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Web Developer Careers


skaterdav85

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I am curious as to how people got web developer jobs and careers. Did you go to school? (where), just study on your own?, obtain certificates? Also, what would be a good path to get such a job, and what should people learn?

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It depends what your goals are and what you want to do. If you want to make a career out of programming then you will be able to earn a lot more money with a university degree. The companies who hire programmers without degrees you probably don't want to work for anyway. If they're hiring programmers without degrees it means they don't want to pay their people what programmers or engineers should be earning.

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I got my job through my school. It was a work term at first. I've been working here for almost 2 years. I'm at the government so they pay pretty well.

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i found this to be pretty interesting. this was on the yahoo frontpage today about the 5 hot business careers without an MBA.http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/career-articles-f..._mba_needed-2764. Web DesignerThanks to the Internet boom, trained Web designers are in demand. These creative professionals work with companies to design and maintain Web sites that effectively convey their corporate missions, contact information, latest news, and more. Web designers must be well versed in HTML and computer graphics programs like Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash, which are often taught in 6- to 12-month certificate programs. While freelancers can work out of a home office, Web designers must be especially attentive of deadlines and willing to make last-minute changes beyond 5 p.m. and on weekends. The average salary is just under $60,000 per year.

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I got my job through my school. It was a work term at first. I've been working here for almost 2 years. I'm at the government so they pay pretty well.
through school as in you got a degree in web stuff or you got it another way? what kind of stuff do you do there?
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through school as in you got a degree in web stuff or you got it another way? what kind of stuff do you do there?
yeah as in a degree. I do xhtml, css, javascript, coldfusion, sql, website design, image editing...
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It depends what your goals are and what you want to do. If you want to make a career out of programming then you will be able to earn a lot more money with a university degree. The companies who hire programmers without degrees you probably don't want to work for anyway. If they're hiring programmers without degrees it means they don't want to pay their people what programmers or engineers should be earning.
I think that the only disagreement I have with this statement is that, eventually, experience will catch up to, and usually surpass, any degree. While it is true that you will be making more money right off the bat, and you will probably find a job easier, if you have a degree, after four to six years of working in the field, your experience is worth more to employers than a degree in that field.College degrees in general definitely get you more money, but they don't necessarily need to be in the computer science field. I don't have a degree in Computer Science (I have a liberal arts degree), but, because of my experience, I'm definitely not lacking in salary.I think it all comes down to how you learn. I happen to learn very quickly on my own reading books, following tutorials, and experimenting with code. Others learn better in a structured university environment.
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I don't think someone going through self-teaching will be nearly as qualified as someone with a formal education. I'm not talking specifically web programming, if all you want to do is trial-and-error your way through PHP scripts and Javascript (or any scripting language that lets you be as lazy as you want to be), then you probably don't need a formal education, plenty of people can go through trial-and-error to write programs. The programs might not be that great, but they can do it.If you want to be able to handle any programming job, you need an education, period. Here's an article written by two professors at NYU about the possibility of Java and scripting languages damaging computer science students because people are graduating without a firm grasp of how the code they write interacts with the underlying hardware. It makes a lot of sense, but take it with a little salt knowing that the authors are co-developers of the Ada language (which is a good language, just maybe not "all that").http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/CrossTalk/2008...rSchonberg.html

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I've caught the gist of what is being debated here and I have some feelings on the matter so here is my $0.02:

  • strictly speaking on developer skills and abilities, I do not think that a college degree factors in as much as real world experience
  • overall effectiveness, efficiency, and ability to be anything other than a pawn to coding drone, education is a huge factor

I'm self taught and educated and pursing a masters degree as we speak. There is no way I could have gotten where I am today without both. Mind you, my education is not in computer science, its is in Recreation and Leisure Management with a Minor in Marketing and (oddly enough) a Certificate in Culinary Art (some dance on poles to get through school I cooked). The masters degree I am pursing is an MBA in Technology and it will be the vehicle for me to get out of programming (at least full-time) and into management.More to the point, you won't need a formal education to become even a good entry or mid-level web application developer - given time you can even become a senior level programmer. But without an underlying education I think an individual will lack a certain amount of perspective. Yes, the real world is the true test and the true environment we have to work in every day. But if that is the only perspective you have, then there is no way to avoid being sucked into that reality. What I simply mean is that the formal education will give you the historical perspective and will help you identify situational patterns and will hopefully always be that voice in the back of your head saying, "this is how it should be done, this is what I should be working into the madness". Without that voice, you get stuck into the status quo.Maybe my perspective is not entirely due to my education and maybe more credited to my work ethic - especially since I work around educated people who are content with 15in. monitors viewed at 800x600 using ColdFusion Studio (for those who won't understand, that was a tool developed and orphaned with CF 4.5 and we are now on CF8).All in all, the real world / self-taught is by far more important (show self discipline and motivation - great fodder in interviews) but the higher education almost qualifies your real world experience. In a nut shell, being a senior level self-taught programmer without an education is to being a single person with a long standing boy/girl friend like being a senior level programmer with an education is to being married to that long standing boy/girl friend. If you're not married you won't get what I mean - but if you think about going to a store to get a refund for something she bought, you will be taken more seriously when you say "my wife was in here and bought this and was told that" then if you say "my girl friend was in here and bought this and was told that".Anyway, if you get all that (or not), I still say a higher education is worth it and very useful but not necessarily a requirement depending on what you want to achieve. If you get one, I'd suggest a management degree - don't waste your time in MIS. If you are going to work then you will be working for a business or making one yourself - SO - you will benefit more understanding how business works.

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