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You don't have to decide whether or not to do a Ph.D. right now. Just begin grad school and after you've finished a master's degree decide whether you want to c

You don't have to decide whether or not to do a Ph.D. right now. Just begin grad school and after you've finished a master's degree decide whether you want to continue on and do a Ph.D. or not. I felt like I had to make the decision early on in grad school, but that's not the case. Do a master's (thesis option) degree and in doing so you'll discover whether you want to do research or not. If you decide you absolutely love research (and all that goes along with research - publishing, perhaps teaching, etc.), then go for the Ph.D., otherwise, finish with the master's degree and go into industry.

mish4 16y ago
In my case I wasn't sure whether I wanted to do a PhD so I went for a Masters first. After finishing a Masters I didn't feel as though I did "real research". To an extent I feel research given to M.S students is not as interesting and will have to be much smaller in scope due to length of time a M.S student has. It seems to me the only way to really know whether you like research is to be in a PhD program doing research. Although this isn't a great answer because it requires investing a lot of time. Thats my experience at least.