Holy crap this hits home with me, I haven’t read it yet. But I’m quite looking forward to it – I’m about to be a senior in HS. I want to just finish up HS (I wanted to drop out recently, but have since reconsidered) and just get on with my life.

I want to thank everyone who answered questions for this article! I received so many responses that it would be impossible to post all of them. Please forgive me if your remarks were omitted.

For some things college makes a lot of since but not web development. All the best information is online. Why pay $300/credit hour when you can Google it for free.

your design / development degree doesn’t look good on the web. Enough said

Oh man. Well, I’ll have a B.S. in computer science in about 3 weeks. Good major choice, yes; bad university, no; bad program at the university I’m at, yes. My school’s computer science program could not be more outdated if they tried. We are learning the most rudimentary crap you could imagine. Anything that hasn’t been used in the last 10 years is what computer science majors at my school are being taught. It’s terrible. I feel like I’m one of the only ones in my class that keeps up to date on my own. Everyone else has no idea what’s going on outside of the class room.

I could go on forever bashing my school’s computer science program because it is really, really terrible, but I don’t think anyone really cares about that…

However, it is true that outdated material is being taught. It should be a sin. I SHOULD NOT have to sit through classes being “taught” how to create a web page using table and depreciated HTML code when I know more then everyone in the class, and the teacher. Ugh, what a waste of money/4 years… All for a piece of paper saying I went to college.

Skol iz harD!

I em a gud drawler!

I recommend going to University for at least one year.

A. It`s a life experience.
B. You will meet like minded individuals — life long friends.
C. You will expand your horizions should you allow it.

I personally attended for two years; one year in Arts History and another in Computer Science. Out of those two years, I was exposed to environments and information I would otherwise probably not be exposed too. I learned things, expanded my horizon and met some damn good people. I made many mistakens; learned from those mistakes and enjoyed my time. Now I have tons of knoweldge both derived from educational experiences and those associated with the “university experience” and I am better for it. I say if you go straight to work out of High School you will miss out on some damn good opportunities.

My suggestion is to take something that interests you after high school, maybe not even applicable to your career goals and persue that for at least one year. Join some clubs, socities..enjoy greek life, dorm life or whatever life you choose. Get out, get loose.

So as for a degree in web development, maybe you might like to choose that – but there is TONS of information out there, try something..even if it`s not web dev, and you might like it.

Unfortunately, web development is not a major (at least not anywhere I know of). In a month I will graduate with a degree in Computer Information Systems. I took the one and only web development class offered in my program. It focused on HTML, CSS and some PHP. I felt it was definitely up-to-date, however one class can’t cover it all. Also, companies are looking for developers with multiple web language skills (Rails, PHP, ASP, Javascript). which aren’t covered. My degree gave me many functional and business skills, but most web related skills were learned in my free time, outside the classroom.

I have self taught myself 3 times as much as I have learned at DeVry Online – it’s been a complete waste of time and money… I wouldn’t recommend DeVry, and I probably wouldn’t go back to school for a higher degree either.

I find that my Community College is not up to date with the Web Development curriculum. The only web programming classes they offer is Web Dev 1 (Basic HTML, all done with Dreamweaver) Adv Web Dev (Coldfusion, all done with Dreamweaver), PHP (basics-intermiddiate) and Java.

In through the Web Dev 1 class, I breezed by it, because it was nothing new. The thing I was hoping the course had some CSS intacted in with it; however there was only 1 puny chapter devoted to it giving the very basic minimum of it.

The Adv Web Dev class, I feel is a huge waiste as I dislike Coldfusion which I always have.

I hate that the 2 courses above were entirely Dreamweaver and dreamweaver write the code for you. Thats not programing! It may help the beginner, but down the road you are very limited and what are you going to do in the real world when you sit down at your desk and see you have a free program such as Notepad(++).

PHP was a great class, I had already learned everything that was taught, but was a great review.. and no Dreamweaver ! We did everything in Linux using BlueFish Editor and GeEdit. We spent about half on the PHP side, and half on the PHP/MYSQL side. Too bad there was no Object Oriented stuff tho:(.

Even tho its a community college, I still would expect more being taught. I would still like classes devoted to 3rd party languages such as Javascript/JQuerie, AJAX, even PERL. What they offer will only get the new user to Website Development so far before they hit a brick wall.

So now my question is when I graduate here, is it worth going further to a University for Web Development? Or am I only going to be taught the very minimum again.

I missed the Twitter conversation, and I’m not a professional “web designer,” though an increasing responsibility in my marketing position is web development. But I like sharing my 2 cents, so here they are:

1st penny: university isn’t meant for learning practical skills. It never was. It was a place to acquire knowledge about any number of subjects, most of which were theoretical or abstract. A university scholar could be expected to be proficient in poetry, math, AND science. Of course, the body of knowledge in any one field was a bit less expansive… times change, I understand that. But to me, even modern university degrees should lean (even though they don’t) more toward the theoretical than the practical. Learn about “design” in any medium, and then your chosen career will determine how you apply this knowledge.

2nd penny: Even if my personal view of what a university “should” be for (which isn’t worth a can of beans, really) isn’t taken, web design–as much as I respect it–shouldn’t be a university degree. It should be a trade school or community college diploma program at best. I don’t mean to sound elitist or anything (I’m far from it), but we ALL know that we’ve done our best learning either in the practical courses that gave us free run to create something, OR more likely we’ve learned our skills on our own time and from resources such as this site.

To summarize, universities are not outdated in general, but they’re not the place to learn web development.

PS, “Begging the question” is a logical fallacy that only translates as “which really makes you wonder” in modern English because so many people used it incorrectly that the incorrect usage has wormed its way into the language. Begging the question actually has nothing to do with literally asking a question. I lurnd that in teh universitees.

Wow, great post – good to see some different perspectives on the issue.

College is good to gain skills you may not pick up on your own, but it’s hard to justify with rising costs and diminishing returns. This seems especially true in the web field, where it’s difficult for many colleges to keep up with the pace of technology.

Although I’m glad I attended, because of the exposure to new concepts and ideas, most of the knowledge could probably be gained more efficiently my a motivated individual. Classes broke everything down into bite size chunks, but a good portion of the time felt like hoop jumping to make a grade, rather than focusing on the real world applications of our education.

I wanted to be a web developer so I started studying something similar to computer science (in Panama its called Computer System Engineering) but I get bored so quickly because I knew everything they where “teaching” me.

Now I’m studying Electronic and Telecommunications Engineering and I’m not bored anymore (it’s a lil bit difficult but is nice).

I prefeer to learn the web dev part by myself so by now I have also my personal web development small agency and I know XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and a lil bit of Python and Ruby. I think it’s not impossible to make it by ourselves and believe me: maybe you will lost your time at college if you want to learn the latest techniques and technologies… so if you want to be a good web dev, start by yourself and take something cool at college (maybe relevant).

I’ve learned PHP, SQL, Javascript, Ajax, XHTML, AS3, the Adobe suite and much more… all on my own without a college degree in this. I was selling insurance?!? up until 2 years ago, but I had good computer skills. I’ve done such complicated sites for a newbie that I am convinced you do NOT need a degree to be good at this. You do need some aptitude for this kind of work and you do need to like it.

See the following about whether college grads are successful because of college or if college grads are just successful people anyway:
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Economy/story?id=6654468&page=1

First, let me say that I dropped out of college with a degree in Communications Design. While I wholeheartedly agree with the continuous learning mentality, sometimes college isn’t where you actually learn your skills. It’s been said in this article and comments that most colleges have a difficult time keeping up with real world web development progress. And, even though I am a college drop-out, I part owner and Creative Director of a web development firm utilizing skills I learned through books, the web and rolling up my sleeves and getting dirty with the code.

However, I believe that going to college for those years (2 years when I was 18 and another 2 when I was 28) allowed me to make connections and interact with people who were passionate about what I was passionate about. Granted, it was Women’s Studies and Feminism (and not web development) where I made my connections but even so, those connections have been supportive of my business and goals in life.

I believe college is important but as a way to expand one’s horizons. If you’re in a creative field, that piece of paper called a diploma is rarely useful. I’ve never been asked about my schooling in a job interview. I’ve been asked to see my portfolio, asked about my creative process and asked how quickly I can complete projects but not once has someone asked if I graduated from college.

Wow – this is a really helpful article for me. I’m a senior in high school now, and I’ve decided to go to college, but I don’t know exactly how I’m going to progress. I can only hope that the college I’m thinking of attending has an up-to-date computer science program, but since I’m considering double-majoring, I don’t know how important that will be.

Still really informative and helpful for me.

Thanks for the article Jeffrey, very interesting!

Dear Nettuts+ community,

You should go to an university, because with a degree under your belt
you will get paid more and have more of a chance for a quality job, which means that your quality of life will be better. And you will meet a few people, who might become your friends on your path to earning a living. You might help out a few Souls and receive helpful suggestions & relationships yourself.

Going to an university shows your commitment and ability to be disciplined. It was never meant to be the place for the latest technologies to be taught, understood, shared. Or a place of fun and so forth. If you believed otherwise -sorry, understand that it is only just the school marketing department pulling you by your nose. School is a place of serious manipulation by definition, it is not an innocent place of rose colored clouds. I try to be as intelligent as I can in it, but it is hard to notice that almost all schools dumb down the students that go there, myself included. There are a few private colleges that are different and are gems, but what are the odds of you and I finding them and attending them?

I, personally, started with a community college for two years and will most probably want go on from there into an university/technical college to get a Bachelors degree. That way I do not have to take it, my education, so seriously. But, my chances of earning a living almost certainly are not as good as for those who attend an University from the start, because I took an easier path for myself. There are always consequences.

Thanks.

Great work man, I am looking to be a Webmaster too.

To shed some light on my situation I will be finishing up my 2 year degree in Information Technology in September. I originally was going into networking because I figured it would be more stable due to the offshoring of coders and designers. However I found myself not as happy as I am with web designing or coding and decided to finally adventure out into the freelance world, which I’m transitioning to now. The best thing to do is do what you love to do and think less about the money involved.

I think a university helps by providing the core understanding like theories, etc of programming but it’s not required to make the tool work. The problem is if you lack the understandings of the language than it’s hard for you to get out of a rut when you land in a sticky situation with code. It’s not impossible of course with the help of Google but a coder whose got a firm background on a language can easily get through problems and save a ton of research time.

Downsides to a university might be the costs and the two and a half years of obsolete coding or unrelated subjects.

A friend recently started his 4 year CS degree and he’s learning stuff I knew when I was 16. I understand they have to start somewhere but I felt like I’d be wasting my time learning what I already knew. I decided to go with a 2 year community college to get the social and useful skills out of school and still maintain a job and focus on a freelance career in web designing and developing.

Now I’m having more fun than ever. I enjoy reading blogs on new technologies, diving in and spreading myself out into new technologies. I’ve had many others tell me you don’t need a degree to do this line of work and I firmly believe that. The downside to web designing and developing is just that. It doesn’t require a degree to use the tools but it does require a determined individual to get the most out of the tool. You can shoot gradients, shapes, and effects all day out of your head and it won’t mean nothing if you aren’t creative or original in your uses. It takes a special kind of person to manage all aspects of a business and still get time to design and code.

Being both a web designer and developer takes an artistic and logical viewpoint on things. To often than not I find myself making rigid websites or being to “creative” and breaking code. This can result in inconsistencies so it’s important to keep the two separate.

And finally the biggest factors for me to go into this field was my passion for it and that I could potentially be my own boss. I’ve found that I clash heads with bosses because I end up finding a better solution that’s beyond the scope of my job or that I can automate and optimize things beyond needing employees. It’s something I love to do. I like seeing machines run faster and repetitive tasks disappear. I like the thought of technology simplifying our lives and making us more efficient as a society. With our current society we compete against machines because it eliminates jobs but I one day hope that we can all collaborate instead of compete to reach a higher level.

Look deep inside yourself and find whats best for you. If your only for the money then it will wear you out within a couple of years but if you have a true desire like I do to learn and to make yourself and the world a better place than go for it.

As you can see I love this a ton and write to much about it. Good luck in your endeavors.

I would say definitely go to university, even if it’s a financial burden. You don’t even have to major in ‘web design’ or ‘computer programming’ if you want to get into those fields. I have a bachelors in Philosophy, but haven’t spent a day of my life using the nitty-gritty of the Philosophy I learned. Rather, I took a bunch of classes that I was interested in, learned as much as I could from some very wise people (the professors), and got to know and work with a lot of great peers (the other students.

And now I have a job in web design/development, communications, and programming. Never took a class in any of those fields—ever.

Totally agree with Alan!!! I have done much the same. The only good a University education would do for you in terms of web development would be a solid understanding in OOP.

Don’t get me wrong though, I believe a University education is very valuable as I currently attend for Engineering and Commerce (nothing to do with Web Dev/Design). And I still have time to continue with my freelancing =D

I have always had the thought in the back of my head that I should have a degree. I have been designing and developing for the web for 12 years, 6 of those freelance. I have friends who attended universities, graduated, got jobs and spent most of their first year emailing me questions they had. I feel that the best way to learn is to take advantage of resources online, to name one, NetTuts. I have created countless websites and supported a comfortable lifestyle with out any formal schooling on the matter. The only thing I could recommend to those who are looking to do web for a living as a freelancer is to take some business classes. Just because you know how to make websites does not qualify you to communicate with business people. If all you want to do is design and program, go to work for a media house or firm. I love business, took a few business courses but also read as much as I can about business so I can interact and provide a better experience for my clients. Clients of Jerad Hill Studios get not only a great website but also a lot of business experience from my 6 years of being in business and countless books I have read.

I will finish high school in less than two months. I must say I was shocked to find out that not only in my country – Romania – but everywhere this field overwhelms the universities that teach it.
I know that I won’t be learning much from collage. I don’t expect to find a gold mine there, but I know I will find people that might be in the same position as me, and that I might start a business whit them. Only surrounded by great people we can achieve our greatest goals.
Just my 2 cents, sry for my bad english.

University is free for me (live in Scotland) therefore I have nothing to lose but time. Even still I wouldn’t have picked a webdev subject.

I appreciate his effort to teach, thanks!, the best choice it is online learning.

In this field, you never, ever stop learning. Period. Sites like this one will always have value because web designers and developers need to stay up to date, and blogs and web magazines are the most cost efficient way to do that. However, that doesn’t make a college education any less valuable. As with many fields, it’s the base that you build the rest of your experience on. It’s also worth noting that the vast majority of salaried web jobs require at least a bachelor’s degree. If you’re going up against a candidate with similar experience but he has a college degree and you don’t… Well, I think you know what will happen.

I’m currently studying a Bachelor of Accounting and I’ve been making websites in PHP for about 6 years, and I for one can say that a university in no way can teach you everything you need to know, and neither does it give you such a specialist knowledge about the field that you immediately become a guru. The argument you put forward in this article can be the same for Accounting, it’s a heavily practical subject and you’ll learn more in one year working in an Accounting firm than at University. That’s why to become a CPA or Chartered Accountant (here in Australia anyway) you have to undertake a further 3 years of study and mentored practical experience before you can call yourself an accountant.

However, in a degree you’re never going to study a single topic exclusively. In my degree (been at it for 1 and a half years now) I’ve only studied 4 specialist accounting courses so far, out of the 12 I’ve done. What were the others? They concerned things like Marketing, Economics, Organisational Behaviour, IT, Commercial Law, Statistics and such. And that is, where I believe, Universities offer students the greatest educational experience.

Sure, it’s fine that you are a PHP coding guru, but really, would you know the basic contractual rights you and your client has with regards to the website, will you truly understand how the site should be developed to maximise its marketing potential, would you know how to generate relevant statistics which can show your client how their sales are progressing on their ecommerce site? If your client asked you about market research and targeting their site to a particular market segment, would you truly know what they’re on about when you’ve only taught yourself PHP?

It’s in those “filler” courses that universities truly shine, there are some things you just will not teach yourself. I wouldn’t have thought about reading up about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and then studied the dozens of more contemporary marketing theories if it weren’t for university. The broad skill set that university gives you is invaluable. And if you’re planning to integrate your developed site into a large organisation, you had better be able to understand it’s marketing lingo, as well as the reporting requirements of management.

Websites form an integral part of today’s society, and if developers don’t understand marketing fundamentals, as well as contractual rights and management requirements, you’ll be just another fish in the pond.

On a final note, my accounting degree has helped me tremendously in understanding client needs when it comes to websites, not only can I code a site which helps clients with their tax reporting obligations, but I can also understand what I client needs in terms of growing their business. So I’m no longer a coder, I’m a web consultant, educating clients about how a website can fit into their business model. Simply being able to code will not give you that kind of knowledge.

That’s my opinion anyway.

The issue with University courses is that they always will be behind latest “trends”. A typical degree course takes 4 years to author, by which the common trends have changed – that is why table based design is still taught.

There is certainly a different attitude passed towards people that have “taken the effort”, as such to complete their degree. More job opportunities (if you have a degree, your ability to get a job in any industry, regardless of the job is greatly increased), and different opinions of which people will hold of them. I think in anything in which you learn, you need to continue to learn during and after the time you have “allotted”, and not expect a degree course to teach everything you need to know. Those which stand out will hold a much higher regard than those which simply stick to what they are required to know.

I don’t think clients themselves hold such a high regard to those which have done a degree – however should it not be more important to improve yourself?

I definitely think that the languages taught by Universities are wrong. That is, inappropriate, but it very much seems to be dependent upon what the University want to “do with you”. Through searching those in the UK at least, there is a clear line between those which simply want to throw you into industry (from looking at Computer Science courses) compared to those which want to allow you to develop your skills.

The former usually are very Java heavy, and could be regarded as living in their own little bubble, rather than reflecting a wide range of languages and options which are around, allowing you to fill in your own knowledge in a very diverse industry.

Going back to where people need to “continue to learn” and from the article “They don’t know that they need to keep their tools sharp” -Does this not reflect an industry which is constantly changing and in which only those which take the “extra effort” will stand out?

I do not believe that it is possible to be passionate about your career (or simply your subject) without “reading around it”. Taking a narrow minded view towards an area which has significant changes each year and is only in it’s infancy is naive.

I do not think a degree should be chosen merely due to the cost of attending, nor the direct return you gain from completing, but more the options by which you will be open to once you complete the course.

Many students have personally emailed me stating that their web dev classes do not cover the latest technologies. Have you found this to be true?

This is 10000% true in my view!
still in my class in learn how to build tables in HTML and also simple redirects(ASP.NET) in logout buttons without using sessions!
and so on….

my university still teaches frames, and no basic design theory. although that’s expected, all my friends creations looks hideous. i honestly think that the timeliness(forgive my bad english) of the curriculum depends upon the intructors themselves. sadly, most instructors(at least the ones i do know) are bookish zombies who only teaches what they were taught a century ago.

i recently failed applied physics(same building rollercoasters dream lol). not sure whether i should go back, shift to something else like IT or start getting freelance design jobs. as of now, i only accepts jobs from family and friends for free. well, the laws of physics never change but its application does and most students who don’t end up physicists(professors at university) turn to IT or engineering or both.

It’s true
I knew right away i wanted to be a web developer.
Although i already have more the 8 year experience, i thought i would learn some more.

In my current year, we started of with HTML, we took an approach on different methods – tables, iframes, css. And this is all we get in this year :S
so I’m kinda doing nothing during those lessons. Next year we start of with PHP & MYSQL, which i already know….

The problem about this class is that they start at experience 0%… And teach everything from the start. And most of the assignments include a “reader”, with the complete code included. So the people I’m working with have like 10% experience at the end of the HTML training. Many find HTML and other programming languages boring. In my opinion this is the result of out-dated assignments and teachers who turn on there beamer and say “Just type over the following code”…

I’m finishing my degree in web technologies this summer. Overall I’m pretty happy with my decision.

Yes, some of the courses are out of date, vary basic, but also very mandatory.

Don’t forget that the university is a research body more then a teaching body, so most likely you’ll get just a kick-start review when it comes to technologies and you’ll have to keep studying a lot by yourself.

The good part is that you decide which subject you want to expend your knowledge
in, and lucky us that it’s all in Google.

Think about that: by the time they’ll develop say a Jquery course – it probably won’t be relevant anymore…

I am about to enter my final year of a Software Engineering degree in a Scottish University. Only some of my classes have been web oriented but I did have a class in third year which was heavily based on web development. We did get taught up to date technologies (ie. PHP and AJAX) and how to use them. So I think the “is University up to date” question is totally contextual.

I have no regrets so far about getting a degree.

Any job in the broad ICT is not the most secure job in the world. The today world is very fast-paced and technology becomes obsolete so quickly.

Imagine this: You’re in your thirties and it’s 2020, everything you had packed when graduating at 2008 is nothing in 2020. You’re going to spend thousands on courses to keep up-to-date. In addition, those younger than you have the advantage of being already up-to-date and chances are employers will prefer them over you.

That’s why I chose to attend Business School, because managerial sciences do change as quick as technology, and web development could be studied online and it is very practical to become a self-learner.

Bottom line, you have to have managerial skills and possibly a certificate, because one day your ICT skills will not be worthwhile and you will have to move to a more managerial position.

I really think experience is more valued than a degree, especially in this age.
I personally think what employers are interested in is good quality work, they don’t care where you have obtained the skills from. I really think having a strong portfolio is much more valuable to them than having a degree.

I admit that I learn a lot more from the internet; it’s a much more vast source.

I graduated from high school last summer and headed straight to job market. I dont feel like learning physics and high-level math to do web development….

I didnt ever regret my choice

Funnily enough, I have a friend who recruits web developers for a major online poker website in London. He said the vast majority of people who have just graduated are unemployable. The skills they learn in course that was put together maybe four years ago is just too out of date.

They have only just started teaching Object Oriented Programming in the majority of universities. He said at least 60% of his staff are self-taught.

I actually went to university for a year before quitting, at the time I was studying a Software Development course where you really needed a degree in order to get a good job.

When I realised that actually I was making my money as a web designer I decided that university was just a waste of my money especially when I asked them questions and they said go look it up in a book, I aint paying over £3000 a year to be told to read a book.

I have talked to many design agencies over the last few years and one thing I hear about taking on students fresh out of uni or on placements is that they are not up to scratch with any of the latest technologies, they still code in the design view of dreamweaver with tables, its ridiculous, I am looking at taking on staff soon and have decided now rather than going for fresh designers I’m just gonna use freelancers because they are far more knowledgeable about the industry than people with degrees.

Just my 2 cents

It seems to me that pretty much the only way to run a web design degree is to teach some basics and then teach people how to learn, so they’re equipped for the constant wave of new information they’ll have to take in when they graduate.

I’m coming to the end of a digital arts MA and it’s been really valuable for the academic structure (though that’s really fairly vague) and having the space to think/write about the web and art a bit differently.

Anything I’ve learnt has been down to me going home and reading about it though. The most they can offer is structure and tutorial support.

Nice post Jeff. I am about to enter a university in a year for web development and this post seemed very interesting to me… Its true that universities may not cover the latest technologies that emerge every moment, but a university degree is something necessary (after a good portfolio, of course). At least at a bachelor level…

I would also be going through the syllabus of multiple universities and seeing which one is more advanced, I guess that’s a good way to judge.

For Web Design or development, there is no need to attend university tbh. These are soft subjects having seen even young kids, if they had natural aptitude for it, do well in it.

For everything else, you can’t do without it. Forget Electronics, Physics, Computer Science, Mech if you don’t want to attend university.

Ohh and one more thing , are stock photos placed in the article without any sync ? All the pics especially the mathematics questions one, has absolute nil to do with web development. Even the pics of the colleges … You seriously think all those things are part of web development ?

Regards

I have a law degree, but have been a full-time professional web designer for many years now. I have no regrets whatsoever about having a degree that has nothing to do with the web.

The most important thing my degree taught me was how to learn – that’s a skill you’ll need for the rest of your life. In addition, the life experience of being at university is worth every penny

I graduated a french diploma for Webdesign 3 years ago, and I must admit I can learn more in 2 weeks blogging, than in those two years at school.

That said, I absolutely don’t regret I went there, it gave me a good experience, solid basics, and kinda set me up for the process of self learning.

The piece of paper is a good feeling, also, in the freelancer area, strong portfolio + diploma = the win.

For most customers a good portfolio is enough, but I’m happy I can show the diploma when a customer asks me about my résumé.
It always looks more serious.

I attended CSU Hayward. Got me BA in Art, with a spec in Digital Graphics. Most of the stuff I “learned” WAS using outdated method. My teacher even suggested we use Quark to build a website. Quark?!? A print program??? No. I built it in DW and she was very upset. I knew more than her and barely passed with a D+, just so I would leave her alone.

All in all, I’m glad I went. Having a degree shows you have drive. It’s not about what skills you have when it comes to college. It’s about what kind of person you become through it. My social life there molded who I am today. It’s a lot more than a bunch of expensive classes. It’s a life experience, and I think everyone needs that experience, even if they don’t need the degree.

I attended Eastern Michigan University in Ypislanti, MI and was actually a Finance major. However I worked at the University as a student web designer for the student center. I currently work for U of M-Flint as the multimedia/UI designer for the university (eek current website is terrible…do not look…just got hired in Feb. =]). I have taught my self everything that I know, except for the first class I took in high school 8 years ago. My initiative at the University is to change how Universities use and interact with the web.

Anyways during my college experience I would say that going to school for web design was not an option and it would have been even more of a waste of money than my Finance degree. The fact is there is no real schools out there teaching students about building for today’s web. There are no Web Standards 101 and Web Design theory classes.

I would like to see a University come out with a program about web design or building web applications for today.

I’m a freshman at Michigan State, and I’ve been impressed with what’s been offered so far. Already, I’ve had a web development class with Ruby on Rails, and I’ll be taking a “database-driven web applications” class that uses Python in the fall. Python is the language taught in the first programming class here (though I didn’t take that class). I’ve also been told for the web development classes, any student whose code doesn’t validate as XHTML 1.0 Strict FAILS (which I think is a great policy). I’d still like more classes like these throughout my degree, and I’m still teaching myself much more than I learn in the classroom, but I’m surprised to see the university offers classes like these

GREAT post. I got my B.S. in Computer Technology in 2005. Back then I aspired to be a Web Developer. What I learned in school taught me the HTML basics and understanding OOP. This made it easier for me to quickly learn other languages and recognize similarities.

I think going to school is a personal choice. The degree can give you more leverage at some agencies and at others the portfolio weighs heavier. Like one of your readers said it’s also about the college experience.

I am now considering a 12 month program where I can earn an MFA in Media Design at a University that stays up to date with what is being used and what’s currently going on in the industry. I am by no means a designer and think this might be able to give me a good foundation, knowledge, and methods used in the industry to put behind the skills I’ve picked up with my Tuts+ account

What do you guys think?

I used to be a professor in a web dev course for undergrads.

I saw some things in this article that are so very true that I wish I could go back in time and send my students the link. I would eventually work on a translation to Portuguese so they would have to excuses for not reading it.

Keep up the good work. Thank you.

University seems to just a big drink-up to me anyways, meet new people, go to plenty of partys, maybe learn a little bit, but just a waste of time from getting a head start at life. Ok so obviously some people do well out of university, but most people I know who have attended, have NOT ended up in a career in their field of study, and are generally in a job that’s far from it.

I didn’t go to uni (surprise surprise), but I had a very well paying part time job when I left high school, and on my days off I offered my services free of charge at a web agency. After a few months I was offered a full time job there.

I’m currently still working there and learn at such an intense rate purely because nothing beats hands on experience and when you’re forced to learn something because you suddenly have a professional deadline, you learn it quick smart!

I just recently obtained an AS in Dynamic Web Development at my local technical school. While it was not cheap I feel as if i had learned a lot and it only got me started. I tried learning these things from scratch from tutorials and books, but having a teacher to explain what it was I was doing, why it was doing that and then the final outcome proved to be really useful. Now it is much easier to learn new things based on my schooling from tutorials and books since now I have an understanding of whats going on.

At my school, I took classes in dynamic web design HTML/CSS, JAVA, VB.net, PHP, ASP.net and Actionscript 3.

The problem with most self-taught web designers is that they have never had exposure to some of the finer concepts of computer science. It is much is easier to go from theory to practice in my opinion. My first job was a php web developer, I had never used php, html, javascript, or much html before. I had implement 5 or 6 RFCs, gone through the Oracle certification course, and learned about 7 programming languages. I was contributing code by the second day on the job.

I have worked along side of some self-taught people who were very bright, but you just can’t know what you don’t know. They looked like a deer in the headlights when talking about subjects like the factory pattern, modularization strategies, and algorithm complexity and run-time.

Now I am sure the is a group of self-taught programmers a mile high that know much more about the subjects that me, its just that most don’t. It’s not like a site like Nettus is going to delve very deeply on these subjects either, since they are more theoretical than practical.

I’m a Msater student major in Database and Web System. I have several years experience in Web Development, I still think I have learned lots of new stuff in University. Like Web Standards, Web Services, Data Warehouse, Distributed Database, Interactive System Design, etc. Sometimes, I can learn how to communicate with the users, because the user is not me, always speak user’s language. It’s expensive, more than $1000/credit. If you don’t attend university, for example, it is possible for you to not know what is adaptive and personalized web system, the model, algorithms, etc.

It’s hard to say, because everything you plan to do has tradoffs.

Just do what you want. Follow your dream.

I believe it’s fairly hard for Universities to keep professors who know the most recent technologies.

I mean if you have the option of working in the web business, working with new technologies daily, and making a good income or teaching college students, not being in the actual “field” and possible not being in tune with new trends, what would you choose. As much fun as it would be to be a college professor in my 20’s I think it would be easy to fall behind the curve if you aren’t working in the web business daily.

I believe that is a big problem in finding professors to teach web design/development classes. So then colleges are stuck with Joe Smoe who learned how to make table based layouts in Dreamweaver back in 1998 and is now teaching a class.

While college may not be the best place to learn web design/development there are many other life lessons you will learn in attending, like partying, partying, and keg stands.

I received my Bachelors in IT, concentrating in Web Development and I unfortunately had professors who were not up to date with the industry standards.

I worked in a web design firm my last semester for my internship and the real world experience within that firm opened my eyes. There was one individual who was passionate about web design & development that steered me down the right path and his passion inspired me to educate myself, as this industry requires you to learn everyday.

To conclude, my time in college did not prepare me for this industry because the professors were not knowledgeable of the industry at that point in time, they only had a snapshot of what it once was and one professor was just learning a programming language as he was teaching us, so that class was another story.

When looking to enroll into a college/university program, speak to current students, professors and ask what they are covering in their class.

Great topic! I accidentally fell backwards into the web world, ejecting from an course leading to architectural design – don’t regret it a bit. The dealbreaker for me, in terms of deciding “school or no school” was that all the programs I reviewed either taught technology (versus fundamentals) or that they were simply obsolete, having been designed years or decades prior.

The educational institution is not set up to move at the pace of the web design industry, courses are often times not relevant even in their first offering.

If school isn’t for you, the best thing you can do is find a friend thats in a band or does side projects, and build a website for them, view other webesites code, replicate it, change it, do what you need to learn even a little, after that find someone to give you a chance in the field your interested in, and its easy from there. Just find ways to get done what your client wants. You will learn much faster and material that is top of the line for todays standards

Great topic I agree, but ,in my country, if you don’t have a college/university degree you will not get a job as a developer. Of course I know it is not necessary to attend 5 years of university to create a web site.

Sad, isn’t it?

Check out FullSail.com if you can afford it, it’s fanstastic- web design AND development, industry standard material, up to date facilities and curriculum, and lifetime auditing once u graduate. Just be sure you take the right degree program. I took Digital Arts and Design I learned 35% of what they learned and I wish I learned more server side scripting and iPhone development. Again if you can afford it, it will give you good headstart. Also the success stories come from people with the drive to succeed, bad reputation comes from those who are mediocre and expect to have things handed to them.

It’s easy to bash university as a waste of 4 years and thousands of dollars. Sure, most of the web design and computer science courses I took were outdated. But the fundamental concepts were still taught, and any good university teaches you so much more than table-less layouts and programming.

If/when I get bored of full-time design/development, I’ll likely start my own business or take a leadership position at a Web company. The business, legal, and various other principles I learned in school give me a much better chance at succeeding than typing “how to run a web business” into Google.

I am definitely NOT saying that you can’t be successful in different walks of life without a college degree. Clearly that is not the case. However, if you have the resources, I’d highly recommend going to school in addition to learning current web practices from great resources like NETTUTS.

thx for that post Jeffrey! Also the comments are helpful. Was looking for such a discussion ‘cos I’m ’bout to study something related to web development. The problem is, that no major course exists. Computer science is probably the most closest. After reading all this, I am not sure weather to study at an University at all :-S

I went to college for a 4 year degree in what was essentially graphic design with an emphasis in multimedia (though the actual title of the degree was something more along the lines of “production art”).

I learned very little in college relating to the field, both from a development and creative standpoint. I was already fairly savvy with XHTML, CSS, and most all of the Adobe applications… Though I found my teachers to be very sharp individuals, there’s just too many people with blank slates that they have to cater to as well.

You can’t really point any fingers at colleges for “not keeping up” with web technologies–its nearly impossible! I think college serves more as a 4 year span for you to generate as much portfolio-grade work you possibly can before entering the work world and losing whatever remaining financial ties you have to your family. But, oddly enough, a lot of employers still require a college education. Having a robust portfolio can definitely go a long ways, but the truth of the matter is, if you’re applying for a job with no degree but a good portfolio and there’s other “educated” individuals competing for that same degree, you’ll quite likely get the shaft.

I’d have to say at my university we’re pretty much up to date with the latest technologies. They’ve introduced RoR recently to accompany the PHP modules and cover many of the frameworks for JS and PHP, etc.

Having said that I’d say I have probably acquired more knowledge off sites like NETTUTS than I have from university so far.

I just switched from a major of Computer Science to a completely different school so I could major in Web Development. It was a risky decision because I could do so much with a Computer Science degree, and as you’ve pointed out here, some schools just don’t provide up-to-date lessons in web development. That could have really been bad if I would have chosen the wrong school.

I’ve now gone through two terms at my new school with my new Web Development program, and I’m very happy with it. I think this is a very informative post for anyone that’s interested in web development, and you make some good points about what to consider when choosing the right school, or going to web development school at all.

I know I will go to university in some field, I just haven;t decided if it will be web development. fortunately I still have a few more years to decide

Im a selft tough web developer, and also im a university student, althou im not in web dev at my uni, i do atend a similiar carrer.

i think uni is very needed, if not to fully learn a specific field, at leat to learn basics of most fields you will encounter your self as a profesional.

belive me, i tryed it, i was a freelancer for about 4 years and couldnt move on the business world, people took advantage of my capabilities, now, i decided to go to school and ive been learning so many things that i have claimed “hey if i knew this before, things would have been diferent”.

my advice, attend uni, but also, keep you self tough abilities, you will need them in the web dev world.

PS. Excuse my broken english.

This was a really good article. I’ve been kicking it around for a few months and after hearing these i am leaning towards apprenticing with a good web designer. I wish i there was a web design course at my highschool so much you have no idea.

P.S NETTUTS is letting extremely immature comments in lately

I am in a web classes right now and, honestly, they are useless to the point of being disadvantageous because I am spending so much of my time trying to jump through their hoops that I have little time to continue with efforts that give me forward progress. Somehow I just find table based design a tad bit of a waste of my time AND money.

So far my self-taught education is serving me head-over-heels better than what I have learned in my classes. At the most the classes teach me how to use the Adobe Suite but not the affective theory and design practice that even the tuts+ sites teach.

I know people want to assume that a degree is always the golden ticket. But for web, it is a detriment. The web is ever changing to the point where that middle man (the school) is a choke point and, as long as you have the will and desire, usurping that choke is one of the best things you can do for yourself.

There is more to learn in a university setting than just what the professors teach. Those who attend school only to learn a profession miss out on 90% of what school could provide.

In school I learned to better interact with clients as I dealt with teachers’ whims and demands. I learned to listen for what a teacher wanted me to know, not only what they were telling me.

In school I learned to network with students and professors. Those skills have helped me in client and co-worker relations. When my team hires a new person, we are more concerned about hiring someone who is likable and personable and moldable, than we are about hiring a know-it-all or someone who can’t work as part of a team.

In school I learned that I needed to step on all of the bases. I needed to do all of the paperwork, and meet all of my obligations.

In school I learned to communicate. Few programmers work solo. It is important to be able to communicate clearly with one another and with clients. In school I learned to be able to organize and present ideas.

In school I was forced to take some classes to graduate that had nothing to do with my major – English, Creative Writing, World History, Art History, Biology, and Religions. This have helped me to be a more well rounded person, and have helped me better appreciate the world and it’s peoples.

Did school teach me to program – yes, at least it helped me on the way. But my learning didn’t end when I graduated. Every day we all struggle to learn and keep up. That will never change regardless whether you go to college or not. Had I not gone to college I would have robbed myself of some of my most precious memories. Had I not gone to college, I feel my ability to enjoy life and appreciate it would be diminished.

I love and enjoy what I do, but it is not my life’s work. My life’s work is to build, better, and enjoy my family, my community, my nation, and my world. It is the things learned at school that I couldn’t learn from a blog that have helped me, and will continue to help me the most in that work.

I love this article. Recently, I been mulling over finishing my degree in Digital Multimedia\ Technology. Most of the things I learned were out of date, before they were being taught at all. I have a certification in Web Production. The question I’m figuring out now is whether I continue somewhere else or blot into freelancing.

Good topic of debate, but ultimately the notion is ridiculous.
Whilst I cannot and indeed shall not state that I have not learnt a large amount from online blogs such as this fine example, inherently if an individual were to base the foundation of their development education solely from articles sporadically placed around the web of dubious validity then consumers who employ these ‘blog educated’ individuals will in turn lose out on a professional level of service, compromising the reputation of the profession as a result – an unacceptable future indeed.

Blogs such as this should be used to reinforce skills developed in controlled educational environments where those who teach have the vast majority of answers and time to develop the skill set of the pupil in question.

I do however agree that in some institutions the level of education provided is wasteful and that an education from the web may in fact be of a better quality than one bought on the basis of student fees. Financial difficulties may be a reason for one to join a substandard school, I can identify with that, but ultimately if there’s a true desire to succeed and prove yourself to an institution then this shall shine through and scholarships are likely to be made available. This reason does not provide reinforcement or validity for solely an online education.

It was really nice reading and I am really appreciating you, in my case also I attended a leading university of London, and while I was following I realized the subject area was little bit outdated, we got so much of idea and other Latest trend because of the industrial guys who are working for Innovative and research companies. Because we got some guidance from them. So in my view the student always should be in touch with Industrial Folks, because a university can give you a limited amount. By our effort we can get more than what we get, as a Graduate i would like to conclude as “An Academic Qualification is really important to get a better job, also You need to get a better influence to get a job in these type of seasons”
V for u man, giving some good reading!

also test your self http://eyoosuf.blogspot.com/2009/04/programmer-competency-matrix.html

I have been studying architecture for 3 years now and on my last year.. I have taught my self web dev… Uni is a complete waste of time.! Web deb is about freelance and selling your self… And you don’t need a uni to teach you programming..

Strongly advice other people to find a job instead and build experience!

If I was hiring and it came down to someone who was just out of a 4 year web dev university and the other had been self educated and had the same 4 years in experience I would be more inclined to hire the self educated person. It is my impression that the majority of web dev courses are outdated and don’t cover a wide enough scope to prepare the ’student’ for the real (and diverse) world of web dev. If I was too choose a 4 year education vs. 4 year experience i would not choose to study web dev. I would study something with a larger horizon and learn web dev on the side, too me it is not too impressive that someone has a degree, it matters that they can code and deal with client expectations.

I do think that web dev courses are important, and it is not a bad idea to do a 4 year web dev program. But I don’t think it is as beneficial as in other industries and would prefer to have 4 years experience over 4 years education..ideally have both. Do the college and run your web business at the same time. Now that would be the ideal condition.

I say real world web industry experience is king. Classes are not nearly as valuable.

I have a BA in music recording, and I now run a successful freelance web design / development business (www.casjam.com)…. maybe that says more about the lack of jobs in the music industry, but still.

Intern at a web agency, read sites like Nettuts.com, teach yourself by doing. It’s the absolute BEST way to learn web design.

This hit me a lot, I’m tired of going to school and everytime we have a laboratory exercise I finished it in less than 30mins, and I’m always the root of all arguments coz the professor doesn’t want someone outwitted him (thats how they think what I am doing).

the fact that this is true is because technology runs so fast, every year there is a new version, ex: Cs2 Cs3 Cs4. so if you go on a 4 year course, and they taught you something about Cs2, then after you graduate the Cs5 has been released and you are left behind.

I think the web development campus primary role is to teach their students the basic on how they could start, and give them tips on how to find good resources on the internet and make the subject interesting to learn.

To answer the question, I think no is the answer. I personally feel University is just a means of proving your capacity to learn, and that you’re committed – which is ultimately what any employer is seeking. I think in the long run I won’t so much value what I had learned about the subject in general, more the ways we’re taught in which to learn.

I think it would be an overstatement to say what I have learned from my time at University wasn’t beneficial. I have learned a lot, even in my first year; teamwork, inspiration and time management would probably be the key words. But a sure fact is that you’re going to learn far more by yourself, whether that is through books, the internet or any other means. Self directed study is the best possible study – it’s about developing your own way of learning, thinking and doing.

University is a great experience. I sometimes doubt it for not being up to scratch. I think what makes it worthwhile is the experience – it’s what you make it.

computer science, web dev or any programmin related courses should focus on problem solving… mathematics… logic.. rather than learning languages..

If you love it, teach yourself. If you go to school, you’ll be doing this anyway, except now you’re blowing money on it.

A degree from an university in computer science or related field isn’t meant to teach you the latest and greatest. Its to teach you the fundamentals and the ground work so that you truly understand programming inside and out. It’s not to teach you that RoR is the latest and greatest framework, and it “just works”, its there to teach you HOW it works, and provide you with the knowledge to understand whats happening.

My curriculum required me to take courses in compiler design, operating systems, computer architechure, and none of which I’ve directly used, but I do understand how they work, and those concepts can lead on to understanding other things as which might be more practical to me.

Web development is a vocation, not a discipline or an art. Going to college for it is a waste of time and money.

Going to school for web development isn’t going to get you the cutting edge knowledge of the latest trends (that is what YOUR study is for, college is just as much classroom learning as it is out of classroom learning, a professor is there to DIRECT that learning).

College is also for learning HOW to LEARN. You also gain valuable skills through college. Trends will change, but the skills attained in college such as focus, hard work, critical thinking and confidence are timeless.

Among other things, college…

1) Shows commitment to prospective employers. College isn’t easy, and employers respect an individual who can stick it out.

2) Teaches you accountability and reliability.

3) Allows you to venture out into other fields that may benefit you later. (I was hired as a web designer at my current job, but from skills I learned in college I also directed and produced a T.V. commercial and do all of their print design).

4) Network with professors and other alumni. Over 75% of employees that were hired last year was through networking.

If your goal for college is to learn the latest and greatest trends, you are wasting your time. You can do that at Nettuts

If your goal is to become educated, reliable and skilled not only in your field, but in your life, then you will get what you PAY for.

ALSO, don’t be discouraged!! I did awful in high school, attaining lower than a 2.0 GPA on a 4.0 scale. (Don’t want to say what it actually was, because it is so bad, but I did pass… barely). I got into college on probation. If I could get above a 2.5 my first semester I could continue there.

I graduated with a 3.7 GPA out of a 4.0 scale. If I can do it, you can too!

I have to say that I graduated with a degree in design 2 years ago and I learned about print because they didnt have a web degree. The web classes I took were a JOKE. Since then I have learned everything off the new and have been doing tons of design and production work for the web ever since. If I could I would not have gone to school and I would have prob lied about it. I’ve never been asked for proof of college. I did however have a lot of fun drinking tons of beer and partying so I guess that alone was worth its weight.

I had the same problem an earlier commenter had. I took computer programming and my school’s program was badly outdated. Our only web development course was on ASP.NET 1.1. Once I got into web development on my own I had no urge to continue my program so I dropped.

However, I wanted to continue an academic life so I took up a philosophy degree last year. I can keep up with web development as part of my job through sites like these, while academically I work on my degree in my spare time.

Great Article. I haven’t read all of the previous posts but here’s my two cents.

If you are going to do any type of design you should really get some formal training. Whether that is at a 2 year of 4 year college. Design is something that is taught, there are great designs and not so great designs.

Print or Web all design should follow the same basic principles of hierarchy, flow, etc.

When it comes to actual technical skill I have learned most of what I know through sites like this. Now I run my own web design business.

Also I networked out, at first, though a lot of people I meet at school.

For me, Attend any university or college for web development only suit for those people who cant understand the basic syntax of any programming language, no many how many article they read.

And is true that web dev classes do not cover the latest technologies. where my class still teach using frame to create website. It will be good that study from web but holding the certificate is good if someone want hire u coz some people who is computer idiot or noob will always want to see you diploma or degree certificate now many how many killer profile u show to them.

I recently spent a paid week consulting with a PAC 10 school about how I helped the local 4H program put their content on Blogger. Think about it. Here’s a supposedly major university teaching circa 2000 web design and not at all up on any sort of dynamic content, blogging or social media. For this you pay all that money? And Blogger? The head of the design program thought it was a fad.

If you actually want to do design for the web, a design school is good. Learn design, layout, typography and composition. If you want to do development take programming. But except for maybe schools like Stanford, university profs are dinosaurs.

If you want to spend a couple of years making templates, keeping up with the latest on sites like net tuts, you’ll be a better designer, out less money and probably working for an agency while some poor sucker is still attending dated classes and going into debt.

Attending a university got me a lovely piece of paper, and not to mention, thousands of dollars in debt.

It was a complete waste of my time and money.

The classes were all outdated (Dreamweaver MX? TABLES?) and probably hurt me more than helping. At least they were easy.

Didn’t learn hardly anything, unfortunately. I’ve learned more on my own in a few weeks than I got in 4 years. One big problem though: went to the wrong school.

Don’t go to the University of MN-Duluth for anything web or design related. Program sucks, super outdated, STILL teaching tables…. I was very disappointed.

Hi! Firstly I would like to say thanks to Jeff, he is doing a great job with net tuts and the his other websites.

People like Jeff should open universities where they can educate college professors about web design so that the students who can learn about building web sites the right way.

Sadiq Hussain.

Hi!

I strongly believe that studing web dev would be great wasting of time, because you’d learn tons of old things, tons of useless things and never reicieve good knowledge because real web developers aren’t in school as teashers, they work … maybe I’m wrong, but I belive that if you all alone learn for 3 od 4 years you’d become much better

i really wanted to further my study in Computer Science because i like doing stuff in web development field, but in my country, competition in Computer science is quite high ( off course it is not a good excuse though) but instead i further my study in Computer Engineering because the word “computer” there! ^_^ … although it more focus on electronic circuit and devices rather than programming … i learn web development by my ownself and off cause using internet, discussing in forums and frequently visit websites that have a wealthy of informations regarding web development and last but not least , read computer books such as ( Dont” Make Me Think! by Steve Krug and Web User Elements by J. James Garret ..a really good reading materials)

Hope Nettuts and Psdtuts and can share with us more and more infos in da future

thx ^_^..

I know that for myself, I needed a university degree to get me started with programming. I had some really basic introductions in high school but they didn’t take me far enough to really get me hooked and learning on my own.

Then I went to university and basically minored in Computer Science, by my second year I was hooked and was able to do my own projects when I wanted to learn something new.

However, after year 3 I started doing a co-op, which I am still doing, at a start-up. I can say, without a doubt, that in my 8 months there I have learned 10 times as much as I learned about programming, business, user experience, customer support, all of the ‘real-world’ things that University glazes over.

In my opinion, a University degree is perfect if you want to work at a big corporate software company. But if you are interested in freelancing, startups, or finding your own way, then the decision is up to you. A university degree may be necessary, as it was with me, to get you on your way. But in the end there is no replacement for valuable experience gained in the field.

@Jeffrey, I think we should have had a poll I doubt anyone could read all of these “essay-like” comments.

Oh men, reminds me of being a college student here in the Philippines. I go to a small college and not a university but for the past 4 years Id say that my teachers really havent taught me a lot of technical stuff on programming, web development particularly. They teach more of the concept of programming then its done, they give you something to do, a project or a homework and its all up to you to google it. I could say that I wouldve been better studying by myself at home through the internet but there are still a lot of things that you cant learn or experience without going into school.

By the time when they were teaching us html, i already knew it like 3 yrs ago. I also learned CSS, Photoshop myself. And they never taught us Php which is what im using now for my project. They only teach Php to 3rd year students and Im already 4th year. They passed us by. what the crap?

Its a good thing theres a lot of good people in the internetthat are willing to help you when your teacher/school just let you down. sorry for this.

I’m late to the discussion. I finished a 4 year Computing degree course 10 years ago. Using skills that I learned on that course, I walked into a job. The degree was a requirement for that job (rightly or wrongly.)

I strongly disagree that a simple Google search has the potential to replace profressors. Quite clearly, university courses vary in quality and relevance, and let’s not forget that there’s a lot more to computing than throwing together a few lines of PHP or jQuery. I think that the specific field of web development and design does not require a degree to get started in a professional capacity. Other fields of computing do.

If I were thinking of starting a degree now, and I wanted to specialise in web development, the cost would be a big negative. It was largely ‘free’ back then, and I had the sort of life experiences at uni that I’ll never forget. I learned skills that you can’t necessarily pick up by reading the odd blog, and I also met my wife whilst at university.

All the best to people thinking of what to do next!

Best article ever published here at Nettuts. I have been here at this site since the day it was lunched but never had a good read such as his one.

I think i am now convinced that i DO NOT need school. I can’t take it when they try and impose stuff on you.

Thanks for the article Jeffery.

Good luck getting a high paying job without a degree. Sure, it is possible, but you are putting yourself at a huge disadvantage when compared to others.

What are you going to do when compared to someone who has a equally good portfolio as you, but has a degree from a university and your formal training is through blog posts? You’re going to be looking for another job.

The school I went to not only taught skill building, but they gave you inside information about what the industry is like. What to look forward to, how to work the industry to get what you want out of it. They also offer work critiques. They go over your work, tell you ways to improve it, and why it should be improved. This will make you a better designer/developer. You aren’t going to get this from Google searches.

For most people, self teaching will only get you so far. When you realize it, it may be too late.

I’m starting at University on a Software Engineering degree in October and I am still very glad that I made that choice.

I am already an experienced Developer; I’m 18 years old and I’ve been self-taught in programming since the age of 12. I am even at this moment working as a freelance web developer and earning ridiculous amounts of money for somebody my age.

While I do personally already know how to do things in multiple programming languages, university is more about the theoretical and formal side of development. If you’re only going to be a freelancer in your career then fair enough — you don’t need a degree. But getting into some of the bigger software houses and anything above a low-level position in a business a degree is almost (and I do emphasize, almost) impossible; the formal qualification is something that I see as very important to have.

Is the University pictured in point 3. the University of Waterloo? (school5.jpg)

I ask because it looks *exactly* like the rooms in MC

At my school the teacher are teaching us microsoft access instead of mySQL for web databases :/

It depends on where you want to work as well. Some places won’t even look at you without a Bachelors Degree. Large companies have automated application systems and your resume won’t even be seen if you don’t have a BS and they require one (you’ll just be filtered to not qualified).

I think perhaps the most valuable thing you can learn from a CS degree is OOP principles/practices/design patterns. With that foundation, you just have to pick up the lexical structure of whatever language you want to add.

I don’t envy students nowadays because the nature of web development is so dynamic. I highly recommend buying books based on subjects you’re interested in and make personal projects. Read read read, code code code.

I’ve just started my first year in an arts degree in Sydney, so I know what it’s like making such a tough decision. Although I love working with web designs, I never ended up pursuing an IT degree because I realised that a lot of it had to be self-taught. So, I followed my first love and I’m now studying English literature at university. However, outside school, I’m still following latest trends very closely and in fact, I’m undertaking an internship at a web company.

I would say that when you’re making your decision, consider everything you know and everything you’ve researched about, then forget it and follow what’s in your guts.

I’m at uni doing a web design related subject. When they decided to teach us html, the lecturers notes were so old he was still using font tags and all his tags were in capital letters! (He was updating it as he went through the lecture!)

I’m of the opinion that uni is a nice buffer between school and real life. You get to learn about living on your own in a nice safe environment when people are willing to throw money at you – you wont get that at any other point in your life!

Although my course is rubbish, I wouldn’t trade in the experience for the world, I’ve learnt and grown so much at uni – I certainly wouldn’t be the confident person I am now if it weren’t for my going to uni.

I did not study web dev in university, and I am doing fine. I have never regretted not studying web dev.

I’m studying civill engineering and I work in web devolopment as a part time job for a small company. I have a good repetation in my city now. I think one day I will leave my engineering degree at home and start my own buisnesss in web devolopment.

I go to The Art Insitute of California San Francisco. Whoo Whoo!

Yeeee!

Web Design and Interactive Media.

Wanna See my Homework?

http://www.frankyaguilar.com/labs

AI represent!

The main gripe of mine about technology classes in general today, is that it seems that professors and teachers teach how to use a tool, (Dreamweaver, HTML Kit, etc…) and not the technology itself. They spend so much time and emphasis during the semester or school year teaching how to use the features of the program, not the technology. SOooooooo annoying

In one phrase: university isn’t about learning how to do your job.

In a lot more phrases:

As an avid scholar myself (though I cannot, unfortunately, proceed with a scholarly life), it saddens me to see that people think university = learn how to work. That’s not it, unless you’re into medicine or engineering or the likes. I don’t think that’s ever been the purpose of computer science courses.

Computer science is just that: science. It shouldn’t teach you about web technologies or even desktop technologies (and I have to say, those are nowhere near as outdated as was mentioned in the post) or what is the latest flavor you should use, any more than it should teach you to work with Windows or Linux. It should teach you about programming correctly rather than just vomiting code.

It should teach you about the underlying theory of programming, about compilers, about how languages are made, about the complexity of code. It should teach you about computer architecture. It should teach you how networks tick, how operating systems work and what is client-server model rather than how to configure a server.

It should teach you graph theory. It should teach you about projecting applications through best practices (though not the best practices themselves). It should teach you about software engineering and the different aspects of it. In essence, it should teach you how to Do It Right and How It’s Done rather than Which Technology to Use. If you know how to do it right, technology won’t matter nearly as much.

At least, that’s what I learned in the university.

Yes, you can learn how to Do It Right by yourself, but it won’t be via Google. It’ll be via books, commitment, practice, experience and contact with people who maybe never coded for the web in their whole lives but know how computers work, intimately.

That said, I wouldn’t go for web development (in fact, I didn’t). I don’t know what the course entails. I went for Computer Science because it gave me the broadest scope possible, the biggest picture available. Am I ready to join the workforce? No. I won’t be without experience (I graduated 2 years ago).

But the knowledge I got was precious. I went to college without knowing how to program at all (but I understood HTML and CSS and Photoshop, so I could make static web pages) and the first language I learned was C. It was quite a shock, but learning C made learning PHP and Java (and Delphi, believe it or not) so much easier. A lot of people say C’s old and complex, but the age and complexity of it made it a LOT easier to “downgrade” to easier languages (many of which are derived from C).

So, yeah.

i feel… personally college is not quite the waste of money it seems to be. concept is very important and it is difficult to find good content on concept there are a few sources. there are silly concepts that you know and use with out realize you are using it. like fitz laws i have heard about them into interviews. they act like it is the one of the end all be alls. i was so fed up hearing it i told one of them it was common sense. of course it is easier to point at a barn then a bottle cap. who didnt realize that. personally i think it is so common sense i dont understand why it even has a name.
i mean its easier for me to pick my nose with my finger then my toe. toms law.

the other thing you get is design… yes i know you can go to psdtuts but that isnt teaching you design it teaches technique. if there is a good design site please let me know. color theory and composition are more important then a dropped shadow.

snipit sites dont teach you when it is ok to use flash. and dont think it is ok cause you want a cool kick a** menu… its not good. search engines cant read them, they are mem heavy, they require up to date plugins, slow to load and some people block them(i am one of them).

2. as useful as this site is it is still just code snipits and not whys. it is important to understand why you use this code and not that one. why can this line be hacked and not that one.
which gives you more confidence and a better understanding when writing something that you cant find a snipits. i see this a lot in the comment sections here and else where.

3 yes you can learn to do most things on the internet. like how to build an atomic bomb. but college helps teach you how to learn and lets face facts the internet isnt a creditable source of information.

My wife is taking graphic design in college right now, which is very hands on, project based type work. Downside is there’s no theory being taught…no insight as to why something is good design, or what actually makes a good design.

And then when it comes to her HTML/web programming classes, I’m finding I have to reteach all the stuff the teacher “teaches” in class. It’s just not well executed or thought out. Even the in class examples are off base.

It’s really unfortunate that we have to pay an arm and a leg for her to come home and really not have gained anything. After two years of this, we’re strongly considering dropping the program and having her self-teach from websites.

Logic behind it is that there are alot more smart people on the internet teaching than there are in any one classroom teaching.

hey alex,

I have exactly the same problem, I’m not learning anything at school (high school to be exact !!) and then we have all those stupid courses like Ethics. I’m supposed to learn web design and coding and I have more work for Ethics then illustrator. Which I only have 1 hour a week and ethics 3 hours a week….

Does it make sense? not to me

I work at an award winning advertising agency as a web developer. I’m 26 and I’ve never spent even 1min in college.
Started bc i was a musician and i wanted to do that for a while. When that was over i didnt want to spend the money on college but I did toy with going to FullSail and ITT Tech. again, didnt want to spend the money. Got a job that in hindsight was very crappy but did give me the ability to lear A LOT as well as spend a big chunk of time researching and training myself.

Google and Lynda.com are definitely the reasons I have the job i wanted now.

College isnt outdated at all. Just depends on what you want to learn. If you’re talking about web related stuff, the things I do, it’s not even a question of if college is out dated. The colleges never kept in step with the web from the onset. they were never in a position to be up to date or out of date. close as you can get is a computer science degree which def helps depending on what kind of programming you want to do. But if you want to stick with xhtml/css/jquery/php/asp.net etc you definitely dont need to go to school for that.

that being said. I sacrificed 2 years of my free time staying at home reading, watching videos and training myself preparing for finally being able to get the job i have now. i knew i wasnt going to school so i had to work harder than those in school in some respects.

the main advantage that school gives you that is often over looked is time. when in school you’re #1 priority is to focus on school. when you have a job, its hard to focus on work, pay the bills, be responsible and learn a trade. the situation i found myself in was absolutely rare. I’m also of the opinion that if in school you’re able to learn things faster bc of again the time available and the atmosphere/mindset that you’re in every day. when you’re working full time and trying to learn web/design stuff online and through books/videos, switching gears from taking care of the dog and paying the phone bill to learning php can be a little difficult.

I’m definitely proof that you dont need school to do web stuff depending on what type of web stuff that is. I cant build complex applications for online banking or something like that.. but then again i never wanted to and i work at a place that has guys who do that and they needed me to do the stuff im good at and wanted to do.

again, colleges never had the chance to be up to date. in terms of staying on top of web trends theyve completely failed. a friend goes to a top 5 art school in the country and he was telling me about one of the web classes he was in and it was pathetic. the teacher really knew nothing about CSS at all, was doing auto generated by dreamweaver inline crap and its 2009.

for web stuff, right now. college isnt worth the money less you want a computer science degree.

I wish I had never gone to school. I wasn’t ready for the financial burdens and pitfalls of not having anything, no family support, no friends, an unfamiliar city, it was too much too fast and worst was there was nothing the school was teaching that I needed. They tried to make me believe Director was the Future of Interactive media and flash was a trend…

I took best of show from the online campus of my ground school at the portfolio review and then spat it out over the fact that my entire portfolio was wack and from pieces I had 3 years prior that I used to enter the school with.

If anyone could help me find an attorney I would like to help other students get back some of the tuition that was snagged from them unwittingly because the for-profit art institution was more concerned with selling you on the fact that 100% of the students get a job 6 months after graduation… what they fail to mention is that most would never be able to hang in the actual career force.

I spent 3 years during my academic career building a web design career learning CSS/Javascript and Flash (as2) and if it wasn’t for that I would be in sad shape.

Side money helps too. Definitely check the curriculum and if you just want to make money and have a career omit the degree.

Employers want you to have a good portfolio and be able to hit the ground running. All they are interested in what you can do for them.

A degree is like a six-pack that you work all winter at keeping so you can be fly in the spring and shutting it down in the summer.

I went to school for information technology, and am now working as a developer in an advertising agency. A lot of developers that I have seen, do not understand a lot of really basic computer science concepts, and I think that it hinders their ability to wrap themselves around some of the newer techologies that utilize those comp sci. techniques.

There is so much info on the internet, and I think it is hard for most people to build the proper foundation they need without any starting point.

On the other hand, I don’t think it is worth it for anyone to go into a mountain of debt for school.

I believe it’s a matter of “how well do you know yourself?”

Some people don’t mind spending 85% of their time learning about the fields they love. They absolutely love web design and web development, and no matter what the costs, they know they want to be the best.

These are the great web designers and developers we have today who didn’t feel the need to go to college. Which is fine. They knew exactly what they wanted to do, and they also knew how to organize and discipline themselves by their own. Of course google, web blogs and Lynda are great teachers, but when you’re managing 100% of your time, it’s hard to get the ability to run your priorities.

When I first applied to college, I didn’t know exactly what I was getting into. I knew I appreciated multimedia design, even tried to develop some novice skills at Photoshop and Dreamweaver a few years before. But I didn’t know where to start, from the very beggining, also because I didn’t fully knew what I wanted to do.

This is the great thing about University. It may not teach you the most correct techniques, but it points you in the right direction. Let’s put it like this: if you’re taught something in the wrong way, and you know it’s wrong, you will want to learn the right way to do it, because you cannot stand the idea of being outdated in that field. That feeling makes you think “wait a minute, I actually care about this more than I thought I did”.

University is not only about teaching the stuff you WANT to learn. There’s some good (altough you only learn it afterwards) about being forced to learn what you don’t want to. It motivates you to learn properly, and when you feel this, you will know what you want to do. What moves you, does it for some reason.

And of course, University isn’t only about the classes either. I still learn a lot from my college friends, since we’re a nice big real-life community dedicated to what we do. The experience itself pays off.

Don’t forget, there’s nothing wrong with a Diploma. It may not mean a lot to some companies you want to work for, but you know it’s there, it constantly reminds you of what you worked for, what you’ve been through to be and know what you are today. And believe me, that’s very important.

So to answer this question, my final summarized answer is:
Yes, you should definitely attend University for Web Development. It prevents you from getting narrow-minded about your area of expertise, it teaches you the do’s and don’ts, and more importantly it helps you figuring out what you want from yourself, from your life.

There’s one easy solution for this though, let’s walk through the steps to achieve it:

1. Lay a solid foundation. It doesn’t matter which language you choose to do web developing, you should first know the very basics and learn them well. What’s an array, proper HTML, how to work your logic, etc. I had a teacher that started his web developing class by saying “You should know by now HTML, so I won’t even bother with it”, which was a sad thing because this class was supposed to be exactly about that.

2. Make the class curriculum flexible. Why dogmatize stuff? Whatever you know today as true might get tweaked tomorrow, so it’s all about being flexible enough so you can keep up with constant changes.

3. Teach students about the web and where to find information. A book will rapidly get obsolete nowadays.

4. Establish ground rules and common goals, let them choose which framework to use. We all know that one can develop using several different techniques, languages, plugins, libraries… We measure success not based on which tools you use but the results that we provide.

5. This classes shouldn’t be assigned to just one teacher, maybe to a coordinator and a group of assistants, each one having some knowledge on different languages, resources, etc.

6. Color theory, design essentials, typography essentials, all things should be covered somewhere. Above all there should be a class about copyrights, how to respect them, how to enforce them, but most importantly the options you have to publish your stuff on the web. This will be key to instructing your clients.

7. Teach them how to communicate with the client. We tend to be over “geek” about our stuff… We, above all, should learn how to communicate in terms our clients will find at ease.

8. Last but not least, students from later years should be available to provide help to newer students, this can help create a community of developers.

8 difficult steps, some defy the way Universities approach knowledge but become clear once we understand that this is how things do work on the web right now anyways. Docendo disco, scribendo cogito (By teaching I learn, by writing I think)

I attended college a couple of years ago with a Multimedia course because I didn’t really know what I wanted to do at that point in time. The systems, software and curriculum was years behind what I already knew when I arrived there. Only after my 2nd year did they finally decide the upgrade the systems, but not the curriculum. Unfortunately the web is one of those things that are constantly changing, so with a teaching system that is extremely slow, it’s not something that can be viable in a ‘college’ situation, more of in a specialist school? IMO anyway.

Having just completed a uni degree in IT here in Brisbane, Australia, I too can sadly agree with the majority. The degree taught me very little about web development and it’s technologies (HTML, CSS, JS etc).

I graduated feeling like the last 3 years were a breeze and I’d just sunk 20k proving what I already knew.

However, in my final year there was a Mashups unit which was fantastic!

I did find that my degree taught me to be a better programmer though (OOP) and how to design databases better with normalization. The few design courses that were related to my major reinforced my knowledge of colour, typography and alignment but nothing new sadly.

The best education you can get is sit down with a text editor and an idea and go for it. Reading W3C or the hundreds of web design blogs when you get stuck, but the best teacher IMO for Web Development is just going to be yourself and Google.

I went to college for 4 years, but not in web design/development. I’d done it on my own since 8th grade, and figured that I should go to school for things I couldn’t entirely do on my own. (I went for music, I’m a composer when I’m not a web designer ^_^) I’m currently the web designer of a county in New Jersey, and while I got lucky to land this job, I didn’t have a degree in design and seem to be doing fine. Best thing you can do is read blogs, get a text editor and play.

Ahh, Just what I need (15 years old for the record).
Sorry to say, I am going university and College, BUT not for Web design and development. As soon as im 18, i’m completely dropping all web stuff and working on business and economics.

I think a college degree would be better to get a job; however, the person who has a degree isn’t necessary a good web designer or developer.

I just read about an internship position in which the company is required a bachelor or a master degree. A master degree in web design? I don’t know what to say about that. Also, as an intern, you are responsible for relocation and all other expenses. That’s just too much to ask from an intern.

I have taken the DIY route and I don’t regret it for a minute. I really think it comes down to passion and self-motivation. However, there is something to be said for a teacher telling you the right way from the very beginning. I think both methods have their advantages. Good read, thanks.

Sure, you can go out and buy a book and get the same information out of it… But, I think the degree you earn will give you a HUGE advantage over others.

I just finished up my degree in Graphic Design and was applying for a freelance job, along with many other talented freelancers, and I got the client because I have a degree now (and because I’m awesome lol)!! I think clients/employers look at a person with a degree and think “They’re committed enough to get the degree, they’ll be dedicated with their job as well.” …Not saying that people w/o degrees aren’t…

I think Universities are a great foundation to learn development. Some Universities are very “under-funded” and are quite outdated. However, I think specialty schools/technical schools (i.e. The Art Institute, or Full Sail) are more up-to-date on equipment AND cirriculum.

Yes, it sucks to have to pay back all those student loans afterward, but I’m soooooo glad I did it!!

I’m a CS major (still studying) and my uni courses has certainly helped me with web development, in indirect ways.

Sure, they don’t teach you CSS or PHP/Ruby/Python/Javascript but they teach you the foundations to build upon. For example, I would have had a much harder time understanding recursion, closures, higher order and anonymous functions without my programming classes. They teach you the best practices, then you need to apply that knowledge to whatever programming language you wish to work in.

I’ve also found the HCI courses very useful, even if they don’t teach you design or how to become a master at photoshop. Otherwise I think it’s easy to miss that knowledge.

As far as programming goes I think you need to ask yourself what you want to be doing. If you’re fine with building small-medium sized sites with PHP and your CMS of choice, you don’t need to go to uni. But if you’re interested in building larger scale applications and development tools (JQuery, Rails, Django or Prototype e.g.) then I think uni, or reading loads of programming books that are *not* web-related, is a must.

It’s all about if you wish to create the future or if you’re fine with using the tools other people provide you with.

Hi Jeff, this is so relevant to me as I contemplate returning to college after taking a semester off. The reason why is I learnt more via the internet on my summer break than I did in the six months at college beforehand. They were still teaching us to code table layouts!!!

My next semester is focussed on the technologies and includes javascript so I am hopeful that it will be more current. If not, I will continue teaching myself. I am a mature age student with lots of work history behind me (though not web/IT) so I hopefully the piece of paper won’t be so important.

Thank you so much for your tutorials and articles.

no.

Although I must admit my University course in Web Development left me ill prepared for working in the industry (even when graduating with a first) I wouldn’t change the fact I went. The truth is I don’t know if going to University has led to where I am now or if not going to University would have led me to be better or worse off.

University did however offer me opportunities outside of just education that I wouldn’t change for anything. If you go to University you must be prepared to put the work in and not to expect that because you’re in class that you will automatically become a web god on graduation. In my case I was probably behind those who had opted to work in the industry for 4 years.

Yet my case and my University may be the exception, different Uni’s obviously run different courses and some are better than others to prepare you for working life.

great post, thanks…
i think it is good to have a collage degree, but not in web development only
in Palestine collages are concerned with the core of the science, and they
are considering the web development as a secondary issue.

i have a B.S. in Software Engineering ,,, but all what i have had studded has
no relation with computer, as i think.
Programming, design, and other things i learned it during special courses out
the university or my self through books and the web, such as this amazing
web site.
in my study at the collage we have studded 8 courses of Math, and they
gave these courses much awareness than important courses such as web
design… isn’t that boring?
so my opinion is that studying the core of the science in the university is
required, but also it is the collage responsibility to give the student the
trust with himself after graduation by giving him courses such web design.

thanks for this discussion

Thanks ,
for the article
very interesting!

I have searched the internet time and time again for a good quality web design/development degree and could not find a program that I thought would be worth the large amounts of money most of them want. After reading many forum threads and articles including this one I found that it is best to enroll in a business degree program as so many web designers will be doing freelance work and will need good business skills. Besides you can get a job doing anything with a business degree if you find web design/dev is not for you later on. But like so many of you said, you can learn all there is to know about web design/dev on the net from sites like this as well as from the countless books out there. I have spent a long time thinking about what I should go to school for and I am soon enrolling in a business class with a focus in entrepreneurship and it will cost me nearly nothing compared to most of the web design schools out there. I’ll just get some certificates from w3schools to put up on the wall beside my business degree.

Firstly, this is a good debate. I personally think you should go to the University so learn web development or any other science for that matter.
I believe any one can do web development who takes interest in this and after all its not rocket science.
The differences come when you go for bigger software development jobs.
Not only that, going to University and studying a subject for 3-4 year makes you learn and understand various other aspects of computer science which a person sitting at home and doing development in php and mysql probably doesnt know.

Degree gives you an overall knowledge, however its not a way to secure a job. It just shows you different paths and you need to decide what you want to follow.

Having a degree and the skills makes you stand in the market with confidence and people will buy you. So if you have time and money, go for it.

I don’t know if this comment will ever get read, seeing as I’m late to the party (work just got in the way) and there are already a bunch of comments. I’ve come across this debate many times in the past, so here’s my take on this:

I agree that the technical aspect of what they teach in a university setting might not be the latest and greatest. I went to Cal State Northridge, which actually has a dedicated department for Multimedia (and a damn good one at that). Granted, I learned the bulk of what I do from job experience, but my classes and professors gave me such a solid grounding that it prepared me more for the larger world. There’s just no realistic way a university program can teach you the basics AND get you up to speed on the latest techniques in a 4 year program.

Technical stuff aside, the most important stuff I learned while at school was audience analysis and the theories behind media messages and practices. Technical stuff you can learn anywhere, but so many designers miss certain crucial things when it comes to effective design since they don’t know how to tailor their work for an audience. Your programming and Photoshop skills may be top notch, but if you can’t critically think about what your work is actually saying to your users or how to effectively reach an audience, you’re missing a big part of this business.

For example: the classic debate of Firefox vs. IE. If you are a professional with knowledge about who your audience is, the answer is…it has to work for everyone. Too many times I see designers say “I’m going to design it one way, and if people see things are wrong they’ll just have to upgrade their browser.” Ok, say someone is using IE6 and visits your site only to see a completely broken layout. Do you really think they’re first thought is “hey, maybe it’s my browser”. I guarantee you they just say “wow, this site is broken” and they’ll leave.

Being able to see the bigger picture aspects such as audience analysis have made my time at a university more than worth it.

I think this is only true with web development, here are some whys.

Can you build a commercial airplane without going to aviation school ?

Can you set up network server including software and hardware for fairly big social network without going to school ? (only few talents can do this without going to school. This is also IT, right?)

Can you build a small bridge with capacity of just 3 cars without going to construction school ?

Albeit, on the internet there is pretty much information about everything you ever need to archive anything you could ever imagine. But There is job which to be done you needed to have hands on experience. A person who wants to be a doctor even if he learns all medicine and surgery techniques on the net he still needs a body to practice with, but a web developer just need to have computer. That’s half of my point.

And Since web development tutorial is so easy to find not just because Google power, its also because the people who do web development are internet SAVVY, most of them have their own website and probably a blog,
they work closely with computer 24/7 (if he’s a hardcore developer), it’s a few clicks away to publish their knowledge or latest technique they just find out. Whilst a doctor work with patients most of the time and medical knowledge is hard to give away for free even the doctor want to give it away he needs investing time in writing a safe comprehensive medical advice. In the case web developer giving away their knowledge is also due to promoting themselves in IT world not just for helping or for fun, so it true that you can do web development without going to school, but its only true with web development.

I strongly agree with craig!

Also, learning web development is just a click away, The one with the highest enthusiasm and the most creative mind stands out.

The only reason why I might consider going to design school is only to meet other people with the same interests that I could share/get techniques from (although blogging could be a substitute), Talking with real people at real time is still the most effective way of learning.

Let’s face it, degrees are for academic subjects. Web development progresses far too quickly for a curriculum to be established.

The core elements of computer science (the computer science degrees that aren’t just a programming crash-course) haven’t changed much in a decade, we all still learn the theory and it can still be applied today.

A module or two on web development I can understand, such as in HTML & CSS, PHP or another scripting language. A degree in “Web Development” is a waste of time and money and it’s something that is very much self-taught.

Although I was strong in High school, I didn’t attend University, my mother could not afford it (my father I haven’t seen for at least 22 years (I’m 28)). Now I am working already, I don’t have time to attend university and I would not have the money anyway.

I worked some time after hours for free in an NGO and they taught me some Photoshop, they needed a webpage and also only knew some basic HTML working with tables and taught me that too. Until then I worked in construction but had to leave because of backpains. So I started teaching myself basic design with tutorial sites (this one didn’t exist, yet). And I had to re-learn HTML, ditching tables and using CSS instead.

Honestly, I get the job done, but I always have the feeling that I suck. Tutorial sites like this one are good, but they teach you just techniques, new trends, specific methods. What they are lacking are the basics, like the principles of typography, color theory, spacing, whitespace, those things. You could maybe read a SHORT article about these things, or even buy a book about these things, but they always lack cohesion between multiple topics and just don’t go to much into details. Only the general idea is given.

That’s the design part, now the coding part is even worse. I get HTML and CSS, but PHP or javascript I lack the motivation to learn them on my own. If I where in a building with a teacher and other students I had to learn, but in the comfort of my home this gets tedious. Yes, I can copy some pre-made PHP code here and there, figure my way around jQuery or even create a basic theme for Wordpress. But write my own code? Big no no, for now. I hope this changes in the future.

I just recently started forcing myself to learn PHP and MySQL. For this purpose I bought a book. I feel it’s easier to force yourself to do something if you payed for it, although that hasn’t worked before. For now I am doing fine and I have the feeling this time it will work.

Spend time building an impressive portfolio and learning the skills you want, any employer in web development or design will prefer this to a limited portfolio and a degree. From personal experience, university tend to be behind on latest technology anyway.

I have been freelancing locally for a few years, but after my last deployment to Iraq I was forced to make a career move. As a disabled combat veteran with 10+ years in service I decided to go back to college for a degree in Web Design. With family responsibilities (3 kids just starting school, a wife, a home) and medical appointments 3-4 times a week, I chose to attend an online university for my degree.

Though the online system works well with my schedule, it does not provide the social interaction that a traditional campus delivers.

With an AA in IT and a little over a year to go for my BS in Web Design, I find myself asking this very question, is the piece of paper worth it?

I spend a good amount of time self-learning from blogs and various FREE websites. My struggle is making the time to do my school work in subjects unrelated to my career, and of course those that are related are a few (sometimes more) years behind.

I have to turn potential clients away simply because I do not have the time so I can complete my homework. It is very frustrating to think that I could be making money, building my portfolio, adding to my design / dev experience but can’t because I have to devote hours and hours to reading text books, writing papers, and the most frustrating part: building sites and apps that are outdated so they meet the requirements of the assignment!

I am considering dropping out of school so that I can pursue more work and have the time spent on school to spend on self teaching new trends and technology (and spending with the family).

I go to college online, so I will not miss out on the social aspect; I am middle-aged with lots of experiences, I need to jump-start my new career, not waste time learning outdated information.

I am on the last High School year. I am new into web desing and develepoment, but i will try to get good at this. I have a question. Is there anyway to contact Jeffrey Way? I looked for an E-mail adress on his web site, or to try send an message on the Twitter but i can’t. Jeffrey how can i contact you?

Thanks!