hey, i started out teaching myself - i cant stress how valuable it is to get yourself on a course. I did a two day (weekend) course on using illustrator and it really blew my mind open it was the springboard and now i work as a graphic designer for a large company in London, it was the best thing i did graphics wise - id recommend it, you can always start freelancing as soon as you get out of it to earn the cash back!
since then, ive done all the youtube stuff to stay current, been on a couple of week long adobe masterclasses for indesign, aftereffects and a few years really mastering the software. i always feel the software is fairly intuative, you need to really understand output to be able to produce work for people - its great to be able to do something cool in indesign, but if you dont know how to output it then youre going to have headaches.