Advice on A.S. degree for Web Design

[olorin12]

Hi, everyone.
Can anybody give me a little advice? I am looking to become a web designer, with the possibility of learning some back-end stuff after I start working.
I know that a lot of web designers are self-taught, and I may go that route, at least in part.
Assuming, however that I am looking at a choice between several junior college Associates in Science degrees, however, which of the following programs do you think would be most useful in helping me to learn web design as it is done in the real world?

=========================================
FIRST PROGRAM
CGS 2820C Web dev and design
CTS 1441 Database fundamentals
COP 2801 Javascript fundamentals
COP 2812 XML and Web Services
COP 2842 Database Driven Websites Using PHP and MYSQL
CGS 2172C E-Commerce Web Development
GRA 2751C Visual Design for Web
COP 2940 Web Dev Internship & Practicum

OPEN SOURCE
COP 2800 Programming in Java
COP 2805C Advanced Java Web Development
COP 2806C Java Server Pages and Servlets
COP 2841C Advanced Web Programming with CGI/Perl
COP 2843 Advanced Programming in PHP

MICROSOFT
COP 2360 Intro to C# Programming
COP 2362C Advanced C# Programming
COP 2823C Advanced MICROSOFT Web Development
COP 2332 Introduction to Programming with Visual Basic .NET
COP 2848C - Server Side Scripting with ASP.NET

I have to choose Open Source or Microsoft as a specialization with this one. I am far more inclined to go Open Source.
=========================================

SECOND PROGRAM
CGS 2820 Web Authoring -HTML
CGS 1103 Project Management
CGS 1871 Multimedia Authoring I
CGS 2822 Web Site Creation
CGS 2804 Vector Graphics Apps
COP 2830 Scripting for the Websites
CGS 2585 Desktop/Internet Publishing
CGS 2786 Web 2.0 Apps
CGS 2821 Graphics Design for Multimedia/Internet
CGS 2876 Digital Audio/Video Design
CGS 2827 Adv. Graphics Design
CGS 2874 Multimedia Authoring II
CGS 2877 Digital Animation Design
CGS 2939 Int. Svcs. Tech. Capstone

This is a straight-up web design program.
==================================

THIRD PROGRAM
CGS 2541 Database Design
CGS 2820 Web Authoring -HTML
CGS 2091 Information Technology Ethical Issues
COP 2830 Scripting for Websites
CGS 2822 Website Creation
COP 2836 Database-driven web Programming: Server
CTS 2440 Database Programming SQL
CGS 2939 Capstone
COP 2833 Database-driven web Programming: Client
5 elective courses from CEN,CET,CGS,CIS,CNT,CTS

This is a back-end development program from the same school as the second program, with 15 credit hours dedicated to electives that I choose.
=========================================

Thank you for your time

 

[chrishirst]

do you think would be most useful in helping me to learn web design as it is done in the real world

None of them, they are more development courses than design.

 

[Brian Angel]

None of them, they are more development courses than design.

Yeah this seems to be more than you'll need for design. That being said, knowing HTML/CSS and JavaScript will help in web design so you have an understanding of how things work, but all of that is over kill

 

[olorin12]

Thank you both.
The more I learn, the more I'm leaning towards being a front-end developer with some design and back-end skills.

Assuming I take the first program, two questions:
I realize that this is more of a development than a design question, but would the open-source or Microsoft option be more useful in getting me work?
and
Are there some good design skills that you think the first program doesn't cover? Like any specific thing that is either currently useful in web design, or will be ubiquitous in the future?

Thanks again.

 

[Brian Angel]

Welp.. heres the thing, with the open source it looks like they have a focus on JSP and Java... which is kind of waining in favor of things like ruby, php, node, etc. The MS elective covers what looks like 85% of what you need to work in a MS shop ( minus Razor and MVC from what the listing says). All this being said the question is..what do you want to do.

Coreperations like the security of doing things the microsoft way, that is to say Microsoft has company led support. Open source is well, just that. A bunch of folk developing with some having better support systems than others. Working for a design/marketing firm, most of them go with open source solutions in one way or another. Corporation in house teams will more than likely go with the MS solution for sake of support.

Now with all this in mind, if you plan on focusing on front end dev ( which is my current role), then it wont really matter. I was open source up until 2 months ago when I started in my current role which uses Sitecore with .ASP. Front end was a little different than what I was used to, but I found my open source knowledge filled in the gaps pretty well, and Im sure the same can be said vice-versa if I had gone the MS route

 

[olorin12]

Brian Angel,
Thanks again. Given that I am far more familiar with open source than I am Microsoft anything (ironic, given that I have used Windows far more than Linux), it may make more sense for me to learn the Microsoft stuff - they have recently open-sourced .NET, and I think it's easier for me to find resources on Ruby, PHP, and other open-sourced stuff than for MS.
Still researching, though.

 

[chrishirst]

Like any specific thing that is either currently useful in web design

Colour theory, using white space effectively, plus the one thing that no one can teach you, the innate artistic flair that a good designer should have.

they have recently open-sourced .NET

No! M$ have made SOME of the .NET framework 'open source' but a large (and the most useful) part of it remains 100% proprietary and closed source. M$ like to make it sound like they have 'flung wide the gates' of .NET, but that is far from true.

 

[Brian Angel]

yeah I cant see MS going full on open source, not their business model,lol.