Nearly all aspiring web designers start their careers with Adobe Dreamweaver training. It’s reputed to be the most utilised web-development platform globally.
To facilitate Dreamweaver commercially as a web designer, a full understanding of the full Adobe Web Creative Suite (which includes Flash and Action Script) is something to consider very seriously. With these skills, you have the choice to become either an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE) or Adobe Certified Professional (ACP).
Designing a website is just the start of the skills needed by professional web masters today. It’s a good idea to find a course that includes important features like PHP, HTML and MySQL in order to know how to create traffic, maintain content and work with dynamic database-driven web-sites.
One crafty way that training companies make extra profits is by charging for exams up-front and offering an exam guarantee. It looks impressive, but is it really:
Clearly it isn’t free – you’re still footing the bill for it – it’s just been included in your package price.
Should you seriously need to qualify first ‘go’, you must fund each exam as you take it, give it the necessary attention and be ready for the task.
Sit the exam somewhere close to home and don’t pay up-front, but seek out the best deal for you when you’re ready.
Including money in your training package for examinations (and interest charges if you’re borrowing money) is insane. Resist being talked into filling the training company’s account with your hard-earned cash simply to help their cash-flow! There are those who hope that you won’t get to do them all – then they’ll keep the extra money.
It’s worth noting, with most ‘Exam Guarantees’ – the company controls how often and when you can do your re-takes. You will have to demonstrate an excellent pass-rate before they’ll approve a re-take.
Splashing out often many hundreds of pounds extra on ‘Exam Guarantees’ is foolish – when a commitment to studying and the use of authorised exam preparation tools is what will really see you through.
You should look for accredited simulation materials and an exam preparation system included in the package you choose.
Avoid relying on non-accredited exam preparation systems. Their phraseology can be quite different – and this leads to huge confusion in the actual examination.
As you can imagine, it’s very crucial to ensure that you’ve thoroughly prepared for your final certified exam before taking it. Revising mock-up exams logs the information in your brain and will avoid you getting frustrated with failed exams.
Of course: the actual training program or a qualification isn’t what this is about; the career that you want is. Too many training companies over-emphasise the piece of paper.
It’s common, in many cases, to obtain tremendous satisfaction from a year of studying but end up spending 10 or 20 years in a tiresome job role, as an upshot of not doing the correct level of soul-searching at the outset.
It’s well worth a long chat to see the expectations of your industry. Which exams they’ll want you to gain and how to gain experience. You should also spend a little time assessing how far you reckon you’re going to want to progress your career as it will affect your choice of exams.
Our recommendation would be to seek guidance and advice from an experienced professional before making your final decision on a learning program, so there’s little doubt that a program provides the appropriate skill-set.
Talk to any capable advisor and they’ll entertain you with many awful tales of students who’ve been sold completely the wrong course for them. Stick to someone that asks some in-depth questions to discover the most appropriate thing for you – not for their bank-account! You need to find the right starting point of study for you.
If you have a strong background, or sometimes a little commercial experience (some certifications gained previously perhaps?) then it could be that your starting point will be different from a student that is completely new to the industry.
For students starting IT studies and exams for the first time, it can be useful to ease in gradually, kicking off with a user-skills course first. This can easily be incorporated into most training programs.
(C) 2009 Scott Edwards. Try Website Design Courses or CLICK HERE.
