What to do? I'm a soon-to-be college grad with a major in English. I've decided that going to law school might not be the best choice for me. I love being crafty and working on computers. I have built some websites for local businesses, and have dabbled in digital scrapbooking. I think that I want to be a web designer.

So now what do I do? I'd like to enroll in some sort of formal training. I've looked into some programs like the Art Institues online program for a B.S. but that seems really expensive for something I already have. What about the M.A. program from Savannah College of Design in Interactive Design and Game Media? They also have a bunch of certification programs that seem cool. Or should I just take some classes at a nearby university?

I think school can be a great thing, but at the same time it isn't always necessary. It depends on how you learn best and what your goals are.

The decision about school is really up to you. You don't need formal education to be a web designer. What you need are the skills to design websites. You can get those skills with or without school. A certificate or degree isn't really necessary, but it may be desired depending on where you hope to work. Some companies may look favorably on it, but most will mainly be concerned with your ability to do the job.

You could take one or two classes in the certificate program to see if you like it and if you find the classes useful. If you do continue and if you don't you haven't spent too much time or money learning that you don't like it.

The best way to become a web designer is simply to design websites. Most of the learning will be in the doing.

Hi, that is exactly what I was going to say!

I discovered my interest in web design in one class I took during my last semester of college, after it was too late to switch degrees. After graduating, I joined the workforce and then just built websites on my own in my spare time. Of course, they were really basic as my skills were lacking! Over time I learned more and more with books, internet and practice.

Finally, one of my employers had a need for a website and I volunteered to do it along with my regular duties. Later, at another workplace, someone heard that I knew about websites and asked if I would be interested in building one for them along with my regular duties. This time it happened to be the CIO of a major corporation and the gig turned into a full-time position working on the site I built. Wow! That was my real training ground, and I got paid to learn and practice.

From there, I was able to a get series of jobs with nice titles like "web developer" with good companies like Verizon and great pay starting at $60K and moving up. It's been 7 years now since first falling in love with web and I have had my share of ups and downs and even tried quitting a couple times. Yet, somehow I am always drawn back to it because it is truly my passion. Even when doing it for a living, I still do it as a hobby! haha Currently, my strongest skills are ASP, SQL, HTML and CSS. I still feel like I have so much more to learn and sometimes wonder if school would help. But, then I realize that hands-on experience is much more effective and there is a lot of stuff that isn't taught in school. I am learning more every day and at a pace that seems like the speed of light. These days, I have been blessed to be freelancing and am quite happy.

There you have a real life example that proves that school is not always a requirement in the web design field. I agree: skills are what really matter! You could try to get an entry-level web job just to get your foot in the door. Putting together a portfolio of your work would be a great help too.

One caveat: certain companies and specialties do require a degree. In my case, any B.A. degree plus solid skills and experience was good enough. Other cases may require a Computer Science degree for programming.

Good luck! Hope you will join the wonderful world of web!

Nearby classes would be better IMO

You already have a college degree, which will help you in the job-market. Being an English major will help you in the areas of marketing and SEO also. I recommend you study those areas in addition to design. There aren't going to be many courses at a school that will adequately teach you search marketing.

I agree with the above post about your English degree coming in handy with web design.

My degree is in Communications, which was like English, journalism, graphics, advertising and new media technology all in one. Those skills have helped me do web copy writing, writing e-newsletters and other marketing materials, web content development, e-learning content creation, writing web help guides, FAQ's and knowlegebase, software documentation and user instruction guides, and also internal documentation for project management, business requirements documentation, and executive-level web application presentations for several major companies in their IT departments.

If you have the time and money, a certificate program is probably the most effective way to dive into web and acquire great new skills, besides real-world experience. The certificates I saw on your link do not seem that focused on web design itself, but seem to be more broad areas that also include desktop publishing and game design. As far as interactive design and game media, it would likely focus specifically on Flash animation and actionscript. The DeVry university also offers game development that is focused on Java, I believe.

Some questions you may ask yourself... Are you more interested in web graphic design or web programming? The front-end or back-end? Are you interested in designing the look with graphics or building the actual web pages or using databases or creating the snippets of animation found on some web pages? A certification that focuses on web design itself should probably include HTML, CSS, Javascript at a bare minimum. An example of a web development certificate that I found looks like this: http://www.tccd.edu/programs/dp.asp?dpid=200 .

There's no need to get a second B.S. degree, like you said. Plus, I've known several people with Master's degrees that did not make that much more money as those with B.S. degrees in the web field. So getting a M.S. may not be worth the investment, unless you intend to move up into management or executive level or a specialty field like Information Architecture or a particular programming language. Skills matter most for web production workers. The examples above are just a few ways your existing degree may be useful in web.

It sounds like you already have the degree, desire and motivation to pursue a career in web. You are obviously a natural and can easily learn on your own, since you also have some web skills and experience already. Now, get out there and do it!

If you have several websites under your belt, you can forget the statement that you "want to be a web designer"... because you already are one. Now all you would need to do is let others know and continually hone your skills to make it your career.

"What you are striving to become is what you already are." --Ralph H. Blum

Good luck!

P.S. I hope no one you know has tried to talk you out of doing web or persuade you to stick with law school. Sometimes people are not aware of the rich opportunities with web design. The internet and computers will remain important technologies of the future. If your friends and family are supportive that will make a world of difference!

If I were you, and I had a nice shiny new English degree, I would snag a job based on those credentials IF I needed to get a job relatively soon. I would then use the money I make from the English degree I spent good time and money on to "make ends meet" while I build websites and increase my level of website building proficiency with the rest of my time. Hopefully, if you are successful building websites, you will quickly attract enough paying website clients to let go of the job based on your English degree.

However, in my opinion it does not seem that you urgently need a paying job to SOLEY support yourself. In other words, I am thinking you are young and still live with your parents. In that case, if you have time to "do what you want" without really worrying about keeping your own roof over your head, then, other choices are possible.

It seems that you have made up your mind not to go to law school. I do not know if, in the current business environment, practicing law will pay far more than web designing for YOU. I do, however, believe that law school will demand significant resources and commitment, mentally and financially, possibly to the exclusion of all else.

Incidentally, in my opinion if you were to snag that job based on your English degree you, if you pay attention, could build a network of "connections" from which you can get web design clients. In my opinion such a strategy could give you a significant advantage winning clients over web designers with far more proficiency and experience than you.

There are lots and lots of "web designers". They are so ubiquitous that it can be difficult generating a big income in the face of such competition UNLESS you have some sort of advantage OR you don't necessarily require a big income. If, for instance, you teach at the local high school, or you work at ACME Longtime Company, then, in my opinion the additional credibility you can potentially gain, over designers who are not in such a position, can make a big, big, difference in your ability to get web design jobs.

note: In this post I have been writing in terms of you working as an INDEPENDENT web designer. Of course there are exceptions, but I think the highly prized corporate web designer positions USUALLY go to someone who has degrees to show, has a near genius or prodigy level of talent, OR to someone that the company is satisfied they can pay somewhat less, because of a lack of a degree, to do the same expert level work.

Yes, you can find tech companies with highly paid web people who may not have a formal degree, but I think it can be demonstrated that such situations are becoming less and less likely to occur. There is such widespread availability of a formal education for web related occupations that it is not really a good business decision for tech companies, in the current economic climate, to opt for someone who lacks a degree. It also is not really necessary UNLESS the factors I mentioned in the previous paragraph apply.

Ultimately, if you feel you are really ready to successfully compete with top level web designers I believe you should, at least, seek out the opinion of your peers(other web designers like you find on this site) as to whether or not your current portfolio truly is top level work. In other words, ask them to review the websites you have already completed and give you their frank opinion as to whether or not you have the skills to compete now.

Thank you so much for all of your advice! I think I'm going to take some classes online and apply for a job closer to my English degree that will help me make connections for my desire to ultimately make sites.

Keep the advice coming though! You all have had some really helpful suggestions

Me too have the same ambition and attending classes for that

Better money in law than website design!

More hours and stress in law than web design. The extra money is not worth it. If you have a passion for web design, go with your heart and the money will come easily.

Do what you feel you are most inclined to enjoy: whether it be english, web-design, or neuro-surgeon.

To learn web-design: PRACTICE!!!

that's how you learn, that's how you improve ur skillz



a special note: while I think it's best to just dive in to web-design, I would recommend going to school and getting your doctorate before cutting into people's brains

Get ready for a long ride, and a constand learning curve. I wouldn't trade it for the world though

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I have studied at the Letters Faculty and I am a web designer since 2002. I also own my small web design firm now (even if I am still the only one working in the "company"). I wasn't able to get to some decent studies in my country, so I learnt all I could by myself. As long as you have a passion for this, it's OK. Just work a lot, prepare a good portfolio and then you can chose to work for someone or even start your own small web business.

following an university education is best. What ever you educated creativity should come from inside you. better to make practice well while study period.

My 3 cents worth, if you have an interest in both design and law......

Get the law degree and then become one of the few really good Internet Attorneys.

There's a world full of Copyright and Trademark Infrincement lawsuits waiting.

Plus Consumer Internet Law.

Depending on how you learn best, it might be easier, less time-consuming and far less expensive to teach yourself web design. I learnt everything from home (with much help from w3schools)

Since both law school and web design school are seriously expensive, I'd suggest that if you really want to do law, go to law school and learn web design from the web since it's possible. Also, be persistent, and disciplined.

rarely can you find formal education that is keeping up with the day to day new code releases etc. The best way is to dive in. Get a domain where you can play around and hosting account. Or better yet, install your own server and get a static IP from your ISP. Then you can play with config and code.

Then you start finding what you like, copy it, manipulate it, gets free scripts from wherever, disect them, change them to get what you want it to do, keep reading in forums like this and whala - you will be a designer.

graphic design is one thing, but for actual web design (CSS, PHP, etc) learning on your own allows you to control the direction you want to go next.