Starting study game design next year, what engine(s) should i learn?

[Conspicuous Cultist]

I could understand if this was the 90s but nowadays if game design was your passion why not just try to make a good niche indie game?

I'd understand even more if you were a guy from the outside looking into the gaming scene and wouldn't know any better, but you're on MMOchamp. You have to be somewhat savvy about these kinds of things.

Not trying to shit on your dream, but it does seem more useful to just simply get a job on the side and then learn on making some game.

[Radio]

The first thing I would recommend is settle on a technical/creative skill and drive it deep. You already seem to have the idea of focusing on programming though, which is good.

The reason why I recommend the above is because game design itself (rather than development) is far too popular with students as it is the most fantastical role. Looking back at my old game classes in uni most of the people there were designer wannabes, with a rare few people legitimately interested in sound/art/programming/etc. Because of this popularity and the relatively... few positions that any game studio has for designer types, it only exacerbates the jobseeking/keeping issues that plague game development. Having a specific technical/creative skill makes you more desirable AND gives you the ability to fall back on a 'normal' industry job.

In my case, I majored in IT, crammed in programming subjects and made myself a legitimate programmer as well as a games programmer. Lo and behold, I've now been working the past 4 years of my life on legal software. Sure, I'm not making games, but I figured out that it was programming that I really wanted to do rather than specifically games programming. I'll make more money and have more job security too, which is a bonus.

I had classmates who made it through and managed to network their way into some various game studios (mostly mobile) by getting hired as groups. They seem to be having fun and mostly use Unity. We had one alumni make it into Ubisoft Paris, not a bad effort.