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Hi

Thank you so much for this forum. It has been very helpful to me over the last week or so.

I've been following threads on Website design training, and different training providers.

I've been visited by sales people from NITLC and just today by SkillsTrain UK. Also had a call back from e-careers.co.uk.

Have also been researching on job search engine sites e.g. reed.co.uk, monster.co.uk, jobserve.com. Trying to make sense of the different job titles (web designer vs developer etc).

Signed up and paid to do an ECDL distance with my local university (£250) but I'll probably cancel and put it into a web design course.

Initial impressions:

1. NITLC:
Qualification: Certified Web Designer and Developer - seems to be their own in-house qualification, can't find it in Google anywhere else, hmn... but also includes Macromedia Dreamweaver & Flash certification, which is good
Cost: £3400 (with Barclays Career Development loan), doesn't include software/hardware, but can get Macromedia Studio on educational discount
Course content: seems quite practical, includes developing actual viable e-commerce website, and an accompanying bound printed report, both very useful I would think for a future portfolio. Good for novice maybe, as almost the first third of the course is pretty general, and includes an introduction to the Internet and several components on MS Office applications

2. SkillsTrain UK
Qualification: Master CIW Website Manager - lots of hits in Google about this cert, and impressive website at http://www.ciwcertified.com/ but no mention of it in the UK job search websites I tried, which give requirements in terms of skills, not certificates. Still, seems to be a good one to go for, if you can't do a university degree course or something...
Cost: £2750, £50 deposit, then 36 payments of £75, interest free. Includes a free Dell PC , all software including Macromedia Studio, and all exam costs. (If you fail, you can re-take once). Noticed that the exams are all version 4 on the CIW handout the salesman left me, but I noticed that Keimos on another thread warned:
"This is really just a word of warning to anybody considering a CIW course. 1. Make sure that youare studying for the latest exam (Master CIW Designer) 510, 520, & 525" so I'll have to check with them if they've upgraded.
Course: Seems more Web design focussed, gets right into Internet and web content, goes into more coverage of higher topics, e.g. Web languages, server admin, and site design. Maybe more theoretical though than the NITLC one, doesn't seem to emphasise practical hands-on project work. When I asked about the tutors (qualifications, etc) he was a bit hazier on specifics, except that they would have been in the relevant industry etc.

3. e-careers.co.uk
Qualification: we talked about MCAD (Microsoft Application Developer) but they also do CIW
Cost: £1400 (distance mode) including exam, includes lots of extra elective modules
Course: talked to a manager, Darren, not a sales rep. He seemed really clued in, maybe because the company also does commercial web design/developing themselves, and he said the tutors are all working professionals. That sounds pretty good, as I would imagine a lot of how much you get from a course can depend on how much actual breadth of experience your teacher has to share about the practical applications of the stuff you are learning, how the industry really operates, etc.

Anyway, hope this might be of use to someone still researching the field, like me.

 

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Hello & Welcome to CF

 

Hi there and welcome to CF