If I could go back and give myself advice to get me through the past 32 weeks, it would be to make good production habits, don’t hold back, and practice. For goodness sakes, PRACTICE!
Habits:
First of all, be smart about your projects. The more planning and strategizing you do before you start coding the easier it will be moving on. This will save you from back tracking throughout an entire project. Managing your time is just as important. If possible try to give yourself a 24 hour grace period letting you work out kinks and making sure your html and CSS have been streamlined.
Try to remember that you’re designing for web, not print. Your layouts have to follow some sort of grid. Understand that your comps not only need to work visually in terms of C.R.A.P., but also from a coding perspective. With this in mind, don’t draw back your designs to make them easier to build. Find a middle ground to the design and accomplish what you wanted to achieve from the beginning without sacrificing the overall design, you won’t get what you want out of these classes if you do.
Use the “Interact with Web Standards” book. It will be confusing in the beginning, but it WILL help. Don’t just read it either, take the time to do the exercises in the book. The only true way to understand HTML and CSS is to do it. Try to understand what is that you’re coding and most importantly why. Validate, validate, and then validate again. The W3C site will be your go-to tool when it comes to trouble shooting.
Outside Resources:
Like the rest of the world, if you don’t understand something use Google. It will provide you with tons of tutorials, blogs, and inspiration for your designs and coding. There are some really great blogs pertaining to web design. Below are just two of the blogs dedicated to understanding web design and semantics.
Finally:
Don’t be afraid to be a “Web Nerd”. There is absolutely nothing wrong with knowing too much about something, especially web. Another thing, keep cool and be open to new ideas and solutions. The web is always changing so don’t get too comfortable and keep up with growing trends and techniques.
orrachattack 
