Visual effects work in extremes. The best of it either carries a shot you cannot stop looking at, or disappears so well you never notice it. Anything in the middle is what audiences call fake.
The jobs inside that word are different. Some people track and roto. Some composite. Some build 3D. Some animate. Some light. A beginner course should teach you to see a shot as layers, and to finish one simple composite yourself: a title, a screen replacement, a sky, a clean-up.
Software follows the job. After Effects is the usual first room. Premiere is where the shot has to cut. 3D tools enter when the element does not exist in camera. Pepper Animation teaches those as courses you can combine, rather than as a single mysterious “VFX button”.