Hello everyone I hope I am posting in the right place! This will be a long post, so my apologies in advance.

 

I have not studied web design/development at all other than a brief module in BTEC ICT Level 2 which was very basic. That was some years ago now, and due to personal circumstances at the time I did not continue to level 3 and then to degree level as planned. I am now extremely determined to study and have a successful career within IT. I have always felt web design/development is what I want to do. I was planning on studying access to computing and then going on to HNC/HND or BSc. There are no colleges within a reasonable distance offering the access to computing, so I spoke with the manager of HNC at a local college and he said he accepts access to business students but they will need to do a test or mini project upon application to prove past skills. I will not find out what this involves until I apply, by which time I will be committed to the business access course. This has me a little worried as like I said, my only qualification is the BTEC and it was a few years ago. I really, really want to get on to this course and I want to prepare for this test but I am unsure how as I do not know what it will involve. Does anyone have any idea?

 

My thoughts were perhaps to get on to some short courses leading up to or even during my access course. Since my interest is in web design/development, maybe it would be worth doing some short courses in web. Some courses I have found include 'creating a website' 'coding for the web' and 'web databasing.' These are short courses, running over just 4-10 weeks. I am unsure how much I will learn but something has to be better than nothing. I thought I could learn basics, take that knowledge away with me and learn by myself at home as well.

 

What software or learning resources could I use to educate myself? Any recommendations or advice is much appreciated. Like I said, I am completely new to this!

My opinion is somewhat contentious but I believe that uni isn't always the best route to get into web development.
It's possible with some hard work to get a junior role within 6-8 months starting from scratch and with two years working in the industry building projects you will be light years ahead of those leaving University. You won't have the debt and you would also will have been earning along the way.

There are some good university courses for web development but it seems that's quite a rarity, decent agencies, and good online coding schools like CodeSchool will be teaching more upto date technologies than Universities will due to all the red-tape issues you get there. It's a bit of a minefield and you will have to research course content thoroughly to make sure they are covering the relevant topics and technologies.

 

Of course if you have your heart set on uni then I strongly advise you self study on top of the course, to make sure you know how to create modern websites when you leave - some grads do not and then struggle to find work.

Edited December 13, 201510 yr by rbrtsmith

I too would recommend against uni for web development. The curriculum is laughably outdated, and it takes so much bureaucratic nonsense to update or change anything that by the time it's done - the industry has changed again and it's still outdated. I completed a HND this year and before that I was on a BTEC. It's all been such a massive waste of time and I haven't bothered going onto the last year to get a full bachelors. Most uni's are still sticking all computer subjects together under one course. So you have 18 units of wildly different things and end up learning nothing at all, especially if the course you go for also lumps in business subjects like mine did. Save yourself the debt! There are tons of resources online to learn anything you could want for free, and some better ones if you don't mind paying.

In my opinion, the best way to learn Web Development is actually do something. Edit some websites, edit templates, build some website, etc.