Writings
College Bound » Fri, Jan 7th 2005 4:57 pm
I always told myself I’d be going to university because I’ve always perceived college as inferior. That may even be true, but it seems that for certain people looking to be doing certain careers, college may be the only option. Take me, for example.
I’ve aspired to be a professional Web designer/developer since the summer during which I began exploring HTML and the art of making sites. Despite the fact that there are countless others studying to be the same thing, I feel I may have an edge: My enduring will to further my knowledge in the field. While it’s never seemed like an amazing accomplishment to me, I’ve managed to teach myself a fair bit about how the Web works and I’ve been able to put that knowledge to good use already.
During the last three years, I didn’t dare acknowledge the possibility that I’d be going to college to study Web design, but then it never occurred to me that such a specific area of study might not be available at a university; I’d just figured university > college, so that’s where I’d go.
What’s more, it now looks as though I’ll be going to college not for Web design, but for business administration and marketing. Why? Because if I’ve managed to teach myself as much as I know already without spending a dime, I’m sure I could actually put some effort into learning more about it and come out better off than a lot of other school-taught designers. I agree with my guidance counsellor that the ‘business’ path would be wisest, as I plan to be running my own Web design company and the skills and knowledge I’ll gain during the next three years will be somewhat vital to fulfilling that dream.
Whether or not college is the lesser of the two choices, I think the type of teaching/learning I’ll experience there will be more easily applicable to my situation when I’m done. I imagine university would leave me with a number of excessive and unnecessary skills, and while I’m sure no knowledge can be considered waste, I think I’d prefer to learn everything else by experience.
I only hope I’ll be happy.
