Did you go to school specifically for game development? How did you get into the field?

I went to school for Theatre and Computer Science.
The story of how I got into game development is somewhat long and convoluted... Believe it or not, what follows is a severely abridged version:

After I graduated from college, I packed all my worldly possessions into a clunky old Volvo and drove down to California. Then I camped out in Activision’s parking lot and harassed them relentlessly until they gave me a job as a tester for the going rate of one meatball per hour (overtime got me a meatball and a half). That was my proverbial foot in the door.

After a few months at Activision, I proved competent enough to be made a floor lead, but I quickly realized that it would be nearly impossible to get promoted from a tester to a designer at Activision, as there are very few positions available and oodles of people who want those positions. I figured I’d have a better chance at becoming a designer if I worked for a smaller developer. So I took a major pay cut (down to half a meatball per hour) and went to work as a tester for New World Computing.

I had a blast testing Might & Magic VII and Heroes of Might and Magic III. I tested those games so much that I went from liking them to disliking them to despising them to loving them. Anyway, while working 12 hours a day for several months straight testing for New World, I took it upon myself to come in a couple hours early and stay a couple hours late and taught myself the proprietary tools that the level designers at New World used to make the Might and Magic games. I put together a demo and then waited eagerly for a position in level design to open up. Soon after, my hard work paid off, and New World made me a level designer with a salary of 25K meatballs a year.