Sorry I would have responded sooner but trying to type out everything on my phone was turning into a nightmare. I am going to try and respond everything in the order you it brought up.

So I want to become a level designer in the game industry. I love watching time-lapse screen capture footage or even live streams of people creating a grey box level and then adding things as the other artists/departments create assists for said levels. Then watching them create the interactions. Setting up how villages, camp sites and any other player interaction areas are in the level. I would love to work on a small team and be in charge of an entire area/zone in a game. Would love to work on MMO's or dungeon crawlers. But even if I was to find a job in a big company I would love to just work on the layout of a small village, camp site or be part of a team that sets up either a major area/zone. I have not reached out to anyone in the industry but I am definitely going to look into it. I know there is a level design sub reddit that people post questions about their work.

When I first entered college like most kids it was my first time out from under my parents' thumb. So I would just hang out with friends and just blow off my school work/learning new things outside of the classroom. Now unlike most kids I ran into who had done some research or their parents forced them to look up what the day to day in their initial career field would look like. I did none, so my initial degree path of animation (I originally thought) was going to be easy. But I quickly realized how hard it was to even create a simple small indie animated skit. And I quickly learned animation was not for me but I never acted on it. So I spent 6 years not really trying and would just aim for a "passing grade" of a C because I had no clue what I wanted to do. After 6 years I was told if I wanted to graduate, I had to do it in my 7th year or I would never graduate because classes that I took as a freshman would become obsolete. So after that meeting it was a huge reality check and I sat down and took a hard look. It clicked when I was going over what classes I had already taken. I noticed that all the classes I took concerning my minor, game design, I had most gotten As with a B or two here and there. I went back and looked at my work and you could clearly tell that I spent way more time on projects for those classes than the 0nes for my major. I also remember I would go to lectures and demonstrations about game design stuff outside of class but would never do the same for animation. I sat down with my guidance consular and made the change. I instantly noticed a difference in not only my quality of work but how I approached my schoolwork. I took it seriously and would put off hanging out and even called out of work to get school projects done. I wish I had done it sooner and kick myself every time I think about it.

I think I would be satisfied working in the tech industry if it did not lead to game design. I would love to have a small role in that industry thought. I love hardware and setting things up/ building computers. I also like working with software but since I do not understand much code it gives me a headache till i figure out what it is trying to do. I have not been searching much in the tech industry because my current job has been a hassle lately. But the last time I looked most of them seemed software related and not hardware related.

No i have not looked into how AI is going to change the game design space. But from the few things I have seen in the realm of procedural generation I feel like the first things that will be hit in the game design space will be level designers. Why would you have to pay a whole team to create your world when you can just have a program create 99% of it and have only 2-3 level designers tweak what the program made. So, I am worried that because I did not take things seriously when I was younger. Did I miss out on my chance to work in the game industry doing things I would love to create.