Another day, another think piece about millennials. The jury might still be out on whether we’re truly killing the napkin industry, or playing ourselves in the housing market by buying too much avocado toast—but one thing that does ring true for many millennials is that we’re not feeling fulfilled at work.
Putting the intergenerational grumblings to one side and focusing on the positives, one thing we’ve discovered since launching UX Academy nearly three years ago is that UX design (also known as product design) offers an increasingly attractive career path for millennials in search of a job that can offer creative expression and personal fulfillment—not to mention financial reward.
If you’re a millennial considering a change of path, here are 4 simple reasons design could be right for you!

1. Becoming a designer needn’t mean more debt.
Far from blowing all our money on brunch, many of us millennials are actually digging our way out from under a mountain of debt. Approximately 75% of millennials owe some kind of debt, whether it be credit cards, student loans, medical bills, or something else. The average amount of debt a millennial has? $42,000.
As a result, many millennials are putting off major life events like buying a home, getting married, and having children. As well as having consequences for wider society, many millennials report that debt negatively impacts their interpersonal relationships and mental health.
Given these worries, many of us are understandably sceptical about the financial cost of going back to school. However, compared to other industries, the barriers of entry to the design industry are relatively low. Many successful designers are essentially self-taught, and intensive design education programs like our UX Academy offer low-cost design education, payment plans and a six-month job guarantee.
Becoming a product designer can also put you in a position to begin paying off existing debt more quickly. According to the independent job site Glassdoor, the average salary of a junior UX/product designer is over $90,000 in the U.S., and design managers (experienced designers who supervise design teams) rank 19th on their list of the 25 Highest Paying Jobs in America.