Nikki Phan ’21 Puts Liberal Arts Education to Use in Tech

While the humanities and tech may seem like opposite career paths, Nikki Phan ’21 is using her liberal arts degree in surprising ways. After graduating from Saint Mary’s in 2021 with a major in Anthropology and a minor in East Asian Studies, Phan earned HER master’s degree in Human-Computer Interaction at DePaul University in Chicago. 

Pham's currently the Senior Graphic Designer at Inkit, one of the world's leading secure document generation platform. This interview was conducted in January of 2022. 

The road from anthropology to technology

The main things I was interested in were social science and visual design. I  felt like my interests were separated, and I wasn’t sure how to combine the two.  I had no idea that UI/UX—which stands for user interface and user experience—even existed until my final semester of senior year. And luckily, I was taking an Applied Anthropology course with Dana Herrera. It felt like it just fell into my lap.

Professor Herrera encouraged me to see different avenues where you can apply anthropology practically. I really appreciated that when we would sit down and have conversations about anthropologists in the workplace, like outside of academia, all of her non-negotiables were really similar to mine. I wanted to do something that helps people, and something that is practical. She understood that I wanted to be in a situation where I could use my skills to advocate for folks.

On making technology more accessible for everyone

I wasn’t super interested in going down the tech route, but I grew more interested in it because I know it’s everywhere. There’s so much of it, but not everyone can use it. I have this strong urge to practice social justice in whatever I do. I thought tech was a great way to take whatever I learned from different social justice areas in my life and apply that. So, it felt kind of perfect.

A really big thing in HCI and UI/UX is empathy, and that comes into play when you’re creating a product and trying to figure out your audience and how they’ll use it, and what might motivate them to do this or that. In anthropology, we know people experience the world differently and we accept all experiences in equal value; you can’t value one over the other.

Nikki Phan credits Saint Mary's Intercultural Center with preparing her graduate school and beyond: "The IC really helped me practice tangible and practical ways to employ empathy and social justice work in anything I do."

How working at Saint Mary’s Intercultural Center prepared her graduate school research

For my graduate program at DePaul, I’m focused on interactions with digital platforms, like websites or mobile applications. Working in the Intercultural Center really prepared me for grad school, because a lot of the work that we did was all about creating experiences. Whether that was in the form of writing a lesson plan and making sure it was accessible for folks, or designing a newsletter and making sure it was readable and could get the necessary information across, we were constantly thinking about what it would be like for the participants and trying out different things. 

I’m very grateful for the IC. Director Legacy Lee, former Assistant Director Sudha Shrestha, and the rest of the great folks at the IC really helped me practice tangible and practical ways to employ empathy and social justice work in anything I do.

Advice for current and future Gaels

When you go to college, it’s really easy to think that what you study now is what you’re going to do for the rest of your life. But I would say keep your eyes and ears open. Trust that there is a place for you and your interests.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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