Why do many graduate programs in mathematics (United States) still have foreign language requirements today (in 2010s)? As far as I know, nowadays most of the mathematical literature is written and published in English and mathematicians communicate with each other in English. Although there are certain number of books written in other languages (like EGA), but at the same time their counterparts also appear in English (like Stacks Project). However, many graduate programs still require their students to pass a language translation test in French, German or Russian (which a paper dictionary, not a dictionary app in cellphones, which seems even more ridiculous to me...). I wonder what makes it still necessary to have foreign language requirement as of 2010s.

I believe my question has different focus than this one

Mathematics Ph.D program foreign language requirement

Where the questioner specifically asked for advice for the most useful language among French, German and Russian:

I personally have no preference on which to learn, but I was wondering if there were other reasons that would make one language more advantageous over the others in terms of a general mathematical career.

while I am asking why we ever need a second language for mathematical study in 2010s:

Just an anecdotal answer: My mathematics PhD program (at UC Berkeley) had a requirement to pass a language exam. This involved translating to English 1-2 pages excerpted from a mathematics paper written in French, German, or Russian (student's choice). We were given several hours to do this, and the use of a paper dictionary.

I did not, and still do not, speak a word of any of these three languages (unfortunately). But I took the exam in French and passed easily thanks to the high number of cognates between mathematical French and English, context clues (being somewhat familiar with the subfield of math helps), and the fact that I had plenty of time to look up any words I didn't know in the dictionary.

The main thing I gained from this experience was confidence that with a little extra effort, I could actually read math written in French. Since then, I have at times had reason to use this skill that I didn't know I had.

I believe Berkeley math did away with its language exam requirement the year I graduated (2016), and I think this was an entirely sensible thing to do. But I would encourage all grad students to get some experience reading papers written in a language they don't speak!


Attending a conference in a field of interest outside PhD field? I really want to attend an international conference which is relevant to the field of research of our group, but more specifically related to projects of other group members than my own project. However, the conference (and projects of other group members) are far more in my areas of interest than my current project.

Do you still think it is appropriate to attend this conference? I don't want to step on the toes of other group members who will want to network with the researchers in their specific field, but I also want to try and transition more into their area of research as it is a new field which was not an option for me to enter when I started my PhD.

I think this is more a pragmatic matter than a question of whether it's appropriate or not. In a vacuum, yes it's entirely appropriate to attend a conference outside one's own specialty, perhaps even without presenting (just going to learn). The big question is: how do you fund your attendance?

It's quite likely that you plan on asking your advisor, group leader, or department to pay for the trip. In that case, would you going stop another group member from going? Perhaps a PhD candidate about to defend who'd want to present their research and look for a postdoc position? That might be considered stepping on toes, yes. You'd have to talk to said group members to find out how they'd feel about it. However, presumably whoever holds the money sack has the responsibility to divvy up the funds in a beneficial way, not you. So go ahead and ask if you can and should go, and see what happens. Perhaps there is enough money for all of you to go, in which case everyone should be happy with the situation.


Is it normal to ask to see the entire manuscript (not just the abstract) before accepting a peer-review invitation? I apologize if this question has been asked before. I received a peer-review invitation from a journal to review a paper. In the email there is just the author's name and the title of the article and an abstract. I should just tell them if I accept to review the paper or not by clicking on corresponding links.

Is it normal to ask the journal to send the entire paper before accepting to review it? Isn't this request odd? I am potentially interested to review the paper (from the abstract, I guess I am familiar with the methods), but I would like to see the content to be sure if the methods used in the paper aren't beyond my knowledge and to check if I have enough time to review the paper (e.g., to avoid a surprise manuscript of > 150 pages!) If that matters, the subject is mathematics.

It is rather common in mathematics to have access to the full paper before deciding to review (it is attached or a link is provided). You could basically use what you wrote here as the basis for your reply. I specifically mean the phrase:

  I am potentially interested to review the paper, but I would like to see the content to be sure if the methods used in the paper aren't beyond my knowledge.

I would just ask for the full paper with this reasoning.

Only make sure to decide whether you are willing to review in a timely manner after you received the full paper.


What are the most common ways international students secure funding for graduate school in the U.S.? I am an Egyptian undergraduate student who is considering attending graduate school programs in statistics. My preference would be to attend a U.S. graduate school program to obtain a masters or Ph.D. in statistics. However, I am concerned about securing funding to do this and am not sure how to go about attempting to get funding.

My Question

What are the most common and successful ways international students secure funding to attend graduate schools in the US?

In the physical sciences (which in the Survey of Earned Doctorates includes mathematics), the primary source of support for international PhD students in the US is:

32.0% via teaching assistantships
52.3% via research assistantships or traineeships
12.9% via fellowships or grants
Very small portion via other sources (e.g. self funded, employer funded).

Across all fields, the primary source of support for international PhD students in the US is:

22.2% via teaching assistantships
49.9% via research assistantships or traineeships
20.4% via fellowships or grants
Small portion via other sources (e.g. self funded, employer funded)

Source: Survey of Earned Doctorates, TABLE 35. Doctorate recipients' primary source of financial support, by broad field of study, sex, citizenship status, ethnicity, and race: 2014

In STEM fields in the US, both US citizen and international PhD students are generally offered admission with funding, which will be provided via teaching assistantships, research assistantships, or some combination of the above. US STEM PhD offers that don't come with funding are generally not worth accepting. So it's not about specifically trying to get funding, it's about getting a real offer of admissions (which should come with funding).


Paper Suggestion/Recommendation Tools To make literature search simpler and more efficient, I'm looking for a good tool that would come up with a list of publications based on a given set of publications/research areas. So far, I've found Mendeley Suggest but it does not seem to work all that well. I was wondering if someone in this community might know about a better tool or an altogether better approach for pursuing efficient literature search.

The low-tech way will be to check in google scholar who cites each of your papers. You list will be ranked by citations number, so you can immediately see which paper is more important.


What are the typical questions students are requested to respond during a teaching demonstration they attend during a faculty interview? Disclaimer: There are other questions asking for general advice on a teaching demonstration during faculty interviews. My inquiry is more specific:

In the US, some colleges, which have a heavy focus on teaching, require candidates for a faculty position to give a teaching demonstration as part of the on-campus interview. This teaching demonstration is usually given to students. Typically, the students fill out a questionnaire after the teaching demonstration to evaluate the performance of the faculty candidate. I believe the questions on such questionnaires are different from a real teaching evaluation (the ones given to students at the end of a semester/quarter to evaluate the performance of their professors).

What are some examples of questions students are asked to answer during a teaching demonstration?

I'll have to speculate and extrapolate a bit here, but perhaps can give a bit of guidance.

Since the time is short, the student's can't be probed very deeply for the level of instruction you provided, unless you were given a topic beforehand and the students were primed to know what it was.

But if teaching is a big part of the job then the ones making the decision will want to know how you are perceived by the students. Are you friendly? Are you clear? Did you prepare? Can you respond to questions? Are you overly pedantic? Are you precise at the expense of clarity? Can you give any actual insight into the topic at hand, rather than just detail? Are you excited? Are you boring? Are you comfortable in front of them? Do you seem to know what you are talking about? Are you confident?

I doubt that those will be the actual questions, but that is most likely what the hiring committee will want to get an idea about. The actual questions might, in fact, be free form: "What do you think about the candidate?". But, hopefully, the answers will give a sense about the above issues.

You should try to get a sense beforehand about what the conditions are? How many students? What level(s)? Of course the hard part is that it is often the first meeting with a new class that is the hardest. That makes such things especially fraught.


Tracking updates for an individual paper in arXiv Albeit arXiv offers RSS news feeds for subject areas updates, it is also possible to track an individual paper for updates (such as if it was submitted and/or accepted to a journal)?

This is a pretty silly solution, but you can use a page tracking service to see when the page changes; this should detect both changes in the paper as well as in the journal its submitted to.

Edited as per Jaap Eldering's suggestions in the comments: you can use arXiv's OAI-PMH protocol to programmatically access version history! For example, if you want to look up arXiv #1206.0094, you can look up http://export.arxiv.org/oai2?verb=GetRecord&identifier=oai:arXiv.org:1206.0094&metadataPrefix=arXivRaw for its version history.

Furthermore, arXiv does have an Atom feed for individual articles: you can access it at http://export.arxiv.org/api/query?id_list=1206.0094 -- the link it includes is to the latest version of the article, so I presume it will change if the article is updated.


Is wanting to quit part of the "PhD experience?" Do most PhD students want to quit grad school at some point, or is this a thought that only the most miserable students entertain?

If at any time you feel

You are not understanding what supervisor is saying.
You are not on the right path.
Your colleagues are performing better than you.
Only you don't understand a thing and lagging behind in deadlines.
Your supervisor is not happy with your work.
Your advisor is rude to you but you saw him laughing with another student.
Your work seems easy but others' work is very impressive.
You just want to quit.
You can't quit because of social pressure.
You just wanna go with flow.

Any other symptoms like above mean you are doing PhD and almost every student get such mood swings any time.  I almost gone through all but when I talked with my colleagues they were thinking exactly like me, some even saying my work is very nice and their work is easy etc... So don't worry just work and read.


My research supervisors want to patent an idea I made and I get a minority part of the invention I entirely came up with a novel idea. I did all of the research indepently. Both my supervisors want to patent the idea now. It seems that I'm getting a smaller stake in the patent according to the filing papers (they didn't talk to me about this). I own 25%, they own 37.5% each.

I can't help to feel like I'm being swindled. The university is paying for patent costs. But, I came up with the idea entirely on my own. Also, this isn't related to my main research project. I just worked on it on the side - so they didn't have much contributions towards the overall idea [actually one of them had literally ZERO contribution to the original idea and just happened to be my supervisor at the time].

Should I say something or is this common?

You should read your university's intellectual property policy.  If this matter is important to you, you should also consult a lawyer.

I think you are probably confusing the concepts of credit and ownership.  The inventors get credit for creating the invention, but the owners have the right to exploit the patent.  Most likely the university owns all of the patent and the inventors who are employees or students own none if it.  The university may assign a portion of any profits to the inventors as an incentive.  This would be entirely at the university's discretion, and would typically be described in a published policy.


Using proprietary software to demonstrate work in conference I am going to conduct a workshop on my research work and for that I need to show how it is done on the software. I want to know,

Is it ok to display the proprietary software (through TeamViewer) from my university?
or Should I use screenshots?

Generally speaking it is totally fine to use or demonstrate publicly (at a conference or elsewhere) some proprietary software. Many presenters use Microsoft Windows along with Microsoft PowerPoint, and nobody ever gets into trouble.

That said, if you want to be 100% sure you need to peruse the end-user license agreement (EULA), which is the contract that stipulates under which conditions the program might be used: this is the ultimate reference. For example, the EULA can prohibit researchers and scientists from explicitly using the names of their systems in a benchmark. (Oracle is notorious for that, they sued David DeWitt following some benchmarks he had published that mentioned Oracle, see the DeWitt Clause).

Beyond the EULA, one exception I can think of is if you have signed some confidentiality contract, which can happen when the software hasn't been released yet and the developers give you access to some pre-release version of it.

Another exception is that if by "show how it is done on the software" you mean reverse engineer the software, then you might want to be careful: reverse engineering is borderline. E.g. in the United States, EULA provisions can preempt the reverse engineering rights implied by fair use, c.f. Bowers v. Baystate Technologies.

The last exception I can think of is video games: they can be seen as art, both for the graphic and the music. Just like you can't show a movie or broadcast music publicly in the general case (e.g. Twitch mutes some screencasts), video game publishers might use some similar arguments in court. That's very theoretical.

All in all, if you're having some doubts, you might want to drop by the legal office in your University, because as any law 101 course says, the answer is always "it depends".


Unfinished prerequisite undergrad course in the last year in MS application as a final year undergrad student I am in the process of applying for MS program in computer science as a final year undergrads. I am taking Computer System course this semester and likely to take another Operating System course in the next semester.
Both Computer System and Operating System are core CS courses that are included in prerequistes for master program in CS (I am not CS undergrad student). But the majority of schools have the application submission deadline of December this year, when the grades haven't shown on my transcript.
Should I contact the school about the issues and convince them I will finish them before graduation? Or should I mention it in my CV or SoP to arise their awarness of the issues? Other approches are also welcome.
It is acceptable to include only one course(Computer System) if it's too hard to cover both and a compromise is not avoidable

Usually transcripts include registered courses as well as graded ones, and usually you'd be registered for those courses already when you apply. It's normal for anyone applying to graduate school as an undergrad has half of their senior yet to still complete. It's a totally normal situation completely familiar to admissions committees.
If for some reason your transcripts don't show future enrollment, sure, it's fine to mention somewhere, but no need to make a big deal about it (just a list of enrolled courses for spring would be sufficient). Your acceptance will be conditional on completing your degree, including any required courses you still have in progress.


Should I ask for a recommendation letter from a professor who I know from an industry training program? I joined a company after graduation. And our company often offers funding for professors in academia. In exchange, these professors usually would attend our training programs to teach some lessons related to their fields.
Recently, I decided to apply for a Ph.D. position. Shall I ask for a recommendation letter from one of the professors who happen to be in the research field I want to do?

You mentioned in a comment that you already have two referees, one of whom you have published a paper with. I imagine this person will give you a very strong reference, and that the details of your other referees may not matter so much.

You also say that the professor you worked with is in the field you are interested in, which means they are well placed to talk about your ability and potential in that field, therefore using them as a third reference is a good idea.

You can find advice about emailing them to request a reference here.


What does "the manuscript has been removed from your Associate Editor Center" mean? I received the following email:

  Dear Prof. X:
  You are no longer assigned to manage the review of Manuscript ID #####. The manuscript has been removed from your Associate Editor Center.

What does it mean? I sent the paper 2 months ago and just today I got the email above. Do I have to wait long as a new editor will check the manuscript?

From its wording this e-mail is intended for the associate editor managing the manuscript in question. Thus unless you are an associate editor of said journal and were the editor assigned to the paper in question, this mail is not intended for you. Therefore you should not have received this e-mail. That you did receive it anyway means that something went wrong. Contact the journal and tell them what happened.


How do I add a label or keyword to my Google Scholar account? I notice that some people have labels or keywords associated with their Google Scholar profile - e.g., biochemistry, DNA, etc.
How do I add these to my profile?
Thanks!

On your profile page while beeing logged in: click on the "pen" icon to edit your profile, then add keywords separated by , in the field "Areas of interest"


Can I use informal sources (particularly online sources)? I know that typically, unpublished references (i.e. references not published in some journal, especially online resources) are highly discouraged. I'm working on a paper regarding Bluetooth LE implementations, and most of the materials relevant to my paper are either online (i.e. on mailing lists discussing implementation of Bluetooth LE on Linux, or manufacturers documenting limitations of their Bluetooth LE chips) or in the Bluetooth 4.0 standard itself.

Is it appropriate to use these online references? They're pretty much my only source of information, as my paper is mostly on real-world implementations of Bluetooth LE.

If your paper is on "real-world implementations of Bluetooth LE" then mailing lists on implementations of Bluetooth LE and manufacturers' documentation of Bluetooth LE products are your primary sources.  This is akin to e.g., a historian using Napoleon's informal personal correspondence as a source for information on his world.

Of course, you should consider where these sources come from in how you use them. If you read on a mailing list or forum,

  Bluetooth LE is the worst thing ever. Mine never works!

you would not use it as a factual source to conclude that Bluetooth LE is terrible. You certainly could use it as a source to indicate that some users have experienced frustration with early implementations of Bluetooth LE. (I cite bug tickets often in my own papers.)

Bad use of informal source:

  Bluetooth LE is not a good technology [1].

[1] "Let's all complain about Bluetooth LE here," Bluetooth User Forum, posted April 1 2104, http:/bluetoothforum/lets-complain, retrieved April 25 2014.

Good use of informal source as a primary source:

  Bluetooth LE users have expressed frustration with the technology [1].

[1] "Let's all complain about Bluetooth LE here," Bluetooth User Forum, posted April 1 2104, http:/bluetoothforum/lets-complain, retrieved April 25 2014.


Permissions to reproduce an image while writing review papers I've seen some review papers use images from other articles under the 'adapted from [ref]' description while most others use the standard 'reproduced with permission from [ref]'. Does the former not require asking for permissions from the original publisher? If I redraw images myself, is it sufficient to simply cite the reference at the correct places and not ask for permissions?

If I ask for the permissions to reproduce a large set of images from a variety of different publishers for my review paper which is to be published in a particular journal X, and for some reason they reject the review; do I need to ask for the permissions again before sending the manuscript to another journal Y?

Usually the journal you are submitting to, will have instructions (even a form with legalese).

If it is just for your thesis, I don't think you need to be hyper legalistic, but ask for permission for the intended use (in your thesis).  Email is sufficient (don't need a signature, but don't rely on word of mouth either.  If part of the thesis ends up becoming an article later, just go back at that time and ask for the fuller permission using the journal's advised form or instructions.


Severely overtime on my PhD I am currently a CS PhD student in an East Asian institution, in my fifth year, one year overtime over the normative period. I have passed all my qualification and thesis proposal exams and just need to submit and defend my thesis. Unfortunately, I don't have any serious publications in top conferences or journals (tried to sumbit several times but got always rejected), only a handful of low-quality workshop and medium-low tier conference papers. For these reasons I have been constantly blamed by my supervisor, and he may not be willing even to sign the thesis defense request, leaving me in the dreadful prospective of spending several years more just to see a paper accepted, and prolong my overtime and agony.

After confrontation with other students, and even professors of other university, I strongly believe that this situation is due mostly to poor guidance from my supervisor and senior PhD students and post-docs during my early years, poor publishing strategy, a not very feasible research project to produce concrete and verifiable results, and until recently obsolete equipment. I am also very frustated because I have been working almost every day, often many hours a day, and I have been collecting much less results than other people working only a fraction of the time and graduating in less than 3 years.

I tried many times to discuss the situation with my supervisor and other people in charge in my department to solve these issues, but they all repeat the same things, that it is normal to take many years to finish a good PhD, I should concentrate not on graduation time but on quality, I will easily find the job I want afterwards, and things like this. Unfortunately I cannot agree, since in the Asia-Pacific region, where I am interested to work, there is a very strong competition from candidates finishing the PhD in the normal 3-4 years time. Also coming (and with a Bachelor) originally from a country in southern Europe where the level of primary and secondary education and the level of the IT field is very low, I am already at a disadvantage with respect to other more skilled candidates, and is already making harder for me to obtain a working visa. I have in theory already found a job in one of the company where I would like to work, willing to sponsor me a visa, but it is only a conditional offer based on graduation that may be easily withdrawn if I fail to graduate in the timeframe they believe is reasonable, losing this opportunity may lower my morale even further.

I would like to ask suggestions about the current options I have:

I can consider withdrawing from the program and look for jobs. This has the risk of leaving me almost unemployable and force me to return back to my home country with just a Bachelor degree, unable to find a serious decently-compensated job, a career black-hole. Even if I look now for jobs I would have to state I am currently enrolled in a PhD, with companies assuming automatically I am going to finish it (because in Asia is the norm).
I can stay for at least one more year trying to publish and graduate. I would waste a lot of time just waiting for reviews, unable to develop any useful skills in the process and log useful working hours. And again, 6-7-8 years in a PhD would be a black mark on my CV, and I am already teased enough for this when I participate to networking events.
I may insist to submit my thesis at the first useful occasion (in a few months, due to university regulations). But keep complaining may not be useful and may ruin all my relationships even further.

I had to keep some of the details generic as I cannot disclose too many information. Please also note that my main goals when I started my PhD were to find a job in a big corporation about Research & Development, and maximize the chances to be able to emigrate from my home country. I still hope I can figure out the best course of action to come out from this situation. Thank you in advance for your replies.

I suppose there is a difference in fields, but your research should be evaluated by a committee, and the level of research you have done is independent of where it was published. Even unpublished work can be part of the theses, so your argument of waiting for reviews is strange.

The committee should not really care where it was published or presented. They should evaluate your work - not the conferences/journals.


What do professors do if they receive a complaint about incompetence of a teaching assistant? If a professor is teaching a course with a significant number of students.
My university randomly assigns teaching assistants (TAs) to courses. For example, I was given the assistantship of an advanced hardware course when I was only a freshman.
The TA assigned to the mentioned course has no knowledge about the course topic.
Thus, he is making a lot of mistakes here and there.
What happens if a student complains to the professor about the TA doing a poor job?

A somewhat less cynical, but hopefully still realistic take.
First, there is a certain "activation energy" for the professor (and even more so, the department/faculty) to pay attention. The reality is that there is a certain baseline of largely-unwarranted complaints about all TAs, professors, etc., since there is a certain baseline of students who complain about everything, or fundamentally don't get (yet?) that at University, they are responsible for their own learning, and won't get spoon-fed. Of course not every situation/complaint fits that mold, but it has to break out of that noise to get acted upon. Complaints that come from articulate students, with generally good performance in the course and in their academic careers to date, that provide concrete evidence, and avoid name-calling, are less likely to be ignored. And multiple such complaints, not necessarily coordinated, help.
Second, immediate remedial action in the current course depends on the professor. And professors vary widely in their interest in teaching and in their willingness to expend additional time. When I used to teach courses, I would try to attend my TAs' tutorial sessions once in a while, but there were certainly trimesters I never got around to it. However, even then, I think if potential issues had bubbled up to me, I would have made the time. I have subbed in and been "acting TA" for my own course when a TA fell ill during the term, and I'd like to think I would have done the same thing if a TA were hopelessly bad.
Professors generally have office hours. If TAs are good, very often the professor's office hours are poorly attended. A student or group of students could exert pressure, deliberately or not, on a middle-of-distribution-in-terms-of-caring professor by showing up regularly at office hours with questions, and being factual (rather than just complaining) about useful help not being received from the TA. If a professor is regularly being asked "elementary" questions, and hearing the TA could not or would not answer them, it doesn't take a rara avis teaching-prioritizing professor to realize they need to do Something.
In all the above, the unfortunate reality is that it is very difficult for a department to replace a TA during a course. So immediate remedial action is essentially limited to the professor or some other teaching coordinator coaching the TA, and/or the professor doing more of the work themselves.
As to consequences for future courses, again it depends. I wish it were better, but the number of universities/departments that have meaningful performance management and professional development for TAs, in the way I have gotten used to in the industry part of my life, is pretty darn small. The reality therefore is just hope that some coaching helps, and/or there is enough of a clear situation that the TA is not assigned to that course next time.
As to removing bad TAs from the future pool altogether, it depends on the supply/demand balance of TAs in that department. I've taught in applied science-type departments where TA-ship is a building block of financial support for all grad students and it would take someone really bad to be taken off teaching--there's a perpetual hope they'll do better next time around. I've been in a math department where teaching was core, but there were more students than teaching spots and poor quality did have consequences. And I've seen language departments where TA/lector spots were highly competitive and a poorly-student-rated lector was just not going to get hired again.
Finally, decades ago it was pretty awful, but Universities are getting better at policing misconduct. So all the above applies to poor quality teaching by TAs. If the issue is blatantly unfair grading, unresolved material grading errors, or--even worse--misconduct towards students (or others), there are usually now independent processes to take care of that. There may well be challenges whether those processes move swiftly enough and are impartial enough, but it's a whole different ball game.
This answer has a North American, science/math/STEM bias.


Will working after bachelors reduce my chances of getting into a PhD program? I am an 'overseas' student in a university, currently pursuing a bachelor's degree. Although I am really interested in signing up for graduate school, I am bonded to work for at least three years as soon as I get my bachelors degree. I am afraid that this might weaken my application and my chances of getting into a good university after I fulfill my bond obligations. Are my fears unfounded? Do professors really care about how long it has been since someone finished school when they review applications?

When I started my PhD the majority of my fellow students had spent time working before they started. Some of them had been in full time employment for years (I believe the most was 7 years). As someone who went straight from BSc to PhD I was definitely the exception and not the rule. It shouldn't be something to worry about.

My supervisor's take on the subject of how he chose candidates was: "Whoever seems right at the interview."

From my experience of interviews having relevant experience and showing a good work ethic is as important in academia as working for any other employer. Working outside of academia for a spell is no limitation and can in some case be a boon.

Passion for the subject area and proof of regular hard work will get you a very long way with most academics.


Starting an REU late because of quarter system? So I am really looking forward to participating in math REUs after sophomore and junior years in college, but I just noticed that since I am on a quarter system I will only be done with finals at around June 14-15ish. Most REUs I have seen start like June 6-7 and some even (say like Texas A&M) start May 31. Are REUs accommodating of this problem?!

Thanks!

Originally posted in Mathematics Stack Exchange: https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1801319/starting-an-reu-late-because-of-quarter-system

I was an undergraduate at an institution on the quarter system and the three math REUs that I attended allowed me and others in the same position to start late. In my experience, math REUs are very accomodating with these sorts of things. I also saw other students leave slightly early or travel somewhere in the middle of the program for a week for various reasons. You should inform whoever is running the REU about your situation once you are accepted to check if starting late will be OK, however. There are also several REUs that start reasonably late, maybe the first or second week of June, so that a student on the quarter system should not have to miss more than a week.


How much guidance should I reasonably expect from an MSc Thesis Supervisor As part of my MSc I have to produce a Thesis/Dissertation which forms an integral part of the program and classification (roughly 1/4 - I imagine the subject can make a difference, so I should say that my MSc is in Mathematics in the UK).

I am wondering to what extend I should expect to be completely on my own in this endeavor. I have a supervisor who has a pretty good research reputation as far as I can tell from his publications and collaborations, so I'm quite happy in that sense, however it s becoming increasingly evident, that he will not provide much guidance when it comes to specific topic selection or anything else for that matter.

Is this normal and to be expected for an MSc Dissertation, or is it a bad sign that should make me think whether it may be better to switch? (I was under the impression that at such a junior level one could still expect quite a bit of hand-holding when it comes to the selection of a feasible topic).

I'm not sure how much of your issue is related to the specific field—mathematicians are known for being somewhat more independent than graduate students in, say, engineering.

That said, your advisor should at least show signs of being interested in your research. If you feel like you need help, and aren't getting any, then you need to make arrangements to get it. At first, I'd recommend talking to other graduate students and postdocs under your advisor. Next, I'd talk to other students outside the group; finally, I'd move on to other faculty.

It really depends on how easy or difficult it is to change advisors. If it's relatively easy, then in the end, it might be necessary as a last resort. If not, you'll need to make do with a rather unfortunate situation.

Ultimately, this is a case-by-case kind of situation: you'll need to talk to more people in your department and find out how widespread this is. Some advisors are completely hands-off, and expect their students to be self-motivating. Others are hands-on to the point of micromanagement. In math, my impression from conversations with colleagues is that the tendency is towards being hands-off, but it's impossible to say what will be the case in your specific department.


Activities for welcome event for incoming PhD students? My department is planning an event (2-3 hours) welcoming incoming PhD students and giving them a chance to meet the rest of the department.

So far, the proposed activities for this year's welcome event are: welcome from department head and graduate program director, happy hour, followed by dinner and more drinks. (The idea behind all the alcohol is to "lull them into a false sense of what a PhD program will really be like.")

Any ideas/suggestions for what to do at this kind of event?

At the risk of making this event too serious, I would suggest that you have several speakers who talk about their personal experience concerning how they survived grad school, in this department/school or in others.

There is no more valuable information for incoming grad students than information about the personal side of grad school and how to avoid the pitfalls.  And there no better way for them to feel connected to the professors and students in the department than through personal and meaningful stories -- both the highs and the lows.

I offer this suggestion because, personally, I find such meet-and-greet events to be dull, boring, and worthless, no matter how much alcohol is on offer.  I realize that many academics have meager social skills and that standing around with drinks in hand can sometimes get conversation started.  But I still find it a waste of time.

Likewise, "welcome" speeches are typically vapid and cosmetic.  You will never here any new graduate student (or new employee of any kind) say:

  "I didn't feel comfortable starting at X, but  then I heard that amazing welcome speech by the Department chair."


Concerned about supervisor's poor level of knowledge on his students' research topics, and his reluctance to correct his knowledge - is this normal? Hi I wish to ask for advice regarding the role of an academic supervisor nowadays. Current I am pursuing my Master in a physical science school in one of the university in the South East Asia.

While my academic supervisor is an energetic man and enthusiastic about his research, his research interest is very wide and that each of his students (including me) is working on a title that is only remotely connected to each other. Even he himself is working on a completely different topic than the rest of us. One would expect that we as students would at least get some useful advices from him, but it occurs to us that he is also not clear on background of the research he assigned to us in the first place. While we understand we, as the person who conduct the in depth research, will be more knowledgeable about the field in the end, we notice that he does not understand the basic terminology and theory of the particular field, which I feels is on the level of undergraduates. He would expect us to explain all the basic theory and terminology in our field to him, without bother to study for himself for a thing that is easily reachable even in Wikipedia.

Another thing I observe is his reluctance to search for verification of his current knowledge. He would like to speculate on a thing (which is an established and obvious stuff) based on his own limited knowledge on the said area, completing disregarding our counter arguments based on established facts. Only by exposing the current literature and references (which is simply a google search) did he reluctantly accept his flaws. As a result, this have made us to be skeptical every time he presents an argument.

I would expect my case is uncommon and standalone, until my friends said almost the same things happen to him. Apparently this situation is applicable for other academic supervisors as well. Practically we have to complete our research by ourselves, with the purpose of academic supervisors reduced to providing a working space (I do appreciate that) and stamping their approvals for our paperworks.

An even worse news to hear to that my friend told me that, after his discussion with some experienced international industrial personnels, this seems to be the current trend in area of research in physical science even in overseas, that we are supposed to carry out our research without expecting "useful" suggestions for our work.

Sorry for the long post, as I am confused about the state of the research community right now. Is this to be a norm to be accepted, and that I am expecting too much?

First thing: you are not alone. This kind of behaviour is very commom within the academia.

In order to pursue a graduate degree you have to accept that your path will be both restless and lonely! Restless because you will discover a whole new word, full of opportunities and overshoots. On the other hand, you are going to have a master degree, so you have to do your dissertation alone. Yes, you SHOULD count on your advisor help, for sure, but you are supposed to do most of the work by yourself!

You can face your advisor lack of knowledge as another challenge to be overcome and start to either join a lab with people doing similar work or, in the worst case, you have an endless remote source of information out here.

My greatest advice is for you to look up conferences within your field and be in contact with people that are doing similar work. It could help you a lot.


Contract versus ongoing positions in academia Why are a majority of jobs in academia offered on a fixed term basis?

I have noticed that most teaching or researching positions have a contract term (e.g. 3 year contract). Some contracts may be renewed, subject to additional funding, while others simply end.

I am wondering if there is an academic reason for this system (akin to the system being designed to compel the incumbent to continually publish in order to remain in a position).

This is a product of various reasons that are academic, economic, legal and institutional:

In many jurisdictions, it's easier and cheaper to remove staff at the end of a fixed contract: it can be very very expensive to remove staff on a permanent contract.

Enough able people are willing to work on fixed contracts that universities don't need to offer permanent contracts for every post.

Track record, CV and references are not enough to tell how good someone really is, nor how productive they'll be in your team; that needs an extended probation, which a fixed-term contract effectively functions as.

Funding tends to come in bursts, with no guarantee of follow-up funding; so while it can be possible to ensure a post can be funded for 6 months or 5 years, at the end of the funding, there may not be the money to fund that post. On a permanent contract, the resulting severance can be very expensive for the university. The fixed contract gives clarity to both employer and employee.

Productivity changes over time. Some employees are more productive when they have a lot of job security; others are more productive when their future employment depends on the current performance.  I'd love to see some studies on the impact on productivity of needing to repeatedly apply for funding: oddly, it seems to be one area where we academics don't take a scientific approach to analysing!


How much leeway will i have in suggesting a co-adviser or committee member when i am funded by a professor? I have completed master's thesis with an advisor in Industrial Engineering and I am pursuing PhD with another professor in same department. My PhD involves statistics heavily and I am not at all good with statistics. In fact I have C in two mandatory statistics courses I took in the masters program.

Usually this lab works with a Chinese statistics professor. I find it very difficult to understand her. I find her to be very knowledgeable but are just not good at explaining things. Would it be acceptable if I asked my advisor to bring my master's advisor on board the PhD committee so that she can help me with the statistics material? He taught entry level statistics courses in masters program and helped me substantially with the statistics material of my master's thesis.

Will I have any leeway to do something like this especially when he is funding me for PhD, and what will be the best way to bring this up?

Would it be acceptable if I asked my advisor to bring my master's advisor on board the PhD committee so that she can help me with the statistics material?

You can definitely ask your advisor. Describe why you think this professor would be helpful on your committee, then see what your advisor has to say.

  Will I have any leeway to do something like this especially when he is funding me for PhD

Getting funding from someone doesn't mean they get to dictate everything about your PhD career without any input from you. It's your PhD and ultimately your responsibility to make sure you succeed.

In fact, depending on your department rules, the decision as to who goes on your committee may very well be yours, not your advisor's. Of course, you should consult with your advisor on something like this, because part of his job is to help you make these decisions.

But you should understand that this is your research career regardless of who funds it. And even if your advisor is a great scientist and advisor and you respect his advice, you should always feel that you have "leeway" to make suggestions.

  and what will be the best way to bring this up?

Just set up a meeting with your advisor and say "I wanted to talk about my PhD committee. Here is why I think Professor X would be a valuable person to have on my committee..."

Note: I'm not commenting on whether or not your MS advisor is actually a valuable person to have on your committee - just that it's always OK to make a suggestion like this.


Cover letter: "I" or "we"? I did almost all the research and most of the writing In a cover letter to apply for an assistant professor job in the Western US, I want to refer to one of my publications in particular:

  Indeed, this theme is the topic of my 2016 paper in Journal XYZ on the relationship between _____. I used the such-and-such scale to examine _____.

My coauthors were a faculty member with whom I have a excellent relationship and her former adviser; neither one would dispute that I did about 95% of the research (except for the original dataset collection) and perhaps 80% of the writing.

It feels cleaner and intellectually honest to call it "my paper," rather than "my first-authored paper," but of course anyone can see on my CV that I was the first of three authors. Is it wrong for me to use the singular? What would be a preferable way to refer to this publication in a way that rightfully claims substantial ownership of it?

Use the plural when referring to the paper and its content. No exceptions.  "Our paper", "we used", etc.

I have never seen a multi-author paper referred to with the singular.  Readers will either think that it is a mistake, or that you are referring to a different solo paper; if they realize it is intentional it will come across as extremely arrogant and disrespectful to your coauthors.

Before using a plural pronoun, it is a good idea to make it clear who your coauthors are, so that the pronoun has a clear antecedent.  "In a 2016 joint paper with A. Smith and B. Jones, we showed that..."

You may certainly point out that you were the first author.  "In a 2016 joint paper with A. Smith and B. Jones, of which I was first author, we showed that..."  But you may not write as though your coauthors don't exist.  They must have made significant contributions to the paper; if not, they shouldn't be coauthors at all.

If you have space in your letter or other application materials, then after you summarize the content of the paper (using the plural), it is fine to describe in more detail your own specific contributions using the singular.  "I designed the experiment, analyzed the data, and wrote the majority of the text of the paper."  Note carefully the (sometimes subtle) distinction between the results and achievements of the project as described in the paper, which are collective and take the plural ("we showed that X", "we performed a placebo-controlled trial of drug Y", etc), versus the specific work you did in order to help accomplish those things, which illustrate your personal skills and take the singular ("I analyzed the data").

If you think it is starting to sound like you did everything while your coauthors did nothing, you can clarify briefly: "...while my collaborators worked mainly on gathering the data and developing the statistical methods, and wrote the corresponding sections of the text".

However, the very best way to "claim" your contributions is to have a recommendation letter from one (or more) of your coauthors, in which they explain how the paper was primarily your work and they just contributed bits and pieces, and then go on to praise your capability as an independent researcher.  This saves you from having to brag too much, and serves as verification that you really did all this work and aren't just lying.


Answer to "Will you be able to provide proof of your identity and employment eligibility if you are hired"? I am an European citizen applying for some academic jobs in US.

I have some doubts on one question I have to answer during the application process

1) Are you presently legally authorized to work in the United States?

My answer to this question is NO

2) Will you be able to provide proof of your identity and employment eligibility if you are hired?

What should I reply here? Is it referred to my future or current eligibility?

Unless you're already eligible to work in the US (e.g. as a permanent resident), you'll have to answer the second question with a "no."

The three aspects of US employment/immigration law that you need to know about are that

Newly hired employees are required to prove that they're eligible to work in the US by filling out an I-9 form and providing the required documentation.  Most universities  than use an online service called e-verify to verify the information on the I-9 form.  You'll typically be required to provide this documentation immediately upon being hired (not six months later when your first semester starts.)  You're being asked if you can fill out the I-9 form.
Practically all of the options for a visa that would enable you to work in the US require sponsorship by the employer.  This sponsorship requires the employer to declare that there were no qualified applicants that weren't already eligible to work in the US and obtain an authorization from the US Department of Labor.  The process takes weeks to months, and can cost thousands of dollars.  If you say that you're good to go, and the employer later finds out that they'd have to sponsor you for a visa, they may simply withdraw your job offer rather than sponsor you for a visa.
It's not legal to discriminate between various classes of people who do already have the right to work in the US (e.g. between permanent residents vs. citizens.)  The particular wording of that question is designed to protect against that kind of discirimination.

Going beyond the "yes/no" answer to this question, you could provide additional information that could be helpful.  For example, if you hold Canadian citizenship than its easy for you to be employed on a NAFTA visa, and you wouldn't need to be sponsored for an H-1B visa.  On the other hand, if you're currently on an expiring J-1 visa with a "return home" requirement, it could be difficult for them to sponsor you for an H-1B visa.


Strategies, approaches, methods for motivating innovation adoption in academia I'm curious about what strategies, approaches and/or methods people (successfully) use in academia for motivating colleagues to adopt innovative research collaboration mechanisms, workflows and/or tools. Please share your experience or point to proven range of approaches.

The following is in lieu of background information. Currently I'm leading a university project for developing a software platform for scientific research and e-collaboration in a particular scientific domain. Earlier I have installed, configured and publicized another software platform with a goal of increasing research productivity and make scientific collaboration and reproducibility easier within our group and beyond. Unfortunately, after initial decent interest of some people, most of them (and the rest) went back to "doing business as usual". I understand that researchers are busy and are under a lot of pressure to meet/exceed expectations and due to career advancement demands. I don't want to shove innovation down people's throats, but, at the same time, I'm quite frustrated that people do not see (or don't want to see, or don't care) significant potential benefits of some new ways in doing research and/or scientific software development in academia.

Considering the high visibility of my current project, I started thinking about / trying to come up with novel strategies and approaches to motivating colleagues in academia toward adopting innovative methods/tools (i.e., Agile) through emphasizing their potential benefits and/or lost opportunity in research productivity and other aspects, when such innovative methods/tools are not used.

The best way to illustrate the value of new tools is to effectively use them yourself. If you are an active researcher and you are twice as efficient as your peers, then your peers might ask you how you manage such a torrid pace.

It sounds like you are not an actual user of your own tools. Moreover, it sounds like researchers demonstrated a willingness to try your tools and were not impressed. I would advise concentrating your energies on figuring out why these researchers chose to go back to "business as usual". You are most likely to succeed if you start from the premise that they know how to do their jobs effectively.


Will it affect my academic career if I leave my PhD programme in the middle? I am currently doing my masters. I have done my bachelors and masters from the same university in a remote part of Asia. My experience in my university as an undergrad and grad student is not good. My department environment was not conducive to learning or research. As undergrads, we were encouraged to memorize rather then understanding, developing intuitions or solving problems. Whatever I have learnt, I learnt from the resources available on the internet e.g. OCW, YouTube etc. Only a couple of professors are involved in research. They are not at all helpful or encouraging. They always need to boost their ego, never ready to discuss anything, never ready to accept their mistakes if they made one. The teacher-student relationship is more like, dare I say, a master and slave type of relationship. I actually didn't work with any of them. The main reason I want leave my university and do PhD somewhere else is because of the toxic environment here. Now as I am thinking of applying for PhD abroad, I have this fear that I may not feel at home with the university/ department/ professor/ colleagues that I get into. If I then leave the programme, would that decrease my chances of getting into another university? I know that I might need LOR from the faculty members but since I don't have much experience in academia, I would really appreciate if someone can explain how the situation would become. Thank you.

Such things depend more on why you leave rather than just the fact that you do. If you establish a poor record then it is harder to get in to another program.
But it also depends on where you want to study and the nature of the program that you enter. Some programs give you some room and time to catch up with missed knowledge and some programs provide an especially supportive environment for students.
However, at some level, nearly every student is in your situation at some point. Starting research on a narrow but deep problem can leave you a bit lost for a while until you get all of the very specific background needed to go deeper.
But if the alternative for you is to not try, then that alone will negatively affect your career also. And even taking a gap to "catch up" can be good or bad, depending on what you do with the time and how you can verify that you've made necessary progress.
The advice for nearly every student is to just do it and do your best.


Should I ask for co-authorship as an undergrad student? I was assigned a research topic for one of my psych classes this term. I designed the study, collected and analyzed data and then wrote a paper. After I presented my paper to my professor, she was very excited and said this paper was publishable. She would definitely run follow-up studies on this topic. I then offered to join her team to run this study and she agreed.

Now I am not sure if I am only participating as a volunteer research assistant or as a co-researcher for this project, considering the research topic is not my original idea. I just designed the study, ran it and received significant results.

Should I ask for clarification on my role at the upcoming meeting with my prof ? If so, how should I approach? I don't want to appear too aggressive.

If you have conducted the pilot study and are also part of the follow-up team expanding it into a full publishable study, then you should definitely be invited to help write and be an author of the paper.

This should also be an easy and uncontroversial decision for your professor.  It's also fine and in fact good to get that clarification explicitly now.  You can just ask something like:

  I'm excited about helping turn this project into a paper.  Am I right in thinking this means I will be an author of the paper as well?

This is not a hard question, so if your professor says anything other than "yes," (possibly with appropriate caveats about you actually sticking with the project) then you should be concerned.


How to deal with journals requesting incomplete / incorrect attribution for images taken from other sources? I recently submitted an article containing several images from other publications. I made sure to give the appropriate attribution both for open access images (including stating e.g. CC BY 4.0), as well as those I asked permission for. From those sources I had to ask permission for, some had clear and lengthy requirements as to how I had to attribute (e.g. permission obtained from / name of journal / name of paper / year / name of all authors / copyright / copyright holder).
After my article got accepted, I received a message from the journal editor to proofread the article and to change the image attribution and limit them to: "reprinted with permission from [1]. Copyright / year / copyright holder", and even only "reprinted from [1]" for open access images.
In short, the journal asked me to omit a lot of the information that I am actually supposed to (or even legally required to, if I understand correctly) attribute to use the images in question in a sound and appropriate way.
So my question is: can I insist that the correct attribution remains with the images even if this is against journal practice, or is this something that regularly happens and in case the copyright holders complain, the journal (and not I, the author) can be held responsible?

I don't know whether you can insist on the exact wording the copyright holders asked for, or whether you should, or whether you or the journal faces legal consequences if you don't.
I suggest you write the editor quoting the specific requirements directly as they came to you in support of your wish to honor those requests. If the editor says no and there are consequences that's the journal's problem, not yours.


Am I right to be frustrated that my professor does not actually teach? This is a 101 philosophy class in an online format. Each week we have over 100 dense pages of a textbook to read as our sole source of information for the class. The teacher does not do any teaching and relies on the textbook.
Obviously a textbook is beneficial but especially for a 101 class, it is difficult to grasp these complex ideas without the input from your professor. Is this wrong? I am having a hard time understanding concepts and actually learning. No lectures or actual teaching. There are no actual in-class sessions: the work is posted at the beginning of the week and we submit by the end. Other classes I take in this format have provided lectures but this one does not. He only grades the work we did. Being paid to provide no expertise and guidance, only grade?
The assignments are discussions and quiz questions based on chapters in the text, that have to be usually 750 words or more. When he grades them he sometimes comments and says "yes that is true". It is one discussion with usually 2 open ended questions and 2 quiz questions that are long open ended each week.
Further remarks following the comments:

Typically, discussions for this class are not beneficial because most people don't actually engage and debate/ go back and forth. We do not have discussion it is solely our interpretation of the readings. Most just say "I agree with what you said and I like this part..". So it is not actually helping us learn and debate. But I cannot blame my classmates because the discussion we have to post are over 750 words so why would they want to read something similar to what they wrote. They can only do so much, they are not doing anything in this case except for grading which is frustrating to me.
There is only 21 people in the class. Obviously that is a lot of grading to do but he assigned it and could set the word count to be lower if he chose to. Most teachers reuse the same assignments and discussion questions each year or get them from the textbook. Every module/unit has been posted since September, so he is not lesson planning each week. He only has to grade each week, I am not denying that is a lot of reading but can you understand that it is frustrating for a student to not receive any actual instruction, but I am still spending a lot of money to take the course?

If I understand correctly, the professor has:

assigned readings
facilitated online discussions
given written assignments and quizzes, and graded them

But:

the professor does not himself participate in any activities (lectures or discussion)
the online discussion format does not lead to many useful interactions with peers
the professor gives only superficial feedback to written assignments

This does seem like poor practice. You are attending university partially to gain from the professor's expertise, rather than just reading books and discussing with peers. This is a class, not a book club. I acknowledge that there is a legitimate teaching style that involves activities, discussion, group work, and/or individual interactions rather than lecturing. But if your professor is as hands-off as you describe, I do not believe he is using this method, or at least not effectively. At a minimum, I submit that he should provide more detailed feedback (even at the cost of grading fewer assignments) and post a few comments in the discussion board to raise the level of the debate.
Despite this, I doubt there is much you can do. The professor did curate a course for you, facilitated group discussions, and is grading several pages per student per week (which may be a significant time investment). So unfortunately, I doubt that complaining to the department would lead to significant changes, at least in the short term.


Question about the authorship of mathematical equation Recently, I felt thrilled because I was finally (after few months of non-stop work) able to mathematically prove the mathematical (physical) transformation which I use to prove some new laws of physics. Everything adds up so nicely using this transformation and everything seems logical. To much of my disappointment, I have learned that in 1950's two papers are written where exactly the same mathematical transformation appears. However, in neither of these two papers this mathematical transformation was not proven and it was only guessed from physical laws. Probably because of this lack of proof, both papers were forgotten, otherwise I suppose these papers would be breakthrough papers. These two researchers were not only researchers trying to find the correct form of this transform and in last century there is at least dozen of papers trying to find this transform (although not explicitly stated).  Now, I've been able to mathematically prove this transform and I am writing the paper about some new physical laws emerging from this transform. My question is should I mention these papers at all? Since no one before (without fake modesty) was able to prove it and the rest of the papers were on this track (but not explicitly stated) I was thinking about not mentioning these papers at all. Otherwise I would have to explain what these researchers did and its rather irrelevant for my paper (sole discussion about this would represent another paper). What do you people think about this? I would like to hear your opinions, and of course, the constructive criticism from you

If something has appeared, pretty much in any form, you need to cite it. If you don't you will always be open to a charge of plagiarism.

I'll note that the proof is more important, in the grand scheme of mathematics, than the statement of it, so you don't lose anything by citing past work.

Authorship is different from "ownership". You can't own mathematics, but you can copyright your own expression of it (or anything, basically).

But if you don't cite it and someone later asks "why didn't he/she know about this" then it is a negative for you. Always cite your predecessors. Celebrate their work as well as your own advances.

Some of the intervening work has now been put on a firmer ground by your work, but that will only be obvious if you make the connection.


Article based on thesis and co authorship I graduated 8 months ago with 7 SCI article published. Recently, I submitted another article based on my thesis work. My supervisor, who actually has no supervisory role in my thesis except for providing a monthly stipend, wants me to add him as a co-author. He argues that he supported my research,  but in fact I paid him back more than he supported me, in the form of my work on various projects (totally different than my thesis topic).

During my PhD he never took an  interest in my PhD thesis, rather he always used me for his short term industry projects. In 4.5 years we didn’t have a single discussion/meeting on my PhD thesis.

Is him asking me to add him as an author morally correct? What if I refuse his request? Can my action be consider an unethical act?

If this is the case, what he is doing is not morally correct. You can refuse his request and thank him inside the acknowledgement part of your article for helping you. An author of an article should make some major contributions to the work, even if he is not writing any part of the article. Minor contributors should be mentioned in the acknowledgement section.


Is there a structured meritocracy outside of academia? I am an engineering PhD student in the "academic bubble". I have no personal connections to the industry and have little to no clue as to how it operates. One of the things that appeals to me most about academia is that it is largely meritocratic (at least as far as an institution this large can be) and linear - publish enough good work and you'll eventually move your way up the "ranks" to the top job - professorship.

I've heard off-hand that this is not the case in the industry - that a glass ceiling keeps the "top jobs"  virtually out of reach unless well connected (usually nepotistically) and that there is a great deal of frustration with regards to the "job ladder" in general.

This seems overly cynical to me but as aforementioned I have no experience with the industry. So my interconnected questions are as follows:

What are the practical differences between promotions in academia and promotions in the industry? Are there differences in how much of a role "luck" or "connections" make? Are the paths to the "top jobs" as clearly defined as they are in academia? Will anybody motivated and competent enough make it to the top as often as they would in an academic setting?

What is a top job?

The "top" of the profession isn't always clear outside of academia. In addition, your premise is arguable; while tenured professors are the highest ranked producers, you will often find that deans and other leadership roles have more authority within the organization and higher pay.

Promotional potential

This somewhat mirrors industry. Most firms have several levels of seniority or expertise in their engineering ranks, and many projects or departments have a chief engineer. Ultimately, however, there will be executives with authority over the engineers who are typically both non-technical and highly paid. On top of that, in my industry, it's about 50/50 between project managers with technical backgrounds vs MBAs.

Career paths

Often, there will be hints or outright questions from your managers about your career goals. You seem like you'd prefer the technical path (vs the managerial path) when opportunities arise for development or promotion.

Engineers can typically find employment in a variety of industries, but you would expect to start in a better position if you work for a company where your research is somewhat relevant.

Your industry will influence which certifications, skills, and experience are most valuable; there are no universal metrics comparable to the traditional academic metrics such as publication/citation count, H-index, or impact factor.


To what extent is being a quick problem solver (e.g. doing well in brain teasers) predictive of research success? I hope to begin a PhD in the near future in a technical field. I feel that my strength is in being able to ask interesting questions / come up with a creative high level approach / make new connections between fields or ideas (several of my mentors have commented on this) and being extremely motivated and hardworking. I've done pretty well as an undergrad and one of my mentors told me that I shouldn't have trouble getting into my top choice PhD program.
However, my huge weakness is in quick thinking. I am embarrassingly slow to answer "brain teaser" type questions and feel that essentially all of the people I interact with in a research context are way faster than I am in their speed of problem solving and understanding technical papers.
So my question is: for those of you working in fields such as computer science, statistics, applied math - how important is raw speed of technical problem solving? Can I compensate for my slowness with hard work, or will I eventually reach some ceiling? I sometimes consider switching to an "easier" field, but I don't like the idea of giving up ...

It has taken me some time to see myself clearly (in large part because I had perfect scores on almost all standardized tests back in high school, and so thought I was "smart" ...), and after frankly looking at my strengths and weaknesses I suspect I might do better in a field where asking the right question is the most important part, and answering it is largely a matter of being motivated and conscientious. However, I can't think of any such field that truly excites me at the moment, and that also has reasonable exit options outside of academia.

I hope to begin a PhD
understanding technical papers

You should not expect to understand technical papers even as an advanced undergraduate. These are often written to impress and placate referees more than to make readers' life easy. Sure, some papers will be fun to read, but most of the time reading a paper is a painful exercise in balancing between patience and criticism. I have read 0 non-expository papers in my 5 years of undergrad.

how important is raw speed of technical problem solving?

As a cause: probably fairly unimportant. Your output won't suffer much because you are a slow thinker. Researchers don't usually spend much of their time solving problems; it's closer to 10% problem solving and 90% bookkeeping, teaching, and other chores. If the former 10% take up 20% of your research time instead, well, you'll have a little bit less spare time then, or do worse at teaching, or compensate otherwise.
As a symptom or correlate: possibly, if the theories about thinking speed being (highly correlated to) a central component of intelligence (read the unending flamewars around Spearman's g if you think modern science has gotten boring) are true. But if several of your mentors have vouched for your motivation, willpower and creativity, you're likely not in much trouble either way. Very few scientists have "maxed out" all these attributes together.
Sorry, this was somewhat of a reddit-style answer, but then again it is a reddit-style question. Quantitative results are scarce. I don't recall seeing any studies correlating academic success with thinking speed; most studies use measures like SAT, which themselves are mediated by thinking speed. Feel free to respond with citations :)


qualitative research participants name Basically, I am trying to find out the technical term for the participant in qualitative research, when the person giving the information is not the person experiencing the phenomena talked about first hand. So for example, I might ask a lawyer to talk about psychological impacts of the asylum seeking process, instead of asking people that have gone through the asylum seeking process themselves. This is done for reasons due to ethical concerns and also because the secondary source might be useful due to their vast amount of accumulated knowledge.

I know that the term exists, but I cannot find it anywhere.

Sounds like you'll be doing interviews. If this is the case I would call them respondents


Two-year Masters Degree in Mathematics Sorry if this is off-topic, just close or delete this thread if that is the case.

Is anyone aware of 2-year Masters programs in mathematics that sufficiently prepare a student for a potential PhD, and accepts students who did not do so well (achieve the equivalent of an Australian honours degree) or did not major in mathematics?

It seems to me most masters programs in the UK and Australia are done over 1 year, and require at least Honours div. 2A for entry. While the masters programs from the well-known US universities require the same, and some even need students to pass PhD entrance exams for entry. Anyone familiar with programs that fit the description in the previous paragraph? Prestige really isn't a factor here.

From a (nostly) Australian perspective:

Do you want Masters by research, or by coursework? I assume by 2A you mean 2nd class 1st division (normally this would be called a 2-1).

Most research Masters degrees (in Australia) are 2 years, and you typically need a 2-2 (or a Desmond... geddit?) for entry (a credit average equivalent), a 2-1 is only needed for the vague hope of an APA scholarship (in practice a 1st is needed for that).

Coursework Masters are typically aimed at professionals to enhance CVs and skill-sets, so they're normally not the route to a PhD (especially in maths), and are usually 1 year.

My experience of the UK system is that it's largely similar to the Australian, though I have spent less time in it, a 2nd class degree is all that's required for entry into a Masters (so 2-2 would be sufficient).

The US system is somewhat different though (but warning, my experience with the US system is from the outside, so take this with a grain of salt). For those looking at a PhD, you typically join a graduate programme, which has 2 years of coursework followed by 3 years of research largely as a single continuous (or at least contiguous) programme. Often the 2 years coursework will gain you a Masters degree, but this is a "Masters in passing", and is not strictly necessary for progression (this set up is also why the entry exams might turn up at the start in the US).

So after all that, what you want to look for is "Masters by research" programmes, normally each department at the university will have some information about it on their website under something like "Postgraduate Study", or similar (perhaps "graduate school" in the US, but read carefully). These are the ones aimed at PhD preparation, though in Australia and the UK, there is typically no or minimal coursework, so if you need to catch up, it's up to you and your supervisor to ensure that this happens.

The less pleasant part is that if you only have a 3rd class degree, then you're going to have a tougher time of it. In this case you may want to talk to academics at the university you're interested in about what you can do to demonstrate appropriate ability. Another option is to bite the bullet and complete a 1 year masters course to attempt to demonstrate that you have the skills and knowledge required. A really extreme suggestion would be to complete another undergraduate degree specifically in mathematics (many universities offer a specific BMath or similar) to close the gap.

Finally, if you're in a position to go for a Masters by research, take some care picking a university that offers research in an area you're interested in. Think about what areas of maths you like, see where the people who do that are and talk to them. The vast majority of academics in Aus./UK/US are keen an interested to talk to people who want to get involved in their area and they tpyically don't stand on ceremony, so you don't have to be too worried about formalities (but be polite of course!).


Dropping out of grad school with F's: how will this affect job prospects? I am currently getting ready to finish my first semester of a graduate program (was on track for Ph.D but that does not matter anymore). I made the decision to quit half way through the semester due to some family issues that came up. Anyway, ever since that, I pretty much lost all motivation to study with the persistence that I had before - up to the point where on a subconscious level my brain refuses to absorb any more information. I will likely be receiving at least 1 F for the semester. My question is this - after I leave the program I will be looking for job in industry - I am a Civil Engineer as an undergraduate. How will having an F on a 1 semester transcript in graduate school affect my job prospects?

Did you try seeing if you could formally withdraw, rather than do so "de facto"? A withdrawal means that you normally don't receive grades for courses (although some schools note a withdrawal while having a failing grade in a course).

The likelihood that a future employer will overlook this depends largely on who's doing the applicant screening. If your "direct boss" is handling the process, you have a chance of convincing them that the grades aren't reflective of your true abilities. On the other hand, if a human resources "specialist" is handling the screening process, a grade of F will unfortunately mean your application will probably end up in the "circular file."


Can I ask for a faster reply from graduate school? I am currently a MSc student and I have applied to the same school for a PhD. I have some connections in the department, but nobody from the admissions committee.
On the admissions page, the standard procedure states that applicants shall receive an answer within 1 to 3 months from the deadline. So far, just over a month has passed.
The problem is that I have an interesting offer from a company, and is unreasonable to ask them to wait 2 more months for me to decide. Would a polite email to the official email of the admissions committee explaining this situation be perceived negatively? Is there any chance it could help speeding up a reply?

You can ask, but it is unlikely that you will get a decision and maybe not even a reply. Processes will be followed in fairness to all candidates.
Rules probably prevent any early decision in most places.


Condolences from a student to a professor I have a professor I really care about and our professional relationship as a student/teacher has been growing in a positive direction. The professor has been really kind to me in many ways including giving personal/academic advise and providing motivation towards certain goals.

My professor has been gone, without word, for an extended period of time...

I got stupid and curious, and using Google, I figured out the professor lost an important loved one.

I now feel ashamed because I know I violated the professors privacy; however, now that I know my first instinct is of empathy and to give my condolences to my professor.

Now the more I think about it, I don’t want to say anything so that I don’t disrespect our relationship, but I feel that giving my condolences is the “right” thing to do when someone you care about is in pain, but I only am aware of the situation because I already disrespected our relationship.

I’m frustrated and confused. Could any lecturers or professors give me some guidance?

I'm not sure that you 'violated the professor's privacy'. Googling his name seems altogether appropriate.

Still, I wouldn't say anything. Since he hasn't told you (and no one else has told you), it seems he doesn't want to discuss it with you. I would respect this. Thinking back to when I taught classes, I certainly would have appreciated the effort, but it also would make me just a tiny amount uncomfortable, particularly since I hadn't announced the death.

By the way, I'm assuming you're an undergraduate and you only know him as a teacher. If you are a grad student and he is a prof in your subfield, I still would err on the side of not saying anything, but it could go either way depending on the personalities involved.


Can "revision authors" be dropped from a paper? I have authored my first paper for a journal. I talked to some co-authors, hoping that they would help me with the design and intellectual work, but eventually their contribution has been minimal. I was not bold enough and they did not help. They don't satisfy the ICMJE authorship recommendations, since they have only provided manuscript review (http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html), and provided limited feedback, and allegesly-impressed praise. All the design, and hundreds of hours of work is mine. They did not provide institutional or financial support and they are not my bosses or leaders.
Should they be excluded from the authorship? Do journals prefer a "well-published" teacher as the co-author of a paper?
I believe it would be overly fair to include them as acknowledgements, but I'm not sure what to do.
How do you suggest this "bad news" should be delivered to them? I really struggle with communication.

I believe: The OP has written, but not submitted, a manuscript, which they discussed with some potential co-authors, who provided minimal input.
If the OP didn't discuss authorship, then they can immediately proceed to submission without listing the potential co-authors. (Discussion doesn't generally merit co-authorship.) Even if authorship was discussed, they may be able to immediately proceed, it really depends on the discussion.
For instance, the OP may have offered co-authorship in exchange for help...with the design and intellectual work and if there's no evidence of fulfillment, the OP can immediately submit without listing the potential co-authors. It gets tricky when the OP is unsatisfied, but there's evidence of partial fulfilment.
If the OP is in a position to immediately submit, then they are under no obligation to communicate with the potential co-authors. Nonetheless, the OP could send a thank you email, e.g., Thanks for your input on XYZ. Your wisdom helped improve my manuscript (attached), which I'll be submitting to ABC. I've listed you in my acknowledgements, which I trust is okay.
For trickier situations, I'd need more information to offer advice.


Outcome of LaTeX template differs from published papers – should I worry about this? I am in the process of submitting my first paper to a journal for publication and I would like the style to be flawless. I have used the AEA LaTeX template to prepare my manuscript, but I notice some differences in style between my compiled PDF and the papers noted in the AEJ Best Papers series, for example Li 2017.

Here are some of the differences I notice:

The first letter is enlarged.
Cross superscript on the title.
No hanging indent on the abstract.
JEL codes are non-italic, there is no colon after JEL, and there are parenthesis.
Keywords are not visible.
Running header is filled out.

All of these features except 6 appear to be different compared to the format built-in to the AEA LaTeX template. 6 is different simply because I don't know what to put in the running header before submission.

I'm hoping that these differences are normal, and that after I submit for review the editors simply apply a different LaTeX style set or something like that. Can anyone confirm, or am I missing something? Would these differences be grounds for rejection? I'm currently holding off on submitting because I'm not sure.

If you are following the template that the journal has provided, then don't worry about minor differences of this sort.

Journals often have a different post-acceptance "polishing" process for final production, which might involve changing the LaTeX templates or (more likely) converting to an entirely different graphic-design-centric pipeline.  The reason for this is that the review and production are often handled by different staff with different software serving different needs.

Moreover, even if you did do something mildly wrong in your application of formatting, no sane editor will ever say

  "Muahahaha! You have failed the test of the enlarged first character! YOUR MANUSCRIPT IS UNWORTHY OF REVIEW!

Instead, either the editor will say something like "Your revised manuscript must adhere to XXX format, including the following points" (paraphrasing from one of my published recent manuscripts), or more likely not even say anything because they didn't even notice and only the post-acceptance production staff really care.


Is Science Publishing group (http://www.sciencepg.net) a genuine publisher related to the Science journal? I received an email requesting me to apply for a reviewer/editor position at Science Publishing group. But I found that Science Publications have a different website, hence I feel that the email is a fraud. Please help to clarify matters.

Science is the official magazine of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which has nothing to do with two publishers you mentioned. It is common these days that new publishers (usually publishing online open access journals) use the names, which are similar to the famous publications.

Science and Nature are the most reputable journals (though they are technically magazines) in cutting-edge research. Both have impact factors over 30. The publishers you mentioned publish journals, which are not even properly indexed. Most of the journals by such publishers have an impact factor of around 1 (just mentioned to highlight the difference).

In any case, no reputable publisher asks you to apply. They choose their editors/reviewers directly based on your works. When an email asks you to apply, this is a general advertisement email sent to a long mailing list.


Manuscript acknowledgement for students who helped with lab maintenance I am working on a manuscript for research I performed in graduate school - the first manuscript from my research has been accepted for publication, so I am getting things started for the second one. Anyways, I am thinking about how best or whether to acknowledge other students in the laboratory who were involved in background maintenance work for the project. I have already acknowledged individuals who contributed working space/instrumentation and performed tests that were directly impactful on producing the manuscript. The background work includes items such as washing/drying glassware, being the student who received and started maintenance of microbial cultures that were shipped to us, was involved in discussions with myself and our advisor about the culture medium, etc. One of the students had a similar but different project that required us to use the same type of culture medium, but I prepared all of my own and adapted the process (not the final chemical concentrations) to my needs. It's been a couple of years, and I vaguely recall that somebody may or may not have assisted with sampling one time for the experience. Any advice on how to address these minor/negligible contributions?

Personally, I would be generous with the acknowledgments.
Adding somebody there costs nothing and generates goodwill.
But, check with your advisor.
Part of your advisors job is to mentor you on being a scientists, including cultural norms such as writing acknowledgments.
Perhaps they have their own standards.


How to cite when writing a paragraph in my history paper that is composed entirely of historical facts? Since almost everything I have found is something I pulled from a source, how do I write my essay without citing basically every single line?

Edit: Yes, in my paper I am arguing something which will be said in my own words. I am writing a few paragraphs about the historical background of the situation, and that is where my question comes into play.

In addition to Pete's answer, I also want to mention that well-known historical facts generally do not require a citation.

For instance:

  The American Civil War was fought from 1861 to 1865.

This is well-known enough to be assumed as "general knowledge." On the other hand,

  The average Pennsylvania farmer in the 18th century did not leave an estate worth 400 pounds, as de Crèvecoeur reports in his Letters from an American Farmer [citation needed].

is sufficiently obscure that it cannot get the same treatment.


Should I prefer PhD programs with "higher quality" students? In choosing between PhD programs A and B (for pure math in the US), some professors have remarked to me that A is favorable because it is more selective and consequently has stronger students than B. Is this a factor I should consider? Both institutions have several of the top researchers in my subfield so quality of advisors is not an issue.

It's worth considering in your case because your graduate experience will in part be shaped by your peers. Your peer group in graduate school will help (or hurt) your research and teaching experiences --- at some schools your peers will help lift you up and inspire you, at others they will underwhelm you.

Your peers will also help with networking. The people who are finishing when you arrive in grad school will be useful people to get advice from when you go on the job market, as they will have recently been through it themselves.

I'm in the finishing stages of a PhD right now and I've benefited a lot from knowing the top-notch students who had come before me. I learnt from them, they have given me lots of feedback over the years, they've helped me with networking, etc.


I'm looking for faculty positions. How important is it to have your PhD advisor's letter after 3 year post-doc? Like the title said, I'm applying for faculty positions. I am finishing a 3 year post-doc. I have strong support from my post-doc advisor and other profs we collaborated with. I have no problem getting three solid references. I've always struggled with my PhD advisor though. He was once important in the field, but he rarely publishes peer-reviewed research lately. I actually got my post-doc without his letter.

I'm considering applying without his letter to faculty positions. Anybody have similar experiences or advice? I'm baffled by my problems with my PhD advisor. I actually did publish with him, and even won awards.

Unless your former advisor can speak to your present and future research potential (especially funding potential), his letter won't add anything that your post doc references won't already say. At a certain point, prospective employers want to see that you have become an independent researcher, and a letter from a doctoral advisor might give the wrong impression.


Can student be the corresponding author? I am working in a research project (not PhD and after Master's degree). I have completed a work which my adviser thinks is publishable. But he has such a heavy schedule that he hardly has time to respond. Can I take the whole charge of writing the manuscript and communicating the paper with his permission. (I have not yet asked him.)

There's no problem at all with a student being the principal author (in the sense of “being in charge of the writing”) of an academic paper. In fact, I think it's very good that you consider doing so. Here are, however, some thoughts on the matter:

Discuss this with your advisor before writing anything. Once both of you have established that there is sufficient matter for publication, and that you want to publish it, you should make plans for doing so. It includes determining (right now!) the authors list, the order of authors on the list, and plan who will do what.
The corresponding author (or corresponding authors), often indicated by an asterisk in the authors list and their contact details in a footnote, do not necessarily need to be the person(s) who actually did most of the writing. The contact author is the one who is the most central to the project, and who will be able to deal with correspondence about it in the near and not-so-near future. For that reason, some groups (including mine) do not consider students a good choice for corresponding author: in two years, they may be gone to a new job and not interested any more with the paper's research.

A few more comments for first time authors:

If you've never written a paper before, don't underestimate the task. Writing a paper from A to Z is a complex project, even for experienced authors. It requires using many different skills, and is truly an exercise in both scientific reasoning and communication, with very specific constraints (style, formatting, length limits, …). Assign a lot of time to writing, and don't hesitate to get help if you're stuck!
If in doubt while writing, put yourself in the reader's shoes. And specifically, a non-specialist reader's shoes. That should be the guiding principle.


Time short on thesis defense preperation I was supposed to defend my thesis in another week. But, due to the time schedule of one of the committee members I have to give the defense it tomorrow.

My status:

Developed a rough defense presentation (probably need revision)
Have less than a day to prepare

Can anyone advise me a plan as to defend this successfully?

EDIT :

RESULT : FOLLOWED ALL ADVISES POSTED HERE AND DEFENDED SUCCESSFULLY ! THANK YOU ALL !

Call together your graduate school friends, and set aside a two hour block of time.
Give them the presentation in its current form.
Receive (possibly scathing) feedback and take good notes.
Go fix the presentation.
If your friends are up for it, repeat the process, but not more than once.
Practice at least two more times before tomorrow.
Give the defense tomorrow, and pass.

Good luck!

(8. Buy lots of beer for your buddies who gave you help to pull this thing together.)


What to do when a former supervisor keeps contacting my current supervisor as a way to pressure me to publish my Master's thesis? I'm all for publishing my own work of course. Since I have coursework and new projects during the semester I have temporarily put aside my manuscript and I have communicated with the former (Master's) supervisor about this. But now she kept contacting my current PhD supervisor and he in turn has written to me a few times regarding this matter.

I feel my former supervisor's behaviour is quite innappropriate and this is the third time she does this. There have been two very similar instances previously--her asking my PhD supervisor whether I could depart later than my planned date to start my PhD program; then about two weeks before the final thesis submission, she contacted my PhD supervisor while I hesitated to let her use my thesis for grant application--both times behind my back with me only learning what she did from my PhD supervisor. I called her the second time she did this asking her very politely not to do such a thing again and hoping to remain on good terms. She agreed. But now this happens again........

What can I do to stop her from doing this? While not having my relationship with the current supervisor damaged but also I guess not having to be coerced into doing what she wants?

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated!

One thing you should understand is that in this crazy world, she may benefit from having your thesis published more than you, especially if she is currently under considerations for reappointment or promotion, so don't be too hard on her: rather blame the entire screwed up evaluation system in academia that has made much stronger people panic and do ridiculous things.

With all that said, the usual advice applies: be firm but polite and show some good will. Think of when you can realistically finish the job (it is in your own best interests to finish it eventually regardless of anything), and tell the plan to your current adviser. That should settle your scores with him and, most likely, he'll no longer bother you with that anymore. If you want, you can tell the target date to your former adviser as well.

Don't forget to give yourself some leeway, so that you can keep your word no matter what. Remember that promising less than one expects from you won't hurt your reputation, but failing to keep your promise will.