Looking to get a job in 6 months or less.

Well it really depends on how much and how efficiently you can learn the content. I would say definetly finish the become a web designer track and besides that i would recomend the bussiness section on how to get a job in the field, i took it and it was great. But is it realistic? Yes i think it is, it will take some hard work but if you start building your online presence and start learning the content you can certainly do it. So start the learn web design track and do the how to get a job deep dive in bussiness.

Hope this helps and best of luck, Kai.

First of all, BRILLIANT POST!!!

Secondly, please make sure you are making the right choice. Remember that web design is not the same as web development.

Also, as Kai said, if you put in the hard work and actually make sure that you are understanding everything then it is definitely achievable.

For others that are in the same situation but for web development. This is a massive field. You should do the basics in web development and then think about your specific choice of expertise. Whether it be server-side developing or front-end developing.

Hope this helps you Trevor and others that may have been curious on the subject but not yet ready to ask.

Thanks for the quick replies gentlemen, appreciate it.

Kai, in response to your analysis, how much should I practice to accomplish this timeline? Are there any growing pains I can predict? And how best could I build my online presence?

Thomas, could you describe the differences between design and development?

Thanks again guys.

I suggest that you get yourself onto twitter (if not already there) and follow web designers, trends and pages such as #webdev #webdesign #webdevelopment. All have very interesting articles and retweets from a vast range of people in the industry. Get onto some blogs of well established web designers/developers and even possibly subscribe to their blogs to get notified when they post new content. Great articles, tutorials and common problems/solutions that web devs are experiencing.

Study/Learn here as much as you can. Free time, forget the pub, forget the tv. If you want to make it in such a short time then you should be prepared to sacrifice social life to accomplish this. If you choose a wider timeline then obviously don't worry about social life :)

Here is a link to an article that can better explain the differences better than myself: http://designmodo.com/designer-vs-developer/

In response. I'd say complete the whole html and css course and certainly make a linked-in and twitter. Also something i learned from the getting a job course, go to local meetups in your community, there great ways to get in touch and associate yourself with future recruiters and potential bussiness partners. Also if you're becoming a designer certainly build a portfolio and showcase it as much as possible. And in response to how much should u practice? A good thing that i do is try to do about 5 sections a week, this leaves lots and lots of time to do your own project and actually go outside and stuff. Another thing, this is a personal thing but always try and do the extra credit for the section. It really helps you think on your feet and use your knowledge to accomplish a task thats not explained by treehouse.

That's what I'd say, Kai.

Great responses. Really appreciate it guys. I'll be going all out for the next 6 months. I really want a job in this field; its interesting and the growth isn't stopping. Again, thank you both a ton for the replies, your knowledge has been invaluable!

Thanks for this thread - just what I was looking for, because I'm in a similar boat; I've spent the last two months researching various career-changes. I was considering spending loads of money on an Open University degree, which is something I will consider, but I found this website and I intend to spend this year working through the courses. I asked myself the question today, "can I REALLY get a job as a web designer by going through this website's courses?" The general consensus seems to be 'yes'. Any more opinions on this would be much appreciated, because if it's actually the case that I need to do a degree in web design, I NEED TO KNOW NOW!

Andrew, from what I've seen this is a great community. Ask questions and you'll get your answers right away!

If somebody could answer this last question I would be forever grateful! It's been shown that learning a new skill is easier and growth is accelerated when you anchor it to things you already know. With that being said, what are some ideas/bits of knowledge I might be able to connect design/development too?

Hi Andrew,

More and more industries are moving away from the "YOU NEED A DEGREE" attitude. If you look at job vacancies in the vast variety of tech industries you will see that people want examples of your work. They want competent, genuine and hard workers that can think for themselves, not just go to uni, pass and I am a degree holding, no experience potential employee.

Don't get me wrong, having a degree is a good thing and don't think I am against degrees but I believe it is more about show what you can do and prove yourself when you get the chance.

Thanks for your reply, Thomas. I agree with you, and one of the reasons I looked into all this is because I stumbled on a jobs page on an expat website abroad (Prague, if you're curious), and I SHOCKED at just how many jobs there were in web and app design. It was NUTS. SO many companies wanting people with particular skills.

I seems clear to me that the biggest AND fastest growing job market out there is, to put a broad brush-stroke on it, 'the internet and mobile apps'. Particularly, I think, mobile web sites and apps.

This means two things:

1. It's always changing, FAST;
2. This 'window' will also close quite quickly, I think.

A website like this ticks the box for staying up to date with industry needs. Degrees are notorious for being out of date and out of touch with employers' current needs.

My question STILL is, can I learn everything I need to know, to be a professional, on this website?

well this is for sure one of the fastest growing industries out there no questions asked. if you're looking to get a job, treehouse this will land you a job. a degree can be very costly and seem kind of boring if you've done treehouse, but a degree will look good. but the fact is that worldwide there is no shortage of computer programmers. as i looked around i saw the same thing as you, lots and lots and lots of jobs. but if you think the window will close quick i really don't. the reason being is because the amount of jobs out there is a ton and even if they fill them there will always be an unlimited amount of startup opportunities. it is true though that this is a very, very fast pace market, even some of the treehouse videos are getting out of date, but if you get a degree it will very quickly be replaced by newer content which won't render it useless but it won't be as good as something like treehouse how they always are updating and you can always tune in. if you do want something professional to add to the resume, w3schools has an html, css and javascript (by the way javascript would be a great thing to learn if you want to be a designer) certification course you can do, which treehouse will get you good enough to write it. here's the link http://www.w3schools.com/cert/cert_html.asp

hope this help and remember to dream big, Kai.

Awesome, Kai, thanks. I'll defo check that out. I think I'm going to complete the tracks to learn html, css, and javascript, and then go onto the android apps. Do you think this makes sense, or should I skip some and go straight into the apps? My thinking was that how to build websites gives a necessary foundation, but now I'm not so sure.

It almost seems too good to be true - simply that someone with a bit of drive can get a job, but my thinking is that there simply aren't that many people who have that quality; most people just wait for someone to tell them what to do and therefore think they're trapped in their current job (or lack of job).

well if you want to do android go for it, as you can see i have a ton of other subjects besides the ones i want to get a job in (iOS, android, ruby, html) and it certainly doesn't slow you down. what i would say though is don't try and pick up EVERY thing at the start, just start off with about 1-5 things then grow from there. if you do android (or object-oriented programming) you'll se it's quite different from html and css, but none the less it is very fun and learnable.

Totally feel you, it seems way to amazing to have such variety and little competition. but it is a pretty new market so there is a little bit of a change into such a cool new industry, so I can see why some are scarred of the change but if i could tell them anything it would be why wouldn't you wanna work at such cool companies. and it's very true people don't wanna leave there save jobs for this kind of change and they want someone else to tell them to do it.

you know a while back there was an article like this and this guy wanted to get into programming. and i tuned in to see what they had to say and one guy said he joined because of this video. and the funny thing is that he said he was like 16 (if i remember correct) and his name is now like 4th on the leader board for most points. he kinda proved to me that everyone starts somewhere and as i can see he ended up somewhere all because he decided to take the jump.

sincerely, Kai.