Thanks demon

3zekial — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 18:42:05 +0000

Thank you demon, the advice is greatly appreciated. anybody else who would like to post or who has any knowledge to share, please post

demonhale — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 01:42:42 +0000

You must decide really to think about the career you will be jumping into, if you really want a good foundation to start with, what I could suggest is to take a basic "design" course, like the ones offered in Art School. Or some get double majors, you can for example take a course in Computer Science, then double course in fine arts...

The most important thing also is to decide whether to focus on Design or Development... Design is a rather complicated thing to expound on, but once you create your own impeccable style, then your known for it. It's because of the creativity involved and the uniqueness of every persons interpretation of things. The differentiation with design and development is that one is visual and the other functional...

thanks, anymore

3zekial — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 19:54:28 +0000

thank you Megan, if anybody else has some input please tell me what you think...thanks

Megan — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 19:08:43 +0000

The first thing you need to do is decide what exactly you want to specialize in. You could focus on graphic design, programming, business and marketing, communications, information architecture, and many other niche topics. Different universities will have programs with different speclizations. You also need to decide if you want to go to a 4-year college/university or to a 3-year/community college. That's a big difference - at a 3-year college you will learn how to do things on a practial level. In a 4-year university program you'll go into a lot more theoretical background and analysis (which, IMO, is really valuable).

You should also start looking for colleges and universities that offer programs in the field. There are more and more developing all the time. They do tend to vary in their approach and speclization. The university I work for has a prgram in Arts & Business with a Digital Communication specialization, for example. Others may focus more on graphic design and things like that.

When you are researching programs, make sure you find out about the instructors and the graduates. Particularly the backgrounds of the instructors (have they worked in the real world?) and what the graduates are doing now (do they get jobs with good companies?)

The other option would be to skip college and start your own business. The key to starting a business is being able to get work, which means you have to know some people in business who would want to buy web design from you.