What criteria would you assess to gauge whether to quit a Ph.D for a job in industry? Just started my second year of a 3.5 year EPSRC funded Ph.D (in engineering, and using some machine learning) in the UK. I have recently finished my confirmation review so have secured the funding for the remainder of the Ph.D.

I have a conference paper from my first year, but I have spent most of the year up and down with the ebbs and flows of research and I am not sure I can handle it mentally anymore.

I am looking at applying for data science/analyst positions. I think I am far better suited to a life in industry.

Part of me thinks I should just try and grind it out and finish (maybe this is second year blues?), but part of me also just wants to get out and start progressing with my career (I already have a Masters degree).

At what stage would you consider leaving a PhD in order to pursue an industry career?

"you think" you'd be happy working might not be enough, depend on the situation I suggest you to take a leave of absence (usually universities in the UK allow this) for 6-12 months, and get a job so you know for sure what ticks for you, then decide whether to return to your program or keep the industry position. Don't feel guilty for taking options that are readily available.

I had similar experience and this, to go or to stay, might be the hardest question I had to answer myself for the longest time. In the end I decided to stick it out, but I also have a close friend who's having the time of their live ditching their PhD 2 years in. You just need to work out the best approach for your situation, and the best way to do it is from a little bit of distance.

Good luck!


Knowing a lecturer from a previous course of study, would it have an impact? I am a final year honours student (UK) who has come across a little bit of a predicament. About eight years ago when I was a teenager, I was undertaking a University course that I did not complete because of personal related issues. There was a lecturer that I did not get on very well with at the time because of this who I knew both from that and also from my previous school days. We had an argument once or twice; I was fairly young at the time.

When I started this new course a few years ago, (which is at a different University) I committed to achieving as much as possible, and I have managed to get a 'first' overall in terms of averages for years one and two. However in my final year it turns out that one of the examiners for my final year project is the same lecturer that I described above in the first paragraph (even though it is a different establishment).

So the question really is, should I have a reason to worry? Would under-performance as a teenager result in an unsettling experience or a bias of marks when it comes to the day when the viva is to be presented? My friends tell me that my worries are irrational as eight years is a long time and teenagers often under perform, but when I started to see if anyone else had this problem, I could not find any existing questions, and everyone on this community looked to be helpful in providing advice. If you could share any enlightening thoughts, it would be very much appreciated!

Anybody who has taught and likes teaching knows that one of the biggest rewards is seeing your students grow.  From your description, it sounds like your only problems in your previous encounter were age-typical lack of focus and brattiness. If you are now a much more mature and polished student, then more likely than not, if the lecturer remembers you at all, it will be to your advantage when they compare with the kid they taught so many years ago.


How should I convince my parents about a career in mathematics? I am an 11th grader and studying undergraduate mathematics and living in India.
I want to become a mathematician, but there is one problem in this path. My parents want me to become a medical doctor, but I have no interest in biology. My parents say there is no career in mathematics and it is a total passion job, you can't get anything from it. They say: "There is no demand of mathematics and you can't go anywhere after few years. The salary is not good and no job as a mathematician. You will only get a job if you do your Ph.D."

So my questions are:

Is it true what my parents are saying?
If it isn't, then what are the careers in mathematics? It is fine if it is a bit long; I don't want any shortcut to success. Also will studying mathematics take up a lot of money?  It is a huge issue in my house.

Your parents are thoroughly incorrect when they say that there is no career opportunities in mathematics.

Further to Dave Clarke's answer, many (applied) mathematicians find work in the City (as in the financial services sector of London) running risk analyses, for instance.

If however, you are looking at finding work as a research academic in mathematics, then jobs are there, but sought after. Teaching mathematics at university level provides wider prospects, however.

To answer your question about money, the amount you have to pay largely rests on the tuition fees that you can afford. This will depend on which university you choose to attend.

There is also the middle ground of studying mathematics with a view to putting that study to work in medicine. Consider that statistics (yes, probably not the subject you are interested in), was essentially developed as a response to a medical situation (plague in London). There is also a vast amount of work requiring pure and applied mathematics in medicine (nuclear medicine, MRI, NMR, for example).


Finding math articles of small length in a given journal For some reason, I sometimes enjoy reading very short articles in math.

Question: Is there a way to filter the articles of a journal (such as Journal of algebra) by their length (from smallest to largest)?

Maybe this is somehow possible using for example mathscinet when it is not directly possible at the journal.

If you have access to Web of Science (and perhaps other databases), this is (kind of) straightforward.
Search for Journal of Algebra in Publication Name, limiting the date range at least initially to something reasonable. As of mid-September 2020, searching on year-to-date yielded 410 entries.
The search results can then be dumped into Excel, choosing to get the full record.
That record includes the start and end page number of each article. Add a column that is the difference of those numbers, and sort the sheet on that column. You may then need to go through and throw away things like editorials and whatnot.
Done.


Getting a degree quickly while already having years of experience I am a software developer with 5 years of professional experience and 5 years of freelance experience. Prior to that, I taught myself programming since I was a kid. I have no degree.

I was able to get my foot in the door using that alone, but recently a Reddit thread was posted showing that someone with no degree had applied to over 400 jobs and only got 10 or so responses. That has been my experience, as well.

I was fortunate to get the jobs that I have with the use of recruiters. Due to circumstance, I really need to maintain employment to the best of my ability and have more stability, and would like to be able to pass the automated filters for degrees.

So while I'm working, I'd like to take classes in the evening online and just knock out some degree.

Does it matter if it's an associate's degree or not, in your knowledge? And are there accelerated programs that I could pursue in the evening, online? I've looked and looked and I just cannot find what I'm looking for, without submitting my personal information to sketchy website forms.

Clarification in case it matters: I'm in the United States.

I think that an associates degree isn't going to get you terrifically far in the employment market. In the US the first couple of undergraduate years (i.e. an associates) is pretty general, rather than focused on employable skills. The advanced courses normally come later.

However, it is a start. As with most applications you want to show not just general qualifications, but how you are especially suited to the position and highly likely to be a success at it. In your current situation it may be your employment history that is your most important asset.

But specialty courses that are available online through some reputable outlet can add to your CV. That would be true even without a degree.

There are some US universities that can give you credit for "life experiences" in some cases. If you are in a place with a lot of educational opportunities (NYC,...) you might explore what your real requirements might be and how you could get a degree part time and at night, week-ends, ...


Is there any research funding for Independent researchers to work staying at home? If somebody hold a PhD with good number of publications in high indexed journals and 2-3 years postdoctoral experiences, then is there any kind of research funding to carry out his/her own research as an independent researcher staying at home. If so, then would you please share some of such sources. Will a research proposal be sufficient to apply for such funding?

Please Note: The independent researcher has no affiliation except his home address and the background is in atmospheric science field.

I don't know which country you are in, but in the United States at least, a lot of grants assume you will be affiliated with a university or other institution (which is why there are things like indirect costs) and are not set up to be given to individuals with no affiliation.

That said, if someone has a decent scientific track record (eg. you're not a risk to the reputation of the university) it is fairly low-risk for a university to offer you some sort of 100% soft-money position (part-time research professor, etc.). Soft money means your entire paycheck has to be covered by grants, so the university doesn't risk any money on you themselves, they just give you a university affiliation so you can go hunt for grants. If you had a soft money position, and were able to get grants, you are pretty much your own boss and able to decide whether you want to come in to the office or work from home.


Difference between conference paper and journal paper Many times I heard about papers published in conference. But still I am not able to find the major difference between papers published in a conference and those published in a journal. What is the difference?

Conference papers refer to articles that are written with the goal of being accepted to a conference: typically an annual (or biannual) venue with a specific scope where you can present your results to the community, usually as an oral presentation, a poster presentation, or a tabled discussion. The review process for conference papers is typically within a fixed window: everyone submits for a certain deadline, then the review committee (program committee) collaborates to review and discuss papers, then all authors are notified with accept/reject at the same time. Since the review process has a fixed schedule (to meet the schedule of the physical meeting), conference review times are quite predictable.

Conference papers are typically published in collections called "proceedings": sometimes these are printed by university presses, by professional organizations, by big-name publishers, or simply online.

Journal papers refer to an article that's published in an issue of the journal. The frequency of issues for different journals varies from one-a-month to once-a-year, or anything in between; it may not even be regular. The review process for journals often does not have a fixed deadline or schedule: though journals may promise things like "reviews in six weeks", in my experience, this rarely if ever holds true. However, instead of conferences that typically have only accept/reject decisions, journals typically have a rolling review schedule and reviewers can opt to ask the authors for revisions, meaning that there might be multiple review phases (often limited to three, at which stage the paper is rejected/accepted).

Since conference papers have a fixed schedule and provide the authors a venue for discussion and feedback, they are generally for earlier-term work or for "announcing/marking an idea", or for finding collaborators. Furthermore, conference papers tend to have fixed page-limits, which restricts the content to preliminary findings.

Journal papers tend to have generous page-limits (or none at all), but typically require the work to be more comprehensive and self-contained in return.

In general, in most fields, papers in well-recognized journals tend to have more prestige than papers in well-recognized conferences (esp. in terms of metrics). But this is a simplification.

While in some fields, conference papers are akin to talk abstracts, in areas like computer science, conference papers can be very meaty and there is a high churn of papers in conferences. Top conferences can have acceptance rates around 10%, and as such, A+ conference papers are often held in high regard within the community: these venues are far more competitive than many of the best journals. Still, even in the CS area, metric-wise (for hiring, positions, funding, etc.), journals will often still count for more than a conference following the norm in other academic fields.


Why can't friends or family members write recommendation letters for graduate admissions? When browsing their web sites, I noticed that apart from those listed academic requirements by different universities, they all require at least two reference letters from applicants, but they did not officially state that who should write those recommendation letters.Although I have collected several recommendation letters from my former teachers, I found it was quite hard to reach my former teachers whom I had not contacted for many years.It almost took me two months from the day I sent out my first email to the day I got enough recommendation letters from my former teachers.
It has been puzzling me why the recommendation letters should be written by school lecturers or professors.The people who know you best are business partners, your close friends, family members like your parents, siblings, why they are not qualified to write the recommendation letters for me?

Because they cannot be objective.
Because they do not have firsthand knowledge of your academic abilities.
Because they do not have the background necessary to compare you to other graduate school applicants.

Also see Kisses of Death in the Graduate School Application Process, page 2, "Harmful letters of recommendation," subsection "Inappropriate sources," and Protocol for writing a recommendation letter for someone you only know on a personal basis.


How can I provide a great external evaluaton of a faculty member's promotion and tenure case? I recently received an email asking if I would be willing to evaluate a colleague's application for promotion and tenure. We are both at R1 universities in the US. According to the guidelines, I am qualified to serve as an external evaluator even though I am neither tenured nor in a tenure-track position. However, this means that I have limited familiarity with the process.

I am inclined to accept and support the case, but would like to know:

What is typically involved in such a review? How much reading and writing? Can I expect to do this in a single day?
What makes a great (great = valuable to the committee) evaluation?

For context: I’m in math. Take this advice with a grain of salt if you’re in a discipline with different norms.

A good (meaning useful) letter is typically around 2-3 pages long, although I have seen letters as short as 1 page (not very useful) and as long as 5 pages (useful, but not in proportion to its length and tedious to read).

At least 85-90% of the letter’s length will be devoted to discussing the candidate’s research. It’s appropriate to comment briefly about other aspects of their work such as teaching, service, organizational work, outreach etc, to the extent that you feel such feedback would be helpful, or to the extent you were explicitly asked to discuss those things. Unless you were explicitly asked about them, it’s also appropriate not to discuss anything other than research.

For letters I have written, I would estimate that I spent around 4-8 hours in total doing the review. That time is spread out over several days, which I feel is important to make sure the review is thoughtful and I have time to weigh my words carefully and make sure I am willing to commit to the end result. I am usually familiar with only a part of the candidate’s work, so I spend a good amount of time getting up to speed on their full body of work and trying to estimate its significance. But I think it probably wouldn’t make sense for me to agree to do a review if I felt like I needed more than a day’s work to get to a point where I can meaningfully comment on the significance of their work.

In the letter I usually include both some general comments and at least a few paragraphs on each of 2-3 specific results and papers I am more intimately familiar with. My suggestion is to aim for a good balance between the general and the specific - the people reading the letter need a bit of both.

It’s okay to use some technical language, but don’t overdo it - many of the readers will not be experts in the specific area the candidate is working on. For the benefit of those non-experts, it’s helpful to include language that manages to convey how important and influential the candidate’s work has been without getting into a technical discussion. To some extent you can achieve this by relying on “sociological” data such as how prestigious and well-regarded the journals the candidate publishes in (or conferences they lecture at, etc) are, but try not to put too much emphasis on such things or you will risk coming across as a shallow person who only cares about prestige, and your feedback may be discounted. (Also, as JeffE said in a comment, such sociological indicators of prestige can often be estimated by non-experts directly, so your discussing them is potentially not as helpful as a more expert/technical commentary. But to a limited extent, I think it is appropriate and potentially helpful to comment on prestige.)

Good luck! Writing this sort of letter is a big responsibility, but also a very valuable service. It speaks well of your reputation that you were asked to do it.


What reason would someone who offered you a PhD position give a recommendation letter for another position? Background: I was offered a PhD position by the advisor of my current masters thesis and also by the corresponding professor at the local university. Now that i thought more thoroughly about pursuing an academic career i want to apply to a different university to gain experience abroad (eg. Switzerland).

Obviously my advisor and the professor are interested in my work, is there any chance they will support me with a letter of recommendation? Or more generally if the professor likes your work, why would he or she support you to apply somewhere else?

Edit: To expand on the answers, will i risk my chance of PhD at the local university just by asking for a recommendation (e.g. EPFL seems quite competetive)?

Yes. There is a good chance that they will support you by writing a letter. This happens frequently.

More generally, they will probably support you when it doesn't seem to immediately and directly benefit them, because everyone benefits from a supportive and connected community. People moving between institutions is almost always considered to be a good thing. Even if they lose a good student now, the community is what brings most good students; you and your future advisors will likely recommend your current advisors to students at your new institution(s), for example.


some questions regarding research plan for postdoc I am going to apply for some postdoc positions which last more than one year. As usual, one of the main required documents is research plan. Having considered some good questions in academia.stackexchange such as Research plan without a specific goal?
, Research proposal for postdoc applications and Research Plan that works?, I have another question:

In the case of more than one year postdoc positions, how can I cover several years with one research plan?  In other words, I am thinking on some different projects to conduct during these years. Can I mentioned in my research proposal (plan) all of them which are less related to each other? One of them is a kind of my research work in my Ph.D program and the others are further away from my thesis project. In fact, besides working on some aspects of my Ph.D thesis, I would like to work on other topics. As an example, let suppose I worked on pure math and for future I have some plans to work on some applied math. My reason is based on my interests on both of them. In addition, I think by conducting research on projects related to my thesis in first year of my postdoc , I will be able to obtain quick results to provide progress in my research work.

You can cover several years with one research plan by putting the different projects on a fictive timeline.

You can mention multiple of them but they have to have a logical connection.
I don't have experience in mathematics (I did a PhD in Life Sciences), but one important point for postdoctoral application is to show that you can do research in an independent manner i.e. that you understand what topic of research is interesting/relevant, the hypothesis you develop regarding this topic, the approach you choose, and the key experiments which would lead to the results to answer your hypothesis.

An another point is that the research can be done during the timeline of the granted money, i.e. it is realistic and achievable. It is also hard at this stage because you might not know yet but you need to have an educated guess at it. That's why that in terms of number it is also up to you to decide if you should include all of them or not.
Regarding possible failure of the plans, try to include the ideas which are innovative and challenging enough but at the same time easy for you (because of your PhD experience) to do in realistic timeframe.

In your case, the hardest part of the grant proposal is to convince the reader that there is a logical approach between these different parts you want to study. If there are no connection at all then it will be difficult to do so and I would advise to not include all of them.


Job Title: Graduate Research Assistant I worked on a project as a graduate student in a research group in order to complete the credit points (20 ECTS Germany) required for my Master's degree. I was not employed on a contract i.e. not paid for the work because it was for completing the credit points for my Master's degree. Now I want to include the work as a research experience on my CV (for application to a PhD program) but I am unsure whether I can name the title of the experience as "Research Assistant" or not.

I do not know what technical title I should give this job.

I would suggest that you not claim any title that wasn't assigned by others. You can give a description of what you did or suggest that the work was "similar to GRA" but that is different from saying that you actually had the title. Your only official "title" was student, I think.

While what you say might be accurate in some sense, the problem is that someone seeing official documentation and not finding you listed with a title you claim, all start to wonder why and even thing you have given a fraudulent answer. While that isn't your intent, you don't want to open the possibility of such an accusation.

I suspect that in Germany it is especially important to be accurate about titles, though that may be changing.

But, for a CV, have a section on experience with a very brief explanation and a phrase "similar to ..." that gives the person the right idea about your duties, but not claiming a title.

You could also, in a mail or email, ask the institute what you can call yourself on your CV. But I'd suggest that you want the answer in writing and from someone official if it isn't a formal position you held. Then there can be no question of your intent.


Advisor wants first author. Do I have any leverage? I'm doing undergrad research with a team, advised by a professor. I have a good relationship with this professor, but told us after the research started that he would be first author. I was at first just excited to do research, but the more I think about it, the more I think this isn't right.

His contribution was the original idea- not a fleshed out idea that we just implemented, but a very general "try this approach," a push in the right direction. Taking this approach, mind you, would be obvious to anyone well versed in the field (as I have learned), and within this approach, there are thousands of different avenues we could go to try achieving the results we want.
We have spent months doing research, and we have weekly-ish meetings, in which he asks us questions about what we're doing (we explain how our work, because it is our own creation) and he reminds us to write down everything we do. This has been his contribution for the duration of the project.
We are expected to write the entire paper ourselves- which he will then edit.

I have a meeting with him (one on one) in the near future and I would really like to bring this up, because first authorship would be huge for me or anyone on my team, whereas he already has an academic career. But I am only a first year, and he has expressed interest in doing future research with me.

My question is: do I have any leverage in this argument? Can I present this as a deal breaker for me for future projects? Is there any other way to denote who actually did the work that I can push for here? I'm not sure if he wants to make it seem like he did the work or if that's just "what we do" in my department for undergrad research. I don't want to ruin my relationship with this professor, but I also don't want to feel like my team and I are being taken advantage of.

Responses to questions:

My field is applied computer science
I think it would make sense for either my friend or me to be first author (I don't think having to make this choice would lead to problems)
I have no objection to co-first-authorship, but it would have to be me and my friend, not one of us plus the professor.

Although Buffy's advice to let this go is practical, and I agree that would be perfectly fine, I think you have a second option here. Namely, if you are careful, you can bring up your concern with the advisor. However, if you do this, you shouldn't phrase it as an accusation or a claim that someone else should be first author; that would be unnecessarily antagonistic and probably would not help your case.

Instead, you could phrase it as a question. Say that you would like to understand how authorship order is determined better. Although you assume that the author order has already been agreed upon for this particular paper, as a starting researcher you are curious about the etiquette of authorship. You can ask if it is common for the PI to be first author in your area. Depending on how receptive he is, you can ask other questions.

If you follow this approach, then probably one of two things will happen:

First, he could become defensive and dismissive. This is more likely if he is really being unethical. In this case, Buffy is probably right that your best bet is to let this go for now. Sadly, these things happen; author order isn't always determined correctly, and that can be either due to honest error or due to dishonesty. You could always talk to another professor or mentor for moral support and to assess how to proceed (particularly for future projects), but probably for this one accepting the order is not such a big deal in the grand scheme of things.
Second, he could be helpful and receptive. Maybe he will explain that he is usually first author on his papers. Perhaps he has a good reason for this. For example, in some fields, that is accepted, while in others that is pretty condemned (I don't know what is the case for your field). But he could also have some personal justification for why to go against the convention. I would not agree with him, but perhaps if he explains this then it would make it easier for you to understand.

Whatever you decide, try to see the bigger picture that authorship is not always obvious, and this professor will be judged for his own actions by colleagues and the community in the future; it's to some extent out of your hands. Good luck.


Ask the author of paper about an idea I am doing my MS thesis on wireless networking, I give the codes from the author of the paper, for some month, after reading his paper and also working on the some aspects of his codes (the implementation of his paper). Now it is the time to create the idea, Can I send him "Do you have any idea which improve some aspects of your paper ?  "

would you please give me some advises ? can I ask him or not? how to ask that ? what I should say to him ?

NOTE: my reason for asking him is this: I am sure he knows his codes better than every body, also I am afraid in implementing any idea which do not lead to good result at the end. By the way I do not have lot of time to try and test another ways I mean try and implement one idea with bad result and after that switch to another idea.

UPDATE: If I ask him, "... , that is  my idea, what do think about my idea?" what will happen? what is his possible respond?

UPDATE2: The meaning of idea in my question is "HOW TO EXTEND HIS WORK"


How to politely take back a request to be on an exam committee? I need to have three faculty members on my Qualifying Exam committee, with one non-adjunct faculty of my department to be chair. On our department guidelines webpage, the 'non-adjunct' bit was not specified.

I had therefore emailed three professors, two from another departent (CSE), and one adjunct from mine (EE). One of the CSE professors agreed, the EE professor agreed but told me he couldn't be chair because he was adjunct. I therefore got another EE professor to be chair. Now I will have to email the other CSE professor to tell him I don't need him to be on the committee anymore since I've got people already. This wouldn't have happened had I known about the rule for chair.

How do I email him in the politest way possible? He's currently out of country so meeting in person isn't possible.

Be straightforward but tactful about your situation. You have a limited number of spaces on your committee and they are now filled, despite some initial confusion. This is just one of the challenges of assembling a committee and ensuring they're all in one place when they need to be. This additional professor will likely be understanding about that difficulty and will likely appreciate you letting them know about this change well in advance of any necessary committee meetings.


Etiquette when talking to a researcher whose work you do not think highly of What do academicians need to keep in mind when they are conversing with a fellow researcher whom they do not think highly of? I was reminded of A Beautiful Mind, where Nash (Crowe) says the following:

  I imagine you're getting quite used to miscalculation. I've read your preprints... both of them. The one on Nazi ciphers... and the other one on nonlinear equations... and I am supremely confident that there is not a single seminal or innovative idea in either one of them.

This is as forthright as it could possibly get! Suppose there is a situation where you have read a paper in some detail, and are sure that it is not just worth its salt. If you happen to strike a conversation with the author about the work itself, how do you go about it? How do tactful researchers react to this situation?

Be polite. There's nothing to be gained by being a jerk. It's funny in the movies, but do people really say things like that in real life?
Be diplomatic. State initially that you do not fully understand the approach or the motivation, and then after some discussion state that you do not fully agree with the approach taken.
Be succinct. Point out clearly what you see as being the problem with the paper.
Be constructive. Indicate places where you think the paper/research could be improved, with concrete suggestions of how you would make the improvements.

Alternatively,

Avoid the topic. Talk about the football scores instead. What about those Bears?


Does a chapter published in a book fit as part of a paper-based dissertation? I've just received an offer to write a chapter for a book that will be published with an important publisher. I was about to say yes, because the topic fits with my dissertation topic and I thought I could use it for my paper-based dissertation, but a colleague told me that a chapter in a book may not be considered for a paper-based dissertation. What was your experience? Do you know anything about it?

Update: Finally my Uni will accept a book chapter as part of my paper-based dissertation. I had to argue that even though it was a book and not a journal, the chapter (actually the whole book) will be reviewed by at least two reviewers. Thanks for your answers!

While regulations may differ from place to place, I find it highly unsurprising that a book chapter would not "count" for a paper-based dissertation.  The reason is that book chapters are typically peer reviewed lightly, if at all.

As such, if your dissertation requirement is effectively "N peer-reviewed papers," then this book chapter is highly unlikely to be peer-reviewed in a manner consistent with the expectations of the university.  Just in the same way, your professors would probably not count a paper in a predatory journal as helping to meet your dissertation requirements.

Note, however, that this doesn't mean you should not write the chapter, if it is a good publisher and a work you would like to create.  Book chapters can be a good way to organize your thoughts and put together reviews, and in some cases can actually be quite highly cited.  Likewise, the text from the chapter may turn out to be useful as part of your dissertation (depending on university regulations about copyright and theses, of course).  It's just that it's probably not a peer-reviewed publication and will thus likely not count toward the number of such that you need for your dissertation.


What can a biostatistician do to earn money on the side? I love my full-time job and do not wish to leave it (statistician in a small-ish research institute within a large university) because I believe the research we do will someday benefit humanity and because I get the freedom to pursue my own research and several open-source statistical software projects I'm developing.

However, I am not making enough to provide for my family, and we are starting to feel it. I'm looking for something low-risk that I can do from home and on my own schedule, so finding an adjunct position someplace is not on the table. I'm looking into ways to commercialize my software and teaching myself about investing, but neither of those will be reliable income streams anytime soon.

So, I would like to solicit people's stories/advice on how they got into freelance statistical consulting or any other "low-hanging fruit" jobs.

Also, are there specific types of businesses that are known to hire free-lancers to do survival analysis, repeated measures regression, and all-around R programming?

I'm not trying to be the next James Goodnight, just to find a way to make some extra cash doing stuff I find easy and other people find difficult. I'll do web development if I have to, but I figure there should be a more profitable niche where I put my less common skills to use.

This is more of a brainstorming session/life hack than an answer specific for academic, hopefully this can spark some more inputs. As a disclaimer, I identify with you as I am also working in the field of biostatistics and epidemiology, though I have not actively sought after extra income. However, I have always been a financial life junkie and I used to love to daydream how to be rich or at least to enjoy retirement with dignity. Here are some of my thoughts and, well, refined thoughts.

Saving = Income - Expenses

We should first recognize that you can save money by either getting more or spending less. Before going to get more, I'd recommend sitting down with your spouse and go over the financial situation. Here are a few exercises that I found easy to pick up, and once you have started, you may see if this route is good:

Create a happy matrix for your spending: Print out your credit card statement(s), item by item, grade how each of them makes you happy (Likert's scale, etc. you know the drill.) Identify things that are not contributing any satisfaction and avoid making the same purchase again. For those that truly make you happy, evaluate if you can cut back (usually, from all my reading, the culprit is often the $7.90 something Starbucks grande latte and a scone for the breakfast), or substitute with cheaper options such as shifting to other vendors or make them at home. I especially recommend everyone to check their credit card bill, bank bill, and cell phone bill: When I first started this routine, I found out that I have $280 sitting in my credit card as cash back! I just never claimed it.
Have an energy audit of your house: Most local government should be able to point you to some free energy audit service. They will evaluate your house's insulation, electricity usage, conditions of the heating system etc. and provide you a list of improvements and expected return on investment. For example, you can spend about $1,200 to inject foam in between inner and outer wall, and drop your heating bill by more than $200 per year. Other gadgets like motion sensing switch, smart thermostat, and CFL light bulbs may also help.
Take public transport or bike: I actually use this method. I don't drive and I live about 9 miles away from work. I commute on bike in spring, summer, and fall; and use subway in winter.
Commit to be green: This sounds like quite off. But I have come to realize that once you want to cut down on trash, you can't help but cut down on consumption. For example, I bring my travel mug and a collapsible box everywhere in case if I need to buy a drink or food. Since packaged food is automatically out of the equation (which are usually more expensive per weight), I save some money there. I also go to wet market or farmer's market for food, and I don't consume processed food. If I need an item I check out local flea market and freecycle websites (I give away stuff through freecycle as well.) For level 2 difficulty: Commit to be a vegetarian or vegan. Meatless lifestyle simplifies life tremendously.
Use your educator's identity: Many vendors provide discount to educators. Since you work in a university, you can flash your staff card and get some good saving here and there. I'd also encourage you to check with your university's benefit page. I got a 24% discount on my phone bill just because I filled in an extra form.

Then up a notch

If you have mortgages and complicated insurances, etc. Consider talking to a financial planner. Most of them can point you to some restructuring to make the system more streamlined. Simple things like grouping the insurance to one company can save monthly payment. I have even read about an extreme case that a couple actually ends up saving more by having one of them stopped working because the commute, childcare, and other expenses were eating into the take-home income so much.

Now, zoom out

I do understand that you value your biostatistics skills. But when it comes to making money, you don't have to only work on biostatistics. For me, after 9 hours of coding and reading outputs, I'd rather see something else. Once you have broken out from the box, you'll feel more liberated. Reassess your passions and hobbies, and see if you can pursue an instructor position somewhere. For example, personal trainer, yoga teacher, musical instrument teacher, handcraft, carpentry, gardening, etc.

On my own spare time, I write video game walkthroughs, and post them on various websites and my own wiki sites. In the walkthrough I put affiliated links to vendors and in the wiki I earn Google Ads money. Given I am not very prolific, I don't earn a lot, but I can usually pocket about $300-400 a year if I happen to have written a walkthrough for a popular game.

Finally, zoom back in

Now, back to your question. There are many ways a biostatistcian can expand their job repertoire. Here are some examples:

Consult your local classified websites such as Craigslist: Check for consultant type of jobs. You may even post an ad if you are so enticed. I used to do some consultation on and off as a student and got to charge $50 to $100 an hour.
Propose a course to local adult learning center: Most cities should have some adult learning centers the provide classes on hobbies or professional skills. Meet with the director and propose a course (on R, for example). You can build clientele and enlarge your social network as well.
Statistical editor and reader: You can also contact local editors and discuss on possibility to be an ad hoc statistical editor. I am actually working towards this direction. In my institution there are a lot of orphan data: grants ended, staff left, no body works on it and publishes the work. I found my niche of being a data undertaker, and I grew to be very interested in writing as well. Other than editors, you can also sell your skills to students who are writing their thesis. Most of their works can benefit by having a round of quantitative examination.
Look for an adjunct position: I know you don't want to, but I'd urge you to be a bit more adventurous on this option. Since online education is actually picking up traction, your skill in biostatistics and website building may actually be a good combination for some institutions looking for a way to move their program online. For remote course you usually just need to meet the student in the first 1-2 weeks or every other week, which can still preserve your flexible time table. Use online chat or billboard for office hour, give students feedback using track-changes, etc. You can do most of these at home.

Closing remarks

I hope I didn't sound patronizing. But I wholeheartedly hope you may find some of these useful. I used to have mindset like you do, thinking of how to expand my income sources (I have my own expense and family in my home country to support), but after a few rounds of thinking, and sorting out what are the most important, I didn't feel like that any more. Now I make sure I have good pre-tax saving taken out first, save at least 10%, allocate money for family, allocate minimal expenses, keep about 5% or so for entertainment, buy used, give away or sell my own used goods, bike to work, stop all cable TV, lend to people on Kiva.org, simplify my closet, practice the motto of "buy the experience, don't buy the stuff"... etc. I realize that I still have enough, and I am not really sure what I was fussing about in the past. I'm happier, calmer, and definitely feeling clearer about what I want. And I certainly hope you'll be able to find your solution as well!


How should I request a professor to restrict communication to email? My instructor for an undergraduate math course (a professor) has been interacting with me over WhatsApp lately, and I feel that that is very unprofessional (and uncomfortable), since I (and everyone) use instant-messaging apps for personal communication only. Moreover, from what I know, it is common practice in academia to communicate over email. Am I overthinking it, or is it really unacceptable?
I find this unprofessional because WhatsApp relies on one's private phone number. I think this professor got it when I called their office phone recently.

I don't think there is anything especially unprofessional about communicating via instant messaging. Email is a naturally asynchronous communication platform, and sometimes you need a synchronous method to contact people.
In my research group, we use a specific professional instant messaging application - Slack. I did this because I feel it's important to keep work and private life separate, but still need a way of communication synchronously with my team. Students/postdocs may exit/silence the app when they feel they are not on "work time". Your institution may also have such a system - Microsoft Teams, Google for Education's Chat and Facebook Workplace all offer similar functionality depending on which your university runs its IT systems on.
I should also point out that the opposite problem is also true. My students definitely think it's a bit weird that I refuse to be on their WhatsApp group.
That said, if instant messaging makes you uncomfortable, you should tell your supervisor this. There is no reason to lie about the reason - you shouldn't even need to offer a reason. You can just say "I'd rather be contacted by email unless it's a real emergency, if that's okay.".

EDIT:
This answer was written before it was clear that the OP was an undergraduate in a class, not a post-graduate communicating with their supervisor.
I do think it is a bit weird for a professor to be communicating, one on one with undergraduates in their classes via IM.
There are situations where some sort of chat system might still be a good way to communicate with students (I use slack in a large, long-term, practically based course I teach), but I do think personal IM is best avoided with undergradutes.
I don't think this changes the course of action, which would be to contact the prof and say you'd rather the contacted via a different means (see @henning's answer).


Converting Web of Science ID to pubmed or DOI I have downloaded a set of articles from Web of Science using their API.

Each article contains its WOS (web of science ID), but the entries for the DOI identifier are incomplete (i.e., not all articles have a DOI).

Is there a way to convert the WOS number to get the DOI or PubMed ID for each article?

You can manually put parts of the citation into https://search.crossref.org/ and it will give you back the doi.

Alternatively, you could migrate your WOS bibliography into Mendeley using the steps in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqtAPRZaz2U . I just started using Mendeley (by Elsevier) and have imported my EndNote references pretty easily. I was able to then find the missing PMIDs for a paper I was writing.

Good luck!


Choosing among graduate schools I am an undergraduate student who has been admitted to three universities with full funding it is almost two weeks that I am stressing over my choices, therefore I decided to post my situation here to have your thoughts as well. I have been admitted to:

A high-rank Canadian University in Chemical Engineering MSc and my research will be related to Oil&Gas related fluid mechanics and simulation

A low-rank US University in Chemical Engineering MSc and my research will be about Oil&Gas related Molecular Dynamics and CFD simulations

A high-rank French graduate school in Renewable Energy Master

I am just left undecided between going to the US where a lot of opportunities are, or going to one of the top schools in my field in Canada or going to France but specialize in a rapidly growing Renewable Energy sector.
Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts!

First of all, congrats! I don't have a full understanding of your situation, and my field of study isn't the same, but these might be some questions which might help you rank your options:

What's your post-graduation plan? Do you plan to get a PhD or start working after you finish your MSc? Knowing what you want to do with the degree will certainly help you see joining which university/lab will take you closer to your goal.
It's a research-based MSc: how much do you know about the lab you are going to be working with? Have you talked to the PIs of those labs personally? Can you request a brief online meeting with the lab members? Are they happy with the lab culture? What are former students from those labs doing now?
In my opinion, the alignment of your research interests' and the lab's, and the lab culture are the most important.


Should funding be listed under "distinctions and honours" on a PhD application? In one of my Ph.D. applications, there's a section where I must "List any academic distinctions or honours or paricipation in olympiads etc." I don't know exactly what this means.

Would this include:

A scholarship I earned to study a semester abroad at an (important) university.
The funding I received to attend a summer school abroad? (I didn't present anything, just attended the school).
My current MAs scholarship.

Typically, when you put together a C.V., there is a place for listing the funding that you have obtained, and these would go in that section (unless they are primarily about the honor and secondarily about the money, in which case they would go in the funding section).

For the application, if there is nowhere to list these types of funding, then I would list them in this "distinctions and honors" section.  These are significant pieces of your history, and should be listed somewhere in your application, and if this is the best fit, well, why not there?


Can a Guest Lecturer be my Referee? I have a guest lecturer who taught me one module for one semester and graded my work. He is willing to be my referee. Would he be counted as an acceptable referee if I were applying to be admitted for a PhD (graduate admission)?

Edit: I would like to mention that I asked because I was just worried because I don't know if it's standard practice to accept such referees even if they have taught me for one full semester, and some bureaucrats who may act as gatekeepers to academic staff might err on the side of caution almost to the point of inflexibility.

Can a Guest Lecturer be my Referee?

Yes, they can. To determine if they are the best referee for a graduate application, try answering the following questions:

Can this person attest for my strong research potential? (Not just performance in coursework) (e.g. did you talk to them after lecture about ideas outside the scope of the course? Did they seem interested in discussion research-level topics with you?)
Will this person's name (or at least their University affiliation) be recognized by the admissions committee or by the professors whose groups you apply to?

If the guest lecturer satisfies one or both of those criteria, they could be a good choice. If they don't satisfy them, see if there is someone else who would satisfy them. It is still a trade-off here -- someone who knows you better is more likely to give a good letter than someone who does not know you as well. It may be that the guest lecturer is the best choice even if they do not satisfy these criteria, in the case that no one else really does either.


How not to be like a rolling stone in research? As a young researcher, it is really interesting for me to gain knowledge in different topics related to my major. I attend many conferences and seminars in my field, I read papers and books which I find related to my major.

However, I sometimes find it disturbing to my research productivity when I read a book or two about one research field and then I find another interesting research paper and try to read some papers about that field of research.

I have the feeling that this changing of research path is disturbing my research productivity. Now, I have read so many papers and books in many branches of my field, but I have not gone in depth of any of them. Although I have good vision about the research fields I have studied, but I think that having no concentration on one or two research fields will be disturbing for me in long period of time.

Reading many books and papers in many fields gives me good vision about those fields, gives me ideas on some interesting research topics but also disturbs my concentration on one research field. I have the feeling that this is a good path for short period of time that I want to find my way; but in long term, I will miss my concentration on a research field.

As a young researcher who is just trying to find his research path which I want to stay in, how should I make sure that this is the topic I want to do research in my whole academic life?
How should I stop my interest to learn new topics disturb my research productivity in future?
How should I overcome my desire to do research in many research fields and work on different research topics and stick to just one or two research fields and read papers and books only related to the research topic which I want to work on in long period of time?

The questions above are so close to each other and I think they can be answered under one question post.

As a young researcher who is just trying to find his research path which I want to stay in, how should I make sure that this is the topic I want to do research in my whole academic life?

You can't. The world will progress, funding will change and your interests are likely to develop as well.

  How should I stop my interest to learn new topics disturb my research productivity in future?

There is inherent trade-off between focused work on a predefined topic and an open-ended mind-wandering. The current climate in academia seems to focus on productivity, which (in my opinion *) is not good for any non-incremental progress.

But as long as you find enough time to publish good papers, I wouldn't bother about not being focused enough (publishing requires you to focus, whether you like or not).

  How should I overcome my desire to do research in many research fields and work on different research topics and stick to just one or two research fields and read papers and books only related to the research topic which I want to work on in long period of time?

Don't take a narrow (and, I think, common) definition of productivity as sticking to a narrow field and never wandering around. If you read a research-level book on another field (not just  - its first chapter) then it is not shallow.

* Piotr Migdał, There are no projects like side projects (on Albert Einstein, John Bell and John Carmack)


Obtaining feedback from supervisors I'm a PhD student in the process of writing a manuscript. I have more than one supervisor and other collaborators for the project I'm writing up presently. I've also received very useful feedback from all supervisors. However, there's one problem. I often find that the feedback from one supervisor sometimes contradicts feedback from another. I try not to take sides but I'm not entirely sure how other researchers have dealt with this in the past.

So in summary, what do you do when you get conflicting feedback from your supervisors?

Note: my supervisors are my advisors and the manuscript is a part of my PhD-not the entire thesis.

If by "supervisors" you mean your dissertation committee, then, as far as I know, the standard approach is to allow the committee chair (advisor) to resolve various conflicts of that kind between her/him and committee members.

At many universities (well, at least, at some, mine included), a Ph.D. student is actually prohibited from direct communication with committee members — in particular, on dissertation (manuscript) revisions' feedback — so, this burden is a part of the advisor's responsibilities. Perhaps, such arrangement is not common across universities within a country and across different countries.


How does one choose which articles to cite for a very broad sentence? For example, take the sentence: "Gaussians are widely used in mathematics & statistics".
At this point there probably tens of thousands of papers that use Gaussian functions in some way (that's not even counting the papers in other fields like the social sciences that make use of Gaussians). It's impractical to cite them all. The sentence still calls for at least some citations though. How does one choose which papers to cite?

Either none at all if you can assume that the most likely audience of your publication is aware of that as if it was a basic fact of life.
Or recent reviews that provide a wide overview of Gaussians used in mathematics and/or statistics.
I searched for TITLE: (Gaussian) AND DOCUMENT TYPES: (Review) AND YEAR PUBLISHED: (2015-2021) in Web of Science. The query led to 56 results, many of which have accrued considerable citations and thematize mathematical or statistical issues. Perhaps you could do a similar search and pick some suitable papers to cite.


Can I get a PhD for developing educational software? I am a senior at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. After asking another question on this website, I have decided to become a professor of practice. To do this, I will pursue a Ph.D.

A Ph.D. project that I have already started in my free time this summer is developing an application and website that would help with calculus education. The application has

A computer algebra system which solves the calculus problems
A system which shows the work that the computer algebra system performs
A system which gives hints for the user
A system which allows the reader to type in each line of their work for the system to check for correctness and possibly identify the reason the answer is incorrect. This would include a system which would allow the user to draw graphs with their mouse for curve sketching problems.
A website where the application would be available for free use.
If there is still time left, typed notes and maybe even video lectures to correspond with the application.

I already have done 3,014 lines for the computer algebra system over the summer and I would love to make this my research project. I think that this would make an awesome research project because I would do it even if I didn't get a Ph.D. (I originally was considering making a level with the website as an alternative to the Ph.D.)

However, I worried that it would not be eligible as a Ph.D. project because I'm creating something rather than discovering a new theorem, numerical algorithm, or mathematical model. This made me even consider not getting a Ph.D. as my previous experience with research in numerical analysis was not enjoyable.

Generally speaking, you need to do more than develop software (any software) to get a PhD. Even creating a new Operating System isn't quite "enough". But the reason is subtle. An many people base their doctoral degrees on software they develop.

The issue is that, in most cases, people will, like myself, have the belief that you get a doctorate by advancing knowledge. To advance knowledge, a computer science student might write some nice piece of software, but then must show/prove/demonstrate that the software does, in fact, advance the state of the art. You have to show that the software represents a genuine advance in knowledge. That it embodies some advanced concept, not just cool coding.

I was once an external examiner in such a situation. A student in a fine German university built and utilized a certain very sweet system for allowing students to interact remotely with each other and with their professor on projects and assignments. It manages all sorts of communication, permitting effective group work for students not co-located. The university focuses on distance education.

But the doctorate was given, not for the software itself, but for the student's analysis of it and proof that it was effective and showed some new ways of thinking about group work and how it could be effectively done an managed. It was that demonstration that was the essence of the degree, though it was based on the software he built.

However, I can't guarantee that every such software-based degree has the same sort of requirements. In a lot of ways what your advisor will accept is what is actually required. But, I think that this philosophy of "advancing knowledge" rather than just "building cool stuff" is pretty fundamental and widely shared.


Is it ok to submit a paper to arXiv after copyright transfer? I have a paper that was accepted and is already in press (you can download a PDF online), and I have already filled out the copyright transfer.

The publisher allows uploading preprint versions (including revisions after reviewer comments) to repositories such as arXiv, but is it ok to do so at this stage?

The publisher allows uploading preprint versions (including revisions after reviewer comments)

If you're allowed to do it, you are allowed to do it. To be 100% sure, check the text of the copyright transfer agreement, where these policies are spelt out. Or, if you don't like reading legal text so much, it is summarized for many publishers in a nice color code at SHERPA/Romeo.


Why are some PhD holders unable to become professors? Why do some people get STEM PhDs, want a professorship, and end up not getting it?

Is it only about opportunity and competition, or are there PhD candidates that are just not qualified to be professors (why?)?

[Thanks for the clarification, it turns out to be an easy question]

  What the reasons are that some people get STEM PhDs, want a research job in academia, but end up not getting it.

Because the ratio between the number of candidates and the number of available jobs in academia makes it mathematically impossible for every candidate to get a job.

Many candidates don't even lack anything to be a good academic, it's just a very competitive job market.

[Edit to answer comments (and the last version of the question)]

  are there PhD candidates that are just not qualified to be professors (why?)?

Of course there are:

a PhD is not a diploma which makes you qualified to be an academic professor anymore, it only validates the fact that you are capable of doing research. Basically you received the training, but it doesn't automatically mean that you're good at it, let alone in the top N%* best where you get a real chance to become a professor.
even being good at doing research is by far not the only skill required to be a professor. Of course there are teaching requirements (not everybody with a PhD is interested in teaching), but there's also a range of soft skills which are recommended: social skills, public engagement, performing administrative duties, and maybe more importantly nowadays being able to attract funding.

It's also worth noticing that very few people become professors just after the PhD, postdocs are part of the career process because that's where one can demonstrate the other skills I just mentioned. But the same applies to postdocs: even somebody who has  all the skills might not be good enough, it's a tough competition.

* "N" varies depending on many factors: discipline, country, etc.


Do interviews require taking vacation days? When interviewing for a new position, is it common practice to count the days spent on interviews as vacation days?

It wouldn't seem unreasonable to count these as vacation days, except that I could also see them as being work days. If I were only visiting to give a lecture and speak with faculty in another department, it would seem like work, and presenting at a conference is certainly not vacation.

A few follow up questions - does it matter that I am a post-doc (e.g. would it be different from a faculty, in which case interviewing for another position would not be in the interest of the current employer)? Would it be different if I were interviewing at a company rather than a university? Does it depend on the country? I am in the U.S.

(this is related to the question related to Do presentations given during interviews count as invited talks?)

You should ask your advisor, but it is reasonable for an advisor to allow you time (potentially several weeks or months) to essentially be away from the lab and your research in order to interview for jobs. In my opinion, this is a concession that is reasonable to give as a reward for hard work during previous phases of an advisee's research. If not, the advisor likely does not have the advisee's interests in mind. That could come back to bite him/her later when attempting to find new advisees.

On the other hand, if you're spending a lot of extra leisure time on the trips that is not part of the interview, then it should probably be considered vacation time.


How to save a literature review? I have done a literature review, but every time I send my article to the journals I receive either major changes or a rejection because I have only searched in journals indexed by Scopus and Web of Science (40). The journals say I have to search the databases. I am in the last year of my thesis and I have to publish my work in an indexed journal. How to do so?

I searched also non-Scopus and non-Wos journals. They say that I have to search articles in the databases directly and not search in the journals indexed by these databases and then searching articles in these journals.

It is indeed considered best practice nowadays to search publication databases for literature rather than only individual journals or conferences, typically combined with some snowballing. Scientific fields are manifold, and it is very easy to miss relevant publications if all you do is look through a pre-defined list of journals (independently of whether they are listed in Scopus, WoS, or whatever). Essentially, for a literature review to add value it needs to be able to make a case for completeness, and it is very hard to claim that without a fairly clear and comprehensive search procedure (along with rather objective acceptance criteria for papers).

  I am in the last year of my thesis and I have to publish my work in an indexed journal. How to do so?

I should also say that this is, to no small degree, also a failing of your supervisor. Your supervisor should have told you early in the process that your research methodology has a good chance of not surviving peer review.

However, that doesn't really help you now. If you have repeatedly received this comment there really are only two ways forward:

Do as you have been told, i.e., search the standard publication database(s) of your field and extend your review with any new material that may pop up.
Lower your standards, i.e., go for a lower-ranked journal and hope that the reviewers there will be more happy with your approach.

As a sidenote:

  every time I send my article to the journals I receive either major changes or a rejection

In my field (Computer Science), "major changes" is qualitatively different from "reject". A request for Major Revision is typically the first step towards getting accepted - it actually happens to most manuscripts. You really should not back out once you have received a request for major revision - usually, you address what can be addressed and argue about changes that cannot be addressed. In the vast majority of cases such papers end up being accepted.


Art Major to Physics/Applied Mathematics, Advise? Firstly, I'm yet unfamiliar with the query conventions specific to this stack exchange. If I've improperly tagged or placed this question, such that it need be closed or held, I apologize.

Continuing, I'll be brief (To be so, I will mostly omit the anecdotal lead. At anyone's request, however, I'm more than happy to explain.*):

I'm 21. I dropped out of art school during 2016, have graduated high school in 2015, returning in 2017, getting expelled a week later, enrolling in community college classes a few months later, dropping out some weeks later, enrolling at and attending a second art school in 2018 (spring semester), flunking out of my financial aid and scholarship.

A series of events brought me to physics and mathematics. Manic obsession mildly describes my rapture.

I have dreams, lurid, about sequent calculus. I'm a quite, quite well-practiced autodidact. I read a lot. Springer's (among many others') Graduate Texts in physics, mathematics, computer science. I have exhausted all of MIT's Open Courseware offered for physics and mathematics at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

I have realized only how little I know, how far I've still to go -- the limits of autodidactic way.

I have pre-calculus -- twice. I have never taken a physics class. (1: Understanding MIT's 'open courseware,' by some, are considered 'course', I'm using the term strictly for that of a credit granting environment).

I need to earn a PhD. I need to participate.

The dilemma: Getting in the door. I, no matter how competent or incompetent, have nothing to show for it. I'm clearly not a competitive candidate (if not an all together joke) for any undergraduate program of the formal and/or physical sciences.

The question(s): how, given these circumstances, can I (be it conventionally or unconventionally) become competitive (at the undergraduate level of the US college system)? If that is too subjective - where might I find resources, if they exist, that will best allow me to answer (successfully) the above question?

I acknowledge the difficulty, and surrender to the patience it will doubtlessly require.

Thanks much for your time.

p.s. again, autobiographic details by request

If you have taken courses in Coursera and are comfortable with continuing doing so, you can actually get a degree through Coursera. Here is one option. I do not know whether you completed any courses, and if you did, whether they can be counted towards that degree, but it should be easy enough to find out.

I would focus on getting a relevant bachelor's degree. No (reputable) university I'm aware of will take you into a graduate program without one.

Good luck!


Six months have passed since paper has been accepted and it was not yet published - has the editor changed his mind? About 10 months ago, I submitted one little article to a journal and six months ago I received the acceptance. I uploaded the latex file and since then I didn't hear anything about it being published.

Today it appeared a new issue of the journal so I must wait at least another 3 months.

This will be my first published article and I started to become a little nervous about it.

Can you tell me if something happened, like editor's changing his mind or delaying because they consider it less valuable than other submissions?

Should I contact my editor about this?

It is very unlikely that the article has been "unaccepted", and as far as I know, most journals publish articles basically in order (modulo some special issues and things like that).

However most journals have backlogs, and can take a long time from submission of the final copy to getting the article to print.  I don't know how common that is in your field, but for math, in 2015, the AMS published some data on how long it takes math journals to publish an article; a quick glance shows that gaps of much longer than six months between acceptance and publication are common.


Will a paper be retracted if a flaw in released software code invalidates its central idea? Say I have written code that performs a physics calculation. After this, I get a paper published based on the results of the code. In the interest of advancing the progress of science, I upload the code used for the paper on, say, GitHub. I also post a link to my code on GitHub on my website. I do this to facilitate discovery and use of the code by those who are interested in my results. Imagine that someone, in the process of reproducing my results (using the aforementioned code), discovers a flaw in the logic of the code. Correction of this logic flaw leads to invalidation of the central idea of the paper.

Will this lead to retraction?
Will there be any positive gain to me as a result of publishing of the code?

If the main idea in the paper has been invalidated by the correction in the code, you would do well to try to retract the paper yourself. This is just a point of professional ethics. It also protects you in a way from future claims if people don't examine everything thoroughly.

The journal may not be able to actually retract the paper, but might be able to post a note (printed or online) that the paper has a flaw (noted by the author, hopefully).

But others, relying on the original thesis of the paper might be misled in their own work. You really don't want that to happen.

Honesty in science is assumed. Make it so.

You might also be able to publish a better paper, based on the corrected code. Work toward that end.


Is it legally okay to photocopy solutions from a solutions manual when giving answers to students? I am the TA for a class and we plan on assigning problems from a book. The professor also has the solutions manual for this book.

Would any legal problems arise if, instead of writing the solutions myself, I simply photocopied the relevant solutions from the manual and posted these on our private class webpage?

Legally?  Dunno.  I'm not a lawyer and the test for fair use is anyway not a bright line test.

Pedagogically, it will be far better to give answers that relate to how the course was taught, and it might be possible to generate those from the publisher's manual without much trouble.  Pick something discussed in class, relate it to the current problem, and explain how one gets to the solution.

Also, see both comments to the question by Nate Eldredge.


May I use my graduate school's letterhead right after graduating, when applying to jobs? I just completed my MFA in Film this August, 2017. Now I am freelancing and not associated with an academic institution. May I still use my graduate university's letterhead when applying to faculty positions? I don't have any other nice looking letterhead with a logo, unless I make it up.

No you may not. The use of an official letterhead implies not only a current affiliation with the university, but it some countries and contexts also implies that the correspondence is for official purposes. Each university has it's own rules and policies, but I would be shocked if your university would consider this acceptable, and both universities that I have attended have specific guidance to not do this. In general, you do not have the right to use that letterhead simply because you attended the university, and using it in that fashion is inappropriate because you are representing yourself as having a professional position that you don't have.


Is it type of a plagiarism? I have a question about plagiarism: are these two sentences plagiarised versions of each other?

In a cited paper, it says:

  This paper describes the design for a novel passive mechanical knee-ankle prosthesis that provides knee flexion during swing to provide additional toe clearance that makes the device safer.

Can I use the sentence like given below? I will use it in state-of-the-art part of introduction where I give examples of studies:

  Knee flexion was provided by the prosthesis at swing motion.

First, it isn't plagiarism if you cite it. Plagiarism means using someone else's work as if it were your own. What you have done is paraphrase something from the paper. This is allowed as long as it is accurate. Your statement seems a bit too definite, however. The paper makes claims and provides some evidence, I suspect, but it is a bit strong to state it as you did - as if the papers claims are correct in every respect.

Maybe:

"According to [1], Knee flexion was ..."


How can I deal with being pressured by my department to pass students who failed? Due to COVID-19, I have found myself teaching a course online. I worked with the university teaching center to transition the course online, prepared an online classroom, and updated the requirements of the course to deal with asynchronous leaning. The course went along reasonably well, and at the end I felt good about the learning demonstrated by a majority of the students.
However, some students did end up failing the course, largely due to a poor performance on the final assessments. Here is the situation:

The students failed to turn in early homework. I reached out to them to see if there was any technical difficulties. There were technical difficulties, and I provided a solution that the students confirmed as solving the technical issue.
The students continued to turn in homework late, wherein I often had to reach out to them to get submissions. Trying to be empathetic to the COVID-19 situation, I waved the late penalties (although the late submissions are recorded by the online system).
The final exam was available for two weeks as a take-home. The student turned in very little, earning less than 10%.
Upon seeing their grades, they reached out stating the same technical issue as before (which they had previously said was resolved) and that they needed to pass the course to graduate.

I feel as though I am being pressured by the students and department to pass the students with a minimum grade (the department thinks we should be lenient due to the pandemic). The students never showed up for online lectures (NB: all course materials were available for fully asynchronous learning), their course interaction scores were very low, and I felt I did everything I could to succeed in the course. Yet I feel completely at fault and guilty.

Your department defers to you as the final authority on the student’s grade, and for a good reason: because you are the only person who sees the full picture of the student’s performance and the context in which it was assessed.
The department can give you high-level guidance and advice, but that is never a substitute for an instructor’s reasoned judgment taking into account the details of the situation.
The student, like all students everywhere, wants to pass, and like many (but not all) students will offer any excuse they can think of, no matter how feeble, for why they deserve lenient treatment. If the excuse rings hollow, ignore it.
Whatever your conscience dictates doing is the best course of action here. Making that final call is precisely what the department pays you to do and expects of you.


Is it worth to do PhD in machine learning/statistics for work in industry? I am 30 years old, have Master's degree in Machine Learning from a CS department. I also have a job, which I have had for like 4 years, first as a software developer, now as a data scientist at the same company.

I have been thinking about PhD for a while now. Is it worth in the field of Machine Learning or statistics (though I think my maths might be too weak for the latter)? My prime reason to do it is that I think that my knowledge in the ML/stats field is not enough, so I would like to dedicate a few years to learning much more even at the expense of low income, and do some paper publishing to meet the quota of "strong publication history". Plus I like to do research, though I like it in industry setting more, since problems are more alive, if you wish.

My particular concern is the work placement after getting my PhD. Many people say that PhD limits the opportunities of a person holding it, but is it true if I already have some industry work experience plus going to apply for ML jobs, unless hype completely disappears in 4 years?

You can answer this question better than almost anyone, because you already know what you need for your work in industry.

I suggest paying close attention to your work environment and thinking about questions such as:

For what you're currently doing, will having a PhD in machine learning / statistics help?
For your job, will having a PhD allow you to do something else (preferably something more advanced, more technical, and commands higher pay)?
Do you have any colleagues with a PhD? If so, are they more effective workers than you because of superior knowledge about ML/statistics? Do they get different responsibilities that you find attractive? Do they get offered those responsibilities (instead of you) because they're more capable than you? Because they know more than you? Because they have PhDs and you don't?
How much more can you reasonably expect to earn if you have a PhD?

The comparison is easiest if you have colleagues with PhDs, because the most obvious result of you acquiring a PhD is that you become like them in terms of job responsibilities, pay, etc. Even if you don't have colleagues with PhDs however, you can still draw conclusions. For example, if you look at the problem you're currently solving and think, "boy, I can do this so much better if I just understood this algorithm" then that's a sign that a PhD can be helpful. Your current supervisor is someone else whom you can discuss your long-term goals with. Who knows - maybe for the problem you're currently working on, your competitors have people who understand the algorithm and that's why they're gaining market share. In that case your supervisor might actively encourage you to try for it.

tl; dr: use your knowledge of the local industry and job market to figure out what jobs you're likely to be doing if you get a PhD, then decide if you want to do those jobs enough to commit to doing a PhD.


Should I mention (double-blind) submitted conference paper in CV? I am from computer science field specifically from Computer Vision field. I need suggestion if I should list my paper which I submitted but not yet got any acceptance/rejection. I am more confused due to the fact that the conference's review process is double blind. I would not include that in my CV, but true to say my CV is not so rich yet with publications.

The biggest factor here is the stage of your career. If you're a grad student, for whom a single submitted paper might be a very large fraction of your research output. it's OK to mention it in a CV, provided you're upfront about its submitted status. However, beyond that it's counterproductive, and should be avoided.


What is harder? Taking lecture or learning from textbook? Is it weird for finding learning from textbook easier? Dear Academia Stack Exchange.
I'm a slow thinker, so I always have trouble with taking information actively as other are speaking. Sometimes I feels like I have trouble with studying but it's not like that. When I study from textbook, I can understand all the points of the author, I was able to comes up with my own question and answer them myself too. Although this is a little bit consuming but it is still better than when I couldn't learn anything from other lecturer. Why is this happening to me? Is this normal? Is this just a matter of preference in learning style? Or is it that I am doing something wrong in the way I'm taking in lectures? Please give me some advice.
p/s:And no, although in the original I did ask for some comparison of two ways of studying, this question main point is not about such issue.

People learn differently and you may be an extreme (but not unusual) case. Lectures don't work for many people and, in fact, lectures are overused (IMO) in many fields.

But, you can't really learn by reading either. Learning requires that you practice and otherwise reinforce whatever it is that you hear/read/see.

One of the reasons that face to face courses are superior to self study is that an instructor is supposed to be your guide as to how to get that practice. That doesn't come automatically with self study. However, if you know that principle (Learning requires changing the brain) then you have the basis of requiring that practice and reinforcement of yourself.

But it is even better if you can find an experienced guide, even if not a "lecturer". Such a person can know what you have done and give advice on good ways to proceed next.

A further comment on lectures may help, in case you must rely on them. Take lots of notes. Do it on paper, not typing into a computer/tablet. The actual handwriting will engage your brain in a different way. I recommend using index cards as you can capture thoughts (rather than trying to "capture every word") and, more important, can organize them later, supplement them, and discard irrelevant notes.


What to do if referees take a long time to upload their recommendation letters? I have(am) applied(ying) for a junior faculty position (i.e. tenure track assistant professor level) at a research-intensive US university from this fall. I am planning to apply to at least 30 universities for getting a position. However, most of the opening announcements I came across are asking  to put the email addresses of my referees for letters of recommendation in addition to submitting standard documents, e.g. CV, cover letter, research and teaching statements. My concern is if I apply for all of these openings within a week or so,  my referees' email inbox will be full of reference requests. In order to avoid such problem, I am applying for one particular opening and then waiting until I see that all the referees have uploaded their letters. Then I am applying to the next. However, it turns out not to be the best way of handling this circumstance since most of the referees are taking at least a week or so to upload their letters (sometimes after my second reminder). If it goes on this way, I will be approaching the submission deadlines of some of the openings. In this case, should I upload the standard documents from my side at least? Will the department I am applying to not consider my application if they see that the reference letters are not uploaded on time?

My experience comes with asking for recommendation letters with my PhD application, most of the times it was necessary to remind the referees about the deadline for submission; they're so busy that they easily forget about it.

Another option would be with resending notifications through the recommendation system; many of such systems allow for sending automated reminders to the referees thus eliminating the need for direct intervention with the busy professors!


Register as a listener to access course materials with no intent to attend lectures In the USA, is it regarded as OK to register as a listener for a course to be able to access the course materials but with no intent to attend the lectures?

First, the usual term in the US is not "listener" but "auditor"; you are said to be "auditing" the course.

People generally don't care too much what you do or don't do when you register as an auditor, so most likely this would be fine.  But I think that, as a matter of courtesy, whenever you are considering signing up to audit a course, it is good to contact the instructor, let them know what level of involvement you have in mind, and check that this is okay with them.  In some cases there may be certain things that they ask you to do or not do.

In this case, when you ask, the instructor might just offer to share the course materials with you directly, without you having to sign up to audit the class at all.


Dealing with softcover textbook curling? So, I’m a postgraduate student, and I checked a softcover textbook out of my university library for my personal studies. When I pulled it out of my bag today, I noticed that the bottom corner (on the side away from the bindings) had begun to curl forward, possibly from the weight of the book resting on its bottom edge in my bag.

Are there any methods of mitigating or repairing the damage being done to the book? Would it be possible to prevent this sort of damage from occurring in the future? I did a Google search, and all I saw was dubious “life hacks” talking about books damaged by humidity (and while it is rather warm and humid here, I’m not sure if that’s playing much of a role here).

Don't try to repair the book. If you're an honest person, point out the damage when you return the book.

Libraries repair books. They have the tools and expertise to do it properly, without causing greater damage. They do it in a way which will preserve aesthetics and prevent future damage. And they treat it as a cost of doing business: they aren't going to yell at you, and except in extreme cases they're not going to bother charging you.

In the future, don't put things that shouldn't be bent (like softcover books) in an environment where they'll be bent (like the main compartment of a backpack).


How reliable are QS Top Universities rankings? I was told that universities in USA are generally better that the ones in Italy. I will take the undergraduate degree this July, and I need to decide whether to continue my studies in Italy or to move to the USA.

This site reports the world ranking for computer science & information systems, and Politecnico di Milano is ranked 48th.

I'll not be able to afford an university with high tuitions like MIT (let's say 15,000 $ per year maximum), also since I may have not the prerequisites to join high selective universities, if I move to the USA I'd choose a university that is ranked below or almost as Politecnico di Milano. So the indecision: it is still worth to move to the USA? Do you think that the rankings are reliable?

I was told that universities in USA are generally better that the ones in Italy.

This statement, in its given generality, is false. The US, like most places, has very good schools, ok schools, and a reasonable number of pretty bad schools. If you explicitly are looking for very cheap schools, I would not assume that the remaining selection is necessarily any good, just because it is a "school in the states".

POLIMI is a pretty good school in CS. To be honest, if I had the choice of going either to POLIMI or to a low-ranked US school, I would almost certainly choose POLIMI.


Are academic papers required to have specific sections I've seen that academic papers tend to have the sections Abstract, Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Acknowledgements, and Literature Cited.  My question is if I wanted to publish an academic paper would it need to have these specific sections or could I have a different set of sections from the ones mentioned depending on the contents of my paper?

That depends on where you want to publish. Some journals are strict on requiring a specific structure, e.g. IMRAD, or on the naming of sections, while others are more freeform. As a general rule, read any "Guide to authors"/"Author information" or just try to follow the structure used in recent papers published in the venue of interest.


Should I resubmit my paper to get the attention of a slow reviewer? I have submitted a paper to Proc. Am. Math. Soc.  My advisor said to submit to this journal.  It's been over 3.5 months with no response.  I have made several  edits to my paper, but none that essentially change the structure of a proof.  The original email contained the following message:

  Submission of unrequested revisions is discouraged. If SUBSTANTIAL
  modifications are absolutely necessary after initial submission, the
  above link can be used to resubmit your article. Please limit the use
  of this link to one resubmission.

Based on these words I would not resubmit, but I am wondering, since it is taking so long, should I just send in the current version to perhaps get the attention of the reviewer?

This is clearly answered in the comments by @Stephan Kolassa (making community wiki here just to post an answer for the question).

Absolutely do NOT resubmit the paper! If you do, you could end up having everything rejected.

Contact the editors of the journal. 3.5 months is not such a long time for journal review in many fields (unfortunately) but it is sufficient time to warrant a quick friendly email to the editor asking what the progress is.

Though you should not pester the editor, contacting them after 3.5 months seems perfectly reasonable. But keep a friendly/deferential tone. (Don't demand or complain ... just ask for info.)

(And best of luck with the reviews. The first submission is always the most nerve-wrecking. If it works out, then great. If not, try not to sweat it too much. Rejection happens to nearly everyone.)


How much work experience should be included in Statement of Purpose for Master program? I'm wondering how I should put my internship experiences in my Statement of Purpose for Master program. The internship experiences (mainly building java web applications) are not quite related to my research interests like distributed systems, real-time computing, etc.

Well It really doesn't matter much whether your research subjects are related to what you have done internships in!

To make it more clear. Internships depicts that you are inclined and willing to work along with your regular curriculum. I would suggest you to relate your  internship with research subjects. As we all know that all subjects in Computer Science are inter- related so try to find out any open source concept that you can relate to or willing to work for it. This much is enough. No doubt Research is most important aspect for admissions but you should know to combine it with your life. Give small Instances (backed with Proofs) where you can prove your point. Speaking about Number of years to show for experience is all depends on your profile, show max possible and make sure that you have salary slips.


Can I request the code behind a research paper from the author? I am in the field of computer science. It is often the case when I am reading a paper I start to wonder, "Wow stunning results, however, I would like to prove that." or "How exactly did he get these amazing results? He/she just wrote a rough overview of the real methodology used in this paper.". As you can see, a lot of times the small things have a huge impact on the overall performance of the underlying methodology. Often they are not part of the paper or not revealed at all.

My idea would be to contact the paper writer, to ask for his research programs to recreate them and understand them. Can/should I do that?

I personally think that there are probably not a lot of researchers, who would let somebody else "look at their cards". What's your experience with that?

Ask for the code. Please do, however, explain why you want it and what you intend to use it for.

Personally, I would be quite happy if someone contacted me about my research, and would try to give all the necessary tools to recreate my data. Especially so if I am not currently working on a follow up piece.

That said, I've asked for parameters, codes, procedures etc. several times from the authors when the description in a paper has been vague. I've had a lot of different responses: Some have plain ignored me, others have given me everything I asked for, and yet others have only obliged when I've suggested that I might be willing to put them as co-authors if I built upon their code in a way that leads to a publication. Finally, some have refused my request. This has happened for a number of reasons, for example those discussed in this question.

If you ask for code and say that you just want to verify some of the conclusions of the authors or use it as a reference for your own implementation, you can most typically expect a refusal or no reply. This, at least, is the experience I've had.


Group members want to work using virtual meeting (google hangouts) but we already have bad group dynamics I am in the first semester of my masters degree in a professional field. I have been assigned to a group with a (fake) political stance. Every week of the semester we are expected to make presentations to the class advocating our groups position in various formats (town hall, internal meeting, speech, etc.). The groups were largely assigned based on age/professional experience (many of the students in this program are working adults, but we are all just out of under-grad).

Our first meeting there was some friction about where and when to meet, one of the members even went to the wrong location then blamed the group when she was 15 minutes late.

Our first presentation was good but not nearly as professional as the other groups. Now the group wants to stop meeting in person and use Google Hangouts instead. I am very afraid this will detract from the quality of our work and probably our grade, how can I convince my fellow group mates that the extra time spent meeting in person is worth it?

I know this answer comes too late for you.

But I agree with your assessment. This group project is only going to sink from here. To which, I would build on one existing comment already offered to you.

  Raise your concerns to them, and then listen to what they have to say
  with an open mind?

That being said, do not raise your concern to them as a group, raise your concerns and listen to each what has to say with an open mind, but do it individually first. If you bring this concern to them as a group, most members of your group will probably just make the most expedient decision that takes the least amount of commitment on their part, a vote will be quickly called, and then that will be the end of it.

Also, I agree that the Professor wouldn't want to be bothered with such a problem. Learning to work with unmotivated colleagues is a fact of life. This is your problem to solve, not his.


Does the reviewer ever get the same manuscript twice? Consider the scenario where an author sends his paper to Journal A. Journal A then sends the paper to reviewer X and the reviewer rejects the papers. After rejection, the author send his paper to Journal B. Journal B then sends this paper to reviewer X.

Does this ever happen?
What does the reviewer do in this case?

It happens all the time. I think it is the reviewer's responsibility to respond to the editor saying that he or she has already seen the paper. Then it's the editor's call. Ideally the paper would be sent to a new reviewer, but depending on the subject of the paper the pool of available referees might be small enough that the editor requests the reviewer to reread the paper anyway.