Hello! Game design student here. I'm currently in my third year and loving it. Ironically, I hardly game anymore, since I started doing this. In the bits of free time I have, I'm mostly drawing, painting, 3D modeling or fighting with Illustrator. And now, due to the things I have seen on this forum, attempting some prop-making will be added to that list as well ^^
It's almost like saying that you can't see the forest, because you're too busy modelling the trees

year 11 steampunk, doing gcses then on to college in sept to do engineering. unfortunately automatons isn't in the engineering syllabus
I disagree. I wholeheartedly disagree. There are many type of automata, both hardware and software (two very different things, yet conceptually the same). It's just that the public preparatory educational system hasn't given you any details about what specifically automata are in engineering.... or much about engineering for that matter.
My suggestion is pick one area (e.g. robotics, artificial intelligence, mechatronics, etc. that you like and stick with it. You will find soon enough in the next year or so where you belong.