How do we identify a Scientist as Early-career scientist? I am currently a graduate student and a member of an organization in my field. In my organization, there is this Early-career group composed of young scientists who already earned their Ph.D.'s, taking post-docs, and running their own research groups. In the case of graduate students, does early-career or the term applicable? and what is the difference between the terms early-career scientist, a budding scientist, young-scientist?

"Early-career" can mean any number of things, depending on who you ask and in what context (from just PhD students, to everybody except tenured professors). Usually, it is just a label and hence matters little.

Where it actually can and does matter is in the context of grant applications, as many funding agencies have special calls for early-career researchers. However, in these cases, the agency will specify exactly what the boundaries of eligibility are. For instance, the Swedish Research Council (VR) has a Startup Grant that is available between 2 years and 7 years after getting a PhD.


Does anyone in Academia.SE know about Saudi universities? I did a masters 8 years ago. am 38, unemployed, and don't have any fund.

I want to go to the USA for a PhD. But, probably won't get a visa for having a study gap and/or being unemployed and old (on most occasions refusal letter would reply "You haven't satisfied us that you would leave the country after the designated period of your study!"). So, I am planning to get a PhD in Saudi university so that I can later go for a PostDoc in the USA.

QS ranking:

Looks like Saudi Arabia has a number of world-class universities. I heard they also pay scary amount of money to PhD students.

I heard that admission committees in US universities often find hard times evaluating weight of degrees from unfamiliar universities while selecting potential research students, and instructors.

How familiar are Saudi universities in the USA in the field of CS? Are they good enough to support my goal?

Note. The rationale behind going to Saudi Arabia is, it has a very good relationship with the USA. I can save some money, and then get visa by showing that fund.

Note.2. some users asked in the comment section why I am considering KSA why not Singapore, Hong Kong, etc. Well, as far as I researched, universities in SEA has issues in their learning cultures. As far as I understand, they prefer memorization based learning. I also heard that a large number of students in Taiwan, Japan, and so on commit suicides because of study pressures.

Taiwan: Pros and Cons from a Master’s Degree Student
5 Challenges You Will Face Studying Abroad in Japan
Singapore schools: 'The best education system in the world' putting significant stress on young children

First, let me answer about the reputation/ranking of Saudi universities:

I should warn you that Saudi Arabian universities have a reputation for "gaming" these rankings you are relying on.

What they do is pay researchers at western universities to accept a second affiliation there. This allows the Saudi university to list them as faculty and claim credit for their publications and citations and thereby boost their ranking. In reality, these researchers are rarely if ever present and do not contribute to the academic environment there. Perhaps they visit for a week and give a few talks, but they do not supervise students or teach courses there.

For more details, see this question and the links in it: What should you do if a co-author has an unethical affiliation?
The answers to this question also show how people in the west react to this.

So the reality is that Saudi universities have a very questionable reputation in the west, despite their good performance in international rankings.

Note that I'm not saying these are bad universities, but simply that you should be wary of the rankings and the claimed faculty. Every university seeks to maximize it's reputation, but Saudi Arabian universities have a reputation for going overboard with this.

Now the second part of your question -- how does going to a Saudi university play into your academic career goals given that you want to end up in the US:

Generally speaking, moving to the US after PhD is much harder than before. This is my personal impression and is supported by data.

The main reason is that, after your PhD, you are evaluated on your research and your recommendation letter writers and connections matter a lot. Thus you want to have research exposure in the US and you want to have connections in the US and letters from US professors. The easiest way to do that is to be in the US.
Before your PhD this doesn't matter so much, as you are evaluated on your potential.

Another reason is that, as you move up the career ladder, positions get more and more competitive. This makes everything, including moving countries, harder.

Of course, countries like Canada and Israel are very close to the US in terms of research connections. So doing a PhD there will be almost as good as doing one in the US.

If you are having trouble getting into a PhD program that you want, then doing a Masters is probably a good idea, especially if you get a good recommendation letter out of it. It isn't critical where you do a Masters.


Time management in PhD Math program I'm accepted at a PhD math program for the fall and I will be expected to take 3 very rigorous pure math classes a semester and TA about 10 hours a week. I am a slow learner and it takes me a long time to truly understand difficult concepts (at least it seems longer than what it takes my peers).

I would appreciate any tips in the following:

What are some tips for managing my time in grad-school?
Is there anything I can do now before I start to help prepare me (other than learn more math of course)?
How to grade or teach time efficiently?
Is it better to focus on learning material for one class per day, or allocate a little bit of time each day for each class?

I'm a first year student in math Ph.D. program. I'm taking 3 courses (all qualifying exams preparation course) and do TA work about 10 hours a week.

What are some tips for managing my time in grad-school?

a. Start doing homework the day you receive it, not the day before it is due.

b. When you're not sure what to do, study/do math.

Is it better to focus on learning material for one class per day, or allocate a little bit of time each day for each class?

I go for the first approach because I feel it's easier to focus on one of them than to switch back and forth among subjects within a day.

How to grade or teach time efficiently?

a. Before you finish your own exam requirements, choose an easy course to TA (like single variable calculus).

b. Remember unlike you most undergraduate students in lower division courses are not interested in math. They care little except exam/hw scores. Most students who can easily get an A+/A/D/F do not care about you. In discussion section do examples highly related to their HW, Sample Exam, Past Exam and little to nothing else.

c. Set up a good grading rubric that allows you to grade fast. Give  full credit to correct answer with some reasonable justifications (even if it's not perfectly written). When it's boarder line give 1 additional point instead of explaining why the answer doesn't deserve an additional point.


How do I judge the novelty of my paper in the area of algorithms and system design? I have been working on a research project and have submitted the paper to two different venues(not simultaneously), and both times I have gotten reviews which criticize the paper for a lack of novelty. What exactly makes an algorithm or system design novel? How can I judge the novelty of my solution?

The novelty of a scientific result is defined in terms of its relationship to previously published results.  In order to perform such a comparison you need:

to have a good idea of what related works have been published by the community, typically obtained by some combination of reading papers and attending conferences, and
to compare your your system against the most similar prior systems and demonstrate its quantitative or qualitative superiority (e.g. "my system is three times faster" or "my system can process widgets AND frobs, and all previous systems could only do one or the other").

The "amount" of novelty is then how much better you are, relative to the interests of the community, and is very community dependent: a 2% improvement in the cost of manufacturing concrete is worth billions of dollars, while a 2% improvement in the speed of a personal computer program is generally unnoticeably tiny.


What does "thanks x-institute for hospitality" mean in an acknowledgement? What does

  The author wishes to thank institute X for hospitality.

mean in an acknowledgement?

Does it imply that they paid me a hotel or a per diem, or is it enough if they provided me an office during my visit to motivate that statement?

Edit. I was just worried if this could rather interpreted as the institute X paid me, which in other country could be seen as a double funding (which is in some programs not allowed).

Usually it means that, during at least part of the preparation of the paper, the author was on an extended visit to Institute X, and X provided something that was helpful.  It could be as little as an office or a library card, or as much as free housing, use of expensive equipment, travel support, etc.  However, this phrase wouldn't normally be used if the author was actually a paid employee of X during that time, even if temporarily.


How would someone transition from the business sector to academic research? I am a junior undergraduate at an accredited college in the United States majoring in a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science program. Currently, I work at a for-profit business to gain some programming experience. In the future, I would like to enroll in a good Master of Science in Computer Science program. After that, I would like to work as a researcher studying computer science theory to improve human understanding of computation.

Is there a general way to transition to research after undergraduate study and, if so, are there any particular mental tools that I should acquire that would be in my best interest for research? For example, mental tools would be something like a methodology to writing papers, and another could be a framework to acquiring research grants from the government.

Is there a general way to transition to research after undergraduate study

Usually the general way to transition to research is to do research under the supervision of an experienced researcher. (Either within the context of graduate school, or outside it.)

  are there any particular mental tools that I should acquire that would be in my best interest for research

Yes, there are many, and they vary by discipline. You would learn what tools you need for your particular research and develop those tools by conducting research under supervision of someone more experienced in doing research in your field.


Google finds thesis, but not indexed google scholar I have recently finished my thesis, and it has been uploaded to my university's e-thesis server roughly 4 weeks ago.

The thesis can be found via google, after I manually submitted the link to google.
Unfortunatly, the thesis is not found via google scholar. Many of my colleage's thesis (with very similar, standard format), which are at the same e-thesis server, are found via google scholar (and the google scholar link then points to that e-thesis server).

Is there any way I can make google scholar index my thesis?

There is no guarantee: all the Google-Scholar's algorithms are pretty much machine-learning and heuristics.

Still, if your thesis' format is similar to what the other colleagues submitted, the chances are high it would be treated similarly.  Just wait a bit, as @nengel said.

If your thesis itself were very similar, it would be plagiarism: in this case, Google scholar would be right on not indexing your work (regardless of the algorithmic process that led to non-indexing).


How do I reference in a figure legend? I am citing a figure I have taken from a journal. In my figure legend do I only include the number citation or do I need to state the figure is taken from somewhere else?

i.e Figure shows a cat [1]

or

Figure shows a cat. Taken from [1]

Thanks!

When you plan to reuse a figure taken from a journal paper, you should first ask permission to the copyright owner which, in most cases, is the journal publisher. Every publisher has its own procedure to make such a request, but usually you will be at least asked to specify where you want to republish the figure (in this case, specify PhD thesis).

The publisher will typically grant permission to reuse for free and it will also specify how it wants its copyright to be stated. Here are a couple of real examples:

  Reproduced with permission from [1] ©IOP Publishing. All rights
  reserved.

  © 2018 IEEE. Reprinted, with permission, from [1].

If your citation style is non-numeric, substitute the appropriate citation style.

In my experience, many people frequently overthink this procedure, as though obtaining the permission to republish could involve going through an obstacle course race, and sometimes they plan to spend hours to redo a figure which is just a few clicks away.


Is there something I could do considering I'm not really happy with my master's thesis? On the begining of this year I've started a graduate course in Physics to obtain a master's degree. I have a major in mathematical physics and mathematics and wanted to work with General Relativity, Quantum Field Theory on Curved Spacetimes or related topics, but with focus on fundamental physics. In particular I'm quite interested in the infrared structure of gravity and gauge theories and the application to soft hairs on black holes.

There was a professor that was going to advise me on a very nice project about black hole radiation, but unfortunately he passed away. I started then searching for another one, but the ones I found were from the math department and was quite hard to get a permission to have them as advisors on the physics department.

I was talking to two of them, one of which was my advisor in a undergraduate research project. He didn't work with what I wanted but proposed one work on extended bodies in GR, but he didn't tell much details. It didn't interest me but said it was interesting just to be nice.

The physics department ended up allowing some students to have advisors from the math department. The one that could advise in what I wanted needed to advise someone else. This other professor and the coordinator ended up "assigning me" to work with the extended bodies work professor.

I wasn't feeling good about it, but I was being pressed by the deadline to find one advisor and, because it was already one exception, I felt bad to refuse and accepted in august.

I'm working on this for three months now and I can say I'm not fully happy about it. I have quite a few complaints:

It is not fundamental Physics and it is not what I would call GR. It is dynamics on GR. Up to now I've studied two papers and no deep thing about GR was needed. Some students say they discussed with their advisors for quite a long time what would be done. In my case I was handed what should I do.
The advisor requires that the work be devoted to computing examples, like solving a really hard toy model. He find this extremely important but I can't see it like that.

I didn't want that, and I know it is not a requirement. I've seem master's thesis from there and other universities focusing on the fundamental physics aspects and the structure of the theory.
My advisor doesn't know the theme. I have to study the papers alone and present seminars twice a week so he and another student of his can learn the subject. This is making me feel extremely pressed because the papers are very hard and I have not much interest.
Although studying the papers for learning more about how extended bodies can be dealt with in GR is something I would happily do in my free time, dedicating that much is preventing me from studying what I really want to do afterwards. I believe this combined with how much I'm being pressed is the big deal.

The issue is: I'm on this for four months now and I feel it is too late to do something. I think that if I go search for another advisor they'll say there is too little time left (one year). I don't even know if I'll find one. If my advisor finds out I'm searching for another one it could also create a difficult situation I think.

Plus, I don't want to offend my advisor or start a fight, after all, he is a good person. It is just that for all this time I felt embarrassed to say I wasn't really interested in this, and I feel even more embarrassed to say that after all this time. I've tried implying a few times I'm not interested, but he didn't understand I think.

What can I do in this situation? I mean, is there some option other than continuing with this even being unhappy? Is there some way to change things, without offending anyone, starting a fight or creating an embarrassing situation? I need some piece of advice.

Have an honest conversation with your advisor.

  I appreciate the support you have been giving me, but I have to be honest that I'm getting increasingly frustrated with my project.  This isn't the area that I hoped to work on, and I'm struggling to really get into it.

Note that this is nothing against your advisor.  Be careful not to frame it as a criticism of your advisor; it's about this project's fit to you.  If you put it this way, it shouldn't be offensive.

Also, presumably your interest now is also your interest for your career path in the future?  If so, I would highlight the impact of that:

  In addition, I'm hoping to go on to a [PhD/career] studying [fundamental physics--insert the appropriate term here.  I'm not a subject expert]. I'm worried that I'm not developing the skills and expertise I need to move in that direction.

In my mind, this is the most important point.  If it's just a matter of enjoying your current project, sticking it out for the next year might be the best option.  But if your current project is limiting your future options, it's important to address.

After sharing your concerns, what to do about it?

If at all possible, I would try to explore with your advisor whether your project can be tweaked to better fit your interests.  Could it focus more on theory rather than computing examples?  Could it bring in some other related thing that is more what you want to look at?  Again, I'm not a physicist, so I can't help you on the specifics. The cost of changing projects would be high.  It's preferable to modify the current one if at all possible.

It sounds like so far your advisor hasn't been very flexible.  However, given that you accepted a project and worked on it for four months "just to be nice", it also seems likely that he doesn't know how you really feel about the work.  Perhaps he will be more flexible once he understands.

If there isn't flexibility, then you have a tough decision: take the "safe" route of completing your current project, or try to switch projects (and probably risk delaying your degree).  But I would try this as a first step.


What features should be included in your actual accomplishments and skills to be accepted in a top university like MIT I was wondering about
 how can one apply for a PhD program in a top ranked university.
I can tell you about a namely accomplishments and skills which is labelled as 'very good' for a graduated M.Sc student in an average university so that you can consult me and the people who almost have a similar accomplishments and skills.

To be more precise I would like to know:

How can one be accepted and get the scholarship for a very top-ranked university like Berkeley, MIT. For example are the following accomplishments and skills satisfactory?
If not, which points should be added or improved generally?
How much is it matter how old are you for applying for PhD at these places?
What features differentiate the CV of someone admitted to a top school (MIT)versus someone admitted to an average school (Calgary Canada).

Two ISI papers Including one 'Power systems, IEEE Transactions
on ' and 'Electric Power Components and Systems'.
IELTS and GRE meet the minimum requirements.
Having a very strong recommendation letter. Also, my supervisor professor is one of the top (top 50) in his field.
Two years teaching experience in a small university as a lecturer.

P.S. I have B.Sc and M.Sc in Electrical Engineering.

Although your question doesn't specify it, I assume you're looking for admission to a top-ranked PhD program in electrical engineering.  I'm one step away, in a top-ranked program in computer science, so take my answer with a grain of salt.

  Two ISI papers Including one 'Power systems, IEEE Transactions on' and 'Electric Power Components and Systems'.

Since you already have a master's degree, having a couple of publications is a minimum requirement for admission to a top PhD program.  Where the papers were published is of secondary importance (although your emphasis of "ISI" over "IEEE" is a little worrying).  What really matters are the actual results in the papers.  Are they good results?  Are they well-known to people in your field?  Are your papers likely to be highly cited?

  IELTS and GRE meet the minimum requirements.

"Meet the minimum requirements" is not what top programs are looking for, on any axis.  Fortunately, test scores don't really matter all that much (except, at public universities like mine, the spoken English test).

  Having a very good recommendation letter as my supervisor professor is one of the top guy (top 50) in his field.

The fact that a top guy in your field wrote the letter matters far less than what the letter actually says about you.  A weak letter will kill your chances, especially if it's written by someone well known in your field.

  Two years teaching experience in a small university as a lecturer.

Hmm.  Okay.  can't hurt.

  If not, which points should be added or improved generally?

You really haven't given enough detail to point out anything that needs to be improved.  What matters most is the quality of your actual research contributions, and that's just not deducible from the information you've given.

  3) How much is it matter how old are you for applying for phd at these places?

Not at all.  Age discrimination is illegal in the US.

  4) What does a namely CV should contain when applying to a top university as opposed to one that is an average university (like Calgary Canada).

I assume you mean "What features differentiate the CV of someone admitted to a top school versus someone admitted to an average school?"  (No matter where you apply, your CV should accurately and honestly reflect your accomplishments.  Don't add bloat.  We can tell.)

You may be able to gain admission to a lower-ranked school on the basis of grades and test scores.  But the competition for admission to the very top ranked schools is absolutely fierce.  (My department gets 2000 graduate applicants per year, from which we admit about 100 PhD students and about 50 MS students.)  If you want to be admitted, you really have to manifest like a successful PhD student already.  You don't just want papers.  You need  high-quality, high-visibility, well-written results, ideally which would not have been possible without your contributions.  You need the beginnings of a well-reasoned and compelling research vision.  You need to display intellectual strength, depth, maturity, and taste.  Well-known leaders in your field must sing your praises in technical, personal, and credible detail.

If you have all that, your CV will take care of itself.


Doing research outside of academia, without a PhD? I love learning and solving problems (I'm in math/ computer science) and I'm also very motivated. However, I don't have fantastic grades and so I don't expect to get into any top graduate program. This may seem like a discrepancy, but I think it is partly a personal issue (which I'm working on).

Is it possible to conduct research and therefore further any field without being in academia? This post is primarily targeting people who are doing their PhD.

I want to get the opinions of as many people as possible, so let me know if there's another place (forum) where I can ask.

As Nunoxic noted, doing research as a part of your job is possible. Also, doing research at a graduate program that isn't at a top school is possible. But doing research on your own, and hoping to bring innovations to a field... is highly unlikely to work, in my opinion.

My opinion is based on experience with a bad schooling system (undergrad and Masters in Serbia) where publication is mostly irrelevant to survival of the teaching staff. Access to research journals is also severely limited, and, as a consequence, access to international conferences, international collaboration and all that. Essentially, supervisors would offer minimal guidance, and students are always free to choose their research topic. This is still more guidance than you would have on your own.

Then I got myself into good schooling system (a second Masters - to catch up - and now my PhD studies), in The Netherlands. Neither of the two Dutch universities I've been studying at are top schools in the Shanghai sense: their rankings fall between 100 and 150. Still, in comparison with Serbia, the difference in what I've learned and achieved since being at these universities is staggering.

I don't spend months of my time sifting through articles in order to slowly begin comprehending which papers/names are the most relevant ones in the field.
I have someone to immediately tell me if a research question is worth pursuing.
I have someone to immediately point out similar research.
I have someone to immediately correct small mistakes that would prove important at the end of data collection
I meet important people in the field, and get feedback from them, with no cost to myself
I work with technology that costs a great deal of money, with no cost to myself

The essence boils down to having access to people who know what my work is about. This speeds up my understanding of the subject matter by an order of years. Science is so fast-paced nowadays that it's very difficult to make breakthroughs without collaboration.

In sum, my advice for someone in your position would be to give priority to non-top graduate schools, if it doesn't work put with top ones, instead of trying to be a solo researcher.


Establishing programs in Universities Recently, I came across a document listing approximately 358 colleges and universities of HBCUs, Tribal CUs, and Hispanic Institutions (serving underrepresented students).  Out of these colleges, none had a program in the field of Industrial Organizational Psychology (I-O Psyc). The I-O Psyc program is established in approximately 139-colleges/universities in America and Canada (serving predominantly white institutions). My question is, "What is the process or criteria by which institutions decide to adopt or establish a field of study?"  It is peculiar to me that this particular field of psychology, which is noted in U.S. News Report as one of the fast-growing fields in the country, is not established at any of the institutions serving underrepresented students. Is there a book discussing this process?

Obviously it depends on an institution's specific policies.

I expect in most cases, starting a program like this would start with the faculty in an existing department; probably a psychology department in this case.  The faculty would come up with a program they believe would be beneficial, and identify the resources they would need in order to offer it (additional course offerings, new faculty hiring to get the necessary expertise, new or reassigned faculty lines if necessary, lab resources, external grant funding, etc).  They would write syllabi for any new proposed courses, create a description of the program for the college's catalog, and specify the requirements for the degree (which courses are required, which electives could be taken by students, etc).  The department's faculty might need to vote on the proposal before submitting it for further review.

The proposal would then be reviewed by various groups and administrators within the university, who would weigh its academic suitability, impact on existing programs, probable demand, financial costs, tangible and intangible benefits to the institution and/or society, availability of resources, and so on. Usually the new program would need final approval by a dean and/or a provost.

There are many possible obstacles to creating a new program.  In your example, if a department doesn't currently have any faculty specializing in I-O psychology, they would have to hire them.  This might be done by replacing retiring faculty who have other specialties, but this can be politically touchy, as faculty groups in other subspecialties might feel that they are losing needed resources.  It can also be done by creating new faculty lines, but this is a major long-term financial commitment for the university, and such a proposal has to compete for resources with other departments who may be proposing new programs of their own.  It may be hard to justify the need to higher administration, particularly as the institution cannot necessarily be confident as to how many students will be attracted to the program (and to what extent this may simply "cannnibalize" demand from other programs within the institution).

So there is a very long road between recognizing that a program might be desirable, and actually having one.


May I use my former-yet-active email address of an institute as a contact channel in my current CV? Since I was a master student in (the North American) X university, my email roboticist@x.edu has been still active, even though it is a couple of years that I have left that university. Now, I'm about to finish my Ph.D. in (the European) Y university, and Y will be immediately closing my current roboticist@y.edu upon my graduation. I have heard that writing an unprofessional email address, e.g., roboticist@gmail.com, in the contact information section of an academic CV does not make a good impression on readers. So, I am wondering whether I may use the still-active email of mine corresponding to X in my CV for that purpose. My main concern is two fold: whether or not I am allowed to do that in view of X, and whether or not it is ethically a sound decision because it can mislead readers thinking that I am currently affiliated with X.
PS. My question relatively resembles what are discussed here and here, but the difference is that those questions' contexts are paper affiliation and contacting professors, respectively. However, mine is about the contact information section of a CV.

I can see no legal or ethical problem with using an email address from a former institution, as long as you are clear about your current affiliations in your communications.
That said, there may be better options:

Professional societies often offer an option of an email address. As a roboticist, for example, you can almost certainly affiliate with the IEEE, whose excellent email service I use myself.
One of your former institutions may offer an alumni email address (or at least forwarding service). I believe this is more common in the US than Europe, but it's fairly arbitrary which institutions do and do not offer this.

Both of these can typically be set up very quickly and also have the advantage of being permanent, even when you change institutions.


First Language for the Application I was applying for an academic research program and They wanted to know about my first language.
But I am confused about my first language because from my childhood I used to speak Egnlish because English is the medium of teaching in my school but My parents speak French at home so I used to speak french at home.
Now, which language should I mention as my 1st Language in my application?

Your first language needn't mean chronological. It can mean your primary language for everyday communication. There is no need to overthink it.
If you are fluent in two or more languages you can mention that somewhere.


What are your thoughts about "Research Assistant Professor"? I came across a job post of "Research Assistant Professor" in the biology/medical field. This institution (ranked #50-100 in National Universities) states that this is a great opportunity to get research mentorship before initiating the tenure clock. The successful candidate will get lab space, equipment, and personnel support for their research projects. However, this is a 3-year temporary position and there is no guarantee that you will transition to a tenure-track position by the end of the third year. They want to see you get an NIH R01 first.
What are your thoughts? If I am interested in a tenure-track position, should I choose a 3-year Research Assistant Professor position at this institution (ranked #50-100 in National Universities) rather than a Postdoc at a world-renowned institution (e.g., Ivy League schools, Stanford, MIT)? Just curious about your strategy.

I don't think there can be a general answer about future outcomes for a position like this. It seems like a bigger investment for the department than a typical post doc spot, though, which may be a positive.
I would look at the history of the position in the relevant department. Are there tenure-track faculty there that came from this path? I'd also ask current tenured faculty in the department, not just in leadership, for their candid opinions on the future of tenure-track slots in the department. It might be that these positions exist for political reasons that make future tenured spots unlikely, or it may be that it's a good introductory role.
Good luck.


How to include periods of non-academic work on an academic CV? I have, since completing my PhD (in pure mathematics), worked in both non-academic and post-doc positions. I am brushing up my CV, and I would like some advice as to how one should detail non-academic work. My non-academic work has been quantitative, but otherwise entirely unrelated to my field of academic expertise, so my gained skills (in eg statistical packages) are of no use to the purely research position I am aiming to apply for.

Simply list in the section about employment who you worked for. The places you apply for may ignore this if they so choose, but at least you can document that you were working during this time and were not, as one could be tempted to speculate, in jail, unemployed, or homeless.

But then, it may also be that the people who look at your application think that it is quite beneficial to the program to hire someone who has seen other parts of the world, whether or not you learned specific tasks and skills there that are useful for your postdoc work.


What subjects benefit from textbook editions? I've read several questions relating to the (typically US) practice of requiring students to buy up-to-date, expensive, editions of textbooks. I can see why the publishers are in favour of this, but I don't understand why everyone else plays along. As far as I've seen, the UK seems to get along fine without this.

In my field (mathematics) it seems pretty obvious that new editions are generally not that important - maths just doesn't change that fast (the material taught at undergraduate level has mostly been around for the odd hundred years). So my question is:

Are there subjects for which it is important to have the most up-to-date edition of a texbook, enough to justify the cost to students (/libraries)?

Take undergrad economics. While standard micro- and macroeconomic theory likely doesn't change quickly enough to warrant a new textbook edition every few years, students might be... irritated... if recent economic events (the US housing crisis, the Great Stagnation, right now the ruble meltdown) were not reflected and discussed.

Suppose the last example of a major crisis in your econ textbook (printed in 2004) were the dotcom bubble bursting in 2001 - today's college students were barely walking back then. This would be ancient history for them.

Yes, of course a motivated instructor could work with an older textbook and provide the updates based on his own notes. This is a lot of effort, though, and apparently few instructors go to this trouble.


How can I make a presentation accessible but low on text? I am preparing a presentation for a conference. After reading many style guides for designing presentations and talking to other people, I have decided that the best way to make slides for a presentation is to have only a picture or formula on each slide. Then I will just talk about the topic or picture on that slide.

However, now I am wondering how to make it accessible to people who are deaf and hard of hearing. I suppose they would need something to read, but I don't want to cover my slides with text that will distract the other members of the audience. Is there a way to accomplish both? One idea I was thinking of was having a printout of a transcript, or to display a link to a transcript. However, I don't want to make a big deal out of it, and maybe passing around transcripts would take a long time.

The flip side is that some people are vision impaired and text won't work for them. You don't need to pass transcripts around, but you can make them available for those who would like them. Some conferences have student workers that monitor the entrance to the speaking hall and they can distribute them at the door. You can also announce at the start that they are available after the talk (or online). Many folks will have laptops open during any presentation. Some people may want to record your talk.

But it is a good idea not to have slides that are dense with text. For everyone. If people are scribbling down your slides, then they won't be listening to you.

If you can print only a small number of copies you should probably make them available online as well.


Reproducing work of others - name them as conflicts of interest? We are currently reproducing several papers in a specific sub-field of computer science under different experimental conditions. When we submit the paper, we will be required to declare people who may have conflicts of interest. Most of the original authors of the papers we are reproducing are aware that we are doing this work.

Should we declare the authors of the original papers that we are reproducing as conflicts of interest?

Arguments in favor:

Reviews may not be blind, as they know we are doing the work (review is double-blind)
We may be "stepping on some toes" by showing that their results do not hold up when reproduced under more realistic circumstances. Conversely, as Wrzlprmft notes, we may be biasing others in favor of accepting, if we show their results to be correct.

Arguments against:

They are best suited as reviewers. If we name all of them as conflicts of interest, we will have excluded more or less every expert in the field, thus making it much less likely that we will get a reviewer familiar with the field

Is there an established guideline for this kind of situation (in CS or other fields)?

I don't know about general guidelines, but since the pros and cons are both reasonable, I would delegate this issue to the journal's editor.
You could mention it in the letter to the editor (and even list your pros and cons) but leave the decision to them.


Will I be penalised if my economics job market paper is coauthored with my supervisor? I read once before that the job market paper should not be coauthored with my supervisor because other universities will assume that my supervisor did all the work.

I will apply for an academic role after my PhD, is it true I will be penalised for this?

If my other two papers are relatively strong will that eliminate the risk?

But what if my supervisor coauthors on more than one paper?

Economics is not my field, so my answer is based on what I've heard from other people. Generally, it is preferable if the job market paper has a sole authorship or at least if it is co-authored by other graduate students. However, I have heard of people getting jobs even with a job market paper coauthored with their advisor. Since you have two other papers, and one with sole authorship, that will to some extent work towards eliminating any negative impression that the job market paper may create. However, ultimately it will depend on your potential employers and the practices that they follow. Keep your fingers crossed and hope for the best.


Sole data analyst in an academic lab, is authorship viable? I am in a very biological sciences heavy laboratory where every one has a basic background in the biological sciences and that's pretty much it. I was recently hired as a research employee (non grad student) in this laboratory originally as a biological sciences research assistant. Upon finding out I have a graduate degree in statistics (it was on my CV so I don't know why they  were surprised), my PI has considered using me as a hybrid researcher/data analytics person to streamline some past data and make it more quantitative in nature. Some of my data analysis is very niche, and pseudo-original because of the context of the problem that we're working out. There is no backup person capable of doing any data analysis. Is there any way I could use my role as leverage and formally request authorship from my PI (in a polite way of course)?

I have future goals in mind, professionally speaking, and those goals would be much more facile in approach if I could get my name on a paper.

With that description, especially if you write up the technique used for the paper and any conclusions drawn, you should be a coauthor. Anything else is ethically suspect in my mind. You should talk about authorship with the primary author, the lab director, or the PI about this now rather than waiting for the analysis to start or the paper to start coming together. There's no better way for resentment to start than to wait for the thing to be nearly done for you to start the conversation about authorship.


Student requests to know their "grades so far" I periodically get requests from students to know their "grade so far". From what I can tell, this is becoming more prevalent, and more encouraged by administrators. And there is a box for "Total Grade" in our LMS, turned on by default, which I have to manually disable.
I feel that telling them a number might mislead. For example, this fall, the final exam is split into sections corresponding to the midterms, and students can replace each of their midterm scores by doing better on the corresponding section of the final. Also, there will be an extra credit final homework. So, even if a student is failing "so far", that doesn't necessarily mean that they're likely to fail the course.
What is the best way to address such questions? Be evasive? ("It's complicated...") Give them a number, even if misleading, along with some caveats that they might not read? Or design simpler grading schemes in the future, even if the "complicated" features were intended to be helpful?
A few remarks following the comments:

I have provided them with their grades on every assignment so far, and I have also told them exactly how their final grades will be computed. The issue is—the students who ask, say they're a bit confused about how well they're doing (even though I did my best to explain it clearly), and seem to want an answer like "Your average is 73% so far".
The students should be perfectly capable of assessing their performance so far. But they are overwhelmed, they are struggling, and they are anxious—especially this fall, with the ongoing pandemic, and where I'm teaching online and not face-to-face. And they might be afraid of hidden gotchas—some rule buried in the fine print of the syllabus, which I'm going to call them out on later (I'm not). I can sympathize with my students' desire for a simple answer.

If I were a student, I would prefer your second suggestion: A number along with some caveats.
Basically I would want to know what I have to do in order to pass.
When I taught my first class this summer I was giving my students a number and then a short note which explained that I wouldn't be assigning letter grades until the end of the course, so I don't know their letter grade along with a sentence or two about how I personally think they are doing and what I think they can do to improve. This seemed to work pretty well.


How to check the postdoc opportunities in a specific lab even if there is no position-call from them? I'm about to start the last year of my PhD and apart from filling the gaps in my work i started to check the postdoc opportunities here and there.

The thing is that i found a few Labs (university groups) which are working in a more or less same area as i'm doing my PhD. Well, their not doing exactly same thing i do but still same category (Motion Analysis), and they are good at it!

So i like to work with them as a post-doc after finishing my PhD. But i couldn't find any post-doc in their website. So how does it work? should i just sit down and pray to hear a post-doc call from them in the exact moment (ex. a couple of months before my PhD is done) :)  or is there another way to approach/contact them regarding this purpose?

If is it the latter case, then how? should send them emails now directing asking about post-doc opportunities regarding 1 year from now?

Yes. This is how it works.
Once you find a lab, find a professor who you would like to work.
And then,

Read his publications
Read them again to look for potential areas where you find yourself as a useful asset to that lab, like methods or instruments you are familiar with and used by the professor too.
Email the professor asking for available positions. Send in your email your CV and statement of purpose.
If you could add a document where you could be an essential asset by proposing additional ideas related to the professors published articles, it might add value if you don't sound arrogant.
While involving in such activities, if you find a wonderful result try to publish it and cite the professor's work on which you are trying to develop. This will make your application be outstanding and successful.

The right time to do so is when you are in the middle of the year before your last year of Ph.D. Also, you should let the professor know that you are writing him a year ahead so as to plan accordingly.


Can I get code reviewed if it might be published or referenced in a publication? I am a recently-graduated high school senior in the United States who is currently doing research with a professor in a lab at the university that I will attend. One of the components of the project we are working on is writing code to analyze sequences of DNA for certain characteristics. Even though I am a beginner to coding, I'm the only one in our group who has any experience writing code. I like to ask friends or Code Review.SE for help improving my coding style, as I would like to do for this set of programs in particular. However, I have some concerns about doing that here, as I believe that the code will be referenced in the paper we will write at the conclusion of the project.

If I share the code with people who are otherwise not affiliated with my project to review, do I have to

mention that I had the code reviewed in the code / paper?
list the reviewer as a contributor to the project on the paper?

Short answer: "Do I have to mention that I had the code reviewed in the code / paper?" -> You really should, yes.  It's common practice to mention that code (or other research-related things) were discussed and reviewed with colleagues as they were developed.  A single sentence in the paper's methods section will suffice.

"Do I have to list the reviewer as a contributor to the project on the paper" -> Probably not.  The specific guidelines for what constitutes a "contributor" to a paper (usually discussed as "authorship", as in, should additional people be listed as the paper's authors) will vary from journal to journal.  Review of code or similar is generally not consider sufficient for authorship of a paper.  However, it is polite to list the names of the people who helped in the acknowledgements section, usually on the first page of the paper.

Long answer -> You really should discuss this with the professor you're working with as he/she will have a much deeper understanding of the implications, target journals, common practices, and so on.  That's your best approach.  There's no shame in having someone review your code.  It's considered a /good/ thing, so don't worry about being called out for not being good enough, etc.  Review is part of the academic process and is desirable.


I had a rough first year in undergrad— what now? I think I'm off to a poor start to my undergraduate career.

Some context: my major is Materials Science and Nanoengineering at the University of California, San Diego. I'm on the BS/MS track for 2020. My GPA for my first year is a 3.2, which I think is quite bad in regards to my prospects of getting into a good PhD programme. My research advisor even told me that I need a 3.5 to have any hope at all of getting into a top tier PhD programme for my area of discipline. I need to know how I can make myself as competitive as possible for top PhD programmes in materials science.

In regards to clubs and activities, I'm involved in three places. I do research in the bioengineering department, where I focus on fabricating biosensors to read genetic errors. I am a candidate for three project teams' leadership positions in AIChE (American Institute of Chemical Engineers) and NETS (Nano Engineering and Technology Society), for the solar energy, piezo energy, and wave energy teams. And lastly, I am a central member of the UCSD Wushu Team, which I do entirely for physical and mental health (it's done wonders for both anxiety and depression).

I will take my first upper division classes this September, where I've that they are both harder and easier than lower divs to get good grades (B+ and up). I've gotten to know most of my professors via AIChE and NETS. I tend to stay in touch with every professor I talk to, either personally, or via email/LinkedIn.

Have I put myself in a bad situation? Am I overreacting? Where do I go from here to optimise myself for a strong PhD programme? I need all the advice I can get.

Although this question may be out-of-bounds for this site... Well, "obviously", you'd want to do better in the future. True, screw-ups are not a plus, but, well, it's already on your record, so what can you do other than try to do better in the future. To give up on your ambitions would be nonsensical: if you don't try at all, sure, you won't fail, but you also cannot possibly succeed.

From my own perspective, it is very clear that many talented, motivated people in late teens and early twenties do screw up. (Not to mention older people too!) Obviously not a good thing, but, yes, quasi-ironically, people who've been through mistakes are sometimes (!) wiser and more effective than people who've magically avoided all mistakes.


Should formatting affect grades of student essays? I helped my friend, who never used LaTeX before, to convert her PG Diploma essay from a Word document into this system (for a molecular biology class). I convinced her that, with some learning, she could later produce better essays with LaTeX in shorter time, focusing on the content without worrying about the layout.

But she started to worry from the beginning.

She commented on the placement of large figures and tables which didn't fit immediately at the positions and pages where they called out. She was particularly concerned that these floating figures (placed professionally, I think, by LaTeX at the top of the following pages) "appeared in the wrong places in the middle of the next sections".

I explained to her that these automatic placements by LaTeX seemed "perfect" and  "optimal" to avoid large white spaces left at the bottom of the pages; and that this approach is what we see in most professorially typeset materials (e.g., journal articles, and my thesis ;)).

However, the professor who later marked the essay commented that these positionings "look odd" and "broke the logical flow", and he seemed to prefer the "inline placement" of figures and tables. My friend now thinks that some points were lost because of this.

--

Should (such) layout and formatting issues in general affect the grading of student essays?

If yes, I assume this professor might not be familiar enough with professional typesetting practices, or he simply didn't like what he saw in the essay. Is he free not to accept the common professional typesetting practices in his course?

Is LaTeX better than Word? This is a holy-war kind of a question. I personally agree that LaTeX documents often, but not always, allow to produce a better typeset document in less time (as soon as you know enough of it to write the document, and do not spend time googling for "how do I do X in LaTeX").
Are LaTeX's floating objects perfect? Some things are less than perfect even with LaTeX, and handling of floating objects is one of them. You can suggest using [p] instead of [t]/[b]/[h] options --- this can still generate under-filled pages, but at least it looks like it is done on purpose.
Should you Professor comment on the layout? The way how the document looks definitely affects how it is perceived by the reader, so if something looks weird / unusual, it is all right for your Professor to comment on it.
Should the layout affect the grade? There is no general answer to that. Some Universities even have a very rigid guidelines on layout for theses submission, which sometimes, sadly, prescribe the use of Word, and sometimes, conveniently, the use of LaTeX (particularly if LaTeX is taught as a part of the Program). In this case, of course, students can be penalised for not following the guidelines. Sometimes points for "presentation" are included in the task specification --- and you can lose them if your Professor decides that bad typography affects the presentation of the document (I don't think LaTeX can be that bad, though). However, Professor should not simply reduce the grade if they feel that the layout is unusual.


Should I apply for a position that I am interested but not competitive enough? I am interested to an assistant professor (AP) position. The topic is very suitable for me but I think I am not competitive enough (not enough paper etc). Also, I am willing to take a lower grade position (In my country there is research assistant professor (RAP) position, which is between AP and postdoc). However, the job abs did not state specific requirement for papers and grants (like X papers or Y grants), so technically speaking, I am qualified to apply. My questions are:

1) Should I apply and see if I can get an interview, to get in touch with them?

2) How do I express I am willing to take a lower grade position (such as RAP)?

3) Is there any better way to express such purpose, which may be better than applying for the AP position?

4) If say a few months later my papers are published, and I think I am more competitive, can I apply again for the same job (assuming it is not filled)?

Any comments and suggestions are appreciated, thanks!

Let the hiring committee decide whether you are competitive, rather than assuming you are not. Apply and make your best case that you are the best person for this job. The decision will be made on a variety of factors, not just a count of papers. A person needs to be "fit" for the position and that will mean different things to different people.

And as for 2), don't do that at all.

Part of your application will show works in progress, of course. Especially if you have submitted papers that are not yet published. If the job includes teaching, show that you are good at that. Don't leave anything out. Don't assume that anything is unimportant.


How to contact professors as a high school student? I am a high school student who is interested in mathematics. As such I have been emailing several professors from prominent universities. I have been running into trouble when trying to figure out what their research is from their websites (it's either way too specific and jargon-filled, or so general I can't find anything good to ask them.) Would it be a good idea to just plainly say: "I see you research 'area in math.' Would you mind telling me what specifically your research entails?"?

I advise you to put yourself in the shoes of the professors reading your emails. Why would they answer you? What's in it for them? They explain mathematics for a living, so your request is a bit like asking a barber you aren't friends with to cut your hair for free.

It's great that you want to learn about math research, but with due respect, you can't understand the specifics of most math research. Not because you aren't smart enough, but because it's written in a language that takes years to learn. It is (or can be) possible to communicate some of the ideas behind a piece of research math to nonexperts, but this is a difficult thing to do, and most researchers aren't inclined to try. This is unfortunate, and it would be nice if there were more resources out there for laymen who want to get a sense of what math research is all about, but emailing professors out of the blue is not the way to go about this.


How important are my grades to the rest of my PhD career? Speaking to the faculty in my program, I've noticed that they seem to evaluate themselves and others using two criterion: (1) publication quality and quantity, and (2) ability to obtain grant money. No one discusses grades or performance in graduate school classes. Even when potential faculty candidates come around, this doesn't seem to be emphasized at all. What role do grades play in my PhD career?

As far as your research stature is concerned, grades would matter least of all, below other non-academic stuff as your soft-skills, your personality etc. There are a number of reasons for this:

No one cares about your GPA once you are a researcher! While it certainly looks nice to have a stellar GPA, it's the work that you do and where you publish that would matter. Look up some resumes of notable faculty in your field - how many even list their MS/BS grades?
I might even say that your adviser would not be too happy if you have a 4.0 GPA - as it means you are spending time on perfecting your grades which is more profitably spent on research! I actually have read this on a faculty/university webpage - would post the link once I dig it up. EDIT: Haven't found the faculty website link yet, but here's a couple from an established source, phdcomics - enjoy!

PS: I'm actually waiting for JeffE to comment on this: His credentials are such that I'm not even qualified to state them, and he himself claims that he had the lowest undergraduate GPA amongst any professor he's ever met!

EDIT: I'm talking about grades in subjects that you have to take as part of requirements of grad school - you would be expected to master the subjects that are directly required in your Ph.D research thesis, so your adviser would expect great grades in them naturally!

tl;dr - They don't matter (as long as you clear all your subjects!)


Are Prior Publications allowed in IEEE Transactions on Information Theory? I have a paper written that is about 17 pages. I plan to submit a shortened version of it of only the main ideas to a conference with a 10 page limit next month, but I also want to submit the full manuscript for review to IEEE Transactions on Information Theory in parallel. I was reading their FAQ and I read the following paragraph which really confused me:

  Policy on prior publication

  Contributions should comprise novel and
  previously unpublished material; however, prior publication at (or
  parallel submission to) conferences does not preclude publication in
  this Transactions, provided this is properly referenced in the paper
  at the time of submission to the Transactions. Thereafter, submission
  to other journals is precluded, unless the paper is rejected by this
  Transactions, or is withdrawn. If all or part of the paper was
  previously presented at one or more conferences, a statement such as
  the following must be included in the authors' footnote on the first
  page of the paper at the time of submission: "This paper was presented
  [in part] at ... [and ...]."

  If authors submit a paper that is a nearly verbatim copy of a prior
  conference publication, they have to indicate to the editors in a
  cover letter why they feel that republication is warranted. Editorial
  decisions will take into account any previous publication of submitted
  material.

Here is what's confusing me. At first, they say that its okay to have parallel submission as long as this is referenced in the paper. Then they say but we have to indicate this to the editors with a cover letter. I am confused, is what I am doing okay or not?

There is no confusion, you can present the paper in the conference and submit it for publication.

But you have to tell the editors in a letter with the paper which conference it was presented at.

This is so that they know at the time and don’t find out “by accident” or, you never know, they could be at the conference...


How to deal with racial insensitivity in an academic environment? I am an undergraduate research assistant in a biology lab. I was having an informal conversation while working at lab with my professor and a colleague of him. In the middle of our conversation, my professor passed a racially insensitive remark at me (I can reproduce here if someone wants to know). However, he realized it and walked away immediately. I am very upset.

But after few hours, he came back and he was conversing with me like nothing happened, but I am still upset. Can you all tell me how to handle this? My options are to ask him if he did that unknowingly or to keep quiet. But I really want to know if he feels sorry for what he said. I really don't want to complain to his superiors, but I want him to apologize to me for what he said. Is this unreasonable? if not, how should I go about dealing with this person?

In your question, However, he realized it and walked away immediately. and But after few hours, he came back and he was conversing with me like nothing happened

indicate to me that he felt sorry and didn't know exactly how to deal with it.

Professors are also human. They make the same mistakes others do.

I would suggest you to talk to him in person about this incident politely and seriously. Tell him that you are upset with the remarks he made earlier and explain to him why. Don't be emotional.

Whether or not he will apologize is up to him. If he doesn't offer apology to you after you talk to him, then talk to his superiors if you want the apology.


Is it possible to do a research on both Computer Science and Law, without a Law Degree? I'm currently a computer scientist, with work experience in both academia and industry. I'm starting to get very interested in the intersection of law and computer science. I do think we really need people that know law and computer science at the same time very well, to decide on the important issues currently we are dealing with.

What is the best way for me to deal with my decision? Do I need a law degree first, before I do research on this matter, If so I should start with an Bsc?; or should I apply for a junior research position in the law department?

You most certainly can work in the intersection without a law degree, and a number of prominent people have done so.  A nice example is Edwina Rissland, who is a well-known expert on machine reasoning about the legal code, and who actually taught at Harvard law school for quite some time without ever having a law degree.  I heard one of her lectures on the subject once, and found it gave me a whole new understanding both about how our law really works and how we humans think about the world.

Do note, however, that without a law degree, you will likely need some collaborators who are lawyers, to help you with their expertise in the subject, just as if you were digging into computational chemistry without being a chemist yourself.  As for how to get into the area... just the same way as you would any other research area.


Graduate School Admissions: Is it worth mentioning in my personal statement for PhD that I have a low (3.3) GPA but a higher (3.67) Major GPA in CS? If I should mention it then what should I write about it or how should I link it with the rest of my statement of purpose?

(I just suck at courses like history and other core humanities and courses which require you to rote learn a lot of stuff)

I don't know if I'm 100% suitable to answer your question, since I have never applied to a US university; however, I can tell you for sure that in all personal statements I've written for UK universities, I've never mentioned my grades. I don't personally see the point in writing about your grades, since they can find out from your transcripts and from the academic references.


What are polite appellations for teachers in British universities? Teachers in primary and secondary school usually are called as Mr.[surname] or Miss/Mrs.[surname]. However, cases in universities are more complex. It seems we need to call a teacher who is a professor professor or prof.[surname], and a teacher who is not a professor but a doctor Dr.[surname]. But not all teachers are professors, so what about

1)one whose name we know but neither a professor or a doctor?

2)one whose name we know but we do not know whether he/she is a professor or a doctor?

3)one whose name we do not know?

Here's an answer based on my experience in the United States.  I don't know how well it generalizes to other countries, but some issues may be similar.

You can't go wrong calling someone Professor or Doctor unless you know for sure that it is inappropriate and they know that you know.

At the college level in the U.S., it's common to refer to your teacher as Professor X regardless of whether their official job title includes the word professor.  (The primary teacher of a college course is considered to be acting as a professor for that purpose, even if their official title is visiting scholar or postdoctoral associate or whatever.)  This may not apply to grad students, but it can cover just about everyone else.

When possible I'd avoid gendered titles like Mr. or Ms., and specifically Ms.  The issue is subconscious sexism: some people tend to use fancier titles to address men than to address women in comparable positions, and calling someone Ms. may make her wonder whether you are one of those people.  (If you are such a person, then you should mend your ways, and even if you're not you could still be mistaken for one.)

On the other hand, Miss and Mrs. are far worse than Ms., because they indicate marital status.  You should never address an academic as Miss or Mrs. unless she has explicitly indicated that this is what she prefers.


How would you, as a teacher, decide if a particular topic/ concept should be tested as multiple-choice questions or as free-response questions? This is probably a very broad question. It might be difficult to find one answer across all disciplines. If anyone could share their personal experiences on how they have designed tests and the thought process behind it, I would really appreciate it.

In the absence of other factors, in my opinion, at least in mathematics, a free response is always the more valuable type of question. The educational value of getting shown, where precisely your argument went wrong is much higher than just being told if the final result was right or not. It also allows for a much finer grading, as I can both give partial points for an almost correct reasoning leading to a wrong answer as well as deduct points for incorrect reasoning leading to the correct answer.
That being said, a test question never happens in a vacuum and the problem usually is lack of time. This can occur in two forms, lack of working time to correct the test and lack of time during the test.
Personally, I believe the former is a bad excuse. Unless you have a 200+ people class without any TAs (in which case, clearly something else is wrong), it is always possible to correct a full-text exam in a reasonable amount of time.
This leaves the latter point. Any exam has a limited duration and it might not be possible to cover all topics in this time. My personal response would be to leave out some of the less important ones at random. As long as the topic selection is not announced to the students beforehand, they still have to study all of them and the results will be similar. But this is a point where a good argument can be made for turning part of the test into multiple-choice. In this case, the most important topics should still all be free-responses, but you could add a small multiple-choice section covering the rest. However as these are not the important part of the test and they are there to save time, I would keep them simple. (E.g. picking the right definition or "does A imply B?") After all, if marking the right answer is not substantially quicker than writing it out, then you are not saving time.
In any case I would always invert the original question. Don't take a concept and decide of it should be multiple choice, but instead decide how many multiple choice questions you have to make and then pick the questions that work best.


Master's degree vs. Master's degree without thesis I'm a doctoral student (in a fully funded applied statistics program) opting for the terminal master's degree with thesis due to personal reasons and the lack of fit in the program. However, I'm unsure whether it is better to write the master's thesis (option #1) or to take the master's degree without a thesis (option #2) - which option best puts me in a position for industry and the possibility of reapplying to a PhD program (in a different field) in a couple years.

Generally PhD programs require a significant amount of research. That being said, a Master's Degree with the Thesis option is a good indicator that you have applied rigorous and reviewed research methods in the past - and is therefore an example of what your future work may be.

As I was advised, "if there is any notion in your mind that you will pursue a PhD later in life - then you should take the Thesis option now."


PhD student, issued contract at year 3 which will sign over intellectual property. Is it legal? I'm EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Science Research Council, the biggest UK funding source in the sciences and engineering) funded. Several months into my PhD an industrial sponsor came along. In exchange for additional funds they wanted me and the other PhD students in our group to spend some time during the PhD at their sites and work on industrial problems. This is known as a CASE award. I'm not sure what the university signed, but I have not signed anything. It was a verbal agreement with my supervisor.

I'm now in my 3rd year and writing up. The industrial sponsor has decided to renew their agreement with the university and just issued me with a contract (it states the university and industrial sponsor have agreed upon additional clauses as of early 2015). The clauses/contract that I've been asked to sign states that I will give the industrial sponsor all my intellectual property (to which I currently own) generated over the course of the last 3 years. It also states that the industrial sponsors will review all publications and stop me publishing anything they think will give them a competitive edge (Note I'm not and have never used any of their data, resources or industrial knowledge/work/ideas etc. this is my own work) - I'm just about to publish the remainder of my PhD and then submit my thesis in the coming months. I was in good position to finish early and focus fully on moving to the industrial site for the remainder of my PhD and work on the projects the industrial sponsors wanted me to look at. Clearly for any projects done while there, the IP would belong to the industrial sponsors - however they want everything, including the stuff I did before they even got involved!

Additionally signing the contract means that they can make my thesis closed - i.e. future employers are not allowed to see it. This could damage my future prospects as I was also looking at work outside of academia and they will no doubt want to know what I've been up to. This was never part of any agreement and I would have never taken on a PhD with these terms. Academia is all about the publishing and the free flow of ideas - this all makes me a very cheap slave!

Legally, where do I stand? I understand that as an employee issued with new contract I would have to either sign or walk away, unless it goes against the heart of the contract. But I'm a student and I'm in the last few months of my PhD, if I walk I get no qualification.

I've been told that they can't make me sign it - but won't go into detail as to whether it will affect my PhD or not? Again I'm EPSRC funded the industrial sponsors have paid me extra around 10% of the EPSRC stipend in exchange for me spending several unpaid months at their site working on projects of their choice. I've been told by my supervisor that it's in my best interest to stop resisting and ultimately sign the contract. Can they do this three years in? Has anyone been through anything like this? Anyone have any advice?

Legally, you can't be made to sign a retrospective, retroactive contract.

Professionally, if your supervisor or the university person responsible for the CASE studentships decided to be obnoxious about it, they could make the completion of your PhD uncomfortable.

As long as you don't need the CASE money or the on-site experience, this looks like a useless deal for you; in your shoes, I'd be minded to talk to my supervisors, then the faculty graduate tutor. Explain without emotion that you didn't sign up for a CASE studentship; ask if they can give you a good reason why you should sign up, because from where you are, it's hard to see any value in it.

They won't want to stop you finishing. You're EPSRC-funded, and having EPSRC-funded students fail to finish causes a problem for the department when it seeks a renewal of the funding. So you do hold quite a lot of the cards, here.

Ultimately, it's going to be a negotiation. It would be very surprising, and rather irregular, if they did sign up with the sponsor having given the sponsor the belief that this contract will retroactively apply to all current PhD students: I've only seen the terms and conditions apply to those students who start their PhD as CASE students. My hunch is that it's more that someone is just trying to get something for nothing - a free rider.


Unhappy with my PhD program in my home country, thinking about applying to another university in UK My problem is a bit unusual and I would love to get some advice…

I'm a first year PhD student in social-sciences and I already got my proposal approved. I moved back to my home country (where I am currently doing a PhD) after completing an undergraduate and an MSc. I am very unhappy here.

I would like to have a future as an academic. The only reason I decided to a PhD in my home country and not abroad was because I was determined to try, stay, and make it work here, but recently I been thinking it was a mistake. I am thinking more and more about discontinuing my program here and applying for doctoral studies in the UK, as a new student (after a bit of online research I found that they rarely accept a transfer and it is best to start as a new student).

I would love to get your thoughts regarding my situation,

I am considering sending an email to a potential supervisor but I am not sure how to explain why I want to drop-out of my current PhD program without talking my university down? How do you suggest I do that?
Did anyone had a similar experience or have some advice?

It happens that people change their PhD programs (I know a few.)

Basically what you lose is:

Time (usually you need to start from the scratch),
Relationship with advisor (the latter is not always the case).

If, for any reason, the first year was bad, it is rather unlikely that the next ones will be better (I have never met anyone who is enjoying PhD more and more with each year...). Moreover, if you don't like it, maybe your advisor does not like it either and eventually you won't be able to finish at all.

But beware - "grass is greener...". You can experience the same problems in other places. So here are the most important things:

What is not working?
Do you have any reasonable argument that in the target place such thing is better?

(Anyway - if you are very unhappy after one year (of 3-5 more years to come), then just change it to another PhD or to something different (don't disregard other careers). It's better to end up with "wasted" years or a "suboptimal" career than hanging on a tree.)

HOW to do that is a different question (or questions - because it involves both application to a new program and quitting your current one). See e.g.:

current PhD applicant applying to another university
Apply to PhD after expulsion from another
Switching from one area of graduate study to another?


Math vs Math Education I have a big decision to make in my life right now, and there seem to be three likely paths I can take.
(1) PhD in Mathematics Education
(2) PhD in Mathematics, with an Education Option
(3) PhD in Mathematics, and just taking graduate education courses as time allows.

For those who are not familiar with things like (2) describes, here are a few examples:
http://www.mathed.soe.vt.edu/Programs/MathPHD_Educationoption.html
https://www.cmich.edu/colleges/cst/math/Pages/Program-Requirements-for-Ph.D.-in-Mathematical-Sciences.aspx (II.2)
https://wmich.edu/math/academics/doctorate

I'm very much interested in both math and math education. Specifically, in math I really enjoy problems in graph theory and discrete/computational geometry. I'm finishing a master's in math this semester.
In math education, while I have completed only two graduate courses, I am completely fascinated by writing cognitively-demanding tasks, interviewing students to observe mathematical problem solving strategies and thought processes, thinking about ways of assessing mathematical understanding, and most recently preservice elementary teacher education.

But which of the three options above would be best? In the long run, I would like to be employable in a mathematics department, with the freedom to do research in math education. Further, I really need a program that is funded and includes a moderate stipend. While many math PhD programs include this financial support package, I have not seen many math education PhD programs that offer similar packages.

Please share your thoughts. Thank you in advance.

As far as I know, university mathematics departments with any kind of significant research focus do not hire people who have a math ed. degree.  You need a math degree if that's where you want to work.   Even the education option will only hurt your chances of getting a tenure track job in a research-oriented math department.

If you do some searching, you'll find that people with math ed phds are generally employed in education departments rather than math departments.


Not willing to pay for a course Hi please tell me if i'm wrong here, I started a course a few years ago, may be 2.

It was an accountancy course, the ACCA. I left the course after 3 lessons out of 10 as the tutor who was supposed to do the course left on maternity leave and was replaced with a foreign (European) tutor who spoke broken English and all she did was try to make small talk jokes. Now I left the course and explained that this wasn't something that I signed up for and now they want £2300 of me. but I'm refusing to pay. Am I right or wrong and if someone can point me in the correct direction on how to proceed.

This seems less like an academic question than a question of contract law.  Nevertheless, for what it's worth, if you are refusing to pay the amount claimed, then presumably the onus will be on the education-provider to sue you for the money, and establish in court that it is a valid debt.  You will have an opportunity to argue that they failed to provide you with the contracted service and that the substituted service was sub-standard.  Whether or not you have a good case will depend on the details of the matter, the specifics of your agreement with the provider, and the commercial laws of the jurisdiction in which this occurred.

If necessary and affordable, you should seek legal advice (from real commercial lawyers - not random guys on academia.SE).


Average length of graduate studies in the UK in the life sciences What would be the usual time spent doing graduate studies (Masters + PhD; courses + research) in the UK for someone studying life sciences?

I am applying for a Junior Research Fellowship in hopes of doing a postdoc in the UK. However, one of the requirements is that I have fewer years of graduate studies behind me than I in fact have. I have other grounds to ask for an exception (pregnancy leave), but I am wondering whether my 2+4 years (Dutch) graduate program is longer than what the typical UK student does. I'm sure that programs vary, but if we were to pick a random UK life sciences postdoc, how many years would he have spent doing graduate studies?

Usually a master's course is 1 year and PhDs are 3 years. There are exceptions to this though, some mphil's being 2 years and some structured PhDs being 4 years. However, it is possible in the uk to go straight to a phd after undergrad. Therefore the number of years of graduate studies varies between 3 and 6, though the average is around 4 if you ignore the special cases.


Math reviews, how to interpret "the summary as review" cases? I am wondering on how to interpret these types of "reviews". As per the guidelines of Math reviews

Two other treatments of items are possible, but should be used sparingly. You may recommend that the item be listed without a published review, or you may recommend that the author's summary be used as the review. In the second case the quoted summary would be given above your signature, to indicate that the summary is being used on the recommendation of the reviewer. If you decide to recommend one of these options, simply put your request in the Review text box (e.g., "Publish without a review", or "Use the summary as my review"). However, in most cases, the mathematics community would prefer an insightful review to either of these two treatments.

From another post here, I understand the first option to mean "do not bother to read this article". I wonder about the second one; a first interpretation could be "everything is correct with this paper and the abstract is good enough to guide the reader". Alternative, it could mean "I didn't bothered to review it".

When I review for MR I often use a paraphrase of the author's summary when it is a good description of what is in the paper. I don't mean that to say "not worth reading" or "I didn't read it". I would probably not use the MR option that merely reproduces the abstract, precisely because it might suggest a negative opinion of the work.
That said, I tend to review short papers that are OK but not earthshaking. A review of an important paper should do more than repeat or rephrase the author's summary.


Latest time to reverse a declined PhD offer Got two PhD offers from universities A and B (in US) and chose B. Because I'm working towards my master's at B, I soon got involved in some research work here. However, the experience turned to be disappointing. I'm now regretting my choice and thinking of contacting school A to see if there's still chance to get that offer back. But:

1) The normal deadline to make the decision (on student's end) is April 15. Now it's already summer, how much chance is still there? I assume that A has most likely finished everything about admission.

2) My current professors at B are well-known in the field and have been very nice to me. After I decided they've also gotten me involved in a number of future plans. Moreover, I've informed a bunch of relevant professors (even including those at A) who asked of my final decision. Would changing my mind this late heavily ruin my credit and academic career?

I feel like at this late stage, simply asking would mean I'm determined for a change, so I would not simply send an inquiry email without figuring out the potential risks...

It is likely that there is no longer a slot open for you. But under the circumstances you state, the latest time to contact them is probably now. Once you declined an offer they moved on and accepted others. If those others have been accepted there is no longer room until the next class.

But if you are willing to wait a year, then you can probably enter the pool again and be considered like anyone else.

However, it also just sounds like a case of "buyer's remorse". Your situation at B sounds like it would work out fine.


IUBH university Msc can give a chance to have a phD in germany? I came accross a Masters of Data Science from the online IUBH university in Germany.
Would this degree grant me the chance to pursue a PhD in Germany? or will it be looked over as a weaker university or a degree with little research experience ?
and if not, does anyone know a better program that would help me through this ?
some background information about me:
I have started working in Germany in the Hardware sector for about 3 years. Almost a year ago i switched to Data Science because i felt i much more motivated working in that discipline. I have a Bachelor of engineering degree which had me study 5 years, granted me the ability to work in Germany (since it has more credits than a Bachelor of science engineering degree) but not a masters degree. It has always been a goal of mine pursuing a PhD, but unfortunately i cannot pursue a Master's degree in Germany without leaving my full time job, which i need to support my family.

The IUBH is not a university, but a "Fachhochschule" (somewhat misleadingly translated as "University of the Applied Sciences" into English). The expected qualification for enrolling into PhD studies at a German university is have a Master from a university. While exceptions to this are possible, degree programmes at Fachhochschulen are meant to prepare for work in industry, not in academia.
The leading distance-learning university in Germany is the FernUniversitaet Hagen (https://www.fernuni-hagen.de/). Their MSc degrees should fully qualify your for subsequent PhD studies. (I am a Hagen-alumnus, and went on to do a PhD in Cambridge after getting my MSc Computer Science from Hagen).


Online Postgraduate (Statistics / Mathematics) I decided to begin an european online Postgraduate (MA, MSc or none) related with Statistics or Mathematics. The restriction of european ones, is because I'm spanish, and the tuition fees are way cheaper that way.

The problem I found is that the Universities that offer these kind of postgraduates are pretty unkown, to the point that I feel a bit doubtful about what I could learn there.

I tried to find some Postgraduates through internet Master searchers, but I found almost no information about online Postgraduates, either because the searchers ignore most european Universities, or because they don't distinguish between online and presencial studies.

My question, therefore, is, what would be the best way to find a Postgraduate of such characteristics.

Open University offers a Masters in Mathematics, available to anyone (even outside UK). See http://www.open.ac.uk/postgraduate/qualifications/f04.

A simple Google search on "masters" "mathematics" and "online" or "distance" gives enough results which you can then cross join with university rankings.

Is there a particular area you would like study? If online only, why restrict yourself to EU? (e.g. there is applied math at UW, Seattle etc).


Dealing with an unhelpful and unresponsive thesis advisor? My thesis advisor is based on another city and we barely had meetings during my master thesis process.  At most three times. He responds very late to my emails and I have to wait weeks sometimes.

But the deadline is approaching and he has to give feedback to me.

(Instead he advised me to find a second advisor from where I work to continue quickly with her and that person helped me ten times as much as the actual advisor did!)

When should I remind him about my emails and that I'm waiting for his feedback? I know they can be busy but I was too alone and isolated in this process except the guidance the second advisor from my workplace..

Ideally, you should make an appointment and meet in person with your advisor. If this is not practical you could send an email to propose a skype meeting or a phone call.

If they don't answer your emails, wait at least a few days and preferably a full week before sending a reminder. If there's really no answer after a couple weeks and the matter is urgent, then try to call them directly in their office (during office hours).


What happens if a math PhD student fails to find a proof that is the main objective of his/her thesis topic? How exactly do Math theses/dissertations work?

Is it fair to assume that the work involves trying to prove something? What happens if you can't?

I did a thesis in Computer Science, and though my results weren't great, I still had something to show. I learned from it and had a plan for future work.

But if you have X years to prove something for, say, a PhD and you can't, what happens? Do you just not get a PhD?

I understand that advisors will try to pick a problem that they think is doable, but what if they misjudge?

I wrote a failed dissertation myself.  No papers resulted from it.  Fortunately, I had a significant side project which was published, and 11 years later, the main thread of my research still comes from this side project.  (I suppose I could have written up the side project as my dissertation instead, but I didn't.)

First, no project is ever a complete failure.  At the very least, you manage to prove some (possibly almost trivial) special cases, you prove some helpful lemmas, you find that certain lemmas you might have hoped would be helpful have counterexamples, and you find certain methods that you might use don't apply because some hypotheses needed to use those methods aren't satisfied in your case.  It's possible to write all of these things up, ending up with a dissertation that's basically about "How not to solve Problem X (except in this very tiny special case)".  (This is basically my dissertation.)

Second, it's rare for mathematics graduate students, especially at top programs, to work on only one problem.  Your advisor might suggest a main problem for you to work on, but you go to seminars and hear about other problems, talk to other graduate students or postdocs and learn about other problems, and so on, and graduate students are generally encouraged to spend at least a little time thinking about these other problems.  If you get stuck on your main problem, you still have other problems to solve, and it's quite common that what you learned to work on your main problem ends up helping you in solving these other problems instead.  (This is basically what happened to me, except this other problem didn't end up in my dissertation.)

Third, especially in the early stages of working on a problem, advisors are usually fairly quick at pulling the hook if it looks like no progress is being made.  Most advisors know of lots of problems, and they know what complete lack of progress due to a problem being too hard looks like.  Even later on, advisors can sometimes suggest simpler problems that can be solved in a shorter time frame (given what a student has already learned).  In some cases, after a few rounds of failed problems, the student ends up with a dissertation that's about as weighty as a half-decent undergraduate research project (and results in zero papers or one paper in a "write-only" journal).

It's true that a dissertation written out of a failed or almost trivial project tends not to bode well in applications for jobs where research matters (unless there is a more substantial side project).  Sometimes an influential or convincing advisor can make a strong enough case in recommendation letters for the student to get a postdoc, but this is harder now then it was 10 years ago given how much more competitive the job market is.


Exact results found, but not reported I am writing a physics paper, and I have decided not to write down explicit equations I have found since they are incredibly long. Instead I just report plots showing the behaviour resulting from these equations.

Is it deprecable to say something like the following?

  We have found analytic results, but we do not report them here for sake of brevity.

Idealistically, a paper should aspire to contain all the information required for reproducing its empirical results and verifying its deductive results with reasonable effort. Just writing the suggested sentence, however, does not allow for this, as someone would have to redo your work on finding those equations from scratch.

This may drastically reduce the usefulness of your paper, as it unnecessarliy increases the amount of work other people have to put in using your results and decreases their perceived soundness (see Fermat’s Last Theorem for an extreme example). This may also be harmful from an egoistical point of view as it does not improve your popularity amongst others in your field and you may receive less citations.

Depending on how exactly your equations were derived and look like, the following ways to include or not include them may be appropriate:

  From [equations derived in the paper] we can obtain closed solutions for [variables] using [standard technique or computer algebra system], which we use in the following.

  From [equations derived in the paper], we obtain closed solutions for [variables] (see Appendix X).

If the target journal does not allow for appendices and has a content limit (in which case it will usually be a letter journal), the following may be acceptable:

  From [equations derived in the paper] we derived analytical results for [variables]. For brevity’s sake, these results are not given here and will be published elsewhere.

Something similar may also be appropriate if you are publishing in a journal of another discipline, e.g., you are publishing in a medical journal as your equations are relevant for an imaging technique.

Either way, it should go without saying that publishing the results elsewhere should be a realistic endeavour and actually be intended. Also, if you are not giving too much away, it would be better in terms of soundness and acceptance to actually publish your analytical work first.

As always, you will likely get a better answer from someone familiar with your work and field, such as your supervisor.


Dissertation proposal before admission: Is it possible? It seems that most universities in Europe require an outline of the planned dissertation at the application stage. I think even choosing the title of a dissertation needs a lot of dialogue between the student and his supervisor. It also requires a thorough investigation on the state of art in the targeted area.

Is such proposal the definite proposal or it may totally be changed after the admission? Can you provide some tips for writing such proposal draft? How much time you think I should devote for such plan (at least)?

I once had to write a thesis proposal for admission to a UK university. It was explained to me that this is more of an entrance exam than an actual proposal. It is also used to gauge whether your interests lie somewhere in the vicinity of what is generally done at the department.

I don't know how other countries or universities work, but I can't imagine that anybody would hold you strictly to a proposal you wrote before becoming a graduate student. It's normal to expect that your research should be adapted along the way based on your findings, even for an experienced researcher.

The proposal I wrote (which was successful) had to be short, so I went with the following format:

Theory so and so implies that A is true
But this other theory suggests that the converse, B, would be true
These could be pitted against each other in an experiment involving so-and-so (details details details)

The time you need entirely depends on your knowledge of the field. It is good to invest quite some time in these things though, as they can really improve a lot the more you think about them. I'd say that it's best to try to finish it a good month before the deadline, and then take a look at it at biweekly intervals to make improvements.