do you really need school

I really enjoy working with photoshop, GoLive, Swish, and other programs and there is a local college that offers a 2 year associates degree in "Digital Media Design" or "Webmaster" but with all the information available through books, cd roms, internet, etc... does someone really need to go to school to learn these programs and perhaps find work in some type of design field?

Are any of you making a living working with these programs and did you have to go to school to learn them and find work?

I wouldn't say that school is required, but it would be about twenty times harder to get a job without school, or a degree depending on the type of job you are looking into. If it had to do with art, perhaps just a decent portfolio would do, but if you were going in got webmaster, a degree might do better because webmastering also involves code. I don't know, I'm just going by what I think, I have no experience at all, I'm sure someone here HAS had experience with this and can help you more than me. :D

I know I have been turned down at a lot of design jobs because I don't have a degree. Even if my work is better than the kid right out of college, they will probably get the job.

If you're just planning on doing freelance design or doing your own company, then it doesn't matter. But if you want to get a job at a sizable firm and make decent money, it's quite a good idea to have one.

Schools teach you the fine details that you dont think of and often overlook. Usually a good designer already has good design skills and a good eye, but if you don't know about why you do things or miss out on those fine details, then your not really ready for the industry.

For getting a job its all about the little peice of paper, thats what companys really care about anything else is a bonus to them. But as others have said, if you're gonna go freelance it doesn't really matter as long as you can provide the work on time and to the customers standard then its all good.

I would agree that we do need school, but only until we have enough knowledge about what we like. Take A-Levels for example. At the start of the school year i was taking. Art, I.T, Drama and chemistry, at present i'm only doing I.T and drama.
why? because my art course was far to restricting and they would allow any form of PC art (i ask but they sid it isn't really art... fools) and as for chemistry, i choose it because i had a slight interest in it and my parents slipped it down on my options slip (evil people they are)

Its fine learning the basic's but after that i'd prefer to go off and learn the program myself, I'm self teaching myself flash and C at the minute as well as learning more about html.

but i suppose it depends what you want to be... you can't really stay at home and study english and then expect to be allowed into Oxford Uni...

i have found that often companies are interested in self-taught designers that have fine arts degrees (painting, photography, etc)

that may be a good route to take if you are talented and driven.

it also depends on the type of company you're applying to. a design firm is more likely to seriously consider a candidate without a degree that a corporate art department would. is it because of talent? not in the least, its just the importance the business world places on a degree. my degree isn't directly related to graphic design (architecture) but its definitely helped me be considered for positions i wouldn't have been looked for without a degree.

chris

Well said, Chris.... :D what he said, only I'm on the other side of that. I have been refused consideration because 3 1/2 yrs of college = no degree. The great opportunities I've had, I had to prove myself first. The degree gets you in the door, then you have to prove yourself. Either that, or melt into the fake plants and cubicle walls and hope noone notices you...

There was some real good replys to my post about going to school or not but I wanted to add some more information that might add a little more light to my situation.

I think that there are some that believe I am a young man still in highschool. Although I would love for that to be true I am actually 34 yrs of age. I just started working with some of these design programs about a year ago in my spare time as a hobby. I have found that I enjoy this type of creative expressision very much and I could spend all day working on projects and still enjoy it. I unfortunately have a full-time job Mon thru Fri and a part-time job on Sat and Sun; both are brain dead going nowhere jobs but hey I got to eat.

My question about school was would it be wiser to spend 4-6 hours in school learning design concepts or just spend 4-6 hours a day practicing tutorials and learning new techniques.

When I watch the "behind the scenes" special features on such movies like The Lord of the Rings or I watch how the EA guys make the sports games I would love to do that for a living but I imagine that star might be a little to far to reach, but if I could earn some money and perhaps get rid of my weekend job, that would be a great start.

Do you have any formal design training of any kind? Or is this the first time you have really done anything like this?

If you have never really done any drawing/graphic design/art before, it may be a good idea to take a couple of basic classes, just to get you started. Namely in typography, "graphic design 101" etc. Don't waste time taking classes related to a specific program like photoshop or dreamweaver or anything. The education system moves so slowly, the programs are all out of date by the time you finish the class anyway.

Learning the basics of design will stay with you for life, and you will be able to apply what you learned to many aspects of your life, and many different mediums. If you take a class on photoshop or any other program, it will be completely outdated in 5 years, and your knowledge will be worthless.

Tutorials are great for learning specific techniques and learning how to use a program like photoshop or dreamweaver. They do not, however, teach you anything about design. You can learn to make a really cool text effect from a tutorial, but if you put it on a clashing colored background, it's going to look like crap, no matter how cool the text effect was. And the tutorial isn't going to teach you things like that.

Take a look at some design classes at your local college and see if there are some that aren't related to a specific program, and maybe think about taking a couple. Like I said, typography is a great place to start. Graphic design 101 will teach you a lot about the basics of printing, all the terms used in the industry, etc. There may also be classes for color, illustration, etc. Just see what your local school has to offer.