Why I should have paid attention in school

I was thinking the other day of how many subjects are useful for the field of game design and I came to the realisation that pretty much every single subject has some sort of use for a game designer.

There's the obvious subjects such as Maths, English and Science, but even more obscure subjects hold some useful information.

• Maths -for programmers it's an essential, but a designer definately needs a knowledge of mathematics. It helps when devising rules for mechanics and plays a hand in analysing playtesting data. It allows the designer to calculate desired angles and distances when building geometry, calculating the speed of elements and plays all sorts of other roles.
• English - a designer is a communicator. Thus english plays a vital role in defining how well a designer can communicate with others, both in the written word and verbally. Also english literature is a vital skill. Knowing stories, tales and the structure of writing will help enormously when working on narrative driven games. I'm not saying the designer should be writing the story, but they should definately have the knowledge of what works and what doesn't.
• Science - all the sciences hold a great deal of knowledge that is rich pickings for a designer. Chemistry and its compounds and formulas, Physics with its modelling of the real world, and Biology with its analysis of life - all these give the designer a starting point for simulation and ideas for twisting known science to produce something new (science fiction).
• Geography - the knowledge of geology, population, migration, peoples & culture is also essential to a designer. They need to know how real world populations develop to make their own worlds believable, they need to know how various strutures are formed so they can be twisted into something even more impressive.
• History - the knowldege of the past, events that shaped our culture and people that affected human development - all of these are vital to creating more believable worlds. They also provide immense inspiration.
• Design and Technology - this has pretty obvious translation to game design - the crafting of a product and the design process itself.
• Art - again art has a pretty obvious application in design.
• Religious Education - the study of other cultures is extremely useful to a designer, being able to understand these differences and imbue their own worlds with such details again will increase believability. Tackling the subject of real world religions in games does however is still a bit of a hot potato.
• Physical Education - this one I struggled with for a bit, but there is still plenty that applies to game design. Firstly the rules of team sports can have a direct correlation. But further elements such as muscle structure, movement and other aspects of physicality can also be applied.

In short, I didn't realise how useful this stuff was at the time. If you're wanting to be a game designer and you're still at school - pay attention - it will all be useful some day.