I think that base on my own experience, I believe and agree that YOU are the only one responsible for your own success. I came to this country 10 years without speaking a word of English. After, few months, I realized that learning a new language will open doors for me and will give an advantage to get job and became a valuable person just for the fact of speaking 2 languages. I was and I still hungry for learning every day.
Now, talking about the Graphic design field, I worked in this field for almost 13 years and never had a formal education. Everything that I learned was thru books, spent many hours in the library, researching on the internet and educating myself, always with the vision to be better everyday.
About the second article, I’m not agree of the comments that Gadi Amit makes about design schools and how poor job they are doing. I guess because I have not been in the position of reviewing portfolios and comparing them. But, on the other side I agreed on what he said in his last paragraph:
“The first five years in a designer’s career are absolutely critical and the true educational experience. A young designer must appreciate that opportunity to mature while on the job and take nothing for granted. A willingness to do anything and everything he or she can to get experience and learn, from the ground up, should be reinforced by the schools. Since design can be a difficult career option, we've got to instill young designers with a critical sense of reality -- your first job is your true MA, your best chance to establish a career path, your opportunity to work on the coolest projects -- and you get paid for it. What a great job it is.”
What a powerful message. I do believe that the first years of our career is very important to defined that rest of our career as designers.