Design patterns exist to make our lives easier. As programmers we will have to shovel through thousands upon thousands of lines of code throughout our lives. If we wrote this code from scratch each time we would be wasting a lot of our precious time. A design pattern is basically a template that we use in order to make our lives easier. In my opinion it is similar to a function in the way that we can use it as a piece of a bigger idea. In the way of web design we would have a general template made that we can work off of and create somehting new with using the design pattern as a starting point.
In recent history I have used design patterns a lot for my ICS 314 class. We had a lot of assignments that required us to create a static website using things such as sematic-ui, react, and meteor. Even though it was a new assignment each time there was a pattern in the work. We had 3 sample websites that we rebuilt and each website allowed us to use pieces from the previous. We built a static website for Hardrock Cafe in Waikiki and I used a previous restaurant website we made as a base. There will be many more opportunities for me to use design patterns throughout my career as a programmer so I hope to make the most of it.