I 'm a New Yorker and I want to go into web design. I've always been pretty creative, used to draw, paint and even did some decent websites a few years ago. Now, I want to switch career paths (public school teacher) and go all the way into it.
Here is my goal in a year or two: score an internship, paid or unpaid, doesn't matter, to get my foot into the door.
What's the best way I should do this?
I figure I have two routes (let me know if there's more, I'm sure there are, I'm a newb):
1) Go get an Associates in a school like this:
The Arts Institute of New York for Web Design & Interactive Media
Pros:
- Reputable program that will land a good internship, possibly even before completion of program (this is what happened to my g/f)
- You study all aspects of media design including animation, photoshop, illustrator and video production.
- Study Javascript, Flash and Actionscript.
- Rigorous portfolio program
Cons:
- Long: around 3 years to complete: 100 credits
- Doesn't cover much about PHP and other Web Development (server side) stuff.
- Expensive: $58,000 (scholarships are available: too bad I'm white and don't have a vagina, though).
2) Get a certificate from
Noble Desktop in NYC in Web Development. All these classes will take only 1 year to compete.
Pros:
- Short: 1 year
- Much Cheaper: $6,500 (although no Gov't Student Loans: hopefully they have a payment plan)
- Covers web Design AND Development: PHP, JavaScript/JQuery
- Covers Wordpress, Flash and Actionsctipt and more.
Cons:
- No gov't loans.
- Compressed: Some classes have a maximum of 6 sessions and others have a maximum of only two.
- Might not look as good on the resume as the Associates from the school above and hence:
- Might be tougher to score an internship and that foot in the door.
What do you guys think?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
You can go to school but i honestly feel that, that is a waste of time. The only thing yu get out of a school that i have found are the loans, grants and the schools never crashing equipment as well as an environment that adds the potential of finding partners and developing something with each other. Schools are great places for networking. However jobs don't care if you have a degree in web development, they care that you know what you are doing.
You can get your certificates from the W3C (The Governing Body Of Web Standards) for 100$ each, you can even get other certificates from MSDN in .Net etc...If you are going to do something in computer technology. i suggest you get a degree in Computer Science and Networking. But development is not really worth it because you can learn it all on your own and it isn't hard to learn, its stupid easy.
Here are some resources (some are free, some you have to pay)
http://www.codecademy.com/#!/exercises/
http://teamtreehouse.com/
http://www.lynda.com/
http://www.udemy.com/
http://www.developphp.com/
http://www.vtc.com/showall.htm
http://alistapart.com/
(These 3 are probably thee best things i have ever studied)
1.) The Missing Manuals,
http://missingmanuals.com/library.html
2.) Site Point,
https://learnable.com/sitepoint
3.) Head First Labs
http://shop.oreilly.com/category/series/head-first.do
Also here is my curriculum (I built it myself) - Some of these are books, some are video courses - A majority downloaded from thepiratebay.se
(Some i had to buy)
1.0) - General Foundations 1
1.0.1 Web Design Confidential
1.0.2 Head First Web Design (A Brain Friendly Guide)
1.0.3 CSS The Missing Manual
1.0.4 Web Design Fundamentals - Lynda
1.0.5 Save The Pixel - Ben Hunt
1.0.6 XML Essential Training with Joe Marini - Lynda
1.0.7 Real-World XML with Joe Marini - Lynda
1.0.8 Wiley-Smashing CSS 2010 (I Went Through Another CSS Book Just For Fun, As CSS is what makes up the look and feel of yoru site and it is good practice)
2.0) - Aesthetic Foundations
2.0.1 Digital Tutors - Color Theory - Design & Art Series
2.0.2 Color Theory The Mechanics Of Color
2.0.3 Neuro Web Design, What makes them click
2.0.4 The Principles Of Beautiful Web Design - Site Point
3.0) - General Foundations 2
3.0.1 HTML5 First Look - Lynda
3.0.2 Lynda.com - CSS3 First Look
3.0.3 JavaScript Essential Training (2011) with Simon Allardice - Lynda
3.0.4 jQuery_Essential_Training
3.0.5 VTC HTML5 CSS3 JQuery
3.0.6 Foundations of Programming Fundamentals with Simon Allardice - Lynda
3.0.7 Foundations of Programming Object-Oriented Design with Simon Allardice - Lynda
3.0.8 Head First Java Script
3.0.9 HTML5 Structure, Syntax, and Semantics - Lynda
3.0.10 HTML5 Web Forms in Depth - Lynda
3.0.11 Javascript Patterns
3.0.12 John Wiley and Sons - JavaScript in 10 Steps or Less
3.0.13 Practical and Effective JavaScript - Lynda
3.0.14 Designing Web Pages In A Nutshell - O'Rielly
4.0) - Multi Media Foundations
4.0.1 Photoshop CS5 Quick Start
4.0.2 The Photoshop CS5 Pocket Guide (7Summits)
4.0.3 Photoshop Top Secret
Other Stuff
10_Minute_Guide_To_Project_Management
Find, Pitch and Win Your First Web Design Client - Matthew Higgins
10.2 The Buying Brain Secrets for Selling to the Subconscious Mind
10.3 Advertising and the Mind of the Consumer - What Works, What Doesn't, and Why
Lynda has great courses on CMS (Content Managment Systems) Like Joomla and Drupal. You can start getting familier with that by using blogger, tumblr and a little more advanced one like wordpress. Also for fun you can make a quick set of cash sighning onto social networks that allow you to code design yoru profile. I used to always play with Vampirefreaks.com, myspace had it too but not anymore.
Anything past X/HTML(5) CSS(3) and Java Script is really up to you. You can learn other fun stuff like silverlight, flex2, PHP, Python, Designing Responsive (mobile) sites etc...
Some of the most popular is
MySQL
PHP
ASP.NET
JAVA
After you learn your basics (HTML, CSS & JS) i suggest you get into internet marketing because im sure you wont want to work for anyone else other than your self.
nicheprofitclassroom.com
affiliorama.com
http://mattsmarketingblog.com/
are some of the best courses i took about it as well as from a guy named Anthony Morrison. He probably had the best course. However these guys are internet marketers so they make everything sound like a marketing campaign which brings questions to their legitimacy if your one who doesn't like Hype Talk. However i assure you these guys are legit.
A great resource to go to for internet marketing is warriorforum.com
PLEASE i just want you to be aware that internet marketing is the way out for anyone who learns web development, Whatever you do, keep your skills in the web development approach and discipline and not as an internet marketer. I suggest you only briefly read about what internet marketing is so you know that you can use your skills of web development on it, so you can create your own business. But don't get to into internet marketing until you learn your web skills. As the creative people we are, for some weird reason, Internet marketing gives us all of these crazy good ideas for websites and often times, you will have trouble focusing on just building one website. Dont even think about internet marketing until you have built yourself at least one website and have completed it and enjoy it and love it with everything you have.
Hope i helped you. Good Luck and cheers!
