To Masters or not to Masters...

[danaeris]

If I went to get a Masters in Physics...

+it would only take a year full time
+I could probably get a teaching fellowship and thereby avoid loans/more debt
+I could then teach at community colleges etc.

-it would require taking the GRE, doing a thesis, and other scary things
-it would mean taking a break from my writing career
-I'm not sure whether ultimately I really want to teach physics at small colleges; right now the idea certainly has a lot of appeal...

? I have no idea what qualifications are expected of lecturers at colleges in other countries. And I don't expect to live in the US for the rest of my life. I don't want to go through an entire Masters degree only to find that it is useless when I get to wherever I live next.

SFSU and UC Berkeley are just two of the places I could go to do this. There are options. So... ??? Any thoughts?

Comments

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

It could also nicely parallel/augment your writing career.

[hastings1066.livejournal.com]

True, look at Asimov, he had as many non-fiction as fiction. You just need to keep the fiction out of the Thesis and you're set *)

[biailisha.livejournal.com]

Why get a masters if you can get a PhD...you can always say "I'm done with this", and then leave with a masters.

[qedrakmar.livejournal.com]

This is a valid point. Now that I think of it, you're more likely to get feloowships and the like if you declare PhD instead of MS. If you decide to cut it short, you just dodge your qualifiers. ;)

[qedrakmar.livejournal.com]

The Physics GREs weren't that bad. I went in cold, with no review or prep, and got like 60th percentile. It's all about how much physics you know instinctually, not how fast you can solve problems. If you have to solve anything on the phsycis GRE, you're approaching it wrong.

-13.6/n^2, leptons must be conserved, decays don't go up the chain, E(psi)=H(psi), etc etc... Questions I got wrong were like when I walked out and said "Wait a minute! mg over L! What was I thinking?!" ...and conserve your units. Out of the 4 or 5 answers, 2 or 3 usually have the wrong units.

I recommend going for the master's, if you're still in the indecision regime. It'll give you more time to stew in the back of your head over where you want your life and your career to be going.

[lawbard.livejournal.com]

I took the GREs once on a lark...don't worry, they're not scary at all :)
*hugs*

[zyxwvut.livejournal.com]

Community-college teaching is not exactly the path to riches -- they
may pay $80/hr, but that's *in-class* hours, I think. Plus, you will
have to run between multiple colleges to get by.

Z

P.S.: Heh: "Masters" in *your* subject line... %-}