One of the fastest-growing and most profitable industries is the field of Web design, and if you’ve been thinking of a career change or establishing an income stream in your free time, you should learn how to use MIS degree to develop websites. The truth is that you don’t need a degree at all to develop websites, but with the computer science knowledge you get with an MIS degree, you can learn the most advanced, robust and secure Web development frameworks relatively quickly. With the business and management knowledge you receive, you have a steep advantage when it comes to assembling a team and finding financial backers.
All the computer science education you need for Web development comes during the first two years of a computer science degree, and MIS students take most of these courses as well. Computer science students usually don’t learn Web programming; they learn the fundamentals of object-oriented programming and how to choose the best data structures and algorithms for an application. If you have no plans to become an application developer or software engineer, there is no reason to take junior- and senior-level computer science courses covering formal language theory, automata theory and discrete mathematics.
How to Start Learning Web Development
For the most part, websites and Web applications use a simple design pattern called model-view-controller (MVC). In the Django programming framework, this pattern is called model-template-view. In both cases, the model portion consists of data, usually stored in database tables, for all aspects of the site. For example, on a forum, one table may be called Posts and store all the forum’s posts, and another table may be called Users and store user account information.
The controller portion listens for events and retrieves data from the model. For example, an event may be the click of a link to open a recent forum thread, and the controller listens for the click and searches the database for the selected thread.
The site’s template is the part that consists of HTML, CSS and JavaScript code. It displays the site’s look and feel to users and perhaps some simple JavaScript routines, such as a drag-and-drop file upload page. Programmers keep the model, controller and view sections separate so that they can easily update the code when needed.
For MIS graduates, learning Web development is simply a matter of understanding MVC programming and learning several languages, such as PHP, Django, HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Building websites with these frameworks is very straightforward, and it should take most MIS graduates only one or two months to become proficient.
Breaking Into the Field of Web Design
At this point, you must begin using your business knowledge to form a plan. If you have no money starting out, you can work freelance until you build up a list of clientele, or you can find investors to fund your startup. To build a successful, high-traffic website that generates a revenue stream, you probably need to hire graphic designers, marketers and additional programmers. To start a Web design business, you need a list of clientele and perhaps a few employees.
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According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the field of Web design is growing faster than average, and MIS graduates have an advantage over most people just getting into this profession. If you enjoy designing dynamic structures and solving technical problems, continue learning how to use MIS degree to develop websites.