The web dev program looks pretty good for an associates degree. It looks like they have classes that will teach you the major languages. However, It is hard to tell how in depth they get from course descriptions. I can't comment on the other as I am not a networking guy.
- Dec 5, 2000
- 43,804
- 46
- 91
the networking stuff just seems like glorified help desk to me, which is basically what I do now. I don't know how much different it will be with a degree.
some of you guys are saying I can go on to a bachelor's degree after i would get this web dev degree. what would be the next step as far as a bachelor's degree? I haven't seen any colleges that offer a bachelors in web development or anything like that.
Personally, I'd rather get out of IT, but I'm so invested in it and I don't know what else to do. if i go for anything non-it related, i doubt i'll get any reimbursement. they say you could do it for some other position in the ompany, but realistically, if they see me wanting to go for an English degree, which was one of my other thoughts, they'd most likely shoot it down.
some of you guys are saying I can go on to a bachelor's degree after i would get this web dev degree. what would be the next step as far as a bachelor's degree? I haven't seen any colleges that offer a bachelors in web development or anything like that.
Personally, I'd rather get out of IT, but I'm so invested in it and I don't know what else to do. if i go for anything non-it related, i doubt i'll get any reimbursement. they say you could do it for some other position in the ompany, but realistically, if they see me wanting to go for an English degree, which was one of my other thoughts, they'd most likely shoot it down.
- Dec 5, 2000
- 43,804
- 46
- 91
"I thought I wanted to get completely away from IT but a) I can't decide or figure out what the hell I want to do, b) I think its going to be a lot harder to transition to something new, and c) all my experience/training up to now has been IT related anyway."
what's your point?
well if cost is an issue....a community college usually isnt expensive. can you afford a couple of classes on your own, and books, to get started?
- Dec 5, 2000
- 43,804
- 46
- 91
yeah, I could afford classes on my own. I was originally planning on paying my own way but then I got to thinking about different things and figured if I did do something IT related, work could pay for some of it.
and now i'm second guessing these 2 choices because of the comments in this thread. I don't want to waste my time and money in doing something that isn't going to help me. I've done that once already with the computertraining.com BS.
I just cannot pin down 1 thing I want to do. Hell, I can't even pin down a few things I want to do. I think of something, look into it and find stuff I don't like about it and i'm back to square one again.
I wouldn't hire anyone that just knows HTML, but I don't think that's all he would be learning at a community college program. If he drops out after a semester, of course he would have a problem getting a job and just knowing HTML. Not every company has an easy ability to get work done overseas, and it can be a real pain in the ass. How many websites are static HTML nowadays? Plenty of small businesses would hire people with HTML/CSS/PHP knowledge.
clamum
Lifer
- Feb 13, 2003
- 26,256
- 406
- 126
I would consider web development as part of IT as well.
I don't think I'd be too concerned with the course being too "low level". As long as they teach you the basics then you should be good to go. You're going to learn way more at a job than in school, at least that's been true for me for about any development/programming university classes I've taken.
X/HTML (IMO) there's isn't a whole lot to learn. Marking it up for presentation using CSS is much more involved so I'd hope they go over why CSS is beneficial, and how to use selectors and how the CSS hierarchy works. A introduction to JavaScript and how it can be used along with CSS would be helpful.
I'd also see if they cover any database topics, especially using a server-side scripting language along with a RDBMS (relational database management system, like MySQL or SQL Server) to create dynamic web applications. I would consider a knowledge of a server-side scripting language and how to use it with a database a basically must-know concept if you want to be a web developer.
m1ldslide1
Platinum Member
- Feb 20, 2006
- 2,321
- 0
- 0
Don't figure that networking is going to keep you at the helpdesk forever. The networking associates degree isn't worth a shit, but if they give you experience and help you study for and pass the CCNA then it can be rewarding. If you have the CCNA you can expect to be moving beyond "is the power on sir?" type of crap and into troubleshooting networks. If you have a good attitude you can start to pick up installation work. Once you have mastered all of those skills you can start pursuing more advanced certifications and a career in network engineering. Network engineers are typically the highest paid out of all IT professionals - except management. Just keep in mind that there are many years of hard work and studying on your own time in between where you are now and making $80k+ as a senior level engineer, or $100k+ as a systems integrator. Also don't forget YMMV depending on where you live as well.
As an example I know a guy who got his CCNA through the local community college and was almost immediately hired by an ISP and was making nearly 50k to start with. I'm not sure where he's at now, but he was gaining a ton of skills at the time and I'm sure has increased his salary and responsibilities substantially by now. I have a similar story, but didn't use any formal classes. Feel free to pm me if you want more info about this. Since its what I do for a living, I could drone on and on when I really should be working this morning...
As an example I know a guy who got his CCNA through the local community college and was almost immediately hired by an ISP and was making nearly 50k to start with. I'm not sure where he's at now, but he was gaining a ton of skills at the time and I'm sure has increased his salary and responsibilities substantially by now. I have a similar story, but didn't use any formal classes. Feel free to pm me if you want more info about this. Since its what I do for a living, I could drone on and on when I really should be working this morning...
- Dec 5, 2000
- 43,804
- 46
- 91
here are the web dev. specific courses
Web Site Publishing
HTML, XML, and JavaScript
Web Design and Multimedia
Web Application Development
XML eXtensible Markup Language
JavaScript Programming
Project Management
Database Programming
ASP.NET Active Server Pages
Web Server Administration
I'd also have to take a programming elective. I have to pick from:
C#.NET Programming
PHP / MySQL Programming
JSP Java Server Pages
Visual Basic Programming for Business Applications
JAVA Programming
I also have to take an elective that would be under:
WEB
CISE
CIS
CNT
GIS
I can do another elective under the WEB
designation and also 1 elective in any 100-200 level course.
robphelan
Diamond Member
- Aug 28, 2003
- 4,084
- 17
- 81
if you want to get out of IT, take a look around at your company - see if there are any entry-level spots open you could slide in to. Managers do like to have staff with good IT knowledge.
Do that for awhile until you have enough experience to go outside the company.
Do that for awhile until you have enough experience to go outside the company.
ok whether web dev is IT or not that's just depending on who you are talking to. For job listing programming might fall within IT but at least in where I work, when we talk among just the IT people, 'IT' means tech support and sysadmins. Sorry about the confusing pontifex but I am glad that we didn't got into a fight.
Regarding HTML/CSS, it doesn't seem there's much to do with them, but there are need of people who knows what they are doing. Meaning those who can actually write a website using <div>, <span>, and styles instead of tabling everything. Sounds easy but it takes a lot of experience and time to be able to get it right. Adding accessibility on top of those(like if your web site wants to be compatible with a web reader for the blind as well as with IE/Mozilla) and you have a very specialized niche field that could be paid very well when people needs them. I wanted to say that there might not be as many jobs in this pure HTML field than the others, but I do think that it is a great skill to learn, or at least get involve with.
So that's one aspect of web development, another one would be... simply writing a website with a DB backend... Then there are these LAMP/WAMP and Ruby on Rails small shops that does web development for others for living. I do know some people who work in these shops, basically you need full understanding of how a website works (client/server requests, session tracking, your server side language e.g. PHP if it's a LAMP shop, etc), they might not ask you to make sure what you wrote works for the blind... but you most likely will be required to hack things up quickly using reusable codes so knowing how things work will help you a lot.
Then there's the currently hot AJAX, it is a subset of web development skills, you could take a course to have exposure, but don't go to school just for it. Basically needs to become very good with javascript. And be good with j2ee or c#/asp/vb, or php or ruby or whatever that they uses at the backend, because when your page ask for something, your server need to know what to return to it, so it's 2 way. Solid OO programming background or training will help alot here.
One thing I notice is that in practice, javascript itself is very easy to learn, you can come from absolutely no experience to fully utilizing it within a month if you work on it everyday, it is very trivial (need to know C or Java syntax though). Of course, if you are going to build a googlemap yourself then it will need to be combined with good html/css skill plus knowledge of your browser.
Looking at the list, the following are what I think will contribute your core skill sets:
Web Application Development (if this one is one of those intro courses without any programming, replace it with Java/JSP, and read about web application development on wikipedia... Only take it if gives you some hands on programming with j2ee or something)
Database Programming (this is a must, take it and do well in here, unless you already know the SQL language, then take a database transactions course instead)
HTML, XML, and JavaScript (basic knowledge, take it if you don't already know these)
JavaScript Programming/XML eXtensible Markup Language (unsure how XML knowledge will help in web except for writing W3C compliance html code or writing return values for xmlhttprequest on the server side, one way it can help is to be able to automatically convert a normal website into other html profile, like the one for mobile device, but don't worry about that right now. I will ask the professor to see how they are useful to you before taking)
For the programming languages, I started as a Java guy and now doing a lot of javascript on ASP(without formal javascript training...), so I will say Java and JSP will be beneficial. Also PHP/MySQL, C# will also help, research on this matter or talk to a professor, but if you only have one choice, pick either Java or C. I will skip VB, especially when it says business app, it is dying for that purpose (powerbuilder is gone mostly).
Take Java first, then JSP, if you are going to that route.
oh, and all the course links are dead...
btw I work as developer and I too get stupid users, just that I don't spend everyday listening to them whine, but in a way, I am still spending everyday resolving their problems, and I got deadlines to deal with instead.
Regarding HTML/CSS, it doesn't seem there's much to do with them, but there are need of people who knows what they are doing. Meaning those who can actually write a website using <div>, <span>, and styles instead of tabling everything. Sounds easy but it takes a lot of experience and time to be able to get it right. Adding accessibility on top of those(like if your web site wants to be compatible with a web reader for the blind as well as with IE/Mozilla) and you have a very specialized niche field that could be paid very well when people needs them. I wanted to say that there might not be as many jobs in this pure HTML field than the others, but I do think that it is a great skill to learn, or at least get involve with.
So that's one aspect of web development, another one would be... simply writing a website with a DB backend... Then there are these LAMP/WAMP and Ruby on Rails small shops that does web development for others for living. I do know some people who work in these shops, basically you need full understanding of how a website works (client/server requests, session tracking, your server side language e.g. PHP if it's a LAMP shop, etc), they might not ask you to make sure what you wrote works for the blind... but you most likely will be required to hack things up quickly using reusable codes so knowing how things work will help you a lot.
Then there's the currently hot AJAX, it is a subset of web development skills, you could take a course to have exposure, but don't go to school just for it. Basically needs to become very good with javascript. And be good with j2ee or c#/asp/vb, or php or ruby or whatever that they uses at the backend, because when your page ask for something, your server need to know what to return to it, so it's 2 way. Solid OO programming background or training will help alot here.
One thing I notice is that in practice, javascript itself is very easy to learn, you can come from absolutely no experience to fully utilizing it within a month if you work on it everyday, it is very trivial (need to know C or Java syntax though). Of course, if you are going to build a googlemap yourself then it will need to be combined with good html/css skill plus knowledge of your browser.
Looking at the list, the following are what I think will contribute your core skill sets:
Web Application Development (if this one is one of those intro courses without any programming, replace it with Java/JSP, and read about web application development on wikipedia... Only take it if gives you some hands on programming with j2ee or something)
Database Programming (this is a must, take it and do well in here, unless you already know the SQL language, then take a database transactions course instead)
HTML, XML, and JavaScript (basic knowledge, take it if you don't already know these)
JavaScript Programming/XML eXtensible Markup Language (unsure how XML knowledge will help in web except for writing W3C compliance html code or writing return values for xmlhttprequest on the server side, one way it can help is to be able to automatically convert a normal website into other html profile, like the one for mobile device, but don't worry about that right now. I will ask the professor to see how they are useful to you before taking)
For the programming languages, I started as a Java guy and now doing a lot of javascript on ASP(without formal javascript training...), so I will say Java and JSP will be beneficial. Also PHP/MySQL, C# will also help, research on this matter or talk to a professor, but if you only have one choice, pick either Java or C. I will skip VB, especially when it says business app, it is dying for that purpose (powerbuilder is gone mostly).
Take Java first, then JSP, if you are going to that route.
oh, and all the course links are dead...
btw I work as developer and I too get stupid users, just that I don't spend everyday listening to them whine, but in a way, I am still spending everyday resolving their problems, and I got deadlines to deal with instead.
FWIW I landed a job in tech support making $12.50/hour and my only previous experience was as a pizza driver. About 4-5 of the other new hires had these types of degrees that they had worked on for two years. My impression is that they are useless if you already know about computers, you just have to get into that interview room and explain that you know.
- Dec 5, 2000
- 43,804
- 46
- 91
I know (through my current job) a pserson who is co-owner or something of a marketing and design firm. This company built our website and maintains it.
Would it be a good idea to ask this person about what they look for in web developers or their thoughts of the program?
Besides you guys here, I don't know anyone that does this kind of work to ask, and since ths person's company is in the general area of where i work and live, it might be some better insight into the program and positions that might be out there.
Would it be a good idea to ask this person about what they look for in web developers or their thoughts of the program?
Besides you guys here, I don't know anyone that does this kind of work to ask, and since ths person's company is in the general area of where i work and live, it might be some better insight into the program and positions that might be out there.
Do you actually enjoy programming? Like, have you tried building a liitle website, or maybe coding something simple in .NET or Java? There's no piont in going into something like that if you don't enjoy it - you'll just find it incredibly tedious.
nakedfrog
No Lifer
- Apr 3, 2001
- 62,947
- 19,190
- 136
Indeed, I can't imagine doing this job if I didn't enjoy programming.
I mean, I barely touch any of my own websites any more or write anything of my own, but that's okay, because none of my other hobbies pay as well (well, playing guitar could theoretically, but those are some long odds)
TRENDING THREADS
-
Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)- Started by DisEnchantment
- Replies: 25K
-
Discussion Intel Meteor, Arrow, Lunar & Panther Lakes + WCL Discussion Threads
- Started by Tigerick
- Replies: 23K
-
Discussion Intel current and future Lakes & Rapids thread- Started by TheF34RChannel
- Replies: 23K
-
-
Facebook
Twitter