It's laughable that you need a "degree" for this line of work, but as you do need reliable typing/keyboarding skills, a given level of computer literacy, knowledge of how to organize and file, and fundamental bookkeeping skills, I can see why there is a program for this in most community colleges.
I've been an "executive assistant" for over 8 years (a more "manly" way to say "secretary"). My natural interest in IT work means I did the office IT stuff on top of my usual stuff...which was good as I was not very good with people, so that my boss didn't need a computer tech for all the time I worked there somewhat balanced out my "down side."
In the USA, you need to bring as much as you can as far as skills and versatility to the job as possible. As you will likely stink on ice with customer relations, your angle will be, "I can do X, Y and Z tasks (all technical and solitary work stuff) very well" and then emphasize that a good solution for the lack of your interpersonal skills will be for the boss to hand off coworker's technical tasks off to you in exchange for their doing your customer interactive work...at least for the time needed for you to adapt better to dealing with customers in an acceptable manner.
An e-book I had recommended to me displayed faulty decision making processes, and one example was a woman who was bad with customers and that was half her job. When the boss was debating whether to do the work to dismiss her, a friend asked point-blank, "What would you do if you COULD NOT fire her?" Often, people only see two polar opposite options, and they fail to consider other possibilities. When the woman dismissed the idea of firing the employee, she realized there was another solution. She had the public/private aspects of the job reassigned. Another woman who was good with customers was put up front and given near 100% of the public interaction and the problematic woman was moved to the back office and given most all the technical work to be done in private. Yes, that's not how the job(s) were initially drawn up (drafter wanted employees to be versatile at all job duties), but it worked and now everyone was happy and productive.
In my current situation, the boss knew I was bad with people when he hired me (now I know this), and I'm not "horrible" but I am temperamental and often misinterpreted in my intentions. Ideally, I should have the technical stuff to work on that needs my focus and the stupid menial stuff should be in the hands of a receptionist rather than my being interrupted every 3-5 minutes to deal with the public. Perhaps in time we will redivide how the work is handed off so that we are all working in our best capacities.