Friday 4 September 2009

Self Managed Learning Plan Proposal – PHP/MYSQL

After I’ve finished my studies, I would like to be able to regard myself as an “all rounder” rather being classed as either a designer or a builder. My long term goal is to be working freelance or running my own design studio offering affordable web and print solutions to small businesses, up-and-coming bands etc.

Obviously these goals will not be obtained over night. Immediately after the course ends, I intend to be working for an established company gaining both vital experience and the additional skills. I shall use these newly aqquired skills to my make long term goals a reality. Given the current economic climate and the number of people competing for work, I believe being an “all rounder” will give me an advantage when applying for vacancies within the industry.

By simply typing the words “web” and “developer” into a careers search engine such as totaljobs.com or monster.co.uk and you will be presented with well over 500 results. Whilst the job descriptions/roles differ slightly from company to company, there does appear to be 2 common skills required (after XHTML and CSS) which links them together – “PHP” and “MySQL”.

PHP is a form of scripting language utilised by web developers to create dynamic web pages whilst MYSQL is a relational database management system which is most commonly found on Web Servers though can be used for a variety of applications.

By having experience of these languages under my belt, not only do I believe I shall be more employable, I also feel that they will help unleash creativity when creating solutions to clients briefs as I would not be restricted to creating solutions purely to the confinements of XHTML and CSS.

No comments: