No, you do not have to invest anything upfront, because we are teaching digital visual design, you have the option of choosing to use programs such as Figma that provides a free online version.   We do recommend that you get a student discount for Adobe programs (you can simply enter that you are a student in the sign up process) because they are still industry standards and should be used by a professional designer at some point.   You don't have to use a Mac. Most design programs have a PC version as well (with the exception of Sketch).