Dream to become a Web Designer/Developer, just don’t know where to start? Please help!

[asiek]

Hello everybody, Hi. My name is Keisa, I reside in California. I’m a single mother, 21 years old, and have been trying to create websites for years now. I have some skills with CSS not too much PHP and Javascript isn’t my best, I usually just copy certain code and tweak it up a bit. WordPress has been my main tool to try and start and complete a website. Just haven’t been successful with a project. I really want to become the best I can be. Create beautiful websites as a freelancer ect… My goal is to become a Web Designer or Developer. I have so many questions on how I can go about starting the process to turn my dream/goal into reality.

1. Are there any schools in California that anyone can recommend?
2. How are online classes?
3. I read a discussion on these forums a while ago. Most people say they are self taught…I just wonder how these folks find the information needed in order to enhance their skills…how do you guys do it?!!!!

I have tons more questions! But I’ll keep it at that for now.

I really hope this discussion can help me create a future for myself and children!

-Keisa

[Scribblerockerz]

Hey Keilowe,

there are so many resources on the web this days, that you don’t even need a “real school”.
The best explaination for the modern techniques have [Codeschool](http://www.codeschool.com/ “Codeschool.com”).
They offer many free courses but also paid, and that wat you get for your money is totaly worth it.

Some other places where you can start:
**http://www.w3schools.com/** – General languages.
**http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Lessons** – The best place to learn WordPress developing is the codex.
**http://www.smashingmagazine.com/** – One of the best articles on the web.

And of course **css-tricks.com** – The best frontend stuff on the web ;)

I hope you get your goal, good luck.

[Martin_Muzatko]

w3schools can get you started (I used it too, for a few references etc.) but it is a rather bad source when you unravel further secrets of CSS/HTML/JS etc. ( http://w3fools.com/ – We believe w3schools is **harmful** to the web. Web developers deserve better.)

I became a webdeveloper like 10 months ago without any college or school etc.
In fact, my career was awful. After regular school, I didn’t have not really that much experience in all that stuff, but in my spare time, I continued to learn more about all the stuff. I’ve been through many bad jobs (such as metalworker, telecommunicationtechnician apprenticeship etc) and then when I was almost unemployed – I tried to get into a webdeveloper job and now I got one.

However: you maybe will go through a lot of communities (css-tricks , IRC Chatrooms, Forums etc) until you really find a source that is fine for you. You also maybe need to get to learn a tool to code with. I prefer sublime text 2 ( http://www.sublimetext.com ). As Chris Coyier said in his video/workshop whatever about code editors – ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsTrAfJFLXI – a modern webdesigners workflow ) – you really need to like your code editor to be efficient in what you are doing.
It would be very nice to tell us at what point you currently are. There is an article on css-tricks where you can find out what kind of skill level you have ( https://css-tricks.com/css-skill-level/ ). I personally think that learning all on your own is the best way to go. You broaden your horizon by using the search and it all happens by your own interest, nobody will tell you what to do and that is just fine. I am more the kind of online tutorial reader than attending a school.
However – thats for you to choose ;)

I also wish good luck on your bumpy road to achieve your goals. :)

[notfilc]

Get a membership to the lodge here, Chris takes you through an entire redesign of this site, you’ll learn a lot on the way.

[VladimirKrstic]

First steps should be with books! These are some i can recommend. http://www.abookapart.com/ . Short but get to the point. There is a lot more good HTML5, CSS and web design books you can start with, search web and find some people recommends.

After you have learned essentials you should start absorb any resource you find that’s about HTML, CSS, web design, user experience… One of the musts is http://alistapart.com/ .

When you feel you can make some nice looking small web site do so. But focus first on HTML, CSS and design. Don’t do any JavaScript or server side stuff like PHP or ASP.

Great reference for HTML 5 is http://html5doctor.com/ and for CSS https://css-tricks.com/almanac/ .

Then you can start learning JavaScript and jQuery. Good place for that is http://www.codecademy.com/ (I’m on that step now :)).

And always but always when you are making something and have problems ask on forums, people will help you solve it and you’ll learn new stuff.

[asiek]

Thank you, @Scribblerockerz , @Martin_Muzatko , @notfilc , @VladimirKrstic ! Based on all of your comments I am guessing the web is my best resource to accomplish my goal! Thank you guys so much! I wanted to learn how to create websites that folks can log into and post on forums just like CSS-tricks. Learn how to create neat features on websites ect. Just didn’t know where to start. This forum helped a lot so far! I tried to post my issues within projects on stackoverflow.com but they ended up suspending my account for my many posts that weren’t voted up at all. Sometimes I need help on the simplest things! So this is definitely the right place to be!! I seriously hope to become a talented Designer/Developer! If you guys don’t mind posting links to projects or portfolios, I’d absolutely LOVE to check out everyone’s work! Please :)

Oh I have a couple more questions…

1.What do you guys use to create your web sites? WordPress? Or what other way is there to create a site?
I’m not sure if this is the right term but is a “Static” website where folks create pages manually and upload them via FTP?

2. Does anyone have a tutorial recommendation to create a website that has a forum, and a way for visitors to create accounts, edit and all that nice stuff like CSS-tricks?

Looking forward to trying it all out!
Going to order some books soon!

-Keisa

[howlermiller]

I can’t believe that nobody has mentioned Move the Web Forward yet. The website that was built specifically to answer that *exact* question.

My best advice to you, Keisa, is to take it slowly. There’s *so* much information out there, it’s really quite overwhelming to try to learn something so complex as web development. So just build websites! If your first few are terrible, then build another one, and make it a little bit better. All you’ve really got to do is be consistent, and build lots of websites.

And read CSS-Tricks. That’s pretty important too. :)

Oh, and +1 to everyone who commented before me. Those are some really great resources.

[asiek]

@howlermiller Apprectiate your comment :) I will definitely take it slowly! Working on a project now! Hope you and others can take a look at it when it’s complete!! It’s a wordpress site though :( and by the way, I’ll def visit the link you posted !

[asiek]

Thank you @htmlmaniac.
Were you the one that selected solve for this post?

[DarinRoman]

Hello Keisa,

All of these responses are great suggestions. I am a fairly new (2 years) freelance front-end developer working predominantly with WordPress clients. You should definitely keep up on what is happening here on CSS-Tricks. I’ve learned a great deal from Chris Coyier’s posts and screencasts. If you are like me and get the most out of learning visually, it would be a good idea to sign-up for an account on lynda.com and/or treehouse. Lynda.com has an enormous library of video tutorials including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, MySQL and WordPress.

If you plan to work with WordPress, it would benefit you to get involved in the community and join your local Meetup group, as well as attend the annual WordCamp in your area. The WordPress community is extremely active and helpful.

[asiek]

@darinroman Thank you for your comment :) I’ve visited lynda.com ! Just need to save up and get an account! Seems like most Web Designers and Developers are self taught! I can’t wait to learn more and be as talented as you all!!!

[Watson90]

Hi Keisa,

@Htmlmainiac could not have marked your thread as **[Solved]** as he is not an administrator of the CSS-Tricks forums, so if you haven’t done it yourself then an admin must have thought you have received enough advice from everyone on here.

Regarding your initial question, I personally like to use [Codecademy](http://codecademy.com “”) – here you can learn all kinds of stuff from the basics all the way up to intermediate-advanced level stuff, and you can also work at your own pace, which is always a good thing.

Good luck, any more questions then feel free to post them on the Forums, we’ll be happy to help :)

[notfilc]

Mods here are marking threads as solved far too quickly, they did so to one of my threads after only receiving one real responsive, when I was really wanting a poll of opinions :/.

Another good way to learn is keep up to date by listening to http://shoptalkshow.com/

[Paulie_D]

As a mod I can tell you that we do mark threads resolved if it appears to me/us that you have the answer that you wanted or have enough answer to get a good idea of where to go.

I/We have the option of marking it [Solved] to indicate that the general answer has been given but it does not stop anyone from continuing to comment.

If I/we wish to stop all further comment we can [Close] the thread…and we don’t do that often.

In general, this is a very busy forum and there are often more pressing questions needing resolution than users asking very generic questions that could easily be answered elsewhere.

I/We are not trying to stifle discussion, far from it, but I/we do recognize that there are many other resources users could use to get the answers they need rather than just rely on a single point of reference.

As to @notfilc ‘solved’ thread, it’s difficult to reply without knowing the circumstances. If a ‘poll’ was required then perhaps this wasn’t made clear. However, I can see that s/he has only initiated 6 discussions…none of which are marked as solved.

[asiek]

@Paulie_D Thank you for the explanation! I did get tons of information so , I understand now :) I asked the question here, ’cause this is the only forum I’ve seen answer basic questions, and questions similar to mine. I needed help from other Web Designers/Developers. Anyway, appreciate the explanation once again. I will be sure to mark solved once I get an answer next time.

I love these forums by the way!
So helpful! Gives new comers the ability to post whatever issue they’re having and get help! Without having their account suspended if their question’s reputation wasn’t high. I’m referring to stackoverflow lol.

So I visit CSS-Tricks everyday now!
<3
Thought I’d share that!

[Author]

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