Quote Originally Posted by Peelee View Post
Potential love interest was specifically called "girlfriend" so I don't think I took a leap of faith there. As for the DM, I don't recall anyone making any assumptions there.

Nothing implied heteronormativity there.
You know (aside from the fact that I was kidding, of course), you're quite right. I thought that the GM in our scenario was explicitly male, but apparently I'm he one who made that assumption, oops!

Quote Originally Posted by Doug Lampert View Post
As someone with a PhD in a STEM field, I used to claim that if they they aren't paying you to be in graduate school, you shouldn't be in graduate school.
There's some case to be made for exactly the opposite--at least in a STEM field you're likely to become more employable if you take out loans to finish a grad degree. In the humanities, your immediate job prospects are terrible, plus if you weren't good enough to get someone to fund you, your chance of getting a relevant job after are pretty slim. It's different, of course, if the money isn't meaningful to you for whatever reason...