Is passion a must-have for a Master's student? When I was accepted to become a Master's student, I had virtually no experience in the topics that my supervisor wanted to work in. Lately I've been catching up on background knowledge (I've been in the program for about a month), but I still haven't developed that ever-elusive passion that I probably should have by now.

So why did I choose to work with this supervisor? I chose a supervisor based on personality, and I decided to take a risk with a brand new topic because I was feeling jaded about what I had studied in undergrad.

I'm not asking "how do I find my subject?". I want to know if this lack of an all-consuming obsession with a particular subject is a real cause for concern. What should I do, and what do you suppose my supervisor would want me to do?
Passion is not necessary for a master’s degree.

You’re still at the stage of your career where you’re getting your feet wet with research. The important thing right now is to separate your feelings about research in general from your feelings about the specific research topic you’re exploring. You can always move to another topic for your PhD, and nowadays, you’ll almost certainly have to change focus areas multiple times in your career. 

At this point in your career, being able to determine that:


You love research and your focus area;
You love research but not your focus area;
You love your focus area, but not doing research in it; or even
You don’t love research


are all perfectly valid outcomes because they will help you to decide on a long-term path.