If I get a Masters instead of a PhD, will I regret it at the end of 2023?
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I'm currently thinking that I should switch from the PhD program to the Masters program. Among other things, this would enable me to:

  • leave Lansing earlier

  • potentially get a job at Manifold, or more likely another remote company

  • not do anymore research

  • make real money again

Were I to finish myy PhD, it would be to become a professor. I no longer believe that is the right path for me, because

  • I now know I'm trans, and odds are students/hiring committees would not be universally accepting of that

  • I now know that I can't function well doing research

Given this, and the answer to any question you comment, what does Manifold think?

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📢Resolved to N/A per CG (resolution criteria are vague/personal).

@LivInTheLookingGlass Can you please resolve?


@LivInTheLookingGlass Can you please resolve?

'I now know I'm trans, and odds are students/hiring committees would not be universally accepting of that'

The relevant question is not whether everyone will be accepting (obviously not, sadly!), but whether people will be more or less accepting than in other environments you might work in instead, and how badly the non-accepting people will actually harm you in those other environments, relative to in academia.

bought Ṁ100 of NO

If you don't like research then both the process of getting a PhD and also many PhD-required jobs will be quite unpleasant, so it seems like an easy choice. Though there are a few PhD-required jobs which involve either little or potentially zero research - have you considered whether you'd be interested in these, and whether they'd be worth the sacrifice? (do you like teaching?)

(I don't enjoy research, but I love teaching and did not like my non-PhD options, so I finished my PhD and became a Teaching Professor; I enjoy my job but even so I'm not sure I'd make the same trade with full advance knowledge.)

Also my guess is that in most worlds where you regret the switch, you regret it after 2023; I would not have bet nearly as aggressively on a lifelong version of this.

@BenjaminCosman I love teaching, and would be more than willing to be a teaching professor, but the process of getting there seems painful

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