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Tips on dealing with difficult professors?
I'm planning on going back to college (university for those folks across the
pond) and I was wondering what are some things that you have done to deal
with difficult professors. I had a C++ class when I was attending a couple
years ago and the professor pretty much abandoned me and (I suspect) graded
with bias against me. Sometime during the semester this professor came to the conclusion
that I wasn't proper CS major material, so  refused to answer any questions
that I had about the coursework and flunked me on all my projects, blaming me
for plagiarism (which is entirely untrue and unproven since the university
uses a fairly comprehensive program to determine if students are
plagiarizing). Needless to say, I finished the semester with under a 20% in
that class and failed all but the first program (studying my A-- off for the
whole semester). Now that I'm looking to go back, I don't want to have this
happen again because tuition is expensive as heck and it's taken me two years
just to save up for one year's tuition.
Just as a side note, I am an active participant in class, polite, and
non-disruptive.

By "go back" you mean going back to the same professor? And also, how did you do with the other professors?

I'll be attending the same university and will have to repeat the class but I won't have to deal with that same professor (apparently she was fired a year after I left). I did well with other professors and no other issues to speak of.  I just don't want to get caught with my pants down again.

Well... then I'd suggest ask the question when you're in trouble again. You didn't really explain why she hated you with so much passion; and there are many types of craziness. It's hard to give you a remotely useful response. If you believe you're acting with respect and integrity, then go on and don't expect everyone to like you. Also, chat with other students who had taken the course to get a sense of the teachers and styles may help. Good luck!

Honestly I have no idea why she acted the way she did. I did run into another student she failed in my calc class that semester who was extremely knowledgeable and helped me with the questions that my professor refused to answer. I know it's a pretty broad question, but thanks for your input.

Questions concerning problems faced by undergraduate students are off-topic on this site, hence my down vote.

Then where would you suggest posting any future questions?

@Jigg graduate students may also have to deal with difficult professors, so this question applies to them as well. It is therefore not an "undergraduate question"

One thing you need to understand is that your perspective is different from that of the teacher. You see one teacher but the teacher sees hundreds of students.
While you may think that your participation is class is helpful, it might not be. I have had students who were very eager to participate in class but kept participating in wrong or inappropriate ways. Not extremely wrong but just enough to actually draw the class's attention away from the points I was trying to make. Yes, students should participate but make sure you are actually helping and not hindering the teacher's efforts.
If you see you are having a problem with one specific teacher and not others, then schedule some time during office hours and have a one-on-one talk with the teacher. You both have the same goal: For you to learn. So, find out what the problem is. I have not found many teachers who are simply unreasonable all the time. Talk with them and understand their reasoning.
One last point, which is connected to meeting the teacher, is to find out what extra material you should be studying and actually study it and discuss it with the teacher, in class or after class. Show that you are a serious student and the teacher will usually respect you.

+1 on this, and going to office hours for help, asking relevant questions about assignments (not stuff that can be found on the internet within 20 seconds of searching), discussing works in progress, etc. should also help avoid any "plagiarism" issues - being clever and tricking some sort of plagiarism detection software isn't hard, being able to talk about an explain the concepts is much more important


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Recommended citation for own photograph
In my thesis I have several photographs, which have captions in the form of
Photograph of building X, taken on date by the author of this thesis
Citations to referenced papers follow the [1] (BibTeX plain) format. My supervisor suggested to cite my own photos by using the following caption format:
Building X (my name, year)
This however follows a different reference style (APA style) and may be confused with a reference to a paper. What are the recommended styles to follow for own made photographs while making sure that I am the actual producer of the photos (as I've seen theses that commonly take photographs from other sources without actually referencing the source)?

As with everything, what discipline are you in?

The thesis is for infrastructure engineering.

Unless you designed the building in question, I would use the style given in my answer. A photograph of a building does not per se (except in the fine arts) qualify as distinct enough to earn a separate line item in the bibliography.  I wish it did! I had dozens of photographs in my last book, it would have given me two dozen more publications!

At least in the social sciences and sciences, a photograph by itself would not warrant its own citation. You would refer to them the same as other diagrams, figures, and photographs:

Figure 1.1, 2.9, 3.7
Photograph 3.0, etc.
Diagram 4.5

Most people use some form Chapter.Number series enumerating, which makes it simpler when you add additional material in an earlier chapter. Most document editors will renumber your figures for you appropriately.
Then when the photograph comes up, you would caption it appropriately.

Photograph 5.1: Crazy house on Hayarkon Street, Tel Aviv. Photograph taken by Sambach on xxxx.xx.xx. Released to Wikimedia Commons.
(If you are the photographer/author, you could simply state Photograph by Author, taken on xxxx.xx.xx).
In text, you would refer to Photograph 5.1 in the text, just like that. If you needed to, you could add an explanatory note for example to:

Photograph 5.1 ("Crazy House / Tel Aviv") is a prime  example of what architects would call a maison folle. .... .... I would like to direct your attention to faux turret on the top  corner of Photograph 5.1 ... blah blah blah...

tl;dr: As with all things, do what your advisor suggests. However, the style I give here is more appropriate in the journals and publications that I'm familiar with.

Fine Print: If you are a fine artist and you list each piece of work (or series) in your cv as part of your intellectual/artistic output, then you could refer to your works using author (date) or other similar styles. But doing so in the sciences and social sciences (and most humanities) will just earn you a bit of scorn. I would only do so if you had solo shows, gallery representation, or some other form of appropriate peer-review recognition of your work within the artistic community. I'm guessing that is not the case since we get so few fine artists in a.se but I'm happy to expand on this if you were.
Fine Print 2: If you are an architect and you designed the building, then you are also free to cite your buildings as separate works.

Thanks for your reply, but I think you misunderstood my question. I know how to refer to the figure, I just want to know the recommended way of saying that I'm the photographer...

"Photograph by author" in the caption.

In the APA style, it is recommended to just use the date the picture was taken:

If you are the photographer, cite in-text only. Do not include in the Reference list.
[...]
Include a caption, which is a detailed description under the photograph that explains it meaning and context, such as date, people, and location. For example:
Figure 1. School-aged children playing tag in Edworthy Park, a public park in Calgary, Alberta. November 18, 2016.

Source: https://bowvalleycollege.libguides.com/c.php?g=494959&p=3828594
This is what I will use for my thesis in geoinformatics.

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How to tell my advisor that I am quitting my PhD and what to say to an employer about why I am leaving
I got a job offer shortly after starting my PhD. So my question is: What should I say to my advisor about why I am quitting my PhD? Is it fair to tell her that I have accepted a job offer? And What should I say to an employer about why I am leaving my PhD? Will it not cause them suspect that I can't survive a PhD, let alone a job with them?

These are questions that you must answer first, honestly - why did you join a PhD, and why are you looking to quit? Also, what will happen if you lose your job (downsized or simply fired) - will you get another one just as easily?

Step 1: Decide why you are making whatever decision you make. Step 2: Tell all affected people the actual reasons.

Same question as @dan111. You already got job offer, then why you need to  say, why you are quitting phd. So, your employed wants you to continue php? please correct the details.

This is pretty common in my field (applied math). Students see the amount of money they can be making, and see the amount of work a PhD is, and leave. Be cordial about it, but the institution (and potential adviser) will likely be very unhappy. Make sure you are confident in your choice before even mentioning it to your adviser. Because of this being a common issue, I know that for plenty of professors the moment you start speaking about industry you have already burned the bridge.
As for what people in industry will think, I can't comment for them. Some will probably think you made a good conscious choice to not continue pursuing a PhD (just tell people about how the job market isn't that good). Others will think you dropped out.
This is just such a personal thing. People will see it how they want to see it no matter how you tell the story.

Chris's comment is spot on. Some other points:

Aside from people being unhappy, you will be faced with a lot of pressure from your advisor(s) to remain in academia. In my experience, professors view it as a mark of personal failure when one of their students leaves academia for industry. Some of your classmates may respond in this manner also. It's always your choice whether you want to engage in conversation, listen to their points, or simply just say "this is my choice and that's that", but you should be aware that the conversations will happen.
People in industry likely won't care either way. That said, it will be in your best interest to have a good reason why you're leaving. Simply saying "I had a chance to earn gobs and gobs of money" doesn't look good on you. Likewise, any sort of complaint against the program ("didn't like the research", "didn't like the advisor", "too slow") is bad. Your stated reason typically should include (1) interesting topics in industry, (2) personal demands (spouse was relocating), or (3) opportunity too good to pass up. Be optimistic about everything.
If at all possible, stay on good terms with people in your academic department. Wherever you're going, you'll eventually be in a situation where people will need to be hired, and knowing people in the university can give you an early look at graduating students looking for positions. Don't consider this a burned bridge; try to leave on good terms, if at all possible.

In addition to these reasons, the golden reason to cite is really just that the PhD didn't turn out to be necessary for your career and life goals. Sort of "A door opened and I realized that I could start my dream career today, rather than years down the road after getting a PhD."  A compelling reason, to be honest.  Of course, it only works if you're talking about a job that actually is your ideal job.

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Alternate university course allocation mechanisms
When it comes to course enrollment/registration in a limited-enrollment course, most institutions use a sequential system where students pick their course schedules sequentially (often ordered by seniority, then first-come-first-served or randomly within groups with the same seniority). Some institutions, particularly business schools, use "bidding mechanisms," where students bid (in bidding points, not real money) on the opportunity to take over-demanded courses.
These have their advantages and disadvantages, but it seems like there ought to be other ways to handle course allocation. For example, a university might use a system like a sports draft, in which people pick just one course at a time.  Are such draft systems actually used and are there other interesting non-standard ways of handling registration for restricted-enrollment graduate or undergraduate courses?
A clarification: By sequential mechanisms, I mean mechanisms in which students one-by-one select their full course schedule for the upcoming term. Obviously some systems allow a group of students to register within a given window. I still count this as sequential as it is processed sequentially: the order within that window is determined by the order in which the students in that registration window submit their requests. In economics and mechanism design, this is typically referred to as a sequential dictatorship (or a serial dictatorship, which is slightly different only in that the order is predetermined and not dependent on previous selections).

Where I studied, it was first come first served, and the date you could register depended on your surname.

This question reads a bit like a shopping question (it is looking for any number of examples), but one might hope it can be changed to be more suitable. For instance, you could ask whether any university uses the described system where "people pick just one course at a time" (thus, describing one or more examples to prove that yes, there are such universities with that particular system, is a valid and acceptable answer). Alternatively, you might ask for a solution to avoid the system to mention. The problem with the current question is the request for an open-ended "list of examples".

Also, could you clarify what you mean by "sequentially", please? Does it mean that essentially, all courses can be registered at a time, so a student takes half an hour to one-by-one (i.e. sequentially) click the desired courses into their schedule? Or does it mean a certain sequence in which courses need to be registered is prescribed, so you first have to pick a course of type A, and then a course of type B? Or something else?

@O.R.Mapper Is it to be avoided in this community to have a question structured as it is currently? It's a fairly common format on other SE sites. On math and economics, I see it used for literature requests. On cooking, it is used to solicit multiple techniques or various ingredients or substitutes. On stackoverflow and puzzling sometimes answers are given in multiple languages. Obviously it makes it somewhat arbitrary to accept a single answer, but it seems fairly prevalent nonetheless.

@O.R.Mapper Thank you for pointing out the ambiguity. Could you confirm that my edit to the question sufficiently clarifies what I mean by a sequential mechanism?

@Shane: Questions that do not yield one clear "canonical" answer seem to be generally discouraged on most SE sites, due to the format of the sites. On StackOverflow, out of equivalent answers, the one that explains things best, provides most references, or covers the most general case is usually chosen to get accepted. Other answers might be equally valid and maybe not even fully equivalent, as they might cover an edge case. Still, that is not comparable to asking for a mere enumeration of examples. A question like "What does QuickSort look like in a language of your choice?" or "Which ...

... are examples of algorithms that can be written in Java?" would be considered just as off-topic there.

@Shane: As for your clarification; indeed, that makes things clearer. Thanks.

@O.R.Mapper: Your point is well taken. Upon reflection, I feel that it would be best answered in a community wiki, which I've started. If others (or you) vote to close this because you feel it is a "shopping list" question, I certainly understand that logic. But I do think it is a question that is answerable in this format and might be useful to others.

I have edited to make it non-list-centric and focusing instead on the mechanisms, and voted to reopen.

@jakebeal Thank you. I appreciate the edit and agree that it gives the question more focus.

I think the edit actually makes it more "list-y." Now it sounds like you want a list of universities (including those using methods that have already been described in an answer), which is much broader than a list of methods. I wouldn't have voted to close before but I probably would now. (I say this as a user, it's not an Official Moderator Opinion or anything.)

@ff524 Hmm... I suppose you either list universities or list mechanisms. The benefit of the latter is that there are fewer. The benefit of the former is that they're more easily distinguishable. For instance, several universities use mechanisms that are based on bidding but are substantially different from one another. In either case, the answer is not just "list-y," it's a list. I've started a meta discussion on whether that alone makes it a shopping question.

By the way, whether it's a list of mechanisms or institutions, I don't think it is a long one. I've been working on this question for some time, and I'm only aware of a handful of instances of programs using non-standard mechanisms for course assignment, though I have heard that they might be more prevalent outside of the US.

The following institutions have (or had) non-standard course allocation mechanisms. Please add to this list if you know of others, or add additional links if you can find more detailed information on the various systems.

New York University Law School (cannot find a link describing the system)
Wharton (Course Match, a bidding mechanism)
MIT Sloan (Sloan Course Bidding, a bidding mechanism)
Harvard Business School (Cross-registration, lottery based)
Harvard Kennedy School (Course registration, a bidding mechanism)

Other resources on course allocation mechanisms:

A blog post by Michael Law


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Why do some science journals capitalize the words in a title, and others don't?
How do I know when to capitalize the words in a scientific paper's title? When I look on pubmed I see both styles. To be clear I am talking about the actual title of the paper, not a citation.

Perhaps some examples would be helpful! :)

Capitalise them or not, I expect it doesn't matter. The journal you submit to will take care of such trivial matters.

I agree with @astronat that you can use whatever capitalization system you like; I've never worried about the journal's system when writing a paper.    I'd add, though, that you should use the same system throughout any one paper that you write.

I'm editing a paper and I'm not sure which journal it will be submitted to. Seems like it's not a big deal. Thanks everyone for the answers!

Maybe the main difference is whether the editorial offices are in the US (capitalize) or in Europe (don't).

does anyone know whether "and" should be uppercase or not when author's names are all uppercase (I mean "and" on the title page of the paper)? any style guide references (or examples)? Thanks!  (Yes I know it doesn't matter in the manuscript, I'm asking from the point of view of an Editor, for the format to use in publication. FWIW, I'd use small caps if I had to choose, under the given hypothesis.)

Essentially, the way to check is to look at if the particular journal to which you want to submit a paper uses title case or sentence case for the capitalization of titles. I think a lot of it is publisher-specific. For example, in my field, I publish primarily in American Chemical Society journals, which use title case, and AIP/APS journals, which use sentence case.

It really doesn't matter. The copy-editors will fix that kind of thing for you.
If you really must know, look at the journal's author guide or examples of papers in the journal, on the journal's website.

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I transcribed 50 interviews = 200 pages, enough for analyses?
I just finished transcribing my interviews for my PhD thesis and I got a total of  200 pages as data to analyse, is this enough?
I only transcribed what is relevant to my research scope. Also, English is my second language. One of my friends told me that it is not enough,

I'm in the social science faculty

Hopefully you have an advisor. That is the person (and probably the only person) who can answer such a question. Fifty interviews may be plenty or it may be woefully inadequate. Four pages per interview may be plenty or it may not be nearly enough.
Ask someone who can actually see your data and who has the experience to make such a judgement in your field.
However, you can at least do preliminary analysis. That might guide you to understand if you need more - or different - data to answer the research question(s).

Thank you for your reply, I'm interested to know other experiences in this regard and how much they had had after finishing their transcriptions.

This varies too much be both field and by the nature of the questions you are researching. No numeric answer from strangers could actually provide you any guidance.

Note: My background is Statistics.
Whether you have enough data to analyze, in other words, have a large enough sample size, depends entirely on what you want to do with your data, and what your data is.
One of the things you can do to find out if you have enough is a power analysis. Power is the probability that you will reject the null hypothesis (i.e, the status quo) when the alternative hypothesis (the thing you are most likely trying to show) is true. In simple terms, power is the probability that if your hypothesis is true, then you will be able to give evidence in support of it given your data.
Since I don't know your data's distribution, I can't really give an idea on how to calculate the power for your specific case, but if you have access to SAS software, or R Studio (free to download) you can use either of these to do the calculation for you.
Generally, this is done before the study even begins, but it can be done after the study is concluded. This is called a post hoc analysis. Generally, it's not a good idea to alter your study based on a post-hoc, since it makes your sample no longer random.* However, if you fail to mathematically support your hypothesis, but your power was only 0.1 to start with, you can simply say your sample size was not large enough to detect the effect you were looking for, and that for future research you plan to increase your sample size.
Before I go, I feel it's worth it to add that your sample size as it currently stands appears to be 50, and not 200. It seems to me that each interviewee is your experimental unit, and even if each page was taken at a different time, these would count either as duplicates or replicates.
*The reason that altering your study makes your sample no longer random. You start with a population of size N, from which you take a sample of size x. The probability of being selected is x/N. You then decide you need more data, so you exclude the original x, so now your population size is N-x. (This assumes the population does not change size). You need y more for your sample, so now the probability of selection is y/N-x, which can never realistically be equal to the first probability of selection, x/N. (I have the proof for the last claim, but I feel it is too far outside the scope of this question to include here. If you are interested, feel free to ask for it in a comment.)

It is also possible, and not stated, that the analysis required isn't statistical. And even possible that the sample taken isn't random.

@Buffy. True, but inherently the question of "is X enough for [fill in blank]" is statistical. I gave this answer because I personally know people in Social Sciences who could use it if they had a similar question.

I wasn't complaining, only pointing it out.

@Buffy, my bad :P.

Well, no, so you can reel in your tongue. ;-)


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How do you (digitally) catalog the books you've read over the years?
I wonder how you  keep tracks of what you've been reading over the years. I'm not talking about things that are 'relevant' and 'precious' to your academic work (to that end, all hail to EndNote or Docear and such, perhaps), but I'm keen to know how you track the 'miscellaneous' books you have in your personal library and other reading materials that you've laid your hands and eyes on in some other 'unusual' contexts.
How do you help yourself with remembering some dots (over the years) so that you have an even better chance to connect the dots?
[Story time, skip if you please] When I was 6 and started to have some sort of grasp of the alphabet , I was immediately told to make a 'Book of Books' by my godmother. It was a spiral notebook dedicated to the purpose of keeping tracks of all the things I was reading with details such as "title", "author", "page no.", "fav. quotes", and "one-liner summary". I also used colors, stickers and colossal-sized drawings/mind-maps while doing my catalogue work; simply because - ehem - the more stuff I filled up in there, the more sweets and ice-cream I got from my godmother. I kept up with this practice until I was 10 (then all good things come to an end, they say). Anyways,  I love this spiral notebook to pieces, and to this date whenever I look at it I can vividly recall the books that appeared in my life around that time. It's been super helpful and wonderful.
[Q&A time] Now at age 26,  I'm at a loss as to how to produce something similar: something simple enough but effective enough. I've tried to do it both manually (notebook/folder) and digitally (Excel spreadsheet/Goodreads) but nothing works anymore and nothing feels the same anymore.
With good old-fashioned lists, it's hard to retrieve things sometimes and it's almost impossible to 'share' it with anyone else. With catchy modern things, I can see book covers and retrieve/share book lists/recommendations with ease, that's wonderful. But because of this there's just too much 'noise' and 'temptation', and it's not like my life isn't miserable enough with Facebook and other ADHD-inducing platforms.
Please help! Any recommendation is much appreciated. How do you (digitally) track your personal libraries over the years?

Find someone that gives you an ice-cream each time you add a record.

I use a wiki these days! I've been using a personal wiki to collect notes about everything I learn, read and watch since last year and it's great. I've installed a DokuWiki on my personal website, and it's like my micro-wikipedia.
Installation is not complicated and anyone willing to tinker with tech should be able to find a way to get it working in a couple of hours.
Before that, I've used Evernote, and also note taking capabilities of my kindle for that.

Thank you, that's a nice suggestion! I will look into DokuWiki.

DokuWiki is a triumph of "it just works".

The online service librarything can help you with this. You can  use it to catalogue all your books. Records can be added by searching for book records in Amazon and other sources, or you can manually add or import book records. You can add your notes in the 'private comments' section.


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Is it possible to publish scientific research without deep and scientific terms that are very accurate?
I am a very beginner and I want to publish my first research in theoretical physics. I do not yet have the terminology of experts in this field. Is it possible to accept a research in physics without high-accuracy scientific terms and experience?

A demonstrable understanding of the vocabulary that is used in a scientific field is usually considered to be an essential attribute of someone who truly understands the area. It is almost certain that if you learn the correct vocabulary you will accomplish three things simultaneously. (i) you will learn the standard way of talking about important things in the field, (ii) you will improve your own ability to communicate with others in the area, and (perhaps most importantly), you will improve your own knowledge of the field.  ... Do that; then rewrite your paper and publish it!

Perhaps you could get a co-author to help you with the vocabulary and jargon and so forth.

It's very improbable. If you don't know the terminology, odds are you don't know what you're talking about and cannot contribute meaningfully to the field, especially if the field is theoretical physics (this field is complex enough that many physics graduates cannot contribute meaningfully to it).
If I received a paper discussing, e.g., dark matter and it's not clear the author knows what dark matter is, I would probably desk reject.

It is possible, but very unlikely that such a paper would be published. It would be likely to confuse experts if you use terms that aren't standard, though good explanations would help.
More seriously though, is that your lack of knowledge is likely to lead you to write things that experts consider trivial and that you might wind up making erroneous statements.
But, one way to proceed is to find some local source, who is knowledgeable, and ask their advice on what you write.
Your amateur standing is much less important than the accuracy, novelty, and importance of what you write. Occasionally an amateur will have some fresh insight into an important problem, but it is very rare.

Publishing a solo paper is a big ask for someone at the level of "very beginner." Papers take a long time (often at least a month) for experienced people to write well because there are so many layers of details -- ranging from making sure every statement is technically accurate, to making sure there are no ambiguities or ways a sentence can be read in an unintended way, to conventions about hyphenation -- that all have to be checked and double checked.
If you are not sure you have a grasp of the language, my friendly suggestion would be that you are not ready to undertake this. There are other activities you can do. If you have some peer group of people who are at a similar level (if not you should try to form one) you can

start a journal club where you read papers and explain them to each other
share your draft with some critical and smart readers and address their comments
rope one in to collaborate on your paper, have them check calculations and suggest their own ideas
give a presentation about your work and see if you can explain each step

Even if not, there are many opportunities for self-study

over the past year there has been an explosion of online conferences with talks available online, find and watch talks relevant for your area
watch online videos of courses in your field
take a course in technical writing
read famous papers in your field carefully
keep tabs on the arxiv for your field
prepare slides as if you were going to present your work and give them out loud (I have found talking through every step out loud, even to yourself, to be a surprisingly effective way of finding gaps)
be skeptical of your own work

I wish we could bookmark answers. A really nice one! How does one find famous papers in their fields (assuming they can't ask someone)? Is there a way to sort publications in a field based on their citations or something?

@justauser "Is there a way to sort publications in a field based on their citations or something?" Google Scholar can help with that, I think.

@nick012000 Ah yes. I'd have to know the big names in the field, but Google Scholar is a good place to start. Thanks!

No, it’s not possible. No one wants to read a research paper with vague and imprecise explanations that don’t make use of the correct terminology of the topic you’re writing about. We have a place to read such things — it’s called “everywhere that’s not the scientific literature”.
Research papers are exactly where researchers go to read precise, carefully thought out ideas that advance their understanding and the state of knowledge of their field. In the research literature, especially in math and theoretical physics, precision is the name of the game. If your work does not have the quality of being precise at the standards of the area you’re working on, it’s not valid work, and you shouldn’t be trying to publish it. Instead, you should work to bring the precision up to the expected standard. Once you get it to that level, that’s when it’s appropriate to publish.

I agree with all other answers. Peer-reviewed scientific journals are not the place for imprecise terminology.
If you really think your work contains good research, perhaps you could look at depositing the research in an rxiv pre-print server. These are not formally peer reviewed, but are part of the scientific record. It might help you get some valuable feedback from the scientific community which you can use to help a future submission.


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Clarification regarding rapid publications in journals
I had a query regarding some reputed journals in mathematics that claim rapid publication: in particular, the New York Journal of Mathematics. I normally see papers in that journal that have been getting published in around 6-8 months, which, according to me, is the average time for any journal. So can someone clarify as to what they mean by rapid publication? Does it mean that papers are accepted in less time than other journals?

I've seen comments by math folks here that publication might take a year or more, so 6-8 months sounds rapid in that context.

It is also not unusual for math journals to have delays of 6 months up to a few years between acceptance for publication and "official" publication. These are obviously easily avoidable with a suitable workflow.

Note that NYJM is online only. Print journals normally take longer, having more steps in the process, though an online version might appear long before it sees print. I'm surprised that you see anything less than a year as average or normal.

FYI the AMS does surveys of journals' average backlogs/time-to-publish and you'll see that > 1 year is common, even for online publication (though less common for online-only journals): https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/202010/rnoti-p1607.pdf

That journal is all electronic, and has a reputation for finalizing the manuscript and getting it included in an issue quickly.  They just keep adding to the issue until it is time to start the next.
This is less important these days when many journals have "early online" availability prior to inclusion in a journal.  Still, it is nice to be able to quickly point to a volume number and page number when updating your CV.
Some journals still have months or years between when a paper is accepted and when it it even put online.
The journal is not much faster or slower than most for getting a paper accepted, since they deal with the same pool of potential referees as other journals.  But the second step, acceptance to being available in a volume, is about as fast as you will see in mathematics.


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How can I transit from one area to another when moving toward my PhD?
I'm currently a master's student in mathematical physics preparing my applications for PhD. I've been working on my current research topic (say A) for 3 years, and all of my publications/talks are in A. However, I found another field B really interesting, and thinking about the possibility to transit to B for my PhD. A and B are quite different and so far I don't have a strong background in B. My question is if I want to make the transition, do I need to explain my motivation in the personal statement? How can I convince the recruiting committee I will be a good candidate for field B, like other applicants who have been familiar with B?
(additional info: I indeed don't have too much expertise in B, the PhD program I'm aiming at is in the UK, so it's relatively short. Is it also a plausible idea to spend a gap year learning more about B so that I can have a better feeling about what I want to do and make my application stronger?)

See the answer for UK (and elsewhere, perhaps) to this question: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/176908/75368

I don't think you have much to worry about. Yes, you should explain your motivation for wanting to switch, but provided A and B are close enough, I don't think it can be taken as a negative. In fact, rather the opposite: you are clearly already an experienced researcher (you have talks and publications), therefore you likely understand the field well and have a good perspective on both areas. Knowing yourself and not being afraid to change to work on something you find more interesting or think has more promise is a sign of both personal and academic maturity. I am sure PhD supervisors would rather spend a bit of extra time helping a thoughtful and motivated student get up to speed in a new topic than supervise someone who started a PhD without thinking in a topic they already know well just because it's "the easy route".
Personally I would not recommend taking a gap year to study B, unless you are actually taking a course and will have some kind of official certification at the end of it. It's hard to demonstrate you've gained expertise in a new subject if you take a year off just to work through a textbook, for example. Better to study that textbook during your PhD; then at least you're getting paid for it.

In US research groups, at least in the sciences, its fairly common to see people who have a degree in A (either bachelors or masters) and then seek PhDs in B. Many of the skills are interchangeable, and a variety of viewpoints and skillsets is important to many research problems. However, while I'd not be surprised to see someone with a Math, Computer Science, or Biology background in my Chemical Engineering lab, I'd be rather shocked to find someone with a solely English or Philosophy background. I expect that you'll run into a couple of problems, based on the gap between your background A and your target field B:

Recruiting committees for B want to make sure that you have the skills to succeed in researching B. If you don't have a degree in B or a related field, you'll have to explain to them why your A skills prepare you for B. Lacking that connection, explain what other proof you have that you can do well in studying B. You've got research experience, but I'm not sure engineering research experience would perfectly prepare you for an English program, for example.
There is typically a coursework component for PhDs, and those courses assume that you have an undergraduate understanding of B. If you don't, you have to delay taking the graduate level courses in B to take effectively remedial lessons. The greater the overlap, the less remedial content you need, which means you spend more time researching and less time sitting in class, which makes your department happier. All incoming PhD students need time to learn the field, but it can be hard to get started on a good foot when you need a bunch of classes to understand the basics.

When you read papers and materials in B, ponder what frustrates you about B-researchers from your perspective as an A-researcher (e.g. a lack of statistical rigor, a lack of consideration for cultural elements, too much emphasis on the results and not on elegance of the process). Some of those frustrations may fade as you become more immersed in B, but some may stay, and those frustrations are where the difference in perspective coming from A is important. Those perspectives are valuable in the B environment.

A UK answer might be quite different, however.

There are no coursework or lectures during a PhD in the UK. It's research from day one.


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Can I include the ongoing dissertation title on CV?
I am a master's student doing theoretical physics and am currently preparing for PhD applications. I just started working on a dissertation for my program, and I'm expected to have it completed by May next year. I wonder if it is appropriate for me to include the title of my dissertation on my CV for PhD applications (in the education section), as it is an ongoing project, instead of a finished work. Should I also include my supervisor's name if I include the title?
Thanks!

I suggest that you make a section titled "Work in Progress" and list it there. You can use the working title, indicate that it is a dissertation and, if you like, list the supervisor, though that isn't really necessary unless it is joint work.
But the Education section is probably best reserved for degrees held and working on, honors, and such like.

Thanks! Would that be appropriate if I add 'Dissertation: [topic] (work in progress)' under '2022-2023 MSc in Theoretical Physics, [university name]'?

Seems fine. The working title is fine also. A Work in Progress section is always good to have on any academic CV.

Thank you! What do you mean by 'working title'?

The “ongoing “ title

That's what I do. It's a concise way to give a little bit more information about the content of your degree, which might otherwise just say "M.S., Physics."

Yes, please, a CV must be short but not too short, it would be really helpful to know what you are working on now.
I expect you to write in the education part "M.Sc XX.20yz - expected 05.2023" with a quick mention of the exams that are relevant to the position you are applyiong, as well as a "Work in progress" section where you add the thesis with the provisional title and the advisor.


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What should I do if the professor gave me zero points on exam because he thought I was cheating even though I wasn't?
Recently I had a Java exam at university. Usually how I prep for this kind of programming exam is studying with my best friend. We were studying object oriented programming using lists, double linked lists etc.
There were three tasks on the exam, the first one was about linked lists, the other two were some random math tasks. I did the first one and my friend did all three. We both got 0 points because our first task, which can only be done in two possible ways, was too similar. The obvious reason for this is because we spent quite some time studying together and using the same syntax.
I do not know what to do now and how to confront my professor without him getting mad and making it worse.
I feel bad now and it hurts me much so I was thinking about dropping uni due to it's flaws.
Is there anything I can do to to recover from this?

I’m voting to close this question because no question is asked.

@AnonymousPhysicist, certainly one is implied. "What should I do now?"

@Buffy So there should be no harm if we close the question, let OP make their question explicit with an edit, and then get the improved version reopened.

I suggest you, CupidONO, add an explicit question to the end of your post to avoid complications here. I think people are being overly picky about the rules here, but being explicit would end that.

I edited to add my understanding of the implicit question. The OP can edit the post as usual.

@FedericoPoloni, no "harm" for a long time user, perhaps, but a bit insulting to a new user when the fix is easy - easier than getting the question reopened. Being overly didactic isn't helping here.

You should worry less about your professor being mad. He accused you of cheating with dubious evidence, so the situation is inherently confrontational. You can't worry about burning a bridge that is already on fire. You should be polite and act calm at all times, don't try to provoke him, and stick to the facts -- but you are entitled to stick up for yourself. Good luck.

I think the title also should be changed into a question.  As it is, it looks like a rant.

I will try to be as polite as i can be, thank you very much for advices.

I've voted to close on the "strongly depends on individual factors" issue- the OP might have an option to appeal this decision but that will depend strongly on the particularly institutional rules.

I think your best option is to explain how you studied to the professor. If you saved any of the work you did while studying it would help to show it. Perhaps it was just a matter of using similar names for things - which might be natural for two people studying together.
But, if you haven't cheated on the exam, just continue to insist that you did not. If you don't get satisfaction, escalate it up whatever chain of authority is open to you.
It would be fairly quick and easy for the professor to give you a short, possibly oral, exam to see whether you know what the test was supposed to measure.

Thank you very much for the help, i do have folders of all of the exercises i did and the dates of projects.A lot of them were same as that first task on the exam.

I think the response is good, but OP should give more time before accepting, as others may have further replies.

They can change the acceptance at any time, of course, @CaptainEmacs

I did that, feel free to give your opinions as they mean a lot.

Oh woe. Lost 15 rep. Actually, I think you are doing fine here, but a peek at the https://academia.stackexchange.com/help would be worth it, and a bit more care in presentation (i vs I, for example). And the advice of @CaptainEmacs is worth taking, as a too early acceptance might make some possible posters hesitate. But I've lost the "15" more than a few times, so no biggie.

Sorry, @Buffy, I thought you deserve the acceptance, but I also thought it's fair to at least leave the window open for a bit longer (and hopefully the reputation loss will not hurt too much - it's not so much a loss, but rather a premature pay-in).

@CaptainEmacs, owie owie owie. ;-)

Universities generally have a process for arbitrating disputes between professors and students concerning accusations of cheating. Ask at your department or major adviser what the process is. Typically it will go something like

Talk to the professor and informally try to resolve the dispute.

If that does not help, file a written petition explaining what happened and why you believe you were unjustly punished.

In some cases you will have the right to a hearing in which you can present your case to an independent panel of people other than your professor. You may even be officially entitled to enjoy the benefit of the doubt, in the sense that in such a hearing it is the professor who will have the burden of proving that you cheated, rather than you having to prove your innocence.

I was once part of a panel in a university hearing of this type where a professor was convinced that two students collaborated in a coding assignment because some automatic plagiarism detection software assigned their assignments a high plagiarism score. Looking at the work, we concluded there was no plagiarism and ruled against the professor.
When you pursue justice, keep in mind that no one wants to punish you unjustly, and certainly no one wants you to drop out of university. Even the professor is likely just misguided in his beliefs rather than having bad or malicious intent. He is quite likely to be open to persuasion via reason and facts. Argue your case calmly and logically and I’m fairly confident you will prevail. Good luck!

Thank you sir, i will defend my case with good arguments.What hurts me the most is how all of this was unnecessary to me and to my friend and even to the professor who thought we cheated.


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I can't focus on so many unnecessary subjects at my university, do i really need a graduate diploma to get a job eventually?
I am currently finishing my first year at university of Computer Science and IT, it has been a good journey so far and I have passed nine out of eleven subjects, two are left to be finished in August.
I do not feel like I have learned anything except mathematical problems in programming that do not interest me because i would like to do app developing and website backend and frontend. Most of the time I spent studying from youtube or community on google more than actual professors at university.
I feel empty and obligated to do my chores, both subjects I have left for August are mathematics and it stresses me so much. I don't feel like I will ever finish this university and get a job, my parents force me to get that graduate diploma which doesn't mean much as most programmers say but I never wondered if it mattered that much until now?
I hope some of you could answer my question, sorry for my grammar mistakes I am just too tired from all the studying to focus on English.

If you have no interest in computer science, you probably shouldnt be studying it. But I don't see a question here.

do i really need a graduate diploma to get a job eventually? - of course not.

@Arno, the question is in the title.

Sounds like university coursework is not the right path for you. Explore community colleges or vocational schools.

For some jobs, yes you do. For others, not at all. It depends on the job and on what opportunities it provides. Jobs that require university education often have more opportunities in the future.
But, I know that in some places, family pressures can be intense. Especially if one or both parents has misconceptions and prejudices. It is hard to resist, but it won't go on forever (in most families). This is especially the case if the family's financial support is required or if the culture simply requires it.
But, I think that the family issue is more critical to you at this moment than the others. Perhaps you can change majors to something that suits you better.
And, there is a lot to learn beyond programming, though programming ability is needed for web development. Math also.

Hahaha. The last line is great!

Have you ever watched the movie The Karate Kid? In this classic American movie, Daniel, a 17 year old high school student in Los Angeles, is being trained in the art of karate by Mr. Miyagi, a wise older man who wants to help Daniel combat a gang of bullies. But Daniel is baffled and frustrated when, instead of teaching him exciting karate techniques, Mr. Miyagi asks him to paint a fence and do other menial chores that don’t seem to have anything to do with karate.
Later in the movie, it is shown how the fence painting and other chores actually helped Daniel learn movements that are crucial to being good at karate and defeating the bullies.
The movie is fiction, but contains a larger truth. The mathematics and other subjects you are learning at university that don’t seem to have anything to do with computer programming or working in IT are teaching you to think better. This will improve your ability to be a good programmer in ways that you can’t even begin to imagine, far beyond what you’ll learn from a course on Java or app development — just like Daniel did not appreciate at first why painting a fence will make him good at karate. On the other hand, savvy employers are well aware of the value of a rigorous education, and having such an education will open all kinds of career opportunities to you that would be very hard to make yourself competitive for otherwise.
Do you need a degree to get a job? Of course not. But getting “a job” is hardly an ambitious goal to have in life. A degree will vastly improve your future ability to have a rewarding career doing things that you enjoy and fulfill your potential, either as a programmer or doing anything else.

The Karate Kid analogy also works great for PhD studies in the sciences - Daniel is made to do annoying chores for his teacher all day long, which are only occasionally interrupted with actual subject teaching (typically whenever Daniel is on the brink of quitting). Yet somehow, with the mysterious speed of plot, Daniel ends up a subject expert anyway, and at the end all involved people agree that it was a great experience.

@xLeitix absolutely. It’s an amazing metaphor, one of the best I know about, for learning of all kinds. I realized that myself some years ago and then discovered I wasn’t the only one - the Karate Kid is mentioned in countless blogs and articles on education, see here for one example (or Google “karate kid education”).


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Does the word "Plagi" have associations with contract-cheating?
We have just noticed the word “Plagi” trending in student submissions for final assignment. These assignments may be technical reports or computer code solutions, often contained with ZIP files. We see the word in the name of folders or documents within the submission or sometimes in the commentary.
Despite seeing the word we already have suspicions that the work was not entirely by the student’s own hand and was achieved by contract cheating. It did not have the look and feel of an AI-created document (the subject may actually be AI itself and the graders are fully experienced in that area)!
Naïvely the team first thought “Plagi” was the name of the author and we searched places like Freelancer for operatives that use that as their handle. We noticed many profiles of providers that say ”We provide Plagi”, which indicated it was a form of slang relating to protection from plagiarism detection. We saw it often when the student provided a document that we had not asked for and was outside the specification – an unnecessary justification related to the assignment, which was one of the alarm-bell triggers.
I know there are others (herein) whose research areas relate to contract cheating, so am asking here for clarification on the word from academics generally. At the moment we cannot use the simple existence of the word as prima-facie evidence that academic misconduct took place.

Postscript
Our prosecution case was deemed to have insufficient evidence of misconduct as we could not prove the origin of the material use by the student. Further information from other institution cases might have swayed the panel, hence this question. Only those cases where the student admitted paying for the work were successful.

For "Plagi" I found few links...  In one, PLAGI = Platelet Aggregation with Interpretation (a computer code for a medical application).  Or PLAGI is the symbol for the "USDA Plants Database". Or, "plagi" is short for "plagiarism".  Or "plagi" is the Polish word for "plagues".  Where are you?  I am in the US.

@GEdgar Just click on my ID for profile details.

Did you ask the students for an explanation?

@NateEldredge It is the use of the word by the providers (like Freelancer) that is the puzzle. Further we are inhibited by regulations from interviewing misconduct suspects, which must be done by designated officers etc.

I think -- your having seen this term in provider profiles and folder and file names -- that you may yourself be a leading expert on this issue. I'd upvote if you made an answer based on that same information.

@DanielR.Collins Maybe! I'll wait the outcome of pending misconduct prosecutions before committing!

One possibility points to the opposite of the work having been plagiarized.
Various plagiarism checkers, including some free (unpaid) checkers such as plagibot will check the content of uploaded documents for plagiarism and allow a report --- that might be as much as the whole of the original document --- with potentially plagiarized sections of the document being highlighted or marked in some way. The downloaded reports (at least from my admittedly very meagre experiements) seem to have the letters "plagi" included in the file name.

Having submitted an essay to plagiarism checking software does not indicate the opposite of being plagiarized; if anything, it may indicate that the author has attempted to obfuscate plagiarism using a software tool. If the author didn't plagiarize they shouldn't have bothered submitting their work to such a checker, if they didn't copy and they know that because they wrote it, no need to check!

@BryanKrause: I agree with you - yet many people here ask about results they get from a plagiarism checker when they (claim to) not have plagiarized.

Note, for example "Papers 1-4 must be submitted to turnitin.com. Failure to send even a single paper to turnitin.com will result in an F for the course" on http://faculty.winthrop.edu/fikem/Courses/CRTW%20201/CRTW%20201%20Syllabus%20Spring%202018.html ... and it certainly isn't unique in requiring submission to a plagiarism checker.


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Do the universities or laboratories or organizations provide housing facility during post-doctoral?
I am interested in Post-doctoral degree in mathematics in France or in general in Europe  after my PhD.
Do the universities or laboratories or organizations provide housing facility ?
Can you suggest me how is it possible ?

Pretty institution specific. But, when I did a post-doc in Europe (from US), the institute both (1) had some apartments on hand for visitors and (2) would help finding housing if those were not suitable. It is not unusual, particularly for those moving to a new country, to need help navigating the housing market.

Yes , no, maybe... you have to ask the institution.

As I understand it, in France, very few students, even undergraduates, live in university housing.  A significant percentage live with their parents; most of the remainder rent apartments by themselves or with friends just like non-students.  However, most universities will offer help in finding housing to international students and postdocs.

For a post-doc, you generally would have to look at the particular institution(s) you are considering.  Generally, the bulk of on-campus housing goes towards undergraduates, with some reserved for graduate students.  But by that time, although there will be some graduate students living on campus if they can, a good amount look to live off-campus (primarily due to it being a lesser cost than on campus).
Post-docs will have even lesser priority, if any at all, for living on campus, so generally you would have to look to get housing on your own.  This experience goes for the USA, by the way, but the off-campus living situation, based on the other answer, seems to be very in line with the way housing is done in Europe (for graduate students and post-docs).  Again, it varies on your institution, so I would say get in contact with people there if you need assistance with housing.

This depends what you mean by “provide” but it is extremely unlikely an institution would provide accommodation free of charge for a postdoc (it’s unlikely they would provide such free housing for students unless there were special circumstances of some sort).  The institution might have residences but you should expect to have to pay for that.
A postdoc is like a job, and I doubt you expect employers to “provide” housing.  Universities - like employers - might have access to rental listings and might help your find housing but otherwise you’re on your own.
Usually if housing is provided, it would be made explicit in the job offer.

I suspect quite a lot of institutions have an office (housing assistance) that helps new employees find suitable housing. Probably open to post docs also. Just a "finding" service, though. They even do this for students in the US. A sort of registration place for private renters.

@Buffy I would suspect the same (especially in the bigger institutions).


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Got caught faking hospital papers
I am fourth year mathematics students. I couldn't attend two of my final exams due to my depression, the situation made me feel worse so and I felt like it was over if I failed. I cannot afford to pay for an extra year and getting an F will cause an iireversible damage to my GPA. Knwoing they won't accept depression as a reason I faked a hospital paper of my sister being covid positive and submitted it to the dean telling him my reason for not attending was that I contacted someone with covid. However, they found out the report was fake. They told me they won't take legal actions and let it slide this time. But at the momement I was so scared and I started insisting that my sister doesn't have a reason to lie or give a fake report. They told me they called the hospital and the file is shown to be edited but I know both of these things can't be true. Am I shooting myself at the foot?

I think you know the answer to the (rhetorical?) question as it is currently stated. Stop lying, and be grateful that the university let it slide. If you do the best you can from now on and decide not to lie again you should be fine, both in a career inside our outside of academia. But I do not understand what your question is, please clarify.

It's not the answer to your question. But, do you have a person you trust that you can discuss these things with? This is clearly a deeply concerning thing. You should have somebody to find the best answers with.

Yes, you are shooting yourself in the foot.
I am not sure why you would assume that they would not accept your depression as a valid reason, but even if so, faking doctor notes is not the way to go. You could have reached out to the course instructor or the department advisor for help and asked for accommodation.
Anyway, now is the time to try to find a way to deal with the consequences of your actions.


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Publishing a work which is not related to the work done in the company
I am working in a company after completing my PhD. When I get time, I carry out some research work related to my PhD work but not related to what I do in the company. I look forward to publish the work in journals/conferences as an independent author. I guess I should use the present affiliation in the article. Will this affect the chances of getting the article published?

I used "Independent Researcher" and personal email address two times for my papers: published at good venues without any affiliation-related problems.
And depending on your local laws, the company policies, nature of your research, how you conducted it (normal working hours or weekends, use of company equipment) you may not own the research results and may need to work with the company on publishing it using the company's affiliation.

Agree, I see no issue in terms of the publisher, but the thing to watch is corporate policies. At the least they may require a formal release from the company. Or they may waive it and say it is unrelated and you should ignore them. But you need to ask.

I also work in a company(have a PhD too). My company strictly rules that any invention, discovery that I have done whilst in the company becomes a shared intellectual property with the company. I think you should talk with your immediate work supervisor or Intellectual property department(if you have one) before you embark on publishing your work.
As for the possibility for the paper being published, I personally think journal articles are published based on their originality and degree of importance. Your current affiliation could be slightly helpful but I think there are a host of factors that determine the final conclusion, i.e, publication of the article.


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How to sort issues over authorship in my manuscript with PhD supervisor?
After two years of extreme hard work I managed to finish my first manuscript. In my department there is a trend that if a professor has some collaboration with other people in any project then their name would appear in the publication originating from that collaboration... to which I totally agree, but the second part of this unsaid rule is that if no publication originated from this collaborative effort, then in that scenario the name of the collaborator still ends up in the publication from any other project of the same Professor.
So the problem here is that my supervisor has a collaborator who has nothing to do with my project but since he is a collaborator of my supervisor and their collaborative project was not fruitful, hence to appreciate the effort of this collaborator my supervisor is forcing me to put his name in my manuscript. Though I don't agree with this policy, I don't know how to solve this issue as I do not want to fight with my supervisor either nor do I want the name of this person on my manuscript. Please suggest what I could do in this situation?

How is your supervisor "forcing" you? What would happen if you submitted the manuscript with the correct authorship list? "Guest authorship" is a form of scientific fraud. We should all fight this. Is there an ombudsperson at your university you can talk to? Scientific integrity is of paramount importance. You took a step in the right direction by asking this question.

I totally agree with you Floris and thats why i asked this question here. One other issue is my supervisor is also the department head and hence I could not seek help from anyone in my department atleast and moreover sinceno one has ever raised voice against this issue ever hence i assume they are ok with it. Also this thing has been in practice in our department for quite  some time. But now reading everyone's view I think I will talk to my supervisor clearly on this and if he does not agree then I would talk to the graduate school coordinator

You could point to this presentation or this position statement (especially section 6.3: "Institutions and journal editors should encourage practices that prevent guest, gift, and ghost authorship")

It's unethical to include the name of a collaborator who contributed nothing to a particular paper as a co-author. However, as you said, it can be difficult to confront your advisor about including someone else as a co-author.
If you are the person responsible for submitting the manuscript to the journal, one alternative you might have available is to ask your advisor is to have an explicit assignment of duties in the cover letter for your paper. ("Author A did activities Q, R, and S, while author B did T and U, etc.") The tasks of each author would be provided in such a manner—and in principle it would be hard to justify the inclusion of someone unqualified to be a co-author when you have to "certify" it to the journal, rather than just providing a generic statement of authorship.
If the advisor is unwilling to come up with such statements, then you could make the argument that since it's typically a requirement of journal submissions nowadays, that you're uncomfortable including an author whose contributions can't be clearly delineated.

What if the professor is reluctant with including such an explicit assignment?

I tried doing that, but what my supervisor did was he added there contributions in "Conceived and designed the experiments and Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools". Obviously they didnt do any of these but again the point becomes that he has to put them in the manuscript anyhow!!!

@Alireza: See revised answer.

@SaurabhKumarSrivastava: If that's the case, then you don't have any choice but to tell your advisor directly that you don't want his collaborator as a co-author on your paper. (Unless you are willing to stay silent on the matter.)

it's typically a requirement of journal submissions nowadays - What fields is this normal for?  (I'm in math where we don't have much of a "gift coauthorship" issue, so it doesn't happen in my field.)

@Kimball: At a minimum, I've seen it in biology, chemistry, physics, and some areas of engineering.

If it's not required by the journal, asking your supervisor for this will make your intentions very transparent. It wouldn't be very different from directly mentioning the issue, and would probably come off as less disingenuous.

@zibadawatimmy Sorry, my comment was unclear.  By "it doesn't happen" I mean math journals don't ask what the contributions of each author are.

That this is presented as some sort of "tradition", does not make it less of a fraud -because it is fraud, pure and simple. In fact, since it appears that a whole Department practices it, it is conspiracy to commit fraud, with the criminal intent to share in the benefits from it.
Are such words unwarranted? Do they seem, even, insulting to the members of the Department? Well, reality can be insulting at times, if one chooses to make it so.
That assigning authorship when none exists is strongly discouraged (to now use less harsh words), can be found on numerous relevant guidelines all over the world and the web. For just one such example, Yale University web page states

Authorship Standards.   Authorship of a scientific or scholarly paper should be limited to those individuals who have contributed in a
meaningful and substantive way to its intellectual content. All
authors are responsible for fairly evaluating their roles in the
project as well as the roles of their co-authors to ensure that
authorship is attributed according to these standards in all
publications for which they will be listed as an author.
Requirement for Attribution of Authorship   Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public
responsibility for its content. All co-authors should have been
directly involved in all three of the following:

planning and contribution to some component (conception, design, conduct, analysis, or interpretation) of the work which led to the paper or interpreting at least a portion of the results;

writing a draft of the article or revising it for intellectual content; and

final approval of the version to be published.  All authors should review and approve the manuscript before it is submitted for
publication, at least as it pertains to their roles in the project.

Some diversity exists across academic disciplines regarding acceptable
standards for substantive contributions that would lead to attribution
of authorship. This guidance is intended to allow for such variation
to disciplinary best practices while ensuring authorship is not
inappropriately assigned.

"Did nothing" appears to be a weak argument in favor of assigning authorship to somebody.
You are not the first person to face such situations, and really, there is not a roundabout way to "solve" this: You will either
A) "respect the tradition", risking consequences whose burden only you can assess, or
B) attempt to stand up against it, again risking consequences whose burden only you can assess.
Obviously, there are consequences in both routes taken - the issue is which kind of consequences you are willing to bear.

Responding to @aeismail criticism (whom I also thank for the positive words), "falsifying reality with intent to gain in collaboration with others, while disregarding the possible harm", is exactly what happens here. Crimes have "levels of seriousness" of course. Then, it is my impression that falsifying the scientific record, including researcher credentials, ends up killing innocent people, one way or the other, immediately or in twenty years time, directly or indirectly. I could, for the shake of accuracy, change "criminal conspiracy" to "criminal negligence for possible harm done to third parties while committing an unlawful act"... hmm, that's two charges, now that I think of it.

Raising this to the level of criminal conspiracy is completely over-the-top and ruins what is otherwise a very nice answer.

Unfortunately this sort of resume padding seems to be getting more common, and as stated already, it is a form of academic fraud.
The question you should ask yourself is whether you really want to continue working with this supervisor. Even if you get this issue resolved amicably (and after the supervisor invents fake contributions for the third party involved, this does not look likely), there will be other problems down the road. Since you are clearly unable to work this out with your supervisor (in response to your objections, he upped the ante by inventing contributions for the third party), the next stop would be a higher authority, such as the Dean, the University ethics committee, ombudsman or similar, possibly the funding agency. But this is bound to get ugly.

And don't expect a good reference letter from this person if you do this and leave...

@user8001 Sadly, this is true, but I believe it can be explained.


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Is it proper to propose a thesis collaboration to a professor you don't know?
I am a master student at one of the best universities in Europe. As I am studying finance, I would like to have an experience in the US or London.
I will have to start working on my master thesis next year, and I would like to use this opportunity to go abroad to an important institution; my idea would be to write to a professor and ask him if he would be interested in co-supervising my master thesis; I would not be paid of course but would enjoy the experience.
Is this considered proper or is it rude / weird?
Of course I will look at professor that works in an area that interests me, but I probably wouldn't be able to specify a particular topic right now (I will do an internship next semester where I plan to find a particular problem to work on, but I don't know yet).
The start of this thesis would be next year, but I think I should start contacting people now for this kind of proposal.
So in conclusion is this something that happens? Should I really do more research before contacting a professor? How can such an interaction be phrased?

It's a bit odd to me, that you're seeking a host institution in the middle of a program, rather than, say, finishing your master's and looking where to do a PhD, but otherwise I find it quite normal. I got into my PhD program by composing an e-mail to my current head of department. He replied enthusiastically and invited me to give a presentation. The field is physics, so your mileage may vary.

@NajibIdrissi I'm not sure why you mentioned US. My profile shows Germany. This is true, one cannot wait. I met my boss in September, my defence was due in February, I started as a PhD student in March. This is all irrelevant, since it seems, that OP is in the middle of a master's program and is looking for an advisor for his master thesis project.

Personally, this arrangement would work if (i) it comes from a reputable university, (ii) from a staff member (not student), (iii) there is some memorandum of understanding (MoU) or some official process to acknowledge my involvement, (iv) trust; i.e., I won't get screw out of my time helping you.  Hopefully (i) to (iii) help with (iv), but it's not 100%.

My advice is that of finding a supervisor at your university who has contacts in the countries of your interest, who knows you well from past courses, and who would be willing to support you, and ask them if they can intercede for you and act as local supervisors (you would need one anyway).
I happened to receive 3-4 requests from former students of mine who would have liked to do their Master's thesis abroad, especially in the US (but not only). What I do in these cases is to explain to the student with which groups I am in contact and what type of research they do. Then, if the student looks interested in a specific group, I ask them their CV and write to the group abroad something like (a recent example):

Hi XXX,
I'm writing on behalf of a student of mine who is studying toward his/her Master's degree in Engineering, and would be very happy to have the opportunity to do his/her Master's thesis in [country]. She/he is thus looking for a possible internship at [institute] with your group, with a topic to be defined according to your current research topics. In the attached zip file you can find her/his cover letter, CV and recommendation letters (she/he reads in CC, and he/she can provide further information if needed).
[Other pieces of information about funding]
Cheers, Max

Disclaimer: I'm in a small field where collaborations are especially with research institutes and not with universities, and the above might not apply to other fields.


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How can I apply a Computer Science degree towards a career in a research-related position of another field?
I'm not interested in becoming an academic.  Rather, I'm interested in opportunities for a Computer Science (or related) major to work in research, either in industry, but also particularly in academia, and particularly in fields where CS skills/knowledge could be applied to social sciences (or cognitive science). This includes anywhere from simply being a programmer that happens to work in a research setting to doing actual dirty work with computational modeling that may even require some domain knowledge of the topic at hand.
My problem is that I don't really know what sorts of opportunities exist out there and how to get to those opportunities.  I'm not opposed to getting a graduate (master's) degree in a specific field, getting research experience, and developing broad expertise around a subject area.  In fact, that could be great.
However, I get the impression that in academia, you center your research around highly specific areas and that becomes your life.  To be honest, there is not one highly specific area of interest that I have (at least not yet) where I would be passionate enough to dedicate and invest such a huge portion of my life towards studying and researching, not to mention I don't want to tie myself down to any specific subject nor the poor job market of academia (sucks, I know).
I'm more interested in breadth and the ability to work on interesting projects.  Part of the reason I went into Computer Science was because of how applicable it was to many fields.  While I find Computer Science and programming to be incredibly engaging, my heart truly lies in the study of people, and it would be a dream to merge the two worlds together.  In some sense, you could say I would love to work in academia without becoming a full-out-academic, by leveraging my background into another field.  But I would like to make it a viable career path.
A random list of subjects/areas/words to capture my interests: cognitive science, computational models of narratives/belief/reasoning, agent-based modeling, complex systems, social network analysis, human computer interaction.
I know a field like bioinformatics or computational biology is pretty huge, and I've often read about ways to enter those fields (e.g. be a CS person who enters from the outside and picks up the biology knowledge as they go along, or someone who has done biology research their whole career and is now learning and picking up CS/programming skills to assist their research).  I'm interested in opportunities to be more of the former, for the reasons I have outlined above.  Though I would say, the more I can wet my feet into the domain area, the more preferable.
What paths can I take?  What are some emerging fields?  What jobs exist and in what numbers?  How can I get there?

There's a lot of chaff in this question. I think it would generate more pointed answers if you were to boil it down to it's core: "I have a passion for multidisciplinary studies. What career moves should I consider if I eventually want a career outside of academia that suits my interests?"

In my experience practically all job descriptions for a software developer in a research project in academia include MSc or PhD as an essential requirement. They also require programming experience, often in specific language. Research experience is usually included either in the essential or the desirable requirements. You best bet might be to volunteer in a project and if you prove yourself useful and there is funding for a job position, you might have a chance. Or at least it will look good in your CV when you apply for a job in another project. Bear in mind that such jobs are fix-term.

I merely skimmed through your post, but from the title already I find the answer to be straightforward and very interesting. As a CS student and having done plenty of research, I feel that CS is a great field but other fields are equally interesting. CS will allow you to inject yourself into more or less anything you like. The simplest example is simulation, even though physicists and other specialists are usually hired to automate all the formulas and programmers merely implement, you could easily have those specialists show you everything you apply and have them explain it to you. Then you just go on to simulate something else and pick up knowledge from another field.
Even more obscure and theoretical things can use CS, a simple example is artificial speech, combine it with AI and you could get into interesting concepts. However simulation also could apply, with some more difficulty, to sociology.
I find that game programming is a field that allows one to get into anything he likes, loop up the term serious games, they are games that are made for training professionals and are often used by the army or corporations. Try some out and see what skills are needed from non computer related specialists to get an idea.
As for getting masters degrees and such, you can go for many different ones that combine sciences, creating a chain between them. You do not necessarily need to specialize, if you invest serious time and effort you could prove to the world that you specialize in just applying CS to anything.
About Job opportunities, often it is helpful to create your own, you can find people interested in a specific area that are willing to help you out and start up your own project, this will help in more than one ways, first is that you might actually get something good out of it and eventually make a living from the project, second is you get hands-on experience which goes straight to the CV and proving you are serious about this, and third is that this may well attract academics and professionals to call you in for collaboration.
I personally have more or less the same problem, I am mostly into CS, am aiming for game development, but I am immensely fascinated by economics, forensics, chemistry, engines, history, even shipbuilding, so I have started making my own games. It has payed off very fast, I get to become a microsoft student partner in October while I have had a proposition from a professional to collaborate - even though on a small project.
Finally, you can fill in your spare time with online courses, I picked up forensic science on Coursera, from the university of Singapore, it takes little time, I've learned many things from different fields and it shows you're more into learning tons of stuff than just getting something satisfying and then lying around. A master of course is worth a thousand of these as the rest of the community here told me, but it's fast, fun, effective, and it's worth something.
Hope I helped, sorry for the length of the text, felt that it was necessary to cover your questions and show as much as possible of the immense flexibility imaginative people have with CS. Cheers.

Summer internships will help with a bit of the insight you need.

This does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post. - From Review

@AloneProgrammer: "What paths can I take? What are some emerging fields? What jobs exist and in what numbers? How can I get there?" Here's how you start: you start exploring the field, and nothing better than an internship if you're interested in nonacademic positions.

Well, I'm not sure what you mean here but I believe your answer is more suitable to be a comment.


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Serving sweets at an oral qualifying exam
What are your opinions on serving sweets at an oral exam. The only people attending would be the exam committee members.
For my master's degree I was at a school where it was customary for everyone to bring cookies and coffee at oral exams or presentations. However, now I'm at a school where generally nothing is served at seminars unless the speaker is visiting from another university.
My lab-mates mostly only brought some bottled water to the exam for the committee members. One, also made a pot of coffee and brought it to the exam.
My exam will be later in the afternoon and I know that two of my committee members will have been in another exam prior to the start of mine. I feel like it would be nice if I brought a box of candy or something along with water and maybe coffee for refreshment. I'm a little worried about them getting impatient or in a bad mood as the exam draws on. One of my lab-mates however thinks that I would be taking it too far and I may offend the committee members.
What are your thoughts?
EDIT: this was marked as a possible duplicate. I believe it is different because the other question was referring to a defense where anyone could attend. Providing refreshments in such a case could be seen as an attempt to get more people to attend. In my case no one was allowed to attend and I was afraid that a committee member could see this as me giving "gifts" in hopes of swaying them.

Opinion about serving sweets? I find this question a mockery of the tags applied.

I think most faculty would not object to being offered some cookies; I think it's cute. That said, make sure that your presentation is impeccable because otherwise, one might grumble that your priorities are wrong.

While not an exact duplicate: http://academia.stackexchange.com/a/7264/929 and I stand by my answer everybody likes cookies/biscuits

I think you should ask your advisor what's appropriate.  For mine, I did quite a range of appetizers & cookies (it was open to anyone at the school), but then my fallback plan if I didn't pass was to work as a chef :-)

Possible duplicate of Is it appropriate to bring coffee and cookies to a PhD defense?

I think the question linked by @StrongBad is a fairly good match.

Yeah, I found that question before posting. However, I felt that for a PhD defense since other people will be invited to attend it could be interpreted differently. At my qualifying exam no one other than the committee members is allowed to attend.

Here's an update: I ended up bringing a box of chocolate and making a pot of coffee. They all loved the idea :)

Over here in the UK, we do not provide anything as a candidate, if necessary the research group's secretary knows what to do. Anyhow, I would agree with your friend, I would provide only water, and then if applicable I would ask a senior lecturer (such as your supervisor or head of group) in the research group to invite the examiner(s) for tea/coffee/beer and/or lunch.

Thanks. I'm studying in the US. My last school was also in the US.

@Hadi Ok then, add the beer as well :-)


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Should we use the rest of a grant that we have achieved its goal to make further research not very useful in the direction of proposal?
Imagine that we have achieved the goal of a grant before the money runs out. Should we use the rest of money to make the research more advanced even though it won't be useful in the direction of the proposal?
For example the grand is for computer science research with a specific application to medicine. Should we use the rest of the medical grant money in advancing the research in computer science even though it would not be much needed in that specific medical application?

And how do you know for sure it won't be of any use ever?

Spending grant funds on something outside the scope of the proposal sounds to me like grant fraud.  That can get you banned from receiving future funding, and in some cases it could be a crime.

@NateEldredge Then should we give back the rest of the grant because the goal has been achieved?

@user74315 I suspect your research office will tell you that giving back grant money is incredibly complicated, a major hassle, generally a no-no, overall better to be avoided, makes you look unprofessional, they have now put it into their budget, and they would rather not. They will also quite likely ask you whether there is no way the study could be deepened, expanded, commercialized, .. you name it.

Is this an actual situation, or just theoretical? I have never been involved in a project that could not be usefully polished in some way, given spare resources.

@PatriciaShanahan It is my supervisor. I think he is more interested in getting a better h-index than continuing in the proposal's direction.

Depends very much on the terms of the grant. I work for a major public clinical trials funder - if there is any money left over at the end of a project we expect it back. You'd best check the paperwork associated with the money.

@rhialto That really is an answer. Why not make it one?

Different funding agencies (and programs within agencies) have different relationships with the specificity that they want in results.  Some are much more comfortable with their investigators "following where the science leads," while others really care about the exact pre-specified goals of the project.
Without further information about the funder and the type of grant, it's impossible to say what degree of flexibility there is likely to be in how the money gets used.  The definitive source for this information is generally the program manager for the grant, and your supervisor should have been having periodic interactions with the program manager that could provide guidance on this decision.  If they haven't, that's a warning sign, but that may be difficult for you to know since students are rarely included in such interactions in any case.
Taking actions that go against the funder regulations or program manager guidance can cause big trouble. The risk is primarily for your supervisor, but you might get tarnished by association, particularly if you knew an action was dubious and didn't talk to anybody.  If there are other professors that you know and trust (or a university ombudsperson or ethics office), you might talk to them to be able to share more details and get a more informed opinion---as well as to shield yourself from possible negative consequences if your misgivings prove well founded.

Even if there have not been regular interactions, reaching the main goal seems like something that should be reported to the program manager, with discussion of what happens next.

Your question is framed as a false binary.
In my view the most ethical response is to use the leftover money for related research, i.e. in the area of computer science in medicine in your example.

What you can do with any 'left over' money depends very much on the terms of the grant or contract you're working under.
I work for a major public clinical trials funder - if there is any money left over at the end of a project we expect it back. Every project gets a formal financial reconciliation at the end to make sure the money was spend how it should have been. Other funders in my country take a more relaxed view.
You'd best check the paperwork associated with the money to see what you're allowed to do with it.