As web developer, the education helped me get familiar with the skills I currently have and I learnt how to learn, but the real skill building progress started right after the education, when I began actually working on real projects and had to find my way of dealing with all the challenges.
It is really inspiring and powerful when you realize that you can use your knowledge to help the community or someone in need with your application, and the feedback from your users with a simple “thank you” is priceless. 🙂