Is the Master CIW Designer course worth it?

[YankeeRuinX]

Hi I have had a visit from Advent AND Computeach today and have been they have both advised me to do the Master CIW Designer course which includes the CIW Associate, CIW Professional and Master CIW Designer course.
Now apart from the fact that they both cost £5,000 putting that aside is it worth doing the courses with them or should I just go it alone and do it the cheap way. What are the benifits with doing these courses with these companies and will the qualifications gained help me get into the web development industry.
I know that I will have to make a good portfolio by making a couple of website to demonstrate to future employers what I can do but will this course enable me to do that. Does it cover all the different languages needed e.g XHTML, XLM, CSS, Javascript and all the others to build good websites or does it mainly focus on the design side of things?
Anyway if anyone can help with this that would be great
Thanks

[greenbrucelee]

a qualification can never get you a job, but it can help and make you stand out to an employer.

The way training companies work is that they make you pay them lots of cash (in your case 5k) then they give you some books and tell you to read them some may provide a workshop or two. You could cut out the 5k and do that yourself and practice by getting a portfolio togther as you have already said.

[vgarg]

Hi you can do the course if you want to learn the basics but do not expect any jobs at the end of it. The course only covers XHTML, CSS, Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Flash as well as little bit of networking technolgy and Windows Server 2003. Def not worth £5000 I think.