The purpose of this article is to pinpoint the drawbacks of going to a university to study web design, but this can also be applied to many other degrees and, in general, whatever field you want to study.
I will always remember school as a bad experience, as I spent too many years studying useless subjects since my childhood and I had to take exams and do homework really often. In fact, you don’t have to know any of these subjects to become a successful web designer. Personally I studied maths, Spanish literature, Catalan literature, statistics, history, ecology, electronics, technology, philosophy, religion, physics, chemistry, arts, music, sports… None of these things are useful to me now and will never be. I was even forced to learn hundreds of useless formulae. The only really useful subject was English, which helps to communicate with others. Even though English is of the utmost importance, the level of English after leaving high school in Spain leaves much to be desired. If you really want to improve your English you will have no choice but to do a lot of English exercises by yourself.
If someone wants to become a historian, why do they have to study maths? And vice versa, if someone wants to become a mathematician, why do they have to study history? This is absolutely pointless. Many years ago learning things at school could be important because television didn’t exist, as well as the Internet. However, nowadays we can learn from a wide range of sources without spending money. On top of that, if you want to get a degree at a university you will have to wait until you are 18, and I find it extremely late. The proof of this is that Mozart could compose songs at the age of 6. Many other celebrities started their careers very early as well. As you can see, the current educational system is as it was 300 years ago: learning things from a blackboard while taking notes. Even a 5-year-old kid could see that it is completely out of date. So, why isn’t the current educational system changed to a more modern and less expensive one? Well, too many people are not interested in changing it (the government, book editors and teachers are among others) because they earn money from students.
After I finished the baccalaureate and passed the university entrance exams, which were tremendously difficult and completely useless, I started computer science at a university at the age of 18. I had to take the bus every day. On the one hand, I learned some useful things at a university. On the other hand, it was disappointing because they didn’t teach us anything about important things like web services, AJAX, XML, frameworks, PHP, CMS, J2EE and much more. In fact, when I graduated from a university I thought that I was ready to design any website, but soon I realised that I was wrong. It’s funny, after 4 years at a university I didn’t know how to create a website with columns, and even how to follow the MVC pattern. Half of university subjects had nothing to do with web design (e.g. maths, statistics, electronics, logic and economics). You are often taught things that only NASA asks for. Personally I think that the only way to learn something is to do something. If you want to be a web designer you will have to make a lot of websites on your own and fail many times. You can’t become a successful web designer only attending lessons at school. Any degree lasts at least 3 years. Are you really sure you want to spend 3 years of your life sitting on a chair and listening to boring things that teacher said? And what about socialising? Did I mention that the vast majority of web design students are boys? If you are a girl you will have plenty of boys to choose from, but if you are a boy you will find it difficult to meet girls. If you are a boy whose only purpose is to look for a couple you’d better sign up for nursing.
There is a world of difference between what they teach us at a university and what software companies look for in an employee. First of all, they don’t care about your knowledge of maths, economics, physics, literature, history and so on. Secondly, software companies don’t usually ask you for a degree. They only want you to have several years of experience in a key technology like Java, PHP or NET and, sometimes, they will ask you for a certificate in one of these key technologies or a portfolio as a proof of your expertise. Therefore, you should start building up your portfolio (usually a website) as soon as possible. The more expertise you have, the better. A certificate is more useful than a university degree. The certificate is a proof of your experience in a concrete technology while getting a degree can be very expensive and useless, because you are taught too many different subjects but not many practical things. Spanish companies don’t usually pay a lot of money for a junior position (around 16,000 euros per year if you are very lucky), no matter the number of masters you have. Even senior positions are not often well paid. So there is no point in spending a lot of money on your education if you have to earn so little. Moreover, I can’t see the point of spending a lot of money on your education considering the current economic crisis, as it will reduce your chances to get a good job. You will only be well paid if you are highly specialised in a technology, and that cannot be achieved in any university. Another choice would be working as a freelancer or creating your own company. You will have to look for customers and learn to run a business, the benefits are enormous.
My parents, who worked very hard to earn money, wasted a lot of it on my education (more than 100,000 euros) and, as a consequence of this, I will have to work many years to get this money back. I have come to conclusion that it’s much better to study on your own, since you don’t have to attend boring lessons, you don’t have to take exams that you can’t stand and, what is more important, you don’t have to wait until you are 18 years old to start a degree. You will learn much faster in this way. The best things I know I learned on my own. Nowadays the Internet offers a great deal of information and you can learn unimaginable things. You can even watch videos on YouTube if you want! If you are not sure about something all you have to do is to ask about it on forums. You can do it without spending any money at all. My parents spent more than 10,000 euros on my Spanish degree, and a degree can cost up to 10,000 pounds per year in the UK. Many students simply can’t afford going to a university while others end up mounting up a huge debt in the bank. This is outrageous. Going to the public library is free and a book can only cost you 20 euros in the bookshop. So why should we spend thousands of euros studying something at a university? It’s required to have a university degree for careers like medicine, nursing, pharmacy or architecture. As far as I know, you can’t work in these fields without a degree. However, you don’t need to have any degree to become a web designer. The result is that many licentiates in highly-unemployable careers (like history, biology, geography, literature etc.) end up working in the web design field.
In summary, the main disadvantages of going to a university to study web design are:
- It’s very expensive.
- You have to travel from home to a university and return back every day.
- You have to attend boring lessons and take notes from the blackboard.
- You are taught things that you will never use.
- You are not taught important things.
- You are taught too many different subjects, so you don’t specialise in anything.
- Most software companies will let you work with them even if you don’t have a degree in web design. What they really want is that you have a lot of experience and, sometimes, they will ask you for a portfolio or a certificate in a key technology.
- Even if you have 5 masters and 2 degrees you will earn very little money in a junior position, since you lack experience.
- You have to wait until you are 18 years old to get the degree. What’s more, you must first pass the baccalaureate, which is very difficult and useless.
- If you are a boy you will be in trouble to meet girls.
- After getting a degree at a university in a non English-speaking country, your English level probably won’t be good enough. You will have to study English on your own if you really want to improve it.
Anyone can be a web designer. Would you like to be one of them? You just have to learn HTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL, jQuery/JavaScript and a CMS (like Joomla, WordPress or Drupal) or a framework (like Yii, Symfony or Zend). Google them, you will find plenty of information!
Had I known all this I would have dropped out of school a long time ago and I would have studied everything on my own..
