Angel's pathway into design started with her probation officer. Not your typical design school origin story, but here we are.

When she first showed up at Hatch Studios (Hatch Immersive+, now Kita Studios), she was quiet, uncertain and certainly didn't see herself becoming a UI/UX designer one day.

Language barriers made group work tricky.

Design felt completely foreign.

She kept showing up anyway.

Her early days were filled with lots of hesitation. Lots of not quite knowing what to say or how to say it.

But Angel had something going for her: curiosity.

She stayed open, took things one lesson at a time, and slowly —very slowly — started to find her footing. No dramatic overnight transformation. Just steady progress built on trying, messing up and trying again.

Her first breakthrough came during the programme’s capstone project. Tasked with designing a UX prototype for a real-world company, Angel was pushed out of her comfort zone. 

Something clicked. 

For the first time, she saw design as more than just a skill to learn. It was something she could actually do. Like, as a career. Wild.

That realisation carried her straight into an internship at iShopChangi, working on one of Singapore's biggest e-commerce platforms.

Big step? Massive.

New tools, higher expectations, way more pressure. But Angel tackled it the same way she'd tackled everything else: quietly determined, always learning, never giving up.

Here's the part that really shows how far she'd come: just two months into that internship, she enrolled herself in a formal UI/UX course. Nobody told her to. She simply recognised what she needed and went for it. Keep in mind this is from the same person who once struggled to speak up in class.

Today, Angel works full-time as a UI/UX Web Designer at Hatch Mediahouse. She's designing user-friendly interfaces, solving problems, doing the things she once couldn't imagine doing.

And in true full-circle fashion, she's also back training the latest Studios batch — showing new students what's possible when you keep showing up.

Angel's journey hasn't been easy, and it definitely wasn't linear. But it was hers.

She proves that success doesn't start with having it all figured out. It starts with showing up even when you're unsure.

With asking questions even when you feel out of place.

With taking small, shaky steps forward and trusting they'll eventually add up to something real.

Turns out, they really do.