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Seeking: Campus Web Designer

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Article Category: Career Advise
By Jill Hughes

Volunteering, perseverance and patience can turn a novice into a freelancing web designer.

So you are a college student who wants to get your hands dirty in Web technology?

Well, as a college student I am going to try to elaborate on that topic in just four easy steps on how to get involved in the web industry as a student.

1. Seek and Ye Shall Learn
Websites are everywhere. There is an abundance of people who have a website. Well, information doesn't appear there by accident. People make those websites, so there are people out there who know HTML and JavaScript and graphic design.

If you are curious and want to learn more, seek and ye shall find someone who can teach you the basics. I learned HTML from my little brother. He probably picked it up from an HTML for Dummies book or a website like webmonkey.com that has excellent tutorials that will make you web savvy in just hours.

It took me eight hours to learn the basics and more. Colleges normally have resources and classes in the computer science or communications department to teach you HTML because it is an important skill to have in most industries. It looks very impressive if you know HTML and other web programming languages and have graphic design skills when you are searching for a job, because many companies need their websites updated.

"You don't need to invest your life savings into classes and buy expensive software to be a great web designer. There are lots of resources on your campus just waiting to be discovered. "

2. Do it For Free
Once you learn the basics, you can probably figure out the rest and just learn by experimenting. I learned many web tricks just by asking people if they wanted me to do websites for them. Start a club that does websites for other people, play around in the computer labs or try to find free seminars or friends that will teach you programs you need to know to do web design. Take advantage of a computer science department and art department if you have one on your campus, and never be afraid to be aggressive to find jobs. Mention that you are a web designer wherever you go and say that you will do a website for them for a small price. Most companies have websites, but they are not so aesthetically pleasing and they may need a redesign!

But first check out what you can do on your campus by going to different departments and clubs asking them if they need a website. At my college, we have an actual web team, where we learn the skills, get to play with really awesome programs and then we do web sites for non-profit organizations. The project managers of these sites even get credit for their work. Perhaps you can bring up that idea to a professor and start something of that sort on your campus, if you have the resources.

The best way to get experience is to go the volunteering route and make a web site or two for no profit. This way you will have something to show people what you have done. I now have a handful of sites under my belt that I have done for clubs on campus. It is something I can put on my r�sum� and in my portfolio.

3. Join Organizations Like Webgrrls
Now that you are hooked into the Internet- crazed world, it is good to meet other people who have the same interests and career goals. Networking is one of the best things you can do for yourself. Sometimes your success comes down to the people you know, not the skills you have. I have met some awesome people through Webgrrls because these are women who know what it is like to be a woman in the industry. I had an internship two summers ago in which I was the ONLY female working in an office full of male computer geeks. These kinds of experiences teach you how to deal with being the minority and handle sexual harassment from men in the office who think, "What do you mean a woman can code and design better than me?" It really puts a male�s ego in check.

4. Get Right to Work
I sought out internships in web design right away rather than in other skills I had. I have received freelancing projects because of the free sites I had done earlier. Practice makes perfect and the more job opportunities you can find on campus and in the community that involve web design, the more your portfolio will impress future employers.

Once you feel comfortable, then you can start charging for your services. Even if you have to sit in front of a computer for hours to learn how to make a table or get that photo aligned correctly, just take a deep breath and lasso that patience bug because it may take a long while for you to make a great aesthetically pleasing site. Once you have the hang of it, you have that skill for a lifetime.

I hope these tips help you determine how you are going to get involved in the web industry before you get to the real world. You don't need to invest your life savings into classes and buy expensive software to be a great web designer. There are lots of resources on your campus just waiting to be discovered.

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