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thread-2001 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2001 | Can deadlines for PhD admission in US be approximated? | 2012-06-13T12:57:55.010 | # Question
Title: Can deadlines for PhD admission in US be approximated?
I am expecting to finish my masters degree in computer science by mid October and then I was planning to apply for a PhD program this year.
My question is, how much time will I have after being done with my masters to apply? I know different US universities have different deadlines but a general safe assumption would really be appreciated.
I still haven't decided which universities I would be applying to. I am also aware of the fact that eventually I'll have to look up at the websites for the exact deadlines but for now I just needed an approximate idea of a date by which I should have everything ready for submission including my GRE scores (which I am planning to retake).
# Answer
> 14 votes
It varies greatly.
* There are the fixed deadline places, for which there are deadlines starting from Nov 15 or thereabouts, all the way upto Jan 15.
* There are also places with rolling deadlines, where it's better to apply early.
In general, you should have your materials ready to go in the beginning/middle of November and that should take care of most deadlines.
# Answer
> 5 votes
The situation also depends a bit on if you're looking for financial support in the form of fellowships. If so, then you need to be a bit ahead of the schedule for applying to the graduate departments directly—some fellowship programs, including the NSF, typically have deadlines in November.
However, in general, if the school does not do "rolling admissions," then the deadline will be somewhere in December or early January, with decisions given in February or early March, and a decision expected usually by May 1.
# Answer
> 3 votes
It depends on what program it is.
Most top ecology and biology programs have deadlines in early December.
Most top-20 physics and astronomy programs (excluding Columbia) have deadlines on December 15th. Columbia's deadlines are usually on the first few days of January. Mid-tier astronomy programs tend to have deadlines around January 15.
That said, there are weaker programs in Physics (like Montana State and Kansas) that have deadlines that go well into Spring.
======
As for most strong Earth/Atmospheric/Planetary science programs - they primarily have deadlines in late December and early January.
(E.g. for this year for EAPS programs - deadlines were Stanford in mid-December, Berkeley on Dec 19, Harvard/Princeton on Dec 31, Caltech on Jan 1, Yale on Jan 2, Columbia on Jan 4, MIT on Jan 5, Chicago on Jan 9, UWash+Brown on Jan 15, and Cornell on Feb. 1st).
As for my case, I was utterly unprepared until mid-December.
I didn't take my General GREs until mid-December (though I took the Biology GRE in mid-October and the Physics GRE in mid-November - those two dates are the two subject GRE test dates in autumn), and only asked for LORs in mid-December (I managed to get them all in by January 2, but a couple of professors said that they wouldn't be able to write me LORs because they would be traveling during late December - I was fortunate to have many options to choose from though). Then I didn't start on my personal statement until the last two weeks of December (and I went through like 7-8 proofreaders). So the result was that I missed the Harvard/Princeton deadline and barely made the Caltech deadline with a crappy essay. Everything past January 2 was fine though.
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Tags: phd, graduate-admissions, united-states, deadlines
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thread-2029 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2029 | Can I use the work in my journal/conference publications as chapters in my dissertation? | 2012-06-15T18:46:53.500 | # Question
Title: Can I use the work in my journal/conference publications as chapters in my dissertation?
At my institution, I am required to publish four papers in addition to my PhD thesis. Of course my planned papers are related to my dissertation project, but I'm not sure if it could be considered academic dishonesty / plagiarism to use these works to form part of my dissertation. I'm not thinking about copying them word for word, but I was hoping that I can include summarized versions of those works as chapters in my dissertation. Is this a common practice or would this be considered self-plagiarism? Should my dissertation work be completely separate from those other publications?
# Answer
Supplementing the answer from abatkai: The rules likely vary by field also. In chemistry, converting previously published papers into a Sandwich Thesis is generally accepted and commonplace. My thesis contained a chapter that was prefaced "Portions of this chapter were previously published as (citation), and have been reproduced with permission. Copyright is held by (publisher of the journal)." This was followed by further copyright information and the statement required by the publisher. My institution also required that I submit paperwork in support of my use of published and copyrighted material.
In addition to consulting your adviser and your institution, you should consult the journals in which you publish. Many have policies in place for this. For example, from the American Chemical Society's copyright faq:
> The current ACS Journal Publishing Agreement covers several permitted uses by authors... Permitted uses of all versions include:
>
> * Use in theses and collections of your own work
> 24 votes
# Answer
Depends probably on the rules at your institution. At many places actually this is the usual custom. Ask your adviser.
If you write out the correct references so that everybody who reads knows that this part can be found in that paper, then it is never plagiarism. See also the "Sandwich thesis" question mentioned in the comment by Andy W.
> 18 votes
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Tags: publications, phd, thesis, plagiarism, self-plagiarism
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thread-1295 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1295 | I have an "integrated masters" degree. How can I eventually gain a PhD? | 2012-04-27T13:17:34.130 | # Question
Title: I have an "integrated masters" degree. How can I eventually gain a PhD?
I graduated in the UK last year with an M Ost, an integrated masters of osteopathy. This is currently the standard qualification offered by colleges teaching osteopathy in the UK, although it's changed several times in the past and seems likely to change again.
My course consisted of 480 credits. 360 credits were at undergraduate level (including 120 at honours level) and a further 120 credits were at master's level.
I am intrigued by research, and wonder if it would be possible to eventually apply for a PhD, but I have no idea whether applicants with integrated masters courses are considered. I suspect not, and assume I would need to do some extra work.
However I don't understand what that extra work would be.
As you can tell.... I am a little lost! This seems the most basic of questions, but I am struggling to find any clear advice. I have contacted members of the faculty in my old college, but they haven't not been very helpful. Suggestions have included doing a further qualification in osteopathic studies -- something I'm not keen on. I would prefer something that is science-based, and would be accepted as qualification to go on to apply for a PhD.
I appreciate this is quite an open-ended question. Ideally I'm probably looking for pointers as to where and how to continue my search. Should I contact PhD-providing universities and colleges directly, and ask what I would need to do in order to be considered?
I also understand that PhDs are hard, hard work. I am not looking for questions around why I want to do one, or alternative options. Many thanks for understanding this.
# Answer
In the UK, you will be expected to have some research experience before applying to a PhD programme in science: not necessarily publications (although that always helps!), but certainly having done an extended project and written a dissertation about it. In my field (physics) you can definitely apply straight out of an integrated masters degree, provided that your last year had a substantial research component.
If you don't have any research background at all (or just short summer projects or the equivalent), then this is the "extra work" you are looking for. Find a MSc by research in a field as close as possible to the one you want to do a PhD in. This also has the advantage that you get to decide whether a PhD is really for you while only taking a year, and to leave with a qualification at the end if it's not.
Of course, this is just general advice: as JeffE says, individual universities will be able to provide specific information on their admissions and funding criteria.
> 7 votes
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Tags: phd, masters
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thread-2019 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2019 | What are the trade-offs of working in the office versus elsewhere (as a professor)? | 2012-06-15T05:47:32.350 | # Question
Title: What are the trade-offs of working in the office versus elsewhere (as a professor)?
I find that when I'm working on research in the office, at least with the door open, I often get interrupted and am generally less productive. On the other hand, I often have students ask to meet with me outside of office hours on days when I don't plan to be in my office, and they're unhappy when I mention that I won't be available that day. I suspect this hurts my student evaluation scores (which are the primary basis for the evaluation of our teaching in our tenure process).
Additionally, as junior faculty, I'm aware that getting tenure is partly about "fitting in" with your department. In mine, many (most?) folks are in their offices for something closer to 9-5 five days a week, perhaps leaving early on Friday. When I am in the office, I make a point to stop in and say hi to colleagues, but I'm sure that I'm less visible around the department than many others.
So rather than a specific answer, I guess I'm looking for guidelines in how you approach this type of decision.
# Answer
I think it's important to set boundaries with students, with colleagues, and with yourself about when and where you're available for meetings. It's also important to find environments that most effectively support different types of work, and give yourself permission to use them.
Like you, when I'm in my office, I *expect* to be interrupted; so when I'm working at my desk, I can only productively work on tasks that survive interruption. Put bluntly, the office is where I have meetings; if I need to think, I find a whiteboard in an empty conference room; if I need to write, I go to a coffee shop. (Suresh is correct; I am in a coffee shop *right now*.) As Daniel says, all three places allow for productive work, but of very different types. Even in the computer science building, for small meetings where I don't want to be interrupted, I prefer to go to the *other* person's office. And because my undergraduate office hours are occasionally *very* popular (especially right before exams), I don't hold them in my actual office, but in a larger room down the hall with couches and whiteboards.
You express two points of concern, which I'll exaggerate:
* **My students won't like me if I'm not available on their schedule.** I agree with DQdlM and Nate. Spread out your office hours to fit as many students' schedules as possible, be in your office (or "office") for every minute of office hours even if nobody shows up, and be willing to offer *occasional* off-schedule meetings. It might help to announce *in your syllabus* times that you're willing to schedule sporadic meetings. ("I'm also available for occasional meetings Tuesday or Thursday afternoons; send me email to set up an appointment!") Consider moving (not adding) your office hours if student demand doesn't match your announced schedule. But then stick to your guns. Yes, some students will be unhappy, but that's inevitable; don't take it personally. Your availability outside regular office hours will *not* be the most significant bit in your student evaluations.
* **My colleagues won't like me if they don't see me in my office.** I agree with DQdlM and Suresh here. Yes, it's important to be visible and active citizen of your department; that's not the same thing as being constantly on call. The amount of time you spend at your desk will *not* be the most significant bit in your tenure evaluation. The danger is not that nobody sees you in your office, but that nobody knows what you're doing. Give regular talks to your colleagues *and their PhD students* showing off the results of your out-of-office effort. Go to faculty meetings, and *occasionally* offer an opinion. (Careful, that gun is loaded.) Attend seminars, *especially* for faculty candidates, *and ask questions*. If there is a regular departmental social event ("Tea" in many math departments), be there. And so on.
Finally, I *strongly* encourage you to raise these concerns with your department chair or your senior faculty mentors. (You *do* have a senior faculty mentor, don't you? If not, find one!) They can help you navigate your department culture far better than Some Guy On The Intertubes.
> 15 votes
# Answer
> I find that when I'm working on research in the office, at least with the door open, I often get interrupted and am generally less productive.
You need to redefine productive. Having your door open will increase the time it takes to get a manuscript out, but that is not the only thing that defines productivity. Time spent improving your teaching evals (e.g., by meeting with students) and being visible to your colleagues IS time well spent.
> 9 votes
# Answer
You may be able to mollify your students a bit by paying attention to your wording. Saying "I can't meet with you on Tuesday because that's my day for research" makes the student feel like a low priority. Saying "I'm afraid I can't meet on Tuesday, but how about Wednesday?" helps convey that the student is important to you and you would like to meet with them when you can. I think accessibility is as much about perception as reality.
> 8 votes
# Answer
There are a few issues here: one is dealing with students, and one is general "visibility".
For the first, I can understand student unhappiness if you give them office hours but wish to meet outside the allotted time. They have constraints as well and probably don't have a lot of free time to meet with you :). Maybe, since you're concerned about distractons, you can pack all "distracting" activities into a single day and do your office hours on that day ? Alternately, do you prefer to work at home or at a cafe ? If the latter, you could always do your office hours and then disappear.
For the second, I think the issue is a little overrated. As dQdM points out, the issue is whether you're perceived as being active and a "good citizen". The former can be achieved by responding to email promptly and the latter by your usual service responsibilities.
A bit of perspective: I came to academia from a research lab. In a lab, people are usually around all the time, and I was shocked when I came to academia to see how few faculty were around in the office at any given time. So I don't think your absence might even be noticed that much :)
> 8 votes
# Answer
I think the basic guideline is the perception that you give. The actual time you spend in and out of your office is less important than whether your colleagues feel like you are an active member of the department and your students feel like you are accessible.
* For your colleagues, I would be conscious of the times and events that seem to build cohesion in your department and make sure you are present for those. This can be informal things like having lunch together. Or more formal things like departmental seminars.
* For your students, I would set consistent and clearly defined office hours and always be available during those times (even if you don't have a student scheduled). You will need to make sure that these office hours are distributed such that most of your students can utilize some of them and be prepared to be somewhat flexible for students that have consistent conflicts.
> 4 votes
# Answer
When you announce your office hours to the class at the beginning of the term display a chart that includes all reasonable hours but no marks. Point to a particular time and ask, "If I choose this hour how many people will not be able to come to this office hour?" If lots of students raise their hands, say "That's not one of my office hours." If a lot of students indicate they can go mark it as an office hour. Repeat this process, perhaps rearranging previously chosen hours until every student can go to at least one office hour. If you are also available by appointment at other times It should solve a lot of problems. Also at the beginning of the the first day of class you will create a favorable impression. Before you do this you should have a very good idea of time when you do not want office hours.
> 0 votes
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Tags: research-process, professorship
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thread-2040 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2040 | If someone provided you with data does he become a co-author? | 2012-06-17T01:16:28.120 | # Question
Title: If someone provided you with data does he become a co-author?
Say I'm doing some work which is closely related to someone's else's work. I want to study the same data that he studied. I know him well, and producing the data is no big deal but is time consuming, so I ask him to provide me with the data he had produced. If he agreed. Should I include him as a co-author?
# Answer
The issue of whether or not merely providing data for a project constitutes "authorship" is a thorny one. Many medical journals, for example, are asserting that merely having generated data is not grounds for authorship all on its own.
So if he's just providing you with a data file, and that's the last you'll hear from him? In my mind, that lands you in the acknowledgements section of a paper.
On the other hand, if he's going back and forth retrieving data as you refine your question, providing advice on how it came about, what it means, etc. and may end up reviewing the draft of the paper, etc.? I'd make him an author. Essentially, I would extend him the *chance* to take up the slightly more burdensome mantle of authorship, and let him turn it down.
> 17 votes
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Tags: authorship
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thread-2032 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2032 | Is MSc the way to go? | 2012-06-16T01:58:21.790 | # Question
Title: Is MSc the way to go?
I've been a software developer for about three years now (making custom ERP software), I love programming and also other areas in CS like AI, but I really don't like the fact that you have to learn a lot of business related topics (accounting, finance, so on) and also having to deal with end-users and managers.
I've been thinking about starting an MSc degree in computer science and turning my career more onto academia. I think it's best to do a MSc and not directly a PhD because I feel that I can go back to industry if I don't like academia.
Is the move to academia over industry the way to go or I'll face similar problems there?
Here is some more data: I am still somewhat young (28 yrs) and with a B.Sc Degree in Information Systems with 4.1 out of 5 GPA from a small college.
# Answer
> 6 votes
Many M.Sc degrees in the US are not research oriented (try Canada, they seem to be more common here), and you should be wary of this. If you want to gain experience in research to see "if it is for you" then you need to find a thesis bases Masters, and not a course based one. A good sanity check to see if your potential Masters program will involve real research is to see who is paying who. If you are paying them, then this is not where you want to be. If they are paying you, then it is much more likely that you are in a research based masters.
In general, a Master's degree is a good way to test the waters. It is also a good way to shore up on any knowledge you might lack after being out of university for 7 years, and make sure you have all the necessary foundations (sometimes Information Systems degrees don't teach these). If you change schools between your M.Sc and Ph.D it also offers you a chance to work with more people and if you don't change schools you can often fast-track before graduationg as if you had been in a Ph.D program all along.
However, getting an M.Sc degree does have potential downsides:
1. it can take longer to finish the whole process (B.Sc + M.Sc + Ph.D tends to be longer than just B.Sc + Ph.D)
2. Ph.D programs tend to have more stringent requirements for applicants that already have a Masters degree.
3. Some funding opportunities (such as NSF) might end up unachievable.
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Tags: graduate-school, masters
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thread-863 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/863 | Question regarding how to slow down and enjoy academic life | 2012-03-24T01:10:57.393 | # Question
Title: Question regarding how to slow down and enjoy academic life
I am currently an undergraduate student taking an Honours Pure Mathematics degree with an additional major in Astrophysics and I plan to go to a good graduate school (as good as I can get into) for Pure Mathematics to research either Geometric Topology or Convex Geometry.
I know that academia is a cut-throat world where only "the best" end up on top and the ability to get a professorship is becoming harder and harder as time goes on. I enjoy Pure Mathematics and Theoretical Physics and would not want to do anything else with my life just because I could not do anything else since I find them too damn interesting. What I do not enjoy is the grade-driven-here-is-the-next-thing-for-the-exam learning that doesn't give anyone the big picture. I have been working non-stop to make sure I perform in my courses, undergraduate research, etc. and I am just wondering if there is any way to learn about these topics at a slower pace or just have more time to think about the topics eventually. I understand I will have to at least get through graduate school and get a PhD (otherwise there would be a chance I'd turn out as a crackpot), but I'm just really tired of having so much information crammed into me without having the time to think about what I am learning. I want to do my own additional research on topics I see connections between, and think more about the big picture of how the different fields of Pure Mathematics and Theoretical Physics are related. There are so many unfinished papers that I have started throughout my undergraduate on embeddings of low-dimensional manifolds, determining knot invariants by unique methods, etc. but I just have no time to think about what I want to think about when there's that Real Analysis assignment due the day after my midterm in E&M which I had to stay up all night studying for because I had three quizzes the previous week in blah blah blah blah... for years on end.
Essentially, my question is this: **Is there any other way that someone (after getting a PhD or a few post-docs) can do research at their own pace and just completely go after their interests without having to justify what they are doing to funding agencies, being swamped with administrative work (such as marking exams and writing grants), etc.?**
I know that is asking a lot out for a life style, but I would even be interested in leaving academia altogether to just do my own independent study somewhere and travel around to different universities to collaborate whenever I have new findings or need some new inspiration or ideas. Are there any easy part-time jobs one could do to support such a lifestyle? Julian Barbour would be someone who I look up to in that respect, I believe he did this exact thing by making a living translating Russian academic papers into English.
Any comments, helpful suggestions, about how it would be possible to live an non-traditional academic lifestyle where people still take you to be credible and you can publish your work in journals. I just want to avoid working working working my entire life without a chance to reflect and then just die.
# Answer
It may not be necessary to wait until you've reached the end stages of your career to have time to explore your research.
If you are able to get fellowships to fund your graduate career—or to find a suitably understanding advisor—then it may be possible to "slow down" your graduate career. In such a case, you'd be able to handle things at your own pace (within reason). That's how I managed to take my time doing my Ph.D., and it allowed me to work on problems I was interested in, rather than other problems.
Similar funding does exist at the professional level, such as "named" fellowships at the US Department of Energy (DOE) laboratories, and through grants like the MacArthur Fellowship (also known as the "genius grant"). It is certainly not easy and straightforward to do, but it could be a way to get the freedom to work without additional responsibilities.
Outside of academia, I don't think the situation improves much. For instance, at the DOE laboratories, you're only able to pursue your own research if you're able to secure your own funding to do so (or have moved so far up the chain that you are a laboratory "fellow," and can do what you want). Similarly, in industrial research institutes, I suspect similar issues apply (you might not have to worry about writing grants the same way you do in academia, but you'll still be expected to "justify your existence" on a fairly regular basis.
> 10 votes
# Answer
Some of the slower pace and autonomy that you're looking for may be available to you once you finish your classes and pass your prelim (or qualifying exam; the name may vary, but most PhD programs have some sort of exam, after which you are "all but dissertation"). This is an important aspect to consider when choosing your PhD adviser.
My adviser allowed me quite a bit of freedom to work on problems that I picked. As a result, grad school took me a little longer, but I think I was better prepared for life afterward, when I did not work closely with a supervisor. Through high school, undergrad, and the start of grad school I had a "get through fast" mentality. Once I got a few years into grad school, I changed my view more to "take time to learn the stuff you want to learn". If you do stay in academia, the clock really starts when you finish your PhD.
> 7 votes
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Tags: research-process, career-path
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thread-1449 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1449 | How do professors usually discover "new" research interests? | 2012-05-07T03:36:05.377 | # Question
Title: How do professors usually discover "new" research interests?
Usually, a person starts out with a single primary research interest as a PhD student (closely related to that of their adviser). But then as they move on through the assistant professor stage, they discover new research interests. Do they usually discover new research interests through collaborations/discussions with professors at their university or through conferences? Or do they discover new research interests through what can earn them funding (through the NSF and other agencies?) Especially since *any* topic could theoretically be interesting to them? (even though they might find some topics more interesting than other topics).
Is it more often that they do what they're most interested in, or that they do what they obtain funding for (and find what they get funding for interesting enough)? And can they sometimes even discover new interests through their PhD students?
# Answer
Here are a couple ways that have resulted in new research directions for me:
* **Reading a paper/book.** Reading a paper/book can inspire new ideas. You may find that a paper is missing something, or you think of a way of doing it better, or perhaps you can combine the ideas in the paper with something you already know.
* **Obtaining funding.** Often funding is obtained in groups, generally to inspire collaboration and cross-fertilization of ideas. As a result, one is *forced* to venture into new territory.
* **Talking to a colleague (generally from other institute)**. Simply chatting with someone at a conference or when visiting another institute can inspire new research directions. They may have a problem; you may have the tools to solve it.
* **Changing job**. This brings you in contact with new people who have new problems. Collaborations my result from conversations in the coffee room, or by going to research discussions within the new department.
* **Following up on something a student has done**. You may set a masters student, for example, to look at something you find interesting, but have not yet had time to explore in depth. The student may come up with something useful, but then leaves.
> 20 votes
# Answer
Some points (I'm no Prof., but which research topics might "pay out" (wether citations, patents, fame) is imo rather a matter of common scientific sense):
* It may be cheap/easy/time-efficient based on the current lab hardware and expertise/knowledge of the group to "dive" into a additional topic. So I would call this economical reasoning to exploit new research opportunities similar to funding reasons.
* Publish or perish. Which research fields are trendy or will become trendy and offer high chance to publish and get citations. Visualisation tools for the publishing landscape or search engines might show you which fields are currently booming more or less. Or browse research forums like mathoverflow,citeulike,... to see what top and experienced scientist are currently interested in.
* Finding a niche, which needs of course a really good overview on and understanding of a research field. Contrary to bullet point 2, focusing on a topic/problem no one else is interested in or thinks of may give you the chance to become a trendsetter, find a new effect/phenomenon and may earn you a lot "automatic" citations.
* simply working off the list of unsolved problems :) (Wikipedia knows also, what we don't know!), http://www.openproblems.net/, science's magazine 125 big questions
> 5 votes
# Answer
As much as possible, I'd encourage you to pick research topics because they really interest you, rather than because you think you can get funding for them. It's so much easier to bring passion and energy to your research when you love it (rather than when you've chosen it to get funding). That said here are a few more ways to develop new research interests.
* **Hear a talk** at a conference.
* Write a paper with a **colleague who knows a different area than you**.
* Chase **references for a paper you are reading or writing**. I often learn quite a bit the first time that I write the introduction of a paper in an area that's new to me.
> 5 votes
# Answer
Dave Clarke's answer is excellent, and just to add a few more:
* **Changing funding opportunities**. The unfortunate reality is that grants are often hard to come by, and it's not unusual for professors to tailor specific grant applications to the nature of the grants being offered. Depending on how unpopular the professor's previous research interests are at the time, this may result in a shift in research topics.
* **Single topic diverges into multiple topics**. To describe this via example, at one time our lab was working on a neural imaging project related to human decision making. This research led to investigating decision-making on a larger scale, as we tried to create computational models. This led to a few papers detailing the applications of ontologies to behavioral and cognitive neuroscience. Simply by following the various aspects of the project we were able to investigate a wide range of topics.
> 4 votes
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Tags: research-process, professorship, career-path
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thread-1743 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1743 | What can I do as a graduate student to maximize my chances of obtaining a professorship? | 2012-05-27T15:28:04.867 | # Question
Title: What can I do as a graduate student to maximize my chances of obtaining a professorship?
I've already completed my first grueling year of the PhD program, and graduation is still a yet to be seen light at the end of the tunnel. I'm very sure that academia is for me, and I really want to obtain a tenure-track position in my field (computational science). I know that universities often look very highly upon doing a post-doc and accumulating plenty of journal publications. Of course, open faculty positions are extremely competitive and I'm sure that everyone applying for them have those qualifications already. I'm curious if there is anything else I do as a graduate student to help maximize my chances of getting a Tenure-Track Faculty position in the future?
# Answer
I don't think there's anything "special" that's unique to applying to academia that a graduate student can do to increase the odds of becoming a professor in the long run, particularly if one is going to do a postdoc later on.
The two areas that *might* help are:
1. Gain teaching experience that goes beyond the standard "recitation section" leader—that is, into actual lecturing and other forms of direct interaction with students, as well as formulation of assignments and examinations. This might make a difference at schools which are more teaching-oriented rather than research-oriented.
2. Formulate a well-defined scope for your future research activities, and also develop the tentative outlines for the first few projects that you'd start in that field. This is an essential part of any professorial application, and the sooner you start working on it, the more polished it will be when you're ready to apply for positions when the time comes.
Beyond that, what makes someone a good candidate for a postdoc are essentially the same qualities that will help in being a good candidate for a professorship later on.
> 15 votes
# Answer
I think the single thing that most helped me get a tenure-track job was that during my postdoc I **gave lots of talks** at conferences and in seminars at other schools (something like 30 talks in 2 years, including those I gave at my postdoc institution). First, this helped a lot with networking. Second, and perhaps more important, all this experience gave me a ton of confidence in my ability to give good talks. That confidence spilled over into the rest of my interviews, which was generally a very good thing. I didn't really start giving many talks until during my postdoc, but in retrospect, I wish I'd given many more in grad school.
All grad students know that if you want a job in academia you should publish lots of good papers. But many of them don't grasp the value of learning to communicate clearly and to publicize their work. During my postdoc, I set aside 2 or 3 weeks to learn how to draw good pictures to go into my talks, and I think that skill has really improved their subsequent quality. Personally, I do everything using beamer and tikz (presentation packages for latex). However, your specific tool is not so important. Ask around and find a tool that is widely used and supported by folks in your research area, then invest the time to learn to use it well.
The second really important thing you can do is **network**. When I was in grad school, I had no concept of how important networking is for a career in academia (in fact, almost any job). Many of my papers have grown out of conversations that started at a conference. Once people know you, they invite you to speak (at their school or at a conference session they're organizing). As you get to know more of the key researchers in your area, you find it easier to keep up with important new developments (which better inform your research, etc.).
> 15 votes
# Answer
1. Do awesome research.
2. Publish it.
3. Get famous people to rave about it.
Everything else is noise.
> 12 votes
# Answer
I'm in your field, and I'm a bit later in the game than you are, as I completed my PhD in 2010. Here's some advice, in increasing order of importance.
A very good way to get a feel for what it takes to land faculty positions is to take a look at the departments you would like to work at in the future and scope out the Assistant Professors. Many of them will have their CVs and Teaching and Research Statements updated to when they applied for the position.
You will need to cultivate several strong letters of reference, hopefully by working with some of the bigger names in your field.
Try to go to a few job talks, as this will also give you a sense of what a strong research agenda looks like, both in terms of accomplished work and future directions.
You will need some teaching experience, but being a great classroom teacher will not get you a job if your research portfolio is weak unless you are going to a school that focuses on undergraduate education.
Computational Science is a bit of a funny field, as we live at the intersection of several very different fields: physics, mathematics, computer science, and usually some scientific application. These fields all have their own rules for hiring and promotion, and this is important to understand, because you will almost certainly land in a department that is *not* titled Computational Science.
You need to **statistically** look good, because the members of the hiring committee will have almost no other grounds for justification besides what is written in your hiring application. This means you will absolutely need a good number of high-quality journal publications, preferably at least 5, when you apply for a faculty position. Conference papers only count for a Computer Science department, and you may need twice as many to be considered in that direction.
> 5 votes
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Tags: graduate-school, career-path, tenure-track, preparation
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thread-2057 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2057 | What references must be acknowledged in a paper? | 2012-06-18T19:36:36.887 | # Question
Title: What references must be acknowledged in a paper?
This question came up from a discussion on meta.MSE.
My question is:
> Do we need to search MSE (or blogs, math forums, ...) to make sure someone hasn't already proven a result when writing a paper?
>
> What if we are already aware of a them (so no need for searching)?
>
> Is not citing such a post in these two cases considered plagiarism?
As I understand, the common practice is to check standard reviewed reputable publication venues (journals, conferences, maybe arXiv) and also with experts in the area to make sure a result is not already published nor a well-known folklore result. No one is going to search all over the internet and check every post that Google returns and citing other resources is very uncommon. I think checking MatheOverflow can be considered similar to the later (checking with experts) (also see this discussion on MO but that doesn't seem to apply to a site like MSE. I am not going to cite a discussion with some random person on the street (not a professional mathematician) who claimed to have a solution or an idea for a solution for a problem (which is not passed peer-review process and I might not want even want to spend time understanding or checking the correctness of the solution).
> What are the accepted practice for checking originality of a result?
>
> What is expected from authors regarding this before making a paper submission?
---
Some clarification since there seems to be a misinterpretation of the question about being academic honesty. The question is **not** about posts that
* you are aware of,
* contain a complete rigorousness solution (not just ideas), and
* you are confident the solution is correct.
# Answer
As best I understand it, the clarified question is this: if you are writing a paper and find a posting on the internet that contains ideas on your problem (which may or may not be correct, may be difficult to understand, and in any case do not seem to constitute a complete solution), then should you cite it? Let's assume you are making no use of the ideas, since if you are then you obviously need to cite the posting (regardless of whether you developed the ideas independently).
In general, you must cite it anyway. Of course, there are exceptions. If it's obviously crackpot work, then you are free to dismiss it as worthless. (Andrew Wiles didn't need to cite thousands of crackpot "proofs" of Fermat's Last Theorem.) If it's really only tangentially related to the problem you are working on, then it may not be relevant enough to cite. However, it absolutely *does not matter at all* whether the work is peer reviewed or formally published, who wrote it or what their credentials are, whether it is complete, how easy it is to find, or whether it is difficult to understand.
You don't have to endorse it, and citing a paper does not in any way indicate that you feel it is correct. If you rely on the paper, then that's an endorsement, but mentioning it is not. For example, you could write "Several authors have studied this problem, including..." and give citations to them. Then readers can decide for themselves what to make of these contributions. They will understand from the form of your citation that you feel these works are closely enough related to be worth citing, but not important enough to your paper to discuss in detail. You can also say something more skeptical if warranted.
One reason you don't see these sorts of citations very often is that this situation doesn't often arise. (I've never seen a post on mathoverflow or math.stackexchange that I felt I should cite in one of my papers.) And even when it does arise, the citation may be as a personal communication rather than giving a URL. (It's much better to give a more detailed citation, so other people can find and learn from or evaluate the posting, but I guess an uninformative citation is better than none at all.)
As for due diligence in searching for prior work, there's no simple rule. You should search everywhere you feel there might plausibly be something to find, and you should consult with experts on anything you feel unsure of. It's certainly impossible to search the entire academic literature, let alone the entire internet, so you'll be forced to make compromises compared with an ideal world. For most purposes, non-academic internet sites will not be relevant enough to be worth searching carefully, but I guess it depends on the situation.
> 13 votes
# Answer
This is a question of academic honesty and due diligence.
If you did not arrive at the result yourself, but got it from someone else (either on SE or a homeless man on the street) then it is your responsibility to not claim credit for the result. Of course, in the case of the homeless man you can get away with claiming credit, and in most cases for SE, too. However, it is simply not honest.
If you arrived at the result by yourself, then as a research you should provide due diligence and check if the result is already known. This usually consists of checking the standard sources (i.e. published papers, books) and the communities which you are a part of. "Folklore" in mathematics is vast, and MO, math.SE, and cstheory are all becoming part of it. If you are aware that others arrived at a result before you then you should mention it in your paper (either with a full citation, if applicable, or with an acknowledgement).
However, just like you are not expected to search the back-log of every journal ever published, you don't have to scour the whole internet, either. If you want precedent of this: consider all the results that were published independently in the west and the soviet union during the Cold War. It would have been unreasonable of the scholars on both sides to be fully aware of the work of the others.
> 12 votes
# Answer
I think due diligence in searching the literature includes:
* Talking to at least one expert in the field
* Looking through the bibliographies of any major papers closely related to your paper to see if any of the titles look relevant.
* Searching on google scholar or something similar for papers which cite any papers closely related to your paper.
* Searching on google for some of the key terms in your paper.
The last of these would pick up math.SE, but also often picks up lecture notes, slides, wikis, and other things which would not come up through more traditional academic sources. If you find something clearly relevant then you should cite it. Furthermore, you should do these things before getting too far into a project.
That said, no matter how much due diligence you do, you're going to miss stuff sometimes. 5 years after my first paper was published, it was pointed out to me that Osterle gave the same argument in Seminaire Bourbaki (1987/8:165–186). More recently, one of the 3 main results in this paper follows from a 15 year old result of Popa. Searching what's known is incredibly hard even if you try your best. But that's no reason not to try your best.
> 5 votes
# Answer
In my experience I think the accepted practice is searching the peer-reviewed literature in your field. I'm not saying results published on websites/MSE, etc. aren't valid, they just aren't part of the expected search. Anyways, I don't think peer-reviewed journals would react well to web citations.
> 1 votes
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Tags: publications, authorship, plagiarism
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thread-2063 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2063 | How to balance learning and solving assignments during coursework | 2012-06-19T05:31:40.203 | # Question
Title: How to balance learning and solving assignments during coursework
I have a bad habit of trying to objectively measure myself and my understanding. One of the ways I do this is by saying to myself "I only understand X after I have read the entire chapter in this book on X" or "I can start doing a problem on X after I have read all about X." I do this because it generally guarantees that I haven't missed something important; that I'm not stuck on something that's obvious to everybody else. It's also something external that I can point to to justify my ignorance. Like, if I didn't know something, I could say "Well if that's important, then why didn't this author mention it in this entire chapter?"
A lot of my peers don't do this. I think most of them pick up just enough from lecture to do the assignments. I'm really starting to wish I was like that because this way of learning is seriously failing. It's starting to take a tremendous amount of time and I'm under time constraints. But it bothers the hell out of me if I can't first get all the facts down.
And actually I did this last semester with one class because it was simply unfeasible to follow along with the book. When I look back I feel somewhat bad about it because the subject truly interested me.
* So how should I balance **learning** and **solving assignments** during coursework? On one hand, I spend a lot of time with the books as there's a lot of stuff to learn and it helps to know all the facts and the motivation behind the ideas, as they can be enlightening. On the other hand, it leaves no time and my performance in school could be better if I focused more time on doing the assignments.
# Answer
You may be interested to know that this problem doesn't go away when you finish classes. It's easy to struggle with the same question when you're doing research. Simply put, **you don't have time to learn everything**. You need to estimate how important a topic will be to your future studies (and future research).
Similar to what you're describing, I feel a sense of security when I can reproduce the details of all the relevant proofs. However, taking this approach to everything I learn is simply infeasible. Perhaps you can take comfort in telling yourself that for the stuff that is most important, you'll reread it later and learn it in more detail. The difficulty is that right now you most likely can't really tell which material will be most important (to you).
As I continue to listen to talks and read more papers (or take more classes, at an earlier stage of my career), I watch for which ideas keep coming up. When I hear about a topic repeatedly, I often become convinced that it's really worth learning in depth. In the time between first seeing a topic and finally sitting down to really understand it, I'm also likely to learn about many connections to other areas, which give me more motivation. In addition, I often grow in intellectual maturity, which makes it much easier to grasp ideas that were quite challenging the first time around.
> 9 votes
# Answer
I'm not sure whether this is on topic, but I'll answer anyway.
It looks like you have time management problems. Sure, it is interesting to learn as much as possible about a topic and study it deeply, but ultimately, you have assignments and exams to complete. To a large degree you should be optimizing your time usage to do as well as possible in these.
One way to determine whether you have learned enough is to attempt a lot of exercises. See how far you get with them. If you cannot do them, then this helps identify holes in your knowledge. Read about that particular topic. If there are things you don't understand while learning about the topic, work backwards and try to fill in those gaps.
> 4 votes
# Answer
This is what I found worked for me throughout my undergrad career and continues to work in my graduate career:
1. Read the chapter focusing on the main ideas (not the details) before lecture.
2. Take great notes in lecture.
3. After lecture is done on a chapter, go back and re-read in more detail and make an outline combining the information in the book with what was presented in lecture.
4. Do all the assigned homework problems, going back to your outline as necessary.
5. If you have time, do the rest of the problems.
> 1 votes
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Tags: coursework, reading
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thread-2074 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2074 | Is work experience necessary for tenure-track positions? | 2012-06-20T08:03:43.453 | # Question
Title: Is work experience necessary for tenure-track positions?
In India, a minimum of 3 years of work experience is necessary to be appointed as an assistant professor in any of the IITs. (Years during the PhD or master's are not counted, but any year spent outside university after bachelor's will count.)
Is such a work experience a necessity even in US universities? If yes, how much will this weigh towards selection? If the candidate has only a post-bachelor's experience, what should be highlighted from that so as to enhance this application?
# Answer
> 6 votes
There are no universal rules regarding employment status and being hired at US universities. In some fields, such as engineering, graduate students may be hired before they have completed *any* post-graduate professional experience. In contrast, in departments such as physics, it may be required to complete several post-doctoral appointments before being considered for faculty positions.
There are some general guidelines, however:
* In less "applied" STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields, more time is generally required in academic positions before earning a full-time faculty position.
* In more "applied" fields, the time spent is reduced. Unfortunately, in some cases, although industrial experience is often seen as a good thing, it also has a tendency to make it difficult to jump back into a research field—unless one has been employed in an industrial research capacity.
* In humanities fields, it's very difficult of to be able to continue to a faculty position after leaving academia.
# Answer
> 1 votes
I doubt the minimum is rigid and there is a room for lot of considerations. I'd like to point you to a specific example (IISc). Although the points are opinions of a single person, my conversations with people at IISc have yielded similar opinions.
Prof. Giridhar Madras(Did his PhD from TAMU in \<3 years!) has an excellent blog dedicated to IISc/IITs and some excellent articles for prospective faculty.
He points to one page that he authored about recruitments in IISc from which I'd like to quote a few points:
* Technically, there is no age bar and no limit to the experience a candidate may have, but with increasing years of experience, candidates must be considered for correspondingly higher appointments. Though IISc has recruited faculty from 27 to 37 years old at the assistant professor level, the median age of recruitment would be around 30.
* Begin making your enquiries at least one year before you actually want to move. The time taken to acknowledge an application vary from department to department, depending on the chairperson. If this happens, find someone you may know in the department and request them to check with the chairperson of the department. After an application is acknowledged, try to arrange an informal visit with a seminar. You can indicate that you are planning a trip to India in the month of X and would be happy to give a talk/seminar at that time. In your conversation with the chairperson, state the time frame you want to join the institute. Normally, chairpersons will arrange your talk. Besides the talk, a visit with all faculty will also be arranged. Talk to all faculty and make your research sound interesting to them. Talk about your doctoral and postdoctoral research, your future plans and how you plan to distinguish yourself from your advisors. If possible, explain why you think you will fit into the department. Also, there is nothing wrong in stating that you have applied to more than one place and your preferences depending on the offers.
* The suggested timeline is as follows: Apply to several institutes at month X. Follow up and try to get an acknowledgment by month X+1 or X+2. Then, send an email saying that you are visiting India in X+3 month and would like to give a seminar. Try to schedule as many seminars in many institutes in that month. After the seminar, inform them you are willing to return around X+6 months, which will require them to make a quick decision. You can return after X+12 months because the institutes will give you time to join. Please note that each department in IIT/IISc receives at least around 30 to 40 applications per position. Simply applying by email and expecting a detailed response is foolhardy. Unless the applicant shows repeated interest (followed by a visit to give a seminar), it is unlikely that the application will be considered seriously.
The Civil dept at IISc has an informal FAQ for it's recruitments.
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Tags: professorship, university, career-path
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thread-2080 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2080 | How important is number of publications and prestige of the publication outlets for getting a tenure-track job? | 2012-06-20T21:03:51.033 | # Question
Title: How important is number of publications and prestige of the publication outlets for getting a tenure-track job?
More generally, what are the most important factors for getting a tenure-track job?
# Answer
> 5 votes
This anecdote suggests that number of publications and prestige of corresponding journals/conferences is not as important as people usually think:
> Summary data of the short list from a past search for an assistant professor in Psychology at the University of Virginia. For this particular search, more than 100 applications were received. The Table presents the 11 applicants that made it to the short-list. All short-list candidates had at least 4 publications and at least 1 first- authored publication. Based on publication numbers, there are clear stand-outs from this group such as the postdoc with 35 publications, an assistant professor with 21 publications, and a graduate student with 10 publications. Further, these candidates published in prestigious outlets. However, none of these three were selected as a finalist. In fact, two of the three interviewed candidates were among the least productive on the short-list. This anecdote suggests that some degree of publishing productivity is essential to get into the pool of competitive candidates but, after that, other factors are more important for getting the job. http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.4251
The cynical interpretation of this anecdote is that the only thing that matters is whether A) you know someone and B) the committee happens to like your research topic. However in my experience what's more important is C) how high-quality the committee judges your research, together with it being on a *promising* topic. "Promising" is of course very subjective, and usually has something to do both with the topic being good science and its ability to get grants and yield interdisciplinary collaborations with others, including others in the department.
Unfortunately, people do get really downweighted for being in an area that doesn't mesh with the department or meet its needs. And those needs often aren't clear from the job ad.
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Tags: career-path, tenure-track
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thread-2082 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2082 | What to do if undergraduate research has stalled for a long time? | 2012-06-21T04:42:42.307 | # Question
Title: What to do if undergraduate research has stalled for a long time?
So I'm pretty much working on my own project with guidance from two supervisors. Since it's my own project (and it's exploratory research), the two supervisors don't need to pressure me to get results. So - I got into a lot of dead ends in my current undergrad research project, and while I've definitely learned *a lot* in my current research, I highly doubt it can lead to a publication by now, especially since my supervisors are unfamiliar with the technical details of my model, and the objective of the research is such that there aren't many people in the nation I can contact who are familiar with what my supervisors want to do. I've already contacted a number of people who might be familiar with it, but most of my emails have gone without reply.
At this point, I only have a month left before I leave for graduate school, and I'm not sure how I should conclude my research with my supervisors. I've already written up a report (which could perhaps be analogized to a senior thesis, and which could be helpful for the future) - I've shown the report to one of my supervisors. At this point, what should I do? Should I show them what I've done? Should I feel guilty? I've actually been out of contact with one of my supervisors for several months.
# Answer
You say you have learnt a lot, so you need not feel guilty. You do not think your work is publication-worthy yourself, and you also are leaving for grad school - so the only solution is to move on.
Make a neat report explaining your work. Even if it is not publishable, you could include it in your resume as a "**technical report**." From the tone of your question, this seems to be the only way out.
> 18 votes
# Answer
One potential idea is to submit the work and get your degree and head off to grad school. Keep the work that you have done in a bottom drawer for a few months or a year. Then pull it out again and reassess whether it is any good or not. If it is good, then polish it up and submit it somewhere. If it is not good, then you've lost nothing.
It's not uncommon to do unpublishable work at the undergraduate level. Don't worry about it and don't be hard on yourself.
> 14 votes
# Answer
To me it sounds like you don't really communicate with your supervisors — that is key to research, even with an independent project. Especially with undergrad research, your supervisor is there to help guide you on your project. With graduate school so close, make sure you conclude with a good meeting with your supervisors.
Also, take this as a learning experience for two things: 1. Research doesn't always work...in fact, it fails more often than it works. If the answers were apparent and easy, it wouldn't be research. 2. Communication with your supervisor/advisor is KEY!
> 4 votes
# Answer
Find a different supervisor. Maybe a very bored grad student. If that doesn't work work on a different aspect of the project until you hit another deadend.
However, it sounds like you've tried both so there is always finding a new supervisor and a new project when you do finally go to grad school.
> 2 votes
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Tags: research-undergraduate
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thread-1999 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1999 | How does a faculty member get to work at two universities or more? | 2012-06-13T08:39:48.410 | # Question
Title: How does a faculty member get to work at two universities or more?
This question is a follow-up on a comment at a recent question, where Dave Clarke mentioned that an acquaintance of his has "3 professorships and 2 doctorates."
* How does a faculty member get appointed simultaneously by two or more universities? Are all except one honorary posts?
* Can any faculty member work with a second university with the consent of their present employer? What are the conflicts of interests that come into play usually?
# Answer
The situation I've seen most often is that a professor will hold a primary appointment at school A, where they have a lab and complete their research. Often for reasons related to collaboration, school B will then give the professor an appointment in a related if not identical department. If the professor also teaches a few courses at school C, they will likely be granted an adjunct position there as well.
This was my setup when I was in graduate school; I was a grad student in bioengineering at U Pitt, and I had a secondary appointment at CMU due to both lab collaborations and my being registered in a certificate program there.
> 12 votes
# Answer
Another common scenario happens when a professor leaves university X for university Y, but still has grants and PhD students at university X. In that situation, it's fairly common for university X to keep the faculty member on the books without pay, possibly with the word "adjunct" added to their title, so that the students and the grants that pay them don't have to move from X to Y. (And to simplify the paperwork if the professor changes their mind and moves back to X.)
> 12 votes
# Answer
Here in the Netherlands it is relatively common to appoint somebody as a professor for one day a week. For instance, one of the colleagues is 4 days a week at our university and 1 day a week at a different university. Another colleague is 4 days a week working for a company, and works at the university only on Mondays.
> 9 votes
# Answer
A common scenario I've observed is where University A offers a job to a professor at University B, a far less prestigious and well-connected institution, but the professor and his/her family wish to remain in the location of University B for personal reasons. If the professor is good enough, University A may agree to a half-time or similar arrangement, where the professor is only on-campus for one semester per year (usually 4 months).
> 7 votes
# Answer
In addition to the excellent answers given above, here are some reasons I've seen for professors to get an appointment at a different university (or to retain an appointment when they moved):
* They're a major part of a center at University A, and University A really doesn't want 'Co-Director of the A Center for Really Important Research' to be listed as a faculty member elsewhere.
* Weird university tradition. For example, my university automatically gives all outside readers on a dissertation committee an appointment at the school. It's utterly meaningless, but technically its a thing.
* Collaboration, grants, etc. are sometimes easier if everyone is technically faculty at the same school, and schools will sometimes bring in a professor from another nearby university to "shore up" a program, allow for easier mentorship if a professor keeps appearing on grad student committees, etc.
> 5 votes
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Tags: university, professorship, joint-appointment
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thread-2092 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2092 | When does one go for an invited paper? | 2012-06-21T17:36:29.097 | # Question
Title: When does one go for an invited paper?
I have little understanding about invited papers, but as far as I know, I think these are non-peer-reviewed papers presented at a conference.
* Now why and when does one go for an invited paper? Is it only to advertise one's work? Is there any other merit in this?
* Also, are normal papers and invited papers the same as far as cost is concerned?
# Answer
Being invited to present a paper or give a keynote is an honour. It shows that the community recognizes your work. Of course, it is also a way to further advertise your work, or to reflect on what you have done. Generally, the audience is larger for invited speakers.
One accepts the invitation if one has time and prestige of the conference matches one's reputation. If you have a small reputation, an invited talk at a workshop is an honour. If you are super-famous, you'll tend to only accept invitations to prestigious events.
The cost may depend on how much money the conference has in its budget, which will often depend on the sponsors. Sometimes the conference will waive the registration fee, often they may provide accommodation also, and sometimes they may even cover airfare. Bigger conferences will be able to cover more of the costs. Small workshops may not be able to cover any of the costs.
> 19 votes
# Answer
In addition to Dave Clarke's answer:
* I get quite a lot of "invitations" from scam journals, which I ignore.
* Most of the conferences I attend now publish their "proceedings" as a special issue of one of the relevant journals, and they undergo the usual peer-review. I'd expect that this is true too for the proceedings paper belonging to an invited talk.
However, many of the invited lectures are actually more lecturing(\*) than presenting the very newest work. So the work presented there usually is already published.
(\*) I like it if invited and keynote lectures are actually teaching. It's like an oral review paper, and I think it is a good idea to have an overview and common starting level for hearing the more specialized talks that follow.
> 15 votes
# Answer
You asked whether there is any merit to presenting an invited paper other than advertising your work. **Yes.** What you really want, more than people getting excited about a particular paper you write, is for them to **get excited about you**. You want to be viewed as a valuable member of your community, whatever community you choose that to be.
So partly your talk is an advertisement for your work, but more than that, your talk is an advertisement for you, the helpful guy or gal that you are. It increases your visibility, but it's your job to follow up on the opportunities this visibility creates for you. Talk with people. Listen. Really listen to what they're saying (and don't just wait for your turn to talk again). Remember names. Start building your network. Sometimes the most useful thing you'll do at a conference is to grab a beer with new friends, after the talks finish for the day. One key to building a successful network is really trying to help your contacts as much as trying to help yourself. (If you have more questions on networking, I'll be happy to share my thoughts, but I'll stop now for fear of drifting too far off topic.)
> 4 votes
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Tags: publications, conference
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thread-2106 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2106 | Incompatibility with the PhD advisor | 2012-06-22T18:06:04.900 | # Question
Title: Incompatibility with the PhD advisor
My PhD advisor liked me during the exams. Then, when I came with the thesis I wrote, he got very angry, maybe because I did not do what he suggested, maybe because what I did is not quite in his domain. The tension between us did not diminish with time, because I like my thesis and don't want to throw it away and start over. I proposed him that I move to another advisor, and he agreed, maybe relieved. But if I will ask another professor to be my advisor, this will raise suspicions on the reason I move. I don't want to make the current advisor look bad, and certainly I don't want to look bad (this is more likely to happen, because he is very respected), so I am in a delicate position. Possible issues which may trigger suspicions about my thesis (and maybe they are the reason my advisor got angry in the first place):
1. the main claim is considered a lost cause,
2. my solution is developed in a large number of steps which are difficult to understand.
Could you please suggest how should I approach the problem of finding and asking another professor to be my advisor?
# Answer
> 11 votes
Students change advisors all the time for all sorts of reasons. While it is important that advisors and advisees have to recognize that they are supposed to work on improving their relationships and fight through tension, sometimes it just doesn't work out or will not work out in the long term. I've changed advisors and during that process, I found several other students who have gone through the same experience.
It is important to recognize that this does happen for better or for worse and it is important for you to do what is necessary to do what is best for you. Despite what you would think, people (even academics) don't really put much weight on seeing someone change careers or direction so you shouldn't worry about such things being regarded as suspicious.
The first step would be to find a set of people that you can rely on for rational advice since this will likely be an emotional transition. Parents and close friends come to mind but also finding an older student, administrative staff, and understanding professors will be key. In my case, my co-advisor and one of my committee members were resources in addition to several senior graduate students who had changed advisors.
The second would be to start to find a new advisor. If you get along with your current advisor, he would make good suggestions, if you're switching behind his back, probably not so much. As you a mid-PhD student, you now have a much better understanding of what type of advisor/mentee relationship you want and you can narrow down advisors based on that reputation. During my search, I got in touch with senior students first asking them able advising styles (and availability of funding). Only after that initial conversation did I meet with the advisor themselves. Despite what you would think, advisors actually like picking up/stealing veteran graduate students from other advisors due to the expertise that they may add to the discussion.
Finally is the administrative side. You chair will have to know about this and your committee will likely be restructured. People don't have to know the reason why you've changed (my current advisor still doesn't know). If possible, try not to burn any bridges since you will likely need his (his/her for other people reading this) signature at somepoint on your thesis. Try to keep things professional since this really is a career based move rather than something personal although it really is.
The best news is that everyone I've known who have changed advisors are/were really happy about their new sitatuion. It's just a very stressful transition but it really wasn't as stressful as I was expecting.
(edit) I've noticed this about eykanal's answer regarding the timing. Yes, it is inevitably that you will lose some time especially if you're in the thesis writing stage of your career. However, if you're an earlier student in the dissertation/research phase (I was in my 3rd year), I didn't feel like I lost much time. Most of the first years of grad school are "wasted" relearning learning and taking classes. Especially in the sciences, most of the early years is developing various soft-skills and competence which isn't lost when you change advisors/research projects. Furthermore, spending an extra year to reconfigure a PhD is probably better than falling into ABD purgatory.
# Answer
> 7 votes
There are many reasons students may switch advisors during the course of their postdoc, so I would not worry too much about the statement is says about you. Given the situation you described, you could simply state that as you progressed through your research your interests diverged, and that would be both truthful and tactful.
Regarding finding another advisor, I would try the following:
1. Talk to your department chair. He/she may be able to help you find other people in your university whose interests align with yours.
2. Talk directly with other professors. Let them know that you're interested in their research, and are interested in joining their lab.
3. Look to switch universities and start everything from scratch.
Do note that, no matter what route you choose, you will have lost a significant amount of time; your new advisor will almost certainly want you to do things you haven't yet done, and will not fully value some things you already have done.
Lastly, I would definitely recommend meeting with your advisor more frequently to avoid such situations in the future.
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Tags: graduate-school, advisor, mentoring
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thread-2099 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2099 | Is it reasonable for me to expect an official and timely response to my PhD application? | 2012-06-22T08:53:08.747 | # Question
Title: Is it reasonable for me to expect an official and timely response to my PhD application?
I recently applied for a PhD position with a major university in Europe. However, I haven't heard back from them even though the dates for the interviews have passed. This somewhat provoces me since I've put a lot of work into my application (it feels disrespectful to not get back to me) and since it makes me unsure whether I have been rejected or merely forgotten. I've already got a response (possibly automately generated) that my application was received by them.
# Answer
> 5 votes
I think it is perfectly reasonable to expect a timely response, however it seems to be the case that many graduate schools are overwhelmed with applications and underestimate the time it takes to deal with them. A slightly more cynical view would be that many graduate school admin departments are understaffed and don't have the resources to cater for expected number of applicants. In my case I submitted my application on 28 Feb and was informed that interviews would take place "during the week of the 19 March". This date came and went and I assumed I had not been successful, so I called the Faculty Graduate Office the following week and was informed that the process was taking longer than expected but I would be notified of the status in due course. On 5 April I received an email saying I had been selected for interview and "we will contact you shortly with an interview date and time". On 25 April I was given the interview date (for the middle of May).
I would recommend that you just call them and ask to know the status.
# Answer
> 7 votes
No, final decisions take a while. It is not the fault of the program, but rather an issue of funding. Programs tend to initially reject very few applicants. An applicant that seems weak on "paper" might get accepted if their proposal fits into a very narrow funding scheme that no other applicants are eligible for. There is no global rank order of the applicants, but rather the "best" applicant for each funding scheme is identified. Programs generally construct strategies which lead to the most funding. The strategy is constantly revised when the program finds out about successful/unsuccessful funding applications and whether the applicant accepts the acceptance. Basically the whole system is a nightmare for everyone.
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Tags: phd, application
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thread-2119 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2119 | On citing books as references in papers | 2012-06-23T19:05:06.740 | # Question
Title: On citing books as references in papers
> I am an undergraduate student with no experience and no guidance from any teacher whatsoever.
I have done research on Recreational Mathematics (Maths tricks). I have a lot of new tricks to introduce, in a completely new format.
But the problem is that there doesn't seems to been any research paper on this topic before, but there are many books. Can I quote books as a source of reference instead of research papers published? (I am quoting research papers related to the theorems and concepts I have used - but there is no reference to the trick on which I have worked upon.) Also the trick seems to be age-old and extremely simple, and I think that the inventor of it is not known to the world at all.
Can I cite the book? (I know that the author of the book didn't invent the concept behind the trick.)
# Answer
You *can* and you *should*.
Sure, peer-review papers are preferred over regular (not peer-reviewed books) but if the information you want to cite only is written down in a book (peer reviewed or not) rather than in a research paper, of course you should reference to the former.
Technically, you can refer to whatever you want (a painting, a tv show, a private discussion with a friend of yours or *The Journal of Ghosts and Humbug*). However, if you want to write a believable paper, you should strive towards citing as trusted and/or high quality sources as possible.
> 16 votes
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Tags: publications, citations, books
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thread-2122 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2122 | Why is Paper Publishing and getting a patent completely unrelated? | 2012-06-23T20:15:49.207 | # Question
Title: Why is Paper Publishing and getting a patent completely unrelated?
I know that not all, but many papers (that are accepted and published) are based on ideas that can be patented as well. So, why is that there is no system in which a person can apply for a Publishing a Paper and also getting the Idea patented at the same time?
Is it possible that I publish a paper, do not get it patented (going to patent it at a later point of time - because of not having sufficient money to pay for the patent application or whatever) and during that time someone else patents my work in his name? Or Someone else picks up my theory, develops it further and gets a patent? How would the situation be then? What should I do under such a situation?
# Answer
> 16 votes
> not all, but many papers (that are accepted and published) are based on ideas that can be patented as well
This is a misconception. Even in engineering, only a small minority of papers contain ideas worth patenting. The further you get from engineering, the smaller this fraction gets.
> So, why is that there is no system in which a person can apply for a publishing a paper and also getting the idea patented at the same time?
You can indeed do both things in parallel, but not via the same process. Publishing a paper is an academic process, whereas filing a patent application is a legal process, and the two things just don't overlap very much.
It's kind of like asking why you can't write your dissertation and apply for jobs via the same process. You can certainly work on both at the same time, and there is a relationship between them, but fundamentally they aren't the same thing.
> Is it possible that I publish a paper, do not get it patented and during that time someone else patents my work in his name?
No, it's not possible. Well, technically someone could try, but they would be wasting their time, since your paper would serve as "prior art" that would invalidate the patent.
> Or someone else picks up my theory, develops it further and gets a patent?
That could happen, whether or not you file for a patent. They would own the intellectual property rights to the extension of your work, but not to your work itself.
# Answer
> 13 votes
Patents are about owning and protecting an idea to make money from it in the future.
Papers are about advancing science. A paper lays claim to an idea, but anyone else is allowed to build on that idea without having to pay royalties.
# Answer
> 7 votes
To add to Dave Clarke's answer: Even in the rare cases when a publishable result is also patentable, filing for a patent is a serious amount of work. Filing a patent application costs thousands of dollars; submitting a paper is free. Filling a successful patent requires *very* specific and formal language, which is not the same as the specific and formal language used to communicate with other researchers. Why should we spend all that extra effort for so little reward?
*Or Someone else picks up my theory, develops it further and gets a patent? How would the situation be then? What should I do under such a situation?*
You should cite the patent in your tenure case as iron-clad evidence that your research has real-world impact. Congratulations!
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Tags: publications, copyright, intellectual-property, patents
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thread-2105 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2105 | How to make a concise dissertation defence in Math department | 2012-06-22T16:18:10.387 | # Question
Title: How to make a concise dissertation defence in Math department
I am a math student in the US preparing for an hour long defense of my thesis. I am assuming that the dissertation committee has already read my dissertation by the time of my defense.
* Any advice for preparing and giving the dissertation defense talk?
* What balance between presenting subtle parts of the proofs and a clear big picture of the results obtained should I aim for?
* Would it be more interesting for the committee to hear me explaining more technical parts of the proofs rather then the statements of the main theorems obtained?
# Answer
I don't think there is a meaningful answer to this question that is helpful across all US math departments and advisors. There is too much variation in what is expected. You need to find out what your committee expects.
That said, if I had to answer without knowing your department or committee, I would recommend trying to focus on the big picture but making sure that you spend most of your time explaining your contribution to that big picture. That's certainly what you'll want to do for job talks, which you're presumably also giving around now.
If the committee is concerned about your understanding of the technical parts of the proofs, they can ask you in the closed exam following the public talk.
> 7 votes
# Answer
Two general suggestions which can overrule anything else I'm going to say: Ask your advisor about the talk! Practice your presentation with your advisor, if that's alright with them.
In general, you should not give details of proofs unless pressed; even then, you should be careful. Proving real theorems in talks (even thesis defenses) is hard, time consuming, and generally of minimal benefit to the audience. You should instead try to give the general picture of what you've done.
Some other good resources for communicating math are:
http://www.ams.org/notices/200709/tx070901136p.pdf
http://www.ams.org/profession/leaders/workshops/gcoll.pdf
Neither are specifically about the thesis defense, but are general resources for math talks. I've found them both helpful at various points.
> 3 votes
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Tags: phd, presentation
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thread-2130 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2130 | Important qualities for Research Assistanship applicants | 2012-06-24T14:02:04.103 | # Question
Title: Important qualities for Research Assistanship applicants
1.What qualities do professors (assume STEM if necessary) look for in students (in their MS) when recruiting them for an RA (Research Assistantship)?
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2.Consider the follow scenario:
* Person 1 : Has excellent fundamentals, thirst for knowledge and good grasping power but no exposure to the academic research per se.
* Person 2 : Above average fundamentals (few random holes here and there. Not too minor, not too major either) and prior exposure to academic research.
Who would a professor rather pick?
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The motivation of the question is to find out how a potential grad student can prepare himself to increase the likelihood of getting an RA with a professor he/she likes.
# Answer
From your question, I'm guessing that you're coming from the American system (or similar) in which it is common for students intending to pursue the Ph.D. to start in the MS program at the same school. While they are completing MS requirements, they try to find an advisor and a research project for the Ph.D.
I think that often the advisor will expect the student to start a project and demonstrate some competence and progress while the student is still TA'ing and taking classes. That way the advisor can measure the student's capability before committing to funding. I typically give a student some material to read and ask them to implement and test some existing algorithm, in order to help the student get started and to test the student's capability for research. The most important thing is the ability to rapidly understand new ideas well enough to implement them from scratch.
Coursework is not sufficient to get you a research position, but it can certainly disqualify you. Usually prospective RAs have taken or are taking my (graduate-level) class, and I won't consider taking them on unless they get at least an A-.
> 4 votes
# Answer
There are two issues here: what do advisors want, and what can they observe? In principle, I think most would choose Person 1 over Person 2, if they knew all the facts. However, this choice will not typically arise in practice, because they won't be able to verify the "thirst for knowledge and good grasping power".
Classroom performance, no matter how excellent, is generally not sufficient for admission to a strong graduate school. The problem is that lots of students get excellent grades, and these grades are only loosely correlated with research ability. The only way to stand out is to do something that's fundamentally more impressive than doing well in courses; this could be a research project, or a substantial exposition, or coding, or any number of other things. Research has some advantages, since that's what you're aiming to do in grad school, but it's by no means necessary. However, if you don't do any research, then you'd better have some other way of demonstrating your talent.
For example, if Person 1 has done no research, but wrote a beautiful, 80-page undergraduate thesis giving an exposition of forcing and the continuum hypothesis, then that might count for more than most undergraduate research projects. On the other hand, if Person 1 can point to nothing concrete except course grades, then that will likely be a problem.
> 5 votes
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Tags: graduate-school, research-assistantship
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thread-2134 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2134 | What is the advantage of being a Math/CS double major in graduate admissions for someone who wants to work in TCS? | 2012-06-24T18:04:46.933 | # Question
Title: What is the advantage of being a Math/CS double major in graduate admissions for someone who wants to work in TCS?
Doing original research in Theoretical Computer Science requires a quite good understanding of almost all areas of Mathematics. I think double majoring in Mathematics and Computer science for someone who wants to do research in Theory is very important.(Or at least having a knowledge of Algebra, Analysis, Logic, Topology etc.)
I'm wondering how do graduate admission offices take this as an advantage?( Specifically in comparison with other good applicants which have publications or higher GPAs.)
Thanks.
# Answer
> 5 votes
I personally rate strong math skills as a major plus when it comes to looking at applicants. This is not superior to having actual research experience, but it definitely helps an application. For many areas of TCS, a strong math background can be more valuable than a strong CS background that is weak on TCS.
But students with a strong math background AND a weaker TCS background tend to need a little reprogramming when it comes to asking questions :) - they are good at answering them though.
# Answer
> 5 votes
Studying mathematics is great, and I agree that many theoretical computer science students would benefit from studying more mathematics. However, double majoring is definitely not a must, and it will help only slightly with admission. It could serve as a tie-breaker, but it is less important than getting good grades and much less important than doing research. Ultimately, a double major is worthwhile if you would enjoy it or find it useful, but the learning will have to be its own reward.
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Tags: phd, graduate-admissions, computer-science
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thread-2128 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2128 | How do grad schools design courses for potential students? | 2012-06-24T06:57:49.807 | # Question
Title: How do grad schools design courses for potential students?
For graduate schools in STEM which take students with a Bachelor's degree (BS/BE/BTech etc.) and graduate them with an MS and/or PhD, what do they assume about the student's prerequisite knowledge when designing courses, their difficulty and overall dynamics?
My question is pointed towards **knowledge** and not what is on the student's transcripts. For instance, a student might have "Linear Algebra" on his transcripts but might not *remember* Singular Value Decomposition very well.
Do they:
* assume that student knows all the courses he has taken very well and build from there? (What happens to people who had a BS in allied fields? For instance a student may have a BS in Pure Math but enrol for a MS/PhD in Computational Math with little idea about a "compiler".)
* assume he knows nothing and take him to proficiency?
* anything in between?
# Answer
> 11 votes
I agree with @aeismail's and @dmckee's answers, but let me add a different spin:
Students are admitted to strong PhD programs not on the basis of how much or what they *know*, but rather on their potential for successful research. Every program admits students from all over the world, who may or may not have undergraduate degrees in exactly the same field. Beyond a few fundamental concepts, it is not reasonable to assume that incoming graduate students have *any* specific prior knowledge.
That said, most courses for PhD students are generally taught *as if* the students have a strong undergraduate background in the same field. The definition of "strong undergraduate background" depends *strongly* on the graduate program; the expectations at the top PhD programs are generally extremely high. More importantly, **PhD students in top departments are expected to have the intellectual maturity to recognize and correct weaknesses in their background**, even if the missing material is *not* normally covered in a strong undergraduate program.
**Also:** Courses are arguably the *least* important part of any PhD program.
# Answer
> 8 votes
They are coming to *grad* school, not some hand-holding, jolly the kids along, summer program.
It is assumed that if students arrive with a deficiency they will take the necessary remedial classes (often that means getting in with the upper-division undergrads) and if you have forgotten something they will do the necessary boning up.
They will be boning up on things from time to time for the rest of their lives, after all. Might as well get in some practice in school.
# Answer
> 2 votes
In my experience it is not uncommon for first year grad classes to share a syllabus (and lectures) with an undergraduate class. The grad class often has some additional assignments (e.g., an extra or longer paper or additional problems in homework assignments).
# Answer
> 1 votes
This is a very difficult question to answer, since there are so many disciplines and so many programs at so many universities, all of which have their own rules.
But in general, the standard master's program (or coursework phase of a doctoral program) is designed to take someone who has a bachelor's degree *in the same field* and bring them up to a level of competence sufficient to pursue graduate-level research in that field. Very little allowances, if any, are made for people coming from other disciplines and programs, and they're certainly not designed for someone starting with no knowledge whatsoever.
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Tags: phd, graduate-school, coursework
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thread-2156 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2156 | What can I do to get an admit in a Neuroscience program? | 2012-06-25T00:50:55.580 | # Question
Title: What can I do to get an admit in a Neuroscience program?
About me:
1. I work full time often more than 60 hours a week but I want to go to college to be a neuroscientist.
2. I live in the US and have bachelors degree in Chemical Engineering.
3. My goal is to get a PhD in neuroscience.
4. I work in the IT department in a corporate but do mostly documentation.
My plan is to begin by doing the following -
1. Preparing for Bio, Psyc and Math GRE subject tests
2. Subscribe to Scientific Weekly and Scientific Mind to get current research news
3. Read a college level Biology textbook to get some background on Biology.
Can you please help me with the following -
1. Offer some advice if I am headed in the right direction.
2. What else will help me get into school/neuroscience research.
3. Any pointers on getting scholarship/aid.
4. Will I be able to get into a Masters program (with some pre-requisites) or do I need to start from undergrad?
# Answer
> 7 votes
I completed my PhD doing almost all my research in neuroscience, so I can give you a few tips from my personal experience.
* Neuroscience is by nature a very cross-disciplinary field. I was coming from a psychology background, and my classmates had backgrounds ranging from biology to computer science to mathematics to pre-med. You will be at a disadvantage given your relative weakness in biology, but not a very significant one. Your math skills from the bachelors in engineering will serve you well as you learn about neural and systems dynamics, and the chemistry you learned will be of immeasurable use in understanding the biochemistry of the nervous system.
Given your background, you should definitely be able to apply directly to a MS or PhD program without having to retake (too much) undergraduate coursework. Do note that you may be able to get into the program with the caveat that you will be required to take some undergraduate courses during your first year; this was a common practice in my program. Given how long it takes to complete your PhD anyway, it should not delay you much, if at all.
* Coming from an IT/engineering background, you may be interested in computational neuroscience, a subfield which attempts to understand how the brain works—both at a systems-level (i.e., whole brain) and cell-level (i.e., individual neurons)—using computational models. There are entire departments dedicated to such research; it's a fairly large field.
* Your action items listed above are all excellent ideas, and should serve you very well. The only suggestion I would add is to simply google the term "neuroscience research labs" and begin browsing around the web to see what types of research is being performed. As you search, google again using narrower terms, to see how broad each subfield is. Consider writing down some of the schools that house labs that sound interesting to you for future reference.
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Tags: undergraduate, research-undergraduate, research-assistantship
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thread-2178 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2178 | What are refereed and non-refereed journals? | 2012-06-27T09:06:05.177 | # Question
Title: What are refereed and non-refereed journals?
What does it mean by publication in refereed and non-refereed journals? Are these terms applicable to conference papers too? Is there any relationship with peer-review?
# Answer
> 8 votes
In your original question, "referred journal" is a Freudian slip, perhaps on your part.
Refereed journals/conferences are the ones where the published papers have been peer-reviewed.
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Tags: publications, journals, conference, peer-review
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thread-2139 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2139 | Site with statistics of publications/citations per country? | 2012-06-25T02:07:54.453 | # Question
Title: Site with statistics of publications/citations per country?
I'm looking for a site (other than Scimago) that presents statistics of published papers and/or citations per country. However, I need more detail than that presented in Scimago. Ideally, I would like to have a list of authors, or the list of papers per country (having all the statistics that Scimago shows is a plus).
Is there any site that provides such information?
# Answer
> 3 votes
I think what you are asking can be carried out using Web of Science. I used address == "Canada" for the past 5 years, and immediately had published records for 241, 711 articles! You can ask for a citation report, which provides the information that Scimago has at the top. I think the issue you'll face is the sheer volume of data you're asking for. Even limiting the category to "ecology" (my field) yields over 3000 articles.
Of course, this answer won't be much use if your university doesn't have access to WoS.
The other thought I had was using Harzing's Publish or Perish (http://www.harzing.com/index.htm) which uses Google Scholar data. I tried a direct google scholar search, but can't immediately see how to limit it to articles *published* by people in the country as opposed to being about the country.
I hadn't heard of Microsoft Academic Search (see comment by Gopi) - so I had a look. The short answer is yes, it will show you publications by geographic region, but you have to go in by institution. You can get a google scholar like list of papers - and export those in various formats, but I only found the export option at the level of individual author. For example, Université du Burundi has 16 publications by 5 authors, with an H-index of 4. Pretty cool map though.
# Answer
> 2 votes
Adding to Gopi's comment, here's a snapshot of Academic map at work. I could only see the cumulative publication count in every field; but from the highlight of a few Indian universities I doubt if any quality measure has been considered at all. Also it lacks the cumulative country statistic and the citation counts you ask for.
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Tags: publications, citations, website
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thread-2187 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2187 | Appropriate time for contacting professors after PhD enrolment | 2012-06-27T14:45:46.507 | # Question
Title: Appropriate time for contacting professors after PhD enrolment
Assume that one has begun a PhD program at a university which allows a student to choose an advisor after his/her first year in the program and the student has narrowed down to a couple of potential advisors and has taken at least one course with each of them.
* How early should one contact potential advisors? Just at the beginning of the program (early bird?) or after 6 months (after taking courses with each one) or right when you need to choose (don't make decisions till you have to?)?
# Answer
**As soon as is reasonable.**
Think of it this way. There are possibly other students competing to work with this advisor, and they might have funds only for one new student. There might be other considerations - maybe the advisor is going on sabbatical, or isn't taking new students, and so on.
So as soon as possible, set up a meeting with the potential advisor, indicate your potential interest (and why!), and ask them point blank if they're taking students, and how they prefer to screen students (some do it through course work, some might like to work with you on an independent study project, and so on).
Depending on what they say, you can take further followup action - maybe they want you to take their class, and maybe they have a research group that has open meetings, and so on.
Bottom line: don't wait till your year is over, because it is quite possible that someone has made a decision already.
Caveat: if this year-delay is institutionalized, it might be that all advisors wait till the end of the year to even think about new students. I suspect this is unlikely, but in any case that first meeting will help clarify it.
> 7 votes
# Answer
It is never too early to contact potential advisers. If you have your heart set on a particular individual, you may even want to initiate contact before you start (and perhaps as early as right after you have applied). Early contacts usually come from motivated students.
Waiting a while gives you the ability to get to know the adviser and helps them get to know you. This could be beneficial, but you should not wait too long. Last minute contacts suggest a variety of behaviors that are unappealing in a graduate student, like laziness, forgetfulness, lack of dedication, etc.
If the program lets graduate students choose, then the advisers are well aware of how the system works. A short email requesting more information and an in person interview would be appropriate. If you know the adviser better (you have already taken a class with this person), then an informal stop by their office would be fine, too. Most advisers expect this kind of contact in this situation. An initial contact by email does not have to be anything more than:
> Dear Professor {X}, I am (or will be soon) a graduate student in your department. I am interested in joining your research group. I have read about your work in the field of {Y} and found it interesting, and I want to learn more. Are you available to meet with me at one of the following times {suggest three specific times}? Thanks.
> 4 votes
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Tags: phd, graduate-school, advisor, etiquette
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thread-2200 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2200 | Conflict declaration in reviews | 2012-06-27T17:23:26.290 | # Question
Title: Conflict declaration in reviews
Consider the following scenario:
> A is working on a problem X and has unpublished new material. A is then asked to review a paper: upon reading the abstract, A realizes that the authors are also working on problem X and appear to have duplicated some of A's unpublished material (the results - not clear from the abstract if the approach is also duplicated).
A now has four possibilities:
* decline to review the paper, or review it
* stop working on X, or continue to work on it
The safest combination might be to (decline to review, and stop working), but would it also be legitimate to (decline to review, and continue working) ?
# Answer
> 14 votes
The only problematic situtation seems to me to agree to review the paper, give it a deliberately bad review so it is rejected and then publish the own results. I personally would not review the paper in question at all because it might turn out that it is legitimate to reject it, and then it would be difficult to continue working independently.
Whether you should stop working on the problem is a more difficult question. In general I would say no unless it's something very specific with limited scope for further work. If you are reasonably sure that your work would go beyond what the other authors have done, there's no reason not to do it. You could always wait to see if the paper is published and if it is contact the authors and propose to work together.
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Tags: peer-review, conflict-of-interest
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thread-2179 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2179 | Etiquette for establishing contact with multiple professors for PhD guidance | 2012-06-27T09:32:18.623 | # Question
Title: Etiquette for establishing contact with multiple professors for PhD guidance
Assuming that one has begun a PhD program at a university which allows a student to choose an advisor after his/her first year in the program and the student has narrowed down to a couple of potential advisors, what is the etiquette for approaching them for advisor commitment? Specifically,
* How do you get across that you aren't sure yet about him being your advisor and are fishing around before you decide without sounding rude?
# Answer
Advisors understand that students are fishing around - that's normal. What's less common (but possible) is students fishing around in wildly different areas. Just keep in mind that either an advisor is going to see something in you that will motivate them to try and convince you to work with them, or they'll view you as someone who needs to make up their mind first, and won't spend too much time thinking about you.
In that respect, matching up with an advisor is more like dating than an job interview, at least in the US :)
> 13 votes
# Answer
Ben Norris is basically correct—as advisors, we know that students have multiple options for choosing advisors, particularly in setups where the students pick advisors after their arrival. Therefore, we won't (or at least shouldn't) take it personally when someone tells us they're considering other advisors.
In general, however, you should also remember that these processes are often *double-sided*: in case of competition, the advisors also have a choice in who they want as their top choice. If you are overly hesitant, the advisor may choose another candidate who is more certain as a top choice. So, you should be honest if you're not immediately "sold" on working for a particular advisor, but don't be so negative as to make the advisor look elsewhere.
> 9 votes
# Answer
The adviser already knows that you are not 100% committed to his or her research group. If the system lets students choose, then the advisers know the rules. The faculty in that department very likely made those rules. They know that you are considering other advisers.
It is never rude to consider other advisers. Some programs even require it. My graduate program required that I interview at least three potential advisers and rank them. The faculty would then be informed of the list of students who chose each faculty member at the first choice *only*. Faculty had to fill open positions from this first.
This system was implemented by the faculty a few years previous, when they became dissatisfied with an approach that left matching entirely up to students and faculty meeting and getting along. Faculty would then choose their favorites from all interested students. Usually, this meant that a small number of students were not chosen at all, which was not acceptable.
> 6 votes
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Tags: phd, graduate-school, advisor, etiquette
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thread-2186 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2186 | Etiquette for an initial meeting with a prospective advisor: What is expected of the student? | 2012-06-27T14:44:38.863 | # Question
Title: Etiquette for an initial meeting with a prospective advisor: What is expected of the student?
Assuming that one has begun a PhD program at a university which allows a student to choose an advisor after his/her first year in the program and the student has narrowed down on a couple of potential advisors and has taken AT LEAST one course with each of his potential advisors:
What should the student take to the first meet? A rough research idea, summary of the professor's important papers or otherwise?
Note: I have made 5 separate questions as suggested (As opposed to the single one which I started off with)
# Answer
For an initial meeting, I would take an general idea of the kinds of things you'd like to do in a particular advisor's group, a sense of what the advisor works on—you don't necessarily have to have read papers in advance, and an open mind. That said, you'll make a *better* impression if you have read a few recent papers, and have a few intelligent questions to ask. It will pique the advisor's interest, and show your sincerity.
As for coming in with ideas for a research project, this depends a lot on how the project will be funded. If you have your own fellowship and can design your own project, then you should definitely have an idea or two ready. On the other hand, if you will be funded by an existing research grant within the group, your choice of projects will be more constrained.
One final note—I would say that it's definitely **not** required that you take a course with an advisor before considering them as a research advisor. If that were the case, I would have been on a completely different career path than the one I'm on now, as I'd be working for my fourth-choice advisor (who was the only one I took a class with before choosing a research group!).
> 9 votes
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Tags: phd, graduate-school, advisor, etiquette
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thread-2189 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2189 | Procedure for having multiple advisors for a PhD thesis | 2012-06-27T14:48:36.830 | # Question
Title: Procedure for having multiple advisors for a PhD thesis
Assume that one has begun a PhD program at a university which allows a student to choose an advisor after his/her first year in the program and the student has narrowed down to a couple of potential advisors and that he/she wishes to do his thesis under multiple advisors.
What is the procedure for suggesting multiple advisors? Whom do you speak to first? What if the advisors don't go so well together?
# Answer
Unfortunately, I think the answer is going to be - "it depends"! I have advised several graduate students, including 2 who are currently "co-advised" with other faculty. In one case, the student approached me first, but I already had a working relationship (co-teaching, serving on supervisory committees together etc.) with the other faculty member. In the other case, I was approached 2nd, and again, I had previously worked with the other faculty and knew them well. When talking with potential students, if it is clear that a different faculty member would have better or equally relevant expertise, I always suggest talking to them. However, that's my opinion. I also have colleagues who would flat out refuse to consider co-advising a student.
I think the key "test" is to imagine your dissertation work as a 3 way collaboration - what does each faculty member bring to the table? What are they going to get out of it? How you approach them is completely dependent on the individual personalities involved. You should also find out if there are any policies on co-advising at your institution or department - there are none at mine, but that might not be universal.
> 7 votes
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Tags: phd, graduate-school, advisor
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thread-2209 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2209 | Useful software resources for reviewing papers | 2012-06-28T04:00:03.573 | # Question
Title: Useful software resources for reviewing papers
I have a paper for review and I would like to include comments (on clarifications/suggestions/errors) over specific paragraphs or statements.
What are some ideal software resources that could help reviewers? I would prefer them to be Linux-based.
# Answer
> 14 votes
If you have access to the LaTeX source, there are a number of packages that will help you. Some include todonotes and fixme.
However it's more likely that you have a PDF only. In that case, you need a PDF annotating package. A free cross-platform solution is Xournal, which runs on windows/linux (and maybe Mac).
If you're on a iOS device, then Goodreader is a nice app that does annotations. There's always Adobe Acrobat as well. Both of these solutions are not free though.
Update: (by @atiretoo)
One issue to be careful with providing comments on a pdf or other document is maintaining anonymity. **Adobe Acrobat (and probably other software), automatically flags your annotations with information about you unless you are careful to remove that from the document before commenting**.
# Answer
> 11 votes
The approach taken by many reviewers (myself included) is to simply reference the page and line number, or to insert a copy of the statement in question in the referee report, e.g.:
> On page 7, line 6, the word "mispell" should be "misspell".
This is probably the easiest approach if the number of such comments is not too large, since it doesn't require any extra software and doesn't require the authors to search through the PDF for your annotations.
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Tags: peer-review, software
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thread-2217 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2217 | Separate books from papers in bibliography of a paper | 2012-06-28T15:45:53.090 | # Question
Title: Separate books from papers in bibliography of a paper
Is there some automatic way to single out the books in bibliography of a paper in IEEE format?
For example, write some program or use some functionality of some editors to find out the books mentioned in this paper with 303 references in its bibliography?
# Answer
It's a partial answer, since it's not really automatic, but since this paper seems to have been done with Latex, you could probably ask the authors for their bibtex file, and then using a reference manager such as Bibdesk, Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, etc, you should be able to sort them by category, and therefore isolate all the books.
> 3 votes
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Tags: publications
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thread-2206 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2206 | What are the tradeoffs involved in taking a postdoc at a top university versus an assistant professorship at a non-top university? | 2012-06-28T02:36:07.260 | # Question
Title: What are the tradeoffs involved in taking a postdoc at a top university versus an assistant professorship at a non-top university?
When it comes to getting a tenure-track position where one has both a lot of resources and academic freedom to do what one wants to do (so having a tenure-track position in a top university might be more useful because one may get more resources at a top university).
Or in short, when one wants to maximize one's chances of becoming a "top scientist".
There are obviously *numerous* factors, and "rank/prestige" should not be considered as a factor in itself. That said, the period after one gets a PhD is an extremely important time for building up connections, and those are easier to get at a top university.
# Answer
* Getting experience at a top university is good for your CV and for you as a researcher.
* Getting more research experience under your belt can increase your chance of getting a job in the future, but there are no guarantees.
* A post-doc will give you a chance to write more papers and to find out what topic you really want to do your research on.
* Taking the assistant professorship now would get you immediately on the track to full professor, which may be delayed if you spend years doing a post doc.
* Working at a non-top university might mean that the students you have access to, for example, as RAs or PhD students, to develop your research vision, will not be as good as at the top university. That said, as a post-doc, you will generally not have access to such students anyway, except perhaps as part of a collaboration.
* The pressure to succeed at a top university is much greater than at a non-top university.
> 9 votes
# Answer
A post doc is merely a step towards getting a tenure track position. I would always suggest taking the tenure track job. The only time I would even suggest thinking about it is if the tenure track position has a heavy teaching load (e.g., 3-3 or higher in the sciences and 4-4 or higher in the humanities). Even with a ridiculous teaching load I would still suggest the tenure track position.
Not everyone with a postdoc at a top university gets a tenure track job afterwards.
> 7 votes
# Answer
A postdoc is not a career goal; it's yet another step in training, with the purpose of preparing the trainee for the eventual faculty role. With that in mind,
### Postdoc is good because:
* You're associating yourself with some top-notch researchers and gaining valuable research experience.
* You're learning new techniques and methodologies from a well-known and well-respected professor.
* You're writing grant proposals that are X times more likely to be funded because \<well-known researcher\>'s name is on them.
### Faculty is good because:
* You're running your own lab and getting experience managing teaching, research, mentoring, and administrative duties.
* You're proving that you can do it by yourself.
* You can do research on your own interests, without having to worry about what your PI wants you to do.
Additionally, think about the opportunity cost of both choices... it really depends on where you want your career to go.
> 6 votes
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Tags: professorship
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thread-2182 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2182 | Are NSF RUI proposals evaluated separately or are they evaluated against the general pool for that program/division/directorate? | 2012-06-27T12:34:37.473 | # Question
Title: Are NSF RUI proposals evaluated separately or are they evaluated against the general pool for that program/division/directorate?
I am preparing to write and submit a grant proposal to the US National Science Foundation (NSF) through the Research at Undergraduate Institutions (RUI) program. This will be my first submission to this program.
From my understanding, proposals submitted through RUI are sent to the appropriate program in the appropriate division and directorate. Since my project involves synthetic chemistry in alternative reaction media, my proposal would probably go to the Chemical Synthesis (SYN) program in the Division of Chemistry under the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences.
My colleagues, both in chemistry and in other disciplines, have shared conflicting reports about how RUI proposals are evaluated. Will my proposal be evaluated against the entire pool of proposals in the SYN program from all institutions? Or, are RUI proposals evaluated separately?
I am hoping that RUI proposals are evaluated separately, since I do not have access to the same research infrastructure that someone at a research institution does.
# Answer
> 12 votes
At least in mathematics (and presumably in other fields, although I have no direct experience with that), they are evaluated in the same pool as all the other proposals. In practice, there seem to be two key differences in how they are treated:
1. Panel members can be a little more forgiving for certain aspects of RUI proposals. For example, if the PI publishes excellent papers but not very many of them, then this low publication rate would probably be considered a bigger drawback in a non-RUI proposal.
2. The NSF may give some degree of preference to a few RUI proposals, as described below.
The review panel classifies proposals into three categories: roughly 10% that are highly recommended for funding, 30-40% that are recommended for funding, and 50-60% that are not. The available funding is never sufficient to cover all the proposals recommended for funding, so further decisions need to be made after the panel.
The ones not recommended for funding are automatically eliminated, and the ones highly recommended for funding are more or less guaranteed to be funded. The ones in the middle are ranked in order by the panel, but the NSF is not required to follow this ranking. They largely follow it, but they adjust it based on their own criteria (for example, balance of fields, geographical diversity, etc.). My understanding is that if no RUI proposal in a given panel would otherwise be funded, then the highest-ranked RUI proposal may be bumped up in the rankings. However, this is not guaranteed, and it depends on having a high enough ranking from the panel. The program officers may also compare how panels in different areas ranked their RUI proposals, to see which ones seem most worthy of funding. However, there is no RUI-only panel.
# Answer
> 5 votes
My experience with Computer Science panels (IIS Division) is similar.
However, in IIS, acceptance rates are typically somewhat lower: 10 % Highly competitive (HC), 15 % Competitive (C), 75 % Not recommended for funding by panel (NRFP)
NRFP proposals are immediately discarded.
Sometimes some of the NRFP proposals are classified as Low Competitive (but still immediately discarded). Highly competitive proposals are usually, but not always funded. Some (approx. one third) of Competitive proposals are funded. Total funding (acceptance) rates (e.g., for III) are typically around 15 percent, sometimes a bit higher (up to 20%) for Early Career proposals. Funding rates in Computer Science vary widely across programs, solicitations, size classes, divisions, year submitted, etc. ranging from 10% to 50% (depending on budgets, number of proposals submitted, etc.) In general funding rates decline with increasing size (budget) class of the proposals.
RUI proposals are considered together with other proposals but treated somewhat more leniently. Proposals from all of the review panels for a particular cluster (group), e.g., III in IIS Division of the CISE directorate, for a particular solicitation (and size class) are considered together when making funding decisions.
Panel recommendations are only advisory to NSF staff, who also consider geographic diversity, programmatic priorities and balance, institutional diversity, etc.
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Tags: funding, research-undergraduate, nsf
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thread-2225 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2225 | Batch editing references | 2012-06-29T13:42:19.013 | # Question
Title: Batch editing references
I imported many pdf articles into Mendeley but saw that Mendeley did not capture all the fields correctly. So, I needed to change them manually. It would be a tedious job to do so with many documents. Fortunately, many of the documents share common journal names and years. So, I needed a way to edit them together.
Is there a reference manager where we can edit selected references in one go without having to do this for each reference individually?
I have tried Endnote. Mendeley, and JabRef so far but could not find such a way. I will be grateful if someone has any idea/experience in this direction.
**Edit-1:**
After solving the batch editing problem, I also had a problem with getting the syntax for the authors correct.
# Answer
> 8 votes
Mendeley does it actually. I did not try properly before. Then I had a problem with getting the authors correct. What you need to do is put them as follows
```
Last Name, First Names
Last Name, First Names
```
and so on.
**After Edit-1:**
Another useful thing in Mendeley is that, you just have to select the authors from the pdf and Mendeley will give suggestions on the syntax based on existing authors in the current database. See the following image.
# Answer
> 5 votes
If you use bibtex, then you can batch edit with things like sed, awk, or simple find/replace in any text editor.
# Answer
> 1 votes
In my experience, the author syntax changes if you're using DOI or PMID. In addition to the method that @Stat-R suggests, if you filter by authors, you can simply drag and drop author names onto each other and they will merge into your designated syntax.
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Tags: software, citations, reference-managers
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thread-2234 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2234 | What category does a collection of mathematics tricks come under? | 2012-06-30T06:10:02.443 | # Question
Title: What category does a collection of mathematics tricks come under?
I am currently researching on Recreational Mathematics - Mathematical Tricks and I have come across this article: Ten Amazing Mathematical Tricks.
This article is of free style and does not follows the pattern/format I have seen in all the other articles/research paper so far.
My question is: Is this a research paper? Is it a paper? If not, what is it? Can such a paper be cited as a reference? I want to know more about these freestyle articles.
# Answer
> 8 votes
A number of people have correctly told you (I can see the article) that this is a collection of mathematical puzzles, rather than a research paper. So let me tell you a little more about this type of article. Martin Gardner is considered by many to be the biggest popularizer of recreational mathematics in the 20th century (perhaps ever). For 25 years (1956-1981), he wrote a column for Scientific American called Mathematical Games. Many of his columns have been collected into books (such as Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games). Some other well-known examples of similar writing include that of Douglas Hofstadter, Ian Stewart, and Keith Devlin.
# Answer
> 5 votes
I can't see the actual article, but if it's an MAA article by Martin Gardner, it's probably a list of interesting puzzles. Peter Winkler also writes a column of this kind.
These might not be "research papers" in the sense of proving new theorems on a topic, but they're interesting communications. You can of course cite such a paper as a reference if you use some material from it (and you should!)
# Answer
> 5 votes
This is the description of the Journal:
> Math Horizons is intended primarily for undergraduates interested in mathematics. Thus, while we especially value and desire to publish high-quality exposition of beautiful mathematics, we also wish to publish lively articles about the culture of mathematics. We interpret this quite broadly—we welcome stories of mathematical people, the history of an idea or circle of ideas, applications, fiction, folklore, traditions, institutions, humor, puzzles, games, book reviews, student math club activities, and career opportunities and advice.
So, it don't contain research papers.
# Answer
> 1 votes
As the others have stated, what you refer to is an article in a magazine, and not a research paper in a journal. If your goal is to show that you came upon an idea while reading this article, then you should cite the article. (Research papers do sometimes include magazine articles in their bibliographies.)
However, research papers usually cite sources where ideas were first published, and it is rare for original ideas to be first published in magazines as articles. So there is a good chance that the ideas you found in the article were published earlier. I recommend that you search for earlier sources and cite them also.
I also recommend that you read a few issues of the three publications I mentioned in this answer to see how they cite work in recreational mathematics. (In my opinion, the most prestigious place to publish work on recreational mathematics is the *American Mathematical Monthly*.)
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Tags: publications, citations
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thread-2265 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2265 | What are the minimal screen parameters for tablet bought for reading papers | 2012-07-02T16:11:02.007 | # Question
Title: What are the minimal screen parameters for tablet bought for reading papers
Kind of related to my last question: Is typical ebook reader with pdf support enough to read scientific papers (but I guess that this is distict enough).
What are minimal sreeen parameters for tablet so I can read papers with ease:
* is 7'' screen size enough, or do I need 10''? I figured out that 5'' is not enough (to much scrolling).
* Is getting additional 3'' (from 7'' to 10'') worth about 70% price increase?
* is iPad's retina display (2048 x 1536) really usefull or I can stick to cheaper tablets?
# Answer
The screen size really depends on how much scrolling/zooming you want to do...I would suggest trying both the 7" and 10" out in person.
As for the retina display, text is going to be much sharper. Again, I would check this out in person.
> 1 votes
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Tags: publications, reading
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thread-2267 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2267 | Identifying new references when appending to existing reference list | 2012-07-02T17:22:28.390 | # Question
Title: Identifying new references when appending to existing reference list
I am building a database from several online sources like Engineering Village. Everyday I am searching different/close/related keywords that pertains to my research topic. Then, I am (everyday) exporting and printing out the documents to do manual filtering depending on the relevance of the article/report. I also importing/appending daily search results into my cumulative list. This may lead to duplication which Reference Managers identifies and filters out in most cases. How do I have a daily reference list such that there is no duplicates? In order words, is there a way to know each time I append my references which are the new ones that I generated (through query) only today.
Please let me know if you need any clarifications. Thank you for your help.
# Answer
If you are using the EndNote reference manager, it will tell you that you are importing duplicates, which references are duplicates, and then give you options for what you can do with them. It seems reasonable that other reference managers will do the same.
As an example, many journals now have adopted the practice of publishing articles online before they have been assigned to a print volume. Thus, I may want the manager to replace the old reference (without page and volume information) with the new (with that information). EndNote lets me choose to do this.
> 1 votes
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Tags: software, citations, reference-managers
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thread-2204 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2204 | Research on strategies for student recruitment | 2012-06-27T21:33:54.047 | # Question
Title: Research on strategies for student recruitment
How do I find research on strategies for recruiting students into undergraduate programs?
I am an assistant professor at a small comprehensive 4-year public institution. My department (chemistry) has implemented a new strategic plan. One of our principle action items involves recruiting more high school students to attend our institution with the intention in majoring in chemistry.
I know that research is conducted, probably at the institution level, on what recruitment strategies are successful in various disciplines. However, since my research background is in chemistry, I am not familiar with the resources to find this research.
I will start with this question: What journals and/or databases should I be reading and using? I know about the *Chronicle of Higher Eduction*. Which others are good resources?
Update: I would like to find relatively recent reports, preferably in peer-reviewed literature or published by not-for-profits. Strategies that use social media would be great. There is a nice study linked in Dan C.'s answer, but it is from April 2004, meaning the data likely predates Facebook.
# Answer
> 4 votes
There is a nice survey report online: "What Matters to Student Success", a report from the Government of Kentucky.
The work analyses the factors most crucial to student success in a college. It also discusses recruitment of students. For example,
> Consumerism colors virtually all aspects of the college experience, with many colleges and universities “marketizing” their admissions approach to recruit the right “customers” — those who are best prepared for college and can pay their way (Fallows et al. 2003)
It does not exactly answer your question on strategies for selection, but gives some insight to what makes a successful student pool, for which admission process is one determinant.
I am sure the reference papers cited in the journal (and their citations) will assist you in an extensive literature survey.
For a relevant journal, I found this: Journal of College Admission. I do not know about the quality, but I was able to find this discussion (or thereabout) in a few papers herein.
# Answer
> 0 votes
Does this webpage have some of the information that you're looking for?
https://www.noellevitz.com/papers-research-higher-education/student-recruitment-and-financial-aid
(I recommend the "Factors to enroll" report; it asks for a login, but you can continue as a guest.) Alternatively, you might also find the following pdf useful.
http://www.edgeip.com/media/edgeip/graphics/Research0404.pdf
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Tags: undergraduate, recruiting
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thread-2269 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2269 | From whom do I get references when my original advisor leaves academia? | 2012-07-02T18:47:37.420 | # Question
Title: From whom do I get references when my original advisor leaves academia?
This is similar to a previously asked question, but deals specifically with addressing the problem on the CV. My adviser had a bit of a personal meltdown and left the department while I was finishing analysis of field data/writing up. His students were assigned the following year to a non-tenured professor. This new professor was of little help to me my last year of writing up, sat on my dissertation with no comments for over 6 months and only produced comments after I went to the departmental chair. He did not think much of the type work I was doing and went so far as to say so during my defense. I will add here that I have a number of publications (\>5) including single authored ones-which for my field is significant- as well as an excellent track record of funding and in presenting my research. I have a strong CV but have had no success thus far in securing a job. I once saw one of the letters he had written for me (it needed to be included in a single PDF so he had to send it to me) and it was terrible. It talked mostly about him and how he really did not know me well and with a few generic sounding "he will no doubt exceed" sentences that just sounded fake. Months later a colleague suggested that I find a different reference than my adviser (but was not clear as to why).
So, my question is this: since committees will no doubt look at my list of referees and wonder at my lack of an adviser-I have taken to including a short "note" in the "reference contact information" section explaining that 1) my original adviser left academia at the end of my time as a student and 2) that my new adviser was up for tenure the year I defended and very busy and was in a different field than mine, so instead "below are three people who are in a better position to judge me on my research, teaching, writing skills".
Is this providing too much information or is this instead ensuring that rather than questioning and then rejecting my application the committees will stop and think "oh okay, I can see why the applicant did not include their adviser"?
# Answer
> 12 votes
**Your current advisor's letters are killing you. Do not ask him for any more letters. Do not list him as a reference in your CV. Don't walk; run.**
> I will add here that I have a number of publications (\>5) including single authored ones-which for my field is significant- as well as an excellent track record of funding and in presenting my research.
In that case, you really should have no trouble finding enough other good references to overcome any concerns raised by not having a letter from either of your advisors. Everyone reads advisor letters with a grain of salt anyway; strong letters from well-known senior researchers outside your home department have much bigger impact.
Of course, if anyone asks why your current advisor isn't writing you letters, you should answer honestly, but I think adding an explanatory note in advance is unnecessarily defensive.
# Answer
> 10 votes
You should definitely get rid of the letter from your new "advisor." I think it would be reasonable to list only your original advisor as your advisor on your CV (not the new advisor).
I think you should make sure that one of your letter writers includes a short paragraph explaining that your advisor left academia and this is why you do not have a letter from your advisor. I would look into whether there's someone you can ask for a letter who feels some responsibility for your original advisor, for example, your advisor's advisor or a frequent coauthor of your advisor.
# Answer
> 9 votes
Assuming your field is relatively small, the odds are good that your advisor's fate is known to the community. Unfortunately, such events do happen, for all kinds of reasons—just a few weeks ago I learned that a relatively prominent academic in my field basically had his group wiped out because he was arrested on some rather nasty charges!
While it doesn't seem that your original advisor befell such an awful fate, it is clear that, for whatever reason, he is no longer in academia. However, given that he is probably known to many of the people working in your field, it might still be helpful to try to get a letter from him, even if he's doing something completely different. If you can't, because he has refused to do so, then you are entitled to explain the situation in your CV or cover letter. Be succinct and to the point, and stick to the facts; do not make it into a "sob story," which will not endear you to a hiring committee or postdoc advisor.
And good luck—such situations are always stressful, and are always unfortunate for the students caught up in them. It's one of the pitfalls of academic life, and I don't know of a good way to deal with it.
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Tags: phd, job, advisor, cv, recommendation-letter
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thread-2192 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2192 | On citing "common knowledge" statements | 2012-06-27T14:57:22.270 | # Question
Title: On citing "common knowledge" statements
I am an undergraduate student with no experience at all.
If you are writing a research paper, that you are planning to submit for publication, how do you state that a particular statement/fact is commonly known to all and it's dicoverer/inventor is not known, and that there exists no research paper that introduced the concept but there do exist various books/websites that discuss the very concepts and a few derivatives of the concept?
I am not able to cite a particular statement/bunch of statements as I am not able to find any research paper related to that at all.
The particular thing in question is: https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/161661/source-of-probably-the-most-simplest-math-trick
What should I do?
# Answer
> 15 votes
You don't need to cite common knowledge. If you think it is common knowledge, wait for the reviewer to ask for a reference, before going to all the trouble of sorting out the history. Often if a reviewer doesn't think the statement is common knowledge he/she will suggest a reference or provide a conflicting reference.
# Answer
> 19 votes
If you found a book that discusses the statement, and you really can't track down where it comes from (does the book cite anything?), then citing the book (with chapter/page numbers) is acceptable.
# Answer
> 11 votes
If the statement/concept/idea that you think you want to cite is covered (without citation) in the introductory undergraduate textbook(s) on the subject, then it is likely common knowledge in the field. This is particularly true in science and social science. For example, you should not need to cite things like the following:
* Fluorine atoms are more electronegative than carbon atoms.
* Asexual reproduction of eukaryotic cells usually occurs by mitosis.
* Force is a vector quantity, while power is a scalar quantity.
* The free market equilibrium price for a commodity is found at the intersection of the supply and demand curves for that commodity.
* Sigmund Freud is commonly considered the founder of psychoanalysis.
# Answer
> 4 votes
I will answer your question in a somewhat sideways manner: I think anyone who is trying to write a math research paper who does not already have a PhD in mathematics or a closely related field should do so in close consultation with an **adviser** who does have such a PhD. It is not practical to learn all the standards of journals and publishing on your own. Virtually every undergraduate is also in the following situation: their own perspective on mathematics is not yet mature, and thus if they submit a paper to a research journal they will be submitting their work to an audience with far more experience and background knowledge. (A few truly brilliant undergraduates do work up to the standards of other mature, professional mathematicians, but even for them the work is probably much less than what they will be capable of later on. I can't think of a single instance of a professional mathematician whose undergraduate work was in the same league as their later research.)
In fact -- and I don't mean to be discouraging by saying this -- most research done by undergraduates is not of a publishable quality. This does not mean that undergraduates should not engage in research -- I think it is very valuable and enjoyable for them to do so (if anyone cares: I did research as an undergraduate, had a blast doing it, and did not try to publish it) -- but only that formal publication should probably be a goal for later in one's career than that, especially nowadays when it is so easy to put your work on the web.
In particular, you write
> a particular statement/fact is commonly known to all and its discoverer/inventor is not known, and that there exists no research paper that introduced the concept but there do exist various books/websites that discuss the very concepts and a few derivatives of the concept?
Honestly, this sounds unlikely to me. The vast majority of mathematical topics that are discussed in books are also discussed in research papers (maybe it is somewhat different in recreational mathematics, but even there I imagine it's still mostly true). How do you know that no research paper treats the concept in question? Searching the mathematical literature is itself a skill that takes both general experience and specific expertise in the subfield you're searching in: as a research mathematician it is common enough for me to come across a mathematical concept, try to find it in the literature, and only find it several weeks or months later when I have become more familiar with the local terminology and standard results. Similarly, most mathematical concepts *are* traceable to a specific discoverer/inventor, although admittedly the generic mathematician does not feel as honorbound to track down primary sources as academics in most other fields (in my opinion this is a rare "character flaw" of the generic mathematician!).
Even if you have done all the mathematical research yourself, consulting an experienced adviser on how to write up and submit your work could save you a lot of time and headache. Some journals/editors/referees are relatively supportive of authors writing their first paper (everyone who has published a paper was in that situation at one time!), but if your paper is, or looks to be, below the level of papers they want to publish, it will probably get bounced back to you with little constructive criticism. An adviser can be much more kind...
# Answer
> 3 votes
One helpful approach can be to ask a few people that you think of as familiar with the field (in your case, this could be professors or certain other students). Even though most schools offer no class in recreational mathematics, you can ask 3 or 4 people who you see as at least "intermediate" level (whatever that means) in recreational math. If all of them immediately recall the information in question, then it's a good bet that you don't have to cite it. Alternatively, if most of them don't know it, then perhaps you should cite it.
Specifically for recreational math, I recommend that you ask around on the website Art of Problem Solving: http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/ (from the front page, click on "online community"). This site is focused on contest mathematics, which is distinct from recreational math, but a close cousin (and many people interested in one are also interested in the other).
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thread-2288 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2288 | How can one carry out a "Russian style" seminar? | 2012-07-04T05:35:49.727 | # Question
Title: How can one carry out a "Russian style" seminar?
A "Russian style" seminar, as in the Israel Gelfand form, breaks from the traditional format of talk followed by Q&A and just opens the floor to questions at any time. I've seen a few professors who follow this format, so I definitely see its value.
What is the best way to start something like this, and how do you get the most out of the seminar?
# Answer
I use a version of this in the weekly research seminar that I run. This format typically works best when
1. **the speaker knows ahead of time that he/she is likely to get questions during the talk** and
2. **at least a few of the audience members feel comfortable asking such questions**.
If the speaker is a regular attendee of the seminar, then **(1)** works itself out naturally; otherwise, I recommend that the organizer mention this ahead of time to the speaker. Generally, more experienced speakers are more comfortable with this model. As I'm asking questions during the talk, I watch the speaker's responses. If the speaker starts to get flustered or is unable to answer well a few questions in a row, then I often will stop asking questions. Actually, I usually talk a little with the speaker ahead of time about what I'm hoping for from the talk, who the typical audience is, how long the talks usually go, etc. I find that a few minutes beforehand can save you from the awkward experience of having a talk that is at too low or too high a level.
For **(2)**, I am usually quite comfortable asking questions, and I generally find that at least one other faculty member in the audience is. As Jeromy mentioned, typically this model works best when the questions are asked by well-informed audience members (since they can more easily discern which questions will and will not be helpful to the rest of the audience). If you find that no one else in the audience is asking questions, I suggest that you talk with a few of the regular attendees and ask if they would be willing to start asking questions. (This conversation probably will work better *outside* of the actual seminar.)
> 15 votes
# Answer
I have seen this format work well in colloquia.
The speaker generally says at the start that they are happy to answer any questions during the talk. If needed at various points the speaker can also ask if anyone has any questions. Ideally, after asking the speaker pauses for a couple of seconds to give people a chance to ask before moving on to the next section of the talk.
It can also sometimes be necessary to close off a particular discussion if it is going on for too long and is not of particular interest to the general audience.
In general, I think the format works best when the presenter knows the material well, and the audience is reasonably well informed.
> 8 votes
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Tags: presentation, seminars, answering-questions
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thread-1678 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1678 | Guidelines to follow if my adviser suggests that I work on dead-end projects | 2012-05-23T23:20:37.290 | # Question
Title: Guidelines to follow if my adviser suggests that I work on dead-end projects
I generally chase after whatever my adviser/supervisor tells me to do, although I know that it's sometimes a project that they don't want to spend their time on. I know that I can learn a lot even when I go after such "wild goose chases".
I recently talked to a PhD student though, and he advised me that I should learn when to say "no" to an adviser, to recognize that sometimes those suggestions can lead to "wild goose chases" that aren't worth the time.
What are some guidelines when an adviser wants you to chase a problem that might not be worth its time investment?
# Answer
This will depend upon your relationship with your advisor. Does your advisor solicit your opinions on projects? Does he/she project openness about projects? Does he/she give you several options of projects? Does he/she ask for your suggestions?
If yes, then I think you can have a frank conversation with your advisor. Mention your concerns politely, and ask your advisor for their thoughts on those issues. Maybe your advisor has already given them thought and has some reasons to think it's a better project than you realize, and can explain to you. Maybe your advisor thinks highly of you and has handed you a long-shot high-risk high-reward problem, on the idea that you might just solve it, and if you do, you'll hit a home run. Or, maybe the concerns haven't occurred to your advisor and that might lead to a fruitful discussion about how to deal with the challenges, or might lead to a change in your project. It's also possible your advisor might have good advice about how to mitigate the risks you are most concerned about.
For instance, one piece of advice I got from *my* advisor was: be ambitious, reach high, but also design your research to "fail fast". Think proactively about what are the most likely ways that the research might fail, and then try to order your work so that if the project is going to fail, you discover that fact as quickly as possible. That's not always easy to arrange, but your advisor might have helpful suggestions for you.
If your advisor doesn't seem likely to welcome discussion about which project to work on, you can still raise these issues, but you may need to be even more deferential and careful about how you raise them.
Some things to avoid: Be very careful to avoid sounding like you are whining. Faculty put a lot of effort and thought into trying to find good projects for their students, and it can be very challenging (you want to find something that they have the skills to succeed at and that they have a chance of completing successfully; but on the other hand, you want to choose an ambitious project which if successful will lead to a good publication, which often means it is hard to know in advance whether the project will succeed or not). My experience is that many students tend to be a bit critical and "picky" about projects, so be careful not to sound ungrateful.
Also be careful not to be too arrogant. Your advisor probably has a lot of experience with research, whereas you are just learning. Therefore, your judgement may be a bit off.
Also, keep in mind that it is expected that many research projects fail. Therefore, you have to be willing to take risks and take on research projects where you're not sure whether you will succeed, and you have to give 'em a good try. You should expect that perhaps 50% of your research projects will be failures, or at least will succeed in the way you initially envisioned. If all of your research projects are a success, either you should maybe consider taking on harder problems, or else you are very lucky to have an amazing advisor.
Moreover, remember that it is important that any research project you take on relate to shared interests. You want the project to be something your advisor is excited about; if your advisor is unenthused, nothing good can come of it. So if you've noticed that your interests seem to be a different than the things your advisor is excited about, your advisor may be trying to thread the needle of finding something of mutual interest.
One last thought: if you think your project sucks, one constructive way to move forward is to try to identify a better research project and propose it to your advisor. If it is truly promising, and if it is in an area of interest to your advisor, he/she might get excited by your idea and encourage you to run with it. Just be careful: since you don't have as much experience as your advisor, you don't have as reliable a judgement about what constitutes a promising project and what doesn't.
> 7 votes
# Answer
This is a difficult issue to deal with. You are correct in stating that (in some disciplines) this can be a significant problem, but as a graduate student, it may be hard for you to argue your case that the project will lead to a dead end.
I see two possible solutions:
1. If you have a good relationship with your advisor, speak with him about your concerns. He may admit that he's not sure where the project will lead, but he will likely be willing to give you the background as to why he's interested in the project, and where it will lead you. These types of projects are also good opportunities to ask your advisor to introduce you to collaborators with whom you can complete the project, as he's only tangentially interested.
2. If your advisor likely won't listen to you, then put in the month or three to do the necessary background research to prove your case. Look up the references, research previous findings, contact others who have worked in the field. One of two things will happen: (1) you will change your mind, or (2) you'll build a strong case to present to your advisor as to why this research is not worth yours or his time. If at that point he still wants you to work on the project, then either he has political motivations or he's just being unreasonable, both of which are indicative of larger problems which you should deal with.
> 14 votes
# Answer
The answer is far simpler than these. There is exactly one rule to follow: do what will get you to graduate sooner. If the problem your adviser has asked you to tackle isn't going to become a chapter in your dissertation, say "no". A good adviser will direct you in such a way that you make progress to defending your dissertation. A poor adviser will try to get as much cheap labor out of you as he can before your funding runs out.
Don't let your doctoral adviser take advantage of you.
> 1 votes
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Tags: graduate-school, advisor
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thread-2287 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2287 | How to efficiently get multiple outputs for a given set of inputs? | 2012-07-04T05:13:37.087 | # Question
Title: How to efficiently get multiple outputs for a given set of inputs?
**Background:** I was reading about Google's Hybrid approach to research. This prompted me to think about how in academia I try to get multiple output from the one set of inputs. For example, I might try to
* Present a talk and and then write up a journal article
* Write blog posts and question-and-answer combos on StackExchange to force me to learn something that I need to know in order to write a journal article.
* If I learn a new technique in the process of writing a journal article, then present a tutorial on how to apply the technique.
I've also heard senior academics talk about employing this approach. E.g.,
* publishing an article in a journal as well as reframing the content for a magazine or newspaper
### Question
* What are the most important examples of getting multiple outputs for a given input?
* What is a systematic way of incorporating this into your project planning?
# Answer
Your answer to this question will depend somewhat on your long term goals. Everything you mention: talks, journal articles, blog posts, tutorials, magazine articles, etc. can be worthwhile in the right circumstances. Most of what you describe consists of taking variations on the **same theme** to **different audiences**.
In what circles do you most want to be known? More generally, **how will you measure success?** Say for example that your primary goal is to get tenure. If you're at a high research school, then publishing an expository article for undergraduates may well be viewed (by your tenure committee) as a waste of your time. In contrast, if you're at a liberal arts school, this may be considered just as valuable as getting a research article in a top journal.
You asked about incorporating this into project planning. I suggest that you **decide which audiences you are most excited to reach**. This will likely be largely *independent* of the particular project. Then as you start on each project, think about how you can **tailor your message to suit each of these audiences**. You may be surprised by how often you find you have something valuable to say to each of your target groups.
> 6 votes
# Answer
I've heard of more than one team who produce for each chunk of research
1. a workshop paper describing what is planned, the challenges, requirements, etc.
2. a conference paper describing the results.
3. a journal version of the conference paper, expanding on the results, providing more detail, etc.
I think this is not a bad approach, as it certainly helps to give better shape to the ideas by the time they reach the journal version. (I don't use this approach, though.)
> 5 votes
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Tags: publications, productivity
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thread-2300 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2300 | How does one maintain academic contacts? | 2012-07-05T10:39:27.467 | # Question
Title: How does one maintain academic contacts?
How do you stay in touch with researchers whom you meet at conferences? My intention is to stay in touch for possible collaborations and job opportunities.
Usually I meet people, we talk and I send them a "thank you" mail but later I get confused how to take this forward and *maintain* this contact.
I do send links, my preprints and interesting website questions and stuff once in a while but more often than not, I don't get a reply.
# Answer
> 11 votes
To build and maintain a network of professional relationships, one should develop, maintain, and express genuine interest in other people and their work. Introducing oneself at conferences is a good start, as is recording and updating contact information, and setting up a system to remind yourself to reach out to people regularly. (There are various tools for this, ranging from a spreadsheet, to social network services, to CRM software. If you use gmail, you may want to try "contactually" for the mechanical part. )
Sending your contacts updates on your work is useful. And these should be targeted... it's ok to use a broadcast medium like twitter to announce new work to the world, but avoid sending out mass-email -- instead target those people who are likely to be most interested, and include a brief personal note that puts the new work in the context of their interests.
Most important, keep track of what others in your network are doing -- new publications, new projects, working papers, promotions, etc. (Social networks can be useful for this in some fields for tracking people directly, tracking working papers in your discipline, and disciplinary news can be quite useful, google scholar can also help alert you to new publications from people in your network. ) And when someone in your network is starting something of interest, re-connect -- with congratulations, a useful comment, and possibly some information on your own work (if it really is of interest with respect to their new project).
# Answer
> 4 votes
Maybe this is obvious, but never forget to wrap your networking cover ops in real social ops. In a conference, go talk to people, than go drink a coffee, beer, discuss with them about anything but work at the lunch, etc. If you do that, it is really simpler to send a thank you mail and to reactivate a contact afterwards.
Regarding the action of sending your work around, why not, but you must target carefully who you are contacting. Be sure that your work is really of interest for the person, this is what will make the difference between a spammer and an interesting contact.
Another way to ping is to ask genuine questions on new papers authored by your contacts.
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Tags: research-process, conference, networking
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thread-2303 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2303 | Research publications for Masters by Research | 2012-07-05T14:10:21.577 | # Question
Title: Research publications for Masters by Research
I do have little research experience on "Web Security" and I made some inventions in that. I have patented my inventions and now when I was trying to apply for Masters by Research in Information Technology in some X University they are asking for Research Publications. I never came across them in my past and I don't know its importance. May anyone tell me
1. Its role to the admissions committee.
2. How important they are as compared to patents.
3. How and where can I release my Research Publications?
# Answer
If you're going to be doing a master's degree *by research*, then admissions committees are going to want to see evidence of any previous research that you've done. That way, you're less of a risk for them to admit you, because you've already learned many of the skills you'll need to be successful.
The "currency" for establishing this are patents and research publications. I assume you're familiar with patents, since you ask for a comparison. Basically, research publications will be considered at least as important as patents, as they generally represent a significant amount of original research. (Patents may be a matter of *development* rather than *research*.)
As for how and where to release research publications, that depends on your field. In CS, my understanding is that generally means that you have to publish your research in conference papers, which means that you'll have to get your research work written up and submitted to a conference. Then you'll need to get your paper accepted, and then you can publish.
If you don't have any publications, don't worry. If you still have research experience, a recommendation letter from a research supervisor can also help to establish your qualifications. (Absent some evidence, though, most graduate programs will remain skeptical.)
> 8 votes
# Answer
I think they are asking for your publications in case you have any, but I highly doubt that publications will be necessary to get into a masters program. It just something to add to your application to give a more complete picture of you.
> 5 votes
# Answer
List your patents in the place where they ask for publications. It is a good substitute at this point.
> 1 votes
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Tags: research-process, publications
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thread-2307 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2307 | What's the meaning of "program"? | 2012-07-05T22:32:33.070 | # Question
Title: What's the meaning of "program"?
I was reading this.
> Now here's some advice that isn't silly: don't go to graduate school unless you get into a strong program.
What's the meaning of "program" in this case? What would be a strong program?
# Answer
> 6 votes
In this context, it is referring to the particular department or school, that is to say, "don't go to graduate school unless you get into a good university, or rather a good department." Don't go to graduate school for the sake of going to graduate school - make sure you're going somewhere which does good research, where faculty members publish frequently, has a history of graduates doing well for themselves, etc.
# Answer
> 5 votes
One should interpret "program" broadly in this case to includes *curriculum*, *faculty*, and *placement record*.
More generally, consider what your objective is for entering the program. If the primary goal is to pursue research, the program strength is particularly important. If the primary goal is to obtain a tenure-track position -- pay particularly close attention to the placement record of the department, and to its reputation in the discipline. If the primary goal is to obtain credentials, overall program strength may be somewhat less important, if the school is accredited and has a good placement record.
Finally, as practical considerations, you may also wish to consider the completion rate, time to completion, level of student support offered, and RA/TA workload.
# Answer
> 3 votes
According to the thesaurus of my dictionary:
> *a program of study*: course, syllabus, curriculum.
Basically, it's just another word for curriculum, although I've heard it mostly associated with graduate studies rather than undergraduate ones.
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thread-1459 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1459 | What to do if my paper is incorrectly cited in a journal? | 2012-05-07T14:38:59.697 | # Question
Title: What to do if my paper is incorrectly cited in a journal?
Recently I got a cite in a research paper where the author cited my work as \[first name\] et al, where it should have been \[last name\] et al. Is there any problem for indexing purpose? should I contact the journal editor about this incident and ask for correction?
# Answer
Yes, that's a problem, and you will absolutely want to fix it. The problem is that it's actually a two-stage problem to correct:
* First, you will need to contact the journal to fix the citation.
* Then, after the citation has been corrected in the article, you'll need to submit a correction request to the various citation trackers (such as ISI and Scopus). They will need to fix your citation in their database, if the article has already been entered.
Note: It may or may not be possible to correct the journal—the editors may or may not be willing to issue a correction to fix a reference. However, it may be possible to correct the reference with the citation indices, even if it's not correct in the journal. However, the road will be tougher; you'll need to show that the paper that should be cited is indisputably yours.
> 39 votes
# Answer
In addition to the earlier answer, you may also want to email the authors of the paper and inform them of their error, providing the correct bibliographic information, to prevent the problem in the future.
> 17 votes
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Tags: publications, journals, citations, publishers
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thread-2313 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2313 | How to search for USA PhD Studentships? | 2012-07-06T16:38:32.523 | # Question
Title: How to search for USA PhD Studentships?
findaphd.com is an excellent website to search for PhD studentships (PhD funding on specific projects) in the UK. Also, UK universities often advertise PhD studentship opportunities in their "job vacancies" section. However, after much googling, I have yet to find similar sites or departmental advertisements for PhD studentships in the USA.
**Questions:**
1. I don't suppose there is a similar site for the USA that I missed during my search?
2. Are there even off-cycle PhD studentships for specific projects in the USA, like those in the UK?
# Answer
There is no such site because it is unnecessary. In Europe, a Ph.D. student is like an employee and is admitted to work on a specific project. In the USA, a Ph.D. student is admitted in a manner similar to an undergraduate (based on general considerations) and is not necessarily attached to a particular project or even a particular advisor.
Hence, you could say that every US department has a number of studentships available each year, always at the same time (start of fall semester) and you apply for all of them simply by submitting an admission application to the program.
Thus the answers to your numbered questions are
1. No.
2. No.
Disclaimer: there are probably exceptions, but what I've written applies 99% of the time.
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One additional note: I disagree with the comment below that claims that individual faculty do not decide which students are admitted. In every program I know, a small committee of program faculty makes **all** the decisions. If some faculty member (whether on the committee or not) really wants a particular applicant, that applicant will be admitted. My own admission came on the same day that I contacted a faculty member (and as a direct result). Of course, you should always follow this good advice when contacting faculty you'd like to work with.
> 11 votes
# Answer
The closest that you can come to this in the US is listings of graduate *fellowships*, which is more closely related to the issue of funding rather than admissions. Pretty much every department has an annual cycle for admitting students, as David mentions.
However, funding models vary widely, so acquisition of an external fellowship can make a significant difference in the kinds of projects one can take (since positions tend to be closely tied to specific projects, as a result of the grant model in the US).
> 2 votes
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Tags: application, funding
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thread-2323 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2323 | Preparing oneself for jobs after PhD | 2012-07-07T20:40:55.017 | # Question
Title: Preparing oneself for jobs after PhD
I'm a student doing PhD in North America. I wish to keep open the possibility of settling down in Europe, Australia or Asia. By settling down I mean getting a tenured professorship in good universities at any of the above mentioned places.
I'm just starting out with my research and I'd like to know if I can do anything right now, i.e. during my PhD to boost my chances.
# Answer
You should familiarize yourself with recruiting procedures in Europe/Asia/Australia and how they might be different from the US. while its early now, you should (when your research direction starts crystallizing) familiarize yourself with research in your area being done in institutions of interest, and identify people at conferences to chat with.
The main disadvantage you could face is a language barrier, local competition, and general lack of awareness because of distance. But except for the first, the others are less and less of a problem.
But at least for the first few years of your Phd just focus on finding interesting research problems to work on and do work that people will pay attention to. Thats much more important :)
> 8 votes
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Tags: phd, job, job-search
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thread-2342 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2342 | Thesis or a practicum at Masters Level - Computer Science | 2012-07-08T19:43:52.493 | # Question
Title: Thesis or a practicum at Masters Level - Computer Science
I am about to reach a stage in my masters where I'll have to make a choice of doing either a regular thesis or a practicum. A practicum is simply an alternative to thesis in which a student has to submit a practical project employing the concepts developed throughout the graduate program and concludes with a paper and presentation of the crafted project.Since I am planning to apply for a PhD soon after graduation will it affect my application if I opt for the practicum instead of the thesis considering the fact that I already have published a technical paper ?
# Answer
> 8 votes
**Thesis.** Thesis, thesis, thesis.
(But I do agree with Suresh. The fact that you've published is more important.)
# Answer
> 5 votes
Personally, I think the fact that you've published a technical paper would carry more weight for a CS Ph.D admissions committee than whether you did a thesis or practicum, since that's the demonstration of your ability to do research.
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Tags: phd, graduate-admissions, masters
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thread-2315 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2315 | As a student, how much time should I spend helping other students with research? | 2012-07-06T17:38:57.800 | # Question
Title: As a student, how much time should I spend helping other students with research?
Assume that one has a skill (assume, programming) and is one of the very few in the department to have it. The other students need a bit of this skill for their projects and you help out when you can.
Where do you set the limit for how much effort/time you spend on helping others this way?
Pros:
* You get insight into other students' work.
* It's a welcome break from our own research
* Maybe earns you a second/third author for setting up the experiment
* Networking !
Cons:
* Effort/Time spent
* You don't necessarily improve your skills (For instance, coding in Python for someone else doesn't augment my Python skills by much. What I do might be really routine)
* You tend to have a *soft* commitment towards that project. For instance, if I start working on it as a favour, it doesn't really come off well if I leave 'em midway.
**EDIT:** I do enjoy the work so long as it is at least a little challenging. I often get really n00bish questions and that is when I start reconsidering my stance on helping people.
# Answer
You forget one consideration: do you enjoy using that skill? To take your own example, I enjoy programming, and even though I might not learn or get anything technical from it, I enjoy solving someone's else problem with some lines of code :) Of course, one should be careful of the time spent and the reward you can get from it, but doing something you enjoy is very different than doing something you can, but don't particularly enjoy doing.
For instance, I can probably install a server and manage a website (with a CMS) for someone, but I don't enjoy it, so I would be very explicit about the benefit (I do that for you if you do that for me). But I could do some cool coding on my free time.
On a completely different aspect, it also depends if you intend to stay in academia: it's a very small world, and the person you're doing a favor to today might be the one sitting on your tenure committee in 20 years (if you work in the same department and all stay in academia, it's quite likely that your paths will cross again at some point in the future).
> 14 votes
# Answer
It depends :)
I would invest effort proportionally to the potential benefit for me (in terms of number/quality of publications) as well as the fun I would have doing it. Where the limit lies depends only on you and I can't really give you any advice on it. You should also consider other factors, such as how your own research is progressing. If you have an important deadline coming up, you shouldn't be doing something unrelated, even if it might lead to a good publication or be a lot of fun.
In any case, you should be very upfront about the level of commitment. Leaving them hanging half way is IMHO a bad idea. Not only in terms of you not being able to participate in any successes after that, but also in terms of letting someone down who asked you to help them. If you don't particularly like the project or don't want to invest any effort in it, tell them.
That said, I've been involved with a few such projects and always found it very rewarding.
> 8 votes
# Answer
Usually when I help other students I put a large time investment making sure that they are capable of caring on the rest of the project without my help. I see my job is to help them get the ball rolling while maintaining the illusion that I'm the local "expert". An analogy would be dressing yourself up as a consultant rather than a mercenary.
Coding is a particularly good example of this. While you can just code away and have it do the job, claim victory, and get endless praise and thanks, I think that its worth writing quality well commented code so that your peer can take it and do their own thing mostly without your help. At the sacrifice of a lot of initial effort, you get some valuable practice time with teaching and writing interesting projects and they won't feel totally abandoned when you have to do something else.
An additional plus is that you can establish yourself at a person only to inquire when there is a worthwhile need for you skill and that should filter out the "hey dude, can you code this up real quick".
> 1 votes
# Answer
One idea: If you could ask the student if it's okay to record your sessions helping them (sort of like what Salman Khan did with Khan Academy), and then maybe save your sessions, then maybe you can then re-run those sessions for later students (so that you won't have to repeat yourself as much, and so that you can always show yourself when you're explaining the concept at your best). That way, you can do that and spend your time giving more personalized instruction to who-ever you're helping.
> -1 votes
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Tags: graduate-school
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thread-2330 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2330 | What are some general good principles for creating a poster for a poster session? | 2012-07-08T06:09:09.220 | # Question
Title: What are some general good principles for creating a poster for a poster session?
Should one create slides similar to those that one uses in a good powerpoint presentation? Or are there things that a poster should include that a powerpoint should not include? (and vice versa)
# Answer
1. The title is your bait, the first paragraph is your hook. Make the bait big and tasty, make the first paragraph catchy.
2. A poster is primarily an advert for you. Secondarily, it's an advert for your research. Thirdly, it's an advert for your department. And it will succeed at those things best, if it gives the casual reader an easily accessible introduction into what's novel about your research.
3. Know the flow: it should be clear to anyone reading, what they should read first, then second, and so on.
4. Make it clear that it's **your** work. Get your name and affiliation in big letters, with a photo of you. Include your contact details, and make sure you can be reached on them during the conference.
5. Don't use powerpoint. A poster is graphic design, so use a graphic design package such as InDesign. If you don't have an eye for graphic design, design the poster with someone who does. Most departments have at least one natural talent. It's often the person who keeps winning the "best poster at conference" prize. It's orthogonal to (i.e. independent of) quality of research.
6. Use a big, clear typeface. Not everyone you need to reach has the healthy, clear vision that most students have.
7. Briefly state the problem, the method, the results, and the implications.
8. Pretty pictures are crucial. The words are there just to supplement the explanation of your work given in the pictures.
9. Test, test, test. Print it out life-size (tiled sheets & sticky tape are your friend), show it to a couple of colleagues (one hot on your area of research, and one hot on design), watch the order in which they read things, ask for feedback. Implement any advice on content that comes from the one who is hot in your area of work. Implement any advice on design that comes from the one hot on design.
> 27 votes
# Answer
* More images, and less text. A poster is a highly visual, two dimensional medium, and you should use the real estate as such. Since poster viewers will be skimming it while you explain something to another viewer, it's best to have lots of pictures so they can get a gist of the ideas.
* PPT slides are the poor man's way of making slides on the quick. But they're not ideal. Again, it's best to use the entire real estate as a continuous medium, rather than as a set of tiles (unless you can do some creative flowing with the set of tiles).
* Having said all of that, readers still like some sense of progression through the poster, so it helps to have visual cues (arrows, arcs, etc) that help the reader understand the order in which to read things.
> 16 votes
# Answer
I broadly support most of the tips given in the previous answers, but I'd like to add some more general concerns which I feel that you should think of before you even draw the first line:
* **Take-home message:** Think about this long and hard. If you had to describe what was exciting about your work in one single sentence, what would it be? What is the one thing you want people to remember about your work? About your presentation? Make sure you're 100% clear about this before you start writing your poster.
* **Clarity:** Once you have your take-home message, make your entire poster subservient to it. Place it prominently in your title and make it crystal clear in your first paragraph, as EnergyNumbers and Ana suggest. Anything that's on your poster that does not contribute directly to the take-home message shouldn't be there.
* **Lead your readers/viewers**: If your main argument requires a chain of explanations, display these prominently and mark them as such. Make the text flow follow the flow of your argument or reasoning. Place figures where they nail a point home, and nowhere else. Clip arts and colour can be cool, but don't use them if it will distract your readers from your take-home message or otherwise make their eyes wander.
* **Preparation:** Try to think of the three questions people will ask you when you present your results, and try to answer them pre-emptively in the poster. Also try to be as prepared as possible to explain stuff while standing next to it, e.g. make sure it still has all the data you need to point to when making an argument.
This may all sound a bit reductionist, but remember that apart from the space restrictions, you're also dealing with *time* restrictions. People usually just browse posters while on their coffee break. Your job is to captivate them and make the most of that short break.
This might also all sound a bit too much like leading the viewer/reader like mindless cattle. Don't worry, though, they won't care. I've yet to hear anybody complain about an argument being presented *too* clearly. If anybody wants details beyond the take-home argument, you'll be standing there to give them, which is why you should be prepared and ready for questions.
> 9 votes
# Answer
Apart from the excellent advice you already received, here are some additional points:
* Bulleted lists instead of flowing text helps make your points more concise. They are also easier to read.
* Don't be *too* concise. Although text should be minimal and the poster is not a stand-alone thing (i.e. you're there to present it), take into account that people who are interested in your work will ask you to mail them a pdf of it after the conference. They should be able to reconstruct your work from it (after having heard you present it once).
* Make the research question and conclusion stand out. Circle them, put them in bold, give them a different color, anything. A person looking at your poster should be able to read the title, the question and the answer at first glance.
* Make the data as easy as possible to read: circle the important parts in the graphs, point arrows to them, write in words what they tell you.
* Avoid putting tables, unless they are really small. Tables are difficult to read. Wherever possible, replace them with graphs.
* Avoid trying to tell your audience everything. Choose one key point to present.
* Aesthetics have a slightly different logic than usually. An ugly background color might work in your favor for example, as long as it makes your poster stand out. Symmetry, however, is highly valued. Also, I wouldn't go for more than 2 colors (apart from the background color and letters).
* I've heard that sans serif fonts are considered better for posters, though I'm not sure why.
> 7 votes
# Answer
Here you have a great article for the *Ten Simple Rules* series, by Thomas C. Erren and Philip E. Bourne:
Ten Simple Rules for a Good Poster Presentation
Take a look!
> 5 votes
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Tags: conference, poster
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thread-2356 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2356 | Salary determinants for faculty at public schools in the US | 2012-07-09T06:54:53.987 | # Question
Title: Salary determinants for faculty at public schools in the US
A follow-up question to this as I feel it is very broad. For example, consider this link displaying the salaries at a particular department in a public school in US.
I see very wide variations within assistant professors. Some assoc. profs earn lesser than asst. profs; people of the same age earn differently and so on. So, my question is, which of the following factors influence salaries at public schools and how?
* Age
* Experience as a faculty member
* PhD at a top school
* Number of years after undergrad/PhD
* Experience at another school (Does a Stanford faculty with 5 years exp. moving to a public school earn more than a faculty member at the same school for 5 years?)
* Number/Impact of publications
* Any other factor
Given all data is in public, I assume there can be no pay negotiations, so is it possible to determine one's salary in advance before the interview process itself?
# Answer
In addition to @eykanal's list, there are several factors that can lead to salary variance even within a single department:
* **Negotiating ability** — Some profs are simply better at negotiating for better salaries than others, even with comparable publications, funding, students, teaching evaluations, etc. Conversely, some people have lower salaries simply because they don't realize they *can* ask for more.
* **Time in the department/time since PhD** — All else being equal, the longer you've been here, the higher your salary. But as usual, all else is never equal. In particular, faculty hired with more post-PhD experience are generally paid more.
* **Performance** — In most departments, faculty are reviewed annually, if only very lightly, to make sure we're doing our jobs. Salary is one of the few levers that department chairs have to reward faculty who are doing exceptionally well, or motivating faculty (especially with tenure) who aren't (seen to be) pulling their weight.
* **Offers from other institutions** — This is one of the biggest sources of salary jumps. If a valuable prof in your department starts getting offers from other places, you department is very likely to raise their salary to keep them.
* **Administrative bonuses** — Faculty who hold significant administrative positions (like associate head, or chair of the undergraduate program) often get a salary boost.
* **Variance in the job market** — New assistant profs are generally hired at the prevailing salary rate for new assistant profs. Departments do not collaborate explicitly, but information does flow through applicants who get multiple offers. For example, about 10 years ago, a top-rated US CS department (not mine) decided to significantly increase its salary offers to new profs, to gain a strategic advantage over other departments. It didn't work; other departments (including mine) just raised their offers to compensate. It took several years to correct the resulting salary inversions.
* **Variance in university budgets** — When times are good, faculty get raises. When times are not so good, faculty don't get raises. These times do not necessarily align with fluctuations in market rates.
* **Intramural politics** — Academics are human, and subject to human failings. Everyone who reaches a position of power arrives with their own agenda; sometimes that agenda favors certain people or groups over others, for reasons that are more personal than objectively fair. In some departments, fights over limited resources can be ugly and brutal ("because the stakes are so low"); sometimes that ugliness is reflected in salary differences.
> 12 votes
# Answer
In the US, everything you list above—and more—can affect salary. (Do note that, in the US, age discrimination is illegal. Not that it doesn't take place anyway...) The only thing I'm not sure of is "number of years as a PhD", that's more of a proxy for "work done during PhD tenure", which is included in the impact factor.
A few factors I thought of, not likely exhaustive:
* Masters/PhD/postdoc alma mater
* Masters/PhD/postdoc advisor
* Number and quality of publications
* Grant history
* Existing grants
* Collaboration history
* Teaching experience
* Field of research (psych vs history vs engineering vs etc)
* Type of institution (public/private)
+ Economic environment (budget cuts in state funding, etc)
* Teaching load
* Location (Dallas, TX vs Palo Alto, CA vs etc)
* ...?
> 5 votes
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Tags: united-states, professorship, salary
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thread-2364 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2364 | Learning/Reviewing New Material Quickly | 2012-07-09T12:05:59.610 | # Question
Title: Learning/Reviewing New Material Quickly
My question is : What is a **time effective** way to *learn* new material/ *reviewing* old material you don't completely remember?
Motivation:
For my research in Computer Science, I need **lots of elements** of hypothesis testing that I learnt in Statistics 101 (Roughly 10 years ago). I haven't taken a single stats class ever since. I vaguely remember the terms involved in the subject and am somewhat conversant with the basics of statistics (so I don't need to retake the course). But all in all, it's as good as a blank slate right now.
I have read How to efficiently read mathematically and theoretically dense books in STEM fields? but that targets a specific topic that the OP wants to learn, not an entire book. The top 3 answers talk about reading only those sections which you are interesting in. I, on the other hand, need to understand the whole of hypothesis testing which by itself is a book.
My options are (As far as I can see):
1. Take out the book I used / "Best" book of the subject (i.e. the one best suited for my background) and read it from page 1 till I am comfortable. **Too time consuming**
2. Read the chapter I need and then go back to the terms I don't understand. **Time spent in confusion and direction-less reading exceeds the time actually spent adding value**.
3. Take course again/Read cover to cover. **God No.**
4. Any other?
EDIT : I wish to add that I can sacrifice depth for familiarity and savings in time. (Is this a good idea but? Assuming that it's not a central part of my research)
# Answer
> 6 votes
First of all, you will spend virtually your entire career doing this (trying to remember stuff you forgot), so this is a question that's worth really working on. You'll hopefully receive a good few answers; try them all over the course of a year or two in different situations and choose the one that works.
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My personal method is very similar to your (2); review the specific parts of the material that you need to know for that specific situation. In most cases, you'll find this to be sufficient for solving a particular problem. If you don't understand your material, then either Google the topic and try to read someone else's overview, or simply take a step back and go over the more fundamental material, working your way back up to the topic at hand.
Note that this will not work for situations where you need everything, such as interviews. For those, you'll want to read outlines and try to summarize contents for yourself. I've also gone back and looked at homework problems, which (assuming they were well-written assignments) can provide you with a good overview of the material that you need to know about the topic.
# Answer
> 5 votes
Let me answer a different (but related) question. How can you learn material now so that you'll be better able to recall it years from now? Here I recommend that you explore to discover your own learning style, which has a couple key advantages.
1. Using the right style can help you to absorb information more quickly and retain it longer.
2. Perhaps more importantly, by recreating the techniques you used to learn the material, you can more easily recall it.
A simple example of (2) is that if you learn certain material while listening to classical music, then later you'll be better able to recall it while listening to similar music. This may sound obvious, but far too few people make use of it. Let me give a personal example. Like many people, I retain information far better if I interact with it: take notes, draw diagrams etc. This process can be time intensive, so you have to find a balance. What was terrible though, was that I would often lose my notes, so that when trying to recall the information later I'd be stuck.
Only after I was well into grad school did I settle on marking extensively in my books. I underline, draw arrows, mark key ideas with boxes and stars, etc. The magic is that when I reread later, my markup helps me to quickly remember what I was thinking when I first processed the concepts. So whatever epiphanies I had the first time around are more readily accessible. My point isn't to tell you to mark in books (though I find it invaluable). My point is to tell you to **recall** information in a way similar to how you **learn information**.
# Answer
> 2 votes
You didn't really mention WHY you need the material for your research.
One case is when you have this vague feeling that there's a concept from statistics (in your case, hypothesis testing) that you need for your work. In that case, eykanal's approach and strategy (2) is best. Focus on what you need, and do deep search, taking detours when needed to understand ancillary concepts.
Another case is when you're moving into a new area and expect that you'll need a firmer base in the material before you can continue (to develop the right intuitions and so on). In that case, strategy (2) is still ok, but it helps to do some background work on the side. I find that working through problems is a good way of keeping you focused on learning by doing, and also tests your fundamentals.
# Answer
> 0 votes
Tablets make it a lot easier to go through old materials. If you can find ways to download your textbooks and lecture notes as PDFs and then use a tablet to heavily annotate your textbook (you can even insert extra pages too), you can come up with an easily-searchable annotated version of your textbook that you can re-use again for years to come.
I use a Lenovo ThinkPad because of its large screen size and stylus pen, which makes it very easy to annotate and highlight textbooks and lecture notes. I also put my textbooks in my Dropbox folder so that my annotations are auto-saved in my Dropbox (and in case I ever lose my tablet, I won't lose my textbooks along with them).
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Tags: graduate-school, reading
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thread-2370 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2370 | Were there changes in approaches to undergraduate education in the 1970s or 1980s? | 2012-07-09T14:42:46.273 | # Question
Title: Were there changes in approaches to undergraduate education in the 1970s or 1980s?
I was recently reading some papers regarding bridging the gap between academia and industry, specifically in undergraduate computer science and software engineering programs. The papers I read were published between the late 1970s and the mid 2010s. I noticed a stark contrast in papers published in the 1990s as compared to the 1970s with regards to education, often in reference to mathematics and science.
A small passage from Essential Elements of Software Engineering Education, published in 1976:
> It is clear from the above discussion that the education of a software engineer will involve the study of a variety of subjects combined with a considerable amount of practical experience which must be accumulated over a number of years. From a university standpoint, the subject matter not only cuts across a number of traditional disciplines and boundaries, but also covers topics that historically have not been part of academic curricula.
This passage follows a discussion of problems that arise from teaching software engineering, specifically the difficulties in mapping certain aspects of industry into the classroom. This discussion is a significant portion of the paper, and similar discussions are prevalent in other papers written around the same period of time. Generally, there's an understanding that a wide knowledge base is needed in the fields of computer science and software engineering, but the trend is to focus on maximizing the skills and knowledge needed in industry.
Throughout everything published in the mid-to-late 1970s, I get the idea that the people designing the computer science and software engineering curricula understand the industry. This includes technical and non-technical topics, but always serving the needs of the profession. It's well summarized in this statement, also from Essential Elements of Software Engineering Education:
> A curriculum in software engineering must be multi-form and in fact be a collection of curricula to meet the diverse needs of existing professional groups.
Fast-forward to the 1990s. A passage from the The SEI undergraduate curriculum in software engineering reads:
> The mathematics and science content of the curriculum should help achieve two fundamental objectives. First, it should prepare students to participate competently in an increasingly technological society. This includes the ability to understand science and technology issues well enough to make informed political decisions. Second, the science and mathematics content should provide the students with an appropriate foundation for subsequent software engineering courses.
>
> ...
>
> While the physical and life sciences are fundamental to traditional engineering disciplines, they provide virtually no basis for software engineering. The only significant exception is that electricity and magnetism, common topics in introductory physics courses, support the study of the computer itself, and software engineers need a basic understanding of the machine for which they are developing software. To achieve the first objective stated above, however, it is probably the case that basic knowledge of physics, chemistry, and biology are essential in almost any undergraduate curriculum. Chemistry and biology, in particular, are likely to be increasingly important in understanding society’s health care, environmental, and genetic engineering issues in the next century.
This is really the first time that I saw society come up in a discussion about the content of a curriculum. There were mentions of law and legal topics being relevant for software engineers and computer scientists in previous papers, but always from a professional standpoint. In the above quoted passage, the first objective (and I'm assuming the most important in the eyes of the author) of mathematics and science education is not to prepare the students for future course work or their first job in industry or for future research, but for functioning fully in modern society.
Beyond that, the authors even identify that these topics have limited utility in many industrial settings for software engineers. However, they continue to encourage that basic knowledge should be part of the curriculum for society's benefit.
**My questions:**
1. What happened in the late 1970s into the 1990s that caused a shift from focusing on the profession and entering the workforce (both industrial and academia/research) to the general needs of the society in computer science and software engineering education?
2. Was this phenomenon localized to computer science and software engineering education or was it a widespread event?
3. What were the triggering events?
# Answer
> 8 votes
In the late 1970s when Freeman, Wasserman and Fairley wrote about software engineering curricula they were talking about graduate education. They assumed that most students would be working professionals returning to school to learn those things that they should have learned earlier, but which were not being taught when they had been in college. Those ideas were implemented in the early MSE programs at places like Wang Institute (where Dick Fairley and I met). We felt at the time that undergraduates could not appreciate some of the problems and techniques we taught, so it was not worth trying. I remember having arguments with Gary Ford at the SEI about exactly this point.
By the 1990s people were beginning to believe that software engineering *should* be taught to undergraduates, so that they wouldn't have to unlearn bad habits when they went to work. There was also an increasing interest in professional licensing of software engineering. Licensing would require ABET-accredited undergraduate programs, among other things. The focus on society is related to the interest in developing a discipline of software engineering aligned with ABET accreditation and professional boards of engineers.
This is not to say that we weren't interested in serving the needs of society in the 1970s and 1980s. We even had a version of a code of ethics that we taught Wang Institute students during orientation. But we assumed that students already knew their role in society. They had come back to school primarily to learn new methods and tools.
By the way, SWEBOK was actually started in 1998 as part of an effort to professionalize software engineering. The software engineering code of ethics was published at about the same time. Both of these projects were meant (by some of us) to support the eventual licensing of software engineering.
# Answer
> 4 votes
Since I asked this question, I studied a number of factors. I believe that the two primary factors are the age of the disciplines and the education reform in the United States in the 1980s. I also believe that the growth of multi-disciplinary education and the prevalance of computers have spurred these changes more drastically in the computing related fields (although I don't have sufficient knowledge at this time to be as confident in this assessment).
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The first thing to consider is the age of the disciplines. At the time of the publication of the first articles, in the 1970s, the fields of computer science and software engineering were relatively new on the scene.
The first computer science degree program was started in 1953 at the University of Cambridge. In the US, the first computer science program wasn't founded until 1962. However, some of the papers noted that computer science education didn't made significant advances until 1969, with the publication of the ACM Curriculum 68 and ACM Information Systems Curriculum, which established the central topics to computer science. That's over 15 years between the first CS program and significant advances in CS education.
Software engineering as a separate discipline wasn't even a thought until the NATO conferences in 1968 (Garmisch, Germany) and 1969 (Brussels), and it took another 10 years (1979) before the first graduate program and it wasn't until 1996 that an undergraduate software engineering program existed. If SE as a discipline follows similar trends as computer science, I wouldn't expect significant advances in the education techniques before the late 1980s or early 1990s, after the central topics have been identified and disseminated. As a point of reference, the IEEE's Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK), which outlines the core knowledge areas and related disciplines of software engineering, wasn't even started until 1993, which puts it at roughly the same time-to-development as computer science.
I'm not an academic, but I would suspect that it's rather difficult to design a curriculum that's relevant to students seeking careers in industry without a solid framework, especially when the goals are to produce a solid, reliable curriculum that stands up to the rigor of engineering. In addition, there is the additional work related to validation and accreditation of the programs. The papers from the 1970s were typically laying the groundwork for the work to come over the next 15-20 years by proposing the key topics and content. Upon further examination, nearly all of the topics presented in the papers were identified as essential knowledge areas of software engineering or as a related discipline in the Guide to the SWEBOK.
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I believe that educational reform also plays a role in the changes. According to Wikipedia, education reform was occurring around the world, starting in the early 1900s. Considering that the majority (all but one or two) of the papers that I read were written by someone in the United States, I focused my research on the educational reform that started in the 1980s and still continues.
In 1983, a report titled A Nation at Risk: The Imperative For Educational Reform (PDF) was published. Although the bulk of the paper is centered on primary and secondary education (in the US, kindergarten through 12th grade), it also mentions a decline in SAT scores, a decline in College Board (AP) test scores, an increase in the teaching of remedial mathematics courses in public 4 year universities, and millions of dollars being spent by businesses and the military for remedial education and training programs. The report found that the average graduate (of secondary schools as well as higher education) is not as well-educated as the average graduate of the previous generation and smaller proportions are completing high school and college.
This report presents the "Learning Society". A learning society has "a basic foundation the idea that education is important not only because of what it contributes to one's career goals but also because of the value it adds to the general quality of one's life." The focus become on life-long learning, well beyond the end of schooling. In contrast to this "learning society", they find that the American education system is expressing standards in "minimum requirements" and students who do the minimum amount of work to get by.
To report also finds problems:
* Students are taking "general track" courses instead of vocational or college preparation courses in secondary education, but only small percentages complete courses like Algebra II, French I, and Calculus
* Large numbers of credits are gained in physical/health education, remedial courses, and courses for training for adulthood
* Grades rose as amount of required effort to complete work rose
* Science-oriented students (4 years of science/math in secondary school) in the US are spending significantly (1/3) less time than any counterpart in many other industrialized nations
* A significant number of public colleges must accept all high school graduates from their state
* Textbooks aren't being written by experienced teachers or scholars
* Many textbooks don't challenge their readers.
* School years are significantly shorter (in length and total days) than many other industrialized countries.
* Teacher preparation curricula are focused on "educational methods" instead of subject matter
* Shortages of teachers, especially in mathematics and science, leading to under-qualified teachers teaching these subjects.
Although many of the recommendations point to changes in secondary education, it only makes sense that ripples flow throughout higher education. Vocational schools, colleges, and universities most likely adjusted their curricula in two directions. The first would be to meet the needs of the students who might have been underprepared by their secondary education by adding courses for subject matter that might have previously been expected by a high school graduate. The second direction would be to create the environment of the Learning Society by creating courses to expand the mind and enable students to "learn to learn" in the future.
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I believe that scaaahu might be onto something in his answer, as well. As mentioned in several of the papers in the 1970s, industry can drive academia. This is even evident today with things such as Industrial Advisory Boards, which allow representatives from industry to meet with departments at universities and provide feedback on the quality of the graduates and suggest curricula improvements to allow graduates to ensure they have the skills needed in the workplace.
Specifically, I'm looking at domain knowledge. After reading some work regarding how in the early days of the computing profession, computing professionals were expected to know computing. However, the modern workplace is often cross-functional. Having domain knowledge seems to be more important in these cross-functional teams to facilitate communication.
However, going back to the idea of a Learning Society, even if the education isn't necessarily in the domain of work, the ability to learn to learn along with critical thinking, problem solving, and collaboration (themes that are cross-cutting across nearly every discipline and things that are difficult to teach outside of practice) is critically important to success.
# Answer
> 3 votes
This answer is from a retired software engineer’s point of view. In 60’s and 70’s, not too many people had a close look at real computers. I wrote my first few FORTRAN programs on punched cards without actually seeing what a computer looked like.To me, a computer was like a black box. There was a magician living in the computer room, could understand the DO loop instructions in my program and do the job for me. There were a lot of students thinking the same way like me. The professors in CS department were facing tough choices. There was limited time for the students to take the courses. You teach them math and science first, or programming first? What would the industry think if your computer science graduates could not even write programs? Naturally, the curriculum had to be focused on computer science itself.
In late 70’s, micro computers came out. In 90’s, PC became house furniture. A lot of software packages were available. Programming became everybody’s skill like driving a car. In the mean time, the industry found out CS graduates are hard to use because they don’t have enough application domain knowledge. I, for example, had to borrow books from the library to learn how radar operates. In the last few years before I retired, I didn’t need the programming language manual because I knew them. But I had to get on Wikipedia web site many times everyday because I was not familiar with the application I was working on. And I know I was not an exception. Many of my colleagues were doing the same thing. Naturally, the industry and academia have to train the undergraduate student math and science so that they would be more useful.
The above is my observation and my experience. I would not say who is wrong or right. The OP was wondering what happened. I believe it was a gradual process and a basic economics rule, demand and supply.
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Tags: undergraduate, industry
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thread-2397 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2397 | Tips for useful note-making when learning by oneself | 2012-07-11T07:12:16.053 | # Question
Title: Tips for useful note-making when learning by oneself
When I'm learning new material, it helps me if I take notes (I usually use emacs org-mode). I read on Xournal (annotating on the way) and Alt+Tab to emacs to punch in important points. My question is:
**How organized should my notes be *while* I am authoring them?**
The way I see it, I can either make chapters-sections-subsections etc. *while* I am writing the notes (but this breaks the flow and is sometimes I feel it is irritating since I'm fretting on unnecessary details) or I could write the notes as bullets and organize them later (Something I like but overhead time is spent on organization after reading).
# Answer
Here's the method I found works best for me:
1. Read a section
2. Put the paper down, summarize verbally (mentally or out loud)
3. If you can't summarize, re-read the section. If you can summarize, write down the summary.
This method has the benefit that your notes don't reflect the stream of consciousness that I found went through my brain as I read the paper, but rather only a concise summary of what I actually understood from the paper.
Note that there were definitely papers where I read a particular section numerous times and had no idea what it was talking about, and I wrote that in my notes (e.g., "The authors then performed a mathematical transform involving technique, and I was not able to figure out how it works from reading the paper.").
> 4 votes
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Tags: graduate-school, note-taking
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thread-2400 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2400 | How to "cultivate" a postdoc position during PhD program? | 2012-07-11T12:38:27.320 | # Question
Title: How to "cultivate" a postdoc position during PhD program?
Imagine you're a PhD student, and you found a research group, in another university, that you'd like to join for a PostDoc period.
You want to join that group because you really like their subjects, and their projects, and/or for other reasons. You just dediced you would like to join them.
Now, what could you do during your PhD to augment the probabilities to reach this objective?
You might say: just relax, **make an awesome work**, and then, when you're ending your doctoral period, contact that group PI and ask to be hired (we already discussed how to cope with this phase).
Okay, but, **is there something you could do during your PhD before that moment?**
What could you do?
Keep up-to-date on their scientific papers?
Email them? About what? Visit their lab?
Thanks a lot
# Answer
You want to establish substantial professional contact with the head of your target group *long* before your doctoral period is about to end. They need to know who you are already when your postdoc application crosses their desk. It is never too early to start. Here are a few suggestions.
* Ask your advisor to invite the head of the group to give a talk in your department. Meet with them one-on-one. Ask about the possibility of a short visit to their lab to give a reciprocal talk. *(Prerequisite: Have something compelling to talk about; be a good speaker.)*
* Ask about the possibility of summer internships. *(Prerequisite: Be a good candidate for a summer internship.)*
* Ask your advisor to suggest a one-semester student swap. *(Prerequisite: Be someone that the other person would want to hire as an RA.)* More generally: Convince your advisor to collaborate with the other group.
* Ask the head of the group to be an external member of your dissertation committee. Ask at least two years before your defense. *(Prerequisite: Have a thesis topic that they will care about.)*
* Talk to the head of the group and/or his students at conferences. Join them for lunch, or dinner, or coffee, or beer, or whatever. *(Prerequisite: Be an interesting human being. Know a few good places to get lunch/dinner/coffee/beer/whatever.)*
* Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Cultivate *multiple* colleagues. Some may develop into future employers, others into future research collaborators, still others into letter-writers, still others into mentors, perhaps a few into friends, and most into nothing. *(Prerequisite: Know more than one person.)*
* Most importantly, *don't* think of this process primarily as "cultivating a postdoc position". Think of it as **cultivating a research community**. People *will* notice if your motivations are mercenary, if only subconsciously.
> 24 votes
# Answer
I would strongly recommend speaking with your advisor as a first step. He may be able to initiate collaboration between you and the researcher running the other lab while you're still performing your PhD work, allowing you to kill two birds with one stone.
If this is impractical for any reason, I would recommend reaching that, as soon as you think you have a strong enough knowledge base to be able to demonstrate expertise in your field, you should reach out to the professor at the second lab and express your interest. Research grants often take many months, and demonstrating your interest in his work at an early stage may give the professor more interest in writing a grant in which you could participate. Note that I would definitely recommend waiting until you can impress the professor with your knowledge. Postdocs are hired to get stuff done. While it's true you still are a PhD student, you're essentially applying for a position as a postdoc, and if you're not an expert (or close to one) in your field, he will likely be wary about bringing you in to your lab.
This last reason is why people typically wait until they're pretty far along, if not outright finished, with their graduate work before looking for postdoc positions.
> 7 votes
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Tags: job, postdocs, job-search, career-path
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thread-2405 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2405 | When do you stop reading books cover to cover? | 2012-07-11T21:23:51.060 | # Question
Title: When do you stop reading books cover to cover?
During my undergrad, we had a reading assignment (for most courses) which would nearly cover up the entire textbook including introductions, summaries, "did you know" and other such *fluff* material.
In graduate school as pointed out in most answers here on SE, one does not read the whole book cover to cover but just read the parts you need and backtrack if doubts. But is this also true if I'm starting out in a new field?
I had my BS in Engineering and I'm pursuing my grad studies in Math, certain topics like Topology are completely new to me. I don't need the whole of Topology but just certain bits and pieces.
Should I attain some familiarity with the topic by reading a good introductory book cover to cover or just dive in (into a completely alien field) and understand only the parts I need?
# Answer
You stop reading books cover to cover when you don't need all the information between the covers of the books.
If you take a textbook on topology and flip to the middle, it will probably be largely uninterpretable because you don't know the terminology, previously proved theorems, and so on. You can still glance through the chapter on the material that you really need to know to get an idea of what you're completely missing. If you can select a subset of earlier chapters that let you understand the later one, great! If not, read the whole thing. If that's still not enough, get another textbook or talk to someone who knows the subject well.
You'll have to make the call regarding when it's better to proceed in this way and when it's more efficient to simply start at the beginning and go through it all. If you need to know something well, this is often the approach to take not because the other wouldn't work as well *in principle*, but because in practice the temptation to be less thorough than one really needs to be is often too great.
> 12 votes
# Answer
I think this has been covered here in prior questions, but to continue on anyway ...
You should read material with a purpose or a goal. If the material is helping to achieve that goal (learning new or foreign material that you have a desire to learn) then reading all of the material is fine. There is no point in reading material though if it has no purpose or a goal (e.g. topics you are not interested in, material you already know sufficiently).
Personally for me it is a mix, some material I skim in large parts, some material I read only portions that I'm directly interested in, and if I'm really engrossed in some material I will read it front to back. Currently I'm reading an introduction cartography text book and really enjoying it and reading every chapter! It would be torture for me though to read though an intro textbook for criminal justice, criminology or sociology.
Same goes for journal articles, posts on Q/A forums, etc.
> 4 votes
# Answer
**What do you want to gain from reading that book?**
I typically find that I only read books (or articles) **cover to cover when I hope to work on a very closely related topic**. For example, if I'm trying to improve the result in a paper, I will often read most or all of the details. However, the vast **majority of the time all I need is the big picture**. In that case, I often read the introduction in detail, then skim the remainder to understand the structure of the actual proofs.
In your case as a math grad student, it may be important to understand the types of questions and answers common in topology. So I would probably recommend reading the book well enough that you can at least solve the easier exercises. However, if you don't plan to work in that area, and you aren't preparing for a qualifying exam or something similar, then likely the time you'd take to read the book cover to cover could be spent better elsewhere.
> 2 votes
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Tags: graduate-school, books
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thread-2436 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2436 | Choosing and training (admitted) PhD students for research | 2012-07-13T23:49:10.957 | # Question
Title: Choosing and training (admitted) PhD students for research
What do you expect from a PhD student before being an advisor for him? I mean do you expect from him to fully understand your papers and to be able to contribute your research from the first day or first month? Or, do you ask him to join your research group meetings and ask him to do some minor tasks in the group (collecting data, maybe some coding) while still learning about your research and other relevant topics he needs to understand the papers.
For example, assume that you are working on manifold learning and your PhD student has some experience on machine learning and has a very superficial knowledge about topology and manifold learning. Do you tell him to go and not to come back till getting some advanced math classes. Or do you rather tell him: "You did well on the general machine learning class which I taught why not come and join my group and lets have a look what we can do"?
# Answer
> Do you tell him to go and not to come back till getting some advanced math classes. Or do you tell him: "you did well on the general machine learning class which I taught why not come and join my group and lets have a look what we can do"?
If by "advisor" you mean "research mentor/collaborator", **definitely the latter!** In my experience, strong students can jump in and learn as they go. Even the most inexperienced student can ask useful "stupid" questions, precisely *because* their backgrounds aren't yet firm. Moreover, struggling with research (either reading or thinking or coding) *while* taking their first topology class tends to drive the relevant topology deeper into their heads. I don't expect most new PhD students to contribute real research results in my area (computational topology) in their first year, but I've been pleasantly surprised more than once.
On the other hand, if by "advisor" you mean "provider of research funding", my expectations are a bit higher. Before I hire anyone as a research assistant, I need concrete evidence of research output (not just potential), preferably in the general area of the grant.
On the gripping hand, if by "advisor" you mean "guy who signs paperwork", things are different again. Regardless of their background, I'll agree to be a student's *official* advisor only after we've worked together for at least a semester *and* they've worked with at least one other professor for at least a semester *and* we both agree that we're a good match.
> 15 votes
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Tags: phd, advisor
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thread-2438 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2438 | On giving gifts to LOR writers | 2012-07-14T02:50:32.677 | # Question
Title: On giving gifts to LOR writers
Should one give gifts to those who one's close to, or those who one generally doesn't interact with very much?
If the professors who wrote my LORs seem reluctant to meet me again for some reason (not sure why - maybe they're just busy), should I simply forget about it?
Also, do people usually give gifts to their advisers for PhD programs, or not really?
# Answer
Here's how I would feel about various expressions of thanks, for something like writing a letter of recommendation:
1. No response at all: I might be a little disappointed but if I am busy I might not even notice. Some people might be more offended.
2. Email saying thank you: Feels perfectly sufficient to me.
3. Handwritten note: A very thoughtful gesture.
4. Token gift (small box of candy, desk trinket, etc): Appreciative but slightly embarrassed.
5. Gift of non-negligible monetary value: Quite embarrassed. I would probably gracefully try to decline it.
6. Gift of money, in any amount: Very uncomfortable. Feels like a bribe. I'd refuse.
Of course this could vary by culture (I'm in the US).
Regarding gifts for an advisor: A common tradition is to give your advisor a nicely bound copy of your dissertation, for their reference and as a memento. (Also be sure to thank them *in* the dissertation!) You could accompany it with a nice personal note. But again, I wouldn't suggest anything of significant value.
> 25 votes
# Answer
This may vary from country to country, but I think a simple "thank you" is sufficient. Writing letters is part of their job.
I'm actually *forbidden* from accepting gifts from students, on the grounds that an outside observer might interpret the gift as undue influence. But then, I work for a state whose last two governors are in prison for various flavors of corruption.
> 14 votes
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Tags: recommendation-letter, gifts
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thread-2442 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2442 | How to get good recommendations in online courses? | 2012-07-14T06:29:39.033 | # Question
Title: How to get good recommendations in online courses?
I'm going to be starting a master's program soon that is all online. I have taken some online courses before at a community college, and the interaction with professors was rather limited. I'll be starting at a university soon, and I'm hoping that aspect will improve. But my question is, how can I create good relationships with professors online that will allow me to get meaningful recommendation letters?
# Answer
> 5 votes
In order for me to want to write a student a good letter of recommendation, I typically want to see two things:
1. **mastery of the material** (at least enough to earn an A- or better in the course)
2. **engagement with the material**
Most often (2) comes through asking me good questions in office hours, although in one case that I recall, I was really impressed with the student's final paper. Although she already had the top grade in the course, she went above and beyond on the final paper. I wrote her a glowing letter of rec, and she ended up winning at least one scholarship.
Now to answer your question, I suggest that you approach a web-based course similarly. Obviously, work hard to do well in the course. But also make an effort to get to know the instructor a bit. Many web-based courses have some type of office hours (perhaps a scheduled chat-room time). Whatever format you have available, take advantage of it (possibly this could be only a forum; not ideal, but still workable). Take time to think of good questions about the material, and ask them in office hours. If you have the chance, let the instructor get to know you a bit, too. It's much easier for your instructor to write a letter of rec for you if they know you well enough to have something to say.
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Tags: recommendation-letter, online-learning
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thread-2433 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2433 | Where to publish Ph.D. related articles in the IT field | 2012-07-13T20:47:26.167 | # Question
Title: Where to publish Ph.D. related articles in the IT field
I am currently working on my Ph.D. with topic “Research of the current methods and technologies for web sites and web application development“. I have some articles that I would like to share(and also I must have several publication before I complete the course) so I was wondering can someone advice me to and university/science organisations that publish students articles.
Thanks in advance
# Answer
First of all, you can of course submit your papers to regular conferences/workshops. Usually, you can have the choice between regular papers, short papers or posters (the last two categories are sometimes merged). You need to be careful whether the accepted papers will be published in the proceedings (sometimes short papers/posters are not), otherwise it might not count as a publication for your course.
Some conferences also organize a doctoral symposium, which is reserved for PhD students. It can be a good opportunity to attend a selective conference, and to do some networking with other students.
In order to know which conferences are the most suitable for you, the better option is to ask your advisors, they should know about that. You can also search on the web for "call for papers" with some keywords corresponding to your research field.
> 2 votes
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Tags: phd, publications
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thread-2346 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2346 | After my PhD how much salary should I expect as a professor of computer science? | 2012-07-09T01:26:27.517 | # Question
Title: After my PhD how much salary should I expect as a professor of computer science?
It's easy for me to find out salaries for tech-jobs but it seems Professor salaries are quite hush-hush. I really love to teach and would be more than willing to join academia. However, I may choose to work for a few years in the industry before doing so. But even for information sake it's really *really* hard to figure out a tenure and tenure track professor's salary. It's rude to just ask my professors/colleagues directly :P
I'm interested in knowing an 'expected' range for the following countries - preferably both state and private universities (Computer Science). I'm not sure if there is a difference between the MS/PhD faculty and BS/B.Tech/BE though, but it'd be great to highlight the same.
* United States
* Europe (Switzerland, Germany more preferable)
* Australia/New Zealand
* India/China
Intent of information - awareness to take a better decision on the 'money dimension'. Please don't get me wrong, I am not intending to take a job with the most money but if a faculty position pays USD $50,000 per annum after 5 years of intensive effort, I'd like to hold off for a while. If *"it depends"* then on *what* does it depend and after I satisfy those dependencies, what can/should I expect?
**UPDATE**: Just for clarification, I am on the verge of completing my PhD thus piquing my curiosity about the remuneration since it's difficult to ask your advisor or other faculty members. I have and mostly been asked to wait for infinity for the response, hence the question :) I just wanted to know so that I can take an informed decision when I'm at the crossroads of *applying for academia* vs *industry*. Please don't get me wrong. I DO NOT wish to undermine the value of a PhD. I'm genuinely curious and I personally enjoy every bit of my work and it's NOT ABOUT THE MONEY :)
# Answer
> 36 votes
For the United State, see http://cra.org/resources/taulbee/ for salary survey data in computer science. Of course, as Suresh points out there's enormous variation. The median salary for a tenure-track assistant professor in computer science at a US research university is about $90k, but some make quite a bit less.
# Answer
> 26 votes
First of all, you assume that after finishing a PhD, your chances for a professor position are good. As far as I can say (a CS post-doc@EU university), this is generally not straightforward unless you deliver a star PhD. Otherwise, expect at least one post-doc appointment. After a return from industry, unless you were *very* active in the research community during your time with a company, again post-doc is what you should expect.
Now to the answers, a European perspective. Generally in the EU, probably except for the UK, the academic salaries are governed by tables subject to annual change. In many countries these would be fixed without a variable component based on performance.
# **Germany:**
The positions of research assistants underlie TVoeD regulation (BAT in the past). There is no special category for a post-doc, all research assistants are treated equally. The salary scale reflects the individual's experience, that is, officially years of employment. Generally that should include also academic experience abroad too. Find the current tables also here \- note the scales differ for West Germany, East Germany, Berlin and Hessen. You are interested in the class E13.
Professorships are remunerated according to the W scale. Again the salary differs from state to state, but according to this, we speak a baseline of about *EUR 47k*, *EUR 53k* and *EUR 65k* a year for W1, W2 and W3 professorship positions. W1 is for a Juniorprofessor, roughly equivalent to an assistant professor. W2 and W3 are two different levels of full professorship, the particular difference is mainly an experience/salary issue. The salaries are again graded in steps according to the number of years of experience at the particular position. You start at 0 and from there your grades increase.
Note however, at least in CS and generally in STEM, Germany does not fare very well in terms of foreigners on senior academic positions. It's relatively rare to encounter a non-German (or Swiss/Austrian) holding a professorship at a German public university.
# **Netherlands:**
The system is slightly simpler than in Germany, the salaries are fixed according to CAO (Collective Labour Agreement) regulation and subject to annual/bi-annual negotiation and modification. You can find the information on CAO here. Salary-wise you are interested in the salary table, columns H1 and H2 (Professor 1 and Professor 2). These are full professorships. Here we speak about *EUR 65k* and *EUR 58k* respectively as a baseline from which the annual grading increase starts. For a assistant professor, the columns of interest are 11-13, so the variance is big. E.g., 11 is also for post-docs, though sometimes assistant professors get that as well. Depends on the particular position.
Now considering positions in the Netherlands taken by foreigners, you are eligible for a so called 30% rule which basically states that you do not have to pay taxes for 30% of your income. That leads to a significant salary increase for foreigners in the first years of their employment in the Netherlands so even the assistant professor salary grades might not look extremely interesting, considering the 30% rule, they turn out to be fine.
All the quotes should be understood brutto before taxation and social system/healthcare/++ deductions.
# Answer
> 18 votes
While it is a good question which people naturally would like to know before committing for a PhD, a definitive answer is next to impossible.
Your question on **Indian public sector** is best answered by Prof Giridhar Madras's blog. In this post, for example, he talks about a new professor getting Rs 52000 per month plus accommodation. Then there are scholarships, consulting work for many small companies (whose numbers are bound to be high in a rising economy), vacation period of 3 months when you "get paid in international currency" (ref:GM's blog), paid conference trips, travel allowances within India, etc.
You cannot directly compare this with any private sector company: you are obviously going to get paid more, but you are stuck inside those cubicles with monotonous work and you are likely to lack intellectual freedom.
Regarding **Indian private sector**, things are hush-hush, and depend on your personality, education, job offers, negotiations, etc. But I would say deemed universities in India are particularly wealthy given India's population and the general affordability to pay high fees. On the flip-side, your colleagues and students are unlikely to be intelligent or sharp, as most of India's intellectual wealth generally lie within the IITs (and at times, the NITs, CEG, etc).
# Answer
> 15 votes
There are many factors that go into figuring out the answer.
* location - different countries/systems have different ways of paying
* area: salaries vary HUGELY across areas. You didn't mention your area, but you can expect that salaries in the humanities are less than those in engineering which might in turn be less than those in law/business/medicine
* private/public: in the US salaries of profs at public universities are public knowledge - if you look up the university of Utah you can get my salary and that of all my colleagues. Public universities usually have public scales - private universities are - well - private.
* level: I assume you're starting at the lowest level, but based on experience/demand things can vary a lot.
To get information, best to lookup surveys that are usually run by professional organizations in your area - they'll give you good ballpark estimates.
Ultimately you have to remember that a faculty salary, like any other salary, is a market-driven quantity with value set by the market. So it's very important to understand the local economy that drives the numbers - the above factors are some of the main drivers.
# Answer
> 12 votes
There's enormous variation in both field and university. I would however suggest that professorial salaries are not entirely "hush-hush". For example, the University of North Carolina system has all their salary information available to the public:
http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/02/24/1011452/university-employee-salaries.html
Look up the department you're interested in, get some names of their lower ranked faculty, and look them up to give yourself a ballpark estimate.
They also break down State and Non-State funding so you can get an idea of how much of the salary is hard money and how much of it is based on grant support.
# Answer
> 11 votes
**Australian discussion**
Pay scales are available on most university web sites:
The first challenge is to get a job. You may need a year or two post doc experience before you can get a level B lecturer position. For reasonable performance you'll typically go up one increment each year (i.e., B1, B2, etc. to B6). To go to C (Senior Lecturer), D (Associate Professor), or E (Professor), it is not automatic. You need to meet more criteria.
# Answer
> 8 votes
Your expectation should depend on both the potential salary (which the other answers are provided reasonable estimates of) and the probably of the outcome (which most of the other answers have not touched on). If you have not started a PhD program yet, your expectation about how much you will make as a professor should be $0 since the probability of becoming a professor is essentially zero. Even using generous numbers 0.5 get into PhD programs, of those 0.5 finish PhD (0.25 of those who apply). Of those only 0.5 will get a post doc position (0.125 of those who apply for a PhD). Then you have TT position (0.06) and tenure (0.03).
# Answer
> 7 votes
Australian starting salary with a PhD is around 70-80K USD. Up to 100K after 5 or so years, ++ if you are a super academic/head the faculty etc.
Cost of living is quite a bit higher than the US.
Tenure doesnt exist in Aus, you will be an academic as long as you can bring in research dollars/you teach important subjects that bring in students. There are no private universities here.
# Answer
> 5 votes
Following this question: What's the net income of a W1/W2 german professor?, and according to this link, in Germany and in 2008, the monthly gross salary could go from 3500 euros per month up to 7000 euros per month.
# Answer
> 4 votes
in Spain you can max out some 35k€ / year
Some details to complete the answer:
I am "Profesor Titular" (senior lecturer with a tenure position, like a second class Professorship). I have 15 years experience My total income last year was EUR 45ooo. That included 2ooo for an extra course, 27oo for a positive evaluation of research and 86oo for the 15 years. That gives a basic salary of about EUR 31ooo when you start. But when you start you have a lower category, so the first salary is lower. There are also variations depending on the region. I pay about 12ooo for taxes and insurance. That leaved some 33ooo as true income. With the cutbacks, I expect some 30ooo this year.
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Tags: professorship, computer-science, salary
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thread-2457 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2457 | What makes securing faculty positions difficult? | 2012-07-15T13:37:12.150 | # Question
Title: What makes securing faculty positions difficult?
This question is an off-shoot from this one, where it has been agreed by most that securing faculty positions is difficult in general. I would like to know what exactly makes this so.
Though in theory university rankings may be pointless, there is a broad quality-based classification of institutions in any country which many will agree on - for example, the crème de la crème, top tier, middle tier and decent universities, of which there could be a few hundreds. We shall assume the student has passed out with a good thesis and impactful publications.
* Is it tough for a student graduating from a higher rung to gain a position in the lower rungs?
* What factors dictate the difficulty in securing a position in a university in the same league?
PS: In India, the answer to Q 1 is "not at all", as there is a heavy crunch for faculty positions even in top institutes. Instead the difficulty arises only when students from low rung colleges seek top positions: in most cases, such students are found wanting in skills.
# Answer
One of the strange effects of faculty hiring (and graduate admissions) is that offers do not necessarily go to the strongest candidates. Departments have limited resources to interview, recruit, and hire faculty. Interviews are expensive; startup packages are *really* expensive; faculty job offers burn political capital *even when they aren't accepted*.
So hiring committees make strategic decisions based on the perceived probability that candidates will accept the position. The University of Southeast North Dakota at Hoople would most likely *not* interview superstar applicants, because they don't want to waste their time interviewing someone who's "obviously" going to get offers from stronger schools. As with any self-selection process, this assumption is partly justified and partly Institutional Impostor Syndrome.
So no, selecting an MIT grad is **absolutely not** a no-brainer for U-Cal-XYZ.
And yes, sometimes reasonable PhD students from very strong schools fail to get faculty jobs, or even interviews, because they don't quite have the research record to get an interview at the best departments, but their pedigree scares off weaker departments.
> 32 votes
# Answer
The short answer is that there are many more people that *want faculty positions* than there are *positions*. Any time *demand* is higher than *supply*, cost tends to go up. So why is demand so high? Partly it's because being a professor has lots of attractive qualities. However, partly it's because that's what our professors tell us we should be (some do this very explicitly, and some more implicitly). As a result, many students (especially stronger students) decide that the only way to succeed is to become a professor.
Another aspect that makes becoming a professor hard is that most professor jobs require a combination of skills: teaching, research, article writing, grant writing, advising and mentoring, networking, etc. However, grad school generally fails to teach us many of these skills. Most grad schools focus almost exclusively on research, and possibly teaching.
> 18 votes
# Answer
It is difficult because there are more graduating PhDs than there are faculty positions. This is because by and large, academic departments are not growing very fast.
Consider a department that has 40 faculty positions, and is not growing. Suppose each faculty member has a career that spans 40 years (Say, ages 28-68). Then in a steady state, this department will hire 1 new faculty member every year. On the other hand, say each faculty member graduates 1 student on average every three years. (This is conservative: say each professor has only 2 students at a time, and each one takes 6 years). So this department graduates 13-14 students every year.
This is what happens in general: each department produces many more PhDs than it consumes, so there must be many who leave the system.
> 9 votes
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Tags: professorship, job, university, job-search
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thread-2458 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2458 | Tips for faculty members seeking administrative responsibilities | 2012-07-15T13:52:58.363 | # Question
Title: Tips for faculty members seeking administrative responsibilities
How does a faculty member seek administrative responsibilities in a Department? Do such positions come in a cycle only? Or should the faculty member make his/her willingness known in advance to the Chair? Are there any politics/wrangling involved?
Moreover, for an assistant professor, is there anything that could be done during PhD so that the profile comes out as someone willing to take admin responsibilities?
# Answer
> 11 votes
Don't worry, administrative responsibilities will find you unless you flee them, and even then you probably won't avoid them. At most universities, young faculty are expressly spared administrative responsibilities so that they can focus on research and get tenure.
If you're really looking for them, generally all you need to do is vocally speak your mind on every issue that comes up. Most of your colleagues will feign apathy in order to avoid being assigned to a committee.
# Answer
> 7 votes
Administrative duties are considered "service": that is, something that everybody is expected to do. However, that also means that, if you're a junior faculty member under consideration for tenure, having extensive administrative duties won't help advance your case. In many ways, it can, as David says, get in the way of productivity.
That said, you can probably get a sense from your colleagues about the amount of administrative duties you are required to take on. And there is one potential advantage to making your preferences known to the chair (provided he or she is friendly with you, and is working in your best interests): if you have a particular preference for committee duty, then announcing that may make it easier to actually get it!
# Answer
> 3 votes
Contrary to JeffE's comment and David's answer, at four-year institutions, opportunities to engage in administrative duties within and outside your department will usually come up long before tenure. And, at four-year institutions, *not engaging* in governance activities will usually hurt your tenure application.
The particulars, of course, vary by disciple, department, and institution, but aeismail's advice about following your colleagues' leads is a good way to gauge what you should be doing. If you feel like your department is not the best example, look at others on campus.
Also, as is likely true everywhere in academia, if you voice your "good idea," said idea and the committee developed to implement it will be your for some time.
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Tags: professorship, university
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thread-2426 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2426 | How common is faculty members changing jobs in the US? | 2012-07-13T04:28:37.547 | # Question
Title: How common is faculty members changing jobs in the US?
Faculty members switch between universities for many reasons, but how often does this happen? Has there been any study/report on the frequency of job shifts and resignations in academia, especially in the US?
# Answer
> 3 votes
The frequency with which faculty members switch departments varies by field. For example, it happens much more frequently in Economics than in Computer Science. I remember lunch-time discussions proposing an informal study aimed at testing the hypothesis that this difference in mobility was partially responsible for the income gap between econ and CS (economists make substantially more money), but looking for it now, I can't find it. Maybe it was never written up...
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Tags: professorship, university
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thread-2493 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2493 | What is the likelihood of getting tenure? | 2012-07-17T14:45:23.787 | # Question
Title: What is the likelihood of getting tenure?
What fraction of new assistant professors end up receiving tenure at the institution that they started at? This of course varies by field and rank, so please include the area and range of ranks you are thinking of when you answer. (i.e. "Computer Science, top 25 but not top 10", etc.)
It seems hard to find hard statistics on this question. When you get official statistics for how many people come up for tenure and are denied, you get an overly rosy picture, because people who are not going to get tenure often leave before they come up for it.
# Answer
This question was the topic of a recent article in Science. Briefly, around 50% of tenure-track faculty will actually remain to become a full professor. This varies with gender, discipline, and year (e.g., its harder to obtain tenure now than it was 20 years ago). I strongly recommend reading this Ars Technica article, which explores the aforementioned Science paper in depth.
> 17 votes
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Tags: tenure-track
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thread-2517 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2517 | What will happen to non open-access publications in the UK after 2014? | 2012-07-20T10:03:41.850 | # Question
Title: What will happen to non open-access publications in the UK after 2014?
The UK recently decided that from 2014, all research papers supported by public funds must be published in open-access journals. For instance, the Research Councils UK announced a new policy stating that:
> The new policy, which will apply to all qualifying publications being submitted for publication from 1 April 2013, states that peer reviewed research papers which result from research that is wholly or partially funded by the Research Councils:
>
> * must be published in journals which are compliant with Research Council policy on Open Access
> * must include details of the funding that supported the research, and a statement on how the underlying research materials such as data, samples or models can be accessed.
My question is the following: what could concretely happen if someone does not respect this policy? For instance, if someone publishes both in open-access and in paywall journals, does that mean that only those in open-access count in the report to the RCUK? Or does that mean that you can get "black-listed" if you publish in paywall journals?
EDIT: Directly related question: what happen if one publishes a paper in a paywall journal and publishes at the same time the pre-print on a freely accessible archive?
# Answer
It seems slightly annoying, but not insurmountable. From the UK Research Council's Policy on Access, I quote,
> The Research Councils define Open Access to mean unrestricted, on-line access to peer reviewed and published scholarly research papers. Specifically a user must be able to do the following free of any publisher-imposed access charge:
>
> 1. Read published research papers in an electronic format.
> 2. Search for and re-use (including download) the content \[*N.b.: footnote specifies including but not limited to the text, data, images, and figures*\] of published research papers both manually and using automated tools (such as those for text and data mining) provided that any such re-use is subject to proper attribution.
>
> Open Access therefore allows unrestricted use of manual and automated text and data mining tools, as well as unrestricted re-use of content with proper attribution – as defined by the Creative Commons CC-BY license. The Research Councils acknowledge that some publications may need to amend their copyright conditions if they are to meet this definition of Open Access.
Furthermore, about compliance by journals:
> The Research Councils will continue to support a mixed approach to Open Access. The Research Councils will recognise a journal as being compliant with their policy on Open Access if:
>
> 1. The journal provides via its own website immediate and unrestricted access to the publisher’s final version of the paper (the Version of Record), and allows immediate deposit of the Version of Record in other repositories without restriction on re-use. This may involve payment of an ‘Article Processing Charge’ (APC) to the publisher. The CC-BY license should be used in this case. **OR**
> 2. Where a publisher does not offer option 1 above, the journal must allow deposit of Accepted Manuscripts that include all changes resulting from peer review (but not necessarily incorporating the publisher’s formatting) in other repositories, without restrictions on non-commercial re-use and within a defined period. In this option no ‘Article Processing Charge’ will be payable to the publisher. Research Councils will accept a delay of no more than six months between on-line publication and a research paper becoming Open Access, except in the case of research papers arising from research funded by the AHRC and the ESRC where the maximum embargo period is 12 months.
For individual grant recipients, the most important bit is probably the following:
> RCUK have in the past provided support for APCs through both direct and indirect costs as part of grant funding. From 1st April 2013 and until further notice, RCUK will support the payment of APCs and other publication charges related to Research Council-funded research solely through block grants to UK Higher Education Institutions, approved independent research organisations and Research Council Institutes. Research grant applications will, therefore, no longer include provision for Open Access publication or other publication charges.
>
> In all cases universities and research organisations upon receipt of funding should transfer these charges to their institutional publication fund. A university or research organisation can then access these funds to pay for APCs for any article resulting from research council funding.
and from the "guidance" document:
> The Research Councils will be amending their conditions of award to reflect these new requirements and will be extending existing mechanisms which capture research grants outputs (such as the Research Outputs System) to include compliance monitoring on this policy.
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To summarise: much as Daniel Shub anticipated, the policy allows for *either* a fully open access publication *or* publishing in a pay-walled journal which allows you to deposit the Accepted Manuscript in certain repositories, with an acceptable embargo delay. And enforcement of this will be much in the same way other conditions for grant dispersal are enforced. (They tell you what you can do with the money; if you don't follow the rules, they take the money back and/or not give you money ever again.)
The only thing to additionally note is the small caveat that *pay-walled journals, to qualify for the second option of "open access" cannot charge article processing fees*. (Which is not too unreasonable: a journal is to charge either the author or the reader but not both.)
> 13 votes
# Answer
My guess is that non-open access publications will not be able to be counted towards the REF (or whatever replaces the REF), used in annual progress reports, or be considered by grant reviewers when evaluating your track record. If Research Councils (RCs) catch you publishing in a non-open access journal, they likely will be able to charge the university for the costs associated with making it open access and possibly black list you from further funding.
I think these punishments will be rare, because I don't think the UK RC model is very different from the US NIH model. The US model requires open access after an embargo period. It is not clear if the UK model allows for an embargo. The US system allows for the version accepted by the journal, but not yet copy edited and typeset by the journal, to be made open access. Many journals just make the final copy available after the embargo, but not all do. It sounds like the UK system will require a creative commons licensing, which I think would allow publishers to copy edit, typeset and sell the open access version. Complying with the US regulations is relatively easy, so I doubt it will be hard to comply with the UK regulations.
> 4 votes
# Answer
Every scientific grant I know of has a clause stating that continued disbursement of funds is contingent on compliance with the the terms of the grant. So the most likely result of violating those terms is that they'll stop funding you. I think there would also be a strong effect on your professional reputation, since you signed an agreement to abide by those terms and then willingly violated them.
If you violated the terms of the grant *after* it expired, you would probably not get funding from that agency in the future.
> 1 votes
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Tags: publications, open-access
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thread-2524 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2524 | Is it harder to transition from Industry Research to Prof than PostDoc to Prof? | 2012-07-20T15:41:29.020 | # Question
Title: Is it harder to transition from Industry Research to Prof than PostDoc to Prof?
Assuming someone just received their PhD (in say, Computer Science) and chooses to step into Industry RnD rather than taking up a post doc, a year or two later, he/she realizes that Academia is where he/she truly wishes to be.
Is it tougher to transition from an Industry RnD job to a professorship as compared to a parallel universe in which he would have chosen a PostDoc instead?
Can an Industry RnD job double up as PostDoc?
(Assuming that one keeps publishing and works on important problems)
# Answer
> 6 votes
The "assuming one keeps publishing and works on important problems" bit is the hard part. If you are working at a serious industrial research lab doing academic-style research, then moving to academia is doable. If you are in a more typical R&D job but doing cutting-edge work and actively publishing, then it's still possible (but you may face more resistance, depending on your subfield). On the other hand, the vast majority of industrial R&D positions in CS do not put one in a good position to apply for faculty jobs.
It's easy to be overly optimistic about this. I've seen a number of students take industrial jobs and declare "I'm going to keep my options open by continuing to publish, even though it's not a job requirement." This rarely works out. It's far from impossible, but maintaining an active research program when it's not your primary job is difficult.
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Tags: phd, job-search
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thread-2510 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2510 | Pros and cons on commenting on public review papers | 2012-07-19T10:12:30.503 | # Question
Title: Pros and cons on commenting on public review papers
Journals such as AMTD and ACPD contain an open discussion where anybody can comment on papers under review. The peer-reviewers are still anonymous, but other people commenting are not. If I'm reading a paper and have questions about it, what are the pros and cons on posting them as public comments versus writing an e-mail to the author directly? On the one hand my comments may improve the paper; on the other hand, if I write something stupid or step on somebody's toe, that may harm my future career.
What do others think?
(Edit: I might add that in the case I have in mind, I am already in contact with the author)
# Answer
> 3 votes
As I pointed out recently in http://nuit-blanche.blogspot.com/2012/07/problem-with-pre-publication-peer.html , the problem with the current peer review system is not the rejection and all the horror stories that go with it, it is the secrecy that goes with the process. Make anonymous the reviews but hold the reviewers accountable is the surest way reviews can be both effective and provide some "currency" as +David Ketcheson points out.
In short If I were you, I would send the author some questions, then (after her/his approval) make the whole discussion available on the interwebs (after you have edited the parts that are sensitive or the ones that make you look really clueless). I do this often on Nuit Blanche with good results. Make sure you run the whole thing you are going to publish through the person you talked to as you are not a journalist. If you ask questions, you surely are not the first or the last one and remember what you publish must enlight both the people of your community and your future self.
# Answer
> 5 votes
I would try to answer this from the standpoint of a cost-benefit analysis.
A private conversation with the author will benefit you in that you now know the answer, and can harm you in that if your question is completely boneheaded the author will think you're an idiot.
A public conversation has the added benefit that you *and* other people both benefit. This is somewhat of a questionable added benefit, as oftentimes the question being asked isn't relevant to most people, but still, added discourse is often a good thing. Public discussion also has the added cost that more people can see your boneheadedness. While typically this wouldn't be a problem, as most people wouldn't ever encounter the discussion, anything on the internet can go viral, even if only within a smaller community (such as your research field). Personally, that cost strongly outweights the potential benefit. I would definitely stick with personal correspondence.
# Answer
> 4 votes
The first advantage that comes to my mind is that emailing the author and getting an answer will only help you, while commenting on the paper and getting an answer in the open discussions might help other readers as well.
But I really understand your concerns. One does not want to embarrass oneself or the author.
Which leads me to the inconclusive result of `+1` for both methods.
# Answer
> 4 votes
By openly and intelligently commenting on many new papers in your subfield, you might gain respect among your peers, which is the currency of the academic world. I can give at least one example: http://nuit-blanche.blogspot.co.uk/.
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Tags: peer-review, open-access
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thread-2483 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2483 | Should I assume that attendees have read my papers when I give a talk? | 2012-07-17T05:11:28.860 | # Question
Title: Should I assume that attendees have read my papers when I give a talk?
On occasion during talks, presenters will say, "as you know from reading my papers" or during a Q&A someone will say "you should know from my papers".
The above clearly seems inappropriate for most settings outside of a group meeting. However, to what extent should I expect my audience to know what I am talking about vs. completely assuming that my audience know nothing?
# Answer
> 34 votes
This really depends on your audience.
* At a department colloquium, I assume very little background, probably an undergrad degree in math, but not even an undergrad class in my research area. Here the audience will often be *smart*, but ignorant of the relevant background.
* At a research seminar with lots of undergrad and/or masters students, I still don't assume much background, maybe an undergrad class in the area, but even then I "remind" the audience of important information they "should" know.
* At a research seminar with mainly PhD students and active researchers I assume more, but even here I usually don't assume that they're familiar with the problem or the relevant literature or techniques.
* A conference special session (or minisymposium) is similar to a research seminar with mainly PhD students and active researchers. Here I often expect that much of the audience is familiar with the background and the techniques, but I still usually review them at least briefly. **I've never gotten complaints about giving too much background and context.**
I **never assume the audience has read any of my papers**. I typically view my talks (at least in part) as advertisements for my papers. The audience will never want to read my paper if they don't see why it's important (so that's my job during the talk). For those few that already want to read the paper, I hope they leave my talk with an outline of the paper, which will make it easier to read. Any time you're talking to an audience with varied background, it's good to briefly describe the key definitions. If you can do this quickly, perhaps only verbally, you don't bore those who already know, and you give the rest a fighting chance to keep up.
# Answer
> 8 votes
In general, when giving a talk, my only assumption about the audience is that they found the title (or me) compelling enough that they decided they didn't have anything better to do with that hour (or 15 minutes).
Or at a conference, that they can't be bothered to get up and leave before the session ends, and decided to stay.
While I will give references to papers I've written, it's always a "For more information..." rather than a "As you all know..."
# Answer
> 7 votes
I think the causality is probably reversed: a talk at any level is a chance to "advertise" or "promote" ideas (whether "your own" or due to a larger enterprise) far more dynamically than in a paper. Thus, a good talk will *motivate* people to read your (or others') papers. Papers and talks are not in the same currency.
Further, if you have any reason to believe that most people in the audience have read your paper that you intend to talk about... you'll surely be boring them, and making them sorry they attended, no? Certainly if the talk is just an abbreviated form of a formal paper.
# Answer
> 4 votes
I guess that this would strongly depend on the culture within your scientific domain. In my case (software engineering) making this assumption would be inappropriate. You can suggest to read your paper if, e.g., there are some technical details you are not going to present since they might not be of general interest, but you cannot assume that this already happened.
# Answer
> 3 votes
In general, the broader the audience, the less you're able to assume about the audience's knowledge of your work. For example, at a general meeting for your profession or a department-wide seminar, you'd have to be more careful to provide background and context than at a smaller, more specialized event like a Gordon Research Conference.
However, time limitations will also be a major consideration—and in some cases, can outweigh the specialization issue. If you only have ten or twelve minutes to give your talk, then you don't have time for more than a minute or two of background information, regardless of how complex or novel your topic may be.
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Tags: presentation
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thread-2388 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2388 | At what age do professors stop taking new students? | 2012-07-10T19:46:43.030 | # Question
Title: At what age do professors stop taking new students?
Assuming STEM, At what age do tenured professors stop taking new students?
I am a first year PhD student and have my eye on one professor who seems to be really interesting and I feel he finds me as a good candidate too but *for some reason that he refuses to discuss* he does not wish to take me in. Most of his current students are 1-2 years from graduating.
I have a strong reason to believe that it's his age (60-65). That's when I thought about the more general question I am asking.
# Answer
There are no hard and fast rules for this. However, in general, the question is not so much time-after-PhD, but rather time *before retirement.* Most faculty advisors in the final stages of their careers stop taking students, so that they can wind their research groups down gracefully. Frequently, the last years before retirement will be spent writing and teaching, and mentoring a few additional students. The amount of time depends on the average career of a graduate student in the professor's particular discipline, but somewhere between three and seven years before retirement, the "wind down" will begin.
> 19 votes
# Answer
In general, I strongly believe that this depends on the professor and department in question. One imagines that there is a time that professors *would like to* stop taking students and a time that they *actually* stop taking students, and these do not necessarily coincide. In a small department where there are many graduate students and a shortage of advisors, presumably there is "peer pressure" from other faculty members to continue to advise students.
> 8 votes
# Answer
Whether or not one comes up with a number of years since PhD, since tenure, etc., for faculty to stop taking students, that is not the determining mechanism... except in a few cases where the cause *is* simply fatigue or disillusionment with the whole enterprise. But the latter seems uncommon.
Rather, the absolutely dominant cause is senior faculty' estimated time to retirement. Not only would it be bad to retire while one has a PhD student still in progress, but, further, it would be bad to retire while one has a former PhD student pre-tenure. Thus, taking on a student is approximately a 12-year commitment, at least, I think.
And, then, it becomes hard to clearly picture one's own energy level and frame of mind 12 years into the future...
Edit: as to why it might be bad to retire when one has a not-yet-tenured former student: very often, unless the student has taken a sharp turn away from the general enterprise of their advisor relatively quickly, the advisor will still be a leading expert concerning the topic. Even with the presumption that the advisor will be positive rather than negative, that opinion is important. If the advisor is retired, or is operationally retired, the expert-ness of their opinion, e.g., toward the future and future developments, is weakened, and their credibility in appraising *future* contributions of their former student is weakened. One wants to be visibly sufficiently engaged so that one's opinions are connected to current and future events, not only archival or historical or nostalgic stuff!
... and to have this presumably-positive, presumably-helpful letter simply due to retirement or disengagement is a loss that many could not afford. Nothing overtly bad happens, but one has lost a great deal.
> 7 votes
# Answer
Sometimes people avoid taking students if they expect to retire or move before the student would graduate.
> 3 votes
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Tags: phd, professorship, stem, age
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thread-2544 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2544 | How does a graduate program's admissions committee operate? | 2012-07-21T15:47:41.177 | # Question
Title: How does a graduate program's admissions committee operate?
How does a typical graduate program's admissions committee operate? (In the US --- I understand that in Europe admissions are often structured differently.)
My mental model at the moment is several professors sitting in a conference room with a stack of printed applications and a few piles: accept, maybe, and reject. Three or so professors will read an application and then make a decision. If the volume of applications is large enough, multiple meetings might be required. This is purely my imagination --- I don't know how accurate this model is.
Of course, I'm sure that how admissions are handled depends greatly on the school, program, and department. I'm interested in a few data points to get a rough idea of what the average is.
A few more specific related questions:
* How much time does a typical committee spend on each application? I suspect there's a distribution. Obviously unqualified applicants will probably have their applications tossed into the reject pile pretty quickly. Qualified applicants' applications might receive more attention.
* Do admissions committees look online for more information about an applicant? I've read some professors (in CS --- not my field) will look at a student's research/project website, but I have no idea how common this is.
# Answer
> 58 votes
I've been on the grad admissions committee at my university for 30 years, and have been Dir of Grad Studies in math on two different occasions, so I have a good sample of what goes on here.
First, in the last few years all **our applications are electronic**, so the admissions cte doesn't have to be in a little room with piles of paper any more. This also allows much more asynchronous appraisal of files, which allows *not* wasting time trying to figure out common meeting times.
Typically, a preliminary screening is done in a "distributed" sense, that is, **obviously-not-qualified or misguided applicants are removed from the "active possibilities" queue**. By this, I mean engineering or computer science students, or crackpots, who declare interest but have no documentable mathematics background, no letters of recommendation from mathematicians, no GRE subject test, no nothing. :)
Even after this initial filtering, we have many fewer (funded as TAs or RAs) spots than approximately-qualified candidates. Even though we expect maybe 50-percent accept rate of our offers, the **number of approximately-qualified candidates is still too large by a factor of 2 or 3 or more**.
Candidates from small colleges in the U.S. typically have a very thin background, whether or not they've done special summer programs, so are at some initial disadvantage in comparison to candidates from Europe or Asia who have seen much more coursework, if only due to the structure of "college" there. This also precipitates discrepancies in GRE subject test scores. Nevertheless, we have found that this discrepancy is often very temporary, and after two years, or less, success in our program is almost completely uncorrelated with such things. Thus, **many of the pretend-objective measures of prior success are of very limited value**.
Further, the import of letters of recommendation depends greatly on the author, and *their* prior experiences, basis for comparison.
So we are left trying to compare candidates from widely varying backgrounds...
To get to the "final list" of offers thus consists partly of winnowing out candidates who are perhaps vaguely qualified but indicate no genuine interest in anything about *our* program, while **putting onto the "definite" list candidates who seem to be focused and have a particular interest in the research program(s) of our faculty**.
Documentably strong background and prior success is good, obviously, but, again, undergrad work, summer REUs, and such are a different enterprise than genuine graduate work and long-term research. **Success in a highly structured environment gives very ambiguous indication about success in an unstructured environment**. Success when there are unambiguous answers to questions that can be answered in a few hours is different from success in situations where the program can take months, and one is not quite sure what the question is.
So there is considerable discussion and re-reading of personal statements and letters of recommendation, trying to project into the future and a new environment, based on our prior experience. Not easily turned into an algorithm.
As to the specific questions: an obviously **implausible applicant could be appraised in 5-10 minutes**. At the other end, the final decisions about the better **obviously-qualified applicants may involve repeated appraisal, so that the total time spent might be 5-10 person-hours** in the end.
As to whether we look at on-line manifestations of applicants: this is a potentially delicate issue. The default approach would be to absolutely not do so, certainly not look at Facebook or other social media. If the application gives a pointer to a "professional" web page, of course this is considered useful, and positive if that site gives evidence of good work of the applicant. But "snooping around" would be unethical, inappropriate. Even if there is a pointer to a site in the application, if the application is not otherwise plausible I don't think I'd look at the web site.
EDIT (29 Aug 2020): since this thread got bumped to the top anyway, I thought it'd be not too disruptive to update remarks about GRE subject tests: the ETS (Educational Testing Service), which creates and administers the GRE, have cancelled the subject tests for this autumn (in the northern hemisphere, I hasten to add, having someone recently note my hemisphere-ism! :)... As I've said in this thread and others, in fact my dept does definitely does *not* consider GRE subject test scores good predictors of future success. The only aspect of interest has always been whether or not students succeed in understanding that (in the past) many or most places *did* consider a subject test score essential to an application... so we here would wonder why a student wouldn't have that score, even if we didn't care what it was...
Now, the Dir Grad Studies office is composing a highly revised statement of our attitude about the GRE subject test, at least saying that we are not interested in it, do not require it, and do not want to see it. (Apparently my math dept does not want to make any remarks that might be interpreted as "snarky"...)
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Tags: graduate-admissions
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thread-2549 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2549 | What should a tenured professor do to move to a more research oriented school? | 2012-07-21T22:38:25.213 | # Question
Title: What should a tenured professor do to move to a more research oriented school?
Much is written about how to get a job, but I've seen very little about how a professor with tenure (typically an associate or full professor) goes about changing schools. If a professor wants to move to a school with a higher emphasis on research, obviously his or her research, publication, and grant records will be very important. But what else will be important? Particularly, which aspects will be much more important than they would be for an assistant professor looking to get a job at the same school?
# Answer
Its difficult, and rare for faculty to move from non-research oriented schools to research oriented schools, particularly at the senior level. To be hired as a senior faculty member, you generally have to be specifically recruited, and someone has to make a case that you, specifically, would substantially strengthen the department. This is because making an offer with tenure is a huge commitment for a department, and much more expensive than hiring a younger scientist.
So what you have to do is be a visible leader in your field. When people think of your field, they should think of you, and when their university thinks of expanding their coverage of your field, you should be one of the first people they think of.
> 13 votes
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Tags: career-path, professorship, tenure-track
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thread-2553 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2553 | What to do after being denied tenure? | 2012-07-22T17:04:12.487 | # Question
Title: What to do after being denied tenure?
What do you do if after 6 years of being an assistant professor, you come up for, and are denied tenure?
How hard is it to get a job in industry, when you are middle aged and have no relevant work experience? How hard is it to get another job in academia? Who wants to hire someone who was denied tenure at their home institution?
# Answer
> 24 votes
First, I hope this has not already happened, but is only a *potential* concern.
Thus, I'd first address "how to *avoid* having this happen". As with failing oral prelims and such things, this results primarily from failed *communication* between the junior person and one or more relatively senior people. Ignoring for a moment department-politics-motivated tenure-vendettas, which do occur, departments are not collectively happy to deny tenure, since it reflects a kind of failure on their part, as well. Although the details of the expectations are different at "research universities" versus "small colleges", departments have *expectations*. Usually these expectations are communicated fairly clearly, although sometime not too forcefully or formally.
A pre-tenure person should have senior people to talk to about their situation in the department, about expectations, and about progress-so-far. Unfortunately, often there is no systematic implementation of this sort of mentor relationship, and the default is that the dept chair has a yearly talk with pre-tenure faculty. If this defaults further into an absolutely pro-forma, content-free interaction, there is potential danger, especially with a pre-tenure person who is oblivious to exactly these issues.
The worst cases I've witnessed, apart from those involving some political motivations, involved pre-tenure people who were surprisingly disconnected from the department in which they worked. Plausibly doing worthwhile work, but not interacting with local people.
Another kind of disconnection is that the pre-tenure person does receive fairly blunt advice from the dept chair, but decides to ignore it, as though some abstract notion of "virtue" would supercede the dept chair's recommendation!
Nevertheless, even if one *has* paid attention, it might be that one's research program just didn't *quite* measure up to hopes... Or there might be political/scientific shifts in the dept which (rightly or wrongly) marginalized your field/work "out from under you". In such cases, the external perception usually is fairly well informed, and the stigma is not too great, and there is hope for other academic opportunities.
If one *hasn't* paid attention, and, in some sense "rightly" was denied tenure, then this situation is externally understood, too, and it is in this case that one's academic prospects are dim.
Although I've had the good fortune to not need to look for non-academic employment, my several students who have deliberately (or due to vagaries of the job market, grudgingly) found non-academic positions emphasize that it's possibly not your specialized knowledge that you can "sell", but the point that you can learn very complicated things, and do things with them.
# Answer
> 20 votes
As with anything, it depends:
> How hard is it to get a job in industry, when you are middle aged and have no relevant work experience?
Is that really true ? It of course depends, but academics even in very theoretical disciplines have skills of value to industry (witness for example the number of math PhDs getting jobs on Wall Street). Of course, if one presents oneself as having no relevant work experience, it's going to be very hard to find an industry job, but I question the premise. Maybe the right fit is not obvious, and maybe it will take some networking and talking to people to find the right niche, but it's more a matter of repositioning one's skills. It's easier said than done, but it's possible.
> How hard is it to get another job in academia? Who wants to hire someone who was denied tenure at their home institution?
I know of many people who get faculty jobs after being denied tenure elsewhere. Universities don't operate on the same scale or with the same criteria or needs. It might need some time (again) to reposition oneself, and it might require some digging into the circumstances leading to tenure denial in the first place (painful, but sometimes yielding useful information).
It's by no means a definite thing, but it can be done. It will take some time though, also because without a job, one lacks leverage to dangle in front of another institution.
p.s The question was asked in the abstract, and the answer is thus necessarily vague. The real point is that every case is different, and there are always ways to move forward, if not exactly in the direction one is hoping for.
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Tags: job-search, tenure-track
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thread-2534 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2534 | Is it legal in the US for a professor to publicly reveal a student's performance in PhD comprehensive exams? | 2012-07-20T21:44:35.230 | # Question
Title: Is it legal in the US for a professor to publicly reveal a student's performance in PhD comprehensive exams?
Is it legal (for a faculty member) to publicly reveal a student's performance in PhD comprehensive exams? In the US, isn't this in violation of FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974?
# Answer
> 6 votes
Edit, again: The question seems to have changed, yet again. :)
1. A student can reveal their own performance in an exam. That information is their property.
2. Faculty cannot publicly reveal students' performances, as that would, indeed, violate the "FERPA" laws. (As parent of over-18 college student, whose tuition I'm paying, I do not have access to her grades without her permission!)
Edit: Hm... the sense of the question is radically changed. \[Initially, it was about faculty publicly disclosing students' performance results. When this answer was written, it had become about whether one could disclose one's *own* results.\] Sure, one is at liberty to reveal one's own quality-of-performance on an exam in the U.S. The "FERPA" laws would only prevent your examiners from revealing your performance publicly or to anyone who did not have a legitimate operational professional reason to have access.
It might be that the *content* of the exam might be partly confidential, but that is a different issue.
# Answer
> 5 votes
I can think of three reasons why a faculty member might reveal how a student performed on a qualifying examination.
1. When writing letters of recommendation requested by the student. Ideally you will have students provide you with written or electronic documentation stating what areas will be touched upon in a letter of recommendation. Assuming the student consents to you mentioning the qualifying examination, then you should be covered from litigation.
2. When approached for a reference that the student hasn't informed you that they have requested. Often students list individuals as references, but then don't let the potential referees know. As of two years ago, my school has advised us to say nothing in these cases. While this initially hurt our students, they are now aware of the policy, and the number of surprise requests is greatly diminished. If you chose to ignore school policy and reveal information about the student, then you can presumably be held liable.
3. Gossip. It can be accidental where you implying that someone failed his qualifying examination: "John is no longer a student here". It can also be intentional: "Don't be so quick to write off John's theory, he aced his qualifying exam." Both can get you in trouble. As with most gossip, you need to be careful with what you say and who is listening.
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Tags: united-states, legal-issues, qualifying-exam, privacy
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thread-2525 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2525 | Tuning the PhD journey for Industry jobs | 2012-07-20T15:48:54.867 | # Question
Title: Tuning the PhD journey for Industry jobs
I have just started my PhD and although I love research and everything that accompanies it but I am put off by Academia a bit and would prefer an Industry job at the end of my PhD.
What can I do differently during my PhD years with this ambition in mind?
I have read "PhD Grind" by Philip Guo wherein he states that at the end, he disliked Academia and thus his motives at conferences and other events changed from "crazy networking". Further, he spent more summers working in companies (Google and Microsoft Research, in his case) than with other research groups.
Specifically, should I handle the following any differently:
* Relation with Advisor
* How I spend my summers
* Conferences
* Publications
# Answer
> 10 votes
If your goal after grad school is to get a job, then during grad school
* you should **do the things needed to** impress the people you want to hire you and to **be accepted and esteemed in their community**.
* Slightly more concretely, **find people who now have the career that you would like to have**, and during grad school **do stuff that they have done**.
I still think *networking is key*, but now you may be networking with a different group of people.
# Answer
> 7 votes
I think the number one thing you can do is plan your internships appropriately. Want a job at Google? Spend a summer there in a product group. Ditto for twitter, facebook, ebay, etc: all of these companies have large internship programs open to PhD students. Not only will this give you contacts inside the company, it will give you an idea for the kinds of problems that they need to solve, which can (if they are interesting), inspire the direction of your research.
# Answer
> 7 votes
I think it is really critical that at each stage of academia you are thinking about the next stage and how to get there. For those interested in staying in academia, I take the often controversial view that you should do everything possible to delay getting to the tenure review (extra time as a student and post doc). For someone interested in an industry job, it is all finishing asap. For industry, PhD and post doc experience just isn't that valuable. With that in mind ...
> Relation with Advisor
You should tell your advisers that you are interested in industry jobs. This will help them tailor how they market you to your colleagues. It might mean they are more receptive to adding an industry contact to your committee or changing your topic slightly. They also might help you finish faster.
> How I spend my summers
Summers should be spent working on your PhD (i.e., trying to finish as quickly as possible) and picking up skills useful for industry.
> Conferences
If your goal is industry, conferences are no longer about meeting colleagues and selling your research. It is about hanging out with the vendors and industry reps. Small conferences, which are great for meeting a post doc adviser, are probably less useful.
> Publications
Back burner them. Take second authorship and let someone else spend the time writing them. They are not going to be critical for getting you an industry job or promotion.
# Answer
> 5 votes
From my own experience:
* Do well in all your courses. Those who will be hiring you in industry generally places a higher importance on grades than those in academia.
* Publications are still important, but not nearly as much as in academia. Having a few papers under your belt will demonstrate that you know what you're talking about and that your research has been reviewed and accepted by your peers.
* As was stated in other answers, find out what skills are necessary in the field you wish to enter, and master those skills. Oftentimes this will involve familiarity with a set of techniques or understanding of a very specific field. This is significantly different from academia. Remember, people in industry will want to hire you so you can help their business make money. The faster you can do that, the more easily you'll find employment.
* Network, network, network. If you know specifically what you want to do in industry, talk to everyone you can (people in your academic program, friends, relatives) about possible leads in industry. If you don't know which field you want to enter, start talking to people very early on so that you can appropriately customize your training to your needs.
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Tags: graduate-school, job-search
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thread-2565 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2565 | Relative or Absolute evaluation for academic positions? | 2012-07-23T12:43:55.987 | # Question
Title: Relative or Absolute evaluation for academic positions?
When a committee is evaluating applicants for a permanent academic position (such as a Lecturer or Assistant Prof. position), do they select the best candidate in the absolute, or do they relativize with the corresponding experience?
Consider for instance two applicants, one who just graduated from her PhD, and the other with 10 years of postdoc experience (for the sake of the example, let's assume that both are "regular" applicants, i.e., none of them is a exceptionally good or bad). Clearly, in general, the second applicant will have many more publications, grants, etc, than the first one. In that case, will the committee judge them by relativizing the CV of the second one by stating like only the number of publications per year counts, not the total one, or say that the second one has a better CV in the absolute, and therefore is better?
# Answer
> 9 votes
I don't think there's a single answer to this question. Ultimately, departments look for the candidate who will be the best fit for a given position, and for the department as a whole. If you also subscribe to the view that the department would rather choose a candidate who is more likely to accept a given position, then that also changes the decision calculus.
For the most part, however, I don't think hiring committees are doing "hard" comparisons of citations; that would just be foolish. Grant-winning experience also does matter, obviously, but that's also something that can be learned and developed over time.
So, ultimately, hiring tends to be a subjective process—you can view the data in whatever "objective" light helps you get to the conclusion you want.
# Answer
> 7 votes
I can speak for France.
We do relativize the application with the corresponding experience. In fact this is sometimes easier for the "younger" applicant to have a junior position since after a while, the committee expect someone with a lot of experience to have shown more than the ability to conduct research. To tell the truth, if you apply for a junior position with 6 years of postdoc, I will find suspicious that you was not hired before, and ask about that issue. Similarly, if you have 6 years of experience and if you never led a team or had a grant, I will find that highly suspicious (and so will be the rest of the committee).
# Answer
> 6 votes
In the U.S., currently, the usual "tenure guidelines" as well as surrounding department policies in math departments, mostly create pretty narrow windows for competition. For example, "post-doc" positions are only open to those within 1-2 years of Ph.D., tenure-track assistant prof spots for people less than 6-or-so years out. Already-tenured hires are a much smaller fraction of all hires, I think.
Yes, there is the point that someone 10 years out is considered perhaps-essentially-ineligible for merely tenure-track, not *tenured*, positions. This arose originally as a device to protect junior people from being strung along indefinitely without tenure. But, through the obvious process, now it is essentially against HR rules to hire anyone "too far post-PhD" without tenure.
Thus, the relevant "competitions" are between not-too-disparate populations: people 3 years post-PhD and those perhaps 6 or 7 years post-PhD. Certainly these are looked at in relative terms. If anything, the more-years-out people are looked at more critically, because they really have had an opportunity to get their research program going, while someone just 2 years out could understandably still be getting their first papers through peer-review, etc.
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Tags: application, job
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thread-2571 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2571 | Should my advisor know if I am auditing unrelated courses? | 2012-07-23T16:00:21.343 | # Question
Title: Should my advisor know if I am auditing unrelated courses?
Question : Should my advisor know if I am auditing unrelated courses?
Motivation : I am a PhD student in Computer Science and at times, I wish to audit courses which are not at all related to my thesis or research.
For instance:
* For Fun : Italian Food and Art
* For probable post-PhD jobs (but not related to thesis) - Econometrics, Quantitative Finance.
In general, my advisor is cool and won't mind the hour(s) I spend in the classroom. He allows me to work from home or wherever and doesn't care about "seeing" me in my office so long as I keep doing my work on time (which I do).
If I tell him about the courses, he unnecessarily might get freaked or worried and might question my intentions (which I can obviously clarify), If I don't it seems as if I am keeping something important from him.
# Answer
> 17 votes
In this case, you should let your advisor know, because the time spent in the classroom is time not spent in the lab. Since he's paying you for your time, if you will be doing daytime activities that will take time away from research he has a right to know about it. On a different note, depending on how auditing works in your university, there may be costs associated with your auditing the course, and he (or his grant) would be covering these costs.
Generally speaking, the more communication between you and your advisor, the better.
# Answer
> 10 votes
You should definitely tell your advisor about the potentially job related courses. As for the fun courses, if they are at your university and/or taught during regular working hours (9-5), you should tell him. If the courses are outside regular working hours and at a different school, then it is up to you. In either case, I would suggest telling him. These are the personal details that don't make anyone uncomfortable.
If your advisor is going to have an issue with you taking courses, you are better off knowing right off the bat.
# Answer
> 8 votes
In general, what you do in your "off-duty" hours are not subject to your advisor's wishes. So long as you're getting your job done, and are not using group resources to carry out those other activities, then what you do is your own concern.
However, if you're doing it during the daytime, or doing it for credit, then you should definitely let your advisor know. This is especially true of things related to your research program, as he or she may have helpful hints or suggestions about what is the right set of courses to take.
# Answer
> 3 votes
As far as I can tell, having pursuits and interests that are fun and relaxing and not-research are helpful to one's continued sanity and (research-)productivity. Since your work isn't suffering and if you're not spending excessive amounts of time on these pursuits, why not just mention it to your advisor? It might be nice for them to see you as an individual with varied interests as opposed to a research-doing machine.
As for job-related classes, perhaps there is a worry that your advisor wants you to go into academia but you want to say, go into industry - perhaps your additional classes are geared towards the industry side and you don't want your advisor to know about them as a result. In this case, I would say that it's better to just let your advisor know your intentions. If there is no discrepancy between the two of you about the courses being beneficial to your future, then letting your advisor know you're spending time and effort bolstering your background and knowledge sounds like a very positive thing to me!
# Answer
> 3 votes
Just let them know! It's okay to be in pursuit of knowledge or hobby but DON'T let it interfere with your research. See, you can take everything from Physics to Fine art and everything in between but at what cost? You will spend more money and more time to complete your PhD and it won't be worth it. The charm is for the first few years/semesters, but when the research takes over and you start loving what you do, you won't find time for other courses.
Your auditing unrelated courses is for your "personal gratification" only and doesn't help your advisor. It's okay to do it sometimes, but keep it at a minimum. For example, I love fine art and thought of auditing a fine art course. It won't cost my advisor and will only be for 1 hour per week in the evenings. I've never got around to doing it! I love my research and spend a lot of time working on that - so much so that my hobby can be put on hold.
Be sure you understand what is being lost and what is being gained - it should be valuable in some form or the other. If it keeps you sane, then a course once in a while is fine. But if you are auditing a lot more, you are going to take a longer time to do your Phd and when you look back you'll realize that you could've done with it.
Whatever you do TELL your advisor - they are your friends (most of the times :)
# Answer
> 3 votes
Just a paraphrase of some other remarks: you should not get into the habit of thinking that your employer/boss "owns" you, or has priority to *all* your time.
It may be that you and your boss began the relationship with some explicit or implicit understanding, say, that M-F 8-5 your time *is* their time, maybe with an hour for lunch. Or, starting down a slippery slope, perhaps it's 60 hours per week, or even understood that there's no upper limit? That "the larger enterprise" takes precedence? That people who "sacrifice everything now will be rewarded later"?
Although there's non-trivial content there, it is unwise to "buy" that propaganda too easily. For one thing, very few people are able to function at a high level more than a handful of hours in a day. The usual "40-hour workweek" is not predicated on \_high\_level\_ function every minute of that time.
At the same time, yes, some of us are aware that we are just messing around, or just fretting, or just hanging out at the coffee machine, or water cooler, or... That this happens surprises no one, especially with confusing, large-scale projects where the novices participating find it very hard to understand what they're supposed to be doing.
Nevertheless, your employer does not own you, and does not have a claim to all your waking hours.
Yes, your demonstration of commitment to your employer/advisor/mentor's goals makes a positive impression on them. Self-deprivation is not the same as constructive work! Some sort of false converse. :)
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thread-2583 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2583 | Common file-formats for writing research papers | 2012-07-23T23:58:22.347 | # Question
Title: Common file-formats for writing research papers
This is a rewrite of a question that was perhaps-naively posed. I rephrase...
What file formats are ok/good/ideal/common/long-term-viable/archivable/useful for research papers?
And, also, there's the history-question:
What is the story of viable file-formats in the last 20+ years?
# Answer
> 12 votes
**plain text/markup language**
For mathematics, I think TeX/LaTeX is the way to go. This is the standard way to write papers in nearly all areas of math (perhaps not biomath, where collaborators necessitate Word), so there's little extra cost. One advantage of this approach is that it's easy to automate outputting in almost any format you want. Furthermore, as new formats develop, we will almost certainly develop tools to convert TeX source to these new formats. The arXiv is a great example of this model.
# Answer
> 6 votes
Many people know what I'll say here, but I thought the re-format of the situation was appropriate...
For mathematics and "hard" sciences, PDF (portable document format) is absolutely standard now. Until a few years ago, PS (postscript) and DVI (device independent) formats were typical, but no more.
In mathematics, "Word" format was never common.
Currently, traditional (meaning various things) mathematics journals want a PDF file to send to referees. Everyone has software that can convert PostScript files to PDF, and so on. In fact, "OpenOffice", for example, can convert/export "Word" files to PDF.
So, in sciences, PDF, though "Word" may be forgivable.
The question of future readability of these or any other file formats is hugely non-trivial. (Similarly, kids-these-days, such as my almost-20 daughter, have great difficulty reading "cursive writing" of "old" people. :)
So: modulo issues that the original questioner can't afford to worry about, the current answer is "PDF, and tolerance for Word files, esp. from the humanities...".
The long-term answer about survivable file-formats... is troubling. :)
# Answer
> 1 votes
binary/plain text
Other things to consider (for the future) is the movement towards standard meta-data items contained with the research articles (e.g. structured abstracts, specific research repositories, meta-analyses), and supplemental material for reproducible analysis. These suggest to me the conversation should likely include more than one data file.
IMO we can be more imaginative than word or pdf files. For instance open access journals frequently have everything right there in html on the page. I even think this idea for a fast journal by Yihui Xie using markdown for revisions and compiling to html is a good idea.
This is forward thinking though. Realistic constraints force collaborations to work with WYSIWYG file formats and PDF *for writing* because such behavior has not permeated enough in many fields (although for exceptions in some fields that extensively write in Latex see Jeffe's comment below). That may change in the future though, especially if journals adapt submission standards that encourage such actions.
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Tags: publications, journals
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thread-2570 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2570 | Making time to catch up with people at a conference | 2012-07-23T15:14:38.763 | # Question
Title: Making time to catch up with people at a conference
I am attending a number of short (two and three day) conferences this fall. In the past I have scheduled meetings (e.g., time to chat and catch up over meals and coffee breaks) with people prior to the conference in an attempt to maximize my ability to catch up with colleagues/friends. This approach, however, doesn't work for me. To often meetings get cancelled and if I fill in my schedule too much it is hard to reschedule. Other times I have taken the play it by ear approach and catch up with who I catch up with.
Is there a good strategy for catching up with colleagues whom you already know well (I am not asking about strategies for meeting new people)?
# Answer
*Skip the talks*
Except for meals, most of the time at a conference is taken up by scheduled talks. Don't go to them.
Ok, go to some of them. But if you want to get some work done, catch up with a colleague during a coffee break, take a look at the schedule, find a session (or two, or three) that seem extra boring, and agree to skip them. Use that time to go to a coffee shop, or sit in a quite space in the conference center.
> 8 votes
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Tags: conference, networking
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thread-1498 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1498 | How do you earn opportunites to review journals or conference papers? | 2012-05-09T07:35:46.120 | # Question
Title: How do you earn opportunites to review journals or conference papers?
Critical reading is a very useful skill for most PhD students (and postdocs and researchers in general). Instead of assuming that everything you read in a scientific paper is right, it's useful to learn how to evaluate the paper critically: e.g., to question its content, to identify shortcomings and limitations and ways it could be improved.
Experience with reviewing papers is a powerful way to gain experience at critical reading of papers. Writing reviews for journals and/or conference helps a PhD student learn to get better at reading a paper with a critical perspective.
Unfortunately, review opportunities for PhD students are rare.
For instance, it is rare for PhD students to be invited to serve on program committees or asked to review papers. In addition, some may think that PhD students are not competent enough to write correct reviews of scientific papers.
How does one solve this problem? How can a PhD student get opportunities to practice reviewing papers? What would you suggest to a PhD student who wants to do some reviews?
# Answer
I'm going to address your question, but first, I have some issues with it generally:
> I think that one of the problems of most PhD students (and postDocs and researchers in general) nowadays is that they don't read scientific papers with a critical judgement. They often think that everything is right in a scientific paper; they're not used to doubting its content...
This is manifestly not true in my opinion. Indeed in my experience (and I've seen this shared by others), I've watched faculty members reign in students who had torn into a published paper for what were essentially minor methodological flaws that wouldn't change the substantive findings of the paper one way or the other. I think a far more common problem is "failing to see the forest from the trees".
> But, anyway, review opportunities for PhD students are not many.
They can be. I've reviewed 4 or 5 papers for journals in my time as a PhD student, and a disheartening number of conference abstracts.
> How does one solve this problem?
There are three ways I've gotten papers to review:
1. Your advisor puts in a good word for you. Essentially, a journal asks them to review a paper (or if they're an editor somewhere, a paper hits their pile) and they redirect it to you, either formally or informally.
2. Publish. All of the papers I've reviewed are in areas where I already have a well received publication, which bypasses the "Journals don't think PhD students are competent" problem.
3. Some conferences put out calls for reviewers. Keep an eye out and sign up.
> What would you suggest a PhD student who wants to do some review?
Publish. The strongest way I've ever ended up getting papers to review has been from papers I've published. Talk to your advisor. Look out for opportunities - I've seen at least three calls for reviewers in my time expressly open to students. This also gives you an experience *being* reviewed, which is important both for honing your own skills as a reviewer, and something you need to learn how to deal with.
> Are there any open-to-review journals where one could train oneself?
You don't need a journal to do this. One of the most useful things you can do to train is to get a faculty member to support a journal club where, in addition to presenting the paper, the student writes a critique in the style of a review. Not only does this force you to read the paper you're presenting more closely, but it will let you learn in a protected, mentored environment rather than "out in the wild".
> 54 votes
# Answer
I disagree with the statement that a PhD student never doubt a published article (at least in my field).
This said, it seems to me that one of the first work of a PhD student is to read and "review" papers: for example, when we start a new project, my advisors always ask me to do a whole bibliographical work, sum up the papers read to them, comment them, try to find what is good and what can be improved in the previous work. Even after, I am also asked to always follow on the new papers that could correspond to our work.
I believe it is one of the work of the advisor to help her/his PhD student to learn to do this sort of work.
Then if one really wants to review unreviewed papers, there is always ArXiv (or other equivalent repository for papers) where one can subscribe to the rss feed, then work on reviewing for oneself (or for one's advisor) the papers read that are close to your work.
Since your question seemed to be how can we *do* a review, I believe it is not important whether it is an official review or not: the important part was to review a paper in the first place.
> 14 votes
# Answer
Just to add some personal experience to the other answers. I did quite a lot of reviews as my advisor and other people in my group who were on programme committees asked me to do some of the reviews they were assigned to do.
As far as I can tell, this is quite common practice in Computer Science. You would probably have more trouble avoiding doing reviews than doing them.
> 8 votes
# Answer
I don't know what field you're in, but in my field, there exist journals with a public discussion phase. Anybody can comment. For example, this interesting paper explaining why there is no easy way out to anthropogenic climate change had a lengthy discussion (most papers do not). Assigned peer reviewers are required to comment, and naturally the author is required to respond. But in addition, anybody else can respond. Unlike Stack Exchange, there is no voting (-;.
In geophysical sciences, the European Geophysical Union has the following two-stage journals (as of July 2012):
Possibly, there may be other fields where such kind of journals exist. Then you can exercise your reviewing by posting an unrequited review for a paper — note, however, that unrequited reviews (short comments) are not formally anonymous — although I have seen instances of people posting under a false name...
For a discussion on the wisdom of actually posting there, see: Pros and cons on commenting on public review papers
> 6 votes
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Tags: phd, journals, postdocs, peer-review, training
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thread-2587 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2587 | How does the experience of working at a "top" university differ from working at an average one? | 2012-07-24T01:26:45.103 | # Question
Title: How does the experience of working at a "top" university differ from working at an average one?
Being a professor at the top university in your field must be a very different experience from being a professor at a top 20 university, which must be a very different experience from working at a top 100, 500, etc. university.
But how do these jobs differ? What are the qualitative differences between working at universities in different tiers? I'm less interested in pay and benefits -- more interested in the day to day experience.
# Answer
(Since I've only been faculty in one department, my answer involves a bit of extrapolation...)
* **Quality of students** — It is much easier for top departments to attract the strongest students to their PhD programs, so the average quality of students tends to be higher. Faculty at top schools can spend less time bringing their PhD students up to speed and more time interacting with them as mature colleagues. This has a big impact on the productivity, research quality, and enjoyment of the faculty. (Of course, the strongest students are not all concentrated in the top few departments.)
* **Quality of faculty** — Similarly, it is much easier for top departments to attract the top faculty in their respective subfields, so the average quality of faculty tends to be higher. Again, this has a big impact on productivity, research quality, and quality of life. (Again, the strongest researchers are not all concentrated in the top few departments.)
* **Rock star culture** — See my previous answer about the benefits of being a PhD student in a top department. The same comments apply to faculty in top departments. *Of course* everyone publishes in the top conferences and journals. *Of course* every assistant professor gets a CAREER award. *Of course* everyone has a few best paper awards. *Of course* everyone sends their PhD students to academic positions in top departments. *Of course* the faculty got another umpty-dozen-million dollars in grant money this year. That's not exceptional at top places; that's just normal business. That assumption of excellence is both incredibly powerful and incredibly stressful, just as it is for students. Impostor Syndrome is rampant.
* **Center of the world** — Top departments are more likely to attract the best researchers to visit, either as informal collaborators or as formally invited speakers. This opens up many more avenues for collaboration.
* **Administrative support** — Because top departments are well-funded, they tend to have more administrative resources. For example, my business office (paid entirely by "indirect costs" from grants) takes care of *all* the financial and administrative details in my grant proposals, letting me concentrate entirely on the 15-page narrative.
> 28 votes
# Answer
My guess is that with research universities the ranking is not going to matter much in terms of the overall experience. At all research universities you teach, do research, and do service. The relative amounts vary, but I don't think it is strongly correlated with ranking within research universities. The quality of the students and colleagues and the available resources will have some affect on the experience, but in my opinion the personal work environment is much more important to the experience.
> 1 votes
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thread-2596 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2596 | Does a recommendation have to be from a professor from your university? | 2012-07-24T17:22:41.847 | # Question
Title: Does a recommendation have to be from a professor from your university?
Suppose I want to get letter of recommendation for a PhD program. Could this letter be from someone not from my institution? Could is be from someone I have collaborated with online? Or generally do schools want recommendations from professors from a student's home institution?
# Answer
A letter of recommendation absolutely does not have to be from someone at your university. It *should* be from someone you have collaborated with. In general, a letter of recommendation will be most valuable if:
1. It can speak to your potential as a researcher: letters from supervisors of research projects are much more valuable than letters from people who have only had you in class
2. It is written by someone well known in the field that you are attempting to enter. When this person says you have potential to be a researcher, it is much more credible if they have experience working with excellent researchers in the field.
3. It is written by someone who knows you well. They should be able to point to specific things you have done with them, specific conversations you have had, specific ideas you have had.
You should pick your letter writers by seeing how well they optimize these three properties. It won't matter if they are at your home institution or not. The only reason not to get a letter from "someone you have collaborated with online" is if they don't satisfy these criteria. In particular, I might be concerned that they don't know you well enough if you have never met them.
That being said, it might raise a red flag if *none* of your letter writers are from your home institution. But if you have one of these, that should be enough.
> 22 votes
# Answer
Schools want a letter that demonstrates that you are a smart, hardworking individual, whose presence will be a net gain for the program specifically and the university generally. In most cases, the people most able to write such a letter are from the institution where you received your undergraduate (or masters, as the case may be) degree. These people have interacted with you in a classroom (and possibly research) setting, and they know you well enough to write a good letter.
To that extent, if there is another individual—with stature enough to be recognized by an academic institution (i.e., a professor or recognized researcher)—who can write such a letter, that's fine.
> 9 votes
# Answer
Generally if it’s for a PHD program they want letters of recommendations from a professor . It depends on the program though, so it’s better to ask the admissions office at the school your applying to .
> -1 votes
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thread-2577 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2577 | How much of advantage do US citizens have in American academia? | 2012-07-23T19:09:08.553 | # Question
Title: How much of advantage do US citizens have in American academia?
How much of a disadvantage are you if you are not a US citizen, but want to enter American academia? It seems Americans have lots of advantages starting early, including NSF graduate fellowships, continuing with more access to DARPA money, US-citizen specific awards like PECASE, etc.
# Answer
True, *some* federal funding of grad students in the US is restricted to US citizens or permanent residents, but, in mathematics, most funding of grad students is as TAs (=Teaching Assistant) supporting lower-division mathematics courses.
The question of *admission* itself is mostly separate from federal citizenship requirements. Let me explain some things an admission committee wonders about, statistically, at least, about international applications, that would not be relevant to an applicant already in the US and with no visa issues:
1. **It turns out that quite a few applicants simply want to get to the U.S.,** in effect as informal political asylum, while having limited genuine interest in mathematics, and this creates visa and other complications subsequently. I have no objection to fairly open immigration policies, but I *do* object to adding that noise to applications to our graduate program.
2. Given that the bulk of funding is as TAs, **problems with *understanding* colloquial spoken English** cannot be taken lightly. This isn't about "cultural bias", but about the practical features of teaching in this environment.
3. **Minimum funding to generate visa papers:** The INS (U.S. "Immigration and Naturalization Services", which controls visas of non-US-citizens) mandates that we promise a certain annual stipend for international grad students... ok... except that that number is several thousand dollars above what the university sets as the ceiling for standard stipends. Not hard to imagine the craziness and injustices this leads to.
Edit: Theoretically, the university is not necessarily responsible for guaranteeing the (needlessly high) minimum, but different universities develop policies designed to keep them at some safe distance from "trouble with INS", and sometimes/often such policies create complications not originally intended, and not due directly to INS. (Also, interpretations and policies drift over years, and I'm refering to a situation from a few years ago...)
4. **International students demand resources for their spouses.** We have repeatedly "discovered" that an admitted international student is married, "needs" a visa for a spouse, the spouse needs admission to something, etc. It is easy to understand the desperation that leads to such situations, but it also corrupts things, and absorbs resources.
Edit: Yes, if things are done right, as noted in comments, it "should not be" the university's responsibility to "take care of" other family members. Nevertheless, for reasons I do not fully understand, it somehow has come to this on many occasions. (The quasi-legal details are mercifully slipping from my mind! :)
5. **Many other college-university cultures have a hugely different emphasis on problem-solving versus memorization, and relation of teacher and student.** Thus, although in one sense the U.S. system generates the weakest outcomes *in specialty*, because of all the other required coursework for "breadth", the balance of demands, and the goals, of upper-division coursework is mostly compatible with what happens at the beginning of grad school. Further, the less structured parts of the rest of grad school have counterparts in some undergrad projects. In contrast, we have found that several other traditions give students not prototype whatsoever for coping with ambiguity, and this can lead to strange crises well into a PhD.
Edit: Again, not to be claiming that all non-USA programs are the same! For this last point, let's say "traditions which emphasize memorization and reciting, of definitions, theorems, proofs, and examples", as opposed to problem-solving as at least *a* component of activities. It seems that getting into the habit of thinking that there is a "sacred canon" of results, even perhaps including wording, is not a good habit of mind. Similarly, an exaggerated impulse of "following orders" or "compliance", while a habit highly rewarded in some situations, is *not* so much the desired methodology after the very beginning of grad school. Thus, success in a prior situation may be misleading *to a student*, when further adaptation and growth is needed.
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Don't misunderstand me: I understand how such things come about. Nevertheless, with limited resources, not only money but energy to help people get in sync with their responsibilities as grad students, there is a serious question about how to allocate. Thus, we can capsulize this by saying that grad school applicants from within the US system are more "known quantities", are already fairly in-sync with the system, are cheaper dollar-wise, *and* are rarely or never under the threat of returning in disgrace to a genuinely dangerous situation in their home country if we stop renewing their TA!
A small further edit: At a university receiving state funds (although this amount is ever-decreasing), the state legislature, and the electorate, take the viewpoint that the university has an obligation to give priority to students from the region, if not literally the state, and to serve the state's and region's goals. This has become less idealistic during economic downturns, unsurprisingly.
Edit: in response to some comments... I certainly do not claim that "all" non-USA undergrad programs are the same, "bad", etc., nor that all in-USA programs are "good". At the same time, I didn't want to single out specific traditions for criticism. And, certainly, applicants in the U.S. can easily "achieve" weaknesses for no particular reason. As I understood the question, it was inquiring about the realities of the situation, advantages that in-USA applicants *tend to have* over not-in-USA, at least in the minds of admissions committees.
I do not think literal xenophobia or cultural bias plays any role in admissions, in case people wonder. If anything, the generally stronger undergrad prep of people from non-USA programs has created a "bias" *against* US students on that criterion alone. The practical and prosaic considerations mentioned above diminish post-PhD, so that "nationality" plays no detectable role in post-doc hiring or tenure-track hiring. (For that matter, examination of the faculty at most "research" universities shows a pretty international population!)
> 20 votes
# Answer
At the grad level in CS, fully 80% of admitted students in most universities (funded or otherwise) are from foreign countries. So any department that prefers domestic students is going to have a tough time attracting students :). There are numerous funding opportunities limited only to domestic students - in addition to the ones you list, the IGERT funding program is specifically for domestic students, but it's to encourage more domestic students to go to grad school.
At the postdoc level, visa requirements can make selecting a foreign student a little tricky but not impossible.
At the faculty level, I am not aware of any issues involving hiring non-US citizens. In our last round, we hired Chinese, Croatian, Turkish, and South African researchers !
It is true that DARPA money can be limited to US citizens, but in CS before tenure, this is not necessarily a bad thing :). It gives you an excuse NOT to go after DARPA funding which can be very difficult to get and even worse if you get it.
> 7 votes
# Answer
I'd say none , actually since the high-school system in the United States is an absolute disaster you might have an advantage . This really depends on you though , when did you start learning English , how comfortable are you in a conversation with native speakers , etc .
> -1 votes
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Tags: career-path
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thread-21 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21 | Does publishing a book while employed by an academic institution grant them legal claim on the royalties? | 2012-02-14T20:53:58.670 | # Question
Title: Does publishing a book while employed by an academic institution grant them legal claim on the royalties?
If I publish a book on my research topics while employed for an academic institution, can they claim part of the revenues I get from royalties ? My question is relative to Europe, but if someone knows also for other countries, I will welcome additional answers.
# Answer
> 16 votes
In general, no. (This is based on my experience in the US.) One's employing institution does not have any claim on royalties from books written while a student or faculty member. However, it's possible that there might be exceptions: for example, sometimes a university may help financially in the publication of a book, and this might be reflected in the publication contract. Of course, in such circumstances the book is not expected to make any money, which is why the university is helping out in the first place.
A related and very common phenomenon is for the publisher to hold the copyright on an academic title. My own book is like this. I am entitled to royalties, but the press holds the copyright for some defined period. Again, this is due to the terrible economics of publishing academic monographs.
There have been cases where universities have tried to assert very broad rights over the intellectual property of their faculty employees (e.g., lecture notes as well as books, etc), but I think these have generally failed. It does still happen: here's an example where the University of Louisiana is trying to broadly claim rights to scholarly output, including royalties from books. These sweeping assertions of rights have sometimes been motivated by the desire of administrators to claim a share of some of the genuinely lucrative things now produced by some university researchers, such as patentable biotechnologies, with books caught up in the net but not really directly targeted. Patents are an area with real money at stake, where the university's investment (in laboratory space and so on) is much higher, and where university claims on income from work done while employed are strongly and successfully asserted. Books, not so much.
# Answer
> 14 votes
I published a book myself, and know many collegues who published books, and the academic institution never claimed any part from the royalties. This is for sure the case in Germany, Hungary, Austria and Italy.
# Answer
> 6 votes
Perhaps you should check with your own institution as some universities (at least in the UK) have a policy on this issue. Also your employment contract might already cover this. For example, in several UK universities the copyright of course notes and lecture notes lecturers create often belong to the institution, not the individual lecturer. And the same might apply to books they write unless individually negotiated.
# Answer
> 2 votes
Reiterating what others have said: there is danger here, but at "better" universities in the US, the venal impulses of university administrations have at least recognized that they'll not make gazillions of dollars on grabbing royalties on textbooks or monographs, ... so they just let it go.
One should pay attention to the local rules. Yes, the UK rules in the last few years are disturbing... Maybe they've changed.
In the US, the contractual idea is that if one does something "specified, under contract", that the product is owned by the "entity" that engaged one to produce the work. Universities have been a teensy-bit more ... fair... about this kind of thing, but one should look around.
But we should address the dangerous cases: yes, some colleges/universities will claim that whatever you write/produce/do is their property. (I can't help recommending that you send them stool samples... maybe daily...)
In summary, obviously, try to use common sense. Yet be alter to the (duh, human nature) problem that "things are more complicated on the ground".
The net is that novices are coerced to give up "rights". This is ill, but I cannot change it. Apparently we must all "cope". (Sorry I can't give better/happier advice" It is disturbing ...)
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Tags: publications, books, legal-issues
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thread-1137 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1137 | Advice/guidance when interviewing for a faculty or postdoc job via Skype or phone? | 2012-04-16T11:59:39.293 | # Question
Title: Advice/guidance when interviewing for a faculty or postdoc job via Skype or phone?
Plenty of advice is available for standard interviews, should phone/Skype interviews be approached any differently?
(This was asked on twitter by @emilyandthelime, I have my own, partial answer that I'll post)
# Answer
> 27 votes
A major difference from an in-person interview is that interpersonal visual cues such as eye contact are absent or impoverished (even in Skype, because of poorer resolution / latency / smoothness than actual reality) and a rapid verbal back-and-forth is usually impossible. So it's more difficult to assess the interviewers' reaction and when they've had enough of your answer.
Typically the interviewer(s) want to hear you talk about your research for several minutes and will ask a few rather open-ended questions that are mainly designed to get you talking. You should run with that and just keep talking and let the interviewer(s) say something when they want you to stop- it's too difficult to try to monitor their nonverbal reactions. Some candidates make the mistake of not saying much, in an attempt to not over-sell themselves or in an attempt to act suitably subordinate. The interviewer(s) really want to hear you describe your work in your own words and feel your enthusiasm and general attitude.
The interviewers themselves will realize that it's difficult to have a normal conversation rapport so don't let any awkward moments or technical difficulties stress you out, the main risk is that you won't say enough.
To show you aren't off in your own world, you can't use the normal nonverbal skills very much, therefore be paticularly sensitive to the exact questions they ask, but once you answer the specific question feel free to answer more broadly, a broad perspective tends to impress.
# Answer
> 18 votes
When I'm preparing for a phone interview, I often:
* **Write out extensive notes**. Partly, this helps me to organize my thoughts (which is good preparation for any interview), but in the case of a phone call, I **actively consult them during the interview**.
* For example, I **write out answers to questions that I think I may be asked**. When I'm asked one of these questions, I **quickly skim my written answer to remind me** of what I want to say.
* If possible, beforehand I also **write out the names of the committee that will be interviewing me**, as well as a few comments on each committee member if possible. This can help me to keep track of my interviewers, even when I can't see their faces.
* Finally, I will sometimes print out or **take notes on information about the school that I'm interviewing with**. Then, when they ask me question for which I don't have notes, I consult my notes on the school and try to work some of that information into my answer.
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Tags: job-search, postdocs, faculty-application, interview, video-conference
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thread-731 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/731 | How to improve technical writing | 2012-03-15T04:04:10.343 | # Question
Title: How to improve technical writing
Whenever I write an article, I feel the result is not good enough. Although every theorem is solid and correctly proven, something is always "squeaky".
The main evidence for my feeling shows itself when my co-authors revise theorem I've written. Suddenly everything becomes compact, precise and clear. Properties that were used several times get a name; modular parts of the proof become lemmas; etc. The math remains the same, but the presentation is way more efficient and easy to follow.
How can I improve my technical writing skills? Any tips and resources would be appreciated.
<sub>Comment: I'm not a native English speaker, which is an additional factor.</sub>
# Answer
I was in similar situation than yours during my PhD: my proofs were correct, but tedious to read, and every time one my co-author rewrote them, they looked so much clearer! I wouldn't say that now my proofs are perfect, but they have definitely improved. I would associate this improvement with the following factors:
* my english has improved with time, and I can now use more variations of the "proof vocabulary".
* I have been working with different authors, so I've been exposed to different proof styles.
* I have been writing more proofs, and as Artem's perfectly said, the more you write, the more you get feedback, the better you get.
* I have read and given feedback to other people proofs, so I've started to noticed what I like/don't like on a proof that I haven't written.
So I know it sounds like a dull advice, but I think that it's some skill you acquire with time and experience. Also, there is a wonderful paper from Leslie Lamport: How to write a proof. This paper is not so much about how to write an elegant proof, but rather how to structure your proof. However, once you have a nice structure, I believe it's much easier to make it more elegant. Also, I try now as much as possible to encode my proofs in a theorem-prover (such as Isabelle/Isar), as it helps me understanding for instance what proof steps I can extract and generalize as lemmas.
> 13 votes
# Answer
The **only way to improve writing (technical or non-technical) is by *writing*** and submitting your work to the criticism of peers. Thankfully, in mathematics there is a culture of blogs. When you learn something new, write it up on your blog and share it with your friends. This will help you better understand what you wrote AND let you practice writing. At first, you won't get much feedback, but as your audience grows you will naturally learn from the feedback they provide.
Another great tool is math.SE and mathoverflow; on these sites you are guaranteed feedback. Ask and answer technical questions, this will let you practice your writing. As your writing and clarity improves you will also notice an average increase in number of up-votes, etc. This will give you useful positive reinforcement.
> 14 votes
# Answer
I haven't read all of them but may I suggest the following:
> 5 votes
# Answer
* Paul Halmos was a master expositor, and one of my favorite articles on writing is his: How to Write Mathematics
* A more detailed collection of advice can be found in: Mathematical Writing, by Knuth, Larrabee, and Roberts
* But as other answers have stated, **the only way to improve your writing is to write** (and to get feedback, and take that feedback to heart)
> 4 votes
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thread-2605 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2605 | How common are romantic relationships between faculty and students? | 2012-07-24T19:12:42.597 | # Question
Title: How common are romantic relationships between faculty and students?
Romantic relationships between faculty members and students are often depicted in movies or books, and the student falling in love with his/her professor seems to be a bit of a cliché. But how common are such relationships in practice?
# Answer
> 24 votes
I've found a rather old survey (1982) of David L. Rowland, Larry J. Crisler and Donna J. Cox that claimed
> Of the 184 respondents (59.8% female and 41.2% male), over one-third of both sexes reported flirting with their instructors, while 46% of females and 32% of males felt that instructors had flirted with them.
Flirting is, of course, is not the same as a romantic relationship. Patricia A. Rupert and Deborah L. Holmes (1997) survey earlier studies of the sexual relations between faculty and students:
> in a survey of 807 male faculty, Fitzgerald, Weitzman, Gold, and Ormerod (1988) found that 26% of the 235 respondents reported having sexual encounters with students; in a similar study of 483 male and female psychology professors, Tabachnick, Keith-Spiegel, and Pope (1991) obtained a rate of 11%. Although there was a considerable difference in these rates no doubt in part due to the inclusion of female faculty in the second survey - both indicate that sexual encounters between faculty and their students are commonplace on our campus
One notable example is the marriage of Professor Philip Bobbitt (Princeton (A.B.), Yale (J.D.), and Oxford (Ph.D.)) and Maya Ondalikoglu,Columbia Law School graduate.
# Answer
> 10 votes
I think the closing votes are because of the statistics and the "notable examples" the OP wants, but this is an important ethical and psychological issue specific to academia.
With regard to the issue, I came across this paper by Prof Higgins published in 1998. One key issue seems to be the age difference between the teacher and the student. The second point is the drama it creates in the mind of the student, which is supposed to be focused on learning.
> We \[teachers\] should be responsive to the fact that one of our students is going through a drama that will affect her learning and ought to be heeded in the handling of the relationship. This does not mean that we should treat a student’s avowal of love as something which calls for a life decision on our part. To do that would be to respond in kind and to lose sight of the fact that classrooms are in part like the playground of the analytic situation, a place in which we can express ourselves without every utterance leading to immediate action. When someone is in process, and you have devoted yourself to witnessing and facilitating that process, you are wary to treat as definitive any one version of the evolving being before you.
It is unlikely that faculty members at graduate schools will be punished for just having a romantic relationship. But frequent problems in romantic life will surely be noted by colleagues and some curb be introduced when the academic pursuits of the prof suffer heavily.
# Answer
> 2 votes
I don't have references and statistics, but I know of one MIT PhD who later married their advisor and now they are both tenured faculty in the same department. They did divorce later in life, but that doesn't seem to have outwardly affected their working relationship.
Nobody talks about it much; it seems like a nonissue, although perhaps it was different before the dust settled. She never changed her name, so you probably wouldn't know they'd ever been married if you weren't close enough to know they have teenage children together.
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thread-2137 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2137 | How to find ways to proofread English in papers | 2012-06-24T22:23:50.587 | # Question
Title: How to find ways to proofread English in papers
As a non-native speaker of English, it can often be hard to spot some of the errors that a native speaker would find. For a long time, I've been thinking about getting a native speaker to help me with proof-reading my texts (articles, theses, application, etc), but I don't quite know where to look. What are some good ways to get proofreading for your texts?
For example, are there any websites on the Internet where one can exchange proofreading services between different languages? (Say, if you help me proofread my text in language *x*, I'll help you with yours in language *y*.)
# Answer
> 15 votes
Yes, Elsevier publishing group provides professional language services, like editing. You can find about it here
I also found this website which looks good, and it's cheaper and quicker, I think.
# Answer
> 11 votes
Being a native speaker does not mean they are a good proof-reader. In fact, most are far from it.
Your spelling- and grammar-checkers should pick up most of the horrors, and the common 'tricks' of pushing the text to one side for a few days and reading from the end to the beginning will probably allow you to catch the rest yourself.
If your articles are for publication, the editor or sub-editors will tidy up the details if the text is basically sound. A thesis generally needs only to be clearly readable - nobody is going to pull you up for ending a sentence with a preposition or using 'that' instead of 'which'.
For your CV... try a professional CV writer, or one of the many CV templates available on-line. Go to the the university ones though, to avoid the scammers.
# Answer
> 3 votes
Learning all the nuances of a second language can be overwhelming. Fortunately, when writing in a technical field, often the vocabulary needed for your paper is a tiny subset of the whole language. However, I recommend that when you get the chance you ask native speakers (or others who write clear, precise prose) to explain the motivation behind their decisions. One good resource that does this is The Grammar According to West.
# Answer
> 2 votes
There are professional translators who offer editing and proofreading of scientific articles.
Just google it (the good thing that they don't need to be nearby).
Once I tried such service and I was happy (and the reviewers as well). And even a bit surprised, as I had some doubts if such service can work for scientific texts, full of jargon and complex ideas.
Of course, to start with, the article needs to be decent enough - readable (even if with some grammatical errors). Otherwise you need someone to write it with you, not only correct.
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Tags: writing, language, proofreading
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thread-1236 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1236 | How to acquire 3 recommendation letters to apply for jobs when working with 1 advisor? | 2012-04-22T22:03:41.437 | # Question
Title: How to acquire 3 recommendation letters to apply for jobs when working with 1 advisor?
We all know that usually when applying for a post phd academic position students need at least three recommendation letters. But what can we do if we have only worked with our advisor and we have no other close professors in the department to ask. This refers to the case when the student took classes, had a little teaching experience, but never got to the point to know some professor well, or collaborate with researchers from another place.
Some sub-questions: 1) how well does the writer need to know the student to write a decent recommendation? 2) how research recommendations are looked at when applying for purely teaching job? 3) how non-research recommendations are looked at when applying for research job? 4) what else can we do in a short period of time to acquire those recommendations? 5) is there a way to avoid submitting recommendations, at least in the first stage of the application process?
# Answer
> 30 votes
You need to strategize with your advisor, or a trusted mentor, about this. You need recommenders who have a high opinion of your work, are willing to put in the time to write a good letter, and know how to do so (which rules out more people than you might think). Ideally, you need advice from someone who knows what sorts of letters different people write and can help you choose who might be most appropriate.
What I recommend for my students is:
1. A letter from me, which will discuss in detail what they have done, why it's important, what the student's key contributions were, what the future might hold, etc. I'll also sit in on a class the student teaches and talk with them about teaching, so I can put in a reasonably well-informed paragraph about that, but the focus of the letter will be research. (I'll have a different version of this letter, which emphasizes teaching more, to be sent to highly teaching-oriented jobs.)
2. A teaching letter from someone in the department who is well known for excellent teaching and can evaluate the quality of their teaching.
3. A research letter from another faculty member in the department. This will be from someone the student has met with at least a couple of times each semester for the last year or two, if not more often, so they will be in an excellent position to write a serious letter.
4. A research letter from someone at another university, typically someone I know who has interacted with the student at conferences, seen the student give at least one talk, and read at least one paper by the student. This proves that the student is developing a reputation outside their university, and it supplies a letter from someone who has less of a vested interest in seeing the student succeed.
Of course, it's hard to set up (3) and (4) on short notice. It's often helpful if your advisor asks someone. I can say "You remember my excellent student Alice, the one who wrote the paper on X? She's graduating this year, and I think she's going to do very well on the job market, but she still needs one more recommendation, and we're hoping for one from another university. Could you help?" By contrast, there's nothing a student can write that will be as effective. (From a student's perspective, the letter is a favor to the student, but faculty sometimes think of it as a favor to the advisor.)
The biggest problem is if your advisor can't or won't help with this. Then you'll have to pick the most supportive people you know and ask them yourself. It's helpful to offer to meet with them to tell them about your work, to make sure they are fully up to date. You should send them copies of all your application materials. It's also helpful if you supply additional background and commentary, to help give them more of a feeling for your work and its context. This makes it easier to write the letter, by supplying interesting ideas and facts the letter writer can mention. (That's the lazy approach to writing a letter, but if someone is going to be lazy, you want to make it as easy as possible for them.) Make sure everyone writing a research letter actually plans to discuss your research. It can really hurt your application if a letter just says "Bob took my advanced phrenology class and received an A. I was particularly impressed with his insightful questions regarding retrophrenology, and I became convinced that this bright young man has an extraordinary future in pseudoscience. I haven't read any of his papers, but his advisor assures me that they are wonderful, so Bob has my strongest recommendation." When you get your Ph.D., you should be judged based on your research (and teaching), not your performance in classes.
You should request letters at least one month before the deadline. It doesn't really take a month to write a letter, but it can take a number of hours (looking at papers and application materials, thinking, and then writing). Any given week may be very busy - for example, someone may be travelling or facing a major deadline - and faculty members often have to write dozens of letters, so if you do not ask far enough in advance, then there may simply not be enough time for your letter. If you need a letter very quickly, then you are asking for a huge favor, and the letter probably won't be as long or compelling as it might have been otherwise.
As for some of your sub-questions: The writer does not need to know the student well, but must know something about the student's work (for example, from papers or talks). For most academic jobs in the fields I know about, there is no way to avoid submitting recommendations with the initial application.
# Answer
> 8 votes
You could ask members of your doctoral committee to write you a letter of recommendation each. They would probably need some details about the job and what it entails. They would also want to see your transcripts and a copy of your curriculum vitae but that shouldn't be a biggy!
Research related recommendation letters are obviously great if you are applying for a research job. Either way, you could ask your *advisor* to write you a letter that carries a good balance of *research aptitude* and general *work skills*.
In my experience, it is difficult to get letters of recommendation on short notice. They could take a couple weeks to a month or so.
Good luck!
# Answer
> 6 votes
If you are applying for a position that involves teaching, you should have one or more letters addressing your teaching. If you were the TA for the course, they should come for the lead or recitation instructor. If you were the lead instructor, it should be whoever supervised you, possibly an administrator. If you apply for a teaching position without any such letters, they will infer you really want a research position and are only applying to them as a fallback position, which does not make you an attractive candidate. (I've been on both sides.)
I second the recommendation to solicit letters from members of your doctoral committee, as well as anyone with whom you have co-authored a paper, done an internship with, particularly impressed while taking their class, etc.
If you have done impressive service, you can get a letter from someone about that.
# Answer
> 5 votes
In some areas of computer science, summer internships at corporate research labs (Microsoft Research, IBM research, and AT&T research mostly) have become an important part of the PhD process. The main benefit of doing an internship or two is to broaden the student's set of collaborators. This is helpful for them to get exposed to new areas of research that will eventually form a part of their thesis, but it is also an excellent source of recommendation letters. A researcher who supervised a student for a summer, and with whom he wrote a paper (or two, or three!) is in an excellent position to write a strong letter.
Of course, your thesis committee is another good place to look. Many times you will need 4 people on your committee (Your advisor, two others from your department, and sometimes an external researcher). With luck, at least 3 of these people will know your work well enough to write for you.
# Answer
> 3 votes
Really, you should start thinking about who you'll ask to write letters a couple of years before you ask for them. Then you'll have time to develop relationships with your letter writers. If you'd like to get a letter of recommendation from someone (particularly at your university), but haven't worked with them, try to start a collaboration. For faculty other than your adviser, your "researchy" interaction with them will often start with a reading course (or independent study).
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Tags: phd, job-search, recommendation-letter
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thread-2621 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2621 | Value of contributions to Wikipedia when applying for academic jobs | 2012-07-25T17:40:37.453 | # Question
Title: Value of contributions to Wikipedia when applying for academic jobs
The quality of articles in Wikipedia has grown tremendously in the last few years. A "good article" requires a big list of necessities, including coherence, readability, comprehensiveness and credible references. As such contributing technical articles requires academic merit, good explaining skills and mastery of the subject.
* How much value is being accorded to doctorates' contributions to Wikipedia during faculty recruitment?
* Since, on paper, a Wikipedia article should exposit an article lucidly to a (relative) fresher in the field, can Wikipedia contributions be taken as a partial measure of one's teaching abilities?
* How effectively could one list his/her Wikipedia contributions?
# Answer
> 16 votes
Contributions to Wikipedia (or Stack Exchange) are best viewed as community service. Like other kinds of community service, **significant** and **sustained** contributions can have a positive effect on hiring and promotion decisions. The effect is not likely to be major, unless *maybe* your outreach efforts rival Neil DeGrasse Tyson's, but it won't be zero.
**Edit:** I have to agree with Anonymous Mathematician's warning. Significant community service of any kind is best offered after tenure. Unfortunately, some people view significant service (or teaching) accomplishments as *prima facie* evidence of a lack of research focus. (Indeed, the case that I'm familiar with was a post-tenure promotion.)
# Answer
> 21 votes
I have never heard of any weight given to contributing to Wikipedia for any aspects of academic evaluation. I personally wouldn't attach any weight to it either, especially given that many articles have a long history of edits and figuring out exactly who contributed what can be difficult.
If you want to include this on your CV or similar, I would mention it under "Misc." or "Other" or something like that. If you have made significant contributions to other similar sites (e.g. stackoverflow) I would put that into the same paragraph. I would definitely avoid trying to make it appear as one of the major things you have done. Wikipedia is regarded rather suspiciously in general because it can be an unreliable source. While contributing to it could be a bonus, it won't be a significant one.
# Answer
> 17 votes
As an addendum to Lars's answer above, academics place a high value on peer-reviewed literature and professional activities (book chapters, conference proceedings, invited talks, professional workshops you've taught). Non-professional activities, such as being cited in the popular press and appearances on TV and radio shows are nice, but usually aren't big factors... such invitations are only given to those who are big in their field, which itself comes from professional activities and publications, so they're not needed to make a judgement. Personal activities such as volunteering in your community are simply measures of your character. Blog postings and Wikipedia editing would fall in that category for the reasons he states.
One area not mentioned is being the maintainer of a popular analysis/experimental package used by researchers (e.g., MNE, FieldTrip, SPM, or Psychtoolbox; there are hundreds of others in different fields). These activities will be looked upon as being a contributing member of the community, and are nice to demonstrate, but ultimately have a small weight in the final decision.
# Answer
> 9 votes
I agree with Lars: contributions to Wikipedia will receive zero weight. It may even hurt you if you try and emphasize this too heavily on your CV, because it will suggest that you are attempting to compensate for lack of more traditional accomplishments.
If you want to get credit for expository writing, write survey articles, and try and get them published, or at least post them on arxiv. Survey articles also won't count very heavily as "publications", but will certainly count towards evaluating your skills as an expositor. A good survey article in a field lacking in one may accumulate many citations as well.
# Answer
> 9 votes
There are definitely cases where Wikipedia contributions have helped someone's academic career (like this one). However, I think it's exceedingly rare at major research universities.
Once you have tenure, it's worth looking into this. Then your department is already stuck with you, and they are likely to be somewhat more flexible in evaluation. For example, full professor promotions can be quite a bit less rigorous than tenure cases, and they are sometimes approached from a perspective of "Professor X has been a good departmental citizen and put in their time. We want them to be promoted to full professor eventually, so what basis can we find for justifying the promotion?" (This can happen even in departments that would never consider approaching a tenure decision that way. The big difference is that people who don't get tenure leave, while people who are stuck as associate professors may hang around the department feeling bitter for decades.) If you've done some unusual community service, then that might be when the university decides to recognize it.
However, I'd be wary of doing more than briefly mentioning Wikipedia before tenure. It's just not respected or valued by many professors, so the downside is greater than the upside. A lot of hiring isn't based on totaling up some sort of abstract value for the different parts of the application. Instead, it's based on an overall feeling you create of being a desirable colleague. If anyone rolls their eyes and wonders why you waste your time on something, then that will actually hurt your chances. If 20% of the department reacts this way, you've got a real problem.
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Tags: phd, job-search, job, wikipedia
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thread-2633 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2633 | How do "scientific couples" (from different fields) find positions? | 2012-07-26T12:02:04.950 | # Question
Title: How do "scientific couples" (from different fields) find positions?
When two people in a couple are both in science, but specialised in different fields, how can they both find relevant positions but still be geographically reasonably proximate?
Compromise and change fields? Work part-time from a distance if employers' permit it (do they usually?)? Travel both quite far each day? One person leaves science?
Are there other ways to resolve this? Any personal experiences around here?
# Answer
Many universities (like the one where my wife and I work) have dual-career hiring programs explicitly to address this issue. It's definitely worth asking—*carefully*—whether the universities you are considering have such a program.
Here's how our system works. Suppose Department X offers a faculty position to Partner A, and later department Y offers a faculty position to Partner B. Then Partner B's salary is paid 1/3 by department Y, 1/3 by department X, and 1/3 from a general campus fund.\* (Note that X and Y may be the same department.)
So Department Y has a significant financial incentive to hire Partner B. On the other hand, Department X must be willing to pay extra for Partner A; in practice, however, once an faculty offer to A is actually on the table, most department chairs find it hard to refuse to help hire B.
This is why you have to be careful how and when you ask. It's illegal in the US to discriminate against a job candidate because they're married—we're not even allowed to ask—but it is completely legal to hire a cheaper candidate over a more expensive one. If department X already knows that you have a two-body problem, they also know that hiring you will be more expensive. The safest strategy is not to mention that your partner needs a position (or even that your partner is another academic) until an offer is on the table.
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\*When I originally posted this answer in 2012, this financial arrangement was de-facto permanent, but my university has recently refined its policies. As of June 2018, the joint funding arrangement is permanent (“recurring”) if Partner B has a tenure-track faculty position, and limited to three years otherwise.
> 51 votes
# Answer
This is a very difficult, and unfortunately common problem. It is dealt with in many ways, including all of the ones you mention. Solving the problem almost always involves a serious compromise by one or both parties. Couples can take many approaches:
1. Not compromise on their jobs: both take the best academic jobs they can find. This usually involves living apart, in different cities, sometimes for years. They end up with lots of frequent flyer miles.
2. One becomes an academic, the other leaves academia: this makes it much easier to live together, but might require a major sacrifice by one of the couple, if they had their heart set on an academic career.
3. Both compromise on placement quality: couples can commit to both finding academic jobs together. Since it is difficult to find two jobs at the same university, this often involves taking jobs at a lower ranked institution, or less desirable location than either could get on their own. Some universities specialize in recruiting couples: this can be a coup for the university, since they get two researchers who are both higher quality than they would normally be able to recruit.
A long (daily) commute for each person can represent an extremely successful outcome of type 1), or a less successful outcome of type 3). For example, it is possible (although grueling) for a couple to live in Princeton, and have one commute to Philadelphia and one commute to New York.
This is not to say that it is impossible to achieve perfect success: there are academic couples, both of whom are in the same department at the top university in their field. But this requires an extraordinary amount of both talent and luck.
> 34 votes
# Answer
I have not performed a literature survey, but the only solution that looks viable is to choose a large and well-connected city like London with plenty of scope for both fields.
It is very common in India to find faculty couples, especially in the IITs. It is advantageous for the university as they are, in a way, settling the couple and ensuring their long-term stay.
> 4 votes
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Tags: career-path, two-body-problem
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thread-2653 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2653 | Determining common knowledge in an unfamiliar field | 2012-07-27T15:50:33.973 | # Question
Title: Determining common knowledge in an unfamiliar field
What is the best strategy to determine common knowledge in an unfamiliar field? I have provided an example below, but I am not looking for an answer specific to that example.
We have an answered question that addresses whether and how common knowledge should be cited. A more difficult problem is determining what is common knowledge in an unfamiliar field. In my answer to the question linked, I provide one strategy, examining introductory textbooks in that field. However, as was mentioned in the comments, not all fields have introductory texts.
As an example, I am working on an institutional grant proposal. The proposed activities have to do with increasing retention rates of freshmen students, particularly in the sciences. We are looking at targeting pedagogical reform in introductory classes and increasing engagement through more and better co-curricular experiences.
My background is in chemistry. I do not know what is common knowledge in the worlds of pedagogy and student engagement/retention. I have been reading books and articles on the subjects, and citation practices have been inconsistent. Some authors provide citations for everything, including broad generalizations and common sense, like:
> * There are many reasons why an undergraduate student may choose to leave college.
And then others provide very few citations, including for statements that seem like they should have been based on a study:
> * More than half of all students who withdraw from college are freshmen.
> * Less than half of the students who declare science majors will graduate with a degree in a science field.
I realize that the former case may be from overzealous paranoia about plagiarism, and the latter case may be an example of poor scholarship, but this is difficult to assess as an outsider.
EDIT: For clarification, I am asking about determining when something requires a citation if I am writing in a field that I do not normally participate in. I know that I should always cite things that are new, obscure, or counter to prevailing thought. I wouldn't necessarily need to cite things that are "well-established" or "agreed-upon". After a certain point, if enough studies have reaffirmed the same result, or if the result has been so widely cited that it becomes well-known, it is pointless to cite it. It is currently silly to provide a citation for "The structure of DNA is a double helix formed by two complimentary strands held together by hydrogen-bonding between the base pairs." At one point, however, it was not silly, because this idea was new.
How can I quickly determine where a finding is on the continuum between new/obscure and well established?
# Answer
By far the simplest way to get around this problem is to simply give it to a colleague who is more well-versed in the field and have them judge which statements need to be backed up by citations and which don't.
The next simplest way is to read papers on a very similar topic to yours (which, no doubt, do exist) and see what they cite.
On a related note, my advisor gave me the advice of "when in doubt, cite." His point was that the only real downside of an unnecessary reference is added length to the paper. If you get to that point, and the only thing left to cut is citations, then you can start to worry.
> 7 votes
# Answer
There is no easy criterium saying where you should cite, when - a review article or a book, and when - you can safely skip citing anything.
Anyway, ask 2-3 guys within that field. If for any of them it's not 'obvious' - you should cite. If it is old enough that there is a book on it - it's fine to cite it. (Alternatively, you can try asking on a respective StackExchange site.)
Moreover, if for you something is not obvious, you should cite it as well (the chances are a reader of you paper won't know more than you). Note that many well-known results (e.g. results of integration or summation) are referenced for the reader's convenience (and to make it obvious that it is not a novel discovery).
Also, one sanity-check may be if there is a well-written Wikipedia page on the subject. If there is, *perhaps* you don't need to cite it.
> 5 votes
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Tags: citations
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thread-2656 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2656 | Should recommendation letters be from the home university of a student? | 2012-07-27T21:30:02.820 | # Question
Title: Should recommendation letters be from the home university of a student?
> **Possible Duplicate:**
> Does a recommendation have to be from a professor from your university?
I am applying to an applied math graduate program in the US. I frequently interact with professors from other institutions. Some are from math departments and others are from other departments. Could they write letters of recommendation for me?
# Answer
Yes, they could write letters for you. In fact, strong letters from faculty outside your home department or university will likely *help* your application.
One caveat, though: A strong recommendation letter must praise your potential for research *in applied mathematics*, not just in the writer's native discipline, in specific and credible detail. Moreover, it must be clear that the writer has the expertise to judge that potential; that expertise may not be clear from their departmental affiliation alone. So you should consider asking your references to include a short paragraph in their letter, explaining their own applied math background (either as a researcher themselves or as a reference for past successful grad students).
> 5 votes
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Tags: graduate-school, recommendation-letter
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thread-1399 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1399 | Are European schools experiencing the same cost raise as American schools? | 2011-11-07T04:21:54.127 | # Question
Title: Are European schools experiencing the same cost raise as American schools?
After factoring in government subsidies (or lack thereof), is the **total price** for one year of undergraduate education in Europe increasing at a rate similar to America?
# Answer
> 13 votes
This answer is based on the situation in Sweden, I think similar principles would apply in the Nordic countries and possibly in north Europe. First cost of education is very low compared to US, as can be seen in the following references:
Sweden Abroad's paper on education costs in Sweden
Higher Education Finance and Cost-Sharing in Sweden
There are no tuition fees for European citizens (non Europeans pay a tuition fee which varies based on the University and the Education. For example a technical education for a non European may cost in the range of US$12000/year. The government also provides a grant and a loan on favourable conditions. Everyone who wants to study can get a seat.
It could be argued that even when the government subsidies something there is still a real price, and if there is a real market driver the price should go up.
The government provides resources to a University based on the number of students and the number of courses provided. The amount differs based on the course. For example for natural science and technology the amount is higher than for social sciences. Half the amount is given when the student signs up for a course and half when he or she passes the course. Since the government provides means based on the number of students, there is no reason for why supply and demand should not be met and there should not be any price driver as in US.
For certain very popular educations there are limited seats, and the college would then limit access to these seats based on scores. But money is still not the driver.
For commercial education such as a professional MBA at Stockholm School of Economics there are market price and there prices have increased dramatically over the years. The current cost is in the range of SEK 500K.
# Answer
> 5 votes
In the UK universities have received about £10,000 (15,000 USD) in tuition and fees per student per year. This has been pretty constant with small increases over the years. Students who are not part of the EU are expected to pay the fees in their entirety "up front". EU students who are not part of the UK pay £6000 a year up front. For UK students the rules vary amongst Scotland, Wales, and England. In Scotland university is free for Scots. I am not sure how much, if anything other Brits pay. In England, the fees just rose from £4000 to £9000. Students don't have to pay until after they graduate and begin making more than £25,000 a year.
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Tags: university, funding, united-states, europe
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thread-2661 | https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2661 | What is research, specifically in Computer Science? | 2012-07-28T21:15:36.080 | # Question
Title: What is research, specifically in Computer Science?
I have a Bachelor's in Computer Engg from India but the education system here is pathetic and I have no idea about research. I'm about to join an Ivy league university in the US for the Master's program and I'd like to experience research now that I'll have the perfect opportunity to, but I'm not even sure if I know what research is. So I have a few questions:
When you say you're into research, what do you exactly mean? What are you doing? Why are you doing it? If not this, what else could you have done that would still be classified as research? How did you come up with the idea of what you're doing right now? What can I publish and what can't I but I'm likely to think that I can being a rookie? And most important, how do I come up with an idea to carry research on?
# Answer
\[This answer is colored by the fact that I'm a theoretical computer scientist.\]
As an undergraduate, you are (usually) given crisp, well-formulated problems with definite correct answers that you can reasonably expected to discover in a relatively short time period, using only a very narrow range of knowledge and skills. If you get stuck, your instructor can give you useful hints, because they already know how to solve the problem. Moreover, the instructor can probably explain the complete solution to you fairly quickly (in, say, less than a week).
Research involves vague, half-baked, open-ended problems that may resist progress after months or even years of hard work, regardless of how many classes you've taken or books/papers you've read. Nobody else knows the answer to the problem you're working on (or it isn't really research); nobody can even give you a hint how to proceed. Nobody has a clue what other results or techniques will be helpful, or if you're just going to have to make up a completely new technique on the fly. You don't know if the solution you're aiming for is actually useful or interesting, or even if the problem is formulated so that it has a definite answer. Still, you'd better find *something* interesting, or you'll never graduate.
If that sounds like fun, research might be for you!
> 18 votes
# Answer
At the risk of being trite, research is about creating *new* knowledge (that's really the underlying condition for PhD acceptance, did you do something new - and worthwhile, and enough of it). However, like JeffE commented, how this is done in CS varies from area to area, quite significantly.
For my area, it's quite like a lot of mathematics research, it all revolves around developing new theorems about properties of problems or computational models &c. (so you think, then think some more, write it down, realise it's wrong, go back to thinking, talk to someone else, think a bit, write something done... until you have something that is "enough")
For other areas, say data security, research might involve developing and implementing new security protocols, or cryptographic algorithms (though in data security, there's also the mathematical theory part, so it's not all the same).
As for why you do it, that's kind of up to you. At one level you're contributing to human knowledge in a way that will hopefully be useful, however the underlying reason a lot of people go into research is really because they love the area they're in, so the "why" is quite personal. You really do have to love it though, as research is usually slow, misunderstood by others and often disheartening - until you get that moment when you have a result (then you go back to the start).
Where the ideas come from is also a tricky thing. If you're thinking far in the future, they come from you, but this isn't as hard as it sounds, once you start to get into a particular discipline, you (should) start asking questions about why things work certain ways, how they can be improved, how they can be combined with other things. Some of these questions will already have answers, others won't, that's where you start the research. In the short term however, you will likely not need to come up with the overall questions and directions for your research, you will be part of your supervisor's research project(s), and they will give you a starting point. Note that they don't necessarily know how to get the answer either, that's why it's research, a lot of excellent students come undone at this point because there's no definite answer, they can't just check things when they're unsure, so you have to be prepared for uncertainty and incomplete knowledge (its your job to complete it!).
Publishing standards you'll also learn from your supervisor, and from reading papers in your area. You'll quickly figure out how much goes into papers of different types.
> 11 votes
# Answer
> And most important, how do I come up with an idea to carry research on?
This, for most people, is a learned skill. Increasingly, Phd programs are where this skill is learned. A non exhaustive skill sets include:
* Having the "right" way to approach an issue as a research problem. Learn to identify what issues are *not* fruitful research problems.
* A set of ethic/behavior codes specific to research.
* Developing a strong level of perseverance (research *is* grinding)
> Why are you doing it?
Because, in an increasing number of fields, these skills are necessary. Phd is a form of apprenticeship approach to the acquisition of these skills.
> 3 votes
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Tags: graduate-school, publications, research-process, masters
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