I think, many of the folks commenting below, mentioning that the OP hasn't actually studied in a design program in school, also fail to mention that the attorney, and later U.S. President, Abraham Lincoln also had no formal education in learning to read.

The latter, in his path toward literacy, and eventually a J.D. (That's what attorneys are nowadays anyway) was largely due to his stubborn autodidactism, the same mettle that the OP himself chronicles and showcases in his blog.

If you put most people participating (or lurking) here on Hacker News through this scrutiny, you really shouldn't be surprised that this is generally the case with anyone who's been working in data processing, Management Information Systems, Information Technology, or WhatEv we're going to be calling it in the next decade.

Nowadays, when I think of n00bs, I don't think about the computer illiterate, I think about the motivated neophytes who spent two years grinding along in an IT track in college at the snails pace of semester courses and now they can consider themselves entry level python programmers with an extra semester where they took "Introduction to Java - CS-107".

If you're going to survive in this industry, you already have an insatiable curiosity for everything under the hood and morbid obsessions with break/fix - emphasis on 'fix' :)

If it looks like Yakko (the OP of this thread) went through two semesters (that really is a freakin' year in trad educational systems) of design school, but in reality really didn't... You would be wrong. He just did it on his own and at a pace he was comfortable with, arriving at the same dock to berth his ship as someone who actually spent a year being forced learn it at a snails pace.

Not everyone can be a network engineer, or a systems administrator, or full stack developer, etc., but those who thrive upon the work are almost always exceedingly autodidacts in those disciplines...

You literally cannot keep up with the pace of evolving technologies if you're doing so in a legacy educational institution.

Interview question: "Tell me about a nightmare scenario you were faced with when you were without the knowledge to fix the problem and yet, did so anyway - how and what did you do to rise to the occasion, and how did that make you feel like when everyone was back online again?"

> If you're going to survive in this industry

I really feel like it's very much random.

When job hunting -> does the recruiter shortlist you?

When on the job -> do you get laid off?

Neither has anything to do with your skills at the actual job.