UCSD Extension

I wish I had anything positive to say about my experience with UCSD Extension. I took the Python for Informatics online course, and it was disappointing, frustrating, confusing, and in the end, a massive waste of time and money. I was thinking that I would like to learn some programming, but was feeling a little intimidated because I didn’t have any experience coding. I thought maybe a beginner course through UCSD Extension was a good place to start, and incorrectly thought that perhaps because it was so expensive compared to the other online options, I’d get great instruction and valuable feedback on my code.
Unfortunately, taking this class was an expensive mistake. If you are thinking of taking this course, SAVE YOUR MONEY. The textbook for the course is Python for Informatics by Charles Severance. This book is excellent, approachable, entertaining, and easy to follow. You can buy the book from Amazon or download the pdf for free:
As a complete programming novice, I was able to read the text book and write the code for the exercises without much difficulty. I think using the book to teach yourself some basic principles is a great idea.
The course offered by UCSD Extension is labeled as being for people with no programming experience. It costs over $ 600 and the «instructor» simply restates the information from the textbook. The «lessons» are no more than an audio file of the instructor reading text-​only slides that are nearly identical to the content in the book. Occasionally there are mistakes in the slides or information is stated in a way that makes things more confusing, and at no point did the lectures add useful information or make anything clearer than it was in the book. The assignments for the course are no more than mild reworking of the identical problems that are in book. The instructor states in the course information (which you can only see after signing up and paying the fee) that he will not help students with debugging code, and instead students should ask each other for help in the discussion forum. Additionally, part of the grade was to write quiz questions based on the material, and then take aggressively timed, pointless quizzes that sometimes asked the same question more than once or asked questions from material that had not been covered. It seemed as though the quizzes were simply questions written by other students that had not been reviewed by anyone. Also, given the lack of instructor engagement and the way assignments were graded, there is absolutely no attempt to help students learn from mistakes.
So if there is no helpful instruction, no assistance with coding, and you have to spend hours writing the quizzes for the instructor, why pay for the course? Buy or download the book for free, and if it turns out you enjoy programming, take online courses through Coursera or Codecademy or Udacity. You will get better instruction and better feedback for a whole lot less money. If you think that this course might look good on your resume, a free course will look just as good, and you can spend that money on something that won’t waste your time.

I’m currently taking Spanish for communication. I am learning a lot and slowly learning to speak
It. The classes do vary a little from teacher to teacher. I currently have Rebecca Ramirez and I’ve really enjoyed the course. I’ve noted that there are less date options as you advance to higher levels 3+. Parking is terrible. No matter what time of day/​night it is they will try to ticket you and make more money off you. You also have to pay to get transcripts which is ridiculous considering you already pay to be a student. Staff in transcript office can be rude, not acknowledging you when you walk up to the desk. Also instead of using blackboard you have to pay to access the textbook software in order to turn assignments in. Just an additional added cost, annoying.

So, I’m new to UCSD extension and have only been in their marketing program for a month now, but so far I’m LOVING IT! I tried a program at the CSUSM campus and it was good, but UCSD blows their program out of the water. From the moment you step into the campus, it’s all business and very professional. The content and professors (the 2 I’ve had so far, Michael Baehr and Shahrzad Nouraini) are top notch. I had no idea that UCSD extension was regarded as so prestigious but many companies favor employees that complete programs here. Through the online courses, I have met students from all over the world. It’s feels so great to finally be in the right place to advanced career.
I just started my program so I will update this review upon completion a year from now. So far, so great!

You do NOT want to deal with the staff here, TRUST ME. I’ve known multiple friends who have lost their jobs because this department takes their sweet time filing applications, while managing to lose some in the process. Applications that should take no longer than one month to process have taken longer than fourteen months due to the incompetency of the staff here, especially Nathalie, and this in turn causes competent employees to lose their jobs. The staff is pathetic at best, and does not hold a care in the world for the students they are supposed to be serving. After multiple calls and emails over months and months, we were told that we would have to «resubmit an application» over one year later, while our jobs hung on the line, and the office staff seemed nonchalant about it. They are SLOW, do not care about their students’ well-​being AT ALL, and seem like they are all about the money and not about the students’ interests. AVOID THESE PEOPLE AT ALL COSTS. Your future may depend on it.

I’ve been taking several professional marketing courses at UCSD Extension this year and my experience has been SUPER WONDERFUL! I graduated from UCSD several years ago with a BA and now I am going back part-​time to be a certified marketing professional. Much better than the community colleges, UCSD Extension’s Marketing curriculum is informative, challenging, and fun. There are so many intelligent people in my classes, so the conversations can be really fun. They’ve recently changed their marketing requirements for the certificate and now it’s more focused on internet marketing, which I think is much more relevant and interesting.
Since I’m working full-​time, it’s tough sometimes to go to class after a long stressful day at work; however, I would highly recommend taking courses at UCSD Extension for anyone who wants to advance their career or explore new opportunities. I think that their course curriculum are relative to the working world and up-​to-​date with what’s going on in the world – not just only the U.S.
Plus, parking at the Greenwich campus is FREEEEE!

Great professional certificate program taught by (mostly) quality teachers. Took the accounting certification program to obtain enough credits and qualifications to sit for the CPA. I’m very happy with the program and the courses offered. The pricing is cheap in my opinion for what you get in return.

This review has to do with PDI which is UCSD offers credit for. Whatever you do, stay away from this company.
This company is very deceitful in it’s practices, and I’d advise you to stay away at all costs! I’d started emailing Jenna PDI a few months before I was about to take the courses. I asked about deals/​discounts, and she didn’t offer me anything. When I saw the 10% off sale, I emailed Jenna and she told me that it was a great time to take the classes… that it was a very good sale. Literally 4 days later, the prices dropped by another 15% totally a 25% discount! I asked nicely that since I had paid only a few days ago, if I could get a credit for the difference. I was even willing to cancel the classes and start over again. She refused using some excuse that the pricing was fixed and some system issue. Know that when you buy from PDI, they are completely unwilling to help with any refunds/​credits etc after 48hrs as they told me… Jenna even told me that she’d have her supervisor email me to resolve the issue — but would not provide me with her contact email or phone number. It was very shady. Her supervisor emailed me the exact same thing, but this time worded her email in a very political way. I asked her again for a credit and she nicely refused. She wouldn’t call or furnish me a contact number except for her email address.
Now for the content. When I got to taking the classes, I actually thought that the information was going to be useful, but it turned out to be a rubber stamping education facility. The one unit computer classes that I took turned out to be 4 tests with ten questions each — which made it seems like a joke of a class even for a unit… but here is the bad part. Even though I got A’s and B’s on my tests, the questions were ridiculous. They focused in on word games and open interpretations to what the question asked and what it really asked… kind of like the old SAT tests that they had back in the 80’s. It wasn’t focused on learning but on beating the system. I seriously question the practicality of them. I hardly learned anything from them, and if it wasn’t for the few units that I paid extra to get with them, I found the classes to be absolutely worthless.

Great facilities. I have been taking the marketing certification program and have found to be an excellent way to sharpen my skills. SOme classes are better than others depending on the teachers.
I have had some great ones (Michael Baehr teaches advertising strategies and PR, Christopher Foster, Product management)
Stay competitive and update your knowledge! Greenwhich location facilities are nice and new

I am a current student at the UCSD paralegal program the director Julia Dunlap and her staff are very professional, and very helpful. What I like about UCSD extension is their flexibility (specially for those of us that have full time jobs) and the convenience of their small campus.
When I went for an orientation at UCSD paralegal program Ms. Dunlap was very helpful and answered all my questions in a very kind way. For this reason I decided to stay and I am very satisfied here. Azra Mukanovic is the student coordinator for this program and she is also very nice and polite.
My experience at UCSD extension has been great, I cannot speak for the other programs that are offered at UCSD extension, but the paralegal program is great and I totally recommend it.

I just completed the UCSD HR Program. I have nothing but great things to say. The program gave me both professional and personal growth. Some of the professors could have been better hand picked or had more industry experience. They are still trying to figure it out but it can only get better. I would recommend the program to anyone in the HR feild.

For the life of me, I cannot understand why so many seemingly former students are giving the UCSD extension campus such negative reviews? Is it possible that these reviews are from shills working for other face-​paced high tech schools here in the San Diego area? After looking at many of their Unilocal review résumés, my educated guess (pun intended) would be YES!
After giving those neg-​head Unilocaler’s a second look, I came to understand that many of them have a very unimpressive zero to 8 total reviews here on Unilocal,most have been filtered out by Unilocal moderators and thankfully so, but they are there if you are looking to see them.
Here is my personal experience and what I have to share with everyone:
Currently, I am an actively enrolled student here at UCSD Extension campus and I have been since September 2012. My educational experience thus far with UCSD Extension has been nothing short of stellar performance. All of my instructors are top-​notch educators of whom some are Professor’s over on the UCSD main campus. A good number of my classmate’s are currently both grad and undergrad’s of UCSD. Also, there are a good number of UCSD, UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, San Francisco & San Jose State alumni attending classes as well.
Look at «Randy E’s.» review here on this page. Randy gives this school 1 star while peddling a FREE coupon for San Diego City Colleges, what a chode.
I am working on two individual certificate programs, and I can say without any equivocation that today I have a well-​built working knowledge of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Dreamweaver, WordPress, Drupal and much more.
Does this mean that I am fully prepared to go out and apply for a high paying job at Google or Amazon right now? Absolutely not. One of the many things that I have learned here at UCSD is that it is going to take me «YEARS» to gain mastery over the three web coding languages that I have chosen to put as my focus. The three languages being HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript and I challenge anybody to tell me that it does not take years to master these coding languages. It’s a continental divide between understanding and having mastery over a subject, today I have a good and solid understanding of those particular coding languages thanks to UCSD and my personal hard work.
Two of my former Instructors of whom both are still on staff; Merick Findling and Thomas A. Powell. Both are leaders in their respected fields and have given me so much insight while learning from their instructions. Mr. Powell has written as many as 10 textbooks that are being utilized at many Universities across the world today covering the subjects of HTML, CSS, JavaScript and web development.
Don’t just take my word for it, go to
for yourself and type the name «Thomas A. Powell» into the book section and see for yourself. Does he come across as a third rate educator to you?
If you really believe those Unilocal reviews where the person leaving a comment has little to «NO» Unilocal friends and/​or little to «NO» previous Unilocal reviews then you have much to learn about Unilocal and how it works, my friend. Take a good look at my Unilocal profile and you will see that I have been a Unilocaler for well over 4 years now (Elite for 2) with hundreds of friends and hundreds of reviews as well.
In closing, if you pass up on UCSD Extension classes based on the negative reviews here on this page then quite simply, it will be your loss. These days, one has to fully understand what it means to be compliant with W3C standards while steering away from deprecated coding practices. The days of faking it until you make it in this industry are quickly becoming a figment of the past.
Cheers and good luck!

I attended and completed the DAC program back in 2008.
I’ve had a very successful career as a UI/​UX designer & Front-​End Developer for several companies and UCSD since 2009, so I’ve have a few years to digest the things that I’ve learned at DAC and wanted share my experience.
Looking back at the program, there were a lot of things that needed much much improvement with the program. But it was not a total waste of time as some reviewers have put it.
Here’s a list of things that I’ve really enjoyed:
— Having a certification from UCSD was instrumental in helping me start my career. No matter the quality of the course, the name UCSD really does resonate with companies in San Diego.
— Henry Hikima was a Art Center graduate who worked for Disney. He taught us typography and concept design. He was awesome.
— John Lane did have a lot knowledge in print design, design theory, and fundamentals of design.
— It is a lot cheaper then going to full sail, devry, AI, and a few other vocational school (yes, I know they offer BA — but 80K? really???)
— Small class sizes meant that you come to friend EVERYONE.
— John Lane did get me a few jobs (paid & unpaid) that got me the taste of working with real clients.
— Having a class at night meant that I could still have a full-​time job (as long as you’re willing to put in the hours past midnight)
— Went to go visit Mires+Ball design agency. This was possible by a faculty member that was fired, while I do agree he needed to more tactful — I have no ill-​will towards him.
— Photography class was awesome. Learned a great deal about all aspect of photography.
Now, here’s a list of things that really needed improvement:
— John Lane often skipped class sessions for «Study Sessions.» This was inexcusable. You need to be there for your students. Same goes for the one that got fired.
— Don’t call it a job-​placement assistance if you don’t have anything structured. Craigslist is available for everyone — don’t make it sound like you’re doing us a favor.
— I feel like the quality of instruction needed to be updated to cater to what design agencies and companies are looking for nowadays.
— Faculty (including support staff) NEEDS to listen to the students. Too often the voices of concerns went unnoticed/​ignored. This added to the frustration of students.
If you can’t do something, I rather know that you can’t do it. Just be honest.
— Web development needs to be treated as such. If you can’t teach the students the proper development techniques using HTML, CSS, JS (the very foundation of web development) then it should be labeled as «Web design.» There’s a huge demand for great ui/​ux designers, I would rather have learned more about usability and color theory in web since the technical was never taught properly.
— Don’t be so arrogant. This includes the support staff. We are paying you — don’t treat us like we’re bothering you.
— Give us annual subscriptions to
. This will releve your faculty of technical short comings, and it passes the responsibility to learn to the students.
Again, I’m glad I didn’t write this review right after graduating since my head was clouded with anger & frustration.
I honestly don’t know how many of my class mates have gone to do what they were taught to do, but I know I’m doing what I love. But it did take A LOT of self-​education and continuing education to get yourself marketable.
You’ll reap what you sow. If you go with a clear understand that DAC is not a magic bullet that will suddenly make you a design & web superstar, then you’ll be just fine.
Good luck to you all.

ZERO STARS.
Talk about a RIP OFF!
The prestige of UCSD is their only selling point. Their marketing materials are not impressive and the program is a joke. Please, do not go here if you are considering graphic design. They will not guide you in the right direction or teach you anything valuable. The biggest foundation of graphic design is typography and they brush over that in a day. San Diego City College has the best design program in town and is a whole lot more affordable.
I attended Digital Arts Center (DAC) in 2007 and left the program in the second quarter. Already noticing the program was extremely unorganized, I was utterly upset when in the middle of the second quarter the instructor switched the class format to online. What educational institution does that? I paid to be in class, face-​to-​face, not uploading files and typing up critiques on Wordpress – they couldn’t even get a legit online learning application to use.
This place is a joke. They don’t have an alumni page, mainly because students graduating from this program are no where near a level that is desired by companies.
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE DO NOT INVEST YOUR TIME OR MONEY IN THIS PROGRAM.
I made the mistake of doing so and feel that it is a duty to save someone else from being taken advantage of. People get reeled in with the 1 year program and equipment /​software included in the tuition but this place is a cluster f*ck.
UPDATE: I have had a total of 3 – 4 messages in my Unilocal inbox in regards to my review from people, whose positive reviews about DAC have been filtered and their profiles are now deleted. All messages were sympathizing with me in the most sarcastic tone ever. Not to mention the time it takes in creating false Unilocal profiles to boost star ratings. Wow… really pathetic.

I am reviewing the Casual Game Development Certification Program at UCSD Extension DAC. There are currently 3 other programs at the DAC, including Graphic Design, Video /​Editing and Mobile App Development. I don’t have any insight into how those other programs were run, so I cannot comment on their quality. As for the Casual Game Development program, I highly recommend it for anyone interested in shifting toward a career in creating casual, mobile games.
I was part of the 2010 – 2011 Casual Game Development class. This was only the 2^nd year that this program was offered. The program is led by Sam Shpigelman, a game industry vet and artist, who is extremely talented, knowledgeable and always willing to help students in whichever way he can. Dr. Wei Xu provides instruction for the technical aspects of creating a game: coding and scripting. Dr. Xu was always helpful and approachable.
The course is designed in a way to give students a comprehensive understanding of all the elements that go into creating a successful casual game, including art, programming, game design and project management. In the early semesters of the course, the instructors challenge students to become familiar with the other side of the industry, and not just focus on aspects that they are comfortable with. For myself, coming from an art and marketing background, I was challenged to learn more about programming and scripting. I am by no means an expert coder, but I learned enough to understand what was going on behind the scenes in a game and create simple gaming experiences.
As an artist, I also became more familiar with software packages such as Illustrator and Maya. I was already quite adept with Photoshop and Flash, so I felt the pace of the course from the artist’s perspective was solid. However, that may not be the case for everyone, depending on their background and experience. The scripting classes moved a bit too fast for me at points, but like I said previously, I got enough of a knowledge base that I feel confident in continuing to learn scripting.
In addition to high level art and scripting instruction, this course teaches you to think like a game designer. Sam provided great insight into the psychology of games. We learned what makes a game «fun» and what elements are necessary to create rewarding experiences for gamers.
I was impressed with the way the course built up throughout the year. The first 2 semesters gave students a solid base from which to build from. We created several small games in Flash, and a small team game in Unity 3d (the development kit used in the program). During the last 2 semesters, we split into teams to focus on creating a fully realized casual game for submission on the Apple iOS App Store.
During the final project, we were critiqued by several panels featuring industry professionals who gave us invaluable feedback to improve our games. We took much of their comments to heart and our games became better for it.
Overall, I couldn’t ask for anything better. This is exactly the kind of program I was looking for as I hoped to enhance my skills and break into the game industry. I learned a great deal about the game creation process, met a group of fun, talented people who I will continue to collaborate with on future projects and gained invaluable insight from members of the casual game development industry.
Please note, however, that this program isn’t geared toward people seeking to make the next Halo. This program is tailored toward the creation of casual games, specifically, mobile games for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
If your ultimate goal is to become an independent game developer or work with a small team to create games for mobile devices, then this program is definitely for you.

This is a review of the Casual Gaming Certification Program at the UCSD Extension Digital Arts Center. This is specifically for the Casual Gaming Certification Program, I don’t know anything about the other programs.
I attended the Casual Gaming program in 2009 – 2010. Prior to applying to this program, I had considered buying all the equipment and software, and spending time studying on my own. I calculated the cost of purchasing everything (without the benefit of an educational discount), and the cost of it all came to around $ 9,500. (The Maya software alone was a few thousand dollars.) However, without classes to provide a curriculum and motivation, I highly doubted that I would actually sit down and learn all the material over the course of a several months, much less a full year. So I applied to this program with the expectation that it would be much better than if I were to study on my own, and that I would get a full year of dedicated study out of it.
As a software developer, I was interested in learning more about the digital arts aspects of making a game. Unlike other programs that I’ve seen, focused either only on programming or only on art, this program is unique in providing a balanced look at all aspects of game development, and teaches all the skills sets required to be a game developer.
The first two quarters of the course were spent learning how to use all the software, learning game design theory, and working on independent projects. Most of the instruction on how to use the software (Adobe Creative Studio, Autodesk Maya), was provided through the
service, and several hours of video was assigned as homework assignments each week. The programming instruction in the first quarter was in Flash using ActionScript 3.0, and in the second quarter, we began the Unity Game Engine, scripting in JavaScript. (Although, I hear that next year, they will drop Flash, and focus primarily on the Unity Game Engine.) The latter two quarters were spent on student-​lead game development projects, in which we were tasked with project management of our own teams, and were given set deadlines for milestones in our development. These milestones were in the form of presentations that we were required to give before an audience of members of the gaming industry. During these milestone presentations, we would receive feedback, which provide invaluable insight into the real world of the gaming industry.
It would be worth noting that this program only teaches how to deploy on iPhone using Unity, and does not teach native iPhone development in Objective-​C. As far as creating 3D games on iPhone, Unity is by far the quickest and easiest tool to making that possible, however for those programmers who wish to also learn how to make native applications on the iPhone, I would highly recommend attending classes on Objective-​C and iPhone Application Development (also offered at UCSD Extension).
Overall, I think it is a wonderful program, and would recommend it. The class size was small, with 7 – 8 students. Each class covered a relevant topic. The instructors were accessible, helpful, and engaging. And, the instructors of this program also put a lot of effort into helping their students find jobs after the program was over, and to help develop their careers. They personally helped introduce me to my current place of employment, and I am very grateful. So, simply put, they taught me a new skill, and now I’m using it to earn a living. I’m happy.

Don’t waste your time or money on this certificate program!
As a recent graduate from the DAC program I have serious regrets about taking a year out of my life and way more money than I care to admit.
Although the first half of the program (the Digital Design portion) was packed full of good information with well thought out lesson plans, the second half (the web design portion) did not live up to any of my expectations. There were no lesson plans in place and most of the class time was dedicated to study hall rather than actual instruction. The instructors couldn’t answer many of my questions and I was stuck Googling the answers — which I could have done for free all along.
I would also like to point out that the DAC classes are twice the cost of the regular classes outside of the certificate program (which is what is being offered as a comp in addition to the classes I already sat through).
Not only am I not able to get started on designing web sites to try to make some money with the skills I was supposed to have acquired and start paying off this huge student loan, but now I don’t have the time either!
If you would like to learn digital and/​or web design skip the expensive certificate program and get your education a la carte. As in my case — that’s what you may get anyway!

To prospects considering investing in the DAC program, do your homework. This is an expensive option for around $ 17,500 for a 1-​year program. It’s might be perfect for some people, but most people can get a better education at a lower price with more qualified instructors. First, look at the best FREE option at the San Diego City Colleges. For Graphic Design, check out
. Why pay thousands when there’s a quality option you can get for free from your tax dollars??? If you want to learn how to build a web site, check out these free classes:
Second, look at free tutorials on the internet. If you have the willpower to dedicate 2 nights per week, you cna learn most of the course material on your own using free tutorials at sites like
or even
.
If you want to pay for an education, consider the UCSD DAC program plus look at Coleman College, Platt College, and Mesa College. Questions to ask all 4 are:
* Can you provide detailed course descriptions?
* What are the professors’ qualifications?
* What expenses are required to be paid out of pocket?
* What type of career placement assistance do they offer?
For the DAC program, the evening course had poor professors, unstructured classes, some extra fees to be paid out of pocket even after the huge tuition, and no career placement assistance!
Do your homework first and the DAC program may be right for you, but I believe there are better options. It’s your money that you’re investing, so do it wisely so you don’t regret it later.

i just completed UCSD’s DAC program. It lasted a full year, and tuition was $ 17,500 which does include equipment (Macbook Pro laptop, a Canon EOS camera, books, and Adobe CS4 software). I spent a considerable amount of money on additional software and supplies that were not covered in the program.
I’ve been working in web marketing for 8 years, but started with no actual design skills of my own. The first half of the program, I felt was very intense, and required an extremely heavy workload, forcing me to learn Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign. The first half of the program was pretty stressful for me, but I must admit that I learned the basics of those programs, as well as design theory.
The second half of the program was a different story. It began with Dreamweaver instruction, fully in the ‘Design’ view. The method at which we were taught was how a print designer would learn to ‘get by’ designing for web. Not the way successful, well-​versed web designers function today. Later in the third quarter, we started to learn HTML in ways at which to troubleshoot, but not enough to be able to fully comprehend this programming language. Much worse, the instructor for HTML was inexcusable.
Learning that our class was unsatisfied, they brought in other instructors who tried to get us ‘caught up’ in areas such as CSS, HTML and FLASH, but at this point, it was too late. The head of our program was out of the state for almost a month, and extremely generic ‘career advisors’ came in to discuss the basics of resume writing with us. These classes were in no way ‘designer’ specific, so they were pointless and borderline insulting for most of us.
We were told that we would be given special contacts in finding careers. This essentially meant that we would be emailed craigslist postings for ‘internship’ positions. Most, if not all of our class is fully aware of Craigslist, and are perfectly capable of finding these listings ourselves. Additionally, many of us are looking for business and freelance opportunities with real clients. None of this information was offered to us as part of this course.
While I can say that I came out of this program with considerably MORE knowledge than I started with, it fell very short on being a good value at almost $ 20,000. Be careful before enrolling, as there are most likely better programs out there that will teach web the way web needs to be taught this day and age.

REVIEWS HAVE BEEN DELETED!
LIKE MINE, THESE REVIEWS EXPLAINED THE REALITY OF DAC. doesn’t ‘ben w.’ sound a lot like marketing material?
if you are interested in learning web design, do NOT attend UCSD’s Digital Arts Center program.
one year and approximately $ 20,000 later each, our class is still trying to figure out how to create a properly functioning website and how to use this ‘certificate’ to find a job.
this is not an inclusive program– it is incredibly topical. this is not a modern web design program– it is taught by teachers of the Old School. by one teacher’s admission, we were ‘too advanced for his knowledge.’ we just started learning web in january. two additional teachers had to be removed due to their poor performances and all of our teachers contradicted each other.
modern web designers need to know or at least have knowledge of CSS, XML, ActionScript 3.0, PHP, AJAX, MySQL, Content Management Systems and JavaScript among others. we touched on CSS in Dreamweaver. we touched on ActionScript 3.0 in Flash. we’re proficient in neither. the rest, although we asked, was never covered.
what we were inconsistently taught, can be learned at
.
is $ 200 a year. you’ll learn more web design in six days there than we learned in six months at DAC.
SAVE YOUR MONEY — DO NOT ENROLL IN DAC.

I’m a recent graduate of the Digital Graphic and Web Design program (DAC 12) (although I’ve still not received my certificates.) For those not familiar this is a one year, 3 nights a week (Tue/​Wed/​Thur) from 5:30 — 9:30, $ 18,000 program! (They say the tuition is $ 17,500 (which does include a laptop, camera, software and books — we’ll get to books in a minute, but they don’t tell you about all the little incidentals that add up throughout the year).
I secured my funding (through a bank loan), set aside vacations and travel and dedicated my year to this program not missing any classes. What have I gotten in return? At best a mediocre learning experience. Kind of surprising from an institution such as UCSD even if it is Extension.
Now, the first half of the program (quarters 1 & 2) were all about learning about design and print. It actually kind of kicked my you know what. Learned a lot of stuff about design and design software. Could there been more time spent on certain topics — sure (i.e. color management), but for the most part it was a tough, but good couple of quarters. There was one skirmish with an instructor who had to be let go, but he needed to be fired. He was a condescending jerk and not fit for a classroom.
However, quarters 3 & 4 — what the heck? The second half of this program was supposed to be all about the web. Learning HTML, CSS, Flash, ActionScript, JavaScript and Dreamweaver — be sure to check out their marketing materials it’s all there. So, how is it that now at the end of the program I barely know anything about any of these subjects? We’ll it’s because they don’t really know anything about any of these subjects! Our primary instructor for Dreamweaver didn’t really know the software. And the instructor for HTML/​CSS and Flash although apparently very intelligent is one of the worst instructors I’ve ever had (and I’ve had a little education — bachelor’s and master’s degrees.) In fact he was so bad he had to be removed from the program as well.
Even the DAC know they’ve screwed up otherwise why would they be offering post-​graduation free learning opportunities — although the options being offered are a slap in the face and total insult when you consider the amount of time and money spent on this program.
So, be sure to re-​think this program. It seems the only intention is to take your money and push you through and hope you don’t raise any red flags such as the DAC12 group did. You’d be better off spending your money and time somewhere else!