So far in my IT class, we have been going through alot of boring html and css. I am so looking forward starting to use php, and getting into the backend development. What do you guys like the most? Frontend or backend?

Do not touch that shit. PHP is dead and outdated. Start from true C and Lisp.
You need to learn to code not writing that bullshit in PHP

Backend - Much prefer to make things work right (and do the right thing) than to "make them pretty"!

And lots of the web runs on PHP, so definitely learn it AND other languages.

Back end.

I agree with the poster above, don't touch that shit. Node.js looks interesting otherwise there's always Python or ruby. Another option that's a bit more enterprise is to code in Java. You should also take a week or two to learn SQL really well because everything uses it at some point and databases drive most applications.

@ninjatini I agree with Python Ruby an node.js but Java? We need to kill that weird creature, not feed it!

If you dont get lost in the JavaScript frameworks bubble, frontend can be nice too. Its a change working on good looking stuff that can be made easily versus the confusing stuff on native side. I love native apps but working on a GUI is often more frustrating than building all the core logic. And when I talk frontend, i also include stuff like electron apps and desktop webapps.

On web backend side, PHP7 is nice but you'll most probably just learn basic of PHP in college. Node, Python with django, Ruby are great backends an most new projects use tem instead of PHP (there is nothing wrong with PHP in most ases. Its just that the others sound more hip). Try out PHP, Node and Django. They are the most popular ones. Choose what you like.

@flag0 php is wrong by design. There is no need to lie to newbies. They have the right to know.

PHP peasants. Full stack JS Master Race.

@flag0 Java is used in every giant enterprise in the world. Not client Java but rather for web or app development. It has tons of nice features that other platforms just don't have. Racf comes to mind, effortless clustering, centralized management, soa, and a pretty easy deployment. It works really well as a platform everywhere I've seen an enterprise solutions deployed.

@ninjatini i love the flexibility and features and speed of java as a VM/interpreted language but i hate java as a language. All features you me tion are part of the JVM