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======= Date Modified 15 Oct 2012 20:18:40 =======
I'm in the first semester of my PhD program in Microbiology, and I'm having serious second thoughts. I'm almost 100% sure the PhD career path is not the one I want to take, and I don't think I have the capability to complete the degree even if I wanted to. I've already graduated with a non-thesis Master's degree in Microbiology, but no papers came out of the degree. I'm wondering if it's possible to get a second Master's degree in Microbiology, but this time do a thesis and try to get a publication out to increase my chances of getting a job. My main question is should I quit altogether, considering my second thoughts? Any advice would be appreciated. (By the way, I get paid for being a Master's student where I'm enrolled. I just get paid $4,000 less.)

*Bump*

Does anyone have advice for Fleasbegone6?

Who do you ultimately want to be employed by?

If it's academia, then you may have to do a PhD at some point. If you're applying for research assistant roles then one paper probably won't make the difference.

If it's not academia, I doubt anyone will care whether you have papers or not, and they will wonder why you have a Bachelors and two Masters degrees in the same subject. Even if you apply for a research job in industry or a technical job in the health service, they will probably value lab experience more highly than papers if you're going in at pre-doc level.

There is no guarantee that a thesis based Masters will lead to a paper. Some do, some don't. You can't rely on it.

Ah. I definitely do not want to go into academia, so I guess I have my answer... Thank you for your advice!

some universities differentiate masters via coursework (MSc) and masters by pure research (MPhil).
maybe u could try getting an MPhil?