Is it possible for someone with a PhD from a top-200 university to find a faculty position at a top-20 university? I have talked with a friend that was the best in class PhD student at a top-200 university in USA, but she couldn't find any position as assistant professor position or fellowship in a top-20 university.

Is it even possible to do this transition?
What is taken under consideration when one makes such application?

I'll assume you are talking about tenure-track positions, due to the reference to an assistant professorship.  If you are talking about postdocs, then it really depends on how your field works (e.g., how many such positions there are and how they are distributed among different types of universities).

It's certainly possible to get a job in a much higher-ranked department than the one you graduated from, but a little arithmetic shows that it's very unlikely, assuming departments in your field aren't growing dramatically.

Let's assume a steady state, in which departments are neither growing nor shrinking, and let's make the simplifying assumption that they are all the same size.  Of course these assumptions aren't quite right, but they can generally serve as a first approximation.

What does it take to get a job at a comparable department to the one you graduated from?  In a steady state, each professor will eventually be replaced by one new hire, but they will typically train multiple Ph.D. students.  This means that there's just enough room to hire each professor's best student ever, over their whole career.  Of course the hiring won't actually work out that way, since the top students are not uniformly distributed among professors (and there will also be competition from students who attended higher or lower-ranked schools).  However, this sets a lower bound: if you aren't at least as good as the career-best student of a typical professor from a top X department, then you can't realistically expect to get a job at a top X department yourself.

Going up in the rankings is even harder.  The number of people who are their advisor's career-best student at a top 200 department is ten times the total number of positions at top 20 departments.  This means that 90% of them will fail to get such a job, since there just aren't enough positions to accommodate them.  In practice, it's even worse than these numbers indicate (generally much worse), but the point is that simple arithmetic guarantees at least a 90% failure rate even for these highly successful students.

So you shouldn't be surprised that your friend failed to go up in the rankings by a factor of 10: that requires either exceptional luck or exceptional accomplishments.

  What is taken under consideration when one makes such application?

It's really no different from any other application, with no special requirements or considerations.  You need to make the case that you are a better choice than any other available candidate.  Applicants from low-ranked department often face some initial skepticism, but hardly anyone would be silly enough to obsess over rankings while disregarding visibly superior accomplishments.

You need to at least have a postdoc from a University of the same rank.  I'm not sure where the ranking of top 200 came from, are there even 200 PhD granting institutions?


Should I answer this question about diversity? There is an optional prompt on my PhD application:

  censoredSchoolName University regards the diversity of its graduate
  student body as an important factor in serving the educational mission
  of the university. We encourage you to share unique, personally
  important, and/or challenging factors in your background, such as work
  and life experiences, special interests, culture, socioeconomic
  status, the quality of your early educational environment, gender,
  sexual orientation, race or ethnicity. Please discuss how such factors
  would contribute to the diversity of the entering class, and hence to
  the experience of your censoredSchoolName classmates.

If I were to answer, what I would write is something about how I grew up in a large family with five siblings all attending college around the same time, so though I come from a middle-class family, I have had to handle much of the financial responsibility of my education. In addition to this, neither of my parents have attained higher than a non-scientific Bachelor's degree, and I have mostly blazed this path under my own independence and ambition.

But I feel that this might not be what the question is really looking for? What I've written above does not make me diverse in the way that I think the University probably wants. I'm a middle-class white male, I will say, which my application has of course already reflected. I'm wondering if I might be better off leaving it blank rather than coming off as forcing a hollow answer, or even pitying myself when there are certainly other applicants with serious disadvantages.

Leave it blank

You don't have to play along with the diversity people, but that doesn't mean there won't be any consequences.

Throughout my time in undergrad, the US military, and now grad school, I have steadfastly refused to answer questions about my race. And why should I? My father is from Mexico and is still a dual citizen. As far as I can tell, that gives me a pretty good claim to be Hispanic. I am born in Boston, I don't speak Spanish, and I don't particularly like anything Mexican. Am I hispanic? What is my hispanic blood quantum? Am I white? Who cares?

What ought to matter is the content of your character, or so I've heard.

Just don't be surprised when people don't want to let you go. I have been called into a senior officer's office (in the military) and forced to answer a question about my race. When I told him it was 'American', he filled out the forms in question for me as white. I haven't always got off easy, but I've done alright in life, and without participating in such racist activities as classifying people based on their skin color.

PS: The original form of your question was just fine. If you have sneering contempt for this kind of diversity question, then you do. Don't let people bully you into thinking your opinion isn't valid.

The question does not seem like the typical generic "optionally check here to identify your race/ethnicity", but more likely a question to provide some insight into your though processes.  If you are applying to a social sciences grad degree, I'd give serious thought to answering the question.  If you are applying to a chemistry or some program like that you might be able to get away with not answering the question.  Also, some institutions ask these kinds of questions not because they want to, but because they have to.


Is it possible to pursue two distinct research interests in the same discipline? Is it possible or legitimate to pursue two distinct research interests in the same discipline in the context of an advanced academic career (PhD and beyond that)?

For example, can I  have two research interests the one concerning History of Economics and the other concerning Mathematical & Computational Economics in a PhD program in an Economics department where there are always professors that have these but usually not the same person?

Or for example, can I  have two research interests the one concerning Political Theory/Philosophy and the other concerning Mathematical & Computational Social Sciences(Political Science) in a PhD program in Political Science department where there are always professors that have these but usually not the same person?

Just for the record, I have postgraduate academic education from prestigious universities both in Computer Science & Applied Mathematics and in Social Sciences(mainly Economics) & Philosophy. For this reason, I want to maintain both my strong qualitative and quantitative skills and have these, two in each case essentially, quite distinct research interests.

For example, can I have two research interests the one concerning History of Economics and the other concerning Mathematical & Computational Economics in a PhD program in an Economics department where there are always professors that have these but usually not the same person?

Practically speaking, your PhD topic will need to be on one topic, so you will need to choose to some extent. Relatedly, you will also need one (and usually exactly one) advisor - you can have the other person as a member of your committee, or sympathies permitting, just as an unofficial mentor and collaborator, but typically the formal advisor will need to be one specific person.

However, this should not prevent you from conducting research on both your interests. Typically, there are two ways to go about this:

Find a topic that naturally integrates your interests. For instance, you may write a thesis in political sciences, but with a healthy dose of econ (which almost automatically also includes plenty of applied maths), or you may write a thesis in economics, but with a focus on political implications of economic theory. In this example, both versions sound completely reasonable to me. Of course, if your actual interests are farther apart, this becomes less reasonable.
Choose one of your interests as thesis topic, and work on the other as side topic. This you can do in most cases, as long as there is some understanding between the disciplines (and your advisor is generally in favour of side projects, which apparently not everybody is). This course of action has the disadvantage that ultimately, you will lose time to work on your thesis, and your thesis may accordingly take longer to complete or be less compelling than if you worked 100% on it.

That all being said, a common advice given to students is to remain somewhat narrow in their academic interests early in their career, and only start to branch out and diversify once one is strongly established in one particular aspect of a field or discipline.

This sounds like a trivial question to answer in the affirmative, initially, but, upon reflection, there may well be differences across institutions in the level of flexibility they offer with regard to your autonomy.  An easy litmus test will be to ascertain how much funding may be generated by your proposed approach from big name global brands, who you can sell the benefits of the value you can bring to them.  If your proposal attracts significant investment in research funding and, perhaps, great PR for your chosen university, there should be no reason why the university would reject such a proposal?  Think of your proposal both in terms of academic value and net profit -- more like a business plan.


What can I do if a student in my lab threatens to tell lies about me, and my advisor doesn't want to fire her? I'm doing my Masters right now and I am a new lab member (I've been there for just 4 months). A undergrad student didn't like it when I told her to follow biosafety rules when handling dangerous chemical reagents. So by e-mail she said she would tell our advisor lies about me and that he will believe in her because she's there for 2 years and he likes her, and I am a newbie.

I took that issue to the advisor, who read the e-mail that she sent and he was 100% supportive of me. However, they used to go the same church and he either pities her or really likes her, I don't know. Then he asked me to forgive her. But I can't, I can't even look her in the face anymore. I think she's evil and mean: she even told me I'm making my own grave and would spread lies about me to him. Now he knows the truth about her, but I think their personal relationship is blinding him. He should fire her! But he wants her there, so...

I don't want to change labs because I really like my PI. How should I deal with this situation?

She and I will have a one-to-one meeting next week, and my advisor told me she will apologize to me in that meeting, but I'm still worried she can sabotage my experiments in the future.  We are not in the USA.

UPDATE: I had another conversation with my PI today, and he's dealing with this situation as "teenage fighting" - his words, not mine. He's being complacent about all of this and laughs about my worries and insecurities. He does not think that abusive and threating language from a student to another to be a big deal.

Religion plays a big role here I guess. He does not want to fire her in ANY hypothesis. Same religion; knows her parents and so on...

I really really like him, but I don't know if I do anymore. I think he's not providing a safe mental health environment for me...

He was too perfect to be true...

UPDATE 2

She lied, lied and lied again and it blew up on her face! Now, ALL* lab members wanted her to go. The PI cut her funding, and she finally left our lab! Now we can live at peace, right? Not so fast...

*She has a friend (just one - and also an undergrad like her) that is still here. And he's full of revenge! Another sociopathic liar. Sabotage is being a big issue here. All mice from a PhD student were found dead inside their cages. We cannot prove anything, but they had a fight two days earlier... Also, controlled drugs are now missing, and my PI is being once again complacent about it. I can denounce him to our correspondent DEA, but it could backfire somehow, I don't know. He still likes me, but I don't think I like him anymore. Actually, nobody in our lab trust him anymore.

She has been mean to you, not the PI. He clearly signals that he likes you and your work. You say that he also realises she has an immature attitude. I think that you are in a good position here, unless you mess it up.

The superviser clearly sees the situation and - in veiled form - tells you to be the mature part of the interaction. When he tells you to forgive her, that's very clearly what he means. In short, at this stage, you have to show maturity. Clearly, you need to work on that (I quote your response: "Hahaha...." - SE is not the place for such formulations).

You should not worry too much to prove that she lies about you, as the superviser made very clear that he will not pay heed to her stories about you (why otherwise would he have emphasised that you are one of the brightest students he had?). He has sent you a clear message of confidence.

Whether he likes her or not, you do not know, but it seems very clear, even through your report, that he takes pity on her. He will not fire her; it is not your job to make him do so. He also will not remove you, unless you decide to go. He seems a very reasonable person.

As for her using threatening language, you have a number of options: when she does that, you ignore it. Or else, you find a reason for yourself to go away, without responding, to some made-up excuse (for yourself), such as the bathroom. Or else, you respond: "This is not the place for threatening language. Please refrain from such language, it is inappropriate to talk like that to your colleagues." - or something along those lines. In a cool, calm, and collected manner. If she indeed has the maturity of a 12-year old, she may not absorb the words, but she will absorb the tone.

She presses the buttons where she sees an effect in. If you signal to her that you have no business with her, and that you are unaffected by her threats, you will become an uninteresting target.

Forget about winning/losing. You just do not have to play her game, you decide which games you play, and which ones you don't.

Bottom line: stay away from her; relax, the PI trusts you; and follow your maturity level and do not let yourself be dragged down to hers. She is not the one to set the agenda, your PI is, and he unambiguously signalled his trust in you. When he sets the meeting, if she apologises, graciously accept the apology (even if you do not believe in it, take it at face value), but still stay away. Her safety procedures are not your business anymore - you have made your case.

Unfortunately the World is full of stupid, ignorant, selfish, hateful, jealous, etc. etc. etc. people and you have to find a way to deal with that. There is no way you can get rid of all the nasty people so that you can live and work in peace with only perfect people. What works better is to outsmart these usually quite stupid people. If she wants to tell lies about you, then you can tell a lot of lies about yourself to her that can easily be verified to not be correct. E.g. you can tell that you failed most of your exams. That's not true, your supervisor can easily verify that it is not true, but she can't. So, she'll fall in a trap set by you the moment she discloses such things to your supervisor.


How to address a professor that makes offensive comments (that they don't realize are offensive)? I am currently in a financial accounting class with a professor that has used offensive (in my opinion) commentary in her lectures since my first exposure.

Examples of comments she makes:

Financial accounting is a class everyone should take, because it's actually useful, not like forced electives such as sociology. (Whether or not you believe income statements and balance sheets are more important than understanding how and why the society around you functions, the tone of this comment was what bothered me at the time.)
Boys are bad at wearing work clothes for work instead of nice clothes.
Girls treat their clothes better because they find them more precious.
Woman have a shopping gene.
It's implied that women (or moms) do all the shopping and cooking.

I admit that I don't attend class often enough to know whether this is a pervasive or sporadic issue. I just know I've been put off enough to not attend classes more often and find out. I make up not going to her lectures by putting in extra effort other ways.

I can tell that she's not trying to be offensive. Her comments are meant to come off as motherly and humorous. I'm also not trying to be offended, as I gain nothing from that.

What is the most diplomatic way of addressing issues with a professor when you're in a large lecture hall setting? (As opposed to small classroom settings, which lend themselves to more personal connections with the instructors)
Or
How would a professor prefer I address them if I were dissatisfied with the nature of their off topic commentary? (As opposed to opinionated comments that relate to the course or field, such as economic policy preferences in a economics course)

Should I send a polite email to the professor explaining that I wasn't comfortable? It's quick and semi-anonymous. She won't be able to associate the name with my face. Presenting myself in an impersonal matter may result in an impersonal response.
Should I wait until the end-of-semester course evaluations and express my concerns? These are completely anonymous, but seems passive aggressive and rather too far after the fact.
Should I approach her directly if it happens again? It's more personal, but that can also seem to be more confrontational (especially if I go out of my way to meet her during office hours). I don't feel it's confrontational, or that I would present myself that way, but people receiving critique can feel that way.
Is there a better solution?

Switching sections isn't any more preferable than skipping the current lectures. The other available times didn't work well for me or my family on a regular basis. I'm also not sold that it's the best option for most students in a similar situation. I would see changing sections as a recourse only if other methods failed, or the lecturer was wildly offensive.

While the first class bothered me, I didn't drop attendance immediately. This was done after getting a feel for the course, when I knew I could balance not being in the lectures. It wasn't a knee-jerk "How dare she!" reaction.

Spotty attendance is admittedly doing nothing to address the issue. Thus, my inquiry.

I'm afraid you lose a lot of my sympathy by complaining about a lecture that you rarely attend.  I don't really understand what you mean by "the luxury of other options".  If you can take the class from a different instructor and would prefer to do that, do it.  If the attendance in the lecture is not required and you feel that you can get what you want out of the course without attending the lectures: that's your choice too, but is it a good choice?

You seem to be prioritizing sociopolitical beliefs over the material of the course.  It's very easy to be offended if you want to be.  I won't comment on the gender stuff, but I will say that the bit about accounting over sociology really doesn't rate as an "offensive" comment.  I think it's true that accounting is a more practical field than sociology and that most American adults need to do some accounting in their daily lives in a way that they do not need to do sociology.  Not knowing how interest and loans work will have a more direct negative effect on most people than not understanding the difference between mechanical and organic solidarity.  Of course "practical" is not necessarily better: it is a matter of taste and goals.  I am a mathematician, I have taken courses in sociology but not accounting, and I am fully content with that decision: in fact, I would be hard-pressed to imagine a university course that sounds less interesting to me than accounting.  But that's just my own personal taste: the idea that the accounting instructor prefers accounting over sociology is neither offensive nor even surprising.  We have a right to like what we do better and tell that to students.

Not everyone has the same views that we do.  But an accounting instructor's views on gender, shopping and clothing seem incidental rather than professional: it is very unlikely that she is pushing these views on the students or that she is holding herself up as an authority figure on them; they're just part of the way that she likes to present her lectures.  Ask yourself this: what are the negative effects of her expression of these views?  Is it likely that the men and women in the class will adjust their own behavior or views in accordance with hers?  Will men feel worried about their own cooking and shopping agency?  It just doesn't sound that insidious to me.

In my opinion, if you disagree with the views and feel strongly that the lectures would be improved by not sharing them, then have the courage of your convictions and convey this to the instructor, either in person or by email during the class, or after the class is over.  But not attending the lecture because you don't like the incidental views that the instructor expresses?  I'm sorry to say that I don't find that to be a very mature reaction.  In so doing you are compromising your own educational experience in exchange for...what, exactly?  What is anyone gaining by your failure to attend the lectures?

Added: If from the first day of class you have a problem with the instructor which is severe enough that you can only bring yourself to attend the class sporadically because of it, you have an excellent reason to drop the course or change sections right away.  Staying in a course with an instructor that you find personally offensive doesn't seem like a very good plan.  In fact, if you tell your advisor that you want to change sections for this reason, you can probably get additional help with the particulars of that: it is in everyone's best interest for you to take a different course.

If the language is sexist (and your examples are) file an official complaint or grow a pair.  Don't whine, no-one wants to hear it and it just makes you sound foolish.

Many women don't understand how sexist and rude their language and behaviour is, and you don't have to put up with the abuse anymore than they have to put up with flirt/pickup orientated abuse in class.


Unsatisfactory Instructor Evaluations: balancing of expectations of engineering students I teach undergraduate and graduate level courses in mechanical engineering at a research oriented university in the United States.  I am a teaching track professor and my sole responsibility, on which I am judged for pay raises or promotions, is teaching efficacy.

The courses I teach have a strong mathematical component to them.  Some notable examples would be: computational fluid dynamics or finite element methods.  For those here familiar with these courses, you would know that calculus background is necessary to understand the nuances.

However, I find that the students I teach this to (mostly 4th year undergraduate students) balk at the prospect of doing some analytical "pen-on-paper" work and would like only to know how to use relevant software skills for these, with no mathematical background.

This leads me to receiving unsatisfactory end of semester evaluations (3.90/5.00) from students with a lot of them complaining that "the course is too math-y"(verbatim).  The department requires teaching professors to consistently receive a 4+/5.00 for courses they teach and base promotions, continuing contracts and raises on this.

Unfortunately, I refuse to pander and just teach students "software-button-clicking" alone. Software skills can be learnt from Youtube and they don't really need me to teach them that.  I continuously tell them that mathematical/fundamental analytical skills are far more important because the software landscape is quite fickle and ever-changing based on industry whims and fancies.  However, fundamental mathematical skills are resolute and robust and may be applied to most engineering problems.

Has this been encountered by other folks on this SE and is there some effective method you have devised to counter this? My university is significantly "engine research" driven and students end up getting jobs at the "big 4" automotive companies.  Perhaps I need to ply my trade at a different department like "applied mathematics"?

On my part, I juxtapose software results with analytical results continuously to explain how analytical results are necessary for validating software results.  However, students are under the impression that the "software is always right" irrespective of whether or not their problem set-up and boundary conditions are correct or not.

The professor that taught me statistics dealt with this basic problem, which is that students would come into the course thinking it was like any other "narrative" style of course (like a history class), but the truth is it was a math class that was not listed as MATH 3XX.

Part of the job of a student is to pick courses, ordering them and balancing them into a semester that allows them to handle all of their classes. If they do not have the information they need to balance their schedule (as some classes are naturally heavy loads and others are light), they cannot do their job. So here's how I learned to help them do their job so that they would feel that you were doing your job.

Reset Student Expectations

On week 1 or 2, assign a special test. Include absolutely the most challenging math you expect them to do for the entire semester (not hard for the sake of being hard). Make it  absolutely clear that this course does in fact require previous knowledge and ability, and that this test is designed to do just that - test their readiness for this class. You can make it an in-lab assignment and just give credit for doing it - you can give them the answer key and let them grade themselves.

Clearly explain to students that if they cannot complete this test satisfactorily, that is information for them to decide if they are ready for this class. When I ran this lab session I personally explained to students that if they weren't willing to spend at least X hours per assignment per week, they would be unlikely to do well and should reconsider their plans now while they can still re-arrange their schedule. I had a few students drop by the next week, but then everyone who stayed stuck with it all semester.

Don't Make Students Feel Dumb

One of the great dangers of being an expert and a teacher is that you become very distant from that point in time when the material was truly difficult for you, and you lose some of your understanding of what it was like to not know. You are also likely to have an IQ far beyond the average, as well, so you might not ever have experienced this material as difficult - which makes it even harder to avoid this mistake.

I personally remind myself of the time where I had scrawled out about 8 pages of hand-written calculations and equations to solve a factorial analysis of variance by hand, because my professor said it was important. If someone at that moment had looked at what I was doing and even vaguely implied "oh, that's mostly just basic algebra, that's not so hard" I would have stabbed them in the neck with my pencil right then and there. (The pencil was dull and my wrist was tired, so they would have probably escaped serious injury. But still!) Maybe it wouldn't have been hard for them, but it was a challenge to me.

With your advanced understanding of mathematics, you might unintentionally be sending your students a message along the lines of, "oh, this math is pretty basic first year stuff, you shouldn't have any trouble with it". Math is often hard and time consuming and mind-bending and forgotten quickly, even if it is important, and to imply otherwise is insult your students intelligence and character. This will likely result in them not liking you, and worse - they may not learn as much from you as they could have.

Be honest, but take care to honor their struggle with fundamentally non-trivial material. Students appreciate "I know this may seem hard, but you can work through it" more than "this is easy, work harder".

...and make sure the material Is Really Relevant

Yes, math is important and sometimes being able to do it by hand is even important. But I've had teachers include complex material based on the idea that it would be on X industry test that was 3+ years away and that I would not ever be taking, and could otherwise be looked up in < 10 seconds if I really needed it. Sure, now if I get stranded on a desert island I'll be able to calculate proper binary subnet masks so I can build a complex routed network for all my coconuts, but otherwise I'm still a little annoyed I spent hours on that mess when I could have spent it on my research projects.

Motivating the material with a calculation the computer can't solve but they can do it by hand, if such an example exists, can help. It may also be helpful to really drive home the point that if you don't understand the underlying math you'll click stuff that is laughable and makes no damn sense, but the software didn't know any better so it did what you asked anyway.

Still, make sure you really aren't including tough material (according to the students) just because you really think its cool and is technically somehow applicable, but not really necessary or very valuable to the student. Those topics might be a perfect fit in another course - just not this one.

I think you'll find that if students are made to understand what will be expected and necessary upfront, you empathize and honor the challenges your students deal with, and you pair down the material to what truly best serves students, you'll find that not only will students like you more and rate you more highly - but they'll also learn more and the class will be more fun to teach, too.

Well if you insist on delivering content that your students dont want, and not the content that they do want, then you should expect a low score.

Most CFD users see it as a problem solving tool, and you are not really preparing your students to solve problems if they have no software tool experience.

You could spend more time showing them how to actually solve real world problems with it, even without getting too hung up on what software package you use.

The counter point to "software can be taught from youtube" is that the math can be taught from any of a dozen reference textbooks. Software is inherently more useful to the students. As for the "you always have to check the software" approach, you are right that the software cant be trusted alone, but it can be validated through other means, such as prototyping.


Does it look bad if I publish an IEEE journal article without "Member, IEEE" next to my name? I am the second author of three, and the only one who does not have an active membership.  I have little need for the other services provided by IEEE, as I already have access to XPLORE through my work.

Nope, and I doubt anyone would notice or care.

Everyone can be a member, all it takes is a bit of money.

As mentioned, I doubt anyone cares, except if you or co-authors are Fellows, then it'll carry some weight.   It might convey the following message: the paper has been vetted and informally approved by esteemed member(s) of the IEEE and therefore all reviewers+editor should accept the paper with a grain of salt.


Does one have the right or just the privilege to extend the PhD study period due to parental leave? Assuming somebody is employed as a PhD student, I found several references to PhD study period and parental leave, but the wording is rather weak.

  The study period may only be extended if there are special reasons for it. Such grounds may be due to illness, leave for military service, work for trade unions and student organizations or parental leave. Ordinance (2010:1064). [automatically translated, highlights mine]

Notice may instead of must.

The Regulations for doctoral studies at Umeå University states:

  5.4.  Parental    leave

  ● Parental leave shall always be reported to the employer in accordance with applicable law and agreements.

  ● When
  parental leave is cited as a special reason for extension of a
  doctoral studentship or term of a doctoral grant, the period of
  parental leave is counted from the day it is validated.

  The Dean makes the decisions on these matters.
  [highlights mine]

Notice that the Dean has the final word.

The PhD Student FAQ from the Stockholm University Student Union uses stronger wording:

  This means that you have the right to get prolongation for the time that you are on parental leave so that you don’t lose out of any time for your research.

Can anybody point me to a regulation, a legal precedent or anything similar clarifying whether prolongation of PhD study period is a right or a privilege?

The word 'may' does not preclude refusal. It means, it is possible to extend.

In academia, in general, if there is good reason for extension of PhD, it is always allowed. Pregnancy is a good ground for extension and it would be very rare for a student to be penalised for getting pregnant.


Advisor professor asks for my dissertation research source code I am a PhD student and I wrote a computer program for my dissertation research. Recently my advisor professor got a grant and she wants to use my computer program in her grant and she asks me for the computer source-code. I will graduate next May and I am planning to use this program in my other studies. So I am not willing to share the code with her. She didn't mention future cooperation and I will also not cooperate with her because of huge differences in our research interests and perspectives.

So how can I refuse her properly?

Note: I was not a RA for her when I wrote the computer program, but this semester she got a grant and she set me as RA.

One of the reasons Science has been so successful is that scientists treat knowledge and tools as public goods. We don't hoard knowledge, but rather we write papers, share techniques, offer suggestions, etc. There are certainly cases in which sharing isn't beneficial, but these seem not to apply here. So of course you should share your computer program! You should share it with people you like, people you don't like, and people you don't even know.

One of my friends has been in a similar situation. He was not willing to give his LaTeX notes to our boss, because a former postdoc in the group did that before and our boss (according to them) published stuff in the notes without giving this former postdoc co-authorship. As a result, the relationship between my friend and my boss at the time soured and my friend lost a few job opportunities because of bad recommendation letters.

I, on the other hand, always share codes. The codes are not meant for advisers who rarely have the time to dive into them. They are meant for future graduate students who have the time to learn from them and, sometimes, happen to find bugs we never thought of.

There might be some rules, as other posters said, on sharing intellectual property generated while working at the university, and your adviser might try to enforce them, depending on your relationship with them. Instead of refusing, I would rather ask for being cited properly, and if there is any extra-work needed to help her with running the code you should tell her you want co-authorship of the papers.


How to react to a student who provides very critical comments about your teaching in a student evaluation survey? I am a teacher in an institute and I teach English as a foreign language to students in an 8_week session. At the end of each session, the students are required to give their opinion about the class and the teacher.

One of my students who attended all the classes and I corrected at least 20 writings for her has written something horrible and of course has ruined my rating by saying: "What we learn depends on the teacher. I recommend teacher X, but I absolutely and strongly reject this teacher who does not know anything about teaching (meaning me)." She has also written her name on top of the paper.

She never, ever, complained about my teaching method during the time we had class together and this sudden unfair comparison has gone on my nerve. I have taken a photo of what she has written about me and it is in my mind to email it to her and ask for her explanation.

I have signed no contract with that institute and I have received no teacher training courses. I have teaching experiences somewhere else and that was why they invited me to teach. But their unfair system of evaluation at the end of each session will definitely have effects on my payment and if it continues like this, I will no longer be able to continue teaching there.

I am REALLy thinking so deeply about what I could have done wrong. My last session assessment was 20% higher than an old teacher who is teaching there for 3 years. Another serious problem I have with this issue is the "comparison". I teach Reading and Writing and my colleague teaches Listening and Speaking. Of course, I have never met the other teacher. But, he has read this bad comment about me. Why should I lose my face in front of a colleague, because of an "unfair" judgement?

Is it good to react like this, or I should keep silent about her unfair judgement?

You said,

  this sudden unfair comparison has gone on my nerve

It sounds like this negative feedback has provoked some strong emotion in you, and understandably so.

But asking for an explanation is not likely to be helpful at this point. This isn't a constructive comment that can potentially lead you to improve your teaching - it's just an insult. Students take out all kinds of frustration in their teaching evaluations. If you ask a frustrated student to explain a comment they made (most likely) out of frustration, you are unlikely to gain anything constructive. The most likely outcome is that she'll unload more frustration on you.

The best reaction to this kind of feedback (assuming it's an isolated incident, and the rest of your feedback was reasonable) is to re-read the positive feedback you've received, remind yourself that you're a dedicated teacher who works hard to help your students, and put the non-constructive feedback out of your mind.

If this is an isolated incident, I wouldn't worry about its effect on your ranking within your institution. All instructors will occasionally receive some negative reviews, no matter how good they are at teaching.

You could email the picture to her tutor/future employers (cc'ing the student in) so they understand how rude and unhelpful she was.

I don't agree with this "let's be nice to students no matter what they say or do" nonsense. They should understand that actions have consequences.


Is a Graduate Performance Diploma considered an academic degree for purposes of PhD admissions or faculty job search? This question might be appropriate for music SE but I am looking for more academic views.

I know of Associate, bachelor, master, and doctoral degrees.  Inside of these are different fields.  I have also seen JD (law) and DM (music).  I have recently seen "Graduate Performance Diploma".  While I usually do not think of these in an academic sense, Johns Hopkins, which I consider a good school, offers this diploma.

What is the purpose of this degree?  Is it only to give more practice time for a musician in an academic setting, or would earning this diploma have some weight on acceptance to a doctoral or professorship?

I did my undergraduate in a large, prestigious music school, which also had (probably still has) a Diploma option.  Before I answer your question, let me tell you something about my degree requirements.

I had to take lots and lots of credits in my performance instrument, and ensembles, large and small.  Then there was lots of music theory, music history, music literature.  A tiny proportion was in other departments -- I took one English, one math, one history, one science, and one social science course, if I remember right.  That's not much for a 4-year degree!  But now, for the Diploma, take out everything except the performance instrument and the ensembles.  Well, apparently at Johns Hopkins, you also do some music theory-type courses as well.

The students that I saw doing the Diploma were typically from another country, were planning to go back after the Diploma, and were there just to further their study of their instrument with a particular teacher, usually a famous name.  It was kind of like a post-doc.  They were soaking up the great person's approach to technique, expanding their repertoire, getting more experience, polishing their performing.

Music schools offer the Diploma because they know there are students who only want to work on their performance instrument.  So they cut out all the extraneous stuff and give the person a Diploma.

This would be good preparation for a performance career (orchestra, chamber music, solo concertizing), and for teaching the instrument in a private studio.  However, it would NOT prepare one for teaching in a public school, community college, college, or university.  However, it would help one prepare for teaching in a conservatory (if the person were a strong enough player -- s/he would have to be extremely strong for this).

If you are from another country and are planning to go back, chances are you are going to do, or you did, some academic work in your home country, and that will fit better with the academic system you plan to seek a job in.

A lot of the Diploma students were astounding musicians, though, who did seem to have a shot at a well-paid performance career.  That I can't be sure of, though, because I don't know what the employment options for classical musicians are in Europe (which is where many of the Diploma students were from).

To give an analogy, the diploma is like the "one and done" phenomenon happening in college basketball. Really good players send a year or two developing their talents before turning pro. Some people need 4 or more years of university to develop their abilities while others just don't need as much time to develop


How should a mathematics major choose between doing a Masters or PhD? I would really appreciate any advice or suggestions anyone might have. I am currently a senior mathematics major, about to graduate in May. For two years, I have planned on going for my PhD in pure mathematics (my highest interests have been in algebra, number theory, and discrete math). I applied to 8 PhD programs and 1 masters program, the masters program just for the heck of it. I was accepted into the masters program, but I was rejected from 6 PhD programs and wait-listed on the other two. Neither of these last two would I really want to go to, but I would be happy at either of them nonetheless.

Now, the masters program is at Ohio State and gives full tuition waiver plus a minimum monthly stipend of $1950, plus a significantly reduced health insurance bill. The program specifically is the Master of Mathematical Sciences with concentration in Computational Sciences. The department is super lenient as to which courses I can take outside of their main core courses, as long as my course plan fits the computational theme and as long as my advisor signs off.

So, my question is, should I go to the masters program or should I go to one of the PhD programs (if I'm even accepted; again, I'm still wait-listed)? Will finishing this MMS program at Ohio State help my chances of getting in to a top-notch PhD program in the future? How common is it (in mathematics) for mathematicians to earn a (non-"incidental") masters degree before pursuing their PhD?

Thanks! Let me know if you want any clarification or further information.

I'm not in mathematics so take my answer for what it is.
The fact that you were turned down by 6 PhD programs suggests that your applications probably weren't too strong. Maybe you had bad grades, bad test scores, bad recommendations, etc. Or you simply overestimated your application strength and applied to schools beyond your reach (i.e. top 15 schools).

Whatever it is, you need to overcome these shortcomings in your credentials. A Masters degree could be a great way to prove that you are grad school material, especially if you can demonstrate that you fit in academia by publishing article(s). This could be a jumping point to a decent PhD program. Generally, graduate programs would rather accept successful masters students over successful bachelors students, simply because good masters students already know the system and how to make it work.

I would recommend you start a program where you can begin your masters and then have the option to move on to a PhD (many programs have that option). I am just finishing my masters now in statistics and will not pursue a PhD anytime soon. Two reasons. One reason is because I want to work and make money. Second reason: I don't think I can stand being in school for another three years... in addition to more exams, thesis, and comp exams.

Maybe in the future I might change my mind. Or maybe an employer (like many do today) will help pay for me to pursue a PhD. You never know :)


When should a supervisor be an author? I understand that in a lot of big-lab fields it is common for the principal investigator to append their name to a paper even if they did not write the paper, design the experiment, or collect data since they spend energy securing funding, and managing the whole lab. What about for small labs?

What are the requirements for a supervisor to be included as an author on a paper, as opposed to just appearing in the acknowledgements? If you are working on your own projects independently of your supervisor, but using funding provided by your supervisor (how does this change when the funding provides resources versus just your salary), are you suppose to add them as authors or just acknowledge the source of funding?

Allow me to strongly disagree with eykanal's answer.  There is no universal standard.  You must ask your advisor in advance what her coauthorship policy is.

In theoretical computer science (and mathematics), it is generally considered unethical to list someone as a co-author who has not made a novel and significant intellectual contribution to the paper.  In particular, merely funding the research is not considered an intellectual contribution.  Adding a supervisor's name to a paper to which they have not directly, intellectually contributed is lying.

In practice, writing a good grant proposal requires at least as much intellectual novelty as writing a good paper.  Most of the good ideas that PIs pour into their proposals also appear in papers; as long as those ideas constitute novel intellectual contributions, the PI merits co-authorship.  But that only works once per idea; once an idea has been published, it's no longer novel, by definition.

To be specific and personal:

I am not a coauthor on all of my PhD students' papers.  (Of course, I still report my students' independent work back to NSF as outcomes on whatever grants supported them.  So I still get credit from NSF for having the foresight to fund the student.)  The same is true of all the other theoretical computer science faculty in my department.
My PhD advisor is a co-author on only one of the papers I published as a PhD student.
My PhD advisor doesn't have a single co-authored paper with his advisor.

Since your question included the word "lab" the answer is that the supervisor will be on it, regardless of contribution.
The best justification for this is that labs are expensive, and the supervisor's main job is to keep it running, and they need all the kudos they can get. Labs that go broke are in no position to attract students, so you could say that your supervisor earned their keep before you even started.
Is this fair? No, obviously not. If you are looking for fair, get out of academia.


Putting dataset in CV In my field (linguistics) sometimes datasets are important and scholars tend to include them in their CV. I want to know how to include my dataset in my CV?

This is the approach I have in mind: Uploading dataset in Harvard Dataverse and include the DoI in CV with the following style:

XXX dataset, The most important dataset in linguistics, DOI:XXXXXXXXXX

How does it look? Please share your thoughts on it.

From the Harvard Dataset users guide:

  Download Citation

  You can find the citation for the dataset at the top of the dataset
  page in a blue box. Additionally, there is a Download Citation button
  that offers the option to download the citation as EndNote XML or RIS
  Format.

So if you go that route just upload your data and click that button.

If the job you are applying for requires dataset creation, then list one of your skills as "dataset creation" and in the text next to it explain that you created the Harvard Linguistic Dataset. If the dataset is important in the field you are applying to, you need only name it. If the reader of your CV doesn't know the dataset is important, it's perhaps not worth even mentioning.


How do you record your lectures? While reading this question, and specifically Chris Gregg's answer, I started to think about recording my lectures in order to help students review, help students who missed class, and generally provide a way for people to learn about the subjects I teach.

So, how do teachers (with the same goal as I wrote) record their lectures? Do they simply ask someone to record them with a video camera? Do they go in and do more serious editing like you see in Coursera videos where the video transitions between the lecturer's face and slides being drawn on by the lecturer (as described here)?

I'm curious what my options are, considering my university provides zero support for this idea of recording lectures.

If my lecture is done via a presentation (not my preferred method, but necessary for some classes), I record the audio of my lectures along with a "video" of the slides I use. I use Camtasia to record everything, so the only other thing I need is a microphone.

When I give lectures at the blackboard I don't record them. However, for those lectures I provide a fairly detailed set of course notes.

You could try video recording your classes then upload them to Big Marker. You could then provide your lectures to more people. At Big Marker you can invite people to your online class. You could invite 100s or 1000s of people to your online lecture.
It's just an idea. I used Big Marker when I used to tutor groups of students online. It is very easy to use and you can even monetize your lectures. (Although it could be against university policy. Maybe not because they are your lectures.)
Good Luck!
Kim


Professor submitted my letter of recommendation after I removed him I had sent a reminder to the professor for submitting my letter of recommendation about two days before the deadline, but he didn't reply to me. He was highly unresponsive after initially agreeing. As the deadline was approaching, I removed him from the recommender list, thinking that he might be too busy to write the letter. But he submitted the letter a few hours before the deadline, and emailed me that the system didn't accept his letter.
It's so embarrassing. I am not sure how I should reply to him. It makes it look like I don't believe him but I did believe it made sense to change the recommender at that moment.

Your perception was entirely reasonable, and as somebody who is serious, you can't let unreliable people decide your fate. So, it is very logical, and nobody should blame you because you did the best thing you could. The point is, should you even communicate the substitution to him, and if yes, what good does it do? If you couldn't find any reason for doing so, then perhaps you shouldn't. This whole recommendation letter is entirely about you and given that he didn't even bother to check or post, you can just simply ignore him. A few months later things will be back to normal and people will simply forget about it.


Is it unwise to pick an old field of research in maths to write a PhD thesis about? Some areas that come to mind:

theory of partial differential equations (analysis and pdes, not numerical PDE)
number theory
algebra

Should I pick a trendy topic so that it is "easier" to write a thesis?

I've heard from senior PhD students not to try and write a thesis on analysis of PDEs because so much has already been done in this field and so it's very hard to do something new.

If you pick an overly-trendy area there is a chance that it will be easier to get a Ph.D. in that area but that many mathematicians will be less than impressed by the resulting degree. For example, "fuzzy" is (or has been?) a trendy concept. There is almost a template for getting a Ph.D. in it (albeit one which is getting harder to apply by sheer competition): pick some topic in pure mathematics for which there doesn't yet exist a fuzzy version (for an example the exact phrase "fuzzy symmetry group" has only 4 Google hits). Learn the classical theory. Fuzzify it: whenever you see the word "set" replace it with "fuzzy set". Prove something -- which with lack of competition shouldn't be all that hard. Anticipating the question as to why anyone should care, hand-wave about potential applications to artificial intelligence. Voila! You have a dissertation (I am exaggerating a bit, this is of course easier said than done, and a successful fuzzification will involve more than simply replacing sets by fuzzy sets).

Now I don't deny that the core concepts of fuzzy logic and fuzzy set theory have a great deal of mathematical depth, and that much of the fuzzification of classical pure mathematics has been well-motivated. Still, it seems likely that much of it has been done just because it was low-hanging fruit for somebody who wanted to write a dissertation or paper. I am instinctually skeptical of the value of a paper when it contains the word "fuzzy" in the title. I won't dogmatically reject it, but I will need some convincing as to its value. If your dissertation has a trendy buzz-word but otherwise seems unmotivated, you might meet with similar skepticism.

No, because whatever you do is based on your interest. While doing PhD on the subject you are interested in you need to think before that whether you have passion towards it or not. Unless you show some passion towards your theises or the field you select to move on Even the latest researches are also useless.

My best suggestion to you is that dont ask someone while declaring your research field since you are some passion towards your field you need to think only one thing that how to develop your research in your field. Now go on thinking with a small paper in your hand and let your heart talk to your brain.

And have a good look over all the fields that you are loving and choose something as the best one.

Unless you decide on your own about something you cant succed Since when you start hating it you will blame someone but if you select it on your own YOU CAN EVEN MAKE GOLD OUT OF COAL..


Citing StackExchange vs. Account Privacy? In the answer to this and similar questions it is recommended that you cite an idea or useful answer for your research work on StackExchange.
Now, if you have asked a question requiring a walk-back mathematical process (lets assume its a contribution) using fundamental knowledge to walk-back, if you do cite in this case, how do you keep the privacy of your account name? Since, people would check the answer and could look into the account history of the questioner and the answerer. Also, these StackExchange websites are linked and it seems that not everyone would like that for privacy reasons. So how could this be managed appropriately?
Note: This is a modification of an existing question marked as duplicate.

The post you reference has the solution to your doubt. Just cite when you encounter an original contribution or thank for helpful critics.

Do you "have" to cite: Maybe, depends.
Should you ask the one you want to cite first: definitely.
Is there a way to protect your privacy: There are many, but I can't see a perfect one right now.

All in all, I think your question is hard to answer as it is, as it depends on too many things (field, kind of paper, kind of question/answer, persons involved,...).


Professor creates assignment making students advocate for a bill being presented to Congress. Is this legal? I attend a public university in Kentucky (USA). My professor has assigned an advocacy assignment that requires students to write three letters of support for a certain House bill that will soon be voted on (H.R. 592 / S. 109).

The professor has given us all a template where we get to "customize" one paragraph with our own supporting statement. The letters must have our name electronically and physically signed. This bill would alter our profession and most of our college is in support of it, including the professors
The letters must be positive and supporting of the bill. The letters must be turned in to the professor for proofreading, then will be sent by the professor to our home county/area representatives.
The template letter repetitively thanks the representative for sponsoring the bill and provides background info as to why the representative should vote in favor of it.

I have emailed the professor, the dean of academic affairs and the dean of the college. The dean of academic affairs responded with basically "not her issue". (Although our student handbook specifically states she's next in line after a professor with any concern.) The dean of the college has not responded. And the professor announced to our class that the assignment is still due tomorrow at noon. Later, I requested to meet with him but his requested meeting time is not until after the assignment is due.

I actually have a neutral stance on this bill. My concern is that a professor is using his position and course to force students to take his personal stance on a bill that will have a major change in healthcare, specifically pharmacy practice. My main concern is that even if the professor doesn't send my letters, he will all of my classmates that may not have expressed their concern. (That's 140 students with 3 letters each = 420 letters sent)

Can a professor do this? Is this legal? Or a violation of students' First amendment?

I turned in my assignment with the preamble edit as recommended by some and met with the professor at his request. His response was that I would receive full credit for my assignment, he was unaware of this issue previously, the other course director and himself have not looked into this issue, he is retiring in March, and he has no regard to continue the discussion besides our conversation in his office. He then proceeded to tell me his personal life stories and asked questions about my history (i.e. where are you from? What do your parents do? What do you want to do in life? etc.)
There is no resolution at this point and he does not seem concerned. He has not edited the assignment (as my initial request to him was to make the assignment not part of his final course grade due to the circumstances of the assignment) and all other students were still required to do the assignment (3 endorsed letters, addressed, and stamped, in support of the particular bill) and turn them in to class teaching assistants to review and mail.
I have also researched university policies on such matters and he is in violation of University policy as well as violating students' academic freedoms. I notified him of this during the meeting and he had no response other than "well you've done your research, I have not."

This professor is in his mid-70s, very traditional, and is retiring in March (2 months) as I stated previously. I believe he doesn't want to deal with this issue and has no desire to take the time to resolve it. Do I contact him again? The assignment still stands and has not been altered. Students were forced to endorse political activity of a Professor or be reprimanded by a failing grade.

What do I do now?

Can a professor do this? Is this legal? Or a violation of students' First amendment?

You are 100% correct to be concerned. No, the professor most certainly cannot do such a thing; his behavior is deeply unethical and a blatant abuse of his authority. I am not a lawyer and can't comment about legality, but for a professor to coerce students to express political opinions they may not hold would certainly violate longstanding traditions of academic freedom and freedom of speech. Honestly, while the behavior may well be illegal, it is in any case bad enough that in my opinion you have more than enough ammunition to fight it even without resorting to legal arguments, so I don't think legality even necessarily matters that much.

As for how to respond, I think the emails you sent to the deans are a good start. Basically you need to alert some sensible people at your school (I am sure there are some) to what's going on and get their help with stopping the professor from sending out the fraudulent letters -- these could be student union representatives, the department chair, an ombudsperson, or all of the above. You can even consider contacting some local journalists and/or state legislators, although I would advise keeping things within the campus for starters.

In the meantime, while you are waiting for help to arrive, I would advise you to do the letter-writing assignment as you were asked and submit it by the deadline, but following the guidelines in my answer to this question regarding how to prevent the opinions you are being forced to express from being attributed to you against your will - that is, do not sign the letter, and preface it with a disclaimer in big bold letters and a verbatim quote of the assignment. The point of this is that the professor can reasonably ask you to write a letter where you advocate beliefs you may disagree with if he sincerely believes that that promotes the learning objectives of the course he is teaching, so it would be prudent of you to complete that part of the assignment in order to not get a failing grade and maintain the high moral ground in any battles that lie ahead; however, I do not believe that he has the authority to force you to pretend to endorse the letter's content. It would also be a good idea to seek legal advice, for example on law.se and/or by talking to an actual lawyer. Good luck!

————

Edit, added a bit later: It’s fascinating to me that this is taking place in the context of a course called Leadership in Pharmacy. It seems to me that by fighting this injustice you are showing a much greater understanding of what leadership is (and will likely learn much more valuable lessons about leadership) than either the professor or those among your fellow classmates who will follow the professor’s instructions without questioning them. Please allow me to congratulate you on your good sense and initiative. In my book you have already earned an A+.

————-

Also, as others have said in the comments, do come back and add an update to your question later to report on how the situation resolved itself. Further edit, added in response to OP’s update of the question: Since it looks like you won’t be getting the cooperation of the professor, I suggest continuing to send emails to draw attention to the situation. The key is to recruit allies who will be in a position to get the professor to see how unacceptable his behavior is. Some specific ideas I can think of are:

Write an email to the department chair, dean and the university general counsel in which you describe the behavior, explain why you believe it violates university policy (and why it’s illegal if you think you can substantiate such a claim). Describe your conversation with the professor and its unsatisfactory outcome, and ask for their intervention. Consider adding a threat, either explicit or veiled, that you will contact the media if no action is taken.
Alternatively and/or at the same time, try to find some classmates who are upset about what’s happening. If a good number of students band together and begin to voice loud dissatisfaction in emails to the department and university administration and/or social media, the university will be compelled to act. That will also reduce the risk that you will be singled out for retaliation.
Use social media. A single tweet or short blog post may be all it takes to attract some serious public and media attention to the story.
Get a lawyer. Official-looking letters bearing a signature ending with “Esq.” are a hell of a lot more scary to university officials than an email from an undergraduate and will command immediate respect.

As before, I think it’s advisable to try resolving the situation quietly without attracting attention from outside the campus if possible, since that carries the least risk to you of retaliation or somehow being dragged into a serious public scandal that you have no wish to be a part of. However, it seems that you are fast approaching a point where you have exhausted your options within the campus and it may well be beneficial to seek more public attention, so going public should be an option to consider seriously, while keeping in mind that that means a higher level of commitment and risk of disruption to your life.

One final piece of advice: in all your communications with university officials and/or the media, keep your tone neutral and factual. Describe facts (“this is a violation of university policy XYZ”), not opinions (“this is an outrage”, “I am deeply offended”, “the professor is behaving unethically”, etc), and let people draw their own conclusions. The facts are (very, very) strongly on your side here, and are your greatest weapon.

While I am not a lawyer, this sounds like you are being asked to make a public statement under duress.  If you write a separate letter (under your real name), notarize it, and send it to your representative, he may have no choice but to take your complaint seriously.  That is, of course, if your representative does not support this bill.

If he does support it, find a representative who opposes it and send your letter to them.

If you want to make sure it does not get lost in the noise, you can also call their office and explain that you are forced to write the letter and stress that it will be edited after you sign it.  Mention that you will not have a chance to withdraw the letter after the edits.  If this is illegal, the representative who opposes the bill should jump at the chance to expose any support for the bill that is being drummed up illegally.  That is the benefit of a multi-party system. The opposing interests keep each other honest.


I am interested in retracting my old journal articles. Would it have any negative effects on my academic career? I managed to successfully publish my old bachelor thesis in a good quality national journal in my country. However, I am thinking of retracting the article due to certain circumstances. First, I felt really embarrassed by the low quality research methodology used in my bachelor thesis. I only used simple correlation in my research. After it was published, I realized that the journal editor team forgot to include a reference in that article because they were rushing me throughout the editing process. I informed them about their mistake and it seems that they have done nothing to fix the problem. I became a bit annoyed because the editor team has never made this problem in the past.

I felt that it would be better for me to simply ask for retraction to solve this issue, but I am a bit afraid of negative consequences in the future. Is it okay to do this? I am really interested of entering the academic world in the future.

The way to "retract" old work is to publish better work that references the old work and its errors. There should be nothing embarrassing about having found earlier errors and correcting them.

You have grown in the interim. Every active academic will likely have such an experience at least once in their career. The earliest work was done when you were, relative to now, somewhat inexperienced.

It is unlikely that they will retract the article for the reasons you give, but it is also possible that someone else will publish a better work based on your article. Your best course, I believe, is to publish it yourself.

I think people are not addressing the fact that, if you only have a limited number of publications, the quality of them will haunt your job prospects... However retraction may not be a feasible solution as it might also negatively affect your relationship with the journal.

In many cases, it might even suffice to expand upon the work in another journal, or on a blog post or something. Don't worry overmuch, the publication was when you were younger.


My student's family won't let her study what she wants Yesterday I had a tearful encounter in office hours with the most avid participant in the math class I teach, in which she related the following situation.

She is an international student whose parents are well off by local standards but have made significant financial sacrifices for her to study abroad at the university where I work. Part of the plan was that she should have a scholarship, but it has recently been denied on the grounds her grades are not strong enough, and as a result she will have to switch to a nearby university in the fall. Part of why her grades aren't strong is because she is a very specifically focused student: professional mathematics is all she really wants to do with her life. She already knows. When she is able to do what she wants, she just studies math. She works extremely hard, but at end of the day she couldn't care less about her other courses and views the struggle to get good grades as a distraction from what's important to her.

Her parents disagree that there is any future in math for her. They tell her it's not worth it and that she's bad at it. They're medical doctors in a country where teachers are treated poorly, viewed as people lacking the talent to do anything better, and are worried that a career in math would be both unremunerative and undignified—which might be the case in her home country, but my student also doesn't hope to return home. Nevertheless, for because her parents are footing the bill and because she's not willing to openly defy them, my student will finish a pure CS major when she enrolls in her new university, and won't be allowed to enroll in any future math courses during undergrad.

I watched her just crumble as she told me this, weeping and apologizing for it, unable to make eye contact. She's about to embark, without any choice in the matter, on a course that's going to make her miserable for years, if not longer, and moreover, from what I know of her, she is just the kind of person who should be in math.

I've told her there's nothing anyone can do to stop her from learning on her own, and that absolutely no instructor would refuse to let her sit in on whatever math course she wants, so that at most this will be a hiccup resulting in her getting a sort of bachelor's degree she doesn't really want at the expense of what she'd rather do, and that at the time she's financially independent, she can really study what she wants, but one could tell she's not completely buying this. She's devastated, and I can hardly blame her.

What can I (or anyone) do to help in this situation?

Some thoughts:

Suggest counseling.  They are much more likely to be able to help support her in expressing her goals to her parents, understanding their position, and perhaps in negotiating some sort of compromise with them.  Family relationship issues are likely to be a pretty common concern for college students, and a university counseling service will have had lots of experience with them.
Suggest talking to the financial aid office. They may be able to explore other options for funding if she decides to go on without her parents' financial support, though admittedly there may not be a lot of options for international students.
Talk to your contacts at the other university. See if you can connect her with someone who may be sympathetic to her situation, and who might be able to help her with some of the other things mentioned here.
Help her explore degree and course options. Is there some other degree offered by the institution that might represent a compromise between what she wants and what her parents are willing to pay for?  Are there ways for her to take more classes that she's interested in?
She needs to be able to succeed at things even when they don't interest her.  You write "She couldn't care less about her other courses and her grades".  Regardless of the degree she pursues, this is a recipe for disaster in US academia, where breadth is considered essential and degree requirements are designed accordingly, and overall GPA is widely used as a metric of success,  e.g. for graduate schools and jobs.

(I am guessing from your terminology that you are in the US.  If not, please correct me.)

She doesn't have to like all her courses, but she does have to be able to push through and do her best work even in those she dislikes.  That's a necessary academic and life skill, and as a faculty member you may be able to help her develop that skill.  Counseling services may also help with this, if she has some emotional resistance to get past.
She might find these courses more interesting if she gives them a chance. Even pure mathematicians can benefit greatly from knowledge about other fields, and you or other faculty members might be able to help her see connections with things that interest her more.

I'd council not getting too involved in family conflicts.

However it sort of sounds like they're of the belief that math can only lead to a job as a math teacher and are trying to push her into a "safe" major.

Perhaps giving the student some tables of income projections by major along with the kinds of jobs they open up might give her something to reassure them with.

Math does pretty well on that score and in her shoes I'd probably be asking "why are you asking me to step down into a (likely) slightly worse-paid, slightly lower status career path? If I was training to become a doctor would you demand I step down to nurse?"

http://www.naceweb.org/job-market/compensation/physics-projected-as-top-paid-class-of-2016-math-and-sciences-major/


Does a Ph.D. dissertation usually have an ISBN? ISBN is for books. Is it a standard procedure to assign an ISBN for a Ph.D. thesis?

Some institutions publish each PHD thesis as a book, and then they assign ISBN to each. E.g., theses done at CWI, Amsterdam.
To my knowledge, this is quite uncommon throughout the world, but does exist in certain places.

What is an ISBN? It's not for books, it's for published, commercial books. So this question is effectively "are PhD dissertations usually published commercially?" The answer to that is, of course, no. That's not to say that there are no PhD dissertations with ISBNs, but they would be in the minority.


How to protect your unpublished ideas? My advisor introduced a new student in my work saying that I am doing X,Y,Z and he will be doing A,B,C. I was asked to explain X and share all the data, results, reports, all related publications etc   to enable the student to do A,B,C. Once I have explained him X, Y, and shared my data and future plans, he changed/abandoned his directions and submits a paper with another lab collaborator and my advisor on my key idea X without even letting me know anything. After somehow finding it, I politely asked them about it. They were apologetic and both these students agreed through email exchanges that it was not their work and that they should have credited me. They also agreed that this should not have happened after a little confrontation.

I know, my advisor is fully aware of the whole situation, and this was done deliberately. I am not able get out of this whole situation for a long time.  Taking a fight with my advisor or the students is not an option. How would you all handle this situation effectively? How can you protect your ideas that are unpublished but you have been asked /instructed to share with others? Even I have experienced situation where the supervisor himself misuse and steals student work without giving credit to the student who did it. So a tough question is, how do you protect your ideas from being stolen by your advisor?

Obviously your idea is not 'protected' as someone else might have the same idea and/or a subset of that, and make a publication/patent out of it before you do; and you can't claim that the person stole it through your brain waves!

Write down the introduction and background to that idea you have, and prove that it is your contribution through case studies and evaluations, and submit it to be published in a conference as a poster or a paper.

At least here in Chile (and I suspect elsewhere isn't so different) your work for a degree belongs to the school. There is nothing "yours" to protect, legally. And morally, your work was instigated and supervised by faculty, so it isn't all yours anyway.


What to do with students requesting deadline extension due to the death of a relative (but without a doctor's note)? I am currently working as a teaching assistant for several courses in STEM in the US at the college level.
During the past two semesters since Covid19 started, I have noticed that whenever a deadline is approaching, on or close to the day of the deadline, a student will inevitably email the instructors (including the TAs) an email requesting deadline extension due to the loss of a relative, which in turn has affected their mental states ("feeling stressed or depressed").
Note that the death of a relative is a common but not the only scenario. We had another student who claimed to test positive for Covid on the due day, but curiously only requested a 48 hour extension to a deadline...While other students simply said something about being stressed out (by jobs, by other courses) and then immediately followed up with some suggested due dates which we should accommodate for the student (or the entire class).
In all these cases, the student has not obtained a doctor's note, which is the appropriate/standard way of requesting for extension. There has been no change to this policy since Covid.
Since we need to approve the extensions and quickly, these sorts of emails always put us in a very tricky situation:

it seems inappropriate to question about whether if a death has actually occurred, how the person is related to the student, or when it has occurred. We just take these claims to be true despite the scant details.
since the situation affects a relative, but not the student him/herself, therefore, this situation is often not distressful enough to have a formal doctor's note, i.e., serious depression or disability. So we would seem rude to send the student to go through this formal and often lengthy process, especially at a time where reaching a doctor is probably inconvenient for many.

I am not sure what is the most appropriate way of dealing with these situation. And I have to stress we have not had this issue before Covid (I've been doing this for years). But this year we're dealing with this on a biweekly basis.
Can experienced instructors chime in on how we can be considerate to the student's personal lives while also hold on to our standards and be vigilant with academic dishonesty?
Should we just let these things go?

Thanks all for the replies, here is a follow up:

it is multiple students, at the beginning of the year it would be 3-4 students per course, but now I guess when the semesters are heating up, its up to
8 - 12 students (for the two courses combined).

it is different students. With about 3 "recurring" students this semester. I haven't paid too much attention to their names.

the problem here are not the medical concerns or emotional stress, but the lack of formal certificate or a proof. We have been giving these extensions like freebies throughout the semester(s) but the assignments now have more weights and we want to be vigilant.

one of the course is my PI's course and I'm sort of the main contact person and we have been conducting this course for many years. The other course I'm the "lead" TA, so again I oversee a lot of these issues. The impact ultimately hits the TAs, as we need to account for all these asynchronous extensions/grading/accommodations.

For one of the course, we have a "we will aggregate the skipped assignment in your exam" policy. Students know this. The reason why they are requesting extension is because they do not want it to be aggregated. The other course we have been giving them 1 time extensions (even though its not in the course policy) and at least one student is requesting extension after the 1 time extension has been used.

Should we just let these things go?

Yes. Either the situation is real, in which you would be causing great harm in refusing and distressing the student further OR the student is lying and they get an extra 48 hours. Do you really care if the student is getting an extra 48 hours? Is the ability to complete work within a very specific time frame one of the key learning goals of the course?

I'll keep it short. The classic answer is students need to show all the evidence needed to the department and not the TA or the professor. Department is the only capable body to trace this being a pattern or a real incident. And Departments can have their own policies to help students by helping them cancel a course or semester past deadline or etc due to tragic events.
That being said, I think maybe you need to frame the situation a bit differently.
Rather than making it about the individual students and trust, let's revisit why they have to be worried about something like this enough after a potential death of a relative to contact a TA and create a chain reaction of stress and guilt. Even if 30% of the time they tell the truth, I would hate for them to be worried about this kind of matter and its impact on their long-term view of academia and the education system.
Here is my suggestion:
Please do the student's mental health over their lifetime a big favor and give bonus points if they submit things early, fully symmetric to the penalty if they submit late. And they can always (pre/post) compensate for being late, themselves by being early in other times. Also, psychologically they are not going to submit early when there is no incentive, and procrastination is only natural in this kind of setup. I suspect if academia moves to this new paradigm, even industry, governments, and other venues will follow and we all have a more manageable world. And as I said before, looking back don't hate academia or the education system.


Don't want someone else to continue on the topic of my thesis Today I defended by Bachelor's thesis and I did well. The thesis is handed in. However the process of developing it was a real nightmare, I had many panic attacks, etc. and it was just awful. But now I realized that I have mentioned in my thesis that there is room for more research in this field when there barely is any and if someone decides to continue my research with my results they are going to have a really bad time. I just really don't want anyone to suffer the way I did or even more.

Should I be stressed about it and is there any action I can take?

Congratulations on the successful defence of your thesis. If at all possible, take some time to relax.

I understand your concern, but you have no real reason to worry. In general, there is always room for more research on any given topic. Now, anyone who wishes to advance your work will either be more senior than yourself or working for someone more senior than yourself. It will be their responsibility to decide if they want to invest their time and energy in the project.

If you are ever contacted about your thesis, then you can explain why you are less optimistic today, than you were in the past. It is very likely that the other person has some fresh ideas and together you may move forward.

Don't worry about it. Most of the work in academia is fakework for grants and dead-end prestige games. The unlucky sap continuing your work will not be in a worse situation than if you were able to prevent your work from being used.


Is there any way to detect high tech (e.g. cell-phone assisted) academic dishonesty? Over the last few years, our university has seen a rise in high-tech academic dishonesty.  We have a no electronics policy, except calculators when needed (even those now are provided by the school, and personal calculators are not allowed).  However, students still sneak cell phones into the exam and use them in a very inconspicuous way.

We have had students take pictures (presumably with a cell phone) during an exam and have someone outside the room sending them back solutions. We have had them communicate with classmates somewhere else in the room (some have been caught this way giving the right answers to the wrong exam).  We have had numerous students using their phones to store notes, copies of old exam solutions, etc., and use them as an aid during the exam (this is the most common).

We have caught some students, but I know it is a small fraction. Students will tell us they see cell phone use routinely during exams, but don't want to squeal on classmates because of anticipated reprisal.  Our instructors are quite vigilant in watching the classroom, but it is very difficult to watch 30 to 70 students constantly.  (Larger classes have multiple proctors.)  Instructors have been informed of the classic cues as well.  Our penalties are stiff (first offense, F in the course, second offense, student gets the boot from the school). However, students are still getting away with high-tech cheating.

My question is, does anyone have any sure fire ways of identifying students attempting to use cell phones or other high-tech cheating devices during exams? I'm looking for methods, electronic sniffers, etc.

Ultimately, this is not a technological problem but a cultural and pedagogical problem.

The problem with technological solutions is that they set up an "arms race" with the students, in which you will certainly lose.  Electronics are constantly getting smaller and obtaining more means of communication, so a student who really wants to cheat will likely have a means that you won't be readily able to distinguish.  Consider, for example, the recent emergence of smart watches: are you going to ban watches from the classroom?  What about low-tech but still effective forms of cheating like scraps of paper?  If you get a frequency scanner, will you be able to catch somebody using non-standard communication bands?

The best defense against cheating students is other students who understand that it cheats them out of the value of their well-earned grades.  If you can inculcate a school culture where most students are not just not cheating but actively opposed to cheating, then it will be much harder for cheaters to prosper.

The second best defense against cheating is to design exams that are more about process than product.  Think "show your work" and "essay question."  Yes, it's possible that a cheating student will outsource their work and render themselves a puppet of an expert whispering guidance in their ear, but that's a lot harder to do than secretly googling for information about Kirchoff's laws.  I am, in fact, a big fan of open-book tests, which tend to push students to focus on synthesis instead of memorization. This, I believe, has much more value to students in the long run, and also has the nice side effect of rendering high-tech cheating much less valuable as well.

Create a smartphone/tablet app through which the exam itself is administered. This could simply be a stripped-down browser, with no special features like JavaScript support, no navigation controls, and that won't persist if it loses focus, e.g., the student switches to another app to cheat. (You can advise students to enable airplane mode, then turn WiFi on and connect to your special test-taking network, which doesn't provide general internet access, to avoid the risk of an unexpected phone call resetting their test.) Design the app to query a hard-coded server on your network for the address of a landing page, from which the students can select their test, which is delivered in a plain HTML format with basic form controls. If the exam is longer than an hour or so, you could also provide outlets for charging.

If any students don't have (or don't wish to use) a smartphone/tablet, they can still take the regular paper test, but in a separate, small room, which will make it trivial to spot a smuggled device.


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

Why do Australian universities have higher employability (rank) than that of British ones in QS Graduate Employability Ranking?

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.

Why do Australian universities have higher employability than that of British ones?

The cited QS Graduate Employability Rankings 2019 don't prove that graduates from Australian universities have higher employability than graduates from British ones. Allure's answer elaborates upon this (I thought it was straightforward and didn't mention any details).


Does tenure protection extend to professors saying that evolution is false in class? So I'm dealing with a very weird case here. I'm a PhD student and my wife is currently taking a history course at a different university. Apparently this instructor says he has tenure so no one can do anything about his rambling.

He spends a sizable chunk of the course ranting about how evolution is false because there's no proof of it, that Neanderthals didn't exist, and how humans aren't apes. He also claimed the Earth isn't 4 billion years old and people lived with dinosaurs.

This is obviously very obnoxious and disturbing to sit through. But is it true that his rambling is protected by tenure? If we were to complain could anything be done? Thanks.

Having tenure doesn't mean a professor can spend large amounts of time in a course talking about off-topic things. They still have a duty to teach the subject of the course.

Have your wife talk to the department chair if she feels she isn't receiving the education that she expects from the course.

I perceive two distinct issues that you bring up with this question.  It seems that the direct questions ("How much time is OK to dedicate to this in history class?  Is this behavior protected by tenure?") have been addressed by other answers.  I would like to examine whether it should be obnoxious and disturbing for the professor to make his unusual claims.

  Evolution is false because it is not proven.

That evolution is not proven is acknowledged, and even asserted, by evolution's authorities such as UC Berkeley.  So on the notion that an idea is only true if it has been "proven", this would be the natural implication.  Instead,

  Scientists gather evidence which might help support or refute hypotheses and theories, but these ideas can never be absolutely proven, even when supported by many different lines of evidence.

  UC Berkeley, Understanding Evolution, Teaching materials, 6-8 Teachers' lounge, Avoiding common teaching pitfalls, 1. Choosing your words carefully. https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/teach/68pitfalls.php#1e

When the professor asserts that "anything not proven is false" he is repeating a common fallacy in science education.  Jack Fraser wrote in Quora in 2017:

  All science is merely the current best model. Science is impermanent. It is, by definition, in constant flux.  You can never have 100% proof of anything. There will always be doubt.

  This comes as a bit of a shock to many people.  At school we’re taught science in terms of absolute facts— and this attitude persists rather a long time, into university education as well.

  It takes a surprisingly long time for the new information you are being taught to finally be bookended with the phrase “of course, this is all based on the validity of model XYZ, which may turn out to be false.”

  https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/12/14/theres-no-such-thing-as-proof-in-the-scientific-world-theres-only-evidence/#215633255392, reparagraphed by me

It may be that the professor is misguided: doesn’t this mean that the theories of gravitational attraction and the conservation of energy aren’t true either?

Instead of this absurdity, perhaps the professor is using the apparent contradiction between "evolution is a universal concept in biology" and "there is not 100% proof for evolution" to bring students face-to-face with the academic notion of doubt.

  But isn’t this off-topic in a history class?

While it may seem odd for the subjects of human origins and evolution to appear in a history class, they appear as Key Concept 1.1 in AP World History (an American standardized college-level course):

  Key Concept 1.1

  The term big geography draws attention to the global nature of world history. Throughout the Paleolithic period, humans migrated from Africa to Eurasia, Australia, and the Americas. Early humans were mobile and creative in adapting to different geographical settings from savanna to desert to tundra. Humans also developed varied and sophisticated technologies.

  AP World History, July 2017 edition.  Note that in 2019, this course will be split into AP World History: Modern (1200 CE - present) and AP World History: Ancient.