Por qué estudiar diseño web en la universidad no tiene sentido Why study web design at university is pointless
The purpose of this article is to pinpoint the drawbacks of going to 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 spent too many years studying useless subjects, since childhood. In fact, you don't have to know any of these subjects to become a successful web designer. Concretely, I studied: maths, Spanish literature, Catalan literature, statistics, history, ecology, electronics, philosophy, religion, physics, chemistry, arts, music, sports... None of these things are useful to me now and will never be. The only subject really useful was English, which is needed to communicate with others. Even though English is of the utmost importance, the level of English after finishing Spanish high school leaves much to be desired. If you really want to improve your English you will have no choice but to do a lot of FCE, CAE and CPE exercises, especially from websites like http://flo-joe.com and http://www.englishrevealed.co.uk.
After finishing the baccalaureate and the selectivity, which were tremendously difficult and completely useless, I started computer science at university at the age of 18. To be honest, I find having to start university at 18 extremely late. The proof of this is that Mozart could compose songs at the age of 6. Moreover, university was useless, because they didn't teach us anything about important things like web services, AJAX, frameworks, PHP, CMS, J2EE and much more. In fact, when I ended 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 university I didn't know how to create a website with columns, and even less to follow the MVC pattern. Half of subjects at university have nothing to do with web design (like maths, statistics, electronics, logic and economics). You are often taught things that only NASA asks for.
There is a world of difference between what they teach us at university and what software companies look for in an employee. Software companies don't usually ask you for a degree. They only want that you 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 much useful than a university degree, since the former is a proof of your expertise in a concrete technology while the latter can be very expensive and useless, because you are taught too many different subjects. Spanish companies don't usually pay a lot of money for a junior position (around 16.000 euros per year with a bit of luck), no matter the number of masters you have. Even senior positions are not often well paid as well. So there is no point in spending a lot of money on your education if you have to earn so little. You will only be well paid if you are highly specialised in a technology, which cannot be achieved at any university.
My parents, who worked very hard to earn money, wasted a lot of it on my education and, as a consequence of this, I will have to work many years to get this money back. I came to the conclusion that it's much better to study on your own, since you won't have to attend boring lessons, you won't have hated exams and, more important, you won't have to wait until you are 18 years old to start a degree. You will learn much faster in this way. Nowadays 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 have a doubt on a subject all you have to do is ask in forums. All this without spending money. 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. This is outrageous. Going to the public library is free and a book can only cost you 20 euros at the bookshop. So why spend thousands of euros studying something at university? It's required that you have a university degree in 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. This provokes that many licentiates in highly-unemployable careers (like history, biology, geography, literature etc.) end up working in the web design field.
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 the best choice would be signing up for nursing.
In summary, the main disadvantages of going to university to study web design are:
- It's very expensive.
- 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 whether or not you 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 start 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 finishing a degree at a university localised 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 school a long time ago and I would have studied everything on my own...
