Magid received in 1966 from the University of California, Berkeley his bachelor's degree[2] and in 1969 from Northwestern University his PhD under the direction of Daniel Zelinsky with thesis Separable Subalgebras of Commutative Algebras and Other Applications of the Boolean Spectrum.[3] From 1969 to 1972 Magid was a Ritt Assistant Professor at Columbia University. At the University of Oklahoma he was from 1972 to 1974 an assistant professor, from 1974 to 1977 an associate professor, and from 1977 to 2012 a full professor, retiring as professor emeritus in 2012. From 1989 to 1994 he was the chair of the University of Oklahoma's Department of Mathematics. In 1989 he was named George Lynn Cross Research Professor.