Business is all about solidity and logic while design is fluid and emotional

Paphavee (MPhil Business, Enterprise, Management and Finance, 2016) works as a UX/UI Designer for a London-based deep-learning powered startup company called Calipsa. Before she had worked as an Interaction Design Consultant at Accenture Interactive, landing the job after graduating from Lucy Cavendish and Judge Business School in 2017.  

She studied Design for her undergraduate degree and then studied an MPhil in Management that, she tells us, has broadened her perspective about her career path.

“Before Cambridge, I could only imagine a traditional designer career path, which is normally in the advertising industry or design agency. But acquiring business knowledge, I now discovered the hybrid between my two degrees: being a Product Designer/Consultant. I get to do the design work that I love and at the same time a perspective of the business side of things helps me thrive to envision the growth and opportunity of the product.”

Because she decided to do a completely different discipline, she found it quite hard to adapt at first. Business is all about solidity and logic while design is fluid and emotional. But the environment she found at Cambridge was very encouraging and she had access to all the resources she needed, and within a couple of months, she became more comfortable and confident. Her decision to do a Business degree was indeed a great choice:

“I could do the design work that I’m passionate about and at the same time use my business knowledge applying to a startup context that is constantly changing.

Paphavee had two main criteria in deciding what career path to follow: 

“It had to be something I am passionate about, so when waking up to go to work every morning, it would be excitement instead of dread! It also needed to have a positive impact on society. It is very rewarding to see my work somehow improving people's lives, a further reason for pursuing this career in the long run.”

During her time at Accenture, she was working for a financial services client in her home country, Thailand. She was part of the team for a project that tried to push the cashless society movement and transform the physical process of banking products into fully digital, so that users could find banking services more convenient to use. “I was very excited when the project was launched and we got to see real results and received feedback from millions of users.”

As for her current work at Calipsa, she is a lead designer for a deep-learning analytics product that is used in the security industry. Their product uses Machine Learning to help filter out false alarms, which are the major pain point for those in the video monitoring industry who have to look at the screen and endlessly click to dismiss thousands of false alarms every day. 

She comments: “I think being multidisciplinary gives me an advantage. I would encourage anyone who might be reluctant about pursuing a path that is completely different from their previous experience to just go for it!”

Paphavee says about her time as a Lucy Student: “I didn't know much about the College system before so I didn't put any preference on my application. However, I'm so glad that I got into Lucy and it's indeed truly a highlight of my time in Cambridge! Lucy is a small but very warm and tight-knit community. As an overseas student away from home, Lucy made me feel very welcome, secure, and comfortable the moment I stepped in. It is a highly diverse community and everyone is very lovely and respectful. I'm very proud to be a College community member!”

About Paphavee Sakdanaraseth

Paphavee is a multi-disciplinary designer passionate about digital media and technology. With her interest in business strategy coupled with her strong background in design, Paphavee enjoys the full range of digital product design from product positioning, branding, experience design, to visual and interface design. See her work at www.paphavees.me