Should I apply for this part time course in web development?

May 5, 2016 7:57 AM

It costs $2,495 for two nights a week for 10 weeks.

Here's a link to the course description : https://www.decodemtl.com/web-development-part-time/

I don't have any experience in web development, except that during a Communications diploma that I did last year, I had to create a website using Wordpress. But I only used the visual editor and didn't have to do any coding so it was more just for learning a tiny bit of design.

What is my goal? I'm not sure yet. I work in the film and gaming industry and would like to get out of the Admin track eventually, and this might be a good way to get some knowledge of web development and help me find a direction. Does it seem worth the money? (I've always been an excellent student in school- I thrive in a structured environment. I am NOT a good autodidact. The odds of me teaching myself to code while working part time are slim to none).

Any feedback you have is welcome!!!!

posted by winterportage to Education (11 answers total)

No, I don't think this is a good use of that amount of money.

I'd rather do a Salesforce Administration course with the same dough. That is a tangible, marketable skill.

Or Advanced Excel, that one is VERY transferrable and marketable. Also, tons of private training centers, if not a local Community College.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 8:00 AM on May 5, 2016

It seems very expensive for what you learn. You can learn the same amount of HTML and CSS in an adult ed center learning course or community college for much less.
posted by xingcat at 8:12 AM on May 5, 2016

Nthing local learning centers and community colleges.

You also might look at Coursera's offerings and give that a try first. It's going to be less structured than a full class but much more so than trying to do it yourself.
posted by Candleman at 8:16 AM on May 5, 2016

Looking at the curriculum, calling that a "web development" course is a stretch. You can learn that stuff for free on codecademy, codeschool, freecodecamp, etc. And you'll need to know more than that to get a job. Teaching yourself web development / software engineering and getting a job and making $$$ is totally doable though.
posted by ludwig_van at 8:24 AM on May 5, 2016

At the public commuter college where I teach, a similar intro level web technologies course would cost you ~ 1/3 of that, and would probably also be offered one or two nights a week for 10 weeks this summer. It's the prerequisite to a more advanced web development course.
posted by hydropsyche at 9:55 AM on May 5, 2016

Looking at the course topics, this is a very basic course; I've done some basic web dev and I learned most of the skills listed here on the job by teaching myself (and not working very hard at it--and like you, I MUCH prefer learning in a structured environment.). Agreeing that you should look into community college or extension schools instead. For that kind of money, I'd expect some back-end topics included as well.
posted by smirkette at 9:59 AM on May 5, 2016

Also: n'thing code academy--it's very structured. Not as great as a full-on class, but enough to expose yourself to the content once using set activities so that you remember them better when you take a formal class. (YMMV, but I need to do this stuff a few times before it really sticks. )
posted by smirkette at 10:02 AM on May 5, 2016

If you're a woman looking to change industries, there may be scholarship money out there for you -- but, again, there are probably better options than the course you've described.
posted by St. Hubbins at 10:41 AM on May 5, 2016

The course you link to is about as basic as it's possible to be. Nowadays there's a lot more to web development than HTML and CSS. At the very least you're going to need an introduction to Javascript, and probably jQuery as a minimum.

Slashdot Deals have lots of online courses available at bargain prices. It might be worth trying one of these to see how you feel before shelling out big money for an attendance course.

A couple of the courses:

Become a Full Stack Coder with 28 Hours of Instruction on HTML, JavaScript, MySQL & More. ($14)

Get a Competitive Edge in the Tech Industry with 56+ Hours of Expert Programming Training! ($29)
posted by veedubya at 11:47 AM on May 5, 2016

As a professional web developer, I would say that is a huge waste of money. Firstly, that isn't web development at all. IMO I would call the web design. While there are web designers out there who are purely photoshop based, being able to code up your designs in HTML & CSS is a basic skill I would expect most web designers to have (and those that do usually have much better designs as they understand the work involved and can see the divs as they work)

I'm completely self-taught and I got my first job within a couple of months of even trying web development - which I picked up as a need-based thing to build a website to showcase my photoshop retouching skills.
posted by missmagenta at 12:43 AM on May 6, 2016

If you're in Montreal, you might have better luck with Concordia's Continuing Education program. I can't comment on either the prices or the content of the courses these days, but, some years back, I did some ContEd stuff for Photoshop and Illustrator and learned a lot.

http://www.concordia.ca/conted/programs-courses/computer-institute.html
posted by juliebug at 7:36 PM on May 7, 2016