A little bit about me!
Originally from Germany, I’ve been in the Chicago suburbs for the last 17 years. In between living in Germany and immigrating to United States, my family moved around a lot due to my fathers job. I spent my schooling years living in Belize, Ghana, and Germany
I graduated from DePaul University in 2018 with a major in Sociology and currently work at a small real estate company where I wear a plethora of hats. From event planning, social media, brand design, landing pages and much more – I do it all!
In my free time I like to write (currently writing a book series!), draw, blog, read, do my daily wordle, quordle and connections, learn anything and everything about the brain and play with my cat Mochi.
I also love traveling! Although I hate airplane rides because no matter how hard I try I can’t fall asleep.
In 2023 I went to Spain, Palma, Germany, New York and Italy. My dream is to go to Japan and Amsterdam, and I want to travel to a lot more countries over the next decade. Oh, except Australia. You couldn’t pay me a million dollars to step foot in the abode of those six legged (or is it 8? I don’t know too scared to Google it) insects.
Although I may never pursue it in an academic sense I love teaching and helping people. One thing I’m good at is putting myself in the shoes of a total newbie and explaining things as clearly and concisely as possible.
At my job I am constantly explaining processes and I always create step by step instructions that never leave any room for confusion. If wiki how wasn’t already created before I was born I swear I would have created something like that.
Being able to break down processes into actionable steps does take a lot of patience and luckily for me as a first born daughter, patience is just built into me.
Along with teaching I love learning new things. This year I set a goal for myself to learn at least 3 new things a year: solve a rubix cube, play chess and use chopsticks.
I am neurodivergent and if you know anything about hyperfocus you’ll understand how I learned to do all 3 of those things in just one week.
While on the topic, let me dive into my neurodivergence for a second! I’m always a bit hesitant to dislose this because of the stigma around it, but it truly can be a superpower and more employers should learn about it. When I tell you I can research, I can research. Give me a topic and I will be an expert on it by the end of the weekend. Give me a problem and I’ll research and return with 10 different solutions and actions to take. Lateral thinking is my middle name.
What drew me to UX
This is definitely one of my main habits that drew me to UX. Fun fact when I took my first ever UX course I cried because it’s genuinely the only career I have found that I could see myself doing. Growing up I thought I’d have to do a boring, dead-end job because I lacked a passion for anything! I changed my college major and wanted to drop out several times because nothing felt fulfilling. My initial major was computer science and for the final of first ever comp sci class (python, which I do know now) we had to create a website. What I ended up doing is creating my own website and in photoshop as well as a contact, about me and services page. I passed the class but don’t tell my teacher this. This stays between you and me. But I was really doing UX design before I even knew what it was (technically I think it was known more widely as graphic design?).
Anyway enough about me!
Wel, one last thing. The name of my website (samsi) comes from my full name Samsara (which comes from my grandparents names; Samuel and Sarah). Samsi is the nickname my younger sister gave me because she couldn’t pronounce my full name.
Feel free to reach out to me @ samsaralueg@gmail.com 🙂
