My University Experience
I was going to wait until I had finished university completely to write this article, but after reading a few other blogs recently that touch on the subject of web designers and education (e.g. “Web Design in Scotland Sucks” and “Do You Need a Degree?“) I decided it was about time to express my own views.
Both of the previously mentioned articles come to almost the same conclusion – that university was almost a waste of time for them. But me? I think university has been great to me, especially in the last year or so.
A Bit About Me
For those who don’t know anything about me I am just about to complete a “Web Design & Development” 4 year honours course at the University of Abertay, Dundee. Originally I joined the course because it was the only one of its kind at honours level in Scotland and really only kept doing it to get that piece of paper at the end, but I am glad I did.
University
The First Year
University started off pretty much as I had expected it to – easy, the course going over the basics, and me knowing most of what they were teaching (and more). First year was simple, it was more about introducing you to university life than needing to work hard, and because of that I passed with distinction that year.
Second Year
I expected second year to be more challenging, introducing us to server side scripting perhaps? I was wrong (to an extent). It was a bit harder, but not by much.
One thing that really annoyed me was that they were teaching us pretty much the same things in two of our modules (out of 8 modules). One was about web fundamentals (i.e. HTML, CSS, and a bit of JavaScript) and the other was about (the dreaded) Flash and other designing programs (touching on Photoshop and Fireworks – it was mostly Flash). The latter even used the same tutorial material for about half of it. I can understand why some of the content from first year was repeated – to remind us of what we were doing the previous year, and to teach those who had come straight in from college – but repeating whole modules just with a bit different coursework and a different tutor?
I have to say at the end of second year I was fairly fed up with the course, ready to give it up for something better. But I persisted (I may as well…I’d come 2 years out of 4, why quit now?), and as I mentioned before, I’m glad I did.
Third Year
This year was very much based around your “group project” and your choice module. The choice module was either a design module (which I didn’t do) or a programming module (finally some server side scripting!).
Group Module
The group module was basically a team of people from a number of different courses who were supposed to collaborate on a project together. The courses consisted of us (web designers), sound production, computer arts, games production management, computing and a few others. The idea was that each group was assigned a project to work on, but a few weeks before the module started we all received an email about doing a project called “Prototype” collaborating with BBC Scotland instead of just being assigned one by the module tutor. Naturally I went for that – it sounded much more interesting than being given something by one of our lecturers, plus it was working alongside people from the BBC, it had to be good! And it was.
Maybe I was just lucky, or maybe I made it better than it was but the group project was one of the best experiences I had at university.
Programming Module
This module was basically to teach us the fundamentals of server side scripting. The coursework was to create a website with the front-end of it coded in either PHP or Coldfusion and the back-end coded in the other language. The point being that we were using the two languages, not that this is how you would create a commercial site (and it was explained for those who didn’t know better that you should stick to the one server side language when coding a website, we just weren’t for the purposes of the modules grading).
I had used PHP a fair bit before doing this module and so had a good idea of what I was doing, but it did teach me a few new things about the language, and taught me the basics of Coldfusion (although it was more just applying the same coding practices with different syntax).
The module also had us using Microsoft SQL Server (MSSQL) as a database instead of what I would normally use (MYSQL), so that was a good experience to have – using a different type of database and the problems I ran into with that.
The other modules in third year were fairly natural progression from second year, moving on to using FLEX instead of Flash (although still just basics), and a module about the basics of the law in Scotland (although it wasn’t a module tailored to web design itself which would have made it much better).
Fourth (and final) Year
This year has been mainly based around an honours project and dissertation which I have blogged about here a few times (and so won’t go into much detail about it – you can read those posts for details). The rest of the modules have been fairly report/essay oriented – in the first semester we were on computers in one module about the mobile Internet and that was it, all the other modules were based around report/essay work.
The university also put on a guest lecturer event this year having Rachel Andrew come and speak to us – I believe there are plans to get other guest speakers to come to Abertay next year too, although sadly I will not be there to attend as a student (but hopefully will still be invited).
Overall
Overall I think my university experience has been relatively good compared to others. Working alongside the BBC was obviously a highlight and I would like to see the university start working more with local web design companies too (I’m sure it could benefit both the web design company and the course at the same time – free labour and all that).
Although the course hasn’t taught me all that much web design wise (as I knew quite a lot before doing the course – and learned a few things they taught us in third year while I was in second year – e.g. PHP fundamentals), I have enjoyed myself and have made a number of contacts in the web design industry while doing the course. It has also made me certain that I want to work in a web design company (i.e. working on building multiple websites) rather than working for a company to maintain/build upon just the one website.
I will likely write a second article about what I think about having a degree in the web design world means/whether I think it’s needed another time, for now I just wanted to give an overview of my experiences at university.
Hi Nick, thanks for mentioning my article.
I wanted to highlight though that the views I express in my article are based on what I think now after being out in the working world two years after graduating.
When I was fresh out of University… I would have thought along the same lines are yourself. I actually got a 1st Class Honors in my degree, so at the time… I was pretty upbeat and ready to take on the world.
I did get a job alright, but I worked quite a few places until finally settling into where I am now, and the main thing I was getting at in my article was that you may find that the degree doesn’t carry as much weight as you may have previously thought.
Hit me with a link if you write that second article on down the line though.
@Mark McCorkell: Thanks Mark
I can understand what you were trying to say with the article, but I still think university was a good thing – if not for any other reason than it’s made me into a much better person than I was 4 years ago (although you could probably argue that it wasn’t university itself that has done that).
I’ve always held the view that a degree would mainly be useful to get my foot in the door – my portfolio would have to do the rest.
Hey Nick,
I have such a different view of University lol!
I was thinking along the same lines as yourself at the end of 3rd year, but now at the end of 4th year I have realised that to be successful in Web development you need alot more than what Abertay actually teach.
At the end of 3rd year I started looking at jobs for web dev. and noticed that 9 times out of 10 employers were looking for graduates that MUST have experience within things like MVC, website security and SEO.
Regarding MVC we had two lectures that spoke about it but when I asked if I was allowed to use MVC methods within my coursework I was told no and to do it the way the tutorials do it… Huge contradiction!
Website security was again two lectures that only touched on SQL injection and XSS at the lowest of levels which sucked.
As for SEO we had one lecture which just told us what SEO was – granted we had a marketing module but it had nothing to do with Internet marketing or SEO
So after realising all of this I started doing my own thing for example MVC and SEO mainly and the amount of employers that are going crazy about what I have done lately for clients is amazing!
The group module in third year was great to being with, but then I was in a group doing a website with 3 other guys that didn’t like or even want to do websites in the future. The groups could have been done alot better. No real web development company will have a team of people from totally different backgrounds and all of these members not wanting to work on websites! God I hated that module because of that.
I do have to say that if I didn’t go to Uni then I wouldn’t be where I am, so it was a good thing for me to actually go. Other than that I do think the modules could have covered alot more…
Plus another thing that I found out just recently… I was at an interview for a very big company that do websites, seo and a load of other things. I was telling them about what I have been doing lately and they basically told me they dont care about my degree and said they dont even ask for a transcript from people, they just want a portfolio and a CV. Apparently most web design companies in Dundee are the same because they know about the troubles within Abertays course.
Anyway, I better get back to my project now…
Nathan
@Nathan Payne: Education (for me at least) has always been about teaching the fundamentals, if your wanting to learn things employers are looking for then it’s best to do it in your own time. I really don’t get people who do a course at college or university with the mindset that the course will teach them everything they need to know for the job they are looking to go into.
Personally I know a fair bit about both on and off site SEO (from owning a couple of sites of my own) and I know it’s pretty much all guesswork (although some is thourghly tested guesswork) so didn’t expect uni to teach us anything about that.
Same goes for web security, although I did expect uni to teach us more about that. They are trying to get a web security module running for the third years either next year or the year after. Not that it helps us I know, I just get told about all this from being student rep on the course – cause it was us telling them what was good/what wasn’t that has been affecting their decisions on changing the course.
As for the group module, I think I was fairly lucky with my group – we all got on pretty well and managed to get an A for what we created.
I have to agree with Nathan on the “no portfolio, no job” issue. Having a degree is great, but doesn’t mean too much in the web design industry.
As you know, I’ll be Vice President at Abertay next year and I’ve put “improving student portfolios” into my campaign manifesto. I know it won’t make a difference any more for you guys, but I’m hoping for helping out our future web design graduates.
What I can tell you is that I’ve already talked to Malcolm about giving more real life experience to web design students, as I believe that REAL web site design with LIVE links to projects is one of the most important things you can show to possible employers. There is a chance that we can include more real life development into certain modules.
Fingers crossed.
@Attila Szomor:
I’m not disagreeing that no portfolio = no job. I’m only saying that there were opertunities there to enhance your portfolio (if not meet people in the industry as well), some just chose not to take them.
Also, if you are interested in being a web designer there are more than enough places you can get “real world experience” online (they may not pay very well/at all, but some of it looks good on your portfolio).
@Nick:
I completely agree with what you just said. All in all, if someone has no motivation to be a web designer, well, then they won’t be one…
I’m glad that your group experience was satisfying, unfortunately mine wasn’t that good. At least it was worth doing for you, count yourself lucky.
And yes, it’s not too hard to get experience outside of uni, but you have to think of those who have part-time jobs and might not have too much spare time to do anything other than their university assessments and their job(s). I believe that they’d appreciate more “real world experience”, or at least their website submissions left on the server for some time after they leave uni (you’d need to pay a lot for a web hosting company that supports ColdFusion to move all your CF work to a live domain after they get deleted).