Hi everyone!

I'm new here.

Just a few questions please,
I have a degree in Music, but have decided that I want to change my career direction a little and become a website designer. I have designed a few sites already, but I want to learn new programs like Flash and Dreamweaver. I'm not a programmer, I'm a creative designer and I like artistically making sites.

So I have been thinking of taking a post grad course in digital arts or web design more specifically, obviously that is going to cost an arm and a leg (a career development loan). So I have been thinking of doing a cerification, or CIW course.

Is this a properly recognised industry qualification, that would really help me get a job? I also found about 1 million companies offering to teach this service, how do I know which one's I can trust - or which are good, or accredited possibly?

Any help would be greatly appreciated - this is a website of a local firm offering a course in CIW, I'm not sure about it, what do you think?

www.itskills-southwest.com

I just know I can't keep doing crap jobs forever, I want something decent!!

There is one thing, and one thing alone, that will get you more jobs than any single qualification alone.....a good portfolio.

You can state the courses you have completed all day long, nobody will care, show them four or five decent websites you have done...job done.

If need be do the work for free (most of us went down that road) do anything you can to get a good quality online portfolio and all the qualifications under the sun are worth diddly-squat.

I agree with that somewhat, but some companies like qualifications. Where your portfolio shows you can design great sites (hopefully), qualifications show you know all the ins and outs, and that you have the ability to learn.

I have found (in England) that professional qualifications (CIW, MCP/MCSE/etc) are worth a **** of a lot more to employers than any school or college qualifications. My GCSE results have been completely ignored since I used them to get into college. My results were atrocious but it doesn't really matter. (I don't understand why people get so hung up on them... you just gotta scrape them to get nto college and that's it). In every job I've been in, the number one thing they've looked at is experience. This is what I have over people just coming out of Uni, and it's worth a lot more to most employers than any degree.

Thanks Guys, thats some helpful and honest replies there. I'm hoping to get a site online soon, which should help the portfolio. Its good to know that a CIW is worth more to employers as thats what I want to achieve. I think that there needs to be better education about education, if you see what I mean - there are so many people like myself that take on degrees just because they can - although I have had some success using my degree.

So I guess the company you take a CIW at is not that important as long as you do it - because I was under the impression that its a distance learning type of course structure.

Thanks for the info once again.

Matt

im currently doing the ciw course at the moment any questions feel free to ask

Ok, slayerx,

So how have you found the CIW course so far? Is it very programming orientated or can you choose what you want to be involved in, i.e I am a designer and not a programmer as such, so I would like to know how to do top animation and things like that - using flash for example.

I guess programming is a fundamental aspect which I probably can't ignore.

Cheers

Tbh its been strange im on the 3rd stage which when i pass i will be come an associate webmaster

Stage includes:

HTML
XHTML
CSS
XML
Networking
Business
Site development

Ive been told stage 4 is more design based and im supplied i think with the MX kit dreamweaver and flash not sure about fireworks