[Tsunami No Remix]

I was thinking about attending Art Institute International in Minneapolis Minnesota (not too far from where i live)

I've been in the building, seen the course material..

Looked at the details of the course..

Does anyone know any other good places that are cheaper? (I'm unsure about the 60 grand for 4 years type thing)

[HawkOne]

There are a LOT of funky (as in bad)multimedia/webdesign courses around the last couple of years. Retrenched system admins from some Dot Com venture gone bad. They of course know HTML and JavaScript like the back of their hand, but know nothing of design, whatsoever.

This is known to be happening a lot, the Dilbert cartoon treats it like it should be treated.







Learn Design, at a real Design college/university, and teach yourself HTML and whatever software you need to learn while you go, learning the ropes of a fairly complex application like Dreamweaver will only take a week or so, learning every trick will take months of working with the program, not from a school course. One possible exception might be 3D software and design, which on a worhtwhile level, say Character design / texturing / lighting / animation etc., is so vastly complex for someone never exposed to it, but still, get a design degree, and THEN go to Gnomon or whatever to learn how to apply what you learned in design.

If you're going to make a career using computers, I hope you are already very familiar and comfortable using them, and not the type that has "accidents" like "Opps I seem to ACCIDENTALLY have deleted all my system registry files "

Don't go to school to learn how to use Design/Graphics software, chances are it will be obsolete by the time you have finished, buy a book and teach yourself.

[ October 19, 2002: Message edited by: HawkOne ]

[xXxPZxXx]

I live in MN too. yay. and from a look at almost all of the schools around and from having friends that go to Brown college for animation and the minnesota school of computer imaging. I can say that the art institute is way better. Have fun trying to get a job coming out of the other places. The run 18 month "crash courses" they get kids out of High school that Think they like working with computers then realize they don't know what they are doing.

There are way better ways to get the education like HawkOne said. And on the grand scale of things I wouldn't say that the art institute is the best. Developing a keen eye and a sense of design and being able to put them to use is going to be the number 1 skill you need. These schools seem to teach you the software these days.

Have fun
-PZ-

[Gort]

quote

Quote:

Learn Design, at a real Design college/university, and teach yourself HTML and whatever software you need to learn while you go

Yes - an excellent point, but also try to find a courseload that places emphasis on human factors and information architecture as well. An often problem with web and interactive design is that there is too much focus on the creative directions and not enough on the actual supporting architecture for information retrieval. A problem I often encounter is that designers will build a site as if they were building a house except building it "room by room". You can't do that. You have to look at the whole thing and first develop a nav schema before making it look sharp!
It is paramount to assess the interactive flow of a site by wireframe modeling - a good IA class will help you understand that.

A Good Read

I am going to drink beer now.


[ October 19, 2002: Message edited by: Tom Carter ]

[hans_e]

The Steps to design and programming...

1. Analyze the problem and understand reqs. Identify Input, Processing, and Output of the prog.
2. Create user interface.
3. Design logic/navigation and test plan.
4. Code program/site.
5. Test and debug.
6. Assemble final documentation.
7. Maintain software/website.

[hans_e]

I've learned more from books (and much more efficiantly) than I have at Purdue. It is EXTREMELY hard to wake up and go to these classes since I feel that I'm wasting my time. I've learned design on my own with a little help from my professors who are actually more artistic than there fellow educators. I've spent a lot of my own time working with color theory and typography, and apparently do it well enough for Purdue to ask me to demo some of my portfolio to highschoolers who come to check out the CGT department. I feel weird giving the school props when half of my knowlege was self-gained. It's not like I can really say, "Kids, look what you won't learn here." Heck, the school is even shying away from traditional art classes (layout and such). Thank goodness that my favorite prof there is on the board and is trying to get the CGT curriculum to split into two groups. Those being Artistic and Programming CGT degrees. Hopefully that keeps the wolves at bay. Who knows?

Sorry, I went out on a tangent. heheh.

Anyhow, be ready to learn on your own. Also, study not only the tools used in the profession (Flash, Dreamweaver, etc...), but learn the background structures and coding for the result to be truely stupendous (Flash= Scalable Vector Graphics Dreamweaver= HTML, XML, CSS, scripting, etc...). With knowlege there is power, and you can do whatever with it if you know how to market yourself.

[Tsunami No Remix]

I'm kinda avoiding those crash course places... because your stuck doing more than 18 months, i know century college has one..

They make you do all your requireds ..

and their NOT integreated.
you have to do one or the other first..
you end up taking long than tehy say.

I want a bachelors in mutlimedia web design..

and the best place i can think of is Art Institue international.

i know some HTML. i have dreamweaver, and i have photoshop.. and i know some flash cause i did PSEO at century college's Northeast Metro 916...

but, the course did not fulfill my needs for what i wanted, it just gave me 3 college credits and pushed my butt out the door back to the unemployed over 18 not done with high school area.

[xXxPZxXx]

hahaha century...

I actually go there right now, I have a 3 hour painting class on saturdays and a 3d animation class on tue. and thurs. There were like 399909219 prerequisites to get into the animation class but I showed the teacher some stuff I had done and what I wanted to do and he let me in. That program does suck. I guarantee nobody has gotten a job out of it.

half the class came from brown college because they graduated and realized they needed more than just a degree to get a job so they are at century trying to get better.

not so fun =(

[Tsunami No Remix]

Yea i was reccomenneded globe, then century and may have been reccomneded brown..

But i am about to say i'm sticking to my AI descision.

I need to learn design, i need to learn the basics.

My friend ben said "They need artists, not people who can use software"

Otherwise i'd have a job by now.

[hans_e]

thats the truth

[Tsunami No Remix]

truth is only in the eye of the beholder ^_^

[Angelic Remix]

Some things that I found helpful in university for my current occupation (web design) is information systems and requirements engineering. Yeah, big words, but they're extremely useful when it comes to interface/interactivity design. You learn how people view things and why this is better than that in terms of human-computer interaction.

Of course, these classes mean nothing without the additional core classes in design. Of all my art classes, the design ones were the most valuable, the most useful. Color theory, negative space, composition, all of these are key to an excellent design.

Most colleges and universities these days offer a degree in information systems/science. If you can afford it (in terms of time as well as money), a dual major in inf. sys. and design looks VERY nice on a resum�. Even a major in design and a minor in inf. sys. is good.

[Tsunami No Remix]

I see your point, but i'm not one for that side of computers *points above to the dilber cartoons* heh and YES i went to bed last night.

Anyways, i want to get the one degree finished and see what happens, because AI doesnt give th eoption of Inf. Sys.

I've tried the basic basic part to Inf. Sys.

Itwas called Cert. In Buisiness Systems Computing.