I'd say you can do almost anything except the specialist software stuff. By specialist I mean "brand stuff"; for example, the problem with a photo editing course is that instead of teaching you the principles, they often teach you how to do stuff in (say) Lightroom, essentially compounding the problem. I understand why they do this -- it cuts corners and assumes a common ground; supporting a multitude of editing software the instructor might not be familiar with would be a nightmare -- but it doesn't help the situation.

If they taught you the principles of editing photos, without using brand specific names, you could do this with GIMP or Krita.

I do hobby stuff with my Linux laptop, by the way :)