sometimes I'd prefer a more realworld approach to school.

Yeah, writing 20-30 pages papers makes you think, but who is going to read them besides your professor or academics? If you want to make an impact...u need to find other, less legnthy, creative ways to disseminate your information.

And you don't need to be using words like disseminate, if you're trying to reach a lot of people. Make it plai . It doesn't mean you or your audience is dumb, but if you make simple concepts difficult to understand...then you're basically practicing elitism...weeding out people who may not know Webster's and whatever theories you use backwards and forwards who could have a genuine interest in what you're talking about. You can also make harder concepts easier to understand--s'how I learned calculus (at one point, forgot it)--step by step.