Universities are great places to learn a lot of things. Traditional four-year programs offer a lot of courses that are of huge benefit to students. One program, though, that seems to be out of place in most traditional universities is web design.

The reason I say this is because, unfortunately, I chose to major in web design at a traditional college. I'm writing this post as I sit in a junior level web design class which is teaching the very basics of HTML and CSS. A junior level class! I have spent four years in college. I'm now in my last semester and they are trying to teach me basics.

Don't get me wrong, if it weren't for going to a traditional college, I probably never would have taken an interest in web design. The problem that I have with both of the schools I've gone to is that they tend to teach out-of-date design practices. I feel bad for a lot of my classmates when I hear the instructor teaching inline style sheets and saying things like "Pages that use anchor links to other parts of the page are badly designed." (I completely disagree with that statement, there are plenty of good reasons to link to other parts of the same page). A lot of the people sitting next to me in these classes have no idea that they aren't being taught best practice.

I guess I should be thankful, though. Because of my strong interest in web design, I have taken it upon myself to spend huge amounts of time outside of class -- sometimes during class too -- to learn on my own. I owe a lot to resources like the Boagworld Podcast, numerous websites, and the great books that those places have recommended.

If you're a college student learning web design, and you feel like you might be learning bad techniques, I would strongly encourage you to go out there and learn things on your own time. There are tons of sites around that focus on web standards and best design practices. Off the top of my head I would recommend A List Apart, Boagworld, and Sitepoint.