Before you decide i hope you know that playing games and making games are 2 different things. I also took a degree course on game design at a local college and I can only say Game Programming is not easy if you don't have the passion for it (Game Balancing is fun but when it comes to game debugging you will literally pull some hairs off).
Gamasutra is a good stepping stone if you are really looking into joining the world of game developers, also try downloading some free programming tools such as Unity3D, Adobe Flash CS4+ trial, Python etc to play around with their tutorials.
Last piece of advice, you don't necessary need to take a course in game development to be a game developer, it helps in your resume but as long as you have the passion even if you study pottery you will be fine.
Best of luck!