Is it getting harder for young web designers to enter the field?

I am just coming up to the 1 year landmark in the career in a small agency. Started tinkering around at 12 and now 19. Left college twice and never went to university. I didn't need the education, I needed a little bit of experience, but mostly, the passion for it and willingness to learn. If you have those 2 things, the rest will fall in place. Sure, it's not easy and I was probably very lucky, but if I did it, why can't anyone else?

As a manager now and a web developer of over 15 years, I find the quality of applicants is shocking these days. The great thing about people fresh out of college is they are very easy to hire and vet. If they think they know everything, they know nothing. If they want to learn and they show an interest, then they get a job. It's hiring experienced staff that is actually hard work, as the level of excellence at one company can vary vastly from another. I've had people with no qualfications or experience who admit to knowing little do very well, and people with very solid and long CVs turn out to be clueless.

I studied Graphic Design and Illustration at Uni for the simple reason I liked the subject and I wanted to experience the uni life. I finished with an average grade but couldnt get more than an interview anywhere without being told lack experience. So I took an unpaid internship as a web designer and learnt more in the 3 months doing that than 3 years of uni. I also gained the job full time and am entirely focused on web design. University courses simply can't keep up with Web Design as it is such a fast changing industry. For example I finished uni just over a year ago. Mobile browsing was only just being used properly and now you have to consider tablets, changing mobile sizes eg iPhone 5 within the space of a year. Teachers wouldnt have time to learn all that as well as tutoring current classes. But if I had a choice I would still do it all again even if I didn't learn much it was a good introduction into the field working with so many people wanting to do the same thing.

I think it's entirely up to the individual whether or not college courses or degrees help aspiring designers and developers. As a recent college graduate, I can confirm that college often doesn't teach exactly what you'd need to know to do good work on the web today. In fact, I barely had any web design instruction at all. But, I didn't go to college to become a web designer. I went to college because I wanted to be challenged intellectually, and I picked a school based on that, not the design program. I wasn't 100% certain out of high school what I wanted to do. That being said, I grew a lot in those four years, in ways I never would have if I hadn't gone to college. I learned a lot about myself, about people, culture, psychology, sociology, art, computers, and yes, design. I think there's a lot more to being a good designer than just understanding the principles of design, and it's easier to learn them at college, but hardly impossible to learn them outside. The technical stuff is a lot easier to learn outside of school. For me, it was absolutely worth it. There's nowhere else in the world where I could have met the friends I made (almost none of them are designers or even in tech at all), or learned all that I learned in those four years, and I wouldn't trade it for the world. On the other hand, I also feel like I got out of college knowing next to nothing about the real world of design, and now that I've realized I want to work with the web, I feel like I don't know nearly enough about that either. That's a choice I consciously made, and I'm okay with working as hard as I can on my own to remedy that now. The internet makes it wonderfully easy to teach yourself a lot of the skills you need. But that's also why I don't think college is right for everyone. I think most people *could* benefit a lot with the right attitude and the right major (which wouldn't necessarily be in just design or tech). But some people aren't going to want to go to class and learn, and more importantly, college an extremely expensive life choice. If you're not going to work hard and get the most out of those four years, don't go. If you don't want to go, don't go. If it's going to set you back financially to the point that it screws you for the rest of your life, think seriously about whether or not it's going to be worth it, or if you can make it worth it. Because with the right skills and attitude, in this industry, you can go just a far without a degree as anyone who has one.

Interesting. My company gets interns in because we're passionate about education and want to have a good effect on the web community (honestly, plus you never know, they might stay and do good things). So far we've found people who have the understanding of how to create websites using newer technologies/techniques, but lack the understanding of foundational principles and the habits of good web design (things like appropriate fallbacks and using the right technology for the right purpose), ie. it's not always done with Javascript! It's difficult to find well rounded interns with a breadth of knowledge, though this isn't me complaining. It's fun to try and figure out what they need to learn and the best way to help them learn it. Once that's done, suddenly you can find everything clicks. The only snag is that often the things the intern needs to learn are seen as the boring bits. I can see that making that exciting *and* working within the constraints of a production environment may be too much for even the most dedicated intern or employer.

I don't think people need college or university to get anywhere at all. I'm currently 18, working at the digital agency gamaroff digital in London. I started web design when I was 13 and made the decision that I was going to focus on my skills and getting better at what I loved doing. Eventually I found myself with a few freelance clients and in my spare time while at school I spent my weekends freelancing rather than getting a Saturday job. I loved it. I then made the decision at the age of 15 that I wouldn't go to uni and would spend the next few years growing my portfolio so that by the time I was to leave college I would have quite a lot of experience and some good work to look at. After my first year of college, I put up my portfolio. On the day of putting it up an circulating it around the twittersphere, a few mere hours afterwards I was contacted by an agency who had liked my work, inviting me for an interview. I went to the interview and a week after outing my portfolio up, I was offered a full time web design job in London, at the age of 17. I worked hard at the agency I was at, keen to improve my skills and eventually go up the ladder again. A year later, I'm now working at an agency that works with some massive brands, doing the job I dreamt of when I was 13. So my answer is no, to be successful - you certainly don't need uni. In our industry, experience speaks for itself!