Fas 17 weeks full time web design course? ... is it good?

LighterGuy

Hey guys,
saw this on fas: Link (17 weeks, full time web design course)

I did a short web design course recently. It was ten weeks and 2 hours per class. Didnt learn alot that I didnt already know from messing about. But ... thats expected I guess since it was only 10 short classes.

But does anyone know how good is the full-time fas course is?
Upon doing it would I be up to a certain standard?

Thanks for any help

stevveyg

bump
am thinking off applying for this myself, would welcome any feedback......

stephenpalmer

Same hear, would be interested if someone has done it before.

Fanny Cradock

The link is broken, but if it's the course I'm thinking about then it's very good. AFAIK, the Dublin course is split into two - in-house and sub-contracted course held in the city centre. The sub-contracted course is well worth attending if you can get in. After completing the course you should have a good knowledge of html and css and some rudimentary experience of php, flash and a couple of other things. You will be awarded an ACA upon completion.

Dean820

A buddy of mine is doing it now. He enjoys it, he feels he has gotten good at Photoshop (making graphics, logos, etc) but is struggling with the HTML, etc, side of things. He wasn't exactly great at computers either before he went in so I would imagine anyone who's half decent will learn very easy.

Busnardo

I know a good course and it's free.......google "Dreamweaver Tutorials", watch them, then go to w3schools.com and do all the lessons.

Then start working.

was.deevey

I know a good course and it's free.......google "Dreamweaver Tutorials", watch them, then go to w3schools.com and do all the lessons.

Thats kinda unconstructive :-S

Not everyone learns well in an online environment, while I do learn quite a bit online when I need to it can be tedious (especially starting out) a structured "Real" school IMHO is a far better bet, not to mention FAS will issue a certificate (FETAC?) which w3schools will not.

I did one of the original 1 year Web Design / Ecommerce Courses back in 2001 and have to say it was effing fantastic even if you already know some of the stuff I can only imagine they have got even better with some of the newer technologys out there.

Don't expect to know everything coming out, but expect to be able to pick other stuff up easier due to the basics you've been taught.

The most unfortunate thing about the course back then IMHO was a lack of CMS platforms to play around with afterwars, and we did everything in VB script/ASP/Access Databases (yick!).

Came out with Fetac's & City and Guilds Certs in Web Graphics/Ecommerce Webdesign / VB1+2 along with heaps of others.

Fanny Cradock

Do you manage to get a job in the industry?

tricky D

Someone who can self-teach from and seek out up-to-date, authoritative, product-neutral online sources is much more useful than someone who requires real world courses. Back when I was sifting through CVs, qualifications like FETAC, C&G and FAS pretty much hit the bin everytime. Stuff like a course teaching MS Access is a mockery.

Fanny Cradock

tricky D wrote: »

Someone who can self-teach from and seek out up-to-date, authoritative, product-neutral online sources is much more useful than someone who requires real world courses. Back when I was sifting through CVs, qualifications like FETAC, C&G and FAS pretty much hit the bin everytime. Stuff like a course teaching MS Access is a mockery.

That's a very peculiar way of looking at it. Most people will do better in an organised and structured learning environment. You go in at 9, listen and learn, and leave at 5. I would have thought that the idea of doing this 17-week course was to gain an understanding of the basics of web design - which can then aid self-learning or even be applied to other more comprehensive courses. Impressing the tricky Ds of this world with a fabulous Adobe certificate is probably never top of the reasons for doing such a course.

tricky D

Not peculiar at all. It's based on over a decade and a half of experience, not the opinion of someone with a couple of years under their belt. Setting oneself tasks and learning and figuring out how to solve them outside of a classroom is closer to real world web work environment. Self-teaching is fundamental to web design/dev as the cutting edge in this industry advances much quicker than any real world course or book can keep pace with. Just look at the amount of courses still using tables for layout.

Your last line is unnecessarily sarcastic (and below you). Also we are not talking about Adobe certs, we're talking about more generalised course material - not the same properties.

Fanny Cradock

I'm sorry if you took my last line for unnecessary sarcasm. It wasn't intended as a cutting remark.

The 17-week course culminates in an ACA, not a cert from FAS, FETAC or whoever else.

It isn't a one size fits approach all to education. Obviously there are people who require some form of structured guidance. I'm one of them. And from that perspective, I think your advice is bad.

Yes, ultimately you are right - people will have to be willing to learn on their own time. But the idea of this 17-week course is that it gives a broad-brush knowledge of what it takes to enter into web design. So everything from HTML, PS, very basic PHP, and how to go about dealing with clients. In other words, it gives the attendee a solid platform (albeit a basic one) to begin to self-learn after the course is finished.