With current digital sensors exposuring correctly doesn't even matter that much any more because of iso-invariance when under exposing photos. There's som uch information that wow. And yes, the auto exposure capabilities of the camera's are awesome if you have learnt how they work in different situations and how can you use them without fumbling.

Knowing the holy trinity (aperture, shutter speed and ISO) is still good to know and learning to use them in manual or in priority modes makes you understand the basic idea, how everything is related and what kind of settings are good for different situations.

I ended up being serious photography enthusiast. For me the currently most interesting thing to learn, is to try to make good photos with all-mechanical film Hasselblad without any automatics. That actually forces to think and plan a lot more about what you want before taking the photo. Also, really calculating holy trinity values in your head is fun (especially when you need to take into account additional nd filters and polarizers etc.

So if you photograph, try to shoot with different kind of gear and ways of photography. That teaches you a lot.