First of all pardon my English. I am not a native English speaker
I have been a Web Developer for the past 4 years. In these 4 years I have spent my time on the internet to learn things. My current skillset comprises of
HTML
CSS
PHP
MySQL
jQuery (I would not say js and rather say jQuery because I am good at using jQuery and bad with plain javascript.)
The above things seemed like an easier part of my life as I quickly learned them. But now I would really like to enhance my skillset and I am pretty confused which way to move ahead considering that I have to learn things using the web and references on my own.
Design
My first option is towards design. Shall I get started with design and start using Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, Flash, Flex.
Designing along with my previous skills looks like a money maker to me. As both are co-related to each other when web design is considered. And its easier to learn the first 2 and I hope I can get tutorials for the last 2 as well.
Marketing
A lot of my existing clients asked me if I do SEO. So this looked as a good field to me as well. I cannot estimate the scope of SEO but I assume it has a long future. Since I am business minded as well and there are a lot of tutorials around, should I start with SEO, SEM, Social Media, PPC or whatever it consists of.
Software Development
The complex plight and hardest thing (perhaps) but the easiest way to find a decent job in my location. If I go for software development what platform should be that I should be ideally going after? Should it be C# for windows development, or ASP.NET (once again enhances my skill set), J2EE (there are a lot of jobs for J2EE developers here) or plain C and C++.
Also I think it is difficult to learn software languages right from Hello World, using internet? I have no clue how I learned PHP but I am sort of a pro now, but these other languages seems like a disaster to me? I cant figure out the reason if its because PHP is easier or there was a lot of tutorials around for PHP.
Anyways is it also possible to learn software development right from Hello World using the web?
Database / Server (Linux) / Network Administration
Seems like a job with a decent pay but less number of jobs and a bit harder to learn online. (not sure)
What should be the right track I should move ahead.
P.S - Age is not a constraint for me as I am between 20-21, and I come from an IT background.
I know quite little basics about
C (upto structures)
C++ (upto objects, I was not able to understand templates)
Core Java (some basics and OOP concept)
RDBMS
Visual Basic 6 (used to do this long back)
UNIX (a bunch of commands like who, finger, chmod, ls and a bit of #bash)
Or is there anything else that I left out?
I need you guys to please give me a feedback and the reason why I should select that field.
