Datasets:

qingy2024

/

reddit-69k

like 0

Those of you with a Ph.D./currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program, hindsight is 20/20, so what's one thing you wish you knew prior to entering your first year that would've made a huge difference? I will be a first-year Ph.D. student this coming fall pursuing a degree in sport & exercise psychology. I am curious for those of you who have completed your Ph.D./are current Ph.D. students: * What is one thing you wish you knew prior to starting your program? * Knowing what you know now, what is something (some skill, piece of knowledge/information) that you think if you knew back then, would have been helpful/made the experience/transition into a Ph.D. program a little smoother for you? (Being intentionally a little on the vague side here...)

Relationships matter a lot, as much as or more than your science. Network constantly. Show your advisor your best work. At conferences, talk to famous people in your field and be admiring. Do not be critical. Everything is interesting; everyone is working on something cool. Be nice! Be humble. Read everything. Write early, write often, and publish constantly in grad school. Network. Be respectful to your teachers and your colleagues. Be professional. Be nice. Seriously, just be nice.

How far back do you go when referencing ? Shouldn't we always end up at the original source ? No one can give a clear answer. I am unclear on referencing and every year I aks no one can answer it , so I am hoping this year may bring about some clarity. I read article A and it has some useful info I need that they cited from article B. I presume I am meant to go and read article B now....but then it looks like it has come from article C. This just goes on and on...what makes it harder I have found is no one can actually say how far you go back and or which one to cite. I can't help but wonder if it is easier just to cite A?

For references to original theories, I always say go back to the original source. Few things bother me more in journal articles than when I read one that is explicitly about theory ABC, which was introduced in, for example, 1980, but the article then proceeds to only cite articles from 2010 and on as their sources about the theory. Give credit to the people who made the theory, especially if the focus of your article is on said theory; you should know the original source(s) and use them! For references to replicated research findings, I recommend going to the most reputable source. Including multiple citations is always an option as well (at least in my field), though that can eat up a lot of words in our already limited journal space.

Recently earned my BA in philosophy at an *okay* university. 3.5 cum GPA. Primarily interested in continental philosophy which, according to my research, is a field which only offers funding to Phd students. Is it even worth it to apply? I've done a bit of research into potential graduate programs via SPEP. Many of them offer MA and MA/Phd programs but only include funding to those accepted into the Phd. Given my less-than-stellar GPA from a rather un-exceptional school, do I have any sort of chance of getting into one of these Phd programs? I'm aware that the writing sample is far more important than the GPA in an application - I'm just worried I won't be taken seriously. My impression is that, because many of these programs are fully or almost fully funded, they are incredibly competitive. Also, the universities that focus on Continental philosophy are (for the most part) fairly prestigious (i.e. Northwestern, Villanova, Georgetown). I very much would like to go to grad school - I simply don't want to waste a bunch of my time on applications to schools I have virtually no chance of getting into. I would just like some advice. What do you think?

So much to say... I'm currently ABD at a very good Continental program, so I hope you take the following seriously. Don't do it. Universities across the country are increasingly moving toward business-like models where the bottom line matters. This means business-minded deans are brought in to “shake things up” and attract more students. Attracting more students means fancier dorms, fancier gyms, high-tech facilities, and bucket-loads of administration. Where does that money come from? Chopping down tenure-track jobs and outsourcing the teaching to graduate students like myself and non-permanent adjunct professors who work semester to semester at low pay, who the university is not required to offer health insurance or job security of any kind. This is the job market you will be entering after spending the better part of a decade on your studies. This is *if* you get lucky and are selected into a PhD program that will fund you. The realities of the job market in professional philosophy are abysmal. Your friends will all build up their careers while you spin your wheels developing more and more of a drinking problem writing a dissertation no one will ever read while you shoulder teaching responsibilities (which you nevertheless love), knowing that there's absolutely no career waiting for you on the other side. A lot of people hear stuff like this and think, “I'll be the exception. I love a good challenge! Game on, pal!” I'm not joking. This is not a challenge; it's a warning. A deadly serious warning. I honestly only recommend pursuing a career in academic philosophy if there is *literally* nothing else you can imagine yourself doing with your life that will make you happy. Nothing. If you're still interested, I'd be happy to offer follow-up information, and even perhaps some PMs if this gets a bit too personal. Sorry if I'm being a bit glum. It's just the reality of the field we're in now.

(x-posed to AskHistorians) What do you make of this study showing that 40%+ of all 2011-2013 history PhD awardees from U.S. institutions (and ~50% of 2004-2013 awardees) had a tenure-track academic job by 2017? As an academic (though not the humanities), I've long heard about the awful academic job market in history in particular and assumed that maybe 10-20% of history PhDs landed a TT job, with a strong bias towards a handful of high prestige programs. Apparently, in 2017, AHA actually tracked every single history PhD awarded in the U.S. between 2004-2013 (approx. 8,500) and examined their current job placement. Of those, they were able to track down 93% (the ones with missing data are still included in the dataset). A little over 50% of the entire sample had a tenure-track or tenured faculty job by 2017, with the vast majority at 4-year schools. About 16% had a non-tenure track faculty job (unfortunately, they didn't break this down by FT NTT and adjunct). An additional 6% were in higher ed admin and 1% were post-docs. Of the non-academic jobs, 1.6% were unemployed and the rest were in government, non-profit or private sector jobs. Of the most recent cohort (2011-2013) in the dataset, approx. 43% were in TT jobs in 2017 (again, the vast majority being in 4-year institutions), and approx. 21% were in NTT faculty jobs, 6% were in higher ed admin and 2% were postdocs. Of the remaining, 6% had missing data and 1.5% were unemployed, with the remaining working in non-profits, private sector, or government. The data are here, if you want to play with them: https://www.historians.org/wherehistorianswork (apparently, AHA is releasing the data for 2014-207 PhD awardees in 2022) Obviously, these data aren't glowing--I don't think anyone wants to endure a PhD program for a 40-50% chance of a getting a TT job and an 8% chance of being unemployed (if you assume all those with missing data are unemployed)--but they are honestly much better than I expected, especially assuming that at least some of the academic admin and outside of academia jobs are stable and decently paying and some of the NTT jobs may be stable as well. What do you all think of these data?

I'm familiar with these data (as a historian) and they make sense to me. The numbers aren't *terrible* in part because many graduate programs dramatically reduced cohort size in the 2000s due to their abysmal placement and completion rates in the 1990s. When I was a graduate student—at a top ten program—my entering Ph.D. cohort was huge (pushing 50 students), and about 10% actually finished. Of those, one (me) ended up in a traditional TT academic career. So call it a 20% TT placement rate for that cohort, but a tiny completion rate. Fast forward 15 years, and the cohorts in that same program are now 12–15 students, and the completion rate is about 80%. Of those, the majority have landed TT jobs from the Great Recession to the COVID collapse, despite the ongoing decline in humanities enrollments at all but elite institutions. People are retiring, and historians are still needed to teach humanities gen ed classes and the remaining history majors (down 50% nationally from the peak). So there are jobs, just as always, not enough to equal demand. Since c. 2010, there's been a lot more emphasis placed on alt-ac career options in good Ph.D. programs, and a lot more recognition of the actual outcomes of Ph.D.s. The AHA has done good work in that arena, as have individual departments. So the ultimate academic placement rate is higher than that for biology (last I looked), while more grads are finding decent alternatives as well. 40–50% seems pretty damned good to me overall given the state of the market.

I won't be reappointed. How do I land another TT position? Hello everyone, I could use some advice/guidance. FYI, full-time assistant professor in Year 3. I just received my department committee evaluation for my reappointment, and it appears (convincingly) that I won't be reappointed. At this point, I don't want to come back to this institution - it's a toxic, hostile work environment, and department politics are overwhelmingly negative. I'm wondering how to best set myself up for a future position with a different institution. I'm convinced that I should resign before I'm fired. But when? Is it a red flag to future employers (universities) if I resign in April 2022 right before my termination? Or should I resign asap? During winter break? I'm just looking to set myself up for better employment long-term, and am unsure of the best next steps. Guidance much appreciated.

Don't quit, but DO start discretely applying for jobs elsewhere. Find references you can trust who will keep it quiet. Searching for jobs at year 3 won't look bad; searching for jobs at year 6 will.

How to tell a professor I don't want/need them on my committee? I'm working on forming my research topic for my MS studies before I write the proposal. Time is of the essence, and I know I'll be able to do it, but the problem is that there's a professor who agreed to be on my committee who I don't think I'll need the help of. She agreed to help with the last part of my analysis, but I've decided to drop that part for something else that will help me tell a more consistent story with my research. I haven't signed any forms yet, but I'm just a bit antsy about telling her about my change of plans. What sort of approach should I take? I can provide more details if necessary.

I would think of it more as a thank you note/“rejection” – but remember, you’re not really rejecting anyone, just turning down an offer for help. Dear Dr. Person, Thank you so much for your offer to help me with the blah analysis portion of my thesis. After discussion with Dr. Advisor, we have decided to forgo that analysis. Because of this change, we will not need you to serve as a member of my thesis committee. However, I am very grateful for your offer and appreciate the guidance you have given me. Sincerely, Danifreedude Yes, it’s daunting, especially when it’s a professor, but consider learning to write these emails as important a skill as any research you do. One of the most useful classes I took in undergrad was a business writing course!

What do academics in STEM wish their colleagues in the humanities knew? Saw an interesting thread asking the inverse; curious to know what people think in this direction.

There's a good reason for multi-author papers. Science simply doesn't progress without large collaborations. Long gone are the days of a single person coming up with their own theories of everything or running their own lab at home, making groundbreaking experiments.

Why are Australian universities so high ranked? They may not be the highest ranked but globally, so many of them are in the world top 50. What's enabled them to do so well compared to other similar countries like Canada?

As someone who has seen a few UK departments and universities rise and fall in the rankings following better and worse treatment of staff, I would say that great pay and conditions for academic staff at Australian universities would have a significant impact (in my totally unscientific assessment).

Professors of reddit, when you tell a student to draft their own letter of recommendation and make "small edits", what do you actually change?

In my case, I'd perhaps change the following: * Specific phrases that sound too far from my own style of writing. * Tone down some of the student's more flamboyant adjectives (if necessary). (Most, I find, undersell themselves, but occasionally you'll get somebody who sticks over-the-top praise everywhere.) * Add context that the student might have missed. For example, they might mention having written a paper but not drawn attention to the quality of the journal it's gone to—this is a chance for me to help students avoid underselling themselves.

How many rejections before you consider a manuscript a dead end? Do you have any rules of thumb for how long you're gonna keep working on getting your manuscript published before ditching it? I just had my first manuscript rejected by the editor from 2 journals in 2 months. My PI is taking it in stride, but I'd like to get an idea about how many shots I get to take before calling it a day. P.S. any insights in how to get your work published in the first couple of attempts are also welcome. :)

This depends a lot on the reasons for the rejections. If reviewers are finding major flaws in the study, then it may need a broad overhaul or to be put to bed entirely. If the responses have to do with submitting to a more appropriate journal, relevance/importance of the work, etc., but the science is sound, then it deserves to be published and you should keep at it! Five or more rejections to high-impact journals would not be uncommon at all. Good luck!

How do I politely ask my co-authors about the status of my paper? So the title makes it seem pretty obvious, but I'm wondering how to word my email to be polite and professional. For some context, professor A below and I are in the same university; the other co-authors are in a different one. I'm a 4th year PhD student. In my first semester (so about 3 years ago), I worked with a professor (A) on a research project that ended up as a paper, with me as first author. I decided to work under a different professor, although I've maintained a good relationship with professor A so far (he's on my committee as well). When we submitted the paper back then, it got rejected, and we edited it, incorporating the feedback from reviewers. Since then (about 2 years ago I think), I've heard nothing about the paper. I emailed professor A, who referred me to the other co-authors, who didn't reply. After nudging the other co-authors for a while, they finally, after a year or two, re-submitted (this was a couple of weeks ago). I was a little annoyed at the lack of communication and the slow progress on the paper, but I didn't say anything. Today, a different journal emailed me asking to confirm authorship. I'm *very* confused, and pretty annoyed. I don't know why two journals emailed me about the same thing; I'm annoyed I haven't even seen the final paper that's gone out to these journals; I don't know why nobody has communicated with me about these decisions such as journal choice (I've never heard of this journal, but at least its IF is fine). I feel like I should *really* reach out now. I don't want my annoyance to come across, so I'll probably write it tomorrow, but I don't know how to put forth basic questions such as the ones above. I'm not actually sure who to address it to, either--I get the feeling professor A has no idea about some of these as well, though I could be wrong. I've met the corresponding author (who probably submitted) in only one meeting, so I don't really have a relationship with him. How (and to who) do I write this email?

If you are the first author, it's your work (at least in my field), and you would have done the majority of the writing. You should be consulted about submissions. The only possible exception might be if you gave your advisor or PI full control to handle it for you. Have you asked your current professor for guidance? I know he's not on the paper, but that might be a good thing. He or she could give you unbiased advice. But if you are the first author, you are well within your rights to follow up.

How do you know if you're cut out for research/academia? Hello all, I just finished my first undergraduate research experience as a rising junior. I'm a bit overwhelmed by trying to answer the question if I'm really made to go into research and if I want to do a PhD. I liked my experience overall this summer, however I found out that what I thought I would like (demography) was actually not as appealing to me by the end of the program. Although I'm not sure if this feeling also came from the fact that I had basically no knowledge of quantitative methods before I started my research internship. I'm not planning on going straight to a PhD anyway after undergrad, if anything doing a masters abroad or working abroad for some time is my most immediate goal. But I was wondering if this is a common feeling among those who have pursued research and academia. Because of how competitive things are, I feel inclined to say that if I didn't absolutely love my research internship then I'm not cut out for this, but I was wondering what others on this sub would think or if they felt differently.

I think research is a calling. A research career means putting up with a lot of BS, and at some point, it can get to you if research isn't what you *have* to do. If you can be happy doing something else, do something else. If you can't see yourself being happy without doing research, then do research.

If you take a break from academia and work on your own business or research startup, does that experience count when you return to academia? Does your previous experience count or do you need to start from scratch? Non-native English speaker here. This is probably a stupid question but I am curious. Case 1: Suppose I am at an assistant professor and I am an academic for 5 years. Now I leave academia and work on my business which fails after 5 years. Now I apply to become an academic again and the position asks for 5 years of experience. Will I be able to join it showing my 5 years of assistant professor position. Case 2: Same case but now, I want to apply to a position that is above assistant professor (say associate professor). It requires 8 years of experience. But I have 5 years of experience in academia and another 5 in a business. Will the business experience count? Case 3: Same case as case 1 but instead of working on a business I was working on a research business of mine (say a research biotech firm). Will the 5 years in the research firm count towards associate professorship where 8 years of experience is required?

It is unlikely that you'd even get a tenure-track job, much less credit for your time outside academia, unless you've kept up your publishing and/or teaching. Every year, hundreds of people in your field likely graduate with a fresh PhD, and you would compete with them for jobs. The time to do something like this is before graduate school or (on the side) after tenure.

Condescension in science, how do you deal with it? As a young trainee I struggle interacting with condescending PI’s and other trainees. It’s surprising how many people I interact with have this character trait. As a young trainee I struggle not letting it affect me. I know their behaviour (and my response) probably stems from imposter syndrome and insecurity, but that doesn’t stop it from making me feel shitty. What are some strategies that work to respond to this kind of behaviour in a professional but respectful way?

Learn to distinguish between their condescension and your ego. Looking back to the days when I was a trainee, many times I thought someone was being condescending; they weren’t actually being condescending. It was my ego getting in the way. If you read the above and instantly thought, “Yeah, but that’s not the case for *me*,” it’s almost certainly the case for you.

What are some free/inexpensive online certifications that would meaningfully improve a CV for those of us on the job market or in adjunct limbo?

I'm in a non-STEM field and I would say that, instead of getting online certifications, the better use of time would be to figure out what the teaching and service buzzwords/hot topics are in your field and develop meaningful talking points around them. In my field, for instance, formative assessment is the super hot topic, and everyone is grappling with how to do more of it. I can't tell you the number of candidates I've come across in the last five years, however, who look like deer in the headlights when asked about it. Candidates coming out of top 5 programs seem particularly at risk for being caught off guard by those kinds of questions for some reason. If a candidate could come into an interview and talk meaningfully about formative assessment, flipped classrooms, online course development, etc., that would go so much further than having a line on their CV about Blackboard or Coursera certification.

Is going back for a Master's in math after already having a PhD in physics a terrible idea? I have a BS physics, BA math and PhD in physics. The thing is, I always kinda wanted to do math as well, but I got sucked in with the whole "be useful" thing. I left academia after I defended and I now have a great job as a tutor for highly gifted kids. I've built a great business. I get to use my math muscle all the time. The thing is, in my undergrad I only took a few upper division math courses, and I always felt like I missed out. Now that I'm steeped in the late high school/early college level material (think pre-calc through linear algebra and differential equations, with the occasional upper division physics course) I find myself feeling like my real analysis muscle would be handy... or that I should have taken that topology course that semester... or that I could use a bit more number theory (as in any...). These kids eat up everything I offer and the perspective my few upper division math course gave me has been so useful. Now I find myself learning random math things to throw to them like red meat to starving lions. A chapter and a half of a book here, a few lectures from a youtube lecture there. I hate not having answers for the kids so I have to keep learning. It's a good problem to have. I know, I know, I have a PhD, why cant I self study? What can I say? I like the environment of the classroom and I like interacting with an instructor. I think I'd get a much more complete picture of the topics with the structure of homeworks exams and grades etc. I respond well to that kind of stimuli. So what I'm wondering is Am I crazy? Is something like this ever done? Have I forgotten what a huge amount of work this is? Is maintaining a busy job even remotely possible while trying to do a masters in math? Also I dont want the teaching masters. I just want the math courses, not the pedagogy courses.

I think that if it's something you'd truly want to do for the fulfillment of just *doing* it, it should be viewed almost the same as an older person auditing classes cheaply or freely after they retire. Except, you'd be paying for it. At this point, you shouldn't really care about grades or the degree since you have a more advanced one, so I'd question actually wanting to take it for credit or the MS. Instead, if you want to take a course, you should probably just audit it, no? It's up to you how badly you want to do it. If taking some classes would make you happy and you can realistically afford it, go for it!

Did you continue to publish after landing a non-TT job? I finished my humanities PhD in 2021, and then I did a postdoc before landing a staff job at a university. I love my new job, and I think it's a better fit for me than a TT position. I am very much still in my field, but my job is about doing specific research for the university I work for, not publishing my dissertation work. Now, I'm contemplating whether or not I want to do the nights & weekends work to turn my dissertation into a book. I would love to hear about the life experiences of people who walked a similar path. Folks who landed non-TT jobs that don't include personal research time, did you publish your PhD research? Why did you decide to either a) stick with it or b) let go of those old ideas? How do you feel about your decision now, one way or the other?

I’m a fan of strategically publishing stuff you’ve already put work into. You never know where you might end up next, and more publications won’t hurt—particularly if they’re racking up citations while you’re otherwise occupied.

Article is stuck at the 'With editor' stage. What to do? We submitted a manuscript to a PolSci journal about 2.5 months ago. It is still 'with editor'. What would you do at this stage? Does it make sense to drop a message through EditorialManager system to the editor asking about the status or it's better to wait? The article is short (it's kind of a research note) and a bit 'time sensitive': I believe it would make more sense to publish it sooner while the phenomenon that it describes is still in the stage of active development. I would rather prefer an immediate desk rejection rather than just to sit and wait for a response for almost three months, knowing that it even hasn't reached reviewers yet.

This happened to me very recently. I wrote an email to the editor asking if everything was okay and if I could be of further assistance, and they then sent it for review immediately after. I would recommend asking respectfully, showing that you understand they are busy. Also, you can do it sooner next time, after a month or so; 2.5 months is quite a long time. I suppose sometimes they just need a nudge.

Former PI keeps asking me to do things/finish publication...I have switched careers. How do I respond? tl;dr at bottom. Hi everyone, I started medical school (at a different school) while I was finishing up my MS. My PI was very nice about letting me defend my thesis remotely, BUT my grades in medical school suffered, I lost sleep, didn't spend as much time as I should've with family, and forget about friends. The good news is that I successfully defended my MS thesis and received my diploma. The bad news? My former PI reached out to me a week after graduation asking me for help locating my old data/project so a new student could expand upon it. I replied with instructions where to find my old data, to which she said "Thank you! Can you put this in a PPT with all your graphs? Also, can you send the excel docs for this data (she must've not checked the file location which I stated in the email because all that info is readily available on the lab computers). She ends the email saying "I will send you another email shortly about turning your thesis into a publication." This part really put a nail in my coffin. I originally hoped to publish my work, which is finished, but life had other plans. Instead, I did my best and made it into a thesis, rather than graduating as a non-thesis student. The problem is that she teaches in the town that I hope to return and practice medicine as a physician in. I don't want to burn bridges but I am so tired of remediating medical school courses and I don't have the time or energy to turn my thesis into a manuscript. How can I reply politely while making it known that I simply cannot afford to do any of this? Thank you! tl;dr: US Masters graduate being asked to continue work after graduating and switching careers. How to politely decline, so that I can focus on my grades and mental health, without burning bridges?

Can you co-author the piece rather than lead it? Something along the lines of, “Unfortunately, I don’t have the resources to get this work across the line as a publication, but I would be happy to let someone else lead it if that is a reasonable compromise?” That way, you still get your name on a pub, but you don’t have to faff around with the publication process beyond looking at a draft or two. Otherwise, as difficult as it is, past academic work will always shadow you until you gain mastery over the word “no.”

What is the most obscure benefit you've received as a result of having a PhD? My friends keep trying to convince me to do the phd and keep referencing "benefits", but don't have any examples!

Having one in a science field lowered my car insurance. That was pretty sweet. As a more serious answer, having a PhD will, in all likelihood (somewhat depending on your field/topic of study), give you the most intense analytical training available. It's kind of like the Marines for your brain. You don't become a Marine for the VA loans and airport lounges; you do it (ideally speaking) to be an elite warrior and protect values and people you care about. Get a PhD because you want to be an elite problem solver who supports and protects the power of critical thinking, not because you want that awesome feeling of having to explain to family that you can't tell them what's causing their rash because you're not actually *that* kind of doctor.

The death & rebirth of a phd (documentary) has anyone seen it? Has anyone seen this documentary? I saw the trailer and it paints a pretty stark and negative view of academia and doctoral degrees.... I'm not sure if this can be applied to all fields, all countries, all departments. My experiences in academia are very positive so far (I'm a PhD Candidate and my job prospects in academia are pretty optimistic in my field)

Just remember, you are an outlier. There are definitely some fields that are better off than others. But some fields are definitely dead ends if academia is the end goal for people in graduate school.

Ideas on what to do about bullying in a research group? We have a technician in the group who is very unpleasant (I've posted about him before). He shouts constantly and is very rude and intimidating. Group members rarely tell the PI when they get shouted at because they don't want to burn bridges, and when they do, he does basically nothing. It's ruining group morale and I'm pretty sure it goes against the university's code of conduct. If anyone has had a similar issue, what did you do? What will happen if I report him to the university? Will the PI get in trouble? (I like my PI and don't want to be on his bad side. He's a good guy, just really non-confrontational and also a bit afraid of this technician, I think. I'm a postdoc btw.) The tech has a lot of power in the group--he runs all the instruments for analysis by himself. Would it actually be helpful if I reported him?I doubt our PI would look good if the university investigated because he's received a lot of emails complaining about the technician over the years and never done anything about it. I was thinking of maybe encouraging everyone to tell the PI (or one of the permanent staff members) every single time the tech shouts at them and that after a certain number of shouting incidents, there has to be a meeting with him and the PI and the victims about it, to decide whether to go higher up. The idea would be that documenting every incident and the threat of consequences would make the tech behave himself. Is this worth suggesting to the PI? I really have no idea what I'm doing and I'd really welcome advice and suggestions. I also really don't understand why the PI is not doing anything, so any insight is welcome.

All of you can go to the PI together; he is ultimately responsible for everything that happens on this project. If your colleagues won’t go with you, have one more conversation with him to give him a heads-up that this must be addressed or you will have to escalate this. If the PI won’t act, you need to report this, not only for your sake but for the sake of the RAs, students, and staff. You are in the right here, and if there are consequences for the PI, that’s on him. This sort of stuff happens too often in academia, and we all need to change that culture. I know this is very difficult, but it’s worth acting on. The university must protect you and your colleagues from retaliation. It’s easier to do this together, if you can.

PhDs: Was getting your PhD the most challenging thing you have faced in your life so far? If not, what topped It? No need to go into detail if you don't want to

No, many things in my personal life have been more challenging. It was also not the most challenging point in my professional career. Getting a job and the climb to tenure are, IMO, more challenging and also more soul-crushing and stressful, especially the job market.

PhD holders working outside of academia, if you could take it all over again, would you do your PhD? (I hope this isn't the general *Do you regret your PhD* post. I will try to be specific about what I'm asking.) I'm mainly asking those of you who completed your PhD before you accumulated extensive non\-academic experience, but all perspectives are welcome. If you are not currently working in academia, I am interested to know: * What do you think are the differences made by your PhD experience to your specific role in your workplace? Is the knowledge you gained during your PhD years central to your work? In particular, is there any way you could do your current work without having gone through the PhD? * If you were offered your current job (or a version of it demanding less experience/knowledge) at the same time you received the offer to your PhD program, in hindsight would you have chosen the job or the PhD? If you had chosen the job, would you have decided to never do a PhD or just delay when you would do your PhD? I am about to begin a job in quantitative finance after I complete my MSc. Internationally it is common for PhD holders (usually from physics or applied mathematics) to work in this area, and I will be working with a few such people. Before I received the job offer, I had prepared myself (mentally at least) to apply for PhD programs in mathematics. I ask because one of my current long\-term goals is to complete a PhD in mathematics and then eventually join university faculty, provided I have the right credentials and luck at the time. I am very aware, however, that I might get cold feet about this once I start the job, certainly from a financial perspective and possibly from lifestyle considerations. My primary motivation behind wanting to pursue a PhD (eventually) is that I wish to be technically knowledgeable in my field of work. It would be a dream to contribute original research one day, and for the sake of my career in quantitative finance outside of academia, the PhD is a strong qualification to have. Also, I would find it difficult to even **feel** knowledgeable in quantitative finance without a PhD since it is so common to encounter individuals with them.

Yes. My doctorate wasn't just about job preparation; my motivation for doing one was so much more. I believe it taught me how to work independently, how to own work packages, and gave me the skills to think critically, not just follow the will of my superiors.

Quitting your PhD and starting another later in life? Ten years ago in my early twenties, I started a PhD on a scholarship. I spent four years on it (with a few breaks), before leaving. I don't regret it—leaving literally saved my life, given some significant mental health issues at the time. The area also wasn't an area I loved. I'm now in a much better place than I was, and am starting to retrain in an area I am incredibly energised by. I still want to complete a PhD one day and am wondering whether: A) has anyone here attempted another PhD in similar circumstances, and if so, what was your experience of your second? B) If I pursued a PhD, should I mention that I had previously started and quit a PhD—is that a liability or an indication that I once had the support and confidence of another University?

You would definitely have to disclose that you previously attended a PhD program. Not to do so can be considered academic dishonesty and could get you kicked out of a program later on—not worth it. You can also potentially transfer over some coursework if it's in a similar area.

Starting a phd - what’s one thing you wish you had? Have a friend/colleague starting a phd shortly, need to get them a gift. It’s a science based phd if that makes a difference! Notebook is an obvious choice, would an academic diary be useful? What’s one thing you found most useful and/or wish you had when doing your phd? Thanks!

I vote for something non-academic. Money gets tight, so you don't feel like you can splurge. Try to think of whatever hobbies they have and maybe get them something for that. Double bonus because it's important for people doing a PhD to do literally anything else besides the PhD. Get them a 10-pass punch card to the local climbing gym, a bike trails guidebook, a bunch of fancy yarn and fabric, etc.

Some faculty at my school are moving to formally prevent hiring of anyone who obtained degrees at the school into a TT position at that school. Thoughts? **TLDR**: I am an observer to an interesting development at my school. My engineering department at my school is going to hire someone into a TT position who obtained all of their degrees - B.S.and PhD. - at that school (albeit in a different engineering department), who (in my opinion from interviewing them) has a decently strong record. A group of faculty are highly against the decision on principle and lodged a protest in the academic senate, and they are moving to gain support from faculty in other departments to add a clause to the academic policy and procedures manual that anyone who obtained any of their degrees at the school is ineligible to be hired into any position in a tenure-track series at the school. Curious what people's thoughts are on this. **Long version**: My department had a call for a TT position last fall, which was a repost of a position which had a failed search in the previous cycle. A bunch of good candidates were interviewed - I was involved in interviewing them since I'm kind of a mainstay in the department although I'm not formally on the hiring committee since I'm not on the academic senate. The hiring committee's first choice (who was also my recommended first choice) declined, and the second candidate is someone who obtained both their B.S. and PhD. at this school and has been around as an adjunct professor for 5 years in the same department they graduated from, but has staked out their own research niche separate from their doctoral advisor. My department (where they are being hired) is different from the department they graduated from and are in currently. In my recommendation to the hiring committee after interviewing the candidates, I recommended this candidate as a tie for second choice with one other candidate. The hiring committee decided to go with them. I honestly don't think it's controversial based on my assessment from interviewing them and looking at their CV - they've been publishing a lot even though they don't have their own students, have brought in a bunch of grant money, and their focus area seems to be one that the department wants to inherit. There's the additional pressure to not have a second failed search in a row as well. However, the department vote to hire this person passed but just barely. The candidate's case was then approved by the chair and the provost, so the offer was made. The faculty who voted against them didn't accept the decision, however, so they lodged a protest with the academic senate. Further, they are trying to get support from other departments for preventing something like this from happening again by trying to get it formally written into the academic policy and procedures manual that applicants who obtained any of their degrees at the school are ineligible for consideration for any tenure-track position at the school. It's a lot of drama. I can see that some might not like it on principle and it'd be bad if their record was bad and they were hired anyway, but in this case their record was pretty strong relative to the other candidates. Fortunately I'm not internally involved (I'm non-TT and therefore not on the senate) but it's interesting to observe the magnitude of faculty reaction to this. I feel like if the candidate takes the offer, they'll have the deck stacked against them when going for tenure from the get-go. What do think about this?

Sounds like a bad rule to me. I like the idea that external candidates are strongly preferred, but codifying it as a requirement just seems wrong. There are always exceptions, even for PhDs. And for bachelors who return to their alma mater to teach, I think it's actually extremely refreshing, and great for the students, as it provides some super-cool continuity of experience.

Is it normal that a journal expects you to do the copy-editing of your accepted manuscript? The journal contacted me to revise my accepted manuscript to conform to the journal's style, and when I sent them the revised version (admittedly with many details not matching their style) they sent it back to me saying that it has this and that error, and after multiple revisions I asked them whether this is really my job and not theirs, and they insisted that it is my duty as an author. Is it common practice for the author to do the copy-editing with feedback from the journal and not the other way around?

Usually, they send you a version with some corrections or clarifications that their copy editors would like, and they ask if you have any other final corrections to make. I can't say it's always the case, or if it's the case in other fields, though.

Found a mistake in my thesis after the corrections were handed in I have completed my PhD thesis in mathematics, completed my viva and handed in my corrections. However earlier today when I was writing a paper based on one of my chapters I spotted three spelling mistakes. What should I do and can I correct these?

"Phosphate Bugger B" lives on in eternity in my thesis. You don't have time to waste on these minor things, and I promise you there are more than three spelling mistakes in your thesis. Take the pass and move on. Don't go looking for problems. No one cares about spelling mistakes.

For those of you that have been supervisors for undergrad research projects, to what extent do you guide/teach the students working with you? So I'm doing a research project right now, and I mean, while it's interesting and all, I feel partially lost? I'm not sure how this is supposed to work, since none of my friends are doing any projects with the same department since it's super small, nor do I know any previous students that well to ask them how it went, and I'm not particularly sure if I'm going in the right direction. But yeah, so basically, ever since I started at the beginning of this semester, my supervisor has handed me only one research paper and asked me to study it. Which I did, for about 2 months (had to take almost 2.5 weeks off because of covid though). But yeah, he hadn't told me if I was taking too little/too much time or anything, but just let me read up until I understood it, which I sort of did and then presented on it. I decided that I wanted to do a comparison between certain methods to find something and told him about how I found another paper, so he just said okay and told me to read it. So I did. And it's something I've essentially never studied or seen during my entire degree. So I'm basically teaching it all to myself...? Long story short; is it normal to give this much "freedom" to your students? How much do you normally guide undergrads specifically, or teach them during the duration of a research project. (Like I guess grad students probably do/should have more freedom when they're working on newer stuff, right?) Anyway, at this point, I'm not ever sure if I'm going in a good or bad direction, I'm just trying to figure stuff out on my own. And my supervisor isn't terrible, like he'll explain stuff if I ask him to, but he doesn't exactly,,, give me a direction or any indication that the direction *I'm* going in is correct/okay. Is this common? Or should I have asked him to sort of guide me more before? (Also note that I am not working towards an undergrad thesis, it's basically a senior year project, and for those with my major at my university, it's usually research, so it's not supposed to be super intense I think, I might just be working towards a final presentation or something. But I'm still kind of confused about what I'm doing tbh.)

He responds to questions, so ask them. Go into his office (preferably during those lone, sad times known as office hours), flop down in a chair, and start talking. “So I was reading/thinking this. What’s your view? Or how does that work? Or am I getting close?” Then go back and apply it on your own. When you get stuck or unsure, do it again.

How do I nicely tell a student she needs to pay attention in class? I teach Anatomy and Physiology at a large, public University. I have a student in my class who just switched majors from fine arts to Nursing. My class is hard and also required for the students to continue in the major. I am always sure to remind them of due dates, upcoming assignments, and tests in class and through our class website. The student in question seems nervous and anxious when she speaks to me. She asks questions in class after I just explained and gave the answer. She is always asking about due dates after I specifically go over them. She is always venting to her classmates about how hard her workload is and how "lost" she is. I do not want my class to be the reason someone cannot continue in their major, but at a certain point it is on the student to pay attention and keep up with these things. She is a nice girl and I can tell she's studying and actually trying to succeed. Any advice on how to kindly tell her to pay attention?

Any advice on how to kindly tell her to pay attention? As others have said, it sounds like she's already trying, and asking her to "pay attention" will only accomplish making her feel bad about herself and stop asking for clarification when she misses things. Just as an anecdote: I went through undergrad with undiagnosed ADHD, and I would try my hardest to pay attention and take notes. Even so, I would regularly miss things because my mind wanders no matter how hard I try. It only took one professor lecturing me that maybe I should try "paying attention" after I'd asked about something he'd already said for me to pretty much stop asking questions in class, even when I was completely lost. Much to my detriment for the rest of my undergrad career. If you want to help her, answer her questions and, as others have said, maybe point her to some resources. If you're worried that she's wasting class time, defer her questions until after class or office hours. You say that it is on the student to keep up with these things, but it sounds like she is taking responsibility for making sure she doesn't miss things—that's why she's asking questions if she misses something.

Those who did PhD in your 30's, did it go faster than it otherwise would have? I know PhD lengths vary by field and other factors. I'm wondering if being in your 30's, and presumably being more organized as a result of having completed larger projects, would make the PhD go faster than it otherwise would have?

I'm in my 30s with no kids and no spouse, and I'm in my second year. I can't say for certain how long it will take, but I'm expecting to be done in 4-5 years and on track for that. I'm in a field of public health. When I think about the differences between myself and other students, or between myself and me from a decade ago, I think the biggest differences are in my emotional composure and sense of self. When we are younger, we're concerned about impressing and pleasing others, particularly those in positions of power. This is either because we're intimidated by them and want to impress or please them, or because it's easy for them to bully us. These days, I'm much more comfortable identifying what I want for myself and navigating with that as the guiding principle, rather than what others want from me. I feel comfortable and adequate in that mindset, rather than feeling guilty about it like my primary role as a PhD student should be to serve the faculty and fulfill their expectations. That, and being able to set boundaries and be comfortable with them. I'm always a person first, and a PhD student second. And regardless of my intelligence, talent, and productivity, I am enough and deserving of happiness, dignity, and respect. And believe me, there's nothing a professor could say to me that would have me crying in my office. I'm far, far, far, faaaar less likely to take someone's attitude personally than in previous points in my life. If you chew me out, my first thought is probably going to be, "Well, something's not going well at home for this guy ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯" Naturally, I want to be in people's good graces, be a positive presence in the lives of those around me, build positive relationships, and have people think highly of me. But make no mistake, I'm here for me. My goals and needs come first. And if this path no longer serves me, I have a master's degree and I can go forge my career path elsewhere without a doctorate. Life's too short to wrap your whole identity and sense of self-worth in this stuff.

Did I cheat in my masters thesis? Some years ago I finished my degree, did I unintentionally plagiarize? Here is the story, I've been working for the past years with my degree in a field, which went great until I decided to take a break. However during my break period, I started wondering if what I did was cheating, and now I feel awful, because I am sure what I did was academic misconduct, and if found out my degree will be revoked. Which I am not interested in. We were encouraged to read other peoples master thesis, and I in fact decided to do that, I read the master thesis of several previous students within the same field as me and used 3-4 of these in terms of figuring out how I could construct my own thesis. One of them was VERY good, it was not only within the same field but also a very relatable topic and this is where it starts to get messy. Our method and theory sections are looking very alike. I use the same research method as theirs, and likewise the same theory, I even recall taking a reference from their thesis, as it was a really good one, and was basically all I needed to reference through my thesis. As we have the same educational background with the same lectures, a lot of the references they used were from the classes, and therefore some of those I would naturally have used with or without the inspiration of that thesis. However my theory section is structured just like theirs, I have naturally added something to mine, as it was not entirely a relatable topic, and naturally, I added some theories that they did not use, and I did not use all the same theories as they did, but it was darn close. So generally my thesis is structured like theirs, and if they compare the two of those, they would, without doubt, see the similarities. The major problem you ask? I never cited them, and this is where it gets tricky for me, whether or not I did the right thing. Yes, I looked at the sources they used, and yes I read the thesis they wrote, but after doing so, I always went back to the original source that they used and read what that said, and then I wrote my own. I did not try to copy-paste theirs, and therefore i only cited the original source that they used. As it was empirical studies both of them, the way we conducted it was similar, and I was inspired by them in terms of what was relevant to take into consideration, but I only cited the original source. Was this wrong? Should I have cited the others? TL;DR - I took the method/theory of how others conducted their master thesis and replicated it towards my own master's thesis, and only cited the original source and not the thesis which I found it in. Why is my text a mess? Because it is like my current state of mind, I feel like a nobody, a cheating pig, a girl/guy why cheated his way into his degree. No plagiarism checker such as Turinit found anything wrong with it, but I am so afraid that someone will figure out and report me, even though my thesis is not public. Somebody lynch me for being a shitty person.

Do I understand correctly that what you "copied" from the thesis is merely the structure and references? You read the original sources and cited them where appropriate, and wrote the whole thing in your own words, right? I wouldn't call that cheating. I take ideas and references from other papers a lot and then don't cite the paper where I found the reference if the aim or novelty of that paper isn't relevant to what I'm writing.

PhD students, did you reach out to PIs at your school before applying? If so, what did that look like for you? I want to do right by my applications and I know that reaching out to PIs is a good thing to do, but I’m not sure how to go about it without being awkward/rude. Any advice would be appreciated; thank you! Also I’m sorry if I should be in the undergrad discussion—I’m brand new to Reddit!

As a professor in STEM, our department wouldn't even consider a student who lacks support from a faculty member willing to supervise them, and I would never confirm willingness to supervise anyone unless I had already talked to them extensively. So yes, please reach out to PIs.

How to answer questions about why do you choose this school? Why do you think you're the best fit for this position? Well, I'm applying assistant professor positions in social sciences, and I found that the hardest interview questions that I'm facing now is how to answer the questions such as why do you choose to come to xxx university? Why do you think you are the best fit for this position? From what perspective should I answer this type of question? Thank you!

Before you go to the interview, do some research about the school and the department and see what you find interesting about it. Some things to look for: * Where is it located? City vs. rural, what part of the country/world, what physical climate/geography? What can you do in the area in your downtime? * How big is the school? * What is the school known for? * What is the school’s mission statement? * How big are class sizes? * What research is being done in the department? * What courses do they offer? Among those courses, what is one you’d really be looking forward to teaching? * Among the courses they *don’t* offer, what is one you’d like to develop and teach for them? * Are you more interested in teaching grad or undergrad courses? Intro or advanced undergrad? * Who is the faculty in the department? Do you know any of them personally or professionally, like have you met them at conferences or read their work? Who would you most want to collaborate with? * How does your research fit with their research? * What facilities do they have (teaching or research) that you’d be looking forward to using? Do your homework—honestly, half of these are useful to find out before applying even—and it’ll help you to answer those specific questions and others.

Professors of Reddit, have you ever worked on a project/thesis with a student and were dissatisfied with their progress/work ethic? If so, how did you handle the situation over the term?

In the twelve and a half years I've been directing senior capstones at my current university, five have failed. That's out of about forty in that time. I've had to give probably half of those forty a very pointed and detailed come-to-Jesus speech about how far behind schedule and below expectations they were, and what precisely needed to happen if they wanted to graduate on time. The five who failed were the five who didn't act on it.

future in academia This is my very first reddit post, and I don't fully know what I am expecting out of this. Hopefully this is the right place. Overall, I'm in a position where I am conflicted, and torn on how to proceed in academia. I think mostly, I am looking for some advise from other academics who have had similar experiences, or who have any insight in what I can do. I have been at the same institution for almost 10 years now. I was an undergrad student, research assistant, grad student, adjunct, substitute lecturer, instructor, assistant professor, director of a lab, and director of the undergraduate program for 2 years. I was able to do all this within a 6 year time frame. Recently, I have been out on parental leave. I have worked extremely hard to climb the academic ladder, and I feel pretty content with how successful I have been. Here is where the real fun comes in. My chair, has to be one of the most toxic individuals one could meet. To give context with my leave alone, I told her 5 months in advance I was going to use my parental leave (contractual right). Her response "You are a father you should not be taking leave", "your wife isn't working, so she can take care of the baby", "this is unfair to the program and you should not be asking for leave". To top things off, my wife was a high risk pregnancy (2 prior miscarriages) and my mom had stage 4 lung cancer. My mom ended up passing on Aug 14th of this year. From diagnosis to her passing, it was 5 months. To say this took a toll on me is an understatement. Meanwhile, the chair knew everything I was going through, and her response to my mom passing was "time to get back to real life". My leave officially started in October, and I received emails that were full of things that should not be said to anyone let alone someone already struggling with other life experiences. I've been in contact with the dean and she just says "I dont know why she treats you like this". The chair says "hes like a son to me" as if its some excuse to justify the abuse. She threatens that there are consequences, and told me I am shooting myself in the foot for now doing what she says. This was sent to the dean, union, and legal counsel. They told her to leave me alone during leave, but it will, without a doubt continue. After forwarding the harassing emails, the dean went MIA and hasn't said a word in months. I got in contact with my union, legal counsel and HR and they basically told her to leave me alone. From October until this past week, she left me alone. Now the emails start again. Nothing toxic, but right back to as if things are normal and what she did is just acceptable. This experience is only the recent one, I have recordings, and emails from the past 10 years of things similar and perhaps worse. She is short tempered, and respects no one. She, and other say its just her culture (shes turkish). Its still mind boggling to me that if this were any other job, she would have been fired. There are recordings others have sent the union of her being racist. Yet, she still continues as if nothing has happened. The overall response from the dean was "I need her as chair". The chair is tenured, and intends to retire in 3 years. I don't want to see, hear or have anything to do with this woman. Just the thought of speaking with her gives me extreme anxiety. I wish this was an exaggeration, but every single interaction I have had with her has been abusing, toxic. Sadly, I am not alone in this. There has been at least 6 people who have left because of her, and the union said they aren't sure why she is still here. yet nothing is done, and the dean and other just say "that is just how she is". I fully intend to leave, and my last semester will be Spring 2024. I don't know what to do til then. I wish I could just quit, but i am the sole provider for my family. The pay isn't great, but I am a city employee, so the healthcare is extremely important. I would sincerely appreciate any suggestions, words of wisdom or any guidance on what to do. No need to sugar coat anything, because I need to hear what needs to be said. I have justified the abuse, and have been convinced by others that I just have to deal with her behavior. TLDR: Toxic chair who harnesses me. I can't deal with it for much longer, and I intend to leave Spring 2024. It has taken a toll on my mental health, and nothing has been done. What can I do until I leave to keep myself sane.

Get a lawyer. The institution is protecting this person, dare I say, supporting their actions. They're all culpable. If your union doesn't want to get a lawyer, then get one on your own and let all of your fellow union members know the union is doing nothing more than lip service to stand up for you. Sounds like the university and the union need a changing of the guard. Furthermore, these entities only understand/react to one thing: money. That's where the lawyer comes in. I bet if you spoke to that person the way they speak to you, you would have been fired.

What was it like preparing your first semester's worth of lectures? I'm considering becoming a lecturer in the future, was wondering what it's like. Do you normally have to start from scratch when preparing for lectures? Or did you have a contact from whom you received some help? How long did it take?

The first time you teach a lecture course, it is a huge amount of work. Multiple hours of preparation are required for every hour of lecture. This is the case even if you have some kind of textbook or other materials (e.g., someone else's lectures) to base it on, assuming you aren't just doing a complete copy-paste job (which makes for bad teaching). It's a major endeavor. After that, though, preparation for subsequent years is much less—looking over, making some changes to what worked/didn't work (keep notes!), adding new things, etc. But there's no way around the fact that the first run takes a lot of work, as it probably should: you're figuring out for yourself how you want this class to be, and even with the help of others, that's going to be a lot of work.

Why do I keep failing in my interviews? I am a master's degree student applying for PhD positions for 2 months. I had 4 interviews but I wasn't successful in any of them. During the interviews, I talk about my past research experiences, the techniques I've learned, and I specifically talk about "what did I gain during my internships" for example, an internatiol research experience, working in an multidisciplinary subject etc. I also read about their research topic before the interview and I talk about it too. A few professors underlined the fact that I do not have any experience related to their specific subject, and some of them asked since I am a non-eu citizen would it be difficult for me to get visa. After all my interviews, I felt like I did a good job, talked about myself clearly and asked them some questions too. But I failed 4 interviews so obviously I wasn't good enough. What could I do to get better?

It's not really possible to give any specific advice like this; maybe you just got unlucky. What I look for in PhD students: * Someone who is really interested in the topic (the professors seemed to be worried about that because you have no prior experience in their field. Why did you apply to positions different from what you did before? What got you interested in that?) * Someone I believe has the capabilities and will to finish (this one is tricky; having past research experience definitely helps, but it's also about attitude. And again, if you are from a different field, you should have some good reasons for applying elsewhere, because otherwise, it looks like you just applied to everything). * Someone with their own ideas (but this is kind of up to the personal preference of the PI. I don't like to micromanage and I want my students to have a certain level of independence). Things that I find don't look good in interviews (apart from not being prepared, but this doesn't seem to be your problem): * Talking too generally (not: "I got interdisciplinary research experience," instead: "I worked on X, which was quite fascinating because it's on the overlap between Y and Z. I had to learn this and that for this project."). * Being too eager (as in being fine with and pretending to know everything to please the interviewer; it comes off as dishonest. But this might also be a cultural thing).

Did I do something unethical while writing my master's thesis? This may sound like a silly question, but here goes. I completed my MS in Electrical Engineering in 2016. To get my MS, I had to do a research project and write a thesis. If I'm 100% honest, my project was...pretty embarrassing. It was something a high school student could have done. I basically made some slight modifications to an Android navigation app to see if I could reduce its power consumption. I didn't know much about Android or mobile app development, so I was learning on the fly. I just wanted to get the thesis done and get my MS ASAP, and fortunately, my thesis adviser could see that and was willing to give me a project to do. In order to collect data, I went through a few scripted routines of using the app while recording its power consumption using a separate app. It was, again, not very meaty. However, I was able to collect the data and make some conclusions. I eventually ended up getting my thesis accepted and getting my MS. However, there were a few occasions while using the app that it just...didn't work properly. The main issue seemed to be that the network was crapping out, so the app didn't download the necessary information properly. Whenever that happened, I would just start over. Is that...cheating? I want to be absolutely clear: I did not at all mean to do anything unethical. As far as I know, everything I did was legit and above board. But I, at the time, did not see anything wrong with aborting a test run because of network issues. I kept my adviser in the loop about pretty much everything I was doing for my project, but I didn't see it as necessary to tell him about this. So, did I inadvertently fudge the data for my thesis?

As long as the data you collected was real, there was absolutely nothing unethical about that. The point of research is not to create robust, reliable systems; it is to collect good data, which you did. It truly doesn't matter what happens the rest of the time.

How do I keep myself from falling into an infinite rabbit hole when trying to read a paper? I'm new to reading research papers in my field, and **I don't know how anyone does it.** When reading a paper, sometimes (actually, quite often) I come across something I don't quite understand. If I'm lucky, the author cites the source. Then I go check out the source. Uh oh, another roadblock. Rinse and repeat. The number of papers or textbooks I must read before comprehending anything in academia feels like an exponential battle. For every paper that I want to 'get', it feels like there are 2\~3 others that I need to go through first. Any tips? Does this get better with time?

How new are you to this field? It will happen a lot in the beginning, and in a way, it's a good thing. A paper will most likely be addressing a very specific question. To understand its background and implications, you need to read way more. It gets better. After a point, simply reading figures is enough to understand the contributions of the paper. Tips: 1. Start with reviews. This will give you a narrative backbone to fit research papers you read in the future. 2. When reading research articles, summarize vital points directly related to figures/main data crux (or directly relating to your study). 3. Going down rabbit holes is fine, but I suggest mapping it out. After reading a paper, make a list/tree of what topics you really need to read more about. Prioritize those. 4. Read the abstract of papers you encounter in the rabbit hole. Unless necessary, you shouldn't waste time reading further. 5. Most important, don't go down rabbit holes before finishing the paper in hand.

How do people in academia as a whole feel about the low pay compared to most other similarly skilled occupation? What are they doing for a better change? I keep on seeing threads on how academics are paid so little with very low lifetime earnings. Yet, academics bring in a lot of value to the contemporary generation of people and the next generation as well who keep on benefiting from their work to various degrees. From what I have read on Reddit and elsewhere I feel that academics are grossly underpaid which I feel is unfair. Especially given the years of education/training needed, the talent needed and the years of hard work at low pay etc. Other occupations would have paid much more at such a high skill and educational requirement level. What do academics feel about this low pay as a whole? Do they believe its unfair? If so what are they doing to change the system?

It varies widely by university and discipline. Business school faculty start out with six-figure salaries, some getting upwards towards $200,000 or more. Is that underpaid? Well, considering a PhD in accounting, finance, or even economics can make perhaps double that in the private sector, it’s low. But the advantage is that those faculty can also easily do outside work and enjoy a really good life—the security of academia with the added income from consulting and outside jobs. Engineering and computer science can be similar. Humanities faculty can start out as low as sub-$50,000. That’s abysmal for the amount of time spent getting a PhD relative to other careers. But it’s not exactly a secret when they go into grad school, and it’s never recommended unless you really, really, really (ad infinitum) like the field and the work itself. Is that fair? I don’t know, it sounds shitty, but those degrees often don’t have the same private sector opportunities as applied fields. Contrast the low pay of faculty at many universities with the soaring cost of tuition, and it seems out of whack. But administrative bloat and rising marginal costs from increased enrollments are the problem. Whether reducing administrative bloat would go towards lower tuition or higher salaries is unclear. Part of the problem is there was a huge growth of demand for college faculty back in the 1970s and 1980s, which led to a large number of people entering grad school. But in the 1990s and 2000s, the glut of PhDs was really the drag on wages. Outside of the top researchers of the year, the middle PhD grads are facing a lot of competition, so schools simply don’t need to make super attractive salary offers to get a hire anymore. I also think a lot of faculty were negligent when it came to dissuading students from going into PhD programs. Perhaps it was to boost their own importance with more grad students to supervise, or maybe it was just not adequately informing potential PhD students of the career prospects. I think most faculty these days, when faced with an undergraduate wanting to become a college professor, will do their best to explain that it’s not worth it unless you really, really are committed to a stoic lifestyle for the discipline. Things are going to change as well when the demands change from research faculty to having teaching faculty. Many schools now have separate non-tenure-track lines for teaching faculty. This requires many different skills than PhD programs often focus on (teaching management versus research).

Do you live comfortably as a professor in a big city? Hi all! As in the title, I am curious if it is possible to live comfortably as a professor in a big city, i.e. say one with a 500k+ population. By 'comfortably', I roughly mean being able to buy a (small) house, not be frugal on groceries, eat out 1-2 times a week, and travel 1-2 times a year (domestically). I know an Econ Phd student who has just accepted an assistant professor position with 110K a year in Boston and he said he is really worried about living there with such a salary (maybe this is a 9-month salary). From my search, I also know a few math/stats professors from the Bay area earning around 90-95K, which I believe is not very high given the crazy cost of living there. I know this is a very complicated question since it depends a lot on the specific city, field, institution type (private/public, R1/R2, teaching, etc.), and also the spouse, so I guess I just want to know some perspectives. I am in math/stats if you are curious. In general, I want to see if one can live comfortably as a professor or not, so even if you are not living in a big city, you can also share your stories (I guess expensive college towns like Santa Barbara can be interesting case studies). Thank you so much.

In Australian cities (East coast), on an academic salary you can do all of the above fairly comfortably, except buy a small house near campus. Property prices are ridiculous here, which has put home ownership out of reach of many people, including well-paid professionals.

My master's supervisor has suggested I look at a PhD vacancy in their lab, I am hoping to study elsewhere in a different field and want to list them as a reference, how do I politely tell them this? Thanks.

I think you shouldn't go through with the application if you don't intend on working there. Just say thanks for the opportunity, but I want to broaden my horizons and I think the best way for me to do that is to work in new places. This isn't just a wishy-washy polite answer; it's the truth. There are a lot of things you can learn in this world, but you can only learn them if you don't stay in the same place all the time. Take it from me: staying in one lab for a long time can turn out to be a huge mistake.

Why academic paper are so expensive to purchase? I'm not in academia, but I've been told many times that authors don't get paid. Hence, why prices are so high? Some cost $45

It's complicated, but the main reason is that digital academic publishing is an outgrowth of print academic publishing. Print journals are expensive to produce because the only people who buy them are university libraries and academic professional organizations. Now, we have much cheaper ways of publishing online, and the public is more interested in reading academic research, but private publishing companies still own the rights to the vast majority of the journals that have built up a strong reputation over time. They charge that much because they can, and because they really want to sell bundles of journals (research databases) to libraries rather than individual articles to members of the public. Starting a new open-access journal is very difficult because you have to build up a reputation by getting quality submissions, readers who will cite the articles you publish, and reviewers and editors who are leaders in their fields. Forcing existing publishers to move to an open-access model requires government action, and in many countries, there's no political will for this sort of change. That said, if you want to read an article and it's behind a paywall, email the researcher and ask if they'll send you a copy for free! Often, they'll send it to you because they're happy that someone is interested in their work, and it's not like they get a cut of the publishing company's profits anyway.

How to write a paper with more than 100 references? I am currently about to finish my masters and will be starting my PhD soon after. I spent about a month researching my thesis before I began my own work. However, by the time I started writing the thesis, I couldn't remember the contents of the papers I had read. True, I read a lot of papers and I shouldn't expect myself to remember every paper, but I've seen some papers with almost 200 references, with a reference in every other sentence. I don't understand how such a thing could be done. How does one write every paragraph with 5 references from 5 different papers for instance? Basically, what I'm asking is how does one go about writing a paper with more than 100 references? Do you read all 100 papers before you begin writing? I'm looking for ideas to improve my writing efficiency.

The way you are asking this makes me think you don't really understand how research works yet. Because no, you don't just read 100 papers, and then write something down, and remember everything you read. Research is not a report of stuff you read (I suppose STEM fields are reports about their findings, but the humanities are not this, and I think you are in the humanities from what little you have said). > Do you read all 100 papers before you begin writing? I mean, hell no. That is the way to fail. You need to be writing and reading all at the same time. Your research raises a particular question, so you seek to answer it. You seek out papers that might explain this. You find five that seem to satisfy the question. That is one paragraph. On to the next. Etc. If you only read until you think you know everything and are ready to write, you will never write.

How do you store and keep track of all the papers you read? I've heard of some people using Evernote to save papers, tag them, and make some notes to come back to later. What other apps/websites/strategies do you use to keep the papers you've read organized and to find them again in times of need?

I like Mendeley. It makes your entire library of PDFs organized and searchable. You can add tags, share with co-authors, and it is a reference manager, so adding citations in LaTeX or Word is a breeze.

How many hours per week do you actually spend working towards completing your PhD? I'm debating pursuing a PhD and have heard a lot of differing opinions about the actual workload of the degree. I'm assuming that it depends on the discipline. Mine would be in computer science engineering or a related field. I'm currently not extremely interested in continuing into academia, as I think I would rather pursue industry after completing the degree. Does this impact the amount of work/effort that people put into their degrees?

Here to normalize the idea of treating a PhD as a normal 37-hour-a-week job. It is perfectly feasible to do so, and you should have the self-discipline not to let it consume your life.

What do you think of the tenure track system in the Netherlands? Hello good people! I have a few question on the tenure track system in the Netherlands, in general and regarding the new reform. 1. What do you think in general about the tenure track system in the Netherlands? 2. Would you consider it a real tenure? Like, does it give you a job for life? 3. What do you think about the new tenure track system that was adopted very recently (tenure after 18 months and promotion to Assistant professor 1 after 4 years roughly)? About the fact that you don't necessarily get an associate professor position in the long term? 4. The pay scale for professors there is super straightforward but very much lower than what you'd get in North America. Does the work life balance and tenure after 18 months make it worth it? Curious to know what you all think.

The pay scale for professors there is super straightforward but much lower than what you'd get in North America. Does the work-life balance and tenure after 18 months make it worth it? This is pretty much impossible to compare. Work-life balance isn't the major issue; it is the long-term cost of living. When you don't have to save for your future children's college, you don't have to pay for health care, and child care is heavily subsidized, etc., multiplied by 100, the math regarding wages is something else. Also, it depends on how long you plan to stay. One year, country A; five years, country B; for life, country C. One way of looking at it is this: Are the two countries comparably wealthy? If so, where do tenured professors place as a percentile of national incomes? If they are about the same, the pay is likely comparable.

Academics, what is your favorite/least favorite part of your job?

Grading. I like teaching a lot and love working with my students. But I *hate* having to put a score on a paper or project—a critique is no problem, but having to put a number or grade to it is a pain. Part of the problem is the way it comes in waves: nothing at all for several weeks and then a huge crush of grading, etc. I don't really mind any of the rest of the job, even the endless committee meetings. My students are mostly great; they do what we ask of them, and my colleagues are (for the most part) friends that I enjoy being around. I've been at this a while now (~25 years) and the most rewarding part by far is seeing our students go into the world and do amazing things.

Department forcing me to teach a course even though my advisor has funds available to fund me from a grant TLDR: My department is forcing me to teach a course even though my advisor has funds available to pay me from a grant. Is this even legal? Should I contact the dean of students or graduate school? My advisor has funds for me to use for research from his grant so that I don't have to teach in my final semester. Unfortunately my department is denying the request and forcing me to teach a course to be funded since they are low on teachers. 75% of other students are being allowed to use research funding in my department, and I am one of the 5 who is not being allowed. The reasoning is because of timing and a change of policy that once the department determined they were running low on instructors they started denying requests for research funding. I have exhausted avenues within my department and have still been denied. I do have a lot of savings and could afford not to be funded at all. Honestly, I am tempted to deny teaching altogether. Of course I would not earn my 10-15K + health insurance + tuition benefit that I would get for research funding or teaching or being on the grant for research, but it is doable and honestly tempting to me right now. I am really upset about this. Teaching takes 20-30 hours a week of my time. I am going into my last semester and need time to finish my thesis, find a job, and everything else that comes with graduating. I simply do not have time to teach and have been counting on this funding from my advisor. I think it is completely ludicrous that the department is telling my advisor he cannot fund me using the grant money which was set aside for me. Can you think of anything I can do to fight this? It seems both immoral and illegal to me. Should I contact the graduate school or the dean of students? Do I have any legal recourse for this? It just feels they are stealing the grant money from me because they won't allow my advisor to give me the grant money meaning I am forced to teach if I want to get paid. If anyone has any ideas, I am open to hear them. I can also clarify things if anything is unclear. Thank you.

It’s worth asking, but chances are your advisor’s grant funding is only partially supporting you (stipend) with the department funding the rest of the cost (tuition, benefits). This means that your department has a legitimate say in who that funding gets applied to based on the work that needs to be done, and probably means you don’t have much avenue for fighting this. It’s well within your employer’s (department’s) purview to offer you one job over another based on their needs, just like faculty often have little to no say in what they teach, which is largely determined by need. ::edit:: A possible intermediate solution would be for your advisor to pay you a salary for your research, rather than as an assistantship. It might mean forgoing the stipend and insurance, but would be easier than self-funding if the issue is the department’s funds toward a RA-ship.

Advisor assigns 5 papers each to first year grad students to review in 2 days- should I raise the alarm? My labmates are the students in question. [They have a different advisor.] They are rejecting papers for RIDICULOUS reasons like not having a conclusions section. I feel this is blatantly unethical, and very unfair to people who've put time and effort into their work. What recourse do I have? EDIT: This is for a large conference.

First, rejecting a paper for not having a conclusion section is not at all a ridiculous reason. Second, this is happening to your labmates with a different advisor than yours? This is none of your business. This is hearsay. Stay out of it. Edit: Wanted to make this a little less antagonistic: you are at the bottom of the food chain in academia, and you need to make decisions based on a cost-benefit analysis of your own career. Is this going to help you in any way? Absolutely not. Is this going to hurt you? Very likely. Ask yourself: is it worth a big hit to your career to probably not change anything? Many of us have helped our advisors review papers before. It is part of the training for grad students. And five papers in two days is not such a big deal -- I can do a full review of a manuscript submitted to a major journal in a few hours.

Should a person get a PhD or EdD if they have to pay for it themselves ? Same as the title, I’ve been mulling the idea recently to go beyond a masters but I’ve been in the work force of academia for almost 20 years without a doctorate. I had always heard the adage, “don’t get a doctorate if they aren’t paying you to get it”. Is this still a true statement? Was it ever ? I’m not sure I’m willing to spend another 50k to 100k in loans a doctorate if it would not be taken seriously because I paid for it. I am in social sciences, I know that makes a difference.

This is a true statement and you should never pay for a degree to work in academia. There’s some nuance here where special circumstances make sense, but in general, default to assuming this as a blanket true statement. To be clear, though, it’s not that it’s taken less seriously. Nobody knows in the end if you self-funded your degree or not. It’s that you’re taking on debt and additional stress during your program to enter a poor job market.

I was offered a fully funded PhD position at a great university/lab! ...Is this a bad thing? I'm currently in a very bizarre situation and I need your advice because I'm paralyzed with indecisiveness and paranoia. **Short Version**: During my Masters' Thesis I was offered a fully funded PhD in a GREAT University in a GREAT environment/lab, but somehow, probably counterintuitively, I think this actually hurts my chances of applying at other universities. **Long Version (Wall of Text warning):** During my Masters' thesis, I made it known to my advisor that I wanted to pursue a PhD instead of going into Industry so we tailored the topic accordingly. Additionally I worked really hard to produce good work and get a good recommendation letter to improve my chances of getting accepted at very competitive Universities. In the end, the professor liked my work and actually straight-up offered me a (fully funded) position at her lab to pursue a PhD. At some point after that I mentioned that my dream university was \[Insert University\] because I didn't want to create the expectation that I'd 100% continue for a PhD at her lab, to which my advisor responded trying to persuade me by listing the lab's Pros vs the Cons of my dream university. All in all, I don't think I'll accept the offer (even though I'm incredibly honored and grateful) because I really want to apply at 3-4 specific Universities. The problem is now twofold: *1) I don't know how to bring this up to my advisor.* First and foremost, I don't want to insult my advisor by somehow implying that this University/PhD/Lab isn't good enough for me. Second, I don't want to sour our relationship for the little remainder of my Master's thesis. If the expectation was that I was somehow being trained/tried for a PhD position at the Lab, will it change the dynamic if I decline? Third, I was counting on her recommendation letter for my applications to these other universities. Asking for a recommendation letter to apply somewhere else feels ... ill-advised? On one hand, I need this recommendation letter for my applications. As you know, the applications for grad school typically require 2-3 recommendation letters and strictly from professors/academics (not from jobs/internships/old teachers etc), therefore I have limited choices. Additionally, how would it look like if I didn't have the recommendation from the professor I did my Master's thesis with? On the other hand, I'm afraid it might be similar to asking the guy you friend-zoned to introduce you to his friend. I've heard stories about professors actually giving negative letters even though the students were made to think otherwise, and they kept being rejected because they didn't know they had a bad recommendation. So who's to say I won't get a bad letter out of spite? I highly doubt my professor is this kind of person, but I can't really know for sure. Am I being paranoid? *2) I have to make my decision before I apply to the other universities.* This offer is for this year, so I have to accept or reject the offer now. If I apply at the other universities, I won't know the result until February/March 2021. I could ask to move the offer for next year on the basis of waiting for all application results, but: *a)* I don't think it's possible (the funding comes from a programme that will start now) *b)* I don't want to practically "accept" the offer for next year unless I'm accepted by my top 3 schools. I feel like postponing the offer for next year could also serve as a motivation for a bad recommendation so I won't get accepted by the other schools (again, paranoia). So my questions to you, /r/askacademia, are: 1. How do I approach my advisor about all this? How do say that I don't think I'll accept the offer but still don't want to burn this bridge / sour the relationship? 2. Should I even ask for a recommendation letter at all? 3. Can I somehow protect myself from bad recommendation letters? 4. Am I paranoid? Please tell me I am... 5. Hypothetically, should I have applied last year (before I was done with my thesis and without the recommendation letter) so that I'd have all results by now? 6. Any other advice? Thank you if you've read my paranoid wall of text. All of your input/thoughts/advice will be greatly appreciated!

Unless your advisor has given you some indication that she is a vindictive person, you are overthinking this. I have been in the same position as your advisor and worked hard to help my good students leave if that’s what they wanted. That said, your dream university may not be better. At the Ph.D. level, it is often more about the advisor than the university, and moving universities after the master’s degree often means taking more classes than if you remained at the same institution.

thesis supervisor wants to co-write journal article with me - is this a good thing? I wrote a master's thesis and it was well-received. During my thesis defence, my committee strongly suggested that I write a journal article based on my thesis. My thesis supervisor talked to me privately and wants to co-author the article together. I don't have any background in academia or article writing. Is it a good thing that a professor wants to write with me? What do you think of this? Why would a professor want to write with me?

There are several things that your supervisor will contribute: 1a. Writing guidance. Writing a paper for publication is very different from writing a thesis (at least in most fields). 1b. Structuring and context. Helping you guide the paper in such a way that it answers a specific and publishable question, and that it is properly set within the broader context of the field. 1c. Review. They will help hammer out the fundamental issues that get papers rejected at the review stage, and will be able to help guide you through the peer review process once submitted. 2. Their credibility. In an ideal world, everything is double blind, but in reality, people know most of the time where papers are coming from. By attaching their name to it, a senior academic is making your path through the murky waters of review that little bit easier. As a trade-off, they get their name on a paper. However... ...As a master's student, your work was almost certainly building on and directly guided by your supervisor anyway, so it would be - in most cases - inappropriate for them *not* to be a co-author (again, at least in STEM - your mileage may vary). Writing a paper without an experienced co-author, as a first-timer, is an almost impossible task. Chances are you are going to have to refine and edit your text significantly, multiple times. I have never worked on a student's first papers (undergrad, PhD, and master's) that didn't require 3 or 4 rounds of major review before we entered the simple tinkering phase before submission. This might be an issue specific to technical STEM writing, but it's worth bearing in mind.

Why is seemingly every ML/CS paper posted on Arxiv and published as a conference proceeding, whereas most biology papers are not on BiorXiv and are published in actual journals? I'm trying to understand the cultural/domain differences here. They seem like very different approaches to presenting research.

Machine learning and computer science often view highly selective conferences as the highest-impact avenues for disseminating their work, more so than journal publications. arXiv also has a far more established presence in physics and mathematics, and ML/CS are much closer culturally to these fields than biology is.

Where do you find trustworthy papers on a topic? Also, are there any other reliable ways to learning about something in-depth (assuming you're already an expert on it)? Sorry if this is a stupid question, I'm still an undergrad and lack a lot of knowledge. What's the main place people go to read papers in order to learn new things and keep up with new developments, in their field of study or otherwise? And what about material directly related to what they themselves are currently researching, maybe to learn more about their topic to find a starting place or use the paper as a citation in their own work? Do most people use online resources, like Google Scholar or https://www.sciencedirect.com/? Or is there some other, more prevalent form of sharing papers? (I've heard of publication "magazines" or "journals", but I'm having trouble imagining what that looks like. Are these just books with many papers in them, all sharing a common theme?) As far as online resources go, it seems like websites sometimes are focused around a certain topic, ex. https://arxiv.org/, which mostly hosts math and computer science papers. How might one find a resource centered around a specific topic of interest (neuroscience in my case)? Also, are there any other things a researcher/academic may do to further their knowledge of a field and become better scientists? Or is it mostly just reading papers? Again, sorry for the basic questions, I'm still an undergrad and don't have the opportunity to ask someone more knowledgeable about all this (well, other than on here!). Any help is greatly appreciated.

Your university's library website will have subject guides to databases and a subject-specific librarian who can answer questions via email. The library should also have scheduled orientation days where you can learn more about its resources.

Left with no alternative but to quit postdoc? My partner and I are both postdocs in well funded research institutes in similar fields - unfortunately they are both half way across the country from each other. We have spent the last 4 years desperately trying to find positions close enough so we can live together again....and time is up. The biological clock is ticking and we should have started a family years ago. I feel betrayed and angry with academia. Both institute have many "happy couples" at every level in the same building - it really feels like its just us who cannot be together. Even 2 jobs in the same city would mean the world to us. We both have been offered contract extensions but I really don't want to take mine - why the hell should my reward for: * Giving up every hope and dream I had - buy a house, get a dog, see my family more, start a family, have a social life. * Nearly bankrupt myself - double income means nothing if you have double bills PLUS the insane cost of travelling every weekend to the other half of the country. * Struggle to manage a research project without working weekends Be to just do it again for another few years? There's no gratitude for the sacrifices we've made. If 2 academics with 24 years of degree/research experience between them do not deserve to live together and have basic human rights like a family, whilst still being employed - then SCREW this. I've no desire to improve lives with research anymore after being treated like this continually and expected to be *grateful* for the opportunity. My question for academia as a whole is: We both are in the same position - our projects struggled to get going but are really starting to get moving now. If either of us quit now however then there is nothing to show for it (no paper, no reference etc) then it means quitting academia for good most likely? Alternatively both our supervisors could be in a terrible position trying to salvage our work if we dropped it and walked out? What's to stop either of us laying down an ultimatum - give the other a job here or I quit. Or is this just cheap blackmail from seriously underleveraged postdocs?

If you two cannot work in the same place, let both places know your situation and see if one of them can solve it. That’s not blackmail, it’s honesty. More generally, I encourage you to be sad about the situation, but let go of your bitterness. Things haven’t worked out the way you wanted, but you are both still in strong positions to create a good life together. Embrace the opportunities you have and mourn the dream that hasn’t worked out without letting it turn toxic. It just didn’t work out, that’s all, and now it is time to do something else. It will be a lot easier if you accept that.

Senior PhD students: What will you do differently in your postdoc? What did you learn?

Don't do it. I learned that the academic work done in my field is not nearly fulfilling or important enough to justify the insane lack of work-life balance or working with egotistical colleagues. YMMV.

When applying to Faculty positions, is it reasonable to limit your search to one State for a partner? Hello! I am a 2nd year PhD student and am seriously considering pursuing a professorship once I graduate. Please forgive my ignorance around this topic as there's not much conversation about this in my department, and I've really only been in academia for a year now since I went straight into my PhD. From what I understand about faculty positions, people usually apply to as many positions as they can nation wide, and frequently end up moving to the university that gives them the best offer. However, I am in a serious long term relationship, and since I've brought up the idea of a potentially needing to move after my PhD, my partner has emphasized that they want to remain in the state that we are in now (Michigan) long term, maybe indefinitely. So my question is, **is it reasonable to only apply to faculty positions in one state, especially if my goal is to conduct research? How have people navigated having to move around with non-academic partners in the mix?** The moving thing seems like it may be a deal breaker for my partner, but I've heard horror stories of some women looking for faculty positions around their partners and it stagnating their careers which I don't want to do. Any contributions are extremely appreciate as right now I feel like I need to choose either my career or my partner!

“Give them the best offer” is optimistic. “Give them *any* offer” is more like it. You’re definitely limiting yourself, but how much will depend on your field, research, and desired teaching load. Everyone needs people to teach CS courses or Psych 101! Michigan has some big universities. In general, though, the “trailing spouse” thing is a real tough situation, and it’s going to depend a lot on your personal situation.

Empowering myself back after being bullied by a graduate student Long story short I have been bullied by another student in the lab I was doing my PhD. It began more than a year ago now, just after going from Masters degree to PhD in the same lab. This student made me feel like sh*t every week, talking harshly, commenting everything I was doing, saying I wasn’t doing my tasks. I was never enough. In top of that I am openly feminist. He does not believe in equity and privileges. Talking with him was sometimes unsatisfying as you can imagine. After 8 months of suffering from the situation, we had another disagreement (it was about sexual assault). He was very angry so I tried to apologize and I thought he moved on. The next day, my supervisor asked me to go to her office, she was crying and wanted me to explain what happened. I did and she told me that my feminism has no place on university, she was so angry and she told me the student said he would file a claim if it happened again. I was so shocked to see her cry so I apologized. I realized what happened 1h later and I talked to someone in the university to vent. The next day I was ready to talk to my supervisor. I was crying, she was not. She made me talk with the other student (that supposedly did not realized anything of what he did). We explained to each other what we thought the other one did wrong. And so I thought it will end there. A month later, he started again the bullying. My error was to not say anything again. At some point I was away from the lab during 3 weeks (travel+covid+conference). During this time I was able to regain confidence in myself and ready to enjoy my PhD student life when I’ll be back to the lab. First day I came back he destroyed everything. At this point I was so tired I asked to go to another office and I explained to my supervisor and co-director why. They did not seem impressed. Two weeks later, I had no news about the situation so I asked my co-director. He said he did not really know, he thought my supervisor talked to the student. At this point I was really depressed, and it was visible, I said I wasn’t able to work correctly. We were supposed to have a meeting the next day with my supervisor but she canceled because she wanted to have a neutral person for the meeting. In the meantime I went to see a therapist and the « person respect office » to know what I could do. Has I applied to some positions and was supposed to have an interview for a job in my university, I decided to not go further. Anyway my co-director told me it had to be done gradually .. So I had to be depressed during the next two weeks that were supposed to be my holidays. I was able to find a job. So first day I came back I told my supervisor I was done with the PhD. She seemed happy and I did not receive any comment on my work during these 3 years. As I did an accelerate pathway between my masters and my PhD, I do not have my diploma yet. I am currently writing my masters thesis to have a diploma so I will be able to have an open work permit after that. I am still really depressed and it is hard for me to write because everytime I open the draft of my thesis, I have flashbacks and I cry. One morning I saw a student that looked like him and my heart skipped a beat. I am so unsatisfied but I am not sure what to do. I am scared that If I take action, it will impact my career as my new job is in the same university. I am scared that If I do something now, my supervisor blocks my efforts in my thesis. As I have been gaslighted during several months to make me believe I was too sensitive and it was not intended from the other student, I think I need some advise to empower my self back, trust myself on what I lived and be able to finish my thesis, maybe open a complaint if I have the energy. Did you ever live something like that ?

Firstly, I'm so sorry you've experienced this. You deserve to participate in academia without fear. In what country are you located? I can't understand why your supervisor reacted the way they did; is this a cultural issue? If you are located in the United States, please seek out assistance from your Title IX coordinator because you are entitled to a workplace free of gender-based harassment. If not, please look into the support the university administration can offer; are there any departments specializing in workplace harassment? All the best.

After arbitration, Ryerson University can no longer use student teaching evaluations when determining promotions and tenure. What do you think? https://www.universityaffairs.ca/news/news-article/arbitration-decision-on-student-evaluations-of-teaching-applauded-by-faculty/ I feel like this has potential to lead to widespread change internationally, especially since they cite "serious human-rights issues" as one of the reason.

The common practice of relying on averages of student teaching evaluation scores as the primary measure of teaching effectiveness for promotion and tenure decisions should be abandoned for substantive and statistical reasons: there is strong evidence that student responses to questions of “effectiveness” do not measure teaching effectiveness. This is a startling conclusion, given that SET scores are the primary measure that many colleges and universities use to evaluate professors’ teaching. Primary measure, folks.

In your field, how would you design the ultimate digital paper-reading assistant? For example, in computer science it might be helpful to have a tool that will keep track of variable name definitions in equations (i.e., highlight all instances of the variable and give definition upon hovering). That way, you don't have to keep searching backwards for what *z* represents. I'm curious what the most annoying part of papers in other fields are. We have so many cool tech tools at our disposal but reading PDFs of papers is still pretty non-interactive.

In biology, I'd love a tool that fetches the relevant text when the materials and methods say "X was performed as previously described [cites old article]". We too frequently have to jump back through a decade of papers to find small but important methodological details. It would be even better if more journals actually enforced writing clear methods sections in the first place and stopped including them in word counts.

Losing my logins and access to my institution’s library which means I can’t access any literature without paywalls after I graduate. Besides SciHub, are there any ways to gain access to academic/medical literature that don’t require a paywall? Maybe a public library somehow? Thank you

Many universities will provide you with alumni accounts (this includes your undergraduate university). Also, many of the places I've worked are happy to extend your email/account (in a restricted fashion) after you leave to provide you with access to library resources. Chat to your IT department or librarian.

Should I tell a potential PhD advisor about my ADHD? I am applying for interdisciplinary research PhDs mostly in Europe. I would like to mention my ADHD but I am not sure how a prof would take it. Also if the answer is yes when would be the correct phase to tell them about it.

I am all for reducing stigma about ADHD, and if you want to share your ADHD diagnosis with whomever becomes your Ph.D. advisor, I think it's worth doing. I see three potential routes for disclosing this. The first would be to disclose once you're starting your program. You can let your advisor know something along the lines of 1) I have ADHD, 2) I'm taking steps to manage it, and 3) there are areas where my symptoms may be apparent, and I wanted to give you a heads up/discuss pathways toward my success as a Ph.D. student with ADHD. The second option is in the part of your application where, typically, prospective students are asked to explain any personal circumstances that may contextualize past academic performance, etc. You can explain that you have ADHD and (assuming it is true) that it has affected your academic performance in the past. Then, explain the steps you have taken to successfully manage your ADHD. If you go this route, it would be most effective to frame this as something that you are actively managing with some success, rather than something that feels more unresolved (e.g., "I was recently diagnosed with ADHD, and that may explain my low grades"). If you go this route, I highly recommend you have a trusted professor or mentor look through your application materials and provide feedback about the way you frame ADHD. A third option would be to disclose after you have an offer in place but before you accept it. This reduces the chance for discrimination in the admissions process but allows you to get a sense of how supportive a particular environment would be before committing to a program and advisor. For example, you could ask about what resources the university has to support students with ADHD and talk about your desire to have an advisor who is supportive of students with learning differences. There is no one right or wrong answer. Each potential option has its strengths and downsides. Disclosing your ADHD status in your application materials presents some risk of discrimination, but also allows you to filter out potential advisors who would not support a student working with ADHD. Disclosing once you get to your Ph.D. program lowers your odds of discrimination in the application process, but means you may be more likely to be with an advisor who is less supportive. Ultimately, you have to decide on the route that is best for you. Best wishes with your application process.

What are some of the best movies about Academia?

David Attenborough's documentary shows a lion chasing a baby gazelle. It seems to have no chance to survive, but every once in a while, one does. You're really hoping this one will have a happy ending, but it doesn't. It's a bit heavy on the metaphor, but very well done. Humanity is destroying the world.

Can i be told i can't graduate if i already participated in graduation? so about 2 weeks ago i participated in the graduation ceremony for my undergrad degree and everything was great, no issues whatsoever. but a few days ago i got an email from an academic advisor saying i was taken off of the graduation list because i was less than 2% away from a C in a class that i needed to have a C or higher in, although i was never informed of this and nobody contacted me prior to graduation saying there was any issue. i won't be getting any actual answer as to whether or not they can make an exception, since i'm already interviewing for several job positions and am supposed to be starting grad school in the fall, or if participating in graduation was a huge waste of time. i'm mostly interested to hear other people's opinion on this, if i already technically graduated, can they say that i'm not eligible after the fact?

You didn't graduate. You participated in the graduation ceremony, but graduation is when the school checks your transcript, verifies that you've met the requirements, and issues you a degree. You do not have a degree. You are not going to grad school until you get this fixed, and you'll probably have trouble getting hired if the employer thinks they're interviewing a recent graduate. Retake the class or resolve this with the professor ASAP.

Why have historians snobbed LinkedIn for an archaic platform like H-Net? Why do historians and other people in the humanities resist professional social media platforms (no one from my history department is on LinkedIn)? H-Net is fine but honestly the functionality is archaic and could be much easily achieved (and improved) on a newer social media platform, or at least a website that mimics it.

LinkedIn is terrible for academia because it emphasizes job or title changes, which are far rarer in academia than in industry. Academics need a platform that emphasizes their publications, grants, committee work, etc.

Publishing in journals or conferences I'm just starting my PhD and haven't published yet. I know that papers could be published in either journals or conferences so I wanted to know what are the main differences: * Generally speaking is it easier to publish in a journal or a conference? * Does the publishing process in one take more time than the other? * Is one of them seen by the academic community as more important than the other? * What are the unique characteristics (challenges or benefits) of each? * Which one do you prefer ? PS: In case the answer to any of these questions depends on the field I'm working in, I'm working in computer science (AI/ML).

This varies very strongly by field. In some engineering disciplines, conference contributions are a major, and prestigious, vector of publication of new results, with peer review and indexed proceedings volumes. In other fields, conference talks are just that, and as a rule, a byproduct of your regular research and publication activity. This is with a lot of variation, depending on your particular disciplinary niche. Across the humanities and elsewhere, this may again look differently. So, yeah, CS people should chime in.

Publishing in an unknown journal? I can't find much information about this journal and the articles I could don't seem to have much citations. There is also a fee of $100. As I don't have a lot of experience with journal publishing, would it be better to publish here or not (that is, would it help or hurt my PhD chances)? Also is the fees an egregious amount or standard? Does it seem predatory?

Based on a cursory glance of the website, I would stay well clear of this "journal." Just the list of topics of interest is comical, honestly, way too broad and unfocused.

Is it weird for an undergrad to hang out right outside professors' offices? I hate living alone and don't get any work done in my house, so I like to bring my laptop and books to a nearby academic building (the one for my major), stake out a couch or table and work there for hours. I do this most days. I've chosen my major's building as my 'headquarters' because I like it. Now, for me, it's kind of fun to bump into professors and say hello. But, I never see other students hanging out in this building, and I'm afraid the local professors now think I'm a stalker. Professors, if you see your student camped out with their laptop on a couch just a few doors down from your office almost every day -- like, late at night and for hours at a time -- would you feel slightly uncomfortable? Would you feel like they were stalking you? Should I stop doing this, or is there any appropriate way to say, "hey, prof! FYI I'm not stalking you!"

Absolutely no problem at all. A friendly "Hello" or a wave is nice. However, if you say "Hey, Prof, I'm not stalking you," then it gets a bit weird, IMHO. You can also find other places, like libraries, cafeterias, and student halls. You might meet more people in those areas as well and make some great friends.

Can I teach student courses using material taken from the internet? I don't see anything against it... But I know that academia is "weird" about re-using material. Basically, I've been asked to tutor a lab course about introduction to image processing in python. As you know, preparing all the course material from scratch is something which is super-long and tedious. I've found two perfect courses, with a full set of exercises and data to run the exercises on, on github, from a very reputable source. The material has a MIT license so I can re-use it freely, as long as the author of the material is concerned. What about my side? Am I (legally or "morally") required to write all the material by myself?

Just make sure you have stuff you are using with the right license—most of my courses I construct from Creative Commons material. It's pretty rare I actually create anything from scratch.

Is it okay to do a personal/side project in a full-time postdoc position without letting the supervisor know? I am doing a postdoc in computer science. I kind of lose interests in the project after 1.5 year, but I still keep trying to be productive (2 papers accepted). I was doing a side projectby myself from like half year ago. The side project is not quite relevant to the funded project. The result is interesting and I think it's publishable. I am considering submitting it to a conference without letting him know, as I am concerned that my supervisor would be upset as he might think it's a full-time job and I should not do any other side project. Any advice? thanks

Is there a reason why you don't want your supervisor to know? After all, if it gets published, they may well find out anyway, and you wouldn't be well-looked upon to publish "secretly." Most academics would be happy that their lab was producing more than expected.

I feel horrible for rejecting a paper that I was refereeing Title says it all. It was my first time being asked to referee a paper. Reading the paper for the first time, it was clear that the paper was not up to the standard of the journal they were submitting to (not enough new stuff, a bunch of claims that were more like hunches, missing a lot of important points, etc etc). I wrote my report and recommended a rejection. The editor of the journal told them to resubmit with changes and half a year goes by and I saw the changes they made along with their response letter. The authors was very professional about the criticism from the referees and they had clearly put in a lot of work to get some extra results and make some changes. I would say the quality of the paper (in terms of writing, additional results, clarity) improved a lot. However, I still felt that there were a bunch of stuff that were not addressed and things that were missing. After taking some time to think about it, I put my hand on my heart and decided that I had to recommend a second rejection, despite the amount of changes that was made (which looked like it took a ton of effort). As I typed out and submitted the report, I just felt horrible cause I was reminded of being in that position myself and about how crushing such a situation was.

Just to be clear, you’re not rejecting the paper. You’re giving a recommendation to the editor, which they may or may not agree with. Whether this paper is rejected or accepted by the journal isn’t your fault, and there’s no reason to take it personally.

My paper got desk rejected again Just want to vent. My review paper just got desk rejected a second time after waiting for 2 weeks. My first paper also got rejected 3 times before settling on a new open access journal that is a sub-journal to a famous one. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by academia :(

There can be lots of reasons for a desk rejection, and it doesn't necessarily mean that your work is poor. Most of the time, it can be as simple as your paper being a wrong fit for that journal. Sometimes it might be that you're aiming too high. In my field, there are some journals, such as Survival, that are extraordinarily difficult to get into unless your paper is astounding and you have a big name in academia already. Good luck!

Discussion: What do you think is the biggest problem in academia right now, and what do you think will be the biggest problem in the future? What needs to change in academia to make it function better? I've read quite a few articles talking about the different problems that are encountered in academia, and I was curious, in your opinion, what is the current biggest issue with academia (as well as any potential solutions there are), and what looks like it might become the biggest problem in the future. Also, what are new solutions and ideas that are helping to change the way academia works? I'll reply too in a little while, but I'll do it in the comments so as to not create any initial bias (also I need time to think about it!) Looking forward to hearing everyone's opinions!

Funding & hiring need to be based on more than impact factor. There are no incentives to be good mentors or supervisors, to teach well, to get involved in campus life, or the general well-being of the department. The main benefit of academia is the fruitful interactions among intelligent people. Funding & hiring practices need to focus on them. That probably means that administrators and governments will need to get their heads out of their asses and think about ways of incentivizing good academics rather than publication factories — which is why it'll never happen.

Why do so many academics dislike PhD students or other academics who hate their subject and are doing it for the money or other tangible returns? Hi there, I am not a native English speaker. I am not sure how my question will be perceived. I have a genuine question, a curiosity so please don't take my question to be a loaded one or take offence to it since its not my intention. Anyways, the thing is, I have seen a lot of posts on /r/AskAcademia and elsewhere on the internet (like Quora) that bluntly tells people to get out of Academia if they do not love their subject and are doing their PhD for some other return like immigration, getting money to feed their families etc. I have even seen in a few posts where academics say that these people are being "absolutely immoral, are a fraud and that they are being unfair to the subject, themselves and their students." And that they "should get out of academia". The words in quotations were actually what was said. I have seen similar words and views from academics among a wide range of social media. You have to keep in mind that for most other jobs wanting such "superficial returns" is seen as acceptable. Not only that, for international students such superficial returns are the only way to get a decent life. Most international students in developing countries often have no other way to earn a living wage to support them their family in their home country, even with an MBA or a Masters. For eg here in Bangladesh, a starting salary for an MBA graduate is USD 250 per month while food costs per person are 140 USD per month and these people have to support a wife, kids etc. So my question is, why do academics have such hatred for people who take on a PhD or become an academic for "superficial" purposes like earning money to support themselves, their family, to immigrate or any other tangible return?

This attitude exists in part because there are so many better ways to make more money in the US (for US citizens) than doing a PhD. So from their perspective, it seems like one should only do a PhD if you really love it, because otherwise, it is a stressful, time-consuming thing that does not pay so well.

Academic Twitter users: why do you post personal stories? I'm in a STEM discipline and follow academics on twitter from a range of different fields. I've noticed that some people often post things I would consider to be private or highly personal on their professional accounts, while others keep their accounts strictly for academic purposes. I have to say, I admire the courage people have in putting so much of themselves out there and enjoy learning how multidimensional people are. And it's also great for increasing awareness and visibility on a number of issues which are super important and necessary. But there are times where I think certain things are a bit cringe and may be best left not in the public space. My question is: people of academic Twitter - why do you post such personal information and are you afraid of potential negative consequences? Are you concerned it might affect others perception of you in a negative way or your employment prospects? Or has doing this already affected you negatively in some way? Please know these questions come from a place of admiration and curiosity.

Zero chance I would ever join my professional and personal lives; in fact, I strive to keep them entirely walled off from each other. I have no desire to 'bring my whole self to work'—no problem with people doing that, but not for me.

Why do academics take so long to respond to email? I’ve noticed academics take much longer to respond to email than business people. At first I found it infuriating, but now I’m mostly curious as to what is going on. A few of my professor friends tell me they intentionally never respond to email the same day, even if they aren’t busy - and will even send a delayed response set for as much as 1-3 weeks later in order to not appear accessible. Is this phenomenon wide spread or culturally accepted within academia?

We're busy as hell, and the separate components of our work can be fairly varied and unrelated. Most of my day, I'm involved in work that's easily derailed by distractions (e.g., writing or class prep, grant proposals, etc.), and it takes me a long time to get back into it after I've gone to deal with something completely unrelated, like a student email, media request, or an administrative issue about next semester's course. So, we compartmentalize. Also, yes. Sometimes we have to appear less accessible. I have made the mistake in the past of allowing students to imagine that they have access to me 24/7 and think it's appropriate to make the most outrageous demands of my time. I have office hours; I have a lot of other work to do; you're not my only student. Also, if the answers are easily Googleable and/or found in the syllabus, I'm not your search service.

Can I list a conference in my CV if I got accepted but did not attend? (and another question) What the title says, essentially: **Is there an option for "conference acceptances" if I got accepted to attend a conference but did not end up going?** I'm in the Middle East, the conference is in Arizona and, thinking it through, I am not sure if I want to travel and miss work for a week for this conference, as much as I realize conference participation could make me look better for potential future PhD application. My college of graduate studies also only covers a partial one conference participation per semester so I also don't know if this one is the one I should splurge on. **From people who have participated in conferences/are in that world, how do you decide which conferences to attend?** The conference is graduate student conference in the University of Arizona called the "New Directions in Critical Theory", and has been happening annually for longer than a decade.

I wouldn't list it, personally. Listing it without noting that you didn't attend could cause issues—if anyone on an admissions committee was there and knows you weren't, or they decide to look at the program and discover you weren't on it, then they might see this as you lying about your achievements. If you list that your paper was accepted but that you didn't attend, that equally could reflect poorly: are you flaky? Do you often make commitments and then back out? I'd be concerned that it would end up having the opposite effect you intend. Perhaps if it were a different conference I would maybe say yes, but graduate conferences (generally) tend to not have particularly rigorous peer-reviewing processes for accepting papers—and I say this as someone who is and has been involved in many graduate conferences, some of which have also been happening annually for over a decade. In some fields, like engineering, conference acceptances are a big deal and involve a rigorous process. This is not so much the case for comp. lit.

What systems does your university have in place to prevent issues such as advisors not letting students graduate for years on end? Basically, what systems does your university have to mediate conflicts between advisors and students? For example, many advisors in a country I studied in previously retain students for years on end, when they stop getting their salaries. I know for a fact that most of them could graduate earlier, but the advisors keep piling on more work on them. Unfortunately due to the friendship between some faculty in the department, you cannot go to someone else if they’re a friend of your PI. What systems does your university have to help graduate students give power to negotiate with the department/faculty?

In Sweden, PhD employments (and I say employments because we have contracts, are considered state employees, get benefits, and get a decent salary) are governed by law, and there are limits on how long you can be considered one. Extensions can only be granted in special cases, and only for a set maximum amount of time.

What are my options if my advisor prevents me from graduating? Seeking advice in r/GradSchool as well, but hoping to get insight here from some faculty members. I'm a thesis track Master's student currently in my 3rd year (6th semester). I was supposed to graduate last semester but delayed to this semester to give me more time to process data and perform analyses. My progress has been significantly slowed by unforeseen analytical issues, but mostly my advisor has been incredibly distant. I'm not looking for validation on that front - I've already had multiple discussions with my department's administration (including the chair) about my experiences, and they've all been appalled at how I've been treated. For the rest of the post, please keep that in mind. I have 90% of my first chapter written, but my advisor is now floating the idea of me graduating in the summer or fall instead of this spring. They are concerned they may not have enough time to review my drafts before I defend in mid-April. They do not have any more funding for me, so they'd force me to pay my university's fees to stay a student while I finish up. However, I already have a job lined up that does not care about my degree, and I care way more about the work I'm doing with them than I care about my Master's. If I do not graduate this semester, that job immediately takes priority for me. I already plan on being very open about how my priorities will shift. So, what are my options if my advisor wants to delay my defense? 1. I could go along with the delay and put the bare minimum into finishing up. This would cost me roughly $1,000 per semester. I am not a fan of this option. 2. I could attempt to force them to let me defend and graduate by threatening to quit altogether. I am my PI's first student, and two other students have already quit on top of misuse of university funds. If I leave, my PI will likely have to wait another 2.5 years for a student to graduate and produce any papers. That's 6 years of being a tenure-track professor with no students graduated or publications or presentations from their work. My advisor is incredibly vulnerable. 3. I could switch advisors and go with a non-thesis track degree. This would likely forfeit any publications with my current advisor or our collaborators. My entire thesis is based on a collaboration with a government agency, and our partner at that agency is on my committee. That committee member has been incredibly supportive and understanding, but I doubt I could publish with just them with our data. This option would also still result in a major delay in my graduation. 4. I could quit altogether. I am incredibly frustrated at the moment and thinking somewhat irrationally, but I feel like I am being abused. For my own mental health, I need to be done as soon as possible, and I am very close to prioritizing my own wellbeing over a piece of paper. Any insight would be much appreciated.

My two cents: Ask how long in advance your advisor and committee need the drafts prior to your defense. (My committee requested two weeks, my dissertation chair wanted it one or two weeks before that.) If you can get it to them on that timeline, do it, defend, and be done. If not, you likely can defend and graduate this summer. It seems as though defending in April would be tight if you don’t have things analyzed and drafted yet, but maybe not. I don’t know your project. If it takes an extra semester, I’d definitely do the extra semester rather than quit. It sounds like an unfortunate situation, but it’s important to remember that sometimes things take longer than desired (sometimes for reasons that aren’t your fault), and it’s important for doctoral students to drive the train and set/meet timeline markers well in advance of deadlines so everyone can agree on them (preferably in writing).

my department is losing faculty, should i be worried ? Hi folks, I'm in CS department at an R1 institution. Just this year alone, my dept has lost four faculty (3 assistant professors and 1 full professor) tenure line faculty. Should I be concerned? 2 junior faculty left for research positions in the industry, 1 junior faculty is leaving for a national lab to start a new group Senior faculty left for another academic institution that's slightly more ranked or reputed. My immediate concern is I'm a new junior faculty. Losing this many of my peers feels bad like there is less support system than before. Less junior people who are in the same boat as me (seeking tenure) so less friends of people share stuff within the department. There are still 4-5 junior faculty and my department is planning to hire but just feels bad Should I also try to go to another department where there are more junior faculty? What are some things I should think about? Should I be worried? Thanks in advance for any wisdom.

At the very least, this means you shouldn't have too many worries about getting tenure. Universities are notorious for underpaying CS and EE faculty and getting them poached. The trend is only likely to continue in the future as companies are still fighting tooth and nail for elite talent.

In a classroom, (especially science, engineering and mathematics), there are students that clearly don't understand the material, yet they never ask questions, even if the teacher asks if there are any. Why don't they ask questions? Many times, they ultimately end up doing poorly on quizzes and exams.

Three reasons (that may overlap somewhat): 1) Not knowing what question to ask. If you don't understand something, it can be hard to formulate a question that makes sense and will increase your understanding. That's why so many questions you do hear in a classroom are garbled and make no sense, and as a consequence, the teacher often fails to understand what the student is missing, or the teacher may just subtly scold them for asking a poorly-formed question. 2) Knowledge that further discussion isn't going to help anything. It may be that the teacher is not good at explaining things in different ways, or that the concepts being taught are sufficiently complex that they can't be absorbed in a single sitting/lecture, but require further study. In this case, to ask the teacher to repeat themselves is just wasting time that could be spent covering more material. 3) Maintenance of an image of a good, smart student. Students want to appear to be good and smart in the hopes that teachers will grade them higher. This often works, though less often in STEM fields.

Why don't colleges hire programmers? I think that universities could really use a sort of "floating" programmer who picks up odd projects from any employee who needs programming assistance. There are a couple of reasons that this position is needed: 1. Academics aren't always good programmers, and they often don't have the time to write quality code. (Full-time programmers don't also publish papers, so why should academics do both?) In college, I was always surprised by the simple programming tasks that PhD scientists couldn't (or wouldn't) do. This can be a serious hindrance for data-heavy research. 2. Universities already use such "floating" programmers, but haphazardly. The go-to programmers are usually: 1. CS profs: A couple statisticians once came to my data science prof for help reading a .sav file into R. Seriously. This same CS prof was approached by a hard sciences student who needed a basic Linux command...and the student's prof had sent him. 2. CS undergrads: Not a bad idea, but students graduate, and then the project just hangs there. Sure, you can get a whole new team when the old team leaves, but it's inefficient to spend so much time catching up new people instead of making project progress. As an example, an engineering prof at my alma mater was running a small-scale STEM speakers bureau, but she had to quit after a couple years because she lost the CS students who maintained the website. 3. Grad students and postdocs: These are usually no better at programming than tenured researchers are, and they certainly don't have more time on their hands! So let's hear it straight from the horse's mouth: why don't universities hire "floating" programmers?

Most universities refuse to hire tenure-track faculty and instead use adjuncts. Why would those same universities hire a permanent programmer when they can just contract as needed? Cut costs where they can and avoid permanent spending lines.

When applying for a teaching position, should you send them your full course outlines? So I’m finishing my PhD (humanities - Lang and Lit) and the perfect assistant professor job has opened up and I have been encouraged to apply. I have two courses that are pretty unique and I think the dept will like them both. My question is, when you apply to academic jobs, do you send them your module outlines or are you protective of your intellectual property? To be more specific, my outlines feature everything - week by week primary readings, secondary readings for seminars, methods of assessment, recommended reading lists etc etc… I was concerned “what if I send all these documents to demonstrate how prepared I am, they like my courses but prefer a different candidate so just reject me and ask the other candidate if they can teach my content?” I appreciate that may sound ridiculous, but I’m just curious what is common practice? I haven’t copyrighted anything.. . I don’t even know if you can copyright module outlines..? Any advice would be really appreciated!

If the job call asks for it, you should send it. If it doesn't, you should not. We usually ask for things like that if you make it to the second round of the process.

Is it best to use "we" or "I" in the PhD thesis? I am close to being finished with my PhD thesis, but i have been struggling with this issue lately. My thesis is based on 4 manuscript of which there are multiple co-authors (with me being first author). In those, we use "we" to describe all our actions and thoughts. No problem. In my PhD thesis, my supervisor is encouraging me to use "I" instead of "we" in the discussion/conclusion. This feels very unnatural to me as all the findings are based on the results that "we" found in the manuscripts. This has led me to balance the use of we/I, where I use "I" whenever i describe something only I did (e.g. experiments). And "we" when referring to conclusions. However, i am a bit at loss about what to do. Any seasoned academics that can offer some advice? (My supervisor is out of office, hence why i post the question here and not to my supervisor directly)

1. You are considered the sole author of your thesis. Use "I." 2. Later papers based on this work can use "we" since the work is collaborative. 3. For the love of all that is holy, do not use passive voice.

Is it expected to take the seminars taught by your thesis advisor? I need to choose from a very small poll of seminars the ones that I want to take next semester, and my advisor is teaching one of them. None of them have a link with my thesis project, so I really get to choose what I feel like studying. At first, I wasn’t going to take my advisor’s class because I thought it would be extra stress. Anyways my friend in the program implied that it’s kind of rude not to take the seminar and that it is an unsaid expectation to always take the courses taught by your advisor. I’m just really curious to hear other people’s experience doing so (or choosing not to) and I’m wondering what the norm is.

Often, people expect you to take your advisor's seminar courses because they are (presumably) relevant to your research interests. I usually discuss my course plan with my advisor before each semester begins, and they will directly tell me they are planning to run a seminar course and that I should enroll. Your advisor may be less direct, but you could still discuss the classes you're planning to take and ask about their seminar and whether it would be beneficial for you.

Humanities Profs: How much of a difference does an applicant contacting you before the PhD cycle make? Just wondering about the above question! Specifically thinking of American Studies/English/Ethnic Studies programs. What are the unspoken rules here? Is it a must to contact profs beforehand whose interests overlap with yours, and if so what does one put in that email? Is it irritating/irrelevant?

I’m surprised by the responses here. While humanities faculty are fine with being contacted by prospective students, it’s unlikely they’ll respond unless you’ve already been accepted into the program. I think those who do respond probably offer a general “Your work sounds great; I encourage you to apply.” Reaching out is certainly not required. Here’s why: **1.** In the humanities, unlike STEM, students are mentored by professors, but they don’t work alongside them. That is, students don’t generally contribute to our research. So while you should only apply to programs where there are people who could guide you in your own project and speak to the originality of your contributions in a recommendation, the relationship is generally more one-sided and lacks the regular face time necessitated by (most) labs. **2.** Only a small number of faculty in a given department are on grad admissions. This committee changes every year. They determine who’s accepted. **3.** On occasion, a faculty member who knows a student (i.e., was impressed with them at a conference or perhaps worked with them as an undergrad or MA student at another institution) *might* remember to email someone on the committee and say, “Hey, by the way, I’m a fan of this student for X reason.” We’ll give this application a closer look, but it doesn’t offer any advantage beyond that. That’s because the committee can’t function by catering to faculty who aren’t doing the work of reading 300-500 applications and seeing the whole pool. **4.** The key to point 3 is they “know” the student—they’re familiar with their work in some capacity and were impressed. So, a conference presentation or a previous advising relationship can accomplish that, but an email from a stranger, no matter how well-written, just can’t. Grad admissions is an extremely intensive and time-consuming process that happens at an awkward time (essentially spans the entire winter break). What this means is that admissions isn’t that interested in input from non-committee faculty, because they have no sense of the (300-500 applicant) pool, and we’re doing all the work. There are rare exceptions (mostly covered by the third point). I’d be curious if those who advised you to contact faculty also think faculty would respond. Even in normal circumstances, I don’t think so. But with the heightened workload that COVID-19 is demanding, I think it’s even less likely. **If you reach out, make your email as brief as possible.** Aim for the length of a conference paper or article abstract—250-350 words. That would demonstrate both your awareness of their limited time ***and*** your ability to talk concisely about a complex project. That would leave a great impression. Good luck with everything!

What is the best and worst part about working in your field?

Worst: The "apprenticeship of observation" that everyone and their mother has had. I am an education faculty member, and everyone thinks they have an important opinion about educational issues because they spent 12+ years in a classroom. My two decades of work in the field seemingly means nothing more than their uninformed opinion. (I'm just a little bitter.) Best: Children and Great Teachers

Why is it so difficult to land a position as a full-time professor at a T20 research university? To my knowledge, tenure-track professorships are increasingly being replaced by contingent faculty, which usually results in many English, philosophy and history Ph.D’s being compelled to pursue positions as adjuncts. Is that…all there is to it?

The number of candidates is far greater than the number of positions available, even ignoring adjunctification. If top-20 schools are all graduating, say, 10 PhDs in a particular field each year, then that’s 200 new PhDs. TT positions open up far slower—even if each hires 1 new TT each year, that’s only one-tenth of the new PhDs. And those new PhDs are going to be competing with visitors at other institutions, too. It’s just a wildly imbalanced ecosystem.

What's it like to be a non-religious professor at a Jesuit university? I noticed a lot of jobs at Jesuit universities this year. I'm just curious what it's like to work there as a professor if you're not religious.

It varies. I worked at one Jesuit institution (R1), and I felt entirely comfortable there as a non-religious person. There were crucifixes in the classrooms, and we canceled class for Mass on holidays I didn't know existed. But otherwise, the Jesuit mission was framed in ways a non-religious person could support: educate the whole person, use knowledge in service to local or global communities, etc. A lot of the faculty were nuns, monks, and priests. Many of them were on the more liberal end of the spectrum. You can't get away from the fact that it's a Catholic institution, but there weren't a lot of constraints on academic freedom or being open about personal beliefs. What I hear from friends and colleagues who've been at some of the other larger, urban research-focused Jesuit universities is similar. I don't think that necessarily holds true for the smaller Jesuit colleges.

What is the most effective way of addressing student incivilities in the classroom? Lecturer in Health Sciences at a public research university in the US: I have an older student (mid-twenties) in my class who thinks that because he is an adult and is paying a tuition the rules in the class (not talking during class, not leaving early without permission, being on time, not using your cell phone during class) do not apply to him (he actually told me that). Every time I try and enforce the rules in class he tries to turn it around on me by saying I am being rude and disrespectful. I have tried one on one meetings during office hours to address behavior issues and he has been even more disrespectful. What is the most effective way of addressing this bad behavior?

Presumably the syllabus has something in it about classroom decorum or expectations or something of the sort? Disruptions? Yes, he is an adult, and he can spend his money as he wants, but late arrivals, talking, cell phone use, etc., detract from the experiences of other students who paid for their spots in lecture, and he is being selfish, thinking he is an adult. Assuming your syllabus allows (all mine did, though I never saw it needing to be enforced), just tell him he can either leave the lecture for the day or he can be respectful to his fellow students and to his lecturer. If he does not do one or the other, call campus security and have him escorted out. Meet with him in private to discuss his actions and make it clear this was his only warning; if he disrupts the learning environment for the rest of the class again, he will be dropped from the course. (Obviously, this is insofar as your university and syllabus allow.)

Do you have any advice for a transgender woman teaching for the first time after transitioning? In a few weeks I'll teach as a transgender woman for the first time after a sabbatical during which I also transitioned fully. I am a bit anxious about what teaching and interacting with students will be like. I have interacted with colleagues, dean, provost, etc, since my transition, and it's been a more or less supportive environment in that I've faced blatant sexism but not transphobia... I'm lucky to have tenure and know that my transition will not affect my career advancement in my uni. So it's really just about students and teaching that I'm concerned.

I’m not out about being nonbinary with my students, but I find that for other things (such as missing due to illness, or family matters, or when students are looking for my thoughts on mental health or racial issues), my students are much more supportive and forgiving of me than I ever would have expected. Don’t make a huge deal out of it, but don’t deny or hide it either; just be yourself, and they’ll grow to know and respect you.

PhD as an escape Hello all. I’m going to start applying for grad school soon I’m a bit concerned about the actual reason I’m getting a PhD for. I’ve realised that I’m not going for it because I’m extremely passionate about my subject but because I don’t want to lead the so-called ‘normal’ lives that my friends and family are living. I want to use it as an escape to stay out of the ‘real-world’ for as long as possible. The rat-race disgusts me. A lot of my childhood friends have just got corporate jobs and it saddens me to see them brag about their salaries and cool new offices like little kids. All of them and my family think that I’m an idiot for not trying to get a corporate job when I have so much potential. They think anyone who isn’t constantly trying to maximise the amount of money they make is an idiot and that really pisses me off. My father works in a pretty big company and he’s probably the most miserable person I’ve ever met in my life. I’d like to be rich too but not just for the heck of it, but by achieving something truly significant and that I can be proud of. I’ve also been suffering from depression for the past few years and I’ve realised that when I’m in the library in my university working on a problem, I forget all about it. Even if I don’t enjoy it that much, using all of my mental faculties to focus on solving something makes me rise above the bullshit that surrounds me and makes me feel less alienated. This probably is because I’m an introvert who has cut out most of his friends and family from his life. When I’m working on a problem, keeping myself busy, nothing else concerns me. Which is why I think I can do this for the rest of my life. Does any of this sound familiar to any of you? Should I go for a PhD with this mindset or am I bound to fail?

Academia is no more "noble" than getting a job. One isn't saving humanity while the other is destroying it. That's a very simplistic view of the world that lacks nuance and shows that you don't really know how the world works. Work at a place where you agree with the company's purpose, and get help for your depression. Grad school won't fix these things.

Tips, Tricks, and Advice for dating as an Academic Hi everyone, I had a fiance who committed suicide when I was younger, and after that I ended up a bit "loose" on a "dating spree" so to speak. Although I am fortunate to not have any lasting repercussions of this, I am single and rapidly approaching the point of teaching. I was wondering if anyone would have any recommendations about dating in academic or even using dating apps? I've heard some professors claim to have blackmail attempts by students or former student and I am not sure how to navigate dating in a more "reserved" context.

I’m a young professor and teach adult and graduate students, so the age range thing on apps isn’t foolproof. If you use the apps, create a profile assuming that multiple students and/or colleagues will see it, because they probably will. You’re human and allowed to have a personal life, but represent yourself in this context realizing it can reflect on you professionally. I’ve seen a number of other academics on apps; some have their job information, and some don’t. Full-time faculty are also easy to look up since we tend to have webpages, so keep that in mind when you decide whether to have your title and institution on there. Anyone on the apps can find out plenty about you very quickly. You have to gauge your comfort level about this. I personally don’t focus my profile on my job because I don’t want to be so easy to find online until I at least interact a little with someone and feel okay sharing that information. Be professional and respectful, and you’ll be fine!

Should I Accept an Unfunded PhD Offer as an International Student? Hi all, I've got an unfunded PhD offer in political science at a middle-to-lower ranked school in the US. There's a chance of getting funding later on aside from some supplementary earning options. I am an international student from a "developing" country with some savings to fund my first year. Yes, I know it is considered nothing short of a crime to pay for your PhD in US. Still, I want to take up this opportunity as I want to escape the things here at home. I can manage the first year somehow but will need funding later on. I can also theoretically apply to another higher-ranked school with fully funded offer during the next cycle. With the existing global political situation, I don't know whether student visas will come easily next year for students of my home country. I am also aware of the unforeseen costs and what if the funding doesn't come the second year, among other possibilities. I am in a desperate situation right now and would appreciate any sound advice.

Honestly, you probably shouldn't accept an unfunded PhD offer at all, international or not. That said, if you're just looking for a way to get on a visa, perhaps you could find a partially funded master's that might be a better option?

Changing one’s co-authorship? Another fellow student and I decided to work on a research paper to submit to a conference. From the start, I took the lead since they weren’t familiar with the research field we were in (Cognitive Science). They worked strictly on the computational side of things while I worked on the behavioral + some of the computational. However, there was a lot of “hand-holding” involved since I’d constantly have to direct them on what to develop and even what to write because they were “indecisive.” I wrote roughly 95% of the paper, implemented an LM model, and recruited participants, which is almost everything. They only developed the simulation (basic Unity + a plugin), inputted the figures, and wrote a couple of short bullet points. Despite this and gut instincts to put him as the second author, I still caved in and gave him first authorship. We recently found out we got into the workshop, and after I told them, they told me they didn’t want to be a part of it. They proceeded to say they “didn’t care,” and we took the spot from someone more deserving. This hurt me quite a lot because they knew how much getting in would mean to me. I want to proceed even if it means presenting alone because I’m proud of my research, and I’m better off without them. With that, I was wondering if it would be ethical to change their co-authorship to second/am I allowed to? I genuinely don’t believe they deserve first authorship, but I wanted to get some perspective since I’m still relatively new to this. Thank you!

Depending on the field, the order may or may not matter. I've never seen more than one person present a paper, so I don't see how their disengagement would prevent you from presenting the work. Usually, nobody cares about author N being the presenter, as long as they know the work (and it sounds like you do).

Colleague forcing their way onto my manuscript ... I think? Hi all, I wrote a manuscript for the work I've done in the past year or so. I relied on some data generated by a previous student, so myself, him, and our PI are the only authors on the manuscript. My PI suggested that I send it to this 2nd author for review/editing/comments, and then a couple of other colleagues in the lab for internal review before the PI reads it himself. The first round goes great and my 2nd author returns great comments after a week worth of 2 back and forth. I proceed to send it to the next person, who's a post-doc turned research associate - too long of a tenure as a post-doc, he had to switch to being an RA. I get my comments back from the RA and I see that he has added himself as an author on my paper. I looked through the document and the comments/edits he's suggesting aren't any better/more thorough than what my 2nd author did. Mostly grammar/language and "cite this please" sort of commentary. I never discussed adding him as another author on my paper and I wasn't aware he was going to do it. From going through the document several times, I am also likely going to reject many of the edits as I don't think he fully grasped my paper and some of the comments are more confusing than helpful. I haven't told my PI yet and I'm unsure if he has looked at the document. From my personal knowledge, this being my first first-author manuscript, a person has to provide data for a figure or provide some extensive technical skill (bioinformatics, surgery) to receive authorship ... though I know this is also journal-dependent. I've reviewed/edited manuscripts from colleagues and other people on the floor before and never asked nor was offered to be an author. I am a 2nd, 3rd, and 4th author on several papers and for all of them I personally did work and provided data for a figure or several to guarantee authorship. Is this normal to grant authorship to somebody because they reviewed/edited a manuscript during internal review? Especially when this wasn't discussed before and the reviewer in question simply put their name on the manuscript without consent.

Sounds like a miscommunication to me. When he received the manuscript, he assumed it was because he was being included as an author, so he added his name and affiliation to be helpful. Or he knows this wasn't the intention but is trying to be shady and sneak onto the paper. That's the more pessimistic view, I guess. Either way, talk to your PI ASAP about how to have this conversation with him diplomatically.

How to find PhD Programs (USA, STEM) I am curious how folks find their PhD programs in the USA in STEM fields. In particular, I am looking into applying for chemistry programs and often hear people say that some programs are “good” for certain types of chemistry (eg polymer chemistry). How do people learn this? Where can I go to learn more about many programs at once?

Find papers on topics you're interested in and look at who wrote them and where they are employed. Keep an eye out in case they are the only one doing research in that area at the school—it's generally better to be in a department with a cluster of researchers in that area.