My goals would be for getting deep knowledge in an area of study, more than I'm able to do on my own. After becoming an expert in that area, I would like to apply that to business. Examples: MIT robotics->start robotics company / work with roboticists at an existing company or Columbia Computer Science and Logistics and Supply Chain Optimization->start a company optimizing delivery/pickup routes for delivery drivers and providing 'deep' dashboards to monitor and reroute as needed. Also, I would invite everyone to look at this comment from Clare Corthell from Mattermark for something closely related, and important:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8445607

The thing that spurred me to write this was the realization that there are probably hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people in this country that could be making incredible contributions to science, technology, business, and society in general, but don't have the ability to realize that potential. It's one of those funny things where understanding you have a problem, even at a detailed level, does not imbue you with the tools to fix it. I think that's what makes me the angriest. Society should be falling over trying to help people push things ahead, contribute to the advancement of society (I read that some countries pay people to go to college), but instead it tells you 'have rich parents, go into incredible debt, be a lucky unicorn, or tough luck.' How many other people are sitting around doing some dreary job that does little (like the ad clicks example), who, if given the resources, would provide society (and themselves) with so much more? It's a colossal waste.

Hammerbacher's quote resonated with me when I first read it, but now it really hits home: "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads," Hammerbacher once said. "That sucks."

I really appreciate your comment. That's the sort of response I was hoping for. Other people who have experienced this, and what they did/are doing. Thank you.