Keith Watanabe * NET 2.0

For my life. I prefer the academic scene to the work scene as there seems to be less politics at play. Not to mention I find learning to be far more rewarding than being a slave (although you are in essence a slave to debt as universities has a penchant for ripping your life away from you). Nonetheless, if I do return to academia someday, the big question is what. I have a few options. One is to return in two years and see if i can complete an infomatics degree at UCI. Another is to take a similar route and get an MBA with an emphasis on information systems. Or maybe just focus on a general MBA in case I decide that finance is the best route. Then there's the other spectrum with the humanities/liberal arts path. I mentioned MFAs, music and perhaps even considered something like critical theory or cultural analysis. However, perhaps what I'm looking for is not the exact academic setting but the access to the same level of information and people. Kind of an enhanced version of the classroom, post-university. Having a professor guide you is nice, but truthfully their vision is clouded by their specialty field. What I think might be more interesting is an arena of free flowing ideas that will allow us to trade concepts to produce or advance our knowledge. I'm a little suspicious of academics because people are locked away from the real world in books. But if you can combine that setting with pragmaticism and real life experience, then there's a better basis without falling into the trap of trying to prove yourself and the whole formalism associated with academia.