[pmoriarty]

"doing well in the technical aspects of a student drawing course is not even close to demonstrating that one is "great" on the same level as, say, Caravaggio or Rembrandt"

I'm not sure the original poster meant "great" in the sense of Caravaggio or Rembrandt.

To a lot of people being technically proficient is all it takes to be a "great" artist, so by that standard Picasso would qualify.