Hi, I am still in school at the moment in year 10 so I will be taking my GCSE's soon (A brittish qualification, i do not know what you use in america etc sorry) and I am looking to go to collage after school in web design/flash/javascript, just general web developlment, I a bit of knowlage in theese already although i will need qualifications from collage to prove it and im sure i would learn alot!, For now because i am eager to start some sort of web tuition do you think it would be worth my while doing some weekend courced, im just asking from your experience whether you think it would help 1. My knowlage and 2. Help me get into full time collage when i leave.

Well heres the link to the prospectus, if you turn to page 45 / 80 (Just paste it in the box) then the page is just littered with cources, thanks for any advice.

It's up to you whether you think it will help build up or on your knowledge, for example will it help towards your goals in life?, since it seems your into Web Design and Programming it probably will.

As far as College courses go you only need GCSE's (Or that's really all they look for around our age, although I think it might look better to have those qualifications), if you get 5 good GCSE's (Good being GCSE's at A*-C) then you can get on the top College courses, but most conditions are that you have English and Maths at a minimum C Grade, so judging on your poor spelling above (For example, Collage is a mix of different pictures to create a new one, should be spelt College) you might not get the C in English, I don't know I might be proved wrong, but poor spelling isn't good for the College Tutors to see

If you don't get the C in English or Maths then you can take it again while you are at College, but you need at least one and then 3-4 others to get on the top courses anyway, but that is still at the admission tutors' or head of departments' discretion, plus you need at least C in English and Maths to get into Uni so it is pretty much crucial you get those.

Just my own experience, I've just finished a 2 year Level 3 course in College, Which incorporated many things including Programming (vb.NET), Web Design (HTML & CSS), Hardware, Various Office Software parts (Including Word, Excel, Access, Powerpoint), Project & Project Management (Using Microsoft Project, And tracking the project through it's development), Software Anaylsis (I think this was one of the Subjects I did), IT Technical Support and Graphics Design.

Quite a through course but it has really helped me build up a good base knowledge pretty much apart from Networking (Which I could probably learn myself anyway) and I'll be off to Uni in September.

Hopefully this helps in your decision in some way, good luck on whatever course you pick.

That is some amazing advice, thankyou so much woodyblade, this is really going to help me =] just been at a collage all day with the school, and sorry about the spelling, i have dyslexia but that is no excuse =].

Thanks so much, Wolfy87.

No problem

Just to add on I didn't know you had dyslexia, the spelling and grammar is more emphasised in Uni, but the College Tutors like to see good spelling and grammar from my experience, some in my class spelt even worse than just the small errors above, I mean really poorly, they didn't even use the spell checker to check for any errors. Another had bad grammar, some sentences were barely readable or made sense.

Anyway spelling and grammar improve with age, mine have in the last 2 years, I'm not perfect with spelling, doubt anyone is (Unless you count the spelling fanatics ), learnt some new words as well while on the course.

And just a tiny bit more info those 5 GCSE's at A*-C will as I said get you a chance on the top level courses, but trust me they are tough, in terms of what you have to learn, just to prove the sort of toughness of the course I was on (Other Courses will obviously be different), My class started the course with about 18 people, we ended the first year with 11-12, 3-4 dropped out near the beginning, 2 others ended the year with the Award (equivalent to 1 A Level). Another failed the course (Basically just gave up with about 3 weeks left to go, so they wasted 2 years of there life, they couldn't even get the Certificate which was equivalent to 2 A Levels), The 10 left by the end of the year got the Diploma (equivalent to 3 A Levels) including myself.
My tutor at the beginning of the year said the pass rate was something like 60-70% and said it was certain about 5 or 6 would drop out, I didn't believe him at the time, but obviously he'd done it all before and the end result proved the point he made 2 years ago

Are you picking the course now?, or preparing to pick it for next year. When I picked mine we began in Year 11 looking at the courses available and had talks with the Connections people,we then got our applications sent to the local College in late November I think, We got our replies around late January and had a visit set by the College (February) where we met one of the tutors for that department and read some terms & conditions i.e. What results we had to get etc and signed the sheet we were given that we accepted the terms to get on the course.
Then just had to take the GCSE's and get the results we needed.

Anyway good luck with your GCSE's and good luck on whatever College course you pick out.

Yes, after the six weak holiday I will be year 11 and I have had a meeting with connexions and I was given a prospectus of weekend and evening courses, I am looking in to them at the moment because I feel it may help me get on a course if I have had some experience prior to a full two year course. I am also going to go back to my work experience within the next few weeks, I may even get somting out of it like a job, I will be working with their web designers hopefully.

Thanks for all of your help, Wolfy87.

Ok, the company I did my work experiance with have come back to me and have offerd two weeks work £100/week, I cant wait to start again because my work experiance there was one of the best experiences of my life.