nice, they’re like, no, this makes sense, we need to make this happen, we need to roll this out. And just the fact that you can point to the apprentices and say, “Okay, yes so they contributed to this, this and this and they’re not even supposed to be there yet technically.” I just want to highlight that, that says a lot about the program.

Justin James Lopez:
And that’s been welcomed at Amazon?

Jonathan Jolivette:
Amazon a business yes, but you got a team of people who really care about these products and services. They want to figure it out. And if somebody walks in, be it the new person or not, I’m going to hear what you have to say, but that’s a part of it. We’re learning as apprentices how to fill up that space and take up space and speak up. That’s a significant part of I think that transition from virtual classroom training where the 32 of us interact on a day to day to now interacting 40 plus hours a week with individuals who have been in place for years now. So, it is a little bit of a dynamic shift, but at the same time we’ve been eased into it. So, it’s been very thoughtful transition.

Justin James Lopez:
So, aside from that community that’s being created among the... because naturally, it’s like collaborative suffering almost right when you-

Jonathan Jolivette:
Fraternity, yeah.

Justin James Lopez:
You have the 32 people that are all going through the same thing, similar obviously you’re all on different teams. Even here Logan, you’re on AWS, the AWS origin, you’re over on DTG devices org JJ. So, you have that, aside from that what type of support do you get from the rest of Amazon when it comes to your growth? I’ll just leave that open ended.

Logan Douglas:
I can speak to that question a little bit. And then I see JJ, you want to say something as well.

Jonathan Jolivette:
Please go.

Logan Douglas:
So, I’ll say that in terms of support, when you’re in the program, you’re assigned to a buddy, which it can just be anyone who is in Amazon and usually this buddy is someone that you meet with once a week for just 30 minutes and you can talk to them about absolutely anything. And they have to keep all of this information confidential as well. And then the other support that we get is from our manager. So, our manager is the one who’s mentoring us to make sure that we’re making the right moves and working on the correct projects and that we understand the scope of the project as well. And then so once we start the on the job portion of the apprenticeship program, we’ll have several weeks to complete a project, which with the guidance of our hiring manager and at the end of those several weeks, depending on how we do on that project, we will get the full-time job offer or we won’t get the full time job offer. But ideally, we have so much support here that I can’t see anyone not getting the full-time offer.

Jonathan Jolivette:
What made me feel more comfortable about the participating and being forwarded this opportunity was that the support is there and it’s not, we’re well intended and we’re sort of when it’s convenient going to bend over backwards, no, no, no. This is for the apprentices, so be clear if you need support, you have three or four tiers. You have all of your team members first of all, you have your cohort, 32 strong, but you also have as Logan mentioned your buddy and that’s really the person you can just chop it up with. I think that’s valuable because sometimes you can’t always communicate like you want to need to with individuals who may be just above you leadership. But I think again, being very thoughtful where we have our official mentors as well like we usually think, oh yeah so and so is my mentor.

And that person, well, you actually are assigned a mentor as well and that person is someone who has established themselves as being a resource for you on your team. I actually, when I first started my mentor and I we sat down and we talked for about two or three hours on the steps, right outside of the day one building, the headquarters here at Amazon. And I think that did more for me than the past year of reading medium articles and searching all over the internet and even just interacting with a million other people in terms of the network that I built. We really, we do well here as apprentices to connect with people in real ways. I understand a lot of times folks aren’t well intended, but I would argue because there are other apprenticeships out there. Amazon’s making earnest efforts to adjust fire to constantly take inventory of where the apprentices are, what their needs are and if you have a need as an individual, I think that they’ll actually take the time to service that one person as well as the 32.

I’m going to share this very briefly. I am one of those members of the neurodiverse community and I think this is great. It’s changed my life to become a UXer and go down this career path. But in terms of my life moving forward, Amazon and this apprenticeship is responsible for affording me resources and access to things that I never had before. And it is going to have been what I think will impact me for a lifetime in terms of neurodiversity and addressing those things and feeling welcomed.

Justin James Lopez:
I love that. I love that reminder as well. So, when it comes to the... Because you’re are on the back end, you’re going into this final stretch for you and what that means, drum roll is that there’s going to be a new group coming in. What is your advice for the person sitting at their desk right now wondering if this is something that they should do for the aspiring dentist, for the aspiring that dietician, nutritionist that is wondering if this is the right decision, what’s your advice to that person about this program by joining the program?

Logan Douglas:
I got a chime in right here. So, I would say put your blinders on and just block out all of the noise from other people’s opinions and stop trying to compare your career path to someone else’s. You’re doing this for yourself and nobody else is you and nobody can do it as great as you can. So, always remember that and then also just reach out to a lot of people on LinkedIn or just people in real life and ask them about their career and just ask if they could help you in any way possible. And just because a few people don’t respond, that doesn’t mean that you can’t reach out to somebody else. Just keep doing it until you do get that response that you’re looking for. So, yes those two things for sure.

Justin James Lopez:
I agree.

Jonathan Jolivette:
Definitely, your network is important. You talk about buzzwords and all that stuff all the time but truth be told the network is important. And what I mean by that is jumping on LinkedIn I would argue, it’s very simple to do. Start up an account and start reaching out and searching for UX Designers become a recruiter of sorts. It’s okay to stalk people a little bit and it’s okay to reach out and say, “Hey, I’d like to learn more about what it is that you do.” Don’t just say, “Hey, I want a job and I need to make this happen.” Here’s the thing you should in fact learn about what it is that we’re over here doing so that you can know that this is what is right for you. But if nothing else to add onto what Logan was saying, be persistent, be consistent and focus on you because your path is unique.

Justin James Lopez:
Thank you. Sincerely, thank you both for joining the show today and really just telling your story I would love-

Jonathan Jolivette:
Would be great. Thank you.

Justin James Lopez:
I would love to have you back on the show at some point in the future when you’re outside of the program to hear all of the things that you’ve done post this program, but thank you.

Jonathan Jolivette:
I look forward to it. Thank you so much.