German Grade GPA calculation I'm doing MSc in one of the TU9 (TU9) in Germany where the grading systems work as defined below:

The grades I have got are as follows:

I'm wondering how the GPA was calculated as different subjects as different credits and lower the final grade better it is. What mathematical formula is being used to calculate GPA

It appears that your GPA has been calculated as the weighted average of your final grades, with the weights being given by the credits for a course divided by the total credits. Numerically this matches the given GPA.

And lower is better here.


Healthcare in the U.S for foreign graduate students I will be moving to the U.S next year to start my MS in Chemistry, and one of the things that are still not clear to me is how healthcare works in America. I know that you have to purchase an insurance before enrolling to classes, but what I don't know is about the coverage, frequency of usage etc.
Let me give an example, I am from Brazil and the healthcare plans here gives you a wide coverage in which you have access to specialists in basically any medical area, exams (from blood test to tomography and MRI) and other benefits. You can also use it as long as you need to, for example: if a doctor demands you to take a blood test 2x a week than the healthcare provider will allow you to do so (some very specific procedures are limited unless proven really necessary, but they are rare).
I've heard from a American student once that the health insurances available in the US don't cover much, only a generalist physician (I don't know if this is correct term for it, but I mean those doctors who are in first contact with you and send you to a specialist) and simple exams. Even with the limited coverage, you still have to pay for the procedures to some extent.
I would like to know more about this since health is a very important topic and when you're abroad you want to be sure that you will have coverage if something goes wrong. Of course, even here in my country there are some extreme situations that are unlikely to be covered by a healthcare private plan (for example if you have a rare tumor or a rare disease). I'm talking about common stuff that have a significant chance of happening while I'm in the US.

Unfortunately the way you access to health care will be largely governed by the specifics of your situation and the institution which you are going to, so we can't answer your question with any degree of certainty. The general answer to this kind of question is that you will probably have access to good health care but you might pay more for it than you would at home. Make sure that you have some savings that you can rely on in the event of unexpected medical bills.

It is common for full time graduate students to be offered some kind of subsidized health insurance through their university, or even require graduate students to participate in a group health plan
The affordability of such plans (how much you pay) can vary a lot by institution
It is common that such plans have restrictions on how you access care, for example it might require that non-emergency care is provided at the campus health clinic
Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) your health plan providers are generally required to cover any common illness or treatment. However, there are current political efforts to repeal or defund the ACA, so this may change in the future. In particular the ACA greatly expanded coverage specific to women, pregnant women, and children.

You should direct questions regarding health coverage to your university's international student's affairs office, as this will no doubt be a common question for them. They will be able to tell you how their graduate students access health insurance. Many existing students are more than happy to talk about their experiences as well- ask your future department whether there is a graduate student or international student group that would be willing to answer questions.

Edit: Update on how to plan for medical expenses. Yes, unfortunately it is common for major medical events to cost several thousand dollars in the US. Your friend paying $2000 for a broken arm is entirely possible.

The coverage of health insurance in the US is commonly expressed as three numbers: the deductible, the out-of-pocket maximum, and the coinsurance rate. These can give you a ballpark estimate for how much health care might cost you.

Deductible: How much you must pay, in a year, before your health insurance pays anything
Out-of-pocket maximum: How much you must pay, in a year, before your health insurance covers everything
Coinsurance rate: How much your insurance pays after you hit your deductible, but before you hit the maximum.

For example, my grad student plan was:

Deductible: $350
OOP Maximum: $7,150
Coinsurance rate: 80%

Suppose you break your arm and go to the hospital. The hospital sends your insurance a bill for $5,000.

First, you are responsible for paying up to your deductible without any assistance, so you pay the first $350.

After you have paid the deductible, your insurance kicks in and pays 80% of the bill. The remainder after deductible is $4,650 and your insurance will pay 80% of that, and you will pay 20% of that amount.

Your total cost would be $350 + $4,650*20% = $1,280.

Suppose later in the year you get sick and go to see the doctor. The doctor bills your insurance $100. Since you've already met your deductible for the year your insurance pays 80% of that $100 and you pay 20% ($20) for the visit.

Your deductible and out-of-pocket expense resets every calendar year (January 1st). If you went back to the doctor on January 2nd and they billed you for another $100 then you'd have to pay that entire $100 on your own, and you'd have $250 left on your deductible for that year.

So, how do you plan for medical expenses? If you have a medical crisis then you should assume you will pay at least as much as your deductible. If your deductible is $500 then have at least that much in savings (you should have 6-9 months of living expenses in savings anyway as a precaution).  If you have a really serious health problem, then I would assume that you're going to pay up to your out-of-pocket maximum, and that is your worst-case expense every year. Additionally, if you have a chronic health problem that requires a lot of management, it might be wise to assume you're going to pay your out-of-pocket maximum every year.

It is not uncommon for people in the US to go into debt due to a medical crisis. A lot of people can absorb a $500 medical bill, but not a lot of graduate students can absorb a $5000 medical bill. If you cannot pay your bill in full within a month or two, then the hospital will start charging interest as though it were a loan.

In a personal example, I had a health crisis about a year and a half ago that required a two week stay in the hospital. The hospital billed my insurance several hundred thousand dollars. I paid my out-of-pocket maximum out of savings, after which I am no longer responsible for the balance. After haggling back and forth the insurance finally paid about $150,000 to the hospital. So yes, health care in the US can be obscenely expensive.

Note that a lot of health insurance plans will cover routine care for free. Annual physical exams were paid at 100% by my insurance provider, and separate annual gynecological exams were covered at 100% for women. Same thing for routine screenings (prostate, mammograms, etc.) and immunizations. This is because preventative care is cheaper in the long run than treating acute or chronic conditions that could have been prevented.

Again- find graduate students in your prospective school who are willing to talk about their past healthcare experiences and how much it cost them. They will give you a reasonable expectation.


PhD programs of medical school I'm interested in stem cell, regenerative medicine, developmental biology, and genetics for reverse aging. Since these topics are dealt with in one or both of medical school and school of science, I'm confused about my grad school prep.

A PhD program of stem cell & regenerative medicine offered by Stanford's School of Medicine accepts both MCAT and GRE (as stated in the following webpage.) http://stemcellphd.stanford.edu/faqs.html
Also, the PhD program of my interest offered by Harvard belongs to both Harvard Medical School and School of Arts and Sciences. Thus, the boundary of PhD programs between medical school and school of science doesn't seem to exist. So, I'm thinking if I can prepare for PhD programs of med school in the same way as I do for programs of school of science.

Would you tell me the difference of PhD programs between med school and school of science in terms of the following factors?

standardized test (GRE & MCAT)
admission standard (focus on research experience or focus on GPA & standardized test)
competitiveness
undergrad classes required/recommended to take

In general, the biggest difference between PhD programs at med schools and those not at med schools is simply their research focus. Often they have differences in the administration and faculty associated with the program, but at least for Harvard (that's where I just finished my PhD), the difference between the med school programs and those not at the med school is probably smaller than the difference between Harvard's med school programs and Stanford's med school programs.

Each PhD program is different, and may have different requirements in terms of admission and selectivity, but for the top tier of graduate schools, the difference is probably not hugely noticeable. There are also likely to be differences between say the Immunology program at Harvard and the BBS program, even thought they're both at the med school.

I can't speak to Stanford, but at Harvard, your GPA and GRE's will have some influence, but your research experience and letters of recommendation will hold far more weight.

I'd say, apply to the programs you're most interested in, and then if you're invited to interview, make your decisions after you've visited the schools. You want to base your choice on the feeling you get from the students and faculty - different programs align more with different personalities. If you're choosing between Harvard and Stanford, you won't be choosing between different qualities of research (both institutions are phenomenal), you want to go where you'll be happiest because of culture etc.

Edit: Spelling


When to switch PhD projects if you are hitting roadblocks When is it advisable to switch PhD projects if you are not making progress and have a promising alternative project? Is it worth going from guaranteed research assistantship funding to less reliable teaching assistantship funding?

Background:

I've been working on a particular funded research problem for 2 years now. So far, I'm still trying to reproduce previous results and learn. I am making progress, but it's very slow and frustrating. I don't anticipate finishing a PhD on this topic in less than 5 years, and think 7 or more is likely. At this point I am frustrated with this project and losing motivation.

This is mostly due to certain unanticipated faculty changes at my university. I originally came to work with 2 professors in a field that overlaps with both of their previous research. Unfortunately, one of these professors left and has declined to participate further. Had this professor stayed, I'm confident I would have made a fair bit more progress already. My current advisor is capable, but they freely admit they are far out of their comfort zone with my project. I'm making many basic mistakes that would be easily recognized and fixed if my advisor was more knowledgeable on my topic. My advisor has tried to interest other faculty in the project, but unfortunately none at my university consider themselves adequately competent in the subject to advise.

For fun, I recently published a paper on a particular solution to a problem which grew out of a homework assignment. I have received a surprising number of positive comments on this side project so far and see many research opportunities in this field. This topic fits my advisor's capabilities much better than my current research topic.

I think I'm at a juncture where switching projects may be a good idea. I discussed this with my advisor, and they said either way is okay with them, but I think they are leaning towards me switching. We have no funding for the second project, but my advisor thinks it's worth trying for a grant application and they told me they would support me financially either way (even if it's making sure I get TA positions).

It seems to me that essentially all of the considerations lie in favor of switching projects.  So -- guess what? -- I think you should switch projects.

The one consideration that cuts slightly against this is the lack of funding.  It sounds like when your former advisor departed, he didn't take all his funding with him and there is still some left over to be used by others on the same project?  That's not the greatest situation either: probably the end of the funding cycle does not last as long as it will take you to complete your PhD if you continue working on the project.  It may (or may not be) be that the department can transfer that funding over to your current project.  Anyway, that's not critical because your current supervisor has guaranteed your financial support.  (By the way, if you want to continue in academia than having at least some TA work is probably a good thing.)

Just a couple of random comments:

1) I find it strange that you refer to your advisor as a "they".  That doesn't really make sense: "they" is a plural.  I guess you want to keep your advisor's gender confidential.  I don't really understand why, but okay: that's up to you, of course.  A grammatically correct way to do this is "he or she".

2) You wrote

  I'm making many basic mistakes that would be easily recognized and fixed if my advisor was more knowledgeable on my topic.

This leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. I have very often had the experience of having students work on things on which I am quite knowledgeable, but nevertheless they often make mistakes.  Sometimes student mistakes are not displayed to the advisor for a very long time.  Sometimes advisors let students make and recognize their own mistakes: that is an important part of the learning process.  If every time a student does something wrong the advisor swoops in and fixes it, the student is not really doing their own work.  [Wait, I did it myself.  Hmm, I think "their" works for a generic, abstract genderless person.  It doesn't work for a specific genderless person...]

A lot of students on this site (and, I believe, elsewhere) are full of theories about how their lack of success (or limited success) is due to some specific external factor that was outside of their control, and that if only they had been placed in an optimal situation they would have succeeded.  That's not so much factually wrong as unhelpfully centered.  No one is in the optimal learning situation all the time.  Learning how to succeed in a real (academic[!!]) world rather than an idealized one is obviously key.  Your mistakes are your own and you should take ownership for them.  Based on your description, your current advisor has been optimally generous and helpful with you.  You should not give off any whiff of a "too bad you didn't have the expertise to help me out the first time" sentiment; that kind of baggage could only negatively impact your continued relationship.


AMS Citation Style - No date When including a reference in your bibliography, and the source has no publication date, how should this be indicated in the AMS (American Mathematical Society) citation style? Is it "n.d." or should the date simply be omitted?

I would say, yes, n.d. is correct.
Background: The AMS Style Guide is based on the Chicago Manual of Style (see the Preface at p. ix), so let's take a look there (at chapter 17.119):

When the publication date of a printed work cannot be
ascertained, the abbreviation n.d. takes the place of the
year in the publication details. A guessed-at date may
either be substituted (in brackets) or added. [...]

For the "guessed-at date", the Chicago manual provides the example of (Author [1750?]).


Is it okay to ask for a letter of recommendation more than a year before applying to a master's program? Not too complicated of a situation -- I'm graduating with my bachelor's degree (Mathematics) in a couple weeks, but to support my wife, I'm going to get a job for a while before looking at attending a master's program. The soonest I am considering starting a master's degree would be something like Fall semester of 2017.

Since I'm leaving the school, and I may be moving states with a job, should I go ahead and bring up the question of a letter of recommendation with the professors from whom I think would write them? I have a good reputation with them, so it's not like they'll forget me in a year, but I'd rather have it done sooner while I'm still technically a student than a random email they may miss a year from now.

Explain this situation to each of the few professors you plan to ask for letters of recommendation from, and ask what they would prefer. Some of them would probably prefer to write you the letters now, while you are fresh in their memory. Others, (ones who are very well disposed to you, or very generous people) might like to wait until you are applying for specific programs, because then they can tailor their responses to the specifics of what you are applying to. Even in that situation, you will feel less awkward if you have already broached the topic with them. Also, you learn if someone you are expecting a recommendation from is actually not willing to write one for you, or feels that they can't recommend you strongly. This will be better to find out now than a year from now.

Plus, your professors might have advice on what kind of job to take in the meantime in your field, or even a connection for a job. You won't know if you don't ask.


Asking A Colleague for a Letter of Recommendation I am working as an Assistant Professor at a university for over 2 years, but I am not happy with my current job and university. I want to apply to a university in another country (from where I've done my PhD) for a faculty position.
I'd like to know if it would help the application if a colleague who is a PhD and already holding a Tenure Track Position writes a letter of recommendation for in support of this application?

In a comment, you noted that this individual is working with you at your current position.
Yes, I think you should have a letter from a colleague at your current institution. Indeed, if you didn't have a letter from a co-worker (ideally, your chair, but I know that's tough for assistants) it would raise red flags. This letter should speak to your expertise in research, teaching, and service but almost more importantly, provide some context as to why you are departing. Search committees will want to have a narrative that you're moving to another university because it's better or for some other germane reason, and not because you're being forced out or are a toxic colleague, if that makes sense.
So not only should you have a letter from a colleague at your current university, I would argue that it's almost always a necessity.


Why do most scientists think Brexit is bad for British science? From what I've seen in the media, almost all British scientists think Brexit is bad for British science. However I don't understand why. Some of the most common reasons I've seen are:

Loss of funding - UK researchers receive lots of funds from EU grants, and these would not last once the UK leaves. But since the UK pays the EU more than it receives in benefits, the UK could simply redirect some of that money into science. It could be that the UK does not actually redirect the money, but that would be because the UK as a whole decided that science isn't worth it, in which case it would be democracy in action and one can't really complain.

Isolation - this seems to be based on the idea that Brexit makes the UK a less attractive place to work in. However the US didn't seem to suffer a similar brain drain after the 2016 elections, so it's not obvious to me that the UK will. Individuals might leave, but there's apparently no shortage of people wanting to move to the UK anyway (e.g. there were record numbers of international applicants to British universities in spite of Brexit).

Loss of collaborations - it's not clear to me why this would happen. The EU presumably doesn't have a "you may only collaborate with other EU researchers" rule, since there're lots of countries that are not part of the EU. But if they don't have such a rule then presumably collaborations can persist whether or not the UK is within the EU. Further, the EU would be incentivized to keep such collaborations because they're presumably win-win. Finally, even if EU collaborations are jeopardized, there's still the rest of the world. There are scientific powerhouses like the US that aren't part of the EU either.

Other reasons I've seen, like "there's no clarity on what we can or cannot do", should be temporary. They might be causing problems now, but five years in the future they should be resolved also.

Is there anything about Brexit that is fundamentally injurious to British science? If not, why do UK scientists so universally regard Brexit as grim?

tl;dr: Although it is possible to have Brexit without British science suffering, this would require meaningful political support, and there is little to suggest that this will be forthcoming in the near future.

A recent report by the Royal Society provides some context. This report is focussed on the British research sector as a whole, rather than on science specifically, but not too much turns on that. Some key figues include:

Britain receives a significant amount of funding from European bodies (e.g. ERC)
A sizeable fraction of the UK science workforce originates from other EU countries (16% of academic staff; 14% of PhD students)
70% of British researchers held a non-UK affiliation at some point in the period 1996-2011, although there is no EU-specific figure.

The overall picture is that British research benefits from EU membership, through direct financial input and through mobility of individuals. British universities are disproportionately well-regarded on the international stage (e.g. the Times Higher Education ranking has 7 British universities in the top 50, compared to 7 from the rest of the EU combined), and so historically Britain has been able to attract excellent researchers from around the world, especially EU neighbours.

It is right to say that Brexit does not need to change any of this. However, maintaining the status quo would require political and financial investment from the government, and there has been little evidence that this will be forthcoming in the short term - especially given the difficulties the government has had in agreeing the basic framework for Brexit. Domestic investment in research has fallen significantly in real terms in recent years, and it is not clear that any more cash will be available in the immediate aftermath of Brexit.

It is also currently unclear how EU citizens currently living in the UK, and British citizens living in other EU countries will be affected. Some progress has been made on this, but (anecdotally) not enough to allay individuals' concerns. This is compounded by (real or perceived) xenophobic attitudes that precipitated the Brexit vote. Numerous UK-based, non-British researchers of my acquaintance are concerned over what the future holds for them, and have started to consider what other options are open to them.

Finally, it is perhaps worth noting that the Brexit vote was correlated with socioeconomic status, and the ideology of Brexit has never enjoyed much support in any of the academic circles I have been familiar with.


Two students having separate topics chose to use the same paper format Two students decided to consult each other about term paper formatting, because the teacher didn't provide guidance on the format. They used the same format, but different topics and totally different content on the subject matter. Is deciding to use the same format plagiarism?

No.
If using the same format were plagiarism, then almost every article published in a journal is plagiarizing, since they all have the same format. Plagiarism happens when some kind of intellectual idea is involved, and the format used is not an intellectual idea.


Single author papers against my advisor's will? I am a third year PhD student in an area of theoretical CS that would like advice for a difficult situation with my advisor.

My advisor is not involved in my research projects at all. In particular, I have come up with all of my paper ideas, and have executed the papers alone. However, she always insists on adding her name as a co-author. This has started to increasingly bother me, as I work very hard on my research and believe I should get credit for that. Note that in theoretical CS, there is no PI is always last author just because of funding tendency, all authors are considered equal and are ordered alphabetically. This makes it particularly bad to just add her, because it is completely ambiguous how much each of us has done.

For my most recent paper, I brought up how I didn't believe she was meeting the IEEE or ACM guidelines for authorship, and told her that I believed I should be sole author on my paper. She agreed that she shouldn't be an author, although she was visibly angry. She said that I was a "weirdo" for doing this, and said that everybody already knows that advisors take credit for their student's work and that publishing with your advisor is the same as publishing alone (this is absolutely untrue). But most importantly, she told me that she would not approve my proposal/dissertation if I did not add her name to several more top-tier papers because then I "have no ties to the university" since I am not working with a professor, and therefore cannot receive my PhD. She also made a lot of other threats, but that was the most relevant to me.

Obviously, I need a new advisor. However, there is really no one in my department in my research area. Switching research areas or departments are not options. So the remaining options are the following:

(1) Add her name to several more papers. I do not like this idea because it is unethical, and there is no guarantee that anything is even gained in this option. She could simply refuse to recommend me in the end after I got her a bunch of papers.

(2) Ignore her threats, and continue working towards my PhD, assuming that she will have to let me graduate. The reasons I don't believe she can stop me from graduating is because (a) I already have a good publication record and my papers are only getting better (b) I have funding independent of her through a fellowship and (c) our dept makes is difficult to kick out graduate students for no real reason. The downside of this is that she won't give me a letter of recommendation, but she doesn't have many connections anyways so this might not be too bad. On the positive side, I will have a bunch of single author papers.

(3) Try to convince a professor in an unrelated research area in my dept to be my advisor, emphasizing that I am independent and can do my work alone. There are a few theory professors in my dept, although they are totally different areas. I have no idea the chance of this working out.

I am also planning on talking to the chair about my situation. But I just wanted to get more of an opinion, what do you think I should do?

You describe behavior that is certainly unethical and should be grounds for dismissal. One doesn't threaten graduate students or try to bribe them (with graduation) for what is in CS, in the US, anyway, improper co-authorship.

That said, your options are limited. I think the best option is to start with the department chair and see where you stand. If the chair is willing to act ethically you may have a solution, but otherwise you may just need to try to do whatever is necessary to accelerate your graduation and move on.

One option that the chair might suggest is a mediated meeting with your advisor and either he chair or another faculty member. Your ideas about working independently and getting someone else to sign whatever is needed to graduate might be worth pursuing.

The problem will then be finding proper letters of recommendation to move you to your next position. That will be difficult unless you cultivate opportunities around you.

I'm going to also suggest that if the chair isn't supportive that you explore opportunities elsewhere. If other faculty aren't available, it might be worth looking at other institutions. It might actually be less disruptive to do that and someone with a publication record might be seen as a "catch" by another university.

But I'll guess that your option (2) is the worst.

Note to readers. Co-authorship by advisors is not the norm in CS and mathematics in many places. My advisor (math) never would have thought of it even though he had substantial contributions to the work, and I never would have considered it for my own students (CS). It would have felt "icky".


How to mention one year PhD gap on a CV / Resume I have 4 years' work experience as a software developer (industrial); then I moved to academia and completed one year of PhD study, with one publication. I want to quit my PhD and go back again to Industries because of lack of interest in the present topic. It is quite different to my previous research and work experience. I made a big mistake entering into this area. I am bit confused how to mention this (one year of PhD) gap in CV. Do you think is it good to put in CV or Just leave it as gap?

It would be great help and appreciate your valuable suggestions

Women who take some time off for family matters deal with gaps in the CV all the time -- it's not a big deal.  In those cases, I recommend acknowledging the gap in the cover letter.  I don't think that's necessary in your case.

In your CV, report the academic year under Education (two semesters of graduate study in [field] at [institution]).  If the reader chooses to interpret this as meaning that you planned all along to spend exactly two semesters to get some theoretical underpinnings, what harm is done?

If an interviewer asks you why you didn't continue and get a Masters or PhD, you may tell a small white lie:

  The computer science courses were interesting, but I'm really looking forward to getting back into industrial software development, because that's what I like best. For example, (and then talk enthusiastically about some work project that was rewarding and that came out great.)


How shall I report a critical error in a given paper? This is a follow-up of my previous question about this course task:

  Find an existing, published research paper in the field of Chemical Engineering and try to autonomously replicate its results (plots, data, equations et similia).

In my replication study, I found that there was a report error; that is, a mathematical model was wrongly written, but the results shown on the paper were related to its correct form.

  After my revision and replication trial, I found that using their same model, I do not obtain the paper results. There is no presence of replication error by me, and my TA pointed out flaws (of fundamental nature, for example F = mv instead of F = ma) in the model, that once corrected allowed me to obtain the results shown in the paper.

Now, I discovered a pure error in one of the basic assumptions of the model (namely, the molar mass of molecular oxygen set to 16 u, and not 32 u). This error in itself changes all the results of the paper, since it invalidates the reactor model and the subsequent optimization.

I have verified and consistently proved that the error exists, as I can reproduce the paper results including said error. What are my options now? I want someone to take notice and fix this paper, since I have proved it contains wrong results.

Talk to an experienced researcher in the field before getting too excited.  For instance, you could talk to the professor of your course, if they are an active researcher in this area.

The question of what constitutes a "critical error" is subjective and often hard for a student to evaluate.  For instance, perhaps the authors are just using conventions that you are not familiar with, or you have misunderstood what they are saying.

It can also happen that although the text of the paper is literally incorrect, an experienced researcher can see immediately what was intended, and won't be confused by it.  These sorts of errors are typically not taken seriously and are not considered to warrant a formal correction to the paper, which requires a lot of work for the authors and editors.

It's good that you've discussed this with your TA, but your TA is likely a graduate student who doesn't yet have a lot of experience with research and publication in this area.

I think it's pretty common for students to get very excited about finding errors of any kind in published work, and to feel that "the world needs to know".  I've had this experience myself.  But community standards may not be what you think they are, and if you try to raise a big fuss about something that the research community regards as trivial, it'll just waste time and make you look a bit silly.

If an expert agrees that the error really is critical, then they can also advise you on how to proceed.  Typically you would begin by contacting the authors, and they would talk to the journal editor about publishing a correction (or "corrigendum").  In the unlikely event that they don't acknowledge the error, you can also raise the issue with the journal editor directly.  If the discovery of the error is itself something of significant scientific interest, then you could think about writing a new paper about it.  But don't cross that bridge until you come to it.


Should I include a patent in my cumulative PhD thesis? I am writing my thesis as a cumulative PhD, meaning that instead of describing the outcome of my project in a standard book format I write a short introduction to the compilation of publications. My thesis consists of five articles (two of which are first-author) and a manuscript in press. During my PhD studies I also co-authored a patent application that is now internationally published.

Should I incorporate the patent as a core part of my thesis, similarly to other publications? Other options include putting it in the appendix, alongside with the supplementary information to publications, or leaving it out completely.

This is something you really need to discuss with your advisor. Personally I think it may be very reasonable to include the patent application as an appendix (and the fact that you are a named inventor on a patent application is by itself quite impressive and likely to add some cachet to your thesis), but that's just my highly uninformed opinion. I don't think anyone not familiar with specific details of the patent application and how it relates to the rest of your work could give you very authoritative advice on such a question.

Another thing to keep in mind is that most patent applications are not really "authored" by the inventor. Large parts (if not the entire thing) are usually written by lawyers. So (except in the unlikely event where you actually wrote the whole thing yourself) there would be an interesting question of how to properly present/credit the patent application, and whether it would be covered by any copyright laws (I suspect patent applications are considered to belong to the public domain once they are made public, but that's just a guess). These sorts of issues are some of the reasons why inclusion as an appendix seems more appropriate to me than in the main body of the thesis.


When is the ideal time to contact potential PhD advisors? I'm a rising senior studying Psychology, and will be applying to PhD and Master's programs in the Fall. I have already shortlisted the advisors from the schools I would like to work with and whose research I find fascinating.

Would sending them a quick email now (late May) asking whether they are taking graduate students and expressing an interest in being a part of their lab in 2019 be too early? Should I wait until the term starts in September/October to reach out to them?

Assuming you’re talking about the US, the summer would be a good time to start contacting faculty about your interest, although the exact amount of funding and the availability of open positions more than a year ahead of time is murky at best. So you’re not likely to get a commitment at this time, but you will make yourself known to the research group, which could be of benefit in getting an admissions offer.


How to tackle papers filled with unknown vocabulary Background

I am having a lot of trouble wrapping my head around papers for my distributed systems class. I and two partners have to write a research paper, and we must cite around 20 research papers for the paper in our bibliography and also use them as a jumping off point for our material.

I am a computer-science student. I see a lot of stuff in the paper about discrete mathematics, and algorithms. I took a discrete mathematics class, however I have forgotten much of it by now, and I don’t know if I was too competent after leaving the class. I did well, but I don’t know how to apply outside of problems. I am new to distributed systems as well. Everything in the papers are so overwhelming.

Question

I am so used to thinking, speaking, and seeing things in vernacular. There’s so much jargon in these papers that I feel like I am reading a different language and I am so lost. I will read through multiple paragraphs or sentences and just not comprehend a thing. I don’t know how to grasp the main points from the abstracts and then pull those out of the rest of the paper.

How can I deal with this?

Ask your professor for help.  That’s what he or she is there for.  (But be warned – there may be no way around needing a real understanding of some basics in discrete math and in algorithms.)
When you say you are used to seeing things only in the vernacular, that means you have been getting away with only vaguely understanding them.  The jargon isn’t there to make it hard for you; it’s there to make everything precise.
When I have some reason to work on something for which I don’t know the background, I find a collaborator.  If I can’t, I give up and find something else to work on.  (Of course, this only works if there is something you have background for so that other people will have reasons to collaborate with you.  That’s why graduate school takes so long!)
Reading technical material is not like reading a trashy novel.  Seriously reading and understanding the details of a paper relevant to my research (in mathematics) takes about two hours per page.
You probably need to make up your own examples and work through some of the papers sentence by sentence, working out how each sentence works out for your examples.  Obviously you cannot go into that level of detail for every paper, but not all of them will be equally important to you as starting points.


The importance of the title "Mathematical Physics" vs. "Physics" on one's degree for grad school/jobs I've got a question for anyone that cares and knows how to help. I'm a third year physics student, currently enrolled in the "regular", straight-up physics stream. However, since I've realized I don't want to go into the experimental side of physics, I am trying to avoid having to take a lab course. This isn't possible while staying in the stream I'm in right now, but due to my elective and other choices in regards to the mathematics courses I took thus far, I am still eligible to switch into Mathematical Physics. I've looked at the requirements and the courses I'd now need to take when compared to the ones I'd need to take if I stayed in the regular stream are basically the ones I would use up my electives on anyway. Thus, the only qualitative change arising from switching the programs would be that I would be able to avoid that final lab course, and could take another course, say, biophysics or a maths course, instead.

My concern, however, is what impact would this have in regards to my going to grad school or looking for jobs? As far as grad school is concerned, I would assume it wouldn't have much of an impact due to the importance of actual classes I took and not the name on my degree, but what about jobs if an academic career doesn't pan out? Does "Physics" look better than "Mathematical Physics" in certain cases? If so, when would that be? In other words, is mathematical physics looked down upon as being esoteric?

Any other advice in regards to this switch would also be appreciated.

Switch to Math Phys. It won't hurt your job prospects at all, since you don't want to be an experimentalist or phenomenologist. Math Phys covers any decent theoretical physics ground anyway. You'll be doing yourself a big favor and it will even help you focus more on one area of research, and put you into a healthier social environment.


How to deal with a cynical class? I am dealing with this class that somehow became very cynical. We have constant complaints about the pace of the class, people asking literally the same questions over and over, blatant plagiarism, students pretty much insulting the lecturer and staff or laughing (sometimes at others asking questions) and being noisy during lectures etc.

This is especially weird since this is a professional education class. We are talking about people in their 30s on average paying $10k at a top 10 university and just for this one course. So it is not like this is some filler core requirement people are forced to attend against their will. These people were interested in this class before start and something messed up the morale.

We had the same staff --instructor and TAs-- for other cohorts and never had such issues. I am thinking it has to do with the composition of this cohort - one or two know-it-all types had a negative attitude from the beginning and some others somewhat struggling a bit started taking on their attitude. Before we realized this all snowballed into the cohort turning into a classroom of 30+ yr old high schoolers.

We have another 3 months to go and it is getting very exhausting for the staff and for the students still trying. People blatantly slowing down the class is not helping either. The instructor has been trying to talk to the whole class as well as the individual troublemakers along the lines of maintaining professionalism but that is simply having no effect. So the question is, how do we address this to salvage as much as we can and make it to the end of the class without it devolving further?

If they want to act as high schoolers, you'll need to treat them like high schoolers.

I've taught in high school for a little time and while your semester already started, it is not too late to get a handle back on your class. The first few minutes after the class start is the most important moment to make it clear messing around will not be tolerated.

I would try at least once, at the beginning of a class, to say something like this :

  You guys are being hard to manage and I'm sure you're aware of it. You are being disrespectful towards me, the rest of the teaching staff and other students who are trying to work. I'd like to know what is wrong, is there anything you think might make your experience better?

This way, you make it clear you want to work with them to find a solution and that it is bothering many people. Give them a chance to work it out with you before going the "full authority" route. You might give some troublemakers to turn into "positive leaders".

Even if this works, you need to start making it clear who has authority in your class. When you start your class, state your rules and don't move away from them. You'll probably need to set an example a couple of times before your students understand. You need to systematically apply the rules you gave your students or else they'll start exploiting you.

Regarding what you said in your post :

  People asking literally the same questions over and over

Offer the student to come see you after class if they asked a question that was already asked, this way you do not slow down the pace of your class and if it's an attempt at "trolling" the student simply won't come to see you.

  Blatant plagiarism

Your school clearly has a policy against plagiarism, start using it without exception. These students lost their right to second chances. If you catch plagiarism, report it to the correct instance at your school and let the comity in place decide.

  Students pretty much insulting the lecturer and staff or laughing (sometimes at others asking questions)

Respect is the most important thing in a class. If a kid in high school (where, at this age, education is a right not a service) can get kicked out of a class for being not being respectful, so can an adult. If I paid 10k$ for a class, you can be damn sure I'd stop this after being kicked out once. If you want to make sure you won't have repercussions, go see the head of your department to make sure they have your back if something happens.

  Being noisy during lectures

To be fair, this can happen. If this is repeated, refer to the point above.

You said in a comment "That is a straightforward solution but the lead instructor in this case does not want to take authoritarian measures. So that's another challenge here". This is sad but University teachers aren't often good at managing this kind of class (because they don't have much experience with them). You should try talking to him/her about it, stating that it really messes up the flow of the class, the confidence of all the teaching staff and the overall credibility of the class.

As a last resort, when your class gets out of control, stop talking. More often than not, the students will deal with themselves and silence should come back to the class. If it doesn't well it is their loss.

To make this work, the best case scenario would be for the whole teaching staff to be on the same line and to make sure your boss has your back, but University students are customers of a service under certain conditions. If some students mess up with your class, they interfere with the students who are respecting the rules and this is not acceptable.

Edit

I've seen an OP's comment stating :

  "That's basically the case. No one academically that advanced afaik but we have bigwig corporate managers that can barely use computers alongside software engineers wanting to learn about data science and everything in between"

This is a very complex problem to address, because it is hard to pace your class for the large diversity of backgrounds, which means either some students won't understand or some will find the class too slow and since you're alone, it's hard to find a middle ground. What I might propose is to :

Either match students of different backgrounds together so that they can help each other (by whispering, of course) regarding their different expertise.
Show examples that can "talk to" your different kind of students. You have, maybe among others, managers and software engineering students, so try to give specific situations/examples where each of these students can bring their expertise. It is likely, I think, that your problematic students are the kind of people that like to hear themselves talk. By getting them to participate, I'm pretty sure you'll be able to have a better handle on your class.

In the case of a professional education class, I think it's important to let the students talk/participate in class. These are not people who are used to sitting hours in a class to listen to someone talk like University students are used to. By giving more opportunities to participate, you'll probably have a better experience.


Translate the laws abbreviation of non-english speaking country in English written paper? I'm working on paper discussing protection of National Park in Tatra Mts., splitted between Slovak republic and Poland: TANAP (Slovakia) and TPN (Poland).
I want to include the indication of laws declaring protected sites - however, those are the abbreviations in Slovak or Polish, respectivelly. Thus, for to say that TANAP has been declared by law SNR č. `11/1948 Zb . (in Slovak)
meaning is:

S - Slovenska = Slovak
N - Narodna = National
R - Rada = Council
c.- number
Zb. - Zbierky Zakonov = Collection of laws

thus SNR č. `11/1948 Zb  == SNC n 11/1948 Cl ?

If I will not translate law abbreviation, everyone can easily find a specific law. If I translate it, it would be (maybe) more comprehensible to reader, but really hard to find a law if needed.

Thus, in english written paper, should I translate law abbreviations/annotations in origin in non-english or not? What is the common practice?

Thank you a lot, I really appreciate your help.

I seriously doubt the translated version you've shown would make any more sense to the reader and so would just leave them as is.

If the distinctions in the various abbreviations are important, you may want to explain them by including them in a spelled out fashion and mentioning that the abbreviation used comes from the original language. But the reality is, it sounds like the people reading your paper will be familiar with the laws of both countries, and so such information may be entirely superfluous.


How can I decide on taking four classes for first year in graduate school? I just finished undergraduate degree from a mediocre liberal arts college. I am attending a graduate school ranked about 30. I feel that I am lacking a little in my basic knowledge. Therefore, I was thinking about taking three to four classes in basic subjects (two semesters each of algebra, real analysis, complex analysis and algebraic topology) during my first year.

Coming from a liberal arts college, I have never taken four classes in a single semester and my plan is to do exactly that for two consecutive semesters.

If it helps, those four classes would be 16 credits in a semester. Algebra and analysis are 5.0 credits each. Complex analysis and algebraic topology are 3.0 credits each.

Also I am on a fellowship for first year of my graduate school, which means I do not have to teach and can dedicate my time for studies.

How can I approach this decision? What aspect may I not have taken into account?

In the U.S., to have a fellowship as opposed to teaching assistantship really does free up considerable time each week, so four classes rather than the norm of three is completely plausible, if that's the way you decide to go.

I would want to strongly disagree with some of the claims, in comments above, that you'll never use most of the Prelim-level material "in your research". This is not naturally true, but can certainly be made true by being sufficiently ignorant, and/or sufficiently misconstruing the material in the Prelims and corresponding courses. (Also, one may encounter caricatures of Prelim exams.)

I would also strongly disagree with the claim that a (typical) undergrad degree in math (in the U.S.) provides sufficient breadth. This is even more crazily false than the supposed irrelevance of Prelim exam material. But, as with most things, clever people can contrive arguments for or against almost anything.

The genuine question is whether you should do four "core" courses, rather than take "electives", and/or self-study or group-study. First, this obviously depends on how effective/disciplined you are at self-study. If "very", then this is probably optimal to some degree, because it can be more flexibly scheduled, if nothing else. If you do better in a group setting, or with an instructor organizing things and making a schedule, then coursework might be better.

But there does remain the question of whether or not to try to do all the basic things (by which I don't mean standard U.S. undergrad math) prior to everything else. I generally don't think this is a good idea. Instead of all four basic grad courses, maybe do three and an "elective" in the/a direction of your curiosity. Maybe with less homework, and less "adversarial" feeling.

Over the years, I have seen many people "get tired" from (arguably over-assigned) homework, to the point that they have forgotten why they came to grad school, have forgotten their affection for math, and have lost a sense of genuine curiosity, from being "over-driven".

For that matter, much of the "basic" material is deemed essential-for-everyone (not only for general cultural sense, but) because it comes up all the time. (Sure, there is tradition, too, whose inertia sometimes swamps sense.) If/when people (especially novices, e.g, grad students) tell you that you "don't need to know" various things, you really should not believe them too strongly (because they probably don't know what they're talking about, or else, if nothing else, they'd have subtler opinions about it), even if they are your friends and/or peers.

It is true that thinking in terms of "research", especially if this means something opposite to the artificially over-ordered world-view of textbooks and established curriculum (and grades, and schedules), is a very good thing. Genuine mathematics is not as highly ordered/structured as one might imagine from textbooks and standardized course concepts. Nor are the questions/issues at the end of any particular chapter, so that one knows the relevant theorems! It is also not "graded". So, yes, experiencing something opposite to classwork is very good... but this is absolutely not an either/or.

That is, whether you acquire basics by self-study or guided study or coursework, that is just one thread. There is at least one other, the one where you make the decisions, based on your curiosity, etc, and are not graded or judged. We can call this "research", but that word has much other baggage these days, which is not immediately relevant to the practice of mathematics.


Should an application for a second postdoc position include a reference to PhD supervisor? I'm preparing an application for another postdoc job; the end of my first term is nearing, and it has been 1.5 years since finishing my PhD. My thesis work was mostly done in not-well known research institute in a small country; my current postdoc position is in a significantly better university (world's top 100, strong in my area).

I'm somewhat reluctant to include my former PhD advisor as a reference because our relationship was strained in the last year of my studies.

The first reference I'll have is the PI in my current project. For the second reference, alternative options are:

another professor from my current university / project;
the director of the research institute I did my PhD in;
my former PhD advisor.

Which one would you suggest?

If you're afraid the relationship with your supervisor results in a negative reference for you, I suggest not to include him. However, based on the alternative options you have, you must be sure that they actually know you and are able to provide a reference for you.

Although the director of the institute potentially carries more weight (he's the director, after all), he must know about your work and your work ethic. If you worked closely with another professor in your project, it's more likely he is able to provide a better reference for you, and I would choose the professor over the director in that case.


Academic pipeline: How many papers should you have under review? Often I've come across rules of thumb about maintaining active publication record. The advice I've most often been given is that one should have at least two papers under review at all times? What's your strategy? I am in the social sciences.

You're simply asking the wrong question.  Your goal should be to do the best work you can, not the most — quality, not quantity.  One revolutionary paper is worth far more than dozens of incremental papers that nobody reads.

To put it another way, if you find yourself submitting so many papers that you're worried about being overwhelmed, you're doing something wrong.  Aim higher.  Publish fewer, bigger chunks of work.  Spend less time writing and more time thinking and digging.  Stop just writing papers and develop a research program.  The CV bullets will take care of themselves.


Justification that 'good exposition' is uniquely defined What evidence is there that changes to exposition that improve clarity for one reader will necessarily improve clarity for another reader?

The context I'm thinking of here particularly is referee comments (although the answer will probably apply more broadly). In various places I've read that if a referee says something is unclear then they are automatically right, because at least one reader has had trouble understanding. It seems to me that this assumes that 'the clearest description' will be the same for all readers. It is not clear to me why it is fair to rule out the possibility that the text simply doesn't align with the referee's preferred viewpoint.

This is a false dilemma. Good exposition is not uniquely defined.
Yet, if a referee claims they don't understand what you write, chances are that they are right. Add some clarifications. This doesn't mean necessarily rewriting everything with the referee's favorite approach: maybe just a remark tailored to people with their background. ("If you're used to seeing concept X defined in this other way, note that this is equivalent because...") If there is a wrong approach that you wish to refute, do it, in the paper or in the response letter.

Good exposition doesn't mean the referee's preferred viewpoint, but it doesn't mean your preferred viewpoint either.


My PhD adviser is objecting to my request to change my PhD topic I am a midway PhD candidate, I have finished all of the coursework and the qualifying exam. This my fifth semester (i.e. I'm starting my 3rd year now). Now I feel that, the topic I've selected to work on is not the right one for me. As both my adviser and myself are not experts in that area.

I initially thought things will go fine and progress gradually but it hesn't gone as I expected. So far I have managed to write a manuscript for review paper (almost ready for submission) but I have only got very simple preliminary results. I'm really not feeling comfortable to continue in this topic because I am not getting the guidance that I need. I know that as a PhD candidate, I have a responsibility to do almost research and learn new techniques on my own but definitely help is needed to become an independent researcher, otherwise, we wouldn't have an adviser at all.

I have tried to contact someone in the field from another school but my advisor is not helping me in that regard (which I feel is discouraging). I don't know how am I going to make a meaningful contribution to the field, if I'm struggling to reproduce some results from the literature (that might look basic for the people in the field).

Last week I told my adviser I'm thinking of changing my topic;

  he told me either I have to continue on the same (current) topic or I need to find a new adviser, he also mentioned that he might leave the school soon so know if I should change to a new topic since this could may take time and delay my progress further.

I'm concerned that changing my adviser at this stage might look negative in the department. I've worked diligently to be allowed to work with my current adviser so I'm trying to avoid that option unless absolutely necessary.

Now, is it expected that I will continue working this topic even if I'm not comfortable with it and my adviser may not help me on it or should I change my adviser regardless of the consequences.

I'm looking for any suggestions on how to convince my adviser to change my topic and work on something that is in our field.

What you need is a realistic option. According to what you write, your advisor may leave soon and your advisor doesn't want to work with you on a different topic. Consider those as given. You aren't going to "wear the advisor down" or impose your own will on the advisor. That seldom happens and even more seldom successfully.

If your advisor is satisfied with your current progress and expects completion before he leaves then one viable option is to keep on with what you are doing.

If you really must abandon the topic, then a different advisor is probably a viable option as well.

I don't see other possibilities here that have much likelihood of success. Either of those two options has implications on time to completion, of course, as well as on how you act and feel in the short term. But either can be leveraged into a career. Keep your eye on that prize. Not the short term.


How to do a flawless and natural presentation? I have been attending a number of academic / professional conferences recently and one thing that really awed me was the flawless and natural way in which the speakers presented on their topics.

Sure, they had the occasional mispronunciations or awkward pauses but they spoke with authority and confidence.

Some of them used powerpoint slides but were not reading from the slides; they were just talking on the points and they had so much to say on each point that I felt they could not do it without notes, but they were not even looking at their notes most of the time.

(The advantages of not looking at their notes too much was that they could maintain eye contact and could use very interesting slides that were not crammed with the dot points of their speeches.)

I hate to think that they had memorised their speech notes but some of the presentations went for more than an hour.

I know rehearsal is important but I wonder how could anyone remember so much in a nervous situation. (Its one thing to know everything on your topic; its another thing to present that 'everything'!)

Question:
What background / foreground things do presenters do that make their presentations flawless and natural?

A natural presentation comes from practice, and lots of it.

From practice comes confidence. Excellent speakers rarely have more than a few words bullet pointed on their slides. This means that the audience's attention is focused on the speaker. The speaker then tells the audience what the speaker wants them to hear, or directs the audience's attention to an image displayed on the screen.

Aside from not splitting the audience's attention between speaker and loads of text on-screen, having few words on your slides means that you are not tempted yourself to read your presentation to the audience. Such recitation is only suitable if you are analysing the text itself closely.

Further to that last point, having only single or few key words on your slides forces you to know your subject and what to say on each point. You don't have the slides to fall back upon, allowing you to lazily read them to your audience.

Which brings me back to practice. One way of getting familiar with what you want to say on each point is to write down a few detailed notes for yourself. When you practice your talk, you can refer to these detailed notes. Next time through, distil your notes down to only a few key words. Next time through - or when you are confident - your notes should be only the key words on the screen for the audience, and are therefore redundant. No notes, fluent delivery.


Is it my responsibility to point out that a paper has been plagiarized from another researcher's blog? While reading a series of blog posts on a sub-field in TCS (theoretical CS), I came across a paper recently published by a group of students/faculty that has literally copy-pasted large sections of a blog post, and made it into a journal paper thats available online. My question(s) are about what I should do about it:

Do I point it out to the author of the blog, and leave it to him
about how to handle the issue?
Contact the journal in question - but since its not my work, I'm hesitant that whether I have a case
Leave it alone, finish reading the blog posts, and add the journal to my private list of journals to completely ignore?

The third option is most hassle-free for me, but I wondered if it'd be ethical to know about plagiarism and not point it out!

Ignoring the journal in question is probably an overreaction.

However, the best route to take is the first one—the author of the copyrighted material is the one that has the most responsibility to assert her rights. Your duty is to notify the person whose work has been infringed upon that the violation has taken place. Once you've done that, you've achieved what's ethically required of you. You are not obligated to take the matter up directly with the journal. (However, you may do so if you so choose.)


Difference between "Referee-reviewed articles" and "Referee-reviewed conference contributions"? I'm a new PhD student.  The specific demands on me are for me to agree to do the following, during my PhD:

Publish two Referee-reviewed articles and
Publish four Referee-reviewed conference contributions

I completely understand what is 2.

However, I'm not sure what is 1. (but is not 2.).

So my only question is, what is the difference between 1. and 2.?

Thanks!!!  Todd

Typically, "article" refers to a journal publication, while "conference contribution" would refer to conference papers.


How to signal sole affiliation is honorary? (My field is pure mathematics)

EDIT: I asked this question as a form of thinking out loud. I've realised with the help of the commenters below that my inclinations were a bit stupid, but others in similar positions might find the discussion useful.

I have an honorary, 'visiting' affiliation with the university (in my city where I live) where I once had an academic position. I do not have a paid research position there, and the adjunct teaching positions I have had of late in the mathematics department there appear to have run out. I have library and building access, and am for most intents and purposes counted as staff, minus the actual job. I have continued steadily publishing papers in this position.

I am wondering what people would advise about listing my affiliation on papers. I have no complaints with the department, and they have been happy to renew my status, which is very nice. However, I would like to signal in some way that I am not in fact employed to do this research. The only way I can think of this is to stop listing myself as being 'at' the university in question, but this seems to me as ungrateful, or risking losing this affiliation.

I am also aware that the department gains from my producing research and listing it as having taken place there, without the actual full cost of employing me. This may lead to certain negative incentives, but this is pure supposition.

An honourary appointment at my university comes with an email address, library privileges, internet access and a hot desk. In exchange, we advise our honourary staff that we are happy for them to list their affiliation with us in two wways: (1) "Honourary Research Fellow" or (2) "Research Fellow (Honourary)". They are, of course, under no obligation to do so.

In the journals I help edit, affiliations listed as honourary or adjunct or visiting carries no stigma. We treat it like any other affiliation. However, because there is a cap in the number of affiliations authors can list (we allow no more than three), an honourary affiliations are included in those counts.

Good luck!


How to continue doing research At present I write my bachelor's thesis in the field of computer science and I really enjoy it. I would like to continue doing research after I'll have finished my thesis. Is there any way to do that in parallel to my master programme? I think there are two ways in general and would like to hear what your opinion is.

Ask a professor

Are professors interested in supervising a student having only a bachelor's degree? Of course I would work free of charge because I would profit from a better CV and maybe good chances of a career at that chair. I should also mention that the chair I'm writing at is very practically oriented and my professor is a really student-friendly person. They work on real projects and implement algorithms rather than design them. I think that they could benefit from me beacuse I'm a very talented guy with years of experience.

Do research on my own

I could also try to publish papers on my own. But this way is somewhat to hard I think because I would have no reviewers nor topics to write about.
I can also imagine to write scientific blog posts; probably nobody will read them but that would be okay since I could reference them in my future applications.

So do you guys have any tipps for me how to accomplish it?

Talk to your current professor. If he likes the idea, he might give you the opportunity to use his resources and provide guidance. This could be a preparation to your future master thesis.

If you have less of an idea what you want to do exactly, look out for research assistant/student assistant positions (or ask around if someone needs help), where you could be part of a research project by helping out with simpler (but no less important) tasks. Though I'm not sure this is a thing in computer science.


Is it OK to go to postdocs for help? There is a postdoc from another group in my department that frequently helps PhD students in his area when they have questions or want to talk about a particular subject. I would like to know if this is expected/normal. In other words, can I go to a postdoc looking to talk and ask questions related to our field?

In other words, can I go to a postdoc looking to talk and ask questions related to our field?

It depends on what you mean by "can", as well as the culture in your field and department.

If you are asking whether it's an ethical and reasonable thing to do, then the answer is certainly yes.  You can talk with and ask questions to anyone you'd like, provided you appropriately acknowledge any assistance you receive.

If you are asking whether the postdoc has an obligation to provide substantial assistance or tutoring, then the answer is quite possibly no.  It's hard to give a definitive answer, since precisely what the word "postdoc" means varies between fields and departments, but you shouldn't assume supervising graduate students is a serious part of the job unless you have some confirmation that this is true in your scenario.

If your questions are genuinely interesting and thought-provoking to the postdoc, then they will probably be happy to chat with you.  You may also get a good response if you ask about topics that are truly difficult to learn about elsewhere, so that the postdoc will be sympathetic.  On the other hand, if you try to lighten your workload by asking the postdoc relatively routine questions so you don't have to bother looking things up, then they will probably lose patience with you.


Keeping your throat comfortable after hours of lecturing After lecturing for 3-4 hours my throat is often quite sore. Some days, I must lecturer for 6 hours (in past semesters, I've had some days which require lecturing for 8 hours). The problem is that for my later classes I have difficulty speaking comfortably.

I drink a lot of water, don't smoke, and use lozenges from time to time (when I'm in pain).

Are there any other known (scientific or folklore) solutions to this problem of getting a sore throat after lecturing for 3-4 hours?

Make sure you can lecture without having to raise your voice, ever. When I did lecture a lot, I sometimes used a microphone even if the group was rather small, if only to be sure that I wouldn't raise my voice more than the minimal.
Drinking is good: I find that hot beverages heavily loaded with sugar are the best. I usually drink some light-flavoured tea (green tea, jasmine tea, …) with lots of sugar or honey. If the weather is hot, lemon-based drinks make you salivate more and help preventing dry sore throat.
Deal with your boss to avoid those horrible teaching conditions in the first place. He might not care that it's not in your best interest, but explain to him that it's not in the students' best interest either! (Sore throat aside, I don't know anyone who can teach with as much passion on the 8th hour as on the first.)


Are there rules dictating that a Ph.D. supervisor must have a Ph.D.? Is there any specific rule that requires someone supervising and awarding a Ph.D. to have a Ph.D. themselves?  I learned recently in some parts of Asia it is possible to have a Masters degree and award a Ph.D.  One point made was, in the example of Korea, there was no education system and as such it was required for this to be the case at some point.  This seems to have continued.  Does this exist in United States or Europe as well?

No, there isn't any general rule.

First, a PhD degree is awarded by a university, not by an individual.

The education system of a country or the university rules usually define which positions can officially act as supervisors. The same education system or the university rules establish which titles should have a person to be eligible for those positions: if the PhD is not required, which is not uncommon, there can certainly be PhD supervisors without a PhD.

Another case is the following: in Italy the PhD degree has been established some thirty-odd years ago. This means that most of those who became professors in Italy before that time don't have a PhD (as Federico rightly observes, some might have taken it abroad), but they surely can supervise students officially.


How to convey your main idea in a research paper? I am a PhD student in computer science (theory). I am currently writing a research paper. It is a short paper consisting of about 7-8 pages. I have written it two time and have taken few advice from research supervisor. I am struggling with the part where we give the overview of our approach.

Problems I am facing :

I can not write much in this part as it is just an overview.
I have to be consistent with the symbol's I used in the main part of research paper.
How much should I give in the overview section?
Should I try to avoid symbols, proofs etc. in the overview section?

Question: How to convey your main idea in a research paper?

One of the important and difficult skills to learn in technical presentation is how to tell the same story at multiple levels of detail, from a single sentence to a multi-hour tutorial or long-form journal paper.

Moreover, any well-organized presentation (written or spoken) should typically present at multiple levels of resolution. As one of my grad school mentors used to say: "Tell them what you're going to tell them, then tell it to them, then tell them what you told them."  This is not redundancy, but rather priming the reader to understand how the pieces fit together and summarizing to help them retain it.

In most good papers, I would thus expect to see the "main idea" presented either five or six times, at various levels of resolution:

As a few words in the title, naming the most important "keyword" ideas.
As a few sentences in the abstract, identifying a problem, giving an approach, and claiming evidence of progress.
As one or two paragraphs in the introduction, sketching the key ideas and how the rest of the paper is organized.
Optionally, as an overview section providing a sketch of the main sections and the grounding of the approach in prior work.
In full detail in the main sections.
In a few summarizing sentences in the final section, highlighting the most important things to remember from the main sections.

So how do you write at a "lower resolution"? I recommend thinking about the difference between what you are doing and how you are doing it. For example, the statement of a theorem is a "what" and the proof is a "how".  In a lower resolution, however, the "what" can become a how, presented consistently but less formally.  For example, that theorem may be one of several things that you prove as the "how" to get to the "what" of collectively proving a key result. One can then continue going to lower and lower resolutions. For example, all the work on proofs may be one "how" that combines with an implementation "how" and an experiment "how" to get to the "what" of demonstrating progress against the problem you are trying to address.

In short: remain consistent in your terminology, but drop as many levels of detail as you need to fit the space available for each telling of the main idea.


How to disclose in a review of an edited book that one was offered a chapter? Some time ago, I attended a conference. The organizers later compiled an edited book with the revised presentations of the conference. I was also offered to contribute a chapter. But after the sending the organizers a first draft, I had to turn down the offer as I did not have the time to make the revisions and additions they asked for.

Currently, I am writing an omnibus review about the same topic for a journal and I also would like to discuss the meanwhile published proceedings of the conference. Although I think the edited book has some very good points, I also would have to express severe criticism about some other points especially in the introduction by the organizers.

Therefore, I would like to know:
How do I disclose the best in the review that I have participated at the conference and was offered a chapter? Should I add a footnote or a paragraph? Wouldn't that even raise distrust?

To make things more complicated: There is already a well-meaning  review of the book by the 2nd supervisor of one of the contributors who has not disclosed his link in any way.

I would suggest that you do not need a disclaimer in this particular case: the bottom line is that you did not contribute to the book. If you had participated, it would be a clear-cut case… yours is more complicated, but the fact remains that none of the text of the book was written by you!

Another way to see it: a disclaimer would not raise distrust, but it would certainly add confusion (or at least, not add any clarity). You'd have to explain concisely your situation, stating the facts. You could come up with something like “The author of this review was asked to participate in the book, but had to decline due to time constraints”.

Finally, if you want to be sure to do the right thing: ask the journal editor! You then make it his call, since it's his journal. He's the best person to ask, really…


Chance of applying as a prospective PhD student in semesters Is it usual that the chance for a PhD student that aims to apply for the second semester of the educational year (i.e. spring semester) and sends his/her application for professors may be  lesser than who want to apply via connection with professors for the first semester in an educational year (i.e. autumn semester)? In other words, does volumes of accepted PhD students in the autumn semester influence on reduction of acceptance rate and opportunity for a Prospective PhD student who aims to apply in the next spring semester or each semester has its own capacity for accepting PhD students?

In the UK, most PhD studentships for home (UK/EU) will be advertised in the autumn, and also those few places that have PhD programms will have closing dates just after Christmas. In most cases this will be to recruit to programs that will start in the autumn of the following year.

This is not a hard and fast rule, and plenty of people will get positions later in the year, although many of them will still start at the start of the academic year in October.

This is not to say that no one starts inbetween, its just much less usual, and often suggests an unorthodox funding route, such as self-funding, foreign government fellowship or industrial sponsorship.


Should I choose easy modules? So I'm in my third year of university and I'm at the point where I have to choose my modules for next year. This is a simple question, but I really wish I asked it a long time ago because I have no idea of the answer.

Should I pick modules I know I can easily pass that will get me a better final grade but probably won't teach me anything OR should I pick modules that will be more challenging for me, will give me a lower final grade than if I picked the easy ones but with the benefit of teaching me a great deal?

I suppose at the root of it the question is am I at university solely to strengthen my future career prospects or am I here for the purpose of learning. Regardless of my answer to that, I'd like to know what people advise regarding module picking.

Bare in mind that I don't say "easy" modules because they're easy but because I practice a lot of the required skills in my free time so I have experience. They will still have the same value as the hard modules if an employer were looking at them.

Short answer: Go neither for easy nor for challenging courses but for courses that interest you the most.


How do academic grants work in the U.S.? When a professor is awarded a grant, what happens next?

Does the professor get the money?

Does the school get the money? If so, why?

Is it extra income for the professor?

How about when there are multiple professors on a project? Is the money theirs? Do they split the money?

How about when a graduate student gets funding from an agency? Does the student get the money? Does the school get it?

This answer is for the United States, though I believe that it works in a similar way in Europe.

The money goes to their university, not to them.  The terms of the grant say what the money is allowed to be used for.  The university either pays these expenses themselves or reimburses the professor if they pay out of their pocket.  Everything is documented by things like receipts, and universities periodically get audited by granting agencies.

Sometimes the grant includes money for salary (in mathematics, it is common for NSF grants to include 2 months of summer salary), which is dispensed by the university as part of the professor's paycheck.

In mathematics, the typical things that a grant pays for in addition to salary include travel, books, and graduate students, though often there are other things as well (for instance, my current grant has money for a summer program for high school students I run).


Etiquette/social norms for a grad student toward a faculty going on sabbatical I took a class with a professor and really liked his teaching.  Since then, we've had several conversations and I've gone to him for advice once.  While I don't work with him and I don't know if he'd necessarily consider me a friend, I do feel like we've had a number of positive interactions.

He's going on sabbatical within the next few months, and I'm (crossed fingers) on track to graduate this next May, which means that there's a fairly high probability that I will be gone before he returns.

It feels premature to be saying goodbye to him now, around a year before I'm (possibly) leaving.  If I graduate on time and he isn't back, do I just shoot him an e-mail which seems a little impersonal?  Leave a handwritten note in his mailbox?  Or is that really weird?

Is there a standard way of saying goodbye when I know there's a decent chance that I won't get to do it in-person a year from now?  Or is it just normal that professors don't expect/aren't surprised when students they know are gone when they come back?

When a professor goes on sabbatical for a year they know full well that students will graduate in the meantime. They have seen this happen from both sides (they were students once and their professors took sabbaticals as well.) There is no standard way to say good-bye. A note,  either electronic or physical, delivered before you leave is appropriate. So is asking the professor in question if they will be attending any of the graduation/end of year ceremonies that you will be having. Or you can simply say good-bye the last time you are going to see them before they leave since it may be the last time you see them.

General advice for keeping it from being "really weird" is to keep whatever you do short. Rambling will make it get uncomfortable for both of you. You have three basic things you might want to say: thank you, good-bye, best wishes for your sabbatical. You don't need a lot of words to get through those ideas.


Math Professors -- On average, how many hours per week do you think is required to gain tenure? I have a question particularly for the math professors here. I just finished my second year as a PhD student at a top30 University, passed all my qualifying exams, and I've begun working with an adviser in an area I'm excited about. Since the end of the Spring semester I've done a LOT of thinking, and I'm not sure academia is for me. The main issue is my perception of the time that will be required (in terms of hours per week) to get tenure. I have a wife and kids, and I just can't sacrifice the time spent with them, even if it means giving up something I love. I figure I could put in 40-45 hours a week, but then I need to be home. My first year of grad school, I put in 60-70 hours a week, and I certainly never want to go back to that. This last year, I've kept it between 40-50, and that seems about right for work/life balance.

So my question is this... am I correct in ruling Academia out for this reason? I had considering smaller colleges, but I'm looking to earn at least $60k and from what research I've done, I won't make that much.

My next question involves research outside Academia. Is there any place for research in combinatorics, asymptotics, probability, and analysis of algorithms outside of Academia, where the work-culture is a typical 40 hour workweek? I see a lot of research in other areas of mathematics that I'm not interested in (PDE's, Scientific/Engineering, Number Theory) -- but not really what I'm interested in.

So with all that, it seems to me that I'm not even sure why I would get a PhD anymore, other than it might open doors, but it's hard to stay motivated when there is no clear goal, or thing to work towards. My current thinking is just take some CS courses and learn some programming languages, get an internship next summer and perhaps leave with a masters after a year or so unless I can think of a very good reason to stay.

Any advice is appreciated!!

I've said this in another thread: if you are outstanding and efficient, you can do the work required in a 40-hour workweek.

An electrical engineering professor I know got through graduate school at MIT working 9-5 days with a wife and three kids (all born during school), and he was a shoo-in for tenure (and received it).  But, when he was at work, he was at work--I never once saw him out of work-mode during the regular day, and he put us graduate students to shame with his work ethic.  His efficiency and focus puts him over the top.  I know I couldn't be that efficient every day, but he makes it a priority to do the best he can at his job (which he loves) and also for his family, and he's figured out how to do it within the confines of a typical working week.  Granted, he is also extremely smart, but I believe his efficiency is as much responsible for his success as his brains.


Where can I find correlation between US News ranking and IPEDS database? I have been building a search tool for colleges and universities in US. I could find most of the data from the IPEDS database. Now I am trying to relate the colleges with US News ranking. I'm trying to find any source of data which could give me ranking of colleges with their UNITID/college name .
Any clues on how to get the rankings data along with UNITID ?

I uploaded a file to wikisend (free and no sign-up file hosting service) with the correlation.

US News and IPEDS ID

Actually pastebin never expires so here's a link to it on pastebin:

http://pastebin.com/FNEaJ1vC


Awaiting EIC Decision for more than 1 month I have submitted a paper in a journal's special issue. In the first notification, I got a major revision. After submitting the revision it goes through (awaiting for reviewer selection -> awaiting for reviewer scores -> awaiting for editors decision -> Awaiting EIC Decision). Now, it's in the "Awaiting EIC Decision" for more than one month.

Is it a bad sign? Is it ok if I send them an email? I need your opinion.

Thanks in advance.

Check out this question. You're at the "Editorial Decision" stage, and as you can see from there, the typical duration is a few workdays to a week. So more than 1 month is definitely atypical, and you should write in and ask.

If you're wondering, there's a good chance the abnormal wait time is because there's more than one "editor-in-chief": the original editor-in-chief, and the editor(s) in charge of the special issue.


Is it okay to ask a professor what they expect in a grad student for a research assistantship position? I'm joining a grad school for a research-oriented Masters in CS in Germany, early next year. There's a professor whose research interests me, but I certainly don't know enough currently to contribute to his group. His group regularly offers HiWi (tutor/research assistantship) positions and I'd love for a chance to work with him and get to know his research better.
Would it be okay to directly ask him what is expected from a student, to obtain a research assistant position in his group, so that I could prepare myself better? Given that I haven't even taken his classes yet (or even started school!), would this be frowned upon?
By asking him this, my intent is two-fold: (a) directly get to know the prerequisites of commencing research in his field, (b) make myself visible to him, even if it's in a cursory way - I'm assuming a lot of students would want to work with him, so I just figured networking a little early could improve my chances. Would this be okay, or am I being too eager about this? If anyone could tell me experiences specific to Germany, that'd be an added bonus (since university culture varies from country to country) - any advice would be great though!

You should definitely ask him. But at the same time let him know that you have gone through his course details online. In your conversation with him ensure that you are not asking anything which is readily available on the university website. In other words, you should reflect in your actions that you are sincere about your queries and not wasting his time.
You should definitely ask the previous students. You can glean from their experiences to find out if this position is suitable for you.


Professor never sent in recommendation letter I have been applying to PhD programs and asked multiple professors over a month in advance if they would write me letters of recommendation. For two of the programs, one out of the three professors never sent in their letter. One program is already almost three weeks late and the other is a few days late. Note that they did send in letters for other schools, so this has left me confused. I feel pretty disrespected and hurt as I spent quite a bit of time on these applications as well as over 200 dollars. The professor has not returned any of my emails. Note that I cannot or could not have seen them in person as I was out of the country.

With this said, what would the programs do? Will they just throw out my application?  I've also resolved to email the programs asking if I could have a different professor write a recommendation letter and send it in. If the programs agreed to this, how should I ask the new professor? They're the head of the department where the other professor who hasn't sent in the rec letter for the two schools works in. I don't want my email to be read as "you weren't my first choice for these programs but I kind of need your help". Would saying something along the lines of "Dear Dr. Professor, One of my letter writers for schools A and B never sent in their letters. After emailing A and B, I am allowed to have another letter sent in and am wondering if you would be able to write one for A and B?". Note that this professor did write letters for other PhD programs that I applied to, so I think it wouldn't be too much of a hassle.

Don't explain why, just ask for the letters.  Apologize for short notice and tell the professor it would be "helpful if you could send the letters right away."  (The professor will probably figure it out, but there's no need to make a point of it.)


How often are poster presentations rejected from conferences? I've never given any sort of presentation at a conference before, but I was under the impression that poster presentations are less prestigious and also much easier to get accepted.

I submitted a late abstract in the second round call for "late breaking" posters. I will hear back supposedly by the end of the week whether the abstract has been accepted or rejected.

The abstract is definitely on-topic for the conference (it's a very large, general applied math conference with multiple sessions in various subfields, but the poster session is for all applied math fields). My PI/advisor is very well-known within my field. We worked on the project together, although I would be the one presenting the poster if it gets accepted. She read over the abstract and helped make corrections/suggestions as well.

Just wondering generally how often a poster presentation would be rejected in this case.

In my field (Electrical Engineering), poster and oral presentations are usually accompanied by a full paper submission (or atleast an extended abstract) which is what is peer-reviewed, so the acceptance ratio of posters would be the same as that of the oral presentations.


Can authors/acknowledgements be edited once paper is published? Following on from my previous question, can the authors/acknowledgements section of a (review) paper be edited once the paper is submitted? Specially adding on people to the authors/acknowledgements.

If yes, how should this be done? I'm assuming it requires the permission of the people already listed as authors on the paper?

Generally speaking, adding to the authors or acknowledgements after publication would be very unusual.

I can imagine it might happen for acknowledgements ("terrible oversight, very embarrassing, we didn't mention XY, please could you change..."), but even then, it would not be surprising if the journal says no.
However, I am finding it very hard to imagine it happening for authors. The editor will ask - if this person had already contributed enough to be an author, why weren't they listed earlier? And if they hadn't contributed enough at the time, why are you trying to make them an author? I can't think of a good answer to either of those without imagining a very unusual set of circumstances.

After submission but before publication, however, things are a little more flexible.

It should not usually be a problem to add to the acknowledgements during the submission process - note the enormous number of papers that acknowledge the help of the peer reviewers, which of course couldn't have been known at the time of submission! Many publishers even explicitly recommend that you do not include acknowledgements in the submitted paper, as this can be a problem for double-blind peer review.
Adding an author at this point would still be pretty unusual. You might be able to persuade an editor that there was a simple administrative error that meant you missed off an author from the original submission, but this would still be seen as quite strange; in theory everyone who contributed to a paper enough to be an author should have seen it before submission and been able to notice that their name was missing.

The one plausible circumstance I can think of where it would be reasonable to add an author is if the paper has changed and they have contributed an appropriate amount to the new version of the paper. For example, perhaps the reviewers concluded that your work needed some particularly specialised statistical analysis, so you went off, found a statistician with the relevant expertise, and incorporated their work into the revised paper. The statistician has now done enough work to be considered an author, so you add them to the authors list (and explain very clearly to the editor why you've done this, because they will ask those questions above...).

Finally, minor clerical changes should usually be fine before publication - changing a name because you've written Jane D. Smith rather than J. Diana Smith, etc. After publication, this comes down to journal policies - some will permit it, some have a hard line against it, some are vague.


Waiting times and hurdles between inclusion in ESCI and getting an impact factor? In two cases recently, my co-authors are considering/decided to submit joint work to some young journals which I think are a good match. However those journals happen to be only indexed in the Emerging Sources Citation Index and thus not having an impact factor. Unfortunately, my academic employer cares literally only about impact factors (sad, I know). I would like to make a rough guess how likely are those journals to get an impact factor in the near future and conversely, how likely is supporting those journals by sending them our work to be an issue career-wise. My results are currently not stellar metric-wise, so those publications could plausibly really make a (small-ish) difference at some point.
Did someone publish data on how long journals spend in ESCI and how much citations/publications/... they need to gather before "moving up"? I understand this will be field-specific, but really I just want to be able to make a rough guess...
The journals in question are:

Research Integrity and Peer Review (by BMC),

in ESCI since 2018
48 publications in ESCI total
130 citations (without self) according to Clarivate, including 4 citations from Nature

Statistics surveys (this one is non-profit, open access without publication fees and I really like it!)

in ESCI since 2015
22 publications in ESCI total
112 citations (without self), also including a bunch of reputable journals.

No hard and fast rules here but the answer is about a few years.
The publisher is the only one who can make the application (see this page, "Submitting your journal for evaluation"). Of course they are heavily incentivized to do so, but they will only do so if there's a reasonable chance of success, since failure means they can't submit for evaluation again for at least two years. So that's the approximate time frame: about a few years, depending on whether the publisher judges they have a chance of success and when they apply.