Feliz año nuevo a todos! (happy new year, everyone).

2011 will bring heaps of new changes to my life (among which “blogging” more here and there will be one of them), but most importantly, I will be starting the new year with a new job and a new home.

A new life. In New York.

After 5 1/2 years in Indianapolis (which has been “home” to me ever since I left Torino), the time has come for me to turn yet another page in my life –personally and professionally.

I will be working as a User Experience Designer at Roundarch in New York City from the 17th of January.

My plan was never to come and stay in the American Midwest for so long. In fact, I came here just to visit my sister during the summer before returning to Bogotá after completing my undergraduate degree at UNR –ready to think about the future.

But shortly after I came to Indy, I found myself enrolling in a great Human-Computer Interaction graduate programme at Indiana University. Shortly after (halfway through my graduate studies), I was given a fantastic work opportunity as an Interaction Designer at Pearson Education.

I feel very lucky. Not many people get a chance to complete a graduate degree at the same time they work in a real full-time job in the real world. Being able to handle both successfully until I finally graduated had me feeling accomplished like never before in my life.

Needless to say, this was a rather intense, yet very rewarding experience.

I am extremely grateful to Davide Bolchini and Anthony Faiola for guiding me throughout my graduate studies in HCI. I am also extremely grateful to Pearson Education for believing in me and my potential as an interaction designer, despite only being a graduate student trying to achieve the credentials to be worthy of such a position.

It is safe to say that being in Indy all this time has prepared me to take the next big step in my life –a step like the one I’m about to take.

I’m moving from designing optimal user experiences in the world of higher education to Roundarch: a digital consulting company in which I will have the opportunity to design for a much wider spectrum of audiences, platforms and contexts.

After nearly 4 years as an interaction/UX designer at Pearson Education, I am really happy to be able to expand my horizons in a brand new setting, working at a different (faster) pace in all sorts of new projects with Roundarch. I’m ready to give this new episode of my professional life my all and get the most out of it at the same time.

I will also take this opportunity to write more openly (and more often) about how this new adventure develops –right here on this site. I’m sure this change will come with plenty of stories to share.

Making New York City my new home has indeed been a long and intense process. Most of my energy in the past two months has gone to finding a place to live, flying back and forth between Indy and NYC, talking to various friends and colleagues about the UX field in the city, getting a sense of NYC’s cost of living, culture…among many other things.

But now that things are starting to come full circle in regards to this move, I must say that I could not have made it without the help and assistance from my family, as well as many people I have the honour of calling my friends: Cindy Gerritsen, Chris Avore, Eduardo Ortiz, Whitney Hess, Will Evans, Amanda Chessa, Kelly Elsner, Shawn Hoke, Kate Nyland <–you all know in what ways and just how much you have contributed to making this goal of mine a reality. From the bottom of my heart: Muchas Gracias!

I’m about to welcome a 2011 full of new experiences and adventures. One where there will be many things to learn and explore –in other words, a new year that seems to be very, very exciting.

I wish you (reading this right now) a very exciting new year as well.

Thank you for sharing this moment with me. See you in NYC! ^_^