What makes a MSc in Computer Science difficult for someone who has no specific background but 10 years of experience as a programmer? I enrolled at my current MSc in computer science program last year having never completed a single computer science course in college. I decided to apply because 10 years after college I had a fairly successful career as a front-end web developer and figured it would be great to have a degree so as to look like a more legitimate programmer than what my anthropology B.A. degree might imply. I had taken several math and physics courses in college and did well, so I figured a computer science degree could be manageable.

Now, it's been over a year since my program started (I attend part-time). I dropped a core class in basic algorithms in my first semester because I couldn't understand algorithms and decided to enroll in the same course offered this summer. I'd hoped to do well this summer, but it looks like if I pass I'd be just barely scraping by. It feels like everyone is doing much better than me and can solve problems faster and more accurately. If you were me would you quit the program? I'm not sure if it is:

a lack of a background in undergraduate computer science
the fact that I am an older student who is nearly 40
a lack of aptitude for this subject

Any thoughts from others in computer science, engineering, and mathematical sciences would be much appreciated.

EDIT: It's been 7 months since I posted this and I've realized the problem. Front-end web development quite frankly is nothing like computer science. Many concepts in my basic algorithms course requires a good grasp of recursion, which I didn't have before entering the program. All the programming I had done in the past was iterative. Once I was able to understand and (more importantly) correctly apply recursion to everything from Towers of Hanoi to dynamic programming the algorithms course got much easier. To anyone starting graduate school in computer science--never underestimate the importance of recursion! Even if you think you understand it, test yourself with other students to make sure your understanding is solid!

More generally, my advice to anyone starting out in computer science is to figure out what it is you are weak at and work to get stronger in it. That can be hard to do initially if you are overwhelmed by the material and everything just appears really difficult, but talk to your professor and ask him or her to help identify your areas of weakness, never give up, and you will be able to master the material soon.

Btw, I did take a one year Intro to CS course for students without engineering/math backgrounds, but it mostly focused on object-oriented  programming and glossed over recursion.

It sounds like you fell into a couple of common traps at the same time.

Trap 1:

I am good at front-end web development, I am surely good at computer science as well

As you likely learned by now, it is possible (quite common, actually) to be a terrific programmer and still struggle with fundamental CS topics, such as algorithms. There may have been a time when programming was really applied algorithms, but today the skills required to write your average web application is relatively disjoint from what you learn in CS 101.

Trap 2:

I did decent in (undergrad) maths and physics courses, surely those (master) CS courses will be ok.

This is a combination of multiple fallacies I have seen. Firstly, you may have not taken into account that master-level CS courses are, well, for students on master-level. They assume a strong command of the basics, which, by the sound of it, you lack. Further, doing ok in maths and physics is a good indicator that you'll do well in maths and physics, it by no means qualifies you directly for a CS master.

Trap 3:

I know what I need to know, I just applied to the master because I need a better degree.

You say that:

  [I] figured it would be great to have a degree so as to look like a more legitimate programmer than what my anthropology B.A. degree might imply

I find this statement very concerning, as it seems you are more interested in getting a degree than in learning CS. If that is the case, you should seriously reconsider whether the degree is actually worth the trouble. Frankly, for most programming houses I am in contact with, 10 years of experience count for more than a master's degree anyway.

Now to answer your concrete question:

  If you were me would you quit the program? I'm not sure if it is a lack of a background in undergraduate computer science, the fact that I am an older student who is nearly 40, or a lack of aptitude for this subject.

I would not assume that you are just "not good enough", and the age shouldn't really be an issue either. It definitely sounds like you are lacking background, and the fact that you are doing the master part-time surely isn't helping either. All in all, that does not make for very favorable conditions.

Nobody but you can tell whether you should quit, but given the information, I would re-evaluate whether (a) a master is achievable for you, and (b) whether getting a master's degree is actually worth it for you.


Possibly fraudulent journal: cite or not to cite? When I was doing literature review, I came across a paper published in a journal Research Journal of Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology.

Now, I can't find this paper anywhere else, no citations, or anything. Just the pdf that I linked above. Also, the journal website looks shady as links don't work and it just does not have the make or look of an academic journal. Additionally, I couldn't even find anything about the authors.

What should be done in such cases? Should the paper be completely ignored or put in the review section?

The reasons these journals are called predatory is because they prey on unwary researchers looking for places to publish their work, tricking them into publishing with them rather than in legitimate places.  So just because a paper is in a predatory journal does not mean that it is necessarily bad work.

However, this paper still needs to be treated with greatly heightened suspicion: it should be assumed that it has not had any peer review, and that the authors are unfamiliar enough with the area and with the normal practices of science that they could be tricked by a predatory journal.  Alternately, they may have sent the work to the journal intentionally because they needed another line on their CV and knew the paper was not going to survive real peer review.

Thus, although such a paper might be legitimate, it is also very likely to be of low quality and may well even be fraudulent or simply nonsense.  It can also cause trouble for you if you cite it, as readers may think that you are not informed enough to tell the difference between real research and predatory crap.

I would thus suggest treating the paper like a random PDF found on the web: it might be usable as a primary source (e.g., like a newspaper opinion piece or a personal essay), or to point you for looking for similar information elsewhere.  If this information has only ever been published in this one paper in a fake journal, however, it should be considered to effectively not be published at all: the context in which it has been found casts so much doubt on its likelihood of being legitimate, and anything substantive will likely develop multiple real publications over time.


How to ask for a letter of rec from a first semester professor in a masters' program? How to ask for a letter of rec to apply for PhD prospectively from a first semester professor in a masters' program who I won't take any future courses with?

Assume I receive an A but I'll never take classes with them again, and they'll probably forget about me. I won't apply to PhD programs as a masters student until I graduate.

Option 1: Ask for an informal letter of rec, sent to me, and I keep it for references/jobs that don't require confidential letters withheld from me.

Option 2: Don't ask at all.

Option 3: Have them write something pretending that I'm already graduated from the masters program, and archive it on some disk. Trust that they won't lose it or "write it" or have them sent it to some other professor who is the department head.

Option 4: Risk asking them later when they forget about me.

After you complete the course and receive an A, you email your professor along the following lines.

  "Dear Prof X, I was a student in your class Z. I found it very
  interesting and really enjoyed learning about the subject (don't say
  this if you didn't). Next year, I am thinking about applying for W.
  Would you see yourself in a position to write a letter of
  recommendation for me for those applications? If you want, I'm happy
  to discuss my plans in person. Sincerely, Q"

Note that letter of recommendation that simply state "Student Q took my class Z, and they got an A" will not be particularly valuable for PhD applications. I would make sure to interact with the professor beyond just passively taking the class and really stand out. Don't do this just for the sake of getting a LOR (they can tell). Only if you're actually interested in the material!

Also, use those interactions to discuss your academic career plans with the professor! Maybe they know someone in your specific field of interest, maybe they are looking for PhD students themselves etc. That could become more useful than the LOR!


Optimal timing to change my last name I am a third year PhD student in a US business school. A this moment I have a couple publications in a totally unrelated field which are not important for my career. Regarding my PhD research, I just submitted my first paper in my field to a journal (we haven't received a response yet). This submission was done using my complete legal name. I have also done a conference presentation using my whole legal name and I have been accepted for at least 1 more in the next few months.

I happen to have a 4-word last name (two Spanish last names, one of which is compound) and I was thinking of shortening it (as I have found it is difficult to pronounce and confusing for most people in my field and there is always some issue locating my badge, etc.). My idea was to contract my first surname (the compound) into an initial, like a middle name, so I would be "Name S. Lastname". I am not thinking about changing my legal name, only using this contraction in my publications, conferences, etc.

Is it too late if I have already presented in conferences and have one submission (not publication)? Is there any social perception that name change is bad? Is there a way of making this name change effective in this first paper submission (i.e., when it comes back for revision, submit it back with my new name), or once submitted it is too late? Will it be a problem to use a name as a researcher that is not my whole legal name? Will it have an impact in the job market?

Thank you.

Lots of people publish under things that aren't their legal name (nicknames, middle name, one last name instead of two), and I've never heard of it being a problem for anyone.  As for the timing, in all the cases I'm familiar with (and other fields may be different from math), there's a time after acceptance where you can make minor revisions and I think it shouldn't be a problem to modify the name you're using then.


Manuscript was returned by the Editor to include more data, should I prepare "Response to Editor"? I have submitted a manuscript that was returned by the Editor mainly because there is "no enough data" on the manuscript. The manuscript is a bit shorter and to-the-point. Of course, I have been also asked to revise the English and proofread it.

Now I have addressed the editor request, should I just re-submit the manuscript alone or I need to include a "response to the Editor" as well?

If you mean "dispute the editor" then I don't recommend it. For the most part, if you don't generally follow the editor's advice as best you can, then you are likely to be rejected at the end.

But if your response is of the form "these are the changes...", then yes, include a response, as they will make the editor's job easier and more likely to give you a fair and accurate review.

There may be a difference of opinion, of course, about how much data is enough, but that can be worked out if everyone stays positive. Just don't try to tell an editor, who has all the power, how to do the job. That isn't a path to success.


Stating that my research hold less value compared to another topic. A good idea? In a couple of days I have to present my master's thesis, which is on a topic of Information System (IS) implementation in a small organisation.

I conduct a study of critical success factors, but during my research I found that the organisation has deeper problems like readiness, culture and knowledge gaps. Therefore, I think that a study on these aspects would give them more value.

Do you think that I should mention this during my research presentation?

Thanks for your time.

Your research doesn't have less value simply because you uncovered problems broader than (or different from) what you chose to focus on. An equal way of stating the outcome is to say that your work has opened a door to at least one promising additional line of research! We as researchers are facing the unknown; we necessarily do not know what the results are going to look like ahead of time. Scientifically speaking, as long as the study is well-supported and well-designed, an unexpected outcome is precisely as valuable as a result that looks as expected and/or upholds a hypothesis.

Your presentation will be better if it is self-assured. Confidently and straightforwardly, lay out what you did and how you went about it and what you have discovered, and put in a few slides at the end conveying some excitement about the potential inherent in the interesting things that your work is pointing the way towards. Every study has limitations, and good scientific practice is to acknowledge these transparently but not apologetically. No study can do everything. Knowledge is a collaborative effort, and we can build on each other's findings if we have a good sense of what has been done how.

My MA thesis, in retrospect, had a lot of things in it that I now know to have been oversimplifications. I didn't have a full sense of what was going on; there was so much more to it than that! But I couldn't have gotten here from there. A master's thesis is often a stepping-stone; I'd say that's both natural and usually inevitable. If you feel as if there are signs of you needing to look beyond the scope of a master's paper - I spotted some in mine as well! - that's what I'd call a sign that you're ready for a Ph.D. (if that is your aim).


Should I retake GRE? I took the GRE two times, and unfortunately, I could not improve my score on the second attempt. I considered applying with my current GRE score which is 160Q and 140V.(Ps. English is my second language and the verbal part if helpless for me. I do not think that I can improve my verbal score; however, I can make the Quant better.)I am so confused about retaking the GRE a third time. Any suggestions for me?

thanks for joining the site. Others have asked similar questions here, here, and here (all relating to standardized tests and scores). You might also benefit from a general discussion about admissions decisions. There is a general consensus is that test scores are only one component of an application. You might consider focusing on a supplementary letter explaining the lower verbal score or focusing your efforts on other assessments of language (such as the TOEFL, if required).


How do I choose research project topics for the project requirements in graduate classes? Most graduate classes include a research project component in the grading scheme. I am taking such a class now and I need to complete a research project.

The instructor has presented us with 4-5 areas of applicability of the course material and asked that we choose our topics. We have to do a research project in the range of 75 hours and write a paper on the findings.

This is the first time I am taking a course such as this. I like the idea and I want to build my research skills; the challenge I am not clear at all on how I should best approach this task. The course is an introductory course and as such I am not familiar at all with the material. The research is about addressing some engineering problem and it needs to have some originality but can be based off of other work.

That is the extent of the information the instructor was able to give me and also said that his time is limited and as such I cannot rely on him for help with this part.

This is fine, but I need to understand how to go about finding a problem, make sure it's a problem I can solve, and make sure it's going to be in the 75 hours of effort ballpark in a field I am not familiar with.

What's my strategy here? How could I possibly ensure these aspects?

Much of your approach will depend on the requirements for this specific project, but there are some generic guidelines that one should follow when beginning a new research project.

You should choose something interesting to you. This seems obvious, but some people fall into the trap of choosing what seems easier or less work and end up losing motivation because they do not enjoy what they are researching. If your instructor gave you 5 areas of applicability to choose from, the first thing to do is find what interests you most. I would strongly caution you against picking something that seems like the quickest option just because you have a time limit.
Become familiar with the area. If all of this material is new to you, do some cursory research wherever you can find it (all the way from a reputable book to Wikipedia). You do not need to become an expert for this class project (since it’s not your thesis), but you need to have a working knowledge and basic familiarity with the topics.
Read/write a literature review. A literature review will tell you what work has been done in a research area. You should read literature reviews that have already been written, but a good researcher will write their own too (even if it is just a smaller section in the paper). By assessing the work being done in your specific area, you will be able to narrow your topic and find gaps in the current research where you can add your own. This is one of the most critical steps to conducting new research. Note: This part of your research should focus on peer-reviewed material (like books and journal articles), not the aforementioned cursory material.
Narrow your topic as much as possible. If it seems daunting to become an “expert” in your area, you are probably thinking too broadly. Your instructor is not expecting earth-shattering research, so do not worry about your contribution being small.

If you follow these guidelines, you should naturally be able to find a problem to work with that is within your skill level, is interesting to you, and meets the requirements for the course. It is difficult to assess how many hours of work this would take, but if the instructor has not indicated this otherwise, I would use the time as a guideline for how detailed your project should be.


What do you do if a person in your group purposely misleads you? I'm an undergraduate researcher working with another undergraduate researcher in a group. I believe the other undergraduate researcher wants to look particularly good between the two of us for a good letter of recommendation, and she has been doing this to my detriment (giving me false or misleading information on our shared project).

The graduate student that's also working on the project now certainly prefers her and sees me as kind of useless. Of course, I'm going to try to just perform well independently now to see if I can demonstrate my value, but I'm wondering if this sort of a thing is appropriate to bring up, and if so how. I'm only here for a Summer.

Edit:
As an update for whoever is interested, I found a solution. The other students' only incentive is to look good, though thus far it has been to my detriment. I asked the other student openly if they thought I unfairly got the short end of the stick in our last meeting, and she agreed that I did. So then we agreed that if she actively made clear the work that I was doing in the next meeting, that I would do the same for her. This way all our efforts are acknowledged, so there's no need to employ subterfuge, and so there's no drama involved. The grad student acknowledges both our efforts now. A game-theoretic perspective can be helpful sometimes! I'm happy I can proceed together with the other student on our project.

Unfortunately it happens, not just in undergraduate research.

What you should or could do strongly depends on your evidence and the perceptions of other people involved, here supervisors. However, assume you are right and you have evidence, still then supervisors often do not like to hear you complaining about someone they like or value. You will not change their minds easily.

So my advise would be to follow what you expressed already. Just perform well independently. But also make sure that your work and effort is visible. You may need to step out of your comfort zone and be more extrovert and assertive. If you do not occupy your space, others will.

You can see this as an excellent learning opportunity to improve these skills. Try to park the negative emotion for now if it does not help. Do not deny it but promise yourself to assess it later. Experiment with different behaviour and approaches and consider it as a training in personal leadership. After the summer make a list with behaviour you considered effective and less effective.

Wish you all the best.


Why some papers are free while the other are not, even in the same journal/publication? I am accessing this journal from university.
So, I assume the university subscribes to this publication/journal (Sciencedirect/Microelectronic Engineering).

But why some papers are free while the others are not?

example:

free
not free

I just want to make sure that my inability to access some papers is not caused by technical issues from my PC/access/internet/etc.

Why some papers are free, while others aren't, in the same publication

You can see that one of the papers was published under an open access Creative Commons license (hence freely available to everyone), and the other wasn't. So-called hybrid open-access journals have a system where some of the articles are published under open access conditions, usually in exchange for a publication fee. This appears to be the case for the journal in question. Probably the author paid to have it published as such, possibly mandated by their institution or funding agency, or possibly because they want to support open access.

How to tell if your university has access to a given subscription journal

Usually this is stated quite clearly on the university library website, when looking up specific journals. If the specific journal isn't listed, the university doesn't have access. Even when listed as having online access, there may be restrictions, e.g. online access may only be available for a certain time period, say 1983-2001. This is usually listed quite clearly.

One thing that usually isn't stated clearly, is that you might not have working automatic access, and may need to access the journal through the university website. If that website doesn't clarify things, or you still have problems, I would recommend asking a university librarian. Even if your university doesn't have access to the journal in question, they are often able to source a copy of the article through e.g. an inter-library loan.


The nightmare of being an independent researcher My current situation is that I am stuck teaching in a couple of universities that do not support the research at all in my country of origin. I am 38 years old and I have finished a MSc degree in Europe (one year ago), but I find it pretty hard to get a funded PhD position until now.

Sometimes I really feel discouraged and depressed because I really like to do research, but is pretty hard to do it without economical support; and more difficult to share ideas if my current place of work has that null approach to research.

My question is, how I can get feedback from other professors around the world and expose my ideas? Maybe with the hope that they will like to guide me in their field of specialty or maybe doing a paper together. I know that a lot of good professors in their own field are pretty busy, so I think it would be not polite to approach to them, by email, tell them about my ideas and ask for academical support (not monetary, but about guiding and feedback).

The field that I like to do research is Computer Science. I have only 5 publications in different areas, but I would really like to do more.

Any suggestion?

Firstly, 5 papers on completion of your Masters is pretty good (for comparison, I had 1 rejected paper at that stage).  Even though they are in different areas, they demonstrate your researching skills.

Secondly, in regards to the PhD and in particular, funding - I have a few suggestions:

Research not only what the academics' specialities are, but also the scholarship/funding opportunities that the universities have on offer.
Contact the academics, asking about their research, this way you'll express your interest without giving away all of your ideas.  Once you build a rapport with the academics, then enquire about co-authoring a paper.
Perhaps look into working at a university (library, research assistant etc), so, look at the job opportunities.
most of all, don't give up!

This is, by no means an exhaustive list and I am sure, other members here will provide more in depth answers, but it something to think about.


Failure to get an honours degree I'm currently a third year student studying mathematics in Australia, and things have taken a very bad turn in third year. I developed tremors in my writing hand and it meant I wasn't able to use a pen properly and couldn't take good notes during lectures. I was then put on a beta-blocker which had some side-effects and I have seen my grades for maths slide again. I might even fail a course this semester. It looks like I will not be a able to gain entry to honours year. Does that mean the end of my goal of pursuing a career in academia? Would any institution take a student for a masters degree in maths if he's failed a course in undergraduate study?

I also feel I didn't learn Galois theory well in my undergraduate study. Is there any way to redo the material in a serious way? It seems difficult to juggle a job and reviewing this material at the same time.

Unfortunately, good schools often require 1st class honors minimum for scholarship and PhD applications.
Have you considered taking an extra year? A similar thing happened to me and I was able to save my academic profile with the extra year. For more details about my medical condition, look at my recent question.

My suggestion would be: Talk to your course director or whoever is in-charged regarding your medical condition and ask if they will let you take an extra year and if possible, repeat the courses that you failed.

Please do not worry about taking a year longer to finish. It bothered me terribly at first, but after a while I realized that it is rather insignificant in the grand scheme of things.


Can you become faculty at your PhD granting institution? Is it true that if you get PhD from an institution, then it becomes very hard to become a tenure track faculty position at the same institution?

In theory, anyway, academia is very much like human biology: inbreeding and incest ought to be avoided because drawing from such a small pool of genes and backgrounds is likely to cause problems. Mixing it up benefits any area of inquiry: people whose training was from a diversity of institutions/supervisors/influences bring in new ideas and frameworks, and can keep a line of research from unwittingly falling into a rut when it comes to the lines of analysis being used.

Sometimes Ph.D. graduates of an institution are brought in out of necessity. If a department wants to hire a second faculty member in a very, very small subfield, for instance, the pool of applicants is likely to include a lot of Ph.D. graduates who worked under the first. That's pretty inevitable. This is, to extend the analogy, as if the human population has been reduced to 10 or 20 people and most of them are relatives. If there's no other choice, marrying cousins and siblings has to be done.

But those cases are the exception, in my experience. Within my field there are 3 or 4 departments in North America that have become notorious between 2009 and the present day for heavily favoring their own Ph.D. graduates (to the point where if the shortlist gets leaked, you can predict who's going to get the position from that and the job talks have only a small effect). It makes sense that departments want to look out for their own, and it also makes sense that if a department already has a good sense of someone being impressive, that's difficult for an outsider to challenge. But to return to the analogy, it's like marrying a pair of siblings to each other because they're both looking for a partner and already know each other and get along. In both cases, people will talk. In both cases, a reputation will be earned that is not good. The last time one of the 3 or 4 departments in question was looking for a new tenure-track faculty member and someone from the department anonymously shared the shortlist with a bunch of mailing lists, one of my colleagues made an extremely cynical, almost mean-spirited prediction that made me shake my head at the time and then ended up being entirely accurate.

So yes, it is absolutely possible for someone to end up working at the institution where they did their Ph.D.; but unless there are extenuating circumstances, people are likely to think less of the department in question for hiring its own. It benefits every department not to default to someone they already like and someone whose ideas are comfortable and familiar to them.


Decline grad school for fellowship? So, I have a bit of a dilemma on my hands.

I took a gap year after graduating from college, and I thought I was going to go straight to grad school after. I got accepted to multiple programs, and I already declined all of the programs except one.

Here’s the problem: I also applied to a competitive, two-year fellowship with a government organization, and I made it to the interview stage! And now, I changed my mind about going to grad school and I’d like to get more experience on my hands. Unfortunately, we won’t know if we get the position by July. Point is: there might be a chance I might decline the school after I accept my intent to go there if I get the fellowship. I know that grad schools (I applied to both public health and heath administration)  allow deferment for only a year, but I’d like to have a backup plan just in case I don’t get the fellowship (which is go to grad school).

So let’s say if I do get the fellowship, should I just be honest with the school I accepted and tell them I want to do the fellowship? Or take a risk and decline the school and I hope I get the fellowship?

If I do the former, I just hope that this won’t hinder me from other schools considering  my application the next time I apply to grad school. I’m applying right after the fellowship, and this time I INTEND to go back to school.

Thanks.

A major fellowship may be enough to get a grad school to agree to a longer deferment. However, even if they're not willing to extend you a two-year fellowship, when you reapply, you will have that major program under your belt, and will be a stronger candidate than many in your field applying straight out of undergrad.

So I wouldn't worry too much about this in terms of your long-term grad school prospects.


Who decide about a journals Impact Factor? What are the measurements? Dears,
I am wondering on who decides the Impact Factor of a journal? I am a writer, reader, and editor myself and consequently come across several papers. What surprises me though has to do with the inconsistency of ratings. The Ethiopian Journal of Health Development, one of the best in the country is rated low despite all the good work the journal has done over the years. I checked all the indicators and I believe the journal deserves more rating. So, I wish to hear from whoever is involved in rating journal.

Appreciate genuine and positive response

Mirgissa Kaba (PhD)

The impact factor isn't necessarily a measure of usefulness or how much good a journal has done; it's calculated by a mathematical formula related to the number of citations and articles that journal has released. No one individual or organisation decides on the impact factor of a journal.


How do I choose my research area? Choosing your research area

Relevant and adding to that.

I am planning to pursue a PhD (currently at masters) and have many research interests. Some of my interests are more attainable and my knowledge in the domain is good enough to make contributions and publish papers and get a PhD faster than usual. However I feel that those research areas have small impact as compared to other and makes me not want to dedicate a significant amount of time to something I know will probably impact a very small slice of the pie.

Other research interests I don't know as much about, or what I know is from a class settings. Some of those interests I didn't enjoy working on in the past as part of my courses but I am still considering a PhD on them. Mostly because they can have a much larger scientific impact.

My main motivation for doing a PhD is the scientific impact that my research can have and how I can help solve problems that can have some sort of application.

Research Interests Include:

AI, Reinforcement Learning, Machine Learning with specific applications in Software Engineering and/or Social Networks, Robotics, Motion

So here are my questions:

Is it acceptable to apply for a PhD program that I know not as much about but am willing to learn?
How would it reflect on a PhD program application diverse research interest topics with more than a handful faculty?
What should be my main motivation behind choosing a topic?
What questions should I be asking to narrow down my interests?

If you have a relatively open set of research interests, I would focus much more on finding an advisor who you believe you will get along well with on a personal level. "Success" (which is admittedly an ambiguous term) in a PhD often matters much less on what you are studying specifically and much more on how engaged and dedicated you are to the research process as a whole. It is very difficult to be engaged in research on a topic you love, but with an advisor you despise.

I would not be too worried about getting trapped in a certain research field long term. You doctoral work is a relatively short portion of your research career as a whole. I have already changed my research focus twice in my career (MS was one topic, PhD was another, full-time employment is yet another). And I still have three plus decades of research to go (so my research career is still young). I did what work my advisor was interested in, put my own flavor into it, then changed my focus as necessary in  my employment.

As for your research making an impact, understand that very, very, very few doctoral researchers make a ground breaking impact as a PhD student. Most PhD researchers go their whole career in fact and only impact "a very small slice of the pie." That is how research is modernly. You can make an impact in any of the research fields you listed. Don't sell yourself short of course, but also be aware that most people with PhDs do not in and of themselves change the world.


Research studies covering the reasons why faculty applicants accept or reject academic jobs? Is there any research/study/survey that tried to quantify the reasons why faculty applicants accepted or rejected academic jobs that have been proposed to them? (e.g., location, salary, the current faculty, college ranking)

I am mostly interested in the United States and the field of computer science, but curious about other countries and fields as well.

See Matier, Michael W. "Recruiting Faculty: Complementary Tales from Two Campuses." Research in Higher Education 32.1 (1991): 31-44. DOI: 10.1007/BF00992831
As the abstract says:

This paper—a complement to “Retaining Faculty: A Tale of Two Campuses” (Matier, 1990)—examines the factors influencing individuals with firm offers to join the faculty at two research universities. Particular attention is paid to the relative weight and importance placed on the tangible, intangible, and non-work-related benefits in the decision-making process.

According to this paper:

Using the enticement to accept the Wyandot, Manada, and alternative best
opportunity values assigned by the participants for each factor, it was possible to determine those most important in the decision-making process.
...
Of the ten most important factors at each of the subject institutions, nine were common to both. Of these, eight were intangible benefits: reputation of institution, teaching assignments/opportunities, reputation of department, career advancement opportunities, reputation of associates, congeniality of associates, research opportunities, and rapport with departmental leaders.
The remaining common factor was the tangible benefit teaching/research load, ranked number three at Wyandot and number eight at Manada. The
uncommon factor ranked in the top ten at Wyandot was the tangible benefit
research funding (ranked number nine). At Manada, it was the tangible benefit library facilities (ranked number seven).

Another similar study: Teevan, James J., Susan Pepper, and Joseph R. Pellizzari. "Academic employment decisions and gender." Research in Higher Education 33.2 (1992): 141-160. DOI: 10.1007/BF00973576
Its findings include:

The most frequently mentioned reason for accepting a position, cited by 50 percent of academics, was the reputation of the department or the university, a factor similarly important to both males and females. The next most frequently mentioned reasons for accepting positions concerned the compatibility of the job with family needs (cited by 39% of all respondents), positive aspects of the job offer, and personal opportunities (each mentioned by 36% of all respondents).
Among those who declined or resigned from positions, a somewhat different pattern emerged. Dissatisfaction with aspects of the job offer, cited by 47 percent of these respondents, and the incompatibility of the position with family needs, cited by 42 percent, were the most frequently mentioned reasons. Insufficient research support, fewer personal opportunities, and a weaker university or department were mentioned by 26 to 30 percent of these respondents.


Citing books in scientific articles I'm writing an article that has something to do with the multipole expansion with irreducible tensor operators. The topic is old, and I only find books talking about it.

So is it OK to cite tertiary sources (books) in scientific journals? or must it be a primary source source article? Or does it depend on the journal?

The question I'm asking is general about citation rules, and not for this specific case, though this specific case with irreducible tensor operators is what I'm facing right now.

Yes, citing books is fine (including anything from research monographs to elementary textbooks).  The question you should ask yourself is what the citation is for.  What are you trying to convey to the reader?  For example, if you are trying to assign intellectual credit, then you should cite whoever originally made the discovery.  However, that's far from the only reason to give a citation.  If you are providing references to background or more detailed explanations, then all you need is a source that explains what you need, and sometimes a textbook will be clearer or more useful than a research paper.  If you are supplying a citation to back up a potentially controversial claim, then you need an authoritative source.

The specific topic you mention is mathematical, in which case the distinction between primary, secondary, and tertiary sources is not particularly important except for assigning credit.  As far as explanations go, any derivation will do.  Of course, the form of your citation should indicate your intention.  For example, if you cite a textbook, you can say something like "See [insert reference] for an exposition of the theory of irreducible tensor operators" to make sure it doesn't look like you are claiming this book is where the theory originated.

Of course other fields may attach far more weight to these distinctions.


Should I warn colleagues of another colleague's sexism? Over the years, I have had experiences at some conferences where more senior faculty members have been—shall we say—less than appropriate to women in the field. The same can be said about colleagues being heterosexist and/or racist, but I digress. Sometimes, these are isolated incidents and I didn’t feel comfortable having the confrontation at that point in my career so I let it slide. I am in a field that has a serious gender inequity problem and I am a junior member of the field.

Flash forward a few years and a colleague (of the gender/race/sexuality that the other person disparaged) is going to a conference with the same person. In my field, the conferences are small, so there's little chance they will not interact.

Does one forewarn one’s colleague about such a faculty member? Part of me desires to forewarn, but part of me worries that it will just add drama to the community, preconceived notions to the colleague's experience in the conference, and possibly unnecessary dread during the time interacting with the faculty member. What if the faculty member has gotten better about this? What if it gets back to the faculty member that I’ve said that they’re sexist?

If one doesn’t tell a colleague and then experiences said sexism, then does one confirm their experience about that faculty member to help one’s colleague process that experience?

If this person is "merely" boorish, I think you're best off letting your colleague experience and handle the situation themselves.  Presumably they're also professional adults who can take care of themselves, and as you said, it's possible the other person has gotten better about it, so maybe it's a non-issue.  But more importantly, since you're all in the same field (which you suggested was small), being the one to spread the word like this (even if it's justified) can have repercussions for you.  Whether you want to take that on probably depends on just how bad the person is and on how comfortable you are with your position within the field.

On the other hand, if you think this other faculty actually rises to the level of a danger - anything from sabotaging your colleagues work or relations, to not being safe to have drinks around - you should absolutely warn this person.

Obviously there's a judgment call here.  @whrrgarbl suggested it depends on how friendly you are with your colleague too, and I think that's true around the margins of this question.  In a totally general way though, I think when you're contemplating meddling in affairs between two other people that the default answer should be no.  Especially in a professional setting.


What is the purpose of peer-review in journals? I am interested in what is the role of peer review in journals. I have read the wikipedia page which discuss much about style and criticism but few to purpose. I don't know if initially it already came with comments to improve articles (more in favor of peer review for increase the quality of articles) or where simple recommendations to editors to not printing an article (in favor of filtering articles).

I am curious because my first contact with peer review history is the anecdote of an Einstein article beeing peer reviewed and Einstein refusing the review around 1905.

There were three main factors of adopting peer review as listed on a post:

The increasing specialization of science
The enormous increase in the number of scientific papers being published
There are technologies for copying papers

It seems that increasing the number of journals (and having less/no general journals) could have solved those problems. (which may indeed happened)

However it is unclear to me the purpose of the peer review. Is peer review (or/and was) used to increase quality of articles published in journals? Or "simply" to filter out articles to keep few (and more important) articles per issue of the more specialized journals?
Of course peer review might be doing both effects and having both purposes.

It's a method to inform journal editors about the soundness of any arguments, their originality, and the correctness of any data used in the submitted work. This enables them to keep a good standard of published work (and helps the authors to improve their manuscript to achieve the required standard).

Thus, it serves as a quality control mechanism. Without it, editors would have to review on their own (which is still some form of peer-review, though not anonymized). This was standard in Einstein's days, but is completely impractical today for three reasons.

The sheer amount of submitted manuscript has grown substantially.
The scientific community is much more diverse with less overlap of personal areas of expertise, such that no single editor can judge more than a fraction of the manuscript they receive.
Allowing reviewers to stay anonymous avoids biases and provides a fairer process.

So, the editors' expertise must now be to find expert reviewers and to interpret their reviews appropriately (rather than being experts themselves as 100 years ago).

Admittedly, the mechanism does not work 100%, i.e. sometimes good work is rejected and sometimes poor work is accepted (depending also on the community and journal), but their appears to be no viable alternative.


Online master's degree in CS at the Georgia Institute of Technology I am a working student (working in software engineering) and this year I'll be completing my CS Bachelor's degree in Italy. I am doing the online degree as I can't attend lectures, due to my job.

I would like to continue my studies with a Master's Degree in CS so I googled a bit and found out that GaTech is offering an online master's degree I am interested in.

Here in Italy the online degree has the same value as the on-campus degree: we take exams on campus, study online with videos and materials provided by the professor, we have conference sessions with the professors for any questions or we can go visit them in their office. The exams are exactly the same as the on-campus degree, so are the professors.

I was wondering if this is the case in the USA and if doing an online degree will be a limit for me to pursue, in a remote future, a PhD. Should I move to the USA to study (I can work remotely) or I can study here, in Italy, and just go to the USA to take exams?

In my opinion, Georgia Tech's Online Master of Computer Science will not help you get a computer science PhD in the US.  Not because it's online, but because it's a professional master's program.

There are two types of master's degrees in computer science in the US:

Thesis (aka research) masters degrees have a significant research component, in close collaboration with an advisor, leading up to a thesis.  These are generally seen as useful stepping stones to a PhD.
Professional (aka class-based, aka "taught", aka terminal) masters degrees consist entirely of classes.  These are generally not seen as stepping stones to a PhD, because there is no expectation of (and therefore no resources for) research.

Moreover, because of the huge scale (>3000 students) of the OMCS program, having any kind of sustained on-on-one interaction with faculty—which you would need to get strong recommendation letters—is almost impossible.

(I regularly serve on the graduate admissions committee in a top-10 American CS department.)


Generally speaking, when are the deadlines applying for PHD's in Europe? 29 year old male, considering applying for PHD programs that begin 2021 or else 2022.
Have I left it too late to apply for a PHD that begins in 2021? I know this question is fairly general, but it seems that in the U.S, deadlines for most PHD programs have passed. I'm curious if it's the same in Europe.

Unlike in the US, there are no "application seasons" in Europe. PhD positions are announced throughout the year, and every vacancy has its own deadline.


Is it reasonable to require students to bring a laptop to every lecture? In the next academic year,
I'll be teaching a class on how to use a statistical software package
(the R programming language).
I foresee that each class will have two parts:
a lecture and software demonstration,
and time for the students to get their hands dirty
by trying the software themselves.
I now have to decide what type of classroom to request.
Option 1: Computer laboratory
If I hold the class in a computer laboratory,
the advantage is that every student will have a computer
with the software already installed.
The disadvantage is that the classroom layout
is optimized for students to use the computers,
so it is difficult to lecture.
I foresee that it would be difficult for students sitting in the corners
to see the projector screen when I am speaking.
Option 2: Lecture theater
If I hold the class in a lecture theater,
the advantage is that every student will be able to see the projector screen when I am lecturing and demonstrating the software.
The disadvantage is that students would have to
bring their own laptops once a week.
Although I estimate that at least 98% of students own a laptop,
I don't want to embarrass or cause difficulties to any students who do not.
So bearing these two options in mind,
which type of classroom should I request?
Is it reasonable for me to request the lecture theater,
knowing that this will be inconvenient for students
who don't normally bring their laptops to university?
Edits
There will be around 90 students in the class.
My plan is to ask the students to form groups of 3-4 students,
so that they will help one another as they do coding and data analysis.
I will probably have a TA to help to run the lab session
given that there are many students in the class.
I've attached a floor plan of the only computer lab in my university
which is able to accommodate 90 students.
As you can see, if I am trying to give a lecture in this lab,
it can be very hard for me to have eye contact with the students,
and to perceive any confusion or uncertainty in their minds.

What I decided to do
After considering the input provided by the various answers and comments,
I decided to adopt a hybrid approach,
i.e., 1 hour of lecture followed immediately by 2 hours of computer lab time.
During the lecture time,
I will be showing the students how to use the software
and how to estimate and interpret statistical models.
During the computer lab time,
students will apply what I taught in the lecture to a different data set.

I would go with the computer room option. There are several issues with getting everyone to bring a laptop:

As you mention, a few students may not have one, and this could cause embarrassment.
People are using different operating systems, and may have different versions of the software installed. This increases the chance of code working on some computers but not others, which is always tricky to deal with as the lecturer.
High chance that at least a few students will forget their laptops, or their power supplies.

To deal with the issue of the computer room being poorly laid out for lecturing purposes, I would suggest providing all the materials (powerpoint, code scripts, etc) to the students electronically. This way they can have everything displayed on their screens and can follow along even if they don't have a good view of the projector screen.


Should I disclose academic misconduct on a grad application? I am applying to a master's programs right now and am in a bind.

My professor accused me of academic misconduct in one of my undergraduate classes. After I submitted my assignment I had asked a question on an online forum about an assignment and posted a short excerpt of my work. I was asking a question out of intellectual curiosity to better my work for the future.

This had not been an issue with other professors in our department. This professor was strongly against posting anything online, so he found my post online and stated that I violated his rule of knowingly or unknowingly making my solutions available to other students. I had no intent to cheat, and I didn't feel anything I posted was a solution since they were short snippets of code. I felt this charge was a stretch, but the school sided with the professor and he will fail me for the class.

My school says the records of this academic misconduct process are sealed, and there will be no notation on my transcript, just the failed grade.

Graduate school applications ask if one has been involved in any type of academic hearings and to explain the circumstances. The application also asks me to explain any failed grades.  I fear if I disclose all this information it will hurt my application. As far as I know the graduate school will not be able to find out there was any misconduct, unless they contact student affairs and I permit them to see those records. The graduate school just requires the official academic transcript. I'm wondering if graduate schools also check other academic records.

Any guidance on what I should do?

I don't see what the "bind" is.  You are being unambiguously asked to disclose something, so....you should disclose it.  If you just mean "Oh no, behaving ethically may not be in line with my purely selfish interests": right, this is how ethics usually work.  You shouldn't lie, cheat, steal, injure, rape, murder...even when you think you won't get caught.  That's what "shouldn't" means.

That they also ask you to explain your failed grades is a good break for you: you should explain carefully what happened.  If at all possible you should enlist a sympathetic faculty member to write something corroborating your story in their recommendation letter.  If you are fully believable then you have a shot that those who are evaluating your application will actually believe you.  They may well think that the professor went overboard and end up weighting the failing grade less strongly than a failing grade that was awarded because you (say) failed the final exam.  In fact, if there is something objective you can do to show that you have mastered the material of that course -- e.g. doing a reading course with another faculty member -- then I strongly encourage you to do so.

[I'm kind of annoyed to add this but...your academic dishonesty is not in any way protected information.  For all you know, your letter writers could bring it up independently of what you tell them.  Or -- much worse -- when you are N years into your graduate program, your old professor could meet someone in your new program and happen to discuss you.  If it transpires that you were dishonest on your application, that could be grounds for dismissing you from the program.  You sure don't want that to happen.  Sigh -- be good; big brother might actually be watching.]


How to publish an original idea which has no citations and has been described as 'possibly notable'? I am an amateur mathematician, not a member of academia.  I've created a small algorithm for a twin prime sieve.  It's like a prime number sieve, but for twin primes of the form (6k-1, 6k+1).  However, those details aren't pertinent to this question.

I wrote a paper using LaTex and a template for a math publication, naively submitted it for consideration and was rejected with no reasons given.

With no basis for modifications, no reason to believe submitting to any other publication would be successful, and because publishing is not really a serious driver for me, I naively decided to throw it on Wikipedia.

The reviewer for Wikipedia made a comment that the information might be notable, but without citations to articles discussing it, there was no way to tell and the article could not thus be published on Wikipedia.

As I said, formal publication isn't that important to me.  However, my experience leaves me wondering how a person in this situation actually could publish.  No publication -> no citations -> no publication allowed.  It's a catch-22 situation.

At this point, I'm more interested in publishing as an exercise in figuring out how to actually do it.  What if I thought up something that was actually useful?
How would I go about it?

One challenge is, not being in academia I have no research resources other than Google or a public library.  As far as I can tell my algorithm is original.

Second challenge is, being original, I have no sources to cite in a bibliography.

Third challenge, I suppose, is lack of a more senior academic to serve as my advisor.

You might want to try and win over a co-author. An expert in the field can provide the needed background, the literature review you might be missing and might also be able to tell you if your paper is really worth publishing.
Maybe what you wrote is clear for every expert on the field, due to some results by someone that you simply don't know of?

Small advice here: People who are working on a PhD or just got one recently have often more time and are more willing to read something that might potentially lead to a publication than (old) professors.

Next, you might try to contact the journal you send your article to. Maybe they are able to explain the rejection?

Last but not least: If your idea is short enough to put it on Wikipedia, you might try to post it (or at least part of it) on Mathoverflow. If you follow the rules there, you might find someone who is able to tell you if this is really something "new" or if it is obvious/wrong/...


How to get recommendations for PhD program when outside academia I'm looking into applying to another grad school to get another PhD, whether again in mathematics or a closely related subject. In assembling the application, where I should get recommendations from? I can't ask my advisor (I wouldn't be in this situation if he hadn't screwed me over the first time); and while there are certainly some other professors who remember me favorably, enough time has passed that I'm not sure they would have anything more than a desultory blurb to contribute. Math departments have little interest in recommendations from people in industry, and related subjects are presuambly similar. Is it possible to get some sort of recommendation or other bona fides available from industry that a PhD admissions committee in math, mathematical physics, etc. would care about?

Who did write you the recommendation letters for the first PhD? Maybe you could use them again. I think there is nothing wrong in using recommendation letters from industry, in any case. I was in the industry when I started my PhD and I showed my boss' recommendation letter, but my field is not math but physics.
On the other hand, I agree with people that recommend you to try a post-doc instead of a second PhD.


How does one know that the field of research they are in is the best fit for them if they are average in it? I love computational materials science. I was an experimentalist and involved in some Computational work during my masters degree. I did not not enjoy the experimental part. I did not enjoy the lab politics, the dependency on others. Also, I did not enjoy the significance of the work I was doing. Most of the time, it was just reporting the experimental data without trying hard to find a theoretical reasoning.

On the other hand, I was fascinated by computational research. The only limitation was I myself. Implementation of ideas, thinking about the fundamental physics that's occuring, and getting to theoretically predict the results was exciting. Thus, I was extremely determined to do a PhD in computational aspect of materials science for this particular reason.

Fast forward 4 years, I am done with my PhD. And I have published some papers on my research area. However, I did not do anything substantial during my PhD. I did not get any awards, nor my research got any media coverage, applying for grants with my advisor was always a nightmare. Contrarily, my colleagues who work on experimental aspect of the research, find it much easier to publish, gets multiple awards, easily gets grants approved, have media coverage for every "groundbreaking" stuff they develop.

Now that I have completed my PhD, I sort of envy the experimentalists and regret not being one. I feel that being average in computational materials science is disasterous as compared to being average in experimental research. I feel that I made a wrong choice 4 years ago when I decided to apply for a computational PhD than an experimental one.

My question is: How does one know that the field of research they are in is the best fit for them ? And how to be content with one own's research field and not feel resentment that probably I am not a good fit for this field?

"I love computational materials science." End of discussion.

If you can do what you love you can have a marvelous life. If you can't do what you love you will have a harder time.

But, with time, hard work, and experience you will likely improve. There will always be people better than you at whatever you do. Don't worry about it. Don't envy them. But try to form collaborative relationships that might, in time, let you work with some of the superstars.

As to your colleagues who seem to have an easier time: they may feel quite differently.


How can I obtain the necessary quantitative knowledge for admission to a masters in business analytics? I intend to pursue a masters in business analytics in the United States. However, since this is a highly quantitative program, I doubt I will stand a chance to be admitted given that my undergraduate degree is in accountancy.

What are the options available for me to obtain the requisite quantitative knowledge? I think the Quantitative Studies for Finance program offered by Columbia University would be suitable but it is quite pricey.

Are there similar programs in other universities or alternative modes of study that can give me sufficient quantitative background to apply for grad school?

It really depends what kind of analytics masters program you're looking at.

For quantitative finance, you'll need a solid background of probability theory. It'll also be essential that you know the basics: i.e., calculus (single and multivariable), linear algebra and a decent amount of measure theory.

Good luck!


Just graduated with a master’s degree, but I internalised nothing I just graduated with a software-engineering master’s degree with a good grade from a top-five university in the UK. I also have a bachelor's in computer science.

I always revised just for exams and just enough to get that first-class degree, without actually learning anything. I basically revise for the exam itself, by looking at past paper answers, and I never study the actual material. I then forget everything after finishing the exam. I've been repeating this cycle since school.
This method has given me a great first-class degree but with practically zero knowledge. As @Sule said, I never internalised the material.
I also never did a single internship because I didn’t need to.

Now, I’m facing a problem: How am I supposed to find work if I barely know how to program? Will employers just accept me because I have a fancy software-engineering master’s degree from a top-five university? I also haven’t worked professionally a single day in my life.

I'm thinking of getting a PhD at this point.

You asked,

  How am I supposed to find work if I barely know how to program?

It sounds like you're looking for a job in industry, versus academia, so I will answer from that perspective.

Employers are generally looking for people who can get things done and will consider the ability to program as a means to an end. While technical skills (i.e. mastery of a specific programming language) will be important, it's never the only factor evaluated, and it's sometimes not even the most important factor. Combine that with the pace at which technology develops, and having a specific technical skill ends up becoming even less important, as that skill may be obsolete rather quickly. Go find a dozen software engineers who have been working in industry for a decade or more since getting a degree, and ask if they're still using the actual content from any of their classes. You may be surprised at the answers. What they will probably talk about is how valuable it was to become a "learning machine" rather than a knowledge repository.

You've described the process you used to get good marks on tests. That's a valuable skill. Employers don't inherently care about test scores, but they will care about someone who can pick something up, and learn it well enough to complete a task. In many programming environments, the ability to learn something, apply it, and then move on to the next thing is incredibly valuable - even if you "forget" that thing as you're picking up future things.

Further, Resumes and interviews are sales tools - you're selling yourself to an employer. Focus on the value you can add and match that value to their needs. There's a job out there for everyone - don't just spam every software job you see and hope one sticks despite your shortcomings - instead, focus on understanding your own strengths and then look for jobs where your strengths are a good fit. Write your resume to emphasize the skills you do have and be ready to talk about them in interviews.

Taking a bit of a tangent, there's a concept in motorcycling called "target fixation." Riding instructors working with new riders will emphasize the skill of looking where you want to go when in a difficult situation. This is because new riders who are surprised by a piece of road debris, or a vehicle out of place, tend to focus on that thing to the extent that the ride right into it instead of avoiding it. Apply that to yourself since you're undertaking the new pursuit of searching for a job: Don't become fixated on what you perceive as weaknesses or you may end up in a mindset where all you have to offer in an interview is nervousness about what you see as your own shortcomings.

As a final point, to address your comment of,

  I also haven't worked professionally a single day in my life

I have a feeling that the quicker you can change that, the less significant your problem will seem. Once you have a few years of work experience, you will see life through a different lens - on the one hand, you probably don't want a menial job for the rest of your life, but on the other hand, your first job doesn't have to be the job - it's OK to just take a job and get some experience to give you some confidence and expose yourself to a professional workplace.


Is completing two years of your PhD sufficient to satisfy journal reviewing requirement of having a PhD? For reviewing papers, some journals ask you to have a PhD degree.
I want to know, if the PhD degree is the obtained certificate at the end of your PhD, or it could be also be, for example, your third inscription in the PhD (you have previously two succefull years in preparing the degree).

"Having a PhD" means that you completed the entire degree program—including writing, defending, and depositing a dissertation—and were formally awarded a degree by the host university.  Current PhD students would not qualify as reviewers for the journal you describe.


Can I ask for a LOR from a teacher that didn't teach any of my classes? I want to do a Master's in CS, but I didn't do the undergraduate in CS, so I want to know if I can get a letter of recommendation from a professor that I know but who didn't actually teach me.

The general rule when it comes to letters of recommendation is that you should not ask for a letter from someone who does not know you well.

In this particular case, it's not sufficient that the professor you want to ask knows you. It is more important that he knows your work well, and can comment on that to graduate schools regarding your potential as a future student in their program.


Do two lesser degrees ever equal a higher degree? I have an AA in Liberal Arts and am one semester away from an AS in Computer Programming and Analysis. I will have to double check the numbers but I will have around 140 credit hours which is similar to the number required for a Bachelor's degree. Is this equivalent somehow to a Bachelor's? In general, do two lesser degrees equal one higher degree (e.g., do two BA degrees equal a MA or two MS degrees equal a PhD)? Is there any number of lesser degrees that would equal a higher degree? Why or why not?

From an educational perspective, community colleges usually do not offer courses beyond a sophomore level. Therefore, the bachelor's degree will probably contain more depth than an associate's degree. For example, an AA in economics will probably stop with intermediate microeconomics, but a BA may include advanced courses in microeconomic theory.


“Master's” vs. “master” I have to write a letter about a graduate course abroad. I began it like this:

  I am writing this letter to apply for XXX Master in XXXX.

and ended with:

  I am absolutely sure that I will complete Master's program in XXX.

So here is my question: Is it okay to use both “Master in” and “Master’s in” in one letter? What is the difference between these two?

Master's is an abbreviated form of master's degree, and it is considered an informal term by several dictionaries (e.g., Merriam-Webster Learner's Dictionary, MacMillan Dictionary).

Master is just an even more abbreviated form, which is usually not reported in the dictionaries with that meaning (but see note below).

In a formal letter I would use the full form master's degree, but should you choose to use one of the two abbreviated forms, try to be consistent and don't use both forms in the same text. Inconsistencies can be interpreted as a sign of sloppiness, and you don't want to give this impression while applying for a degree or a position.

Thus, I would write:

  I am writing this letter to apply for XXX Master's degree in XXXX.

and

  I am absolutely sure that I will complete the Master's degree program in XXX.

Check also what is the denomination used in the university documentation: how do they refer to their own programs?

Note: The Merriam-Webster Learner's Dictionary reports for master also the following meaning (meaning n. 5 in the linked definition):

  5 [count] : a person who has received a master's degree


When is it right to send an email when a conference misses its deadline? I have sent an article for a conference in Computer Science and in the Important Dates of the call for papers, it says the notification to the authors is April 20. Now we are at April 22 and the status of my paper still appears as Under Review. I was wondering how many days should I wait for sending a remainder email to see what has happened with my submission?

It's fairly frequent, particularly for smaller or less tightly run computer science conferences, for the response to authors to slip back by a few days.  Often, this is because some reviewers may not have sent their reviews in on time, and if the program committee isn't proactive about scheduling for slippage and having backups available, it may take them a few extra days to get enough reviews to decide on those papers.  This then is likely to delay responses for all of the papers, because both the organizers and the conference software wants to sent all of the notifications at once.

So, to your question of what to do:

If you know anybody else who sent in a paper, compare notes with them.  If they haven't heard yet either, no worries.  If they have heard, then you can email immediately.
If you don't know somebody else, give it a week, and then ask.


Is it appropriate to have assignments due during spring break for an online course? I am the author and teacher of an online introductory course at my community college.  Each chapter in my class is designed to take one week to complete, where the assignments are due at the end of the week. The students have the option to get ahead of the rest of the class by a couple of weeks, so if they have a trip planned, they can do the work in advance.

This week I had a student argue that I should not have assignments due for the week of spring break, as that time should be reserved for the students to relax. I never considered honoring breaks or holidays for an online class. Should I consider not having assignments due during the week of spring break or fall break?

The student is correct, spring break is, as its name suggests, a break. The fact that no students had complained previously does not say much - students can be timid and may not complain about any mild abuse by an instructor (as I discovered recently when I accidentally kept my class going 10 minutes past its end time; no one said a word...).

Also, your own rationale that “The students have the option to get ahead [...] by a couple of weeks, so if they have a trip planned, they can do the work in advance”, seems flawed to me, as it is premised oh the assumption that students have extra time in which they are sitting around doing nothing and can redirect towards “getting ahead”. You should assume that in the normal course of things students are as busy as they can get and don’t have spare studying capacity. The option to get ahead is nice, and may be used by some especially studious/efficient students or those that want to undertake a trip during time not officially sanctioned as break time and are willing to make an extra effort and sacrifice their normal free time to catch up. But this cannot be used as justification for requiring students to study during official break time.


Will writing MSC instead of MSc in an application count against me? I am really stressing out over masters applications and I have realized I have stupidly made a minor error. Instead of writing MSc I wrote MSC and I was not consistent.
Would the admissions tutor care?

While it is possible for an applicant to be harmed by sufficiently bad grammar in a personal statement, I cannot imagine something on the scale that you describe -- writing MSC instead of MSc -- having any impact whatsoever on the evaluation of your application. Bad grammar can count against you because it indicates that you are not be a poor writer and/or you didn't take time and care with your application. Switching between MSc and MSC signals neither of these things, so you should be fine. There are so many ways to sell or sink an application that something on this scale is miniscule noise compared to the other signals that an application provides.

Note, by the way, that there is some variation allowed in this abbreviation, though I don't think MSC is among the accepted forms.


How, if and where to submit a paper when former co-author cannot be contacted So I have been on my own completing a paper that I had started with initial discussions with a professor more than an year ago. In the meanwhile I have lost contact with that professor and I haven't heard back from him when I emailed him the recent state of the draft.

I had showed the draft to another expert in the field and he had given me some very positive comments and had asked me to complete a certain part of it more fully. He had introduced me to some other renowned experts in the field to talk to about the paper. But I haven't gotten back any feedback from any of them about the current draft.

As it stands I am unable to find any experts to read my paper.

In this situation can I (a) submit it to arxiv and (b) submit it to a journal?

The most important question is whether anyone else should be a coauthor.  From your description, it's unclear whether the professor you were initially talking with should be one (the others do not sound like coauthors at this point).  The fact that you describe it as "completing a paper that I had started with initial discussions with a professor" suggests that maybe he should be.  The key issue is whether he contributed anything significant to the paper's content.  If so, then you need to discuss the authorship issue with him and cannot make a unilateral decision.  If he did not contribute anything, then there is no ethical barrier to submitting the paper to the arXiv or a journal if you choose to do so.  However, you should be careful with this decision, since it is a major problem if the two of you disagree about coauthorship (especially if you find out after you have already submitted the paper without him).  If you think the situation might be ambiguous, then you need to discuss it with him before submission.

When I say there would be no ethical barrier to submission if you have no coauthor, I mean submitting it would not be a form of academic dishonesty.  You might still offend people, if they feel you are not taking their advice seriously or giving them a sufficient chance to respond.  I'd recommend giving everyone plenty of warning before submitting the paper.  For example, you could send an e-mail saying something along the lines of "I'm just about done with the paper on topic X.  I'm planning to submit it for publication in a month, after I do some final polishing, and I would greatly appreciate any feedback or suggestions you may have."  (But don't say it this way unless you are sure nobody else could have a case to be a coauthor.)


Self studying and letters of recommendations I got the following response from a mathematics professor at UT Austin:

  Gaining admission is more about the positive things in your file
  than about checking all the right boxes. If you haven't taken all of the
  standard courses, but have learned it all on your own, that's OK. However,
  there has to be a very good reason why you're better than another
  applicant who HAS taken all of the standard courses. Your letter-writers
  have to make a convincing argument that there is something very, very
  special about you. If your physics professors are better able to present
  these arguments than you math professors, then it's OK to have most of
  your letters come from physicists. But those letters have to be very, very
  good.

My situation is such that since I am not a mathematics major, I haven't done a lot of standard math courses, which I intend to/or have studied on my own. Clearly, I need to win the graduate admissions committee's over by making sure my letter writers write good letters for me.

My question is:

  Generally, what can students like myself do to make sure they get the best possible letters from their professors? That is, how should one structure the self study plan to ensure maximum possible output and in return, the best possible letter from an instructor. More so, I'm not sure what qualifies as a "very, very special letter." What makes a letter "special?" More so, how can students like myself make sure that they are able to get such letters.

How best to organise your self-study? Pick your 10 favourite PhD programmes and look at their admissions requirements. Those are the courses you need to cover in your self study.

Then read the email you received carefully. Notice that it's not the letter that needs to be special-- it's you. You've already hinted at your drive and motivation to continue studying your subject at graduate level; why else would you devote so much of your (presumably) otherwise free time to studying it outside of classes? This effort may carry some weight with the admissions committee. Think of it as your unique selling point.

Now the tricky part: really making sure that the admissions people understand your USP before they meet you. This is your referees' job, and to help them do it successfully, it's your job to make sure they know and understand you as a student, as a mathematician and as a person.

In this task, I think communication is the key. Talk to your instructor; tell her your plans for self-study, discuss what topics interest you the most, ask for feedback on your work, chat about relevant literature, where you want to go for your PhD, whether the moon really is made of cheese-- you name it.

What I'm getting at is that for your letter to stand out from the no doubt tens or hundreds of other generic letters the admissions committee read, you need to come across as a real person with a genuine interest in your subject and the requisite skills and knowledge to back it up. And the only way that will happen is if your referee knows you as such.

(Disclaimer: I've never written or read a reference letter, but I've had some small recent successes in the hunt for a PhD place, largely (I think) due to my reference letters.)


What stops a university from doing whatever they want when an academic misconduct allegation arises? I got permission from a professor to submit an essay to him that I wrote for one of his previous classes. It is academic misconduct to do this unless you receive permission from the professor.

Say the professor changes his mind for whatever reason and I have his permission in writing, what is to stop him from going back on his word during or after the class? I understand the Dean and Department Chair would also be involved. If I prove that I had permission, what can stop the university from failing me on the class or assignment and/or doing whatever they want essentially since it's basically a private business/entity? Would I need to sue the school?

What's to stop him?  His ethical considerations, and the paper trail that was created.

If you prove you had permission, what's to stop the university from doing whatever they want?

Your university will have policies in place, and procedures for filing internal complaints.  Your energetic self-defense, using your paper trail and university policies and procedures, would be what would stop the university from doing whatever they want.

You might also be able to file a complaint with your state education department.

I don't know anything about lawsuits, except that they can take a long time.  Perhaps it would help to post at Law SE.


Manuscript status changed from "Reviews completed" to "Editor assigned" I have been confused with the present status of my manuscript whose status follows the following timeline:

Manuscript initially submitted through Editorial Manager (Springer): 25 Jan 2017
Under Review: 27 Feb 2017 till 9 Jun 2017
Reviews completed: 10 Jun 2017 till 22 Jun 2017
Editor assigned: 22 Jun 2017

The journal is in the field of Computer Science and Computational Mechanics (Applied Computer Science).

My inferences from the above strange timeline:

The reviews have been completed and the system administrator or the journal manager assigned the editor (who is assumed to be associated with it earlier) to take care of the review reports and make a call.
The number of review reports is not sufficient. It would be re-reviewed and handled by another editor.
It is a software issue or a bug.

I have the following questions:

Whether is my inference correct?
As one can see, it has been 6 months already. Is it too early to send a gentle reminder to the editor-in-chief to look after my manuscript?
Is such a timeline of manuscript 'strange' at all? (Although it is difficult to answer this unless the editorial manager software is understood properly.)

Related posts and questions:

Manuscript status changed to editor assigned after under review, what could be the reason?
Editor of manuscript assigned after reviews were completed
My question is different as the timeline does not follow the traditional journal workflow as discussed in the question What does the typical workflow of a journal look like?

I think @ShakeBaby might have nailed it in the "whatever" comment.  Best guess: reviews came in after all this time but were inconclusive, and "editor assigned" is the default state when needing to get more reviews and no reviewer has actually been assigned.  In ScholarOne this would be like having it set to require 2 reviews, then when the 2 reviews come in, changing it to require 3.

Certainly not a very informative status.


Is copying equations plagiarism? I defended my master thesis successfully yesterday. Everything in my master thesis was written by me and there is no problem. However I'm a bit skeptical about one thing. So in my thesis I have a part that explains a very well known model. To explain the model you basically need to calculate the gradient of some function, and calculating the gradient is basically lengthy and spans many subsections. So there are many papers and I believe even books that show how to calculate the gradient step by step. So I found one paper and I read it and understood it and understood how the gradient of the function is derived. Next I compared the calculations in the paper to other books and I found that they are very similar.

Since I'm introducing the model in my thesis I had to explain how to calculate the gradient. I explain everything in my own words. However when I wrote the equations they look almost like a copy from the paper!! Since I had the same understanding, so the calculations just almost look the same. So I was really confused what to do about this. Since I want to include the derivation of gradient in my thesis and it looks almost the same from the paper. So I was wondering if this is plagiarism! Since I was skeptical, I checked that the equations also look somehow almost the same from other papers. So to make sure that I don't be held for any kind of plagiarism and credit the authors, I mention at the beginning of the section that starts to explain the model is that my following explanations are based on the explanation given in the paper, where I learned about the model. Calculating the gradient is kinda lengthy and spans couple subsections, so in the subsections I assumed that since I credited the authors at the beginning then I didn't credit them again later for the other derivations of the gradient.

Now my question, is what I did correct?! I mean they were only the derivations of the gradient, so they were equations and I can't just "rephrase" them!

I remember once asking one postdoc that I'm using a lot of equations from one paper and he said that I just need to credit the authors that I'm using the same notation, which what I did. However, when I look at the formulas I feel somehow uncomfortable, because they look like a copy from that paper. Should I be worried?!

I really tried to credit the authors and I cited the papers in many places where I was explaining the models. But only the look of those large chunks of equations seems like copying.

As I said earlier I defended my thesis today, so I just hope that I didn't do anything wrong with that because I really worked hard for my thesis and every single word is mine.

P.S what I know is that copying common knowledge is not plagiarism. So this was my assumption behind the calculation of the gradient. Because the derivation of the gradient is not a contribution and the derivation is done in many papers. (like the gradient of the log-likelihood of logistic regression).

So in short, suppose that calculation of the gradient of the log-likelihood of logistic regression is very lengthy in general. And I just copied the equations from a paper that does the derivation. However when I motivated Logistic regression in my thesis I said that my explanations in the next subsections are based on the explanation in the paper where I copied the equations from. Is that okay?

Mathematical equations are not normally considered subject to plagiarism, since there are only so many ways they can be written, and because they represent ideas rather than material that can be "stolen" without proper attribution.

So long as you cite the material you are drawing from, and explain the equations in your own words, you should be fine.


How to correctly cite adapted and translated course lecture notes? I am making some lecture notes for a Computer Science course in my mother language, which is Italian. Some of my notes are based mostly on lecture notes by other professors. I do not copy and paste, but I paraphrase and put my own opinions in portions of the lecture notes. Apart from the references, I usually put this quote at the beginning of my lecture notes when it is necessary:

  "The following material is heavily based on the lecture notes by Professor X given at the University of Y during the course Z"

Is that enough? I would not like to be blamed for plagiarism or any academic misbehaviour for making a silly mistake.

For course lecture material, unlike scientific publications, there is no requirement for uniqueness.  It seems that you are giving clear attribution and credit (which can be nicely enhanced by a link, as @JeffE suggests), so I think the only further thing to do would be to drop a courtesy note to the original professor(s) to let them know how you are appreciatively using their material.  Likely they will be happy and knowing that you are using it may even be beneficial to them; in the unlikely event that they are displeased, then you should not use their material (and should ask them to post a clear statement to warn others not to do so either).


During a UG physics degree , what other certificate/diploma courses can i simultaneously pursue which would be of use in a physics career? During a UG physics degree , what other certificate/diploma courses can i simultaneously pursue which would be of use in a physics career ?

I hear many colleges offer such optional courses along with main course.

This answer is from the opposite end; I studied engineering and took some additional physics courses on the side. Through those, I developed some idea of what undergraduate students in both disciplines might typically lack.

Physics is incredibly broad, and you may be able to choose meaningful courses only when you have some idea of what field you want to specialised in, or what kind of job you would like.

Nevertheless, one skill that will not go waste is being able to write good, efficient programs. All you need is a computer and an internet connection, there are fantastic courses online today. A lot of open course ware exists with various certification options. What's most exciting is that many programming courses are tailored towards research and data science; both of which you are certain to use at some point. I don't think ASE encourages recommendation of specific courses, so I will refrain from that; but if you look around you will certainly find interesting courses.

In addition, if you are looking at applied physics fields, I would recommend two courses from the engineering side- basic electronics and strength of materials. These two will be useful when you want to design your own experimental setup, and having prior knowledge will put you ahead of the typical undergrad student.

Finally, statistics and probability courses will certainly be part of your regular course. If you, however, feel that these aren't rigorous, you may consider doing some advanced courses. It could be very useful when dealing with large sets of experimental data.


What is the difference between an academic department and program in US colleges/universities? What is the difference between an academic department and a program in U.S. colleges and universities? I am attempting to model the relationship between Departments and Programs. Thanks!

I am not sure everyone uses the words the same way, but here is the difference at schools I have been at:

A department is a collection of faculty who are organized into a unit for management and course planning purposes. Some departments have faculty from just one area, while others have faculty from many areas. The division into departments is used in particular for hiring and tenure decisions, which often begin with at the department level. Several departments are collected together to form a division, school, or college, which is the next level up the management hierarchy. Different schools use different divisions, but the smallest one is almost always called a department.
A program is a collection of courses that lead to a particular degree or certificate. These courses (ignoring general education) may be taught by one department, or by many. For example, a degree program might be "bachelor's of science in mathematics" or "bachelor's of arts in management".  The mathematics program will require predominately courses from the mathematics department, while the management program may require courses from the management department, the accounting department, the economics department, and maybe a computer information systems department also.

Some departments offer a single degree program, while other department offer multiple degree programs. On the other hand, some degree programs are interdisciplinary and are offered jointly by several departments in collaboration.

Each faculty member will work for one or more departments; these assignments are called "appointments". A student will not be part of a department in the way that faculty are, but a student may "declare" one or more degree programs, and in that way each student is typically "advised" by faculty of one or more departments.


Is there a proper format to cite open source software? In my research I used a lot python libraries that I need to cite, I wonder if there is an accepted format for citing open-source software?

Do I just put them together with all other references? Do I create two separate references sections: "Article References", "Software References"? Or maybe there is another way to do it?

Just to be clear, I think I am good with the format of the citation itself, it is given here, but I am not sure where do I put those citations in a paper.

Every journal or venue may have its own recommendations, so check their style guides. However, I have never seen an article that has separate reference sections for software and articles. Just put them in one section together.


Do we actually need more PhDs? A few months ago I attended a panel discussion on non-academic future careers for physics PhDs. The panel was made up of two senior physicists, a science communicator and freelance journalist, and a CEO of a finance corporation with a degree in physics. At some point I raised the question of whether the PhD program is functioning properly, and maybe we should do something about the PhD program before lecturing senior graduate students in theoretical physics on the importance of acquiring skills suitable for non-academic careers to get a job after grad school. To be more concrete, I referred to a Nature article that I had come across a few years earlier. The two physicist panelists blatantly dodged my question. The CEO, who I suppose had received his degree in early 2000s, added a comment along the lines that it is better to have more highly educated people in the society rather than fewer.

Are advisers hiring more graduate students to get more research done and compete better in getting grants, or there is an actual need for more PhDs, at least in natural sciences?

We can make the same conversation for BSc or MSc degrees. There are probably many unemployed people with BSc degrees, as well. We cannot suggest that people should not go for higher education, because there are actually fewer jobs than university graduates.

Your question seems to neglect an important, yet simple truth. That sometimes, certain people want to go for a higher degree, regardless of their job outcome. Education (PHD included) is more than filling resumes or getting a better job but a fulfillment in itself. In this sense, it is the same as learning to play the guitar. Does the world need a new guitar player? No it does not. But you do not learn the guitar to benefit society. You learn the guitar to benefit your soul.

If the few lucky PHD holders manage to get the job they wanted that is fine. If they did not, at least they tried. Life is not linear and you cannot predict by your actions on what job you will land, even if you do everything perfectly. But at least, you must be provided with a chance to try. In that sense, it is better than there are actually more PHDs available than the available jobs for PHD holders. More people have access to an even higher education and that is (as aeismail said) a benefit in itself.

So to directly answer your question: Do we need more PHDs? No, we don't. Would the world be a better place if you or I get a PHD? No, it won't. Would we get the job we want with a PHD? Probably not. But that does not mean that I must not have the right to do a PHD and try my chances.


Professor submitted my letter of recommendation after I removed him I had sent a reminder to the professor for submitting my letter of recommendation about two days before the deadline, but he didn't reply to me. He was highly unresponsive after initially agreeing. As the deadline was approaching, I removed him from the recommender list, thinking that he might be too busy to write the letter. But he submitted the letter a few hours before the deadline, and emailed me that the system didn't accept his letter.
It's so embarrassing. I am not sure how I should reply to him. It makes it look like I don't believe him but I did believe it made sense to change the recommender at that moment.

Your perception was entirely reasonable, and as somebody who is serious, you can't let unreliable people decide your fate. So, it is very logical, and nobody should blame you because you did the best thing you could. The point is, should you even communicate the substitution to him, and if yes, what good does it do? If you couldn't find any reason for doing so, then perhaps you shouldn't. This whole recommendation letter is entirely about you and given that he didn't even bother to check or post, you can just simply ignore him. A few months later things will be back to normal and people will simply forget about it.