Internet Designer/Web master Courses - Need Help

[yairhol]

Hello Gang,

I'm back with a new thread along with questions:

As meantioned here (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=105613), my wife wants to learn to become a web designer.
She is currently working as a graphical designer in a fashion company and knows Photoshop, Illustrator, In-design & Freehand.

There is a one year course which offers the following:
Course title: designing & building web sites.
Composed of 2 parts: Part 1 - Photoshop (48 Academic Hours), Dream Weaver (32 A.H.), Flash (28 A.H.)
Part 2 - Action Script (28 A.H.), HTML (12 A.H.)+ CSS (4 A.H.), DHTML & DOM (16 A.H.), Java Script (24 A.H.), Advanced Flash (12 A.H.), PHP (48 A.H.), AJAX (8 A.H.).
Not much other topics included.

There is another 1 year course which offers these:
Course Title: Web Masters
Total hours: 300 academic hours.
HTML + CSS
JavaScript & DHTML
XML
Photoshop
Dream Weaver
Flash & Action Scripts
Introduction to Microsoft SharePoint Server
Introduction to SQL
ASP.net
IIS
Introductions to various topics such as: Web2.0 technology, managing Internet projects, Internet security, legal topics regarding managing internet sites, internet commerce etc...

At the end of these courses we know that she will not be competing against full-time programmers but her goal is to be the designer of the web site rather than the programmer. Having said this, she will also have a good knowledge of what the programmers need and can implement and even do some stuff of her own programming-wise.
She may want to become a freelance one day.

What do you guys/gals think? which of these courses would suit her needs better?

thanks in advance...

[DoubtingStephen]

If we define her future role as creating the site layout and embedding the hooks used to pull in dynamic content, I think the first course is ideal. I notice both courses involve Dreamweaver, this is the de facto tool for commercial website designers. She might benefit from having her own copy and being familiar with it before her classes. Her knowledge of Photoshop is definitely useful.

The second course is partly focused on Microsoft products which still have a minority position in thew web server world. By comparison the first course includes PHP which is very widely used and is supported cross-platform.

Put me down as one vote for course #1 and wish her good luck for me.

[Nick Bogaerts]

Realistically, even as a designer she'll still need to know templating. And looking at the first course, with only four hours of CSS compared to 48 for PHP, cit's the wrong focus. It ought to be the other way around. The second course doesn't give a breakdown, so it's hard to tell if it would be better or not. And I agree with Stephen, the second one does seem particularly beholden to Microsoft, which is not really a good thing. I'd be tempted by No. 1 as well.

The other thing missing from both courses is User Interface design, which is insanely important and something that everyone involved in web development needs to have some clue about.

Now don't get me wrong, these are probably the best courses available, but they are probably not going to be easy, and it will involve more programming than she'd probably like to get involved in. But you never know, she might enjoy it as well. Personally, programming is something I derive great pleasure from, and if she goes in with an open mind, she might too.

[yairhol]

I don't have the breakdown hours for the second program but I might get a clue soon because I'm going with her to the course counselling this week which will enable us to ask questions and get a better understanding of the different topics.

Put me down as one vote for course #1 and wish her good luck for me.
Will do, thanks.

[TheDoLittle]

I'll have to 2nd, 3rd, 4th, ad infinitum, the #1 course. I'm about to finish up my associates in digital communication, with a specialization in multimedia and web design.

I will have to side with Nick and Stephen... Microsoft is frowned upon by many I know who are in the industry. Most run UNIX or Linux based systems though at the school here it's entirely an NT network.

Either way she goes, she will need to learn HTML and CSS, and she should look into taking an intro course in PHP and Flash. That way if anyone if someone does present her with a project that requires those pieces, even if she isn't programming them outright, she won't be entirely clueless.

I've spent the past 3 months cramming on new Actionscript 3.0 and trying to help one of the teachers retool her syllabus and exercises from version 2.0 for the fall semester. Thanks to that, after 30 years of programming, I have decided I now hate to code and would rather focus on the design aspects.