&gt; There is way too much disconnection in academia.<p>It depends. Sometimes there is, when you sit among 500 mostly disinterested peers in a lecture hall and lecturer is taunting you that he is there to make half of you fail.<p>And sometimes you stay in the lab late into the night because you know, that your advisor needs these results to extend his grant money. And all your lab-mates are like &quot;But you are just a master&#x27;s student, you shouldn&#x27;t care about this publish-grant-cycle BS untill second year of your PHD!&quot;<p>and you can have many in-betweens.