One of the questions is why his students finish so fast. That's likely at the core of whether or not things are "Good" or "Bad".

For example, some potential good reasons:

His lab has stable funding, which means his students need to take fewer TA positions to fund themselves, and can work on research instead. Note that this might also be a bad thing if you want to accumulate teaching experience.
His lab has a productive experiment and data generation pipeline, meaning his students might have clear experimental setups, there's a lot of institutional knowledge, etc. that prevents them from going down unproductive rabbit holes.

In both cases, a "Good" lab might have removed some of the waste time from doing a PhD that many people experience, which will cut down on the time it takes, potentially by quite a bit.

Some potentially bad reasons:

The course of study for his students is expressly just what's useful for their work in his lab, discouraging picking up depth or exploring interests.
The projects are "gift wrapped" and don't involve much thought on the part of the student as to how to conduct them - all they have to do is pull the trigger. This seems like a good thing, but can leave you with a lack of skills in articulating an independent research agenda later.

Just knowing the time it takes can't tell you which of those things (and others) is actually in play.


Why are footnotes expensive for publishers to reproduce?

thank you @user2768; your comment is excellent:

Steven Krantz writes "in mathematics we do not usually put bibliographical references in footnotes (however...it was fairly common in mathematics one hundred years ago). This habit came about in part because typesetters objected to the expense and trouble of typesetting copious footnotes. With the advent of TEX, that particular objection is moot. However, the rule persists." -- arxiv.org/abs/1612.04888 Perhaps APA does not recommend footnotes for historic reasons too.


Yes.

For example, a professor from Stanford, Rod Fedkiw, won an Oscar in 2015. You can read about it in the following article:

Stanford professor wins Oscar for science of destroying things


Can a UK University prevent you from graduating due to an outstanding library fine?

This is called an administrative encumbrance, it is indeed very standard.

The general notion is that if you owe the university money, then the administration will deny you things.
These things may include: unit results, the ability to graduate, exam timetables, or the ability to enrol in new units.
In what was certainly a bug, students at my wife's university were even denied access to the payment webpage while under-encumbrance -- which did not help them get paid.

There are often many ways to get encumbered, depending on the university and country. As well as library fines, there are often things like amenities fees, student union fees, parking fines, tuition costs.

Is it legal? Probably. You almost certainly agree to something along the lines of "I will suffer the effects of being encumbered if I fail to pay any fees or fines, and may not be allowed to graduate", as part of your enrolment or financing paperwork/online form tickbox.
Is it a legally binding contract, though? Who knows, we will probably never find out as the cost of a lawyer to take it to court and actually prove it through contest is far more than the cost of just paying it.
I would bet it is legal, as universities tend to have teams of lawyers on retainer.

Now the real question is will a <£10 fine actually make you encumbered?

That is a question to look to your university rules for.
I suggest that it probably won't.
That there is a clause saying that encumbered will only be enforced in cases where the debt is >£X.

My own experience with this was that in my last semester of undergrad,
I accidentally had a 3 hour loan book out for several extra hours.
I got a $9 fine.

So I went to the administration to pay it off.
And I found out that I couldn't.
They only do EFTPOS/Credit card transactions of at least $15,
and they do not accept payment via cash. (These two rules came in separately several years apart and I'm not sure anyone noticed that they clash).
But I also found out that encumbrance at my university doesn't occur until you have $24 or more owed.


How to generate credible research in a non-academic setting

For most people, doing good research requires some level of collaboration. Perhaps a lot, perhaps only a little. But you almost certainly need an environment (physical or virtual) in which you can bounce ideas off of others and get some feedback on whether they seem worthwhile to pursue. Many minds are more powerful than one (unlike cooks).
Some organizations like Google and IBM Research provide this collaborative atmosphere and have many opportunities to gain perspective and share ideas. They will have research "groups", just as a university has groups and seminars. Even in an R1 university in the US, the coffee room can be a most valuable asset.
If you are in academia, but at a small Liberal Arts College in the US, it can be hard to find enough people locally to share ideas with. So you have to cast a wider net to find people interested in the same things you are. One way, perhaps, is to have visitors come to talk to students and give you an opportunity to share ideas.
If you are still a graduate student it is a good time to start to build a collaborative network. You can draw on that of your professor(s) but also among students in the same sub-fields. Conferences are also a good way to do this, provided that you are willing to be outgoing with your peers. Having "business cards" with contact information is good in such environments, though "tapping phones" is probably the modern equivalent.
Another thing that helps you write the papers that makes you "credible" is to make sure that you don't get stuck on individual problems. Your collaborators can help, but so can a simple notebook of research ideas that you develop over time. If one project seems to be blocked, perhaps all you need is to spend some effort on another to "free up" the blocked synapses. Sometimes pushing too hard on a problem just results in spinning the mental wheels. Have a way to take break, either a productive one or, perhaps some aerobic activity.


This usage of "Associate Faculty" may be fairly unique to the Perimeter Institute. They have a number of faculty with joint appointments at Canadian universities, who typically alternate between semesters with the usual teaching duties at the university and semesters at PI with no responsibilities except for research.

There is a list of such faculty here; you can see that they all have an additional affiliation outside of PI.


Expletives in academic writing for coursework?

I was wondering if I should change it to "Read The [expletive] Manual", replace a couple letters with *'s, or scrap the idea entirely.

I'll opt for "scrap the idea entirely". You are misinterpreting what the purpose of class essays is - this isn't supposed to be a witty, innovative text that entertains the lecturer, and the lecturer will likely not mind so much reading about the same debugging techniques over and over again. The purpose of this text is to explain what you know about said debugging techniques. A secondary purpose is that you show that you know how to write an academic text. Some semi-witty text is likely to fail the second test, and spending a lot of paper space on an unrelated joke is likely to at least be a bad indicator for the first test (that is, if I get a paper where the author spends a lot of time writing about semi-related nonsense, my initial impression is that the author didn't really know what to write about the actual topic).

  The reason why I think I can get away with this is because the teacher frequently cracks jokes during his lecture

There's a place and a time to be humorous. Presentations and lectures can be a good time (because, if well done, jokes break the ice and keep the audience's attention), academic papers are notoriously a very bad time to crack jokes. That the lecturer cracks jokes in class does not necessarily mean that he wants to see them in your manuscript. I tend to crack the occasional bad joke in class, and as you may be able to tell, I am no fan of humour in student assignments.

  and he has actually used the bug vs feature joke in class before.

So he won't even laugh because he already knows the joke :) at least come up with something new.


What should I do if advisor asks me to move to another university or lab for strange reasons?

There are many plausible reasons why the professor may not want to reveal what exactly you said was inappropriate; most likely the professor doesn't want to inadvertently reveal the identity of the person who accused you of inappropriate behavior in order to avoid retaliation or further confrontations.

As a grad student, you are considered an adult and a professional. What matters here is not whether you intended to cause harm, but whether your behavior caused harm. As we grow up the world tends to become less forgiving of our mistakes, and the professor has every right to remove someone from their group to maintain a healthy working environment. Although it is also possible that whatever offensive thing you said was simply the last straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. Either way, you should reflect on your behavior and tendencies and learn from the mistake. If there are mitigating factors (e.g., being a foreign student, mental health problems, etc.), ask the professor nicely to reconsider... but don't expect anything. Ultimately a successful grad school career depends to a large degree your relationship with your advisor. If the relationship is so broken that your professor is trying to kick you out without any prior warnings (I assume), then there is no point in forcing the matter, no matter how famous the professor is.

Also some assumptions in your question is unwarranted... Why do you think the professor has planted "spies" among the students? More likely the professor learned of the matter because someone reported you. I think you over-estimate how much the professors care about the everyday activity of their students.


Is reusing part of an internship report self-plagiarism?

As long as you're sure it's appropriate that you are saying the same thing as in the previous assignment (if you're supposed to be achieving something on this internship, shouldn't you be achieving something new?), cite yourself.

It might feel pompous or self-centred at first, but it is the norm in academic texts to cite your own material just as you would anyone else's. Since I imagine your previous report isn't published anywhere, if you can put the previous one online it could be helpful to include the URL so the reader can check the context of the material you're quoting or paraphrasing.

Specific citation styles vary, but they would generally look something like:

  Tully, B. 'Report on my first internship'. Unpublished, available at http://www.internet.com [accessed 1 May 2015].


What should I do if a professor's grading makes me feel bad?

I would recommend approaching this by thinking about the following question: what is your goal in receiving grades?

Some things that we commonly do with the grades that we receive are:

Use them as feedback on our strengths and weaknesses in understanding material
Certify our degree of education, thereby obtaining further opportunities
Obtain personal validation from good grades

It sounds to me like you're focusing primarily on the personal validation that you can receive from the professor.  Otherwise, it would be the marks you receive that matter, rather than the size of the X used to mark them.  I would suggest that you instead focus on the more concrete gains that you can obtain from the class, whether intellectual (point #1) or material (point #2).

In that light, the style of markings does not matter, but the precision of his grading does.  When you are concerned that he has not graded you correctly, go to office hours and seek understanding of the reason for a grade.  Perhaps he is being sloppy, or perhaps not---but if you approach him with an entitled attitude such as you are showing in your question here, you are unlikely to obtain the information that you desire.


Can I keep my full-time job while I pursue a PhD in Psychology, and if so, for how long?

I don't want to repeat the points made in other good answers.

If you want some work-life-balance, keeping the full-time job and doing a PhD at the same time is impossible. In most cases, having a consistent work-life-balance while doing a PhD alone is very hard.


Choosing title for a section in the curriculum vitae

A possible heading for your subject areas could be Areas of Specialization or Areas of Expertise. You could use Research Interests for the other part. However, the two are usually combined under one heading. Unless you have the necessary expertise to carry out research in the areas listed under your Research interests, there is no point of listing those.

Normally you would use a separate document called Research Statement to outline your proposal for your upcoming research.


Secondary Research Questions in a Master Thesis, where to answer?

I agree with your supervisor about the positions for the questions: Those should be in chapter 1. Answering the question about the position of the other questions is difficult because we now neither your work nor the questions.

But the answer in chapter 1 as well seems to be odd - I would assume that those could be a result of a state-of-the-art analysis (in your case chapter 3) or of the "Results".

But maybe those questions are not really research questions but sub-tasks you have to do in order to achieve your goal. Then the "Methodology"-chapter would be appropriate, but I would not list them as SRQs but as "tasks".

In the end, readability should be considered, too.

Finally, your advisor is grading you - and if (s)he strongly suggests one option, I would follow the suggestion. But I would show my "optimal" solution, first.


How do graduate schools feel about a student not accepting an offer?

In general, there is not much memory for individual students who act responsibly. Turning down an offer in a reasonable time period is acting responsibly. Initially accepting an offer and not turning it down until the last minute after external and internal funding applications have been made, is less responsible.

I would let departments know as soon as you know you are no longer interested. That means if you have gotten into your first choice school with a nice/fully funded offer, you should turn everyone else down. If you have gotten into your first choice school with a crappy funding offer, you need to decide for the remaining schools what you would do if they gave you a great funding offer. Any school that cannot make an offer that you would accept, you should let know.


How to write a methodology chapter in a masters thesis

How you have described the methodology section is in general, precisely what you should do.  One source for assistance with writing this section is from the University itself - they will often have a suggested outline.

For example, Monash University has a webpage Discuss your methodology page, have a general outline for a scientific-based thesis methodology, such as:

  rationale for choosing materials,  methods and procedures
  details of materials, equipment and procedures that will allow others to

  replicate experiments
  understand and implement technical solutions

They also have examples for other disciplines, but a strong suggestion is to read and learn from other dissertations from your field - also, ask your advisor if they have examples.

A good methodology should be clear and concise and written in a way that someone else could replicate your experiments and get about the same results (or at least, similar results) and have an understanding of why the equipment and method was chosen.


How do new faculty members in the UK start their career without startup grants?

Research grants for new academic staff are offered competitively by the various research councils, depending on your subject area.

You can learn about the various research councils and what grants they operate through the web site for Research Councils UK.

For Computer Science you should be eligible for an EPSRC New Investigator Award, however the competition is fierce, so you should be sure to seek the advice and support of the research office of your University who can assist you in writing a successful grant proposal.

Some Universities, as noted, do offer their own support for new academics, but irrespective of funding available locally there is national funding, and also perhaps one might also look at European Funding for new researchers whilsts the window of opportunity remains open.

For an ambitious and promising researcher the position is not necessarily as pessimistic as you might feel.


How long do editor decisions take at Science/Nature?

Usually they decide in less than a week after the initial submission. Either rejection or sending it out for review.
Sometimes they are more busy. For our last submission the decision took 25 days for which the editor apologized.


Is gift authorship for PhD advisors rampant in academia?

This situation is not uncommon but not rampant, and depends very strongly on the culture of the institution, the department and the field of research, or even the individual thesis director.

There is some weak argument to be made that thesis directors provide resources (intellectual or otherwise) so they should be more or less automatically co-authors of work done by students.  If they are not then the resources going to the lab/research group through grants or other competitions might be jeopardized.   In other words, the resources you can access now are in part due to the past record of the supervisor so she/he needs to keep this up else these resources will not benefit the next generation of students.

There is also the argument that big names function as imprimatur in the sense that they will provide visibility to the work beyond what the junior authors could hope to provide.

Overall, I have always found both arguments not completely satisfactory.  While certainly a thesis director should help a student as much as possible, there are clearly situations where it is not necessary for a thesis director to co-sign a paper.  Likewise, it is entirely possible to highlight in a positive manner - in a grant application or otherwise - the fact that a student publish without his/her thesis director.


Advice for switching PhD programs back to my undergrad field

I understand your concern about spring semester funding.  Why don't you put in some applications and wait until you get an acceptance before informing your current department?

I think your department will be glad you've got the self-awareness to realize when something isn't working.


Publication of review's comments on scientific papers?

It would probably harm the reviewing process itself as it stands at the moment. Many reviewers only agree to review, because they can be anonymous and their comments are confidential. I therefore do not believe, that any editor of a traditional journal would give you access to the reviewer comments on a paper, however you ask.

Having said that, there are some recent developments in some journals, which I appreciate a lot, and which go in that direction:

Copernicus Publications is promoting an open review process. All manuscripts are published in a discussions version (pre-review), and reviewer comments are published and archived together with the article (and can always be referred to from the finally published paper).
Frontiers is promoting non-anaonymous reviews. The reviewers are mentioned by name on the title page of each article. In my opinion, this increases the quality and objectivity of reviews a lot.
There is always the possibility to publish additional reviews after publication on post-publication peer review sites, like PubPeer. Those can help you to find errors in already published articles, which may have evaded the original manuscript reviewers.


What should a candidate with no publications mention to professor for PhD admission or research position?

Remember that professors often get dozens of emails every day, so your chances to get an answer are higher if you keep things short.
Send an email saying that you are interested in a PhD in program XX under his supervision and ask a few short, relevant questions, e.g. if spaces are available at all.
Any longer questions, or even sending a whole portfolio, should not be done in the first email. If things go well, he agrees to talk to you about your application and there are spaces available, you can go on with your other questions.
If possible, a short visit in person might help; you can for example discuss most of your questions with PhD students or postdocs should the professor be too busy.


Is it appropriate to contact a professor about paid summer research before beginning PhD?

Yes, you can ask. If the professor has grant funds and a need for someone to fill a slot then you might be successful. It needn't be the person you intend as your advisor, and if you are entering with just a BS then it is unlikely that you would choose a final advisor so soon.
But asking is not a problem.
However, you might also consider that taking a bit of time off might be better overall, to avoid burnout that can arise after an intense degree program. If the money is essential, however, don't hesitate to say that.


Bioinformatics jobs: is experience or education more desirable

This is really just repeat what @skymningen said in a comment.

When I was in your position I managed to secure a career development fellowship who specific purpose was to retrain lab postdocs to be bioinformaticians. It was a fantastic opportunity. But even then, this CDF involved very little class room education, and was mostly just about doing bioinformatics under the supervision of an expert.

However, almost no one I now interview for bioinformatics positions has a formal bioinformatics education. I'm generally looking for experience and a demonstrated enthusiasm to learn new approaches in a rigorous, thoughtful and independent manner.

Thus I would definitely recommend experience over formal training. Perhaps with one caveat: you will need the basics of programming in R and probably a scripting language, so I might invest some time in online courses teaching the most basic elements of these languages. I might also be tempted to do an online course in the basics of RNA-seq analysis, so that you can run a basic reads -> alignments -> counts -> differential expression pipeline.  But these things shouldn't take you more than a week of evenings each, nothing like a MSc.


Should I apply for a PhD position with required programming skills which I do not have?

I am not sure I agree with Enthusiastic Student. There are two points to consider here:

Do they really need a strong programmer, or is this just something that they traditionally write into their position announcements without giving it much thought? Frankly, in industry like in academia, job descriptions are often given much less thought than people seem to assume. In my old group, we basically had one boilerplate job requirements text which was used for all kinds of positions. This included pretty much the cited text, but we certainly had PhD students that were not good programmers and they still (sometimes) did ok.
Can you learn to program sufficiently, either before starting or at least within acceptable time frame after starting? This largely depends on how good a programmer they really need, how much you currently suck at programming, and whether you learn to program quickly or not (programming, specifically, seems to be one of those skills that comes much more easily to some than to others).

To figure both things out, you should get in touch with the professor or one of his students to get a feel for what their stance on these issues is. For some position, you really need to be an excellent programmer, and for those, there is indeed no point in applying. For others, being able to hack together a workable prototype in reasonable time is sufficient, and most people should be able to learn that. When contacting them, be diplomatic and don't tell them outright that you are bad at programming. Get a feel for what you are really supposed to do, and decide for yourself whether you will be able to do it or learn to do it quickly. Then decide whether to apply.


Do Master of Research programs require prior research experience?

No, you do not need research experience to get on a UK MRes progamme. Though it will help.

It may vary by institution; this answer is based on the one MRes from my subject area.

The UCL MRes in Energy Demand Studies has the following prerequisites (taken from that linked page):

  Good numeracy and literacy and an ability to present ideas clearly
  An appreciation of the importance of behaviour and society in energy demand
  An understanding of or ability to learn basic physics and engineering concepts
  Strong performance in a science, engineering or social sciences discipline

The course, in its first half, contains a lot of taught material. This covers, amongst other things, research skills.

Having research skills, or a research track record, will help you with getting onto the more competitive courses, such as this one; and it will improve your chances of getting your study funded too.

One of the selection criteria is (ibid):

  how your academic and professional background meets the demands of this challenging programme

so if you can show a research track record, that will help fulfill that criterion.


Can I put my accepted-but-not-yet-on-IEEEXplore paper online?

As the comment from  Nate Eldredge said: read your copyright agreement and ask co-authors.

You can definitely list the paper in your publications if you mark it as "accepted for...". If the admission committee is interested in reading it (often it is just interested in the title, unless this is the summary of your previous work), they can ask for it.


When to upload preprint (or abstract) to online repository?

Springer's self-archiving policy states:

  By signing the Copyright Transfer Statement you [may] deposit ... the article in any repository, provided it is only made publicly available 12 months after official publication or later.

Thus, you may deposit the article in any repository before signing the Copyright Transfer Statement.


PhD courses instructs language in Germany

In Germany, there usually are no PhD "courses", except for some specialized programs ("Graduiertenkolleg"), which are still in the minority.
Most PhD students conduct research from day 1, under the supervision of a specific advisor. The language of communication will depend on the advisor and the student. Working with international students is not an issue for most advisors.


How is the faculty recruitment process in the UK?

The recruitment process is essentially 3 stages: pre-interview, interview, hiring. The HR department is almost exclusively concerned about your legal right to work in the UK. I have never heard of a case where HR overruled a school/department about a candidate meeting specific eligibility requirements. With that in mind, at the pre-interview stage, HR takes your word on your ability to legally work in the UK. At the interview stage, HR (or a representative of HR) will collect whatever documentation is required to establish your eligibility (e.g., passport or visa). They do this because legally they must see the original documentation. At the hiring point, they might ask for copies of your credentials. As there is no legal requirement for them to see originals they can do this however they want.

I am a US citizen and when I was hired in the UK, they took a photocopy of my passport during my interview. There was some emailing of copies of my credentials after the offer was made but before the contract was offered. As I mentioned in this answer I do not have a copy of my diploma. On my first day of work, they asked for a copy of my diploma. I told them it was on a container ship and would be here in 8-12 weeks, but I could show them my transcript. They were fine with that.


I believe that I strongly disagree with your professor.  I can barely imagine writing a results section that is not filled with figures, there to compactly present critical, graphically summarized information about the results. In fact, one of my key early triage steps in reviewing a paper is to flip to the results section and see if there are any figures: if there are no figures, then it is very likely to have insubstantial results. Now, this isn't always the case---some papers have only theorems as results (though figures often help explain such theorems), and some have only a few key numbers in a table (though is a table a figure?)---usually, however, no figures means not much in the way of results to present.

I think that it is also a mistake to divide figures from prose and try to decide which is the "star" of a results section.  In a well-written paper, they serve complementary purposes:

Figures are better for presenting numerical relationships, non-linear structures, and high-density data.
Prose is better for presentation of isolated or non-visual elements, directing the reader's attention to the most important aspects of the results, and explaining the significance and relationship of the results to one another and to the larger scientific investigation.

These two can and almost always must play together harmoniously in order to effectively present a scientific work.

For a lovely introduction to what makes an effective figure and a good source of inspiration for your own work, I would suggest reading Tufte's "Visual Display of Quantitative Information," a classic work on data visualization.


How important is the GRE for top engineering schools in the US?

For engineering, the GRE is used primarily as a screening tool—and very weakly, at that. Having excellent letters of recommendation and a strong transcript can very easily overcome weak GRE scores, while a perfect GRE score won't save a candidate with a weak transcript or bad letters. Also, of the sections, the math section is probably given the most weight by admissions committees in engineering, since it's viewed as the most relevant.

As for funding, the only reason I could see the GRE being used is to "verify" English-speaking ability for teaching assistantships. I've never heard of the GRE being used to determine research funding.


Do reputable journals ever conduct peer review entirely by email?

I have interacted with several reputable math/TCS journals, both as author and as reviewer, entirely via email without the involvement of an online submission. I have even witnessed senior members of the community expressing the sentiment that they never agree to the semi-automated referee requests sent by online submission systems, but only to referee requests sent "by hand".

Summary: Yes, there exist reputable journals conducting peer review entirely by email.

Now whether or not a journal soliciting peer review without an online submission system is more likely to be disreputable than one that does, I do not know. I see no particular reason to assume either way.


How do I tell whether I need another advisor?

He constantly forgets meeting.

That's normal (and perhaps a good sign). You need to take control and establish a procedure to ensure meetings take place. (It's perhaps a good sign, since it suggests your supervisor is busy.

  I feel he is not able to suggest me good references or offer help.

For good references, that's probably normal: You've been conducting research for over one year and your knowledge of the research domain now exceeds your supervisor's, hence, you are more familiar with the good references. An exception arises if the good references are unspecialised, but that doesn't seem to be the case, since "he is giving me something that he is not very familiar with."

For offer help, you'll need to provide more context. As it stands, I cannot judge whether the degree of help is normal.

  once I...could not find [what] he suggested me, and it turned out he remembered it wrong

That's normal, he's human.

  I guess one direct reason why I am posting this is I have not made any progress reading one paper (not even doing a problem) since 3 or 4 months ago.

This is perhaps your real problem.

  I could not answer my advisor's questions about the paper perfectly as
  he wants and he would not let me move on.

That's good; you probably need to understand the material before you move on.

  I do not really see the meaning of doing it

Why not?

  and he could not give any suggestions,

What suggestions do you expect?

  and lost motivations,

See elsewhere on this forum for questions regarding lost motivation.


Should I list talks on my CV given by co-authors?

The simple answer is no. You should not list items that you have not performed. In this case it would be listed under "talks" (equivalent) and that would be wrong. On th eother hand it represents work that you have done and as such it can be listed but probably under a different heading. The important thing is that it represents what has actually happened. I can see a heading called, for example, "Other work presented at conferences" and then list the talk and state that you was part of the work but that it was presented by someone else. Again, the importance lies in formatting it so that the actual conditions are very clear.

When the CV is short, I think such additions may make sense, later in a career these posts will lose their importance relative to other headings.


What did a good academic job market for mathematicians look like and could it ever come back?

First, some historical perspective: Francis Sowerby Macaulay and Hermann Schubert, two mathematicians from the late 19th century whose names you still hear repeatedly these days if you come anywhere near algebraic geometry, both taught high school.

Second, a counting perspective: Research university professors probably average a doctoral student at least every five years, with some averaging more than one a year.  This means every professor produces somewhere between 6 to 40 replacements over the course of their career.  Assuming no change in the number of jobs, only one of those replacements will get a research university professorship.

Third, a practical perspective: It's hard to imagine research in mathematics, especially but not only pure mathematics, having direct practical benefit to many people.  That means the amount of funding purely for research tends to be rather small.  Even at research universities, teaching is an important rationale for paying a professor's salary, and the benefits to teaching are an important justification for research.

What happened between the 1950s and 1980s, particularly in the US, was an enormous expansion in higher education along with a massive increase in research funding.  The US went from having about 5% of its 20-year-olds going to college to about 50%.  Assuming a corresponding increase in the number of professors, this meant a professor could advise 10 PhD students and have every one of them get a job.  For obvious reasons, we will never see a 10-fold increase again.  Also, the US was enormously wealthy and had resources to spend on less practical purposes like mathematical research and providing high quality university education.  (The US still spends about 50% more per university student than Germany.  Most of that is going to smaller classes with more attention paid to helping students along.)


presenting evidence of research to grad school committees

While a link to a website is probably fine, it might not be followed up, so make your short description clear. A link to a page on a university site or other obviously "safe" domain is preferred, of course.

And, if you have a CV to submit, you can mention it there as "unpublished undergraduate research".

But the "best" way is to have one of your letter writers mention it in their LoR. This is especially true if the project supervisor is one of the writers. But another professor who knows of the work can also make a brief mention.


I've emailed over thirty five potential supervisors and did not receive any positive response. Should I keep emailing?

Professors are quite limited with funds and resources (or already have a full team). The likelihood that someone who emails out of the blue to be a suitable choice is slim. Some places probably need a commitee to hire, as a safeguard against discrimination and errors.

You are far better off looking for universities with open positions, I think, or strengthen the connections with professors who already know you (and might write a recommendation letter for you).

Also, publications are way better than grades, research experience is very valuable (at least in maths, I suspect other fields are similar).


How do I orient myself to the literature concerning a research topic and not be overwhelmed?

Start with well-written review papers. These are designed to do exactly what you ask: to orient a reader to the state of knowledge in some field. If you are working on something multidisciplinary you may need a separate orientation for each discipline if there isn't a good review that already makes the connection for you.
Then, once you are oriented, you can start to dig. Try to discipline yourself towards pursuing a specific goal in your literature search. When you find offshoots, label them as future places to dig but don't start excavating them quite yet.
Other than that, try to stay organized. Organize your thoughts by writing down what you are learning, make concept maps if they help you, or start organizing references into nested bulleted lists. Be open to reorganizing as things develop.

I want to add an addendum concerning your specific field of research. Published science in biology and medicine, and even more so in areas related to mental health/psychiatry/counseling, may contain a lot of conflicting information. These fields deal with some of the most complex systems humans know of, and our core knowledgebase is extremely lacking. If you're used to reading textbook descriptions of "how things are", the actual academic literature is by comparison extraordinarily muddy (this is true of all fields, no doubt, but I think especially the ones I've mentioned). It may help to know to accept this, and to not treat any one paper as Truth. There are competing models and competing hypotheses and competing approaches to treatment because none have yet "won".
Adding  from a comment: if you are wondering how to find review papers...
There are some journals that only contain reviews. Some of these are good journals (and since reviews tend to get cited a lot, you can often discover them by their very high impact factors), some are not (these will tend not to be cited much). Some indexes, like PubMed, allow you to filter for only reviews (I don't know how accurate these filters are). Otherwise, adding "review" to a search string will help. You won't get all reviews, but many of the top results will be.


Message board for finding private grants

In the US, students generally do not apply for grants (except for specific fellowships for graduate students - NSF, DoD, Hertz, and the like); it is the advisor's job to find funding for the student.

If you want to get a general sense of the funding picture in computational geometry, I suggest you look at recently funded proposals on nsf.gov (their abstracts should be publicly visible) and follow up directly (and with due preparation) with the principal investigator of the corresponding grant.

Your best bet is to attract the attention of a well-known researcher in the field, and, given the current academic pressures, they are very likely to have some funding for students.


Archiving papers, simulation and experimental data, etc?

I have a similar approach with folders, with two additions:

Everything goes into a revision control system.  In my case, I've got some things in Subversion repositories, and others in Mecurial repositories (I've also dabbled with Git, but haven't made the final transition).  The benefits of revision control are that you can always go back to a previous version, you won't have old versions littering your folders, and sharing with collaborators is relatively easy.  This should take care of your duplicated-file problem.

I also use Dropbox extensively, in order to have my files available on any computer at any time.  Dropbox provides a modicum of version control (30 days worth), but it should not replace a proper revision control system.  It does provide a cloud-based backup of your work.
Finally, regardless of how you're keeping your work arranged, make sure you keep an off-site backup (e.g., via Dropbox or personally-controlled media).


Publishing Same Research Paper on a National Conference as well as International IEEE conference

You cannot publish the same paper at these two conference. For an IEEE conference publication, you have to transfer copyright on the paper to the IEEE, which precludes publication in another proceedings.

You shouldn't have submitted the same paper to two places simultaneously. It's clearly against ethical standards in academics. It is not your fault, if there wasn't a clear indication on the conference submission site, and your advisor hasn't intervened (he should have). Still you have to deal with the consequences now.

And the consequences are that you have to withdraw your paper from one of these conferences. If you have the choice, it would probably be better to withdraw from the national conference. Call yourself lucky if you don't get into deeper trouble from this.


What is more important in choosing a research advisor?

This is a Hobson's Choice as stated. In reality you need both.

But in reality each of these ideas is defined by a wide range. Your interest can be a little or a lot. The more interested you are the better. But if your interest is zero it is a big mistake to choose that.

The support provided by a professor can be a little or a lot. Even if it is "low" the needed support may be provided by others, say post-docs or senior lab researchers. But if the support is zero (in time/effort), again, it is a big mistake to choose this. Moreover, the kind of support provided by different advisors can vary widely. They can be the source of a problem that you solve, or they can be a collaborator.

In realistic situations you need a balance. Moreover, the balance is partly determined by yourself. How wide are your interests? How flexible are you? Are you driven to a particular sub-sub-sub-field or are you willing to explore anything "interesting"? How much guidance do you need? Are you a dedicated self studier or do you need a kick to get moving in some given direction?

Think about your own personal situation and make a choice. But zero on either of the two indices you are looking at is probably a bad choice.

However, at the undergraduate level this is a less critical choice since you have a variety of things to do beyond research. As you are just getting started in research, it might be wiser to choose someone who will give you more help rather than less despite a low interest in the specific topic. At the doctoral level, the topic becomes more important.


How to prepare for grad school? [with 1 year to spare]

Your PhD courses usually dwell on foundational articles. Buy/borrow a "reader book" that has all (or many) of these articles in one place.
Get a part-time job in a field associated with one of the subject groups that you would study/focus on. If you are interested in the geography of farmers, see if you can work as one. Keep it part-time.
Get in touch with the local anthro- group.
More meta: by whichever means, find out where the field is and where it is going. This may highlight some new skills that you need to work on minimally. For instance, social science now has a robust quantitative component. Anyone who ignores that is playing with fire.
Don't add more shit to this list.


No, given everything else you say, no one will give it a moment's thought. You've been on a steady path and seem to be a success at it.

And, almost any other option will be worse. A different doctorate would shorten your time to completion, but, as you say, this one gives you opportunities.

People will look primarily to your most recent accomplishments in any case. It is just how it works.

Just. Do. It.


What are some examples of famous scholars with low h-index?

You can find a lot of historical examples, from people whose careers predated the publish-or-perish culture. A striking more recent example is Peter Higgs, who was awarded (among other honors) the 2013 Nobel prize in physics. Whether that makes him a "great" physicist is of course arguable, but he clearly did important work. However,

Peter Higgs, the British physicist who gave his name to the Higgs boson, believes no university would employ him in today's academic system because he would not be considered "productive" enough.
The emeritus professor at Edinburgh University, who says he has never sent an email, browsed the internet or even made a mobile phone call, published fewer than 10 papers after his groundbreaking work, which identified the mechanism by which subatomic material acquires mass, was published in 1964.

This article estimated his h-index to be about 9, but I've seen estimates of around 11 too. Either way, it's a very low number for the field by today's standards, for an established professor. To wit,

Speaking to the Guardian en route to Stockholm to receive the 2013 Nobel prize for science, Higgs, 84, said he would almost certainly have been sacked had he not been nominated for the Nobel in 1980.
Edinburgh University's authorities then took the view, he later learned, that he "might get a Nobel prize – and if he doesn't we can always get rid of him".


My PhD supervisor want to add his name on a paper from my MSc work

I'm in the social sciences, but I can't imagine that this is a discipline-specific issue. Is your new supervisor pre-tenure? If so, he may be pressured to have a stronger CV and publishing with his post-doc would look extra favorable. Regardless, (from your description) this appears to be an inappropriate request and I'm sorry that you were put in this predicament. I find the fact that the supervisor wants the post-doc to also co-author is especially troubling.

First, I echo that you should find a new supervisor. If there is someone else whose work is close or closer to your interest, you can ask to transfer supervisors and claim this as an academic request and not a personal one.

Second, is your MSc a co-author? If so, you can state that the prior supervisor is the co-author and you do not feel comfortable adding additional co-authors when the previous supervisor put in much of the work.

If not, you can still claim that you did the majority of the work and that if neither your supervisor nor his post-doc have any significant additional contributions to your paper, you do not feel comfortable adding them as co-authors. To further decline with professionalism, you could explain to the supervisor that you have other paper drafts or other projects that you would like to publish and/or present at conferences...if the two are interested in co-authoring you could collaborate on revising something else to publish together.

If your new supervisor is somewhat junior, he may not know that this was inappropriate (I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt), so I would try to be as professional about this as possible. It also might not surprise other faculty or administrators that this person asked you to do this (there are always faculty members here and there who are known to minimize student contribution and credit, though unfortunate).  Good luck!!!


You can cite it as a @misc entry in your .bib file.


Very obscure job posting for faculty position. Pass onward, or keep to myself?

You are not obligated (unless by your own moral principles) to facilitate the distribution of job ads.

You could take a broad self-interested perspective. In this case, you decide whether and how much you want the job and get a sense of your chance of getting the job without further distributing the job ad. Then, you think about how much you value others you care about getting the job and how much you value the profession as a whole making a better selection decision, and how much more likely that is to occur if you were to distribute the ad either to colleagues or to broader mailing lists, and also a sense of the cost in terms of your chances of not getting the job. From there, you can see what most aligns with your values and goals.

In general, I would think of job applications as a domain of life that is often governed by the principles of fair competition. By fair competition, I mean the idea that it's okay to focus on yourself. You shouldn't go out of your way to hurt other applicants, but that equally there is no expectation that you will help other applicants also (especially when you are competing for a single prize). Thus, if you learn information that might help your application (e.g., interests of the employer, what they're looking for, etc.), you are under no obligation to share this with other applicants. If you know about the job, and others don't, you are under no obligation to share it. The assumption here is that it is a domain of life where the ethics of competition operate. The assumption is that other "competitors" in some sense are also operating by these rules.

Anyway, these are two perspectives. My sense is that if you're very keen on getting the job and you think that you have a reasonable shot at getting it, that it would be reasonable to keep it to yourself.


We have a multi-author conference paper. What to do if one co-author does not respond when extending it to a journal paper?

Check this with the journal you want to submit to. If you don't actually need them to submit this as a journal paper, this is what you'd ideally do:

Let them know you're writing an extension
Write the extended paper
Send the paper to them with a note saying "Unless you let us know otherwise, we plan to submit to journal X at date Y."
Submit, briefly explaining the situation to the editor.


Immediate access to previously accessed PDFs integrated into a Google Scholar search?

Google has brought a whole new experience how we tend to manage stuff. Searching is so fast and efficient, that in some use cases it has become obsolete to maintain a rigorously structured, personal library. The drawback, however, is that you have to complete the tedious task of retrieving the full text PDF again and again.

I am a scientist myself, and I am also one of the developers of Paperpile, where we exactly tried to make this use cases as simple as possible. Paperpile runs in the background and you do not have to leave Google Scholar or Pubmed to quickly get the full text PDF.

Next to each item in the Google Scholar search result you will find the little Paperpile toolbar. Just click on the Paperpile logo and it will find the full text PDF for you and will add it to the library. That's all done in background, and you do not have to open any user interface or go to another window.

Paperpile automatically screens all the items on the Google Scholar results page, and shows a link to the PDF for those that are in your library. Since Paperpile is totally web based, this will also work if you login on another machine.

I have also attached a screenshot to get an impression how it works. Articles that I already have in my library are marked by the green logo.


Can an applicant's funding offer for PhD programs in the US be taken back and given to someone who's already declined it?

Note that your question is not really math-specific, but applies to essentially all programs at schools that have adopted the so-called April 15th resolution of the Council of Graduate Schools.

Once a student has turned down an offer of financial assistance and the offer has been given to someone else, it would be exceedingly poor form for a department to "claw back" the offer to give it to someone who has already declined the offer. If the student really wanted to attend—and the department still wanted the student—it could perhaps use a declined offer to get the student, but it couldn't take one that was "in the field" or already accepted to do so.

In general, the student has one chance to accept or decline. Student A could have waited until April 15 to decline the offer but decided to do so early. That decision is essentially irrevocable. It is also impossible for the school to rescind the offer to B once B has accepted, unless there exists cause to do so. (Examples where cause to withdraw a financial offer exists might include if student B fails to graduate or is shown to have made a fradulent application.)


Can I publish a single page research paper?

Yes, if your ideas can be expressed concisely enough. For example if you were to find a counterexample to the Beal Conjecture, then you can write two paragraphs and be done. Watson and Crick's 1953 paper describing the structure of DNA was one page long, and won the Nobel Prize. Some other examples of very short papers (admittedly, some of these are jokes) are here.


If you go to a paper on the arXiv (for example, this one of mine: http://arxiv.org/abs/1312.7357), at the bottom, there is a link that reads "Which authors of this paper are endorsers?"  If you click through, you'll see something like

  Ben Webster: Is registered as an author of this paper.
  Can endorse for math.AG, math.AT, math.CO, math.CT, math.GR, math.GT, math.QA, math.RA, math.RT, math.SG.

which means I can endorse submitters in algebraic geometry, algebraic topology, combinatorics, category theory, group theory, geometric topology, quantum algebra, rings & algebras, representation theory and symplectic geometry.

Presumably you know of some papers on the arXiv related to yours, so look at their authors.  If you don't know of any, then maybe you should rethink whether the site is a good fit for you.


Advisor publishing students' work as sole author - ethics and motivation

Before anything else: Don't walk.  Run.

There are almost certainly details of this story that you have omitted, or that you have unintentionally embellished, or that you are unaware of, and clarifying those details here would be inappropriate.  What is clear is that your relationship with your advisor is completely broken.  Get help, and get out.

  Q1) Wont the paper count towards her tenure if she wrote it with a graduated student or will it count towards higher credit if she is the sole author?

All publications count toward tenure, whether solo, with colleagues, with current students, with former students, or with strangers from Zanzibar.

  Q2) Is it ethical to publish the paper based on my friend's dissertation?  (i mean it is legal, because she will be referencing his phd dissertation but is it ethical to sideshaft the original author)

There are a few different possibilities here:

Your advisor's submission does not report your friend's thesis work as her own, but rather builds on your friend's work in a novel direction.  In this case, your advisor's submission is ethical, but perhaps a bit unfriendly.  After all, the success of her students is a significant component of her upcoming tenure case.
The results in your friend's dissertation are the main topic of your advisor's submission, but your friend did not make a significant and novel contribution, and therefore does not deserve coauthorship.  But in this case, your friend also does not deserve a PhD, and your advisor's signing his thesis was unethical.  This possibility seems highly unlikely; passing a thesis defense generally requires the unanimous approval of the entire thesis committee.
Your friend made a significant and novel contribution, which is the main topic of your advisor's paper.  In this case, your advisor is being grossly unethical.  Fortunately, since your friend's dissertation is easily accessible online (Isn't it?), any competent referee or editor should quickly spot the intellectual theft.  That would just be stupid.

  I came to know last week that my advisor wrote the paper herself and got it published.

If you believe that your advisor has stolen credit for another person's work—your friend, her former student, or a stranger from Zanzibar—it would be appropriate for you (or better yet, your friend) to speak discreetly to your department head or another trusted senior faculty member, with both the original dissertation and your advisor's publication in hand, asking them to clarify the ethical boundaries.  Do not accuse; such accusations are very serious, and your advisor's colleagues may react defensively on her behalf.  Instead, explain the delicacy of the situation and ask for guidance.  And then listen.

They may react badly anyway, but then you have your answer.

If they agree that your advisor has acted unethically, get out of the way.  This is not your fight.

  Is it common in academia to do this?

No.  I won't claim they never happen, obviously, but serious breaches of ethical behavior, at the level you are accusing, are extremely rare.

  Q3 One more question i have is should i be listed as co-author for all papers coming out of this research because i developed the apps that formed basis for this research. I mean the concept for them was not mine but i did program them.

That is a more subtle question.  As a general rule, I would say no.  Of course you deserve credit for your contributions, but only once for each contribution.  If your contribution is a key piece of software, then the first paper that uses that software should describe that software in detail and include you as a coauthor.  If you walk away after that first paper, later work that relies on your software—by your advisor or anyone else—need not list you as a coauthor; you already got credit.  With good reason, Stephen Wolfram is not a coauthor on every paper that uses Mathematica.  You should of course be cited in any paper that uses, builds on, or improves your work, but that's a separate issue from coauthorship.

But reality is rarely so cut and dried.  Is moving the software to a new platform a sufficient contribution?  Optimizing the underlying algorithms?  Adding a new, easy-to-implement feature suggested by your advisor?  Adding a new, hard-to-implement feature suggested by your advisor?  Adding support for a new input device?  I have no idea.  You and your advisor should have agreed in advance on the contribution required for you to be a coauthor.

Normally, if you had not had this conversation already, I would recommend having it now, but it sounds like it may be too late for that.  You may be better off simply walking away and finding a new advisor that you can trust.


Is it okay to send a connection invitation on LinkedIn to an academic event director?

It is unlikely to cause harm for you to send the invitation.  It is likely to be ignored.


What are my prospects to get a Postdoc position with just 1 publication from PhD?

Except for the difficulties in getting your advisor to respond to you, nothing you say seems unusual. Even that is too common, though. But your age, etc. is pretty typical, or at least not far outside the norm.

But I think that if you can unblock the block that you will be in good shape career wise. Your difficulties with industry could be a lot of unrelated things, and you haven't really tested yourself yet in the academic marketplace.

If you want a career in academia, I suggest you start a search, either as a post-doc or a regular position. You have a lot of work-in-progress to point to which is a point in your favor. I wouldn't wait until you get the block cleared and then something submitted and accepted. It will take to long, but, I suspect, not be judged fundamentally differently than work in progress.

The only issue I see is your "out of the mainstream" research interests. You will need to find a way to present that as an advantage, not a disadvantage. As Apple used to say, Think Different.

There is, I think, no reason to do the two things sequentially: advisor, job-search. Work on both in parallel.

On the advisor front, however, you might want to make it more incremental. Rather than "all these papers", focus on getting just one out the door and then repeat as needed.


If I understand it correctly, you're a reader of the paper and want to contact the author(s)?

In most journals, one author is marked the corresponding author (and their email address is provided more prominently. It's a good first port of call, and the right thing to do on recent papers.
Otherwise, depending on the field, the first author is likely to be the principal author and most able to speak to the entire article.
If the paper is very old of course, you might have to do some research of your own to find out who is still active and which email address is still valid. In this case, if you can't find the first author's (who may have been a junior researcher and moved on) it might be ok to inquire with the lab director.
If you have all email addresses, you might want to send it to all three. Three is not that many addressees. Five or more would be different - you don't want to send a mass mail.

Also, the content of your letter would be slightly different based on which option you choose. You didn't tell us why you want to email them. (If it is to get a copy, first author is probably the one who is maintaining a personal file.)


How is it possible to do a master's and PhD program at the same time?

In the US, in many fields, it's common to enter a PhD program with just a bachelor's (and typically, someone who does that can earn a masters along the way to a PhD.)

I did this myself - I am an electrical engineering PhD student with only a bachelor's degree.


Should I not ask my students about their hometown?

I thought it would be good to edit my answer to start with a link to an article written from the perspectives of people who have had the question "where are you from?" asked repeatedly and who can explain some of the issues with it much better than I can: https://hbr.org/2020/10/whats-wrong-with-asking-where-are-you-from

No, don't do this the way you describe.
I suspect you're talking about local languages in a nation state where there are many many languages, and yet there is a common national language like Hindi or Mandarin. I don't have any personal experience with this situation, being an English speaker in a primarily English country, but I think there are some more general ideas that I'd recommend you think about.
Three recommendations: first, if you must do so, why not merely relay where you are from? If a student recognizes this location and can infer you can speak an additional language with them, they can make this connection on their own. Avoid asking questions of others that they might be uncomfortable with or that might lead to stereotyping.
Second, avoid playing favorites (or even appearing to) as an instructor. I think it is natural to associate with someone who shares something with you (fans of the same music? same hobby? same language/hometown?) and to treat them differently, as well as to view someone from someplace less common as "different" or "other". I'd avoid asking questions that categorize people. A safer alternative sometimes used as a mnemonic by instructors is to ask about a more generic "something special", where students can choose exactly what piece of information to share (that said, not all students really like these get-to-know-you games, myself included).
Third, although I think there are a lot of good reasons to promote and cultivate languages and prevent their loss, I'm not sure the university classroom is the best place. Students who learn concepts from you in a common local language to both of you may have difficulties when they advance and are in other courses (or the "real world") needing to use the same concepts in a more typical language. Practicing using the language of the course may be better for both of you.


A common way to handle such a previous submission that is still under review is to create a technical report out of the previous submission, publish this report on your home page or on arxiv.org, and cite this technical report in your new paper.

In this way, reviewers can take into account the previous results without needing to have this paper published formally.

In case your previous paper gets accepted while your new paper is still under revision, you could update your new paper in a revised version.


The culture in different departments is different. I've been in departments where the expectation is that everyone develop their own teaching materials. I've also been in groups and departments where if you asked whether you can use someone else's material, the answer would be "of course".

In general, reusing someone's materials without their consent is poor style. But I would suggest to all young faculty that they ask older colleagues what the culture of the department is. If the answer is "Yes, of course we help each other", then if you want to reuse someone's materials, the right approach is to ask them whether they'd be willing to share their materials.


I do not see any problems with it as long as you disclose your methodical approach and as long as your university library's terms allow such a behaviour (which is doubted by Bryan Krause in the comments). Perhaps it is best to ask your university library just to make sure.
If the concerns hold, you could alternatively use open datasets of full-text scholarly publications. Just to name three examples:

The Semantic Scholar Open Research Corpus (S2ORC), comprising 12.7M+ full text papers from various disciplines.

The Elsevier OA CC-BY Corpus, another cross-disciplinary dataset that entails 40k full-text papers.

CORD-19: The Covid-19 Open Research Dataset.


Easier tracking of continuing professional development (CPD)

This isn't exactly the same, but I think might be a useful solution for you as well: for things like tracking travel planning or publications in process, I maintain spreadsheets for myself that track both each item and the workflow for dealing with it in little chunks over a long period of time.  In each spreadsheet, I maintain one sheet per year, so that things don't become too crowded.  I then keep all of my key workflow charts open in the background, such that it takes me only about 15 seconds to tab over, make an entry, and return.

Something similar might work for you on tracking CPD.  Have a column for the items in you queue, another column for when you actually start reading it, and a third for when you finish reading it.  It's not automated, but it's lightweight enough that if you get in the habit of tracking, you should be able to do it with minimal time cost.


Advisor's Postgraduate Career Machinations

You don't need a recommendation from your professor.
Some professors are magnanimous. Others are not.
Talk to the key people involved in your desired postdoc and inform them that your advisor may not be enthusiastic about your leaving, and they will understand.


Should I put an experimental experience from master' degree as a skillset in my CV after a computational PhD?

In general it is a good idea to list all positive/relevant experience. But if you are worried about it being misleading, just put a date on the item, listing when the project ended, or the start and end dates. People can do their own math.
But leaving it out entirely seems a mistake to me.


How to report pirated textbooks on Academia.edu?

I would contact the textbook publisher. As noted by Solar Mike in a comment, they would care about the problem and have time and resources to do something about it. Part of the publisher's job is to protect their work.


Typically, after an author presents a book proposal to a publisher, the publisher will circulate the proposal to some selected reviewers to vet the content. This is not like peer review in the usual sense: the reviewers only get to see the outline and maybe a chapter or two.

Once the publisher decides to go ahead with the book and it goes through the editing process, it might undergo further review, but nothing like a journal review.


Can I ask letter of recommendation to my undergraduate thesis supervisor for PhD in other lab

Yes, it's perfectly fine. He should be encouraging you to seek other opportunities as well as staying in his own lab. It take a very jealous and vindictive person to refuse to write a reference for a good student applying to other places. If he is such a person, it would not be a good idea to stay working with him anyway.


Without knowing the specifics of your system, no, it's not possible to tell you how to convert your grades (or anyone else's) from one system to another.

However, what you do need to know about the German system is that it works "backwards": a 1 is the best grade, and 5 is a failing grade. The "1,0" corresponds to an A or A+ in an American style 4.0-system, and then moves in increments of 0.3 or 0.4. 4.0 corresponds to a D, and anything below that would be regarded as an F.


What is - if any - the difference between PhD and doctor?

It's not the difference between "doctor" and "PhD". It's the difference between "real doctor" and "PhD".

"Real doctor"=someone who performs surgery, prescribes medication, etc.

"PhD"=Doctor of Philosophy

The joke is PhD's aren't "real" doctors. When someone says "I need a doctor", they aren't talking about needing an expert in the jackets of 1860s Chicago or Teichmueller spaces. They need someone to help with their medical ailment.


Would it be an advantage in terms of admission, to study pedagogics before applying to a PhD?

While I have little familiarity with Sweden or Germany, for most technical fields I would see taking a year off to study pedagogy and teach high school would generally provide no advantages and perhaps even be a slight disadvantage for PhD admissions.  I see how it could be an advantage if you want to pursue a PhD in education for example as it gives you relevant practical experience and perspective, but not for most subjects as the primary goal of a PhD program is to train you to be a researcher.

As such, for a PhD, you want to demonstrate passion and dedication to research.  Pursuing another career path first may make some professors question this, and indeed from your question it sounds like you are not totally committed to the research track.  Of course, applying for a PhD program right after a master's doesn't guarantee commitment either and many great researchers got their PhD's after doing other things first. Pursuing teaching next may be the right thing for you if it helps you figure out what you want to do, but I would not recommend it as a way to help you become a PhD student.


How to run two Postdoctoral fellowships at the same time?

Generally foundations "request" that you inform them if you receive extra funding for the same budget. They probably expect that you apply to several foundations simultaneously. However, if you negotiate with foundation I to change the scope of the funding (such that it doesn't go towards your salary, which is presumably already covered by foundation II), then I think you're in the clear.

Alternatively, if foundation II didn't fund your full budget, then you could accept part of the funds from foundation I to cover the remaining costs, then inform both foundations of the arrangement. That should also be uncontroversial.


How to write a letter to an editor for pointing out needed corrections in my submitted journal manuscript

Yes, you should inform the editor.  Simply resend the  corrected paper, and explain the error.  There is no need to write an extensive letter or to make a grand apology. Something like this in an email will do fine:

"Dear Editor,

I am sending you a corrected copy of the paper titled '...', submitted on XX.  There were errors on pages A, B, and C in the citations.  They appeared as "?" instead of the correct citation, due to incorrect processing in LaTex.  This version has the correct citation and I have proof read it for other errors.

Best regards,

Monalisa"

Also - give the file a different name than the original and a different time stamp so there is no confusion between the corrected version and the original.


A professor is happy to supervise me. Does that mean my formal application will be accepted?

It isn't guaranteed.

The fact that you have a professor who is willing to be your supervisor is a strong factor in your favour -- very strong.

However, there may be other requirements that means a student can't be accepted onto an institution's PhD program. These include language ability, suitable visa or residency requirements, and, of course, how strictly the institution adheres to whether you satisfy the minimum academic requirements. In some cases, the proposed supervisor's influence overcomes these. In others, it does not.

The head of department in some cases has the final say as to whether a student is to be accepted into the PhD programme. It is unlikely, but not impossible, that an HoD would deny the student onto the programme, irrespective of the professor's support.


What are the financial offer or opportunities for international PhD students in US and UK?

In the US, financial aid from the US government under Title IV of the Higher Education Act (student loans, Pell grants, and work study) is available only to US citizens and permanent residents (and a small number of other categories of people who have some permanent status in the US.)  Generally, foreign graduate students aren't eligible for this kind of aid.

Typically, individual academic departments make decisions on who to admit and who to offer teaching/research assistantships.  If a department decides to offer you admission with an assistantship, you'll typically receive an offer letter from the institution describing the aid in detail.


Is it better to negotiate a faculty offer by email or phone?

Negotiating the conditions of any future employment is an important conversation.

Most of human communication is non-verbal. We communicate a lot through our voice tone and body language.

Some people avoid face-to-face, or telephone conversations, as they find the interaction awkward. Ask yourself:- if you were the search committee chair, would you want to employ someone as a lecturer who was uncomfortable in face-to-face communication?

At least offer to have a telephone conversation, or Skype, or video conference with the other party, if a face-to-face meeting is impractical or inappropriate. This shows you are keen to engage in the most efficient means of human-to-human communication. Then follow this up with an email clarifying the main points of your conversation.


Loss of an exam day in a four-week class

This is a college level issue. The school should come up with a plan for how such a problem should be handled. It seems absurd to ask each individual professor to come up with a specific plan for his/her own students.


Postdoc recommendation letters: The European-American gap and how to overcome it

Is this cultural difference taken into account by members of postdoctoral search committees in high-ranked American universities?

Yes, certainly.  If your letter writers are sufficiently well known, then there's no issue, since the letters they have written in the past will serve as calibration.  (If someone shows poor judgment in their letters, then committees will start discounting the letters, but committees can and do adapt to good judgment expressed in unconventional ways.)  If the committee members haven't seen many previous letters from someone, then there's more of an issue, but everyone will be aware of the phenomenon of European-style letters and will try to take that into account.

As a general rule, letters still need to offer concrete details and say something substantive.  A very short letter along the lines of "This young mathematician does solid work and would make a reasonable postdoc at University X" won't help, because it offers nothing but a vague sense of approval.  However, a substantive letter will be useful even if it's more understated than the U.S. norm.

  I'm currently gathering my recommendation letters, and I'm supposed to get one from one of the leading figures in my field. He knows my work well, and I believe he has a good opinion of me. On the other hand, being familiar with his style of expression, he will never write one of those "omg he is the best researcher ever" letters that top American universities expect to see (he won't write it even for someone who is actually the best researcher ever).

This doesn't sound like a problematic situation to me.  If you're worried, you could look into whether he has ever had a student or postdoc who subsequently got a job in the U.S.  (Presumably the answer is yes, in which case his letter must not have ruined the application.)


Edit: see below for some additional thoughts following OP’s revision of the question.
Let me start with this basic premise: Your students are adults.
Let me repeat that: your students are adults. That is one of the great luxuries of teaching in a higher education setting: you get to spend your time and energy actually teaching the subjects you are passionate about and not having to worry about being some kind of glorified baby-sitter or beacon of moral rectitude for your students. The division of labor is clear: the students get to make to their own decisions about how they want to best benefit from the course you are teaching, and you get to test them, give out assignments of various sorts, and give a grade at the end of the semester that reflects your assessment of what they learned.
And now for your question:

Is the death of a girlfriend's father a reasonable excuse for a student to miss a class?

While it is tempting to answer with a simple “yes”, I think the more accurate answer is that it is meaningless to speak about a “reasonable excuse”. Quite simply, in the context of a lecture-based college class, you should not be in the business of policing the reasons for students’ absences, or indeed whether they are absent or not. So in that sense, any excuse is a “reasonable” excuse. But if that’s the case, of course the notion of an excuse loses all meaning, so we come back to what I said above.
I know that what I‘m saying here flies in the face of the reality that some instructors mandate attendance in lectures, and that you do as well. Well, I have nothing more to say other than that such mandates are misguided and pointless, and lead to precisely the kind of fake dilemmas of the sort presented in your question, in which a baffled instructor tries to wrap their head around whether something is a “reasonable excuse”.
Finally, from a practical point of view, since you inherited this course from a colleague and don’t seem to personally have a strong attachment to the mandated attendance requirement, the best course of action is to simply drop that requirement, and free up your and your students’ time and energy for more productive uses.

Edit: OP has edited the question to clarify that the course is “conducted using a seminar course format rather than a traditional lecture format. For all classes except the first class, students present their work, and other students ask questions and give feedback and suggestions.”
For such a course, an attendance requirement may be logical. I’d still advocate for the instructor to make every effort possible not to get dragged into having to adjudicate questions about what is a “reasonable excuse” for missing class. It’s simply not a healthy situation for an instructor to be in and again conflicts with my “students are adults” premise. What I suggest instead is to have a policy that “students may not miss more than X lectures”, without making a distinction between “excused” and “not excused” absences, and to set X at a number that’s high enough that the policy won’t hurt students who had “serious” problems like an illness or a death in the family. For example X=4 or 5 would be pretty reasonable for a course of the type OP is describing. With such a policy, again the instructor will be treating the students as the adults that they are and freeing up everyone’s time and energy to let them do what they are actually at university to do instead of quibbling over bureaucratic nonsense.


Why do lecturers not just assume all students have read the book?

The answer may depend on what type of course we are talking about, here I'll focus on STEM.

The most obvious answer would be "because it would be a false assumption". Many students don't read the books. But then you get to the question: why don't the students read the books?

I'm an engineering student, and here's my perspective: in STEM courses it's quite often the case that the lectures are quite simply a boiled-down version of the books; they present the same theorems as the books, in the same order, often using the same examples, but without all the "fluff". Students don't read the books because we go to the lectures, take notes, and get all the necessary material in a document we wrote ourselves. Writing it ourselves helps us learn the material, and since it's a boiled-down version it's much less material to read through when preparing for exams.

As for professors, if they assume that the books have been read and understood, they wouldn't have much to talk about since what they planned to present was the book's material. They could use lectures for Q&A sessions and practice problems but attendance would be quite low in that case and students would complain about paying for simply being told what book to read instead of being presented the material. Besides, (at least in the case of my university) Q&As and practice problem sessions are typically done by the TAs on a regular basis anyway.

I imagine this may not hold for other types of classes such as history or literature in which documents are assigned to be read and then discussed and analyzed in class, but I have little to no experiences with those so I can't give an informed answer.

P.S: "Imagine that reading the book is a lecture itself". Fun fact: the word lecture is french for reading.


I'm not a mathematician, but being an academic in a tenure-track position may be stressful itself if you're on a publish-or-perish program. I.e., either you generate (mathematical) results year to year in six or seven years or you get fired. The stress may not be in the work itself but in the built up angst thinking about how achieving each new result quickly is, and it can be so bad that sitting down to work on a new problem or even thinking about it can be stressful.


After an unsuccessful first PhD position in experimental research, how can I get accepted to another program?

If your relation with your current advisor is not good, you probably don't want to cite him/her as reference or ask them for recommendation. Usually one ask recommendation only from people we are sure they have a good opinion. Maybe someone else from your Master can give a better opinion of you. Or colleagues/postdoc/teaching assistant in your current position.

This does not mean you need to hide the current situation. It is better to introduce the problem when you say why you want to change position. And be super clear with the situation, if they ask you what was the problem, be open with it. If you are hesitant to speak, they will feel there is something shady and might become suspicious. Also you should not try to discredit your current supervisor, but you can try to explain why his/her expectations were not met.

If they still insist on contacting your current advisor, then let it be, there is not much more you can do.


Can a student seek redress for the administration neglecting their paperwork?

You're not at the end of the line yet.  Getting the date changed may be not be an option, but there are still steps you can take before going full Edmond Dantes.  First, I'll try to answer the more general questions.

  How can students know when they are being treated unfairly?

You usually know at a base level when you're being wronged.  You clearly were on multiple occasions.

  How can they get their complaints taken seriously and appropriately escalate issues through their department/college without being ignored?

Being respectful and professional is key.  The second you "rage," you will no longer be taken seriously.  Avoid personal attacks at all costs and always check yourself before you go forward.  Assume that people are reasonable and willing to help, even when they seem otherwise.  Communication is about the message that's received, not the one that's sent.

Carefully measured accusations of impropriety can sometimes help, but be cautious, they will also burn bridges.  I had a strong disagreement with a professor where at one point he refused to discuss the topic further. In turn, I summarized our interaction and accused him of being unprofessional. When he defended himself, he included a restating of his understanding of my goal. At that point, it became clear he mistook my request for my objective. What seemed like arrogance and dismissiveness were really misunderstanding. We were able to resolve the matter and are now on good terms.

Judicious use of carbon-copying.  CCing the wrong person at the wrong point will actively work against you on the points of both respect and professionalism.  That said, there is a role for it when transitioning between administrative levels. When you CC someone in on an ongoing conversation, they can see the back and forth history.

If you are:

Clearly conducting yourself properly and respectfully
Being treated unfairly
Have a concrete goal they can do something about (simply complaining won't cut it)

then you can attempt to escalate the matter to the person's direct superior by CCing them instead of generating a new e-mail chain.  You should be immediately switching the direction of your conversation to the new person at the same time, referencing the fact that your are doing this because you are out of options, and be in the right. You will be very, very heavily implying misconduct on behalf of the previous person in this case, but will want them to come to that conclusion on their own.  One could make an exception on this in extreme cases regarding ethics, safety, etc.

I think you are past the point where you can begin to CC someone's superior before taking it to them directly, as that requires some degree of personal familiarity. That does remain a potential, if very risky, option in other situations.

  Is there any recourse for them - a way to get the school to correct the issue?

There are three further levels you can take this.

The President of the College. The individual College Deans still have to report to someone.  You do not want to telegraph your moves anymore at this stage. I don't have a good suggestion for the best way to frame your request for an appointment, but you can't afford them asking the Graduate College Dean for details prior to the meeting if they've already been compromised. Here are some more important tips for this:

You will also have some serious convincing to do that you're an adult. Be wearing a suit/dress and be immaculately groomed.
Have your greeting and synopsis rehearsed.
Lead with the impact this has had on you, not the history; your career and licensing is also their primary method of exposure to the working world.
Have every single piece of documentation you can scan or print, and have it ordered chronologically and separable by party at fault, if possible. Chronology is more important, as it shows your body of support and could reveal any collusion against you.
The copy of documentation you bring with you needs to be something they can keep then and there.

The Accrediting Agency.  This is no longer about degrees at this point, and it will do nothing for you directly.  I'm not even sure the issues at hand are relevant to them.  But they do vouch for the integrity of the school.  You will really just be filing an official report against the college at best, but if your degree dates remain changeable by College policy and they refuse to do so, it could be considered a form of academic misconduct.
Legal Recourse. (Disclaimer: I Am Not A Lawyer) You could go the legal route, as suggested.  They are damaging your ability to earn income in an easily quantifiable way.  Legal fees, lost wages, and maybe some psychiatric care may be able to be recouped, but you will certainly be paying up front for this. This will probably cost you more money overall, not to mention the time and stress dealing with the court proceedings.

As you take this matter to increasing levels of aggressiveness, you will find your support waning.  People don't like to get involved with other people's problems, especially when it ceases to benefit them.  I personally recommend stopping after the President regardless of the outcome.  Your health and happiness are the most important things you have, and this is already taking a sizeable toll.  You really have to ask yourself, in twenty years, will you be happier that justice was exacted or that the whole thing is a distant memory?

Finally, find a good therapist.  If nothing else, it's a place you can vent where the negativity won't linger.  Your home should be where your soul can heal and rest, not where you dump the wastewater from washing the wound.  I hope something in here is helpful, and wish you the best of luck.


Should I say something to an undergraduate research assistant who isn't really working full time?

Should I have a conversation with him about his working hours?

Yes! He gets paid to do a job. He doesn't do the job. You need to talk to him, even though it's an uncomfortable situation. Also, you say in a comment:

  Because the general culture in academia tends to be more like, "Work as many or as few hours as you want as long as you get your work done."

This is true, but you say that he does not get his job done. Frankly, if he only works like 25 hours, even if he would be supremely productive I would still talk to him about his work ethics if he puts in so much less hours than his peers... and if he is not it's all the more reason to make sure that he at least tries as hard as the others.

If you don't, the problem is going to be that sooner rather than later many of the 45-hours students are going to wonder why the heck they are actually not enjoying the summer. I have seen in my current group that various bad habits have a tendency to spread like wildfire if the students have the impression that not doing your job isn't in any way frowned upon anyway.

  If so, how to do it without sounding like a jerk?

In private, without getting emotional or accusatory. Tell him that you have the impression that he works considerably below the amount that was agreed upon, and that you have to ask him to change this. Tell him that you have the impression that his project is not progressing fast enough, and what will happen if he can't get it done in time (you have some course of action in this case, right?). Be prepared that he may counter with some sort of attack against you. For instance, this is a classic in such situations: "Well, since you never have time for me, I don't know what to do half of the time anyway - so rather than just sit around I leave". Make sure that you have a good answer in this case.


What steps would an amateur scientist have to take in order to get a scientific breakthrough published?

The title question is answered by "write a paper and submit it to a journal". The amateur scientist doesn't need anything special to do that.

The questions in the text deal with a separate question, which is whether or not the breakthrough actually is a breakthrough. In this case getting a professional opinion is certainly going to be helpful (see Kaveh's answer to a related question for the process). It's easy to deal with the "threat" of the professor stealing the idea: just establish precedence by, e.g, attaching the manuscript to an email with a timestamp. If the professor tries to steal the idea anyway, he would be breaking some deep-rooted academic norms. If it's proven that he's plagiarizing, he can get into serious trouble.


How to find a good topic for a PhD research proposal?

Jot down your interests.
Future goals (long term and short term). Doesn't have to be accurate but just to give you the "big picture".
Speak with your PhD advisor (if you already have one).
Align his/her interests with yours and see if you have common ground (you may need to lean towards his interests or find another advisor)
Once you have a list of topics that you could explore, do a literature review and figure out for what topics you'd have a taste.

Each person has his own formula on what to choose as their PhD proposal. This was the way I went about it.

PhD (Mechanical Engineering Expected Fall 2012)


How does a graduate admissions committee consider junior/senior grades that are not yet available?

You're right, most programs simply don't take 4th-year grades into account. If you want, you can send them an additional transcript once Fall semester grades are released (some schools will request that you do this), but for the most part that's just how admissions works.


How to determine whether a position is "faculty-equivalent"?

In my field (particle physics) positions considered as "faculty equivalent" positions are usually non-university permanent (or close to that) positions.
For example, in the US at national labs, there are several named fellowships and when applying to them they might state something like "this position is considered equivalent to an assistant professor at a university".
The idea usually being that the person in this position would be hired into a permanent position at the end of their fellowship, e.g., as a staff scientist.


Answering an email regarding recommendation letters

Oy.  [In the future, give people at least a month for this sort of thing] Here's what you can do.  (1) Be very polite and thank her a lot.  (2) Say that you would like her to write a letter and submit it when she gets the chance [perhaps late as needed].  (3) Email the grad department and say you're applying but one of your letters will be late.

Hopefully that works out at some level.  A few things could go wrong with this plan of course, but it's worth a shot.  In any event, be sure to thank the letter writer profusely before and after the fact.  Cards are nice.


Is teaching for a biology program without "specialized accreditation" bad for your career?

In my experience, very few biology programs are accredited, for example at liberal arts undergraduate colleges. But they're still important, since liberal arts students still ought to be exposed to biology. So I don't think that association with a good quality teaching program will hurt your prospects as a teacher, but unaccredited programs tend not to engage in research very intensively, if at all. So as others have mentioned, you should probably consider a post-doc at a research school if that's your goal.


The answer may depend on the MOOC platform. Based on a quick read of the TOS for a couple of the more popular MOOC platforms, I would say:

Coursera: Probably not. Coursera allows you to share your own postings, but not anyone else's.
edX: No. The TOS specifically calls out User Postings as content that you are forbidden to download in bulk. However, like Coursera and Udemy, edX allows you to retain rights to your own postings.
Udemy: Probably not. Udemy and you can share your postings, but you cannot share someone else's postings.

Coursera's Terms of Service, to which you agree when you register and use their service, state:

All students participating in the class must agree to abide by the following code:

I will not make solutions to homework, quizzes, exams, projects, and other assignments available to anyone else (except to the extent an assignment explicitly permits sharing solutions). This includes both solutions written by me, as well as any solutions provided by the course staff or others.

Also (boldface added):

The Services enable you to share your content, such as homework, quizzes, exams, projects, other assignments you submit, posts you make in the forums, and the like ("User Content"), with Coursera, instructors, and/or other users. You retain all intellectual property rights in, and are responsible for, the User Content you share.
...
Coursera respects the intellectual property rights of our users, Content Providers, and other third parties and expects our users to do the same when using the Services.

Finally:

You also aren't allowed to:

Reproduce, transfer, sell, resell, or otherwise misuse any content from our Services, unless specifically authorized to do so.

edX's Terms of Service:

[Y]ou agree not to scrape, or otherwise download in bulk, any edX Site content, including but not limited to a list or directory of users on the system, User Postings or user information, online textbooks, course materials, or trademarks and logos.

But also (boldface added):

By submitting or distributing your User Postings, you affirm, represent, and warrant (1) that you have the necessary rights, licenses, consents, and/or permissions to reproduce and publish the User Postings and to authorize edX and its users to reproduce, modify, publish, and otherwise use and distribute your User Postings in a manner consistent with the licenses granted by you below, and (2) that neither your submission of your User Postings nor the exercise of the licenses granted below will infringe or violate the rights of any third party. You, and not edX, are solely responsible for your User Postings and the consequences of posting or publishing them.

And:

By submitting or distributing your User Postings, you hereby grant to each user of the Site a non-exclusive license to access and use your User Postings in connection with their use of the Site for their own personal purposes.

Udemy's Terms:

The content you post as a student or instructor (including courses) remains yours. By posting courses and other content, you allow Udemy to reuse and share it but you do not lose any ownership rights you may have over your content.

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