I don’t know how the job market is. If you start your own business you can go in any direction you want. If you’re going to lose potential clients because they insist on staying with their Windows host and keeping their site in ASP or ASP.NET you might want to at least be familiar enough with it to work with it. I don’t think it would be difficult to find a firm that doesn’t use any Microsoft-specific products, though.
But it never hurts to be well-rounded.
That’s all well and good but the first thing I thought when I read “worked in the IT field and gotten Comp Sci degrees” I thought “what the heck does the IT field and Comp Sci have to do with Web sites?”
My best friend graduated top in his class with a Comp Sci degree. He attended the PHP workshop with me. He had no idea how databases could relate to PHP code or Web sites. He set up his own site, and runs it from his own computer. Nifty trick but his site doesn’t do anything (just a couple lines of HTML). He works at a software company now that is branching out in to Web sites. So far all the sites I’ve seen of theirs look like crap because they’re a firm of programmers with Comp Sci degrees and IT experience.
Don’t get me wrong though - the guys who are really running Amazon and eBay and Vonage are the guys with the Comp Sci degrees. But if those sites/services didn’t also LOOK good and have good content, no one would come. Good code with fancy servers is one facet of good Web design. If you’re going to strike out on your own you need to have all sorts of other skills and know how to use them in a practical sense. And if you’re going to join a firm you have to be able to fit in to the entire Web design puzzle as a teammate that doesn’t just turn in one little part and go on his way.
If classes teach you how to set up a server, set up a DB, have good DB structure and print “hello world” and then stop - that’s not very useful. If they teach you how to get around Photoshop and plug graphics into Dreamweaver but there’s no higher forms of coding - also not very useful. If you know all the basics but don’t know how to apply them to what your clients want because you only know how to do things one way - not useful either.
I think my thinking on “web design classes” stems from the idea that there is rarely one right way to do anything with Web design so it is very hard to teach. Hard to make sure everyone is well-rounded. Also hard to find someone who’s been actively doing it long enough to teach the classes. If you’re a kickass Web designer that knows everything well enough to teach it, you’re busy being a kickass Web designer and don’t have time to teach class.
Anyway the point is moot - kushiel you’ve already said that you have been doing work on your own and I assume you continue to do work outside of school. I think that is the main key to becoming a good Web designer - you just have to do it, all the time, and do new things all the time. Foundations of understanding are a fine thing to learn at school. But practical use and implementation come only from using and implementing. The nice thing about this field is that most of the tools you need are free and you’re also free to do it, do it again, and re-do it until it works right.
