So you want to work in the web?

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Published:
9th July, 2018
Author:
Phil Shackleton
Category:
Work in the Web

So you Want to Work in the Web? is a 3-day intensive workshop for students who want to learn about the real web industry. It’s going to be an exciting event that (thanks to some amazing sponsors) we’ll be offering free to any student in full-time education.

We’re going to cover a range of subjects that we feel are crucial to working in the web, but aren’t often found in formal education programmes – things like version control with Git, CSS processing with Sass, and Responsive Web Design. The workshop will have very limited places, and students can apply for a place from today.

We’re aiming to not only educate the students, but introduce them to the culture and atmosphere of working in a real industry atmosphere. We’ll be hosting the event at our new offices in Harrogate where we’ll keep them well looked after with plenty of free snacks, pizza, and beer – as well as treating them to breakfasts and other treats at local hotspots.

On the final day of the workshop, we’ll finish early and head over to Leeds, where we’ll be hosting a networking event in a local bar which will be open to all students – not just our attendees. There’ll be a generous bar tab, and we’ll be inviting professionals from across the region to join in and meet the students.

Why are we doing this?

Over the past few years, we’ve done a lot of work with local universities (Leeds Uni, Leeds Met, and York College), teaching guest lectures and running technical workshops and generally trying to build stronger connections between the web industry and formal education.

I myself graduated from the University of Leeds a little over a year ago. The course I studied was great, and I wouldn’t be here at Mixd if it wasn’t for it, but I often felt like I was missing out on some of the real skills I needed to get a job. This was validated in my second year when I first started working with Mixd and discovered that being a web developer involved an awful lot more than what was covered in my degree. I knew I wasn’t alone in thinking this, as many of my fellow students agreed, and in going back to different universities to teach with Mixd over the past couple of years, I’ve learnt that things aren’t changing all that much.

Of course, this is nothing new. The web is a fast changing industry and academic programmes are typically slow in keeping up – they focus on theory and concept (which is still as useful as ever), but lack on technical skills and best practices. It’s up to us (the people working in the web) to make sure the bonds between academia and industry are kept strong.

By running this event, we’re hoping to encourage students to really build upon what they’re learning at University, and supplement that by learning the key principles and practices that we use in the industry today.

Helping out

Of course, putting on an event like this isn’t cheap, and it means me and the rest of the team will be taking a lot of time away from client work to organise and run the sessions. We already have a bunch of great partners and sponsors who are helping us by offering to contribute towards our expenses and provide books and resources for students, but we’re hoping to get a few more people involved.

You can follow @workintheweb on Twitter for updates, visit workintheweb.com for info, or email me directly with any questions or feedback.