A professor stole my dissertation topic. Now what? After completing my dissertation proposal, I got data from a company for my idea. After that, I was searching to find an advisor for my dissertation.
I talked with an assistant professor. Let's call him Alex. He asked me to send all of the collected literature and the proposal to him.  A few days later, he informed me that he could not accept me as his student.
I found another professor (Bob) and then began to work with him.  However, my advisor forced me to give up the proposal without any clear reasons.  So I needed to give it up because for a month, he kept asking me to find a different topic.
About 2 years later after the time, I found that my advisor and his former student (Carol) had been working on my proposal topic and began to submit several papers.
The story was that: His former student was in a relationship with Alex, whom I initially contacted before starting to work with Bob. Alex sent my stuffs to Carol and she contacted Bob to ask for his help to develop the idea.
Such a thing happened one more time as well.  Carol was unable to find a topic and so Bob had provided my research ideas to her again.
This Fall, Carol tenure will be under review.  I'd like to send a letter to dean of the department to inform this. However, I am unsure how to do that effectively. I appreciate any suggestions on this.
By the way, I do not work with Bob anymore. I had a chance to talk about this matter with Alex. He said that he just shared the proposal with Carol because it was an interesting idea.  He did not know the other stuffs and why and how she worked with Bob. Finally, Bob said that it happened because Carol brought the idea to him before I met him.

In two of the answers, people just suggest you to move further and forget about what happened. I disagree with it and think that if you truly believe that people took advantage of you (in my answer I assume that you described the situation in a correct way), you should stood up for yourself and be firm.

I do agree with D.W.'s answer that your chances are not high, and not all wrongs have a good remedy, but I think that you have to report it because:

how the next potential students of A and B know that they are not people who should be trusted?
when you hear a shot and a sound of breaking glass in the night you call a police, not because you think that your information is enough to find a culprit, but because you do not want this behavior to continue. Whether they will be able to find a person who did it and whether it is really worth of opening a crime case is not your responsibility.

Sorry, but I am unable to give you a suggestion as to how approach this situation, but please do not give up.


Trouble finding job after disappointing PhD in India Started PhD in 2014.
Mistakes that I have committed:

I did my PhD in a topic that was not the area of expertise of my PhD supervisor.

I was doing computational work, while the past graduates on the topic were all experimentalists. So, I did not know the career prospects.

I did not take relevant courses. My committee did not tell me to take them. I am technically unsound now.

I published very late, in 2017 and that too a bad paper (just 3 citation till date) in a decent journal.

Finally graduated in 2019. Tried everything to get a postdoc or industry positions. Did not get anything. I have just 4 papers from my PhD.

Currently unemployed. Looking for positions since. I am an Indian national. Doing part-time job in call center to make ends meet.

My PhD advisor has offered me 2 years postdoc position. Topic will be little bit different and more collaborative with other research groups. Should I accept? I don't know my career prospects after that? Can I still get into academia or research industry after that?

I apply to both industry and academia. No responses. I want to be in a research field either in industry or academia.
Is every career redeemable?

You did a PhD in 5 years, published 4 papers and got an offer for a 2-year postdoc position in times where research funding decreases. Keep going, looks fine.
Take some courses or workshops on topics where you think you aren't skilled enough, but given that you could publish, I suspect that you underestimate yourself here.

"Can I still get into academia or research industry after that?"

With a postdoc position, you are in academia.


Who should be author in an application note Work leading to the application note

During the c(o)urse of my PhD studies, I have written some analysis tools. I later collaborated with another PhD student to developed a proper analysis application. We then wrote an application note, to publish it in an journal. A third PhD student provided us with data, did an analysis using out tool and wrote the corresponding methods section in the application note.

The problem with authorship

By the rules of the journal, there should be three persons as authors: us three PhD students (Contributed work, and involved in draft). But as it is custom, is proposed an author list including us PhD student, the respective supervisors and the head of our research group/PI

However, my supervisor wants me to only include two PhDs and himself as last author. It seems quite important to him that the author list is short. Additionally, he wants to submit the paper himself to the journal. He has little knowledge about our work, nor does he understand the reasoning behind the analysis performed.

His sole contribution was to review the draft, so that all technical passages are now very understandable, as we explain our work to a scientific layman.

What I am asking myself currently

This is my first publication and I wonder if the demands oft my supervisor (him submitting to the journal, claiming to be the only "guest author") are justified, given the nature of his contribution?
Given this context, who should be author?

On a side note: While writing this, I also realize that the relation to my direct supervisor is quite toxic...

Edit:

We three PhD students are not in the same Departement.

Authorship customs tend to be very field-specific, but I've never heard of discarding a co-author from a paper just for the sake of having a shorter list of authors. This sounds ridiculous: following this reasoning your supervisor could as well decide to be the sole author of the paper!

It's common in many fields to add a supervisor as co-author (usually the last one), even if their contribution is very limited indeed. However good authorship practice recommend that every co-author should have played a significant role in the paper. So in theory you are right: if anybody should be removed from co-authorship, it's the supervisor himself.

Needless to say, it's completely unethical to deprive an actual co-author of the credit.

If there is any room for argument with this strange request, I suggest the following: check a few recent issues of this journal and count for each paper the number of authors. You should be able to easily prove that papers with more than three authors are common and there's no reason to discard anybody.


What should I put in the introduction chapter of my thesis? I have to start writing my thesis. My topic for research is work life balance in IT sector - a comparative analysis of male & female IT professionals in Pune.

I need help in writing the first introduction chapter. what all should be included in this chapter & what should not?

Talk to your advisor and look into student services provided by your university.  The department should have pretty clear guidance on document structure and format.  You will also learn a lot by reading some of the dissertations of previous (successful) candidates.


Getting a Masters in computer science but I am without any undergraduate degree I am a programmer working 6 years in the industry. I am proficient in Javascript/JQuery, PHP, Java, c/c++, MASM Assembly, MySQL/SQL, together with accessory tools/technologies like Git/Github, UML, XML, JSON, etc and the Drupal and Zend CMS/framework.

Is there any way of getting accepted into a computer science, Masters degree program in universities in Europe, USA or Canada?

What You study in the bachelor in computer science is different from what you do in a working environment. In the bachelor's degree they teach you the basis to achieve a master's degree, like math, science and other subjects that probably you've never studied from an academic point of view.
I live in europe and I believe all the european universities require a bachelor's degree in order to be admitted to the master programme.


Will a 5 year gap between Undergrad and PhD hurt my chances? I am a 29 year old with an Undergraduate degree from Berkeley in Biochem. I graduated in 2012 with every intention of applying to PhD programs after taking a year or two off to work.

Due to some health issues and the economic slump I was unemployed for awhile. Now I've been working in the Biotech industry for 2 years and with the support of my two bosses who are both science PhD's themselves I finally feel confident and ready to apply. By the time I intend to apply (this fall) I will have 3 years of Biotech Research experience. While I was an undergrad I worked as a research apprentice all 4 years so I also have a lot of experience in academic research.

My biggest question and concern is: will my time in industry hurt me? Could it be an asset? Can I succeed in getting into a good school as a less than conventional applicant?

I worked for 2-3 years after my undergraduate degree before applying to doctoral programs, and I think my work experience only helped. Like you, my job was relevant to the programs to which I ultimately applied. I was able to explain in my statement of purpose how my job experience strengthened my research skills and actually motivated my decision to apply to graduate school. As long as your application is strong (good letters, good GRE scores, etc), I can't see the gap between undergraduate and graduate school mattering that much.

That being said, one point you may want to address is how you kept your "academic muscles" toned over the last 5 years. Some people find the transition back to academic life difficult after extended periods away from it, and it may be useful to demonstrate somewhere in your application how you have kept in contact with the academic world, even if it was only indirectly.


How can I get better at Learning Things? I am currently a Software Engineering apprentice, doing a related degree as the academic side.

I have noticed that despite how passionate I am about software, things never 'click' with me when I first read about them or when someone explains them to me. This can be both academic and practical.

It sometimes takes me so long to get a grasp of a simple theory concept because I overthink and get muddled in my head, I am not that good at math and situations requiring intense thinking (as an example of basic situations that perplex me). And I've noticed my practical knowledge at work isn't up to standard, I'm not as 'good' as I should be for this for how far into my job I am (almost a year).

It's becoming increasingly embarrassing having to watch 4 different videos on basic topics so I can understand, or worse getting someone at work to keep varying their explanation so I understand. I find myself mapping technical concepts out on paper a lot which works but it shouldn't be required of me for basic things and I can't go about my life having to set aside pen and paper every time someone explains something to me.

I believe with effort I can achieve anything and am not phased by people who say you are 'born an engineer'. Instead I guess I should to better my skill of learning.

I am seeking an answer as to how one can get better at learning, techniques, methodologies, books etc.

'Passion' is useless unless it motivates you to acquire knowledge; ideally, it should drive you to do things above and beyond what is required of you.

Knowledge is cumulative. Technical communication takes place in increasingly complex abstractions. Unless you have the library of primitive abstractions to draw upon, grasping the more complex abstractions is difficult. The only way to gain those simple abstractions is to spend a lot of time thinking about them.

Drawing things is actually an excellent practice; It has helped me learn for years.


Asking an academic for a cursory look at a paper Suppose that Alice has a PhD but then left academia more than a decade ago. Alice has written a short paper on a topic unrelated to her thesis. Suppose moreover that :

the paper has been submitted a few months ago to a respectable journal, and is currently under review as per the submission system
the paper has not been put on the arXiv (both for fear of publicly claiming something that turns out incorrect and having to retract it, and of being scooped by someone with access to a fast-track journal)

Now Alice fears the review process may take a few more months at least, and really wants to know very soon whether or not the paper is indeed correct (it does feel so, but maybe something has been overlooked).

The question is then : how to indentify an academic that would be

of impecable ethical standards (no risk whatsoever of scooping the paper)
willing to have a cursory look within a few days (not a proper review, but maybe half an hour to think about it) and say whether or not it may well work

Or would you just submit to the arXiv, and accept to look like a fool if you have to retract it the next day ?

First of all:

  no risk whatsoever of scooping the paper

It's never possible to achieve "no risk whatsoever" when dealing with human beings.  The best way to trust a person is to know them for a long time, but even that is no guarantee.

However, I don't think scooping is a serious concern in this scenario.  Alice has already submitted the paper, which is about the best possible way to establish priority.  Moreover, if the person were to go on to publish the results, even if they claimed to have discovered them independently, Alice would be able to show that in fact she had sent her preprint to that person, so they were well aware of her work.  Similar logic applies to the possibility of posting to arXiv - I don't think fear of scooping is a good reason to avoid that.

In general, looking over a paper informally is something that one does as a favor.  I wouldn't hold out hope that a stranger would agree to do it for someone they don't know.  I think about all Alice could do is to look for people who would be well qualified (e.g. who have done related work in the field, and possibly whom she cites), send them the preprint with a polite request, and be prepared for lots of polite refusals.

But I also think this is a particularly poor time in the paper's lifecycle to make such a request.  Alice would be asking them to duplicate work that is already being done more thoroughly by the referee, for no better reason than to satisfy Alice's impatience.  It would have made more sense to ask before submitting the paper.  At this point, I think Alice should be patient and wait for the referee report on her paper.  If it gets rejected, she should make her best efforts to improve the paper, and then consider trying to have someone informally review it before resubmitting.


Topology vs. Complex Analysis for Math Grad School I'm majoring in math and am considering graduate school in either pure math, applied math, or stats. The problem is that, due to schedule constraints, I can only take either Complex Variables or Topology. How necessary is Topology for pure math admissions? Is complex Vars. more necessary? Does either matter for stats and applied? Thanks.

Complex variables is useful in both pure and applied mathematics, to a roughly equal extent.  With a few significant exceptions (e.g. persistent homology) topology is used very little in applied mathematics.

For instance, in the graduate program in mathematics at the University of Georgia, most students concentrating in pure mathematics take a qualifying exam in topology, and most students concentrating in applied mathematics take numerical analysis or probability instead.  All students are currently required to take a qualifying exam in complex analysis.

I have much less experience with statistics, but I am almost certain that complex analysis is more useful there than topology.  (What I don't know is much complex analysis is actually used!)

In my experience (I am the chair of graduate admissions of the mathematics department at UGA) complex analysis and topology look equally good on transcripts.  (Both would look better, of course -- it sounds like you knew that already.)

So if it's really a tossup, taking complex analysis holds more doors open for you.  However, both of these are courses that beginning graduate students (at least in the US) quite often take, so it's not exactly a life-changing decision.  In fact, I would advise you to take whichever one sounds more interesting to you.  Good luck.


Who owns an academic journal? Reputable academic journals have independent editorial boards, but who owns the journal? Are they owned by academic societies, universities, academic publishers? Are there several different ownership models, and are some more common than others?
This question is distinct from the question of who owns copyright on the articles, since journals can publish some or all of their work with copyright retained by the author, or with a Creative Commons license, etc.

Most journals are now owned by one of the big three for-profits (Springer, Wiley, and Elsevier).
There are other journals that are owned by non-profits like the American association for the advancement of science (AAAS owns Science) or specific scientific societies. The American Physical Society publishes all the Physical Review journals. The American Institute of Physics does Applied Physics Letters, Journal of Applied Physics, Review of Scientific Instruments, and many others.
A few are owned by large funding bodies that are pushing some desired change to publishing (like HHMI which owns eLife). Things like arXiv are generally managed by academic institutes and funded by private money (the Simons Foundation and CZI are both big funders).
The high profitability of academic journals means that the for-profits are really squeezing the society journals, but AAAS and eLife are still doing fine.
There are some differences by field, but this applies to most STEM fields.


Would scoring well on a non-required GRE Mathematics Subject Test make me more competitive? I would like to get into a top university for graduate school, specifically in computer science.  Would taking the non-required mathematics subject based GRE test make my application more competitive?  Since it's not required, would the people doing admissions even consider it as a data point?

No one here can speak for some admissions committee. They might look at it, might not. If they have strict rules they might even need to ignore it. It won't do you any harm, though and there is an outside chance it will make some small difference. But focus more on the things that they do ask for.

And, for what it's worth, the competition at top schools is fierce. Get good letters of recommendation.


How to prepare for grad school? [with 1 year to spare] I plan to enter graduate school (MA+PhD) in September 2018, which means I have something of a ‘gap year situation’ ahead of me [not in a strict sense, as I’ve been working for a number of years now]. I want to use this unstructured time ahead the best way I can.

If you were in my position, how would you spend these spare 12 months before grad school officially begins and the clock starts ticking? How would you prepare for what’s ahead, what would you focus on?

It goes without saying that I have already given these questions a lot of careful consideration, but I’m very curious to learn how others would approach this topic; especially, current PhD candidates, postdocs, and lecturers/professors. Knowing what you now know, if you could go back, how would you spend a spare year like that?

Some background:

My field is social/cultural anthropology.
My ultimate goal (grad school and beyond) is to prepare a CV and a research portfolio, which will aid me in launching an academic career in Europe.
I have a BA in anthropology and an unrelated MA,
I currently freelance (unrelated field); I have plenty of spare time, and can arrange my schedule in whatever way I see fit.
I live in a mid-size European city (not a capital); can’t move anywhere this year, but can likely do some limited traveling.
There’s a small anthropology department here, but I’m not affiliated with it, and never was. My degree is from the US.
I can speak the local language fairly well.
The grad school (next year) will be in a different county, and learning the new language will be one of my key objectives this year. The language of instruction will be English, however.

Note: Not sure if I made this clear, but I’m not looking for suggestions such as “travel for fun,” or “get a new hobby.” I want to use these 12 months in the most productive way possible.

In response to feedback from comments: I would like the advice focused on: setting myself up to do outstanding work in grad school and beyond (postdocs, etc). I am not concerned with the "getting into grad school" part here.

Your PhD courses usually dwell on foundational articles. Buy/borrow a "reader book" that has all (or many) of these articles in one place.
Get a part-time job in a field associated with one of the subject groups that you would study/focus on. If you are interested in the geography of farmers, see if you can work as one. Keep it part-time.
Get in touch with the local anthro- group.
More meta: by whichever means, find out where the field is and where it is going. This may highlight some new skills that you need to work on minimally. For instance, social science now has a robust quantitative component. Anyone who ignores that is playing with fire.
Don't add more shit to this list.


What is a cv including the marks obtained in BSc and MSc? I don't know if they are asking my GPA or a list of grades and courses. Yes, I am applying somewhere where they asked for a "CV including the marks obtained in BSc and MSc".

As far as I know any school will require your transcript for a phd program. If they already have that information then I would say that its the CV with GPA included (which is completely normal), if not I would send them CV and your transcript.

You can always contact the school and they'll tell you exactly what you need to send in.


Writing thank-you email to professor for agreeing to write a LOR? I asked my professor to write a letter of recommendation for me. She said she would in general be happy to do that. I am quite self-conscious and worried, I would like to send an email back and say thanks, but I don't want to sound overly grateful. Since English isn't my first language, I would like to ask you how you would write something like this. Or: Would you maybe not write back at all, since the professor's email box must be super busy and sending a simple thank you email might annoy them more than anything else?

I'm so not sure about this, thanks a lot!

You're over-thinking this. It's almost always appropriate to say thanks when somebody does something for you. You won't be taking up more than a couple of seconds of your professor's time if you send a quick "thanks!"

Suppose that you'd asked for the reference in person rather than by email. You wouldn't say, "This professor is really busy so, the instant they say yes, I'll save two seconds of their time by running immediately from the room without thanking them."


How to check whether a journal is still listed in Scopus? In the time when I submitted a paper to a journal " Research Journal of Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology", ISSN:  2040-7459, they indicated in their website that the journal is indexed in scopus but now is not, so i checked scimagojr.com for information and i found that the Coverage is: 2009-2014.

How do you check whether a journal is still listed in scopus?

The entry for this journal in Scopus lists "from 2009 to 2015" - it records 307 papers from 2015. The last issue they have indexed is vol. 10 issue 12, and they have not as yet indexed any 2016 papers.

The "to 2015" description seems to be standard for currently indexed journals; for example, Nature is listed as "1869 to 2015" despite being very much still alive. It doesn't automatically mean the journal has stopped being indexed - but the fact that Scopus does not list any 2016 papers yet does seem to suggest that it has stopped being indexed.

Note that Maxwell appears on Beall's list of potentially predatory publishers; while there are many caveats about Beall's work, it's certainly something to take note of.


What to do immediately after informing the journal's managing editor that you are withdrawing your paper submission in their journal? After waiting for 7 months (and counting), I decided to withdraw my paper submission to a particular journal. The reasons are as follows:

The review decision for a particular paper is to be made within six months after they received the paper. However, in my case, it has been 7 months since they acknowledged that they received my paper.
A week before the 6 months of review period, I sent an e-mail to the journal's managing editor about the status of my submission. After 21 days, I did not receive any response. That is why
I sent another e-mail to the journal's managing editor about the status of my submission and I included in the e-mail that If I did not receive any reply for a period of 1 week, I will withdraw my submission.
After 9 days, I still did not receive any reply.

So, I decided to withdraw my paper submission via e-mail.

My questions are: (1) Is my decision correct? (2) What should I do after informing the journal's managing editor that I am withdrawing my paper submission? (3) Shall I wait for the managing editor to acknowledge that he/she received my withdrawal submission e-mail? (4) Shall I submit my paper to another journal?
Your answers Sirs/Mams will be highly appreciated.

Waiting for them seems like a lost cause. Unless you have signed some release or given them copyright, the paper is yours. You can submit it as you like.

But submitting it minutes after notifying them of a withdrawal might be hasty. A few days wait is suggested. But they don't seem to have a very good record of corresponding with authors.


Is it better to start the paper title with a verb? I heard one of my lecturers says that it is always better to start the paper title with a verb. According to the lecturer, the verb leave that impression about something has been accomplished. For example, use Design, develop etc. I tried to find any supportive resources about that but I could not. The other question, is it better to use verb-ing or not (e.g. Developing vs. Develop)? Most of references that speak about choosing title do not pay much attention to the syntax.

I see two issues here. The one is the stylistic sense that some people have developed over their life and that is not necessarily always to be generalized. The other is the strictness of such "style advice".

For the first issue: Everybody develops some kind of preferences about stylistic things they like or dislike and things they believe to be (or have worked) better than others. This personal preference does not necessarily coincide with what is generally considered to be good style, which means it could be true in the special environment of this person but it could also be some anecdotal experience that has no broader foundation. Therefore I would be somewhat cautious to take such advice too strict when it comes from a single person and you cannot find it anywhere else.

For the second: Let's consider this rule exists (which I don't know and didn't check), you shouldn't take it as a strict "law". If you have a title that fulfils the rule and you feel good with it, then go for it. But don't try to twist your formulation just to meet this single criterion as the confusion that you create with it might outweigh the "beauty" that you win by starting the title with a verb.

TL;DR: Be careful with possibly subjective "style advice" and don't take style guides as strict "laws".


Formally asking a univerity for contact information of PhD I'm using certain software for my research and have some questions about troubleshooting and the output it creates. All the available information (manual, website and publication) isn't very extensive and can't answer my questions. That is why I want to contact the developer (a PhD) and ask my questions directly.

The problem is that the software is a little older but is still applicable to my research (never change a winning team). That's why maintenance of the website has probably stopped and the contact information there might not be correct anymore. I tried sending an e-mail to the adress on the page but never recieved an answer. What I do know is the name of the person I'm trying to reach. A simple Google search shows that this person is working at a certain univerity.

Question: Is it acceptable to contact this univerity and ask for contact information of one of their employees? And what is a polite way to ask this person for help? I might imagine that this might seem a bit rude and this is not appriciated. There is an online questionboard which has been inactive for some time now (as in years). But if somebody tried to contact me about my research, I would find the interest in my work flattering. I'm a little divided on the matter.

I assume that he has not a profile in that university, as you're asking this question. In a typical university's view, if a person among the staff were supposed to be contacted by people out side, its contact information would be announced, clearly, in the website. If not, it is not so reasonable to expect something unusual, is which not, completely, regular in university's policies.

If the software is a business product and you have paid for it, you have right to expect any defined kind of support for the package, officially (of course, if your target software version is not obsolete). In this case, you better contact ,directly, to the support division of the corresponding third party, instead of the lead or any of its developers.

If the target package is a part of a open source project, the case would need a different approach. Most of the open source softwares have been introduced, firstly, in a paper, is which expected to be referenced by the people using that software. The main leaders and supporters of the software are, actually, the authors of such reference papers. Even in the case of changing their affiliations (and consequently their contact address), you can find the paper's webpage in the responsible publishing journal and find the updated affiliations (is which a common fashion at least in my field, robotics)

After finding the new address, you can contact the person, safely. But, you better know that the fellows, involved in open source development, are not responsible to answer questions about the utilization of the software, but shall appreciate any reports corresponding to potential bugs or correspondences for collaboration in the development. The users are supposed to resolve their application-based issues by either searching in the forums or reading the tutorials. All in all, you might be lucky enough to catch some clues from this contact, at least.

Good luck


Is it ethical to invite a student to apply for a job through my spouse? In my field, computer science, employers offer referral bonuses of a few thousand dollars to employees who refer successful job candidates who go on to work at that company. My spouse works at a company that an alumnus would like to apply to. So do several alumnae and a former professor who has taught that student. I used to work there too.

Is it ethical for me to tell the student (truthfully) that, if he applies through my spouse and gets hired, we will donate the bonus to the college? I would also tell him (truthfully) that I would submit an equally enthusiastic recommendation letter and help him prepare for interviews no matter who he chooses to refer him.

My ethical concern is that the student might feel pressured by my implying I would like him to apply through my husband and fear that I would not help him as much if he did not. I could partly alleviate that concern by writing the recommendation letter first and giving it to the former professor at the company to submit after anyone has referred the candidate. Is that enough?

Update

I asked an alumna at the company (rather than my husband) to refer the student and donate any referral bonus. She cheerfully agreed and coached him on interviewing. The candidate had no problem with being referred by an alumna (or by my spouse) and appreciated the coaching, although he ended up working for another company.

I think going through someone other than my spouse reduced the appearance of a conflict of interest all around (including to the company, to which I would have submitted a letter of reference).

(Disclosure: I'm not a professor.)

I don't personally see any ethical concerns SO LONG AS you indicate clearly (as you said you would do) that the recommendation letter will be equally strong regardless of whether or not the student applies through your spouse. Under those circumstances, I'd call this "networking," not "bribery" or "coercion".

The idea you proposed of writing the letter first and then informing the student seems like a nice way of ensuring that the student knows you've written a strong letter. There is the possibility that the student will still feel pressured, of course -- "if I don't say yes, then my professor will send a second contradictory letter" -- but assuming you have a positive relationship with the student, that seems unlikely.


How does one determine he has a learning disability? How does a graduate student determine if he has a learning disability? Are there any signs to look for? At what point is it worth seeking a professional opinion?

Some people, at least, believe there are a significant number of adults who would be identified as having a learning disability if they were children now. Some of these adults are in academia, and have succeeded academically despite their disability, perhaps through developing good coping mechanisms. Never-the-less, it may be that there are other techniques they have not thought of/come across that would benefit them.

What signs might suggest that this is the case, in a context where past academic success is the norm and future academic success is the expectation?

From http://ldaamerica.org/adults-with-learning-disabilities-an-overview/ :

  Positive characteristics of adults with LD may include problem-solving skills, compensatory strategies, persistence, empathy, and outgoing personalities.  Areas of difficulty include: difficulty with reading, writing and/or math; poor memory; difficulty following directions; inability to discriminate between or among letters, numbers, and/or sounds; eye-hand coordination problems; difficulty putting things in the right sequence;
  disorganization; and/or difficulty adjusting to change.

Determining whether an adult has a Specific Learning Disability (SLD) depends on the type of disability (e.g. Auditory Processing Disorder, Dyscalculia, Dysgraphia, Dyslexia, Language Processing Disorder, Non-Verbal Learning Disabilities, or Visual Perceptual/Visual Motor Deficit).  Each disability will manifest itself differently, and the degree of influence will vary by individual.  In general, you will need a professional to determine whether you have said disability (see http://ldaamerica.org/adult-learning-disability-assessment-process/ ).


What does an industry recruiter want to know my Ph.D. GPA for? What are the potential motives for an industry recruiter to want to know your PhD GPA?

Does this imply the position is more of an office drone position than a pure research position?

The most likely motive is your recruiter believes PhD GPAs are as relevant as undergrad GPAs.  My guess is this recruiter has a plethora of office jobs and doesn't usually work with academics.

It is perfectly acceptable to tell the recruiter you're not interested in working with them


How to highlight original work in a talk where it is not expected? I am a student who is giving a talk on a topic in a few weeks. The talk will be a brief introduction to the topic concerned followed by a rapid survey of recent research and developments.

I have obtained an interesting result in the field by myself which complements a result that I will be talking about, so I am planning to include my result in my talk. However my result has not yet been submitted to any journal and has not been put up online independently.

How should I present this result in my talk? The talk is going to be a competition and being able to present such an independent result (even if it is minor) is considered commendable.
I want to make sure the audience notices that I have found this result. I will definitely be saying it out loud and clear, but I also want to display this somehow in my presentation.

What should be the proper way of such a display? That is, how should I put my name before this result? Shall I write, “Carter, 2017”? But note the work is unpublished. I don’t know if this is reserved only for works that have been published.

First, make sure that you are referencing the works of others that you build upon. This way, the audience should be able to easily distinguish the results that belong to you vs. the results that belong to others.

For a published work of yours, I'd prefer a Carter, 2017 citation, including the name of the journal or a conference, and some of the following: name of the article, DOI, link or issue and page number.

For an unpublished work of yours, I'd use an own work or own data notice. This way, you do not make a false impression that this work is already published. Your audience will possibly infer that these data are fresh from the lab bench. If I were to attend your talk, I'd pay more attention to these data, because these are ones I wouldn't be able to found in the literature (yet).

For an unpublished joint work, still use an own work notice, but add in collaboration with X, University of Y to give credit both to you and the other person.


How does one manage to "time stamp" their physics paper without submitting it to a preprint server like arXiv? Say, I have a paper written up. I wish to publish it in a reputed journal without submitting it to arXiv. The first journal(A) I submit it to rejects it.  I send the paper to a 2nd journal (B) for submission. At the same time, some other group submits a paper to another journal (C) and it gets published there. Is there any way to avoid this problem without using arXiv?

My main advice is that this is not something you need to do.
You could use an alternate repository.  Many universities have one.  Some have embargoes.
The old way to do it was to mail the paper to yourself in a sealed, postmarked envelope.  I suppose you could have it notarized as well.


PhD in Mathematics after Master's I'm currently pursuing my master's in statistics with probability specialisation. I am interested in stochastic calculus and want to apply for a PhD in math. My first year of master's includes a lot of stats courses. The second year is when I get to choose courses related to stochastic calculus.
The problem I have is I don't think I can do projects until the third semester. There are a couple of reasons for this:

There is no semester break and professors don't want to give a project during the semester
Most of the summer programmes are cancelled in my country.

I have excellent grades in my undergraduate and in master's so far. I have done two basic projects in my undergrad and one reading project under a professor in my master's. I have good letters of recommendations.
Do I have any chance of getting into math PhD programs in the US? What can I do to strengthen my application?
Courses I have taken in my undergrad: (grade - course contents)

Three analysis courses - got all As (real, multivariate, metric spaces)

Three Algebra courses - B in ring theory and A's in others (Linear algebra, group theory and ring theory)

Complex Analysis course - got an A

Topology (Till quotient topology in munkres) - got B

Complex Analysis - got an A

Differential Equations (existence, uniqueness, rectification etc.) - got an A

Calculus (Tensors and differential forms) - got an A

Two stochastic processes courses (Discrete and continous-time chains) - got A in both

Optimisation and game theory - A's in both

Courses taken in Master's: (marks are given instead of a grade)

Analysis - I ( scored  95/100), Probability (scored 90/100) + Bunch of statistics courses
Measure theoretic Probability, Analysis - II (taking them currently) + Bunch of statistics courses

Courses I plan to take:

Functional Analysis
Martingale theory
Ergodic theory
Brownian motion and diffusions
Markov Processes and Martingale Problems
Advanced functional analysis / PDEs
Theory of large deviations

There isn't generally much of a barrier to making a small change of field after an MS. But there are two issues you may need to deal with. I suspect that for Stochastic Calculus a lot of background is needed in basic Analysis. Perhaps you have that already, but it might take some time (coursework) to get up to speed in that.
Projects/research in your background is good to have, but probably not the most important thing of all. Many people enter doctoral programs with little of that, though mostly from bachelors programs rather than masters.
The other time issue is that you need to pass comprehensive exams (qualifiers) in most math programs and they generally cover a fairly broad range (analysis, algebra, topology, ...) and you may need coursework to get ready for that.
But, changing to math from a field with similar research methods is not going to be a big issue, though you need a strong application generally as does everyone.


What is the typical flow chart for college mathematics courses? I know that college mathematics typically start at Calculus I (Differential Calculus) and then Calculus II (Integral Calculus). Then after Calc II, it starts to branch off a little. One option after the first two semesters of Calculus is Calculus III (Vector/Multivariable Calculus). Another option is Linear Algebra, and then the next course is Differential Equations. I know that other, more advanced math topics exist like Number Theory/Abstract Algebra, Discrete Mathematics, Partial Differential Equations, Geometry Topics and Topology. I was wondering what order the above mentioned math topics go in and what their prerequisites typically are. If anyone can provide me with a flow chart, then that would be great.

This depends heavily on the student and his/her interests. You will need almost all of these courses, but it's a bit murky after linear algebra, multivariable calculus, and differential equations. Did you learn proofs in any of those courses? If not, then maybe a proofs course. This all depends on the department that you're in and how they arrange how they teach mathematical maturity and theory.

Since you asked for a flow chart, I can give you an example of one department's flow chart for their courses. Hopefully this can give you an idea: http://www.math.uga.edu/~curr/prereqs.html

What the numbers all mean can be found here: http://www.bulletin.uga.edu/CoursesHome.aspx?Prefix=MATH

Hopefully this gives an example of what one department's "flow chart" looks like. You can clearly see there's a lot of choices to take and a huge 'choose-your-own-adventure' part to it.


Caption for a figure reproduced from a CC-licensed document In a research paper for a journal, which uses Science magazine publication style, I'm reproducing a diagram from a document, which has a Creative Commons (CC)-based open document license. The diagram (figure) itself doesn't contain any license references, as is typical for most CC-licensed figures, however the whole original document contains the following statement:

  This work is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons
  Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License,
  creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/.

Question: What should be the content and style of the borrowed figure's caption, considering the journal style and the document license? In other words, should it just be (X is reference number)

  Figure 1. The title of the figure. Reproduced from Reference X.

or

  Figure 1. The title of the figure. Reproduced from Reference X (CC BY-NC 3.0).

or something else?

Including the license terms in the figure caption isn't necessary.  "Attribution" in CC licensing is usually interpreted as "provides name of author and/or source of original", which you do fine with just "Reference X".

EDIT from comments: As pointed out by @ff524, the CC guidelines suggest including license terms. It makes sense to include title, author name, source, license in the reference section.  Not necessary for the image caption though.


Should I inform my old supervisor of new insights that lead me to think his hypothesis must be adapted? I wrote my undergraduate thesis on the topic my supervisor was then doing research into. He now has a paper on that topic under review, which I had read and commented on while working on my thesis.

I am now in a graduate programme on another university, and for some course I needed a small project to write a paper on. After consulting with my old supervisor, I took a research question that is relevant in the light of his work, but also readable separate from it, because the teacher supervising this new project has -of course- not read the paper under review.

While working on the project I found new data that leads me to question a minor section of the article under review. I (think I) can't expect my old supervisor to go into much discussion on the topic - after all, he is not supervising my current project.

I want to stay on good terms with him, first of all because I hold him in high esteem but also because his research group is a serious option for a PhD position later. But should I inform him of the things I found out? On the one hand, I suppose it would be appreciated - on the other hand, the article is already under review. Also, the work is never finished, so finding new insights is part of life and we have to accept that publications are never perfect.

I have seen Should I email old supervisor about my progress?, but this is a more delicate situation.

Definitely seems like something worth mentioning.  Regardless of whether this leads to any edits in the final version of the paper, presumably your old advisor cares about the question for its own sake and not just for publications and so would like to know if there's new information that pertains to your results.

Your old advisor will be in a good position to decide whether any changes need to be made, and if so whether it's fine to just wait until the reports come back for the minor changes.  Sometimes it's fine to have a paper that reflects your understanding at the time it was written.  Sometimes you can just add a small remark in the final version mentioning that new things have come to light.  Sometimes it might be that you should update the referee immediately.  It's hard to know without knowing more about the details of the situation, but usually it won't require pausing the review process.


Does admission care about internships? I have found on Reddit and other forums discussing factors that effect one's admission and it is often stated that research along with letters of recommendation from supervisors can play a huge role; what would be the weight of internships held at top Tech and Finance companies with letters of recommendations from managers?
I am specifically asking about grad school (masters) admissions in North America in the field of Quantum Computing/Quantum System Engineering.

Admissions cares about making a positive prediction of your success and whether you will make proper use of resources, along with contributing in the future. No one thing lets people make that prediction, so many, many things are taken in to consideration.
Positive indicators, including successful internships or research, help you. Negative things, such as poor grades, hurt. Letters of recommendation can be very important.
Other helpful things: Indications of hard work. Indications of working well with others and contributing. Wide interests. Flexibility. But no one thing is absolutely determinative. And individual evaluators will all have their own ideas about the "most important" thing.
So, you want your graduate school application to be filled with positive indicators so that people don't need to make decisions "at the margin" in your case.
But an internship or research experience, alone, won't assure your admission, not will its lack, assure rejection. It is one factor among many.


Preprint services for environmental and earth sciences? Is there a good, reputable preprint service that is used in the environmental and earth sciences, and considered acceptable by the major publishers? Many journals specifically state that it is okay to submit a paper that has been uploaded to arXiv and I would like to take advantage of that, however I am not in a field covered by arXiv.

[I'm aware of the similar question, Preprint services other than arXiv (for other fields), but it is fairly old and there are no answers relevant to my field]

I just found the following article (open access version) published in 2013 which lists 7 repositories for the earth sciences:

CEDA Repository
Earth-prints Repository
Institution Aquatic Commons
Organic Eprints
AgEcon Search
Open Knowledge Environment of the Caribbean
antbase.org

I haven't checked the actuality of this list.


Do I use a title in the mention "joint with [...]" when mentioning my advisor or a coworker? I'm making presentation slides, which will be on the work of my Ph.D. advisor (Dr. X, full professor), a postdoc. (Dr. Y, the job title is visiting assistant professor) and myself. I'm trying to find a way to most accurately/politely address them.
Should I address them using the same generic title, such as

"Joint work with Professors X and Y"
"Joint work with Dr. X and Dr. Y"

or should I use different titles?
Thanks

In my experience (math), I have never seen a title used on such an occasion. It's always "joint with Jane Doe and John Doe", i.e. the full name without any title. Even if it's a student jointly working with a professor.

Think about it: in a bibliography you never use any title. The goal of the mention "joint with" is the same as in a bibliography: give credit where credit is due, and let people look up who did the work. A title is unnecessary for that.


How to deal with my own sloppy research published when I was an undergrad? I am a grad student in computer science. Having read many research papers and having worked with an adviser has made me much more aware about best practices concerning presentation and reporting of results in published research.

I have also published a paper when I was a junior in college. Looking back at it now (its been around 2-3 years), compared to the standards set by papers I have read, my work is very sloppy.

More specifically, I have typos in one or two places and an equation is incorrect (I maximize for x when I should be maximizing for x and y). Also, my evaluation is based on very little data (though I do point out that it is very preliminary and further evaluation is needed) and the metrics I have used to evaluate the described technique do not adequately demonstrate that my method is correct or better performing. The evaluation was added after the reviewer comments and therefore was not checked.

Typos aside, as an undergrad, I was ignorant about best practices when it came to reporting results in that specific area. This is partly because me and a friend of mine wrote the paper over the summer without any involvement from our university or professors (I am not making excuses and I do hold myself accountable for these mistakes).

The paper is rather embarrassing since it does not really represent a significant step forward and is presented very sloppily. I love research (I'm planning a career in research) and I feel that it does not accurately reflect my current research rigor. I don't like it showing up in search results associated with my name.

What would you suggest is the best way to deal with this situation? I'm most worried (been stressing about retractions and the like...) by my lack of sufficient data and invalid metrics, as well as the possibility of future employers seeing it.

Note: I just want to point out that I do not believe that the core idea of the paper is wrong, but the way it is presented along with its evaluation. It's also been cited a few times (I fully understand that this is no guarantee of validity).

Just don't worry about it, and keep doing your current good work.

It's pretty cool that you were able to publish a paper at all as an undergraduate.  Anybody who notices your old paper will primarily notice that.  The sloppiness will reflect much more on your senior co-authors (who should have been expected to know better, and educate you likewise) than yourself.  And if you didn't have much more experienced co-authors, so much more cool and understandable.

Do good work now, and the sloppiness of your undergraduate paper will simply fade into insignificance.


Is there a difference between simplification and spoon feeding in education? I had been researching about what students dislike about studying, and found out two contradictory piece of reasons:

students cannot understand the concepts taught to them by the teachers;
they hate spoon feeding.

Most articles on the internet (I think almost all of them) talk about how spoon feeding is harmful in education. But if 1 were the reason why students dislike learning, isn't it an imperative to make acquiring knowledge easier? I know lots of sites on the internet which simplify and explain topics carefully. Is that a form of spoon feeding? Or is that of simplification? Are there differences between them?
Should spoon feeding be stopped? Or should sources be more simplified?

I think that these concepts don't really overlap that much:
Simplification is about how you explain something. When you explain a concept, you might leave out some details which make the concept more complicated to grasp. By focusing on the most essential parts (and possibly adding the details later), you don't overwhelm the students with information and allow them to understand a concept in a "step by step" way.
Spoon-feeding is about how you let students solve tasks, in classroom or homework assignments. The goal of such assignments is to let students practice the learned concepts by applying them in an independent way. Spoon-feeding means that the students don't need to think because you have already done the thinking for them and just let them execute some clearly defined, straightforward tasks.


Organizing committee of conference announced publication of papers, but one year later, this hasn't happened. What to do? I participated one year ago in a conference. The organizing committee asserted that they were planning to produce a publication from the papers presented at the conference and they announced they secured a contract with Palgrave, but I haven’t received any updates regarding the book since the conference. By the way, The Association which organized the conference has a good reputation. Should I send an email to ask them about the book? What’s the best formula for such email ?Thank you

An email to the conference or program chair would certainly be appropriate. You don't need any format for it. Just say you are wondering if the book is still in progress and when it might be expected.
As Solar Mike implies in a comment, the coronavirus might have disrupted this, like many other things. But it can also take a while to produce a physical book, especially for conference proceedings when not done by the association itself. The publisher has higher priorities, most likely.
I know of one conference where the papers from one annual meeting are only available at the next. The publisher is a university press.


Do applicants who are exempted from paying application fees get any other benefits Several universities waive graduate application fees for certain applicants who participated in a specific program or belong to a certain organization. My question is: do these applicants get any other benefits or considerations in the application process, or is the application fee exemption the end of the story?

Example of one of the universities that offers this:
http://grad.berkeley.edu/admissions/apply/fee-waiver/

I've served on a doctoral admissions committee and we were not made aware of these fee waivers or special organization ties unless the individual directly wrote about them in their statements of purpose or resumes.


Strategies for teaching with facial aphasia (inability to recognize faces aka prosopagnosia, face-blindness) I'm a math grad student in my first year, which means that I have not yet taught a class (in my program first years grade or provide one-on-one tutoring for students who struggle in calculus). I have facial aphasia, which means that I am completely unable to recognize people's faces. After a while (upwards a year) I can reliably recognize someone based on how they move, dress, wear their hair and so on. Before that I will just have a vague feeling that I recognize someone, but I can't put a name to them . It happens that I can't recognize people I've lived with for several years, or, on a few memorable occasions, my own family members. This causes some problems on occasion, but nothing I haven't been able to work out. However, up until now the people I've been expected to learn to recognize have been friends, or coworkers I see every day that I can explain my problem with faces to. My question is:

How do I handle teaching when I can't recognize my students and it would take me a year minimum to learn their faces? I know from my own experience that good instructors / TAs learn their students' names and faces and this helps motivate the students to learn, because they notice that their teacher cares about them. How can I compensate for my facial aphasia?

EDIT: Thank you for all the great responses! I feel a lot more confident that I can do well as a TA with all these ideas to work with :)

Unless it is too embarrassing to you, you might actually consider simply telling your students about your facial aphasia at the beginning of the semester.  You can explain that even though you care about them and know who they are as people and students, you won't be able to recognize them by appearance.  A more familiar condition you might make an analogy to is color-blindness.

You might then ask them to identify themselves by something that you will be able to recognize them by.  For example:

If it's a small class, you might make name tags to sit on students' desks in front of them during class.
In a large class, you might ask students to say their name when they ask a question.

You know your condition best, of course, and what things will work well for you.  You are, of course, admitting a weakness and some of the nastier undergraduates might attempt to use it to play pranks on you or to cheat in some way.  I suspect, though, that at that age in most cases it may be better to play it straight and people will respect you more for doing that than for attempting to hide it.


Is teaching a graduate course with 30 students an unreasonable expectation for a PhD student with a TA contract? I am a PhD student in a social science field, and am on a teaching assistantship. My contract stipulates that TAs are to work no more than an average of 15 hours per week.

For my particular department, the past protocol was that 10 hours were devoted to teaching duties (class time, office hours, prepping, and grading), while the remaining five hours are devoted to research with an assigned faculty member. Overall, I do not think that is unreasonable.

However, that setup was determined when the PhD students mostly taught undergraduate courses. I have been assigned a graduate course, and have been told to expect an enrollment of "at least 30 students."

I have never taught before, at any level. I am also still taking a full-time course load of my own.

Does this seem like an unreasonably high expectation from the Dean and program director? Or am I just being a wimp?

I definitely want to teach, and I want to make sure that my students receive the best quality education from me that I can provide. And I would like to do this without sacrificing my own academic progress, nor what is remaining of my sanity.

Just curious to know what other people's experiences in this area have been.

It is incredibly common for the number of hours devoted to teaching be woefully inadequate to deliver good instruction except possibly for highly seasoned instructors teaching the exact same course multiple times.

Unfortunately, I don't know any fair solution to this.  You'll probably spend two or three times longer than the expected number of hours in order to do even an adequate job.  From what I observe, people cope either by working far more than they're supposed to, or by delivering not-very-good instruction.  It's a difficult spot to be in.  (Alas, not the only difficult spot in academia.)

The bright side is that if you're really interested in teaching and put in way more time than you're "supposed" to, next time it won't be as bad (you'll only have to put in somewhat more than you're supposed to), and if you do well you will both help your students and be known as someone who is a good teacher (good if you want to do more teaching).


Humanities Research with Professors as a High Schooler? I am a high school student (legally old enough to work) looking for opportunities to work with professors in political theory. The way research is done is quite different from many folks in STEM, so how could I be of use to a professor while deepening my own passion for the field?
COVID has definitely restricted travel, but I won’t have limitations when it comes to being geographically closer to professors I’m working with (living near a major international airport, free schedule during breaks).

Let me suggest that you contact, first by email, some professors at the universities, both the local one and another where you will be co-located. Explain something about your interest, but also why you think you have enough background to make a relationship interesting to them.
A local professor might be more help and you might be able to work through a secondary school instructor to make the contact.
But, I think you will have a hard job to convince anyone without some support from somewhere. Interest isn't enough. If you are widely read in political theory it will help.
I worry, of course, that if you are merely driven by the current political situation and have "opinions" about it, then you won't be successful. So, examine your motivation. Political theory is about theory and only incidentally about "politics" as popularly understood.
Have you read Plato's Republic, for example? Anything by John Locke? If you have some of that background then you might have a chance of success.


The name of the document which prove my studies at the university I am originally from one country but study at university in a different country. Now, my native country asked me to prove that I study at this university and I want to ask my university to bring me document for that. What is this document used to be called?

Can I call this document "study confirmation letter" or "confirmation of studies"?

I found (here) the phrase "proof of study" ans also "Certificate of Enrolment" (here), "proof of enrolment" (here) but "proof of study" as well as "confirmation for studies" both seems to be for those who are graduated already while I'm still student there. I would like to take you advice for the conventional way (that everybody at the university office can understand) to call what I need.

I once had to acquire a "Certificate of Matriculation" or "Confirmation of Matriculation," similar to what is described here: http://www.ed.ac.uk/student-administration/order-documents/matric-certificate.


How to address an Oxford/Cambridge full-time lecurer who is not a Ph.D.? I am currently writing an e-mail to a member of Oxbridge staff. He is a "lecturer," full-time staff, who co-ordinates a well-known program, but does not hold a PhD, only an MA.

I can't call him "Dr. ," or even "Professor ," so is "Mr." sufficient? It seems too informal for someone in such a high-ranking position.

"Mr" should be fine (though note that British style drops the period from common  honorifics). For example, Trinity College Cambridge's list of fellows has two "Mr"s and four "Ms"s.

However, be very sure that the lecturer you're emailing doesn't have a doctorate. Most Oxbridge (and I believe UK) lecturers are equivalent to some sort of professor in the US system, and the title of professor is generally reserved for academics somewhere between "regular member of teaching/research staff" and "department head". Accordingly, most UK lecturers do have a PhD.

If you're not sure, it's probably better to go with "Dr" rather than "Mr", as if you do get it wrong one way or the other, that's the one that's less likely to offend.


As a student with questions about a paper, can I email the author myself or should I ask someone else to contact him? I am reading a paper and have questions about the details of the procedure described. I have read other papers by the same team but they don't explain too much about that procedure anyway. I think it might be common, but my supervisor doesn't know it too.

I am stuck and I want to get out of it. As a student working on my master thesis, can I email the contact author for the manuscript cold out, or should I ask someone to contact him for me? I would ask my supervisor but I don't want it to imply that I'm avoid taking initiatives when I could do it on my own.

You can definitely contact a paper author. They might be of the 'it obviously follows' == after 5 pages of calculations kind, or the empiricist who published the 20 successful regressions or simulations out of 200, with 180 contradicting their result or being inconclusive; and in either case ignore your question. From personal experience though, it can even lead to breakthroughs: in my case, someone sent me his lecture notes which clarified something I was stuck with, and related to the submitted question. However, if your advisor knows the author, or simply is well-known in their field, do mention that you are their student, as it should increase good will on the author's part - after confirming with your advisor that they are cool with it. Showing that you are active, interested, and independent should also go down well with the advisor.


Can I get a PhD if I did research without being enrolled in a PhD program? I have been working under the supervision of a Professor at a german University for a couple of years on a research project that could be published soon with me as a first author.

However I am not enrolled in any PhD program. Is it possible to get a PhD if I were to write a PhD thesis based on the work I have done so far without having to enroll on a program.

It seems now like a waste of time to enroll into a PhD program and have to do an additional 3 or so years.

Your best bet is to talk to the professor that is supervising you. Course work is less of an issue in Germany, so you might be able to speed up the process considerably if the professor is willing to accept your research as a basis for the thesis. Whether or not that project is suitable as a basis for a PhD thesis depends on the research that happened and your exact role in it. Maybe your work can count as an entire thesis, maybe it can count as an entire thesis if you do some extra work on, maybe it can count as a chapter, and you need two or three other projects to complete it, maybe it is just not suitable. We don't know, but your supervisor can tell you.


What is the process for PhD applications and contacting professors in France? I would like to apply to a PhD program in France, but I am having trouble understanding the admission process.  How should/could I submit my application?
Is it proper to contact the Professor I would like to work with and ask about any openings? If yes, what should I include in my mail?

I am only familiar with the admission process in US institutions.

TL;DR: in France you have to find first the supervisor, then you apply for a funding. If you have a funding of your own, you have to find a supervisor to be admitted. In both cases : you need the supervisor first.

There is various things to know when you apply for a PhD in France :

It is forbidden to be a PhD without having funding. In France a PhD student is considered both as a student and an employee.
The funding can be a state funding, an industrial funding, a funding on a research contract (either from a national funding agency or a company), or you can also do your PhD while working elsewhere (some teachers in secondary schools are doing their PhD this way).

Industrial funding and research contract are basically given to the supervisor, who can choose alone amongst all candidates. So for PhD with those fundings you have to contact directly the targeted supervisors.

State funding is given by a committee to a bundle (candidate, subject), this means that a professor, with a subject, has to find a candidate and then propose to the committe this candidate on his subject. Then the candidate is on his own : (s)he will generally have to send an application letter, with a reference letter from the supervisor, and if (s)he is shortlisted, (s)he will have to make a short presentation (either on location or using skype or a similar service).

Last case: you are funded on your own (job, external funding for foreigners). Even in this case, the procedure is that you find the supervisor, then you apply.


What is the best way to learn without thinking ahead? I've run into this issue in many fields in which I'm interested in learning about. For the purposes of this question let's assume electricity/circuits/power systems. I find myself starting at the basics and as I try to understand each concept, I start thinking of more of how this concept really works instead of accepting it at face value. In addition to this I also start to ask more complicated questions which I'm assuming I could answer if I would read on. The problem I end up running into is I won't let myself continue until I understand the concept completely. For example: I start learning about how current is always consistent in a single circuit which makes me start thinking about how total current/draw is measured in a household. Then this leads me to think that if everything is connected by wires, then shouldn't this be one large circuit with the same current.

As you see I start diving too deep. This seems like an inefficient way of learning and it usually causes me more stress than understanding.

A good way to force yourself to focus is to try to actually do something with the knowledge that you are trying to acquire.  To paraphrase one of my former advisors who I much admire as a teacher, there are three levels at which you can understand a subject:

Familiarity with the concepts: able to recognize and talk meaningfully about them.
Ability to employ the concepts effectively in solving problems
Ability to teach the concepts to another person well enough to get them to level 2.

It's easy to get stuck at mere familiarity if you aren't attempting to actually use the things you're learning in order to do things.  From a pedagogical standpoint, this is actually the main value of homework exercises.

Now, what about doing it in the absence of an external forcing function (i.e., grades)?  If you can't motivate yourself to do homework-style exercises, why not pick a project that you actually think would be cool and fun, and let that be what forces you to put the learning to work.  For example, taking the electricity/circuits example, a nice classic example is to try to build your own FM or AM radio receiver from basic components (transistors, resistors, etc.).  It's low enough power to be physically safe and complex enough that you'll probably have to deal with a lot of interesting problems even if you start from schematics found online.  Then try to make it better... before long, you'll understand not just the basic concepts but why you need to know them and how they fit together.


I prepared a course, but cancelled it due to lack of participants. How to describe in CV? I prepared a course (more specifically, I created some material for the kick-off meeting and an outline for the contents that would have been addressed if the course would have taken place), but there were too few students participating in the kick-off meeting, so I cancelled the course.

How should I deal with this fact in my CV? Since I prepared the kick-off meeting and the outline, and was willing to give the course, it would be nice to receive some credit. Still, would I have to mention that the course was cancelled?

I'm pretty sure this isn't the answer you want, but I don't think you should mention it in your CV. You have no proof of the quality of the materials you prepared (since they were never used or assessed and you got no feedback on them), or even that they exist (unless you have uploaded them to a public repository or something; even then you are unlikely to get much credit for them).

Where they might come in handy is during an interview: if teaching is a significant part of the job (particularly teaching in a similar field), you may be asked 'how would you prepare a course' or something, in which case you can describe your experiences - although this relies pretty heavily on you being asked the right question at interview, and evidence of practical experience of actual teaching, and positive feedback from participants, will be viewed more highly if you have it from other projects.


Phd admissions with strange academic record and multiple schools? I am an undergraduate in my fourth and final year of getting a bachelor's degree. Next year I am thinking about applying to Phd programs in math (in any case I want to take a year between undergrad and grad school). However, I have a very questionable academic record in some respects.

My first year of college, I attended a liberal arts college known for its academic excellence. I did reasonably well the first semester, but the second semester I began to fall into a hole of depression and anxiety brought on what I will call a collision of being overwhelmed with coursework that I had never really been challenged by before and untreated brain stuff. I stopped going to class, stopped getting out of bed, and eventually ended up failing all of my classes that semester (like F fail).

I went back home and went to community college for the next year, and I got on medication for my brain stuff which, and this is not true in general but was and is true for me, was essentially a silver bullet that cured everything that was wrong with me and also unlocked a level of academic focus and ambition that I had literally never had before.

I was able to transfer to a state research university after one year of community college, and that is where I am now. I have a pretty/very good GPA, I have taken a lot of classes in the past two years because I keep on getting excited about things and I am on a very limited schedule (I have taken ~2 times the normal course load per quarter over the last few quarters). I have developed good relationships with faculty and have taken a couple of graduate classes, and I have taken or am taking pretty much the entire pure math undergraduate curriculum with more classes then required for the major. I haven't been able to take grad classes in math because I only have 2 years here though- the ones I have taken were in applied math and CS. I have the expectation that my GRE scores will be good enough, as I have taken a few practice tests and I am generally good at standardized testing.

Now to my actual question: how disqualifying is my first year of college, and do any of you have any suggestions as to how I would explain what happened, or even if I should attempt to explain?

I am willing to bite the bullet, but I will also say that I tend not to talk about that time in my life, or even really think about it. I am not the type of gal to dwell, and I thinking back to it is rather psychically painful. I have actually not mentioned the fact that I even went to the aforementioned liberal arts college to anyone at my current university as I have no interest in explicating the circumstances surrounding my exit from it. That is not to say that I feel that I am in danger of falling back into the same hole, just that I do not like to be reminded of my worst moments.

Thanks!

I've had a somewhat similar rough start of college, with about three wasted years. I expected that it would very much be a problem as well. I'm now doing my masters and have a job that is very relevant to my field, and I've had some other relevant jobs as well.

In the interviews for those jobs, and during my application for my master, the subject of my unusual first years of college came to the table of course. However, I found that when you talk about it, it shows openness which is generally appreciated. What I also experienced, is that it can give you a good way to talk about how you have grown as a person and what you've learned from those experiences. In my case, it made me much more determined, and I could easily tell what I now am capable of, instead of focussing on what I was incapable of. It sounds like this could also hold for you! Because with your story about the load you're taking on, I feel like nobody will really care about that one year, and people can and will focus on what you're doing now.


Should one stick to their expertise/experience area post PhD? I am currently writing my Mechanical engineering PhD thesis. My research was based on modeling a 3D printing process. The work was interesting but I feel that there's not much rigoresness in the modeling aspect of the work. I tried to think differently from existing published works by other researchers, but still the inherent problems with the actual process makes it hard to develop an accurate model using current theories and modeling techniques.

Thus, I want to explore different topics post PhD. However, on discussing my future career with her, she advised that I should stick with my area of expertise/experience and should also pursue similar endeavours during post doctoral research. According to her, that would make you stand out as an expert in the modeling aspect of the field.

I don't know what should I do? Should I deviate from the PhD research area post graduation or should I listen to my advisor and stick to my 'less rigorous' area of expertise? I would eventually like to stay in academia.

One of the advantages of academia is that, in general, you get to follow your nose into whatever research corner you want to explore. You can change incrementally over time or you can make big jumps. Of course, you probably want to stay employed, so it is requires a bit of finesse and maybe negotiation.

But the big lesson is that your early work doesn't constrain your mind from think other thoughts and your past doesn't constrain your future if you are willing to work for it. But the same thing is true for people outside academia where such change is possible, though possibly harder. Resource constraint, for example.

Do what you love if you are able.

That, actually, is what keeps a lot of people (most?) in academia even though the pay may be less than what they could earn elsewhere.


Submit other people's code together with a paper I am submitting a paper to a computer science conference. In this paper I compare experimentally a method A (mine) with a method B (from other people).

I found the code for method B on git-hub by an anonymous author, and seems ok, with very few editing. Now, I have to upload the code I used for the experiments for review, and I don't know what to do with the code for method B:

If I submit it as is, the reviewer may realize that I have taken it from an "untrusted" source, or being the author of the code, who knows.
On the other hand it seems ridiculous to me to change the name of the functions and of the variables just to make the code "more mine".

Is there a prassi in this case?

I don't think the fundamental issue here is how to submit the code, but rather how to give credit in the paper.

How did you describe the code in your paper?  If your experiments use other people's code, then you need to indicate this explicitly and give them credit.  Even if the author is anonymous, it's important to indicate that you are not taking credit for it yourself, as well as to indicate where readers can obtain the code.

If you have already dealt with this in the paper, then you have no problem when it comes time to upload the code for review, since the reviewers will already know exactly what to expect.

If you haven't dealt with this in the paper, then you have a problem and will need to revise the paper ASAP.

As for whether it's from an untrusted source, you'll need to be upfront about this.  If you can justify why this is a reasonable choice (for example, you've checked the code reasonably carefully), then you should do so.  If you can't justify it in a way that reviewers will accept, then you have a problem, but you shouldn't try to cover it up.


Any suggestions to create and maintain a good research atmosphere I am starting my PhD in Computer Science next semester in a relatively small department (around 20 faculty members). I have been to the university a few times and I noted the collaboration among students is minimal. My prospective supervisor, most likely, is willing to help me in any research activity I propose that will increase the number of projects and publications with collaboration among students.

Thus, I am asking for different suggestions/tips of activities one can do or propose to increase the collaboration and the knowledge exchange among students/faculty members.

My question is on two levels:
1. What activities/set ups can a PhD student do/propose at the group level? (i.e. between you and other students with the same supervisor). FYI, the group is around 10 students. My supervisor is going to set up a group presentation every two weeks.

2. What activities/proposals/set ups can one suggest at the departmental level?  (I was thinking of a weekly talk over coffee for graduate students in the department.)

I just started working in a small lab a few months ago. I don't know if the way our lab is functioning is right or even good, but I like it, it works for me and I feel good here, so let me explain the lab dynamic here.

Just to give some context, the lab is so small that the division to project teams (although it exists) does not make sense for any informal activity. At any given time, there is 7 - 10 PhD students in the lab, maybe 1 or 2 exchange students/interns, and we have some PhD students that are in the lab only a day or two a week. Also, the lab is almost circular, all the offices are very close and we have a habit working with open office doors.

The common topic denominator among all of us is "Computer Science" (very broad), although each of us can find one or two more student-people working a similar topic.

I find that it's much easier for me to talk science to somebody I feel comfortable having a beer and a few laughs with as well. Not saying that you have to get your lab drunk, but:

in the morning, the first one in makes the coffee, and we linger in the lab-kitchen for 20-30 minutes until our eyes are open. Everybody is free to join, heavy coffee drinkers are almost always there, while the others wander in from time to time. Sometimes even the senior researchers have coffee with us.
we all go to lunch together (partially cause we all have partially refunded meals in that resto). We have a guy who talks much and eats slow, so by the time everybody finishes, we usually spend a quality 30-40 minutes talking. We also do a coffee after lunch.
When somebody's leaving the lab, we try to buy some trinkets (last time it was 1euro/person), organize small going away "party" in the lab with juice and cookies, and dinner followed by drinks in the evening. Food setting is more inviting to the shy students, and after that the outgoing ones go have a few pints.
Students sometimes just wander in other student's offices (usually in the lazy afternoon hours) for a few words. This habit is nice because you feel less uneasy when you stroll into somebodies office to talk science, cause you're practically doing the same thing. As a less imposing version, we sometimes just wave to each other while passing in front of the office.
When we have organized (boring) activities / administrative seminars / things that finish early, especially out of the lab, we try to go sit for drinks if we have time.
the only nice idea specifically targeted for professional exchange we did was organize a "PhD students day" where we all presented our subjects in very basic streaks, from 10 - 15 minutes, so that everybody would know which students are working on interesting problems (for them).
every project team has team meetings at their own pace, where we present our current research, recently accepted papers, exchange students present their topics or students that went to an exchange present what they did. My team does it usually two times a month, in a fairly casual setting.

Now that I mentioned all this procrastinating, let me say something that's always been true for me among Computer Science people wherever I went (studied in Croatia, Austria and now France, and had some holidays with CS people): you can't stop computer scientists talking about tech. Tech talk bleeds through beer, we eat some of it for lunch and drink it in our coffee. When we're happy about our work, we feel comfortable enough to share it with people around us. When we're angry and stuck, we are all around people who saw us in various kinds of settings, so we don't feel that uncomfortable being grumpy and complaining.

All this said, for some more context: I'm a PhD student in France. I have a feeling that the work environment here is much much more relaxed that in the States, and than a lot of European countries as well. They seem to believe that if you do everything slowly and relaxed (except a day before a deadline), you will do a good job. So, my advice might be only applicable to similar work cultures, but I still think there's some good things there, because, at the end of the day, we all enjoy our times in the lab.


What can I do if I submitted a paper believing a journal to be free for authors, and after acceptance I'm asked to pay a fee? Reading about a journal A, I understood that authors can submit papers free of charge to this journal. I have submitted a paper and received a letter of acceptence with a bill. The editor said that I have to pay print charges in order to publish my paper.

What should I do?

Can I withdraw my paper?

Yes, you may tell the editor that you were unaware of the author fees, and that since you can't pay it you are going to withdraw the paper. (They may agree to waive the fees, but if they don't, you certainly have the right to withdraw your paper and submit it elsewhere.)

In the future, you should check a journal's own instructions to authors rather than (or in addition to) third-party sites, which don't always have complete or up-to-date information about the journal.


Should an undergraduate claim ownership of their article uploaded on arXiv? As an undergraduate, I wrote a paper with a professor in the physics department. He has uploaded the paper to arXiv, and he forwarded me the email that he (automatically) received upon submitting the article. Part of it states:

  A paper password will be emailed to you when the article is announced.
  You should share this with co-authors to allow them to claim ownership.

Does this mean that, even as an undergraduate, I should create an account on arXiv (not sure if possible) and claim co-ownership of the article?

Congratulations on your paper!

You don't have to, but it would be a good idea to make an arXiv account and use it to claim ownership of the paper.  This will make it easier for people to find your work when searching by your name, and vice versa.  It will also establish an account that you can use for any future papers you write.

The fact that you're an undergraduate is irrelevant; arXiv doesn't care.  In fact anybody at all can create an arXiv account.  In order to actually submit an article, there is an endorsement process, but that's not really important here: endorsement isn't needed to claim ownership of a paper submitted by someone else (and presumably your co-author is already endorsed).


Couldn't attend IEEE Conference and unable to present my paper My paper was accepted at an IEEE conference. I paid my registration fees even registered for doing a physical presentation( there was an option for video presentation). But when I will enter the country, immigration office restricted my entry due to some visa issues. I had to go back. Thus, I couldn't attend the conference.

Now, will my paper in the end counted as an accepted paper and will add in IEEE Xplore?

I think it is likely that the answer in your case is "no", as IEEE has a clear no-show policy the organizers have to follow. Talk to them, but keep your expectations low.


Should a degree in an unrelated field be included in CV? So, in addition to my PhD and bachelors degrees I have another advanced degree that is ultimately irrelevant (and entirely unrelated) to my research efforts and current academic discipline. Should I include this on my CV under education or not? Will it make me look less focused or simply more educated? Is it standard practice to include everything, regardless of relevance?

My understanding of the CV is that it should be specific to relevant research experience and pursuits, not necessarily complete.

Edit:

This post received WAYYYY more attention than I anticipated. Some background. I completed bachelor's degrees in physics and mathematics. I then went and completed a Juris Doctor, but, found myself a bit unchallenged working with softer logic and went back to Physics. In Physics, I've mostly done mathematical physics which borders on pure mathematics and computer science. My main concern was seeming flaky and unfocused.

While there are some circumstances in which is it appropriate to use a "shortened" C.V. that does not include everything that you have done, I have never heard of a circumstance under which it is appropriate to omit a degree.  An irrelevant degree will not hurt how your C.V. is perceived, and if it is later discovered that you omitted a degree from your C.V., it may be considered suspicious or dishonest.  Furthermore, it may under some circumstances be considered a plus---you never know what kind of interesting cross-disciplinary connections somebody reading your C.V. might make in their head. I would thus advise you to include all of your degrees, even if some seem irrelevant to you.


Crackpot research paper in mathematics How does a math journal react to a crackpot math research paper?
In mathematics (especially in Number Theory) there are many meaningless papers on the web, and possibly a ton of meaningless submissions. Also, how does a journal react when a proof of a major unsolved problems, such as the 'Riemann Hypothesis', is submitted?

Here are the basic mechanisms that I know of, having only limited experience on an editorial board.
The first is a classic desk rejection.  This is where the editor who makes the initial assessment, just says no, without asking for referees.  This has to happen, or one gets flooded with AI generated nonsense as a joke.
Some journals insist that you list a few potential referees.  I believe that one of the reasons they do this is to see if you have interactions (even just closely reading their papers) with mathematicians.  If the author of a number theory paper list as potential referees three Fields medalists from three different areas of mathematics, probably they have no idea what they are doing.  Makes a desk reject easier.
The second is the editor asks for a quick opinion from a mathematician in vaguely the correct area, asking if the paper is worth refereeing.  You can tell if you get this type of rejection sometimes as the editor says after a few weeks something like "the feedback I have gotten are that this is out of scope for our journal." So I have heard.  From a friend.
Finally there is just sending it to one or more reviewers.  If the editor needs one referee, asks four in succession and they all say no, then the editor is likely to reject the paper.
There are problems with these methods.  Some innovative work is hard to classify, and a paper gets rejected because the editor asks all the wrong people.  I had a paper go to a topic editor, go out for review, then get assigned to another topic editor, out for several reviews.  It finally landed on the correct reviewer, but this could easily have gotten rejected.


Should one disclose his/her family information in an academic job interview? Should one disclose his/her family information (i.e. whether he/she is married and have children) in an academic job interview, including postdoc interviews and interviews for PhD, if any? In what situations would disclosing family information in such interviews be considered advantageous or necessary for the candidate? If not appropriate during interviews, then when would be the best time for one to disclose his/her family information?

It's probably best not to bring up family information at all during an interview. The committee wants to focus on your professional qualifications. They've probably been given strict instructions from HR not to take into account things like the applicant's sex or age, which are not professional qualifications. Different people may have different expectations about how formal a job interview should be, but in general it's not a casual get-together where we get to know each other.

Often a committee will want to understand why you are leaving your current position. Basically they want to make sure you didn't leave your current position because you did a bad job there and got fired. This becomes particularly relevant if the job you're applying for is at a professional level less than or equal to the level of the job you're leaving. In this context, it may be OK to mention your family if they're the reason you wanted to change jobs. E.g., you needed to move from Indiana back home to California in order to care for your father, who is old and unable to live independently anymore.

Another common situation would be the "two-body problem," where you and your partner are trying to find jobs in the same city. I would not bring this up at the interview stage. It's not relevant at that stage, because they haven't even offered you the job yet.

If you have young children, I wouldn't mention that at all. Many people in academia have very old-fashioned expectations about the academic lifestyle, e.g., that a high-powered academic must not be distracted by child-rearing, or must have a "faculty wife."


Is it plagiarism/OK if I use big parts of someones literature review for the introduction section of my paper? The questions says it all. I have an report I want to write. The level expected is slightly lower than that of a master thesis. I do need to write an introduction to the topic and there is a very recent literature review online. It covers some things that I want to use in my introduction. I do not have the possibility to access all the papers in the review as they are behind a paywall. How should I cite the review or the papers in the review? What is common practice in psychology?

If you copy the review text from the web into your own thesis it is a clear case of plagiarism.

When you write academic text where there is a need to provide the sources for your information (as references) you need to have read the sources. It is not ok to quote sources without having even looked at them. In very rare cases, may it be acceptable to quote a source quoted by someone else in a publication. These cases may include very hard to find literature or literature in a different language. But, such secondary references should not be used unless deemed absolutely unavoidable.

If you need to cite the on-line review, you will need to look at how web-sources are cited at your school (if they are allowed). you can also look at the recommendations at American Psychological Association (APA; very appropriate for you) and their style site. You may find many other bits and pieces that are of interest to you.


What does a kick-off conference really mean? I sometimes find that a conference is named with an adjective as kick-off. e.g. kick-off conference. What does it actually mean? Does it mean the final conference?

It's the first conference in a series, or the conference that launches a project, or some other kind of start to something.

Definition from Google:

  noun: kick-off

  a start of an event or activity.

  synonyms: beginning, start, commencement, launch, outset, opening
  "breakfast on the boat was a great kickoff to the weekend"

Example of usage in the context of a conference (emphasis mine):

  On September 2-4 2015, the FIRES project was officially launched with the kick off meeting and conference organized in Berlin, in the Science and Technology Park in Adlershof.