Kiki Yem

College: Baruch College

Education Level: Junior

Career Interest: SWE, UX/UI, Tech Consulting

Hi, I'm Kiki. I'm a Junior at Baruch College majoring in Computer Information Systems and minoring in Graphic Arts. I'm currently the Engagement Director for Consult Your Community at Baruch College. We are a non-profit organization that provides pro-bono consulting services to minority owned small businesses in NYC. I've been a part of the organization for 3 years and love it because I'm working directly with the small business owners and get to learn how to tackle different small businesses problems. I also love it because I grew up with my parents owning a Malaysian restaurant so I get to learn how I could've helped them. When I get my first pot of gold, I hope to start a small café/dessert shop. I love to bake, discover new recipes, and re-create desserts I have tried outside. For now, I hope to get a full time role in the tech industry because I enjoy how fast paced everything is. I think I have a very logical way of thinking/problem solving, but at the same time I like being creative and designing. This makes me really enjoy coding and web development. The roles in tech also pay really well. It can fund maybe the café but especially the many places I will travel to. Traveling and discovering different places is something I really enjoy. I'm very fortunate that traveling is a big part of my mom's goals too. It's probably not that financially wise but we save up only to travel. I'm only 20 and have been to 8 countries and many states. I'm actually going to Italy and France soon.

What was your role?

UX/UI

What did you work on?

What was the impact of your project?

The impact of UX/UI role on the gm team is to make sure the users can set milestones according to their experience/point in life. The GM team creates scenarios and milestones that are best fit to the user goals and needs. We need to make sure that we understand where the user is coming from and their wants in the product. For example, there are different set of requirements/milestones needed if the user wants to buy a house according to their background like if they are straight out of college or has already owned before. We need to make sure the user can easily use the services and understand the importance/use case of the different tools Unadat has.

What did you learn or improve on from this internship or from your teammates?

What skills have you gained?

I really like the 80/20, 70/30, 60/40 rules you guys talked about. Never really thought about how you can either spend a lot of time making something 100% or use the same time creating more impact on another project. It made me reflect on more of my life decisions because it`s bad but I find myself not finishing/delaying personal projects due to it not being perfect. I like the example of the Marvel scene, seeing the sketch and the actual final piece. It was an interesting note that the final scene was probably still not 100%.

What was the biggest roadblock you've overcome?

In life, it would be Covid. My family went through a lot during 2020. In the internship, nothing just yet.

How has company culture guided your work?

What was your experience at Unadat?

What was one big project you worked on during the internship? Can you walk me through the process?

What advice would you give to future interns?

I think it was a little challenging understanding the overall product. I liked the gm/gs meeting Friday morning. It helped give more insight on Unadat`s vision. However, I`m still a little confused on how to use the actual website, but judging from the meetings I think not explaining that and having us figure it out is the point. So we can improve the user experience being we are part of the target audience.