Advice for struggling PhD student Let me begin by saying my Ph.D. program has been a disaster. I'm 26 and I'm finishing up year 4 in a physics Ph.D. program. I have no publications and I'm completely burnt out. I have no idea what to do.
I went into a physics Ph.D. straight out of undergrad. My advisor told me to focus on coursework to get a master's first so I did. Right around year 2 I got my masters and was ready to start research, but my advisor's wife suddenly died and he was gone for almost a year and a half. Money ran out and I had to get a teaching position to make ends meet. I tried my best to do what I could, but it's very hard to be an experimental physicist with no money. I actually got a small grant on my own that helped, but it wasn't enough. Additionally, our university grad student union went on strike for a month or two that slowed everything down.
About a year ago another professor joined the department and hired me on. It was ok for a while, he had money and I was finally getting paid to do research. Since he was building up a new lab I was helping put together all the equipment.
Now there are a few more students, all at least 2-3 years behind me, who are in the lab. I'm still expected to put the machinery together while they are getting data from experiments and actually contributing to research. They aren't collecting data, they've been given older unpublished data to analyze. Every time I bring this up I'm just told to be patient.
As of right now, I'm going into year 5 with my name on absolutely nothing. I don't see a light at the end of the tunnel anymore. My department claims 5-7 years is average but there are a lot of 7,8,9 year students here. If this would only take 2 or 3 more years I'd consider staying, but it feels like I basically had to start over halfway through.
I have one patent application in progress, one fifth or sixth author paper in progress, and a completely written review paper that I was told to not publish. My advisors won't even let me propose a thesis, saying it's "too early". I guess I just want to hear what other people would do in this situation. I was recently offered a job in industry by an old friend that pays pretty well (~$85K) which seems so tempting right now. I feel like such a failure and I think I've wasted the past four years of my life. Does anyone have any thoughts on my situation? I'm very lost in life right now.
Update: thanks for all the responses. It helps to hear other perspectives. I talked to my advisor and he keeps telling me I can graduate in two more years if I focus. I don't think I believe him. I have until Monday evening to take this job offer and I think I need to.
Update 2: I think I just quit. I spent 80 hours in the lab this week (again) only to be told I'm still not doing enough. Every day I got more and more projects piled on my plate and they all involved putting equipment together for other people. I was told by my advisor that he doesn't believe my project will even work anymore. It's just not worth it

I have found this graphic really helpful for staying motivated in the PhD and reminding me that many, many people go through this. Sounds like you have hit the trough :)
The most concrete advice I've gotten is that the PhD is an endurance sport rather than a sprint. So if you want to finish it sounds like you might need to just persist and stick it out. But I know how you're feeling and it is awful.
Concretely, I can see a few things that might help:

Ask your advisors to help you work out a timeline for graduating in 6 years (or whatever number of years -- just make it fixed). That way you will have clear milestones and deadlines to work towards. It can change later, but write something down now.

Try to take concrete action towards developing a proposal. I find it strange that they don't let you propose by the end of the fourth year; we actually can't advance past it without proposing. It does take some time to pick a topic and build related experience, but in theory, a proposal is what you will do. Is there something intermediate -- like a 1 page outline of the proposal, or a list of three proposal pitches, or a plan for preliminary experiments -- that you can work with them on? (the equipment you're building ostensibly has a purpose). Particularly now, that you can't fully run your experiments, it seems like a good time to take stock and figure out a direction of what will happen, so that you can run with it as soon as things normalize.

Why can't you publish your review paper? Try to understand if this is just a recommendation or a firm no. Is there something you can improve? Is there something you can salvage from it (e.g. an intro chapter of the thesis?) If you're not working on anything else, you might as well be trying to get this out. It's possible that they think it's not good enough for a top publication, but it might help motivate you to have one publication through the pipeline, even if not the most competitive.

Try to find a support community. I have found that meeting other students through summer schools or conferences has helped me a lot. You might be able to undertake some related collaborations to help motivate you, and as a bonus publish that way. For experimental work, maybe you could try to find a lab that you could visit or intern with (CERN? DOE? I am not a physicist) -- joining existing experiments might enable you to publish without setting up from scratch.

Take some time off. If you are burnt out and experiments aren't running, maybe just block off a week or two for complete rest and no physics.

It sounds like your advisor might be thinking longer-term than you are -- for him the priority is probably setting up the lab, rather than graduating you. Hopefully, once the equipment is set up, you'll be first in the queue (and get credited on the publications of the other younger students), but I can see that it would be hard to guarantee this in advance and you risk being taken advantage of. For now, I'd try to be clear that you're having a hard time and need some sort of framework or plan for moving forward. Hopefully that will take the focus back to what you want -- an end goal.
I haven't commented on your outside offer because I think that's really a personal choice. But it sounds like you want to take it because you are having trouble with the PhD, so I tried to think of ideas to solve that. The fact that you're asking this question suggests that you're not quite ready to give up on PhD...?


What does assigning the copyright of a paper mean? I have been reading that a publisher called WIT Press has the following copyright agreement:

http://www.icsis.org/WITcopyright.pdf

It has one part that says:

  We will not withhold permission for any reasonable request from  you
  to publish parts of this paper in connection   with any other work by
  you, provided the  usual acknowledgements are given regarding
  copyright notice and reference to the original  publication.

What does it really mean? It means that if a paper submitted to that publisher gets accepted I cannot put it on my personal webpage or in the repository of the university that I am?

By default, you hold the copyright for everything you write (note that some things such as contracts of employment may change this default).

When you "assign" the copyright, as often one must to an academic publisher, you give them control over your work. At that point you are correct that you would not be able to put it on your personal webpage without permission from the copyright holder - although in practice many publishers have policies that grant you permission to do this.

The part of the article that you quote appears to be promising that the publisher in question will grant you permission to use parts of your own work in other work, under certain conditions.


My group members are trying to take credit for the group project that only I worked on. How do I stop this? Two students (who also happen to be my friends) and I were assigned a fairly difficult (I spent over 40 hours on it) group project.
It felt like they didn't care about the project, and if you looked at our group chat, it is basically me listing out a bunch of tasks required, asking them if they can do some of it, them saying something like "ok i'll look into it," and then never replying for days. Eventually, I will come back with screenshots of some of the tasks I have completed by myself and them replying with "wow nice job." This goes on for 10 weeks. I have learned my lesson now because in retrospect, I really should have told my professor about this way earlier because by the end of it, I realized they never bothered to even look at the project. The due date for the project has already passed but the final product was obviously mediocre.

The professor in charge of the project has expressed his interest in hiring 1 or 2 of us to continue to work on it, and now they're both suddenly interested in the project. They will be contacting him shortly about the opportunity (it's a paid position at the university).

I wasn't really too bothered about them getting the same mark as me despite making next to zero effort in the project, but the fact that they want to now take a job that they don't really deserve grinds my gears.

How do I tell this professor that I was the one who did all the work without coming off as tacky and desperate (I have evidence from chat logs, and our document history)? I know I'm also at fault here for not expressing my frustrations earlier, which is why I am so hesitant, but I believe this is becoming really unfair. I am also hesitant on ratting them out because I have known these people for quite a while and I consider them my friends.

If you aren't interested in the job being offered, I'd just let this go. As far as the course project/grade is concerned, that issue is past. The project was a group project and was submitted as such. I assume the professor allowed you to organize the group as you saw fit, which resulted in your doing all of the work. I think that is poor practice for the professor. But the ship has sailed. You also had other options at the time for project organization or complaint that you didn't use. Yes, I see that you recognize that.

But if you don't want/need the job you have little to gain by keeping your "friends" from taking it.

If you do want it, however, you should visit the prof during office hours (no email for this sort of thing) and explain that the work was yours. He/she can probably verify this easily by asking you a few questions about it without the need for screen shots etc. I doubt that you would suffer by sticking to the truth, though your friends may resent it and you will need to explain why you treated it as a personal project rather than a group project. Yes, I understand the drivers that cause that, of course, which is why I don't care for the professor's willingness to let it happen.

But also consider the fact that if he hires you and one of your friends you will be back in the same situation again, working with an unproductive partner. That might not be a good outcome for you in any case.

Note: If a professor wants a "group" to create something he/she needs to also teach how to go about that. Letting inexperienced groups self-organize seldom results in a good outcome.


Zero or blank space in a table For an article that I want to publish, I would like to report the results from a survey in a table format but I do not know if I should put Zero or just a blank space/dash (-) whenever the score/percentage is zero. I cannot find any requirements from the journal concerning this issue. I cannot find any articles from that journal that would help me with this issue. How should I proceed? Any ideas?

Use a zero. A dash or blank space could be misinterpreted as 'not applicable' or 'missing data'.


How to tell a faculty member that I don't need him on my thesis committee anymore? Out of five needed members for my doctoral thesis committee, four are fixed. For the fifth member, I approached Mr.A. He has no real connection to my research or topic but I contacted him because he was just as good a fit as anybody else in the department to be the fifth member. I have never worked with him or taken any classes but we did talk a lot in the first few years where he would just ask about my progress by the copy machine, etc. We don't even have a "rapport". The relationship is absolutely neutral, nothing positive/friendly, and nothing negative. I asked him to be on my committee and he said yes. I said I'll get back to you with dates, etc. He is a senior tenured professor.

Then about a month later, I was looking at the CV of some of the new hired (junior) faculty in the department Mr.B (this is his first year) and I see that we have a collaborator in common. Mr.B has published multiple papers with him and Mr.B is working with the same code and the code managing team that we are working with. He is definitely a good person to have on my committee. I finally see Mr.B after a few more months (because of busy schedule/travel/etc.) and he agrees to be on my committee.

The question is, how can I tell Mr.A, as tactfully as possible, after about four months of being quiet that he is basically rejected from my committee because I didn't know about Mr.B but now that I know, Mr.B is a much better match than he is? That I don't need him but I do appreciate his offer? I don't want to antagonize Mr.A or burn any bridges. Should this be in email or in person? Should I explain or just keep it terse? Should I keep it vague that I don't need him and thanks for his time? Or should I tell him about Mr.B and why he is a better match?

FYI, this was before anything official/paperwork was done so there is no problem with that.

I think you're making a bigger deal about this than necessary.  You enlisted Professor A to serve on your committee because you needed a fifth man, not because of any close research connection.  More recently, but still before signing any paperwork, you found Professor B, who does have a close research connection.

Just tell Professor A that!  Problem solved.  You don't have to dither about how to present this information: send it in an email or send it in person.  The information of the previous paragraph is sufficient: you don't need to dwell on your connection with Professor A as much as you did in your question.  (But by the way: asking about your progress at the copy machine is what I would call "friendly".  At least he knows who you are and something about your progress in the program, and he cares enough to ask about it sometimes.  That puts him ahead of the curve in many academic departments at many universities.)

What you do not seem to realize is that if Professor A has no close connection with your work, it is overwhelmingly likely that he was being friendly indeed by volunteering to serve on your committee anyway, and he'll be equally happy or, more probably, a little happier not to serve.  Since he is a senior tenured professor he has lots of stuff to do.  Serving as the fifth man on a student's committee is not nearly such a prestige job that his layoff needs to be sugarcoated.  He'll understand, and he'll be especially happy that someone with more relevant expertise will be taking his place.


How long is it reasonable to wait for a graduate student or postdoc to obtain a visa? For a recent position for which an offer has been made, a colleague of mine has been waiting for more than eight months for a visa to be issued. Is there any reasonable point at which it makes more sense to try to withdraw the offer (as the candidate has been unable to secure a visa, which would enable him to work) and look for a replacement? Or must the offer "stand" until a final visa decision has been made (even if there's no such date in sight, as is the case here)?

Visa issues can be seriously problematic, especially given the high degree of arbitrariness that is often applied toward people coming from disfavored countries in the developing world.  For example, consider the apparently arbitrary visa denials faced by students coming to the US from Iran.

Given this I would recommend using the following criteria in making a decision:

Is the person being reasonably aggressive in acting to secure a visa?  If the student is attempting to secure a visa and being blocked/slowed by outside forces, time to secure the visa should not be held against them.  If the person is not bothering to act towards securing a visa, then it's the same as not bothering to physically move, and they can be let go with a clean conscience.
Is there a concrete time limit on the funds? If external requirements mean the money is on a short-term "use it or lose it" status, e.g., a 1-year externally funded project that includes a task for a postdoc, then the person may be disqualified through no fault of their own by the circumstances.  In this case, I think it is appropriate to put the deadline early enough to have a reasonable chance at hiring an alternate person to fill the post.  The deadline should be made clear to candidates as early as possible, however.

If the timeline can be flexed and the person is being reasonably aggressive in pursuing the visa, however, I think that it is morally important for the ideals of science to continue to extend the offer.  Science should be, to the extent possible, practiced openly for the general benefit of humanity, and it needs all of the diversity of strong intellectual contributors that it can obtain, no matter where they may originate, so long as they are honest and open contributors.  Giving a person time for visa issues to resolve is one small but important thing that an individual scientist can do to support that ideal.


Transition from PhD to postdoc with an intent to change field I'm in the following situation: In 3 months, I'll finish my PhD in theoretical physics, and I'm certain that I want to pursue an academic career. However, I'm just as certain that my PhD research is a dead end. (My advisor doesn't think so, but I disagree with him.) Thus, I seek to change the direction of my research, but I need a few months to obtain the necessary skills. Anyway, I missed the main application period for post-doc positions (in the US).

Given the following options (feel free to expand this list), which do you think provides the best perspective of leading me to a interesting post-doc position?

Finish my PhD. Get any post-doc position. Do the work I'm required to do there. Work hard in my spare time to teach myself the stuff I want to. After 1-2 years, find a post-doc position I'm really interested in.
Finish my PhD. Get a well-paying job in the software industry. Do the work I'm required to do there. Work hard in my spare time to teach myself the stuff I want to. Work harder to keep publishing papers. After one year, find a post-doc position I'm really interested in.
Abort my current work. Find a new subject and a new PhD advisor.
Live on unemployment money as long as possible. Work hard in my spare time to teach myself the stuff I want to. Work harder to keep publishing papers. After one year, find a post-doc position I'm really interested in.

Pros:

Get the PhD title sooner. Stay in the scientific community.
Get the PhD title sooner. Earn lots of money (6 figure). In a 9-to-5 job, have more spare time for private research than on a post-doc position, where work is never finished. Go to a foreign country.
It's what I should've done 2 years ago. I'll have the education I want when I finish my PhD, not later (but be older anyway).
No immediate advantages over the other options.

Cons:

If a logical continuation of my PhD work, I'll suffer from demotivation. My next advisor will not want me to work on other topics that I'm not paid for. Might have to stay for 2 years.
I'll move out of the scientific community for some time. I know it's hard to get back in.
I'll be even older when I finally get my PhD. Not sure if I would find another advisor. Open fight with my current advisor.
I don't want to live on unemployment money for long.

A particular question concerning the options above: Does being out of academia for a year kill your prospects of obtaining a postdoc position later?

I do have some collaborators who will help me to keep publishing, provided that I put enough work into my research. Also, I'm willing to familiarize myself with other topics on my own (a prerequisite for an academic career anyway).

The next application period will be from October to December 2013, which isn't far away. I'm sure I'll have most of the skills I want by then (and a paper published proving that), but still would have to work until summer 2014 wherever I am applying now.

Please give me honest answers, even if they hurt. I'll provide more information as soon as possible, if anyone has questions.

As one of my advisors once told me,

  The best dissertation is one that is written.

Tounge-and-cheek as it may be, I would strongly advise finishing up your PhD first, especially if you can do it in three months.  If you have doubts about whether your committee will approve your work, then you should be having that conversation very frequently (at least once a week, if not more) with the committee members that you think will have an issue with the work.

If you are indeed "certain [you] want to pursue an academic career," choice (2) may be the hardest path.  I've known a number of people who were certain they wanted to move back into academia after working in industry, but they didn't publish enough once they had a full-time non-academic job, and they weren't competitive for future academic positions.

Choice (3) would be a soul-killer if I were in that position.  To see the finish line three months away and then scrap it for 2-3 more years of work?  Not for me.

Choice (4) would probably be the worst decision -- every day you stay unemployed lessens the chance someone would eventually hire you (although maybe there are a ton of post-docs in your field).  Proving that you've learned these things on your own is difficult, although you would have more time to publish (but will you have a university association still?).

Tough choices all around, but I suggest finishing up the PhD at least.


Can you change the Ph. D. supervisor but continue with the same job, regardless of the opinion of the previous supervisor? Can you change the supervisor (advisor) but continue with the same job, that is, without changing research direction, regardless of the opinion of the previous supervisor, or can a job only continue with another supervisor, if the previous supervisor accepts that the next supervisor continues to guide the work?

The main question is whether the previous supervisor has ownership over the continuity of doctoral work in the legal sense.

In general, yes

There's nothing that would prohibit you from pursuing the same research direction with another supervisor, or with no supervisor at all, should you choose to. However, there are some specific hurdles that may apply.

Co-authorship requirements

It may be that for your current unpublished research (which would be your next published paper) your current supervisor meets the criteria for co-authorship e.g. substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work. If it is so (it'll depend on your field) then it would be required to include them as a co-author (and get their approval!) when publishing that research, and if you have a sour relationship, then that may become a problem. It's possible that in this way you may lose a paper in progress which you won't be able to publish in time, but you can proceed with other, further research in the same direction.

Bureaucratic requirements

It may be that your local university won't allow you to switch supervisors if the previous supervisor objects sufficiently - either because of some official criteria or unofficial influence, e.g. it's quite possible that in certain institutions certain faculty have sufficient clout to ensure that such a change doesn't get approved or that the new supervisor is forced not to accept you.

Funding requirements

This was the first thing that came to mind as the "same job" was mentioned in the title. Depending on your institution and the conditions your particular employment, it may well be that the funding for your position comes from a grant or some other project of your current supervisor. In that case, that supervisor has a budget for a grad student to work on research direction X, and if you leave them, you'll also "quit the job" and lose the funding which they'll be able to spend on someone else. It's possible that the new supervisor might like to work with you, but they might not (at the moment) have the budget for you, or alternatively they may have an available funded position for a slightly different research direction Y - in which case the funding for that position would require you to change your research direction.

It's quite likely that none of these scenarios apply to you. But those are the things that you'd have to verify, most likely by asking your (potential) new supervisor who'll know the specifics of your institution.


Offer for a pre-PhD visit, how to handle the situation with other PhD applications in the queue? I have received an offer to visit a lab for 4/5 months that could lead into a fully funded PhD. In the meantime I have other applications in the pipeline from which I will hear back in either a few weeks or a couple of months (just different educational systems).

I am excited about going to this lab but I want to wait to have all my offers on the table before commiting to a program. Also I am not sure yet if I will be able to develop in this lab the project I have in mind. However the PI of the lab is highly regarded in the field.

If I were to leave the lab I would want to leave in the best note possible not to burn my bridges with this person and institution.

I am sure the PI knows I might have applied elsewhere and also although it is likely that this visit will turn into a PhD there is also a small chance it will not.

What would be the best way to handle this situation in an ethical and correct way, and not disappointed anybody?

PS: I will get paid in this period but not as much as PhD student. Let me know if more information is needed.

EDIT: So apparently by the end of the visit I will present a PhD proposal, so I hope that at that point it will not be too late to answer other offers.

In general, I think so long as you and the PI in question are forthright about your mutual expectations, there should be very few problems.

If the PI who is offering you the position is planning on having you become a PhD student, then that should be made clear. Similarly, if you'd like to consider other options, then you should let your potential advisor know that a "competition" will be taking place.

However, since you said you'd be writing a PhD proposal, it's not clear that you'd automatically have a guaranteed offer for a position at the end of this position if successful. This should also be cleared up before you make a final decision.


How much travel is too much travel? I am a first-year postdoc and I am currently structuring my summer plans for travel/conferences/etc.

May already includes a 2 week international trip of a one-week workshop and two seminar talks. June includes 2 one-week conferences domestically. July includes a 2 week international jumbo conference. August includes at least a one-week international research visit. If I did all the conferences pencilled into my calendar, I would be gone for 3 weeks in September.

To top it all off, there's a few more invites that just occurred for a week long summer school in June and a colloquium invitation in August. Both international.

I have been told that "you do not say no until tenure," but this seems too much to handle. At some point I have to sit down and do research, keep up with collaborations, and recover from travel. To be fair, I love travel, I am single, and I do not have a child or pet, so I have no obligations for being home; however, I am fearful of burning out. I am in mathematics, so there's no need for a lab and could potentially do work on the road but I am much more efficient when with my collaborators at home or at their home institution (which is not where these things are).

So the chain of questions here:

At what point does one have too much travel? Should I just pack my bags and try to learn how to research on the road?
When can one say no?
Do people care about what conferences you have been to and if they are on the CV or just about speaking? Is there a point where more invited talks hits a point of diminishing returns?

Different people set their thresholds differently, but it all comes down to balance and cost/benefit analysis.

I don't buy into the "don't say no until tenure" argument, because a) until tenure is a pretty big chunk of your life, especially when you add in postdoc, and b) the patterns and expectations you establish before tenure will likely remain with you afterwards.  You need to make a decision which is sustainable for you as your career is now and reassess every couple of years to make sure it is still working.

Myself, I travel 1-2 times per month.  Some academics I know travel nearly once a week; others travel only once or twice a year.  In my observation, this does not really correlate with career stage, but more with desire for public recognition vs. the tradeoffs the person is comfortable with in their life.

So, how to make that judgement for yourself?
Personally, I find Latour's model of science as "credibility investment" a useful analysis tool.  Under this model, you can view scientific life as manipulation of three currencies:

Credibility is the main and most unusual currency of academia, which is generated by your publications, your position and appointments, your visibility in the community, service, etc, and which is invested in order to obtain funding.
Results are the data, theorems, etc. produced by your work, which are the raw material required for generation of credibility, and which generally requires money to produce.
Funding is money or other forms of support, which can be obtained through investment of credibility and is itself invested in order to produce results.

Success as an academic requires management of the flow of these three quantities: your relative levels in any may rise and fall with time, but if you go broke in any of the three areas, your career is in deep trouble.  They are hard to quantify, but with self-reflection and comparison to peers you can often have a sense of whether you are "doing well" or "doing poorly" in each area.

Bringing it back to travel, then: most travel can be viewed as part of obtaining credibility (e.g., conferences, invited talks) or obtaining funding (e.g., visits to program managers).  Their cost, as you have identified, is primarily opportunity to produce results and to write your results up in papers (yes, they cost money too, but your time is usually more valuable).  For each individual conference, you can ask how much this conference is likely to serve those goals, relative to the time that you will lose as a result.  If you become good at working on the road (I love airplanes as internet-free time), then the effective cost may decrease, changing your relative weightings, but the principles remain the same.


Is US experience usually required for TT jobs? Update/follow up: Can this have something to do with the specific rank? I mean, does it make sense to require this for the rank of Assistant professor for some reason?
Link for the posting: http://cra.org/job/umass_lowell-assistantassociate-professor-computer-science-2-positions/

I was checking some postings from cra.org, and found this remark:

  For appointment at the rank of Assistant Professor, by the time of appointment, applicants must either have a PhD degree from a US university, or have at least one year as a post-doctoral researcher in a US university or US research lab.

However, I didn't find that in other postings. Is this unusual or so common that isn't usually spelled out?

This is a bizarre requirement that I have never seen and sounds unwise to me, except maybe for a position requiring specific U.S.-centric expertise, e.g. a search for a law school faculty member specializing in U.S. constitutional law (even then, requiring a U.S. PhD/postdoc sounds to me like the wrong way to ensure that the candidate possesses the relevant expertise). And no, I do not see why it should matter that this is an Assistant Professor position.

Based on my experience with bizarre/illogical rules at organizations, I'm guessing that what happened is that the department that is requiring this at one time had a really bad experience hiring someone without a U.S. background, and after that someone there decided to make sure that that particular mistake would not be repeated, no matter how many good opportunities that would mean missing out on.

Note that while I think this is a silly requirement, at many U.S. universities a tenure-track candidate who has no U.S. teaching experience could reasonably be considered by some people to be less competitive than another candidate who possesses such experience, all other things being equal. But this judgment call does not require a special rule, since being well qualified to teach to the standards of the university is already a requirement of the job.


Should I reply to email from institute director congratulating me for being shortlisted for a position? I have received an email from the "director" of a prestigious research institute, sent to me and another candidate, announcing and congratulating that we have been shortlisted for a particular position. He then mentioned that his assistant will contact us to inform us about the interview procedure and the next steps.

I wonder if I have to reply to the email, given it is sent by the director with his e-mail and not his assistance, or administration email, or I have to consider it as a kind of public announcement and just wait for his office to contact me?

A short thank you email would be appropriate. "Thank you for the continued interest. I look forward to the interview and the future".

Something along those lines, but you can probably come up with a better statement. It lets them know that you got the message, and, more important, that you are still very interested.


What are some important questions to ask former alumni of a PhD program we will enrol in? After a long and nerve-racking application season, I have finally managed to get into one of my top-choice PhD programs. As luck would have it, one of the recent alumnae of the same PhD program happens to be an assistant professor at my current university (though our research areas are slightly different, and she had a different advisor in that program).

Following the advice of my current MA advisor, I have set up a meeting with this alumna to get information from her about the program. I have tried to think of some basic questions to ask her, such as how much flexibility is allowed to the students with regard to taking courses, choosing co-advisors, as well as about how the PhD process works, what the most important milestones are and what particular challenges one should be wary of, etc.

But I understand that there may be many other questions that are hiding in plain sight for me, simply because I am a "greenhorn" graduate student. I believe that there are more experienced PhD students (as well as PhD degree holders) on this website, and I was wondering, after all those years you have spent as a PhD student, what would you wish you had asked a former alumnus/alumna before starting your program? I am especially interested in knowing which questions you think are "the important questions that almost nobody thinks of asking."

Thank you!

P.S. I have already accepted the admission offer, so I will be asking this alumna for advice on how to be successful in that program, not on whether I should choose this program or a different one.

You have a good start (how much flexibility is allowed to the students with regard to taking courses, choosing co-advisors, as well as about how the PhD process works, what the most important milestones are and what particular challenges one should be wary of).  Note that how the PhD process works is something you might want to leave out because the department materials should already lay that out, and it might take up a lot of valuable time for her to explain that in your interview.  But do make sure to read all the department materials before you meet with her.

I'll propose some questions to add to your list, but there are probably some things I'm not thinking of, and also you'll want to select a subset of these ideas, since it might be overwhelming to ask all of them.

Write a list of the key members of the cast of characters.  Give her a copy of the list when you meet with her, and take your own notes about what she says.  Ask her which of the names will likely be the most helpful for you over the years, and which ones have pet peeves to watch out for (and what the pet peeves are, of course).  Also ask her what other people might be important to know about, that you left off your list.
Advice for preparing for your qualifying exams.
Advice about course load (two courses vs. three).
Advice about work-life balance.
What do you wish you had known before you started at X University?
Tips for surviving TAing.
How to stay safe while working late and on the weekend on campus.
Suggestions for creating a support network.
What to do between now and then to prepare.
Fun things to do on campus and nearby (this will get your interviewee comfortable, taking a pleasurable walk down memory lane -- so it might be a good one to ask at the one-third point).

The more questions one asks, the more one might convey an attitude of anxiety.  But I personally think it's only sensible to ask questions.  Therefore I suggest that you try to keep the conversation light with plenty of humor, to counteract the possible anxious impression.


Will my creating and hosting a popular online educational website improve my odds of admission to grad school? I created a website 2 years ago; it's a non profit educational website, it's mostly like udemy but a tiny version. It's all free because where I come from they're really a low income community so I want to benefit them with what knowledge I have. I have uploaded many courses (only relevant to my field and area of expertise) and it has an exam; if you pass it you get a certificate of completion and it has a signature of my area of expertise syndicate to accredit it. I also used to do seminars on weekly basis and I have many many students who reviewed my course and put 5 stars on it and attended my seminars.
For some reasons I stopped and now I will apply to a master's degree in 10 months.. The unfortunate thing: where I come from there are no undergraduate research opportunities and I'm really afraid I won't get accepted due to lack of experience. However, I decided to do review articles to boost my abilities but the question is:
Should I really make a little bit of time and invest it to make my website grow and keep on doing this, because it positively influences and helps me in my application to add a bonus or make my CV look decent, or is it useless and a waste of money and time and should I leave it? I'm not even sure if this counts as teaching experience.
My field is pharmacy and my country is Canada.

First, I am neither Canadian nor a pharmacist, so take my advice for what it's worth.
From what I can tell, you website / seminar series is already well developed, has been used by many students, and is quite popular. I will not speculate what weight this will carry toward graduate admissions. But whatever this weight is, I suspect it will not change much if you put additional time/effort into further development. You already get credit for "having built an impressive educational website", so there is not much room for improvement in this area.
On the other hand, I would hesitate to say that any further work would be "a waste of money and time." It sounds like you are providing a great service to the community, learning a lot, and perhaps even having fun. It is unusual for "outreach" initiatives to be this successful, so I would not discourage you from continuing if you were inclined to do so.


"Due to many requests, the submission deadline has been extended" is this real? following different CS conferences I see the following phrase very often:

  Due to many requests, the submission deadline has been extended.

Or something similar to this.

I won't overestimate if I said 80% of the conferences (I have followed) have this attitude. This brings me to the question of whether this is true or people (conference organisers) admit a lie when say this. Why does this attitude exit in CS conferences? Do other fields experience the same thing?

Warning: personal opinion.

I view conferences that regularly shift submission deadlines as a little suspect. You're right that this happens in CS conferences, and it soon becomes pointless because everyone expects the extension ("Nobody expects the extension!!"). But your estimate of 80% is rather off. Almost none of the (many) conferences I submit to have deadline extensions for submission of the full paper.

And don't underestimate the level of pleading that goes on. People will always ask for an extension if they have even a smidgen of hope that the pleading will work. It's only when a conference takes a firm stand for many years that people stop asking.


Our research is being ignored by other research groups I am doing a PhD in molecular biology where we conduct research on human skin and skin diseases. Our group (EU based) has been in a discussion with another research group from the USA, where we can factually show that our methods are 'better' and cleaner than theirs. Nevertheless, they keep publishing work where they don't even cite any of our papers. We noticed that our publications were rejected by journals where people from the USA group function as editor/reviewer as well. We are always open for discussion and collaboration because good science cannot be done alone.

Very curious how we should handle this problem.

Continue to publish your results in journals that will accept them.  After a while people will be able to see for themselves whether the US group is ignoring your publications.


Data on costs of two-year colleges in the US, by state? I teach at a community college in California. Our students' tuition is approximately 85% subsidized for the half of our students who can't show enough financial need, and 100% subsidized for the other half, who get fee waivers. There are various proposals at the federal level to eliminate tuition at two-year colleges, and possibly four-year state colleges as well. As a Californian, I find this kind of odd, since our community colleges are already essentially free, and the real financial struggle faced by students living in poverty is actually their need to work too many hours to pay for food and rent.

But is this different in other states? Do some states not have community college systems at all? Do some states have community colleges that charge significant tuition? Are there any statistics available for the US, broken down by state?

From people's comments and more web-surfing, I've found enough info to take some kind of stab at answering my own question.

California has the lowest community college tuition rates in the US. It appears that every state has some kind of community college system. Most states charge about 3 times more tuition than California. Roughly speaking, in most states a student paying full community college tuition (because they don't qualify for free waivers) is paying about 60% of the cost of instruction, with the other 40% being a subsidy from the state government. In California, it's more like 20% and 80%.

It's extremely difficult to give a clearcut comparison of costs. Various states have their own baroque rules. E.g., in California about half of students get fee waivers. These waivers used to be called BOG (board of governors) waivers, but are now subsumed under the College Promise program.

As an example of how complicated this can get, Pennsylvania has a system where some school districts choose to contribute to community college funding and others don't. If you live in a district that doesn't contribute, you pay higher "non-sponsored" tuition to attend a community college. The highest per-unit in-state tuition at any community college in the US seems to be $318/unit for non-sponsored tuition at Community College of Philadelpha; this is about $10,000/year, or about 7 times higher than California tuition.

College Promise is extremely complicated, and is implemented in different ways by different states. It's been sold to the voters as "free community college" or "free first year of community college," but it's actually both more and less than that.


Accepted paper at conference but not presented I have wrote a paper almost a year ago which it was accepted by a peer review in a conference. However, I never got to present it there due to excessive fees of the event. I want to cite this paper now, so my question is, can I treat this paper as unpublished work or is there a formal way to say accepted in the conference, or any other appropriate way? If it makes any difference i am using Harvard citation format. Side note, is it ok to upload it to my academia webpage and make a citation to there?

K.

There are two possible cases here:

(Default case) Your paper has not been included to the conference proceedings
volume. In this case, your paper is unpublished. It might still be possible to cite it, e.g. by uploading it to arXiv and referencing it as an arXiv preprint, but this citation would have to leave out the name of the  conference.
Despite your absence at the conference, the paper has been included
to the conference proceedings volume. In this case, your paper counts
as published and you can cite it.


Etiquette for seeking collaboration via E-Mail? I work on a certain topic on the theoretical side and just came across a publication that I think would be a nice starting point for collaboration with an experimental lab (developmental biology).

I am a second-year student in Europe and my supervisor does not know anyone in the other lab. The question title mentions e-mail specifically as I don't expect to run into these people at conferences or any other occasion.

What are common rules and guidelines you follow when contacting someone for the first time about stuff that they work on and you feel excited about?

How do some of you that are contacted by people like me react to their attempts? And what are aspects to these requests that trigger interest on your part?

A collaboration is comparable to a business relationship; both sides need to put significant, continuous effort into making the relationship work, and the benefits are often only realized after some initial time period has passed. Given that mindset, you'll have to convince the prospective collaborator that:

You are a good researcher,
Your idea is worth researching, and
They will significantly benefit from having your cooperation in implementing this idea.

<negative nelly>
From my experience, as a graduate student, you will likely find it very difficult to succeed at convincing them of 1 and/or 3 without having the full backing of your advisor.
</negative nelly>

All that being said, if you plan on initiating contact via email, simply compose it as you would a communique to a business contact; write professionally, describe the idea clearly and briefly, and discuss how they should contact you to follow up. You will want to convince them of all three in the email, which may be a difficult task. I would imagine you should follow up via phone or in-person meeting, as you would a business contact.


Can the GRE Sub in Psychology compensate for my low GPA? I am a psychology student. My GPA is quite low: 3.6 for first 3 years but 2.8 for last 3 years ( I spent 6 years in undergrad because I transferred and lost 2 years of credits). However, I will have a publication in psychology and strong letters of recommendation from professors. The low GPA is my major weakness... I am wondering if a good score in GRE sub (like 95 percentile and above) would compensate for my GPA?

Thanks in advance!

Almost certainly not. Although I'm not in psychology, I'm in the social sciences and we generally do not consider the GRE subject exams to have much probative value in regards to the ability to do doctoral work in a field.

Remember that the admission committee is not trying to evaluate whether or not you score well in standardized tests, but rather whether you are capable of rigorous coursework followed by independent research. Our best way of ascertaining that is from your letters of reference and your statement of purpose (and to a lesser extent, your undergraduate grades).


How often do graduate students help connect professors with each other? I know that a couple of UChicago professors told me that, especially if a graduate student ends up co-advised with two professors. Maybe there's an additional factor too: maybe students actually have the time and flexibility to communicate with other professors, which could possibly help initiate collaborations between them?

It happens, but rarely through co-advising.  In my experience, co-advisors usually know each other before the student enters the picture, and the student has little effect on how much the faculty collaborate.

More often, students create new connections by becoming active independent researchers and working with a diverse set of collaborators.  The various actors' roles as "student" and "professor" are simply irrelevant.

(I'm speaking for theoretical computer science, where PhD students are expected to become full-fledged independent researchers before they graduate.  Your mileage may vary.)


What's going on: I got nothing when many applicants got rejection from the same grad program I am an applicant of a biology graduate program. After exploring some on a website, the gradcafe.com, I found that I got nothing when many applicants got rejection on a specific day from the same graduate program. Several waves of invitation were alread gone now, but I got neither invitation nor rejection.

Do you think it's a good sign? I don't know much about how graduate admission process is going on. Could you a bit explain this situation?

PS. I asked about it by an email to the office of the grad program, but they didn't answer yet even after 5 days. No phone number available...

The only people who know are involved with the admissions process. Maybe they have accepted you, but just have sent the acceptances out or maybe they rejected you and you rejection is in a later batch. They also could have never received or lost your application. You just cannot know. In a situation like this, where you think something is up because other people have heard, it would be inappropriate to ask the admissions team what is happening. If you think they lost your application, and if they sent you an aknonowledgement it is very unlikely, then it might be reasonable to ask. Then again, it is pretty late to check and they are probably not interested in getting a late application.

In simple terms, not having been rejected yet is much better news than having been rejected. Not having been rejected when others have, is not particularly predictive.


Is it OK to publish research that was in someone else's future work? Very recently, a paper has been published that says:
I plan to incorporate X into my research in the future.

The aforementioned paper was published recently, so the follow up containing X is not published (nor do I know if the author is working on it right now). Would it be OK for me to then to do the research suggested in the paper? The idea to incorporate X into the research was an idea I developed independently, but it also happened to be in the "future work" of another paper, if that makes any difference.

There is no "calling dibs" in academic science.
In some cases, it may be risky/unwise to start a research program that is very similar to what someone else is working on, especially if they've already published in the area and you have not, but that is simply because they likely have a head start and you are at high risk of being scooped if they publish before you.
Otherwise, if you've completed work relevant to someone's suggestion for future work, that's great. They may have chosen not to pursue it for numerous reasons, so it would be a big problem if simply mentioning it barred others from pursuing a particular avenue. It's probably appropriate to cite their suggestion if you are aware of it, even if it wasn't initially motivated by that source.


Measuring Teaching Effectivness I'm a tenure track professor in computer science at a teaching-oriented university. I still have a number of years before I go up for tenure, but want to start preparing early. One of the metrics I will be judged on is teaching effectiveness; namely, some objective, quantitative measure of student learning. I've talked to my (recently tenured) colleagues about this, and it sounds like no one has any idea of best ways to measure it; everyone kind of offered some discussion of test scores, called it a day, and got tenure. I would like to be a bit more principled in my approach, but am unsure how. A pretest seems like the most obvious, since it seems that you would need a baseline to measure effectiveness over the course of the semester. But, I primarily teach intro programming, where students have no background knowledge (those who do are in another class), so giving a pretest seems pointless.

In particular, I have honed in on wanting to teach critical thinking skills (somewhat in line with "How to Think Like a Programmer") and have slowly changed my approach in that direction, but am even more mystified about how to measure that.

In general, looking for recommendations on how to go about assessing teaching effectiveness in a quantitative way in the computer science field.

objective, quantitative measure of student learning

This is impossible today and probably always will be.  "Learning" is too broad for a single metric.  Form a specific hypothesis, then test it using a pre-test and post-test.  Ideally, you should use two groups of students, one of which receives an intervention.  The other group is a control.

You can get free training courses here: https://www.cirtl.net/p/cirtl-programming#Courses (see "Teaching-as-Research")

Do not forget to include qualitative information and feedback from peer faculty.


Database of top researchers by keyword I am looking for a database/web-service that allows me to find the top researchers (e.g., by number of citations) in a specific field (e.g., by keywords such as nutrigenomics). I once used it but for some reasons I am not able to retrieve it.
I am not looking for the Highly Cited Researchers list from the Web of Science Group.

Go to Google Scholar.

Search for label:discipline (such as "label:nutrigenomics").
If the discipline contains more than one word, then use an
underscore to separate the words (e.g.
"label:international_relations").

Click on "Profiles" in the menu.

The result should be a list of scholars (who have set up Google
Scholar profiles) within the selected discipline, sorted by citations. Like here.


Is there a problem with citing an article that cites a retracted article? I'm looking through a few journal articles and I notice that they have cited an article that has been retracted (based on invalid conclusions).

If I cite that article that cited the retracted one, would that be valid? Moreover, should I check the references of every article in that article to see if they cite any retracted articles?

Ultimately, it doesn't depend on the retracted article, but on the one that you cite.
Is the science in the article that you cite valid, despite the retraction of its reference?  After all, most references are for context not critical dependencies. If it's still valid, there is no problem with the citation.  If the science doesn't stand, though, then it doesn't stand and you shouldn't cite it.


Applying to my first reference and using him as referee The question may be ill structured, because I do not know how to put it more concisely. I am applying for a research position (officially, using the application portal) to my best reference.

Is it okay to use my best reference's email as my primary reference for the position?

Just to make things clearer, Mr.A is my best reference. I really loved working under Mr.A and but before I could join him for further studies, he went to a different school. He, however did become my best reference and helped me with many references. Now that Mr.A has open position, I want to apply under him. However, because he is my best reference, is it okay to give his email as my first reference?

If I understand correctly, Mr A. moved to another institution and you want to apply to a position at that institution under the same Mr A.

Your best course of action would be to contact Mr A. directly and tell him that you would love to apply for that position and ask him whether it is ok for you to include him as a reference. This would then of course be just a formality, as Mr A wouldn't write a reference to himself, but it would serve to fill out the field and to implicitly constitute a recommendation.

This is important as to counter any eventual conflict of interest. If Mr A can't be your reference, perhaps he can point you to others (this part of your question is a bit confusing).

There are institutions where students apply directly to the professors, if that is applicable here, Mr A could be more inclined to accept you.


Are student records accessible by university officials? Application forms for graduate school usually contain some vague statements regarding the extents of usage of one's social security number.
Some people believe that educational records at other institutes are private information and the universities should have access to the educational records that the applicant would disclose to them ONLY. (Regardless of potential consequences and/or ethical justification for actions of either party.)

My question is, having the applicant's social security number, can schools see which schools/programs the applicant has attended, for how long, and the courses that were taken in the past? If so, is this a common practice? That is, do graduate offices commonly check with social security information to make sure that the records from each previously attended institute is included in the application?

The answer provided by earthling is excellent. I would like to tackle this question from another angle.

I don't believe any school will purposedly leak or illegally obtain student information. You are in the US. You are protected under FERPA.

However, accidents always happen. For example, what if one of the professors in the school you previously attended just transferred to the school you are applying. He would know you were in another school and the program you were in. Or your current advisor met with your former advisor in a conference. Academia is a small world.

I would not worry about the SSN issue if I were you. Just focus on your application and your study. Put aside your past. Pursue the future.


Prerequisite requirments I want to start research in the field of Computational Cosmology. It includes the galaxy formation and reionization era. I know it involves extensive computing techniques including parallel and high performance computation but do I need to study General Relativity (detailed course) or I can work without it (or having its basic concepts)?
For the physics part, I have to study Astrophysical Hydrodynamics and galactic compact objects and their X ray sources etc.
Do I need complex differential geometry of General Relativity for this?
P.S: I have a physics background and right now in course-work phase at graduate level in Computational Science degree.

I don't know if it's 100% necessary for computational cosmology but I would highly recommend studying General Relativity if you can, especially if the course includes some cosmology as well (fairly common for undergraduate and graduate courses in GR).

Fluency in differential geometry is (I think) an essential skill for a cosmologist, computational or otherwise. Studying GR and cosmology will also greatly help your understanding of the bigger picture, for example, the FLRW background, the Friedmann and continuity equations etc.

Plus GR is a really beautiful theory! I would recommend that any physicist study it if they have the chance.


How to stop sexual harassment by teacher? I'm a student in India.  My music teacher was kicked out of the school about 1 month ago due to sexual misconduct.

Today, he messaged me on Instagram with a fake ID and started talking nastily to me so I blocked him. He again messaged me with a new ID and asked for pictures and so on. I had to block him 3 more times.

He again messaged with a new ID of a girl.
I gullibly replyed to the message but again he asked for pictures and some sexual chats so I blocked him once more.

This is not ending. He was my teacher and this attitude of his is not good.

What should I do to stop him doing this?
And to prevent many girls from getting affected by this teacher?

I suggest you should report it directly to the police.

Why, well, as he has been dismissed from the school they have no control over him, so reporting it to the school will only be for information.

You can choose to tell or not your parents but you may value their support.

I hope this sorts itself out. Best wishes.


Could anyone judge whether or not what I have experienced are types of abuse? I am in a Ph.D. program. In my program, I declared my preliminary advisor who is supposed to guide me when writing my first field paper.

Firstly, after I passed my qualifying examination in the last summer, I asked my paper advisor to visit his office to discuss and determine my research topic. He just ignored my email and did not reply at all.

Secondly, one month later I sent an email again and visited his office. I got a research question from him. I read some papers and then visited his office to discuss the next steps. I told him about my rough ideas, then he told me that they will not work. He told me to change my research topic if I would not have a skill set to deal with the problem. I majored in a field of study which specializes in the required skill, so I kept going on doing my research. Then he refused to see me when I asked him to visit his office later and get some feedback on my research work.

Thirdly, he had not given me any guidelines on my research as a paper advisor other than giving me some papers.

Fourthly, he ignored my email later when I asked him to write a letter. I can understand that he would not write a letter for me, but he just ignores my reasonable emails several times.

Fifthly, he would not advise me anymore as the main advisor since I did not know some stylized facts when I started my research and since I did not produce an immediate result within a few weeks.

Lastly, all the Chinese Ph.D. students in my research group only insisted to work with my paper advisor because he is also Chinese, though there are at least three other professors. So he said to me that he has too many students, which is an excuse to support his decision that he does not advise me.

I am wondering whether or not these are reasonable. What should I do if there is no one other than him whose research interests lie in mine? Looks like I just have to endure several year's loss in my life due to a bad decision of mine. The intended field of study is very narrow, so it is difficult to find another professor at another University since my Ph.D. program is evaluated around the margin of ranked universities that have professors in my field of study. Do I have to transfer to another different program with a different major?

I would not call this abuse, but I would say that this professor is clearly not interested in working with you. Not answering emails, not meeting with people in a timely fashion etc. are all indicators that the professor just thinks that you're not worth their time. This may or may not be true, but that really doesn't matter - it takes two to tango in an advisor/advisee relationship, and you don't have a partner in this professor.

I don't quite know how your university works. It sounds like you were assigned to this professor semi-randomly to (I'm guessing here) start some project while you look for a permanent advisor. Whether the professor violated some of the rules of this mentorship process (say, they have to meet you a certain number of times or help you actively, however that's defined) is really not for me to judge - you should consult with your student counseling center/ombudsperson/graduate handbook about this.

Overall, my advice is to look for someone else to advise you, ASAP. This professor is not going to offer you a happy PhD experience in my opinion. If that means changing your field slightly to accommodate some other professor's interests, I would do it. If that professor is the only person in the department qualified to advise you on that field, and you are unwilling to change fields, you have a problem. No one can force a professor to advise someone (I would never want to work under someone who was forced to take me anyway, that would be hell for us both!), so you need to figure out what matters to you more - staying within that narrow field, or actually getting an advisor in that university.

Good luck!


What is would be my "relationship" with a recommender whose class I was a TA for? I'm applying to graduate school. One of the people who are going to write a reference letter for me was my professor in a course. Also, I later became a TA in her class.
I have to determine my relationship with this recommender in a field that can take only a few words. What should I put there?

How about "student and later assistant"? I think it would be well understood. Make it teaching assistant if you want five words instead of four.

Or if you want to turn it to reference them instead of yourself: "professor, later TA supervisor".


Is there a setting to prevent Google Scholar from only showing the best matching result? Often, when searching Google Scholar, I get a single result with a bit of text "Showing the best result for this search. See all results" and I have to click on that hyperlink at the end to actually see a full set of results. Is there any setting to automatically have that clicked so that Google Scholar displays a full set of results automatically, instead of only showing one?

Example:

I've already gone in to Google Scholar Settings and Results Per Page is set to 10; making it 20 doesn't help.  Neither of those values are "1," which is what actually gets displayed.

I think you got a single result because your search matched the title of the article exactly.

I replicated your search and removed "and" and "in" -- and my results were significantly different than yours.

Moral of the story: try removing articles, prepositions, and other function words that are frequently part of titles but offer little in the way of content.


Difference between computer science MS and MCS I'm planning to apply for a master in computer science, and I need to choose between a computer science MS - master of science, and a computer science MCS - master of computer science.
I haven't really understood the difference. Is is true that MCS is more "professional" in the sense that it doesn't prepare students for a PhD but it is for who wants to directly work after graduating? Do they both last 2 years?

EDIT: I've also found MSCS: master of science in computer science.

PS: So for example MSCS has the thesis. Does the thesis help you getting hired?

Many Master's degrees exist that could reasonably be considered "computer science" degrees, and the distinctions between them differ from one university to another.  Thus, you should probably ask someone familiar with the programs that you're considering about the particulars for that scenario.

The best general answer to your question, if there is a general answer to it, is that many of the degrees named simply "Master of Science" require writing a thesis.  For example, compare North Carolina State's Master of Science program with their Master of Computer Science program.  Often the thesis degree is awarded to PhD students who have completed their qualifying exam and coursework, but this also varies from one university to another.

Since writing a thesis is an important distinction for Master's degrees, you may wonder what a thesis is and how it might be viewed by potential employers.  A thesis is a document produced as the result of academic research.  While you will learn more about analyzing academic research, formal writing, and how academia works in your field of study, you will not typically learn more skills that are directly applicable to the profession.  For this reason, you can think of the thesis master's as an "academic" degree and the non-thesis master's as a terminal "professional" degree, but that's also a bit of a simplification.

If you're looking at degrees that start with "Master of Science in" and end with something like "Computer Science," "Computer Networking," or "Software Engineering," then you probably won't have to write a thesis.  These Master of Science names differentiate a degree in science, engineering, or medicine from a degree in English, history, or philosophy, which are Master of Arts degrees.  Often, these are both shortened to just "Master's" degrees.  So instead of a Master of Arts in History, you might simply say that you have a Master's in History.  For example, NCSU has a Master of Science in Computer Networking, which is regularly shortened to Master's in Computer Networking.


How to list an unfinished PhD on a resume I started studying my PhD with a federal scholarship that was supposed to sustain all my expenses and allow me to study without the need to work. Long story short, between family and mortgage payments money was scarce. My relatives helped with some of the expenses, but after 2.5 years, there were just too many pressure from financial problems, and I was not having a good progress in my investigation, that my advisor and I decided to suspend the PhD and that I should focus on getting a job.

To that extent, is it a good idea to emphasize that I started a PhD but was not able to finish it, or will it create a bad image about me not ending what I start? Should I wait until they ask what I did for those 3 years to tell them I didn't finish it? The PhD is in my CV, as started but not finished. Should I keep it that way or should I erase it?

To note for the possible answers is that I already have a Master degree in the same specialty as the PhD, and this is happening in México.

Don't worry, this is a very understandable situation.  You should just be honest about it.

I don't think the fact that you started a PhD but were unable to finish it due to financial and family circumstances will be counted against you in a professional context, especially if you otherwise have a record of successful employment.

It would be more of an issue for pursuing a further career in academia (either another PhD or academic employment), since the PhD would be highly relevant to the work you wanted to do, and you might not have any other equivalent experience on your CV.  But outside academia, I don't think it matters much at all, particularly since you have been employed since then.


Thematic synthesis in a systematic review paper I have been currently conducting a systematic review. I used the classification framework approach, and I organized the articles in my field into three main categories (e.g. A, B, C). However, I am struggling to properly analyze the findings by summarizing the main ideas instead of separately/individually analyzing each article.

Can you give me some practical advice on how to better group the ideas? I tried with a systematic matrix.

Please excuse me for recommending my own work, but I've done quite a bit of work to address the problem: "I need to do a literature review. How do I organize it in a way that is useful to myself and to my readers?"

Actually, I answered a somewhat similar question before; I'm adapting my answer from there for you here. In brief, I recommend adopting a theory-extracting approach. That means to explicitly look for theory in the source articles and then to synthesize the theory as the contribution of the review. What I mean by "theory" is very simply "A is related to B". This is distinct from literature reviews that simply summarize what people have said about A; that is not theory. Theory is about explaining how and why phenomenon A is related to phenomenon B. In my academic field (information systems), I have found that this focus on theory is the most useful thing that can be done with literature reviews (in terms of citations by other researchers). Although my literature review approach focuses on social sciences, I believe it would be relevant in a case like yours.

I have two main relevant articles to recommend:

The View from Giants’ Shoulders: Developing Theory with Theory-Mining Systematic Literature Reviews: this describes the idea of theory-extracting reviews and focuses mainly on theory (I used to call them "theory-mining reviews")
A Guide to Conducting a Standalone Systematic Literature Review: this provides more practical details on how to actually conduct a general literature review


Can you appeal to the associate editor when given unreasonable requests for revisions? We submitted a paper and got two rejections (from reviewers 1 & 2) and two acceptances (from reviewers 3 & 4) after the first round of revision. Now we have received a letter from the associated editor asking us to again revise the paper, and to include a response letter addressing the concerns of reviewers 1 and 2. Hence, the paper is not rejected or accepted.

We feel reviewer 1's comment to include a new case study is not reasonable, and reviewer 2's comment fundamentally changes the problem structure. We explained our reasoning in both cases in detail in our original response letter (especially in response to reviewer 1).

Is it reasonable to appeal to the associate editor at this stage (i.e., before rejection)?

UPDATE: The paper got published in the next revision. We took a middle path strategy: I wrote directly to the associate editor and briefly discuss my objections with the reviewer 1 & drafted my response letter to reviewer 2.

Not a journal editor, just a researcher.

I would respond to the reviews directly. You don't have to accept all the proposed changes; you can simply say "We feel this fundamentally changes the problem structure...." and give a paragraph or two on why.

That said, I might also reply to the AE. This can be very brief, something like "Our updated draft and responses are submitted. Note, however, that the two negative reviewers requested significant changes that we do not feel are appropriate; we reiterated our objections in our response." That way there is no formal appeal (yet), but perhaps the AE will review more carefully if the reviews come back the same as before.


Should request payment details for a project I am to do? I am a Master's student. Recently, my professor offered me a project mentioning that funding has been granted for the project and that I will be getting paid for my work. I would like to know if I can ask him the exact amount and if yes, what will be the polite way to ask?

Compensation is an integral part of the decision to take on any job. Not only should you know the amount ahead of time, but also the mode of compensation: is it 1k up front? Is it $10/hour? Is it $500 now and $500 at the end of the project? This is information that you are owed as a prospective employee.

You should just be straightforward about this. There’s no decorum that you need to follow outside of whatever is usual in your relationship. I would write something along these lines:

  Hi James,

  I’m excited about the research opportunity that you mentioned after class last week. I was hoping you could fill me in on some concrete details such as when and how much I will be paid, the expected project timeline, the scope of my part of the project, and who else would be involved.

  If you don’t have these details set yet, I totally understand. In that case, do you have an idea of when you will have them?

  Thanks,
  Stella

I’ve sent some variant of this email tons of times. I’m somewhat making up the details, as I don’t know what you have or have no discusses with this professor, but I would strongly recommend that you ask about any of the things that I have listed that you don’t know already. If this is a project that is part of publishable research, you should also ask about authorship and (if applicable to your field) authorship order.


A group run by my advisor's former student keeps scooping my work. Is my advisor sabotaging me? I'm worried that my advisor is sabotaging me either knowingly or unknowingly. I'm entering the 5th year of my PhD in a hard science.  I had prior publications, but I have yet to publish any papers with my advisor -- because I get scooped whenever I get close to submitting one. The group that keeps scooping me is led by a professor who is an ex-student of my advisor.
For the past 3 years, my advisor has gone on sabbatical to visit with this group 2-3 times a year for anywhere between 2 weeks and 6 months. During one of his first visits, my advisor asked me if it would be okay if he presented some of my research during a group meeting. I didn't see a problem with that.  However, about a year later, this group published a paper having done basically the same experiments I had done. I was stunned and asked my advisor what was up with this. He shrugged it off and said 'this happens, we'll get you another project.'
This other group had not published anything in the area of my first project in the last decade.  I figured really bad luck.
Fast forward another year.  I've started a new project in a different area of my field.  My advisor again asks if he can share my new research with this group. I said I didn't want to share it this time.  I thought this was very understandable given what had already happened, but my advisor got upset at being told 'no.'
At the time my advisor was visiting them, I was struggling to justify why I was getting a low value for a value I was trying to determine experimentally. Some time after my advisor returned home, I realized I had made a mistake in my analysis which, after correction, put the value where it should be.
Several months after my advisor's visit, the group came out with a paper on exactly what I was working on. Bizarrely, the paper they published included the low value / result that I initially got before realizing my mistake, they offered very little explanation for this low value. Their own theoretical calculations suggested it should be higher.  But it's the number I had when my advisor visited them.
This other group had never before published anything in the area of my second project. When this professor was a student with my advisor they worked on a different area of my field than I am working on now.
It feels like my advisor is trying to get me scooped, or doesn't know any better. My advisor visits so often it seems unlikely he isn't aware this group is working on what I'm working on. If that's the case, shouldn't he warn me? How do I proceed with future projects / my advisor?
My advisor also has tried to abandon each project after I get scooped, but that doesn't make sense to me, either. The other group only does a single experimental run, while I do several. I also think they've made significant mistakes, which my work can correct. I think my work still merits publication.  Any advice on how to handle this situation would be much appreciated.

Something is clearly wrong here. If your supervisor is not alarmed, talk to another senior person and make pretty damn sure your supervisor is correct not to be alarmed. There are many people you can ask: your thesis committee, your head of department, a trusted faculty member, someone from the School of Graduate Studies, and so on.
Ask to speak in confidence - something is clearly wrong, and that something could be your supervisor.


Status of Elsevier Boycott Starting around 2012, Timothy Gowers had much to say about the practices of Elsevier. Very roughly speaking, he argued that Elsevier made research articles expensive to access and profited heavily from the volunteer work of peer reviewers. Sympathetic individuals established a website called "The Cost of Knowledge", which hosts the electronic signatures of over 15,000 academics who have agreed to boycott Elsevier to some degree.

Things are relatively quiet now compared to the flurry of activity that followed Gowers' series of posts. The most recent information I can find is Greg Martin's letter of resignation from the editorial board of Elsevier's "Journal of Number Theory", which was posted to Gowers' blog in May of 2013. In it, Martin writes (emphasis mine):

  As far as I can tell, Elsevier’s responses to our concerns ended up being limited to a slight easing off of support for legislation limiting access to our research, together with a nominal reduction in individual journal prices. Regarding the latter, however, Elsevier’s “bundling” practice remains in place, making individual journals’ prices essentially irrelevant. Their (aggressively defended) lack of pricing transparency from one institution to another also speaks volumes, in my mind, to the limits of their desire to seriously address our pricing concerns.

My feeling is that not much has changed in the past two years, particularly since I would expect to hear an update from Gowers if any major victories had been won.

Can anyone provide more up-to-date information about Elsevier's pricing, bundling, and access practices?

(converted from a comment on request).

I don't think much has changed about pricing, but Elsevier has made open access all the content of their journals in mathematics after a 48 month embargo (source). This was a very appreciated move: mathematicians often rely on old articles for their research, so 4 years isn't too long to wait (for some), for this discipline. It is also a shrewd move from Elsevier, since it pleases their audience but doesn't cut into their main source of income, which are yearly subscription access deals with university libraries.

Maybe this will encourage academics from other fields to consider a similar protest to obtain the same boon...


Wrong internship dates in my CV for graduate application I am sorry if this is already repeated but it is a very urgent need of mine.
Actually in my CV for graduate applications, I put my industrial internship period as May to June 2016 and research internship period as May to June 2016. Actually it is may to June 2015 for industrial internship period. I didn't notice this mistake till now and I have already submitted my applications. What do I do?

Correct the dates on your CV, then check the admissions website to see if there is any information about submitting corrections or amendments to your submitted application.  If there is not, email the corrected CV to the admissions office or department with a very brief line, along the lines of "Hello, I submitted my CV with my applications but later noticed I put the wrong year on one of my internships.  I've corrected it in this version.  Thank you for your time."   Include any relevant reference information to your application.

I honestly wouldn't expect it to get replied to, or possibly even noticed - admissions offices are very busy this time of year.  But this way if it does come up you can refer to your earlier email with the corrected version.

I also wouldn't fret about it over much.  It's remotely possible it could hurt you against an otherwise identically-qualified candidate who didn't make mistakes on their paperwork, assuming anyone even notices the discrepancy.  But even that seems like a very small detail against a good candidate.  The other thing I would suggest is that you proof read the whole thing carefully before you submit it with this correction; if you didn't proof read it well the first time and missed this mistake, it's possible you missed others too.

Good luck!


Paper rejection probability after two round of major revision. I would like to know the paper rejection probability (very rough) after two round of major revision. At the 1st and 2nd revision, I have revised the paper properly according to the reviewer's comments. The reviewer has raised a new issue in the 2nd revision and the reviewer has recommended me to revise the paper again. I have revised the paper properly again and submitted to the journal. The number of assign reviewer for the paper is only 1 (Reviewer 1). The paper has been reviewing for 7 months.

In the 2nd revision, I could not understand the editorial manager paper status meaning. The paper status has changed from "major revision" to "with editor" after submitting the revised paper. After 1 week later the paper status has changed to "under review" and then after two weeks later the paper status has changed to "with editor". I have not received any email from the editor so far. This morning I have checked the paper status and I found that the paper status again has changed to "under review". I would be grateful if someone could help me to understand the meaning of the status.

In general, few editors would allow for several rounds of resubmission unless they would like to publish the paper. Therefore, the probability of eventual acceptance should be much higher than the base acceptance rate at the journal.

With regards to the status updates: "with editor" means that the editor is about to look at your resubmission and make a decision on whether to send it out to referees. "Under review" means that reviewers have been assigned. In some cases, it does not mean that the reviewers have actually agreed to reviewing. The switch back to "with editor" suggests that the reviewer has either declined to review the paper again or has completed the review. In the former case, expect the paper to switch back to "under review", in the latter case expect to hear from the editor soon.


Assignments taken and re-used without consent I'm a TA at a British university, and as part of this job role I create and write educational material, which also includes creating and marking assignments.

I've recently discovered that several of the assignments I wrote have been taken by a colleague, my name then scrubbed off them, and distributed as part of this colleague's assessment strategy. My colleague did not tell me he was going to do this, and I feel as though my hard work has been/could be unfairly attributed to my colleague.

I feel aggrieved by the situation, but am I being unreasonable before I decide to escalate this matter?

I am a professor in a UK university.  I would say that it is standard that if you teach a course and then hand it on to someone else then you should hand over all your teaching material, which your successor will typically modify to their taste.  Moreover, people do not usually keep track of authorship, except possibly in the case of a full set of notes that is similar to a book.  Of course it is polite for people to be open about what they are doing and to express appreciation for any material that they inherit.


How to improve student seminar presentations and seminar papers During the last semester my supervisor Prof. X held a seminar for bachelor and master students (mostly computer scientists). According to the study regulations the students have to

give scientific presentations (based on journal or conference papers) and
hand in seminar papers on the topic of their presentation (i.e. their papers should cover the results of the original paper, lay out details of proofs, add additional explanations or examples, etc.).

The final grade consists of 2/3*presentation + 1/3*paper.

Prologue.
At the beginning of the semester Prof. X's research assistants compiled a list of interesting research papers. At the first seminar meeting the students were able to choose the paper they would like to present to the rest of the group at the end of the semester. Furthermore Prof. X made it very clear that understanding the topic is just a portion of presenting and writing down scientific ideas. Every student was assigned to a seminar supervisor to whom they could talk when they ran into problems.
Half-way through the semester there was an obligatory meeting with the supervisor and a deadline for handing in a draft of the presentation slides. At the end of the semester we organized a little "conference" and the students presented "their" papers. Afterwards, they received written feedback on their presentations from all participants (students, research assistents, and Prof. X). Six weeks later they had to hand in their seminar papers.

Problem.
Unfortunately the quality of many seminar papers is relatively poor; even the papers handed in by students who had understood their topic "quite well" and had given good presentations are surprisingly different from what we expected.

Main issues:

Even though they were allowed to use their native language, many papers had bad spelling (obviously no spell checker was used) and bad grammar.
In some cases it was impossible to understand the basic ideas if one had not already been familiar with the subject.
Imprecise language and almost no sources cited, e.g. "Algorithm Y is rather efficient in comparison with other algorithms." [citation needed].
Some students only cited a single source (= "their" research paper).

Questions.
How should we address these issues? Of course, we are going to give some feedback on their seminar papers. I am worried about the next seminar. Reading all these papers was (mentally) exhausting. Should we require that seminar papers must be handed in first? How could we install an iterative feedback process?

I am looking forward to your ideas and experiences.

This sounds exactly like the situation we are experiencing at our university as well. We have improved the situation by forcing the students to write papers and similar texts every semester (starting from semester 1), in different settings, and we're giving detailed feedback afterwards. In our first and second semesters we are using this setting for one course:

Students can select one topic and prepare it in a group of three (the idea is to mix people so they can give feedback within their group). We emphasize that everyone will receive a grade based on personal efforts and success, and there is no group bonus / malus.
They will present the topic in a group of three (20 min presentation + 10 min discussion)
We are giving a 3h presentation on scientific writing.
They have to give their paper outline to their supervisor after about 3 weeks. The quality of feedback depends on the effort put into the structure. If they hand in "Introduction, Main Section, Conclusion", they will receive a "correct, but good luck" ;-).
They shall hand in a first version after about 50% of the course. This version will be discussed in a personal feedback session of one hour by a scientific journalist
At ~3/4, they have to submit their "pre-final" version to a conference management system.
Everyone is now switching roles and becomes a reviewer. Every reviewer has to review two papers. The quality of reviews is part of the final grade.
After the reviews. the groups have one more week to finish the final paper submission.

As said, we are following this highly intensive approach in semesters 1 & 2. In the subsequent semesters, we are having other settings, but we force them to write every semester. It seems to bear some fruits since the quality improves over time, but it's clear that we can't fully repair what went wrong during school...


Student contribution/Citizen science? I'm a student who, due to circumstances beyond my control, is having to take a gap year.
I want this gap year to be productive, however! And would love to engage in citizen science projects/activities. However, given where I live, the citizen science projects and open-lab type spaces are non-existent.

Could I perhaps:

  Read a bunch of research papers on a common topic and synthesise a review paper? Do journals publish review papers written by non-academics/amateurs?
  I certainly enjoy reading review papers: What sorts of criteria are review papers assessed on for publishing? (I assume that the style and format and referencing follow their preference/convention is a necessity for publishing. But what else?)

In doing so, I'd learn about a topic, how to write a review paper and perhaps being published could be an advantage when I look for research internships in the future?

Does anyone have any other potential endeavours to suggest?
I've already shadowed & volunteered in hospitals & performed a few lab experiments. I'm currently looking for something that I could do to genuinely contribute to science and use this gap year as a learning experience.

Thank you!
jxs

A link to Academia is your best bet.

Stay in touch with people doing research in the field of your interest in a formal setting.
If you come up with a notable work you may end up co-publishing it with them.

Open source is a great alternative

There are many, many notable pieces of code developed (and credited to) individuals no tied to major organizations to be found i.e. on GitHub. This is a good way to quickly put your results thru "peer review", albeit informally, get credit for your work and -why not- good PR.