look at ads for designers... there ya go

My list of programs include:

Photoshop (duh)
Illustrator
InDesign
Flash
GoLive

You can swap out InDesign for Quark, GoLive for Dreamweaver, or Freehand for Illustrator.

I use a few other programs on the side but nothing really worth mentioning.

What defjoe said.

As for books and training materials, that depends on how you prefer to learn. I myself like video tutorials, so I like lynda.com. There are lots of things that Lynda doesn't cover, so I spend quite a great deal of time at amazon.com searching the various options, reading reviews, etc.

If you had a specific software program in mind, there's probably tons of threads you can search on this forum for recommendations on tutorials.

^^^^^^^ What ROCKETPIG SAID^^^^^^^^^^

If you got the time play with them all. Everysetting option ...everything.
The web is a wonderful source. the good folks here are an awesome bunch of pros as well

It might be worth mentioning that I make my living primarily as a web designer, and I don't know any HTML editors well at all. I know the basics of dreamweaver, but I use it very sparingly. Why? Because I don't need it, I move faster if I just do it myself -- and then I don't have to worry about DW spitting out nasty code that I'll just have to fix anyway.

If you're going into web design, I'd say learn the code, doesn't matter squat what program you're using if you know that.

Flash is another story of course.

I'm not very well versed in web design and I'll use dreamweaver but there is alot of extranious code in there. A text editor is all a good web designer needs for the generation of HTML.

The short answer for which program to know....all of them...

Honestly the best thing you can do is get a job in a small print shop. Fresh out of school nobody really knows the ins and outs of the software, but you will learn more in 3 weeks in the workplace than you have learned in your 2-4 years in schooling.

*nods in agreement*

I learned more in my first few months of print shop work than I did in school.

Word To Md....

^ditto

I've never known Dreamweaver to spit out "nasty-code" like many other web design software. Especially the new version, which is wonderful and has a lot more CSS functionality. Besides, almost every attribute of the software is configurable, so it only spits out undesirable code if you set it that way.

Anyways, most of the software mentioned in this thread you should know to some degree. Will you use them all? It depends. Some designers who do very specific things may only use 1 or 2 of them. Some who work in small design firms may use a dozen different softwares.

A basic knowledge of as many apps as possible is always a good thing as well as how they can/should/don't/cannot interect is helpful as well.

Corell has some interesting programs that might add a little bit to your work. As, far as books being in school myself, my teachers have leaned towards Visual Quick Start series of books. Pretty good balance of words to pictures lol! Also for Adobe products there is <insert Adobe Program Name Here> Bibles. Best refernce books I own. One last thing on books, anything written by Derek McClelland will be great for Photoshop. The man is amazing, and can be pretty funny also. Online tuts are great also. I've learned alot from them. Just mess around and start combinding them you'll be amazed at what you can do!

My answer would be that it depends on your field of specialization. For general print/layout design, working in-house (ie, needing to know programs companies are using, not what you have on your own system, but ignoring crap programs that you encounter but shouldn't have to bother with), the key programs to know would be:

Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign/Pagemaker, Quark Xpress, and Corel Draw

If for video, learn After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Premiere Pro, and Audition/Cool Edit Pro (both the same program, renamed after Adobe bought it).

For web design, learn Dreamweaver, Flash, and Visual Studio.NET for programs, and XHTML, CSS, Javascript, Actionscript, php, and ASP for languages.

For further study... How about 3D modelling? Maya, 3D Studio Max, and Cinema 4D are tops for that. Or for 2D animation - Toon Boom Studio is great!

As far as books - my personal preference for Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign are the Adobe Classroom in a Book series or the Total Training DVD series, and for Macromedia Dreamweaver and Flash is the Macromedia Training from the Source series. For web programming (HTML, Actionscript, etc.), I like the Complete Reference series published by McGraw Osbourne or the Definitive Guide series by O'Reilly.

There are also various other books I would suggest, like the Photoshop Bible, Illustrator WOW, Down and Dirty Tricks for Photoshop, Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects, How to Cheat in Photoshop, and many others... But to learn the basics - I would start with the above mentioned series.

*EDIT: To follow up on D_Lucks' post, the Photoshop Bible and Total Training for Photoshop (DVD) are both with Deke McClelland. As mentioned, the guy is not only amazing, he's funny as hell!

My personal proficiencies include Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Quark Xpress, Corel Draw, After Effects, Premiere Pro, Audition, Dreamweaver, Flash, Freehand, XHTML, CSS, Javascript, and Actionscript. The rest of the applications mentioned I'm trying to learn - if only I had the time and patience I used to.