How to deal with failing a student? I supervise a student who is working on her bachelor's thesis. The problem is that she has not delivered anything, never asks for any help, and when I offer her some help she claims that she understands and she will work on it. But nothing really happens afterwards. We (me and my supervisor) talked to her multiple times in different 'intervention'-like sessions, with no success. Now it is the end of the semester and she has done no more than 10% of her assigned tasks.

Also, she never delivers what I ask for, even the most basic of things. For example, all students are supposed to hand in their time plan within two weeks of their work, but she has never handed it in, despite my (and my supervisor's) repeated requests. Not only does handing in a time plan help to keep track of one's work, it is also part of our grading scheme. And she knows about that, since we are very transparent about how grading of the thesis works, by giving the students our grading excel sheet before they even sign up for a thesis with us. Nevertheless, she didn't bother handing a time plan in.

All the other students in our institute have their final presentations next week, and even though she knew of it, she was asking for an extension. When I refused that via email (I saw no reason to give her an extension), she just dropped in, claimed that she is not prepared for a final presentation, and that I have to give her an extension and so on. I eventually gave her an extension, because she was extremely stressed and not in normal conditions, was almost breaking into tears, and most importantly made a scene in the institute hall. I played a little tough though, by asking her to give me an exact delivery date within two days.

I have even asked my colleagues and fellow PhD students multiple times if they think there is something wrong with my supervision of her, but they always assured me that there is nothing wrong with that and it's about her personality/character (we have a very transparent culture in our group, so we criticize each other openly). Also, my former students gave positive feedback to my adviser regarding my supervision. I even made my supervisor ask her privately about quality of my supervision, and she gave him positive feedback!

Moreover, she also has an exercise class with me, and she was the only student playing computer games on the lab computer instead of working on her exercise. She knew that I (her thesis supervisor) can see her, but she didn't bother. That, I have to say, was the last nail in the coffin.

Given this background, I already know that she cannot (will not) deliver, no matter how much time I gave her. Thus, she will almost certainly fail her thesis. But on the other hand I feel very bad failing a student in her first big project, especially since if she fails she will probably need to study one more semester to finish her studies.

Now I am struggling with these three options:

Wait for two days, and if she doesn't give me an exact delivery date (which she probably won't), just give her a fail grade.
Give her an extension for ten days or two weeks, and then grade her based on what she delivers eventually, which most probably is a fail grade anyhow.
Give her a longer extension, long enough for her to pass the thesis.

I would be glad if anyone can give me some recommendations on how to deal with this situation.

PS: For all people asking if I was allowed to give her an extension: Of course I was. Otherwise I would have a very good reason for refusing her request. In our university supervisors have lots of freedom in how they want to deal with their students.

Wait for two days, and if she doesn't give me an exact delivery date (which she probably won't), just give her a fail grade.

Given that you already agreed to this extension, this is the only option you have. Do this.

Honestly, you should not even have agreed to this extension. I understand that you were under stress when you agreed to it, but students making a scene will happen more often to you in the future, and at some point you will get inured to it.

  I feel very bad failing a student in her first big project,
  especially since if she fails she probably need to study one more
  semester to finish her studies.

This seems to be your real question. Unfortunately, there is really no way around this dilemma. If someone persistently does not deliver assignments and refuses all offers of help, failing them is the only option. Anything else will make a mockery of the entire system of higher education. (And be sure that other students will notice.)

Look at it this way: if you pass her, and she gets a degree, what will her employer do with her if she continues this way? They will fire her, and quickly so.

It appears that this students needs some serious help and counselling. It appears like you already did all you could do in this regard. I would recommend that you wait for two days, fail her if she does not hand in the date, and write up an explanation like you did here. Send this explanation to her in writing. Explain that it appears she is not ready to take a course like yours. Direct her to any counselling resources available at your institution. Keep a copy of this explanation for your file, in case she escalates this to your department head/dean/whatever.

Then do not enter into any further discussions with her, unless she retakes your course.


I want to leave my tenure track position before fall. I have great prospects but no new position "locked up": when should I break the news? I am a relatively new tenure track faculty member at my school. For many reasons, I am certain I want to leave my current position. All of my reasons are professional reasons; there are no relocation issues or anything like that.

I do not have a new position lined up but I am being actively recruited and feel that having a new position by the fall is a near-lock. Regardless, my finances are strong and, outside of good personal relationships with a couple colleagues, I have absolutely no hesitation about leaving this position.

One issue for my department is that some of my future classes are "important" (required classes that, right now, only I am qualified to teach). I do not want to put them in an unnecessarily difficult position. Therefore, my main question is:

when should I break this news? Given my certainty about this decision, should I tell them ASAP?
Or, should I follow the general logic that one should never leave a position without a new job lined up? What if this means waiting two more months, REALLY leaving them in a tough spot for covering my "important" fall classes?

As a secondary question:

any advice about how to break this news? Some of my reasons are related to the way the program is run and the behavior of some of my colleagues. Should I go into this, or should I simply say that the position turned out the be a poor fit and that I must move on?

Giving notice in 6 weeks time gives them the entire summer to replace you. Wait as long as you can to give your potential next department the time to make you a formal offer. As soon as you have accepted it, tell your current department chair. Don't do it before you have the offer in hand and have accepted. Unless you outright resign effective tomorrow, your current department may assume you are fishing for a counter offer, a raise, or early tenure. Without waiting until you have accepted the potential offer, you may end up burning even more bridges through this process even if you deny that you are trying to force your current department to upgrade you. If you don't walk out the door immediately, then you will have to spend the next several weeks being around your current colleagues. Wait until the semester is over and you have completed your obligations for the spring at the very least.


PhD supervisor is extremely "hands-off": How can I get better feedback for my research projects and cope with this situation? I'm currently a PhD student at a US University. The relationship between my advisor and me is extremely hands off, and she only contacts me to help write grants and to review papers. While she does try her best to fund her students (including me), she doesn't respond to my emails, doesn't give me any feedback on my research updates, doesn't give any feedback on my papers, and doesn't appear to care about my career. I've had to strike it on my own on everything I do, and it's honestly getting exhausting.

I want to switch advisors but am approaching the end of my third year without any major conference papers and feel that it's too late to change my advisor. All of my paper submissions have so far gotten rejected, and getting any feedback from her is impossible. That, plus the fact that the coronavirus fried up the job market in tech just makes me feel completely powerless and desolate. What do I do?

Its never too late to switch labs/advisors if your current trajectory isn't going towards where you want to see yourself in the future. Every advisor has their own way to guide students, be it "Hands-on" or "Hands-off". From my experience, I believe early career researchers who are just tenured or people who are in the process of putting together their tenure package could have a lot of things on their plate. That being said, here are a couple of things you could think of doing, but this is just an opinion and it is up to you to figure out what works best in your situation.

Talk to Senior students/Alumni from your research group

Talking to people who have had the experience to work your advisor could inform you a lot about how and why your advisors respond to you. If there is a certain work ethic/pattern that is preferred, you would have to adapt to it given that you want to continue in this field of research. Most theory/experimental labs that are larger force the advisors to adopt a "hands-off" style. But, in most of these cases, there would be a support system in the form of smaller sub-groups where Senior students and post-docs work with junior students mentoring them on their projects. In such a scenario, advisors usually are concerned about broader questions about the research direction and mostly rely on senior students to train you.

Have a frank conversation with your advisor

Its never too late to communicate your needs to your advisor. There would always be some room to accommodate genuine requests. Manier times its just the communication gap between advisors and students that leads to problems. Coming out clear about each others' expectations could help you build a healthy relationship with your advisor. Because, if you plan to be around in academia for a while then you should know that student-advisor relationships go far beyond the regular 5-6 years Ph.D. time. In some cases, this could also lead to some amicable solution with your advisor where you could possibly move to another lab.

Changing Research Advisors

Being a 3rd-year student, I believe you would have already taken your qualifiers(become a PhD candidate). This would also mean that you already have your research-committee that would have been set up to monitor your progress. In some cases, you could benefit a lot more by talking to members of your committee or senior professors in your department to get feedback about your work. But, you should definitely reach out to your advisor about your needs.  If you don't get a positive response from your advisor, you should be reaching out to the research committee and then the Graduate studies committee. It is their responsibility to intervene in case the mentor/mentee relationship begins to go south.


About the job prospects and skills learned during physics/math PHD I am nearing the end of my degree (which is equivalent to a double major B.Sc in mathematics and physics) and the time has come to specialize in a field. The chliche is almost obvious, I am having a hard time choosing between studying:

Fundamental physics; high-energy theory. Due to the lack of knowledge I cant be more specific.
Mathematics; Mostly of the analysis sort (in the intersection of geometry, functional analysis, probability). Perhaps with a more applicable touch.

I have not considered anything else. CS / engineering do sound nice and exciting, but I know too little about either to determine if I may enjoy them.

To make sure this isn't the standard "math vs physics" topic; I will attempt to detail as much as I can, and pose answerable questions.

After lengthy contemplation, I am still unable to realize towards where each academic degree would lead me. Academia is an option, but, adopting a more realistic point of view, the number of positions is small and I cannot foresee whether I will still like academia. This pushes me to explore other possibilities. Fortunately (or unfortunately) I have enjoyed both topics very much, and studied them with success.

To avoid unnecessary repetitions, in the rest of my post, physics would mean high-energy physics (phenomenology or theory). Math would mean geometry, functional analysis, probability.

What skills, applicable outside of physics/math, does one acquire in physics/math PhD?
What can a physics/math student do during their PhD to increase their job applicability? I refer to this What skills can I get during a PhD to be competitive on the job market against non-PhD holders? but would like to note that the former is broader, as the possible PhD there is not mentioned.
When physics/math PhDs leaves academia, they would rebrand  themselves, for example, as engineers or data scientists. How difficult such a transition is? Asking friends, professors and searching through the internet shows they get to high-tech, big data, financial trading. But more specifically, how could a theoretician/mathematician develop the skills to become, for instance, chief engineer (maybe simply engineer)?
Are these degrees appreciated outside of academia? For comparison, let's say CS and engineering are appreciated. How bad does math/physics compare to them? I apologise this question is not very subjective, but I get the feeling that although people who go through these programs are capable of dealing with such abstract concepts - they are disregarded outside of academia.
Studying any of these, can you get involved in developing algorithms fairly easily? What about AI? This sound like things I would like to do if academia doesn't work out for me.

I find this: MS degree after a PhD in physics demoralising, but would like to understand what I should expect. Expiriences like that probably answer some of my questions, and are very welcome.

As a preamble, I don't quite understand why you suggest that fundamental physics is connected to high energy physics since the bulk of recent foundational experiments have been done with lasers and atoms, but to each his/her own.

The large majority of physicists work in industry and do quite well, as you can see from the salary chart below (source).

Employment tends to be related to solid state technology, information technology or optical technology (the areas that produce the largest number of graduates) but even graduates in less industry-obvious specialities like high energy physics find industry jobs.

The running joke is that a physics and an engineering graduates are sitting next to each other at a graduation ceremony.  The engineer is happy to get a degree, but the physicist replies that he (because there aren't that many female graduates) not only got a degree but also an education.

PhDs in physics have a capacity to reason abstractly and comfortably deal with the abstract.  As a PhD candidate, you will have to learn a good deal of programming on various operating systems.  You will be faced with challenges of data integration (or data fusion) and data interpretation, understanding filtering of data etc (especially true if you do high-energy phenomenology); these are but examples of a number of techniques that have wide direct industrial applications, irrespective of the field you specialize in.

Transitioning to industry is not necessarily hard, but you will not get an industry job because your thesis was on 10-dimensional supersymmetry: some flexibility is required.


My work is being used without acknowledgement So I was helping a friend of mine out with his master thesis, as he had no idea about a specific topic in which I had a few years of industrial experience. However, he had no idea about what I was talking about, so I coded a lot of his solutions for him (this is in the field of signal processing, so the programming part is quite important).

Now I find out that he has directly used my code in his thesis and plans publications with this code, all without acknowledging or crediting my contribution in any way. Talking to him yielded no results, as he is convinced that he is right, and since he edited and rewrote my code he doesn't need to acknowledge me. Is this ethical? Is there anything I can/should do?

If as you report, it is a clear ethical breach. It should be mentioned to his professor. But you will want proof of the case, such as your old codes or emails via which you corresponded.

The reasons for not doing this are largely political, if you need a relationship with this prof (or the student) and think this will jeopardize it.

But if  you want acknowledgement only, perhaps telling the other student that you plans to make a class for plagiarism with his professor may be enough to get him to behave better - at least this time. You could even send him the paragraph of acknowledgement that you would expect him to include.

However, be careful here to avoid any claim that might be construed as slander. In making the case talk/write about what you contributed without characterizing his behavior. Just the facts, not accusations. If he refuses to do the right thing you could, perhaps, simultaneously send a case file to him and the professor.


What name should I give to be acknowledged in a paper? I am a first year PhD student and I was recently working on reproducing some results from a paper which is still being reviewed. In the process I noted a number of issues with the paper which should be clarified or fixed. I have been asked how I would like my name to appear in the acknowledgements. My full legal name is Kristian Tyn-Kai Chung, but I do not ever use the name Kristian, I have always gone by Kai to everyone I know besides by mother and grandmother who call me Kristian (with a Norwegian pronounciation). Should I use my full name? First and last? Should I use Kai? Any suggestions appreciated.

If you have already published papers, then use the same name as on your papers.

If you haven't, then now is a good time to decide what you want your "professional name" to be.  There's no particular need for it to match your legal name.  You might just think about what you want people to call you in academic or professional situations.  (And if it's a common name, you may want to choose a more unique variant; e.g. including a middle name or initial.)

But if possible, choose something that you think you'll be comfortable using for the rest of your career. It's awkward to change your professional name, because you can't go back and change your name on papers you've already published, and people will have  a hard time connecting the work you've done under the two names.

(This matters less for an acknowledgment, though, since it's not really that important for people to know that it's the same person as on your later papers.  So you don't actually have to worry about it too much right now.  But it's a decision you'll have to make eventually; might as well do it now if you're ready.)


Considering applying for a third PhD Program after having bad experiences in two I am totally lost and devasted mentally and physically, I have been in a program and left after one year because of lack of experiment as well as racist supervisor. I have accepted to lower job in other country to sustain living until I got another phD in different country with the same subject, now I am seven months in and had a qualifier today, one of the examiners didnot understand what I am doing and cannot judge and they decided to have another qualifier in three months which I wasnot expecting, normally every student pass the qualifier.

The project coordinator was offensive to me and to me mani supervisor who is nice.

The project lack of experimental data and that is the curse of interdisciplinary project. I saw a lot of red flags happening and it is hard to taken in since i am alone and also worked hard and having a side activity related to the field which is successful.

I hope you can advise me as I really need support, I asked them to leave since we dont have data we cannot validate.

I have received an offer from other university where a supervisor wants me to join and he said I can do all the experiment I want.

I am crying because I stucked with two wrong places, I am actually working at university at my homecountry and I have to get PhD for returning,but now it seems I have to start all over again.

I am hitting 29,  and I see it is failure for me to experience, I hope I can chatt with someone for help in figuring out what is the problem as I really need it.....

I guess I don't understand your dilemma. You have an offer. If it seems better than your current situation overall, you should consider taking it. Your age is not material to such questions. You will eventually be 50 and then 70, if you are lucky, no matter what your choice is now.

If you've been misused in the past, don't let it color your decisions.

But, make a list of the positives and negatives of each possibility and then choose what seems to be best.


Are studies published in conference proceedings well-regarded in social sciences fields (e.g., psychology)? First, a bit of context. I have a BA in psychology and an MSc in an interdisciplinary field (educational sciences/learning analytics) that is a combination of psychology, educational sciences and computer sciences. I am completing a PhD in this same interdisciplinary field with a research group that is technically under the Engineering and Computer Science faculty of our university. My supervisor and all my colleagues have degrees in psychology (i.e., none of us are computer scientists).

I am about to finish a cumulative dissertation made up of:

a literature review published in a high impact factor journal
an extension of the literature review published in the proceedings of the annual conference in our community.
a quasi-experiment that will be published in the proceedings of the annual conference in our community.

The international research community in rather small (about 300-400 people attend the annual conference). The acceptance rate to the annual conference is quite low (average 30% of 400 full paper submissions are accepted). I quite like that it's small and interdisciplinary, but it does raise a few questions as to what constitutes a proper publication. I have plenty of colleagues who consider themselves computer scientists and they consider conference proceedings to be publications. However, my psychologist colleagues tell me that journal articles are still much better than conference proceedings.

Does anyone have any insight on how well-regarded conference proceedings are in social sciences? More specifically, should I be worried about hurting my chances of getting a postdoc position in psychology-leaning research groups because I don't have any experiments published in an academic journal?

I have worked at the intersection of psychology, educational sciences and computer sciences and there was always friction between the computer scientists who wanted to publish in conferences and the non-computer scientists who wanted to publish in journals. I think most psychologists who deal with computer scientists know about the conference culture, and most computer scientists that deal with psychologists know about the journal culture. That said, I believe, it is much easier for a computer scientist to get an idea about how competitive a journal is compared to a psychologist trying to understand how competitive a conference proceeding is.

If your plan is to stay in Psychology and you have the choice about conference or journal publications, then all things being equal, go with journal publications. If you want to go to the conference or you are getting pressure to publish in conference proceedings, then it is no big deal, although, there are even differences between conference proceedings and journals in computer science so you probably want to prove you can write/publish a full article.


Possible to change supervisor for Ph.D defense in Germany? Currently I have reached the final stage of my Ph.D study in Germany. Nevertheless, I want to find a new supervisor within the same university or in other German university for Ph.D defense, is this possible?

Long story short, due to the fact that my current supervisor could provide hardly any technical advice nor funding support for my PhD project in the last 2-3 years, the relationship between us became unpleasant and I seldom communicate with him (what can I expect?). Few months ago he told me that he would cancel the duty of supervision because of poor communication, but I can still defense my thesis under his name. I guess the actual reason why he was mad because I was not giving him the source codes of my work (literally for free).

Now my Ph.D thesis is almost finished (time mainly spent on numerical solvers programming based on open-source codes), and I want to find some professor who could at least give me some advice for my final work, and finish my Ph.D defense within 3-6 months. Assuming my future supervisor would agree with this (potentially continue working with him/her after the defense), but does this violate some regulations for Ph.D degree which requires someone staying in the university for a minimum period of time (e.g. enrolled semesters).

Most universities that I'm familiar with require an enrollment period of at least one year for doctoral students. Many additionally stipulate that this be an "on-campus" residency—that is, you can't be working offsite for a company or at another school.

So you definitely need to check the regulations of anyone who would agree in principle to such a deal.

However, it is also worth considering the possibility that such a situation is one that a lot of faculty members would be reluctant to agree to participate in. Part of the reason for this is optics: they don't want to be seen as having "poached" another professor's graduate student, even if the reasons for doing so were benevolent. They may agree to a "co-supervision" situation instead, since that doesn't quite come across as badly.


How to decline a postdoc interview if there is some possible future collaboration? I am applying for post-doc position. I was invited for two interviews on close dates. I already did the first one and got the job. I am going to accept the offer because the research is very nice, the institution has high publication-records and it is closer to my family. Unfortunately one of the tasks at this post-doc requires close collaboration with the second interviewer. My question is:

how to inform the second interviewer that I got a post-doc position already?
Should I go to the interview anyway, although I know I am going to reject the offer?
Could I say something like:

  Dear blablabla, In the past few days I was offered to work somewhere and I think I am going to accept the offer for personal reasons, but in any case, as our research is going to be close I would like to use my "interview-time" for giving a talk and know the research being conducted at your institute better?

Some of my colleagues told me that they have had very bad experience while rejecting job's offers or interview, so please, let's me know if you have been in a similar situation and which way you think is the less "harmful"?

Don't go -- it's a waste of everyone's time if you go to an interview without any intention of taking the job. People get (rightfully) more upset about you wasting their time than you not wanting a job because you've already found one elsewhere.

Besides, if you will be required to collaborate with the person with whom you were to have your second interview, they (i) may have personal contacts with the research group where you accepted the job, (ii) may already know that you took the first job, and (iii) will need to be among your friends. Simply inform them that you took the first job (and not beat around the bush by saying "somewhere" or "think I am accepting" when you have already accepted). Offering to come anyway for a collaboration or a seminar is fine.


Proof error found in accepted conference paper - what to do? I am a 3rd-year computer science PhD student and I have recently written and submitted a paper to a theoretical conference. It has been accepted; but the reviews were not very in-depth. Usually they were of the form:
"I didn't check the proofs but the statement sounds reasonable."

Now I have to say that we work on a very complicated topic in which there are maybe just a few experts worldwide; and even for those it would have probably taken them a few weeks if they were to check the proofs in depth. In light of this I was not very surprised that most of them just took a quick glance.

While preparing the presentation, however, I myself noticed a mistake which is not easily solvable. I did find a solution, however, that keeps the main proof structure intact, but one of the main definitions has to be changed.

I asked my professor what we should do about the paper, and he said to leave it be and publish the corrected version in a journal later. However, I still feel kind of uneasy pretending as if nothing happened. What would be the ethical approach? I realize that it is probably not possible to "stop the presses", but should I notify the conference organizers about it in any way? Or should I mention it in my talk?

This is what errata are for.

I had something like this happen to me with one of my early papers.  For that paper, I knew the result was likely to be significant, so I knew I did not want to let the paper stand with an error in it.  It was too late to correct for the conference proceedings, but I could correct the archival version that ended up in the ACM Digital Library, and I did.

Every (reputable) publisher has its own procedure for dealing with errata; you just need to figure out what it is and follow it.  Following this process is likely to be somewhat long and annoying, but if it's important to you to get it right, there's no reason not to do so.


Is it advisable (or even possible) to get a second masters in a similar field from a higher-ranked instution? In May, I will graduate with a Master's Degree in Mathematics from a school ranked #201 in the U.S (for undergraduate education). It is unranked in graduate school rankings (for my program).

I am excelling in my current program with research focus in mathematical biology.

My goal: I would like to get my Ph.D. from a top-5 institution.

Assuming I don't succeed in my goal directly, is it advisable or even possible to pursue a second Master's degree in mathematical Biology, from a second-tier institution, and then apply for a Ph.D. at a top-tier institution?

It is possible to get second masters degree in a similar or related field. Doing so might even help with getting into a top PhD program.

That said, where you did your master(s) degrees is not the key to the kingdom or even the most important thing in your PhD application. Demonstrating that you are smart, hardworking, and excellent at research should be your goal. Another masters from a "better" University might help toward that end but it's hardly the only or best way.

Focus on doing excellent research, publishing that work in excellent scholarly venues in your field, and getting excellent letters of recommendation from people that are known and respected in the field. If you do those things, and if you also have good grades and test scores, you'll be a strong candidate for any PhD program. I have seen people build that portfolio as an undergrad, in a masters program, as research staff at a university, or even in industry. What you do matters at least as much as where you do it.


first round submission VS second round submission in academic conferences I submitted a paper for an academic conference, and I have been accepted but the reviewer asked for modifications. But I am confused on when I should send the final paper (it's not specified on the notification of acceptance)

Here's what it's written in the conference website:

2nd Round Submissions:

Paper Submission: 30 August 2018

Decision Notification: 15 September 2018

Author Registration & Final Paper: 25 September 2018

1st Round Submissions:

Paper Submission: 10 July 2018

Decision Notification: 10 August 2018

Author Registration & Final Paper: 10 September 2018

So, do I send the final paper 10 September 2018 or 30 august 2018? Thank you!

Not knowing the actual system used, nor their history, I can only assume that if you submitted in the first round then nothing in the second round description applies to you at all. Your final paper would be due by 10 September.

It seems as if the conference, in having two rounds, is protecting itself against not having sufficient accepted papers in one round and so permits authors to send papers late for possible review.

If I'm correct, and it seems likely, they want the final paper before they need to make decisions about the second round on 15 September.

If they had wanted you to "resubmit in the second round" they would, I hope, be explicit about that and wouldn't have talked about your paper being "accepted".

You can ask the program committee for clarification, of course. But earlier is better in any case.


What are the pros and cons of teaching multiple sessions of the same course? Teaching at least two courses is necessary in my institution.
Because of a very busy schedule and lack of time for doing my other academic duties for the next semester, I am thinking about teaching multiple sessions of the same course (in the same day) for the next semester. The course is the freshman calculus if that matters. The good thing is that the course has many TA's and they grade the exams. In each session (in a big amphi) about 300 students are enrolled.
I taught this course at least 6 or 7 times in the past (only one session) without problem.

I write this to ask what are the pros and cons of teaching multiple sessions of the same course?
I ask this question because I have never taught a same course in multiple sessions.
I found this link
http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/teaching-multiple-sections-of-the-same-course/38472

But I would like to ask your opinion about this. Especially your personal experience would be helpful to me.

Sometimes when I teach two courses with some similarities (e.g. some intersection between their topics), at times I get confused, I think I have covered some topics in one of them, but in fact I have not covered it. Fortunately I ask the students about that. But for an identical course I don't know what arrives.

This is only one aspect of my question. Feel free to give your opinion about other pros and cons.

I've done this.  The big con is it can be incredibly boring, but maybe that's just me.  And agreed, what did I say to the one class and not the other?!  The big pro is it can help you refine your materials and teaching methods.  I've had two of the exact same classes taught in the exact same way produce very different results.

Write some things down before you start.  If nothing else this becomes a checklist to get you through the semester.  Goes a long way to keep from getting confused about what you did or didn't cover.


Without teaching experience, but industry experience, how can I begin teaching at college level? I have a desire to teach at one of the colleges/universities in my area. I think my experience in industry and my own educational background would be an asset to an IT program. However, I'm finding that when looking for positions, all require previous teaching experience. This requirement exists at the technical college, local community colleges and two universities in my area.

I'd like to start by teaching a night class or two. How does one go about translating valuable industry experience (combined with Bachelor and Masters degrees) to the teaching requirements that are desired by the institutions?

I've seen community colleges hire people with less than a master degree to teach IT. These people did have quite a few industry certifications, held respectable positions in the local community, etc.  I heard people at the school saying "If anyone questions that person's qualifications, we have enough to support our decision." The CC in question was in a very small town, which I think had  a lot to do with that decision.

In the end, your qualifications might be just fine. The issue is whether a school needs someone. The only way to know the answer to that question is to ask. Meet with the appropriate people at some local schools and explain your situation. It is quite common for schools to use adjuncts: partly because they are cheaper, and partly because they have current industry experience.

I have never seen a school which is angry when presented with an additional labor choice. So, you do no harm by scheduling a meeting to see if they would be interested.

As far as the teaching experience, that is more easily gained than you might think. You can see my answer here to a related question.


When does the "run, don't walk to the nearest exit" advice not apply to graduate students? From reading the many, many questions here on Academia.SE, I sometimes wonder when is the "run, don't walk to the nearest exit" type of advice unreasonable and not applicable?

For instance, when I have just gotten out of a tough, intensive hours long meeting with my advisor, I often feel "abused", embarrassed, or worn out mentally; and I start to come on this site and read about other students' experiences, and the details they provide start to sound very familiar to my own experiences.

But I wonder if advisors are just pushing their graduate students to become better, and perhaps that students just don't have the right sense of what is expected of them and need to be forced to learn it properly.

What distinguishes tough, intense advising, with good intentions, from "real" abuse / malicious activity on the part of the advisor?  I find that it's sort of hard to tell who's being whiny or who's being legitimately used and abused and need to escape their situation immediately.

Whether a situation is abusive or not is in no way dependent on the intentions of the advisor. Terribly abusive people think they are being "tough but fair" all the time.

Different people also have different reactions to the same situation. A situation that motivates one student to do better can be destructive to another. I would question that it's even your place to evaluate if other people are being "whiny" or not - you never have enough information to know what it's doing to them.

To evaluate your situation, ultimately what you want to know is if you are getting enough out of your situation to make it worthwhile. Long hours and feeling worn out are a function of workload, mainly. If you want to pursue an academic career, the kind of output required can probably not be achieved without a heavy workload. On the other hand, I have never come out of a meeting with my advisor embarrassed - at minimum, that might indicate that you and your supervisor's styles do not mesh. Another question is, how long do these feelings persist? The next day, do you feel like you are on a better path towards your thesis than before? Do you dread the next meeting?

A common and often extremely destructive feature of abuse is distortion of reality. You start to feel like things are normal even when they are really not. It is therefore most helpful to talk about these things to as many people not from your group as you can - make friendships with people who have different advisors! If your university offers therapy appointments, it can also be very helpful to go in a few times a year to talk these things over with a neutral party.


Why do some universities refuse to issue duplicate diplomas? Many universities have a policy of not issuing a duplicate diploma for a degree, unless your original copy is incorrect, damaged, or lost.

One example:

  University Policy forbids the issuance of multiple copies of a diploma. Each diploma is considered a one-of-a-kind legal document.
  http://www.queensu.ca/registrar/diploma-replacements

Another example:

  Replacement Graduation Diploma

  A graduation diploma will be replaced in the following cases:

  When a diploma has been lost or damaged.
  When the name of the holder has been changed under the regulations for the change of name process as per University records.

  Return of the original diploma with the request is required if the reason for replacement is due to damage or an official name change.
  In cases of lost or destroyed diplomas, the holder must submit a Statutory Declaration (form available below) to the University Registrar and have it signed and sealed by a Notary Public*, legally swearing that the original diploma has been lost or destroyed. The condition of the reissuance of a diploma in cases of loss or destruction is that if the original should be found at any time, the replacement diploma must be returned to the Registrar’s Office at Carleton University for cancellation.

  http://carleton.ca/registrar/academic-evaluation/replacement-diploma/

The most explicit example:

  Stanford University will not issue duplicate diplomas under any circumstances. This measure is taken to protect Alumni from identity theft. If your diploma was permanently lost or destroyed, a replacement diploma may be ordered from the Office of the University Registrar. You must fill out the Replacement Diploma Form, have it signed by a Notary Public ...

  (PDF) The Stanford diploma is a unique document; neither copies nor duplicates are available.
  https://registrar.stanford.edu/students/diplomas/replacement-diplomas

But then, there are other universities that have no, such, restrictions on duplicate diplomas.

The inconsistent policies between universities seem to suggest that some see it as a problem and some do not. Why would duplicate diplomas be a problem in practice?

My speculation, with no evidence provided:

Giving a duplicate diploma to another person who coincidentally has the same name as you?
This rule was born in an era before telecommunications and online services? You physically carried and showed your diploma to prospective employers and academic admissions officers?

It comes down to what the theory is about what a diploma is.  Some consider it a piece of paper that you can hang up and not an explicit representation, some consider it a legal document.  (Having degrees and working in Higher Ed for 20 years, often with various policies including those of Registrar's offices gives me some insight.)

Reasons for the policy:
These policies are based on legal theory or precedence regarding identify theft and legal documentation.  Schools with a higher 'reputation' or a better 'ranking' will have more restrictive policies to protect themselves.

Queens U, above, states "Each diploma is considered a one-of-a-kind legal document."

If you give/sell a copy to someone to attempt to represent themselves as having a diploma, then it might be fraud.

What is the difference between having two originals, and simply saying 'I lost my original, can I buy another?'  --  It could be quantity. If you can go to a web site, pay $40 each and buy 100, then sell them all on Ebay with a "custom name" for $500, that's fraud.  The schools are attempting to protect themselves in a few ways.
Here's a sample of a fake diploma for sale:
http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/fns/5668595297.html

Here's a list of real diplomas for sale:
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xdiploma+degree.TRS0&_nkw=diploma+degree&_sacat=0

People lie on resume's and they lie with diplomas.

Reasons why such restrictive policies are nonsense:
IANAL, though, legal documents often have multiple copies, both original and duplicate.  Ever buy a house?  It is normal to have to sign multiple 'originals' of the contract documents.

What is the difference between having two originals, and simply saying 'I lost my original, can I buy another?' regardless of whether the original is lost.

If you have a diploma, and you make a photocopy, frame it, and hang it in your office, and keep the original in a fire-safe, seems ok to me.

For degree verification, I've been asked to provide official, sealed, stamped transcripts, not a copy of the diploma.

In summary - the policies will vary based on laws, precedence, legal theory, and/or policy.


Is it normal for a PhD candidate to be dissatisfied with their PhD thesis topic, if the field is not hot? I am a 2nd year PhD student in Germany. I am working on computational mechanics. It is on modeling the mechanical behavior of a composite coating. My background is metallurgical engineering. When I had started with the research, I was very interested in the field. It's a field which was a hot research area a decade back, but now it's not.

As time went by, l have grown unsure of the implications of my research. I feel that my research is wasteful as I would never be able to publish in top journals like Nature and Science. As my research area does not belong to a hot field. I feel that I should have researched a bit more about the research area before coming for PhD. I think I made a poor decision.

All these concerns make me distracted and unenthusiastic about my work. I feel that even if I graduate, I won't be able get any good academic positions.

Are these concerns common among PhD students?

From your question it seems that the only reason you chose computational mechanics was because it was "hot", and you are now regretting your decision because the field is no longer "hot" and thus it's hard to publish in high-impact journals. This is the wrong approach, not just because it's impossible to predict what topic will be "hot" when you enter the job market. More importantly, as a general principle, you should choose a research topic that you are really passionate about. Since doing a PhD is a long, hard, tedious, and sometimes frustrating experience, you will be miserable if you do not actually love your research. What matters at this point to you is not whether such dissatisfaction is common; rather, you should carefully reconsider your decision to enter the field in the first place and reevaluate your values and priorities. Such introspection will help you decide your next step. Depending on which stage you are in your PhD career, switching to an entirely different field might be the best choice.


Group members barely doing any work but studying a lot for exams As a university student, how should I deal with students in our group who barely do any work, albeit they study a lot to get good grades in their exams?

We've talked to them, but they are convinced they are actually doing stuff (but most times, when we do face-to-face work, all they do is to sit there awaiting for the project to be completed).
When we're not doing face-to-face work, they simply slack.

Should I let the professor know? Quit the group by my own whilst handling my own version of the project? Or what should I do?

There are basically 3 options I can personally see:

Do nothing

Normally with this kind of assessment there is some scaling of marks based on effort/share of the work. If the professor has indicated that, I would personally do nothing.

Talk to the professor

If you are still concerned about the group effort, talk to your professor about it. It's likely this activity is designed to help you navigate group dynamics and your professor will likely be all too happy to help you learn.

Talk privately/one to one with the 'offending' party

If you feel that neither 1 or 2 is appropriate, try talking to them directly. Try not to confront them. Instead, look for reasons they may not be contributing as much. Perhaps they feel unable to contribute. Listen to them. If they feel they are already contributing enough or that everything is 'done', maybe suggest additional things they can do. The main thing to remember is to try and persuade and listen rather than accuse.


How detrimental is involvement in politics to a scientific career? I am an undergraduate student in the hard sciences, and am thinking of pursuing a research career after graduation. I am also quite politically involved on the left, and have political articles published online. I am critical of many governments (including my own) and corporations, and of many of the applications of technology in fields I am interested in.

My politics are very important to me, and I could not give them up. That said, I often worry about how they could be detrimental to my career, especially before I'm already established. I worry, for instance, that grad school admissions would Google my name and find my views and affiliations, and that this would negatively impact my chances to get in. How realistic is this fear?

I will direct my answer at an American academic career in the sciences.

You certainly have a right to make your political opinions known.  Unfortunately the internet makes it possible (indeed, trivial) to search through every public remark someone has ever made, and this means that everyone can be held to a higher level of scrutiny in this regard than in the past.  As others have said, there are situations in which remarks people have made have had a negative impact on their academic career.  Most academics believe that "academic freedom" should ensure immunity from retribution for a range of such political remarks...but certainly not all of them.

In fact, it is not entirely clear what constitutes a political remark as opposed to something else.  For instance, one of Steven Salaita's tweets was

  Israel: transforming 'antisemitism' from something horrible to something honorable since 1948.

This is taken from this article in which he explains the context.  The additional context he provides convinced me to view it is as a truly political remark that should come under the protections of "free speech" and "academic freedom".  However, without that context....in that it contains the claim that antisemitism is honorable, it looks pretty bad.  If my colleague had posted this and asked me to defend his right to keep it there, I would on the contrary ask him to take it down.

Here are some thoughts on how to be politically active in a way which is not to the detriment of one's academic career:

Don't post on twitter.

Really, "don't post on twitter" seems close to being universally good advice.  [Added: David Z disagrees.  I can see that if you want to post academic/scientific content only then the twitter effect would be at least non-negative.  I cannot agree that twitter has had a significant effect in disseminating work in my field, especially in comparison to so many other electronic media.  But maybe it is different for others.]  But the combination of telling the whole world and strict character limits make it anathema to academic discourse or even, I would advise, to discourse by academics.  In general, young people need to use social media carefully: political articles are different, but one's off-hand political, social and religious comments are best not shown to the entire world.

Make sure that your political remarks can only be construed as political.

This is the moral from the above example.  Political remarks advocate policy, support or criticize governments, or support or criticize political figures on political matters.  Salaita's tweet (intentionally, and even rather cleverly) plays on the distinction between criticizing the Iraeli government and criticizing Jewish people.  But don't play with that.  Don't criticize or denigrate any ethnic group.  When you want to criticize a group of people aligned around a certain practice, make sure you are criticizing the practice, not the people as people.  For instance, if you are pro-life, don't (publicly) paint women who get abortions as immoral or unclean: that's not a political statement.  Don't (publicly) criticize conservative politicians who are against gay rights by saying that they must either have terrible sex lives, be latently gay or both.

Try to have a clear separation between your political activities and your academic ones.

The OP says that he has political articles published online.  Sounds fine to me.  I would think at least three times about incorporating these articles into your science classes.  As a general rule, I feel free to discuss politics and religion in my (mathematics) courses because I feel these should not be taboo topics among human beings, but I always characterize them as digressions from the class, I never push a position, and in fact I try not to enunciate my own stance or position in a classroom environment.  If someone wants to hear how I really feel about Islam or the midterm elections, they can talk to me after class.

This "clear separation" should work just as well in the sciences as it does in math.  Academics in certain other fields might have more trouble with this: e.g. women's studies.

Hiring committees doing significant digging into candidates' extra-academic life is the exception rather than the rule.

The OP specifically mentions graduate admissions and googling.  I have done lots of graduate admissions and I cannot specifically remember ever having googled an applicant (and I often google their letter writers or their home institution).  For faculty and such: sure, sometimes I get curious, but I don't feel like such googling is part of the faculty search process.  If I found some political activity about a faculty candidate through the job search, it would have to be extremely significant or specifically problematic in some way for me to bring it up to my colleagues at all.  To give two examples of googling academics: I have learned for instance that someone had been a union organizer and someone else was a leader of a campus pro-life organization and had run for political office.  If these people applied for jobs I would keep this information to myself.

On average, it is a little safer to be on the left than on the right.

The majority of American academics that I know are not very politically active but are considerably left of the center of American politics.  This applies to me.  If I learned that a potential job candidate was very active in Tea Party politics, I would take a moment to steel myself not to let this affect my decision.  If I learned that a potential job candidate had been active in Obama's campaign, I would think "Well, that will make for a fun story sometime."  I have colleagues whose political views are very different from my own, including one whom I respect the most, because of his great personal integrity and selflessness.  But I still have to think and act a little more carefully around this colleague because of this; often I cut off a "humorous remark" just before it leaves my mouth because I remember that he will not be amused, and I don't want to make him uncomfortable.

I put this point last because it is purely contingent on "local phenomena", but I think it would be naive to expect exactly the same academic reception for political activism on the two sides of the spectrum.  On the other hand, at some state universities the local politics can be very different from the politics of the university and the faculty.  This is really beyond the scope of my answer, so I'll just say: surely it is best if state employees who run the university system know as little about a faculty member's political activity as possible, at least until tenure.


Is h-index important? Can h-index be used to classify yourself to know whether you are at a given academic rank? Of all the statistical factors that are used for judging publication record, the h-index seems to be the most commonly used

Wikipedia says

  Hirsch suggested (with large error bars) that, for physicists, a value for h of about
  12 might be typical for advancement to tenure (associate professor) at
  major research universities. A value of about 18 could mean a full
  professorship, 15–20 could mean a fellowship in the American Physical
  Society.

I am an organic chemistry with an h-index of 16. I assume physics should be similar to (organic) chemistry. I am now applying for a tenure-track position.
I mean to be overqualified for research funds, academic and scientific honors, etc.

Questions

How important is the Hirsch index (h-index)?
How much is the h-index really relied upon?
Can the h-index be used to categorize yourself?
Can I really set a goal that by reaching h-index 20, I am at the level of fellows of my professional society?
Can the h-index be used to indicate whether I am ahead of my rivals?
Can we claim something by h-index or is it just a number?
What should be the h-index of assistant/associate/full professor in chemistry to be a leader of his own rank?

As with all bibliometrics, the h-index is indicative at best. There is no magic number that says "now give this person a promotion", but if you have an h-index twice that of your colleagues, it might suggest something interesting.

If you really want to use the h-index to see how you compare to other organic chemists, why not look at the h-index of your colleagues, collaborators, or of researchers at the department you're applying to? You will already have a sense of their relative position, you'll be familiar with their work, and it'll help you get a sense of what the h-index might mean in your specific field - as well as the amount it varies between individuals you'd think of as comparable.

(Make sure to calculate all h-indexes using the same citation data, though. You'll get confusing results if some use Web of Science data and some Google Scholar...)


presented at a conference but don't appear in proceedings What's the protocol if you present at a conference but aren't listed on the conference proceedings? As in, my advisor (when I was a doc student) submitted the presentation under her name, but I was asked to join and present. So my name is not attached anywhere, but I was there and presented the work with her. Can I list it on my cv? Or just leave it off and consider it good experience?

I think that you can include it in a special section - Other Contributions. Say what you have said here, but also have in your possession a letter from the author thanking you for presenting the work (or helping to present - whichever is more accurate) and for any contributions you made to it. The backup letter is essential and the classification of the contribution has to be accurate.


No reply from PhD supervisor after meeting I met up with a potential supervisor two weeks ago and they were very keen on my topic (on literature). They took a hard copy of my draft proposal to read and told me I will be contacted in a week. However it has been two weeks and I have not heard anything. I have sent a follow up email saying if my proposal is not appropriate, I would be happy to start from scratch again. There is no reply to that as well.

I am not sure what to do. If the proposal isn't ok is it not professional to email and let me know? Given the initial enthusiasm of the supervisor and the silence since they took my draft, should I believe my proposal must be horribly wrong and must be binned?

Given the initial enthusiasm of the supervisor and the silence since she took my draft should I accept my proposal must be horribly wrong and must be binned.

No, that's not a reasonable inference.  Students often seem to think that professors use silence as a form of implicit rejection, but I've never actually seen this, and it would be unprofessional in this context.

It's vastly more probable that she has just been too busy to reply, especially if she had planned to write something relatively complex, or hasn't been able to finish reading your proposal.  (And honestly, your initial response about throwing it all out may have complicated it more, since now she probably wants to write something that will not only express her opinion but also reassure you.)  She may also be ill, out of the office, on vacation, traveling to a conference, etc.  July is a major travel period for many professors.

I would suggest that you try to set up a meeting in person, if possible.  It should be much faster for her to reply to that message, since she only needs to check her calendar, rather than trying to articulate in words her response to your proposal.  And having a meeting scheduled will create a deadline for her to have her response ready.  It's best if you suggest a few times when you are available, to minimize the number of back-and-forth emails needed to agree on a time.


IEEE Reviewer Comment Abbreviations In the reviewer comments of an IEEE journal, I noticed that the comments were preceded by a two-letter abbreviation such as OP, MA, MI, etc. What do these abbreviations stand for?
Can you point me to the IEEE document/link where these abbreviations are explained? Thanks.

I've never seen those abbreviations in a review or in any of the IEEE guidelines I looked at. I suspect those are either specific to a certain journal or—more probably—of the reviewer's personal style. I'd guess that the reviewer wanted to grade their remarks and requests of amendments and the meaning could be as follows:

MA(JOR)
MI(NOR)
OP(TIONAL)

If the above doesn't fit and you think those labels may influence your revision in a significant way, contact the editor for clarification.


Is it suspicious for a conference abstract submission to be subordinated to registration? My PhD advisor and I wish to participate to a specific international conference in our field.

The program seems legitimate and part of the scientific committee are respected researchers of my field, with whom we have already worked in the past. Therefore I am not questioning the academic relevancy of the conference.

On the other hand, the organization is operated by a company, and I am not at ease with their methods. Mainly, the registration fee (500€) must be paid before submitting any abstract and it is not possible to know whether the abstract has been accepted before committing.

Beside the frustration (a conference is a big investment in our budget), I find this unusual, if not fishy. This is the first time my advisor is confronted with the situation, and they are conflicted about this too.

As a side point, their privacy policy includes an agreement to transmit my academic information to "marketing partners", which I am not at ease either.

Should I be worried?

EDIT after investigating a bit more. The organizer is not exactly a company, but a "non-profit private organisation".

UPDATE after contacting the organizers. The website actually gives the option to pay later, as long as the registration is placed. Ultimately, the admission decision will be issued before the payment deadline, although that was not apparent unless you create an account and place the order first.

€500 is within the normal range for an international conference, but the mandatory subscription before getting the notification of acceptance is indeed a bit suspicious.

However there are some conferences which work in the following way: pretty much any abstract submitted is accepted (except if out of scope, I guess) and is supposed to be presented at the conference. The selection process happens when a subset of the abstracts are accepted for publication as a full paper in a journal issue. I'm not very familiar with this setting myself, but I assume that it might make sense for such a conference to make sure that the authors attend and present their work even if it's not selected for the journal issue.


How serious of a mistake it is to accidentally addressed a grad school admissions director as Miss instead of Ms? I am applying to a grad school in the US and I am asking application questions through emails. In one of the emails, I accidentally addressed the admissions director as Miss, even though the title of her choice is Ms., as shown in her signature. We've had a few email exchanges before where I had addressed her correctly as Ms., but I wrote this email under stress and in a hurry (it was a difficult subject and time sensitive) and made this title mistake.
Also English is not my first language. She looks young and I am not that familiar with US titles. I had a vague impression Miss is associated with relatively young people and only upon further checking did I realize Miss is used to address unmarried women.
How serious this mistake is? Is it sexist or rude?
I will pay attention and address her correctly in the future. Any other suggestions?

I doubt it makes a big difference.
In general, the honorifics "Miss" and "Mrs." are considered obsolete in professional and academic settings, as marital status is not considered relevant (besides the sexist aspect that there has never been such a distinction in honorifics for men).  They should not be used unless someone specifically requests them.  "Mr." and "Ms." have been the standard gendered honorifics for some time, and "Mx." is coming into wider use as a gender-neutral alternative.
However, I think people realize that these distinctions may be missed by speakers unfamiliar with the language and culture, so I don't think serious offense is likely to be taken.  If you like, you could write a very brief followup email saying something like "I'm sorry, in my previous email I meant to write 'Ms. X'".
(In general, also note that people who hold a faculty position or a doctoral degree are likely to prefer to be addressed as "Prof." or "Dr." respectively.  When someone has both, there may be local customs preferring one or the other, but either should be acceptable.  English does not use both titles together.)


Accidental Researcher I work in software engineering, where I specialize in computer graphics.  I recently had to do a bit of research for my job, and I'd like to publish it at some point.  It's currently going through my company's patent application process, but eventually, I think they'll let me publish it.

I don't have a graduate degree, nor do I have any interest in playing the academic game.  On the other hand, my research is novel enough that I expect I'll be getting invitations to conferences when I do publish, and I'd like to know what to expect.  Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

What you should expect, unfortunately, is a lot less attention and recognition than you expect.  Most journal papers don't result in invitations to speak at conferences, and most conference talks are given to fairly small audiences.
If and when you do speak, you'll probably get a lot of questions along the lines of:

"I'm sure you aren't getting as good a result as you think you are."
"Isn't this really the same idea that Dr. Neverheardofem published in 1995?"
"I've completely misunderstood what you said and would like to argue with you about it."
"This is a neat idea, but isn't it much less important than the things that I care about?"

Try not to take it too hard: this is just the inevitable process by which ideas get challenged, and the better that you are able to respond reasonably and constructively, the better your idea will actually be received.


Reply to a professor who said no open position BUT admired the work I have asked a professor in Germany for a PhD position in his lab and I sent a mail with previous work experience, future research plan, and why I want to join his group within 8-10 lines, also attached a simple CV. He replied me starting with 'You are a strong candidate' and he admired my work and plan also, but he said presently there are no open positions.

But I want to work under his supervision. I have at most 6 months to complete my masters. How can I give a reply mentioning I have time and in that I mean time if he found any open positions I can join his lab.

You can write something along the lines of "Thanks a lot for your last mail. If you happen to have an opening in the next 3-8 months, please let me know. As already written, I would love to work with you, so you could expect an application of me in such a case. Also, if there is a graduate school offering scholarships in your department that I happen to have missed, please also let me know."

Note that pretty much the only case that you could hope for is that the professor has a currently running application for external funding that may be granted within the next few months. In that case, there may be an opening for a PhD student position (it's not really called like that, by the way) coming from that funding.


What to do when the reviewer is wrong about your paper's scope, technically inaccurate, and clearly haven't read your rebuttals You might think the title is a bit of an exaggeration, however this is exactly what has happened.
Note: No, I can't find my answer on How to React to Incorrect Claims by Reviewers? as it addresses the rebuttals/revisions but my question is about what to do after the final decision. (no rebuttal chance)
The reviewer can not differentiate X from Y, is technically wrong and obviously have no in-depth expertise, no let me put it this way even an undergrad knows X from Y, they suggested this is not the first paper using Y in A, when my paper is using X in B (totally different methodology and scope and even the problem addressed).
Moreover, they told me they think the format of my abstract is "extremely odd" because it is divided in 4 sections and they haven't seen it anywhere when it is the author's guidelines, and I sent them the link to the author guidelines and the template file, also copy/pasted that part and included in rebuttal -  and they wrote they "still think it is extremely odd and they haven't seen it elsewhere".
After receiving my first reviews and submitted a complete rebuttal making changes to answer ALL questions, revised writing, added supplementary materials, I was still waiting to hear from the journal after almost 3 months (one week short) for revision - I am a reviewer for the same journal and I am asked to submit reviews in 3 weeks!! so I asked them why it was taking so long, and in a few days I get the reviews and the reject.
The other reviewer's first review was "the technical writing is weak" - this was ALL, no details, no directions - I made substantial changes and wrote very much in detail, the math, the narrative and they wrote "I should reorganize and submit as new" with no details, no directions.
I feel so frustrated, I had an experience like this with the same journal before and got an even worse one who said "the paper was clearly written by a native speaker and that native speaker should help the other revise" - I wrote the whole paper! They also wrote some technical claims about my methodology which was plain wrong.
AND! again, it was also the same - I asked them why it was taking so long (over 4 months after my revision), and in a few days I get the reviews and the reject. Moreover, someone had snatched my exact methodology and used for the same problem and submitted to that journal later. As a reviewer I see papers being accepted all the time with much less novelty and technical writing.
I really don't understand how the editor even lets this happen, the part about the abstract's format made its way to the both reviews! Even after my correction. The reviewer clearly thinks my paper is on something else entirely and lacks expertise.
How can I refute this? Can I refute this? are they doing this on purpose to gatekeep me?
there are not many journals in my field, because this one took so long I couldn't make it to other major conferences, and now I wanted to submit to another journal which is a bit different in scope and is much harder to get into -but- I am not even sure I can because my journal submission here is also accepted as a paper (first version) -but- is not published yet (so I can't submit to another journal because I would need to make a reference to the paper version). Also these are all supposedly Q1 journals.
Should I submit to the same journal and hope there will be reviewers with some common sense? Would I be rejected right away? Considering how slow they have been (7.5 months for these kind of reviews! I doubt they will be kind to answer my emails)

Moving on is the best approach, as @lighthouse suggests.
If you don't like the best approach and prefer to combat it, you can ask the editor for another reviewer. Politely, on a day you feel great about everything else in your life and after being absolutely showered by compliments by all of your friends has put you in the very most positive mindset, write a rebuttal identifying the review's shortcomings and suggest to the editor that some bias seems to be preventing a good review and that you ask for another independent review.
If they send it to another reviewer, your fate is then in their hands. If they refuse, well, you're back where you started: move on, submit to another journal. You express concerns about an overlapping conference submission but if your field accepts conference papers as papers then the journal article doesn't matter, and if your field does not accept conference papers as papers then the conference doesn't matter.
"Bad reviews" like you describe - not bad in terms of negativity but intrinsically poor - are common.


At a loss after enrolling into PhD programme I am currently into my first semester into my PhD program and at this point I am just at a loss. At universities like mine, we can enroll into PhD programs after graduating with a Bachelors and bypass obtaining of Masters first. The advice that I got from several seniors and professors were that the content will just be more advanced than the Bachelors program, apart from the >10 hours of research per day. I was used to looking at screens for 14-18 hours at a stretch so I thought I would be fine going into it.

My motivation for going into PhD was to research on what I liked, which was cryptography and cybersecurity, and to hopefully have something of impact to society. The other reason was to dream of wearing the gown in 4 years.

Now I am into my eighth week and I have 3 coursework projects, 3 research projects, 2 courses that I have to teach. I feel that I do not have enough time to do any work and I do not even have the mood or motivation to do any work nowadays. I know that most of the time people will just tell each other to walk around and breathe in some air, but I feel that the method of reliving myself has long expired.

I hate to say this but I am quite stubborn at times with my decision and think that I will be able to persevere through, as I did during my undergraduate years but I believe that I cannot hold on to this any longer. Other friends of mine who also enrolled into PhD (albeit different courses in the same university) have told me that I look more mentally drained than usual during our lunches. My parents also are quite sad at the sight of me staring into screens the whole day not knowing what I'm supposed to do next. Passing on family outings have also taken a toll on me since I do regret not spending enough time with them during the final year of my undergraduate study and do not want it to be commonplace. I have seriously been contemplating this thought of withdrawal for about 2 weeks now and recently teared up while bringing this topic up with my mum. I feel that my mental state has been shattered and cannot see anything ahead.

I've talked with my family and they will support my decision if I do withdraw from the program. I am currently on scholarship so my estimated cost will be upwards of $10k that I will have to pay back to the university. My parents don't mind this and encourage me to borrow from the bank in the meantime while I work full-time.

My workplace I would say is far from ideal but in my country, in our local university, I don't really feel home at all. Our lab has a capacity of 100+ people but 95% of our office are non-locals and you can imagine where most of them are from, I don't want to speculate things about them here. My professor is somewhat decent but he has close to 60 PhD students under him in my office alone, and it becomes very difficult to talk about issues like this. My professor wants me to be in the lab every weekday but I don't see myself doing any constructive work. In fact, I am more tired at my desk than if I work from home. Hence, you could infer that I suffer in silence in the lab.

The constant stress and worry from all these factors is weighing me down and I think that I am starting to have a recurrence of panic attacks again from the time before I started my undergraduate studies. I have just made an appointment to see the councilor but I'm really afraid for myself and to bring this up to my professor. I would really appreciate some advice from the community on how to approach this and move on.

Well.. WELCOME TO A PHD!

Sadly all that work is normal and it's only getting worse. Doing 4 essays overnight is not uncommon, research will be tossed away by professors, you wont have time for friends or family, and your health will deteriorate and you will loss/gain weight. All unless you can somehow automate things (a dictation software helps A LOT), or you can externalize the homework, which is not ethical and might not even be legal.

Oh! and your research and enthusiasm is meaningless. You could have the cure for all types of cancers but if your references are not in proper APA it all has no value. Thats academia. You are not there to research, you are there to document properly a research. (Im already expecting this answer to be downvoted a lot as it touches many sensible fibers)

In my PHD I ended up with a horrible lower-back damage that send me to the orthopedist-traumatologist, a friend got facial paralysis, around 30% of those who entered dropped, and the ones who managed to  take  it lightly was because they didnt have much responsibilities, work in bureaucracy and had people to do their HW for them, or similar.

A PHD is a big commitment that frankly isn't worth for many people, but a lot of people realize it only after enrolling. But hey, if you are stubborn then you already have the proper character trait for it, you just need to accept the cost of opportunity, which is that you have to set aside basically all else besides work.

If you are ready to drop, perhaps you should enter an MBA instead, the workload is almost just as bad but at least you don't have to worry about research and it's not so academically oriented, which might be more motivating. Also speak with your professor and negotiate sending your HW by mail as being in the lab is an impossibility for you, or at least negotiate only going  a couple days and the rest work at a distance.


Revisiting/revised paper I am wondering how can I split my research into two or more research article.
I heard that there's a type of papers that called revisiting which basically relies on previous work with some enhancements.

The question is what's the structure for the revisiting paper and what's the structure for the revised paper and what are the differences between them.

Although you can split a paper in two, it is often not the best choice, known as salami publication.

There are, of course, papers revisiting a certain topic, sometimes tens or hundreds years after the first publication. Revisiting a topic is not the same, as simply splitting a paper in two. There is no specific structure for a revisiting paper - the term refers to its relation with previous research only.

In academic publishing, we call a revised paper a version of the manuscript which underwent a peer review process (i.e. in a journal), received feedback and was already corrected (revised) based on the feedback from peers. This term refers to the stage of the publication process and not to the structure or purpose of the paper.


Is it fine to post a paper to arxiv and later change the title and add authors? I have paper with very new contributions but it needs at least one month to finish perfectly. I am afraid that someone eat my launch and publish on the area. My advisor suggests adding the paper to Arxiv. but the title may change later. is it okay?

Also, I have just checked that changing authors when replacing a paper is technically enabled. Is it okay to add authors later?

Arxiv is just a preprinting service which is [generally] non peer-reviewed. The whole point of publishing there is to just put your idea out there (it gives you the copyrights) and to get feedback from your peers who are eager enough to read your draft. It is very common practice to update the title and author list for final publication in a journal. I have done it personally without any problem. That being said, all authors, who will be on the final publication, should be included in the arxiv submission, and not just the first/submitting author.


Professor said we should meet again, but never answered my email Recently I tried to join a lab as an undergrad and do a research project next semester. I e-mailed the professor and he arranged an interview. Interview was pretty normal, and we talked about an available project he had. At the end, he said we should meet again in August to talk more about the project.

Since the interview I have followed up several times, trying to arrange this meeting. But he never responded to my e-mails, and now I'm just confused... Should I keep waiting? Or did he just change his mind and decide to ignore me instead of telling me that. (If this is the case then it is really a d**k move. I have been spending a lot of time reading relevant papers and studying his project for the past month or so.)

Thanks in advance for any suggestions

Based on my experience with professors, he's probably just overloaded with emails and either missed your messages or hasn't had the time or energy to reply, since it's probably not high on the list of priorities for him.

Assuming he's a professor at the university you attend, you could try just stopping by his office and hoping to catch him there. I did a similar thing once or twice during university and it was generally successful if the professor happened to be in. (If he's in a fancy office with a receptionist you could even ask the receptionist what hours he tends to be in the office, or ask them to pass along a note.)


Is it unethical to hire students for private consulting work? As a faculty member, I tend not to involve students in any of my own consulting projects, but I often run into small units of work that would be great opportunities for students, especially undergraduates. Is it unethical for a faculty member to employ students as consultants/contractors for private, non-academic projects? I can see how many students may find such opportunities valuable, but I am curious about ethical issues that such a relationship might introduce.

I'm at a University at the moment where this sort of thing is quite common - and indeed, my previous institution had another department where a relationship like this one actually led to a major company that hires a large number of graduates. It isn't inherently unethical, but you need to make sure that business interests and academic ones are kept separate. It might, for example, be wise to have an uninvolved faculty member serving as co-supervisor. My institution's stance:

Protecting the Interests of Students and Trainees:
The impact of a perceived or actual conflict of interest or commitment of faculty members on their students (including post-doctoral fellows and other trainees) is of special concern to the university.  In particular, the university is  committed to maintaining the content and quality of the educational experience for students whose research is sponsored by a for-profit business and whose faculty advisors have a financial interest or a  management role in that business.  The concern is even greater if the dissertation work could potentially affect the value of a company in which the faculty member has an ownership or managerial interest.
For example, a faculty member who pressures a student to complete work related to the faculty member’s company could easily affect the student’s completion of graduate studies in a timely and appropriate way, thereby putting the faculty member’s interest in obtaining proprietary results ahead of the student’s academic or scholarly research activities.   The concern is similar for the involvement of students in faculty consulting or other external activities.  The risks and benefits of such involvement must be carefully weighed by departmental administrators responsible for evaluating the disclosure and approving the request, particularly where the involvement may be longer term and/or more time consuming.
University policy recognizes that the involvement of students in faculty-owned or managed businesses or consulting may yield substantial benefit to the student, provided that certain conditions are met.
Faculty members must disclose the proposed involvement of students in their external activities or in company-sponsored research.
Faculty members who intend to serve as PI or co-PI on sponsored projects and have graduate students or trainees conduct a portion of the research under their supervision must develop a conflict of interest management plan to address protections for these early career scholars.  See Example 2 under Managing Conflicts of Interest for appropriate strategies.
Students and postdoctoral trainees have the right to be fully informed about the source of their funding, the nature of the faculty member’s personal interest or involvement, and, if relevant, any agreements concerning data collection, copyright, or patent protection arising from the research.  Departmental and college-level administrators review the risks and protections with the student using the Research Agreement for Students and Postdoctoral Associates.


Submitting Workshop Proposal by A first Year PhD student I am interested in submitting a workshop proposal for a top-tier conference related to my topic. I don't know whether this could be a good idea but this year I co-organized a workshop in a top-tier conference. I handled the speaker, funding and I really enjoyed although it was for women who made a contribution in the field .

I had quite good relations with some professors. However, I don't know whether asking them that I want to submit a workshop proposal is an acceptable idea. Of course, I am doing my research and trying to come up with a paper, but I want to lead a workshop in the field since it still emerging.

Another problem, my ex-supervisor who is bully still got recognition. I found that he is going to be a chair at the conference for a specific category and cannot hide anymore and have to face him anyway.

The question is: Is it a good idea to submit a workshop proposal by a first-year Ph.D. student?

P.S.I had two years of experience in this emerging field and I have been invited for a talk the last month and feedback was positive by professor attended the workshop.

In theory, since your advisor agrees, there's nothing which stops you from submitting a workshop proposal as a PhD student. Your proposal will be evaluated by the conference organizers and they will decide whether they want to go forward or not with your workshop. If you submit this proposal completely on your own, I think there's a good chance that they will doubt that you can pull a successful workshop, and consequently reject the proposal. So in order to make the proposal more convincing you should probably partner with some experienced researchers who already have a reputation in the field. You will probably need an editorial board anyway. You seem to have good contacts so it should be reasonably easy, since they should be happy enough to co-organize if you tell them that you're going to take care of the logistics.

The problem with your ex-supervisor and his presence at the conference is something that only you can decide. If he has enough influence in the community to convince the organizers to reject your workshop, it's a shame but that would end things there. If not, it's for you to evaluate how much damage he might cause to you, to your career and to your workshop. But hopefully you and him would just behave professionally and leave each other be.

If you have friendly contacts with experienced researchers in the fields, I'd suggest that you discuss your concerns with them. Their advice would be precious as it would save you investing time in this if they think it's not reasonable, and save you some sleepless nights if they think it's completely fine.


Didn't pay attention to rules and created an illegal note card for exam? For final exam in my university chemistry class, a note sheet, 8 by 11, was allowed. You could put anything on the sheet, however it was to remain 1-sided. Of all things, I forgot about the last rule, and created a 2 sided note sheet for the exam. Well, now that the grades are out, my professor emailed me saying that a third of my points were deducted because of my note card. He was really being generous, because the rules say that I should actually get a score of 0.

Well, I still passed the class, but will this incident be put on my academic profile for applying to the engineering department? I mean, I'm still mad at myself for this, but do I have to and how would I explain it to the school if it's necessary?

Often a professor is no more eager than you to invoke formal disciplinary mechanisms, as they are often complex and time-consuming.  From what you describe, it sounds like you've been given your punishment and find it fair.  If the professor was interested in taking it further, you would likely (but not necessarily) have been informed in the same email.

To find out, you can simply email the professor back.  Say pretty much what you said here: you made a mistake, you find the punishment fair and even generous, and you just want to check whether the matter is now settled, or if you need to anticipate further disciplinary action.

If the professor feels that the matter is settled, and that the grade reduction is all the consequence that you need to face, then you can safely put it behind you; if not, it may become part of your record and may require explanation, depending on how things proceed.


Should I choose a journal for submission from the journals I have cited and should I cite papers from the journal I intend to submit to? Manuscripts should provide new contribution in the particular field which is listed as the scope of the journal. But is it necessary to cite papers from the particular journal for which I am going to submit my paper?

is it necessary to cite papers from the particular journal for which I am going to submit my paper?

No.


What are some guidelines to keep in mind when selecting members of one's PhD committee? Selecting members of one's PhD committee is an important part of a PhD student's academic  development. Committee members can have considerable influence on a student's PhD program, such as determining what topics are on the student's prelims exams. However, sound advice on this process can be hard to find.

What are some guidelines to keep in mind when selecting members of one's PhD committee?

(This should be a generalized question useful for many different student-selected committee systems)

There are some general guidelines for choosing members of a PhD committee:

They should have some enthusiasm for the work that you do. If they're not invested in seeing you succeed, you won't get as much utility out of that committee member as someone else who might not be as knowledgeable, but is more committed.
They should have the time to be on your committee. If they're extremely busy, then it doesn't help to have them on a committee, because it will be difficult for them to attend the meetings—or it will make scheduling the meetings a nightmare.
They should not have conflicts with either you or your advisor. A thesis committee is already a somewhat political body. There's no need to add extra politics to the situation by having interpersonal or professional conflicts before the committee even begins to meet!
Collectively, there should not be a power "imbalance." If your advisor is a new assistant professor, don't overload the committee with a bunch of full professors holding named chairs, and vice versa.

When they will set preliminary exams, there's the additional qualification of:

The committee members should be familiar enough with your area that they know what it might make sense to test you on, but not so familiar with your work that they turn it into a "gotcha" game.


What are the chances of getting into a PHD program even if your graduate research is completely different? I have decided to apply for PhD in cybersecurity even though my research during my graduate time period is totally of a different topic, which is neuroscience. My CV is majorly focused on research in neuroscience and data science and it doesn't contain any previous experience even though I have been learning a lot in cybersecurity and getting trained in the area.

What are my chances of getting into the program(in US, Sweden, UK) even thought I don't have a research experience in Cyber security nor have worked on a project?

Completely possible!

You only need to argument your research as multi-field with an holistic approach, base your methods or the relation on technology and how it impacts the new field, or propose some innovative way to apply or relate computational sciences to biological systems (neural networks or Ai to learn how X works are always a good hit.)

As as example, my first career was in 'environmental improvement and diagnostics', then I went into 'informatique sciences' , specialization MBA into 'economy', then MBA into ' Computational Systems' but PHD in 'Organizations direction/Management'. It all comes down on how you relate everything.

As for how easy it would be to enter, well, you need to see which universities you want, go into their website's  and see their requirements for candidates. You can then tailor your proposal to them and contact the admissions department to say what they want. Even within the same country there are variants among the universities, more so between public and private ones.


As a male student, did I say something wrong to this female professor? A professor and I spoke recently (I'm a grad student), and she told me about her upcoming sabbatical, and I wished her well and was genuinely excited for her and her travel plans.  But the reaction that I got from her was one of caution and displeasure, with no reciprocation of good vibes.  I mostly said stuff like "that sounds amazing that you're going to Country X for Y number of months!  I hope you enjoy your time there, I love Country X!"

I'm a male student.  Have I possibly said something condescending or disrespectful to a female professor, by showing my excitement about her travel plans?

When I analyzed it a bit, I came to the conclusion that I would have had the same reactions if a male professor told me of his sabbatical, travel plans.  So, I don't think that I've said anything sexist.  But I am not 100% sure.

From what you've said, it doesn't sound like a sexism issue specifically, but it might have come off that you regarded her sabbatical as a vacation rather than serious work. You might be worrying about this a bit too much--she's probably already forgotten the exchange.


Is it common for professors in France/Europe to accept students for PhD positions but ask them to arrange their own funding? I completed master's of mathematics in Asia in June 2020. I had written to some professors for PhD positions in number theory in December 2019 . One of the professors in France said yes to me but he said that I should look for other sources of funding as his university didn't have PhD funding at that time. So, I began to look for some funding options but I missed applying for a funding opportunity that is open to anyone whose university would be in that region of France. (I came across on it on web at a date after last date).
Then there was a scholarship application from my country and I began applying for it in mid-March of 2020 but for that a confirmation letter from my prospective guide was required that I was selected for the PhD program. When asked for the letter, the professor didn't reply to my emails, but I can understand that happening due to COVID.
So, then I thought that I would apply to Europe again in December and began studying more topics to improve my knowledge and didn't contacted that professor.
My questions:

Is it common in French universities that a professor says yes for PhD but tells the student to look for funding opportunities by himself?

Is it common in European universities that a professor says yes for PhD but tells the student to look for funding opportunities by himself?

Please guide!

Its certainly normal in the UK. Very few universities fund any PhD students themselves (where would they get the money from?). Most students are funded on government scholarships. How these are awarded varies from field to field and I don't know what the norm is in mathematics. In biology they are awarded to centers called Centers for Doctoral Training (CDT/DTPs), which often cover several universities. Each year professors  compete for the right to recruit a student, which they will then advertise for.
Until now, these scholarships have only been open to "home" students (that is British or EU students). Any overseas students have to obtain a scholarship from their own government, or an NGO or charity of some sort, or pay themselves out of pocket. Most profs will take most students who can bring funding/pay their way.
This year things are changing. CDTs/DTPs will now bed allowed to offer up to a third of their scholarships to overseas students. BUT, they will only pay "home" fees, which are generally less than overseas fees. How this difference is handled is varying from Uni to Uni. Some will say that they will charge full overseas fees to overseas students recruited to these scholarships, and the student would have to find the difference (on the order of £10k a year). Other universities are offering to waive the extra overseas fee.