F.A.S. Computer Web Design Courses. A Review.
F.A.S. hold computer courses of different grades around Ireland. The two types of classes offered are the basic website building class and the second which only be done after you have completed the most basic web design class. Yours truly actually took part in the two web design classes at FAS.
For starters the people you'll meet at these evening or day classes are mostly unemployed people who have been called in by the Department Of Social Welfare and asked to go on a course for a variety of reasons. Some will attend against their will as they fear loosing their dole payments and want to keep the Social welfare staff off their backs. A small amount of those in attendance will have paid to be on the course.
There will usually be about 15 to 20 others in the room along with a teacher. Ever body will have their own computers which are up to date machines.
These courses are a step by step guide on how to make a webpage and eventually the single webpage will be made into a complete website. You will start off learning how to write simple html code such as the example below.
<html>
<head>
<title> My New Website</title>
</head>
<body>
Hello World Example, this is my first website and I'm learning how to write html at the F.A.S. training centre.</body>
The above example is what you'll start off writing. The teachers are professional and will give advice and help anybody who cannot keep up with the rest of the class. The courses usually last for between 3 and 5 hours depending if it's an evening class or a Saturday class. There will be a break for a half hour and tea and biscuits are served in the canteen free of charge. Some bring their own lunch.
Along with being given instructions on writing html you'll be thought how to make links to other pages on your site. You'll be showed how to ad images and make a navigation bar for your site. You'll also be thought how to write CSS which is the newer way of making websites
There's a lot more that you'll learn in a slow and relaxed way with no pressure put on anybody in the class. Bit by Bit you'll slowly learn how to build a website on these FAS computer classes.
The teachers are very approachable and give guidance to slow learners. I have met many students there who could not even turn a computer on at the start of these courses and by the time the course had ended they had build a whole website on their own, with a little guidance.
The second part of this computer course is called ''Advanced Web Design'' which is a follow on from the basic course. A lot of what you learned on the ''Basic Web Design '' course will be learned again. There will be much more discussion with questions and answers session rather than writing computer code. In fact most of the time will be given over to explaining everything that goes into a website and what takes place behind the scenes on a given site. Most of the people who come from all walks of life and all ages attend these courses will stay the whole tern. There will usually be only a couple who drop out after a few classes.
At these computer courses there will be a screen at the top of the room, like a small cinema screen. The teacher will be down the back writing out the code which will appear on this screen. You'll simply copy down what code he's writing. If something he's doing does not work on your computer you just have to ask and you'll get help from the teacher.
Marks out of 10 ? I'd give it a 9.
A tip I would give any one attending these courses is that when you are given sheets of code at the end of each class that you go home and practise writing the code out on your own computer. This will serve you well for the following week. Always try and stay one step ahead of the posse.
What to bring with you on the day ? I brought a note book and a pen, that's all you'll need to bring as everything else is provided. Like any course you attend it's handy to write down a few pointers while the teacher is talking.
There will be about 50% men and the same for women, not all are Irish who attend. For example about half of the people attending the course I went on were from outside Ireland who came here in the last 10 years.
There will be no exam at the end of the course term as some people imagine there is. You'll be presented with a bit of paper just to say you were on the course and actually finished the term, that's all you'll get.
Some of the students there will already have built a website before going on these courses. I met a man there who had a website with over 20,000 pages on it. Again you may wonder why such people were on these courses ? as I said above a lot are sent by the Department Of Social Welfare and must attend or their dole payments will be cut. Their attendance are a complete waste of tax payers money as they already know how to build a website, this is a flaw in the system.