Hmmm... interesting question.
Well, to tell you the truth, my dad got me Photoshop when he bought his new digital camera in 2005 or 2006 to improve the quality of his photos. I started by googling some basic tutorials: Removing red-eyes, using the blur and smudge tools to your advantage, learning the benefits of the brightness-contrast features along with the hue-saturation features -- soon I knew how to professionally enhance or improve any photo given to me.
My first experience with designing came when I was part of a gaming community, called WGO. I designed a couple of userbars for us. Pretty simple stuff, but you've gotta start somewhere! Later, I designed (more like edited and created) some fan art for Star Wars, as I was a huge fan. ;-)
In the end, I found CrystalXP's tutorials, got hooked, started playing with Photoshop more... and well you can see my results in my igloo.
So I guess, in the end, graphic designing is a bit like actual drawing or painting. You don't need to go to college, or do a course. Just be creative and make a mess!
