I’m a graphic designer that learned to build static sites way back in 1997 or so and most of my freelance and later employment has utilized my self-taught internet skills. I’m now what I’ve heard described as a PHP/Javascript “tweaker”. Sometimes I know enough to be dangerous but I’m finding my way. I started learning drupal with some success but found it difficult when building larger, more complex sites. Wordpress has been a fairly easy transition and that’s been my platform for the last two years.

I’d like to get back to drupal as our business is attracting diocesan interest and national organizations . From what I can tell many designers from the 90s are in the same situation. I’d like to hear from anyone with experience either way as to whether it’s best to go back to school to add these computer science and programming languages to my skills or are there quality online courses that will do the same job?

I don’t think I’d ever want to strictly be a programmer but I do enjoy learning and php and javascript seem like my next goals.

Any guidance is greatly appreciated!

Matt