When you want to start a career as a graphic designer another possibility for staying motivated & creative and exchange opinions is to join an art community. There are big ones like DepthCore and EvokeOne and there are smaller ones like SlashThree.
Ok, I know that there are a lot of excellent design communities out there, but I really like this one, design:related. It has a nice design, simple to use, active members and of course great jobs.
Since Web 2.0 exploded back in 2005 many interesting communities started appearing on the web. Today websites are all about interaction. Sites like Digg, Flickr, StumbleUpon and many more really blew up over the past couple of years.