ITMO, course "Web-site developer (PHP-technologies)" and html academy intensives: is it worth going?

Question

PHP

I am 24, I have a humanitarian education, I want to learn to be a layout designer.
While I took the course "Web programming" on opendu, there were the basics of layout. I want to move on.
Found:
1.intensive courses from html academy;
2. ITMO course "Web-site developer (PHP-technologies)".
On the first point, the reviews I found pleased me (they give a base, it seems that even in the end it’s really possible to get a job if you learn it diligently, really intensively). However, I would also like to hear someone else say something about intensives.
About the course at ITMO, I didn’t find any intelligible reviews that answer the questions:
1. Does the course give a lot of knowledge in order to be a good layout designer?
2. And what is the ratio of theory and practice, will it not be that I seem to know a lot, but really I know little? On the ITMO website, there were reviews about the course in the style of "broad, but not deep", according to gum. education, I know that this style of teaching can result in "I've heard about everything, but I don't really know anything, I don't have systemic knowledge about anything." Is it the same with this course or not?
3. As a result, they give a diploma of professional retraining. Am I right in thinking that I really need such a diploma, because my first education in the humanities is nowhere more humane (folklore, art therapy)?
Thanks a lot in advance for your replies :)

Answer 1

Why do you need some paid courses if all the information is in the public domain? In terms of layout, I have not yet seen better lessons in Runet.
upd: No one will look at your diploma, they will look at your portfolio.

Answer 2

If these courses cost a lot of money, then most likely you do not need them. I have an opinion about all these intensives, but I'm afraid it will turn into some discussion, which will lead to the appearance of moderators in the thread.
Well, in essence:
A coder does not need PHP. You
can familiarize yourself with it later, when you learn html, css and javascript
.

Answer 3

I finished the radio fak. Although the education is technical, but there were no programming skills. As a result, I took up self-education. I studied HTMLBOOK, opened random sites and tried to make the same ones without looking into their code. Everything that they say in the courses - you can master yourself. IMHO.
Nobody needs a degree anymore. There will be a high-quality portfolio, there will be orders. The customer needs a good result, not any crusts.

Answer 4

Do not listen to comrades who shout that "courses are not needed." To listen to them, schools are not needed and universities are not needed. Everything has to be learned from books.
But the main problem of a novice developer is getting adequate feedback from an experienced professional. The best way is to get a job somewhere and grow there under the supervision of a senior developer. But in order to get somewhere you need to be able to do something, otherwise they won’t take it. But how to understand that you know how to do something and learn correctly if no one checks you and no one looks at your code? This is where courses can help. Especially if there are mentors.
Regarding the academy, it turns out that you and I know each other in absentia =) There were flaws in the course from openedu, especially in some entries. A very unusual format, webinars are easier to conduct somehow. But the most important thing at intensives is working on real layouts under the supervision of a personal professional mentor. This cannot be done in the openedu format, after all, it is a mass course.
Regarding other courses “at ITMO”. I'm pretty skeptical about them. I suspect that this is a weak office at the university. Post the link and I'll try to find out more.

Answer 5

As for the courses at ITMO, I can say that they are quite good, but they are designed for an uninterested person.
The main target audience is people who do not know anything about website building and have decided - but I'll go and learn how to make them. So be prepared for the fact that you will start learning the basics like: why html pages open in notepad and how to view the source code.
By the way, as they wrote above, the teacher will be a student from the last courses of the university, perhaps he will not have much practice and in-depth knowledge of the topic.
I think that if you understand the topic and already know that you want to be a layout designer, a lot of information will be repeated for you, and the new one will not be deep, but superficial.

Answer 6

I won’t say anything about the courses, but you don’t need a diploma at all.

Answer 7

I will support Boris Yakushev , you need a mentor and google it. And the mentor will just help to distinguish the necessary from the unnecessary, to direct a little in the right direction, to point to the path so that you don’t read outdated information, for example.

Answer 8

As a programmer, I will state my subjective opinion:
PHP-technologies have little in common with system knowledge.
It's more like a dump of tools and blanks for creating huts ... sites.
I would not recommend it to people who are planning further professional self-development (to solve more complex problems),
because it leaves a hard-to-wash mess in their heads.
javascript will still need to be learned and used;
javascript can be used on the server, and in general almost everywhere;
javascript is more consistent internally as a language;
javascript is dynamic: look towards Meteor or React.
They hardly look at papers in this area.
I was asked once in 15 years when the state project. office ordered.

Answer 9

My experience tells me that the more specifically the course is described, I would even say the narrower its specialization, the more useless it is.
As my teacher on math basics said, the subtleties and details are in the reference books, your task is to learn how to use them (reference books) correctly.
It was 1993. Since then, a huge number of programming languages ​​have died and been born, but I can read almost any code freely.
Yes, it can be difficult to write something in places, but due to the fact that they invested in us the main thing, and not the details, finding answers is quite easy.
If they promise to teach you html layout, then most likely they will simply tell you the contents of the htmlbook ...
If you are promised to reveal the secret of PHP technologies, then again they will tell you one of the reference books.
If you really study the layout, then in general, the basic bases, the rules of good and bad taste, and of course the theory of creating a software product. (the latter, by the way, has not been taught anywhere for a long time, at least I haven’t seen it for a long time, but it would be very, very worth it)
I sometimes look at self-written sites and scripts and my heart bleeds. I would torture all programmers and layout designers with their own codes, forcing them to figure out their own code after a year or two.

Answer 10

Good afternoon, a little off topic, but I would like to ask you, the author, a couple of questions.
First, I’ll explain why - I’m 25 and, oddly enough, I’m a techie with the inscription “Programmer Engineer” in my diploma, but because of the quality of the presentation of the material at the university and, to be honest, because of the emptiness in my head, I didn’t endure anything useful for myself . To date, I have already 5 years of experience, none of them in my specialty, because. due to my lack of confidence, I didn’t even look for a job in this area, but the real job is already up to my neck and I thought that it’s time to change something, and maybe it’s not in vain that I went to IT specialists. Now I am more trying to understand and find myself, talking to people, listening to points of view and stories of why and how.
I would like to ask you
1. Why did you decide to become a layout designer? (salary, interesting, easy to learn, friends advised or something else)
2. What other materials did you use? (maybe some books, some courses on torrents, seminars)
3. what do you want to get from this job? (somewhere to develop, to get peace of mind from a business that you like, maybe you have friends whose example you want to follow and you roughly know what to expect)
I apologize for so many questions, I'm very interested to hear the opinion of another person who has developed a similar situation.
To be honest, it scares me that it will take me a lot of time (1-3 years) to study the material from scratch, until the moment when I can receive at least 50 thousand rubles. (But this is my unsubstantiated opinion, maybe I'm wrong).
And by the way, to your question - I heard several reviews about these courses, people were somewhat dissatisfied with the superficial presentation of the material and the fact that the students themselves taught.