im not sure if this is in the right area, my question is that did you go to college to learn to webdesign? or did you learn yourself? i wanted to gather your opinions as i am leaving school soon but i dont know whether there is enough resources out there to self teach myself everything about website design.

 

thanks,

I personally learnt it myself. Started at the basics (HTML) and worked my way up.

Completely self taught

I'm at college, doing an unrelated course though. So far i feel it's been a bit of a waste of time, all it seems to be is a gateway to uni if that's the path you want to take.

 

Then here comes the whole uni qualifications discussion, they're not worth much anymore because so many people have them, it wasn't too long ago a job was posted in our local newspaper for someone to work in a factory packing boxes, and the ad stated 'those without uni level qualifications need not apply'.

 

Uni qualifications on one hand, don't hold the value they used to, however on the other hand, they're such commonplace now, without them, things could be a struggle... but your a few years off that anyway now.

 

Back to the subject...

 

There are more than enough resources to learn online, alot of web designers are self taught. From what i gather from people doing web orientated courses at my college, other colleges, and some uni's is that the techniques and practices taught are out of date. This may not be true all over however.

 

There's been a lot of talk in the past, and a small surge in the last few weeks about people talking about university courses aimed at webdesign, these discussions still apply to those considering colleges (after all, a uni is a collection of colleges).

 

Here's one article recently http://net.tutsplus.com/articles/interview...eb-development/

 

but there are tons of others around, and generally, the opinions seem to be pretty much the same throughout.

but without college how can you show a client you can do a good job if you have no qualifications?

Portfolio's! although granted, some employers won't even consider you without qualifications, most clients and employers however, couldn't care about qualifications. A kick ass 'folio is all you need (:

 

Your client doesn't need to know or even want to know how you do the job, what they want to know is that you can do the job, and what benefits they can reap from choosing you..

I am still in high school but I am not intending to go to uni for web design, if I do go it will hopefully be in software or engineering. I taught myself the basics of web design and I have a few books which a bit more advanced.

im in college, i think people on web forums and google have helped me more with actually learning web design though. im still a beginner and my teacher definitely has given me the steps to figure out how to work on websites but its more of a hands on thing. good luck!!

Self and WDF taught did go to college / uni but not for web design

Never went to college or uni (well i did but not for web design) and i've never had any problems getting work.

Get a portfolio up, get networking and prove you can do the work and that you're professional.

 

If you feel to go to college/uni then that's entirely up to you but i don't see it as necessary.

Left school with GCSE's and im doing ok.... Mind you im also looking at doing A levels through National Extension

I went to uni for a vaguely related course, but it wasn't until I had nearly graduated that I realised what I wanted to do for a living.

My degree's nothing special (2:2) and my portfolio is pretty lacking (as anyone who's seen my website will testify) but the thing that's helped me the most in my career is an unpaid internship that I went on during the summer of '08.

 

I think that proof that you're willing to work hard and a demonstration of skills and abilities speak far louder than any course you can take

did my GCSE's, 2 years at college and gained ND in GRaphic Design, did 2 years of a 3 year Degree in Design, Multimedia and Graphics and freelanced for 2 years before finally landing the job I wanted.

Self-taught myself web design during school/college and still continue to learn.

 

There is definately more than what was available when I was younger to learn web design; thousands of tutorials online so you can't really go wrong. Just practice and keep a notebook for bits of code and HTML tags etc.

I am university educated, but in other areas (French, then education, then math), but in the area of web design and development, I am self taught (XHTML, CSS, basic principals of design, Fireworks, Photoshop, Flash, starting Wordpress themes,..). But I am getting a bit tired of how slow it is to pick up these things by myself and how many gaps there are in my learning still ... PHP, Javascript, business principles, e-commerce, etc. So I want to go back to college and study web design and development in a classroom setting with a curriculum and assignments to do for a change. I have applied to a local college for a two-year program starting in September.

Started freelancing soon as I left school, seen about 1000 advertisements for web design jobs, never seen one that asked for qualifications.

 

Seems clear to me! If you're passionate about web design, furthering your education is a waste of time

I can actually give you another point of view. I have done a distance learning course (95%) complete.

If I would have known what I know now about web design courses and what they actually teach you, I wouldn't have bothered!

Mine has taught me things that maybe I would have missed myself. Things to do with standards and networking, etc.

 

But as for going college and Uni to do web design, I might be wide of the mark here, but I think you would be better off self teaching.

 

Plus, if you want to be an actual designer, college can't really teach you the flair and imagination of design, that comes from you. All they can do is show you how to use the tools, and that is easy enough to teach yourself.

 

I think forums and tutorials are the way forward!

 

Good luck

Hi,

 

I'm partly self taught but in three days submit my final Open University project for the Web Design and Development course. I have found these very usefuL. I also took the Design and the Web course which is more of an introduction.

 

I find them useful as they cover a lot of subjects and terms that you might not come across self taught. The exercises are useful to help and it's also a reference point. They are £200 each but enable you to work and study at the same time. Although motivation is needed at time to do it as I find I get distracted by the television and social networking sites lol

 

However if I were your age and could turn back time I would have taken more interest in doing a uni/college course. I'm only 21 so the idea isn't completly out the window but I feel I'm going to do OK with Open Uni route.

 

I think doing a college course helps to improve your confidence and would give you a portfolio with all the coursework needed.

 

Also there are contacts which can help you begin to build up a client base. My first website is one for my music which helped me to learn the basics and my second is for a car company that is constantly being updated (so I get paid!) but that was through my boyfriends Dad. I also may have a second project coming up for an artist that my Dad has sorted for me. When I get more confident I want to advertise myself to local companies and build it up from there.

 

 

I do worry that more people are being taught web design from a young age at GCSE level which will make the market more competitive than it would've been ten years ago. But then I think there will always be someone out there who needs a site it's just a case of finding them!

I attend college, I am 18 now, If I had learnt all Web dev when I was 16 I would of got loads of Jobs now, I only know PHP, XHTML, Basic CSS, and Mysql

Again, like most folk on here..self taught! I went to college for my Graphic Design qualifications (many, many years ago), and then eventually transitioned into web development (around 5/6 years ago), starting with good 'ol tables and the like, and moved into xhtml/css later down the line. Back then the web was very much in its infancy, no scrap that, it was non-existent to the man on the street, so it all had to be taught later on.

I too did graphic design at college, then did a distance learning course for html/css

I left school at 16 and did an accounts apprenticeship.

 

I'd been teaching myself programming / web development since i was maybe 13. I've never been to college/university to learn what I know and I've had 2 different permanent web development jobs. I've currently been at a place called Iogen for about 6/7 months and going strong.

 

I didn't even do GCSE I.T.!

As i am in full employment (not web design) i invested in a home learning course which was useful. But i am currently self learning XHTML, CSS, Dreamweaver and Photoshop using the mass of online information (including WDF) but mostly through books, notably CSS The Missing Manual, which has been a fantastic book!

Yeah I went to college... guess what I learned?

 

**** all!

 

(related to IT of course)

 

I think you can learn much more and much faster by yourself, if you're willing to learn, obviously.

 

College can be excellent for different subjects such as medicine, law, etc...

I've never had any formal training. To some extent, I regret that.

I started very late with computers (7 years ago, hadn't really touched one before that) and the only reason I got into web design was for a previous business I ran which needed a web site.

Learning the basics is incredibly easy on the internet and I recommend it to anyone. What the internet isn't so good at is giving you a thorough understanding of what you're doing. Sure, you can follow a tutorial/copy and paste some code and 'learn' as you go but for me, books are what gave me the real 'grounding' in what I was doing (apart from design; I still suck at that!)

I wouldn't recommend any 'web design' course tbh. The amount of graduates I've seen who can't code in html/css, nevermind php/javascript etc is frightening.

I would, however, suggest some kind of business qualification (if you want to run your own business/be a freelancer). This is the one skill that I wish I'd gone to college for; I can talk all day about web sh1te but I find it very difficult running a business.

I'm 28 and I'm doing a beginners course in web design which runs for 6 months. I'm half way through, and from what I've discovered on here is that a lot of what I've been taught is out of date!

 

I'm not considering whether or not it will be worth doing the advanced course or try and continue by teaching myself!

I taught myself my web design skills. In the early days anyway.

 

I started off designing web sites as a hobby. In college (6th form) there was no web design "course" or even a computer related one. In Uni I took a Leisure Computing Technology degree which was quite general learning windows programmer, building computers and one module was Javascript.

 

After Uni and before I started freelancing I worked for almost 7 years in a web design company and continued to learn - teach myself but also got some on the job training.

Self taught, degree in International Relations lol.

Im self taught, but i went to college once to pick up my wife (in the car)

I'm self taught in web design although we touched on it very briefly during my IT degree... I'd like to say going to uni was a waste of time, because that's what I thought for years, but truth be told I wouldn't be where I am today without my degree. Most IT employers want qualifications (the bare minimum is a degree as they are getting more and more common nowadays), web design is different as it's more portfolio based... but personally I'd recommend broadening your horizons as much as possible. Web design is a hobby that I've made a bit of money out of it along the way, it's not a business I'd feel comfortable working in full time, it's getting more and more competative by the day with more and more freelancers and agencies springing up all over the place. I prefer working in a more stable environment (at least four design agencies have closed near me in the last year), but that's my personal opinion of course, others will have different experiences.

Gosh I'm shocked at how many there are self taught. I did do a HND in Computing, but within a week had learned more as a programmer than I ever did at college. I think you need an eye for it but you can do fine self taught if you keep up with the technology.

 

This website is good - A list apart

Self-taught and proud

Completely self

wow, so many who are self-taught!

 

Uni is great! Especially for making friends, building contacts, (getting drunk) networking, gaining future clients, (partying) and I agree with a previous poster that most major corporates WILL ask for a degree, depending on what kinda company you want to work for, smaller companies not so much. It was good for me also because pre-uni, I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do in life and uni introduced me to the wonderful world of web design! Still learning though, web design is one of those industries that is forever evolving so we are all always learning!