If you've aspirations to be a professional web designer with relevant qualifications for today's job market, the course you need is Adobe Dreamweaver. The complete Adobe Web Creative Suite should also be learned in its entirety. This will educate you in Flash and Action Script, (and more), and could lead on to the Adobe Certified Professional or an Adobe Certified Expert accreditation.
Building a website is just the start of the learning required by professional web-designers today. Why not search for training that incorporates subjects such as PHP, HTML, MySQL, E-Commerce and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation,) to enable you to appreciate the way to drive traffic, maintain content and program database driven sites.
A number of people think that the school and FE college system is the right way even now. So why then are commercially accredited qualifications slowly and steadily replacing it? The IT sector now recognises that to cover the necessary commercial skill-sets, official accreditation from companies such as Microsoft, CompTIA, CISCO and Adobe is closer to the mark commercially - saving time and money. This is done through concentrating on the actual skills required (along with a relevant amount of associated knowledge,) rather than trawling through all the background detail and 'fluff' that academic courses are prone to get tied up in - to fill a three or four year course.
Imagine if you were an employer - and you wanted someone who could provide a specific set of skills. What should you do: Wade your way through reams of different degrees and college qualifications from various applicants, struggling to grasp what they've learned and what trade skills they've mastered, or choose a specific set of accreditations that exactly fulfil your criteria, and make your short-list from that. You can then focus on how someone will fit into the team at interview - rather than establishing whether they can do a specific task.
Any program that you're going to undertake must provide a widely recognised qualification at the finale - not some little 'in-house' diploma - fit only for filing away and forgetting. You'll find that only recognised qualifications from companies such as Microsoft, Cisco, CompTIA and Adobe will have any meaning to employers.
Accredited simulation materials and exam preparation packages are a must - and really must be sought from your course provider. As the majority of examining boards for IT are American, you need to become familiar with their phraseology. It's no use merely understanding random questions - they have to be in the same format as the actual exams. Practice exams are enormously valuable as a tool for logging knowledge into your brain - so much so, that at the real thing, you don't get phased.
One area often overlooked by those considering a training program is that of 'training segmentation'. This basically means the breakdown of the materials for delivery to you, which completely controls what you end up with. Training companies will normally offer a program spread over 1-3 years, and courier the materials in pieces as you finish each section. This sounds reasonable until you consider the following: What would happen if you didn't finish every module at the required speed? Often the staged order doesn't work as well as another different route may.
In a perfect world, you want ALL the study materials up-front - enabling you to have them all to return to any point - irrespective of any schedule. This allows a variation in the order that you attack each section where a more intuitive path can be found.
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