It's worth thinking about where you might want to end up in 5, 10, 20 years. There's many different perspectives: e.g. your interests, career, finances, social

It's worth thinking about where you might want to end up in 5, 10, 20 years. There's many different perspectives: e.g. your interests, career, finances, social life, family. That said, in 10 years you'll probably be a somewhat different person, and value somewhat different things to the things that current-you values. All things equal, it's generally good to give yourself options. If you've never experienced working in industry, what if you got a job in industry for a few years (ideally at a few different organisations, since there's a lot of variability), to see how you found it? Getting a broader range of experience may help give clarity. If you're concerned about being left without something to do in the short term, what's the harm in starting something but keeping actively looking for other better opportunities in a fraction of your time? If you find a better deal you can drop what you're doing and switch. I used to work for a small business that took on a few applied math PhD interns, one of the interns found the commercial side of things much more engaging and dropped their PhD to switch to work full time. Conversely there were other employees who switched from full-time work to part time so they could pursue masters or PhDs.