texts: Nontraditional summer employment for academics

texts:
I'm a research mathematician, probably soon to be tenured, and I've been wondering what 'non-traditional' summer employment options are out there, involving either teaching or research. (I enjoy both!)

Programs like PROMYS would be fun and rewarding, but it appears that they are looking to hire students rather than faculty. Duke TIP seems to be one possibility.

In a different direction, I know that IDA hires mathematicians, although I am rather ambivalent about government surveillance and am not sure I would want to work in such a position.

What other opportunities are out there? I am especially interested in established programs that attract a relatively large community of other researchers and/or students, and am quite happy to travel. For the moment I don't think I would be effective in a leadership role, or in creating an opportunity from scratch.


texts: How should one handle peers, competition and other social pressure while studying theoretical CS/Maths?

texts:
I'm currently a 20 year old undergrad studying CS at a reputed institute in my city. I'm one of the very few from my batch who's interested in studying theoretical CS and mathematics (about 10 students from a batch of 200) and want to pursue research as a career.

Thing is, out of these 10 students, I'm the dumbest. I score the least in a graph theory exam, I cannot come up with creative solutions to problems in complexity theory as quick as they can (sometimes I keep on thinking for days, if not weeks, and still cannot come up with anything useful), I'm the student who the professor looks at and wonders: why are they here? To be very honest, I don't really like programming or web development. I like to spend time thinking about stuff, solving problems by hand, and learning fascinating things in logic and modern algebra. I'm weak at exams, true, but then I'm mostly clueless and disinterested in web development classes, where I can score easily but not learn something that I couldn't have learnt by watching tutorials on the Internet. I'm obviously looked down by my peers, too; and my grades are, well... not too great. In my current semester, I'm studying four theory courses (Complexity Theory, Graph Theory, Abstract Algebra and Cryptography) and one introductory CS security course. I'm going through the most difficult time of my academic curriculum so far; getting around 3-4 hours of sleep every day, with most of my day spent in attending classes and solving assignments. I'd like to drop a course from my current roster, but I'm afraid that since that'd show up in my transcript after I graduate, it might ruin my chances of getting into a respected grad school or landing a job.

I was recently diagnosed with manic depression, and while there are a few personal problems I have (premature balding, asocial lifestyle etc.) that might have caused that, some amount of the aforementioned issue might have also contributed to the cause. Anyway, I'm not asking for any consolation.

What I'm asking is: if anyone who's been through similar experiences while pursuing academia, how did you cope up? Even if you weren't like me (chances are pretty high that you weren't like me, CS theory/Math students are usually very intelligent), what do you advice? Should I stop studying theoretical CS due to my frequent failures? I mean, I don't believe in that kind of stuff, but usually if you fail too much at a certain thing, maybe that's some sort of sign or something? I don't really have a lot of friends, and no one from my family has received as much education as I have (so far), so I don't really have anyone I can ask for advice.


texts: Are Scantron Sheets under Copyright? Or are there non-proprietary alternatives?

texts: Could my institution get into legal hot water if we were to make copies of blank Scantron sheets? If so, are there good free alternatives for machine readable bubble sheets?


texts: Suggestions for an alternative grading system

texts:
I'm designing a leadership development program for a graduate college at a research university. As part of the project, I've designed a summary sheet which each participant will receive. The summary is designed to give them an impression of their overall leadership development. It includes an "overall leadership score," which is currently shown as a number on a 1-10 scale.

My intent is for all students to begin the program at a baseline level of 5. Students who demonstrate multiple positive leadership traits will raise their score above a 5. Students who show a lack of these traits will lower that score.

However, I'd like to replace the 1-10 scale since it will be difficult to keep the baseline or average score of 5 from being equated with a 50, an F, etc. For the same reason, I've avoided the use of a letter scale.

Does anyone have suggestions on an alternative grading system that is well suited to this type of grading task? I'm also trying to find something that won't be too discouraging for students whose leadership scores are below average (seeing a 0 or an F would not get the right message across).


texts: How to handle conflicts with inventorship on a patent with my supervisors from the university and the company?

texts:
I am working on a research project funded by a company. So, I have two supervisors - one at the university and the other at the company.

The company likes the work I did and is encouraging me to disclose the invention at the university's technology transfer office. I made the mistake of filling up the technology transfer form with the names of both supervisors and sending it to them for comments. This is what one would usually do with publications.

However, I learnt only later that inventorship in a patent is completely different from authorship in a research article. I also understand that incorrectly naming an inventor on the form can invalidate the patent.

None of my supervisors made any intellectual contributions that led to the invention. I am also able to prove this as I have documents/slides about topics discussed during meetings.

How do I deal with this situation as both my supervisors expect their names to be on the patent? I must also mention that my university supervisor is extremely unprofessional. I have had problems with him in the past with publications. He could damage my career if I offend him. On the other hand I'd hate to share credit for something which I came up totally on my own when he was actually putting me under a great deal of pressure to work on one of his ideas that was not relevant to the problem at hand.


texts: How to find help when writing a master's thesis

texts:
What methods could you recommend for attaining assistance when writing a master's thesis, in the particular case when one feels uncomfortable seeking any more help from the advisor, because of his own anxiety and the advisor's personality and busyness?

Is there an option available to get independent help? How would one go about finding help so that he can get the thesis finished?


texts:
We are submitting a journal paper to ASME Journals of Mechanisms and Robotics for the first time. The manuscript is prepared in LaTeX. In the final submission, it is required that we submit "text-only" file along with the final PDF.

  II. TEXT-ONLY FILE(S)

  The text-only file, Word or LaTex, should include the following items in order:

  1.1. paper title

  1.2. author(s) info (affiliation, address, email)

  1.3. abstract

  1.4. text: single column and double spaced

  1.5. reference section (ASME requires a numerical format, e.g., [1], 2, etc.)

  1.6. table caption list

  1.7. figure caption list

  1.8. tables, each on separate page

  1.9. footers  containing page number

ASME guidelines

If someone who has submitted to ASME before can answer what exactly are they expecting from LaTeX users, it shall be of great help.

Are we just supposed to upload the LaTeX document as is and the requirement is more directed towards Word users?
Am I supposed to remove all the figures? That would mess up the references. In order to correct that I shall have to manually add the reference numbers to figure! I tried options such as How can I remove the figures from draft and gobbling the \includegraphics command, but in vain.
Do I have to manually type the figure caption list? As deleting the figures would remove all the references and \listoffigures wouldn't work.
What exactly does this requirement mean?

  1.9. footers containing page number

Regards.


texts: Does doing more than one undergrad research affect my Phd admission?

texts:
I'm a undergraduate Physics student, and also doing double major on Mathematics.According to my plan, I will both do undergrad research on both physics and mathematics more than once.

What I am curious about is, whether doing more undergrad research in physics or mathematics affect my Phd admission,and if it is, in which way ?
Of course, if I do some noticeable work on them, it will affect positively but what exactly I am asking is if all of the research will be on just "undergrad research" level?


texts: Reviewers and incorrect article references - Do they adjust them?

texts:
Let's say that an academic paper has been submitted and that it contains some references which are not cited correctly by the authors, e.g. volume, pages, issue are wrong.

Do the peer reviewers adjust them or they get back to the authors saying that they are wrong and need to be checked?

Thanks


texts: How should I write a statement of interest about how my research will fill gaps in the field, when I don't know enough about the field yet?

texts:
I'm applying to do a master's at Canadian universities. My background is Earth & Environmental Sciences.

When writing a statement of interest, I am familiar with the various research in the field I want to go into, however, a professor told me I should talk about "gaps in the data and where my research could fill those gaps". While I believe that's a great suggestion, I don't feel like I know enough about different methodologies and their faults to write a good statement of interest. Should I keep it on the vaguer side and relate it to the professor/research group's common interests?

On a different note, my marks aren't the best, they're about the admission requirements/slightly above. I have a lot of work experience in the field, and TA'd quite a bit. I also did an undergraduate thesis that I'm quite proud of (and hope to publish soon). So I know that already sets me apart from my peers and may make up for my lower average.

Within that framework, should I discuss my marks and explain how I am a better researcher/writer than I am at taking exams, or do I leave out grades completely?


texts: What is the Measure of an "Incomplete" Undergraduate Thesis?

texts:
My undergraduate thesis was not what I would consider a complete product. I did due diligence in the background and theory of the topic, but while I have attained results, my output of validated analysis methods and observed trends was notably missing the data that motivated this work. It wasn't done. On the other hand, it was due.

I received a general attitude from the chair of my department, that this is OK. My chair's thoughts could be summed up as "it's not a Master's or PhD thesis". This would be a public document with my name on it, and I wasn't fully happy, but my institution seemed to be.

What are your thoughts on the expectations of an undergraduate thesis, and what you feel is an acceptable product from undergraduates? Does this significantly differ from a PhD or M.S. thesis in factors other than depth of work?


texts: Is it true that PhD students need to work 10-12 hours a day every day to be productive?

texts:
I hear a lot of people brag or complain about how many hours they have to work for their PhD. Is this the norm? And if so is this really a wise choice to make? Do students really 'work' during this period of time (as would be expected in a corporate office), or do many also spend their time goofing around?

I've read that it's only possible to do 4 hours of deeply creative work everyday. Since energy often depletes over the day, I've personally found that outside of a small number of hours in a day, the rest of my time is spent doing mechanical tasks or straining myself in vain to think about a problem.


texts: I understand that libraries can use a classification system like Dewey or LOC. Apparently, the decision as to how any particular book is classified, however, is made locally at each library. So this is my question: is there an agreed upon definition of the books that fit a particular classification? For example, I run a library. I just got a new book in. The book title is "Killing Others" and is nonfiction. The LOC number for murder is x. The Dewey number for homicide is y. I don't have time to read and analyze this or any other new book because there are just too many of them.  Is there a definition, or a descriptive list of features and attributes of all books classified as y or x that I can consult? Like "books about murder have this and that, but if they also have this other thing, they should be classified under homicide"?


texts: What is a shared task? and what is the purpose of it?

texts: I noticed lately the increase of conducting shared tasks, what are they and what is the rationale behind them? why do we need them since we already have workshops and conferences?


texts: What year to use when citing second editions of books

texts:
This seems like a silly question, but I can't find a clear answer online. If Dr. Brainiac's Big Book of Science was first published in 1974, but I have the second edition, published in 1996, should I cite it as (Brainiac, 1974) or (Brainiac, 1996)?

I realise that this is the sort of thing that might come down to the policy of the journal, but it happens that the journal I'm submitting to doesn't offer any specific guidelines on this particular topic, so I was wondering what the standard practice is, if there is one.

edit: for clarity, of course I would mention in the references section that I was referring to the second edition. I guess it would look something like this:

Brainiac, Q. Big Book of Science. Aperture publishing, 1974. (2nd edition 1996.)

or

Brainiac, Q. Big Book of Science, 2nd edition. Aperture publishing, 1996. (First published 1974.)

Where in the first case the in-text citation should be (Brainiac, 1974), and in the second it would be (Brainiac, 1996). The question is which of these is considered the best, or at least the most usual, way of doing it.  In my particular case I'm citing a specific fact that is almost certainly in both editions, but of course I can't be sure.


texts: How to tell someone, that someone else "can"not answer a question I asked multiple times?

texts:
I work at a unversity in the physics department. Since quite some time, I have a very specific question regarding some equations and how they were rearranged into some result. I have asked my Professor regarding this several times, but I have never been able to get a clear answer and at this point I am "too afraid to ask once more". Of course, I am not really afraid but I have asked this so often that at some point it becomes somehow weird, especially since this is only some detail.
Now I have been assigned with supervising an undergraduate, who will write his Master's thesis about a topic which is very similar to the one I am working on. I can already see that he will come across the same question in the near future and there are several possible things I could do to answer the question if it arises.

I could simply tell him that I don't know the answer. This would of course be OK but does not actually solve the problem. Especially since for his work a better answer to the question I am trying to get an answer to might be required.
I could tell him that I asked this several times to the professor, but he either did not understand or was unable to provide an answer. This is the more factually correct answer but it sounds a bit accusatory and could put me in the position that the student tells the professor about this since I would be the first one whom he would ask and who should be able to provide an answer.
I could ask the co-authors. In this case, the question would be whether I inform my professor about this. If I do so, he will ask me why and I probably end up in a position where I will have to ask the same question all over again, not to mention that he did not answer the question in a way I understand.


texts: Is unfinalized information in graduate application considered "misleading content"?

texts:
I'm applying for grad schools (in the US) for next fall, and am currently a graduate student elsewhere (again in the US). This semester I was on a leave (with a research position at a third place), and the original plan was to take courses again in the spring semester, so I registered for those courses. Now, it seems more likely that I'll stay longer in my current research position and continue to work on my projects here. So, it seems like there is a high chance that I'll end up extending the leave and dropping my spring semester courses, but I'm not yet certain about that, and that probably won't be finalized before I submit my applications (also it probably won't be finalized before the deadlines either).

So, I am submitting a transcript with the next semester courses ("in progress") on it, because that was my original plan (and arranged with my department), and right now, that's my official transcript. But I think there is a considerable (and increasing) chance that by the time I (hopefully) get the offer and am required to send the updated transcript, my transcript would be different and won't have those courses.

Here is my question:
When I fill in the application forms, in the end, I need to confirm that there is no "false or misleading information" in my application and that I understand that giving such information can result in revoking my admission offer. I was wondering, is my current transcript considered "misleading information"?

++ I did not mention that I attend or don't attend the spring courses anywhere in my application, or whether I'll continue staying in my current position or not (because that's still unclear). Perhaps the only piece of information in my entire application that could relate to that is the "valid to" date on my mailing address, which is the date I was supposed to leave my current position  according to the initial plan. Could that be misleading? Should I change that to the most likely date (which I actually don't quite know when it would be to be honest)?

+++ In case it matters, chances are I might continue working on my projects in my current position until the end of the academic year, and never go back to my current department (if I get into a Ph.D. program this year). I don't think that has anything to do with my question, but I said it just in case someone thinks it does.


texts: Using papers published before admission to partially fulfill PhD requirements

texts:
Some papers I wrote recently as an independent researcher, several years after receiving my Bachelor's degree have been accepted at good CS conferences (rank B in the CORE conference ranking).

I'm considering getting a PhD. Is it realistic to expect that these papers can be used to partially fulfill my PhD requirements?


texts: What are my obligations as an MSc holder?

texts: I hold two degrees, a BSc (2011) and an MSc (2013), from the University of Waterloo. I noticed recently that on my BSc it reads "[...] and has been granted admission to that degree with all the rights and privileges thereto appertaining.", whereas on my MSc it reads "[...] with all associated rights, privileges and obligations." I'm a bit curious about the difference. First of all, I wonder what these obligations might be. Off the top of my head I can think of a couple of rights and privileges that would apply to me as a degree holder, but nothing that I might be obligated to do occurs to me. A quick search for an explanation of the text didn't turn anything up either. I also wonder whether the association of obligations to the degree is peculiar to the MSc for some reason. Would also be curious about the ubiquity (or not) of such statements at other institutions.


texts: Is hiding publications in CV a good idea?

texts:
Here's my story:

I study computer science. When I started my master's degree, I had good research ideas and I wanted to publish them immideately (I now realize being in a hurry is the worst thing I did myself in my educational life).

My thesis advisor is a perfectionist. His philosophy is all or nothing. Therefore, he ignored my immature works and told me to get ready for my thesis only. He said that my thesis topic is one of the hottest topics in area and possible contributions to that topic would be huge improvement in my academic career.

But again, I was dissatisfied. So, with the ratification of my advisor, I published two conference papers with another professor. One is in ICCAE '12 and the other one is in ICKD '13. Those are not so good conferences, but still they are not in Beall's List.

Now, me and my advisor are writing a paper to submit a top conference.

Here's my question: Those publications are not a bit of scientific publications. They are barely at a level of senior project. When I'm applying to PhD, should I put those two publications in my CV or not? The acceptance notification of the conference is due to July. Until then, is it better to have no publications or two bad publications in my CV?


texts: What behaviors (desirable or not) are encouraged by an incentive system based on publication throughput?

texts:
What (researcher's) behaviors (desirable or not) are encouraged by an incentive system based on publication throughput?

Considering this as a research problem, I propose to list all the potential strategies that a researcher can apply to "game" various academic systems and to increase one's recognition by such systems, starting in this question with academic systems which evaluation is based on the number of academic publications. Later objectives could be to design mechanisms to detect and measure tendencies to follow such strategies, and to identify other set of strategies potentially used to maximize one's number of citations, or more interestingly one's h-index and i10-index, but those later objectives are not part of the discussion here.

To make the discussion cleaner, I propose to remove all moral judgments about the strategies, and to merely list all that could be applied by an academic sociopath in order to maximize his/her success. The  goal is not to encourage such behaviors (obviously?), nor to criticize institutions which embrace some of those strategies, but rather to identify clearly the consequences (desirable or not) of an incentive system based on publication throughput.

Feel free to add other strategies in your own answer below, or to edit my own  answer below, collaborative Q/A style.


texts: Google scholar citation counting suddenly drops, very recently

texts:
Very recently, I had noticed that almost all scholars, from all countries and from all different universities, that I am aware of, their Google scholar citations counting suddenly drop (of the scale of 10, to 100 to 1000 to 10^4 counting, depending on your academic ranks and total citations).

One can check https://scholar.google.com/

Many people (almost all people) are affected.

Is there some policy changing?

Also it looks that the Google Scholar citation counts much less than ADSABS-Harvard system http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html, is there a reason behind it?


texts: My master thesis is going in the wrong direction

texts:
I'm a CS master student in a German university. Here we have to do a master project in one semester and the master thesis in another semester, so in total 12 months. In the project you start in defining and exploring the problem space and so on and building a preliminary software framework that will help you more in the thesis. In the thesis you build on that to expand your work and finally summarize everything.

My problem started with the problem definition. My supervisor didn't have an idea of what to work on, so he just came up with a fancy idea and told me to work on without knowing if it's logical or it can be applied or not. So I started working on that problem and trying to reformulate the problem into a logical project and thesis. I spent 8 months on that and finally I built the software framework and so on. However after finishing the work, I found that continuing with the problem in the same formulation as-is won't be logical and would make everything as rubbish work. So I found a better formulation to the problem that makes it much much better and would lead to publish a paper in a conference or a workshop. However my new formulation cancels out 75% of my previous work. This way I won't have much of stuff to write in my master thesis.

I sent my proposal to my advisor for the thesis and I'm still looking for his opinion, but I'm very depressed with what happened to me. Having a better advisor with a far clearer idea wouldn't have led me to this point.

Is what I'm going through normal?


texts: Contacting a potential PhD supervisor for a second time after some months

texts: A couple of months ago, I mailed a potential PhD supervisor with the question whether she has an open position available in her research group. She replied that at the moment, she didn't have an open position. Now, a couple of months later, can I mail her again and ask if in the meantime anything has changed? And how should I formulate this email?


texts: Where can I publish corrigenda for a conference paper?

texts: I am wondering where I should publish a corrigendum. The paper, which has some wrong numbers in it (nothing major but it still is not correct), has been published in conference proceedings. I don't think a journal would publish a corrigendum for a mere conference article, submitting to the same conference next year does not seem to be the right way to do it either (takes too long, I don't know if they would accept it since there would be not much of a presentation). So I am thinking of a technical report. Would that be a correct way to do it?


texts: Why is explainability not one of the criteria for publication?

texts:
A paper is eligible for publishing in reputable journals in general if it satisfies the criteria objectivity, reproducibility and (optionally) novelty.

But why are they not considering Explainability as a criterion? Although the model proposed in the paper satisfies the above mentioned three metrics but not explainability, then how can it be considered as a contribution to field?

PS: Low "explainability" means proving something works without explaining how it works. See also "Interpretability"


texts:
I currently hold a Bachelor's degree in Pure Mathematics and my plan is to pursue a Master's degree in the USA. However, I'm a bit worried about the possible non-injective grading scale transition that exists between the USA and European universities.

What I mean here is - majority of the sites out there postulate that ultra-high GPA of 4.1+ is required to get admitted into top USA universities. I've also read about the scaled GPA where the topmost grade is 4, so this might be the case of my university.

Another issue was that getting a good grade, for example 8,9,10 (almost impossible) out of 10 points, was really, really hard. Moreover, I remember myself happy getting 4 out of 10 points in a specific subject. On the other hand, I know some friends of mine who study Humanitarian Sciences and get top grades all the time... So is there some difference when comparing the fields of study?


texts: Important questions to ask yourself when writing research paper

texts:
I remember I read somewhere four (at least I think it was four) important questions to ask yourself when writing research paper, such as "What is the problem?", "Why is that important?", etc.

These questions were named after some guy or something whose name I don't remember. Please help me remember the name.


texts: Resurrecting old research done at another university. Do I need permission from previous supervisor to publish, and how should I credit?

texts:
About 5 years ago, I did a Masters of Research (MRes) part of which was a supervised research project. Because of time constraints (Masters degrees are only one year in the UK) I was unable to gather enough data to generate any publishable material (though I did produce a thesis which I believe is in the university library probably gathering dust).

Fast forward to today, and after a lengthy break from academia I'm now doing a PhD at a completely different university at the other end of the country, but in the same field. I would like to (workload permitting) try and finish what I started and publish a paper from it using the expertise and equipment I have available. My concern is because this is a continuation of research started a long time ago at another university, whether this would present any issues or barriers to publication or even conducting the research itself.

Regarding my previous supervisor, I am intending to inform him of my intentions at least as a courtesy, and I honestly can't imagine he'd have any objection, but if he did, would I have trouble publishing any work from it? Would the university itself have any grievances? Some of the work he did on the project concerned a novel sensor design which was mostly unrelated to the main scope of the project, I will not be including this work in my publication, would this be a problem?

I'm also wondering how to credit him. Since I'll be writing a new paper from scratch, I'm not sure if I should include him as a co-author. I would at least like to include him in the acknowledgements if it's appropriate.

My current supervisor is happy for me to do this as a side project, so there are no issues there.

P.S. Before anyone asks, yes I have done due diligence and checked that my research is still novel (so I've not been "scooped" by someone else).


texts: Expected size of search results for a meta-analysis?

texts:
I'd like to perform a meta-analysis on the efficacy of web-based counsellor interventions across different modalities (text counselling, video counselling, etc.)

To do so I created the following search term:

(Internet OR Online OR Web-based) AND (Therapy OR Counselling OR Intervention) AND (RCT OR Randomized Controlled Trial) AND (Counsellor OR Therapist OR Psychologist OR Psychotherapist)

In Google Scholar this returns over 145 000 results, and still over 19 000 if I filter for 2013 and later.

This is my first attempt at a meta-analysis and I'm wondering if this is considered normal - if there are researchers who sift through tens of thousands of papers to find <100 relevant ones? It seems like other reviews have managed to tackle similar topics yet only returned ~1000 studies. For example: Guided Internet‐based vs. face‐to‐face cognitive behavior therapy for psychiatric and somatic disorders: a systematic review and meta‐analysis


texts: Potential rotation advisor reaches out -- with her entire academic record!

texts: I am an incoming PhD student (for the fall). I recently received a message from a faculty member saying she was impressed with my application and asking if I wanted to talk about rotations. Ordinarily this would be awesome, but the rest of the message listed every grant and award won by this faculty member since 2009 (there were a lot of them), and it really seemed like overkill. Should this be considered a red flag, or is it just a practical way to demonstrate that the lab group is thriving? This is in the US.


texts: Humanities Research with Professors as a High Schooler?

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


texts: is there apprentice training in master of engineering?

texts: Do the M.Eng students in Electrical Engineering have apprenticeship? Do the students get money for their apprentice training? & how much?


texts:
I recently accepted a TT asst prof position in computer science at an elite SLAC in the US.

During my job search I perused Karen Kelsky's book "The Professor is In", and I found it very valuable, especially to reflect about different aspects of the job search process that I hadn't considered.

I'm now looking for a similar resource for new faculty members.

Here's what I found (but haven't bought yet):

Robert Boice, Advice for New Faculty Members, 2000
Russell James, Tenure hacks: The 12 secrets of making tenure, 2014

Does anyone have any comment/review about these books, or advice about any other written resource?

Thank you.


texts: How do I tackle the interview question "why join here and not your former college"?

texts:
Background : I did both my bachelor's and master's degree from the same institute, let's call it institute X. I liked it there during my bachelor's and since very few institutes near by offered a master's degree in the subject I wanted I joined it. It is a decision I regret. The level of the course and syllabus was very poor and most lectures couldn't give us proper guidance on the books one should refer to for self study. I did manage to find out through a very helpful professor from a highly reputed institute how to go about things and managed to get in to a good institute for a PhD. Now I am on verge of finishing and plan on applying to institute Y for teaching position.

Question : I am bound to be asked by the interview panel of institute Y why I am choosing to apply for a teaching position there and not in my own institute. What is the best way to answer?

The real answer to the question is that standards in institute X are falling and the academic environment there is deteriorated. More importance is being given to looking good on paper than to teaching. For example, they show statistics of how you have such a great number of students doing exceedingly well in exams but having written those exams myself I know that they aren't all that challenging to begin with. There are similar exaggerated facts that make the institute look good on paper. I know that I won't be happy there unless there is a radical change.

I don't think I should be saying all this to an interview panel though (or should I?). I really want to give an honest answer but I certainly don't want to come off as some one who insults their Alma Mater even if what I say is true. So what is the best way to answer? Or is there a polite way to say that I don't like the atmosphere there?

EDIT - I would like to add that I am from Bangalore, India.

Thank you.


texts: Ownership of equipment purchases during Marie-Curie Individual fellowship

texts: I know there is a related question Does equipment purchased with grants stay with the PI? but I'm not sure if Individual Marie-Curie Fellowship follow different rules. I am talking about personal equipment like computers, monitors, etc. not lab equipment like pipettes or microscopes. It is true that technically the funding is given to the host institution but the project is self-standing and the Fellow is not a permanent staff, if that makes any difference.


texts: How to get an advisor for my amateur research?

texts:
I'm about to embark on a research project in complex systems on my own spare time. It seems like the idea I have is a good one. However, it would be better, for obvious reasons, to have an experienced person guide me. What are the chances that a university professor would agree to guide me while I try and churn this out? (Obviously, I want it to be as professional as possible).

If I don't get anyone on board, what are my chances of publishing, or at least getting a pat on the back from admissions committees when I apply for graduate school? Do they appreciate this kind of thing?


texts: How to encourage a math teacher to present material in a more accessible way?

texts: My math teacher speaks like a college professor teaching a Mathematical Analysis course and many of the students (including me) find it hard to follow along. Once a student asked him rather bravely what the application of a power series would be to a question and he just had this "Why the heck are you even asking me this, isn't it obvious" look. Any tips to deal with this?


texts: When did "Publish or Perish" first become a thing?

texts:
Related: What does "Publish or perish" really mean?

The issue of "Publish or Perish" is pretty much an accepted reality in Academia nowadays. When I look at history, however, I see that the Medieval university was far from this - that the average, say, 13th century academic was more invested in passing degree examinations, applying logic against the classics, and mastering pedagogical techniques (how to teach your own students) than in finding something truly new about the world and racing his rivals colleagues to publication.

At what point in history did "Publish or Perish" become a reality for the majority of academics? In no way am I challenging the concepts, only asking about the timeframe. Could an "average" academic in 1800 build a career by gaining advanced subject matter knowledge (e.g. being really really good at integrating by parts, balancing chemical equations, or identifying known species of birds by looking only at their feet), being good at debate, passing a lot of exams, etc., without discovering much (if anything) that was new in his field? What about 1850? 1900? When was the changeover?

My hypothesis would be that there was some sort of watershed event, perhaps similar to (or identical to) the radical change in admission requirements for US undergraduates that happened when large numbers of returning World War 2 veterans all wanted to (and could afford to) "go to college" at the same time.

Jon Custer made a good point about PhD awards exploding in the 1990's. The PhD degree itself might also be related. Since the PhD is inherently a research degree that requires a substantial original discovery (as opposed to other degrees that may be focused more on subject matter knowledge, professional practice, or pedagogy), an answer might consist in discovering when it became rare for someone to gain a professorial appointment without a PhD. This could be an example of Creeping Credentialism - that when everyone and their dog has a PhD, suddenly a PhD is required for all sorts of teaching (or even research) jobs that used to only require an MA or even a BA or below. The question would be, when was that? Could you become an English professor at Harvard in 1765 by walking in off the street with no degree, passing an advanced professor-level literacy test, and completing a six-week accelerated course in Ye Olde Modern 18th Century Best Practices in Contemporary Literature Pedagogy?

From a pop cultural/literary perspective, I was recently reading some of H. P. Lovecraft's fiction from the 1920's and 1930's and was shocked at the frequency at which his academic-background characters intentionally "lose" their research (oops) or at least don't seem to mind that they have lost years of potentially groundbreaking research. At some level I feel that he is intending to imply extreme gravity to the situation - that unleashing the knowledge of eldritch abominations upon journal readers is simply so unthinkable that it's worth shooting one's own career in the foot to prevent it, or whether his characters reflect a different era, one in which research was more of a fun diversion for academics bored of teaching (and thus not truly necessary to gain or keep a faculty post).

Note that I am not asking when regular journal publications or the practice of peer review first developed, I am asking when they became the sine qua non of Academia, that is, when one could no longer reasonably expect to achieve tenure if the only real publication one had was a degree thesis or dissertation.


texts:
I have often read articles describing graduate education talk of "unstructured research problems". What exactly does an "unstructured research problem" mean?

Some context: All that I've read is in the context of computer science and electrical engineering. And I recently graduated with a undergraduate EE degree.


texts: Should definition of terms section be included in the introduction or the literature review chapter?

texts:
I 'm writing a Master thesis. I have some terms that should be defined.
Where should I put this section? In the introduction or literature review chapter?
Thank you

Additional Information

I think there are always exceptions to the general rule of writing theses. That's, some may not have a supervisor, guidelines, etc. This is another story.
Concerning definitions of terms, they can be presented as a glossary or discussed in a separate section. Where this section should be put is my question. I have seen theses having it in the introduction while others in literature review chapter discussing each term in detail.

Example of a thesis discussing definitions in the literature review chapter: Contesting the Culture of the Doctoral Degree: Candidates’ Experiences of Three Doctoral Degrees in the School of Education, RMIT University. Link.
A handbook for writing Master thesis recommends discussing definitions in the introduction: Bui, Yvonne N. How to write a master's thesis. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, c2009.
You can have access to a summary of the book here.

So, what is the difference between discussing definition of terms in the introduction and doing it in the literature review chapter?
If the literature review chapter is about reviewing previous research on the topic, why should one allocate a whole section for example to defining a term or concept?


texts: Should I contact potential referees for a job application?

texts:
When applying for an academic position, usually you provide a list of names of people who can give you a reference or letter of recommendation e.g. postdoc advisor or someone you often collaborate with. In this case, obviously you first ask the person if they are willing to do this.

However, for applications to academic positions in some countries, e.g. Switzerland, there's a different system. One is asked to provide the names of potential external referees, i.e. people who work in the same field as you and can evaluate the quality of your scientific output. These are people who don't necessarily know you personally, i.e. the kind of people you would suggest as potential reviewers for one of your articles or grant applications.

My question is this: in the latter case, is it usual or necessary to contact the people before suggesting them as referees? Obviously you wouldn't do so for an article or a grant application, but what about when it's for a job application?


texts: Applying to PhD programs when you have two research interests

texts:
I am in the process of trying to formulate my statement of purpose/intent for a PhD in criminal justice. I’m not sure how to go about this when I have two distinctly different areas that I’m very interested in. The first is wildlife crime (falls into conservational criminology, a very new field) and the other is biosocial criminology/mental illness. These are not related to each other in any way, but I’m fascinated by both.

There are a lot more schools that have faculty working on biosocial than wildlife crime. However, I have found one school that has one professor working in wildlife crime, and the rest working on mental-illness-related issues. I don’t know what to do. Should I write two different SOPs and submit them to the appropriate school? One for wildlife and one for biosocial?

When my past professors ask me for my research interests, I want to mention both of these, but I don’t want them to think I’m unfocused. I am going to a criminology conference in November, and I will be talking to the professors who are writing my letters of recommendation. Should I tell them everything I’m interested in or narrow down one specific thing?


texts: Is it appropriate (as a PhD student) to email other researchers asking about some details in their papers?

texts:
It has happened on several occasion now, that I read a paper, understand 95% of it, but there are some niggling details which I simply don't get. I ask around, I ask my advisor, and nobody is able to help (either because they don't get it themselves or they are too busy, which is completely understandable).

I have often felt like simply writing to the author of the paper, asking clarifying questions. But these are all busy people, currently on the job market, interviewing everywhere. And another thing is they also know my (rather famous) advisor pretty well.

Would it be weird to write to them? If so, should I mention my advisor at all? I don't want to put my advisor in an awkward situation, at the same time I don't want to seem like I'm hiding some information.

I am just not comfortable asking such a stupid question to my advisor, hence asking here. Thanks so much!


texts: Is it ethical for a lecturer to mis-indicate exam study material?

texts:
Scenario:

Lecturer tells students six sections of material to study for the exam, but the exam only covers two of those sections.
Practice exams are completely different to actual exam.
Answers to the exam are in the lecture notes, but not the notes pointed to by the lecturer.

Questions:

Is it ethical for a lecturer to mis-indicate exam study material by instructing students to study material which is not on the exam?
What are reasonable expectations regarding the relationship between what a lecturer says is assessable and exam content?


texts: I'm master student and I'm working on my thesis that includes lab work. I was written my proposal last semester and I've done lot of research about instruments that I'm going to use according to the instruction that my supervisor gave it to me. Now he comping up with new experiments and instruments every day that he didn't mentioned. He expect me to make chemical solutions that I'm going to use but I didn't prepared myself for that and now I'm confused and stressful.Now I don't know if it is right to complain about this or I have to do that part anyway. I appreciate it if somebody can tell me what to do?!


texts:
I will be starting my MS in CS in spring 2017. At the time of admission, I was not sure of PhD and hence applied only for MS program. However, I would want to transfer to PhD program. Is it possible to transfer/convert the MS program to PhD? I am start my studies after a gap more than 6 yrs and don't want to wait another semester.
Since I am an engineering undergraduate, I am eligible to apply PhD without MS program.


texts: My MRes will be unclassified - will this make applications outside academia less competitive?

texts:
I have just graduated 2.1 in a bioscience subject and have been offered an MRes / MSc(Res) (masters by way of research). I really want to do the MRes because I want to test my aptitude for research, publishing and continuing to a Ph.D.

It's a well-worn trope, but I had also hoped to build upon my 2.1 by earning a distinction to make potential applications (in/outside academia) more competitive. I believe I would be capable of that given my performance on a final year lab research module.

However, during my application I learned that the MRes as offered in my department is “unclassified” - it is only pass/fail. It does not attract the classic masters classifications of pass/merit/distinction.

I am in my mid-thirties. I am split 50/50 between my heart (using the MRes to continue to a Ph.D) and the pragmatic (exiting academia and applying for a bioscience-based postgraduate scheme or job so I can start earning while I learn). My aptitude for staying in academia is something I intend to get a feel for while doing the MRes.

Will the fact the MRes is unclassified mean that I am not appreciably increasing competitiveness of my application for positions outside of academia?

To take one example, the NHS Scientist Training Programme has a minimum entry standard of 2.1. However, someone on the admissions committee tells me that 2.1’s are screened out in favour of 1st class degrees. In that scenario, a masters with distinction could patch that up.


texts: Over the past few months I’ve contacted around 10 potential advisors at various schools of interest, and the only professor who has gotten back to me told me to wait until I was accepted if I wanted to work with him. My email strategy has been reading over papers from a professor and crafting personalized emails explaining who I was, why I was interested in their research, and asking if they had time to discuss what they are working on. Since many professors instruct to not even contact them until after a student is accepted, and many others don’t respond to prospective students, is it even worth trying to reach out? Is it still too late to keep trying to get in touch? It’s difficult to justify spending the time to look into a professor who doesn’t respond, but I keep hearing that it’s important to contact professors of interest before applying.


texts: Is it rude to send a self-correction followup email to professor?

texts:
I was wondering if I was rude to a professor.

I am a Japanese student at a Japanese university and I'm planning to apply for a British graduate school. Then, I contacted a professor at the graduate school and asked some questions about the school. The professor replied to me very politely. Due to my bad English skills, I misunderstood what the professor told me and wrote something inappropriate. Realizing my mistake 10 minutes after sending my original reply, I sent him a message again, apologizing for my mistake with a correction. I think I did things in a very polite way, but I still worry if I made a bad impression at the same time.
Do you think the professor would see me as a rude student? Please let me know your ideas.

*I mean I made just a simple English mistake. I should've written "my" instead of "your". I did not write anything like insulting him.


texts: Consequences of taking 5 years to graduate with a double major?

texts:
What effect might it have on my chances of getting into a graduate school and my employment prospects if it took 5 years (or 4.5 years) to graduate?

My plan currently is to take a double major in mechanical engineering and electrical engineering, while going through all the Japanese and Russian language courses.

If I were to do it in four years, I would have to take 4 semesters with 6 classes and 4 semesters with 7 classes, as well as all 19 available classes from the summer and winter sessions available to me. My university does not allow 7 classes in a semester without permission and everyone I know who's been to college has told me that it would be too much.

If I were to do it in 5 years, I could do 9 semesters with 5 classes and 1 semester with 6 as well as 3 summer sessions and 5 winter sessions. The 4th summer session could serve as a cushion in case of limited availability or study abroad programs/interships/co-ops.

I will be attending my first semester at Hofstra University this fall, and am hoping to work for NASA or SpaceX as an engineer while pursuing a masters part time, if that information helps.


texts: Shall I be listed as technical program committee member if I accepted an invitation and did three reviews?

texts:
I receive often invitations to serve as TPC (Technical Program Committee) member. Some are from my colleagues but some are just from random people who I don't know.
If I agree to serve as TPC member then I get papers to review and this is the only task assigned to me.

Shall I be listed in on the conference TPC member list in this situation?
Is it ok, to ask the organizers to update the webpage?

In fact, I am only a reviewer, but I invest my time to read the papers and write the feedback. I treat it seriously and reviewing ~10 pages paper may take me up to 3-4 hours. It is pity that I don't get any mention on the official webpage although I have contributed my time and expertise.

Comment to the accepted answer (I don't have commenting privilege yet): I accept the interpretation A of your answer,  because the only duty of a TCP member for the conference that I got in my mind is to review (or delagte the reviews) for several papers.


texts: In the EU, can I start an R&D company and apply for research grants?

texts:
I am from an EU country and hold a PhD degree in structural mechanics. I have two questions:

Is it possible to start a company dedicated to R&D only and apply for research grants for my own projects and ideas? I would be the one hiring research staff and I would be supervising their work.

Does anyone know any funding organization, body or foundation that is able to fund privately-held companies?


texts: MSc project in ML/Computer Vision - substantial achievement

texts:
What would be a valid/substantial achievement in a Masters project (~30 pages, 4 months) in Computer Vision/Deep Learning?

Obviously it is not enough to just take an existing model (e.g. Mask R-CNN or similar), find/hack a dataset by yourself, add a layer or two out-of-the-box and finetune the model to it.

It is also obvious it can't be a huge contribution simple due to the size/nature of the project.

I'm thinking along the lines of implementing a new problem-specific loss function/accuracy metric, writing a new layer with custom functionality, and improvement of accuracy on a benchmark dataset.


texts: No luck with postdoc hunting after PhD. Will things change with a major paper out?

texts:
During my PhD (defended in Fall 2016), I developed a new microscopy technique, which allows investigating the internal structure of materials non-destructively and in 3D using neutrons. The work was technique development \ proof of concept, and I wrote my thesis the old way: as a book, also because I did not publish along the way. I guess that is the main reason why all the postdoc applications (about 20) and fellowship (about 5) I submitted were rejected.

The paper presenting the work I did will be soon submitted to a journal of the Nature group. I am the first author and there will be about 20 co-authors. After submitting, I plan to upload the draft to arXiv, so that during the editorial process people can see the work I did.

Basing on your experience, having a paper out (first on arXiv and then hopefully on the Nature website) does change a lot how people judge a postdoctoral application? Do you have any tips on how to maximize the impact of the paper? After that many failures, I feel a bit discouraged to continue applying.

Thanks for your help!

In case it might be helpful: the work I did was at the intersection between computer science, physics and materials science. I am looking for postdocs combining computer science with biology or physics.


texts: I have been pigeonholed, how can I solve it?

texts:
I can program, write papers and research. I'm better at research, but due to the lack of programmers I've been assigned programming tasks in my current institution. Additionally, I have little evidence to support that claim in my CV, I am "good" now (and I have strong personal evidence), but I don't have a long track of publications to prove it (because, to be honest, I wasn't good before).

How can I prosper in research if my CV and the interests of my superiors point me in the opposite direction? Is there any escape?

PD: I was a PhD student in another institution, I'm close to finishing my PhD but I don't get any spare time from my current programming obligations in the new institution, where I am a postdoc.


texts: Exposing my writing in a public git repository after publication?

texts:
I use private git repositories to manage the code I use for projects. After I publish a paper, I like to make the code available by making the repository public. My field is Geography/GIScience, and uploading code is typically not required for article submissions. I mostly refer friends/colleagues to this code and link the repositories from my website.

I also version control my manuscripts (typically an Emacs' .org file, .md, or a .tex file) within the same repository I use for the project. I find that its convenient to have the code and writing in the same repo since I code, write, and jot ideas simultaneously during a project.

Are there any potential negative consequences of exposing my writing in these repositories too? Would it be seen as unprofessional? Are licensing issues with this? Is it a bad idea to include things like reviewers' comments and responses to reviewers in here?

Is there a better approach for this? Would it be a good idea to use a submodule for writing that remains private even after I make the root repository public? I feel that this may be the way to go, but I also feel that submodules introduce some (unnecessary) complexity and I don't understand them well.


texts: pdf or word of the article for the first submission

texts:
I'm submitting an article to an Elsevier journal, but I'm hesitant about the file format I should choose as the first submission. According to this journal:

  Your Paper Your Way

  We now differentiate between the requirements for new and revised
  submissions. You may choose to submit your manuscript as a single Word
  or PDF file to be used in the refereeing process. Only when your paper
  is at the revision stage, will you be requested to put your paper in
  to a 'correct format' for acceptance and provide the items required
  for the publication of your article.

My field is computer networking.
The reason why I'm hesitant is that sometimes word files look different in other people's computer and the reason why I'm hesitant about submitting a pdf is that the quality of the images in pdf file is a bit lower than the word file.

I wanted to know which one is better for the first submission? pdf file or word file? or both of them in a zip?


texts: Is it ethical for a journal to request substantial payment for publishing a paper?

texts: A while ago, I spoke with a colleague of mine who advised me to beware of journals that require you to pay to publish your work, as they may be predatory.  Today, I spoke with my advisor who informed me that even some reputable journals require payment to publish... even upwards of thousands of dollars!  Is this really ethical?  I can understand requiring a nominaly insignificant membership fee of some sort to keep the journal running, but such an exhorbitant amount?  Shouldn't all who have significant work to publish in a field have the ability to diseminate in reputable journals without being super rich?


texts: Export Zotero library into Google Scholar

texts:
I am trying to find a way to synch the collection of papers I have in Zotero to my Google Scholar library.
Ideally the synch would be bidirectional, but I undestand that is probably not feasible at the moment, so I am ok with anything that allows me to export my Zotero library inside Google Scholar.

I have seen a ton of guides on how to do the opposite, from Scholar to Zotero, but I cannot find anything on how to transfer from Zotero to Scholar.

Could anyone help me with this please? Going through all the papers one by one would be extremely panful.


texts: Which university uses or used this academic regalia?

texts:
Given information about academic regalia such as colour and style of graduation robes, how can I determine the university that used that regalia?
I have the photo below, and would like to find out what university this graduation was for.


texts: Undergrad seeking information about PhD/Masters in Economics math requirements

texts:
I am currently a Senior undergrad at a small school in the US.  I have pretty good grades and have yet to take the GRE. I am a double major in Accounting and Business Management. I love economics (all parts I have encountered) but I am not sure if economics programs are for me.

I have heard that PhD/Masters Economics programs are very math intense, and without the proper courses you will be lost. I am not that great at math maybe because I never was that interested in it (I do like numbers if that makes sense). I did take Econometrics this past semester and really loved it and understood it. I do like behavioral economics; I find the psychology side very interesting.

Summary: I am not great at math. I love how economists think. I love being able to explain things with data. And I like how psychology can explain irrational acts. I want to further my education.

Questions:
What program(s) should I be looking into based on my interests and capabilities?
How math heavy are economics programs (PhD & Masters)?
Is it mostly econometric math?
Is there a similar field without the crazy math but with econometrics?
Is the US the best place for me (where I am now)?


texts: Listing rudimentary language proficiency in an application in that country despite English being working language

texts:
Should a person list his/her (very basic) knowledge of a language spoken in a country he may be working in on an application for a position in that country, even if the language really isn't necessary for doing the job at all?

The actual work will be published in English
Everyone in the department/university/practically the country speaks English (cf. "Do PhD courses in engineering fields in European non-English speaking countries require knowledge of the native language?")
The resources which are partial to the work are all in English
It's a linguistic community small enough that knowing the language would probably raise more questions along the lines of: "How on Earth did you come to learn language?" than anything else
My actual abilities, since anything you list on CV is fair game during an interview:

My abilities in said language are not good enough to hold a conversation of any kind.
My actual proficiency isn't in that language but rather in a ridiculous mixture of a few closely-related languages plus a large amount of creative interpretive abilities ("ah, x from language_a sounds a bit like y from language_b!"). On the bright side, this means that my passive abilities are better than "rudimentary".

The only reason I can come up with for listing said language is that it could pique someone's interest (see question 4 above) and that it may indicate a small tendency to be able to thrive while living in the country (or rather, more accurately, the probability of the person floundering in the country may be slightly lower); So do these "soft" benefits outweigh the lack of hard ones?


texts:
I'm in physics where the order of authors is meaningful. The first author is the lead author and the last author is the principal investigator. I am an undergraduate who has collaborated on a topic with two post docs and a professor. We are nearly ready to submit the paper to a top journal (Nature physics).

I proposed the topic after I discovered a huge idea in the field. I proved a variety of theorems and generated the supporting data independently. I used post doc 1s previous work in the paper - but it has already been published. Post doc 2 made a very small contribution, the other has contributed significantly more. I wrote the "main results", "applications" and "technical discussion" section. Post doc 1 wrote the intro, conclusion, abstract and a minor background section. The appendix is very long and I wrote 90% of it. The proof techniques and methods are my own creation with no input from any one else. Post doc 1 has helped greatly in improving my presentation since he has far more experience than me in writing papers (I have never written one). Post doc 1 made a lot of edits and helped restructure some arguments for clarity of presentation.

The paper has just been posted online to Arxiv. I am second to last author. Post doc 1 made himself first author. I have read a number of articles on the topic and since I contributed the most I believe I should be first author. What is the best way for me to approach the situation? I really feel like I am being ripped off. 3rd author could be given to any undergrad and I imagine the difference for grad school/future career could be substantial.
Thanks!


texts: Selecting the Theory Underpinning the Research Project

texts:
Sorry about the breadth and complexity of this question. I realise that for most people this question irrelevant as most projects or PhDs are predetermined and that theories and methodologies for each discipline or topic are quite limited. However, for me that is not the case. My research topic is rather broad, and I was keen to explore the topic from different angles before deciding on a specific angle. When the angle was decided, it was not clear which theory to use and whether the project should be one of theory development or theory testing. I have since decided which theory to use but I would like to apply more intellectually rigour to my project.

Anyways, my broad question is directed to people and researchers who have experience or had to decide which theories to use for their project or PhD. What influenced your decision-making and what factors were relevant? I could not find any books or resources that helped me go through my consideration process, so I apologise for this question.

More specifically my topic is broadly about new migrants. I was keen to explore whether migrants who are new to Australia found or felt there are educational differences in the way they are taught in the workplace. Obviously, learning theories are relevant, acculturation theories less so, etc.


texts: How should I mention on my CV that I will leave my current PhD program when I apply to a new one?

texts: Currently, I am a PhD student on paper. However, I would love to apply for a PhD program abroad. I do not intend to finish my current PhD. I am doing nothing for it. I am just a student. However, I have been striving to find a PhD program abroad and become acceptable (money issues, language skills etc.) for a long time.  My goals are concrete about my academic development and I feel I am highly motivated. I would love to complete my studies in a more respected university and experience a new academic environment. My current supervisor and former supervisor from MA fully support my decision and intention. In case of getting a certification of acceptance from a new program abroad, I will definitely leave the current program. I have to do that. So, how should I mention or imply on my CV that I will leave my current PhD in case acceptance for a new one?


texts: In a 5 years PhD, is it possible to get a postdoc position with one publication? I can really use some advice

texts:
I am a 5th year Mechanical engineering PhD.

I just have 1 published paper and 3 others are pending with my advisor

I was wondering if I can get some advice on what should my approach towards postdoc applications without publications be like? Almost all of the positions requires sending a reference work to prove for competence.


texts: Disseminating math results in an interdisciplinary journal

texts:
I'm a mathematician with physics background.  We recently obtained some results that, in my opinion, has interesting physics interpretations and thus deserve an interdisciplinary attention.

We already wrote a manuscript meant for a math journal.  It is super technical and not friendly at all to general audience.  I find that a pity, and want to write a kind of "short communication" (actually not sure about the format), in which I would avoid all the mathematical reasonings and only present the interesting interpretations that are relevant for material scientists and soft matter physicists.  The purpose is to disseminate our result to a more general audience, and invite interdisciplinary collaborations.

I have no experience of such manuscript.  My colleagues suggest that I should try top journals Nature or Science.  But I have the concern that such a manuscript has no "original result", which seems to be required by these top journals.  Then my colleagues argue that "interpretations" are original results.  But I fear that most of my "interpretations" are just personal opinions and won't count as solid result.

By the way, I do see people publish "long version" then "accompanied short version", which sometimes raises the concern of dual publication.  My planned "communication" won't be a short version, but a completely different paper with no overlap.

My question:  What should I do in this situation?  What journals welcome such manuscript (Nature and Science seems very unfriendly towards mathematics)?  How do people usually disseminate technical results?


texts: how to ask supervisor for a recommendation letter for scholarship?

texts:
I've just started my master in Canada and I just passed one course so far and it was with my supervisor.
could I ask my supervisor to fill out a strong reference letter for me for a scholarship? or should I find another professor?

Please note that I am receiving some funding from my supervisor right now. Asking him to fill out the recommendation letter would be harmful?
how should I ask him? could you please guide me through writing an email?


texts: When reviewing a resubmission, can I request a version with changes highlighted if the journal does not require it?

texts:
Reviewing is time-demanding. It makes huge sense to re-review if comments and changes are submitted. While first review takes a lot of time, the second can be very quick.

If authors provide a version that shows the changes - this makes re-review very fast. They also don't have to spend too much time on resonse-to-reviews letter.

Can I simply reject to re-review if such changes-highlighted version is not provided?


texts: Gender transition as a starting faculty member: a terrible idea?

texts:
I'm a computer scientist at the point in my postdoc where I will have to decide soon whether to apply for faculty positions this fall or go to industry, in the US/Canada/UK/maybe Europe.1

But I've also recently come to the realization that spending half of my waking hours fervently wishing I had been born a girl could be a sign that maybe I should be doing something about that.

My situation is such that I doubt I would be able to really "pass" anytime soon, if ever. Even if I went all-out on transition immediately – which I'm not sure I'm ready for anyway – I can't imagine that I wouldn't be quite obviously physically trans at interview time and at least for a while afterwards.

I'd be fine presenting male through the faculty interview process and so on; my dysphoria is not particularly acute, and I have not yet started on hormones or anything. But I am certainly not willing to wait until tenure! I'm old enough already. (~30, but losing hair fast....)

Transition will obviously make life harder either in industry or in academia. But assistant professorships are not like normal jobs. Getting students, perhaps getting grants, perhaps teaching, and probably a million other things will all be harder in the midst of transition. It would also be combining two quite stressful experiences at the same time, and early-stage assistant professorships are not necessarily the most friendly job to the possibility of required medical absences / etc.

By contrast, my assumption is that a job as a researcher at some tech company will only provide the "usual" amount of discrimination and inconvenience, with probably better capability to handle potential medical issues, much more financial support for a potentially expensive process, and maybe fewer people I'll need to convince I'm a real person. A greater portion of these jobs are also going to be available in a major liberal city with the support structure for this process (and near my existing social networks for support).

And yet, ideally I think I'd want to be on the faculty market anyway.

So: how infeasible is transitioning as an early-career faculty member? Should I abandon this path for now and go to industry research instead, and maybe come back to it after a few years?

I'd particularly love to hear from anyone who's been in a similar situation, or to be pointed to examples of academic scientists who've transitioned before being well-established in their careers.

(This seems to be the only relevant question on the site, but is broader, and the examples of trans academics there seem to have all transitioned after already being quite established [except Lynn Conway, who (a) did this in the 60s/70s and (b) had to completely restart her career in "stealth mode"]. There are also a few on workplace about related situations for "normal" jobs, but I'm looking for academia-specific thoughts.)

1 I don't really want to do another postdoc; I'm in the second year of my current one, with a professor who's relatively prominent in my subfield, and though it's been great I can't help but think that a second one almost anywhere else would be seen as a "step down." Doing multiple postdocs is also quite rare, though not unheard of, in my area. My current position is "term-limited" before another faculty cycle comes around.


texts: How to integrate partial version control, data exchange and research assistants?

texts:
Currently, my coauthors and I use GitHub to collaborate in coding and writing but also in data exchange. We have a lot of data, often not in text format (e.g. pdf). Most of this is collected by research assistants, which which we don't share our Git repo.

More specifically, we use python, shell, R, Stata and Latex and most of it is fully integrated. That is, python and shell scripts generate the data that is used by R and Stata whose output is directly compiled in Latex.

We don't want to deviate from this high level of automatization, but our approach has two major shortcomings:

Research assistants can and may not upload their data directly into our repo. Instead, they send us their data and files via another git repo. This puts additional workload on me but we want to make them use git for it's fascinating issue tracker. However, there is too much additional work for us and git is often to complicated for young research assitants (even the GUIs).
Because of the data, which eventually changes, our repo is very large (>1,5GB) and internet is sometimes restricted. Getting the repo on a new computer is very time-consuming and often not working. Although the raw data changes from time to time, git, which was not made for the data exchange, keeps track of these changes. But that's useless for our purpose.

Can you suggest to me other software(s) or approaches, which combine the integration we have achieved so far where we can easily exchange data?


texts: If I already have a master's degree, can I use it to apply for another master's degree (UK)?

texts: The title already has the question. If I have a master's degree, can I use it to apply for another (in UK)? I have completed my master's degree (GPA 4.0/4.0) at my home country (situated in northern Europe), and I would now like to do another one-year MSc course at a top university to swap fields. The thing is, my BSc degree is clearly below average (lack of motivation during the first years... is costly), so I really hope this would be possible. I also have 4 peer-reviewed publications.


texts: Is it ok to ask professor to read my published article?

texts: I have applied for a position last month and the deadline is on March. But by this time one of my work has been published in a good journal (which I wrote in my CV as under review). The position is competitive. Is it ok if I mail the professor and ask him to read my published work? (Though the published work is not so much similar to his work). Will it add extra value to my application? (I have talked with the professor regarding his work and admission several times through email)


texts: Renting a house to a graduate student in my department

texts:
I am a professor at a US university, and I'll be away on a sabbatical for all of the coming academic year.  I would like to sublet my house while I am away, and I think that one or two of the graduate students in my department might be interested.  I'd prefer to do that instead of renting to a complete stranger.  However, since I would effectively be their landlord and they would be paying me rent, I am wondering if this raises ethical or conflict-of-interest concerns, since those students may be in my courses in the future.

(I have checked my university's regulations and they do not address this situation.  I would certainly check with my superiors before going ahead; this question is just to find out whether this seems okay in terms of general professional ethics, or presents the appearance of a conflict.)

Some possibly relevant notes:

My department's graduate program is not in my research area, so there would not be any chance of me becoming the dissertation advisor of any of these students.  However, I could serve on their dissertation committee.
The sublet would end before I would be teaching classes again, so I wouldn't simultaneously be a student's landlord and their instructor.  It is conceivable, though, if they fell behind on the rent, that they might still owe me money at that time.


texts: I'm writing a personal statement for a Master's degree. The length requirement is about 1000 words. I have written 2000. Shall I shorten it?

texts:
Currently I am applying for a LLM programme at SOAS and am having certain difficulties while writing the required personal statement. According to their guidance, the statement should be "describing your ambitions, suitability and interest for the programme you have chosen. This should be around 1,000 words in length", but I simply can't even fall under 2,000 words.

So my question is should I post the longer version that describes me better and for which I believe gives me a greater chance to be accepted, or should I simply delete half the text so I could manage their quota?


texts: Recommendation letter submitted by applicant in application

texts:
Problem

In one of the research internship programs I am applying for in Japan, the institution requires me to directly upload recommendation and, otherwise the application will not be reviewed. However, I think this is not quite appropriate since generally applicants should not know the contents of the recommendation. I contacted the admission administrators to discuss other options but they said it was that institution's policy.

Now I am wondering if I could ask for the professor's recommendation. Even though I think he will understand the situation and there are examples that the professor voluntarily send students a copy of recommendation (i.e. the students receive the letter passively), I feel actively asking for the copy truly unprofessional and may make myself look bad in professor's eyes. This matters since he will provide recommendations to other institutions, where they follow the convention and accept recommendation through direct email with the professor.

Do anyone else have similar experiences and how do you do with that? Thank you in advance.


texts: How much duplication is permissible in letters of recommendation?

texts: Anybody has idea, how much copying is allowed in a recommendation letter and whether they really run a copying test on the letters of recommendation?


texts:
I am about to finish a PhD in mathematics with a thesis in an area in between differential geometry and PDE. I still have more than half a year, but I want to start thinking about my future.
In the last years there were moments where I was feeling quite depressed and frustrated, but overall I have to say that I have enjoyed my time as grad student. I love learning new things and being challenged by some nice problems.

At the moment I don't feel like pursuing a post doc in my field. First of all, I am scared of getting stuck in a sort of "dead end" (it could happen that after doing several postdocs around the world I will not find any permanent position and at that point I will maybe be too old to do something else..).  Secondly and most importantly, I don't know if I like math enough. It's a nice and interesting activity, but I'm not sure if I want to dedicate the rest of my life on that and I feel that I don't have enough motivation for fighting for a job in academia.

Working on some topics related with the ecological and climate crisis that we are facing, would probably motivate me more than just dealing with theoretical problems in differential geometry.

My questions: How common is to switch field after a PhD? Could I get a job in some research institution (possibly in Europe) where I could do research maybe on ecology or climate change?


texts: I was accused of cheating on an online physics exam because my answers were similar to those on Chegg

texts:
Today I was found guilty because my exam answers were similar to those on the math website. I haven't even seen the evidence(Chegg's answers) they said. I would like some advice on the appeal.
Here is what happened.
There were 2 questions they suspected. In the first question, I put an absolute sign on my answer to eliminate the direction of water flow because the question provided the flow direction so that I didn't need to consider the direction. I think the official answer didn't have the absolute sign but Chegg's answer had. In the second question, I used an equation that is slightly different from my lecture note because I learned that from the internet and it is more accurate(the difference is due to different coursebooks). I think Chegg's answer used the same equation I did.
I have explained the reasons why I answered like this and provided the note I learned from the internet with the equation I used. The committee didn't challenge my statement at that time. It turns out they found me guilty.
What reason can I use to appeal this result and claim my innocence?


texts: How to organize course component when there are a lot of students?

texts:
I am teaching a university maths module, which is currently taken by approximately 300 undergraduates. By the way, I am teaching in Asia.

Due to the number of undergraduates, tutorial classes are conducted from Monday to Thursday. There comes the problem:

This course consists of 2 in-tutorial quizzes. The quizzes are set very similarly so that the level of difficulty is consistent. However, due to the similarity of question, students from Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday classes can obtain quiz questions and keep practising them. In the end, these students excel while students from Monday do averagely or poorly.

Question: How to deal with this kind of situation? A few solution that I can come out with is to have a mid-term, where everyone sits in a lecture hall.

Another way is to set different questions each day. However, this method does not guarantee the level of difficulty is consistent throughout all tutorial classes.

The last way, which I don't prefer, is to set assignment. However, students tend to copy each other and t defeats the purpose of assignment.


texts: Graduate school admission without college degree

texts: Can you apply and be admitted to a graduate school without having an undergraduate degree?


texts: Should I withdraw my other PhD applications when I have a secured funding and a supervisor but I am waiting for the faculty decision?

texts:
I'm applying for PhD studies to a university in Netherlands, the procedure entails that you should contact a professor and obtain a letter of acceptance. I have already secured funding and now found a supervisor and obtained acceptance.  I now have to obtain admission from the faculty.(Which will take about two months) I have sent out other applications and I was in the middle of sending more PhD applications. I want to know:

What are the odds that I will be denied admission even after securing funds and getting acceptance from a professor working in the faculty?
Should I stop sending out applications and withdraw my other applications now or wait until I am granted admission by faculty? (I have read on this site that wasting other people's time in academia by going to interviews or applying for a position you know you're not going to take is considered unethical).


texts:
I've actually just finished applying to 12 graduate programs all around the country and so far, things have been pretty smooth but there is one thing that I am concerned about.

I have three people that I asked to write a letter of recommendation for me. Two of them have all sent in their LOR's already which is great, but there is one that I'm kind of having issues with sadly.

I told her last week that I'm still missing LOR's from her. Her response was that A) she didn't know that I was applying to that many schools and B) she's way too busy to send out those LOR's. I totally understand the amount of stress she probably has to deal with for someone as busy as she is, but at the same time, I'm really bummed out about it because she did initially agree to write them for me before the application submission season even started. To add, I also sent her a list of all the schools I was applying to at that time.

Now fast-forwarding to this week, she sent in LOR's to four of the schools I'm applying to. That's a start! But I reminded her again that I'm applying to other schools as well, eight more to be exact, and they're all currently waiting for her LOR to be submitted. She responds that no, she sent it in to five schools--and I hope this is just my online checklist lagging, but this doesn't seem to be the case--and that she's too busy to do even more. She explicitly said that she wants this to be the last time she'll have to turn in any more letters due to how busy she is on the last email she's sent me.

I'm awfully depressed about this situation and I'm not certain about what to do. I'm not the richest person in the world so I literally spent a good portion of my savings just to apply. Those application fees add up. To have that money and all that time I spent working on my apps go to waste just because one single component of my application was missing would be a major disappointment. At the same time, I really don't want to cause tension between her and me. I totally sympathize for her situation, and I really don't want to burden her, so I'm a little hesitant to try to talk to her again. I definitely don't want to come across as pushy.

Any suggestions on how to tackle this? I get a bit teary-eyed and anxious when I have to think about this.


texts: If I took electives from another program during my BSc and MSc, how should I list it on my CV?

texts:
While I was doing my BSc in Applied Mathematics I took 5 electives that were part of the Data Science MSc program. Right now I am pursing a MSc in Computer Science at the same school and I'm taking two courses that are also part of the Data Science MSc. When I finish my master's program in a year, I will have also taken another two courses that are part of the Data Science program.

So, in total I will have taken 9 courses part of the Data Science program. Since the Data Science program has 11 courses in total, I was thinking on saying that during my BSc and MSc I took 9 out of 11 courses part of the Data Science master's program and list it something like the following (it wasn't actually at Harvard, it's just an example):

2014: Applied Mathemaics BSc
Harvard College, Cambridge, MA.
2017: Computer Science MSc
Harvard College, Cambridge, MA.
Additional coursework: Data Science MSc
Harvard College, Cambridge, MA.
Took 9 out of 11 courses from the program (not officially enrolled).

Do you think it's okay to do it this way?


texts: How to efficiently engage undergraduate students in my research program?

texts:
I'm a fairly new Assistant Professor at a 4-year university. As is often the case our teaching load is high and we are also expected to do research. Personally, I like both teaching and doing research.

The difficult part of it, however, is to attract the students to work in your lab (often on a voluntary basis) that will make it worth the time and effort needed to train them.
The other challenge is this: once you have a student that you clearly see has the ability to perform well (both intellectually and skill-wise to work in a lab), how do I motivate them to spend as much time as they can in the lab?

It's obviously not worth it when a student starts an experiment and then loses the motivation to come in in-between classes to make a measurement. It's my feeling that the students see it like this: "if I come in and do some work in the lab, then that's good and useful for the professor", but without the true engagement to learn something from the experiment, without the student having the curiosity and passion to follow-up, it becomes more like waste of time and money.

Obviously, I realize that I'm asking a lot. It's generally accepted that this kind of behaviour/motivation can be expected from a Ph.D. student, but not so much from an undergrad. Nonetheless, this is the situation that many professors are in since they only get to work with undergrads and are still expected (and genuinely want) to do exciting research. If I could, I would spend much more time in the lab myself, but it's just not always possible.


texts: Reporting negative results/failure of experiments in thesis/papers

texts:
During the various sub-projects of my PhD (physics) we encountered several difficulties (as it is common, I assume) both in technical and in physical nature which we had to solve. Moreover, some experiments resulted in bad results or no results at all. Nevertheless, we identified the issues and noted how to avoid those problems (or how to fix them) in the future.
After we spent considerable time investigating and fixing those problems I would like to mention those issues (and the solutions) if not in papers, but at least in my thesis to avoid future readers the same problems, but my supervisor is completely against reporting any negative results. His stance is that any negative result or technical issue would paint me in a bad light (even though we could solve them), and therefore I only should report good results without mentioning problems.
This confused me (why would anyone view me in a negative way if I report problems in my thesis, and how we could circumvent or fix them), and my local colleagues could not give a conclusive answer either. Therefore, are such stances common, and if yes, why?


texts: One Extra Semester - Benefits? Trouble Planning

texts:
I am a junior mathematics/philosophy double major looking to pursue mathematics into graduate school. Philosophy is a hobby which turned out to satisfy many degree requirements at first. Now, due to some unfortunate planning on my part, and the fact that the university schedules mathematics and philosophy courses almost exclusively in the same time, I'm in for a real crunch to finish the philosophy side of the program. In short, I'm considering taking a 9th semester of undergraduate, but I'm not sure it's worth it for me. I have a few reasons to consider this decision, but I'm not sure how bad that lost semester matters. I understand that it might implicitly translates into an extra year, since many first year graduate courses come in fall/spring sequences.

In order to graduate on time, I would have to take 18 and 19 credits in senior year, respectively, as well as write a thesis in mathematics (it need not be any new or groundbreaking work, but it must be at minimum an expository paper covering some highly non-trivial theorem and/or applications). However, since I have completed all of the mathematics courses for undergraduate necessary, I am free to take graduate level classes. Since I'm primarily interested in algebra and geometry, I'll be taking the core courses in those two subjects that year if possible. However, I could always nix these to work on philosophy, but since I'm really going to school for mathematics, that seems less than wise.

But in the event that it's too much to handle, I have only two choices. Drop the philosophy major and make it a minor when nearly finished, or take an extra semester of undergraduate.

How much does one extra semester hurt my application? There are quite a handful of benefits to the extra semester if I stay:

It takes stress off senior year proper, which is important to me because I struggle with moderate anxiety, and the high course load could impact my GPA. I could do 12 credits/semester taking 6 in graduate mathematics and 6 in philosophy quite comfortably, with room to meet with professor and work on my mathematics thesis.
It let's me spread the philosophy work sufficiently thin that I can take an advanced algebra course, and/or a graduate course in real analysis. This is particularly important because I didn't do so well in my undergraduate course because of that anxiety. In a lighter semester, I could do much better, since I do understand the material, in spite of underperforming on exams. At the very least I could retake the undergraduate course and do better in it.
I can be a TA, something I have not otherwise had time for and I understand to look good on an application.
I can continue to work as a peer tutor at my university. I am a certified tutor through the College Reading and Learning Association. I don't know if that's useful or not on a graduate application, but it can't hurt. The extra semester would get me another level of certification. I don't know how much graduate programs know about this organization, so I don't know if this means much or not.
Since I'm not graduating after "senior" year, I can possibly partake in a (second?) mathematics REU. Hopefully I will be admitted to one this summer.

So in short, the question is, should I try to get through in two semesters, and nix the philosophy program if I can't make it, or do I go for the ninth semester with all the tradeoffs?


texts: How to get in a Master program in Applied Maths coming from a Physics Background

texts:
I am having a big problem finding a master program in mathematics for which I can apply. My background briefly:

I grew up in Brazil. I started learning physics and mathematics as autodidactic in high school. When I started college in physics, I already knew the whole content of the bachelor degree, plus master subjects (quantum field theory, general relativity, etc). Before that I did a proof for a master program and passed, but was not admitted because I needed the Bachelor. In the following 6 years I had to attend classes and make graduate coursework in a Brazilian university. I earned my physics degree in 2015, and moved to Germany in the beginning of 2016 to live with the other half of my family here.

I learned about the Bologna process and the importance of a master degree for the first time in my life. In the beginning of the third of the six years of college in Brazil, I had decided not to go through with academia, but had to finish the degree to have what is called a "superior education" in Brazil and have better chances in any job market. Here on the other hand I finally discovered applied maths and it's applications to industry, and felt in love with it.

But I find four big obstacles to being accepted in any master course:

1- Having a physics and not mathematics bachelor

During the college, I didn't have to open a book of college physics. This gave me much time to study subjects of mathematics, as Analysis, Abstract Algebra and Group and Representation Theory.

But, as much as I have already the pre-requisite knowledges to a master program, they won't be recognized because I don't have them in my academic records.

2- Having earned a grade in Brazilian system, which is considered very bad in international grading system.

I was always the best student in every class I took in my life. I had always the best results in examinations. But in the Brazilian system, the results in examinations do not matter a lot: people loose many points if they do not watch all lectures or do not do all the exercises. I couldn't do any of this because I worked full time to survive together with the college, both in daily time. Plus, I never in my life heard that a better grade would have any use. A grade in Brazil is exclusively a passing criteria, and no employer or graduate program takes it seriously. My final grade was 72%, I was ranked second in my peer group, but with this seems like I can't be accepted in any university in the EU.

3- I only have one recomendation letter. I didn't want to follow academia and research, and this would be the only reason in Brazil to commit to research programs and be in contact with researchers. Also, it is not allowed to do so while having a job.

4- I don't have any money. I figured out that the perfect solution for that would be to make a distance learning master and work during the day where I currently live. But this makes the possibilities more restricted. Having to attend a presential full time university, I don't even know how would I pay for rent.

Anyway, I am sure that if I could take courses in mathematics I would have very high grades in european system and would be able to proof my potential. I haven't found any university in Germany which offers this possibility though.

My general question is: how can an autodidactic go for a career in mathematics? I just want any possibility at all that does not involve starting a whole new bachelor again.

Thanks in advance fellows


texts: Can I apply for MS in software engineering in USA from a non CSE background? If so, then which universities generally accept with such condition? And how can I make my chances better?