Many freshmen students start out college undeclared; they aren’t sure what they want to major in and hope to use their first year to find something they want to study. Unfortunately, many students take up to 2 years to decide on a major, and they may even switch majors several times up into their junior year. This wastes a lot of time and money, and can significantly delay graduation.
If you have no idea what you want to major in, one option you might consider is taking time off from college. If taking a break isn’t an option for you, doing your research and finding a major you can be passionate about should be your number one priority. The sooner you declare a major that you want to stick with, the more you can focus on taking the classes you need to graduate, allowing you to stay on track to graduate on time.
This web development feature is one in a continuing series of “Undeclared” posts. Other majors that have been explored include cybersecurity, education, linguistics, data sciences, communications, and accounting.
A Degree in Web Development
In today’s world, web development is a prominent field. As stated by Skillcrush, at the broadest level, “Web development is the process of taking the plans and layouts created by web designers, then coding them into live, functioning websites. Web developers, also called programmers, are the people who do it.” With this definition in mind, it’s easy to see why web developers are needed in practically every industry and business. After all, does a business even truly exist if it doesn’t have a website?
Web development professionals and those in related careers report starting salaries of about $61,512 a year. A few years of experience can result in salary hikes up to $128,148 a year.
Unlike other career paths, you don’t need a degree in web development to succeed in the field. It’s possible to get into web development even after majoring in a completely unrelated subject if you’re willing to put in the time and effort to self-learn essential web development skills. That being said, an undergraduate degree in computer science does make it easier to break into this field and will equip you with some of the necessary tools you need to succeed in your career.
The fundamental skills required for web development can differ slightly depending on the type of career you choose. For instance, those interested in front-end programming would need to thoroughly know languages like HTML, CSS, and Javascript. In contrast, back-end developers would want to focus on languages like PHP, Python, and Ruby. You might also need to be familiar with CMS software like WordPress.
Essentially, adequate knowledge and a level of comfort with coding is a must when it comes to web development. While a grasp over mathematical concepts is certainly helpful, you don’t need to be able to do advanced mathematics to pursue coding and development. In fact, the Skillcrush article cited above states that “critical thinking skills and an eye for design are a much bigger part of the job than advanced calculations.”
Depending on the particular career, you may need to do additional courses in coding and development to supplement your undergraduate education. However, there are many web development careers that are open to those even with a bachelor’s degree.
Entry-Level Web Developer
An entry-level web developer is one who specializes in creating websites. At this level, only a basic knowledge of HTML and CSS is required. This field has a very low entry-point and is a great way to kickstart your web development career. This position can also act as a launchpad for more complex careers in the software engineering world, should you choose that route. An entry-level web developer position can be an ideal job for recent graduates, who are still trying to find their footing in the world.
WordPress Specialist
WordPress specialists are a niche-type of web developers. Today, more than 20% of the world’s websites are powered by WordPress. Thus, familiarizing yourself with the nuances of WordPress can make for a lucrative full-time or freelance career.
The duties of a WordPress developer include designing and coding themes and plug-ins, managing WordPress content, and customizing websites. Sometimes, developers will have to deploy and backup sites, as well as manage and integrate various versions with Git and GitHub.
Obviously, you need to be exceptionally well-versed with WordPress for this job. Additionally, you will need to be skilled in Git, GitHub, PHP, HTL and CSS. Non-CS skills required for this career include having an eye for design, understanding functionality and user experience, and being adaptive to clients’ needs.
SEO Specialist
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a broad and growing field that boasts various niche career opportunities. Becoming an SEO specialist is a great way to gain exposure to the field in general. It will help you gain an overview of various aspects of SEO, after which you can further develop your skills in your particular areas of preference. The main goal of SEO is to ensure that good content is instantly visible on search engines and doesn’t get lost somewhere in the corners of the internet.
As a SEO specialist, you will have to work with your clients to boost their search engine results page (SERP) rankings. This sort of job involves everything from gaining inbound links to increase traffic to auditing metadata and tags. An SEO specialist might also need to optimize web copy and suggest future content ideas, as well as measure the impact of work through analytics. You might even need to dabble in technical SEO, which is “branch of the wider SEO industry that focuses on analyzing a website’s technical features that interact with search engine crawlers.” Finally, you will have to measure the impact of your efforts using tools like analytics.
As you can see, a career in SEO demands a wide variety of skills. A basic knowledge of HTML and CSS is definitely useful in this field, as well as proficiency in Google Analytics. Additionally, you will have to hone other skills such as critical thinking, the ability to speak with clients, and content generation and storytelling. In this career, it is crucial that you are flexible and can quickly adapt to new circumstances, as the SEO field is constantly evolving.
Full Stack Developer
A “full stack” developer is one who has both front-end and back-end developing skills. This sort of developer is capable of seeing a project from start to finish by creating a fully functional web application from scratch. A full stack developer is responsible for everything from programming visual interfaces to navigating the complex back-end systems that users aren’t even aware of.
Beyond coding skills in HTML, CSS, Javascript, Python, Scala, etc., a good understanding of human and machine interaction is also a must. Experts at Codeup state that a full stack developer should be proficient in quality assurance, security concerns, understanding server, network and hosting environments, as well as relational and nonrelational databases. Reaching the qualification level of a full stack developer is no easy feat; it takes years of experience in different programming languages, as well as in different industries. Because of the time and effort required to get to this level, full stack developers are in high demand.
These are just a handful of the careers you can consider when it comes to web development and related fields. If you gravitate towards coding, programming, and/or user design and experience, be sure to take some web development classes next semester. You might find that it’s your passion!
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Jori Hamilton is a writer and journalist from the Pacific Northwest who covers social justice issues, healthcare, and politics. You can follow her work on twitter @HamiltonJori or through her portfolio.
