HELP ME MAKE A LIFE DECISION

Even though I have not told my parents. My aim in life is to become a great chess player. I don't care what I do for a living as long as I can achieve this aim.

I am 30 years old.

I have two options before me..

1) Return to graduate school in the US(paying my way through it, coz funding is not available) and pursuing research

2) Getting a 9 to 5 job in programming in my own country.

Which one of these two options is likely to give me more room for chess and which is better for chess progress.

Q for High rated players -- What do you do for a living and how do you allocate time for chess.

Let me save a soul here.  Programming, and it's not close.  Graduate school by research is basically legalized slavery.  Your advisor owns your butt, and they can do anything they want to you and the school will back them no matter what. 

To paraphrase some guy on the internet somewhere, "you can literally see what 'sunk costs' look like in the eyes of a fifth-year PhD student."  Research can be great if and only if you LOVE your topic AND your advisor.

Also, real talk, saying you want to be a great chess player at 30 isn't much different from saying you want to be a great basketball player, tennis player, or fighter at 30.  It's theoretically possible I suppose, but definitely have a Plan B.

Hehe, tortoise, I am glad you understand the position I am in. Yes, it is legalized slavery. The money that I put in keeps accumulating and I get desperate for results in my research and this just carries on. Sooner or later, you start having rage attacks and one bad grade in one course can send you over the edge. This is what caused me to drop out. Now I am thinking of rejoining. But won't I get more time for chess in graduate school as opposed to working a 9 to 5. Just want to make sure I make the right decision.

You'd have your nights free with a 9-5, and it'd give you a good income and skills.  I think it's possible, if you spent less than eight hours a day doing research in grad school because you were playing chess, that you would could never graduate.  Anyway good luck.

hmm, well .. i know what it is like to while away time during graduate school. bad idea. of course you get to set your own working hours but you have to prepare a colossal amount of results to get your degree. it's a bit more exciting though and perhaps i can squeeze out some time for chess while i am doing research.

9-5 job, no contest. That's a 40 hour week. Grad school is 60 hours expected per week minimum (there have been times where I've been 8-6 or more 7 days a week when preparing for milestones in the program-there's no time for chess there). Plus, graduate school work tends to follow a person home, while regular jobs do so much less often.

But, if you think you'll enjoy graduate school more (but you will have less time for chess), then I do think you should go that route. 

Depends on the 9 to 5 job I guess. Don't take one that is mentally stressfull (e.g. dealing with custumers) or too exhaustive.

You'd need to find a real dull routine job, where you don't have to think but do automated things. Then you have your brain free for working on chess. If you have a good visualisation and don't need a board (which you might develop soon, cause all good players can do stuff without an actual board), you could even analyze whole games in your mind while performing dull manual work. Or a job where you have to wait a lot, maybe a hotel concierge or a warehouse watchman; there you can solve tactics or play on your laptop in the time when nothing happens.

voldemort, surely you're joking.

The 9 to 5 job will give you more time, and you can structure your day ahead of time.Given that you have to take an hour out of your 24 hour day for things like eating and showering, and another 30 minutes per day of transportation to work, if you secluded yourself, kind of dropping off the grid to friends and family, you may feasibly have the time you need to become very good. I wouldn't cut any time out of sleep, as you will need that very much. Time that is available is one of the big reasons why it's important to start young in chess. Kids have tons of time, but we don't when we start paying bills. I could reasonably see you having the 6 pm - 10 pm block available for chess study. 4 hours a day, plus 8 hours a day on the weekend. If chess is that important to you, I would do the 9 to 5 job, for as someone above said, the research deal would have you with unpredictable time off, and you would fare better with structure. Just my opinion, though.

What makes you think you'll be ever a great Chess player? Since when have you been playing?

Why do you think that i'm joking ? If you take a regular 9 to 5 job you simply won't have enough time left for training, as you'll be tired after the job and are not going to use the few spare hours for training only. So the key will be to find a job where you have room to do the training during the job - and there are plenty of them.

It has his pros and his cons, but yeah, time consumming is a lot

That or winning the lottery!

You're 30. Why do you have to clear it with your parents? Define "great". Club champion or what?because at your level at 30 that's about what great equals. No offense intended but there's a reason you haven't told your parents. It's a pipe dream to think you'll be the best from your country to say nothing of the world stage. My advice- get a day job and play as much as you like as long as you enjoy it. The "greatness" will take care of itself.

by 'great player' i mean 1900 on standard live.

you need to pic door number 2;)

I would personally get a degree and hire a coach for the weekends, just so you can earn money and become a great chess player

You have 1611, it is not impossible to reach the level of 1900, you just do not have to take the decision considering how much time you will get to train chess, it is not a reason for choosing a job, studies, country, etc considering you will be an amateur... You are not focusing very well the issue you have between hands

i would go with programming, i mean you have skill... i dont know if you start education with 30, i dont think companies will hire you, they go like hey why did he start to so late and stuff

yeah, but chess do not enter in the decision proccess