Supafly

Most on this board already know my opinion and it's pretty similar to cherrydesigns experiences. I've done the uni thing, granted it wasn't in web development but I think it was a waste of time and money, that said I did learn and had fun meeting new people and all that. However when I weigh that up against getting experience in the field in a subject that can be easily self taught (to a higher standard than the universitys can offer) then there is no contest. I say this a lot but you don't really start to properly learn until you're working in the industry preferably on a team of experienced developers. I thought I had good knowledge and quickly realised I'd only covered the absolute basics when i started my first job.
 
If you get a job offer in the industry I'd take that everytime over doing a course. Harry Roberts, a well known and respected front end developer had a similar dillema early on in his career, he took the job, and found out a few months down the line the university where he was contemplating doing a degree at was using his blog as a reference for the course material, that says a lot really. A lot of the big names in the industry don't have degrees in this area. You progress based on ability and reputation, it's not an industry where a degree is required to succeed like more traditional engineering, the medical world etc.
 
I don't think many on here are making £1k a week, unless they are senior developers or have a very successful freelance business. I'd say it takes a number of years to be making £1k a week. but if you can make a name for yourself like Harry above, or like Chris Coyier, Paul Irish i'd imagine you can make considerably more than this figure.
Also in terms of wages developers tend to earn more than designers and back-end a little more than front-end.
 
Two very good learning resources are:
http://teamtreehouse.com/
https://www.codeschool.com/

Hi Freddie. Your site looks good for a beginner's effort, much better than what I could churn out in your shoes. Here are my thoughts.
 
Firstly, your code. You've used mostly divs - a non-semantic attribute, to construct your sections as opposed to HTML5 tags. This is called 'vanilla coding' or 'vanilla HTML'. I'm not sure if your tutorials alerted you to modern HTML5 attributes, but I'd look into them - chiefly the <section>, <aside>, <article> and <footer> ones. Don't worry too much - I'm pretty sure my own site still uses a div instead of a footer and in other places, it's easy to lose track. I really need to change that, heh...
 
The '#999900' colour is a little off-putting and doesn't accurately reflect your creative design skills; it looks like the colour of a rotting pear if I'm honest, heh. If you've got Photoshop, crack it upon and just fiddle around with the colour palette, go for a more upbeat, conservative colour.
 
I'm guessing you haven't had time to look at JavaScript or jQuery just yet, which is absolutely fine, a site doesn't need it to work well. But when you do, it can transform your navigation function into something more fluid; right now, upon nav link click, it darts to the corresponding section further down, whereas with a very simple jQuery script (no more than 2-3 lines), it can be smoother, more interactive and pleasing.
 
Lastly, and I don't mean to push you in any directions while you're learning, but I would strongly look at responsive design. It may sound daunting, but incorporating it with your current learning would be highly beneficial, as opposed to going back to it. It's just about using percentage widths and CSS media queries (Google that!) to adjust page elements to look nicer on different screen sizes.
 
It's an excellent effort for only some weeks work, you're definitely heading in the right direction. Hope my tips helped a bit.

The first time i attempt to learn something I have used code academy as it's easy to use. Then as i look to progress in that subject have switched to Treehouse and recently Codeschool. This formula seems to be working well for me. I agree it's definately worth the investment!
 
Thanks

I'm in the same boat, 29 now and spent the last 6 years doing a job a just 'ended up' in. I'm now spending as much of my free time as possible learning design/development. I really want to make the career change and get into it full time.
 
I've also been wondering about what i would put on a cv and how long it would take me to be ready, so It's definitely inspiring to hear your story!