BC Courses: Web site Designer Certificate

1. What is the minimum and maximum class sizes? The minimum class size is 1 and maximum is 5. Students are able to receive one-on-one time with the Teacher when the class size is under 5 people. Instructors are always on the premises when not teaching so that teacher accessibility is at its maximum. We have also just successfully negotiated the lease of the unit next to us.


2. What is the instructor to student ratio? 1 instructor to 5 students minimum, sometimes a course may only have 2, 3, or 4 students depending on time of year and course hours that a student selects. Also, many times there is one-on-one teaching between the students and teacher.


3. Do the instructors have recent industry experience? northStudio.com is very unique in that we are the ONLY computer training center in Victoria that offers classes taught by real working professionals. When we aren't teaching, we are developing complete websites, designing custom graphics, desktop publishing and developing database applications for our clients. You get the most up-to-date training with northStudio.com because we rely on tomorrow's technologies to develop solutions for our clients, therefore we are constantly updating our skills and applying those skills directly to the classroom to pass down to our students.


4. What related qualifications and years of experience do the instructors have? Many of our instructors have 5+ years in the industry. Our instructors specialize in animation, web design, database theory, application development, desktop publishing, tourism and lodging and accommodation. I have 7 years experience in the industry, my specialty is graphic design and web development. Our lead programmer has 30 + years experience as a programmer of languages such as dBase, Java, php, and the granddaddy programming language of them all, Oracle.


5. What comments do current and past students offer about the training they received? One of our interns, Amanda Irwin came to us from the College of William and Mary, the same college that Thomas Jefferson attended as well as Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey and more. Amanda turned down a job interview with the NSA (National Security Advisor) to conduct an internship program with northStudio.com. A testimonial from Amanda can be found at the bottom of this page as well as a testimonial from Virginia Boyd : http://www.school.northstudio.com/internships/index.html

Virginia is the owner of The Lighthouse Retreat, a 5 star getaway destination in Sooke. She is a former student of northStudio.com and continues to conduct business and relationships with us since her completion. Please contact her regarding any questions you may have about northStudio.com her number is 250-646-2345


You are more than welcome to interview the above 2 interns . Their e-mails can be found on the web site and they are very good at answering any of your questions. They can give testimony as to how they found our training and our programs. There is a list of testimonials from Students at this address: http://www.northstudio.com/testimonials/index.html. We also have current interns that would be glad to talk to you briefly about their experience.


6. Do employers recognize the training program? Employers recognize the portfolio you leave northStudio.com with. Being able to list off a number of skills to an employer brings great satisfaction but does not always result in a job nor employer confidence, but being able to show them a portfolio of the work you have done at northStudio.com speaks volumes to the level of ability you achieved and is concrete proof of your accomplishments and level of your ability. All of our programs are consistently being required by employers and the applications you learn these skills on are also the software requirements that employers are seeking. We don't teach you how to develop websites using software that employers aren't asking for, we teach you how to build websites on software that employers are asking for MOST.


7. What percentage of recent graduates have found work in the field for which they were trained? To the best of our knowledge, all of our students or a great portion thereof have obtained employment or furthered their employment position directly from the training they received from northStudio.com. Some of our students have received work before they were even finished school.


8. What percentage found work in the Victoria area? Unknown, we don't track student employment by location on a student by student basis. We do know that many of our students have been able to find work locally in Victoria sometime after completing their training here. We have also had several students secure employment as independent contractors from Victoria but servicing people on a global scale. We have shown them that Victoria isn't the only workforce they have to seek employment from. We teach our interns how to market themselves globally rather than contained to a geographic region.


9. If books are included in tuition costs are they up to current industry standards? Textbooks are purchased by the student through us at our cost. We do not mark up the price of the books. Software versions are constantly changing and we are consistantly upgrading. With every licensed copy of software that we purchase, a textbook is accompanied with it. The textbooks are therefore always current. Some schools will continue to teach outdated software versions, because we rely on the latest software tools for our studio development, we only offer the same level of software technology to our students. Textbooks are not always needed for all parts of courses as we supply real-world examples and current market information.


10. Do you have a book, materials and exam list from the school showing what you need and the costs? All of our course information can be found online at http://www.school.northstudio.com/. Almost every bit of information you need can be found there. A pre-evaluation of your basic computer skills will be ascertained via interview by one of our instructors. Our web designer course has recently been upgraded and the new curriculum will be published and offered in January 2004.


11. Does the technology used in the training relate to current industry standards? Absolutely. Everything we teach is up to par with today's industry standards. We would never be able to secure a development contract with anyone if we didn't produce products that were not current and competitive with the market.


12. If unpaid work experience or practicum component involved, is its completion a requirement of graduation? Conducting a work experience program is not necessarily required in order for Graduation from the program to be achieved, however, it is strongly recommended that you apply your classroom skills in a real-world environment before attempting to seek employment in the workforce. Many employers will require some level of past experience in the industry. By completing a work experience program or internship with northStudio.com, you will be going to potential employers with "current" work experience, contacts in the industry, and clientele which you know on a personal basis.


13. What is your tuition cost? This all depends on which courses you wish to take. Please refer to www.school.northstudio.com for course curriculum and pricing. There are no administrative fees or registration fees associated with our courses. Please be aware that the web designer curriculum and Internship have been improved for the 2004 year. The new curriculum is attached and will be posted on our web site in December.


14. What are the other instructional costs such as books? Books are billed at the current publisher's price. We offer no mark-up on our textbooks. There are no other expenses associated with any of our courses.


15. Do you have instructors that teach classes with lectures, demonstrations and hands-on projects? Database design and theory includes some level of lecturing to discuss the concept of structured design analysis. Web development requires some lecturing to discuss the concept of the internet. Demonstrations are constantly being conducted in our classroom and reference to existing northStudio.com projects are always being shared with the class.


16. Are students supplied with a computer and software to use during the course, that is for their use exclusively? Student all get their own workstation, we will create a specific user on that station and password protect the data associated with that user. All software is provided and is fully licensed to northStudio.com by the vendors. A student is welcome to use the computer any time that another class is not scheduled and can stay in the office during office hours. We are currently open Monday to Friday 8:30 - 6 or 7:00pm and usually all day on weekends. We are also open on most holidays.


17. Does the school have qualified technical staff available during classes, to ensure that the equipment functions 100% of the time? Yes, we have network administrators on hand to ensure fully functioning equipment and systems. Any computer repair we need is conducted by Mother Computers, a retail store only 500 feet away.


18. Does the school sponsor local high-tech associations that are active in the industry? We have been involved in many community projects where we supply services such as free web design, free web hosting, free email accounts and more. We have even assisted the Oak Bay Tourism association with the installation and deployment of an Eagle Cam at the Oak Bay Fire Hall , and a marine cam at the Oak Bay Marina.


19. How long does it take to find work after graduation? Timelines indicating when a student will obtain employment after graduating is very difficult to predict. A number of variables like skills obtained, level of skill obtained, personal student character, physical location of student, and the strength of the industry affect the amount of time required to obtain employment.


20. Can the instruction be fitted to my schedule--absent from class Mon. 9:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m., Wed. 1:00 - 3:30 p.m., Fri. 12:30 - 3:30 p.m. during the months that I am in Victoria (Nov. - Apr.)? I farm in Alberta May to Oct. We are very flexible in adjusting time to meet the demands of a students busy schedule. We will need some indication of when your schedule will stop and start, then we will compare it to our classroom schedule and find a way to work with you balancing your needs with the needs of the office.