A lot of self schooling goes on in coffee shops these days, with kids and adults alike staring into laptop screens, sometimes reading, sometimes meeting with peers.
Many customers for my curriculum brands partake of this civilian ambience, conducive to self study, a consequence of the Anti-Bucky Boycott and the "lost generation" of professors this entailed i.e. they won't teach you this stuff in your average university as it goes too much against their grain to admit its continuing relevance.
For example, to get information about our phi/sqrt(2) rhombic triacontahedron of tetravolume 7.5, you might need to have YouTube, which many high schools currently block, rather perversely, thanks to creepy administrators who project their own fantasies of what the Internet must be like -- wall-to-wall porn, the way they imagine it, babes in the woods that they be.
In terms of our Global University, it's easy to see these urban gathering points as the new student centers.
These watering holes are especially valuable to those between jobs, looking to access new training programs or absorb new skills right there on the laptop.
These oases also provide opportunities to get in on the latest buzz, full of chewy clues and cues as to what might be a good next step along whatever journey.
Having free Wifi makes all the difference.
