I think there is a level imbalance there, even in your statement. I can design stuff, a bit, but at the sort of level of someone in the programming world scour

I think there is a level imbalance there, even in your statement. I can design stuff, a bit, but at the sort of level of someone in the programming world scouring stack-overflow and putting parts together, and maybe coming up with something new (in the sense of new to me, it probably exists a great many times over already). Some design “properly”, from fundamental building blocks and existing ideas, applying the right tools for the job. Much like I program a lot of the time. A degree in graphics design isn't that though. There you'll be shown the fundamentals being derived from first principles, and the better students will be expected in future to maybe come up with new ideas/fundamentals. Being a designer and having a design degree differ in a very similar way to being a developer and having a computer science degree.