If you are studying, dont join WOW.
It will literally suck your time away.
It is more addicting then any other MMORPG i have played.

Ya, WOW is now more like World of Healcraft. DPS is soooo easy cheesy.
Raids are testing the healer skill.
Overhealing, mana conservation, downranking heals n timing etc

All DPS class are like Ken n Ryu of Streetfighter 2. Simply spam few buttons and do wonders to show e-peen.
Mage go scorchx5 fireball fireball fireball fireball...
Warlocks/shadowpriests just need to refresh dots.
Rogue just basically spam 1-2 buttons, sinister strike, mutilate or watever spec they are.
Hunters are even worse. All go spec LOL-IWIN BM spec and spam 1 steadyshot/autoshot macro thru out the entire fight. Only a few rare people spec MM or Surv and use manual shots rotations.
DPS shammy and druids basically have the same playstyle.

I wouldn't recommend you to spec as prot war/pally as your 1st build.
Keep in mind that tanks are very gear dependant and they have massive repairs bills.
Expect to die a lot when you tank during early lvl instances coz you will see the most retarded healers during early game. (Druids refuse to shift out from kitty mode, shamans go pewpewwindfury, pally goes ZOMGSOCPROC! and priest went hiding in the shadows)

You will get scolded a lot if you cant tank properly (even though most of time is DPS aggro fault)
Prot spec will only level fast if you are skilled and people ask you to tank for them frequently.

BTW, we dont call ret paladins as ret pallies. We just call them as Retardin.
Retardin have serious issue with aggro. Their DPS is inconsistent.
They can go like less than 300tps and jump to 2ktps in a second.
Lol, my kara guild actually have one group with a retardin using Deep Thunder. He is mainly doing arena 3v3, 5v5 in my guild, not much of gruul's or TK for him.