Couple of quick mage questions Options

[Gargs454]

So I am playing my first ever mage in Shadowrun. (5th Ed.) Normally I play some sort of gun bunny and using karma tends to be pretty straight forward. Obviously its a bit different for the Awakened as its largely about Initiating. So, my first question, in looking at the Metamagics available, it seems that Centering really just stands out first and foremost above everything else. Am I missing something? It just seems like an obvious first choice.

Second, is there a "general rule" among players of mages as to karma use? What I mean is do you generally Initiate, then raise Magic, then Initiate, then raise Magic again, etc.? For context, my shaman is a bit of a utility caster with some direct damage thrown in (we have another partial caster that focuses on pure damage). Just curious as to what others have done. Normally I tend to be a bit of a jack of all trades character, but that's pretty hard to do with a mage considering the karma costs for everything.

Thanks in advance for any help!