{"id":5084,"date":"2015-07-23T06:37:59","date_gmt":"2015-07-23T06:37:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/keblog.demoapp.xyz\/?p=5084"},"modified":"2022-10-19T03:46:24","modified_gmt":"2022-10-19T03:46:24","slug":"how-a-college-dropout-found-success-without-a-diploma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neo-blog.kalibrr.com\/blog\/id\/how-a-college-dropout-found-success-without-a-diploma","title":{"rendered":"How a College Dropout Found Success Without a Diploma"},"content":{"rendered":"<article class=\"Post__ArticleWrapper-sc-174xy8l-0 ccdSnC\">\n<p class=\"Post__SectionWrapper-sc-174xy8l-1 jkcuFG\">Everyone knows the supposed formula to success: go to college, get good grades, graduate, get a good job at a huge company, work, work, work, and then retire when you\u2019re 60. Everyone knows this formula, but sometimes it doesn\u2019t work for everyone.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Post__SectionWrapper-sc-174xy8l-1 jkcuFG\">Some people \u2013 whether out of choice or out of uncontrollable circumstances &#8211; break the rules and skip out on a step or two. Sure, we\u2019ve heard stories about people like Mark Zuckerberg breaking the rules and becoming successful but can a regular person in a place like the Philippines make it work? Well, it worked out for Kalibrr Product Design Lead, Kevin Velasco.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Post__SectionWrapper-sc-174xy8l-1 jkcuFG\">Kevin dropped out of the University of the Philippines (UP) when he was 19 to pursue a career in product design. He is currently the Product Design Lead for Kalibrr. Like the Kalibrr site? Give Kevin a shout out. He\u2019s the guy in charge of the user interface and user experience (UI\/UX) of the website.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Post__SectionWrapper-sc-174xy8l-1 jkcuFG\">It\u2019s his job to determine your needs and goals and help you achieve them. Thousands of Kalibrr users lay their eyes on Kevin\u2019s stellar work every day. But it took a while to get there. So how did a college dropout find success without a diploma?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_26 counter-hierarchy\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\">TOPICS<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><a class=\"ez-toc-pull-right ez-toc-btn ez-toc-btn-xs ez-toc-btn-default ez-toc-toggle\" style=\"display: none;\"><label for=\"item\" aria-label=\"Table of Content\"><i class=\"ez-toc-glyphicon ez-toc-icon-toggle\"><\/i><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\" id=\"item\"><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class=\"ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1\"><li class=\"ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2\"><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/neo-blog.kalibrr.com\/blog\/id\/how-a-college-dropout-found-success-without-a-diploma\/#From_college_kid_to_Kalibrr\" title=\"From college kid to Kalibrr\">From college kid to Kalibrr<\/a><\/li><li class=\"ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2\"><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/neo-blog.kalibrr.com\/blog\/id\/how-a-college-dropout-found-success-without-a-diploma\/#Leaving_school_for_the_real_world\" title=\"Leaving school for the real world\">Leaving school for the real world<\/a><\/li><li class=\"ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2\"><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/neo-blog.kalibrr.com\/blog\/id\/how-a-college-dropout-found-success-without-a-diploma\/#The_dropout_advantage\" title=\"The dropout advantage\">The dropout advantage<\/a><\/li><li class=\"ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2\"><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/neo-blog.kalibrr.com\/blog\/id\/how-a-college-dropout-found-success-without-a-diploma\/#Designing_his_future\" title=\"Designing his future\">Designing his future<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h2 class=\"Post__SectionWrapper-sc-174xy8l-1 jkcuFG\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"From_college_kid_to_Kalibrr\"><\/span><strong>From college kid to Kalibrr<\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p class=\"Post__SectionWrapper-sc-174xy8l-1 jkcuFG\">Kevin never really planned on getting into product design. In Kevin\u2019s own words, \u201ca mixture of luck, opportunity, and being open to learning new things\u201d were the key ingredients that brought him to this path in life.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Post__SectionWrapper-sc-174xy8l-1 jkcuFG\">Kevin was still in UP when he started taking a class under Danny Castonguay, Kalibrr co-founder and CTO for Emeritus. One day, Danny posted an announcement in their class Facebook group saying that Kalibrr was looking for a videographer for one of their projects and Kevin, a former Film major, decided to sign up for the job.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Post__SectionWrapper-sc-174xy8l-1 jkcuFG\">While working on the project, Kalibrr\u2019s original product designer left. Seeing this as an opportunity to stay longer with Kalibrr, Kevin dropped out of school and began working on building his design chops. As with most new beginnings, it was a rocky start. With no design experience, he had to design everything on his own while struggling to learn UI\/UX design principles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Post__SectionWrapper-sc-174xy8l-1 jkcuFG\">His light bulb moment came when he realized he could also tackle his design problems like a scientific problem. For Kevin, product design isn\u2019t just about design and art. It involves the application of principles from sociology, anthropology, art design \u2013 basically everything that can help understand human behavior.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Post__SectionWrapper-sc-174xy8l-1 jkcuFG\">He started looking at user behavior as a scientific process and began treating design elements as variables to be tested until he figured out what worked for Kalibrr\u2019s users and what didn\u2019t. The most valuable lesson Kevin learned in school applied to his early days in Kalibrr.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Post__SectionWrapper-sc-174xy8l-1 jkcuFG\">Kevin shares, \u201cOne of the most important skill you can have when working for a start-up is learning how to learn.\u201d \u201cI was like Jon Snow. I knew nothing. If you accept that, and accept feedback and don\u2019t treat feedback as an attack on you, you can create great things.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<h2 class=\"Post__SectionWrapper-sc-174xy8l-1 jkcuFG\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Leaving_school_for_the_real_world\"><\/span><strong>Leaving school for the real world<\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p class=\"Post__SectionWrapper-sc-174xy8l-1 jkcuFG\">While it may seem like Kevin easily handled the transition from college dropout to product design expert, it was a change that left him shell-shocked. Dropping out of school meant getting a head start on adulthood. While Kevin was all set to leave school, he wasn\u2019t quite as prepared for the nitty-gritty part of adulthood: being completely and totally independent. Kevin jokes, \u201cI realized if you don\u2019t cook, clean, look after yourself, you die.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Post__SectionWrapper-sc-174xy8l-1 jkcuFG\">Nevertheless, it was an experience that taught him to be independent far earlier than his peers. Kevin says, \u201cIf I stayed in school and graduated, I would\u2019ve stayed sheltered and be unable to survive on my own. I\u2019d still be a helpless child.\u201d The decision to leave school wasn\u2019t very difficult for Kevin. He found the traditional format of school to be far too slow. He liked the thought of working for a startup like Kalibrr because everything he worked on made an impact on people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Post__SectionWrapper-sc-174xy8l-1 jkcuFG\">He loved the thought that \u201cthousands of people can see what [he] was just designing in [his] sketchpad three weeks ago.\u201d But make no mistake, Kevin isn\u2019t encouraging anyone else to follow his lead and drop out of college. It was the scariest thing he ever did in his life, but he still considers himself fortunate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Post__SectionWrapper-sc-174xy8l-1 jkcuFG\">\u201cTruth be told, I was a really bad student so dropping out wasn\u2019t a big decision; it was more of an inevitability. It just so happened that I got lucky that Kalibrr was willing to hire a dropout.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"Post__SectionWrapper-sc-174xy8l-1 jkcuFG\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"The_dropout_advantage\"><\/span><strong>The dropout advantage<\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p class=\"Post__SectionWrapper-sc-174xy8l-1 jkcuFG\">While one might think that not having a diploma might make things tougher, so far it has never been an issue for Kevin. He believes that leaving school early has given him an edge over his peers. It has helped drive his career forward faster and toward places he never thought he\u2019d go.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Post__SectionWrapper-sc-174xy8l-1 jkcuFG\">While his peers were at school, he was adjusting to a working environment. And now, as people his age are just graduating from college and looking for jobs, he has already been working for two years. Aside from his job as a Product Design Lead, he also does freelance front-end and back-end web development, as well as other programming projects.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Post__SectionWrapper-sc-174xy8l-1 jkcuFG\">Another edge that he has over his fresh grad peers is that he has had more time to build networks within the industry. He gets to connect and work with the brightest minds in the start-up community \u2013 a priceless advantage as he believes that skills alone don\u2019t create success, networks do. \u201cYou can be the best programmer, but if you don\u2019t have people out there to support you, it\u2019s very difficult to get anywhere. You have to exert so much effort to get anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"Post__SectionWrapper-sc-174xy8l-1 jkcuFG\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Designing_his_future\"><\/span><strong>Designing his future<\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p class=\"Post__SectionWrapper-sc-174xy8l-1 jkcuFG\">At 22, Kevin still has a long way to go in his career. While he\u2019s still enjoying his time in Kalibrr, he has huge plans for the future. He dreams of putting up a practical art school where people can skip the traditional schooling format and learn how to build, design, and innovate with startup businesses in mind. And while he can\u2019t really imagine himself going back to school anymore, he\u2019s toying with the idea of getting an MBA one day in case he puts up his own startup.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Post__SectionWrapper-sc-174xy8l-1 jkcuFG\">Ultimately, he sees himself applying design thinking to solving tangible problems our communities. He wants to merge the principles of design thinking with sustainable technology to help ease poverty in poverty-stricken communities in Metro Manila. Instead of seeing these communities as a problem to get rid of, he prefers to see them as an opportunity to empower people &#8211; just like looking at design as a scientific problem with an answer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Post__SectionWrapper-sc-174xy8l-1 jkcuFG\">He believes that if we take these communities and teach people to grow their own food, generate their own electricity, and build sustainable communities, we can empower them to become productive members of society. \u201cWe can make opportunities for them to be creators in their own right.\u201d With Kevin\u2019s openness to new things, eagerness to learn, and nifty design skills, he\u2019ll get where he wants to go with or without a diploma.<\/p>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Everyone knows the supposed formula to success: go to college, get good grades, graduate, get a good job at a huge company, work, work, work, and then retire when you\u2019re 60. Everyone knows this formula, but sometimes it doesn\u2019t work for everyone. Some people \u2013 whether out of choice or out of uncontrollable circumstances &#8211; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":5104,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neo-blog.kalibrr.com\/blog\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5084"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neo-blog.kalibrr.com\/blog\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neo-blog.kalibrr.com\/blog\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neo-blog.kalibrr.com\/blog\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neo-blog.kalibrr.com\/blog\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/neo-blog.kalibrr.com\/blog\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neo-blog.kalibrr.com\/blog\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neo-blog.kalibrr.com\/blog\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neo-blog.kalibrr.com\/blog\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neo-blog.kalibrr.com\/blog\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}