Hi. I’m a college student. I’m currently enrolled in an associates degree plan for graphic design with emphasis in web design at my local community college. I will most likely transfer to get a bachelors in graphic design instead. I would also like to get another degree in something that will teach me more about computers and enable me to get a job as a web designer and developer.
Which of the following combinations would be best for me and why?
Double major in Graphic Design +:
Computer Science with minor in marketing,
Computer Information Systems, or
Web Development
I think I’d be better at business courses than math courses (and I’d like to learn some business either way anyway), so I’m considering the CIS major. However, I’ve heard that computer science is often more highly esteemed than CIS. Also, whenever I look at job listings on dice.com for web developer positions, most of them want someone with a degree in CS. Would a CS degree be more likely to get me a good job as a web developer than a CIS degree?
There is an associates degree in web development offered at the college I’m currently enrolled in and I plan to take several electives in that subject to learn more about web development. For a web development degree, it seems like they keep up to date fairly well (better than most it seems) especially for a community college. I’m also self educating to keep up to date by reading books and online articles at w3schools and other sources. I might just take a few web development electives here and get a bachelors degree in something else if it will look better on my resume (probably would) than just an associates in web development. I’m leaning toward a BS in CS or CIS because I think it will look better on my resume than a web development associates. I’m not sure if I should do CS or CIS though. What would you recommend?
It depends on what you would like to do. I’m a comp science guy and work as a LAMP engineer… art skills not required. If you are more interested in design, then computer science may not be the best choice.
Marketing would probably a good area to focus on in combination with graphic design. Often times, those two worlds can be one and the same. Since your focus sound it it will be web design, a focus on web development wouldn’t hurt in order to be well-rounded in the area.
CS and CIS programs are typically geared toward IT or software development. However, take a look at the course listings, as course content does vary wildly from college to college.
w3schools isn’t the greatest place to use as a resource, even though it ranks high on google. It’s full of outdated and inaccurate information. http://reference.sitepoint.com is a more relevant resource, though it may lack usage examples.
Thank you. I did buy a few web development books by sitepoint that seem helpful and go more in depth than w3schools.
I’ve been thinking about comp sci some more and I’m not sure I can do a degree that math intensive, so I’ll probably get a bachelors in design or marketing with an associates in web development and/or design.
A graphic designer that is familiar with web development is a plus, especially since the designer usually interacts with web developers when a design is sent over.
Yea I’ve also heard a developer with some experience or understanding of design is a plus as well. I’m going to take some math, science, and programming requirements for the computer science degree while I’m working on my graphic design degree. Then maybe that will help me decide if I’d like to get a degree in computer science as well. Even though there’s a lot of math in computer science, I’m still interested in the degree and not sure which degree path would be best for me. I’ll talk to a counselor about it at my college.
my suggestion is Double major in Graphic Design +Computer Science with minor in marketing. even the reality is not like what you think, you can search more to learn by yourself. in my mind, marketing is very important in the future.