Does showcasing pet projects on my personal blog compensate for not having references?

No, realistically a list of external projects will not make up for not having letters.

Letters are typically not, or not primarily, used as a description of projects you have done, but as a subjective evaluation of your potential as a PhD graduate student. Letters may include a discussion of undergraduate research, but will also include a discussion of your personality, especially your strengths and weaknesses as a researcher. It is evident that this cannot be learned from a description of projects alone, especially given that this list is curated by yourself.

Incidentally, this is also the reason why senior professors are considered the "best" references - admission committees assume that the best judge of prospective grad students are those you have seen many grad students succeed and fail, i.e., senior professors.

Edit: as jvb correctly notes, the question is about master rather than PhD applications, but at least for a master by research, this does not change the spirit of my answer. For masters by coursework, I think most universities don't really employ a competitive selection procedure anyway (at least the ones I know don't).


Should I include "visiting" in my visiting assistant professor, or just call myself assistant professor?

I agree with you.  People expect websites, email signatures, etc, to have accurate job titles, and there is a major qualitative difference between "Visiting Assistant Professor" and "Assistant Professor".  Dropping the "Visiting" unintentionally is careless, and intentionally dropping it to "upsell" (i.e. mislead) is unethical.

(You might as well say, as long as you're dropping words, why not just make yourself a full "Professor"?)


I want to approach a certain subject for my diploma project, but unofficially I may get a bad grade for doing so. What should I do?

Your faculty presumably knows much more about the area, and if they suggest (formally or informally) that some line of inquiry isn't suitable for a thesis, I'd listen carefully. It might be that the task is just far too ambitious to really solve in reasonable time (I see that very often with my own students), or it sounds superficially interesting, but has already been solved or the solution (if found) won't be an advance. Sometimes the thema is worthwile, but the risk of not being able to complete it (or not getting results) is just too high.


How should I refer to PIs in a statement of purpose (US)?

tl;dr. In a formal situation, be formal, otherwise...

The US is pretty informal about titles (unless the professor is from a German university). So either should do in general (see below). Even an assistant professor can be referred to as "professor". It is even possible, if rare, that an Associate Professor won't actually hold a doctorate. But no one is likely to be offended.

You might, however, after a first usage, be told that some other thing is more appropriate. Then you should just do that.

My own doctoral advisor did have a Germainc type doctorate and additional beyond doctorate degrees. But he was happy enough in the US to be referred to with any reasonable designation. I also had a colleague who was at least an Associate Professor but held no doctorate. He did, however, participate in very important theoretical research - with Edsger Dijkstra, actually.

But this is how you refer to a person in person or in email and such. For a more formal designation, such as in a paper, you may need to refer to an actual title. "Associate Professor Smythe" or such. The context you give, suggests a formal title is called for - an application.


Post tenure job search in the humantities: a waste of time?

Senior level hires at small, liberal arts colleges (SLACs) are uncommon in the sciences, rare in the social sciences, and very rare in the humanities. Why would a small college pay the same price for an associate or full professor when an assistant costs half as much?

R1s do senior hires because we want and can pay for name-brand profs. We often have named (and well funded) professorships to entice people to switch. Big name professors also bring in big name grants and attract graduate students. These latter concerns aren't as important at SLACs.

That's not to say it doesn't happen. A SLAC might hire a senior professor in the humanities for the following reasons:

It's starting up a new program and needs an experienced hand to guide it
A senior faculty member died/left/was fired and all of the remaining members of the department are too junior to chair it
There is so much infighting in the department that the provost wants an outside chair to step in
Freak accident of nature

Since you have tenure, you can afford to be patient. Keep your CV, cover letter, and job talk polished. Go to all the right conferences. Be portable.


How do online resources compare to resources obtained from extension programs from top ranking universities?

You're being deprived of everything traditional paid schooling is supposed to provide, other than the material itself.

Contact with faculty
Collaboration with peers
Formal evaluation and recognition (i.e. a diploma or certificate)

Material that is two years old is not going to be out-of-date. Even in a field like computer science, classroom instruction just does not move that fast. Even when things do change, it's more likely that the contemporary technologies are going to change than the essential course material (e.g. switching a class from Java to Python).

Note that online-course technology and methods is evolving rapidly, so newer paid courses might be better organized for online learning. A lot of the free online course material is essentially videotaped lectures. Newer systems use a self-guided learning approach with autonomous evaluation and feedback.


Dealing with a PhD student reneging on an agreement to appear in social media

Now it is more a matter of my authority.

Well, yes... I’m sorry if this will come as a surprise to you, but coming across as an unreasonable, coercive boss who wants to force their students to participate in distasteful, privacy-violating activities that have zero relevance or value to their professional training, is in fact something that will greatly undermine your authority as an advisor. Effect, meet cause.

My suggestion is that, for your own good and the good of your students, you cease those authority-destroying activities immediately. Your “authority” is something that is given to you for the sole use of doing research and training and educating your students. Asking them to appear in social media videos so that you can have a “visible start” is no different than asking them to make you coffee or give you a back massage so that you can feel energetic - both of those things are indeed not in any job description of any PhD student anywhere. They are not things you should ask students to do, and they are not things you have any right to be upset at a student for not wanting or agreeing to do.

Finally, the fact that you asked the student in the interview if he would be willing to appear in YouTube videos only means that you declared your abusive intentions in advance. It does not make those intentions any less abusive.

Good luck in your tenure track career.

Edit: I said I will address some of the comments left below. Rather than try to discuss fine points of logic, which I think will be tedious, I've decided to add a more personal type of note, which I think will do a better job of getting the point across.

I have been asked many times over the years by various people to have lectures I was giving recorded and made publicly available online (on YouTube, etc). I always refused. Frankly, I find the thought of making publicly available videos of myself lecturing pretty repugnant. Why? Well, just because; I don't feel like it, and I don't owe anyone any explanations. If some silly people want to think that it's because (to quote a comment someone wrote) "some people are super self-conscious about their voice and/or their looks", fine, go ahead and think that. (Oh, and by the way, on another occasion I did agree, happily, to participate in a YouTube video that now has more than 700,000 views. Go figure... I guess I'm inconsistent! Again, I leave to others to engage in their pointless Freudian analyses of what that means about my personality or whatever.)

One of the lessons I learned from these experiences is that people who don't care about privacy have a really hard time understanding people who do. The people who asked me to make my videos available online were sometimes quite offended at my refusal, as if they could not understand why anyone might refuse such an amazing opportunity, and even (this was really bizarre) subtly pressured/guilt-tripped me, implying that I would be depriving the world of an important resource (trust me, I wasn't).

OP, I am sure you are a good person and a good researcher who means well, but know this: your student who doesn't want to make YouTube videos really, really, really means it when he says he doesn't want to make YouTube videos. You might have a hard time understanding why; well, it's not important (or any of your business really) why -- just trust that it's true. And it's quite possible that your other students who haven't been as firm in standing up to you feel exactly the same.

To summarize, you probably don't view yourself as an abusive adviser. You think the student is being unreasonable, but he isn't. Attempting to force the issue will have bad consequences for both of you, and more importantly, is simply wrong. So please let the matter go, and figure out more acceptable ways to market yourself and your group.


How to deal with a lazy postdoc colaborator as a PhD student?

Sometimes, when the expected first author of a publication abandons it, one of the others steps up to becoming the driving force behind the writing. If you understand the project well enough and care enough about the writing, that person might be you.

If you want to do this, you first need to talk to your supervisor and have them talk with the other supervisor. If they agree with the plan, then you don't have to wait for the non-writing author any more, but can go ahead with working on the writing yourself. Authorship order might or might not end up changing, but at least you'll be much more likely to end up with a paper.

Alternately, not all papers that are started get completed.  If it is not important enough to you to invest that level of time and effort, this might be one of those for you, and you may need to move on to completing and writing up your next project.


What's the best way to deal with questions that I don't understand because of accent during/after a talk?

What I usually do is to try to piece together as much of the question as I can and then rephrase/guess/fill in the blank in my own words ("So you are asking whether..."). If my guess is close enough the person asking usually relents. If not, repeat this process until the question is clarified.

In the long term the only solution is to try to expose yourself more often to different accents so that you learn to understand how they differ from the "standard" ones.


My paper was under review for two days and now is 'Awaiting AE Recommendation'. What does this indicate?

Using something named Google; "Awaiting AE recommendation -> The paper received the sufficient number of reviews (usually 2) and, on their basis, AE
makes recommendation to EIC."

That is a very fast review process. Maybe the reviewer(s) had some spare time, maybe a glance at the paper was enough (although that would be odd, as an editor would normally decide a straight reject if this is what the paper calls for)


Manuscript status changed immediately from "With the Editor" to "Decision in Process"

If the editor decided not to send the manuscript out for peer review, then the decision is almost certainly a desk rejection.

In theory, I suppose it might have gone out for peer review and just been an unusually speed process, but in practice that is extremely unlikely.

The canonical journal workflow question may provide more detail if you wish.


When is it useful to include the code in a thesis?

Making your code available along with your thesis can be very helpful to other researchers who are trying to reproduce your results.  I'd encourage you to do this.

However, you should not simply insert a printout of your code into the text of the thesis, since that will make it difficult (practically impossible) for someone to use the code that they obtain from a printed copy of the thesis or even a .PDF of the thesis.  Rather, you should put the code into some online repository (such as e.g. github) so that others can download the code from the web.


What is the workflow of an editor in this case?

You can't know. Having been an editor for the past decade, I'm pretty sure I've done all of the following three options:

I disagreed with the reviewer who said that there is nothing new in the paper and ignored that person in the second round of reviews.
I agreed with the reviewer who said that there is nothing new in the paper, felt that the comments by the other reviewer had been addressed, and didn't send the paper to that other reviewer again because it would just be a waste of their time.
I couldn't figure out who is right and sent it to a third reviewer to get a tie breaker and a second (actually third) opinion.

Point being: There's no way you can know. Have patience with the process and see what happens.


How to overcome difficulties of social interaction at my first academic conference

I also went alone to my first conference, and did not know any of the other attendees beforehand - but I had read some of the works by some of them.

Besides the usual advice "talking to other that also look like they feel alone", I would also encourage you to

prepare and ask questions after talks.

Do this especially for smaller talks (if there are any). This really has many upsides: You practice formulating questions - a very important skill to get something out of a conference. You may get into a nice chat, which, in my case, turned into a friendship more often than I expected. As a consequence, you do not feel alone anymore.

If you did not get the chance to ask your question, you may also approach the speaker after the talk (either right after the talk but also in the next coffee break). Generally, scientists love to talk about their (published) work.


Can you send a university a protected PDF of undergraduate transcripts for graduate applications?

Usually, universities have explicit and hard rules about transcripts. Here's an example. See what you can find out from the institution you're applying to. If they accept official transcripts electronically, they probably only do so through some third-party service, and not by you uploading a PDF to their system.

Such a PDF will likely be considered an unofficial copy. It's still useful for considering applicants, but they'll likely need another version to verify its authenticity. Typically, for US grad schools, this can be an official version submitted by your previous institution through a third-party web service, or a signed printed version sent in a sealed envelope.


How can a double major in Physics and Math help outside Academia?

What sort of jobs are physics majors usually offered?

Jobs that require smart people! Physics is hard, employers understand physics graduates must be smart (without necessarily knowing why), and hire such graduates for a range positions that require smart people.

  And what courses should I take for them?

The specific courses don't matter so much, unless you're targeting a particular skill set. That said, in today's market, having some business and computer science courses will surely help.

  I would like to work in something that is a little closer to physics.

You'll need to give more clues  before anyone can help direct you.

  how much of a role can independent study play when applying for a job? Is it treated equal to courses or less?

I consider independent study to be largely incomparable, but potentially more valuable. For instance, suppose you apply for a stockbroker position. Your physics degree might get you through the door, but knowledge of stockbroking, markets, etc. will get you the position.


Question regarding post-doc salary and moving expense (US)

In my experience, the particulars of a postdoc position vary more widely than academic jobs at any other level -- so much so that it may not be helpful to speak in generalities.

I have direct experience with (some) postdoc positions in mathematics in the United States and Canada.  For these postdoc positions, the salary was the same for all years (usually 2-3) of the position.  Moreover this salary was a standard one given to all postdocs of the same "kind" (roughly, the same funding source) and was not negotiated in the cases known to me.  However, if I remember correctly, the last time I brought this up on this site someone else told me of a North American math postdoc position that did include annual raises.

Again in my (relatively limited) experience, someone who does a second postdoc is not "senior" in any positive way to someone who is on their first postdoc -- if anything, there may be a mild perception that someone who is doing their second postdoc was not successful in landing a tenure track job.  But these things may be different in your field.

  how can I 'politely' ask them to raise the salary according to 3rd year post-doc level?

The way to ask politely is...to ask, politely.  Namely, don't ask them to do it, but inquire into the possibility of doing it.  There is really no harm in asking about a salary bump, moving expenses or whatever -- if it's not on the table, they'll tell you.  If it is, you can explore it.  As long as you don't make hard demands or counteroffers, they should be happy to talk to you about it.


Is it acceptable to decline to review a paper due to lack of familiarity?

Yes.  It is much better to decline as soon as you realise you're not up to the review, than to write a useless review.

Normally, you first get an abstract based on which you accept or decline.  If you accept, the editor may be annoyed if you decline based on seeing the manuscript, but sometimes it's inevitable; only so much can be judged from the abstract.  If you do decline, however, you should let the editor know as soon as possible.

I recently read a publicly reviewed paper where both reviews clearly did not really understand the topic, but still handed in a review.  To me it was quite clear that the paper needed a statistician, which neither of the reviewers were.  One reviewer didn't get much further than pointing out that the introduction was too long, with not a single comment on 10 pages of detailed description of advanced statistical methods.  When reading the reviews, I found it a bit embarrassing that the peer review was so clearly insufficient, and the paper virtually got published without proper peer review.

I know someone who accepted his very first paper review, only to discover when he received the manuscript that it had 130 pages.  He returned it to the editor.


What to do with repeated rejections for PhD position

You say you have been rejected a lot, but give no indication whatever of why that is. It isn't random, I suspect. I can suggest two possible scenarios and from them you can, perhaps, devise a strategy.

The first situation is that you are just applying to places that are so off the scale that no one is actually likely to be admitted. The top institutions normally have tremendous competition for slots and some of them have very few slots available. Dartmouth, in CS, for example is a great institution, but its doctoral program is very small. If they get hundreds of applications for any available position, then the likelihood of any particular person gaining admission is pretty miniscule. So perhaps you are just aiming too high. Since you have come close a few times, perhaps not impossibly high, but there are probably other options.

The second is that you are deficient in some way and need to improve either your technical or personal skills or both. That isn't criticism, since I don't know anything about you, but perceived issues are probably apparent to people once you get into the application process. Arrogant people don't find easy acceptance, to name just one personal "flaw" that some folks exhibit. At the other end of the scale, people who project extreme introversion often come off as less able than they are.

As for the technical side, you can work on that without formally being in a program. You can study and write in your field, for example. If you have the time and can expend the effort to do it effectively, you will improve the skills that others may feel you lack.

But, it is important, I think, that you also find a way to learn at least a bit about why you haven't made the cut. Perhaps someone you have corresponded with in the past can point you in the direction you need to go. Feedback can be valuable, not just about your final position in the ranking, but why you weren't higher. Find a way to ask.


Petitioning to leave PhD program with terminal masters due to illness in family - how should I expect my request to be handled?

I would do the following:

Talk to supervisor: First of all, you need to talk to your supervisor about this, and see how much leave you can get. Very unfortunately, I see this every year many students have the similar situation.
Aim for 6 months leave first: You shouldn't just drop the whole thing. I would suggest you to take a leave for 6 month, and then extend it if necessary.
Don't Lose Touch: I know it is a hard time, but do not just drop the whole thing completely. You can still read about the subject you are working on. Through university's VPN, you can still read research publications and be up to date.

Little Note on Big Picture: We all go through these sort of issues somewhere in our life time. We shouldn't make career suicide, or get into hard medication through drugs because one of our family members is passing away. We need to be strong, somewhere in our life time our parents pass away; and even though it is sad and hearth breaking we need to carry on and keep fighting.


When during the application process should a candidate mention that their spouse is also looking for a job

I'd mention it during an on-campus interview.

In my department, we don't factor "the two-body problem" into an initial evaluation (i.e., do we bring someone for an on-campus interview). So it's up to you about mentioning it in a cover letter or not. I don't think I have ever read that in a cover letter in chemistry, though.

During an on-campus interview, sometimes it comes up, and sometimes it does not. Keep in mind that usually, the department cannot ask. We prefer if it comes up, so that we can work on solving the problem at the same time we make an offer.

When we decide about who gets an offer, the two-body problem doesn't factor into the decision at all.

Why? Well, for one, we want the best person we can get. For another, almost all of our candidates have a two-body problem of some sort. Sometimes, it's another academic job. In other cases, the spouse is a doctor, or a lawyer, or another scientist or ...

Suffice to say, once we make an offer, we're trying to do the best to get the candidate to come, and that includes making sure a significant other would be happy here.

I'll be honest. We're much happier if we know there's a two-body problem (of any type) before we make the offer (i.e. during the on-campus interview), so that we can start working on finding another position. As I said, we want you to come. Sometimes, we don't find out until after we extend the offer, but that just makes our job more difficult because we have much less time.


How many courses should I take in my PhD

Your success in a PhD program will be judged based on your research, not your course work.  You should take the minimum number of courses required to get the degree, and spend your remaining time performing research.

The exception would be if you are seeking a job at an institution where you would teach multiple disciplines, and are required to have taken a certain number of graduate courses in each discipline.  This would not be unusual at American community colleges.


I submitted an assignment late. Should I email the professor to explain my situation?

Tell him, he may or may not accept your submission, but if he wants to accept it and needs proof that it was before the answers came out then telling him provides that.

Don't provide a 16 page opera about why it was late, an apology, a (short) reason : medical etc and close.


tl;dr-  Page numbers are a hold-over from when journals used to be magazines.  The exact number chosen probably doesn't have much practical significance, but it may relate to when an article was ready for publication (camera-ready date) or however the editor might choose to lay out the issue (e.g., with related articles closer to each other).

Once-upon-a-time, scientific journals were basically magazines that collected articles interesting to a specific scholarly community.  Today, libraries still retain some in reference sections and I think that some publishers still actually print them out, but they're mostly funny novelties or historical artifacts.
Anyway, these old-fashion journal volumes would have a table-of-contents that'd refer to page numbers.  Then when the internet came around, they basically stayed the same, except they put copies of articles online, too.  And so, the online copies retain page numbers as a vestigial artifact: they're not really useful to most folks today, but they're still there anyway for historical reasons.
Speculation on what page numbers may've implied
Since page numbers basically reflected order within a printed edition, it'd seem that they likely correlated with how the editors chose to lay out the printed editions.  This may've varied from journal-to-journal.
Possibilities:

Article content.  Articles may've been laid out such that closely related articles would be consecutive.  In such cases, page numbers would correlate with an article's topic.

Camera-ready date.  @user2768 suggested that articles may've been laid out in the order that their content was ready to be amended to the current edition's proof, i.e. the articles' camera-ready date.


Scholarship case - Accepting more than one university offer

You didn't realize that saying to one university "yes, I accept to study full time at your university" meant that you couldn't accept the same thing at another university? Even as a student of another country, you should have understood this.
For the matter of needing to accept 2 different universities for 2 different scholarships: you can't. Either you need both scholarships to agree to both pay for the same university, or you need to make do with 1 scholarship.


How should one describe a future academic appointment

I would not worry about the title as much as the new location. Assuming a name badge that looks something like

Strongbad
PhD Student
Crazy Go Nuts University

I would add a hand written line to make it

Strongbad
PhD Student
Crazy Go Nuts University
Krusty's Clown College (starting August)

I would only do this if the contract has been signed and there is no contingency on you finishing your PhD. If you have to finish your PhD to start the assistant professor position, then there is no guarantee you will be starting in August.


Can I have ResearchGate organize peer review of my paper?

I think I understand your question now. You've uploaded your article to ResearchGate, and ResearchGate asks you whether it has been peer reviewed. It hasn't, and now you're wondering whether ResearchGate can get it peer reviewed for you.

The answer is: it can't. It just wants to mark articles shared on RG that have been peer reviewed elsewhere as such, but it won't have it reviewed for you. To get it reviewed, you would have to submit it to an actual journal.


Taking undergraduate course by a graduate student, officially?

No one can answer this question, except possibly your new supervisor. The bureaucratic issues involved in having a graduate student take an undergraduate course for credit, not to mention a course at another university, are very complicated and will be different at each institution.

(Before you spend any time trying to answer this question, you should check with your supervisor to make sure that they want you to take this course. For example, they might feel that despite the overlap in course material, taking this course would not be a good use of your time.)


Should I add a non-requested work to my major revision of a scientific journal paper?

As somebody in a different area of computer science, I find it hard to see how including a little more true, relevant information could possibly be harmful. The reviewers think your paper is worth publishing with revisions. The worst case I can see is that, when you submit the revised version with this extra unsolicited material, the referees ask you to remove it again.

You can always mention your parent's opinion to your co-authors and see what they think.


How to reference data someone told me in person?

The conventional way to attribute such information in your references is to cite your source as "So-and-so" (i.e. the person's name) -- "personal communication".   Of course you should get the person's permission to reference them, ideally in an email or some other written format, to be sure that there will be no miscommunication about them having given permission for you to reference them and the numbers they told you. HTH.


Reverse engineering the acceptance rate?

I would suspect that the acceptance rate is calculated against the total number of applicants (so 10 acceptances). But, unless you read the number in some official document that also precisely specifies how exactly this number is to be computed, I don't think you can (i) say for sure what it means, (ii) assume that the number is accurately computed against any particular approach you know, or the person who computed the number knows. For example, if you get the percentages of acceptances from a department web site for the previous 10 years, you have to expect that these ten numbers will have been computed by different people and with different definitions.


Is it ethical to share a controversial reason for declining to review with other editors/journals?

I think that the journal needs a written policy on what they retain and it should be visible and obvious to all, especially all reviewers. A request to review can/should point to the policy.

Then there should be no issue at all here. If a reviewer wants to make a statement about why they refuse they know beforehand whether it will be public or not.

If an editor gets a reason that they think should be handled differently (outside the policy), then it can be negotiated with the reviewer. In an extreme case, the review, itself, could be rejected. But a notice of "outside the policy handling" is part of the stated policy as well.

If you make it clear and flexible there won't be an ethical issue.


Improving chances of selection into a course at university

Limited admission courses can happen at any level, for a number of reasons.  In my own experience, it has tended to be some combination of three cases:

The department intends the limited admission to be a filter, to redirect "unpromising" students elsewhere.
Resources are simply limited, and only a certain number of students can be supported (this is especially the case for courses that are experiments with the curriculum).
"Permission of instructor needed": this is some sort of special or favored upper level course, and the instructor is aiming for something more like a seminar or reading group than an ordinary course.

If you're dealing with the first case, then there may be a formal standard, and you're just out of luck.  Much of the time, however, professors have some leeway in how they handle selection.  In some cases, students are actually encouraged to present their case (but if that was the case, you would know).  As an instructor, I would rather any day be dealing with an enthusiastic and hardworking student than one who's just there because it's part of their program, even if the hardworking student is somewhat more poorly rated.

So yes, by all means get in contact, express your enthusiasm and background, and see what the instructor says.  If you're polite and willing to take no for an answer, then the worst that can happen is they say no.


How to answer a professor when you ask for an opportunity to do your Ph.D. and the first contact is positive

You can tell them

I would like to apply to de Ph.D. only at the end of next year. I don't have all the documents and the deadline to apply is December 15th.
What are the next steps?

The way you said it in your question to us was adequately polite :)


How should I handle titles of sources in foreign languages in APA?

Google yielded this:

Book/article titles and names written in Latin-based scripts (French, Spanish, German, etc.) can be cited with only minor adjustments.
Provide a translation of the title in square brackets. Do not translate names written in Latin-based scripts.
Titles and names written in non-Latin scripts (Chinese, Arabic, Russian, etc.) must be transliterated before translating and citing. If you are uncomfortable transliterating material yourself, don't guess -- get help!
Titles should be transliterated and translated into English.
Names should be transliterated (not translated) and arranged in "Western" order, e.g., ordered by surname in reference list.

(Follow the link to see examples)


What year do you give for results, arxiv or journal year?

I think you are trying to do two different things in one:

Give references: This should help others to find relevant literature and in fact, during talks one often uses just "Author Name(s), Year" to do so since this information often allows to track down the reference (at least in mathematics where people do not publish too many papers per year). If you want to do this, you should show the year of publication (you could also explicitly refer to the preprint version, but would need additional space…).
Give historical background: You may want to give the audience a feel for how things developed. My two cents here: I usually do not enjoy the talks that do this very much - I go to talks to learn new mathematics and "historical background" or anecdotes distract me (and also it seems hard to deliver them good). One exception is plenaries of people who are in the business for decades and really have something interesting  to say. Back to the point: If you want to give historical background you may need more space and should say "The result, obtained between 2013 and 2015 by A and published in three papers in 2015 and 2016…"

As a consequence, I think that this is a case in which consistency and clearness are not the same thing…


Is it a good idea to leave a PhD program for another one in a better school after two years?

I would argue it heavily depends on advisor. Are you not just moving to a "better" program but to an advisor who is well-positioned to help you get you the kind of job you want after you finish? If you move to a "better" program but one that does not match you to someone whose interests you share and who has a good track record of placements, it's hard to say whether it's a good move. Don't move for prestige alone; move only if it is likely to have a tangible impact on your career success.


Should I send a 60 percentile Math GRE score to Applied Math PhD Program?

I am in a similar situation. Although I am not able to provide you with a definitive answer but I think it's important who your competitors are. For example, I remember once read on Ohio State University's website, saying that the average GRE Math Subject of domestic students are around 65% or 67%, but the average for international students are around 95%. So I think your educational background plays a role here.


The vast majority not a cent, of whatever currency (see this answer for exceptions).

Peer reviewers are asked to volunteer, and they volunteer because they know that someone else would have to review their papers too (as Dilworth points out in a comment there can be other motivations too).

Said differently, peer reviewing is a mutual exchange, necessary for science to work (though the peer review system has been sometimes criticized).


In which section of the thesis should I give information about formatting? How?

It is frequently the case that a scientific work will explicitly introduce its notational conventions to the reader.  Sometimes this is done inline, but if there is a significant amount to explain, it's nice to set it aside in an easily identifiable portion of the document with a name like "Notation."

If the conventions will be used throughout the thesis (as it sounds will be the case for you), then a good place to do this is following the introduction, either as a subsection or as its own chapter, depending on the size and complexity of what you write.


"Awaiting EO Processing" for 2 weeks after submission. Should I contact?

Depending on the journal, two weeks isn't really a long time for editor assignment. Your manuscript might be at the end of a pretty long queue that might take time. Moreover, getting the right editor for your topic is also sometimes an issue.

Another point to note is that ScholarOne is not always up-to-date with the process of the publisher. This may also depend on the frequency of updates sent from the publisher's editorial office to ScholarOne.

In my experience with ScholarOne, I had "Editor now searching and inviting referees" for about a month before I received the review result, "Resubmit [with minor edit]". There was no "under review" status in between. Hence, there was nothing to worry about.

If this is prolonged over a month, you may send a polite request for the current status of your manuscript through ScholarOne helpdesk. They are very helpful in this regard and usually reply within a day or two.


IEEE full article with small images or more than 8 pages

In many, but not all IEEE publications, the hard limit implies that if the paper is larger than N pages, every (N+1)th page is charged with an overlength charge. See this page on IEEE Author Center, which also contains the fresh link to a PDF with current prices (overlength, open-access, color).

Usually, IEEE Transactions on XXX will allow publishing papers that are larger than standard size (up to a certain maximum), while the IEEE XXX Letters-type journals might have a hard limit with no possibility to publish a paper exceeding the standard length even for an extra fee.

I would certainly check the journal (not the general IEEE guideline) you are intending to submit on that matter since you want the images to be legible without a mandatory zoom. The fees vary, but, for example, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation (TAP) charges $200 per extra page (as of 2020). See this 2018 guideline for IEEE TAP which covers more details on how references count and fees are calculated.


Etiquette for reaching out to previous students of advisor

I can only ask myself how I (a PhD scientist in industry in the US) would react upon receiving such a mail from one of my former advisor's current students.

If the mail asked for general career or technical advice, I would be happy to respond. In this case, there is really no need to ask the scientist to avoid mentioning the contact to your advisor -- (a) I probably wouldn't anyway, and (b) if your advisor would be upset by this, then you have bigger problems.
If the mail was asking for advice in dealing with the advisor, I would really look at how it was written. Tact and concision here goes a long way. For example, "Bob has been shouting at me 3-4 times a week and I am not sure how to proceed" is something I would want to advise you about; many details about the complicated lab politics are something I would prefer to avoid wading into. In this case, adding a brief note requesting that I don't broach the issue with your advisor directly will not do any harm (though, there is always a 1% chance that the mail somehow ends up in front of your advisor -- which is all the more reason to be tactful).
If the mail were asking for a brief phone call, I am less likely to respond (I hate phone calls and love e-mail; YMMV). But, if you simply must share things that absolutely cannot end up in front of the advisor, a phone call is your best bet (even if the advisor finds about the phone call, at least he won't have the transcript; this gives you a lot more flexibility).


Does anyone in Academia.SE know about Saudi universities?

First, let me answer about the reputation/ranking of Saudi universities:

I should warn you that Saudi Arabian universities have a reputation for "gaming" these rankings you are relying on.

What they do is pay researchers at western universities to accept a second affiliation there. This allows the Saudi university to list them as faculty and claim credit for their publications and citations and thereby boost their ranking. In reality, these researchers are rarely if ever present and do not contribute to the academic environment there. Perhaps they visit for a week and give a few talks, but they do not supervise students or teach courses there.

For more details, see this question and the links in it: What should you do if a co-author has an unethical affiliation?
The answers to this question also show how people in the west react to this.

So the reality is that Saudi universities have a very questionable reputation in the west, despite their good performance in international rankings.

Note that I'm not saying these are bad universities, but simply that you should be wary of the rankings and the claimed faculty. Every university seeks to maximize it's reputation, but Saudi Arabian universities have a reputation for going overboard with this.

Now the second part of your question -- how does going to a Saudi university play into your academic career goals given that you want to end up in the US:

Generally speaking, moving to the US after PhD is much harder than before. This is my personal impression and is supported by data.

The main reason is that, after your PhD, you are evaluated on your research and your recommendation letter writers and connections matter a lot. Thus you want to have research exposure in the US and you want to have connections in the US and letters from US professors. The easiest way to do that is to be in the US.
Before your PhD this doesn't matter so much, as you are evaluated on your potential.

Another reason is that, as you move up the career ladder, positions get more and more competitive. This makes everything, including moving countries, harder.

Of course, countries like Canada and Israel are very close to the US in terms of research connections. So doing a PhD there will be almost as good as doing one in the US.

If you are having trouble getting into a PhD program that you want, then doing a Masters is probably a good idea, especially if you get a good recommendation letter out of it. It isn't critical where you do a Masters.


How much of humor in a formal academic writing is considered as disrespect?

Your first priority should be to convey your ideas to the reader. Given that I, and many others, have absolutely no idea what "step out on" means, I would suggest that you avoid the phrase. On the other hand, I think humour is occasionally acceptable, but it needs to be timeless humour.


Can an international student gain admission to medical school in the USA?

According to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), in 2013, 1,088 of 48,014 applicants to U.S. medical schools in 2013 were not residents of the U.S. Of these, 115 matriculated (10.6%, compared to 41.8% of applicants overall).

So it is possible to gain admission to medical school in the U.S. as an international student; however, it is more difficult since (as you have noted), there is a very small number of schools that will admit international students.

The National Association of Advisors for the Health Professions has an article, "Medical School Admission Policies Towards Non-US Citizens", that lists all the medical schools in the United States and their policies on accepting international students, as well information on how many international students they have accepted historically. While it's a bit dated (from 2008), you should still find it helpful as a starting point. For example, it points out that George Washington University has an M.D. program specifically for international students.

Note that international students are generally not eligible for federal aid, which can make it very expensive to pursue a medical degree in the United States. Many schools will require applicants to submit documentation showing that they will be able to fulfill their financial obligations to the school if they matriculate.


Can I develop software that solves a problem as a Master's thesis?

Methodology, models and algorithms

Usually in such research the majority of the work spent will be on the software, but the majority of written thesis will be about the problem analysis, literature review of similar problems in the field, methodology, models and algorithms used, and the evaluation of the proposed solution to the problem.

Yes, there's some software engineering involved, but that's generally not research; however, there are research questions related to that software - the actual tool demonstrates the feasibility of your proposed method (that your solution can be implemented) and the applicability of your proposed method (that your solution is useful for achieving the targeted goal), but it itself will often be "just" an appendix to the research work. In particular, there's a big impact on novelty. Building software that essentially reimplements an existing tool can be commercially useful, but doesn't constitute novel research no matter how much work it takes, while doing an adjustment to an existing open-source system that takes just a small bit of programming but implements a substantially different (and better in some aspect) method is novel research. I mean, there are algorithms that differ from existing ones by just a line or two of code but have a substantial impact on how they behave, and you could definitely build a thesis on such an improvement.

It's like the "method and apparatus" in patent applications - developing the method and apparatus is novel research; actually building it often will be helpful, but isn't strictly necessary and (by itself) wouldn't constitute novel research.


Why do Australian universities have higher employability than that of British in QS Graduate Employability Ranking 2019?

Know what's being ranked. Read the methodology. The QS graduate employability ranking uses:

Employer/Student Connections (10%). How many employers go to campus for presentations etc?

Alumni outcomes (25%). They take a list of the most influential people and sort them by the institutions they graduated from.

Employer ranking (30%). It's sourced from a survey sent by QS to employers asking them where their best employees graduate from.

Partnerships with Employers per Faculty (25%). They find out which institutions are collaborating with employers to do research.

Graduate employment rate (10%). How many graduates are employed after one year?

Then go to the employability rankings again and sort by indicator. We're comparing the University of Melbourne and the University of Sydney to the Cambridge University and Oxford University (the two highest-rated British universities).

Sydney's scores are: 99.3 / 93.3 / 94.4 / 98.4 / 97.9
Melbourne's scores are: 78.5 / 92.6 / 97.9 / 95.4 / 98.1
Cambridge's scores are: 89.6 / 99.9 / 100 / 88.9 / 75
Oxford's scores are: 81 / 100 / 100 / 89.6 / 69.5

Note that these numbers are very likely expressed as a fraction of the top performer. In other words 69.5 employment rate doesn't mean that 30.5% of Oxford's graduates are still looking for a job after a year; 94.4 employer ranking doesn't mean that 94.4% of all employers think Sydney's graduates are good.

The British universities handily lead in the alumni outcomes & employer ranking categories, and do (relatively) poorly in the partnerships with employers per faculty & graduate employment rate categories, while the employer/student connections category is more mixed.

Draw your own conclusions. Some factors to think about:

Taken at face value, this implies that employers value Cambridge & Oxford degrees very highly, but they still find it hard to get a job (an evident contradiction).
Further, if they actually do get a job, they are more likely go on to do really well (of course, this only applies to the very peak of the distribution).
Do you care about which institutions are collaborating with employers to do research? This will vary by student. Presumably if you're looking to do research in industry, this will be very important to you, while if you don't care about that then it doesn't matter.
Are you seeking a local job? If so, then campus presentations are a great opportunity to network. If you're not looking to get a job in the city/country then they probably aren't really relevant to you.
The UK recently went through and is still going through some political upheaval. That could've had an impact on its university graduates getting a job, especially if they're international students.


Conference Registration Fees are so high, is it normal?

is it really the same conference or they are taking advantage of this misunderstanding?

I am not in the field of security, but yes, this appears to be the right conference. Your advisor should be able to clarify with certainty.

  Also, I got shocked when I noticed that the student registration fee is $1095.00 for regular research papers.

It's quite expensive even in comparison to other conferences, but it's the same ballpark as other IEEE conferences, so (unfortunately) this seems to be the direction we are heading to. However, I cannot help but wonder if you did not check the prices prior to submission?

  The full accepted paper has only limited 6 pages in length to be included in the final proceedings. My research paper is 12 pages. The program committee wants to charge me $150.00 for each extra page.

Yeah, that sounds pretty terrible. I would be interested in why the community does not push back more on what certainly appears to be a shady "hidden cost" model that is unworthy of a good academic conference. I know that some other conferences allow one or two extra pages for additional charge (which, frankly, is also ridiculous in times of Web-based proceedings), but limiting the "free" number of pages to 6 (clearly too little for most scientific contributions) and then letting the author pay for the same number of extra pages to get to what is the normal length of full conference papers (10-12 pages) seems completely fishy.

I would complain as well, but realistically there really is not much that you as a student can do (aside from withdrawing, and you probably don't want to do that).

To give you some more context, it is unfortunately true that academic conference are very expensive and that they have only been getting more expensive over recent years. To me it subjectively appears to be the case that IEEE conferences are particularly prone to overcharging, but this may just be my impression. Some communities have started to push back on this, though. For instance, one of the main promises of a current candidate running for the position of SIGSOFT chair is to reduce the price tag for SIGSOFT sponsored events.


How do I locate the rockstars at my university, so as to establish a relationship and get references from them?

Every university instructor is a potential rockstar in terms of their ability to help you in your studies, and in terms of their ability to influence an admissions committee.

So, how do you find your personal academic rockstars?

Consider the instructor of every single class you take as a potential rockstar.  Visit office hours.  You don't know whether the instructor will give you extra help, or whether the extra help will be targeted to your needs, until you try.
When choosing courses, look for courses where other students say the instructor is highly effective.  Here are some ways of collecting opinions: visit the drop-in homework help room.  There you should be able to find students who are a bit farther along than you, who can talk freely about who are the best instructors in the department.
Try all the tutoring options at your school.  Some are better than others, so don't get too frustrated if your first attempts don't work out very well.  Try any and all options.
Don't be afraid to look at ratemyprofessor.com -- but do take what you read there with a grain of salt.
Sit in on a potential class or instructor one semester ahead.  This will help you in your choice of classes for the following semester.
Make an appointment with your undergraduate dean or advisor.  Ask for recommendations of courses and instructors.

The suggestion made in a comment by @lemon is good too.

I like your attitude.  Everybody has their own rate of development.  Late bloomers are welcome in academia too.

Do make sure you are solid on your foundational math skills.


OpenStreetMaps in research publications: Is that possible?

First of all, note that you link to a page describing their old (pre-2012) license. They have updated Legal FAQ and License and Legal FAQ pages now. Furthermore, they have a bunch of examples on how their data has been used in research already (though a lot of them seem to be various theses). See also this question on OpenStreetMap's help forums.

The main point is that their data, and their maps, fall under their license. If you include them in  a paper, they request proper attribution. If you do that, I don't see it as being different from reusing a previously published figure with permission, which would be a reproduction of the figure, without transfer of copyright. Maybe specific journals/publishers would have a policy against this, but in my experience most should be fine with it, as it's standard academic practice.


Correct abbreviation for current PhD student

If this is common in your field, then you should imitate how you see it handled most often in other people's papers.  I don't know of any standard abbreviation for "student" in this context, so I'd imagine you should write it out, but again you should imitate what other people do unless you see a good reason to do otherwise.

If it's not common in your field (and you therefore don't have many examples at hand to compare with), then I'd recommend not including this information.  As MJeffryes points out in a comment, in much of academia papers don't list titles or positions at all.  If that's the case in your field, then identifying the authors by title could look eccentric (or, depending on the title, pompous).


Statement of purpose addressing expected contribution and outcomes

Note: I am not in the field of Mathematics. The below reflects how I would address this based on my experience elsewhere.

It sounds like you have a very clear answer to both of these.

  What is your expected outcome?

You're looking to perform original research, become more familiar with the process and responsibilities of the academic Mathematics field, and contribute to the broader community. You say as much in your post; write that in your letter! Furthermore, you added later that you know which sub-field you're interested in... write that specifically! "I'm interested in studying <field>, and specifically investigating <subfield>." That makes you sound even more promising, because you're coming in with an understanding of the literature and existing research.

The fact that you haven't identified an advisor is something they are unlikely to penalize you on, as its expected that you're still working on that. You should focus on convincing them that you have done your homework with respect to understanding what academic Mathematics is.

  What do you expect to contribute?

You stated that as well; you want to do original research, publish, and gain expertise in a specific subfield of math. That's likely all they're looking for. They do say "...and later"; it may be worth mentioning that you're looking for a long-term academic position, as opposed to, say, banking. That will likely reflect well on you.


Additionally to what Buffy wrote, there are many issues arising with predatory journals stating that they are doing peer review when they actually are just pocketing author publishing charges. If you get any peer review from these journals, it is usually just something non-committal ("Nice work!"). So submitting your peer-review will show that actual peer-review took place.
I try to engage with papers I am reviewing, asking lots of questions that pop up. And I correct comma errors, which seem to be so prevalent these days ;)


Is it possible to apply to a masters program without letters of recommendation?

If it is within a few years, you may be able to contact prior professors that you feel may remember you.
Otherwise, if you do not think that you can produce letters of recommendations, then I recommend you contact potential graduate schools. In fact, I believe that you should always contact potential graduate schools BEFORE applying (no matter the circumstances.) This helps you understand what they expect, prepare for potential problems, and ask any questions that you may have.
In your case, they will be able to talk with you on how to “compensate” (as you called it) for your lack of letters of recommendations. I do not know what country you are applying in, but I know that in my country (America) there are admissions counselors per each school you are applying to (for instance, religious studies admissions counselor for somebody who is majoring in Southeast Asian Religions.) If that is the case with you, then make sure you contact the school rather than the university directly to get the best possible answer.
Every school, let alone university, operates differently, and there are some schools where it may be a nonstarter to apply and then there are others that you may be able to get a waiver and/or a probation easily. Honestly and again, your best bet is to contact potential graduate schools directly.


Changing research interests as an undergrad?

Your undergrad career is actually the best time to explore different research interests. It is much easier now, when you are an undergrad, than it would be at any later stage.

There is no ethical problem with changing your research interests after working for a lab over the summer - working for a lab as an undergrad is absolutely not a commitment to stay in that lab for a PhD.

Similarly, you are absolutely allowed to have research interests that are different from your undergrad dissertation. Many, many students change subfields in between their undergrad (or MS) and PhD.


Prospective supervisor stopped replying me before the application deadline

I've been in a very similar situation and did make a phone call, or rather a few. I think you should do the same.

The most likely scenario is that they don't have the deadline very clearly in their head and something else came up. Professors have to deal with multiple things all the time and sometimes things just get very hectic. There's probably nothing wrong, per se.

So I'd place a phone call and for example ask him "I haven't yet received your acceptance letter for the fellowship deadline that's coming up. Did something go wrong with the email, maybe?"

Don't wait too long! If he still has to write the letter, make sure he has enough time to do so.


Answer to 1: Where should I host my code?

Depending on what your University offers you, you could choose to host it with the University, or perhaps with an open-source repository such as Github, Bitbucket, SourceForge, or similar.

Many of these services have a "paid" subscription option for private repositories if those are required.

Answer to 2: What open-source license should I choose?

This question is relevant because we're having this discussion right now within one of our own research projects. I happen to know a little about open source software, having researched it in the past and having taught a few courses on it.

Though there are a lot of open-source licenses out there, they really end up coming in two main families. They're either permissive open licenses (ex: MIT, BSD, Apache) or they are Free (GNU Public License v2 or GPLv3). Here's a brief lowdown by the Open Source Initiative

Permissive open licenses These licenses generally allow you to release your code and anyone can do anything with them that they want as long as they retain certain copyright information with the code. In reality, this has a number of implications.

Someone could take your entire code base, create a product with it, and sell it.
Someone could take parts of your code, put it in their own project (commercial or not).
Because the license is more permissive, you yourself could take the code, close it, and then keep under wraps any future releases so you can make money off of the code or hide it from the public.
Because the license is more permissive, you might generate more interest as a result. People may take code from other projects and use it to improve yours. On the flip-side, they could also make improvements for your source code and never share them back with you.

On the flip-side, the GNU GPL is a Free Software License that disallows you from doing certain things. In that sense, it's more restrictive, but does so for a number of ideological reasons.

If you release software under the GPL, you can't close-source it. Ever. It's going to remain in the open, and if someone asks you for the source code you are obligated by the terms of the license to provide it (if you host it on Github or another public repository, then you have already satisfied this requirement).
A company could take the code and make products with it and sell it (it's their right to do so), but they would have to do so under the condition that any source code that they write for the project is also released under the GPL. Because of this, a lot of companies who make a lot of money writing software don't like this because they have to continually release code to the public. On the flip-side, any cool stuff that they do gets put into the public under the GPL, so you could fold it back into your project and improve it. They can't take your code, improve it, and then never share it again.
If you happen to have used any GPL code in your project (let's say you took a few lines out of the Linux kernel or Git version control or whatever) then you'll have to release your code as GPL as well.

In the end, the choice of license affects more about how you want the software to be used (and the eventual community it might bring in). If you plan to commercialize the software, (and implicitly allow others to do the same), then you might want to lean BSD. If you don't want people to take your hard work and profit off of it without showing you the results, then you want to go GPL. If you don't care either way, then you could probably just choose one. I think BSD is popular in academia precisely because of the commercialization aspect (for example LLVM is gaining a lot of traction because of its permissive license).

Answer for 3: How do I make it easy for others to run the code?

You make it easy to run code by engineering it to be easy to run and by being extremely detailed with your documentation.

Packaging/distribution can actually be pretty hard and usually take more effort than most people would think. A good way to make the software easy to run is to test it on multiple machines. Make sure that you're not forgetting any of the libraries that you're using in your software project, for example, and when possible, try to use software libraries that are common and well-maintained. Use mainstream languages with easy-to-manage package repositories.

When appropriate, use installers, installer scripts, Makefiles (distutils, which uses automake/autoconf is better), etc. Even shell scripts are better than nothing. If you can provide binaries and/or an installer, that will make things even easier. The problem is that this is a LOT of work!

Accompany it with documentation. Ideally, the documentation will contain a description of how to set it up and run it, with descriptions of necessary packages/libraries, data that you might have to get, and what to type or click on. Usually, something called README or INSTALL will attract attention. Put the instructions on the web page as well, most of the hosting solutions also allow you to have web pages.

Hope this all helps. The hardest part of the process is by far Step #3 and most people don't get as far as to use good techniques like installers, automake/autoconf, and so forth because it's a LOT of work and development often moves faster than you can write documents. However, no one is grading you on your style so it's often easier to get it out than it is to clean it up and prettify it first.


Stay at university for summer or apply for other research programs?

Think about what you want for a career. Don't try to nail it down too firmly yet, but think about the options. Do you want an academic career? If so, you will want a research doctorate at some point (beyond a medical doctorate, perhaps). In that case, having a publication and some research done early will be a boost. Your current situation is more likely to result in a publication than a short term REU, I think. Also, if your relationship with the PI is a good one, it is less risky to stay where you are.

But if medicine is you real goal then research publications are probably less important and getting a broad outlook will probably serve you well.

The trade off is specialization vs generalization. Having a broad view of all that is possible in the world is a good thing, but academics at some point need to specialize in quite small areas. Your call, of course.


As an undergraduate, how do I become aware of the big names and departments in my areas of interest if that area has no researchers at my university?

none of the professors in my department are active in those areas, so
  it's tricky to get specific info about top researchers, top
  departments, top journals, etc. in those areas.

I suggest trying to talk to faculty in your department anyway; at the very least, they should be able to point you in the right direction, or where to start looking.

Even in the (very unlikely) event that the faculty at your school aren't very helpful with your direct task of identifying researchers in your areas of interest, they should be able to help you start using Google (or whatever your favorite search engine is) to identify key papers to read, and, more importantly, to track down where the research that you are interested in doing is being done.

If you have several faculty in your department to choose from, talk to the ones that are "research active": they will know how to help you perfect your search skills.

To supplement any useful tidbits that come out of discussions with faculty at your school, let me also add:

As an undergraduate student, you may not have had a chance to start reading papers in your areas of interest; that's OK. If that is the case, then you can start looking for papers by searching some key words related to your interests on Google Scholar, for example.

From there, you can get an idea of who the lead researchers in your subfield are, and which researchers are citing certain papers you find interesting. Keep track of the author names: read the affiliation information in the paper or use Google to figure out where these folks are.

You can also try searching the web for research groups that are doing the kinds of research you find interesting. For example, if you are in the states (where institutions are on the .edu domain), you could do a Google search for

"high-speed PLL design" research site:edu

and you would obviously change the "high-speed PLL design" search term to something that interests you.

Using variants of the above Google search strategy, I have found a lot of research groups (and their PIs, postdocs, etc.) that are doing the kinds of research that I've wanted to come up to speed on.


How to respond to a company that wants specific details on implementation of my PhD research?

It's not normal to work for a company for free, and I'd simply answer something like this:

  Dear X,

  I am glad to know that my PhD work caught your interest. I can
  provide more information under a suitable consultancy contract.

  Kind regards,

  L222

Note: We don't know the content of the company's email and, as some have remarked, the above response might be a bit too sharp, especially if their attitude is not so exploitative as I assumed. A milder approach, which I like, is that outlined in Dan Romik's answer. Since only you can read the email, I strongly encourage you to consider carefully both approaches, regardless of the accumulated votes.


How can I get better at Learning Things?

'Passion' is useless unless it motivates you to acquire knowledge; ideally, it should drive you to do things above and beyond what is required of you.

Knowledge is cumulative. Technical communication takes place in increasingly complex abstractions. Unless you have the library of primitive abstractions to draw upon, grasping the more complex abstractions is difficult. The only way to gain those simple abstractions is to spend a lot of time thinking about them.

Drawing things is actually an excellent practice; It has helped me learn for years.


Can a psychology article be published without verifiable results?

There is one piece of "meta-advice" I have for everyone whose goal is to publish in some journal: read it, a lot. You will learn for yourself what they will publish. For example, what the readers and reviewers of that journal expect in terms of result validation, what kind of jargon they use, and everything else that will help you understand where your work fits in. Then you can answer your own question about whether your manuscript is appropriate and developed enough to be published there (and know how to build from there to make it publishable).

This is really the main impediment in my view for "outsiders" who want to publish in a journal. Read and know the field as covered in that journal, and you cease to be an outsider. There will always be (unfair and wrong) biases of course, because this is a system of humans, but they are limited as the journal quality suffers from them.

I realize this seems like a lot of work, but look at it from their perspective. Publishing (and even reading) your manuscript will take precious time that might have been devoted to some other manuscript. You may perform this research and reading/writing as a fun past-time, but they do it as a job in which they probably never have enough time to do everything they want to.


It is best to ask your librarian - they are usually well trained in copyright issues and will be able to advise you how to avoid copyright infringement.

On a side note - unless your students are very good in CS already, I am not sure if using research papers as the only teaching materials for the course is necessarily a good idea.


Does the peer review reciprocity principle apply globally or per venue?

First, I'd say that your obligation* of peer review is to help your community of peers, not specific venues or publishers. It's the peers that do the reviewing mostly for free, and their work you're supposed to reciprocate. Hence the principle should apply globally.

However, spreading your efforts out a bit can be beneficial, leading to more diverse reviewer pools for a given journal. (And hence a higher chance they can find the ideal person to ask.) And of course, you're free to focus your efforts on reviewing for journals you particularly like, whether for their quality, (possibly also unpaid) editors you have a good relationship with, or other reasons.

Second, aiming for a close balance in reviewing efforts given and received seems misguided. Focus on writing useful reports, not on the amount of work (that of others is hard to estimate anyhow). You can't really review more than you're invited to review, and even then it's certainly better to decline if you can't produce a quality review in the expected standard time frame than accepting each invitation in a vain attempt to cancel out review work you've received already.

*If obligation is the right word. I tend to think of 'obligation' as a requirement, whereas this reciprocity is more of an 'ought' in my opinion. But hey, different definitions exist.


Extended paper - should I keep someone who virtually had no contribution?

In all journals (CS/AI) I’ve worked with you need all authors of the conference paper(s) on which the journal version is based on to agree on the author list in the journal version. Some editors will just not allow a paper to be accepted before explicit consent has been obtained.

It is also unfair to an extent towards this professor. Think about this professor’s perspective: they may believe their contribution was much greater than just some textual edits, and once they realize that you submitted a version without their knowledge or consent, they’ll just email the editor and the paper will not go through to publication before it’s all sorted out.

I suggest you email the professor, tell them your plan, and whether they’d like to still be written as a coauthor. Most people would get the hint. Even if they’d still want to be included then there’s not much you can do about it: you should have established authorship in the conference version.


UK Transferable skills programs, where has this scourge originated and how to complain about it?

The book How To Get A PhD,  E Phillips and D Pugh (6th edition) refers to the 'Robert's Report' as introducing the idea that students should also have skills that are useful outside of academia. Also material at https://www.vitae.ac.uk might help (search for 'transferable skills').


Can PhD students take a semester or two to study abroad, similar in nature to a sabbatical?

This is really commonplace in my field (computer science). I spent every summer of my PhD interning somewhere.
I think that this is ultimately up to you and your advisor to figure out, as well as for your university/the host university to agree to (universities have rules regarding how much time you need to be on campus, and about double enrollments). If it's one semester then it should probably be fine. I don't know about the standards in other fields, but spending a whole year away is less commonplace (I would probably not agree to it myself as an advisor).


Should I order open access if I've got the money?

Springer Open Choice, aka. open access, is the "new" way to publish things. In the traditional model, the journal publishes the paper, and then charges readers a subscription fee to read it. With open access, the paper is freely available, but the authors have to pay the publisher to publish. Copyright in OA articles are generally retained by the author, and there is no print version.

Springer's webpage gives you the advantages of doing it:

It makes your paper freely accessible.
It increases citation counts & usage statistics. Note this is controversial. There's no doubt that open access increases usage statistics, but citation is a separate story.
It complies with funder mandates. If you're unfamiliar with open access I'll guess that your funders (if any) don't have require you to publish open access, so this is irrelevant.
You retain the copyright (if it matters to you for whatever reason).

There's really only one downside to open access: you have to pay for it. It's possible you have funding to do it (per point 3 above; also check with your library/supervisor if applicable). Otherwise there's the paperwork you have to do, and finally there's the danger intrinsic to open access. OA motivates the publisher to accept as many papers as possible (they make more money), which generates a conflict of interest. In your case you should be clear because 1) it's a hybrid journal, the offer of OA is only made after your paper is accepted + you don't have to take it up, and 2) it's Springer, which is a well-known publisher. But if you keep publishing OA then you'll inevitably encounter so-called predatory publishers with whom you should be careful.

Whether you should do it is up to you. I'll venture that most people would likely not pay for open access unless they had the funding to do so. If you don't have the money but want to publish open access anyway, you could try asking for a waiver/reduced charges, especially if you are based in a developing country.


What do people exactly mean when they say "PhD supervisors guide their PhD students in their research"

I'm in mathematics, in the U.S.
For me, "advisors guide their students" means giving advice on reasonable projects, to say the least. And advice on what may work, or fail. And weekly feedback on what has happened so far.
Although I do encourage my students to think about whatever comes into their minds, "good (naive) ideas" is/are not the same thing as "good PhD project". So we (collectively) negotiate a middle ground.
I do understand that there are some models of "advisor" in which the "advisor" does essentially nothing, apart from eventually signing... I do not understand this. And I do not believe anyone who claims that PhD students are somehow supposed to do something, unaided, which more serious people have cared enough to try to understand/resolve, but have failed.


How to write a strong introduction into a research paper?

This is very area specific. I'll start with the caveat that I write papers in computer science, so YMMV.

The way I think about introductions (which is not to say they are GOOD introductions) is that they tell the story of the paper in brief. Every paper has a story to tell, starting with

Here's a fascinating question
Here's what people have tried to do (in brief: not a full related work section, but a high level assesment)
here's the key challenge preventing further progress
Voila: here's our complete/partial/intermediate/awesome solution
(additionally) and here's how it works.

The intro is typically the "hook" to read the rest of the paper, so you have to provide a birds-eye view that draws the reader in without drowning them in details.

The thing that separates a good intro from a bad one is knowing where that right level of detail is, so you're not either totally vacuous or mired in details. Getting this right is an art and depends on your field, your results, the problem, and your understanding of the target audience.


How to send a reminder to a US prof who has accepted my internship offer but didnt reply to my follow-up mail

Two days is no time at all. But if your first request for a letter didn't emphasize the time constraint then you could send a note apologizing for that omission and giving the deadline.

And if the letter was supposed to be addressed to the institution and not to you personally, it is possible that it has happened or will happen without your knowledge.

But if you were initially clear about the time requirements then a note after two days is just noise. The prof may be busy, even busy composing the note you need.


Approaching someone outside my department for work experience

Why not? Worst case, they tell you "no".

Just make sure you are able to prove you have the requisite skills and background, and willingness to come up to speed fast.


What does it mean by "Follow-up Masters"?

I can't speak for the Czech system, but in the Netherlands a follow-up master is a master program specifically designed for students who completed a certain bachelor program.

All students who graduated from that bachelor program (and selected similar programs at other Dutch universities) are accepted into the master automatically. If you did not graduate from one of these bachelor programs (for example, because you studied abroad), you have to apply to the university for a certificate of admission (bewijs van toelating). In that case, the university decides whether you can be admitted anyway, can be admitted after following a so-called homologation program1, or cannot be admitted.

One reason these programs exist is that the introduction of the bachelor-master system in the Netherlands is quite recent (2002). Before, universities offered longer (~5-year) programs that resulted in a degree comparable to a Masters. With the introduction of the new system, many universities simply split their existing programs into a bachelor program (typically 3 years) and a "follow-up" master program (1-2 years).

1 The University of Twente describes homologation courses as:

  Homologation courses (bridging courses) are advanced bachelor courses that you will have to follow if they contain essential knowledge for your master’s programme. [...] The courses depend on the chosen specialization and they have been selected by the Admission Committee.


As a non-researcher, how to tell new knowledge that the speaker might not know?

It's perfectly fine to use the question period to alert the speaker to other related work.  As with any question, try to keep it brief: one or two sentences.  I agree that a "couple minutes" is too long.  Here are some sample phrasings.

There is a recent paper by Jones and Smith on reticulated splines, in which they propose a method to solve the trolley problem.  Would this help to resolve the issue you mentioned in your talk?
Are you aware of the recent paper by Jones and Smith which gives a solution to the trolley problem?  This seems like it might helpful in answering your question of whether splines can be reticulated.
You mentioned that you need a solution to the trolley problem.  There is a recent paper by Jones and Smith which solves this problem using the method of reticulated splines.  Does that seem likely to be workable in this case?

It is a good idea to mention the names of the authors - partly to give them credit, and partly so that the speaker or other audience members can look up the work later.
Try to resist the urge to explain the related work in detail; the question period is not the time for that.  If there are significant aspects of the paper that are very relevant (special techniques, limitations, etc), you can mention them briefly (again, one or two sentences).  Otherwise, you can certainly approach the speaker after the talk is over, during a coffee break, etc, for further discussion.


Paper stuck in “ASAP” status: what does it indicate?

As was mentioned in the comments, one possibility is that the editors are waiting for a better time to publish the paper, perhaps as part of a special issue or to highlight the paper on its cover.

Another possibility is that the authors have not fulfilled some requirements for publication like signing a copyright transfer form or paying the page charges.

Or perhaps there are some problematic issues about the paper.  Maybe the topic is controversial and some members of the board don't want it published, or perhaps the editors suspect some unethical publication practice.  (If it is this last reason, then perhaps it would be impolite to ask the authors about it.)


What are the legal and ethical implications of "padding" pay with extra hours to compensate for unpaid work?

Note that this answer is culture-dependant and my experiences will probably not fit directly with the situation in an American university, which you described to be enrolled in. However, the answer can help understand situations in which the described inofficial arrangements can work out, and also outlines why your situation is rather different from those.

As far as I know, it is very common to pad payment as described for smaller student jobs, so in the end the actual work hours and the actually received sum of payment match. Reasons include:

University administration/HR departments tend to be (considerably) less spontaneous than what is sometimes required for fulfilling certain research-related tasks. This can become particularly discriminatory towards foreign students, as they might have to wait for documents from other agencies outside of the university (e.g. the agency responsible for foreigners in the respective jurisdiction).
Workload created by ongoing research is by no means balanced in any way.
The time available to students is not balanced in any way.
In contrast to the two above points, student work contracts are often not sophisticated enough to account for that variation. They assume a uniform workload such as n hours a week.

Evidently, these issues can create a severe discrepancy between what is confirmed on paper (e.g. "4 hours a week for 3 months starting in July") and what both parties directly involved in the research want to agree upon to their mutual satisfaction (also with respect to not impeding the student's studying). Hence, it seems, distributing actual work hours differently to what the contract says is a way to counteract the negative effects of bureaucracy both towards research projects and the preferences of the people involved, and therefore not ethically problematic.

However, all of these arrangements usually work because they are conducted by people who responsibly handle the relatively large inofficial leeway. In your particular situation, I do see some warning signs that your superiors might not belong to that group, which indeed evokes the question “Why the world did you not just quit?” for me:

There was no clear agreement between your superior and you about the inofficial arrangement before it started. It seems your superior 'feels bad about [you] working all this time and wants to "make it up"' as late as you have been working for a considerable number of hours.
Your superior apparently did nothing to change things earlier. The contractual definition of work hours is, among other things, meant as a protection for the employee from negative side-effects (working too much; having too little time for studying; ...). It can seem justified to bend the rules for the reasons described above, but then the responsibility to protect the employee is passed on to the employer's "manual control". When they learn your officially paid hours are not just behind the actual working time by a week or two, but that no payment is in sight yet, it is up to your superior to tell you to pause working and to try and influence HR themselves.
Rather than knowing more or less the deviation between what the contract says and what actually happens, you were repeatedly told you 'would start being payed “Just next week”'. While it may have been HR telling you that, this should have been another reason for your superior to suspend the inofficial arrangement for the time being, because obviously it cannot be implemented within parameters known to both of you (given that the parameter of how long you will actually have to wait was totally unknown).

As a final remark, you say you "have been told to not let anyone else know or there will be trouble for it". It is not quite clear how this request was phrased and what is meant by "trouble", or especially, who the "trouble" would be directed at. If this is meant to be "trouble" for you you are right to consider this quite shady, as apparently, your superior is not going to take responsibility for the arrangement1 on the off-chance that anyone complains, and maybe also that the number of hours you amassed is substantial enough that someone might indeed bother to investigate.

1: At the very least, by describing the arrangement as a way to retroactively make up for the due payment the student missed due to unforeseen administrative issues. IANAL, but while probably a violation of procedures of some kind, it seems unlikely anyone would bother to create consequences as there is no tangible damage if the student is paid for the worked time eventually.


What action can be taken if hostel allotments are not out just after admissions are done?

There are two things you need to do:

Apologize to the Dean of Student Welfare for the unauthorized stay in the hostel, explaining that you thought you had permission.
Find somewhere to stay. Possible resources include hotels, AirBnB, the university's housing department, the Dean of Student Welfare (after or as part of step 1), and personal contacts in your department.


Contribution of the supervisors in publishing paper from thesis

Authorship: Strictly speaking authorships should be determined by the academic intellectiual contribution. It is rare that a thesis topic is solely invented by a student on their own so it is most likely that an advisor regardless of input during, say, writing stages will be an obvious co-author (if that is how authorships are determined in the specific field). There may of course be more co-authors and the order is not necessarily clear due to differences in traditions and cultures.

Response: Not getting response is unfortunately quite common and very unfortunate. I think you have to keep asking for a response but also add that you are interested in submitting the paper soon. If you are through with your education, you might be moving and it seems reasonable to get a paper in before leaving for other work/equivalent. So the answer is to simply politely ask and maybe massage your advisors ego by saying how much you would appreciate/need his/her comments to complete the joint paper. Just keep your cool and avoid nagging. At some point you will simnply have to provide a firm deadline due to whatever circumstances may exist. If you have some other faculty to whom you can confide then asking for advice may be a good point as well.


What are the advantages and disadvantages of doing a postdoc in France and UK/USA?

I would say prestige-wise, the actual supervisor is more important than the location: A well known supervisor in France will be just as good for you as a well known supervisor in the US, there are just more of them in the US. Of course, you'd choose an unknown at Princeton over an unknown in Grenoble, but you said both are well known.  And all this only works if you are trying to stay in the same field when you move on, if you want to move on then prestige of institutions counts more.

Research in the US is likely to be better funded than in France, and you'll likely have more chance to interact with other top researchers other than people in your own group.

There will be far more opportunity for faculty positions, long-term, in the states than in France.

On the flip side, employment conditions will be better in France: max working times and compulsory breaks are observed: everyone takes a proper lunch and is home in time for tea, and it would be almost impossible to sack you. For the breaks and work/life balance, its is possible find this in the US, but you have to be selective about the culture of the group you join. Unfortunately no amount of selectivity can mean that the boss can't just sack you if they don't like you in the US.


How to teach students not to use other people's work in an assignment or a thesis?

It seems to me that you have an "Academic Integrity" issue as opposed to a "Plagiarism" issue. Academic Integrity covers many areas including:

Plagiarism
Collusion
Fabrication

and so on...

In my personal experience the biggest 'excuse' that students will plead is ignorance. What this causes is the following cycle:

students submit work
work is marked
issues are found
issues are discussed with student
student pleads ignorance
student is educated
(sometimes) student is allowed to resubmit

The problem here is that education comes after the crime, and any resubmissions can drastically delay students receiving marks and feedback (which feeds into other assignments).

Now I do not have a solution that will stop all cases of academic dishonesty and personally I do not think it is possible. If people want to cheat, they will. The key is to remove the accidental plagiarisms so that the focus is on the intentional cases.

To remove the ignorance excuse the answer is simple: education. Now you are already employing education as your solution, however, you are doing it after the submission. The key is to do it as soon as possible. Personally, I use part of my first tutorial class to teach the students what Academic Integrity is, and then get the students to work through some examples and questions. Lastly, I require them to complete an "Academic Integrity Quiz" which is regulated by our University Library. Before the students can gain access to our assignment submission boxes they MUST have scored 10/10 on that quiz (this is automated). Unlimited attempts are allowed on the quiz as well.

The solution above forces students to learn about Academic Integrity and thereby removes the "I didn't know" (ignorance) excuse.

I hope this helps.


Here's the guidance on the SHERPA/RoMEO website which is the best guide out there for issues like this.


Will it be difficult to get a PhD position if the economy enters into a recession?

An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education suggests that the overall enrollment picture for undergraduate education was only mildly effected by the 2008 recession.

However, many of those students chose community colleges rather than traditional four year colleges. This might suggest a downward pressure on doctoral admissions as there might be a lesser need for TAs in such a situation. This might affect admissions in such fields as mathematics that depend heavily on TAs for undergraduate teaching and teaching support.

Of course there is more to the picture. Research needs go on and it might matter more whether governments (the NSF, say) can maintain funding for doctoral students. If a recession is mild or short lived, expect small effects, though more negative than positive. But it also depends on the attitude of those in congress who provide the funding levels for such things.

Moreover, if there are fewer positions open for doctoral education, and more applicants, the competition might increase and it might be harder for any given individual to find a slot. Unfunded slots are probably easier to come by, of course, since the student helps fund the education to a greater degree than one who is grant or university funded.

But in this case there are effects beyond the economic ones. In a pandemic it is hard to predict what might come. Some pandemics (bubonic plague and the arrival of Europeans in the Americas) have been devastating.

Finally, the outlook for graduates of doctoral programs might be clouded in such a complex situation. But, the economy is cyclic in any case and some of us graduated into terrible academic economy conditions and others not. It is hard to predict what will happen over a five to seven year period.

Your own field is probably a good one to be in, since many trends seem to imply an increase in the need for non-fossil energy production and storage. And in general, the effects can vary tremendously by field.

But competent government helps.

But all of the above is crystal ball gazing with not a lot of hard evidence. A deeper plunge into the question will likely reveal some research on the topic. But with the caveat that things that seem the same might be quite different. There are a lot of variables.


Where can I publish failed research directions?

I think that one has to distinguish different kinds of failures, and also see if the field is experimental or not.

If you have done experiments and they show that some approach does not work, it is perfectly fine to publish that (although, as is discussed in various places, you often do not get the credit that you deserve for this).

If your work is theoretical, it is important that you can formalize the "dead ends" in a sufficient useful way; for example by proving that objects of a certain kind or with certain properties do not exist or that an (intuitive) lemma is wrong which can be shown by a counterexample.


can I simply exclude the current PhD program in my CV?

No. Well, you shouldn't.

Listing your previous education and employment is a standard part of an application for a higher degree.

The fact that you are currently enrolled in a PhD program is certainly information you would be reasonably expected to disclose, and not doing so will look dishonest if this is discovered later.

Keep in mind that it is not just an application form you have to worry about, but subsequent interviews, discussions with potential supervisors, etc.  Almost certainly, you will have to reveal this information to have honest conversations with people.  So either they will find out the information later, making it look like your application was dishonest (bad), or you will have to be repeatedly, systematically deceptive in how you portray your current situation (also bad).

Just don't do it.  Have your application honestly make the case of why you want to switch schools.


Is repurposing money from companies easier than repurposing money from federal grants?

Sometimes you make a mistake in creating a budget for your project when you propose it. Doesn't matter who you sent it to, public agency or private company, sometimes you make a mistake. Most agencies will let you move money around between buckets within the grant as long as it serves the purposes of the program and you can justify it. Lots of agencies won't let you buy a computer unless you swear on a stack of your mother's graves that you're going to use it 100% for the project and nothing else. They might not check, but they might make you swear anyway, and your university will be looking as well. Companies are similar, though maybe not as caring about the details. Everything, as Jon points out, depends on the terms of the agreement between your university and the granting entity. Lots of corporate money comes in as an unrestricted gift with no strings, whereas virtually no public funds have no strings.

Read the terms.