From the age of 4 or 5, curiosity animated me. I remember wondering what lay beyond the stars, why people spoke in different accents, and how caterpillars could turn into butterflies (which I alleged was a hoax, and stole a couple from the school yards to verify: an experiment that only led to their tragic demise).

As I grew older and better acquainted with the world, there settled an intuition that everything was 'figureoutable'. All it required was diligent study. Academia seemed like the natural vehicle, not just for acquiring knowledge but advancing it to 'create a positive impact' in the world. After four years of working in the domain, that idea sounds delusional.

When I applied to LUMS, I'd enrolled in the business school on the advice of my parents. They had explained that commerce made the world go round. I could see it. And the pragmatic reasoning couldn't be faulted. Within the first semester, however, it dawned on me that the vast majority of what was being taught was common sense. I didn't need to be sitting in Management-101 to know what 'contingency planning' entailed. It was insulting and frankly nauseating.

"I'm here to learn," I thought to myself. It was certainly convenient that the top liberal arts school in the country was a stone's throw away. The following semester, I picked up a couple of courses from it: Introduction to Sociology and Introduction to Cultural Anthropology. Both blew my mind, and there was no turning back.

My 20-year-old self had decided to dedicate his life to the 'pursuit of knowledge' via The Academy. There was a certain romance to it, the idea of spending late nights buried in books at local libraries, sitting around campfires........

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