A (top) professor in her field advised me to look at the Santa Fe Institute. I look at it, and wow, it is perfectly match my interests. I love to research, but I don't want to focus only in the niche of the niche of my field. I also want to explore things outside my discipline, and I want to collaborate with people from other fields.
The point is, should I go to there instead of going to grad school? As far as I know, because it isn't a grad school, so I can't receive a PhD from it. I want to research; if a PhD is a ticket for me to be a full time researcher, then I want a PhD. However, looks like that without a PhD, I can't be considered to be serious in my career path. From its About page:
Researchers come to the Santa Fe Institute from universities, government agencies, research institutes, and private industry to collaborate across disciplines, merging ideas and principles of many fields
And Wikipedia:
The Institute consists of a small number of resident faculty and postdoctoral researchers, a large group of external faculty whose primary appointments are at other institutions, and a number of visiting scholars.
Looks like I'm not a person who it has interest with.
But how about its researchers? Say I send an email to Researcher X, from University Y, who works for the institute (part time? full time?) to join their lab. If I get admitted, which organization am I in? X's lab as a worker, or Y school as a X's student, or something else? Is there any difference from applying to school Y and join X's lab as usual? And what does my career, in long-term, look like after that?