This article originally appeared in Dev.Mag Issue 4, released in July 2006

So, off to a tertiary institution? Studying for your future? Excited about the opportunities in professional game-making that your studies will present? Well, know now that there's another side to going to university, something that's overlooked by a lot of students. You're going to be surrounded by tons of interesting people while you're studying, and if you don't use that time to make contacts and learn about things "not in your field", you're missing a big opportunity to get ahead as a game creator.

How does one go about learning, though? Well, one of the best ways to get to know different people is to take elective courses that are totally off your "stream". If you're careful and study your university handbooks, you'll be able to get credit for them no matter how strange they might be. A good way to decide if something is as interesting as it sounds is to spend a bit of time exploring exotic-sounding classes in first year, once you're settled in it's really easy to just sit in on a couple of lectures. If the course is interesting, relevant to you or has types people that you know you're going to need to involve yourself with during your working life, sign up for it next year.

Here are a couple of ideas for things that you might be able to use to strengthen your CV and network at the same time. You should always keep a hard-copy of your contacts and how / why you know this person and what they can do.

Art / design courses

If you want to make games, you're going to need art resources. Making friends with the arty students can lead to some of them wanting to help you with your games and providing graphics that you would never be able to do.

You don't have to do hectic art classes either, most universities offer "lighter" courses such as Visual Communication or Semiotics. While they can be very strange to a technically-minded BSc student, learning the theory behind perception or how colours define emotions can be very useful and immediately applicable in your games. At the very least, you'll have some understanding of how to talk to artists in their own language afterwards – never underestimate the importance of good communication!

I've got a short-list of contacts from my design classes that I send work to every once in a while when people ask me for business cards or logos. They're all keen to work with me on games and I send them playable versions of what I'm messing with every once in a while. One of them even likes GM because she can change the graphics without having to code.

The same goes for music classes, but typically those are much harder for "lay-listeners" to understand. I'd suggest getting to know some of the design students and hanging around in the "art" areas of campus for a while. You'll meet the musicians eventually...

Business / marketing courses

If you're planning to do it alone and start up a company to build games, knowing all the little things you need to do to incorporate and understand how investment works can be invaluable.

You should be able to find entrepreneurship courses without too much difficulty and they'll probably fit into your coursestructure quite well. Once again, they'll be a bit simpler than your tech-minded CS courses, but it's a different method of thinking. Once you've got an understanding of business, you'll know if it's something you can do or if you'll need to get a partner to run the business side of things. The people in these courses can be valuable if you have questions later when you start up.

The dark art of marketing is a driving force behind the success or failure of games these days. Getting into a couple of marketing courses will give you useful contacts if you need marketing help, plus you can continue with it through to second-year level to give you an edge – if you're built to withstand the lovely task of manipulating people all day, of course!