How will this departmental restructuring plan affect students and faculty? I am an undergraduate Computer Engineering student at the University of Florida. In response to recent budget cuts to higher education in Florida, my department (Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering, CISE) could be undergoing some restructuring, namely the following:

All of the Computer Engineering Degree programs, BS, MS and PhD, would be moved from the Computer & Information Science and Engineering Dept. to the Electrical and Computer Engineering Dept. along with most of the advising staff.
Roughly half of the faculty would be offered the opportunity to move to Electrical/Computer Eng. (ECE), Biomedical Eng. (BME), or Industrial/Systems Eng. (ISE).
Staff positions in CISE which are currently supporting research and graduate programs would be eliminated.
The activities currently covered by TAs would be reassigned to faculty and the TA budget for CISE would be eliminated.
Any faculty member who wishes to stay in CISE may do so, but with a revised assignment focused on teaching and advising.

(click here for additional information)

The Dean of our college claims that eliminating research and TA support within the CISE department will have no effect on the quality of the education future students will receive. She also claims that existing research in the department will be unaffected, except that it will be moved to ECE, BME, or ISE.

As an undergrad, I don't feel qualified to challenge these claims. Therefore, I would like to hear your opinions:

Will the quality of education in the CISE department be the same after this restructuring?
Can software-oriented research take place in a department which, until now, has concentrated solely on hardware/electronics?
Since only half of the faculty will be moved to a research department, half must remain in CISE and focus solely on teaching (with no TA support). Do you think these professors will remain at UF given the circumstances?
Will the teaching-only CISE department be able to attract quality professors? Top students?
Will employers value a UF CISE degree as much as they do now? [thanks for pointing this one out JeffE]

Faculty and graduate students in the department know exactly how these changes will affect them (and they aren't pleased!), however many of the undergrads are a bit uncertain. I (and the rest of us undergrads) would really appreciate any wisdom to help clear things up. Thanks in advance!

One of my former PhD students works in the CISE department at UF, so my opinion is not exactly objective.  But here it is:

Will the quality of education in the CISE department be the same after this restructuring?  Absolutely not.  Teaching computer science well requires serious manpower.  Unless CS courses are limited to a very small number of students, which seems incredibly unlikely for a flagship state university, educational quality will plummet.  The near-certain increase in faculty teaching loads only makes this worse.  If nothing else, with less individual attention on students and more automated grading, cheating will increase dramatically.  (Also, in the longer term, educational quality will suffer because the instructors are not themselves active researchers.  Computer science changes fast; if the faculty aren't leading that change, they'll fall behind.  Obviously.  But in the short run, the removal of TA support is a much bigger issue.)
Can [CS] research take place in [an ECE] department?  Maybe, but probably not at existing levels.  If faculty treat the incoming CISE faculty as anything less than full-fledged intellectual peers who should be judged by the standards of their own research communities (as opposed to ECE community standards), then no.  Most recent CS-EE mergers have failed for precisely this reason.  This has far less to do with the distinction between "software" and "hardware" than cultural differences about intellectual values, publication standards (conferences vs. journals), funding, intellectual property, entrepreneurship, and the like.
Do you think [teaching] professors will remain at UF given the circumstances?  I expect some faculty will stay, either because they prefer teaching anyway (or even support the restructuring), or because they have eternal constraints that make moving impossible, or because they are close enough to retirement that they're willing hold their nose for a few years, or perhaps because their recent research records are not strong enough for them to land a tenure-track position in a comparable department.  But I would expect most CISE faculty—including the research faculty forced into other departments—to leave at their earliest opportunity.
Will the teaching-only CISE department be able to attract quality professors?  Not as easily, and not as long as the current political players are in power.  Setting aside the common assumption that quality is correlated strongly with active research, I expect most strong teaching faculty would have trouble accepting a position from a college with such blatant disregard for academic freedom and shared governance.
Top students?  Undergrads, yes, although probably in smaller numbers.  Because UF is a flagship state school, it attracts a significant fraction of the top high school graduates in the state (at least by STEM standards).  The number of such incoming students is unlikely to change very much, but many of those students who would have studied computer science will go into other majors instead.  Graduate students, probably not, for the same reasons as faculty.

And one question you didn't ask:

Will employers value a UF CISE degree as much as they do now?  I doubt the restructuring would have a significant effect on the job prospects of current CISE majors, except possibly if some of the software companies who've recently announced plans to open offices in Gainesville change their mind.  But if the quality of education (and the strength of incoming majors) suffer as I expect they will, then a UF CISE degree will be less valuable than it is now, even for the best students.

The flagship state university where I work has attempted a few similar restructuring efforts, and currently faces similarly severe budgetary constraints.  Some of the resructuring attempts were successful (for example, our Theoretical and Applied Mechanics department was recently merged into Mechanical Engineering); others were not (for example, our Nuclear Engineering Department survived a proposed closure).  In the years leading up to the TAM closure, a significant majority of the TAM faculty moved or retired.  Although TAM survives as a degree program within our MSE department, it attracts considerably fewer students and faculty than it did as an independent department.


Responsibility to new PhD students regarding bad environments (Given that the question was put on hold, I try to ask the question differently. If it is still off-topic I vote for deletion. Still having trouble grasping the question.)

If you know that an institute/department/adviser is looking for new PhD students, but you also know that this institute/department/adviser is really bad for a scientific career (e.g., high attrition rates, few if any get tenure) — what do you do?

On the one hand, no one likes a snitch, people who complain are often seen as bitter and as lacking loyalty. And it might be a question of fit.

On the other hand, there is responsibility to future PhD students (their careers and the other damage bad environments inflict).

There are guidelines for actual scientific misconduct (like plagiarism, fabrication, falsification), but is there anything for this kind of situation?

I see no ethical quandary whatsoever in revealing your own negative experience / suspicions of systemic problems within an academic department.  It would be easier to argue that some ethical obligation cuts in the other direction: i.e.,
people should be informed about what they're getting into.

You don't discuss your current status in the academic community. Of course complaining about people who are in a network of your peers and superiors could have some risk to you.  (That's basically always the case.)  But that's not an ethical concern.  The need to be "loyal" seems a bit misplaced here.  Yes, loyalty is good, but it cuts both ways.  Some people / an institution had a chance to treat you well, and apparently they really blew it.  They can't reasonably ask you to deny or minimize it.

I will say though that complaining is tricky.  The problem with people who are bitter enough to complain is that...well, they sound bitter.  In particular, your description of this nameless department sounds a bit cartoonishly bad to me: I couldn't recognize it in the context of any of the academic skullduggery I have seen in real life.  For one thing, you almost seem to be saying that the
department faculty takes an active interest in crushing the dreams of students and postdocs.  To be honest, I am skeptical: crushing students' dreams can be hard work, and we are terribly busy.  For another, you imply that this department is viewed as exemplary and the terrible treatment and terrible placement of graduate students is totally ignored by your academic community.  Really?  In my circles (mathematics, US) departments are ranked in large part on how how well they service their graduate students: percentage of students who get through, time to degree, good placements.  Some places have a reputation for being "nicer" than others, but even a "not nice" top department does a better job of placing its students than a mediocre one.  Or so it seems to me, anyway.

So if you really want to complain effectively, I suggest you take the time to make your complaints factually based.  Can you assemble (in a solid, honest way) statistics to show that the department you talk about is bad for students?  People will take that a lot more seriously.


Can I ask the editor for rapid processing (rapid peer review) in the cover letter of my paper submission? I'm a PhD student and I need to (almost desperately) squeeze in another paper for my dissertation in the next 6 months. Is it acceptable to explain my situation to the editor and ask to set a tighter deadline to the reviewers?

My field is health sciences and biostatistics.

You can ask for just about anything, but unless you already have some connection to the editor you aren't likely to have much happen out of the ordinary. In particular, they are unlikely to move you ahead of another author and you would probably object if the situation were reversed.

The editor has little control over what his/her reviewers do or their schedules.  If he/she tries to press them, they might just turn the paper back and you get in line again. The editor is unlikely to move on a paper without reviews. The time it takes is the time it takes.

Note that in some ways the reviewer "stable" is more important to the editor than the current bunch of authors since there is a long term relationship between editors and reviewers. Since they probably aren't paid, there is little leverage.

But you can ask.


Is "flowery language" frowned upon in engineering and STEM related research? I work in an engineering field (related to AI, machine learning, etc.) and something I found interesting is whenever I use "big words" or even long words  like "substantiate" or "corroborates" while compiling a draft to be submit to a conference and such, I will get a request from my co-authors demanding me to change them.
For example:

"these related works are germane to our present discussion." I got a
request to change the word "germane" to something else. Really?
Or "...therefore, the scenario considered in [reference] is situated diametrically
opposite to ours." I was told to change "diametrically". Really?
"The experiments in [references] corroborates with our results". I was told to change corroborates to "collaborates".

There are a lot more examples, especially in the latest draft. But I don't want to point them out just in case my colleagues are reading this forum. :-)
Mind you, this is all in the introduction of the paper, hence no way to confuse it with any technical terminology. This happens to me so frequently that I became almost clairvoyant as to which sentences I will need to rephrase in the upcoming revision.
My intention is merely for the writing to be conversational, and this is done in order to distinguish our works from some of the truly monotonous writing styles pervasive in this field.
Also worth noting is that some of the top authors in this field uses very flowery language (sometimes in my opinion excessively so), so you can say that I'm perhaps subconsciously trying to imitate them.
We are working in a North American university. However, some of my colleagues are non-native speakers (who have stayed here for something like 20 plus years). I wonder if this phenomenon is more wide spread or it is just happening to me.

There's nothing wrong with long words. The real issue with your writing is that it is redundant.

"these related works are germane to our present discussion."

In this sentence, "germane" just stands for "related", so you're effectively saying "these related works are related". Here you are using the English cliche of pairing a common word with a rare synonym, which we also see in phrases like "trials and tribulations" or "vim and vigor". As in these examples, you include the common word because without it, people won't always know what the rare word means. But the very act of doing that makes the rare word completely useless. Redundancy in this form should basically always be removed.

"...therefore, the scenario considered in [reference] is situated diametrically opposite to ours."

This is another example of the cliche above. The word "diametrically" isn't doing any work the word "opposite" isn't already doing. It's only there for the purpose of being a long word.

"The experiments in [references] corroborates with our results".

This is not correct usage: the word "with" shouldn't be there. Incorrect usage of a long word is very bad: people who don't know it will be annoyed with you, and people who do will judge you.


Are appeals of termination from PhD programs common and are there any unambiguously successful or unsuccessful approaches to fighting a termination? I'm currently in the process of appealing a termination from my PhD program and although there are many facts concerning my case that I feel are relevant and important, I'm not sure how relevant they are in the consideration of my appeal.

My question is: how do I present my appeal in a way that ensures I have the best chance of success?

This may seem subjective, but there may be some objectively unsuccessful approaches to appealing such a decision. Are there any objectively successful ones?

The main thrust of my department's decision to terminate my candidacy is that I lack basic competency in topics related to my research. The issue is that the way my competency was evaluated was not in line with university and department guidelines (generally we are evaluated based on reports and formal meetings), I was evaluated based on my response to an email requesting more information from me about my research. In the grand scheme of things, this is a small part of the processes leading up to my termination, but it's what initiated the process. Would it be reasonable to appeal such a decision?

It is true that I don't have competency in the topics I was evaluated on, but these were part of one project I was working on and not related to the main thrust of my research, so I'm afraid I'm almost like a "fish" that was evaluated on its "climbing" ability (if that makes sense). I am confident I can "swim" quite well (meaning, I have other research merit as a PhD student), but there is no way I could "climb" in the time I was given.

It's simply nerve-racking and difficult consider my own assessment of myself over the assessment of experienced professors that seem to be making objective decisions about research ability, so I'm not sure whether my concerns are valid or not.

FYI - this is in Canada.

Typically, successful appeals happen when another advisor is willing to take on the student after the appeal. This creates an ally during the appeal process. It also creates an "out" for the department. I have two friends who were able to appeal by finding an alternative advisor. I know no-one who was able to appeal with their original advisor UNLESS the advisor was actually using the process as a "wake-up call" rather than an authentic attempt to force the student out.

In the cases where an advisor is using the process as a real authentic attempt to force a student out, the advisor is communicating that they no longer desire to have you as a PhD student. The department is going to be reluctant to force that advisor to continue with you, despite the soundness of your logic. The reluctance is partially because it creates an uncomfortable/unproductive mentoring situation when one party is not enthusiastic. The reluctance is also related to an overall ethos of not wanting to oppose faculty on issues of academic judgement.

The presence of another ally/advisor who will take you on as a student after the process is concluded allows the department to evaluate your claims independent of their reluctance to force your original advisor to take you back. It allows everyone to put this down to a matter of "fit" rather than genuine problems with your work or your advisor's judgement.

IF your advisor is actually on the fence about this, you could attempt to convince your advisor that you now are "awake" to the stakes and they will find working with you to be much better/more productive in the future.


What to do if a journal article is too hard to review I am reviewing a paper for a top-ranked journal in robotics. The main results of the paper are about control and not specifically robotics. I am aware that robotics is a multidisciplinary subject which has also a ton of control in it but the problem here is the following. The paper is, mathematically, really hard to follow. The mathematical details would require maybe more than 2 weeks for me to review and to go through the equations.

What would you do in this case? I was thinking to suggest to submit to another journal, more control-oriented.

What do you think?

Thanks for your opinions.

Decision based on maths. If an overhaul of the mathematics would significantly reduce the time required for an expert to understand them, then you should state that in your review and that might well be a reason to require major revisions. On the other hand, if such an overhaul would only help non-experts, then that might well merit a mention in your review, but I don't think such an overhaul is necessary for acceptance.

Reviewing. Two weeks is ~4% of the year. Committing that amount of time to a single review (as would be required for you to study the details of the mathematics) seems unreasonable to me. Perhaps you can raise this with the editor. They might well suggest that you disregard the details and focus on other aspects of the manuscript, they can always ask another reviewer to check the details.

Scope. To determine whether the manuscript is in scope, you could compare the volume of material on control with articles published by the journal. If you think it is out of scope, then perhaps raise this with the editor.


How do I reconcile with a vindictive professor, or at least protect my grade? I (foolishly) corrected my physics professor as he was about to teach fifty students a blatantly wrong simplification, and since then he's been out to get me. I get grades of 20% or lower on tests where I get all the answers right, but don't solve the problems in precisely the way he wants.

He answers all my questions with banal truisms ("Just use the provided equations and pick a decent reference frame and you'll get the right answer"), and even makes an effort to leave before collecting my assignments.

I'm afraid to complain, because he has a lot of political connections on campus, but I'm terrified that he's going to blemish my perfect GPA. Also, I can't withdraw from the class without falling behind in my coursework and needing to stay an extra semester.

What course of action would best protect my grades, and my future, from a vindictive professor?

Without knowing the professor, my bet is that you - unfortunately - will have little possibility mending your relationship with him. Maybe he is a believer in second chances, but judging from your description, I doubt it.

The first thing you need is a reality check - are you really being treated unfairly. You need to get a hold of some more senior students or friendly faculty members, it could either be at your own university or in an online community. Show them your graded coursework and the syllabus, and have them asses whether you are actually being treated unfairly. If you get down marked by 80 % or more, it should be obvious.

If you are, then your should contact your local dean immediately. Let him or her know the full story, it is their job to listen and deal with these things. Make it clear that you would like to just get this over with as easy as possible, but you don't feel safe taking the exam with this particular professor. If you are lucky, they have a procedure ready for these things. When you approach the dean, stay descriptive, and don't feel like you have to fight for your right. It should not matter, but unfortunately it does.

Make up your mind in advance whether or not you would be ok with transferring to another course. Even though it may slow you down a bit - or force you to read faster - it may be your best option.

When all this is done and over, just stay clear of that professor, and you should be ok. If I should guess, I would say that unless this is a very young professor, this is not the first occurrence of such a situation, and the professor will have a 'rumor', even among his political connections. You should be very unlucky if this comes back to bite you, and it would also be very unlikely that the professor would actually go out of his way to harm you.


How can a would-be researcher overcome slow comprehension, obsession and poor communication skills? I m a current master coursework student in engineering major and I’m planning to do a PhD after graduating from this course. I want to know how to become a qualified researcher. There are several shortcomings that I think may stop me making it:

I understand things very slowly. When I read or listen to others, I can’t get the idea very quickly. Sometimes there is even an unexpected blank or distraction in my mind when I’m getting some information and I have to get it again.
I like delving in solving a certain question I’m interested in, but I often get stuck there for a long time until I solve it, which really have a severe negative effect on exams. In addition, this kind of obsession is a short-term effect, rather than perminant one. That’s to say it’s hard for me to stick to one thing for a long period of time as I’m easy to get obsessed in another thing once it appeals to me.
I’m not good at explaining or illustrating my idea to others. They often don’t understand what's my point and I need to explain it several times. The situation is worse in speaking. I often get a blank mind and forget the next point to connect to my current point when I express my idea orally. It’s very hard to organize my idea well when speaking.

Since I have no experience of being a researcher, I want to know if those problems are likely to be a barrier to becoming a qualified researcher? How can I overcome these problems?

As @ff524 mentioned in comments, it's hard to give advice to you after only these few lines, for no reason more than that what you describe as holding you back might equally well be a sign that you share certain characteristics very common among academic researchers.

As to 2), you essentially say that you like digging into a problem until you have a solution that pleases you, while forgetting the world (exam) around you. That ability, or obsession, must be one of the most important for a researcher, whatever the source (it could point to some excessive OCDness). It currently probably leads to you having crack answer to a few exam questions, while none or marginal ones to others, and so might prevent you from ever being a researcher. All it seems to take though is to keep reminding yourself to not obsess: write an answer outline to all questions, and then allow yourself to drill deeper. It's essentially an inability to multi-task, and there is lots of advice online how to address that.

The difficulty to orally communicate you mention in 3) is extremely common among professors. Your ability to speak can be improved in rhetoric classes, but being a poor speaker is often linked to issues such as anxiety too, and so is tricky. Communicating clearly in writing though can be easily improved in self-study. Get yourself a copy of Strunck&White, skip the 4th chapter, and ignore those telling you it's outdated. Zinsser's On Writing Well is even more helpful. It was a real life-changer for me.

Your issue 1) is unclear for someone not knowing you in person as well. You understand slowly. Says who? By comparison to who? Does the person explaining things to you suffer from your issue 3) as well? You might just be too hard on yourself. I had few teachers who truly helped me understand what I had to learn better, so few that all these years later they and what they said stick out in my memory. In terms of comprehending from reading, you seem to say that to truly learn, you need to re-read your books. That isn't too uncommon either. Additionally, from what you say in 2) which might allude to some OCDness or similar, you might be too harsh on yourself in judging when you have "learned" something. To this day, when I read a math book I have to fight feeling that I didn't read it carefully enough if there is any proof in it I couldn't provide on the spot. That's counter-productive.

I hope some of what i wrote actually fits your situation, or at least helps you maybe view it in a different light.


Using a template and no publishing I would like to know if it is possible to "publish" in arXiv a preprint non-intended for publication with a journal template?

Example: make an article with AMS Article template (of JAMS) submitting it to arXiv and never submitting it to JAMS?

For all intents and purposes, I can see no way of distinguishing between a preprint that is not intended to be submitted and a preprint that just hasn't been submitted yet.  Thus, if a template is useful to you for formatting, by all means use it.

One caveat, however: some templates also include statements of copyright or material like a journal's logo that do not apply to a paper that has not yet been published.  Whether or not you intend to submit, I think it would be poor form to publish such things in a preprint to which they do not apply.


How do I acquire research experience for a PhD in Computer Science after I've started working in industry? Here is my background: I was a high school teacher that transitioned into data science about 4 years ago. I've been a data scientist and software engineer for the past 3-4 years and made a pretty good career out of it, and am now managing a small team of analysts, data scientists, and data engineers myself. However, I'm realizing I'd like to do research, specifically within computer science and natural language processing for the rest of my career. It's something I'm constantly drawn to and passionate about, and something I spend my weekends doing reading textbooks anyways, and I feel like I've hit my limits within industry. I'd like to actually contribute new algorithms and architectures, specifically within NLP (natural language processing).
Here is my problem: I don't have formal research experience- no published papers, no internships at research labs. My BA was in History over 10 years ago. I've done research projects for my work as a data scientist and deployed machine learning models into production as a result of different statistical tests I've performed, but I'm pretty sure the academic world does not consider this "real research". I do have a Masters in Computer Science from Syracuse (and graduated with the top GPA from the program) and an MBA from UCLA, and have many research papers I wrote for my classes, but were never submitted for publishing and have ended up as more or less repositories on my Github profile. Even though I was in the business school at UCLA, I've taken almost a minors-worth of graduate and senior-level coursework in CS, and done pretty well grade-wise. I also moonlight as an adjunct professor teaching a graduate level NLP and text analytics course at a top 25 university. But no research experience. I know I can do research, because I've never been so passionate about interested in this topic - and at worst, if I can't actually do it, I need to find out.
Here's what I need help with: I've seen lots of posts on different forums asking "is research required for a top X program, etc." This is not one of them. I know I have to pay my dues. I know people put in countless hours of sweat and toil in research labs to earn the privilege to be admitted to a PhD program. I'm not asking to cut the line because somehow I have some random industry experience. I've saved up enough money to quit my job (if I need to) and self fund myself for an internship or volunteer position at a research lab somewhere. I just don't know where to start - how does a 32 year old begin to acquire research experience? Do I just start picking professors from websites that have similar interests to mine and cold emailing them asking if they have volunteeer opportunities? Do I look for some sort of post-bac program? Do I try to find some research opportunities at work and document those projects really well?
Any perspectives or advice would be extremely appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Actually, you probably already have more "research experience" than many (most?) students entering a doctoral CS program in the US. I doubt that you need anything else. I'm also wondering if you have misconceptions about the purpose of doctoral education. This is where you get a "first" significant research experience and show the world that you can do that.
It isn't a place where you go to prove that you don't need to be there.
If you have an MS from a good place (yes, you do) then you have the necessary background and more to enter PhD studies in the US. Just make a few applications to some places that support the specific sorts of research you are interested in. Get accepted. Find an advisor. Discuss mutual research interests.
But, absent an advisor with "mutual research interests", the way to proceed as an independent would be to try to find some collaborative relationship with someone who (like an advisor) will work with you and already has some experience. You might be able to find some such person(s) through work contacts or visits to university departments, but it seems to me to be just spinning your wheels when it is admission to a program being what you really need.
Most US applicants to doctoral programs hold only a BS/BA and not many of them have significant research experience. And almost always that will have been guided by some professor.
Ignore your age. It isn't relevant. But make sure that you are able to spend three years (or so) with vastly reduced income.
But if you want it - Do It.


Considering leaving after three months I am a PhD student sponsored by a company and considering leaving after three months.
This is an opportunity offered by my supervisor because he has a good relationship with the company and the company started a meaningful project. Right after I graduated my master degree, my supervisor suggested the company to offer my a three month pre-PhD summer job that I could start the project earlier while waiting the start date of my PhD.
To be honest, I found myself under pressure during the three months summer job because I was assigned heavy workload and something I’m not familiar with. This is a tiny size company (less than 10 people), I would say it is very not organised too. The development team has only one full time employee but he’s also working like a part time on this project. Even the project manager is a part time employee. Thus, everything relied on me. I did consider not starting the PhD and just let go the “golden” opportunity.
I thought that I would be protected by the uni once I officially started my PhD. But I am afraid this is not correct. After I started, things even got worse, the company lost 2 managers in a very short period. As I am a full time PhD student working on the research part of the company’s project, I don’t think I’m supposed to be assigned operational work. I was happy to accept this kind of workload as I think the company is paying real money for sponsoring my PhD. They requested 40% of my work time, which means 2 work days to focus on the company work. They kept adding workload, sudden meetings and very tight deadlines, I was under great pressure and that ruined my schedule.
I have been keeping weekly reports and have reported issues to my academic supervisors. I am very surprised that I have raised the same issue three times within the first three months of my PhD. We have a big meeting every after I “complain”. The CEO (my industrial supervisor) of the company agreed he would change the situation, and promised that I have the right to say no to the non research related work. From my experience, he forgets what’s been agreed after two weeks and just keeps asking for 40% of my work time.
I had the third meeting regarding the same issue with them this afternoon. From my point of view, what the CEO said today was pretty much the same as the last 2 times. What I remember the most from the chat today is the CEO mentioned even the tight deadline could be changed when needed, we have to keep both internal and external communication running. However, this is a little bit different comparing to his actions. Last month, he didn’t even consider pushing back the deadline but requested me to finish the limited demo in 2 days, which put me under great pressure and ruined my schedule, I had no time to prepare the conference presentation. He told my supervisor things are flexible and not seeing me as a developer. But what I’m feeling is he treats me like a full time product developer, leave me no time for research, and nothing can be changed after he decided.
For my academic supervisor, he is 50% helpful in this case to be fair. He guides me how to exploit the company’s project to finish my PhD. He also listens to me carefully when I need help. However, it seems that he doesn’t want to touch the internal issues of the company, I feel like he has no such power to change the situation I’m facing.
Let me know what you guys think.
Cheers

I can't figure out what the formal relationship between you and this company is. Do you still have some contract with them, as well as with the University?
It seems to me that asking your advisor about the situation regarding say IPR or liability insurance may give you a lever you can use to get out of doing the company's work. E.g. "... requested me to finish the limited demo ..." so if that was done as part of a full-time PhD then is it you or the University that owns the code, and not the company at all?


Is there a limit to the number of rounds in a peer-review process? I was reading about what makes reasonable grounds for rejecting a paper and came across the following statement:

  ... two major revisions are not allowed.

Does it mean that only two rounds of review at the maximum are allowed? Is this always the case? I do remember recommending major revision twice, and indeed the editor stopped the review process and decided to accept the paper without the authors having to revise their paper the second time.

Long answer short- It depends on the editorial policy of the specific journal or the current editor.

In my field, 4 or more rounds of revisions is not completely unheard of. Despite people's frustration with such policy of unlimited number of revisions (Imagine being that person who got a rejection after 4 major revisions and the manuscript being under review for 3 years? --- this is not uncommon in the social sciences), some journals do retain such policy. The top 2 journals in sociology are notorious for this.

I currently serve on an editorial board of a reputable journal in the field (one of the top 5), where the current editor has changed the journal policy to not extend second R&Rs. In this journal, you only get once chance to revise, and the result of the revise can either be an outright accept, conditional accept (which will come back with very minor change suggestions-- for example, cite an overlooked source, change the title of the paper, rewrite the conclusion, etc), or reject. I think this is a positive step forward, especially since many editors in the field tend to be very nitpicky about minor/aesthetic issues.


How do some PhD students get 10+ papers? Is that what I need for landing good faculty position? I've been looking up some PhD students' websites, and there are people who somehow got 10~30+ total papers with 5~10+ first author papers. Many such students are in computer science, but there are a few in fields like bioinformatics. Some garnered 100+ citations before graduation.

How did they do this? This makes me uneasy about my chances for a tenure track position in the future. I just finished my 3rd PhD year at a decent US institution. My field is closely related to bioinformatics, and I am aiming for a tenure track position in a similar field. But if my top competitors are of such caliber (10+ papers 100+ citations), I'm guessing my chances are slim.

I think at least part of the answer lies in different cultures across fields. I did my PhD in computer science/artificial intelligence. There a huge focus is on conference papers which tend to be smaller contributions. Often incremental progress on a single project is reported in multiple conference papers and it was expected that a paper corresponds to several months worth of work. Frequently you would publish in a conference and then have an extended version appear in a journal. All in all, 5 first-author papers upon PhD was not exceptional. Also we had a lot of within-group collaboration so I got to e.g. run a few statistical routines on someone else's data, help write the manuscript and become a coauthor for about a week of work. I ended my PhD with 23 publications, 8 of which were first-author - this was above average in my group, but not exceptional.

Now I do bioinformatics and collaborate a lot with biologists. Their papers are usually longer and for any result you need a lot of tedious manual work in the lab. In turn, the papers represent years worth of work. Many people - even brilliant ones - end their PhD with 1-3 first-author publications. I've heard in some areas, publications are even harder to come by. In other words, the number of publications is not a very good proxy for brilliance, especially when you are ignoring quality and comparing across fields.

As for the 100+ citations - my best bet (since you mention bioinformatics) is that this is because the students co-authored some software/tool/protocol that ended up being useful => cited. (tool papers tend to be the most cited ones). This is obviously a success, but once again does not necessarily imply that failing to produce useful tools is a sign of non-brilliance.

Example: DeSeq2 software for comparing gene expression across samples has > 10 000 citations on Google scholar while the first detection of gravitational waves has just above 6 000 citations on Google Scholar.

Also me and some of my colleagus have landed reasonable jobs with roughly 0 citations (excluding self).


Is it a good practice to put the initial work and improved version (both published) in PhD thesis? Suppose for my PhD thesis, I solve problems like the following:

1) At the begining I solve one problem

2) Later, before any one improve the results, I myself improve it.

Suppose both of the papaers get published. Will it still be considered as two different problems in thesis or just a single one ? Should one avoid to do such practice and try to put the best results only in thesis.

PS: By improving I mean earlier I solve some problem under some stronger assumption and later I weaken it.

If you can connect the two methods as part of a broader narrative, then you can do so and maybe should. If the second approach entirely subsumes the first, and it doesn't benefit or motivate the discussion to show the original approach, then you can skip it. Sometimes the story is about telling a story, and sometimes it's just about the solution.


Am I being exploited by my supervisor? It has been 4.5 years since I joined as a PhD student.

My supervisor asks me to draft almost all of his important emails. He will begin by briefing me the issue, and ask me to draft the email in a document and sent to him. He would ask me to do this even when I am busy doing experiments. Many times I have to leave the experiment in the middle to draft his emails.
He has asked me to correct PhD thesis of three of my seniors. I was asked to correct the thesis for language and technical content. These assignments put me months behind my planned schedule. I guess correcting a thesis for one of the senior would have given me a learning opportunity on how to write a good thesis, editing, formatting, etc. Three theses are, in my opinion, too much. I don't know why he never assigns such works to other students in the research group.
One day he shared some experimental results of another PhD student (who is a junior to me) and asked me to perform statistical analysis on the results and draft a research manuscript. It took me days to complete the analysis and write the manuscript from the scratch. When it was finally ready for submission, I requested him to keep the author sequence as: my junior (first author), me (second author), supervisor (third author). On hearing this he became extremely furious (he keeps himself as the second author in all the research papers), and indirectly warned me that he won't be taking interest in supervising my research. Fearing that my work progress could go haywire, I apologized profusely and I had to literally 'beg' him to forgive me. I made the request for the author sequence because I have seen that professors usually keep the names of students earlier in the author sequence before their own.
I have been devoting 1.5 hours every weekday (Mon to Fri) to tutor his daughter in high-school Mathematics. That takes a precious amount of my time which I'd have instead spent on my research. I politely expressed that this work takes a lot of my time, but he still asked me to continue. I had no choice but to continue.

What I would like to ask here is am I being exploited/abused, or is this what  a PhD student is 'normally' expected to do? How is the PhD student and supervisor relationship ideally supposed to be? Since the PhD degree is extremely important for my career, I have been doing everything he has asked. But I don't really want to be a supervisor like him in the future when I will be supervising students working with me. Please share some advice.

Update: The region is South-East Asia.

Yes you are.

Point 4 is downright abuse of power. You are not in any way obliged to provide free tuition to your advisor’s child! If your institution has reasonable management, you reporting this would result in severe disciplinary action (I think I would have my tenure clock pushed and have something on my record for something like this). Even if you were paid to do it I’d feel weird about having my students tutoring my kids. Depending on where you are on the planet, not getting paid for tutoring is illegal. Your advisor would be in serious legal trouble if you are in, say, the US or Europe.

Drafting emails seems like an odd practice. It’s abusing power to some extent but if the emails are relevant to your work it might be construed as acceptable by some department heads. That said, you’re a student, not a personal assistant, seems like a waste of your time.

You should not be reading and correcting others' work with no credit, this is the advisor’s job. I would be upset if I were the one of the students who didn’t get their advisor’s feedback!

Being an ass about authorship is another bad sign, though in itself may not be too bad. Disagreements about authorship do occur, though the response you describe seems wildly disproportionate. Getting students to the point where they have to 'beg' for your forgiveness is never okay. His job as an advisor is to educate, teach and advise - you are not his pawn or slave.

Taken together, what you’re describing is a toxic and abusive relationship.

What you can do depends on where you are in the world and your department. Most reasonable universities have ombudspersons or student support centers whose job is to help people in your situation. If no such thing exists you can try to approach your department head or dean.

You need to have clear-cut evidence. Emails, records of your visits to tutor the advisor’s kids, written proof that you corrected the thesis of others (say, an email exchange, files sent to you with request for correction, or any other acknowledgement) etc.

I’m sorry you’re in this situation, hope you get things settled. The tone of your post does not make it sound like you are in severe emotional distress, but of course it's impossible to tell. Make sure you get emotional support through what is undoubtedly a rough experience. You do not deserve this, and you should not feel like this is normal.


24 years of personal research which needs to be academically recorded but how? I need some guidance, 24 years ago I started to research a specific topic which slowly developed into my collating related documented evidence that I accessed worldwide. Today, my research is finished and ALL the related historical documentation etc compiled. But now what? I am being told by those interested in my research and findings that I need to publically ensure such is available to others, but how. Unlike those that embarked on a PhD journey, my journey was one of a personal nature that ended up being Thesis style, any suggestions?

Options that come to mind:

Publish a monograph or a book. This requires either paying or somehow getting an academic publisher interested; depends heavily on what others think of your work.
Submit article(s) to a peer reviewed journal. This option will likely not work in practice if you have no ties with the academic world.
Produce the electronic version of the book, and offer it as a pdf in your own website.
Expose the research in blog form.


Can I get into an Australian PhD program in computer science without a masters degree, with a dual BSc degree? I am following a dual degree program in my home country (Sri Lanka). One degree, B.Sc in Computer Science will be awarded by an Australian University and the other degree which is a B.Sc (Hons) in Software Engineering will be awarded by my home country University.

Will I be able to get in to an Australian PhD program without doing Masters with these two degrees?

I am an Australian PhD student. Most of my fellow students do not have a Masters.

My university lists the requirements for a PhD here

Of particular note:

  1.1.4 To be eligible to apply for entry to a Doctoral program, an applicant must demonstrate the capacity to undertake research at the Doctoral level by the attainment of at least one of the following:

  (i) A Bachelor’s degree with at least Second Class, Division A (Honours) in a degree program that included a total of at least a semester of supervised project work, the results of which contributed to the Honours grade;

  (ii) A postgraduate qualification which included: (a) supervised research component(s) of at least one semester or equivalent and resulted in the production of output(s) graded at the equivalent of Distinction or better, and (b) at least one research methods subject;

  (iii) A Research Masters degree, where at least two thirds of the degree consisted of a supervised research component and resulted in the production of a thesis or equivalent;

  (iv) Enrolment at this or another Australian university in a higher degree by research for the equivalent of at least 0.5 EFTSL with demonstrated satisfactory performance in the supervised research component(s);

  (v) A combination of qualifications, research training and experience, considered equivalent to the above by the Responsible Academic Officer in the Enrolling Organisational Unit, e.g., senior authorship of at least one peer-reviewed publication plus completion of an appropriate research methods subject.

Most of the time people who get in appear to have either first class honours or some published research. I have seen domestic students with a lower GPA work with a supervisor to publish some research in order to be accepted into the PhD.


Following up with professor after PhD rejection I met briefly with a professor last year and showed him a poster of my work which was not good at that time (It was some sort of a presentation in which we show our work and research). Then I decided to apply for a PhD so I emailed him and he told me to apply. I knew that he will be coming to the same presentation this year so I emailed him again saying that might be an opportunity to talk in person. He never returned my email. That was two months ago. Ten days ago I was rejected from that university (I guess he made the decision). Yesterday, I presented my work in front of the whole audience which was much better than the one I presented last year (Even though I was rejected, I tried to impress him). I didn't talk to him directly then. Just now he viewed my profile on linkedin (Which he did multiple times previously awhile back).

Does it make sense to follow up now? At to least know why I was rejected and why the sudden interest just after my presentation? I know it is very difficult, but would it even be possible to flip the rejection into admission now if he decided to?

I know being rejected is extremely disappointing but be careful to not read too much into the situation. It is quite possible that this person does not remember that you applied to the program, did not review your application at all (even though you requested them as a supervisor), or wanted to admit you but could not because of funding limitations or departmental politics.

Keep in mind that the fact that you know that this one person has viewed your LinkedIn profile is, honestly, a little creepy. The fact that you are reading so much into the "sudden interest" that comes from visiting the website of a person you see presenting seems to be a little obsessive. It is totally normal to search for more information about people one sees presenting work.

If you are honestly interested in knowing how you can improve your graduate applications in future years, and if you think that you might learn things that you will actually be able to improve your application, emailing might be helpful. That said, if s/he doesn't get back to you, keep in mind that it might just be because s/he is busy or flaky and responding to the students one has not admitted is often a relatively low priority item on a very long list of more urgent things.


How do conferences / journals select reviewers? When you submit a paper / manuscript to a peer-reviewed venue, the organizers usually forward your work to 2-3 other "experts in your field" to assess your work.

I'm curious how this process of selection works, i.e. how is this pool of reviewers put together? and how are the best people from this pool chosen once there is a paper to review?

Is there an official list that each venue maintains and to which people can sign on if they want to be reviewers? (If so, I've never seen any "calls for reviewers" so how do they get people?)

Do organizers cold-call people/professors and ask them if they were willing to review a paper? If so, how are these people selected? [I realize that this might differ considerably, so I'm happy with anecdotal evidence, too]

In the journals I help edit (all in the medical fields), there are five ways we find reviewers for our manuscripts:

They have published with us before
They were nominated by the authors, editors, other reviewers or peers, or members of our editorial board
Our associate editors approached them through a scan of authors of papers on the same topic
They have volunteered to be placed on our list of reviewers
They work for us as consultants and are paid on a per-review basis (this is mostly relevant when we need specialist expertise such as in statistics or economics)

Once you are found, you are placed on a pool from which we can make selections on the basis of affiliation, expertise, seniority, etc.

As you can imagine, this is a rather valuable resource. We guard this list jealously and do not share this with other journals.

In my experience the response rate is typically 33%. That is, if we require five reviews, we will invite fifteen people. Thus, the pool needs to be deep in order to receive the requisite number of reviews for our purposes.


Is there a place to review journals or conferences? There are plenty of journals and conferences in my research area. And there are things we could look up in advance, like impact factor, journal rank and so on.

But I would like to find a place where I could put my personal experience with the journal (or conference).

For instance, in Amazon the customers can review and criticize the books they read. In my country there is a site where you can complaint about any company that failed to satisfy the customer (a flight company, a magazine, a bank, etc).

One could argue that this would be unfair to the people that invest their time as editors or reviewers, but in my opinion it is a two-way relationship. Things like waiting one year without an answer from editors, poor review or evasive answers, is a disrespect to a research group who invests a lot of time as well.

So, is there a place where one could respectfully give a review and share their experience with a journal or conference?

There are a few sites that do this:

SciRev
Journalysis.
HelpMePublish.

Of these, I think SciRev is the most active, but I'm not certain about this. That said, in my experience, the actual rating information on these is not of much value. Uptake is pretty slow, and most of the reviews I've seem to just very high marks indiscriminately. As a result, you can't infer too much from the tiny sample sizes available. The information about time to result, review quality, etc. might be useful in principle, but in practice again you've got tiny sample sizes and probably a selection bias as well in terms of who submits reviews -- though I don't know which way this selection bias would go.

Nature wrote a news piece (not paywalled) about these sites in early 2015.


I reported cheating in an online exam and now I am scared the professor is going to blame me I took an exam online and immediately after the exam typed in the programming question on google to see if there is an answer out there so I have an idea if I did well on the exam. I found on Chegg that people were taking pictures of their computer screen with the exam questions and I reported it to the professor.

Now I really regret doing that because I am 100% sure the professor will look at my protected exam video and try to blame me for cheating as well.

Can I be blamed for cheating on an exam without a proof, and if I didn't do anything wrong? the reason why I think the professor will watch the video is because I sent him an email telling him that there were some background noises from outside of the room during the exam, in case the screen protecting software detects the sounds and flags my exam, it happened to me before in another course and the professor said that only if the exam is flagged will she watch the video but this professor said he will watch the video and let me know if he has any questions.
 what are the chances of something like that happening, and if I am accused with cheating, how will I be even able to prove I didn't?

I don't understand your exam situation as you describe it, but that's not really an issue.

Yes, if that professor has had an academic dishonesty issue with you, it is a reality that the professor may choose to look at your work more rigorously than otherwise.  Your performance is what generates the way people think about you.  Even so, the plagiarism you describe doesn't really suggest that you would cheat on an exam.  I have, in the context of academic honesty hearings that I've served on, seen students have two findings against them in the same semester by the same prof.

If your academic dishonesty incident was in another class with another professor, your current professor would, by policy, not be aware of the incident unless directly told by the other professor, and that is really frowned upon in many places.  If this is the case, there would be no reason to focus extra attention on your work.

I don't understand your situation about the video, even a little bit.  If you sealed your exam prior to opening the browser to search for the question, you should be OK, unless somehow there is real evidence of cheating on your exam or on the video.

All that said, you can't see what's on Chegg without a Chegg account.  With a finding of academic dishonesty against you, I strongly recommend deleting your Chegg account, and never log on to it again, either with your account or a "borrowed" account.  You have a finding against you.  A second finding will yield real penalties, and a third might lead to a permanent separation.  You would be amazed by how often I hear the word "Chegg" at academic honesty hearings.


Talking about other projects in a job talk I have seen plenty of job talks, but whenever the speaker talks about a list of topics that they are "not going to talk about today", I often get distracted and even a little bit annoyed. It dilutes the main talk contents, and I hardly ever remember what those items were. I understand that they want to show their breath, but it usually doesn't convey very well. Now that I am in that position, I am wondering if there is a good way to deliver the message.

What would be a good approach to briefly mentioning other projects that you are excited about?

Should I talk about them at the beginning or at the end? Is it a good idea to put all of the other projects under a single theme and not talk about the details at all, or should I try to explain each project's objective and approach? Should I talk about only a couple of projects or is 4 a better number?

The answer you need depends very much on how closely related your collection of interests are. What I did for my job talks was the following. I chose one of my topics that I knew would provide lots of pointers to my other ones. This way I did not just give a laundry list of "things I do" but rather at a nice point in the talk I could say something like "this raises two questions, the one I am going to talk about today is the first but I am happy to go into the second one privately later." The idea here was the other project came up when it made sense, indicated breadth (at least for my collection of topics), and did not feel overbearing.

You mileage may vary but remember that you can choose which topic to give your job talk on and choosing the one that will give you the most connections to the others is as good a tactic as any.


Is it acceptable to apply to a masters program based on your weakness, rather than you strength? As an undergrad, I took a wide variety of courses, but focused on one or two fields and took advanced courses only in those, and those fields are my strengths. I intend to do a PhD, but now I'm applying for Master's programs, and I actually want to focus on the fields that I received little to none education in my undergrad on, and the subjects that I wasn't very good at. What I want to do for my PhD is more directly related to the subjects I'm stronger at, but a knowledge in those I'm not very strong in would be significantly useful too.

To me, that sounds totally acceptable, since I want to fill in the gaps and learn something new, rather than repeating what I already have a good knowledge on and possibly going a little deeper in it, especially as I took quite a few graduate-level courses in the fields I focused on.

I am wondering if that's acceptable and sounds reasonable to admission committee and graduate schools too. Given that they probably have applicants who are actually applying for what they have a strong background in, would it make sense for me to compete with them with this justification that I want to improve the weaknesses in my background by throwing myself at those fields and "learn to love them", or should I just apply for what I'm stronger in and try to improve my knowledge in other fields through self studying?

(Please note that by "field", I'm actually referring to subfields within a major field. So it's not that I've done Management and I want to study Dance Performance, it's more like PDEs vs Algebra, which would mean applying to Applied Math vs Pure Math.)

Your reasoning is excellent and I would suggest you stick with this approach: All educational programs exist to increase the knowledge and skills of the student, which presupposes weakness relative to the outcome of the program.  Remember that you need to convince the admissions committee that your undergraduate record is strong enough to justify admission to the Masters program, but at the same time, it is your intention to focus on up-skilling in your areas of weakness, with a view to becoming sufficiently competent for entry to a PhD program at a later time.  There is no contradiction in these two things - your existing set of skills from your undergraduate program might legitimately be considered to be strong enough for entry to the Masters program, but weak in comparison to how you will come out (this being the entire  point of education).

In terms of assessing postgraduate applicants, this is generally the kind of student I would prefer --- one who is able to look at his/her existing skills in a realistic way, identify weaknesses, set goals for improvement, and be proactive in plugging those weaknesses to achieve goals.  Would that there were more students like this!


Is it ok to use Github code by having explicit permission from author for Thesis but without license mentioned on the repository? I am writing my Master Thesis. I used code from GitHub for my application and did modifications and extended its functionality to adjust my requirements. I am also citing the code in my own code and text.
My question is that the Github repository doesn't mention any license, which means that the copyright law applies by default. However, i know the author and have their explicit permission to use the code.
What are my options here?. Should i ask the author to upload the license or is it not necessary since i have their permission?.

There are both legal and academic aspects to this. The the single most operative question here being "permission to do what?":

If your thesis quotes significant portions of the original code then you need permission to reproduce it (very small portions are likely to be covered by whatever fair use/fair dealing defence the relevant jurisdictions allow).
If you are distributing the code online (e.g. by creating a public GitHub fork with your modifications in it) then you also need permission to distribute it.
If you are expecting your changes to be used and modified by others (which is generally thought of as a good thing for both knowledge and reproducible code), then you probably want to release it to them under a specific licence yourself, for which you will again want the permission of the original author.

All together, if you are literally only citing the code (e.g. "Plots were created with a modified version of Library X [https://github.com/foo/libraryX] under special licence from the author." ), then you don't need to do anything more. If you want your work to be useful to others in the future, then you should encourage the author to pick a licence and update their repository, then do the same with your version.


What would be a fair and deterring disciplinary sanction for a student who committed plagiarism? As a program director for a Masters degree in a business school, I am curious to know about higher education policies regarding disciplinary sanctions for plagiarism. This is for both official rules and in actual cases.
I am most interested in the cases where the characterization of plagiarism is not a black and white situation (as is often the case), but the stakes are not minor. To imagine an abstract case: plagiarism committed on a part of a final dissertation. How can disciplinary sanctions scale, before going all out with suspending or expelling the student, while remaining deterring?

If you wait until the very end of the program when a student submits a thesis to check for plagiarism, then you've set up a situation where a student can cheat through the program and then gets caught at the very end.
An alternative approach would be:

Teach students about plagiarism and other academic honesty issues early in the program.  Give them fair warning that plagiarism can result in their being expelled from the program.

Include assessments of students writing throughout the program and check this writing for plagiarism.  If you catch a student committing plagiarism on one of these assignments, give them a strong warning and perhaps penalize their grade.

Require students to submit draft versions of their theses for evaluation and feedback from the supervisor. Check for plagiarism starting with the first draft.

Some central office should keep track of incidents of cheating so that penalties can be increased for repeat offenders.  This is particularly important because otherwise a student might cheat in classes with different instructors and receive warnings from each of them.

The basic idea here is that the consequences for misbehavior should be explained in advance and punishments should escalate with each new offense.  If a student has been warned and suffered a grade penalty on the first offense, then failed a course and had to retake it on a second offense, then it should come as no surprise that they are expelled from the program for a third offense.
Since the potential consequences are quite severe, it's also important to offer students a reasonable opportunity to appeal their punishment for cheating.  There might be a committee charged with considering student appeals.
My institution and many others in the US have systems like the one that I've described above.  In my experience, many students who receive a strong warning on a first offense take that warning to heart and have no further problems.  Other students become chronic offenders and suffer the full consequences.


How do I judge a conference's trustworthiness? I asked a question here How are travel expenses paid by conferences? , and the answer mentioned that it depends on how well I trust a conference (to pay back expenses).

That raises a new issue - how do I judge a conference's reputation (not in its field but in financial matters). Is there some objective way to judge that?

Financial reliability is going to be related to scientific validity. Definitely agree with JonCuster's comment that long-standing conferences (e.g., annually recurring events with a history of substantive organizers and programs) are more trustworthy. Some new conferences are hard to evaluate; this will depend more on who exactly is organizing and whether your network trusts them. Otherwise, this general list could help.

https://libguides.ucd.ie/publishing/predatory

  The conference has an overly ambitious title
  The technical programme is broad. Very broad.
  The language on the conference website is…off
  Renowned organisations are sponsoring a low-profile conference
  The organisers’ contact details are missing, or aren’t quite right
  Another conference with a suspiciously similar name already exists
  The conference or its organisers have known associates
  The organisers are charging higher-than-normal fees
  The conference is unusually frequent

Caltech Library’s list of predatory conferences:

  https://libguides.caltech.edu/c.php?g=512665&p=3503029


My supervisor ghosted me I am a STEM master's student in a University in Europe. I am going to graduate next month and I need to settle the date of my defence and other bureaucratic matters with my second advisor. He had no role in my master's thesis project but has to be part of the committee on the day of my thesis defence.
The problem is: I have been trying to contact him for almost three weeks with no success. He ghosted me.
The question is: Should I try to contact the head of the department and report his behaviour (in order to get him answering)? Or should I forget about that and look for a different second advisor?
You should consider that: he has not answered any of my emails in the last weeks. The emails were 2-3 lines long. The academic staff working with him suggested me to call him on the phone in some particular days/hours in which he was there. I did it and he did not answer. I cannot go in person to the university since the access is restricted due to the Covid pandemic (and anyway the professor goes there rarely in this period as far as I have been told).
Also, I have been told that this professor behaved similarly with many other students, but usually they managed to "spontaneously" come across him at university (there was no pandemic at the time). Therefore, I am not really sure if contacting the head of department would ever change anything. On the other hand, looking for a different advisor might be as challenging as contacting this guy, since we are close to my graduation date and there are not many professors at my university who work in the field of my master's thesis.

If the professor has a personal administrative assistant, try contacting them and even try scheduling the defense or other meetings through them. I have known professors who rarely respond, but their personal administrative assistants are very responsive and can schedule meetings or otherwise remind them of student deadlines.
If not, try contacting the general administrative staff of the department. The professor might be more likely to listen or pay attention to an email from someone they are familiar with.
Either way, don't be accusatory and try to report bad behavior. Simply say that you are trying to get in contact with this professor and have been unable to reach them through email or phone, that you need to schedule a defense, and ask for their help. They will probably forward your email to the professor; keep contacting the administrative staff every few days if you don't get a response from the professor.


Is it inappropriate to ask a professor for multiple letters of recommendation (at different times)? I'm applying for an Honors program within my college during my undergraduate degree, and need a letter of recommendation from a professor in my specific field. However, because there are few professors in this field who have taught my classes, I'd need to ask someone who already provided me with a letter last year (for an award, which I won, if that makes a difference).

I know the question of "how many recommendation letters" was answered here, but I'm referring to letters requested at different times, far apart. Will this individual, if they remember me, likely be annoyed that I returned to them? Do professors save these things (perhaps they could recycle the same letter)?

It is not a problem in principle to ask for letters of recommendation at different periods of time. However, one should certainly make an effort to keep the recommender aware of career developments since the letter was originally written. (However, the relevant time scale over which old letters of recommendation become "outdated" is much longer than one year!)

For the most part, in the digital age, we keep letters of recommendation "on file" and recycle and refresh the content as warranted, so it's not a herculean effort to write a "new" letter after a while.


Resarch Paper on Conceptual Design of a Physical System Is a paper acceptable if it is based on a concept design of a physical system backed by some mathematical models and simulations? No practical development and experimentation is present.
In other words, "Is an argument based on just mathematical models and matlab simulations acceptable as a research article?"
If YES, then would it be worthy of an impact factor journal or just a low level conference?

I do not think there is a yes/no answer to your question, at least not without someone from your field to review your contribution. After some time in academia, you will begin to get a sense of what is publishable and what is not. As a new student (I assumed you are), this is the role of your supervisor.
While it is not the same question, the following question shares almost the same concern as yours. You might find it helpful.

How can I efficiently check the originality of my work?


Cite confidential source i'm currently using several construction drawings to extract a note on how a certain design is usually done in the industry. I'm neither allowed to name the specific product nor the company. I guess I can't assume that the extracted information are common knowledge, so a source or a footnote would be required.

How do you typically handle this?

You can probably say something like: "A popular CAD* program treats the problem as follows...". Then use the footnote to explain that the program won't or can't be named for legal or other reasons.

In other words, give a generic description but say that it is a specific example meeting that description. Don't give the impression that all do, unless you have evidence of it.


What does "abstract aspects" of a subject mean? For example, political theory deals with the abstract aspects of politics, and similarly, there is theoretical (abstract) physics. Why are they called abstract or theoretical? Is something that we study not supposed to be a reflection or a representation of the real or of what happens in practice?

Ok, let me try to clarify the difference. As an English writer, I hope it helps. But you could also translate the terms into your own language and seek sources for those terms.
In theoretical work we form a hypothesis about something unknown (or only partly known) and then seek evidence as to whether the hypothesis is true or not. The subject of the "theory" might not even exist. In theoretical work you are exploring the unknown. You are attempting to add "detail" from the real world - evidence to support the hypothesis or not.
Abstraction, on the other hand, is a process of removing details from a complex topic to try to come to the essence of some question. For example, democracy is an abstract concept that exists in the world in many forms, some of them very messy. The abstract concept of democracy removes much of the detail to arrive at some core "essence" or abstraction of the idea. So, the US and the UK are both democracies, but have a very different governmental structure. But, there is not really such a thing as a "pure democracy" conforming to the idea without any of those messy details. Abstraction lets us work with very complex systems in a simpler form.
Language, actually, is a form of abstraction. Many of the things we speak of would be impossibly difficult to discuss without the simplification of removing details thought to be unnecessary to the essence. If you want to discuss me for example, then, for most purposes, you don't need to know my height or hair color. The me you discuss is an abstraction.
It would be possible to work in the political arena in a theoretical manner. One could devise a theory of government not represented in the world and then seek evidence as to what the effect would be. Science Fiction does a lot of that sort of thing.
On the other hand, one can do physics as a form of abstraction, looking at what exists in the world and trying to "abstract" what is making it behave like it does. The orbiting of the Earth around the Sun was explored in this way. See Heliocentrism. At the time of those explorations, there was a Theory that the Earth was the universe (or, more properly, a religious dogma). But in the end, that theory proved to have little evidence.
Note that the "elliptical" path of the Earth around the Sun is itself an abstraction. The Earth is deflected slightly from the ideal elliptical path due to various forces, such as passing asteroids.
And, sometimes a field has to go back and forth between theory and abstraction, when a theory needs to be revised due to contrary evidence, leading the practitioners to try to devise new abstractions that might be better representations other aspects of the data not originally considered.
So, you can't say that it is all abstraction or all theory. You need to consider the process by which researchers in a field actually work.
Finally, theory, itself, is an abstraction.


Writing style when discussing other people's research in discussion/introduction I was editing a friend's manuscript and I noticed that they do something similar to what I have been told not to do when referring to previous work done in the field of interest being discussed. I would often refer to the citation i.e. the study and then go on to say what they found in the study For example, I would sometimes say:

Smith et al. (2020) modeled how the life history of species x was affected by environmental pressure, they concluded that increased pressure would also lead to earlier maturation.

I have been told by different advisors that this is considered "bad writing", in that it is generally preferred to refer to the work at the end of a sentence as opposed to the beginning. However, no-one has explained why this is the case. I passed this information onto my friend as well, but I am curious as to why?
An example of how my advisors edited the above sentence:

Modelling of the life history of species x showed that increased environmental pressure would also lead to earlier maturation (Smith et al. 2020)

I understand that technically the edited version sounds better, my question is why specifically it is considered bad form to mention your citation/reference at the beginning of the sentence?

Neither alternative is good or bad.
I would put the citation first if the author or the history is important:

Darwin [On the Origin of Species, 1859] argued that natural selection ...

but the citation last if you just want to tell your reader where they can look to check your facts:

Darwin's finches continue to evolve [J. Wiener, The Beak of the Finch,
1995 (reprint)].

So it's a case by case choice. In this case I think your advisor is right.


What is a authentic source of civil engineering BS graduation rate in united states in the last few year? What is a authentic source from multi-institutional study of just civil engineering BS six years(preferable six year year, but otherwise it is okay) graduation rate in united states four year college and the research is conducted in one of the year in last five years?

If not, does somebody have access to this paper and snapshot a quarter of page from that paper for evidence?

http://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/(ASCE)EI.1943-5541.0000244

Check out the American Society of Engineering Education's "Engineering by the Numbers" publications here: http://www.asee.org/papers-and-publications/publications/college-profiles

There are samples available online, but the full reports do have a cost.


Is education in Europe really this cheap? Is tuition in Europe really US$300 or €200 a year? That is one tenth the cost of the tuition in the developing country university where I took my bachelor's and master's.

Is it really true that some developed country universities charge that much to non-scholars? Why? I heard of universities like that, but everyone who goes to such university is considered a scholar of his/her state due to such universities being heavily funded. Is that the case? Does Europe invest a lot in education, or something?

I find it very hard to believe. How do people get paid? The school has to consider food, maintenance, utilities, salaries of janitors, funding researchers and professors, etc.

Yes European higher education can be fairly cheap for the students, especially in those countries where universities are mainly public, and hence are largely funded by their respective governments. This means that they do not need to charge high fees to their students to cover for costs. Nevertheless their campuses offer all the facilities their students need, in terms of libraries, food canteens, lecture rooms, laboratories, etc..

Let's take France as an example. The French Ministry of Education defines, for each academic year, the fees to be applied by all public universities across the country. Here are the fees for 2015 (in French). Just to quote a few numbers (all fees are for one academic year):

Bachelor's: 184€ | 122€ (reduced fee for low-income students)
Master's: 256€ | 168€ (reduced fee for low-income students)
5-year Engineering Diploma: 610€
PhD: 391€ | 260€ (reduced fee for low-income students)


What must an international graduate student do before arriving in the US? I am an international student, and I am going to be doing an MS in Structure and Materials in Aeronautics at MIT. Before I arrive, what do I have to do?

Some key things that any international student will typically need to do before arriving in the USA:

Obtain a student visa.  Your institution will be able to support you, but you are likely to need to lead the process yourself, including going to a US consulate in your country.  This can take a long time, so it is important to start many months in advance.
Make sure you have any required vaccinations and health certificates (I'm not sure whether this is part of the visa, or separate; your institution and the US consulate can advise)
Find housing.  Some universities will help with this, many do not.  For example, MIT is notoriously bad about this, and the Boston rental market is insane.
Ensure that you will have health insurance.  The US (still) does not have a national health system.  Your institution will likely provide insurance, and may assist you in enrolling, but not all institutions will.
Ensure that you will have access to money from your bank accounts, if needed.  This can sometimes be a difficulty, and many things in the US are much more difficult to do without a working credit or debit card.
Ensure that you will have a working cell phone.  The US does not use the same standards as most other countries, though this is slowly changing.  Just changing to a local SIM card may or may not work.

Caveat: I might be missing some things from this list...

Regarding scholarships: the USA does not have any organized system of scholarship exams.  In many cases, however, graduate programs in STEM fields ensure financial support for their students through TAships or RAships.  Any reputable Ph.D. program will do this, but Masters programs are much more mixed. Check with your particular program to find out what they advise.


Putting off PhD for a (potentially) better experience I'm a software engineer for a CS lab for a top-20 school. I have a masters in CS (no thesis) from a top-tier university, a few secondary authorships and fairly decent experience working on research projects. I'm in a position where I either enroll in a PhD program at the school I currently work at or waiting a few years until my next chance to try to find a lab that is a better fit.

My wife is a medical student and in 3 years, she will be assigned a residency somewhere. While we are able to narrow down our choices to a handful of cities, there is no guarantee which one we will end up at. The PI for the lab I work in is aware of this, but has offered to let me do a PhD with him anyways.

Pros:

He is fairly confident I will be able to finish in a few years and is comfortable with me doing my last year remotely (allowing me to move with my wife when she begins her residency).
I like my PI and he treats the lab well
I would have a significant background in the research field having worked in the lab for a couple years by the time I start my PhD.

Cons

I feel my academic interests have little overlap with many others in the lab. I like looking for, analyzing, and writing code for novel algorithms as well as really thinking about how to go about creating software, I love to code and to explore the languages I use. Most of the lab's interest is more geared towards using, combining and writing scripts for data analysis tools, interpretation, pipelining etc. I could certainly stand to learn a lot from them, but I am just not as interested in that as I am in theory and software.
The lab is very young (not sure if pro or con). In the start of Fall 2020, the oldest lab members will be the 2 students in their third year.
I fear that a rushed and partially-remote PhD will be a lower quality PhD.

I look at other labs, primarily those that are in the top of their field, and can't help but to be jealous of them. Just by looking at the publications, code and CVs of the grad students, my interests and abilities seem to fit in much better. I want to be in a lab where I can bounce software and algorithmic ideas off of the majority of the lab and get feedback and help on both research and software questions.

The question boils down to whether or not I should stay at my current university and do a relatively fast PhD with more perks/freedom or wait a few years and do a PhD in a lab that better fits my interests (and is potentially higher-tier as well). Obviously, there are risks associated with waiting. I may not get rehired at my current job and be forced to work in the industry for a couple years (I'm on a yearly grant, and I know money will be tight next year) or I may not be accepted to a school where my wife is matched for residency.

I have debated reaching out to labs I'm interested in and asking them this question directly, however I worry it may seem like I'm going behind my PIs back or using him as a backup option. Would this be an inappropriate thing to do?

While I know this is a very opinionated question, I would like input on potential pros/cons that I am missing, other options, or perhaps even weighing in on what you think the right decision would be. If this post doesn't belong here, please forward me to a forum/site that is more appropriate.

It seems like you've laid out the pros and cons pretty well; only you can weigh them. But here is my analysis:

  I feel my academic interests have little overlap with many others in the lab.

In my mind, this is the only valid con. It is difficult to do good work if you are not really interested in the project and don't share your advisor's goals.

  The lab is very young (not sure if pro or con). In the start of Fall 2020, the oldest lab members will be the 2 students in their third year.

I see no real problem with this, given your positive comments about the PI.

  I fear that a rushed and partially-remote PhD will be a lower quality PhD.

By the last year(s) of your PhD, working remotely should not be a problem. 3-4 years in CS does not seem rushed if you already have a master's.

  I would like input on potential pros/cons that I am missing, other options, or perhaps even weighing in on what you think the right decision would be.

I think a missing pro is that you start right away. First, you don't know what the future holds; as they say, "A done PhD is better than a perfect PhD." And second, even if you had a guaranteed perfect PhD starting in three years, this means that you are delaying your professional life by three years. That's a long time -- only you can decide if it's worth it.


Why is my mood dictated so much by how well my research is going? I'm a senior PhD student at an American university. I have found over the course of my degree that my mood has largely been influenced by how well my research is going. If I make a small break-through then I feel great - conversely, if I am struggling or have gotten stuck on something then it completely takes over me and my mood declines. I know that this isn't healthy and it isn't really fair to the people who care about me.

Does anyone else experience this? How can I make moves to lessen the impact of my research results on the quality of my life?

Does anyone else experience this?

Yes, I'm pretty sure we all do to some extent, and that it's one of the defining characteristics of being a researcher that you get so emotionally involved in your work and are so passionate about it that it has that effect. It can be both a curse and a blessing (see the fantastic question linked to by jakebeal in the comments). Hopefully if you are talented and work hard, it will be the latter more often than the former.

As for how to manage it:

get used to it (I mean that literally, not as a sarcastic admonition) - if you plan a career in academia there will always be ups and downs of this sort. At some point one learns to be patient and not to freak out every time the research isn't going great.
Always have other more "normal" work to do, like teaching, that can help you feel like you're doing something worthwhile even during those times when you're stumped with your research.


What does it mean to write a "glowing" letter of recommendation? I'm soon going to apply for admission into a masters program and I will be getting LORs from my place of employment.

I often hear the phrase glowing letter of recommendation. What does it mean for a LOR to "glow" and what are the components/features of glowing LOR?

If its possible, can you please share some samples/slices of a glowing LOR?

A "glowing" letter is one that praises the candidate in the highest terms on several criteria: "One of the three best .... I've ever worked with...". The letter will detail both past performance and make positive predictions about the future.

However, it is possible for such a letter to overdo the praise and then be discounted by the reader as shallow.

What you want a letter on your behalf to say is that you are knowledgeable and that you work hard and that you have a lot of ideas and potential. A glowing letter will reinforce those ideas with examples and/or comparisons. In some fields, positive statements about teamwork can also be important. In others, being seen as self-directed is more important.

But it also needs to be realistic. "Candidate calms hurricanes and has the compassion of a saint" is probably too much to believe.


Appropriate way to discuss genetic conditions in a large lecture? I want to cover the topic of achondroplasia, the most common form of dwarfism, in a large introductory biology lecture. How can I discuss it in an appropriately sensitive way, one that respects people who have the condition or are close to people with the condition? I'm used to lecturing about sensitive but biologically relevant topics like race, incest, and "extra-pair copulation" [mating outside of a socially monogamous pair, which would be adultery in a human context], but these are topics that are applicable to a broad audience. In this case I'm more worried about offending or annoying particular individuals. (I may be feeling particularly sensitive about this because I've had a little person in a couple of my other classes in the last few terms.)

the talk page for the Wikipedia article mentions that what to call achondroplasia ["a medical condition, disorder, disease, disability, or none of the above"] is controversial; "condition" feels most neutral to me.
the online FAQ for the Little People of America doesn't say much more than

  Such terms as dwarf, little person, LP, and person of short stature are all acceptable, but most people would rather be referred to by their name than by a label.

(this is in a section explaining that "midget" is considered offensive).

For what it's worth, I'm going to be discussing the rate of mutation in the gene responsible for the condition; the strength of natural selection against the condition; and how we can calculate the expected frequency of the condition in the population from this information. This does raise some potentially problematic topics (such as the lower probability of survival and reproduction). In the past when I've covered this topic, I have mentioned Peter Dinklage, a little person who has been both professionally (Emmy-award-winning) and reproductively (he has a child) successful.

The reason it's worth discussing achondroplasia in class is that it's a surprising example of a deleterious, autosomal dominant genetic condition that's maintained by pure mutation-selection balance (i.e., we don't know of any counterbalancing selective advantages that would have caused it to stay in the population).

Any suggestions?

Poking around the LPA website, I found a list of discussion groups. I think that making a post there would be an excellent way to get feedback from people with the condition and get questions about terminology, etc. answered. The best way to design sensitive education is with the input of the people who it affects. I would also recommend calling LPA and asking them if they have any reference materials that they would encourage you to read.

This essay about where to draw the line when it comes to eugenics, written by a little person, might be a good thing to read before talking about that topic.

This profile of a late Harvard Law professor who was a little person might be another good person to talk about as an example of someone who has led a successful life. However, you should be careful with the tone of stuff like that. You don’t want to present it as “look! Some little people can manage to lead regular people lives!”


How to tell an over-confident student they still have a lot to learn? In one of my classes, I had a student who generally understood stuff faster than the others. In tutorials, he would ask a lot of questions, mostly of the kind

  "I tried this method instead of what you suggested, is it correct?"

Now, this probably sounds like the dream student, but I quickly realized that he was not really after my input, but rather seeking acknowledgement of his superiority (possibly showing off before his friends).

The exchange would often go like this. If what he suggested was correct, fine, I would say "great!" and move on. But quite often there would be flaws in his argument, which I would naturally point out. He would always assume that I misunderstood him and when I was (finally) able to show him that his argument did not stand, he would say something like

  "Oh yeah, that's what I meant to say, but I phrased it wrong"

Note that this was an math class, so "phrasing it wrong" really means "failing to prove". When he asked a genuine question and I started providing an explanation, he would cut me off halfway through with something like

  "Right, I get it, it's because this and that"

and convincing him there was actually more to it was yet another struggle.

I am concerned because I really feel he could be an amazing student if he would only accept that he does not know everything beforehand and therefore sometimes makes mistakes. Also, it seems like my time could be better used than in convincing a student that I'm worth listening to.

How can one explain this to such a student without humiliating him? Simple reasoning and proof by example (you'd think after the tenth time I pointed out his mistakes he would have learnt that he sometimes does them!) apparently just bounces off of him.

I would suggest against [a deleted answer telling to put a lot of weight on simplest textbook examples] (I consider "ha! you missed the example from chapter 2" to be highly unpedagogical, as it is "appeal to authority" and "you should read and remember rather than think").

I think two things may help:

give him problems and require written solutions (it is harder to boast, or mask omissions, when one writes), solved "down to the last $\epsilon$", as you "want to see the proof, not just be convinced that he can prove it",
give more advanced problems (still, which are within his reach), for which answer cannot be hand-waved (e.g. "what is sum of", "give an example of set, such that...") OR don't tell the answer in advance (so instead of "prove X given Y" ask "decide whether X holds for all Y").

In both cases, I would tell him (in person) that he is very smart, and you give him more advanced problems because of that. (And that he still needs to learn to be precise enough for mathematics.)

Maybe he does want to show you that he is smart, and as you do not acknowledge it he, well, tries again.

In any case, I would not undermine his skills. In mathematics & theoretical physics I know a lot of people who underestimate their skills, but not many who overestimate for a longer time (such subject makes one humble, sooner or later).


Is it necessary to have big paper during PhD? I have a present PhD fellow from another research group who gets pressured by his PI to produce a "big paper" before he could graduate. He has already data and paper ready for publication but his PI continues to add more work and scope to make it "big".  Is it really necessary to produce big work at this level? What is the cons and pros of publishing big and small paper?

In every place that I know of, and likewise in every field that I know of, you have to please your advisor in order to complete your degree. I don't know of any situation in which it can be done otherwise short of litigation.

In some places the advisor signs the dissertation. In some s/he signs a form indicating the candidate has successfully completed the degree. There can be variations, such as assigning a grade.

So, the answer to the question here can be yes or no, but that depends on the individual advisor, so in the case at hand, it seems to be yes. Having a good relationship to your advisor is essential. Perhaps "big" can be negotiated, but the advisor needs to be sufficiently happy.

I should also note that in some fields, publishing before completion of the degree is the norm. In other fields it isn't expected and can be quite rare.