I have been studying web design for almost four years. I have said in here many times before, there is no way to stop studying if you want to be good and I do. Actually I do not want to be just good I want to be one of the best. That obviously means I need to get huge amount of knowledge to get there. It means studying almost daily but more importantly practicing and using the current knowledge and trying to improve your work in every new project.
One of the disadvantages of our industry is the fact that when you look at your previous work you will most likely be disappointed. Why? You always learn better ways how to do things. There are always better ways. If you are studying hard you will always find ways to simplify your code, make it more readable, faster, better… New technologies and techniques comes almost every month. You have to choose which way to go. It is almost impossible to master all web technologies but a good package can make you good professional. As long as you are on the right truck everything is fine. If you want to get there you will. I have chosen my knowledge package about three years ago and have been trying to get all the required knowledge since then. Luckily I have chosen the right combination even I was not really aware of all the options at that time. I have decided to learn these languages: css, xhtml, javascript, flash, php, mysql and also these software Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Flash, Adobe Illustrator, Coda.
I came to the last phase of first circle (as I would like to call it). I am taking Illustrator course right now which is the last thing from the list I have not really touched a lot. What is going to be next circle? Improvements in all these fields and maybe something new. There are other interesting languages out there. Such as rubby on rails or python but I have not mastered php into the level I want yet so these new interesting languages will need to wait. There are also other interesting areas to be explored such as typography and art in general.
But all these studying cost money right?
It all comes to money at the end even I have not chosen to become web designer because of money. That said I do believe that all this hard work spent studying will pay off at the end. So how much does it cost to become web designer? Well in my case a lot. I started with CIW Web designer course which costs ÂŁ1500. After that I took two php courses for about ÂŁ300 each and Illustrator course I am taking right now for ÂŁ250. I bought about 25 books. Average price of the book could be about ÂŁ15. It comes all together close to ÂŁ2800. I have not counted laptop and software I bought because I think that would not be fair to count. You obviously need computer by you do not need MAC Pro to start with but I think you can not start without Adobe Photoshop which is not cheap at all and I do not think there is a real cheap replacement. I bought one of the Adobe packages for student prices so it did not cost me leg. You also need editor for all your code. I went for Coda but I am sure that are some free options in this area and I do not mean stilling code from internet.
As you can see it was not cheep at all but it got me a job one and half year ago so I got the money back since then. Is it worth to pay for your studying? I am sure it is. I could have done it all with self studying but it would take me a lot longer so at the end of the day it was more profitable this way even it was quite expensive to start with.
Feelings
I have worked in several different positions in different companies in my life but only after I have done all this studying I feel I am professional and I can do my work well. Can I do it better? Of course I can and I will try every day. I found the job I love.
How much did you pay for your studying?
Where did you study? How was it? How much was it? Are you currently studying? Tell me all about it.
Comments
Nice read.
It cost me about $15,000 Cdn in 1999 and I’m still paying it off :(. The courses were intensive and took 1.5 years however and I think I was rewarded over and over for attending: I received many jobs through the school, I taught at the school and I had a leg up over “Web Designers” who never went to school.
This is interesting. I’m currently studying at University of Lincoln but it is coming to an end in the next few months. As with most uni courses its cost me upwards of 3000 a year and this is my third year now. The course I am on is called “Web Technologies” but is far more general to computing than it sounds. I have in fact learnt more about business, ethics and IT than I have about the web but perhaps this will prove to be useful in the future. If nothing else, I’m sure the course has given me confidence in my abilities.
I can see you guys pay lot more then me. I do have to say though, when I was looking for courses I was trying to choose the cheapest which kind of made seance. There are some pretty expensive courses out there. Specially the one day courses cost lots. I have seen one day ajax courses for almost thousand pound a day.
@Ash – part of my CIW course was IT and networking in general. I spent almost one year learning stuff which is not directly linked to web design but it is really good to have that view. It definitely helps when you understand what protocols are, how they work etc.
Hopefully we will be able to get the money we invested thousand times back.
Well back in ‘99 it would cost more anywhere because of it being a new’ish industry and not a lot of competition too. Now there’s tons of tech schools churning out aspiring web kids. I actually wanted to get into game design back then but they wanted $50k for a 2 year course. :D
I was wondering what was your experience like when you were first starting out as a web designer and didn’t have all the skill sets and level of training you have now? I read that you took extra courses such as PHP, but before that extra training was it difficult to find or work in the industry? Thanks :)
@Peter I have to say I was pretty lucky. I have only replied to couple of job ads I have found at that time. It could be about ten. Three of them came back to me and one them invited me to interview. So I was offered job in the first company I have visited personally. I was not really good in Photoshop and Javascript at that time. I had no idea about server-side scripting etc. The only two languages I was comfortable with were xhtml and css. I have to say I did not ask for much (salary) because I just wanted to get it as soon as possible. I knew that working 8 hours a day as web designer is the only way to quickly learn all that stuff. But again I was very lucky to get the job on first-walk-in..