Reader Question: What education do I need?
I am in Business right now in college, and when I graduate I think I want to get into Web design. I got Dreamweaver CS3 and Flash CS3 to start with some good tutorials on those programs, and tutorials on HTML and MYSQL. I wanted to know if I should look into going to school for this, or learn on my own. I heard a lot of school curriculums are outdated for this type of thing.... Any need? Or should I start just making a portfolio? Thanks in advance.
My Thoughts
A lot depends upon what you mean when you say you want to get into Web design. If you're looking to freelance after you graduate, then building a portfolio is critical. The more sites you've built with interesting designs, great interactivity, and good programming the better your opportunities for getting new clients becomes. The degree is often secondary in a freelancing operation. In that case, getting a degree might help, can't hurt, but probably won't get you many clients.
But if you're looking to get a job as a designer in a firm then the degree may be more important. Many HR reps, especially, look for degrees before they pass on resumes to hiring managers. And so now that it's possible to get a degree in Web design or Web development, they will begin looking for that degree on resumes that they screen. In this case, the portfolio is important after you've gotten to the hiring manager. This is the person who will want to see what you've done and see if it maps to what they need.
Help Breaking Into a Web Career
There are many resources on this site for helping you get a job as a Web designer, both freelance and corporate.
- Getting a Job as a Web Developer
- Tips for Getting a Web Design Job
- How to Set a Price for Web Design Work
- Start with a Business Plan
- How to Create a Portfolio
What do you recommend?
What's the best way to get started in a Web career? How did you get started? Did you get a degree in Web development and then start freelancing? Or did you create an awesome portfolio to land a job in a business? Let us know by posting in the comments or answering tjfoz's post.
Comments
Around two years ago I started my own web design company called Plug and Play Design, so I know exactly what its like to start out yourself. I totally agree with Jennifer’s point about building a web design portfolio. This is crucial. It proves your ability and professionalism, and is one of the first things people will ask when you are trying to sell them a website.
The best way to start is by doing web design work for family and friends, and case study them and ask them to keep their eyes and ears out for other people who may want web design.
Another thing you really need to think about is learning HTML and CSS properly, rather than using WYSIWYG editors. This will give you greater understanding of the websites you are designing, and will eventually be much quicker than using any design application.
Conversely if you are looking for a web designer then the main things to check are their portfolio, do you like their design style, can you meet them face to face and allow them to really understand your business? Most good web designers will have a website from concept to launch in under 30 days depending on your own requirements.
(edited: Wikipedia link removed, as I don’t consider Wikipedia a reliable source. I replaced the link with a similar link on this site. — Jennifer)
I did a Product Design degree at university. I found it very difficult to get any kind of design job because of my lack of industry experience. I did a part-time course to brush up my skills outside of my day job. Then started to experiment, and practice practice practice. Start doing sites for friends, local bands, small local businesses. After a while, you’ll get a portfolio that will land you a good job, which will in turn develop your portfolio.
So the answer is no you dont NEED a degree / qualification. But as Jennifer said, alot of companies will look for a degree on your resume because it shows commitment and reliability, which count alot in the world pf work.
I started using computers with punch cards and mainframes (yes, dates me)
I took a computer science class in college (yes, I learned COBOL and FORTRAN – which were actually a popular languages at the time), also programmed a beta Synclavier with PLC/7 (Programming Language Cornell version 7) which was a predecessor of the C family of programming languages.
I worked as a sound engineer and editor for major feature films – I think that was valuable training for producing a web site, film postproduction shares some very similar procedures with web site production.
I am entirely self-taught when it comes to PCs and web programming. I think it gives me certain strengths and weaknesses compared with someone who is school-learned.
I think I am less likely to panic when encountering unfamiliar situations. I had a project involving Lassoscript, a fairly rare server-side scripting language – so I studied it for a few hours and I was ready to rock&roll!
(I apologize ahead of time for the length, but I was very recently in tjfoz’s shoes.)
I started my web design career with a single “Web Design” class the last semester of my high school senior year. This was before CSS became a big thing, so I learned straight HTML without anything else attached (we spent about an hour on CSS, but the lack of browser support at the time rendered it a moot point): tables, frames, <b>, <i>, <u>, and (heaven forbid) <blink>, etc. I freelanced for 3 years, not doing anything that paid monetarily since, at the time, I had no idea I would be where I am today. During the next two years, I took on paying jobs to help pay for college:
Two years ago, I started a web design program at Idaho State University’s College of Technology. I recently graduated with an Associates in Web Site Design and Management from there. The program came highly recommended because it covers many of the most up-to-date software and techniques and led into a very large job market.
They were right–it did cover those things and lead into an extremely large job market. Unfortunately, they ignored all software except Adobe (and, when I started, Macromedia) products–Dreamweaver, Premiere, Flash, Illustrator, Indesign, and Photoshop. The head professor of the program despised use of any other software–and even docked me points on a project because I pulled a few bits in from Corel’s Paint Shop Pro that I liked better than anything Adobe had to offer (for the record, PSP can do anything Photoshop and Illustrator can do, and it’s $500 less expensive).
And as for the job market–yes, it’s extremely large. But this year is a horrible year for the unemployed. Companies are advertising for positions; LOTS of them. Between January 1st and June 1st of this year, I put in 150 job applications in the Twin Cities metro area alone. Out of these 150, 85% of them went unanswered–even when I sent follow-up emails and made phonecalls. Of the 20 or so responses I received, 25% of them turned out interviews, and one of them was golden. The biggest piece of advice here: Don’t get discouraged!
The biggest thing that I saw in those 150 job applications: a B.A. in graphic design or a B.S. in business. That was, I believe, the point at which most (roughly 85% of) employers tossed my r%#233;sumé, although they never told me as much, despite my attempts to justify the Associates program.
I would strongly recommend completing your Business degree and then finding a 1- or 2-year technical program that offers a certificate in web design (the college I attended does offer that). That way, you not only meet the Bachelors degree requirements, but you will have some qualified evidence that you do know how to code HTML and CSS as well as using WYSIWYG.
Another recommendation: spend a lot of time just playing with an image editor (Paint Shop Pro, Photoshop, or whatever you decide on). Build an image portfolio as well, something you can print off and hand to employers. If you lack ideas of things to “play with,” do a Google search for “Photoshop tutorials,” or replace “Photoshop” with something else you’d like to try–3D map-making is a fun one. Have FUN with your image manipulator; you’ll learn how to do some very interesting things. Make sure you save often and, if you’re working on a project and you accidentally do something that looks really awesome, but isn’t what you’re looking for for that project, save it anyway and add notes to the file about how you achieved that result–later, you can come back and play with it some more.
You’ve already got Flash, so definitely spend time just playing with it–one of the clients at my workplace produced a very impressive Flash piece for their website–note that it is NOT the website itself, only a piece of it. Quite frankly, I can’t do that sort of work–I’m not good enough with Flash, despite taking a class on it; I have rarely found an instance in which it is useful in a website, but this is an example of one that is.
An AAS degree in Graphic Design and another in Web Design is what I started with. I freelanced for a year, did several business websites, and then was asked to teach for the Community College where I live. My website is just a mock up of one I did with a class, and if you look at it, the only button that takes you anywhere is “Other Attractions.” I was teaching FrontPage along with HTML at the time. Knowing hard coding is essential in my book. The editors at some point in time will not do exactly what you want them to do, so you will need to be able to change code. Learn HTML very well. I agree with everyone that said doing Pro Bono work is how you get a good start. Clients will always want to see what you’ve done in the past. Secondly, freelancing is great, but it is like any job where you employ yourself. It’s feast or famine. You have so much work that you can’t take a break, and then you’re not doing a job for weeks. If you’re trying to support yourself, that aspect can get scarey. Lastly, you have to be able to communicate with your client. I’m not just saying talk to them. The client is ALWAYS right! Be ready for them changing their mind, adding additional things, and not agreeing with what you know is right. I had a client want a color scheme that was cyan, blue and purple. So I built the site over many weeks, it was almost complete, it was a very large one, when he called me and changed his mind, he wanted red and black!So I got started changing everything including the graphics, with a smile because the client is always right. Lastly, I have a couple of suggestions should you decide to do freelance. The client will want to know when you will be finished. Tell them you will have it finished 3 weeks after they give you the last piece of information. That way they will try and get it all to you at once and you won’t be left waiting for them to get you the stuff. Secondly, when you give them your bid, tell them you will start with half the amount of the bid up front, another fourth of the money when you are 3/4 of the way through and the rest is due upon completion of the work. That does a couple of things. It weeds out the people who are not serious and also gets you paid a little while you are working rather than waiting for all of it at then end. Also you won’t get cheated out of your money from people who decide they aren’t paying if there is any of those inclined to do that to you.
Here’s a different perspective. I started designing websites after a successful multi-decade career in advertising and marketing. I really don’t call myself a “designer” because, with my background, “design” is a sub-specialty. I call myself, mostly, a web site builder.
My degree was in communications, but shortly after entering the workforce, I found that what you learn in college is mostly how to think, not what to do, After being hired, I was deprogrammed in order to do things the way my employer wanted them done.
I now free lance with moderate success. I started building web sites for my wife’s tribal art business. I have used them as “portfolio” examples, although they tend to concentrate on ecommerce.
My advice is to start by designing a web iste for yourself. Use it as your first portfolio piece. Keep redoing it as you learn and upgradiing both your skills and your representation.
Lastly, start out by learning CSS and using it onyou first sites. I am still struggling with it. I have now scheduled a session with a tutor. There is too much jargon in most online CSS tutorials.
Good luck. Most of all “Have Fun”.
That is all good information. There are so many aspects to the web business and ways to begin and grow. About all I can add from my experience is that you will soon learn you need more than HTML and CSS. In my personal growth I soon found I needed to add connections to a database and JavaScript. I tend to use the PHP/MySQL combination for most applications.
I started my web designing out of zeal to know about the way html works. I didn’t go for a degree program. I learnt it own my own, i started learning the basic of making html page, today I can say I am and advanced web page maker. Although, going for degree program is not condemn but you can if you want to learn it on your own.
Well if you’re especially dedicated, talented, and good at networking you don’t need a degree for too many fields save for science, medicine and law. But with more college grads receiving degrees in web design and web development I would think it would be increasingly difficult to establish a career in the industry without the proper degree, than it was 10 or more years ago.
I like to think I am a web designer though I don’t get paid for it.
I am a metallurgist by training but was made redundant and found work writing mainframe systems, moostly in COBOL. I bought myself a top of the range PC (286 with 2 floppies and no hard disc) and used it mostly for snailmail until email became available. (I was “my dotty friend” to one man)I did a little system maintenance in work using a PC. When Compuserve offered a free web site I wrote some pages for a charity. I now maintain 3 charity web sites of varying complexity. I used to do a fourth but someone else is doing that now. Mostly using PDF documents intended for other purposes!