Well, I took the course from PSS. Personally, I feel that it is good for newbie to go for basic course that can speed up the learning curve. Of course, it does not mean that by going to courses, a newbie can turn professional after that. It still need to take practice to perfect the skill.
Advantages for taking course
1) I know that it would take me half a year to learn the basic if I learn alone but by taking course, I learned so much faster. It will shorten the learning curve.
2) There are professional instructors to mentor or consult. You can ask the instructors anything you do not understand while the book cannot give you an immediate answer.
3) You will find new friends who have the same interest in photographing and can arrange outing for photo shooting.
4) it will arouse your interest in photographing as you start to know more about it. When you try to learn alone, you might lose interest if you still cannot understand it after sometimes.
5) You will learned the correct way of shooting from instructors. If self-learned, it is difficult to know what is right or wrong.
Now, I am enjoying myself in shooting as I had learned the basic skills from the course and now I am trying to brush up and fine tuning my skill. I learned alot from the course which I think I would not know so much if I learned by myself. This is just my personal thinking. Well, some people can self learned and still take good pictures so there is no right or wrong decision on taking courses. Some people have creative eyes for photo therefore they can take good pictures while some people like me who do not have the creative eyes can be trained. Now, I can see the difference before and after the course effect for the pictures that I took.
Hope that my thoughts about the advantage of taking course can help you to decide if you want to take courses. So it is up to you to decide.
Is stretching the classroom hours considered value added? What abt the teacher giving u extra tips out of the course structure or spoon feed you with notes? :think: I would suggest not signing up for lessons yet. 
