Hmm, hopefully that stuff doesn't turn out that way for me. I'm going to school to learn how to do research in scientific computing. I want to get apprenticed to do a specific and competitive job, not prove that I'm smart or be an academic glutton or whatever else. I've had a real life job and I don't really care about all that extra stuff, I just want to do applied mathematics for a living. I'm probably one of the top applicants to my program so we will see what happens. I feel like I'll be content to enjoy office politics as well should I fail out and end up in another large corporate job, but that I'll be unable to focus if I don't give a serious shot at academic stuff.