Q1. 

Are you passionate about your field? 

a) Yes. 

b) It depends who you ask. 

c) No. 

Q2. 

Do you want to work in academia? 

a) Yes. 

b) No. 

c) I’m not sure. 

Q3. 

How were your grades during your bachelor’s degree? 

a) Good. 

b) Bad. 

c) It depends on how you look at it. 

d) I can justify it, promise. 

Q4. 

Do you want the geometry of your life to be expressed in the angles of an office room? a) Yes. 

b) No. 

c) What else would I choose? 

Q5. 

Would you like to get married to someone you can never see, and when you do, have your conversations revolve around an esoteric subject no one cares about but you and the three other people conducting vaguely similar studies? 

a) Yes. 

b) No. 

c) I object to how you’ve phrased this question. I think love and the ceaseless production cycle academia demands can coexist. I don’t think my curiosity will be eaten alive. I think I can do groundbreaking research and the dishes. 

Q6. 

Would you like to get married at all? 

a) Yes. 

b) No. 

c) Why are you asking?

Q7. 

a) Don’t you think I can be 

b) Personally fulfilled by 

c) Something outside a heteronormative ideal of love? 

Of course, but you’ve got to have relationships. 

And this was the easiest way to ask about how much you value them. 

Q8. 

Do you think the monastic pursuit of education could be fulfilling for you all on its own? a) I think you’re overestimating how much this will swallow me whole. 

Q9. 

I don’t know. 

I think it’s because I don’t know how to do anything without ending up inside it. 

Oldest question in the world: 

a) Are you like me? 

b) Are you like me? 

c) Are you like me? 

Q10. 

Are you passionate about your field? 

a) Enough. 

If you answered mostly a, you should: 

Pursue a master’s degree well aware that the institution of academia is rotting at its core, is cracking at its edges, is designed to be inaccessible for people who didn’t grow up in it, is an ivory tower that has been built this way for so many years that you as a solitary individual cannot make much of a difference but every movement in history is built from the collective work of solitary individuals so you will have to try. 

Or don’t, it’s up to you. 

This isn’t a personality quiz, it’s your life. 

If you answered mostly b or c, you should: 

Go back up and complete the quiz.