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The CIW?

The CIW?

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Hans New member Joined: 05 Aug 2006 Posts: 5 Location: Netherlands, Tiel Status: Offline	Posted: Mon Jan 01, 2007 19:53 I was searching for some kind of curses so I can develop my skills more and hopefully find a job in the design brache. I have found one and after the curses I will be a official CIW-certified professional. I have never heard of this organization and would like to know if anybody knows it and if it will be a good step to the future for me. Thank you all in forward and a happy new year!

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unstructure Gallery Team Joined: 04 Sep 2006 Posts: 290 Location: Boston, MA Status: Offline	Posted: Mon Jan 01, 2007 21:37 Obviously English isn't your first language. What you want to look for are "courses" not "curses" ... big difference. :) As far as CIW goes, employers generally aren't interested in certificates like this for being a designers. They work rather well for system administrators or engineers, but design companies usually want to see more problem solving skills when it comes to design rather than knowing the tools to do it. Personally I invested in some books, created some personal projects, then went out looking for clients to build my portfolio and experience. Obviously some people need to learn in a classroom environment, and if that's you than by all means go for whatever helps you the best. Just don't expect every design studio to be calling you just because you have a piece of paper that says you are a certified web designer. _________________ :: web usability and design :: - unstructure :: boston modern art gallery :: - tötre gallery

tzmedia Site Moderator Joined: 22 Jun 2006 Posts: 1108 Location: Mars Status: Offline	Posted: Mon Jan 01, 2007 22:38 To be perfectly honest I've never heard of this organization, and it looks sort of bogus to me. You pay to take tests, but where's the actual learning courses offered, I can't find them. I've considered taking courses from: http://www.hwg.org/ ... perhaps this is a better resource. They offer actual courses in real world technologies, not something on the scope of a dream job, job description with limited scopes of knowledge and supposed duties. On the other hand Ace all the w3schools.com stuff it's free.

niko Preferred member Joined: 02 Oct 2006 Posts: 286 Location: Lisbon, Portugal Status: Offline	Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 18:35 Hans, with no offense for CIW, as i have never heard of them, i think you should skip on such courses, and concentrate yourself on learning and experimenting. Any such certifications wont make a good professional out of anyone. I consider such practices as a bull**** marketing. Its not too hard to make something similar, and as long as you are going to work for a reasonable company, they wont care for all your certifications and educations as long as you are capable of doing the job. Their success stories are something i am wondering about, cause i have not seen something worth mentioning between the links they have published there. Table-based design on a lot of their page is not convincing me of at all ... Find a good book, and start learning and experimenting =O) Good luck! _________________ WebCaravela

dummerAugust New member Joined: 29 Aug 2006 Posts: 40 Status: Offline	Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 18:42 <a href="http://www.brainbench.com">Brainbench</a> may also be a good choice, depending on what you want to achieve. The certification exams are cheap, the only drawback is that they are made online. That`s why they can be considered as inaccurate. But I think the idea of getting every possible certificate shouldn`t be adopted. I would recommend getting only certificates, which are of your interest, and which themes are guaranteed to be involved in your later everyday work. Otherwise certificates doesn`t make big sense. For example a person looking for administrator, would not be interested, if you are Flash certified. They will rather prefer to see a Cisco certificate. Getting both of them, would mean that you are not sure at this point, which way to go. _________________ Web Design & Visual Design - Individual & Distinguishable http://www.dummeraugust.com/

Hans New member Joined: 05 Aug 2006 Posts: 5 Location: Netherlands, Tiel Status: Offline	Posted: Mon Jan 08, 2007 12:37 First I have to say sorry for my English but will work on that :) I would really like to become a good web designer but sometimes it looks like i am making no progress at all an thought maybe a course will be good for me. Also I saw that they ask 4000 euro for 6 days of school and I think thats really to much and probably wont learn that much or at least wont become a professional. I want to thank you all for your answers. Greets Hans

niko Preferred member Joined: 02 Oct 2006 Posts: 286 Location: Lisbon, Portugal Status: Offline	Posted: Mon Jan 08, 2007 19:35 Hans, i know a lot of people who would teach you for a month for a half of those money. It is a way, just to tell you, to forget about such prices. =O) To become a good designer, i believe you have to practice hard, because ain't no course will make you into something if you wont work for it. Start making designs, and post them here and on other sites, then people will give you tips on how to improve. Good luck! =O) _________________ WebCaravela

webdesignernew New member Joined: 08 May 2008 Posts: 8 Status: Offline	Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 16:13 I am not sure how well the CIW is now offered, as initially the course was developed to be offered on a distance learning basis where little attendance was needed, however last year the course structure was altered and was only available to people that were available to attend on a regular basis, this kind of makes the course pointless, as its main selling point was distance learning, so a lot of course providers had to drop out of CIW because of not being able to offer the course in a class room environment. I would suggest that you gained experience and certificates in adobe products like dreamweaver, and then create a very good graphic design portfolio. Experience and portfolio will help with your career in web design. http://www.soula.com/portfolio.php

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