Mistake in resume sent; what to do? I am asking this question on behalf of my brother, in the U.S.

Yesterday, my brother submitted his application to a Physicians Assistant program, which has a very rigorous application process (not very different from medical school in terms of rigor). However, today he noticed that when he uploaded his resume, the formatting was slightly changed; a few words went from being in all caps to all lower case. Also, he noticed that he had made one small typo.

Would this look really bad and be percieved as carelesness? What should my brother do? As we see it, there are two options. Either do nothing, or send an email to the school explaining the situation (this seems like the best option to us). If the second is indeed best, how should he frame the email to minimize the damage?

Thanks.

You are risking drawing attention to a mistake that could otherwise go unnoticed.

Is resume the main part of the application? Or are there other parts, like an essay, recommendation letter, some all-important exam (like GRE for graduate study)?

Also, if there is time till deadline, consider waiting few days and then updating the resume with some new bit of information, like more detailed description of an experience that they might find relevant. An update to content is a lot more acceptable than fixing typos.


How can I make sure I (a white male teaching math) am sensitive to "underprivileged" students in my class? I teach math classes and I was speaking with the assistant chair of my department about a student who claimed that I was rude and put my students down when lecturing. (I'm a Ph.D. student.) This particular student was seeking a letter recommending tuition for my class be refunded (she dropped out) but I told the assistant chair that I do sometimes get comments like these in my evaluations. I know that I never intend to put anyone down when students ask questions in class, and I also know there are also students who feel that I'm a good instructor and like dealing with me. I get both of these types of comments in my evaluations (I'd say my evals on the whole are fine to good).

I don't want anyone to feel like I talk down to them or put them down and I mentioned this to the assistant chair. (She has only seen me lecture once and said I did a good job that one time.) She asked me to think about the gender/ethnicity of the students that say I'm "rude" or "put them down", and whether there is a pattern where female/minority students who are considered "underprivileged" in mathematics may respond differently to my style of instruction than white male or Asian-heritage students. (There is research to back this up.)

I don't have any hard data to check this for me personally but this hypothesis seems plausible. With most students I say that I'm generally direct; I try not to put the student down but I will tell them that they are incorrect and explain why. How should I adapt to make sure that "underprivileged" students don't feel put down or belittled in my class?

First I want to say that my answer does not depend on your gender and race, which I consider irrelevant. I will answer the question in two parts, one relevant to any field, one to mathematics. I suggest changing your title to something like: "How can I show respect to students from different backgrounds?"

General Answer

Understand that your students have had different experiences, which will affect how they perceive your and others' behavior. For example, the phrase "Can I help you?" may be perceived positively by someone who is used to others' wanting to help them, but it may be perceived negatively by someone who has had that phrase used toward them in a hostile manner (e.g., by a retail worker who follows them around to make sure they don't shoplift). I would encourage you not to think that the former student is rational and the latter student is irrational. Everyone generalizes based on past experiences. I encourage you to attend any diversity training offered at your institution or read about microaggressions, phrases that might be innocently meant but negatively experienced.

Be aware that everyone, including you, has unconscious biases, picked up from the cultures you've lived on. You should be aware that most elementary school teachers, regardless of gender, call on male students more often than female students. You may find it interesting to take an Implicit Association Test, although you should be careful making inferences from it.

Encourage students to give you feedback about how to improve your teaching, especially this aspect. We have the option of adding our own questions to course evaluations. I added to mine:

  What could the instructor do differently or keep doing to make the
  course feel inclusive to students with a variety of backgrounds,
  learning styles, and  mental or physical abilities? This would be a
  good place to mention any micro-aggressions.

Mathematics

This goes beyond what you asked, but I encourage you to learn about stereotype threat, a well-documented effect in which evocation of stereotypes affects students' performance on tests and other high-stake assignments. For example:

  Spencer, Steele, and Diane Quinn, PhD, also found that merely telling
  women that a math test does not show gender differences improved their
  test performance. The researchers gave a math test to men and women
  after telling half the women that the test had shown gender
  differences, and telling the rest that it found none. When test
  administrators told women that that tests showed no gender
  differences, the women performed equal to men. Those who were told the
  test showed gender differences did significantly worse than men, just
  like women who were told nothing about the test. This experiment was
  conducted with women who were top performers in math, just as the
  experiments on race were conducted with strong, motivated students.

Read articles about inclusive pedagogy, especially as applied to college-level mathematics. I have been told that active learning techniques benefit all students but disproportionately those from underrepresented backgrounds.


How can you find the DOI of an article that doesn't seem to have one? I cannot find the DOI number of this article. It has ISBN, but it does not help me find its DOI number.

How can you find the DOI number of articles where it's not listed, but other identifiers, such as an ISBN, are available?

Try these sites to search for a CrossRef DOI:

http://search.crossref.org/

or

http://www.crossref.org/guestquery/


How to motivate students you supervise to produce high-quality research when other graduate students in the program don't? I have a good friend who is in his first year as an assistant professor right now, having earned his PhD last year.

He is frustrated because in his new department, standards for graduate student research seem to be lower than what he was used to in his PhD department. Some PhD students in his new department graduate without ever publishing anything (which is not usual in our field). The theses that students in his new department produce would be considered at the level of a good bachelor's thesis in his old department. The graduate students all work fewer hours and are less productive during their working time than what he is used to.

I suspect this is a common problem, since many people who land tenure-track academic jobs end up in a department that's ranked lower than the one where they earned their PhD.

Assuming the graduate students he supervises are actually capable of more, how can he motivate his students to work harder and produce better work when other students in the program don't? Is it realistic to even try?

This is, as you say, a common problem. It certainly is realistic to try to get more out of your students than the other faculty. However, depending on how substantial the gap is between the norm and your expectations, getting into a better school may turn out to be the only realistic and sustainable way of aligning goals and reality. If the statement that the PhD theses in the new school are like bachelor theses in the old school is not just hyperbole, this may certainly turn out to be the case for your friend.

  how can he motivate his students to work harder and produce better work when other students in the program don't?

Step 1 is certainly to figure out why they should work harder than their peers (who still graduate!) in the first place. It's likely that your friend never really gave this much thought, because in his old school, working your ass off was simply what PhD students do. Here it isn't, so he needs to find a motivator that works for them. The two solutions offered by Brian (tell them that they won't find an academic job if they don't publish, and show them what cool things they could be doing) are good, but they will work only if they actually have aspirations to stay in academia, or respectively have substantial internal drive to do good research. Both may have been a given in the old school, but not necessarily so in the new one. Other potential motivators may include:

Getting to see nice conference venues (don't laugh - this works much better than you think as a motivator)
Serving as a stepping stone for a cool industry internship, e.g., at Microsoft.
Finding a problem that they personally really want to solve, i.e., real curiosity-driven research.
Bonuses! Most likely difficult to implement in  many universities, but depending on his financial capabilities, there should be some goodies that he can offer in exchange for going beyond the work of peers. It does not need to be a super-formal, but knowing that the students that work hard and get published are also the ones that get new laptops first is certainly a motivator for some students.

The most important step is really to start giving it a thought why they should be working hard in the first place, rather than lamenting why they don't.

Step 2, and strongly connected to Step 1, is then to find the right students. This was again something he has maybe not given too much thought, as in his old school most students were good to excellent. In his new school, there are almost certainly also people for which some of the above motivators will work and compel them  to produce good research, but he will need to identify and actively recruit them to his cause. The most important part of this is to make clear that things in his lab are different than in the rest of the department. Students are not graduating without papers. Students are expected to work on their research X hours a week, for whatever a realistic X is, and so on. If this is the message that your friend is communicating plausibly, most of the students will stay far away from working with him, but that is ok - he does not want those students anyway. However, even at a weaker school, there are likely going to be students who are dissatisfied with the status quo and who are actually going to be appealed by your friend's less lenient approach to PhD school, especially once he builds up a track record of students actually going beyond the norm in the school.

Step 3 is going to be the most difficult, but maybe the most important, step. He then needs to meet his students half-way. Despite all of the above, he is still not going to be working at a top-tier research university. That means he will need to re-evaluate his expectations on his students and the papers they produce. This may include both, quality and quantity of results. He needs to realise that it actually is much harder for his students to produce good work in this environment than what it was for him. He likely had a stimulating and high-competition environment to work in. They just have him, and maybe one or two other more ambitious students. All the other students (who plan to graduate without papers) are frankly more of a distraction than support for them. All the other faculty are simply of not much help. At the end, he may be ok with his students not, or not immediately, submitting to the very best venues. Instead, he needs to ease them into it (without teaching them bad practices). In computer science, a good way may be to initially submit to workshops at the top conferences. This is allows students to go to the top conferences and see what the work is like that is published there, but getting a paper accepted at those workshops is achievable for most students given a little supervision. Really, the core in  this step is to get away from the mindset that is common at top schools that only the very best publication venues are good enough.

What is also important in this step is the right kind of expectation management. Telling stories about your friend's old lab may be a good way to reframe the expectations his students have on how a PhD works, but he needs to pick his time and place. For instance, when his first student gets a paper in the major conference of the field, this is a big deal and should be celebrated as such. This is certainly not the right time to let everyone know that in his old lab they had papers in this conference every year for the last decade.

Finally, Step 4 is to make alliances within the faculty. It is  likely that there are other (younger?) faculty in the department that are also not happy with how the department currently operates. They won't be able to turn the department as a whole around, but it will certainly be easier to improve their own labs if they share their experiences. From a motivational point of view, it is also a good idea to try to socially align the labs of the higher-aspiration professors more tightly - if your students are friends primarily with the students of the other faculty who expect their students to actually work, it will be much easier for your students to keep up motivation. Ways to achieve this include joint  social events or retreats, joint talk series, and of course, if possible, joint research and publications.


How important is the meeting with the dean in a faculty interview? I was invited to a campus interview for a tenure track faculty job. The chair just told me that the dean might not be on campus on the date I chose and he/she would talk with me on the phone. I am wondering how important is the meeting with the dean? Should I reschedule the visit so that I can meet the dean in person?

In US institutions I'm familiar with, the meeting with the dean serves the following purposes:

It is a way for the dean to exert oversight over the hiring process. While the dean is usually not able to tell if the candidate is really as amazing as the department will claim he/she is when they later ask to hire him/her, the dean can at least provide a basic sanity check, filter out obviously unqualified candidates, or detect various red flags indicating that there may be something seriously wrong with the department's candidate selection mechanism.
It is a way for the dean to signal to the department that he/she takes hiring seriously and is involved in the process. This may lead the department faculty to also take it more seriously and approach hiring with more respect and integrity.
It is a way for the department and dean to signal to the candidate that they take him/her seriously, to the extent that the dean is making his/her precious time available for the purpose of having the meeting. If the candidate is a hot commodity being sought after by several schools, this can be important.
It is an opportunity for the candidate to impress the dean with his/her brilliance. Usually the dean will not be so involved with decision making that this will make much of a difference, but nonetheless, there are subtle ways that the dean being particularly impressed with a candidate (or conversely, particularly unimpressed) can be communicated down the hiring chain, and in cases of extreme brilliance/lack thereof this could end up making a difference.
It is an opportunity for the dean to impress the candidate with his/her own brilliance. The interview is a two-sided event in which both parties are evaluating each other, so this is part of the package of the university trying to sell itself to an attractive candidate. Again, usually candidates won't care so much about the personality of the dean where they are interviewing, but in extreme cases a super-amazing dean can make the school seem materially more attractive, and a super-horrible dean can make the candidate run for their life.

Usually none of these effects are very significant, and not meeting the dean almost certainly won't make any difference one way or another on the outcome of the interview. The final use for the meeting that I can think of is the only one that actually matters somewhat (though still not very much), which is:

In the event that the candidate met with the dean and was later hired, they arrive at a campus where they already met the dean. This contributes to their sense of familiarity with the place (and presumably confidence that it is well run) and gives them a feeling that if there is any trouble at the department they know who to go to. A small thing perhaps, but still worth something in my opinion...

Bottom line: in your situation, don't worry about it. If you end up being hired you will meet the dean sooner or later.


How do I refer to a picture I added in my essay? I'm trying to write an essay about the elements and principles of design in Michelangelo's Pieta. The essay must be in MLA format and I need to include a picture to visualize a central point I'm trying to make in one of my paragraphs.

  There is clearly a hierarchy here too, with the Virgin Mary at the
  top, and Jesus at the bottom, and they seem to form the shape of a
  triangle. (figure one or something)

How do I refer to a picture in this context, and furthermore, how I include pictures in an MLA formatted essay? Should there be any? This professor is pretty lenient about how it's formatted, so I'm just sticking with what most people know.

These are her instructions.

  Cite all work using APA or MLA
  Double space, font size 12, Times Roman font
  A good paper will be 3 pages, not including photos (place your photos at the end)
  No heading or title whatsoever! iLearn does that for you already

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

A good guide to MLA figures and tables may be found here.

In short, you simply say "Figure 1" for the first figure, "Figure 2" for the second, and so on.


How do I maintain motivation in a completely awful grad program? I am a 2nd year PhD student.

I regret my choice of grad school severely. The program here has a good reputation and I have no idea how or why it has a good reputation. The program here is absolutely terrible. The location is terrible and depressing, classes are completely useless, the qual system is really terrible (I passed them, I still think the way they're done is awful), most of my cohort are petty and childish (although I've found a few very good people here who I'm super grateful for), I have no support basically. I have met many people in the department that feel the same way: ranging from other grad students to professors.

This program is awful and coming here was one of the worst decisions of my life. I had other good programs I could have gone to.

I've found it much harder to read/do problems/etc. I barely do enough work just to pass classes. I try to focus on the stuff I want to do, but it seems like just by being here the subject is tainted.

Last night I found a problem online I tried working out but couldn't. I spent all day today - I barely ate, I didn't do anything else, I just worked all day long on this stupid problem that had nothing to do with anything. It was a blast! It reminded me of why I love my subject. I failed to find a solution...but it was still very productive and I learned a lot. I let myself get obsessed and I didn't worry about all the issues here.

How do I keep this feeling? How do I stay motivated? The department here feels like it saps all of my will to do any work out. In undergrad I was so determined. I took some time off between undergrad and grad and it only made me more determined. I want to feel like I did today.

I looked into transferring into other programs but it seemed like it would be a huge pain and I've been able to make it through the worst part of the program pretty quickly.

I think the first thing is to take a break - a week away from your department, in which you read no email and keep contact with no one there. From the text of the question, I understand you may be stressed and burnt out, so you do need the break. If you forget these breaks, burnout can become depression, which would complicate your life even further.

Other than that, try to hang out only with people who stress you the least, and if stressful people are in your office, work more from home, or switch offices. You didn't mention if you had an adviser, or not, but you said you had no support, so it could be an idea to go to an adviser with a less negative attitude, since you don't have a research assistantship to risk.

Another option, is quitting the department for a better graduate school. I had a friend who did that for the same reasons you state, and the fact that he had passed the qualifying exam helped him get into the happier graduate program.

I also want to say that doing research isn't always a happy process. You may work for two years on a project and seem to get good results, but when you do your final check before publication, you realize you had an error in your work and, without it, your results are trivial and useless. That's just a part of life as a researcher that will always depress you.


Contacting my undergraduate supervisor after an extended period of time to ask for help? I worked with a graduate professor at my undergraduate university (which I just graduated from this year) on a couple of projects in my final year. On one of the projects, I worked with him as a paid research assistant. I used the other project as my 4th year research project for course credit (so did not get paid) and that project is being submitted for publication. Although, I was just one member of a team of about 10 people on that project. My supervisor was very nice and helped me out a lot. Actually, on my first contact with him he offered to discuss my future plans with me and offer some advice (which he did and was very helpful).

I had my last contact with him in May via email, just after we finished the second project, when I thanked him for the opportunities he provided me. We exchanged a couple of brief emails back-and-forth, and that was the last time I spoke with him. I have spent the past 6 months trying to figure out what I would like to study in graduate school (I was stuck deciding between 2 programs). Now I believe I know where I want to go and what I want to study.

Earlier this year, my supervisor mentioned that he knows some people at the school I would like to apply to (for this program, I need to contact potential advisors ahead of time). He briefly mentioned some names that I had since forgotten.

I would like to get in contact with my supervisor again and ask:

for the names of the researchers he mentioned; and
to use him as a reference in my applications.

However, since it has been so many months since we've spoken, I am worried that this would be considered "rude" as I am only contacting him to get something from him.

How should I go about contacting him and how should I frame my email as to not sound greedy or selfish?

Just send email.  Ask him to "remind" you of the names of faculty he knows at your proposed institution and ask whether he would be able to write a "strong recommendation."  It'll be OK.


How to find the number of papers per language written by a researcher? Is there any fast way to find the number of papers per language written by a given researcher?

E.g., researcher John Doe published 30 papers written in English, 16 papers written in Spanish, and 3 papers written in German.

By fast, I mean faster than going on Google Scholar and counting the number of paper for each language  oneself.

Clarivate's Web of Science citation database can provide this information. Assuming you have access to it, e.g. through your institution, you can

Search for a researcher's name
If necessary, use additional criteria to try to restrict the results to a single person
Look under "More options" for languages.

While this option is mainly intended for further restricting the search results, the tool also tells you the number of articles in language X associated with researcher name Y. Of course, their database coverage has some restrictions, so it may or may not work for your purposes. In certain fields, other databases could be more useful.


What options does college dropout with great grades, research projects and CV have to return to university (or thinktanks)? I studied Social Sciences (Development Economics concentration) at one of Europe's top ranked universities and achieved excellent grades, but had to interrupt my studies just before taking two final exams, entirely due to personal reasons - thus not completing my undergraduate degree.

While I was at uni, I obtained grants to run a new research project in my field with  sponsorship by some well-known professors. The progress of my work was published in an international journal and also a few industry magazines. I was also heavily involved in other projects around the university.
I mention these little details just to make it clear that I was not at uni just for the sake of getting a qualification, but because had a genuine intention of contributing to my field, to research and maybe become a professor.

While I was addressing my personal issues, I started working, first freelancing but later at a mid-sized company and have worked my way up to middle management. My job is somewhat related to what I studied and also very analytical, although it's obviously business-focused.

I am wondering what options I have...
- if I wanted to return to a research based position;
- especially, if returning to university might turn out to be too hard/long (might have to re-do the entire undergraduate studies while working)
- and whether it might be easier (but also possible) to try applying straight into think-tanks and development focused positions.

One of my concerns is that despite my good CV in business, I don't have the same quantitative-analytical and research skills of someone who studied at postgraduate level. It's one of the subjects I enjoyed most and even enjoy at work, but how can I prove myself to future employers?

I think my question boils down to: how much do my achievements matter, and what else do I need to do to make up for no degree?

UPDATES / Answers to questions in comments:
I dropped out of my own, for very personal reasons. In fact, I almost disappeared without notice and had to leave to another country. I am also a bit reluctant to discuss with my university about what those personal reasons were, but trust me they were very serious.
So I would have mixed feelings about returning to the same university.
I am sure I have disappointed many people there, and they would not understand why I left...

UPDATE 2 / Answers to rocinante's update :)
There must have been a misunderstanding. I didn't mention nor imply anywhere that I considered faking my credentials to advance my career. I started at entry level with my current employer and progressed from within, i.e. there were no academic requirements when I started, but I proved them that I had the skills required for my current level.
To be more specific, I am asking about whether there might be chances for alternative training to get into a more advanced research path. Adult learning, online courses, non-degree professional certificates.
For example, I have heard of several people getting into MBA programs after 5-7 years of work experience, but no degree.
Are there analogue routes into research?
I hope this clarifies.

UPDATE 3 / Answers to Ben Webster and rocinante
Thanks both of you. It's true I should consider my old university; I am just very afraid that it might not work and considering what alternatives I may have should my attempts fail. I am also not belittling the value of degrees, BUT simply wondering how else I could prove myself, improve my knowledge, use a professional body route rather than academic etc. if the old university option won't succeed.
I know many doors will close, but I am determined and convinced that my potential, passion and skills far outweigh what's on paper.

I'm with @rocinante here: you're handicapping yourself if you can't get past whatever block is preventing you from discussing this personal issue with people from your past university.  I don't know whether it's embarrassing or emotionally painful (and you don't need to tell us, we're just yahoos on the internet), but you have to be able to give some account of it:

First of all, you should make a good faith attempt to finish your degree at your old institution.  I'm sure you did burn some bridges there when you left, but if you can't get past that to try, that doesn't sound especially driven to me.  Credentialism may be a little silly, but you're locking yourself out of a lot of doors if you don't finish your degree.
Also, if you want to be successful getting a position in any area of research, recommendations from "one of Europe's top ranked universities" would be pretty helpful (for getting into a graduate program of any description, they are essential).  I know less about think tanks, but in most graduate admission committees, even with a completed bachelor's, no letters from professors you had as an undergraduate and an unexplained gap in your transcript  that's not explained extremely well in your personal statement would be an immediate disqualification.  So, not only should you go back to your old university, you need to set up meetings with the professors you disappointed, apologize sincerely, explain your situation, and knock their socks off with where you are now.


Going from co-advisors to just one advisor I'm 2.5 years in to a 4 year PhD with possibility of a 5th year of funding. I started with one advisor, but research interests started shifting, so we brought on a co-advisor. My research interests have continued to shift in the new co-advisor's direction. The research components that the original advisor can guide me on are hitting speed bump after speed bump and never really getting off the ground. I've been making steady progress with the research components of the new advisor. I want to have the "new" co-advisor  (not so new by now) just be my main advisor, and have my original advisor just serve as a committee member. Feels like a cold move, seeing as he was the one that brought me on in the first place. But he recently mentioned he's no longer sure how to advise me anymore, so I think he might be thinking the same thing.

I worry I'm too far into my program to make such a move. My comprehensive exams are coming up this semester, which complicates the timing of this as well. I want to suggest this move to my co-advisor in a way that is tactful and won't cause waves. But I'm not sure how to go about it - you can't un-ring a bell.

My questions are:

How unusual is it to go from two advisors to one after 2.5 years, and am I better off making this change or doing the best I can with the situation I'm in?
If making this change is better, do you have any advice with regards to how to do it so that I don't make a mess?

I am not being directly funded by either advisor, like with a grant. Funding comes through university assistantships. Additionally, keeping the original advisor on in a co-supervisory role is not an acceptable solution, because the original advisor is adamant about research approaches that don't work, and - at this point - also fall outside my interests.

I think the optimal answer depends mostly on your situation and university. However, I try to give you some general advice. From what I have seen in your question, you might already be one step to far into the decision. I would rather start an open discussion with your first advisor and express your concern. All further steps, such as switching advisors, can be the outcome of your discussion, but there might be different and better solutions.

It is quite normal that research interests shift after some time into your PhD. Since you are making progress, you see which ideas are working out and which don't. You will get to know new topics and new questions will arise. This will have an influence on your research, of course.

Your advisor seems to see that, too:

  But he recently mentioned he's no longer sure how to advise me anymore, so I think he might be thinking the same thing.

By expressing his concern, he already shows some awareness of this issue. You should try to talk to him and find a solution together. I would not approach him like "I want to replace you with advisor Y". This can come across as very rude since this is on a personal level. Start a discussion that focuses on your research. Talk about your concerns that your interest have drifted apart and try to come up with possible solutions. When you are further into discussion you could also include the co-advisor. As already mentioned, switching advisors might be one solution but it might not be the best one.

The more you integrate your advisors into the discussion, the less conflicts I would expect. Do not push your decisions onto them as this could really affect your current position. Talk to them and find a solution together.


Disclose mental health issue during PhD during an interview? I am about to face an interview for a one year fellowship.

One of the criteria for the selection is length of time as a doctoral candidate.

While I am within my registration period, I'm allowed one additional year to submit my thesis and I'm about halfway through that very year.

Part of the reason for being "late" - i.e. taking the extra year to write which is in fact vary common despite being somewhat frowned upon by the programme I'm in - is that I had a long stretch of depression during my PhD which is better now.

Should I mention this during the interview?

Should I mention this only if they ask me about why I'm taking this time to finish?

Should I NOT mention this, but maybe hint at it in-between the lines?

Also, there's a non negligible chance the panel might be sympathetic toward the topic (i.e. I guess they might be people who I would deem more likely to take seriously the topic of mental health in academia, rather than having an opposing stance like "you should toughen up" or a dismissing one like "no big deal".)

I would suggest avoiding specifics unless pressed. "Personal reasons" should be enough for most. But the question may not even come up. There are enough reasons to miss "deadlines" in any sort of research program that most people won't give it much weight, unless very extended. Of course we like to finish things in a timely way, but the very process of research is inherently uncertain.

You could even avoid the personal by citing "unforeseen obstacles" as your first response. It is fair to say "Personal" as the second version and "Health" as the third. Anyone pressing beyond that is being unfair as long as you assure them that the situation is in the past and not recurring.


How to avoid crossing my advisor if I write a paper as a sole author? A bit of a controversial question here. I am a PhD student currently away from campus on an internship in another state (in the US). I left campus with my advisor-provided laptop and some dataset I collected while working in my advisor's lab. We had the mutual understanding that me taking the official lab's laptop to the place of my internship was in the spirit of me being able to do my research effectively while I am away from campus.

For the past four months, I have been working at my leisure hours at my place of internship and during weekends to investigate an algorithm with respect to the dataset I collected while working under my advisor -- in his lab. I should mention that since I am away on an internship, I am not his Research Assistant at least for now (until I return to campus).

Aside from using the dataset I collected from his lab, I have scraped publicly available datasets from other research labs online and used them to rigorously test my algorithm. My algorithms are starting to yield promising results which I think are about right for a publication. Because my advisor has made little or no contribution to my work so far, I am not sure how appropriate it is to put his name on the paper I am writing which reports my findings so far. I have tacitly brought this up with him in emails  so far but he has not expressed any enthusiasm about whatever work I am doing remotely (perhaps he doesn't trust what he hasn't seen?).

Since the deadline of the conference is coming up soon, how would you suggest I do not cross him if I write the paper as a sole author?

If you don't know whether your advisor expects to be a co-author or not, just ask him.

If you feel that the advisor shouldn't be a co-author, you can present that as the "default":

  I am planning to write up my work with X, to submit to conference Y. You haven't really been involved in this work so far, so I guess you won't co-author this paper with me. Is that right?

If based on the specifics of the situation you don't have any strong feelings against co-authoring this paper with him, but you just aren't sure what he wants, you can just ask him:

  I am planning to write up my work with X, to submit to conference Y. Are you interested in co-authoring this paper with me?

As you have said, you can't read minds. The only way to know what's in his, is to communicate.

And it's really important that you have this discussion as soon as possible; authorship disputes are much trickier to resolve after publication (when they can potentially lead to retraction) than before submission.


How to ask an university for application selection result before accepting an offer from another university? I have an offer from one university and still awaiting results from others.

How to approach other universities and ask them about my application status so that I receive my selection / rejection before the deadline of accepting the offer? Is it rude to inform the universities that I have an offer from another university and will be accepting if the results are not announced before the deadline?

All the universities are in the same region.

A related, but not truly duplicate, answer

Just ask. Tell them you have been accept at X, but Y is your first choice. The admissions committee does not need much explanation since it happens all the time. Asking to speed up the process will not hurt your chances. They may not be able to speed anything up, but if they do/don't, they will not hold it against you.


How should I reference this? Should I reference this? I was having a problem (a mathematical one) in my research, and tried to find the solution. I had some ideas, but none of them solved my problem, I did some research but found nothing, tried to talk with my advisor too (mathematics is not his field), without success. I was stuck in this part. Therefore, I decided to reframe the problem and ask in Quora for help. Within 2 days I received some answers, one that I already have considered but did not helped me, and another that I had previously considered too, but extended.

I implemented the second answer using my problem constraints and needs and it worked, worked better than the state of art for this particular problem (using of course the rest of my job). Intrigued, I asked how the Quora guy (a mathematical professor) found the solution, he said that it was pure logical intuition and little bit of statistics. Later I searched if it was a published solution and found a similar, but not identical solution, buried inside a part of an algorithm in a published paper.

I told my advisor that I had found the solution, but did not mentioned Quora or the paper, he did not asked me either how I found the solution. Now I am considering to use this solution, found on Quora, as part of my research (With intent to be published), but how should do this? If I do not mention Quora could I be in risk of being accused of plagiarism? Should I point the name of the Quora professor in a "thank you footnote" or cite the Quora answer? Should I use as reference the published paper?

Note: I know that I should talk with my advisor about this, I will. But first I need some arguments on how to present the idea to him.

Any informed help would be appreciated.

As your implementation is based on the Quora solution, you obviously have to credit the author. Depending on how big a part of the entire thing this solution is, you might even consider offering the mathematician coauthorship for this.

If it suffices to acknowledge: As the Quora post is public, I would suggest to cite the post (and potentially do the thanks via footnote/acknowledgement section in addition). This ensures in particular that an interested reader can go and read the original post, which might be of interest in addition to your implementation.

Regarding the published paper: First, given that finding this solution was not trivial, I would suggest to cite it in your paper already only for the sake of others searching for these things. Moreover, you should give context for the solution you implemented, and the paper might belong to that context.


Not submitting reviewed manuscript I have just addressed reviewers’ comments to one of my papers. I am the first author and did most of the job.
One of the authors does not want to resubmit. They offered no explanation and have been avoiding me. How to behave in this case?

Ask both the editor and the colleague to change the corresponding author to yourself. Make it one mail to both parties. Explain in the mail that there has been a mixup and you want to correct it. You don't need details in a first correspondence, but supply them if required.
Hopefully the journal's procedures will permit this and hopefully your coauthor won't cause a stink.


What happens when a instructor really goofs up a course? Given how many college courses are taught every academic semester in the world (or even just in the U.S.), it simply must be the case that some portion of the instructors badly goof up their courses, to the point where it is not really able to be recovered from--in essence, the course is ruined. This could be things like:

Provably unfair or wildly too strict (or too lenient?) grading.
Losing exam scores (this has to be particularly common) for some or all of the students/exams.
Missing a large number of class sessions, or somehow leaving mid-course.
Etc.

I taught for a while and luckily never had such a catastrophe, nor did I know of any from my colleagues. But what typically happens when this sort of thing does occur?

By and large, ff524 as usual has it right: if there is a problem (even a serious one), the responsible people deal with the problem and its immediate consequences, and then life goes on. Smart people will learn from their goof-up, and it will not happen again. Less smart people do the same crap all over again until a higher-up steps in (in the worst case, this may mean getting fired). I am not sure if there is anything much more general to say about this topic.

Some examples from my personal experience:

  Losing exam scores

In the university where I did my PhD, a young professor once lost track of 400 final lab exams in a programming course (that means multiple large stacks of paper - not exactly easy to lose). Apparently, he locked them in for the weekend, and on Monday they were nowhere to be found. As there were no traces of a break-in, the theory was that the cleaning lady has thrown them out for whatever reason (as she was the only one with access to the room besides the prof). Following, an entire lab was digging through garbage for one morning, without success.

The prof. sent out a very embarrassing apology, announced a make-up test, and gave students the chance to just get their mid-term grades if they could not / did not want to participate in the make-up test. Following, all people in this lab were extremely paranoid with ungraded test sheets.

  Missing a large number of class sessions, or somehow leaving mid-course.

In another course in my old alma mater, an external lecturer apparently entirely lost interest in his course and basically stopped going to his own lecture after the second or third week. He was kicked out fast and unceremoniously. As nobody was available who could teach this course in his stead (it was very specialised), the course was cancelled mid-flight with the promise of a make-up course in the next term, leaving behind a number of understandably pissed students. A policy was put into place that external lecturers should not be allowed to give classes for which no replacement person was available, should something similar happen again.

  Provably unfair or wildly too strict grading.

Sadly, the common way to deal with this problem is "better luck next time". That is, in my university, the best one can hope for in case of a very difficult or unfair exam is that the dean talks to the lecturer in private and asks him to make the test easier next time.


Is there a way to get an academic job without recommendation letters? Who else besides supervisors/collaborators can be referees? I am at a stage to apply for an academic job, but can not find enough recommendation letters (3 typically). Currently, I am on my own grant, and mainly working alone on some relatively small, independent projects. Thus little collaborators.

When it comes to job application, they typically requires three recommendation letters. It there a way to get around the recommendation letter requirement? Apart from the supervisors/collaborators, who else can write those letters?

No (assuming you mean something like a TT assistant professor position). Recommendation letters are a vital piece of any faculty application. While supervisors and collaborators make good reference writers, there are lots of other people you can ask:

People who have taught you in graduate school
People you have been a TA for
The chair of your current department
The director of graduate studies of your graduate school department
Colleagues in your field, who are more senior than you, who are familiar with your research
People recommended by your supervisor (who should be ashamed for letting you get into a situation like this)


Retract an already submitted recommendation letter (written for an undergrad student) In the middle of the current semester, a student in my large lecture class (of an undergraduate course) asked me for a letter of recommendation, to supplement his application to transfer to another, much stronger, school. (In case this matters: this is in the U.S.)

He is one of the quiet students: while he doesn't actively participate, he doesn't cause any trouble either. So during that first half of the semester I didn't have any personal communication with him, and therefore I didn't really know him; I mean I didn't have anything to say about him as a person. But he attended class, and his first two midterm test grades were A (90+ numerically). So I told him that I agree to write the letter, but it would be short because I can only write what I know about him, which isn't much: I could only say that I've known him for half of the semester and that so far he has been performing really well. The student said it's fine. So I wrote and submitted a letter of recommendation.

This was a month ago. Fast forward to today, and by now he's like a totally different student: he's still quiet and doesn't cause any trouble, but he often skips classes, and his third midterm exam was an F (50 out of 100).

I know that it's not about me, and I don't take this personally. It may sound like he changed his ways as soon as he's gotten what he wanted from me, but that would be silly of me to assume. Probably it's just that he believes that he's already in the other school and doesn't care about this school anymore.

But my dilemma is that now I know that he is not the kind of student that I described in my letter and recommended to be accepted to the other school. By putting my name on the letter I effectively vouched for him and his ability to perform at a certain level. To me, it's as if I made a promise to the other university, but now I see that I misled them (albeit unintentionally).

Do you think it's a good idea to contact the other university and request that my letter of recommendation be retracted from his application package? Any thoughts or advice?

I think you should do nothing.

(Nothing with respect to the letter, that is.  You may of course want to consider intervening with the student as you would with any other student whose performance suddenly drops off.  As Azor Ahai says, he may be experiencing some sort of academic or non-academic problem.)

  By putting my name on the letter I effectively vouched for him and his ability to perform at a certain level. To me, it's as if I made a promise to the other university, but now I see that I misled them (albeit unintentionally).

I don't see it that way.  You couldn't possibly make promises about his future performance, and the receiving university will not have interpreted it that way.    They are well aware that "past performance is no guarantee of future results". Provided you made an honest assessment based on what you knew at the time, your letter was in no way misleading, and you have no obligation to correct it.

Proactively sending a followup unrecommendation would come across as somewhat vindictive, and I think it's sort of an ethical gray area.  The student consented to having you send a letter, sharing his academic progress, at a particular time; I think it's a little questionable whether that consent extends to having you send additional letters.  (However, if the other university should contact you to ask about him, I do think it would be appropriate to give them an update on his more recent work - but to me that feels different.)

That said, I don't think the student is really likely to profit from this anyway:

Your initial letter, saying "I've known him for half a semester and so far he's doing fine in this one class", can't really have done much good for his application in the first place.  If the other university is "much stronger", having such a letter, in place of a very positive letter from someone that knew him well, may have sunk his application from the outset.
If he does receive an offer of admission, it will almost certainly be contingent on continued satisfactory academic progress.  The other university will review his final transcripts before he actually starts in the program.  If he receives a poor grade in your class, they may very well revoke his admission.  Indeed, discussing this possibility with the student may encourage him to shape up.


How to structure presentation to avoid getting questions that will be answered later in the presentation? In the past when I've given presentations at my lab and conferences, I've not had to deal with this problem. But at my new institution I'm constantly dealing with the following phenomena.

I'm constantly being asked questions that will be answered later in the slides.

First try, I tried top down approach. So I started with the overall problem. I work in AI, so in my particular situation, I start off by saying this is the problem we're trying to solve, here's the overall architecture and now let's analyze the individual components. But then, I'm constantly bombarded with, well what about this component, what about this metric, can you go deeper into just that one component - I don't understand the mechanics behind it, etc. And all these questions will be answered later on. But no one seems to wait to see what the next slides are going to be.

Second try, I tried bottom up approach. "Here are all the individual tools you'll need to understand the overall architecture. Here are the metrics, here are individual mathematical concepts, etc. Now, let's see how these are incorporated into a larger framework." But before I can explain what the larger frameworks are, at every slide, they're constantly asking, wait, why is this being used, why are you talking about this, etc etc.

I understand questions arise and I can simply say I'll cover it in the next few slides. But there are sooo many questions being constantly asked and it completely throws off the presentation because constant tangents are being drawn and one person's question confuses another person. This isn't a classroom setting, it's more of a lab setting.

How can I get around this? The only solution I can think of is to have a little box on each slide, right about the page number that has the title of the next page.

Any advice on dealing with this would be very helpful!

Update: After listening to everyone's suggestion, the following tips really helped solve this problem.

Preparing slides to control the conversation. Focusing on only what I prepared instead of making all encompassing slides. For example, if I want to convey the training procedure of a neural network, then only have details regarding input, output, architecture(not every detail, just overview), and the loss functions. Stating "I used equation 'x' because it does will in situations 'a' and 'b'," instead of pasting the actual equations and inciting more questions for understanding every detail of the equation (as was happening previously). But I keep more detailed notes in the appendix slides in case anyone has a very specific question.
If someone does have a very specific question, then I can refer them to the appendix of these slides and say "Thank you, that's a great question. I have lots of information regarding that in the appendix of these slides. But due to time constraints, let's take that conversation offline."
Sending the audience the slides and notes before your talk so that people can review the slides before hand and better prepare their thoughts before asking random left-field questions during the actual presentation. This doesn't work in conferences, but definitely helps in lab settings.
When stating a key concept in a slide that hasn't been addressed previously, I have a small textbox that says "will be covered in upcoming slides" in red lettering. This seemed to curtail a lot of questions as the audience no longer feels anxiety over not understanding something on the slide.
Right after the title slide, I had a "goals of today's talk" slide in which I stated "goal is not to explain every detail of a particular technique. Rather present overview and my adaptation of it."

Disclaimer: the above suggestions work great if you're presenting at an internal team conference amongst peers. For example, an R&D lab at a tech company (my situation) or in an academic lab setting. Doesn't go great in a conference, but the audience are generally kinder in such public avenues.

I'm constantly being asked questions that will be answered later in the slides.

You have to understand that this is a great problem to have. There is nothing worse than giving a presentation and facing a bunch of blank stares. Questions mean that

People actually understand what you're talking about.
They care enough about your idea to actually ask.
The problem you're explaining is not trivial.
You actually have an answer to the question - later in the slides!

You mention both conference talks and lab talks. In the first case you need to be a bit more prompt (always respect the time assigned to you in a conference, you're not alone and you'll put everyone in an awkward position if you go over time): just say "this is a great question, can we wait for the next slides?" or "can we take it offline?". I have yet to have seen anyone respond to this by insisting that you answer them right now.

  But there are sooo many questions being constantly asked and it completely throws off the presentation because constant tangents are being drawn and one person's question confuses another person.

This is less a problem of structure than a problem of you not controlling the discussion. If there are many questions and people start discussing amongst themselves you need to take command of the room - say, "it's great that we're having this discussion, but I'd really like to move forward!", or something to that effect.

I believe that neither of your approaches (if I understand them correctly) is as effective as it can be. In conference presentations you need to focus on one big idea and explain it well - the objective of the presentation is to get people to read (and cite) your amazing new paper. Avoid giving broad overviews, and getting into every little detail. The audience needs to know why they should spend time reading your paper, and that's it.

In lab presentations make sure that the group knows what the big plan for today is. If there is a constructive discussion that's great. Tell them in the beginning the big points and then try to cover everything else. Give references to stuff you didn't cover so that the group knows where to look for things that weren't covered in the presentation.

Good luck!


To what extent do grades matter when applying to graduate school in mathematics? I understand that applying to competitive pure math PhD programs in mathematics in the US/UK definitely requires good grades (A or above) in most math courses - but I'm wondering how bad is it if I have one or two B's or C's? Are there other factors that can help me shadow my not-so-good grades while applying? (of course, only in 1 or 2 courses).
In particular, the course that didn't go so well for me this fall is a second course in Linear Algebra, and I ask this since I am a little worried about the situation.

A single bad grade is unlikely to matter much. A history of bad grades is worrisome. Your application to a doctoral program needs to show that you have high likelihood of success in (math) research. This implies that you can demonstrate insight into areas of math that you want to specialize in.
But insight in mathematics isn't uniform over sub-fields and mathematicians understand that (I hope, anyway).
In the US, there are many things taken into account besides GPA and even individual grades. So, you are right to be "a little worried", but not to panic.
But, for some people, even a poor academic history (not like yours, I think) can be overcome by other factors.
But you might want to be ready to answer a question or two about why you got lower grades in a few courses. Lack of insight is only one possibility. Taking too many courses in a term is sometimes a factor.


arXiv Papers vs. Peer Reviewed Papers; How Does Admission Committee Evaluate? I'm going to apply for PhD at a top university in US. I have two peer reviewed papers already published and 2 unpublished papers.

The last two are ready, but I do not have time to submit them to be reviewed as I want to mention them in my CV in my application and can't wait for notification of acceptance/rejection, so I'm planning to put them on arXiv.

Is there any difference between arXiv papers and refereed ones in admission committee evaluation? Does it make a huge difference if I submit them to a conference/journal instead of arXiv?
(My field is Computer Science-Data Mining)

The end of your question makes it sound like you are confused about something: arXiv and conference/journal submissions are not alternatives.  The arXiv is a preprint server, and posting there is like posting to on a personal webpage in that arXiv postings are not counted as publications and do not preclude you from submitting to a peer-reviewed venue.

As for how a committee would evaluate published verus unpublished papers differently, one gets a preliminary sense of the quality/significance of a published (or accepted) paper from the venue it was accepted to.  For unpublished papers, there is no immediate indicator of this (it could be great, mediocre, or seriously flawed), but they certainly signal you're research active, and since you already have a couple of published papers, assuming they are in reasonable journals, chances are your unpublished papers will be assumed to be of reasonable quality.

But, for both published and unpublished papers, an assessment of the quality should come from your letter writers, who should be able to give more insight than just the reputation of the journals you have published in.

In addition, there is no reason to delay your submission.  On your CV, just list the title of the paper, with the word "submitted."  (If you want, you can make a separate preprint section, but this seems unnecessary with only 4 papers.)  If it is on the arXiv, you can give an arXiv link.  Even for papers not submitted, you can still list them as preprints (though submitted or at least being posted online is better).

Note: I disagree with the other answer about saying what journal you submit to--saying where you submit to gives no indication of the quality of the paper (maybe just your biased perception of its quality), and it leave me personally with a slightly desperate impression, though this may depend on the field.  (In mine, some people do this, but most do not.)


Lecture material of another professor Is it ethical if I use lecture slides of another professor and modify only 15-20% for my lecture and provide an acknowledgment at the end of lecture slides that lecture material was taken from Prof. XYZ Course ABC? In the given condition do I still need to send a personal email to professor to inform that I am using his/her lecture material or acknowledgement is enough?

The question is: why wouldn't you send an e-mail? Consider you send him/her an email for permission to use the lectures, he/she may:

(most likely) Accept your request providing you reference him/her. He/she might even point some possible errors in the slides.
Deny your request. In that case you just avoided an awkard situation, would he/she ever find you plagiarized (if you modifications don't change the style).

If he/she denies, should you still use his/her slides as a guideline (assuming you do the slides yourself)? Yes you can. And if you wish you can also reference him/her as a reference, in the same way you reference books.


Colleague presented poster of our shared work at conferences without my knowledge or express permission My colleague presented two separate posters, one at a domestic conference and another at an international conference, based on the work both of us have been collaborating for past 1.5 years.

Before submitting the abstract or the poster, they did not seek my approval. In fact, I was not aware of this until recently.

In the poster, they put themselves first in the author list and me as second. Apart from the fact that poster submission was not disclosed, the authorship order was not explicitly discussed.

In the poster, they included an elaborate set of their contact information, even (non-traditional in academic publishing) details such as tweet handle and other auxiliary information, when clearly there was space to include the rest of the authors information.

I am offended by this. I am not sure what the universally accepted academic code of conduct in such instances is?

Ultimately there isn't a single valid approach here. The appropriate level of response depends on several factors, including the field in which the work is being performed, the nature of the conference, the status of the work relative to publishing practices in the field, and so on.

For instance, if you're in a field where posters are peer-reviewed before a conference, then it's a much more significant issue than presenting a poster at, for instance, a Gordon Research Conference where posters are explicitly considered to be "for discussion only" and are not intended to be used for publication. As for the author order, some societies (for instance, the APS) expect that the poster (or talk) be given by the first author as listed at submission—whether or not this is fundamentally the way it would be listed in a paper.

Looking at the ethical issue—has the work been published already somewhere or otherwise public? If so, your co-author may have thought it was OK to present a poster on the material; after all, you've already consented to publishing it elsewhere. On the other hand, if this is the first time the work has been presented, then it absolutely is ethically wrong to present the work without your consent.

The level of your response, though, should be scaled according to both the level of the offense and your desire to continue the collaboration. If you're angry that it was done but still want to work together, a somewhat measured response (the "sternly worded letter" approach) is probably best. If this has poisoned your relationship to the point where you can't see continuing to work together—and you want to have your colleague punished for the transgression—then you should make that clear. But I would hope the opening salvo here should be open and forthright dialogue with your colleague rather than a report to an ethics committee.

(Also, this advice can't really be generalized to large-scale collaborations where it simply is not possible to obtain informed consent from every participant on every paper produced as part of the collaboration.)


How do active researchers start and solve a scientific problem? There are different researchers working on different subjects. I was wondering how do they find out an "interesting" problem and then solve it. This question may sound very vague. I am PhD student in Theoretical Physics. I just wanted experienced researchers (preferably from science) to share their ways to solve a problem. By this I mean :

How do they start working on a particular problem?
Once they are convinced that that problem is interesting how do they go about solving it.

I understand there is no unique way and different people have different style of working. But I think the collection of answers will definitely help budding researchers, like me, who can get different ideas and choose their own ways out of those.

Edit : To summarize, suppose someone from theoretical science background wants to write a single author paper, how should he/she go about it (in your opinion)?

As Jeff pointed out in his comment, there's no one answer here -- it's fairly dependent on your field. But here's my stab at a very general overview:

Read a large number of papers in your field. I like to focus on the most recent ones and then read backwards as needed to acquire background.
Make note of the "open research problems" identified in these papers (usually discussed near the end of the paper as future work).
Repeat steps 1 and 2 until you have a nice list of possible paths.
Discuss your list with your adviser (if you're a student, at least).
Be prepared to repeat step 3. Numerous times.
Eventually, you'll find something to investigate.

At that point... defining the "end" of the project is much messier and field-dependent. For my field, computer engineering, the "end" might be a working software prototype that I can evaluate in terms of performance. It might be a theoretical model that I then intend to try implementing. Or it might be something entirely different. (If I were to be cynical, I'd say that the "end" is whatever you promised in your funding proposal ;-)

As to how to get to that end -- that's the research, and it's almost entirely field dependent. Talk to an adviser or researcher in your area.

Also -- don't be so quick to aim for a single-author publication. Often times, the big interesting problems are just that -- big. They'll require multiple researchers working in tandem. And if your worry is prestige - the paper describing the first observation of gravitational waves had over 125 authors, including 3 who were deceased at the time of publication. I highly doubt anyone considers that paper to be less prestigious on a C.V. because of that :)


How much vacation time is typical during a PhD in the United States? What is the typical amount of vacation time, per year, during a PhD program in the United States.  I am particularly interested in 1. PhD programs in the physical sciences, and 2. PhD programs at competitive, research-focused universities.

I'm not aware of explicit policies regarding vacation time during a Ph.D in the US. This is likely because in the US, the Ph.D is viewed as educational, and not as a job.

As a student, and now as a professor, vacation time was always an informal discussion between advisor and student. This is of course ripe for abuse. A job in the US usually grants 15 days of vacation (not counting weekends) per year, but in my experience that's MUCH less than what you might effectively get as a Ph.D student (in computer science) but might be comparable to what you get as a Ph.D student in the physical sciences.

Unfortunately, I don't have personal experience with physical science programs, but via my wife and other friends I've seen that physical science programs are fairly rough on vacation. This is partly because you need to be around to tend to long-running experiments ("the flies died!") and partly because of the nature of lab work and the much more intense style of lab-based science.

My recommendation would be, once you have some options, to ask students in the programs you're applying to, working with advisors you're interested in targeting.


I want to transition from Mathematics to Computer Science for a PhD. Will post-baccalaureate studies in Computer Science help me? In order to better understand my questions it is best to provide some context to them.

Background: I completed a B.Sc. degree in pure mathematics several years ago. I kept in contact with my letters of recommenders (their letters are strong), and published in an undergraduate mathematics journal. I want to transition from mathematics to computer science for a PhD program. I delayed my entrance into a PhD program to work in industry. Now I am in a position where I can enter back into school.

The problem I face is that 1) I lack many of the preliminary courses required by many PhD programs in Computer Science and 2) My GPA is on the low side due to extenuating circumstances during those respective semesters (which relates to my reasons of delaying a PhD to pursue industry work).

The PhD programs I am interested in are very competitive. I contacted a professor at one of these universities (nationally ranked & well-known) and he said he'd vouch for me whenever I applied and a few of my recommenders know him personally. But according to the school's website individual faculty have little input in admission decisions (as admissions is determined by a group of faculty) and they seem to have a strict set of coursework requirements needed in order to be admitted into their program. Also, my GPA falls outside the range of the "average" admitted students.

So, even though I have strong LoRs, strong research experience and a professor interested in me, I have a low GPA and not nearly enough of the core courses to satisfy their coursework requirements.

I applied/was accepted to do a post-bac at a well-regarded school. I will be a credit (but non-degree seeking) undergraduate student and can take any range of courses I want (both undergrad + grad).

Question:

1) Will pursuing a post-bac route help me get into a CS PhD program? My aim here is to complete the core set of requirements, bolster my GPA, and make myself competitive for PhD programs in CS (I don't want to do an MS program). Since I lack basic CS coursework I'll be taking courses in programming, data structures, analysis of algorithms, computer organizations and the like.

2) When will be the best time to apply for PhD programs? I plan to take courses on a part-time basis (since I am working full-time), so a max of 1-2 courses a semester. I was thinking if I applied next Fall then I'd only have two programming courses completed (required sequence), and a data structure course in progress. I still wouldn't have completed analysis of algorithms, etc. courses by that time. Luckily, I already taken all of the program's math requirements with high marks.

3) Is it fine to not satisfy every coursework requirement in the list? It is also recommended to have other courses completed outside of the core, but I am very eager to get the core completed and move into research. Lastly, would a B in any of these courses be a death kneel for my purpose? Some of these courses have a reputation of being extremely difficult.

Thanks for the help!

What you can do is first complete a masters degree in CS and then transition to a PhD program. Some masters programs do not require a bachelor degree in CS, and you can get your degree in 1~2 years after completing all the necessary courses.

While doing your masters degree, you get to know the professors, learn about their projects and gauge your ability to launch a career in computer science. That's also a great opportunity for you to find out if there could be an advisor-student match that will materialize into a PhD thesis.

If you then manage to get into the PhD program in the same institution, you may be able to transfer the credits and take the preliminary exams right away. Speak to the Graduate Advisor to find out more.

Good luck!


How is it like studying a Masters in Germany? There is a masters in hydrogeology at the University of Gottingen that I am considering applying for. Are professors helpful in general? I know it’s hard to generalise but what are your experiences like?

I studied in Germany, but a different master. However, giving a general answer to your question is very difficult, especially whether the professors are helpful.

You may end up in courses which are so large that the professor might only know a couple of students by name.
There are also other courses with only a few students where you are in closer interaction with your professor.
Please note that there may be a large number of courses which are taught not by the professor himself/herself but by employees of his chair, e.g., by PhD students.

I had courses from all those three categories listed above. This does not only depend on the university (some might have smaller groups than others), but also on the courses you decide to take.

It is accepted and encouraged to ask questions during or after the lecture.
However, interaction with your professor may not be that important in total and you should also be able to solve most issues on your own.

Even for your master's thesis this may apply: Some professors want to be involved in their student's work but I have seen different behavior: For example, the first and last time I saw the professor during my bachelor's thesis was during the final presentation. The work was supervised by an assistant and he was very good, so I was OK with this!


A potential PhD supervisor declined to accept me as a student; can I ask a second time? I found a relevant PhD supervisor who refused to supervise my PhD project by saying that he has no open position in his research group. Is it OK to mail him again and request to accept me as a student, because the work he is doing in his research group is extremely relevant for my research interests. I have received funding and just need space in a research group.

You can always ask.

However, be prepared that the answer may easily be still "no". Direct funding is by no means the only resource that an advisor has to pour into a student. There is also the time investment of actually advising a student, assorted costs for overheads and utilities, as well as presumably some money to fund conference trips. This isn't even to speak of simple inter-personal matters, such as that the professor may feel that you are not a good fit for the lab culture.


How can someone be a co-author in a paper by just presenting undocumented evidence? This recent paper is about birds of prey spreading fires. Some of the co-authors are firefighters which basically tell their personal experience as eyewitnesses to the behavior of these birds but do not present any hard evidence.

How can this be considered enough for co-authorship? Is this an accepted practice in social sciences?

I think the true answer depends on what the other co-authors think.  In my field and particularly for application-oriented papers and case studies, we often add industry representatives or clinical staffs as co-authors, even when they don't contribute much to the writing of the paper.

We do this because it fosters good relationships, demonstrates their facilitation of the analytical work, and (in our belief) is good a "people-practice."

For others, we simply list them in an 'acknowledgements' section with some comments.

It all depends.


How do you explain your pure maths PhD? Let's say you are at the pub and random layperson asks you the question: "So I heard you did a PhD. What was it on?"

What do you do if your PhD was in pure maths. What techniques can you use that will convey to them what you did in your research, and that it was important?

What sort of techniques do people use in the three minute thesis competition?

This questions will vary greatly depending on your research area. Many people in applied fields will have no more issue than any other scientist, while those working in, say, algebraic geometry tend to have a tougher road. That said, here are a few principles I have found helpful:

1) Find the smallest question that captures the key idea. You don't have to explain your particular problem, so much as give a flavor of the sort of question you work on. For example, in Schubert calculus, everyone always leads with the question "Here are four lines in space. How many lines intersect all four of them?", even for other mathematicians! You can then allude to higher dimensions, broadly say how your work ties in (or just assert that it does!), and so on.

2) Return to the specific. Use vivid metaphors as a way to overcome abstraction. For example, I often describe a permutation as a row of line dances, and a simple transposition as two people dosey-do-ing to swap places. Now I can talk about the dancer's motivation as motivating my questions, and it somehow seems less arbitrary. Providing something tangible to visualize helps a great deal. This is completely at odds with the usual mode of mathematical communication, where we wish to abstract away every specificity.

3) Inject narrative. Talk about the history. Mention peoples names, and say what they did. Give a scope of the human endeavor that is (a) mathematics, (b) your field and (c) your specific problem. "Littlewood and Richardson came up with a rule for multiplying these polynomials (Schur functions) in the 1930's, and said the proof follows from 'simple combinatorics', which they thought beneath them to do. Forty years later, Schutzenberger finally figured out how to do the simple stuff, after many failed attempts by famous mathematicians, some of which were published!" It would here be appropriate to mention some details about Schutzenberger's fascinating life.

Edit: Explain why you care! Talk about how you came to the problem, your motivations (beyond glory) for solving it, why you think it's worthwhile.

4) Create opportunities for dialogue. Obviously this only applies to someone who is genuinely curious, as opposed to being polite. If you provide the over-arching perspective (1) and provide a specific and familiar framework (2), your listener will have a framework they can use to start asking questions. Metaphors will be abused, and their limits exposed, but that's okay. At the end of it all, someone might call you a "math detective".

5) Be willing to sacrifice a little (or a lot) of accuracy. It's okay to describe the overall thrust of your area, rather than the particular question that you work on. It's okay to give a wishy-washy description of something that glosses over many complications. Despite working in the field that most prizes accuracy, mathematicians regularly gloss over subtle issues with each other. The standard should be much lower when dealing with non-mathematicians. Seriously, it's okay!

6) Steal shamelessly from others in your field. Read popular accounts of your area, or ask other people how they try to describe things. If you work in the Langlands program, read Ed Frenkel's book and see how he tackles this challenge. Look at the "What is a..." series in Notices of the AMS. In general, people seem averse to doing this across academia, but everyone benefits if you can use the best exposition, regardless of whether or not it is original to you.


"Web of science" as search provider in chrome? Is it possible to use Web of Science from the Chrome Omni-Bar (aka address-bar)?

Chrome supports adding custom searches by mapping a string to a search expression, e.g.

i    https://www.google.at/search?tbm=isch&q=%s
doi  https://dx.doi.org/%s

which then allows entering doi XXXX.XXXX to lookup a doi, or i academia to do a google image search for "academia".

apps.webofknowledge.com however, has session-based urls where the current query isn't included in any readable form, so this method won't work. They do provide a description of how to add web of science as search provider but it seems to be outdated by years – Chrome isn't even mentioned and it doesn't work in Internet Explorer 11 either.

Could this Chrome extension be of use to you:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/web-of-science-quick-sear/nemobobcigeaigadamdpegpjkklkoeae?hl=en

Just click Add to Chrome and you should be jamming.


Which is preferable, to go to graduate school at same school as undergrad or to go to a lower-ranked school? I've heard from people that generally, it's a bad idea to go to the same school as your undergrad to get your graduate education.

However, in the situation that you get into only your undergrad school and a few much-lower ranked grad schools, what would be the better school to pursue?

I've heard from people that generally, it's a bad idea to go to the same school as your undergrad to get your graduate education.

The word "generally" is commonly used in two rather different senses.  The first sense is "typically", "most often".  The second sense -- perhaps more common in mathematical and scientific writing -- is "always", or "in the largest possible scope which might be applied".  The quoted advice is valid if "generally" is construed in the former sense, not the latter.  To briefly explain: on the one hand, there are advantages to acquiring a diversity of experience.  "Great University X" will do its business in a way which is slightly different from "Great University Y".  Experiencing this is very valuable, because if you stay in academia you will probably be affiliated with several more universities, different from each of these.  If all of your student experience is at a single place, you will have subconsciously internalized the universality of your experience, and you'll be in for a rude awakening when you learn that what is obviously best to you is not the practice in your new environment.  Then too, by going to different great universities, you meet different great people (many of whom will know each other and will be in transit to/from other great universities), both students and faculty.  This is also very valuable.

On the other hand, there are situations where it is most advantageous to stay where you are.  For instance there are sometimes personal, family or financial considerations.  Even neglecting these, there are times that the university you attended as an undergraduate is truly the uniquely best option for you to continue your studies, or the best option among those available to you.  If you are an undergraduate at UCLA, if you want to study analysis, and if you did not get admitted to Berkeley, MIT, Chicago, Princeton or Stanford, then staying where you are sounds like an excellent (perhaps optimal) choice academically.  If you've already done successful research with a top faculty member at your current program and you truly want to continue that research most of all: yes, think seriously about staying right where you are.

The other answer says that graduate school rankings is "a little ridiculous".  While I don't really disagree, let me try to put a finer point on that: grad school rankings are ridiculous if you take them too seriously, and especially if you regard them as a strict linear ranking.  It does not matter that US News and World Report currently thinks that MIT is the best mathematics department in the US whereas in past years it used to think it was some combination of Harvard / Princeton / Berkeley.  It would be more honest and more helpful if they simply recorded that these departments and several others (Chicago, Stanford,...) are in the uppermost echelon of graduate programs in mathematics.  Asking whether Harvard is better than Stanford is ridiculous: it depends upon what you're studying.  (If you want to study analysis, don't go to Harvard unless you know you want to work with the one faculty member there who does that.)

Students should be thinking of departments in terms of echelons.  Within a given echelon, ranking is not helpful.  However, barring some truly exceptional circumstances you want to go to a program in the top echelon that accepts you.  As a corollary to this: if your undergraduate institution is in the top 10, and every other program you've gotten into isn't in the top 30, then yes, I think you should stay where you are, unless you have a very good reason to go to a lower-ranked department (best reason: there is a superstar there that has agreed to work with you).

Finally though I have to say that I find it slightly odd that the OP has apparently gone to a top department, been admitted as a student to that top department, but not at any other department of comparable quality.  That suggests to me that her application is not as strong as it could be, as those who know her in real life apparently value her more highly.


Can I say I'm undecided yet in my statement of purpose ? (PhD in math) I just started my 2nd year of master and it's already time to apply for a PhD in math, deadlines are in ~1+ month.

In most samples, students had a clear idea of what they would like to study. They write that they have studied this and that, and that they would like to be under Prof. X's supervision because they worked on his papers.

As for me, I liked most math topics that I have studied, with very few exceptions. In short, I'm undecided, exactly when I buy an ice cream and  I'm facing 20 good flavours.

Most universities, on their application page, offer "undecided" among the options (algebra, number theory, ...). Although they may say "it's totally fine" (because everything is nowadays), what is the truth behind the appearances?

Stories from people who are on admissions committees or from [un]successful applicants who wrote that in their SOP are most welcome.

EDIT: I successfully got admitted to some really good US universities with "undecided" in my SOP

Generally in the US you don't need to choose an advisor when you start Doctoral study. Therefore, having a firm idea about a concentration, research focus, is less important than in some other places. But giving the admissions people some idea will give the a better way to think about how you might fit in.

What I would do, in your case, is to say you are undecided, but currently focused on X and Y, where X and Y are a couple of things you know a lot about. It narrows the focus a bit without limiting you in any way. But, having an MS means that you will want to get started on research pretty soon after arrival and so will need to choose an advisor, unless you want to risk having one chosen for you (a bad idea, generally).

However, taking a deep dive into some narrow subfield of math doesn't limit your choices for ever. You will need to focus until you earn the degree, but then the view can open again for you if you want.

It is probably ok to be a bit undecided as long as you aren't chaotic random.

Note that this is a US specific answer. It wouldn't be the same in some other places.


How to read a research paper with too many references to previous works? I am a CS undergrad student who is just getting started with research and reading papers. My mentor has asked me to read a few papers. While reading I noticed that every few lines there are references to previous papers being cited and the entire paper just builds on the previously described architectures and then adds something new to it.

In such cases, if I start reading the cited ones (and there are many mentioned over and over again), I am afraid I might get stuck into a loop of such repetitions and never get to the main idea. How should my approach be ?

My mentor wants me to thoroughly understand the ideas stated here because we are going to be implementing those soon albeit with modifications. I know of the 3-pass approach but that does not solve my particular problem.

Note that my particular doubt is not on how long should reading take. I can see many resources explaining that very well already. So I don't think this is a duplicate of them.

What you are describing is pretty normal in academia. People take on old and existing work, and build upon it.

There are typically several reasons for citing prior studies, thus the impact of each individual citation might (and usually does) vary as well. I reckon this is all quite new to you. In your case if you can understand the work presented in the paper without diving into the citations, then just do that and ignore the references for the time being. You can always trace back to specific (read: not all) references later on to fill in any potential gaps in your understanding.

If you cannot grasp the why or the how, then my suggestion is to pay more attention to the introduction section, checking out the important (often recurring) references, and then re-reading the introduction. You should get a fairly good idea of what the paper is really about this way.

Another approach could be to try to discuss the paper with your supervisor or someone else who might be able to judge it better (any grad students or TAs?)


Are professors typically financially compensated for advising masters theses? I have a professor that has given me some early advice on developing my thesis topic, but I have not yet formally selected a thesis advisor. I was thinking about choosing to work with a different professor whose research seems slightly more aligned with the project, but I'm curious if my professor (the one I already spoke with) will expect me to work with him, and if this would have entailed some sort of financial compensation for him. Not that this would heavily influence my decision, but it's something I'd like to be aware of.

Yes.  It is called a salary.  And advising is one of the duties listed when the job is offered.


Reading material on working conditions of women in academia Like many professions, academia is a challenging environment for women. In some disciplines (e.g. computer science), the number of women remains low despite efforts to increase it. Have there been any academic studies on the ways of improving the working conditions for women, specifically focussing on women in academia? As an academic working in hard sciences (i.e. not gender studies), what book or review could I read on the topic, to help me get a better understanding of these issues (and possibly improve my own behavior)?

I'm not interested in “advice” (in part because I am not a woman), but in studies of how effective are various possible ways of improving the working conditions for women (in academia). Like “we study universities implementing policies X and Y, and show that they do increase gender diversity bu xx%”

The question “Women in academia” is related, but I'm asking for material with a totally different perspective.

The most recent paper to make a big splash on this subject was "Science faculty's subtle gender biases favor male students", by Moss-Racusin et al.  You can start there, and dig backwards through the references - you'll hit most of the major reports on this topic.

A few notes on the topic of this paper itself:

It is the same gender biases that academics have towards their students that they also demonstrate against their peers, so don't narrow your research too much. And if your question is "why are there so few academic women in the sciences?" you need to look at the problem from top to bottom. Women aren't going to want to become professors if they are already noticing the bias in undergrad.


Can a systematic review only review one article? I got asked to review a systematic review in a peer-reviewed Pubmed-indexed journal. However, based on the author’s inclusion/exclusion criteria, they only review one article.

Isn't that peculiar? As a reviewer, how should I respond to this? Is this acceptable, only one article...?

If it’s a systematic review, it is weird that there is only one article to include. However I think it could happen. After having applied inclusion criteria to all articles first retrieved, only one was left. I also think there’s a lesson out of this issue that the authors of the review should address.


How is an LOR presented when applying for grad school? I am going to apply for grad school starting this December. I have heard that an LOR is pretty essential in the process. I have a few professors I can approach. But my question is: how do you present an LOR? By that I mean, should it be sealed in an envelope, giving the impression that I have not peeped into it, before submitting it for grad school?

What if my professor mails me an LOR instead of writing it? Do I take a printout and do the above?

Also is there a particular format I should be aware of? And what else should be there on the letter, apart form the content itself, college stamp/seals or anything of the sought?

Are there any other formalities that I should be concerned about?

The rules vary greatly by country and program. You should follow the rules as specified by each individual program.

For instance, in the US, the applicant should never see a letter of recommendation at any stage of the admissions process. Nowadays, this is circumvented by having the letter-writer submit the reference directly, with the applicant only "supervising" the process to see if a letter has been submitted. In the rare cases where everything is to be submitted together, it is usually required that the letter writer sign across the seal of the envelope, to ensure no tampering has occurred.

As for the format, it should again follow local customs—for example, in the US, being submitted on official letterhead is sufficient; a mailed letter in Germany would be considered suspect without a stamp mark. (An emailed letter would be an exception to this, but would still be expected to have an electronic or digital signature of some sort.)


Requiring student to participate in online challenges to complete coursework I'm teaching a programming course with ~20 students, guiding them through coding assignments and helping them understand what they are doing, and why it works or doesn't. Tasks expected of them range from trivial to medium-complexity in the range of a 40-hours curriculum.

Now, toward the end of the course, they know enough to solve moderate programming problems. In order to get them to work on a few things more "exciting" than what we offer them, I am considering asking them to join an online coding (or problem-solving-through-coding) competition, such as Project Euler. I wouldn't expect them to be able to solve all problems, of course, but I could select a list of problems for them to pick from. For example:

  For this session, you are expected to solve between 5 and 10 problems from the following selection of Project Euler numbers: 1-10, 13, 15, 20-24, 26-29, 33, 35-38.

Sure, I could just copy these problems and make them "assignments" for them, but I think it could bring some fun for them to see it as part of a competition. Also, why I don't understand why, it seems that to their generation, doing anything online is vastly more exciting than doing the same thing otherwise. Finally, I have some hope that a few students might actually get into it, and continue doing it for fun after the course.

Now, comes the question: what downsides do you see to requiring them to participate in one of these online challenges? (I'm most interested in the specific case I detail above, but generic advice/answers for other types of online participation might be interesting too!)

This sounds like a great idea to me overall, but I can see a few potential issues:

It's possible that one or more of your students might already be a participant, which could raise issues of fairness.  (Other students may complain that he/she got a head start.)
Similarly, the fact that these problems are widely distributed on the web may make it easier to find solutions online.  I haven't looked at the Project Euler solutions online and don't know if they are any good, but it's not hard to find purported solutions.  This could also be a pain for you: if you make it easy to cheat, then you're more likely to have to figure out how to deal with cheaters.