Thread

I go to a public school in a very affluent neighbourhood. Everyone has money, I know of many kids who roll with Mercedes Benzes, BMWs, and the like. I’m middle-class. Just average, no special gimmicks except that I can do some pretty sweet tricks with my powerchair.

One of the things that makes me shake my fist with rage is the lack of real-world financing here. Home Ec is learning to cook gourmet, lavish foods and the Web Design class has PhotoShop, Dreamweaver, and Flash. Yes, PhotoShop AND Dreamweaver.

It makes me shake my head that some of these folks are going into web design. They don’t know to put the client first. People like managing their own sites and EE and similar CMSs helps them achieve that. They don’t know how to operate on a budget which depresses me. I want them to have to work with a non-profit with a budget of $1000. Buying an ExpressionEngine licence would take $99.95 out but that leaves a lot of room to set up the actual site and design the graphics. Of course, I’ve never done it for profit so I really don’t know the typical budget for a NP.

I want to say they’ll learn but unless they’re working with people who have a budget and their parents cut the cash flow they won’t. Le sigh. Oh well, I still rule for knowing how to at 17 *and* pushing EE - seriously, I think I’d totally redo the student-driven section of the website to make it valid XHTML, CSS, and powered by EE or another CMS (preferably EE).

Can anyone relate?

Love,
bobby

hey I think you should build your own cms forget EE if your in school start building a CMS with php and mysql EE is a handicap and it’s like using a calculator for Math and should not be allowed. Contrary to what society wants you to beleive you don’t learn nothing in school you learn in the real world and in the real world there are budgets and you need to work with in constraints of time money and effort.

For instance they teach you right to left math in school and that is the wrong way to work with numbers Math should be done from left to right. School is backwards it needs a huge overhaul that is why I hated it. I think different then most and I do my math from left to right and I my teachers would never accept that they wanted right to left so I left and went on my own into the real world where you learn to make due with what you got.

Later time to feed my head Good luck bobby trying to get your school to see it your way.

I do hope you’re kidding, raymondm… That post cracked me up.  😊

If not, then I’m just going to bite my tongue.

Echoing CrimsonDawn…I just think they need to have a practical approach to teaching web design. For people who are serious about this craft. I’m an amateur, I do it for the art of designing and art of writing and it’s truly cathartic for me. To do it for money would be selling out to me.

CrimsonDawn I kinder was kidding I was feeling very tired hungry and poor at the time of entry so it was out there but it’s the truth you got to prove all things you know man

I’m not sure I quite understand you Bobby, but here’s my response anyway:

Even if you don’t think you’re learning anything in terms of technical skills like coding, hopefully you’re picking up a little bit of design theory, and whilst studying, you’re developing real-world skills in time-management, working towards deadlines etc.

If you think you’re so good, take up some freelance work and develop your interpersonal skills, confidence in dealing with clients, pitching for projects, writing briefs, taking and working with criticism etc.

I took a look at your sites and I think you need to work on learning what makes good design. Unless of course, you want to be a pure coder (you’ll earn a great deal more coding than designing).

Finally, don’t think you’re the only 17 year-old in the world playing with expression engine. There are some truly amazing kids who can produce great design and code well. I was once one of them at the tender age of 13 ... (those were the days, *sigh*)

Take a year out from studying if you can and learn more about the web industry - I did and it was certainly a good decision.

Hey bobby, there’s plenty to think about in your topic. What strikes me is the old saying different strokes for different folks.
You can’t knock photoshop and dreamweaver or consider those any more or less of a tool than an open source, or even free alternative photo editor/paint program and Coding IDE environment.
In terms of being constrained by a budget, realistically there is only ever so much time to put in to a project.

On many occasions you could find yourself waiting on the client to even participate enough to get you the materials you need to finish a site. Also there’s a whole ‘nother level of people who don’t even want to manage their site, they would like a professional web designer to update it regularly for them.

I’m not sure I’ve ever really met a passionate client in regards to their website, the website is sometimes secondary to their brick and mortar stores that are well established.

That’s OK, all the school in the world does not make up for experience.  Unfortunately, experience cannot be taught in school.

That’s OK, all the school in the world does not make up for experience.  Unfortunately, experience cannot be taught in school.

John’s right. That’s the great catch-22. All my experience in web design is trial by fire and pure desire (and a lot of failing, and a few $200 sites here and there when I got started). I have a BFA in Oil Painting. My education is relevant in some places in what I do now (composition, layout, etc), but experience is king.

I think on the whole, most people still don’t see the true value of a well-done website. I’ll tell you, I love it when I come across a client who does understand!

I am not really a designer per se, I do respect those that are adept with it. I have crappy interpersonal skills when it comes to…well, anything. It’s why I <3 code. *smile* Also, I am very blunt, which definitely works against me most days.

*cough* I do not proclaim to be so high and G-dlike with regards to code, nor do I think myself the only 17-year-old fiddling with EE. I just see many, many HS students who go into web design thinking that the world has the money for a $5,000 site. There’s something to be said for working on a budget, but I guess that does come with life. And, I do have to give them credit for having the audacity to break into an extremely competitive business.

I’m kind of lost on the code/design thing. Code makes up design. I.e., CSS. Though, there’s something to be said for semantics-rich XHTML or the elegant PHP in ExpressionEngine’s backend. Actually, PHP is possibly my favourite programming language. I am learning SQL though. Good times!

You can have the flashiest car in the world but it won’t make you a better driver
You can have Photoshop and Dreamweaver but they won’t make you a better web designer

Working and even living on a tight budget makes you think, it also makes you learn what’s really important, and from that you start to appreciate the real value of things.

@Bobby - you’re right, “design” is nothing without code of some sort, if you didn’t have code you wouldn’t have any way of showing those fancy images!

I once ran a contest on another forum to create the best page/design using HTML and CSS only - no images whatsoever. Not surprisingly most of the graphic designers were totally lost and the code monkies came up with the better entries 😊

Order of importance on almost all assignments I’ve had…
Business/Brand/Marketing Objectives—> Design/Text—> Code/Programming
Code is the last thing I have to think about and the easiest (generally).

To be honest, I’d be more worried if the web design class DIDN’T have Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Flash. Even though obviously I think they need to teach hand coding, those programs are generally required skills for web design workers, at least where I live.

True, spaceboy, but I *heart* hard coding. So much.