Master of what now...?

So if I've kept tabs right...

Holmes and Benson are professor types, and both are under 30.
Duerden's working on the PhD, maybe a year or two left.
Kirk is blocking chumps into an oblivion
Sandberg might be a doctor all ready (what ever happened to Sandberg?)
DH is in Med. School.
Vanderhorst is the king of Iceland.
Mikey and Brandy are teaching the kids.
Jed...I don't really know what Jed does, but he's got three kids and two houses (to my understanding)

And then there's me.

While all others seem to be at, or close to, a career destination, I find myself in the middle obtaining a degree...which will allow me to get...another degree. And while I knew this when I applied for this degree, it still chaps me a bit that when I'm fished I won't be done. I work hard, pass my classes, pass my comps, pass my thesis...

...and get to go to three to five more years of school and do it AGAIN! AHHHH!

If I go the theater history/crit. road I'll have taken probably eleven theater history/literature classes by the time it's all done. ELEVEN!

I think in the past, maybe in the fifties or something, I could have gotten a job at a community college with an MA, but with today's competitive job market there's just NO WAY a theater guy can get on at a school with out a PhD or MFA. Which leaves me with three choices.

1. PhD in Theater, Film or Performance Studies. This is probably the best route to take, but it's probably four or five more years of school.

2. MFA in Directing. I'd probably be a good candidate at many schools with my age and experience, and I'd enjoy the curriculum a bit more than the PhD stuff, but snagging a job would be tougher post graduation because most hoity-toity universities prefer PhD's.

3. Bite the bullet and work for the man. At my current job managers come and go at an alarming rate. If I had started at the front desk I'd probably be a manager by now. In a few years I'd move up the latter, probably move locations three or four times and eventually become a GM somewhere. Knowing the staff and management at the property I work at I've come to understand that it wouldn't be real hard to learn all the ins and outs, and I'd be a good manager. Smart enough to be good, Smart enough not to be TOO good. Stay off the radar in both directions. Would get good pay, and have GREAT hotel stay benefits.

BUT, I'd be a corporate sell out. I'd probably would hate my job until I was the poo-bah. Holidays wouldn't exist (remember that if you're ever eating at the Howard Johnson's on Christmas, some of the workers never get a holiday off) and bowing down to the creeps who yell and scream about complementary coffee and the temperature of their room would be just part of a days work.

But if I do option 3 all of my schooling wouldn't have contributed to my career. And knowledge for knowledge's sake is great, but I'd like to cash in this knowledge somewhere.

There's no easy answers, and frankly I'm about a year and a half away from needing to make a decision, so while you're all working at your careers in two years and are having a bad day, just remember you could be in a classroom with a stuck up professor asking you about the importance of Plato's cave as it relates to theater, and THEN maybe your job won't seem so bad.