this is what i learned in school
quark xpress is good for making hilarious body copy and anal pasties
starbursts help graphic designers turn "art" into "ART!!!"
and give anal pasties to warthogs
oh my god i'm glad i wasn't suckered into a technical school for this bullshit.
no, but really, page layout software is pretty cool, it's just that i independently figured out most of what the video lecture taught* by sitting down with it for about an hour when i had to figure out how to lay out the 1984 spreads. if you know illustrator/photoshop, you can pick up all of the important concepts.
*: except for those bizarre-o keystrokes. ctrl-shift-click if you want to select something in a lower visual level. ctrl-f7 to toggle between item-select-tool and context-select-tool.