Sorry, I can’t hear you over my awesome life of fighting nazis and driving boats between other boats.
I got my Bachelor of Arts in Graphic Design. I have a decent amount of natural artistic talent, and a fair degree of patience for working on art projects. So for the most part, getting my degree in Graphic Design was neither difficult nor unpleasant. I really enjoyed working on art and design in college, and didn’t have to kill myself to get good grades.
My minors were in theater and business management. Both were more difficult than my major. You wouldn’t think theater would be all that difficult, but those theater history professors are not messing around.
While I did dapple in game art production during college (mostly on my own time and without any assistance) it wasn’t until a few years after I graduated that I started getting into programming. I had started learning web development in high school, and had always kept my hand in a little. That was my gateway. Work for graphic designers was few and far between when I had just gotten out of college. But there is ALWAYS work for web coders. First I boned up on my HTML, CSS, and Flash animation. I got a job doing Flash animation, and eventually started teaching myself AS3. From there its’ been a steady progression of constantly learning new skills and moving from one contract job to the next.