Especially if you’re a web developer.

You may be at the top of your class, but the truth is whatever you’ve learned up until graduation isn’t enough. All of the classes that you’ve taken are only building blocks for learning. Get ready to be humbled when you start your internship or first full-time job.

Learn to grow

Technology is always changing. Before I graduated, I learned to use Flash and write a little bit of ActionScript. Now, I work full-time at a digital agency writing HTML5, CSS3 and catching up on my JavaScript skills. I still find myself staying home on the weekends, studying tutorials or researching new frameworks.

Be flexible and open. There are always new technologies to learn. The worst kind of developer to be is the kind stuck coding websites in tables for the rest of your career.

The key is to learn from the people in your development team. They’ll introduce you to new technologies, a new way of thinking and different techniques in coding.

I’m really lucky to be working with talented people. A senior tech member took me under his wing when I first started working at RAPP. He showed me some of inefficient ways I was coding CSS and taught me new techniques. I gained knowledge of useful development tools that I can’t live without. I’ve learned more with my experiences with my team at RAPP than any class I took at school.

I don’t want to scare development hopefuls away. There are plenty of development resources available at your finger tips:

Videos:

MIT OpenCourseWare
http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm

MIT had posted a whole collection of lessons from different MIT deparments. OpenCourseWare is absolutely free with no registration required.

Academic Earth
http://academicearth.org/subjects/computer-science

Academic Earth is the Hulu of academics. This is a free online resource that brings together lectures from all the top colleges.

Webcast Berkeley
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/

Webcast Berkley is a collection of all of Berkley’s courses. You can find many videos dealing with web development from the professors who work at Berkley.

O’Reilly School
http://www.oreillyschool.com/

The O’Reilly School brings together various online certificate programs ranging from Python programming to web programming. Check out the website for available courses and pricing.

Treehouse
http://teamtreehouse.com/

Team Threehouse streams over 600 training videos about web and iOS development. Pricing starts at $25 per month.

Interactive Learning:

Codeacademy
http://www.codecademy.com/

Codeacademy is an interactive website to learn programming basics. You’re first course is to learn JavaScript through different exercises. Creating an account is easy and its all free.

Codeschool
http://www.codeschool.com

Codeschool follows the principle of learning by doing. Their courses involve watching 10 – 15 minute videos called CodeTV and coding each exercise. Current courses involve Ruby on Rails, HTML5, and jQuery. Codeschool is $25 per month.

Tutorials:

Nettuts +
http://net.tutsplus.com/

Nettuts is a tutorial resource for web developers and designers who already have an established skill set in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, or Ruby on Rails.

Codrops
http://tympanus.net/codrops/
Codrops is a development blog that offers tutorials on new technologies in HTML5, CSS3, and jQuery. The best tutorials involve creating complex animations using CSS3 and jQuery. It takes development to the next level and proves that you don’t need flash anymore to develop sites or ad banners.

CSS Tricks
http://css-tricks.com/

Created by Chris Coyier, CSS Tricks is one of the more popular development blogs. CSS is the main specialty, but Coyier has branched out into doing some wonderful WordPress and jQuery development tutorials.