Career change teacher -> web developer

[ccsandrew]

Hi

I'm currently a math teacher with a BS in mathematics with a small regret about my career choice. I'm now refreshing my programming capabilities and re-educating myself as a web developer.

I've taken two classes at O'Reilly School of Technology (PHP programming and MySQL). I've built a couple of simple but dynamic websites for clients (some of whom are paying me!) and I've spent an average of 4 hours a day when I get home from work just programming.

Here's a self-report card on my capabilities (out of 10):

HTML: 6. I give myself a bump because I think in xHTML.
PHP: 6. I'm a bit of whiz, but maybe that's because it's an easy language?
CSS: 5. I see alot of better work around me.
MySQL: 6. My instructor says i'm good.
Javascript: 4. I use it as much as I can, and I'm dipping into the jQuery library.


My question is, what more do I need to be doing to break in to an entry-level position in 2011?

Thanks,
ccsandrew

Oh yeah you can check out some of my stuff at www.i9webdev.com (http://www.i9webdev.com)

[Declan1991]

At a glance and from a personal development point of view (not necessarily the same as job hunting view), you need to get away from tables for layout. Research things like, progressive enhancement and semantics. Practice certain common layouts without using any tables, and familiarise yourself with HTML 5 new elements, with the aim that you will eventually be using those tags, so you should probably get used to the idea now.