Self Taught - Web Design
Degree - Accounting

I work on web projects 12 hour days. I always recommend a degree in something just to have a safety net. A degree with assist in work no matter whether your economically depressed or not. Plus, you can always tell a client I have a degree.

Web Design degrees have been coming around. I'm not sure at how structured they are yet. Schools are still trying to get into the hang of the whole web thang. Atleast around here.

I'm self-educated and I got what I paid for.
Guess I'm just program (educational) adverse and
lack the necessary attention span.

btw ... I like the W3 Validator


**** ... I think I meant to post this here.

Oh well ... I explained I don't have a degree.

I think both can be good. I personally won't go to school for web design, I find learning it on my own sufficient and faster. For other things I would prefer to be in school because I wouldn't bother teaching myself those things.

i was a s/w programmer by profession. being a net savvy for years, the design aspect of it had always attracted me. so beside doing my usual programming stuffs, i self taught myself in web design. and believe me, currently i am working as a web designer in a reputed company, and living a decent life out of it. so i always say that make your passion your profession, life will be great.so no matter whether you got a degree or not not, if you have a passion for it, go for it.

Totally self-taught here. Nowadays, I hire designers and programmers and I tend to skip people with certifications. Part of the reason for that is the web moves way too fast for any educational system to catch up with. By the time just about anyone gets out of that class, or course, or even training, most of the information they've been taught is deprecated. Really. 90% of the people I interview that start off with "I have a degree in web design" are living on Photoshop 7 and DreamWeaver CS1. A few others are still coding PHP 4.x only. None of this folks are using modern languages, standards, or even development platforms and envrionments (Ruby? What is that?). But self-taught programmers and designers are typically always 'on top' of the wave, so to speak.

The exception here is that I've seen a loooot of good graphics people come out of design schools. BUT their parlay into Internet-based design was usually self-taught, at that.

My interesting story is how I started. I took a very interesting job in a veeery interesting industry as a traveler at a very young age because I needed a plane ticket. I told him I could make HTML pages when I hadn't even seen a web page before, save for an AOL chat room. This was 1998. My next move was to lock myself in that office for the first week, glued to htmlgoodies.com. I got the job done, but that was a scary week!

Now it's all I do. I still haven't really absorbed PHP yet to my satisfaction...but it's coming. Hopefully.

I'm also self taught, haven't done a whole lot of it. Plan on doing more and more. Just very recently decided to start going to school for web design and making a career out of it. Started by using w3schools, got into a photoshop class in high school and from there I started teaching myself more. I now know html, css, C++, and teaching myself PHP/MySQL. I was originally going to school to be a System Administrator, but the more I got into it the more I realized it wasn't for me.

Self Taught. I have only been doing this for about three months and i was thinking there would be no where for me to take it without a degree. I have had thoughts of just giving it up but i have not yet because i love doing it (and because I am currently unemployed and have A LOT of free time). I'm now really glad I stumbled on this one. I think being able to learn something on your own is a really good attribute, especially in this field. Thanks everyone for letting a noob know there is hope.

I never went to any computer college, learnt evry thing myself instead of begging any one in my area. but in forums there are many co-operative persons helping other juniors.

Self taught and still learning. In 1995 my son created a website for us, but mentioned he had his career and wouldn't be able to maintain the site forever. The forever lasted maybe less then a year, I was using Netscape 3.1 for a website builder. It took me almost a year to implement a very simple perl script to the website, I just couldn't figure it out and asked the hoster for help. Finally the perl script was in place, but still had to learn how to tailor the script for my site.

Later on, a tremendous help for online tutorials, forums such as Webmaster talk and W3School.

In my eyes, self taught in most cases will be a better qualification then a degree. I feel that most places that offer a degree will teach you the minimal of html/css. Nothing more.

In my eyes, self taught in most cases will be a better qualification then a degree. I feel that most places that offer a degree will teach you the minimal of html/css. Nothing more.

I Agree, I am too self-taught and I can see some of my friends did degree was not upto it

I am self taught at all that I know with computers. I started on Microsoft Windows and ended up with Linux. I have used everything from notepad on windows to Text Editor on Linux to write / test web pages and sites.

Funny that others have used similar tools like Adobe Page Mill, and Frontpage 2003 but does anyone remember using HoTMetal 1.0?

I also have one of those big bulky heavy storage rubber maid 'tubs' with old out-dated computer hardware like the Industrial Standard Architecture (ISA) as well a few pci cards as well. Probably stuff I will never use again..Not even sure it still works, been sitting there for years

I just finished a double degree in Software Engineering & Multimedia.

Going to uni provided a structure for learning, and also taught me lessons about teamwork because you have to work with other students.

Another thing about uni is that you are forced to take certain subjects that are difficult, dry, theoretical, and just don't interest you. In hindsight though, I strongly believe that's a good thing because it helps you to develop a broader and deeper understanding of the course material. I believe that the emphasis on theory (as opposed to learning about programming language syntax etc) is very important because while programming languages and things like web standards evolve and change rapidly, the underlying fundamental theories stick around for much longer. A theory book on computer data structures written in 1990 is very much still relevant today. Fielding's dissertation on REST and HTTP was published in 2000 and is no less relevant today.

Then again, a motivated self-learner could learn everything a uni student learns in half the time! Who knows?

I do not believe that having a degree is better than being self-taught or vice versa, although it can act as a safety net as Turnkey said. Many self-taught people are waaaay more motivated, talented and just plain better than university graduates, but the opposite can also be equally true.

Self taught here also...

Microsoft Systems Engineer -- Do the work..paid equally to an MCSE.. I know people (paper-test takers) that have tons of certs, but don't know jack about what they're doing.

Web Design - I do this as a hobby/for fun, Forums like this have always helped me.

I am self taught web designer, learning PHP, mySQL, some other things branching off of web design. I have also learned SEO, and some PPC and affiliate marketing, although I only dable in some of those.

I am in school for electrical and computer engineering (ECET) which is basically computer networking, planning on getting microsoft certified, and the cisco certification.

i am self taught and am working a full time career on it... so the answer is training is good but if you're committed you can learn everything just as good on your own

I comprise be taught at all, I be familiar with by means of knowledge it for myself, I have a special view regarding nation receiving a degree, I feel a lot of the people now feel like the degree to explain it of on the way to find a job which is fine, however I think it is useless. I imply if you are superior at what you perform then no piece of paper be departure to describe who you be or what you be able to do so other than demonstrate it off to an employer a degree is a valueless piece of paper.

I am self taught in everything I know. It's the best way (at least for me!)

For me, it doesn't matter whether or not you're a degree holder or you just learned it yourself... Some people that I know who has some degree on web designing or web developing are better than those which are self-taught. But then, there are also people who have just learned it themselves and yet they are far better than those who has proper education... In short, it really just depend on one's interest and hard work to learn more about their field.

I think this need split in two...

Those who do this professionally...
Those who fart around with it for fun...

Professionally, if you're working in the job market, fairly new (within the last few years), a degree is a necessity. I've been turned down on jobs (dozens) because I don't hold a Bachelors or Masters (I have an Associates instead)...Even though my real work experience trumps what an additional 2-4 years of schooling would teach me. I am a firm believer in education (we started my son's college fund a few short weeks after he was born). So saying, in this day and age, that an education is not necessary in the job market is, in my opinion, inaccurate.

That is not to say that you should ever stop learning or bettering yourself. In this field, things are changing every day. You have to keep up on it if you want to be taken seriously. In the past five years since I graduated college I have learned more on my own and working for companies then I ever did in school.