Been thinking of changing my career direction (currently a frontend developer) cause I'm not passionate about it. I enjoy web design/art in general a lot more and was wondering if it makes sense to go back to school to study UX design/Art/Graphic Design?

I know the salary is less and just as competitive, but I feel like it's better to be happy with a job I care about than a job that just makes me money and I'm not leveling up/looking for promotion. Also worried that if I ever get laid off, I may not have the skills to land a new job easily.

Any thoughts?

9 times out of 10 yes

is it better to just learn art/web design on my own?

didnt go for art, but i did one year and i stopped cuz i was so burnt out from school. Also hated night classes and 3 hour classes

If you are extremely talented go for it

do you have any actually work experience

op is the 10th dentist

you mean art work experience? not at all

don’t listen to this person lmfao, talent has nothing to do with it

you should work first

To get your art 2 sell and get to the point where ur art grad matters u need to be talented. Yes u can be smart and pass but its what matters after it

Do you have to pay a lot of money for it like in the US

Idk why you would have to go back to school for that. If you have any projects or art to show for it, that should be good enough.

The "front end" is still the user interface/experience.

no man

ignoring financial security and future aside

The level of performance graduate schools with FA programs will expect you to perform at isn’t enough for you to just be picking up art and still have your training wheels.

You’ll be competing for spots in programs against ppl who have spent their entire undergrad and likely before that drawing and drawing and drawing like it’s second nature ya feel, they have portfolios to show for it, personal projects, experience, etc that just comes from working at a craft over time. You can’t really just make that appear overnight or even in a few months

and this is coming from someone who is about to get a non-stem degree but not

you can really teach yourself a lot of the basics even if it requires you to learn the bare minimum fundamentals (which grad school isn’t going to teach you), find a CC that’s cheaper maybe, or find local stuff/people in your area that you can join with or people who are teaching.

That makes sense. Do you have any suggestions on good resources to learn the fundamentals?

Is it even worth pursuing this as a career?

Any suggestions on good work opportunities? You think freelancing might be a good start?

Art skills will not get you a good back up job vs working in retail.

You should get art skills to improve your front end work, get branding/marketing skills to upgrade your career, and use art as a hobby outside of your job.

Unless you are cracked out on improving and doing art for 9 months and ignore everything else in life, you will be fighting a losing battle against life-long artists

Plus what skills will you acquire?

Draftsmanship and painting can be used 1% in my business design work.

Graphic design is more useful

Are you rich ?

For anyone telling OP not to. Are any of you artists, have any of you done commercial art, have you ever been commissioned for artwork for a brand/company before, do you know how to sell/market your artwork outside of a web portfolio or social media?

Those are very niche and competitive markets to get into if it's purely for commercial art that is solely for brand awareness or attention.

Those also sound like spaces where you have already done work at home before jumping into this field. OP hasn't said he has a portfolio or even a sketch book?

Yes

You don't need to goto grad school to learn UX design

that’s not the position OP is starting from, he doesn’t have any type of portfolio or long history of making art