Course descriptions for 2008-2009 are now online: click here to see them.
You are viewing the design "Waves", by Denny Junkins.
All designs:
Valerie Green
Welcome to Web Programming, where Art meets Technology! In this class you'll learn every aspect of Web design, from visual art to hard-core programming. You'll become more creative, develop an artistic "eye", and improve your drawing and designing skills. You'll also learn the technology and the programming languages necessary to take your designs and make them into full-fledged Web applications. In effect, you'll become two people: a designer and a coder. Why will employers hire you? Because when they do, they get two people for the price of one.
Take a look at the brochure and at our Weblog for more information. On the Weblog, explore the links under the "Pages" heading to get an idea of assignments for first and second year students.
The reason why I love Web design and programming is because it exercises every part of my brain. There's the technical, logical part of Web design: communicating with the database, figuring out how to structure your data, designing the different parts of your program and deciding how they will talk to each other and to the database to most efficiently manipulate the data in the way that you want. Then there's a completely artsy side: you talk to a client, try to get a vision of what that client wants and what problems the client is trying to solve with the site, and then look for artistic inspiration from nature, visual art, writing, etc., until you develop a site that visually captures the feeling the client wants. There's something magical about that process.
The reason why I love teaching Web design and programming is because I love to exercise my students' brains! A lot of students come in and say, "I don't get it; I'm not smart." In here, they learn that getting smarter takes practice, the same way training for a sport takes practice. If you exercise your muscles, they get stronger. If you exercise your brain, it gets smarter. Students come in here and look a little stunned after the first few days, saying "I thought I knew a lot about computers". After the first quarter, they know a lot more about computers! In this century, computer knowledge is absolutely required, and speaking the language of computers is a skill that benefits any student. Some students will go to work in the industry immediately and some won't, but everyone comes out of this class with more computer smarts, better logical reasoning, and more creativity. I love watching it happen.