Little background first off. I am a firefighter/paramedic and due to the schedule I have a lot of days off and also at times downtime at work. I am interested in doing something to fill that time and to also possibly make a career out of if something were to happen with a career in the fire service. I would be interested in something I could do self employed, part time, or possibly a career.
Now with that being said I know that you need to go to school for web design. A few of my questions are… Do I need a degree or are there certain programs I can take classes to learn? Are there any good online schools I could use to achieve this? I could do classroom if I had to but online classes would be ideal. I know enough about computers that the anything wouldn’t be too far fetched but I don’t know a ton about the newest stuff people are using to make web pages. Thanks for any info.
Also after browsing through some of the colleges around me that offer online degrees I found this one that sounds like it could be a possibility. I plan to call the adviser and talk to them but I would also like the opinion of someone who isn’t affiliated with the school to browse through the link and see if it would be worth pursuing and what type of jobs I could have following the degree.
Depending on what kind of web design you want to do you definitely do not need to go to school/get a degree. There are plenty of lengthy, informative tutorials and step-by-step guides around the internet. Now if you want a proper basics to advanced style learning progression and probably a better understanding of coding a school would provide that. Not necessary at all though. Books can help a lot as well.
I think I would do better with some type of structured learning. I am going to go and check out the program I linked above this week I think.
some people work better with structure and a teacher teaching
coding can be learned by book, but design aspects and what not may be learned better at a school
I think it comes down to this (quickest way to start as part time):
1. To make money with webdesign you would need to learn how to find clients (if you fail at this - game over).
2. If you can find clients, you can outsource webdesign and coding to scriptlance, odesk, elance. (build relationships with the best ones there for future projects)
3. If you can do two items listed above, you would need to learn what looks good and how it should be structured and optimized for conversion (e.g. smashingmagazine.com, cssmania.com).
4. Learn how to manage hosting for clients. (upload files, manage dns…)
5. Find more clients.
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I think it comes down to this (quickest way to start as part time):
1. To make money with webdesign you would need to learn how to find clients (if you fail at this - game over). 2. If you can find clients, you can outsource webdesign and coding to scriptlance, odesk, elance. (build relationships with the best ones there for future projects) 3. If you can do two items listed above, you would need to learn what looks good and how it should be structured and optimized for conversion (e.g. smashingmagazine.com, cssmania.com). 4. Learn how to manage hosting for clients. (upload files, manage dns…) 5. Find more clients. |
I am starting from scratch with no experience with anything other than the average internet geek. This is why I need the structured part that the classes would offer me. I learn well on my own and my own time though and thats why I think the online classes would be awesome for me.
Also does anyone have a list of sites or resources I could use to get my feet wet with some very basic information and stuff that starts from the beginning? If I do decide to pursue it I will probably get a better computer too since I am using a shitty laptop.
Design basics via Lifehacker
Learn how to code via Lifehacker
GREAT source for tutorials for just about any program you can imagine.
Download a "Free" trial of Dreamweaver (free for 30 days on their site)…so similar program that has a "Design" view and a "Code" view. This is really helpful when learning HTML. At least in the beginning. I know a purist wouldn’t agree…but you said you were starting from scratch. This will allow you to create a table, text, place an image, whatever…and then see what the code looks like for that page. Then you can tweak the code and see how it effects the page. All this can be done right on your computer - no need to upload.
Once you get fairly familiar with this, then start learning about hosts, etc.
As far as making money…there are SO MANY ways to design a site. Php, ruby, html, joomla, etc. Find a niche, and get good at that. You can be good at one small niche in a short period of time. But if you try to be fluent in everything, you will get overwhelmed.
As far as getting work…maybe you just master Joomla (for example) and then go on the freelance sites and only bid on Joomla sites. Just an idea…
I haven’t had a chance to sit down and go through all of the links yet but thanks a ton for the info.