Found out my college is teaching off of old version of Illustrator

[karens64774442]

Hi, I just spent $5000 for one semester at an ACCREDITED college that includes online Photoshop and Illustrator classes. You learn by reading lectures and following online video tutorials. The teacher checks in at the end of the week with feedback.

This college's tutorials are not matching up with Adobe's software so I started researching. I'm pretty ticked to learn that the tutorials appear to have been produced in 2012. (I located the original developer who produced their tutorials.)

Before I bail from this school, I'd like to know if Illustrator's interface and tools went through major changes and when.  I emailed the teacher and asked what version she was teaching off of.  I pointed out that I had trouble following along with the tutorial and, as a result, had to go off and experiment and spend significant time trying to fulfill the assignment requirements. I pointed out that the file / save for web instructions in her lesson did not match up with my interface.

She replied and said they can't update "every little thing."  (Yet their salespeople tell you that they update within 24 hours.)

I want to prove that their tutorials are outdated to pressure them to update them so student's like me get a fair deal for our money. This college is not doing other students a service by allowing them to learn off of old software either.

Bottom line: When did Illustrator (and Photoshop) go through its major upgrade?  And did the interface change a lot?  And did any of the tools change a lot?

Thanks!  I really appreciate your help. I've been in the ad agency biz for many years but am a beginner w/this software.

[Nancy OShea]

I sympathize.  Many schools are teaching from a syllabus that's at least 2 and sometime as much as 6 versions behind the currently available software.   It's a challenge to keep up with Adobe's rapid release cycle where dot releases come out 2 or 3 times a year.

CS6 is different from CC 2017.  Although much in Illustrator has remained the same for many years, it's the subtle UI changes that will frustrate you. You can download previous versions of Creative Cloud software from your CC Desktop App.   NOTE:  trial members don't have this option.  You must have a paid membership to access Previous Versions.  See screenshot.

Nancy

[Monika Gause]

Subtle changes in the tools panel since CS6

Please see the features here:

Illustrator CC new features | New Export Assets panel

[karens64774442]

This is great to know!  Thank you!

[karens64774442]

Very appreciative. Thank you so much for taking the time!

[mikeg_kale · Accepted solution]

Nothing much has changed, colleges charge top dollar but teach with outdated tutorials and teachers. I also paid top dollar as you did but in the late 80s and they forced me to take fortran on a punchcard system, while i was making money doing the majority of the teachers business marketing collateral as they all had business ventures outside of school.

You honestly would learn more taking classes from an Adobe Certified training provider such as ascendtraiining or ledet. But you need that accreditted piece of paper from a college, more than multiple ACE from Adobe.

[Lamlsk8ing]

Thank you for sharing!

[Creamer Training]

Just curious--what else do they teach besides Photoshop and Illustrator for $5000? Is the software just a small part of the overall semester classes?

[Disposition_Dev]

This was my experience in college as well. Several of my professors clearly used the exact same teaching materials and assigned the exact same assignments every year regardless of version changes or continued relevance.

I even had a digi photography class that met twice a week for 3 hours.. We spent the first hour of the first class each week watching an instructional video about digital cameras that was produced in 1999 (i was taking the class around 2010). After we watched a portion of the video, the professor would open up a powerpoint presentation that was clearly a companion document to the instructional video.. And I know for a fact that the professor didn't create this powerpoint... because he's an ESL immigrant from japan who moved here late in life and his english wasn't great.. Listening to him read the powerpoint (seemingly for the very first time) revealed that many of the words in the presentation are words he didn't know/understand, and would simply try his best to get through it in a way that roughly sounded like that word and then just move on, even though it was clear he didn't understand the context of what he was reading.

So now we're 1.5hours into our 6 hours of weekly class and we've watched an ancient video, and had a powerpoint presentation poorly read to us... It was at this time that the professor would collect last week's assignment and assign this week's assignment.... Then we were "free to go work on your assignment... and don't show up on thursday either. just work on your assignment."

....... which means that out of 6 hours/week that we paid for, we were receiving 1.5 hours of "instruction" (for which the professor did no preparation at all..) and then 4.5 hours of "just go take some pictures by yourself and leave me alone."

Unfortunately, this is not a unique experience in  my understanding... unfortunately, colleges are businesses first, and i'm simply not optimistic that they're going to be receptive to your complaint. I sincerely hope I'm wrong, though.

Having said that, not a whole lot has changed with how illustrator functions. Especially the core stuff like the pen tool, selection tools, magic wand, transparency, etc. Some stuff has changed on the scripting side of things, but for the most part newer versions of illustrator just have more features than older ones (as well as better stability and aversion to crashing). If it were me making this case to your college, i would focus on the relevance of the class material to the current state of the art. You're paying for an education so that you can translate those skills to the workforce. The best way that you can be setup to transfer your skills to the workforce is to learn on modern up to date software with modern and up to date lesson plans that teach you the skills and tools you need to know today that maybe someone didn't need to know 10-15 years ago.

Best of luck. Keep us updated.