[Texan]

If you learn how to use InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator, you will be a design technician. If you get a degree in design and learn those programs you will be a designer. I have known a lot of people who know design software. I also know quite a few people with design degrees.

Unless you have great inherent analytical capabilities, you will be a much better designer after spending a few years with design professors explaining to you why something looks good and why something looks bad.

The software is just a tool. Being a designer doesn't mean learning how to use the tools. It means understanding why something looks good, why it looks bad, how people perceive what you have designed, how to best communicate what you want to communicate...