What to do when meeting your expected professor even before the interview? I am a postdoc and I have applied to a researcher position in another institute in another country. The story is that I once asked about the position and the professor there replied very positively and asked me to submit my application since my CV meets most of the requirements.

After I submitted my application, I sent a follow-up email informing her that my application has already been submitted. She thanked me and we share a couple of emails around different topics.

Yesterday she asked me if I will be at a conference in my current country and I answered with yes. So, she proposed that she will have a brief chat with me. I believe she will test the water of my skills.

The questions:

How good are these meets even before interviews?
what is a good approach to show here that I am a good fit? any recommendations?
what sort of general questions I might receive?

Thank you!

Just for reference to others who might have the same question. The meeting was amazing, we communicated at Dinner, I asked many questions as well as she did the same to me.

In the end, I got questions if I am really interested to join her group..and my answer was yes since I saw she is ambitious, relaxed, open-minded, and collaborative. At the same time, I got semi-confirmation that she will do her best to make me the first option among candidates.

Therefore, my answers would be:

This type of meetings can really push the candidate acceptance and support forward.
following up Roland recommendation, be yourself and relaxed.
Ask your questions, try to see if your future supervisor is collaborative and motivating.

Best


An Author without an Affiliation We are preparing a manuscript to be submitted to a peer-reviewed international journal. We have an author that contributed significantly to our research work in which we would like to include her as a first author of our manuscript. The main problem is that she doesn't have an affiliation.

Our question is to advise us please under what institution should she be affiliated?
Can we list her as a first author without an affiliation?
What type of institutions other than research centers and universities could  generally be listed as an affiliation on a research paper?

Thanks a lot!

You don't need an affiliation to publish. Independent Researcher or the equivalent is enough. You probably need an email address, but likely a professional one, separate from one used for personal things. That isn't really essential, but might be helpful.


Whether to report someone receiving extraordinary levels of help for PhD This is a real life scenario, but I'll refer to the people involved as A and B.

A and B are both retired. A is doing a part-time PhD (humanities), but for at least a year* B has been working nearly 9-5 every day helping A. The help seems to involve research (finding and reading papers/sources), discussion and input, proof-reading and re-touching the thesis, but I don't know about actually writing large chunks although I wouldn't be surprised.

As far as I know Masters and PhD theses usually need a declaration saying something like "this work is all my own except where explicitly marked".  To me it seems as if the declaration would be false, and anyway, even if person A declared they'd received significant help presumably joint PhDs aren't granted, and B isn't enrolled on a course of any kind.

What's my best course of action? Ethically, I feel as if the university should know about this, although presumably the fact that a lot of work has been done (by whomever) shouldn't go to waste.

(*The help has been going on for years, but I only know the specifics of the time invested for the past year or so.)

Getting help is in and of itself not a problem. Proof reading is perfectly fine. Discussing research with others is very much a part of doing research, so having a sparring partner is a good thing. Even finding and reading papers is not a problem if person B is just interested in the research and the discussions. So a lot of the things you mentioned are not necessarily problems.

If B wrote large portions of the text and A fails to clearly mention that, then that is a problem. But you will need proof before you can take action.


Should I consult my professor before sending my newly written research paper to a journal? I have written a research paper (in the field of Education & Social Science, and I am not a professional) and I want to publish it in a reputed peer-reviewed journal.

I am not in cooperation with any of my professors in terms of research activity.

Should I give my writing to one of my professors for a review before sending it to a research journal? Is there any possibility of stealing of ideas?

Unless the professor should be a co-author or you need their permission to include their name in acknowledgements, there is no need to have it reviewed. If the work is yours, you can decide to submit it.

But if you have any doubts about it or any part of it, having a review by a professor can be worth it. You may get advice that results in a revision or you may get advice that is worthless. But again, you are in control.

Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. While it happens, it is rare and not something that reputable people do. If you have doubts about the ethics of someone, don't send it to them, but that is obvious.

If you send it, you will get feedback from independent referees. It is to your advantage to start out with the best product you can create, but the review process itself can lead to some improvement.

If you don't have a particular journal in mind then a professor might be able to give advice on that, just from reading an abstract. Lots of possibilities.

But the work is yours. You choose.


Why would a student go to a lecture at all if everything was in the book already? Why would a student go to a lecture at all if everything was in the
  book already? The lectures make sense if and only if the lecturer
  tells more than in the book(s) and in more detail (or at least, in a
  better/more clear way). [not my comment]

Especially in light of the Internet in general, what is the added value of a lecture over a (hypertext)book?

Reasons I can think of:

spoken word might stick better, because our language is not primarily based on text,
the possibility to ask for clarification,
some material might not translate well to media

I dislike those arguments, because a huge class can neither run at a comfortable speed for all at once nor answer everyone's questions. The expectation seems to be that the students should be homogeneous and everyone nonconforming should be filtered out.

personal contact affects us on a deeper level, role models are important

Depending on the class size, even that is doubtful.

to form communities,

which would substitute or supplement the professors, but obviously at a different rate.

This is a trick question, because it depends on the style of the lecture.  In my experience the lecturer is acting as a medium and I'm watching them half the time writing on the board, or someone is asking obvious or distracting questions.

I think something mentioned in a comment is far more important than usually acknowledged: the lecture, standing at a definite time and place, plays the role of a ritual: at that time and place, the students (should) only focus on learning. This gives a rhythm, a time frame to help pace one's study.

In my experience, having very lenient rules such as long delays to turn in homework leads most student to postpone until the very end, and thus to work less than expected (to be honest scholars often do the same with e.g. grant applications). Similarly, leaving students to work with books would probably not end up well unless there are periodic incentives to have finished some chapter by some time. In fact, it seems even MOOCs tend to have a schedule, with material released periodically and only available for a given period, to force students to work it in a given time frame.

Another point is that a lecturer in fact makes small adjustments to the lecture in response to low-level signals from the students. Very concretely, it happens even in large amphitheaters that I feel that students all got a bit lost, which leads me to repeat a point or slow down.
A comparison made by Krantz in his book on mathematical lecturing struck me: when one drives a car on a mostly straight road, one still steers the wheel, even if very softly. This almost imperceptible steering makes the difference between getting to the end of the road and getting off-road pretty quickly. Letting student only study on books would be like launching a car without a driver (nor a computer driver).

Last, any given course has a precise context (background of students, future study, other parallel courses, goal of the lecture, etc.) which is always even slightly at odds with any given book. The lecturer adapts the lecture to her or his precise goals and to the context. In particular, indications of the most important points to remind of every lecture can be very useful.

All that said, lectures in front of a large number of students are not a very adequate way of teaching - it is often the best we decide to afford.


Word choice for salutation in a formal email to your PhD adviser, Is *Dear Boss* appropriate? I am a first year PhD student in France, born and raised in India. It is not customary in here where I am doing my PhD to call one's adviser boss but I do, partly due to my reluctance to call her by the first name, partly attributed to the culture in which I am brought up. As one comment suggested, "Dear professor" would have been an appropriate choice but she doesn't have any teaching duties and is a full time researcher. I would have used "Dear Madam" if I were in India but no one here use that. I think "Dear Dr. X" is too formal and no one here use that either. Many prefer "Hi X" but I think that is too informal.
Now that I am writing an email, Is Dear Boss an appropriate salutation? If not, what would be an appropriate salutation in a formal email?

In my view, in academia, the word "Boss" carries a large amount of semantic baggage that you probably don't want to invoke. Although you mean it to be polite and respectful, it also has an ironic context which you may not have detected. By saying "Dear Boss" can also imply that in your opinion they are neither dear to you or deserve the respect as a superior. It is safest to avoid such salutations altogether in emails.

As others have indicated this is very culturally dependent and I think you are bringing too much of your south asian culture to a european environment. Do what the locals do and emulate other peers is the safest and wisest approach.


Do universities favor experimentalists over theoreticians? This question is based off the following chain of reasoning:

Universities employ professors, who write funding applications and win grants. The university then takes some fraction of the grant as "overheads" which counts as part of its "income".
Therefore universities prefer professors who win big grants (the number of grants matter less than the total amount of money won).
Experimentalists need more money than theoreticians. I would expect that theoreticians only need some software & computers, but experimentalists would need the equipment itself (MRI machines, vacuum chambers, etc) which are orders of magnitude more expensive than mere desktop computers.
Therefore experimentalists win bigger grants.
Therefore universities prefer experimentalists.

I'm wondering if this chain of reasoning is robust. It looks pretty convincing to me. Conceivably the university could have separate grant targets for theoreticians and experimentalists, but presumably some professors aren't easily classified into either theoretician or experimentalist, which would make this an easily-gamed metric.

Potential for grants is surely something that universities consider, but I think your analysis is too simplistic to lead to the conclusion "universities prefer experimentalists".

For one thing, a department typically needs to offer a range of courses involving both theory and experiment, so they need faculty who are qualified to teach them.  The decision to hire in a particular field is more likely to be driven by academic needs, and so the question of whether to hire a theoretician or an experimentalist probably doesn't often arise as such.

Another point is one you raised yourself: Experimentalists need more money than theoreticians.  This cuts both ways.

Suppose they hire an experimentalist.  First of all, she is going to need a big start-up package from the university in order to get her research to the point where she can get grants.  There's a risk that she won't ever get to that point, in which case the university's investment doesn't pay off.  And maybe she does bring in some big grant money for a while, but years down the road, maybe her funding dries up.  Maybe her research area just isn't as hot anymore, or funding agencies are preferring to go in a different direction.  Without major funding, she can't do her research at all, and now the university is stuck with an unproductive faculty member.  So hiring an experimentalist may be high reward, but also high risk.

By contrast, a theoretician doesn't need a large short-term injection of funds, and they know that she will be able to be productive regardless of what happens to her funding.


Is there anything to do while waiting for results of a thesis examination? I handed in my PhD thesis for examination. From reading the examination instructions it appears that if I get my degree, it could be between 6 weeks to a year. It all depends upon the comments I get back from the examiners.

My plan during that time was continue work on my research, get more results and publish more papers. Also, help out other PhD students in their research.

Considering the time-frame is so variable, is there anything else I should be doing or planning? The only advice I was given, was don't take a holiday.

BTW: I am quietly confident that the examination results I will get back will be positive.

From reading the examination instructions it appears that if I get my degree, it could be between 6 weeks to a year.

Have you talked with your advisor about the time frame you should expect?  University policies often allow for a wide range of possible schedules, to account for differing circumstances.  The advisor generally has a clear idea of which part of the range a student is likely to end up in (although of course there are no guarantees).

When you reach the point of graduating, there should be little uncertainty left about the quality or value of your work, because your advisor should have been offering feedback and guidance along the way.  If your advisor is genuinely unable to predict whether it will be closer to 1.5 or 12 months more, then it is a worrisome sign (suggesting inexperience or negligence on the advisor's part, or that they suspect something may be wrong with your dissertation).

  Considering the time-frame is so variable, is there anything else I should be doing or planning?

I agree with the comments above about job applications.  In the cases I am familiar with (mathematics in the U.S.), academic job applications are due around December, which is typically about six months before graduation occurs.  This includes both faculty and postdoc applications.  Practices may differ in other fields or countries, but it's almost always a good idea to begin looking substantially before you actually graduate.


What should be the order of the authors in a paper? Should the first author be the one that worked the most? And then by the amount of work order (descending), but the last one the most-senior researcher?

Are there other ways? Which ones?

Does it vary from field to field? I've heard some areas or even some conferences always ask for alphabetical order. But then there are evaluation committees that count for how many first-author or last-author publications does a researcher have. Can someone provide exhaustive insight into how this is done across many fields?

Ask a hundred academics and get one hundred differing answers. Disciplines do differ.

Some base in on who did the most work.
Some base it on who developed the idea.
Some base it on a hierarchy  (my lab me first).
Some do alphabetical.
Some do "equal author contributions."
Some horse-trade, I get first on this as you got first on last. Many types of horse-trade exist and some move outside the domain of the research.
Some do it based on need. I need to be first to keep my job but you do not. I need it for tenure and you are tenured.
Some do it based on who wrote most of the paper.
Some do it on random numbers or similar.
Some decide in advance before the process starts.
Some give it to the person who made the big breakthrough.
Some give it to the organizer who pushed everyone and harassed everyone to get it done.
Some people just do not care so give it to the person who asks first.
Some give it to the person who got the funding.

My process is that you essentially know by the end of a research process and writing of a paper who should be the lead author and then the horse-trading begins. I have fun with it and I really dislike teams who spend more time on discussing this than the research.


Is it ethical to upload an automatically generated paper to a non peer-reviewed site as part of a larger research? I'm doing some research on my own as a side-project. In fact, I want no one from my research center to be involved in this research as I feel that they will take credit for my idea, like in past times. Nevertheless, if their involvement is completely necessary, I would consider it.

Anyways, this project requires to upload completely nonsense papers to Arxiv or similar. They are completely nonsense as they are artificially generated. The idea is to see if this is possible or how easy it is.

On the one hand, I don't want to pollute the scientific community with rubbish but in the other hand, I see that this step is necessary to continue further with this research.

My question is, how should I proceed? Should I do it and once I finish my research tell Arxiv that they can delete the files? Should I ask for permission first? Should I not do it at all?

EDIT: Just to make sure that everyone understands, this is not something that I have done yet. In fact, after seeing the responses, it is more than likely that I try to avoid publishing in arXiv. The objective is not to upload a paper to arXiv, is something else, but I was considering uploading it to arXiv as a medium for reaching another goal. Nevertheless, it is not my objective to pollute arXiv or the community.

"Shall I poison a well to see how many drink out of it?"

Frankly, the idea of debunking review processes is not that new, and the latest wave started with the Sokal hoax. There were a couple of follow-ups, with computer-generated papers.

The result was a scandal, a journalistic anecdote. It created attention. Been there, done that. It's no longer an original idea. We got it. You can fool badly screened journals and predatory conferences.

But ok, now, you talk about actual "research" with fake paper dissemination. That may or may not be a legitimate research question, but the fact that you talk about "poisoning" arXiv, which is a serious and expressly not peer-reviewed site makes it already very questionable what you are trying to achieve.

It is one thing to embarrass badly screened journals or conferences (possibly even suspected predatory ones - namely the conferences in question) which Sokal and the SciGen people did, but quite another to abuse a perfectly legitimate repository for non-peer-reviewed papers. In other words, it relies on good will and honesty of the submitters trying to submit good quality work. There are minor safeguards in place to avoid obvious scientific spam, but not against antagonistic submitters.

I do not know (and I do not want to know) what you are trying to achieve with this experiment, but the damage that you are likely to do with this can be so substantial in terms of loss of trust of arXiv and preprint services etc, that you would seriously need to pass it through an ethics committee who can evaluate what legitimate experimental parameters for such a large scale social experiment would be.

Without such a permission and clear delineation of your duties and limitations (which your institution's ethical committee has to evaluate), this research will be unpublishable in a serious journal. And frankly, your academic reputation will be finished. Damaging one of the most valuable resources of openly accessibly publications will make you persona non grata in academia.

Let me add one more thing. There are other preprint servers which have a less strong reputation. There, your experiment may do less damage, though also be less expressive. However, even there, I should believe that they rely on good will and that wilful tainting of wells for scientific knowledge is simply maximally antagonistic to the endeavour of science.

TL;DR: I believe the experiment is highly unethical and extremely damaging. However, you may want to see whether your institution's ethics committee can identify conditions under which such a social experiment might be feasible.


I suspect an author of a paper I'm reading was listed improperly - what to do? I was reading a paper. And the list of authors looks suspicious. Three of the authors are at some random place I haven't heard of and the fourth author is a well-known professor at a top university. The paper itself is not very good.

I suspect the well-known author may have been listed to improve the paper's chances of acceptance. (Most reviews in my field are only single blind.)
Of course, it is possible that nothing is wrong - I can't be sure.

Is there anything I can or should do?

Can? Yes - the comments already give you some hints: Look at the prof's website, try asking him a question about the paper.

Should? Probably not. If there is really something going on, then it would the business of the professor, not yours. If you proceed as above and ask him something, and there is really something fishy, he can decide by himself if something needs to be done.


Research paper - translated plagiarism? I'm writing a research paper in my native language, Serbian, on a specific electrical engineering and applied mathematics topic. Moreover, there are two published papers in English that hold much of the information I need.

Now, the topic itself is quite new and is unknown in Serbia, and consequently at my university. My plan is to sum up the results of the two papers, further expand on the theory behind it (which is only arbitrarily mentioned in the English papers), and finally encapsulate the whole idea.

So, strictly speaking, I won't be doing any original research, in terms of experiments or mathematical breakthroughs, but rather synopsize and provide a desired perspective on a modern topic that is novel to my national academic environment.

Q: If I reference the two English papers and their authors at the end of the paper, do I commit plagiarism?

For example, if I see a nice sentence in one of the papers, and I translate it into my paper, are the references at the end enough for crediting the author?

Finally, is using the pictures from the two papers (with referencing them naturally) accepted practice? Or do I need to get the authors' permission to use them?

Furthermore, does my paper still hold some kind of value, even though it doesn't provide original results? At the very least, it introduces a new, and very interesting topic to my faculty, and is generally a field I'm interested in researching, and eventually achieving some real and relevant results.

Referencing the papers at the end is not sufficient.

Generally, the litmus test whether or not something is plagariasm is whether the reader is given an adequate impression of how much of the text is other peoples work. Readers don't always read entire papers, and in particular may not make it to the end.

In your case, I would suggest to state at the beginning what your two main sources are, and give some indication of how heavily you are drawing from them. Then, throughout the paper reference each bit you've taken from elsewhere by where it is coming from.


Is it okay to talk about a topic you want to research in but haven't done anything beforehand in your sop? Background
I am writing my sop for PhD Admissions. (Currently an undergraduate)
I want to mention a prof's name because I am really interested in his research but the issue is that I don't have any published work (or pre-prints) in his specific domain of research. I just have one project with very minor novelty.
But, I do have some good work done (around 4 pre-prints, 2 good conference papers, a few good projects) which aligns with his domain in a broad sense.
To clarify,

Profs domain: self-supervised learning
Majority of my papers: Supervised learning

Both are under "Deep Learning for computer vision". Self-supervised learning is category which falls under Supervised Learning.
My question: Would it be okay to mention that "I want to work with him because I am highly interested in his field of work?"

This should be fine, since you seem to have the necessary background if not the specific experience. This would be especially true if this is in the US, where there is a lot to do in most programs prior to starting serious dissertation research. It will be different elsewhere, of course.
Again, for the US, the professor may have little actual influence over your acceptance.


How to address students in the USA, as a university instructor: first name or last name? It is often asked whether students should be encouraged to address their instructors by their first or last name. My question is the opposite.

I teach at a large US university but I have not grown up here. Most students address me by my last name or by 'Professor', which seems to be the traditional way to do it.

Questions:
It turn, would I traditionally address students by their first name or their last name? Or just "student"? Is the communication symmetrical or asymmetrical? Is there a difference in email and personal interaction?

First name, at every university I've been. Both for in person communication and email. There are a few charmingly old fashioned professors who use Mr/Miss Lastname, but they're seen as oddities. So yes, the communication is generally asymmetrical.


Can I reduce/change the margins given in the template of a journal? Recently, my paper has been accepted in a journal(ENDM). They asked to reduce the number of pages. When I used their template, it exceeded the number of pages allowed. I tried my best to reduce the number of pages, but no use.
Can I reduce/change the margins given in the template of a journal to reduce the number of pages. Is it ethical to do so? Will they reject my manuscript?
(manuscript has been accepted after minor changes).

The entire point of the template is to make certain that everybody is on the same page (no pun intended) as to what the format is. Changing it defies this purpose and will almost certainly be noticed – if the journal uses this template for production at all.

While nobody except the journal staff knows how exactly they would react to what you intend to do, I would prophesy that at best they directly return the manuscript to you and ask to properly shorten your manuscript.


What happens if letter of recommendation to a university contains a wrong fact? My teacher recently uploaded some letter of recommendations for post graduate applications but the letter was a generic one she typed for me and in the last paragraph, she wrote "applicant wants to apply to a masters program in USA....." but she uploaded the same document to UK universities as well including University of Oxford, Manchester, Sheffield.
Since this was a tiny mistake and she was using a generic letter for me to every university, will this be considered an issue to the university and can be rejected for admission?

These kinds of mistakes happen all the time. Don't worry about it, just move on -- the people who will read the letters understand that these things happen.


Can good letter of recommendations offset bad GRE scores? I'm applying to graduate math programs and my subject test score was abysmal, but I'm very confident that I will have excellent letters of recommendation from my professors. Will these LOR offset the bad test scores? I know every situation is different, but in general what is your opinion?

Disclaimer: I am a current graduate student and my experience is limited to being the student representation on the graduate admissions committee of my program.

One of my advisers always reminded me of the following principle:

  GRE scores will not get you in but can keep you out

What does this mean? GRE scores by themselves will never get you admitted into any program worth its salt. However, they do act as a nice way of filtering candidates, especially in schools which received hundreds of applications for its programs every year.

Once you make the initial GRE/TOEFL filter, you are good. Your application will then be vetted on the basis of academic achievements, research, statement of purpose and letters of recommendation. Ergo, if you are removed at the initial stage by virtue of your GRE scores being rather low, then chances are, that nobody will even look at the rest of your application.

However, if your GRE scores are bad (but not that bad) then your good LORs might serve you better in the later rounds.

Of course, for quantitative oriented programs (like math), you might be expected to get a perfect (or near perfect) GRE Math scores and respectable Verbal scores.

I hope this makes the process a little clearer.


Why would an author forward my inquiry about a paper to all its other authors? I am a grad student and I am reading a certain recent breakthrough paper.  There is a part of the paper which is not making sense to me at all.  So I wrote to one of the authors inquiring about it. But this person forwarded my email to every of the other authors! (and that includes some of the living legends in the fields!)

Why did this person do this?

Is this a scary situation to be in?

Why did this person do this?

There is a long list of possible reasons:

If something is unclear in the paper, it makes sense for the other coauthors to know in case somebody else asks the same question later.
The author you emailed might not have worked on that part of the paper, and thus is not able to properly address your question.
Or perhaps they did work on that part of the paper and simply have no idea how to answer you, and are hoping another author will be able to come up with a good response.
Your question might inspire one of the other authors to come up with a followup idea.
The other authors may want to know that somebody is reading their paper and is interested enough in it to want to ask a question.
Perhaps the author you emailed doesn't feel qualified to speak on behalf of the group, or doesn't want to take the chance of misrepresenting the group's opinions.
The other authors may have requested to be notified about any communication regarding the paper.
As some other answers (like keshlam's) mentioned, the author you wrote to may simply think it's an interesting question.

And so on...

  Is this a scary situation to be in?

No, why would it be scary? I suppose if you feel that way, who am I to tell you your feelings are wrong... but it's a very normal thing.

In fact, as a general rule, any time you email one author of a collaborative paper about that paper, you should expect that your message will be shared with the other authors.


Is it possible to download paper from academia.edu without being registered there? Based answers to Is Academia.edu useful? it seems that there are some legitimate reason why many people would prefer not to have academia.edu account.

On the other hand, it might happen that you see a paper there which is interesting for you and which might be difficult to obtain in a different way.

I have noticed that when I find some paper on academia.edu using Google Scholar, I will also have a direct link to download. To give one random example, when searching for ultrafilter site:academia.edu you can see that I get direct download link to this paper. (The link contains the string "expires", so it is probably only temporary.)  On the other hand, when I try to find the same paper on academia.edu and try to download it, I am asked to login/sign up.

Is there some way to get the url for download from academia.edu website without being logged in? (This could be useful if neither Google Scholar nor some other searches give me a direct download link to the article.)

EDIT: To clarify (since I received an answer copying parts of the above paper). When I made this post, I was able to download it via the direct download link I have mentioned above. And this particular paper is also available on another website. So this is not a request for a paper. (Requesting papers would clearly be an incorrect use of academia.SE.) It is a question whether the annoying restriction to be registered before downloading something from academia.edu can be somehow bypassed. I have simply chosen a random paper as an illustration.

Google Scholar provides the direct link http://www.academia.edu/download/37277308/Introduction_to_the_Keisler_Order.pdf. It seems like there are two identifying elements: the code 37277308 and the filename Introduction_to_the_Keisler_Order. Both appear in the source of the article page on academia.edu even when you are not logged in, for instance here:

  registrationParams: {
    doc_id: 37277308,
    splash: true,
    redirect: "https://www.academia.edu/11902653/Introduction_to_the_Keisler_Order?auto=download",
  }

So in theory it should be possible to recover the direct link by piecing them together. I don't know if there is software already available, but it does definitely seem possible to write, for instance, a Greasemonkey script that adds direct download links to these pages.

Of course, all of this depends on the specific format of academia.edu's webpages and direct download links, which are subject to change at any time. In particular, if they find out that many people are using them, I suppose they will quickly change the format to pull the plug and force people to login.


Should I stay in school? I am most of the way through my freshman year at Washington State University, pursuing a BS in  Computer Science. Going away to school has been rough, and I have been pretty depressed for most of the time there. Right now, I am leaning towards not wanting to continue my education, but my parents are strongly opposed.

Why I don't think I need college

One of the main factors that is pushing me away from school is the fact that I already spend plenty of time working on my own software projects. On my own, I have gained extensive knowledge and experience with web application development, using platforms that are far too new to have a undergraduate class that teaches them. These are platforms used in real workplaces and production software, and I would not gain these skills in school.

Second, I have lost a lot of faith in my school after seeing so much incompetency from people who are meant to be educating me. The professors outsource a majority of their work to their TA's, who I feel I know more than. My Computer Science class is really just an entourage of TA's parroting the words of the professor, with embarrassingly little of their own understanding.

Another big reason is that for 10 weeks this summer, I will be travelling to Silicon Valley to take part in a 'startup accelerator program'. This is a program where already-established tech entrepreneurs and investors help people who are new to the game with building their product and starting their company. At the end of the 10 weeks, investors decide how much they want to put into each company, in exchange for some equity. Of the companies that go through these kinds of programs, a very high amount succeed. I feel that if the developers I am working with and I do well here (no, it is not guaranteed that we will make money), college is pointless for me.

What college is like for me now

College has been hard for me. Not because I am not capable of understanding the material, and not because I don't have enough time to get all my work done. I have been suffering in my classes because instead of going to class or finishing assignments, I work on my own projects.

Of course, if I forced myself to put time and effort into this work, I would achieve satisfactorily. However, that is much easier said than done.

In order to start caring about school, I would need to drop all my other software side-projects (or at least greatly limit the time I spend on them). Essentially, this is a choice, and right now I will always pick my own projects over school.

Do I really need school?

After all that I have seen about the limited job market (even for degree-holders) and all that I have experienced in school, I am really questioning whether I need to stay in school. Convince me whether or not I really need a BS, or any other advice you can give about the subject.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read and answer this. I normally feel bad taking time away from other people for my own benefit, but this is a major life-decision, and I cannot properly come to consensus on my own.

I know from all too personal experience that it the easiest thing in the world to say "I could totally ace these assignments if I tried, but I can't be bothered to try." Talk is cheap. You may be different, but when I said stuff like that I was completely deluding myself.

You may be being too hard on your profs and TAs. CS departments generally don't cover specific development platforms in their classes because platforms come and go, sometimes in a shockingly short period of time. A good CS department is going to try to educate you in the foundations of CS and software engineering. Stuff that is not in the tech headlines now, but is more likely to still be relevant 10 years from now. Still, it may be that they aren't very good, in which case the solution is not necessarily to drop out, but to find a better department.

That said, if you aren't applying yourself in school, and aren't getting much out of it, then you probably should't be in school. However, if you are not going to be in school, you still have to move forward with your life. You can't just hop on the bus back home and let your parents support you. The accelerator sounds great, but it's a roll of the dice, so you need a backup plan. The obvious choices are joining the military and finding a job. I've never been in the military so I can't advise you about that. If you find a job that pays all your expenses, then your parents may be upset, but they can't really stop you. They probably will be less upset with you if you have a job in hand as you announce that you are leaving school. If you can't find a job that will support you, then that's a pretty critical piece of information, and it means you've either got to suck it up in school or join the military.

My suggestion would be to completely put aside your personal projects for the rest of the year. Focus on your schoolwork, and prove you aren't just blowing smoke, when you say you could excel at it. Prove it. At the end of the school year, start looking for a job. If you find a job that will pay all your living expenses, or if your accelerator works out, then take a leave of absence. If you prosper in your job or startup, great. If it doesn't work out or seems like a dead end you can go back to school. If you really want to pursue your projects as an entrepreneur, then live on Ramen, save every penny, and bankroll yourself for a couple of years.


How should you refer to yourself in a paper? When writing a paper that discusses previous work by the same set of authors, what is the correct way to refer to it?

For example,

  "In 2012 Fred et al. introduced a third way of resolving the washing crisis [1234]."

Should this be written

  "In 2012 we introduced a  third way of resolving the washing crisis [1234]."

or perhaps

  "In 2012 the current authors introduced a third way of resolving the washing crisis [1234]."

or even

  "In 2012 Fred et al. (the current authors) introduced a third way of resolving the washing crisis [1234]."

Note that in this style the reference is [1234], in case that wasn't clear.

This usually depends on whether or not you paper will be reviewed double-blind or not. If it's going to be double-blind, then you need to refer to yourself in the third person (i.e. by name, "Fred, et al.") rather than using a pronoun. If it's only going to be single-blind review, then I think it's a matter of style whether you use a pronoun or refer to yourself by name, though the venue you are submitting to, or your field, may have preferences. In which case, you should ask around.


Is there an Advantage to have a Teaching Statement with References I will be on the job market, again, next year.  I am looking for a position that emphasizes teaching. I wrote a new teaching statement each year for the past two years since I just graduated with my Ph.D. last year, and I am relatively new to teaching, my teaching philosphy continually changes.

I am including writing a teaching statement that includes references.  My teaching statement usually includes a narration of what I actually do in class, and explanation of assignments I give.  Education research also informs how I do things in class, and I would like to justify why I do things with references to education papers.

I am in mathematics, and I notice that a lot of math teaching statements do not include references, which makes me think this is out of the norm.

Will my teaching statement be stronger if I provide references?  Or will this be unusual and better be left out of my statement?

You should cite your sources.
It is good you have read the education literature.
This will not make a big difference.


Why are seemingly important topics not covered in textbooks? I've asked some professors this questions and none of them have seemed to been able to give an answer that didn't lead to both them and me having more questions.

To put into context:

I have my B.S in Marketing and have been working in the marketing industry for just under 4 years. Of all the jobs I have had and been interviewed for having a strong knowledge of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) was required to even be considered. In order to market using anything digitally based you need to understand SEO and in some cases ASO.

Never in any of my textbooks was SEO talked about even though it's not a new topic and my textbooks were 2011-2013 publications. SEO was mentioned but never talked in a sense of someone would know what it is and how to use it.

For a concept so important in the marketing industry today why don't textbooks talk about it? I've looked through half a dozen of my marketing books and I've even asked to look through the new 2015 editions my professors were given.

Are their limitations to what goes into a textbook? This sounds silly even to me but anyone who works in marketing knows how important SEO is and when a textbook is written by people who have worked in the marketing field it only makes sense that they would want to include to most important industry topics to-date so that a new 2015 textbook doesn't seem outdated.

An important distinction that needs to be considered, in the design of any course, is the timescale over which the knowledge is expected to be applied.

At one end of the spectrum are courses where the knowledge is expected to become obsolete only on a time scale of centuries, such as calculus or Newtonian physics (yes, they change: try reading a calculus text from 100 years ago and the notation is likely to be somewhat confusing), but are generally about fundamental knowledge and core principles and thus often rather removed from immediate applicability.
At the other end of the spectrum are courses where the knowledge is immediately applicable, but where it may become obsolete quite quickly, such as training in particular software systems or laboratory equipment.

Institutions then tend to organize themselves along this spectrum according to their goals:

Strong universities tend to focus much more on the long-term end of the spectrum, because they are trying to give their students skills to last a life-time, and indeed to help those students become the ones who create new systems and applications that render the shorter-term knowledge obsolete.
Vocational schools tend to have a mix that aims to give the students both immediately applicable skills but also enough foundations that they won't need major significant retraining for a number of years.
Professional development and other "on the job" training tends to be much shorter and focuses on the short-term skills that are needed now and where it's OK if you need to train again on the new system in six months.

Now, let's consider your example of search engine optimization: this is a rapidly moving target, since it's based on adapting to the current methods that the current search providers happen to be providing how the internet happens to be organized right now.  Cutting edge SEO techniques are being invented and destroyed constantly.  Pretty much any SEO technique from five years ago is totally useless today, and SEO didn't really even exist as a field ten years ago.

As such, you should expect a marketing textbook or course at a good university to pay little attention to SEO, but instead to focus on more foundational principles.  On the other hand, if you search for SEO textbooks and courses online, you'll find a lot of more vocational or corporate resources available.

In short: educational resources adapt to the timespan over which they are intended to apply.  The longer a timespan an education is intended to cover, the less it will focus on "hot topics," and a good undergraduate degree is intended to last your whole life.


When and why did journal article titles become descriptive, rather than creatively allusive? In 1926, the article titled “On a certain minimal problem” was published. Nobody could guess what it was about, from the title alone.

Nowadays, one may expect something more descriptive, such as "Workspace Augmentation of Photon Impingement Through Impurities Removal".

I'd be interested when and why did the titles change, from the allusive style of the early 20th century, to the descriptive titles of today.

Was it a gradual change? Was it prompted by some notable event or influence? Was there a period when journal articles (or "letters" as it was then) did not have titles?

There's an interesting discussion of this in the introduction to Titles are "serious stuff": a historical study of academic titles by Salager-Meyer and Alcaraz Ariza (link). One point they argue is that titles (as well as abstracts) increasingly need to be more informative given the growing production of papers, in order for readers to make quick decisions on whether to read them or not. If this is the main factor, the information content would be expected to increase similarly to the size of the relevant academic community.
However, there's something I find much more interesting hidden in the introduction:

Other scholars have stressed that titles should be as informative as possible in order to facilitate the process of storing, searching and retrieving the information (Black 1962; Mitchell 1968; Tocatlian 1970; Feinberg 1973; Manten and Greenhalgh
1977; Hodges 1983; Diodato and Pearson 1985).

The paper by J. D. Black (IBM British Laboratories) is titled The Keyword: Its Use in Abstracting, Indexing and Retrieving Information and discusses how

Librarians have been accustomed to using systems, schedules, thesauri, lists of headings, etc., to define and classify the literature which comes into their keeping. They use these same methods to retrieve and disseminate this literature. However, within recent years these methods have begun to show signs of strain, and in some cases breakdown, due to the tremendous increase in the volume and complexity of technical literature.

Specifically, Black showed that a 1960s era (punch card) computer can be used to extract keywords from a title to achieve a similar efficiency as manual classification, but for significantly cheaper cost, and allowing better scalability. Black also writes

While the index may be practical and usable, we still do not know precisely how efficient it is. In its present form, the efficiency is dependent on the author's choice of title. <...> before long the engineer, scientist, or mathematician will realize that if his title is not descriptive enough his paper will not be used as much as it might be.

Of course, if this automation of title processing is the main factor, one would expect to see a significant increase in the information content of titles starting some point in the late 50s, or early 60s. A 1970 paper by Jacques J. Tocatlian called Are titles for chemical papers becoming more informative? looked at precisely this, by comparing measures of information content between papers published in 1948, 1958, and 1968. (1958 being the year the KWIC index, or Key Word in Context, was introduced.) As Fig. 1 below shows, they found no significant difference between 1948 and 1958, but very different results for 1968. Here the measure A, for example, is defined as the total number of substantive or informative words. On the other hand, Fig. 2 shows that titles with few substantive words might have started being eliminated before the introduction of the KWIC index.

I don't know if there is similar evidence from other fields that the introduction of automated indexing was an important development, but it strikes me as likely that the same mechanisms would apply elsewhere too. So, long story short, a growing number of publications and the introduction of computers may have driven a large part of the push towards more descriptive and informative titles.


Is it possible to do research, in your PhD, on the same topic that you did for your Master's dissertation? I was wondering if it's possible to use the same research question, just using different methodology and a more expanded research area.I don't mean if you can just extend the topic of your Master's thesis into something that you're going to research on, in your PhD (as in your MA thesis becoming one or two chapters of your PhD thesis).

Researching the same topic for a Ph.D. as a Masters is entirely possible, and not necessarily even all that unusual (it depends on how you define "same").  If the Masters is a first set of results on the topic, and the Ph.D. then pursues a significant advance thereupon, that would be an entirely reasonable progression of research.


Is it okay to address "Prof. X" as "Mr. X"? I am from the Netherlands.

I have seen quite a few threads which address the question of whether or not it is acceptable to address a professor by their first name. However, none of them seem to address the point of whether it is still permissible to refer to them as Mr/Mrs X?

For example, if you know that someone's full title is "Prof. Dr. X" is it acceptable to write them an email starting with "Dear Mr/Mrs X"?

This will depend on the norm within your country to some extent, but I'm inclined to say that at least in the US, calling a professor 'Mr.' is insulting, provided you are in an academic context.

My neighbors, many friends, and the cashier at the cafe know me as Mr. X. But on campus, I'm Dr. X...and you know I'm a professor. Using 'Mr.' seems strangely intentional in a way to diminish ones accomplishments.


Should I seek professional help because I have a lot of math books? I’m a graduate student in mathematics. One day, there was a discussion between graduate students about how many books a working mathematician has. Then each student would talk about their personal math library and then they would name their preferred book in each area of math.
All the students had a relatively small library. When it was my turn, I simply said the truth that I have around 1,000 ebooks and 100 physical books and that I have bought all of them and have not downloaded any of them illegally. I also explained that I like to learn a lot of math and I’m passionate and enthusiastic about math. I also explained that I have not studied all of these books thoroughly.
Then suddenly a professor stated (when others were also present) that I have more books than the university library. He then said that I should immediately seek professional help.
I was very offended by what this professor said but I never discussed it with him because I thought that I was in an emotional state and I did not want to speak to him when I was not calm. After a while, I thought that it was my own mistake and I should not be so honest about my math library.
So I have now two questions:

Is the number of my books unreasonable compared to how many books a graduate student or working mathematician own?
If I need professional help because I buy math books regularly?

Personally, it seems to me that he was just making a joke. Awkwardly, perhaps, but still, just a joke. Your personal library seemed to him (and me) to be so "over the top" that it was hard to fathom. Had he said something like "Wow, are you ever intense?" it would have had about the same meaning.
It is possible that he had a negative feeling about it, but I really doubt it.
Or maybe a meaning like "Wow, you need to learn to relax a bit."
But if you are so intense that you are ending up hurting your health, then professional help is actually advisable.


What should I do if the Production editor has not responded after the proofreading process for over a month? In February 2021, my paper was accepted and the proof reading process started immediately. I have returned the corrections in begin of March, but after that no sign of communication. I send 3 emails to the Production editor, without any luck. How do you recommend to continue?

Finally they replied and told me that they have not received my edits through the online proofing system. I have submitted everything four times and nothing is received by the other end. It is over a month since the proofreading process began and concerns only 9 edits!!! I talked with the eproofing service, but the result was the same. What do you suggest me to do? –

Try a different email. It could be that the production editor resigned, is on leave, has been reassigned, etc. You could try the journal email, if there is one, or the publisher email, or even the editor-in-chief.
Worst case scenario, phone the publisher.


Drop a Course After Add/Drop Deadline I am a graduate student working on a double major, one in mathematics and the other in geology. The minimum required workload/semester for a grad student in my school is 9 credit hours/semester.

This semester, I am taking 13 credits hours, the majority of them are math classes. There is no research credit. That said, I still have to work on my research (both in geology and mathematics) independently. I am also a teaching assistant, working on average 9 hours/week.

I found the workload overwhelmed, but only after the deadline to drop courses without being counted as withdrawal (meaning a 'W' in the transcript). The instructor for the math course I want to drop, my advisors, and the maths department head all advised me to drop the course so that I can focus on finishing my thesis in geology by the end of this semester. FYI, there has been no grade/test/exam so far in the course.

My school has a petition form for students to fill out so that they can drop a class after the deadline. I submitted the petition with all the approval signatures from the advisors, course instructor and department head to the office of the registrar. In the petition, I told them the same reasons as above. However, my petition was disapproved by the university registrar. He left a comment:  "I see no basis for drop, but withdrawal".

I am looking for a way to get my petition accepted. I believe my reasons are valid and they shouldn't make it hard for me. I am dropping the course not because I am slacking off or failing the course. In fact, I am already doing extra workload, more than most other graduate students.

Could you please give me some advice about how to convince the university registrar to approve my petition?

Perhaps the only other course is to get the maths professor and maths head of Dept. to petition the university registrar as a "special" case...

But don't hold your hopes up, it is worth a try though.


I don't know what to say when meeting the supervisor after he has suggested me to leave the research group I am a PhD student in Germany and my supervisor has suggested me to change the research group because he has told me I cannot write a good quality dissertation within the time framework of three years. He assumes that the maximum possible time for doing the PhD is three years and this time framework cannot be extended.

Now I want to talk with him face to face, but I don't know what to say. Has anyone had a similar experience? Should I fight to keeping this position or I should find another position in another university?

edit 1: I personally prefer to leave the group because I never felt I'm part of the research group even after one semester. I didn't get that feeling even from my supervisor.

This adviser is doing you a favor. He is telling you at the very early stage of your PhD that you're not cut for it according to his standards. That sounds harsh and that's why I think the funding argument is merely a diplomatic excuse.

Imagine if he had told you the same thing after 2.5 years, or failed you at the defense (if that still happens).

I have no ways of knowing whether he is right or wrong, but that is irrelevant anyway: he doesn't want you to get a PhD under his supervision, hence you won't get it. Your only viable option is to leave.

For your discussion, ask more details about what you could improve, or what other path he would suggest for you. He is in no way obligated to answer but it might be helpful to you. Based on what he tells you, you might get an idea of what can be next for you: switching group, taking additional education, switching field of research, looking for opportunities outside academia, etc. That is not something we can help with without knowing you and your work.


Where do all the essays go in college? At my college I worked in the back room shredding graded essays from various subjects for hours.

Some of them were very good and seems like a gross waste of data and labor.
I wonder is this the policy of all colleges?

https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/40595/can-database-be-collected-from-essays-written-in-college

Colleges have to keep everything that influences grades of students for a certain time in order to resolve disputes over grades. In our case it is 3 years.


Am I allowed to use draft chapters of an early version of a book this way? I am writing a book and am seeking feedback on different chapters before submitting for final publication.  Can I use the draft chapters as conference papers or at visiting lecture seminars?

That is up to the book publisher. Some will be fine with it, others not. Copyright might be one (blocking) issue. If you have given up copyright to some conference, then some publishers will reject your proposal, since they want to hold it and it is no longer yours to give. Lectures and such are no real issue, since you retain copyright.
Another thing that might influence a publisher (around the copyright issue) is how different the book chapters are from the earlier material. But even then, you have to be careful about self-plagiarism since "repeating yourself" in one paper of something in another needs to be handled delicately and with full disclosure.
Just make sure you retain rights (possibly a license) to anything that you publish and want to include in a book later.
You can, of course, publish many things on a topic in conference papers that don't conflict with any rights that you might need in order to publish a book.


Planning to retake English language test for PhD admissions in the UK, but listed previous average in my CV - should I contact professor to explain? I participated to an English language test in the autumn. My average score was very good, and above the requirement of a program I am applying to. However, the score of one of the sub-components was less than the given requirement (surprisingly low, but I have no idea why). I had indicated my average score in my CV, but I did not send the test results with the application, because I will soon resit the test. It was not possible to write an explanation on the application form.

Should I contact the professor and explain the situation? He might be wondering why my CV says something and the application something else. Or is this usual, that the document arrives later than the rest of the application (which is allowed according to the application guidelines)?

I would not like to appear as marketing a passing score but not actually having one instead. So, is it better than (1) I bother them, or (2) let them ask if it matters?

You should definitely contact the professor. English is just a trivial component in your application, so you should not worry about it. Especially, you will likely have an interview if you are shortlisted.

When I applied to Oxford, my IELTS score was only 6.5, while the school required 7 (and no band is less than 6). I contacted the professor, and she told her assistant (who collected the applications) that it was OK for that position with 6.5.

I was later rejected, but it was due to my lack of research experience, not my English score.


How to choose between multiple math postdocs offers? I am trying to decide between some math postdoc offers, and I can't decide what is important for a postdoc position. I have talked to several senior mathematicians including my advisor, but they all seem to have different opinions. I just want to hear some more opinions on the following:

How important is prestige? Suppose that I have an offer from school X, which is fairly prestigious (something like top 10, which isn't a well-defined notion). Also suppose that I have an offer from school Y, which is not as prestigious but a better match research-wise. Suppose that the ranking of school Y is approximately n (again, not a well-defined notion). For which values of n should I choose school X over school Y? My goal is to become a tenure-track professor in a PhD-granting institution.
What makes a good postdoc supervisor? I can think of the following criteria: compatible research interests, being well-known in one's field, compatible personalities, generous with time, etc. Am I missing anything else?

nagniemerg is absolutely right that at the end of the day, your results will be much more important than a name on your CV.  I think being at a prestigious institution is very useful for getting a first look at your application (which is a f***ing valuable thing, as Rod Blagojevich would say); if the rest of what's there doesn't stand up, getting that look won't help much.

That said, I would think carefully about how sure you are that institution Y really will provide a better research environment.  Prestige tends to correlate (far from perfectly) with having an active department with a lot of seminars and visitors, which can often be more valuable than day-to-day contact with a single advisor.  Having higher-quality students and colleagues can make you a better researcher.

I also think there's a lot to be said for the uncertainty of life.  Maybe you'll go somewhere and whoever you were going to work with will get a job somewhere else, or have a baby, or go on sabbatical.  Maybe you'll start a collaboration with someone you don't even know exists yet.  It's all very hard to predict, and on some level you have to go with your gut.  You could do a lot worse than just going with the most prestigious option, but if other factors seem to point another direction, I don't think you should just ignore them.

EDIT:  I wrote this is a bit of hurry last night, and I realize it might be a bit unhelpful. However, it's honestly quite difficult to say anything general, and you indicate that senior mathematicians who know you and know what your options are cannot come to a consensus.  To me this indicates that probably you will not be able to conclusively figure out where is the better choice.  This is not to say it doesn't matter, but once the uncertainties are sufficiently large, one might as well flip a coin (or at least flip a coin until you get the answer you want).


What is the effect of a PhD student dyeing their hair blue? I'm a male 19 year old Phd student (in a field in the exact sciences), I dyed my hair bright blue. Personally, I think it transmits a great message and is generally cool. Although, I'm not sure how well received will it be in my university, in teaching, while visiting other universities, meeting new researchers I never met before and while presenting in conferences.

Picture of the hair can be viewed here:

http://i.imgur.com/03viCuL.jpg

Questions:

What effect might dyeing your hair blue have as a PhD student?

The general advice is that when you're an undergraduate student, a graduate student not yet on the job market, or when you're a tenured faculty, you can do whatever the hell you want.

The problem is that you are vulnerable when you're in the position to be hired, promoted, tenured, or retained. In those cases, having just one conservative person on the hiring/promotion/retention committee (or at the divisional, full faculty, dean or provost levels) can derail you. In those circumstances, you want to stand out in terms of your research, service, and teaching  but to try to avoid or mitigate any areas of friction where and when possible.

Since hair color is easily changeable, if I were your advisor, I would recommend that you dress (and hair color) more conservatively when you go on the job market -- and when you come up for promotion/retention/tenure.
I would also recommend you wear shoes at your job interview.

The benefit to risk analysis just isn't in favor of frivolity in these high stakes situations. Your departmental faculty may be 100% behind you and your sartorial style but I've seen faculty lose tenure bids at the divisional, full faculty, and provost level despite department support. I've seen grad students not get hired because they wore a t-shirt to a job interview thinking the institution was a cool, hip place. It was, just not that hip.

At all other times during your career, I think you are relatively free to do what you want within the broader norms of your particular cohort and department.

Note that while my home department is anthropology and I'm currently at a R1, I've also taught at two SLACs and have seen enough shenanigans in other departments and at divisional/university levels that my advice is not restricted to just anthropology at R1s but is intended as general advice. Ymmv.


What is the process through which a department chooses to invite someone to make a talk at the department? How is the person selected? How far in advance is the selection process made? When a department makes an offer to have a speaker come, how often is the offer rejected? And what happens if the offer is rejected?

It varies tremendously, based on the type of talk.

To a first approximation, anyone can invite a speaker if they have grant funding to pay for the travel costs (or if there are no costs).  The limiting factor is getting an audience - it's embarrassing for everyone if few people show up - so this typically happens only if it's clear there will be real interest in a talk.

Departments in research universities typically have a number of ongoing seminar series, and often a departmental colloquium as well.  There will be one or more organizers for each of these, who invite speakers and introduce them before the talks.  How the organizers are chosen varies: sometimes they are volunteers, sometimes they are appointed by the chair, and sometimes they got a grant that's paying for everything.  The organizers can then ask whoever they want to speak, although they often solicit suggestions from other department members.

There may also be special distinguished visiting positions or lecture series.  These are quite a bit more prestigious and speaker selections are often made by a special committee.

How far in advance invitations are made can vary: typically many months in advance for a prestigious lecture series, but a seminar invitation may have less advance notice.

As for how often an invitation is turned down, it's rare for someone to express a lack of interest in principle, but it's common for them to be too busy or for it to be impossible to arrange a mutually agreeable date.  I often suggest that someone should come speak sometime in a seminar I organize.  Sometimes they immediately start arranging a date, sometimes they defer it to another time but eventually come, and sometimes it never works out, but even in that case it's never certain it won't happen someday.  If a speaker can't make it, it's no big deal: you just invite someone else.


Recommender's affiliation I am applying for graduate programs this year. My undergraduate major is physics while my intended specialty is astrophysics. I apply for physics program for the most of schools and astronomy program for the others. One of the main factors which led me to apply for physics program rather than astronomy was the fact that there are much less student openings in astronomy graduate schools, due to its small size of department in general.

I am thinking of 4 recommenders in my mind, and three of them is faculty in astronomy (while two out of the three are theoretical astrophysicists)

I wonder how much the affiliation of recommenders would matter in the consideration of LORs. i.e. Do you think it is `inappropriate' to apply for physics graduate school with three letters from astronomy faculty?

(This concern recently came up with since I read the requirement of one physics program that at least two of the LORs should be from professor in physics.)

I think it matters much less than you think. A recommender speaks for your past work and for your future potential. The specific field is less important than that they respect you for both aspects. The other elements of your application will show your basic suitability, such as courses taken and such. But the recommenders need to assure the admissions committee that you are serious and hard working as well as adaptable and creative. The specific field matters less.

Their specific field isn't all that they know. People who specialize in some field also know some things about the requirements of other related fields. So, the examples you cite seem less important than what they will say about you.

A good letter from a person, in a related field, who is widely known and respected, can be a very positive thing.

But even a recommendation from a Language professor can be positive (wildly different field) if it supports your suitability for study and making progress. "This person can really think and write" is a good thing to have said about you. (Don't take this as a suggestion that all your letters should be from "wildly different fields", of course)


Asking to present paper as first author, when the second author's travel has already been booked I recently published a paper at a technical conference in computer science as the culmination of my bachelor thesis. I'm the first author for it, and my 2 supervisors are the other co-authors.

I pursued this thesis in another country A, and after completion went back to my home country B. This paper recently got accepted for oral presentation at a conference to be held in A. Upon requesting for funds to attend the conference, my supervisors said that this is not possible since the conference is local for them and thus it is little to no expense for one of them to go and present the paper.

Since this is my first scientific publication, I am very excited for it and wish to attend the conference to present the paper. I searched around a lot and managed to scrape together some financial assistance from various sources. In spite of this, I will still need to pay a large amount of money from my own pocket.

Since this requires a large expenditure from my end, I wish to confirm with my supervisors whether I will get to present the paper or not. I think that since I am the primary/first author, the opportunity should be mine – but I'm not sure what is the norm here. Is it a reasonable request if I ask my supervisor to present our paper since:

I'm the primary author.
I'm spending a lot of my own money to attend the conference.

The primary issue is that one of my supervisors has already registered for the conference – so I fear that they may cite this as a reason for not letting me present the work. Any thoughts/comments?

I think it is certainly appropriate to ask and wonder why you hesitate to do so. I think that a note that you are able to attend and that you would like the opportunity to present the work and that it would be a boost to your future career should be received positively.

Having registered for the conference (the advisor) should mean little or nothing in this situation. Whether it is good politics to demand your right to do this is a matter of personalities, of course.

But the fact that you are spending your own money likely won't count for a lot. Your presence at the conference should, however arranged, count in your favor.

But, yes, it is reasonable to ask, and I think it would be unreasonable for the advisor(s) to refuse you.

I'll also note that there are a lot of reasons to go to CS conferences beyond presenting something. Your advisors should recognize this. They haven't "wasted" money if you present in their stead. There are normally a lot of ideas floating around and a lot of interesting people to interact with.


Moving from a modest research laboratory to a laboratory with a prestigious research portfolio. Tips to be successful? Background
I have done my PhD (Computer Science) at a university (in a third world country) with very limited resources. My research was not funded, my previous lab didn't provide any research support at all (except a desk, internet access and access to some research databases). No training, no equipment, no projects.. they didn't even reimburse students for conferences/travel, etc. As a result, I was very limited in my research (experiments, submission to conferences/journals, etc.). I really had to work a lot and sacrifice a lot so I can defend my thesis in good time and with very good results.
Now I received an offer from a very prestigious university in the world. It's quite the opposite of my previous lab in terms of research support, funded projects, etc. So this is a completely new work environment for me. I know that the key mindset to have is research is research, but sometimes I feel that my pace will be slower than previous postdocs and for that I need to adapt and adjust quickly. What advice can you give to a researcher with my background?

Along with research, work hard to make a lot of connections. Certainly connections at the new university, but beyond that through conference meetings and collaborations. Build a circle around yourself. Join the circle of other, more senior people.
Get a sense of all of the research trends around you, even if it shallow outside your specialty.
And, keep connections back "home". In the future you may have an opportunity to do something good for students there as well.


Exactly _what_ is different about being a graduate student vs. undergraduate? (Think: day-to-day) I'm entering the last year of my undergraduate. In all honesty, I'm getting tired of it; I want to move on to something new.

For a long time, I thought a master's degree was New Game Plus (that is, just a more demanding version of a bachelor's). Don't get me wrong; I've had little to no trouble with my undergrad, but you couldn't get me to do another one ever again!

Well, here's the conundrum: everyone tells me I have to do a master's, and that it's not what I think it is.

Well, what is it?

What are the real differences between an undergraduate program and a graduate program? For example, what are the differences in your day-to-day dealings? In what way are yours and the professors' motivations different?

--

For bonus points: if you personally chose to do a master's, or to avoid one, why did you make this decision?

(I am in linguistics and my master's degree was heavily research-based.)

I remember an undergrad professor of mine cautioning her class as follows: "Being a graduate student is very different from being an undergraduate student." Three months into my MA, I found myself thinking, 'no it isn't', but six months into my MA, I thought, '...okay, yeah, it totally is'. The skills that the degree aims to impart are quite different: going to classes starts out feeling similar, but over the course of any graduate degree it should evolve from 'building knowledge base' to 'reading the literature critically and coming up with new ideas'.

To me the biggest difference, psychologically speaking, aside from the big step up into the unknown (= major original research) was in terms of project scope. As an undergrad, I could run myself out of homework for the day, or the weekend, and then relax, because I'd dealt with everything I needed to do. Beyond the undergraduate level, that kind of stops happening. A grad-student in any program with a research component always has that work at least in the background, and projects are enormous in comparison to most undergrad coursework. You can't run yourself out of work for the day, or for the weekend. The research is ongoing; there's always more to be done. It's a marathon rather than a bunch of little sprints. You have to keep coming back to a thesis and picking up where you left off. At the graduate level you have to develop have a sense of how to work on something a little at a time. And how to put it away and to (try and) do something fun once in a while.


What is the strategy to identify natural experiment as a PhD student? As social scientists become more concerned with causal inference, a good thesis these days needs some sort of quasi-experimental strategy. For example, an economist wants to know the effect of military service on income but faces the problem that people who enlist are different from those who don't. So he uses the random Vietnam War lottery as a quasi-experiment with a valid control (who won the lottery and did not serve) and treatment (who lost and did serve). (More examples of these natural experiments).

As a PhD student sitting in my cubicle, I'm lost on how to identify these opportunities. Reading published work does not really help since these experimental opportunities are quite idiosyncratic. I'm not averse to going out there to find my own opportunity, but unsure about how to do this effectively. Do I read history book? Or talk to policy makers?

Since experimental opportunities are not available to all (or most) topics, I'm already paralyzed at the stage of choosing a topic (and thus can't start reading history book / talking to policy makers).

The standard advice I've got is not to pick question based on method. However, I find this quite a double standard given the concurrent push for quasi-experimental design.

Don't sit in your cubicle!

Go to the library (a physical one assuming you have one still). Read the newspapers (physical ones are easier to browse but you can do this on line).  Look at the controversies, the scandals, that are emerging daily on the news: political lies, child abuse, discriminative policies, public funding, privatization, quantitative easing, bank bail outs. Look at states with different parties in control. Get hold of the latest and previous census data. Get hold of the Enron emails. Get access to the data that companies are building up through loyalty cards and credit cards.  Talk to you med school or a disability charity about mining their data.  Have a look at the data mining literature - talk to the people at your university who do this and what contacts they have...


Software tools for orgainising education lab appointments Due to the Coronavirus situation it is required to adapt teaching activities to reduce risk of infection. Several courses have laboratory assignments that require physical presence. It is therefore necessary to reduce the number of students present by utilising all room availability. Due to the increased number of student groups and fragmented time slots it quickly becomes challenging to organise lab appointment times.
Are there any software tools for orgainising education lab appointments available?

If your institution has a Moodle server, you could use Moodle's "scheduler" activity.
If, on the other hand, you end up going for a solution hosted on a server outside your institution, such as @astronat's suggestion of a Doodle poll, be careful of local data protection laws.


Mention religion in CV I have a muslim sounding name. But I was born to a christian family and I consider myself an atheist. I have been trying to get fellowship in Canada. Will mentioning my religion in the CV help?

Mentioning religion on your CV is not standard practice. I can't see how it can be beneficial to you're employer unless there are specific requirements for your desired position which relates to religious beliefs. Unfortunately, in some cases, mentioning your religion can hurt your chances as these issues are sensitive and can get very personal for some potential employers. (from what I understand this is a rare occurrence especially in academia)

With that said, If the topic comes up in an interview, I would suggest giving an honest answer.


How to measure entropy of exam results In this answer to a quora question, the answerer mentions how the 'entropy' of a set of exam results can be used to measure how well the exam differentiates between students.

Should I be computing the entropy of my students' exam results? How do I do it? How should I interpret the entropy information?

Edit: How is entropy related to standard deviation?

Entropy measures how much information you learn on average about each student from the exam results.  For example, imagine an exam on which everyone gets a perfect score.  In that case, you would learn nothing, so the entropy is zero.  If half the students get one score and half get another, then you learn one bit of information about each of them.  If you want to assign meaningful grades on the usual U.S. scale, you'll need at least several bits of entropy, and the 3.5 or 4 bits mentioned in the quora answer sounds reasonable to me.

The idea behind the answer you link to is perfectly reasonable: if your exam results have low entropy, then that basically means they are clumped together on too few possible scores, and you don't have enough ability to distinguish between students.  On the other hand, I don't see much point to actually computing a mathematical measure of entropy (e.g., Shannon entropy), except perhaps for fun if you enjoy that sort of thing.  Instead, you can just look at the range of scores and judge how well they distinguish between students.  Think about how you might assign grades, and you'll rapidly see whether you run into problems, without any need for mathematical computations.

Furthermore, doing it by entropy is a little subtle anyway.  Strictly speaking, Shannon entropy pays no attention to the distance between scores, just to whether they are exactly equal.  I.e., you can have high entropy if every student gets a slightly different score, even if the scores are all very near to each other and thus not useful for distinguishing students.  The quora answer obliquely refers to that (in the discussion of bins), but still this means you can't just compute a single number without thinking.

So I'd view entropy more as a metaphor than a number most professors should compute.


Grad school in science that takes non-scientific applicants? If you are going for a humanities grad degree, either scientific or humanities undergrad could get in as long as they get good GRE score (I think.)

Not the case for scientific graduate studies, as the applicant would most likely need to be experienced in lab work and have solid scientific understanding, proven by their undergrad coursework.

Would graduate programs in scientific fields consider a person with no scientific background for even a conditional admission?

Speaking for the US and as someone with undergrad degrees in the humanities who is now doing a PhD in the sciences, it is hard, but not impossible to make the transition.

First of all, your best bet is Masters programs. Unless you're somehow exceptional (or maybe just very well connected), you'd be hard pressed to find a PhD program to take you when you're completely unproven in an area. However, to start out, there are transitional programs out there (Boston University's LEAP program for engineering is one) to help students move into a science field. Ask around and search online; I'm sure there are at least a few others.

You can also take non-degree courses at local universities to build up coursework in your desired field. For those, most schools don't much care about your background as long as you're paying them. Once you've built up enough background/understanding in your field, you may have some luck applying to Masters programs. I've seen other questions on this site where folks have posted schools that accept students to Masters programs in the sciences despite non-science backgrounds. I'll edit this answer if I can find some examples.

Additionally, once you've built some classroom credentials, you may have some luck trying to work with a professor in his/her lab. Even if you're not a matriculated student, I know of at least 2 faculty who have taken on lab assistants from outside the university. It's not common, but it is possible.

In summary, it's possible, but it will take time, probably some money, and some dedication to make the change. You'd probably have trouble getting in anywhere with zero background, but with some patience you can build that background and get your foot in the door. Once you have that, it just depends on how far you want to go with it.


Do astronauts get co-authorship for experiments they conduct in space? Astronauts aboard the ISS help perform plenty of experiments during their flight. Do they get listed as co-authors for the research they help conduct?

Here is a page collecting research performed on the ISS, with citations to published papers.  And here is a list of ISS crew.  The first few papers I checked from the 2015-16 report didn't have any crew members among their authors.

This seems reasonable to me.  Normally authorship is based on making an intellectual contribution to the project: designing experiments, analyzing data, and so on.  I wouldn't particularly expect the astronauts to be involved that way - I'd assume they are mainly just carrying out the procedures designed by other researchers.  It's an important role, obviously, but it's not what authorship is intended to recognize.


Lab-meetings: How to establish a good setting? I will finish my PhD soon. Until now I worked mostly on my own but tried to talk with my colleagues on a regular basis about methods, approaches, troubles and success. Good settings are coffee breaks or after sport. It can help a lot because I am forced to order my thoughts, try to explain them in a meaningful manner and most of the time I get helpful answers, comments or tips. Additionally, I learn a lot about the topic of my colleagues.

In my area (Biotechnology) we distinguish between upstream (producing stuff using living organisms) and downstream processing (purifying stuff). Usually two different working groups (or more) are covering those areas. It is really important to talk with each other because the downstream part can heavily depend on the upstream conditions.

One aim of the next project will be to bring those areas closer together and to strengthen our knowledge about the implications of the upstream process on the downstream part.

The team will consist of two professors, two post docs, two PhD students one or two technicians and several diploma students. Recently I talked with one of my colleagues about possible setups for the meetings. We came up with following scenario:

One team meeting every month.
Everyone prepares a short presentation (10 minutes max).
Following questions should be answered during the presentation:

What is my current (mid term) goal ?
How do I approach it ?
What was the (short term) goal of the experiments performed ?
Did the experiments worked out like expected ?
What are the results ?
Planned work for the following month ?

I expect the meeting to last for one to two hours. At least one of the profs will attend the meeting. The two post docs organize the meetings (schedule, remainder etc.). The meeting will take place between 12:00 and 13:30. All team members prepare some bread, meat, cheese, fruits,vegetables, drinks and coffee together. That is a bit more work than just going to the canteen but I think this setting may help to establish a relaxed atmosphere.

What experiences do you have with team meetings ? How do you organize them ? Who moderates them ? What worked out well and what did not ?

This is a fine strategy. See how it goes, and discuss afterwards whether it was helpful or not. You should not allow your meeting to run any longer than ninety minutes though on any account. Most people will not be able to concentrate for that long. Also consider inserting a break if it is going to exceed 60 minutes.

Some other thoughts: Instead of having every contribute every month, consider having only one or two presentations each week. You will probably find that some people assume that 45 slides can be presented in eight minutes and you have to cut them short or cancel the later presenters.

Keep the first session very positive and upbeat, don't be afraid to step in as the moderator if anything is going wrong. If the students make a hash of things, so be it. The first meeting will set the tone for the rest, so if someone spends thirty minutes dissecting the student's presentation, no one will want to come to your next meeting.

In that respect consider giving a short presentation on your own work/goals yourself, so that everyone has a good example presentation to emulate.

I would say it is not really fair to insist that everyone prepares some food for the group to consume. Your team are scientists, not caterers. ;) My advisor used to contract external caterers for our team meetings but I think he was a bit over the top there.


Concurrent commitment to 2 Masters degrees, One of them is online I am more likely to get admitted to 2 programs in 2 different universities. Both are great but in 2 different interests for me. The first is a non-thesis based program and mostly online while the second is a thesis-based research master degree.

My question: Assuming I can do well with both, are there any legal issues or concerns?

Given that I don't have to take the classes in person in one program, should I tell any of them?

what is your feedback if this scenario is in Canada and/or the USA?

Depending on the intricate details of how you are provided funding, you might be prohibited from taking the second Masters program. They usually have a good reason for that: suppose you are funded to work full-time in your research thesis-based Masters program. If you will be working on a second degree at the same time, it will inevitably drain your energy, so you'll likely be less productive to do what you are paid for.

Consult with the coordinators of your research Masters program to learn their stance on taking external education / work.

For a personal example, my university asks me to inform if I am receiving a funding from other sources and generally cuts the base funding depending on how much work time I spend on working for those other sources.

As a final note, you could take two Masters program covertly, without informing the two universities. They are unlikely to discover this, but it doesn't mean it's a good practice.


Three month delay in reviewing the revision of paper, Editor doesn't even answer the email I've submitted a paper in an ISI journal, i.e. in Taylor and Francis. The first submission date of the manuscript was 30-May-2014. We received the first revision result on 27-July-2014. Hopefully, the result of reviewing our paper was optimistic as the paper status was accept with change; we had only some minor comments. We submitted the answer of revision on 15 Aug. They didn't reply our revision yet.

So, I've sent an e-mail to the  Editor in chief, but he didn't even reply our email.
The handling editor identity is not available for us. What is your proposal in this case?

I agree that three months seem a little excessive for checking your revisions and providing a verdict. Since you received a minor revision on your first version, there does not seem to be any point of additional review so the manuscript must be with the editors still. Since the review process seems to have passed fairly quickly, there does not seem to be a general problem of a slow journal. Therefore, there can be a very reasonable explanation for the delay.

So, the only option forward is to contact the editors again. You should also check to see if there are more than only one "point of entrance" to the editors of the journal. If there are you may try another. Also, in case you have not done so, do check your junk mail folder to see if some form mail from the journal has been redirected by mistake. This occasionally happens if journals use such systems. Unfortunately there are no other routes to go other than to repeat the attempts to contact. A reasonable period is perhaps around three weeks between contact attempts.


How to measure achievement in a field where large collaborations are normal? In some fields of research, huge collaborations are the norm. This is especially true in experimental high-energy physics.

Say I'm evaluating someone's resume, and that person is transitioning out of one of these fields into something else, such as a career in industry or teaching. I'm not a specialist in that field, and I'm not familiar with current research in it except at a very broad level. How do I tell whether this person was any good at what they did? I can do a literature search on the person's name, but that will just pop up a bunch of papers where the list of authors looks like this: "The XYZ Collaboration: A. Aarons, J. Abelson, ... [183 additional authors not shown]"

Years ago, I was on the college executive committee when we had to decide whether a certain experimental physicist should be promoted (to tenure, if I remember correctly). Her papers were of the sort you describe, huge collaborations that gave us no information about the extent and quality of her contribution to the project. But that information was provided, in considerable detail, by the letters from external reviewers. (Here "external" means outside our university.  In cases like this, the college waives its usual rule that so-and-so many letters must come from people who are not among the candidate's co-authors, because essentially everyone who has real information about the candidate's contribution is a co-author.)


Why do some mathematics professors teach more/less courses than others? At my school, I see some professors, associate and higher, teach only 1 course per semester while others, assistants and full, teach 3 or 4 per semester. Some semesters, the ones teaching only one course may teach an upper PhD level course, while other semesters they'll teach a junior or senior level undergrad course, but it's never more than 1 course. Meanwhile, the ones teaching 3 or 4 teach all levels of undergrad and grad.

Why is this?

Do professors earn less salary if they teach less courses?

Depending on the department, the rules can be very different, but here are some things that I have seen that can lead to teaching reduction from a theoretical teaching load that is the same across the board:

New faculty. Think of it as both a hiring bonus and a humanitarian "you are still settling in so we won't burden you too much."
Super big shot. Some "research stars" can negotiate their way to a semi-permanently reduced teaching load; this is on the theory that their name recognition and the research grants that they can supposedly bring in will benefit the department greatly, and that in theory it is more cost effective to let them spend more time in research and less time teaching.
Grant buy-out. Certain schools operate on a system where faculty can buy out of their teaching load by obtaining sufficiently large or prestigious research grants.
Other service. Professors taking on administrative duties (chair, director of graduate/undergraduate studies, for example) get reduced teaching loads on the principle that they are serving the department in other capacities.
Student mentoring. Some departments have established exchange rates of X graduating PhD students = 1 course, and Y undergraduate research students = 1 course to encourage participation in student research.

Also, some people just love to teach. While professorial contracts usually state a minimum teaching load, I have not seen a case where a maximum teaching load is prescribed.

In addition, at many departments the teaching is, by design, not equal across the board. Many universities hire special teaching faculty or adjunct professors. Sometimes these hires (temporary or not) do not have different sounding academic titles. Whereas research faculty typically have teaching loads of about 3 courses per year, the teaching faculty are contractually obliged to teach 6 to 8 per year (and many adjuncts are paid "per course" so the more they teach the closer to a living wage they earn). You cannot always tell from their titles in which category the professor is hired.