Was it just me, or did Bush heave a sigh of relief during the ceremony and look overjoyed as he climbed onto the helicopter for his ride back to Texas? As Texas Gov. Rick Perry so aptly phrased it “Adios, mofo.”
In other news, a couple new articles on A List Apart discuss a problem i have been pondering lately: why are universities insufficient at teaching web design and what can be done to groom the next generation in the field.
Since these topics have been on my mind, I left the following in the comments:
“I’ve been developing and designing websites professionally since my senior year of high school in 2000. I do not have an undergraduate degree. Ironically, I’m working on a web team for a major university system in Texas on a site emphasizing that “higher education is for all of us”. After reading these articles, I’m left wondering “where does this leave me?” Do I have to put my career on hold, go back to school for 6 years learning about a field I’ve professionally practiced for 9 years if I want to teach what I know at the university level?
“It seems that most of the people I have worked with also lack degrees. Maybe universities are too limited. Maybe we need to look for solutions in places other than the overly structured realm of higher ed. Is higher education failing web design and development because it belongs somewhere else? How many fresh graduates are really ready for the working world in other fields? When did college become trade school? Maybe this industry needs a kind of apprentice program to teach its successors instead of trying to shape universities to fill the needs.”
