Allow me to ask the standard line of laptop related questions...
1) Does your major require heavy computing? Or do you primarily need something that can just run MS Office and Firefox for working on projects?
2) How often do you really plan on gaming while not in your dorm room? Do you anticipate spending a lot of time at a boy/girl friend's house who'll let you game there?
The thing with laptops, while it sounds nice being able to do everything in one little package, you'll find it becomes obsolete really fast. For gaming on a computer, just about everyone will recommend building your own PC (it's really not that hard). For a budget of 800 bucks, you can easily find a cheap laptop that will satisfy academic needs while putting together a fairly awesome gaming rig that'll run what you want it to.
