Update on the potential dilemma. There's no longer a dilemma. Autodesk won't do an H1-B. I didn't ask my ex-boss to ask HR about a TN because it's so temporary that such a visa for a job that I know won't move me along in my career a whole lot wouldn't be worth quitting school for. So I can concentrate on my homework now. :-) I think I'm ok with all this. If I dropped everything for this job, it would return me to my other career track where I would continue to do stuff that I don't find intellectually challenging or personally rewarding. Would I have a bunch of money to go shopping every weekend? Yup. But thinking long term, it wouldn't make me a happier person. I'm taking some serious short term financial pain here...I sure hope it leads to long term gain, both personal and financial.

So B asked me yesterday if you could really get a PhD in media studies. I guess that just means that people generally don't know what the heck my field is about and understandably so. Most people know of PhDs in sciences and engineering, not something that seems as abstract as media studies. So short history lesson. If you've ever heard of Marshal Mcluhan. He's the grand-daddy of mass communication studies. He was a Canadian who did his undergrad work at University of Manitoba (be proud Ray!). He also studied at Cambridge, taught at University of Wisconsin and served as Director of University of Toronto's Centre for Culture and Technology. The focus of his work (and mine) is the effects of mass media. He looked at how the medium shapes the message being delivered and coined the term "global village", the cultural coming together of geographically disparate communities as a result of mass communication. Mass Comm PhDs typically aim to dedicate their lives to research, teaching or working for a media company as an analyst or consultant. There's many different areas of focus within the field as well. I'm tailoring my program to focus on media, race and gender.