text:
My PhD supervisor is starting a formal procedure to remove himself as my supervisor
Does anyone have any experience with this? The coordinator of my program told me that he will schedule a meeting with my supervisor, the coordinator, and myself and that during that meeting they will come up with specific tasks which I need to complete. However, regardless of how "objective" those tasks are, my supervisor is not happy with me and I know that he will not let me 'pass' those meetings. He will do anything he can in his power to show the coordinator that I am not a good student. Has anyone gone through a procedure like this? Does the supervisor always kick the student out?

What is your plan to graduate if you were to stay with a supervisor who does not want to supervise you?

The headline doesn't match the question. Are you just assuming they are doing something formal or have you been told

@Buffy the coordinator ttold me that my supervisor wanted to schedule tthat tmeetting.

I'm not asking about the meeting, but it sounds like you may be making assumptions about the purpose. Also, this may be impossible to answer other than locally. Procedures differ everywhere. They may or may not have power over your student status.

I don't understand why you ask "does the supervisor always kick the student out?". As far as I know, if the supervisor gives up their role then the institution has a duty to provide another supervisor. It's not the same as when a supervisor wants to redirect the student to a Master degree for instance, i.e. the supervisor claims that the student is not able to succeed at all. Basically it's either the supervisor who is unable (or unwilling) to continue in their role, or it's the student. I would imagine that, in most institution, the procedure is different in these two scenarios.

@Erwan: As far as I can tell, at least de facto a department does NOT have a duty to provide a supervisor; the department can always dismiss the student from the program instead.  In all the PhD granting departments I have been a part of, part of the regulations say that the student must find a faculty member to be their supervisor by their n-th year (for some n) or be kicked out, and another part of the regulations say that, if a student's supervisor no longer wishes to work with them, the student must find another faculty member to be their supervisor within some period of time.

@AlexanderWoo interesting, this is very different from the institutions I've been (in Europe). Does this mean that a supervisor could potentially get rid of their student arbitrarily, without even motivating their decision?

@Erwan they probably could but it would be very rare if they would: this is a loose-loose situation, and it is embarrassing for everyone.  If something like this happened regularly the graduate chair would likely try to figure out what’s going on.

It sounds like you are not happy with your supervisor, in which case you should have changed supervisor as soon as possible.

@Erwan: Remember that, in the US, employers can usually fire their employees arbitrary without any motivation for their decision.  Unless there are contractual obligations that apply (and that covers around 10% of non-government workers), the only restriction is that the employer cannot be discriminating on the basis of race, religion, sex, age, veteran status, or a few other things I'm forgetting.

I had a friend whose supervisor gave red on their thesis defense but they got it with majority votes. Strange life...

Would you know the difference if, purely for example, your supervisor had recently found out he has terminal cancer and is shedding all his responsibilities?

@AlexanderWoo sure, but PhD students are also students. I'm a bit surprised that the institution doesn't have any responsibility in ensuring that a student can finish their degree if they didn't fail anything.

@Erwan The institution has a responsibility to ensure the student does not pass without reaching a reasonable standard.   They have a responsibility to create reasonable conditions for students - no unreasonable barriers. They have, however, no responsibility in ensuring the student can finish  - that's ultimately down to the student.  People do fail to finish what (at postgrad level) are intended to be hard achievements to earn.

@AlexanderWoo Not really relevant since the question isn't about an employment situation.

@Erwan I expect most PhD programs have a clause along the lines of "to remain in the program students must continue to make satisfactory progress towards the degree"; if the supervisor believes a student is not making satisfactory progress, that is failing. There may be a safety net that requires others to assent to this designation to not put all the power in the hands of the supervisor, but a PhD is not like a bachelors degree: courses and grades don't matter, it's all about research.

@BryanKrause I agree with this, my initial point was precisely to make the distinction between the case where the student's progress is deemed insufficient and the case where the supervisor wants out for reasons unrelated to the student's level. I was told that in some institutions the supervisor can arbitrarily decide to end the PhD without motivating their decision, this is the part that surprises me. In my experience, if there's no evidence that the student is at fault then the institution must find a new supervisor. But apparently this is not the case everywhere.

We don't know the details, of course, but in the end you do not have a right to be supervised by a specific professor. If a professor does not want to be your supervisor (any more), then there is relatively little you can objectively do.
There is a kind of "code of conduct" that professors see students they have accepted as advisees to graduation, simply because it (i) doesn't look very good on the department if someone just willy-nilly decides they don't want to do it any more, and (ii) because it creates a hassle for the department to then figure out what to do with the situation. As a consequence, it doesn't happen very often that a professor un-assigns themselves from being adviser. But it happens (and I have done it myself) if there are good reasons for it -- a typical one being that the student turns out to be on a trajectory where they have no chance to graduate with the degree they seek (and don't take the hint that it is best if they looked for a job elsewhere, outside grad school), or if there are substantial personal disagreements between student and faculty.
You do not say why your adviser wants to un-assign themselves. It is, also, strictly speaking not part of your question and so need not be answered. But I would strongly recommend to walk around the block a half dozen times and think hard why you got into this situation. Your question very much reads like "my adviser is unreasonable and wants to kick me out of the program". But experience shows that most advisers are not in fact unreasonable, and that there are good reasons why they do not want to advise a student any more; it would be good for you to consider what these reasons might be, and what needs to be done to address these. Completing the tasks required of you might be a good first step.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

General remark: The comments under this question and answers by OP gave quite a bit of insight into the question. Unfortunately they were "moved to chat", but I suggest reading them before posting or judging answers.

The coordinator of my program told me that he will schedule a meeting with the 3 of us and that during that meeting they will come up with specific tasks which I need to complete.

You do not mention any formal process and it just sounds like a meeting to decide what tasks you should be doing.  I don't see an issue with this.  It may be as simple and non-threatening as it sounds.
From comment...

My supervisor is young and new and my lab mate and I are the first students he sees.

So maybe your supervisor is finding this just as difficult and challenging as you are.  They will have a lot of things to do apart from supervise and may be finding it overwhelming.  You think you are being ignored (or something like that) but it may simply be that you are a task too much for your inexperienced supervisor.  It may be that issues outside of their control (and of which you know nothing) are making it much harder for them to deal with you than you understand.  Keep an open mind.
In comments you mention a lot of distrust between you and your supervisor.  That's unhealthy at best and self-destructive at worst.  It is not all clear that you even wrote an email explaining the issues from your point of view to your supervisor or their boss.  Don't assume verbal communications have any weight - they are often interpreted and/or remebered differently by the parties involved.
You have an extremely negative view of your supervisor at this point and, right or wrong (and we don't know), it really is not practical for you to continue with your own viewpoint so negative.  If you cannot adopt a more positive mental approach (and maybe you have good reasons - we don't know the reality) then you need to consider changing supervisor or even seeking an amicable parting of the ways from the institute and possibly reapplying elsewhere.
If you do find yourself with a new supervisor or seeking a new opportunity elsewhere the you need to start with a clean mental and emotional plate.


text:
What should I do if I am being guided to walk in circles?
My primary and secondary supervisors, along with four students, published a paper in March 2019. My primary supervisor asked me to implement the paper as part of my PhD.
I studied the paper well and asked my primary supervisor two very specific questions along with detailed descriptions and diagrams. His reply was that he is not clear about the mathematical notations used in the paper. So, he sent me a PDF  with an alternate explanation (which I already knew very well) without addressing my specific questions.
Then I emailed my secondary supervisor. After three weeks of repeating the same email at least six times, he replied back with a hand-drawn diagram (devoid of any description) with no mention of my specific questions.
Both my primary and secondary supervisors insisted on studying their versions of alternate explanations and asking back more questions.
Then I emailed 2/4 other authors, including the 1st author. They work for various companies like NVIDIA, Tesla, etc. They never replied back. The other two have no publicly available email IDs.
Issue (1): Those alternate explanations supplied by my professor are not helping me implement the algorithm. Because (a) there are ambiguities in the description in the paper; (b) there are missing contexts in the pseudocode of the algorithm.
Issue (2): They were the PIs of the paper. So, I cannot go to someone else.
What should I do now?

What is the timescale here? A month, half a year, or more?

@MisterMiyagi, I started working on implementing this paper on 13-oct-2024. I should finish it by January 2025, including a detailed testing.

This is really individualized, but to be honest, is two months that long?

You're learning a core lesson of a PhD: when you're doing novel research, there's nobody to give you the answer, so you'll have to try stuff yourself.

Time for an in-person meeting. It is hard to discuss things like this by e-mail, especially if they are not great about reading and responding to e-mails. You need to spend time at the whiteboard together. You may need a few sessions over a few days so that if they tell you try something, you can do it and follow up within a few hours. This will force them to dig in, rather than just telling you something vague so that you will go away.
If you are fully remote and cannot meet in person, then that is the underlying problem. Fully-remote works well in many cases, but it does not seem like it is working well in your case. All decisions have consequences, and the decision to work remotely (if indeed that's what you're doing) seems like it is having serious consequences in this case.
Before this meeting, implement your "best guess" of the algorithm. If you there are ambiguities in the paper, implement both alternatives. If the authors claim they did A but you think it should be B, try that too. You don't necessarily need to reproduce the exact numbers from the paper so long as you get something reasonably close. But it is much, much easier to discuss stuff like this when you have a working version of the code and can easily run experiments, rather than when it is just in idea land. And your advisor will also be more motivated to help you when it is "I have the code working except for this issue" rather than "I'll start thinking about maybe beginning to possibly start writing a bit of the code at some point once I understand this issue."

+1 especially for the "have a best guess implementation" ready. Some of the ambiguities might even go away when you go through the trouble of getting feedback from your home-grown implementation. OP's remaining questions will be much more relevant for the eventually needed discussion.

It's easy to get trapped in cycles of unproductive e-mails-- I feel like I learn this lesson about once every three years, myself.  I add only that if in person meetings are just not possible, then video conferences can be a useful middle ground.  The live-ness of the conversation, the ability to interrupt in real time, see body language, and share screens and documents is much more useful than a 20th century phone call, and infinitely superior to endless rounds of e-mails.  (But's not as good as being physically present.)

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

sort: votes


text:
Is getting an oral recommendation from a professor who has known me since childhood a conflict of interest during graduate admissions?
My parents know a Professor A who knows another Professor B. Professor A has known me since I was a child. I applied for a Ph.D. position in Professor B's group and got admitted. Before admission, Professor A recommended me to Professor B orally but without writing a formal recommendation letter. I used the recommendation letters from other professors I really worked with.
Now, a Ph.D. student in our group learnt about this (my bad, I exposed this myself) and says I was cheating. And he just told everybody because of jealousy. I think I was fairly exploiting my personal network and also I don't know how much the oral recommendation was taken into account during admission. I also don't know what Professor A said to B. Whether he even really said something about me is a mystery to me. But I am totally qualified to get this position on my own.
Now many different versions of this rumor have come out. This is not the expected start of my Ph.D. life. I thought that everybody in my group might be friendly. But really, was I cheating during the admission? I might think about transferring to another group after all this.

Lesson learned, Ph.D students behave exactly the same as school children.

How can one "fairly exploit" something? Those seem to be a contradiction in terms.

Is it a highly competitive position? What is admission based on, other than letters of recommendation?

@AzorAhai to exploit something is to “make full use of and derive benefit from [it]” according to the dictionary. It doesn’t imply the exploitation is automatically wrong or unfair.

First, I don't think you did anything wrong. If there was improper action anywhere it was on the part of others. (See the final statements about "favors" in the answer of tbrookside for example.) But I suspect that the oral recommendation given had little weight other than at the margin. The professor wouldn't have taken you on if there was any doubt about your abilities. It would have been foolish to take someone unqualified as a "favor" to another.
The other student also has no reason to be jealous as they also got accepted.
But the social thing is something you will have to work through. Demonstrate your competence in the usual way and it should tone down over time.

"But I suspect that the oral recommendation given had little weight other than at the margin." I think this is under selling it. An oral recommendation like this pretty much guarantees that the application will make the first cut (and will not be rejected over some triviality). And while it will probably not be given much weight in the final decision, it helps to (subconsciously) positively frame the application.

A fairly natural concern (especially once one takes into account the very real danger of direct or indirect discrimination by social class, race, nationality, etc) is that "fairly exploiting my personal network" is only possible where the effects of oral recommendations are absolutely transparent. Which doesn't mean this other student is justified in making a big deal of the fact an oral recommendation happened, just that there are grounds in general to fear that the system might fail to treat the recommendation as it should.

I suspect @Buffy is right, that you did not do anything wrong. However, you did receive an advantage you did not earn because of who your parents are and who do they know. I suspect that that advantage is much more subtle and much more substantive than the oral recommendations (compare your experience with this answer Does politics and perception play a role in higher education? )
In short, you were lucky, and it is not moraly wrong to be lucky. However, it is understandable (not right, but understandable) that people who had to earn their position the hard way require extra evidence before they are willing to accept you as an equal. It is your challenge to deal with this situation gracefully. Demonstrate your competence, as Buffy suggested, but also learn how priviledged you are, and how challenging university can be for those who do not come from a middle class or higher background. A nice place to start is here: https://www.asanet.org/sites/default/files/attach/journals/feb15asrfeature_0.pdf

True: understanding one's privilege is a moral and social obligation, I think. Not that having some privilege is a reason for anyone to get mad at you, but it does create a certain burden in other ways... for example, the obvious, proving that you are actually "worthy" of the stuff you obtained more easily than others... keeping in mind that from the other end many worthy but "not privileged" people "get" far less than they "deserve". All that. It's not bad to be lucky, but when you understand your luck, you might want to share... Pass it forward, etc.

Nevermind the parents. If A and B know one another and the admission system is dependent on the advisor (rather than a committee), it would be pretty natural for B to ask A what they think of the OP. It would also be pretty natural for A to offer an unsolicited opinion if they had a high opinion. It isn't politics. It is just interpersonal relationships and the need to have some assurance about the qualities of a candidate. Graduate admissions isn't about bean counting. Even formal letters of recommendation have this quality. If I know and trust you, I will trust your recommendation.

@Buffy ofcourse the oral recommendation is the result of normal social interaction rather than some nefarious plot by "the elite" to keep their priviledge across generations. However, those normal social interactions did happen, and they did help the OP (somewhat) in a way that was not available to others. That is priviledge at work. Priviledge is so powerful, because the people who benefit from it are doing nothing wrong.

You don’t know whether it was available to others.

We may think that it is nothing extraordinary to have a professor in our circle of acquaintances, but professors make up only about 2.5% of the US workforce (according to the 2018 GSS, which is what I had quick access to), and social networks are very clustered (which is why we would consider it normal to have one or more professors in our network). So for the fast majority of Americans, this kind of advantage is not available to them.

Unless the OP played an active part in getting A to talk to B about him, it's not clear what he could be expected to have done about this. Should he have told the two professors to avoid talking about him if they encounter each other?

@Barmar there's no implication in this answer that OP should have done anything to prevent it. It only states they should recognise they were lucky and had an advantage most people won't and have some empathy for their differing circumstances

Please don't make unfounded assumptions about the OP's background. That is neither helpful nor fair. Yes, it is possible and even likely that if your parents are friends with a professor, you are from a relatively comfortable economic background, but it is by no means certain! For all you know, the professor is an old friend from the ghetto who did well for themselves. Don't get me wrong, your point about understanding privilege is important and would be very applicable to me, for example, but we have no idea who the OP is or where they come from. Better not to assume.

w.r.t to your comment about how many people know professors: I interviewed for two schools, one on the East Coast, where nearly everyone talked about how their parents or grandparents were professors. It left a bad taste in my mouth. The other one (the one I chose) had a much more varied level of social background.

The purpose of a letter of recommendation is to supply information about the abilities of an applicant to decision makers.  The letters are only necessary because those decision makers don't possess direct knowledge about the applicant.  When making a hiring or admission decision, I would have no need to receive a letter of recommendation about an applicant I already knew very well; the letter would add no information to the process that I didn't already possess.
If you already had supplied letters of recommendation from other professors, an additional oral recommendation only makes more information available to the decision makers and therefore cannot be harmful or "unfair".
This assumes, of course, that Professor A supplied an actual recommendation.  It's one thing if Professor A said, "I have known this person for 20 years and they are incredibly bright and diligent," and quite another thing if Professor A said, "This applicant's father is an old friend of mine and I will owe you a favor if you admit them."

And "owe you a favor" would set up a conflict of interest on the part of the receiving professor. But not on the part of the OP unless they orchestrate it.

Using a personal network, and more specifically your parents' network, to get ahead in academic admission / selection process is often grumbled upon. Academic admission is supposed to be done predominantly on the basis of academic achievement and potential. Some special consideration or preference may be given to under-represented categories or students from less privileged backgrounds, but it does not seem to be the case for you. On the contrary, having a personal and family relations with established professors may be seen as a privilege. In extreme situations (Prof. is a family member of a student they recommend) it is nepotism and a clear-cut conflict of interests for the Professor.
Legally, you did nothing wrong benefiting from networks and recommendations your family has. You have not done any cheating in a strict sense.  But your fellow student is trying to make you recognise your privilege and consider whether using it was something you feel conflicted about. The way how you respond to this call may further distance you from your colleagues or help you gain their full respect.

The other answers so far seem a bit confused about what a conflict of interest is.  A conflict of interest occurs when you have two goals which have the potential to cause you to act in two different ways.
You do not have a conflict of interest.  Your only goal is to get admission.  You have done nothing wrong.
It's not clear if Prof. B has done anything at all, but let's assume he decided to admit you.  He has a goal of admitting the best possible student.  He might have a goal of helping his friend Prof. A.  He might have a conflict of interest, but he probably does not.  It is reasonable to assume that professors are capable of managing this type of conflict ethically.
Prof. A has a goal of helping you and a goal of helping his colleague.  This is a conflict of interest.  However, if Prof. A has no power over the person who makes the admissions decision, then Prof. A's conflict of interest is not an ethical problem.  Almost all recommenders are in this situation.
Conflict of interest would be problematic if the person making the admissions decision was offered a reward for admitting a certain student.  This would be serious misconduct, but your situation is nothing like that.

I agree that this has nothing to do with conflict of interest. It might be worth editing the question, however. You might consider doing that yourself, since it would affect this answer.

Or rather, nothing to do with a conflict on the part of the OP, but the new answer of tbrookside is interesting.

It may be that the admission process in your case is extremely regulated and only letters of recommendation are to be taken into account. Plus probably some local/country regulation about lack of discrimination or obligation of positive discrimination.
In that case - yes, you have a problem. Similar to the ones inside traders have when they are caught getting benefits in an unfair way (the "fairness" is regulated by law)
Otherwise the reality of life is that you hire/accept someone you like and that you find appropriate. This is a mix of objective facts and subjective feelings. This includes recommendations of parents, friends and their dog - which you may or not take into account.
The fact that Prof A recommended you to Prof B may have many reasons. One of them could be that he trusts you and knows you are good enough.
The other student is jealous, frustrated, whatever. This has nothing to do with academia, just human nature, including gossips about favoritism, sleeping with someone to get a promotion, using diversity programs to get in, ... You will not change that.

If only letters are taken into account, then an oral recommendation is not a problem, because it is not considered.

@AnonymousPhysicist: I can only imagine that something is not considered when there are only fully anonymous, quantifiable information. Only marks on exams without the name of the school for instance, no names, photos or anything. Otherwise whatever identifies a candidate influences the choice because we are human.

What the others are accusing you of is nepotism.

nepotism - the practice among those with power or influence of favouring relatives or friends, especially by giving them jobs:
Oxford Dictionaries

If it were me, I would say to these people something like, "You know, now that you have mentioned it I'm wondering if I did get an unfair boost. Do you think I should join another group?"  If they say yes, then say, "I'll think about it but first I'll speak to Professor B."
Then I would speak to Professor B and put the whole situation to them. Ask their advice on how much influence Prof A had and how you should deal with the whole situation.
From then on, you should make it a matter of your own conscience rather than the opinions of others.
I know this is a tough message but IMO it always pays to come clean about these things.
DISCLAIMER - I have only said what I would do. I take no responsibility for what actually happens if you follow my advice. However as you say, the cat is already out of the bag so nothing much worse is likely to happen than has already.
Finally, as someone has said, this is a life lesson. Learn from it and act upon what you have learned in the future. We all make mistakes.

In response to comments
@Anonymous Physicist - I disagree. The OP explicitly says "my bad, I exposed this myself".  I would classify that as a mistake.
@Maarten Buis - I didn't suggest that you accused anyone of anything - I'm not sure why you make that comment. With regard to nepotism, I merely gave a dictionary definition, not my own conception of the term. I also said that this is what the other  students were claiming (going by that definition). I did not ascribe guilt, I suggested the OP examine their own conscience before making a final decision.

You said "We all make mistakes" but in this case the asker did not say they did anything at all.

I have not accused the OP of anything. I have not accused prof A or B of anything. I would not describe this situation as nepotism. You can have priviledge without nepotism.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Re: Terminated from D. Health Science program E.B.D.. Possible to apply to different program?
I concede this is similar to a few other questions, but any help would be appreciated.
My husband completed the twenty coursework requirement for his D.H.Sc. with a 4.0 G.P.A. from the online program of an established accredited U.S. University.
When admitted, the program claimed no one could finish the course work E.B.D.  Then after two years, eight courses including two dissertation semesters and  approval from the committee on his thesis project which was closely related his statement of professional interest in his application and the professional work of both of us since 1996, the University changed the policy to the traditional two years after coursework completion to complete the thesis.
Ironically, but irrelevant to us, when he was two courses from finishing the courses, the University changed it back so in theory no one can finish E.B.D., so I am speculating there were already issues, but we can't change the past.
During the seven years, he has at four faculty thesis advisors from the University although his Thesis committee, who are all Ph.D's in his professional field have otherwise has remained intact.  His project was again approved by the committee after completion of the coursework with Thesis advisor number three, also from his profession.
Where this came off the rails was when the third faculty advisor was promoted and the fourth faculty advisor, who is from a different health care profession, took over about a year and a half ago when he was well into data collection of the approved study.  I have little doubt without this change he would have finished his Thesis over a year ago.
Faculty advisor number four, never liked his study, kept requesting changes in method and data verification including a completely re-do of the study including a legally impossible data verification requirement from a third party governmental agency that refused to release raw data, even with subjects signing a release.
They spent most of the past year and a half at an impasse and the advisor kept asking for changes, my husband, hired a dissertation coach to help, made most of the changes, but then after reviewing each change, the advisor refused to take the project back to committee because of the data verification issue.  Frustrating to us is our data collection method was approved in the two previously approved studies, but this advisor felt this point made the study flawed.
My husband requested a new advisor several times, ideally going back to thesis advisor number three who was still employed by the University, always denied, which of course did nothing to help the relationship with faculty advisor number four.
He has now received the anticipated termination letter.  In my opinion, this last faculty advisor decided early on that this Dissertation was going no where but because it was his job, he just kept leading him one with one more change, one more change and because he was six years into this, my husband kept trying to make it happen.
Now what?  He is distraught and after seven years and knowing that he has spent the past year and a half fighting this advisor, I am trying to find a way to salvage all of this time, money and quite frankly a decent study with meaningful data since we have been running the study in our business (another problem for the advisor, we are for-profit and the subjects are paying customers, not non-for profit) for two and a half years.
Can he approach another University that might accept some or all of the coursework and do a Dissertation through them?  He already has a Masters Degree and a Professional Degree.  But are there any options to make something of all this work?
Any ideas would be helpful and appreciated since the University is not returning any of our calls or e-mails.

What does EBD mean?

I think "everything but dissertation", probably the same as ABD?

I think so.  Many people will include it on a c.v., but unfortunately, it's meaningless.

Something doesn't smell wright here.  Why so many different advisors?  In the graduate-school models I'm used to, students and advisors choose each other.  There is no external assignment and no reason to switch if the student and advisor are both satisfied.  In particular, promotion is not a reason to end an advising relationship.  On the other hand, changing advisors requires only the agreement of the student and the new advisor; there is no such thing as "requesting" a new advisor.

This all sounds very weird. Please explain why thesis advisors #1 and #2 stopped being advisors/left? Did they have a problem specifically with him, or with the department?

Wow.
Okay, it's too soon to give up on this institution.  Go higher up.  If you don't want to subject your husband to the risk of more frustration right now, go on your own initially.
Your story didn't leave clear for my what the internal dynamics of the committee were....  Any hope there?

Thinking about @mkennedy's great suggestion, I realized that a paragraph I wrote in another thread would be useful here too.
Lay out the contradictions in a calm tone of voice, letting the situation do the heavy lifting -- avoid expressive language, bitterness, tears, etc., if possible. Say you would like some advice. If no advice is offered in that appointment, give your email address and phone number, and ask if you can check in in a couple of days. If possible, bring some of your paper trail with you, to leave with the administrator. (You don't have to go over them in detail together during the meeting.)

First go to the chair of the department. Then look for an "ombudsman" or dean of graduate school. If you haven't, start compiling a detailed history/timeline of events.

Yes, in the universities I have known, the dean of the graduate school would be a natural person to speak with or write to.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
Paid leave for a graduate teaching assistant
For quite some times this question has popped up to my mind. In many jobs, you can take paid leave for some days. As a PhD student (F1-visa) in US, I am being supported by the department in the form teaching assistantship (TA) . Is there a provision for taking paid leave for TAs?

This question is going to be too specific since it will vary by school. Also, depending on what you mean by "paid leave", you may need to talk with immigration (http://studyinthestates.dhs.gov/maintaining-your-status)

My guess would be in the vast majority of universities in the US it is not possible for graduate students to take "paid leave" when on teaching assistantship as the money is specifically tied to the performance of specific teaching related duties.

It isn't clear exactly what kind of leave the OP is asking about (sick leave?  parental or other family leave?  vacation time?)

Teaching assistants are not recognized as workers by the US Labor Dept, so no right for form unions, no paid leaves. Of course many schools exploit graduate students who sometimes end up doing lots of the teaching or lab work.

Some universities' teaching assistants have unionized, e.g. U Wisconsin - Madison.

In the program I directed for many years, there was no provision for TAs to take paid leave.  They could take unpaid leave.

This is my experience too- TA's are expected to fulfill their academic duties (teaching, office hours, etc.) and don't accrue  sick leave or vacation like regular staff.

Exactly.  They are not full employees.

It depends on what you mean by "paid leave," as this can mean more than one thing in the context in which you are using it:

If be "paid leave" you mean "a few weeks of paid vacation time for going on holiday", most universities will give you 2-3 weeks formally, plus holidays.  The holidays may be substantial (e.g., including a week for thanksgiving, another for winter break, plus two weeks for winter holidays), or they may be much more minimal.  The de facto expectations, however, vary wildly between faculty members.
If by "paid leave" you mean "continue being paid while taking time off to deal with a major life event, such as having a child, caring for a dying relative, or long-term illness" then neither the US government nor most employers support this.  This can be a big shock for people from other countries where such support is guaranteed and assumed.  The Family and Medical Leave Act does provide for up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave, but I do not know how that interacts with an F1 visa.

Part time employees (and that would include graduate student TA/RA's who are typically paid for 20 hours per week of work) aren't covered by the Family and Medical Leave Act.

@BrianBorchers This is not necessarily true, and seems to depend on the university, and whether it interprets the 20 hours/week as "half time" or as "full time, with 20 hours/week defined responsibilities."  Many also extend benefits beyond the bare minimum requirements, e.g., this Oregon State policy

Oregon State seems to have decided to give this benefit to their student employees, but that doesn't change the fact that under the law employers aren't required to provide FMLA benefits to part time employees.  In my experience most universities don't give FMLA benefits to TA's.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
How to tell about mistakes made in a previous publication to adviser?
I am currently a PhD student. I have a previous publications on my field in a top tier conference. Now my adviser wants to extend the work. The problem is when I started working on that again, I found some results were not correct in the published paper. I did mistakes unintentionally interpreting the results previously, but somehow the reviewer did not notice that. Now I am too worried telling about this to my adviser. Can you please suggest me how to approach this to my adviser? What can be the consequence of this to the published paper?

One way or the other, you will have to build a relationship with your adviser in which you can discuss such questions. In this regard, your relationship with your adviser is no different than with your wife or girlfriend: waiting too long doesn't make the problem go away.
This might just be the right time to start talking about difficult issues.

Unfortunately there are no two ways about it. Mistakes can and do happen. It is better to go forward with it to your adviser than try to tip-toe around/through it. Ostensibly, your adviser is on your side. If there really was a mistake perhaps both of you can try to understand what went wrong. Perhaps there is a way to redo your analysis or solve the issue you are having.
The consequence to the published paper might be that it is retracted. This will depend, was it a conference paper or a journal article? I think it is unfortunate that a lot of people look down on being wrong. Obviously the goal is to be right more often than not. But letting known false findings linger can only harm your career and field. And you don't want to get into a scenario where someone else finds it and then your honest mistake comes into question as being nefarious.
I suggest that you approach your adviser in a one-on-one meeting and clearly explain your old findings and how you got them, compared to your new findings and how you realized there was an error. Suggest that perhaps both of you can look into fixing the error some how. Or if not ask them to suggest how to approach dealing with the mistake.
If the paper is on your website upload a corrected version with a note about the mistake. If this was published in an academic journal you are going to have to contact them most likely as well. They may decide to publish a note or retraction. Its best to be open and honest about what happened, as you say it was a mistake. So you have nothing to hide. Hope this helps! Good Luck.

Also, it always better if you point out your own mistakes, than someone else. By doing it yourself you can do some damage control.

@kmshannon thanks for your reply. It was a conference paper.

I wouldn't sweat as much since it was a conference paper. Typically these papers are seen more as "work/research in progress". And there is more of an acceptance for errors and findings that do not pan out in the end. Like @WolfgangBangerth said, this is a good time to start building a deeper relationship with your adviser. Part of that is being able to have these crucial conversations. I hope it all works out, sounds like your going in the right direction.


text:
How to Cite an IGO Document in Chicago style
I need to create citation for this document
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/countering-hybrid-warfare-project-understanding-hybrid-warfare
It appears that it is developed by an entity called Multinational Capability
Development Campaign (MCDC) which as far as I can gather, is a cooperation between NATO and individual NATO member states, but what does it mean that its a "campaign".
some more info can be found about them here
https://www.act.nato.int/mcdc
however it is not clear what exactly this entity is to be defined as. I am furthermore not clear on what to define the document as, whether its a report or something else
According to this page
https://libguides.tru.ca/c.php?g=194004&p=1277108 you can cite Reports with the format listed, however this format requires place of publication and publisher which again is not clear to me.
the website CitationMachine lists a field for University and Publisher/sponser for citing documents which I am again, not sure what to fill in as.
one of the initial pages includes the information that it is

This document was developed and written by the contributing nations
  and international organizations of the Multinational Capability
  Development Campaign (MCDC) 2016-17.

as well as information on the two primary authors, but I am still fuzzy on how to format it to be correct according to chicago.
I need both Bibliographical note as well as foodnote for 1st and 2nd instance of citation, in chicago style.
any help on how to treat this is appreciated.

A report is referenced in the following format in Chicago style

Last name, First name. Title of Work. Publisher city: Publisher, Year
  of publication. Accessed Month Date, Year. URL.

In the case of your report you have 2 authors and an unknown place of publishing so Bibliographical note would be;

Cullen, Dr. Patrick J., and Erik Reichborn-Kjennerud. MCDC Countering
  Hybrid Warfare Project: Understanding Hybrid Warfare. N.p:
  Multinational Capability Development Campaign (MCDC), 2017. Accessed
  September 26, 2018.
  https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/647776/dar_mcdc_hybrid_warfare.pdf.

As you can see N.p is used to show that there is no record of place of publisher. This can be seen in this guide and this question.
Your first footnote should look like this;

Dr. Patrick J. Cullen and Erik Reichborn-Kjennerud, MCDC Countering Hybrid Warfare Project: Understanding Hybrid Warfare (N.p:
  Multinational Capability Development Campaign (MCDC), 2017), page number.

Your subsequent footnote should look like this;

Cullen, MCDC Countering Hybrid Warfare Project: Understanding Hybrid Warfare, page number.


text:
What accounts for a good PhD experience?
We know that there are multiple horror stories regarding people's PhD experience.
I too had a minor setback : my advisor asked me to change advisors since my progress was not upto the mark.
What is it like to do good research? That is what could be the possible sufficient check marks I need to see in my program which would indicate if I should quit or strive ? I am asking this because not all challenges are positive and not all are negative.I was wondering that the more happier people might have not contributed enough on the e-community and it would be helpful to see the timeline of a successful and fulfilling PhD. ( we all know about the bigger Yes\No ( quals, defense etc) , I am more interested in the daily/weekly grind
Thanks

Possible duplicate of How do I know how well I am progressing in my PhD?

I don't think I've ever met a PhD student perfectly happy with their work, but there is a clear pattern among the few I knew who were doing quite well: a good work relationship with their PhD advisor. This means:

Shared interest in the topic and shared specific goals (it seems obvious but it's not always the case, far from it)
Good communication, and especially mutual understanding on how the collaboration works:

agreement on the balance autonomy/supervision, i.e. what the PhD student is supposed to do on their own vs. what they are supposed to ask their supervisor advice for.
clear communication policy: emails or meeting, meetings frequency, open door or scheduled appointments, etc.

It's a matter of finding the right way to work together between the student and the advisor. For example some advisors expect their PhD student to be quite autonomous, others prefer to be involved in every decision; both styles can work, as long as the student and the advisor are on the same page.
There is no general objective way to evaluate a PhD in progress, this is why good communication with the PhD advisor is essential since they are the only person who can give this kind of feedback. If the relationship works smoothly, the PhD student can be confident even when problems happen and doesn't waste too much time and mental energy questioning their own work.


text:
Can exam questions be removed for being too difficult after students have sat the exam?
Our students recently sat an exam and A LOT of them failed. As part of the moderation process it was noted that there were some questions that none of the students had answered correctly. Is there any justification (evidence based if possible) for removing the 'difficult' questions?

Your mention of the moderation process suggests this is in a UK setting rather than a North American setting - is that the case? I mention this because there are considerable differences in the "workflow" and "freedom for manoeuvre" between the two systems.

Is there a set of written rules or guidelines at your uni?

Yemon Choi asked a relevant question and I may even go further in stating that there are almost 200 countries, each with its own culture, that are not UK or in north America. Adding a location would help.

Please don’t write answers in comments. It bypasses our quality measures by not having voting (both up and down) available on comments, as well as having other problems detailed on meta. Comments are for clarifying and improving the question; please don’t use them for other purposes.

One worry I have in such situations is that removing some of the questions has a different impact on different students. If there is an issue with a question and some of the students spent an inordinate amount of time on that question then it can affect how they do on others because of the time factor (assuming a timed exam). This impacts the fairness of the solution.
There are several reasons for what you are seeing including ill stated questions and poor instruction on the required material.
If you want to have a completely fair solution, just void the exam itself. Repeat it with different questions after an analysis, perhaps. Another fair solution is to give everyone full marks. If grading has any competitive aspects, such as limits on grading levels, then giving everyone minimal pass isn't a fair solution. Likewise giving full marks on just the difficult questions is also potentially unfair to some students, again assuming that time is a factor.
Note that another possible reason for this is that you just have a statistically unusual set of students. That happens, and, statistically, it must on rare occasions. But most experienced professors will have already recognized that from other indicators.

One suggestion -- if you void the exam, if anyone did particularly well on it, you might award them extra credit or find some other way to make their work "count".

Why not lower the threshold to pass (and thus the entire grading scale)? It is what is done at my university. It would impact all students somewhat equally.

We had such a problem in high school, that a teacher gave a faulty value (show that x=k) but he copied k wrongly. As such he offered anyone who wanted to take a new exam, or to be happy with the result they achieved in the first exam (without the faulty question). I'd wager that this is the fairest solution. If you scored highly on the first one, you do not need to void your good grade. Only caveat was, if you took the 2nd exam, that grade stuck, no matter if it was worse.

@SirHawrk it wouldn't impact the students equally, as mentioned in this answer if a student has spent a lot of time on the question, the chosen offset might not be enough to compensate them for this time. There is no way to ensure this with complete fairness.

@infinitezero We had that situation in one of my undergrad classes as well (it is probably quite common unfortunately). There were several errors actually. After a formal complaint by a rather large number of students everyone was offered a new exam, but in this case the highest of the two scores were awarded. That seemed fair to me, as there can be lots of reasons to perform poorly on the second exam (other commitments and work-life balance in particular comes to mind).

I don't know why you think voiding the exam or giving everyone full marks is fair.  It's a uniform solution, but it's not a solution that will seem fair to students who did well/put in a lot of effort.

@glaux If they spend time on it and could solve it then it is on them. Exams are also about time management. Removing this question entirely would be unfair yes. Lowering the passing grade by the amount of points the quesiton would have given is not.

"Giving everyone full marks" is not fair to the students who actually learned for the exam. There is also no justification for it.

@wimi, it is only unfair if grading is competitive. If it isn't competitive then those who do well still get good marks. So, it isn't unfair to them.

I don't have an evidence-based answer, but I've always taken the position that if a preponderance of students miss a question either the question was faulty or my teaching was faulty.  Either way, it was my fault, not theirs.
I removed such questions from the computation of the grade and adjusted the point values of the remaining questions, with the caveat that removing question(s) would never lower a student's grade.  I computed the grades with the question(s) in place, and again with the question(s) removed.  If any grade went down I added an adjustment to that student's grade to return it to the original score.
If I removed a question from any but the final exam, I also cautioned the class, "You will see that question again, so if it needs more explanation, be sure to ask me."
PS: As Buffy has commented, I always warned the class that the questions have equal points, so make two passes through the exam and answer the easy ones first.

Very commendable approach, this is the right way.

I think in this case it might be better to adjust the grading curve instead. Suppose your exam has a theoritical maximal score of 100. After grading it you notice a few questions were too hard and these questions are worth 20 points.
The initial plan was to require 90 points for the top grade and 50 points as the minimal passing grade.
This would result in a lot more people failing the exam than you intended to fail.
I would suggest to require say 72 points for the top grade and 40 points as the minimal passing grade (adjust as needed). For a student who scored zero on the too hard question this is exactly the same as removing the too hard questions from the grading (that is 90% for top grade and 50% for passing). But if a student still got some points on the too hard questions this method still gives them credit for it whereas removing the questions would not. The students in the exam didn't know these questions were too hard and might have spend a considerable amount of time in the exam trying to solve them. They shouldn't be punished for that.

This is not necessarily possible. At my university, to make grading more fair and transparent, the grading scale had to be communicated to the students at the beginning of the course. Changing the top grade from 95% to 70% during the semester would  not have been allowed according to uni rules.

@Sursula-they- You have to obey your university rules but it seems very strange to me if that would be forbidden but taking out a few questions from the exam after it was written was allowed.

I am not even sure if taking out questions would be allowed.

I've had classes where this was the effective outcome, but with a clever way of communicating it: The instructor turned those questions into "bonus questions", which give points as normal but aren't included in the calculation of grade boundaries.
This way students who did all but the too-hard questions can get full marks, but those who solved the hard question didn't get less than before.

@quarague In the UK, grade boundaries are generally set at the level of the university.

+1 for curve. The better way to "curve" in this case (in my opinion) would be to make it so the highest score became the benchmark. This is simpler than playing around with thresholds until you get a result you like. If the exam has a theoretical maximum score of 100, but the highest score was 87, everyone would get graded out of 87. Since none of OP's students got all the points, this will increase all of their grades while keeping their relative grades the same.

@AlexandreAubrey This scheme strongly depends on how good your strongest student is and can lead to widely varying results if applied to different classes. As an anecdote that happened to a friend of mine: a high school was using this method. A foreign exchange student joined the class. The exchange student had a much stronger background and scored well above the previous top students. As a result average grades in the class fell by almost 10%. After a few tests like that the teacher adjusted the method to 'second best is 100%'.

I try to not make the exams too hard, but sometimes I don't reach my goal.  I've come up with a "curve" policy that I think is fair, and that students haven't complained about.
This is how it reads in my syllabus:

Exams are curved to a B– mean at worst (score mapped to standard normal curve + 2.7), though adjusted such that a numerical grade of 80
on an exam is never lower than a 3.0. The instructor will adjust this
as necessary to reward good performance. For example, an exam in which
every student scores 95 or higher would result in A’s for the whole
class on that exam.

UPDATE:  To expand on the question's premise, I would do everything I could to not remove a question from the exam post-hoc.  I think there can be tremendous fairness issues over that.  Think of a student who spent an inordinate amount of time on the question, to the point that other questions get ignored, only to find that the question didn't count, vs a student who didn't think they'd be able to answer the question and skipped it entirely, comfortably finishing the rest of the exam.   I can say that I believe the first student is harmed whether you leave the question in or not, but removing the question post hoc certainly doesn't help.  It's a bell you can't unring.

My solution in a similar situation may not be applicable or fair or legal in yours, but here it is.
Although I try not to, I often write exams that are too hard (in part). I want them to be learning experiences for the student, not just evaluations.
By the time I give exams in a course, I know from other interactions that there are some students on track for an A and some on track to fail. With that information I can adjust the grading curve. The top scores, no matter how low,  represent outstanding work.

My practice was somewhat similar. I warned students that there would be on very hard question on the exam. Students are also often warned to write answers for the easiest (to them) questions before tackling the more challenging ones.

I wouldn't remove the question altogether, because that might feel too unfair. Instead I would propose a system which rewards those who did well on the question, but does so without punishing the majority who did not get that tough question.
In the past, I had a 4 question exam to grade, and one of the questions had an abysmal median over each of its parts. That 'hard' question was worth 30 points, with the other 70 points spread over the 3 remaining questions. So, I made the exam worth 70 points, and gave students a score based on their 3 best questions. For most, this meant the hard question was dropped entirely. If someone got the full 30 points on the hard question, those 30 points would replace their lowest question score, which presumably would be a question worth 15 points. This means that they would get 15 bonus points, or just over 120% on the exam.
This scoring system received no complaints from students, as it could only ever help them (either dropping their bad scores, or giving them extra credit).

PS just in case it's not clear, even though the exam has its point value changed, you would still keep it worth the same weight in the final grade calculation

This answer works if the numeric score is the only thing that matters from the students' perspective. But if their rank compared to other students is important, this system will hurt some. In particular, a student who follows the common exam advice of "allocate time to each question in proportion to its marks" will be disadvantaged against one who chooses to neglect one question entirely and focus on the other three.

I have been in a similar situation. While a lot of this will depend on the level of your students (i.e., I would treat freshmen differently from graduate students), my process was to look over the test carefully and re-evaluate how I assembled it. Were the questions fair (hard is OK)? Did the students have a chance to work similar problems as homework or during class?
Then, I'd look at the overall distribution of grades. Did some students ace the test (or come close)? If so, the test was fair. Was the distribution "double-humped" (indicating two populations of students - those who studied and those who did not)?
Testing should, in my opinion, be fair. If it was your fault (e.g., the test was too long or too difficult), then I would remove the "offending" questions for the next exam and I would curve the graded exam appropriately. If it was not your fault (i.e., the students just didn't study), then I'd leave it as is. Those are, of course, the two extremes; you may need to combine those (with potentially other) solutions to meet your needs.

My June 1980 O Level Mathematics exam (UK) was voided after 86% of us failed it.
Several of the questions related to things none of us had even been taught (our tutor told us he thought they'd mixed up the O level paper with the A/S paper).  The A/S paper was the halfway point between O level and A level.
We all got a resit in the August.

Your school might have a policy. Check that, because we can't know. There may be laws that apply as well, depending on location and the level of your institution. If you have a student union, council, representatives, etc., consider seeking advice from them as well as other faculty.
You have several good answers already (though I disagree with grading curves on principle) but I'd like to focus on a question/challenge that's not getting as much attention.
Student success rate can be an indicator of exam quality or "appropriateness", but because of confounding factors you should not let it be the ultimate judge. As an educator you are often in a conflict of interest between having your students pass (keeping them and your institution, at least temporarily, happy with you) and having your students learn (doing your job).
"Most students failed" - or even "all students failed this question" - is not enough evidence to conclude that the exam - or question - was too hard. It may be that students were distracted by other events, that you had a statistically anomalous (but still likely to happen once in a while) group of students, or that they weren't taught the concepts well. Adjusting the exam won't give them the knowledge they are expected to have.
Therefore the next step should be to determine whether the questions were reasonable, not based on how many students answered correctly, but how many students should be able to answer correctly. Daniel's answer explains a method for just that.
If the question is reasonable, you probably want to keep it and address the failures some other way. Perhaps remedial classes - with a different approach or instructor if possible - and a second attempt at the exam. We have done evening classes to help classes catch up in relatively short order, but of course that's not always possible. If this was not the final exam of the class, you can be more charitable with grading it, but make sure to use similar questions later on.
If the question was not reasonable, you should remove it from grading or find another way to compensate students, and consider offering a second attempt to any students who feel that they spent too much time on the difficult question. Again, other answers handle this case already.

I can't speak for the OP's situation, but how about offering the missed questions as a homework set, or even the entire exam for that matter, and giving half the missed credit back? That way students who worked hard on the hard problems will have a leg up on those who didn't. It's also a great way to force students to review what they should have known for the exam, so it reinforces actual learning instead of cram-and-forget.

I faced a similar situation where none of my students could solve a problem on the final. The problem had been assigned as homework, but since I don’t collect homework, it seemed no one attempted it. I initially thought about removing it from the exam but decided instead to award most points to students who demonstrated an understanding of the question, even if they couldn’t solve it. This approach felt fairer to those who made an effort. Perhaps you could consider a similar compromise?

If no one attempted it, how do you judge? And, I hope you mean "most points" only for this question, not the exam as a whole, which would prejudice others unfairly.

Yes. Of course, only for this problem. I try to see if the student at least can write down the definition of the statement which they are required to prove.

No. If you want more students to pass, lower the overall score/grading needed for passing.
Reasoning:

Some students solved the question. Obviuously this Question may differentiate good from very good students, so removing it is kind of weird.

it may be unfair to remove it, maybe some of the students which answered this question used more time and focus on this question than on other questions (and maybe skipped these). It could be that you put somebody randomly at a disadvantage


text:
Can ResearchGate upload preprints from arXiv without author's consent?
I recently uploaded a preprint on arXiv (the journal I submitted the manuscript allows this) under CC BY-NC-ND. However, it can be found on ResearchGate (without my consent). While it can be removed from my profile, it still appears on ResearchGate. Can ResearchGate automatically upload papers from arXiv without the author's consent?

Interesting question. It seems that ResearchGate believes that they can: "Why can't I remove a publication page or full-text? ... We sometimes make a full-text available where a publication has a Creative Commons license. If you feel that a publication has been wrongly attributed a Creative Commons license, please contact us at www.researchgate.net/contact."

Note that licenses are "sticky". Once you issue a license and someone takes advantage of it, you can't say oops and withdraw it (for them, at least).


text:
Is it a good practise to involve a child in a statement of purpose?
Is it a good practise to involve a child in a statement of purpose to say how my point of view has changed since the birth?

Still, if others do not include it in their statements of purpose, yours may stand out as different.

Is it relevant to your research? For example, perhaps you are interested in researching a medical issue you or your child personally experienced, like a birth complication or something like that?

No, the statement is about your motivation in doing research and about your research goals, not about your private life goals.
Having a child is undoubtedly a joyful event which can definitely change your perspective on work-life balance, but now that it's changed, simply state what  your current research goals and motivations are.

Don't you think that it somehow shows the commitee that you are able to pursuit your academical goals and also life goals, manage your time and some social qualities?

@sitilge There might be differences among cultures (you haven't mentioned where you're applying), but I think that one of the most important qualities in academic writing is to show what you are asked to show, in a clear and concise way, without adding unnecessary information: all the qualities that you mention in the remark are certainly good, but show them indirectly. See also this question and this answer .

The U.S. What would be the way to "show it indirectly" ?

@sitilge By writing a clear, balanced, well-argumented SOP, avoiding overemphatic tones: this shows that you value your time and other's people time, because you're giving them what they want to read and you don't indulge in unneeded digressions.

It is the digressions which sometimes make the statements less boring.

In the US, doing so may imperil your candidacy in at least two ways:

Some academics will assume right away that since your children are so important to you that they appear in your statement of purpose, they will automatically take precedence over your degree-related responsibilities. (This is not a hazard specific to academe, but neither is academe free of it.) Academe is a greedy pursuit; it does not typically favor those with competing priorities.
Some academics, especially those conditioned to industry, will be made uncomfortable by including children a statement of purpose, possibly considering it unprofessional. Children are typically don't-ask-don't-tell in the US; asking is sometimes legally dubious (as it may open a workplace to charges of unequal-opportunity hiring), so telling is unwelcome.

I would strongly recommend against this. Record the epiphany if you like; bypass its source.

"Academe is a greedy pursuit; it does not typically favor those with competing priorities" This is as sad as it is accurate. The OP should come to terms with the fact that, down the line, any other big commitment is not going to be interpreted as a net positive behind closed doors.

The other two answers (as I write this) are useful and (so far as I know, in U.S.) are accurate about facts.
Further, I'd argue against including your epiphany, in part because it is possible to argue that it ought not to have been such a great epiphany, since, after all, many people do work + have families (without playing any gender-biased or other-biased games about whose responsibility the kids are...) That is, even if you don't mean it that way, there is also a large possibility of interpreting remarks about this as though you'd surprised yourself that you were able to do work and have kids, etc, ... Indeed, most of us probably are! But it is a common state...
So, as with other life-epiphanies, I think it does not need to be aired publicly. Even if it doesn't harm your applications, I'd think that it'd make you appear naive about adult responsibilities...

authors: Золжаргал Мөнхтөр


text:
Asking Professor for teaching assistantship
I am an undergraduate student and have taken a course which interests me a lot details won't matter I guess).
The course is split into lectures and lab sessions. The lab prof had a graduate student as a teaching assistant, who simply sat next to the professor doing nothing for the whole semester the course was held (for free it looks like).
Being very interested in the course, I read many textbooks, constantly asked prof questions, answer fellow classmates' questions on the course's forum(which amazed my professor). Finally, I met her in the campus after the course grades were released. She revealed that my coursework was the best in the class and showed my enthusiasm for the subject (150 pages long with complete bibliography list and references).
Being highly interested in the subject, I am interested in helping my professor during the lab hours, during the final year of my studies.
I have helped other students when I was taking the course, excelled in it, and my professor acknowledged my dedication.
As with any requests made to professors, I am highly worried how to express my will for being a teaching assistant to the course (having in mind that I am an undergrad) without seeming like the arrogant student trying to "replace" the teacher as a result of (falsely showing) she was not doing her work right.
(Stuff that come to mind I'd have to do during the course are - preparation of lab lecture notes, helping students - software problems during lab sessions, help/guidance on the forum, coursework grading, and extra lab sessions.)

Depends on how your dept. hires TAs. Mine allots graduate TAs to positions first before considering other applicants since they are in need most for funding. Other depts. is more up to professors to select them.

But you won't know unless you ask. I don't see any potential harm with such a question.

"Would you have a TA position for me in one of your courses? I'd happy to do teaching, prepare notes, help students, running tutorials."

I would add that during my graduate studies I asked a professor for a TA position and did not get it but that did lead to an excellent recommendation letter - so show interest, ask, and be gracious if professor says no.

A warm thank you for your comments. @ChrisC as far as I know TAships are voluntary positions. Some professors are open to TAs for homework hours.

"sat next to the professor doing nothing for the whole semester."  ... so you did't see him grading all the lab reports.

There is no reason not to ask. This is all upside for you. You'll show enthusiasm, get a great letter, make an ally. You may not get it, though, for 2 reasons.
First, as mentioned in the comments, TAships are regarded as part of the graduate training process, and so are awarded to grad students first, often as part of their stipend requirements. It also offers grad students important training in classroom maintenance and teaching.
Second, from the university's perspective, having an undergraduate take responsibility for a class with undergraduates is a risk, even though you probably are worthy.  Paying students would probably feel slighted to have a peer weigh in on their grade, but that's all speculation. In any case, you are obviously a strong candidate for graduate school. Go for it!


text:
Can a successful, prestigious post-doc make up for a PhD from a mid-ranked university and make you competitive for a tenure-track position?
EDIT: Apparently, the longer version below is somewhat off-topic due to the number of personal, non-generalisable factors involved in the decision it describes. I do however believe that the main question of whether a good post-doc can outweigh a "bad" or "modest" PhD is highly general both in its nature (trends in hiring and successful curricula do exist in academia) and interest for current, past and prospective grad students. For this reason, I would sincerely appreciate if fellow users could discriminate between the main question in itself and the additional, somewhat optional description of my personal situation given hereafter before flagging the message as off-topic.
Detailed, horrendously long version below for those brave enough to face a wall of text:
I recently graduated with highest honours from a good, albeit not tier 1 UK university. Like many science students, my dearest (and pretty much only) wish is to become an independent researcher in a good university, preferably in the US. Unfortunately, today's academic market being in the atrocious state we know, entertaining the hope of becoming a PI without a stellar curriculum appears suicidal. And judging from the CV of most of the tenure or tenure-track academics in the top 30 universities, the crucial point in an academic's career appears to be grad school, as over 95% of those I checked hold PhDs from a top-ranked institution in their field. This trend seems even stronger among the younger generation, as pretty much every cases of faculty coming from "lesser" institutions (e.g. U. Delaware or Ann Harbor) have been appointed in the late 80s or earlier, while most recently-filled positions went to CHYMPS alumni. The most terrifying point being that even in mid- or lower-ranked universities, the vast majority of professors also comes from top grad schools.
I have been offered a fully-funded PhD scholarship at a Russel Group University. The subject is exciting, and I was first very happy with this offer. Unfortunately, although the uni ranks 3rd or 4th nationwide as a whole, the department in which I would enroll in very poorly ranked (in the 50 - 75 worldwide bracket at best) and has an abysmal placement record for PhD students. Worst: the project is a coin toss, and has about the same probability of yielding very high-impact results as of yielding nothing at all. However, due to a number of factors (source of the funding, network the research group is a part of, subject of the PhD project), even a moderately successful outcome could position me for a series of very prestigious post-doctoral fellowships, that would take me to leading US universities.
Which leads - finally - to my question: Is it completely insane to contemplate declining this scholarship in order to apply to higher ranked departments? This option would obviously force me to take a gap year (which I could use, to be honest) to get back in synch with the applications calendar. Considering my academic record (3 degrees all obtained with high honours, 4.0 GPA, 2.5 years of research experience, 2 published papers in 5+ impact factor journals, and industrial experience through the potential gap year), I believe I have a decent shot at high ranking programmes both in the US and the UK. This is, however, a big gamble, as I would have absolutely no assurance of finding another PhD of equal or higher quality when taking my decision.
Currently, my decision hangs from the title-question: let's say I take the studentship and (big if here, I know) manage to secure a high-end postdoc position; would that postdoc offset the modest ranking of my grad school and give me a decent shot a tenure-track positions in the US?

Hi, and welcome to Academia.SE!  The answer to your question is almost certainly: "maybe."  I'm not sure how much more we can help with such a highly personal and subjective set of judgements.  Is there some more objective question that could be useful for you to have answered?

What field are you in? For life sciences, the post-doc is given much more importance than grad school, and no one will care about where you did your PhD if you have strong post-doc publications.

I was always told (in mathematics), that the institutions matter less than the research.  If you do amazing stuff, you will be noticed and highly respected regardless.  That the "top" talents tend to end up at the "top" universities is mostly a combination of tradition and recruiting: the top universities are willing to pay a premium for the top talents, and the talent may want to associate with other talent, so lesser universities usually can't compete on these.

Einstein was a patent clerk... that didn't appear to hold him back. Moral of the story is that, with few exceptions, we live and work in a world of what have you done for me lately and who you know is more important than what you know. Great, current publications, with top scientific collaborators who have strong networks and think highly of you will go a very long way. The problem is it is usually difficult and frustrating to cut through the noise in order to establish that type of network and reputation if you are trying to crash the party as an outsider.

If true, this would be a red flag "has an abysmal placement record for PhD students." If that is their history, unless they have completely turned over their faculty or you will be working for the new rising star in the field that they just hired, and that person views their advisees success as a measure of their own, then you should not expect your experience to be any different. That is lottery thinking; my chances are inexplicably better than average. Just pick work that you will love and people you will like and want to think about and spend time with every day for the next several years.

Although I think the close-voters have a valid point, I like the responses enough to vote to reopen.

I'd post an answer but I cant; so: "Can a... post-doc make up for a PhD from a mid-ranked university... for a tenure-track position?" - Sure. If you've done good research in your field that has been acknowledged (e.g. by publications in key journals/conferences) and is well-known, than identities of institutions would be secondary considerations. It's about the candy, not the wrapper, isn't it?

To my perception, the later you manage to "hit" a high-status place, the better, actually, because the standard pattern is a slight-but-steady ever-lesser-status trend. That is, typically, and statistically so if only for reasons of the available positions of various sorts, one's PhD institution is probably (and on the average, certainly) the highest-status place one will ever be. In particular, one corollary is that high-status post-docs are not typical sequels to high-status PhDs (even though a reason, if no other, is that there aren't as many such positions!)
On the other hand, a higher-status post-doc than PhD assures nothing. A momentary "surprise improvement", with no permanent "advantage".
The more genuine advantage is that, in the best-case scenarios, the high status is due to good, energetic, communicative, stimulating people who will help you do better for the rest of your life than if you'd been in the company of lethargic, disinterested people... though "status" is imperfectly correlated...
And, further, it does require considerable effort on your part to benefit from the potential of the environment... so it is just as easy to fail/languish in a high-status environment as in a low-status one... Perhaps easier, since things are more intimidating, no easy triumphs, etc. Almost to the point of being misleading. (Hence, the desire of some to be big fish in small ponds, etc.)
So, actually, I'd recommend accepting some risks to be in a more intense environment. If that intensity is attached to status, ok, good, that's a cosmetic virtue that will help you get peoples' attention (on hiring committees) subsequently.

A rule of thumb I have often heard from other academics in the U.S. (and I admit I myself have applied when looking over faculty applications), is that a good applicant should have spent some time at a top institution.  It does not much matter whether that time was as a graduate student or a post-doc.  (Undergraduate doesn't really count though.)  So you probably stand a reasonable chance.


text:
Does the second round of reviewing process typically take a longer time than first round?
I would like to firstly state that I do understand the essence of the reviewing process in scientific publications.
I have submitted my article to a material-science relating journal. The first round of revision was very fast; it took less than 10 days. One of two referees suggested a minor revision while the other asked for a moderate amount of questions.
Currently, it takes 3 weeks after two reviewers agreed to make the second round of reviewing.
Thus, is it common that the second (and later) reviewing process require more time as long as the first one?
P.S. Editor privately informed that they are same referees.

I'm not sure how it is in that science, but 3 weeks is a very short time in general. Actually, I would consider 10 days as a miracle! Remember that people can easily be out for 3 weeks straight, or loaded with whatever for 3 weeks straight (like at my university, where the state exams last for 2 weeks sometimes).

In my experience, it is usually the other way around.  The first round of reviews typically takes longer, because the reviewers are new to the paper and first reading it and forming their opinions.  In the second round, they are more likely to be simply looking at differences and seeing whether they agree with your adjustments and replies to their comments.
There is, however, a lot of noise in the process, because in most cases the main amount of time is not spent in reviewing per se, but rather in waiting for the reviewers to make time in their schedules to review.  It differs from journal to journal of course, but sounds to me like in your first round of review you got unusually lucky with the reviewers' schedules and things went very fast, and the second round of review is taking a more "normal" length of time.

Thank you very much for the advise. I am very anxious since this is my first publication on a full-length research paper (I have got one publication as a short letter with fast review process.)

To add to jakebeal's answer, the second (and later) rounds of reviewing are usually faster not just because the reviewers have already seen the paper, but also because the reviewers are less likely to not submit a review. A lot of the variance in the time taken is because reviewers decline to review, do not submit a review by the deadline, and so on, which forces the editors to invite new reviewers and start the clock from scratch. But after they've already reviewed a paper once they are more likely to agree to review again as well as submit a review before the deadline.
Also, many of the journals I've seen have set things up so that the deadline for the first round of review is slightly longer than the deadline for the second and further rounds - by about 25%.


text:
Could I continue in my preferred field whilst working on a post-doc in a different field?
I am coming to the end of my present post-doc position which is in a fairly narrow area, one that I am deeply interested in pursuing further.  I am struggling to find a new role in the same area.
What are the implications for someone in this position when i) taking up an unrelated post-doc role, or ii) working in industry until a suitable role comes up?
Some good answers so far, but I would like to extend my original question to:
iii) What are the implications were I to accept a role working in field A, and continue to publish work in field B.  I assume in this instance I would naturally discuss this and only proceed if my primary investigator were happy with it, for example, but could there be other implications/considerations?

There are many whom I know have done their post-docs in a field far different from their primary area of research and work. I don't see this as a problem. Post-docs and PhD dissertation may also widely differ from person to person. I have not seen such a phenomenon affecting their career.

I have faced the similar kind of situation at the end of my PhD dissertation.

For your first issue: I often found it very comfortable with my PhD work and I wanted to continue. But, I was not able to find in proper Postdoc Position. I applied several labs related to my research area, however not received any positive response due to several issues like time, research funds availability, contract ends for other Postdoc scholar. I got one response from a lab that does not relate to my field, but got impressed with supervisor. I choose to work with him. Fortunately, I started to work in different field, however, I had always dream to work in my previous work field. I believe that you may find some really good people around you, who are working with the  same area you wanted to work with, are closely related to your current supervisor. Now you can continue to work parallel or start after completion of your current contract.
It's upto you, you may find it suitable to work with some academic institutions to continue your research and have some good publications, that may help you to get better Postdoc Position in future. Joining in industry may distract you from research unless the industry is closely related to research.

Thanks, so the message so far seems to be that the important thing is to continue in academia, and that later on perhaps I can target my preferred area.
One aspect of my question that I should have clarified and will do so now is on how to cross-publish from current position work to my field of choice and the ramifications of doing that. I will update my question to reflect this.


text:
Are undergrad professors the be-all end-all for MS recommendation letters?
I am applying to several MS programs in computer science. I graduated last year with a bachelor's in physics and a CS minor. So far, two of my recommenders are:

The professor I did research with in a physics lab for 2+ years as an undergrad
My current manager in a data science / software development role

I'm torn about who to use for the third letter, between my undergrad academic advisor (and current chair of the physics department at that institution) and a science journalist and producer of the radio show I worked on last summer.
I think the journalist would have more interesting things to say about me but I keep reading about how committees want to see letters from professors. I had a good relationship with my academic advisor but he'd probably just repeat things that my research leader would say. Is position really more important than breadth in this case?

You want your letter writers to speak to your research abilities / potential, so if your radio show manager has a proven research track record and can evaluate whether you have the capabilities to do good research, then you go with that person; else find someone who can do that.

Request both. Then, use a combination of them tailored to what position you're applying for. An academic position may call for the academic-heavy reference list, whereas an industry position or a position where someone of influence is acquainted with one of your recommenders, would perhaps change that equation.


text:
How do I maintain motivation in a completely awful grad program?
I am a 2nd year PhD student.
I regret my choice of grad school severely. The program here has a good reputation and I have no idea how or why it has a good reputation. The program here is absolutely terrible. The location is terrible and depressing, classes are completely useless, the qual system is really terrible (I passed them, I still think the way they're done is awful), most of my cohort are petty and childish (although I've found a few very good people here who I'm super grateful for), I have no support basically. I have met many people in the department that feel the same way: ranging from other grad students to professors.
This program is awful and coming here was one of the worst decisions of my life. I had other good programs I could have gone to.
I've found it much harder to read/do problems/etc. I barely do enough work just to pass classes. I try to focus on the stuff I want to do, but it seems like just by being here the subject is tainted.
Last night I found a problem online I tried working out but couldn't. I spent all day today - I barely ate, I didn't do anything else, I just worked all day long on this stupid problem that had nothing to do with anything. It was a blast! It reminded me of why I love my subject. I failed to find a solution...but it was still very productive and I learned a lot. I let myself get obsessed and I didn't worry about all the issues here.
How do I keep this feeling? How do I stay motivated? The department here feels like it saps all of my will to do any work out. In undergrad I was so determined. I took some time off between undergrad and grad and it only made me more determined. I want to feel like I did today.
I looked into transferring into other programs but it seemed like it would be a huge pain and I've been able to make it through the worst part of the program pretty quickly.

you can change  school or go to conferences???

Where is this university? Your phd is not a team effort, spend time with those few people that are positive and focus on your work, why do you care if the other people 'suck'?

I just worked all day long on this stupid problem that had nothing to do with anything. — This is my entire research career.  Keep it up!

@JeffE: This made me smile.  (And OMG: me too...)

You have to make a choice: quit and find something else or stay and take the best of it. Staying and not enjoying it is just a waste of time.
Btw, what is your PhD about?


text:
Licensing under author name?
What does it means a project being licensed with the name of the author?
I mean, one instance is: there is an author X, that writes an open source book on biology with git and at the end of the README file is © 2017 X. Other instance is when the same author X, writes his webpage and at the end of the page put his characteristic © 2017 X.
It is evident author does not get into the game of licenses (justified or not!!). But what should I interpret with his license? Every change (in any sense) that I want to make I should contact him? What is the (legal status) point of this license "© 2017 X"??
Example of webpage

Every change (in any sense) that I want to make Please clarify change on what and what change you want to make. For now, vote to close as "unclear what you're asking".

I’m voting to close this question as off-topic because it is not specific to academia at all. It is likely on-topic on [law.se] and perhaps on [opensource.se]. Note that you seem to have some big misconceptions about how copyright and licensing works and it will probably help to read some basic material on the matter before asking a question, be it only to make your question more clear.

A statement such as this "© 2017 X"  means that the author want you to know that he is the author of this page, and that he has the copyright over the content of this page. In simple words, this means that this is some original content and that it belongs to him.
If you want to copy some of that content in your own webpage, book, or other documents, or modify it then you should do it in a way that will respect the copyright law  and the license of the content chosen by the author. If the author does not provide a specific license for his webpage such as Creative Commons, then you should ask the authors about how you can reuse his content and if he agrees or not. You can send an e-mail and ask him if you can modify the content and republish it for example. Maybe he will say yes, maybe no
But beside that, you can still cite his work. For example, if you want to copy a few sentences of text from his webpage, you could use the quotation marks " " and cite his webpage as the source of the text. In this case, you typically don't need to ask the permission for that because you are citing a short part of the text.
By the way, a book can be open-source (you can see the code of the book), but "open-source" does not mean that you are free to do whatever you want with the content. The copyright still belong to the author and you need to follow the license that he choses.