Possible To Learn Web Design Without Going To School?

[BadMango]

So I have made a decision to start a career in web design. I have been at it for a month now spending anywhere from 6-16 hours a day doing tutorials and trying to design my own sites. So my question here is.. Is it possible to really get all the knownledge online to become a web designer or am I living in a dream world? Has any one else done it this way? Also what are the things I should really focus on? I feel I have HTML down pretty well. HTML seems pretty basic because everything else is done with CSS. I have been working on my CSS a lot but that can be truly frustrating at times. Floating things wrong to the overflow moving things around. I have also done plenty of ruby and RoR tutorials. Thanks everybody, and I'm happy to see there is a community that supports us noobs.

[falkencreative]

I don't really see the need to go to physical classes to learn web design topics. The web is constantly changing, and it's more likely that you'll be able to stay up to date and stay on top of trends by learning online. In many cases, the curriculums at college/university are delayed by one or two years from the current state of the web, so you may graduate with a out of date understanding of recent changes and best practices. I'll just depend on your specific school and the teachers you have. There are too many good options out there for learning -- from KillerSites and elsewhere, like CodeSchool, Treehouse, CodeAcademy, etc.

 

That said, it depends on the person. I like video tutorials... but not everyone does. Some people may learn better in a classroom environment.

[seafra]

So I have made a decision to start a career in web design. I have been at it for a month now spending anywhere from 6-16 hours a day doing tutorials and trying to design my own sites. So my question here is.. Is it possible to really get all the knownledge online to become a web designer or am I living in a dream world? Has any one else done it this way? Also what are the things I should really focus on? I feel I have HTML down pretty well. HTML seems pretty basic because everything else is done with CSS. I have been working on my CSS a lot but that can be truly frustrating at times. Floating things wrong to the overflow moving things around. I have also done plenty of ruby and RoR tutorials. Thanks everybody, and I'm happy to see there is a community that supports us noobs.

 

I found that when I was in school several years ago, that I learned most of what I wanted by going to W3C.org, and reading the web standards that were online. That, coupled with school and self-study for many topics gave me a good foundation to work from. Now as I begin to learn web design all over again, I have no plans to attend any schools, but instead will do all of this via free online courses, taking part in web design forums such as KILLERSITES and purchasing the odd book (I found that I prefer a hard copy of my books when learning a new subject as it's much easier to mark them up for future reference and notes).

 

Geoff

[BadMango]

 

That said, it depends on the person. I like video tutorials... but not everyone does. Some people may learn better in a classroom environment.

 

Exactly, I never did to well in a classroom and I enjoy learning from a video. You are able to pause and rewind if you didn't understand something. This whole time I had a feeling like I was only fooling myself. That I can't get a real education online. I didn't realize how much the web really changes so even if I had a school education I would still need to learn online to keep current. Thanks guys!