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Is there an alternative to Dean title?
Because of different backgrounds in higher education systems, different titles are popularly used for administrative titles in academia such as

University level - President, Vice Chancellor, Rector, Principal
Faculty level - Dean only
Department level - Head, Chair

For leading a faculty, the only common term is Dean. Am I right? or there are other alternatives too?
And more interestingly, the title of Dean is only used for the manager of a faculty, not other positions. Correct me if I'm wrong.
What is the historical meaning of dean, and what is special about this title, which is only used for a specific level in academia.

I think Oxford has "Chair of the Faculty" rather than Dean

The title "Dean" is by no means restricted to the leader of a faculty (or college, or other similar unit). For instance, most US universities have a "Dean of Students" who is responsible for student services, discipline, etc. Some have a "Dean of Residential Life" who runs the dorms. My alma mater had a "Dean of Student Activities", popularly known as the "Dean of Fun".

"Dean of Fun"? Anything like the "Fun Police"? ;-)

@long: A little bit. His job was mostly to come up with things for students to do that didn't involve alcohol.  Concerts, subsidized movie tickets, and  so forth. It was kind of a losing battle but he tried valiantly.

@NateEldredge this is not what I meant. In some sense, Dean of Students is at the level of Dean of Faculty (both report to VP). I meant why the term of Dean is not used for other academic leaders; such as Dean of Department, Dean of Institute, Dean of Lab, Dean of Research Center or generally using the title of Dean instead of Director, which is very common for a wide range of leading positions?


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Where to find curriculum for a specific program?
I have an assignment for preparing the first draft of curriculum for a new program in my university. To include international experiences, I tried to get the curriculum of other universities, but I was unable to find a university website sharing the full curriculum. Department websites just put the title of courses, and professors post syllabus for their courses.
Each department should have its curriculum (description of the program, courses and credit details, course descriptions, etc), and this should be a public document.
When I searched general or visited top university websites, I expected to find such documents.
Do you have any idea where I can find documented curriculum?

At many US institutions I believe what you are looking for is often called a "course catalog". This generally lists degree programs, what courses are required for each major/minor, as well as a description of each course and their associated credit load.
With this phrase in mind a quick Googling returned a variety of listings for top Universities:
Carnegie Mellon Undergraduate Catalog
MIT Course catalog
Undergraduate and Graduate catalogs for University of Wisconsin-Madison
If that's what you were looking for, just the magic phrase "course catalog" will help in the US. But in other countries? Well, a search for a course catalog for University of Cape Town in South Africa produced a link to the student "handbooks", which appear to be the same thing as the US course catalog.
It appears each country has their own preferred term for what to call this, so finding the magic words for each country might be a bit of a trick.

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Discussing with university professors before being undergraduate
I have applied for a computer science course at more universities, but one of them really convinced me with a very welcoming attitude. Even if I have not confirmed my place, I have a tutor and he introduced me to some professors in the university to discuss about some topics that I am interested in. But, I find myself in a rather delicate situation. I have just some basic knowledge in their subject, so a discussion with them wouldn't be so entertaining for them, I guess.
Of course, there are a lot of things that I would like to learn, and so many questions to ask, and they seem willingly to answer (actually, ever they do not know that, I will go to their university), so, to what extent may I ask them?

Most professors will enjoy talking about their subject with a student who is motivated and interested, so you shouldn't be bashful about asking them questions. Just try to ask "good" questions, as opposed to questions which can be easily answered with a moment's search on Wikipedia.

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How to reply to a revise and resubmit review, saying is all good?
I am a reviewer for a paper that has undergone three revision and resubmit stages - the paper has greatly improved - and the authors have made great efforts to address all the comments they received from fellow reviewers and me. I have nothing more to say about it than "is all good for me".
I've never been through so many revisions as a reviewer - what would be the etiquette here? Should I praise the paper again, explaining its strengths, as it would be my first review? Could I say "the authors satisfactorily addressed all comments"?

In general "My concerns have been addressed" or "I believe this is now ready for publication" is enough.
If I really like the revised paper but one of the other reviewers still seems obstreperous, I sometimes include a very brief note addressing their major concerns: "Specifically, the new data provide ample support for {claim} and I believe no additional experiments are needed", "Related work on {topic} is now thoroughly discussed in the text", etc. It's not necessary to repeat a long analysis of the paper's strength; "As I wrote previously, this will be a valuable contribution to the literature" is fine.
If the authors gone above and beyond to address something, you could also add a thank you or bit of praise. I doubt this affects the editorial process, but it can be nice for the authors to have their hard work acknowledged; I certainly appreciate it!

It is enough to recommend to the editor that the paper is now ready for publication, that issues have been satisfactorily addressed, and that you recommend publication. You don't need to go beyond that and there is no reason to make the editor read more than necessary for a decision.

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Joining a research lab for research experience
I graduated a few years back with a decent MSc (about 3.6 GPA equivalent) from a good European university (top 10) university. My dream was to pursue a good PhD, but I didn't manage to publish anything in the Masters for various reasons. I have a few research projects, a paper from my BSc thesis, and a few years of industrial R&D experience. Now, the environment is awfully competitive, and I don't feel qualified - especially since my failed master's project kept dragging on and on for a few good years and even my supervisor is tired of it (and me).
Therefore, I am looking to improve my CV and perhaps gain more research experience, especially in an environment where everybody seeks first-author publications before even considering a PhD application. Most of the labs around here advertise lots of projects to attract students - would it be inappropriate to try to get in touch for a (part-time) summer internship of some sort? Or perhaps there would be a better approach to build some relationship with the lab?

In what area of science are you working? Is it your goal to stay in Europe, or are you also prepared to consider US/Canada?

@Michael_1812 Apologies for missing your comment. I'm working in CS - computer graphics/computational photography, and yes, my goal is to stay in Europe.

I think it really depends on where you decide to apply and what you're doing in industry. I am in my 3rd year of my PhD in the US and have a very similar background. I did not publish my MS thesis, but had lots of experience as a research assistant as an undergrad. I worked on industry jobs for 8 years before applying to PhD. I was accepted to my program without hesitation. I had gained lots of project management experience on large multi-year projects in industry, scored well on my GRE, and my motivations for going back to academia resonated with my new professors. My advice would be to contact potential advisors first and see what they think about your background before quitting your job for an internship. Base your next steps on the feedback you get and then decide if it's necessary. Obviously expectations will vary widely based on the field you're in, the country, and individual program. *Written on my phone.

Thanks for sharing your experience. Indeed, by industry job is quite close to research - not a research lab, but I am keeping in touch with the latest publications at least. I am looking at Europe mainly, the issue is that I'm perhaps overthinking, perhaps bad at networking - not sure how to approach potential PIs.

Ah, I don't know if there are cultural differences in Europe - but in the states it's pretty straightforward. I'm in biology, so I am mostly familiar with professional norms in that field. Look for faculty profiles and websites and find professors that do work you like. Send them and email with your CV and let them know you're looking to start your PhD. Some will ignore you, others will say they don't have space in their lab, and a few may invite you to chat over zoom. At that point you can ask them what the requirements are for admission to the program.

You already have research experience and a graduate degree. If you intend to pursue a PhD, then start applying for that. I cannot see how a few months here and there as a volunteer/intern will help make significant impact on your profile unless you serendipitously end up with a great result, independently of other full-time group members, and publish as a lead author. This takes lots of time and lots of luck.
As someone with a masters degree and industry experience, nobody on the committee is doubting your research experience. If you are applying to top shelf programs with a decent but not stellar GPA, you may just be up against a competitive field where others are a better fit. Keep applying. Look for faculty with openings and engage in conversation (if they are open to it, don't force it).

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Has the relation with students changed significantly in the last 20+ years?
I left academia 20+ years ago but I am closely following SE Academia (mostly because it is interesting and gives a different perspective from industry).
I noticed several questions regarding the "well-being" of students (broadly speaking), an example being a recent question on whether to adapt to their request to cancel lectures.
When I was a student, and then a teacher, the rules were that the lecturer is coming to provide a lecture, at a given time, and if someone is not present then they had to catch-up a way or another. This was the same in primary, secondary school (in Europe, mostly Germany and France).
Has the relationship with students changed in these 20+ years?
I am specifically not looking for an opinion about these changes (which can range from "in my time professors were demi-gods" to "now everyone is equal and the ones who pay set some rules"). I rather want to understand whether the dynamics between lecturers and students is different today, and ideally why (because of, say, how technology helps to provide up-to-date lectures?, or that the number of commercial school is higher?, ...).
I am mostly interested in a European perspective, but anything is welcome.

Yes, it changed a lot, and in many ways. I wrote something about this in this meta answer (second part), but if I can find the time I'll write an answer here.

I think this is impossible to answer in any objective way. My relationship has changed, of course, as I've grown older and learned more. Society has changed. Students have different needs today and different opportunities. What hasn't changed, actually? And some things are cyclic, also. I thought my professors were terrifically smart. My students thought the same of me, whether valid or not.

@Buffy I think an objective answer is actually possible. The reason is that many changes in the relations between students and professors have been driven by mechanisms that have been established by universities to allow students to exercise their rights, rights that 20-30 years ago were not even recognized.

To answer the second part of your question: The notion of "students as customers" - probably as unpalatable to faculty as it is loved by administrators - is surely part of this shift.
After all, if students are "paying customers", that naturally recasts the degree into a "product" that they begin to imagine they have an automatic right to.


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What should a supervisor do about a PhD student who does not try to improve?
What should a faculty supervisor do about a PhD student who does not seem to be trying to make their work better?  Let's assume the supervisor has given detailed and specific instructions, which the student agrees to follow.  But the student either does not finish the instructions or includes many errors.  The supervisor points out the errors.  This process has been repeated for several years, affecting both the student's research and job search.  The student is from a different country, and has not adjusted to academic communication practices, despite being aware of the need to do so.  The student has done a lot of things, but continues to have poor quality execution and pace.
Typically the supervisor does not wish to kick students out of the group.  What is the right course of action?

Can you be more specific about "academic communication practices" the student has not adjusted to?

Which is the concrete problem, that is, who are the persons or groups damaged for this situation ? (granted studies or public university, quota admissions ... ).

Typically the supervisor does not wish to kick students out of the group. What is the right course of action? — Assuming you've made a good faith effort at other options first, kick the student out of the group.  And not after "several" years.

Dealing with wayward students comes with the territory of being an academic. Not every student will be successful and, unfortunately, you have to be prepared to deal with that.
It sounds like the situation has gotten out of hand, as it has gone on for years. Expectations need to be set early and often, so that, if things do go off track, the problems are addressed as soon as possible.
The other answers offer good suggestions, but your comments suggest that you [I'm assuming you are the student's supervisor] are worried about how it affects you. So I will offer a different suggestion:
Involve other (more senior) faculty from your department.
If you involve other faculty, they will share the responsibility for the outcome (thereby reducing the possible damage to your reputation) and, more importantly, they will be able to give you better advice than random people on the internet.
Where I did my PhD, there were established procedures to involve other faculty: Early in the PhD, each student had to pass an oral qualifying exam involving several faculty, which helped identify struggling students and provide feedback. Also, there was an annual student review in which the entire department met to discuss the PhD students one-by-one, which allowed their supervisors to raise issues and get input from others. Finally, each student's dissertation committee was officially a standing committee (although for most students it only convened for the defense). That is, for problematic students, the dissertation committee would convene regularly to assess progress and set goals for the student. The committee thus shared responsibility for "kicking out" students.
Does your department have similar procedures? If so, follow them. If not, suggest that such procedures be implemented and informally approach other faculty in your department for help.
Remember that it is in no one's interest for a student to continue on a bad trajectory (including the student's).

For simplicity, I assume OP is the supervisor.
The ground rules need to be set early on. I will be quite tolerant of a student who clearly puts in effort to improve and develop themselves, even if it does not work immediately (learning takes time).
But it must be very clear what is expected (from me) and very clear that they put in effort (from them). If this has not been done early on, it is almost impossible to change them.
You say it has been going on for several years, so the pattern is unfortunately already burned in. To try to change this, you could try to make a drastic policy change with a clear-cut test period and consequences if there is no visible improvement. But your message must be believable in that, if they do not apply themselves, you won't be able to supervise them any further, or they won't change.
Even so, consider the chances to be low for this; they will be moderately better if there is serious willpower behind it (even then it is very hard to change ingrained behaviour and it takes long time).
The quote comes to mind "Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results."
There is wisdom in the saying: if you expect a change in the situation, you must change the circumstances in some respect. If you expect a drastic change, you must change the circumstances drastically. Unfortunately, switching modes may be hard for you to do if you already have an amicable relation with the student; perhaps adding a second supervisor acting as "bad cop" might help here.

What consequences do you suggest?

Envisaging a termination of the PhD supervision if not significant improvements are seen in a fixed period (say, 4-6 weeks, or even 3-6 months if that sounds more practical - only, it should be a given and limited period). By dragging it out you do not help the student and neither yourself. Or else, one could drag this student for 6-7 years without result. I wouldn't consider that an option.

That's a consequence that hurts the supervisor.  That is not ideal.

I see your responses to every suggestion here - and you like none. All of them seem sensible to me, emphasising different aspects. I am afraid, the student you describe does not permit a good solution. The student should not have been taken on board, but since they have, you do not have many choices. You cannot eat the cake and have it. Either you force a decision, or you will drag the issue out for a long time. Without a drastic reorientation  (which may or may not succeed), I do not see a good ending for the situation.

Maybe you are right that there are no good solutions.

There are no good solutions. What did you expect, some magical answer where suddenly the student's habits are fixed and everyone is happy? Almost certainly at this point the student and the mentor have both been irreparably harmed.  The only way forward is to choose the least bad solution.

Get the chair of your department and the appropriate dean(s) involved. They will help you begin a process that will (or could) end up with the student being removed from the program. Deans and Chairs know how to do this properly, with paper trails and specific goals and documentable targets that the student will have to achieve in order to continue in the program.
Probably you'll end up sitting down with the student, the advising committee, and the Chair, and set a series of specific things that the student will need to do, by specific dates, in order to stay in the program. Document the goals, and set them to be realistic and achievable by a good student -- in other words, you can't set the student up to fail with impossible goals, but it's fine if the goals are impossible for them; that's the point, that they can't achieve reasonable goals.
Make sure the student is aware that they need to meet these goals or they are out.
Document, document, document. Record the progress the student has made so far and what they have failed to achieve.  Hold weekly meetings with the student and note progress, or lack of it. If after six months (or whatever the committee recommended) the student has not met the goals, don't revise the goals or say "Oh, pretty close, we'll give you another two weeks".  If the student didn't meet the goals you agreed on, they should be out of the program, and this is not something you can do, it's up to Deans and administrators, so you need to be communicating with them throughout.
If the student does achieve the goals, set a new series of goals for the next six months with exactly the same documentation and aims.
The most likely thing that that the administration will find a moderately face-saving solution for everyone involved.  Most often, the student will be given an option to "Master out" -- everyone will agree that they've met the qualifications for a Master's degree, not a Ph.D., here's your diploma, good luck, don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Does this sound like a lot of work? Probably -- but it's not much more than you should be doing for all your students anyway. Setting goals, holding meetings to ensure progress, holding people accountable for their actions and progress, are all routine processes for managers, which is what you are (among many other things).  Unfortunately most academic supervisors aren't trained in management and have to learn it the hard way, screwing up at least one student's life and their own in the process.

The best thing which you can do is: let the student carry his responsibility. Having a PHD thesis compliant to the norms of the place where the students wants to do it is his task. A PHD student is (supposedly) not a 16year old high-schooler. If he does not prioritize this very important evaluation of his life appropriately, the he should not have a PHD title. To do this work is his obligation and interest, not yours.
Remark: i dont advise to throw him out but rather not waste time on him. Plainly wait if he does the tasks or not.

So you recommend doing nothing?  Dubiously ethical.

I do not see an "ethical" oblication here beyond providing feedback in a repeated form. Supporting somebody to do his thesis right is the thing which the supervisor signed up for. Holding a gun to somebodies head to get him writing probably not. One could try with a mild deadline (i have seen that this helped sometimes).

@AnonymousPhysicist: Arguably it's also dubiously ethical for the adviser to "carry" the student through their supposedly independent PhD work.

Well. it's obviously a fine line. The Supervisor should make a decision if he believes that letting the student in the group will rather help him or not. Then he should have a conversation with the student. Ideally the student makes a decision: improve his efforts or leave.

Downvoted. — I do not see an "ethical" oblication here beyond providing feedback in a repeated form — If a student is clearly not heading for successful completion of their degree, letting them continue is giving them dishonest feedback.

Well. it wont change your mind. It is my opinion that following a phd may take longer - we dont know if the student has other pressing issues ongoing, thats why i would recommend to talk to him about his prospects.

You could task (with no specific timeframe) the PhD student to get a paper published.
This way, part of the "bad cop" role will be (a) anonymized and (b) outsourced to the community. Even better: (c) even if you might currently be under a misapprehension about the quality of the student's work, it'll show this way, too, in a nice and useful way - you both may think of it as free external assessment!
Be ready to support with this task by allowing room for it, offer your expertise if and when needed, but don't force it. But make clear without ambiguity, that it's paramount to the PhD student's job not only to do own research, but to communicate about it, too.

This strategy poses risks to the supervisor's reputation.

@AnonymousPhysicist You accepted those risks when you accepted the student into your group.

The student described by the OP is not going to be able to just "get a paper published", especially a good quality one. I agree with AnonymousPhysicist. I am not going to have a student submit a trash paper just so that my student can get the negative feedback from an anonymous referee rather than me. It does pose risk to my reputation, and no I did not accept that risk when I accepted the student into my group.

@Nik understandable, we all have different approaches, but... what do you think is the right course of action?

@jvb I would have to read and consider the question in more detail. I searched something on this site and got 200+ results, and middle-clicked (opened in a new tab) on the ~20 posts with  titles that looked interesting, and while I did read your answer from beginning to end, it was while going through ~20 different threads and I was not at all planning to answer anything. I'm traveling tomorrow and have 110 minutes left to get my mother's birthday cake before the store closes, and also I have laundry to finish. Sorry for not providing an alternative answer.

The phrasing of your question suggests that you are treating this PhD candidate either as just a student - like an advanced undergrad, or alternatively, like an employee who gets tasks from his boss and is supposed to faithfully execute them. This is a misconception (or rather, this should not be the case). A PhD is a period in which a young academic should experience conducting supervised, but mostly independent, research.
An important aspect of this is having his/her own motivation, plans and goals. While these should certainly be worked out together - it seems like in your student's case that's all kind of external to him/her. Does s/he even want to do what s/he's doing? Being told to do?
Also, you mention 'errors', but also having "done a lot of things" and an issue with pace. So, is it that s/he doesn't advance enough on any one thing because of being involved with too many activities? Has this PhD candidate decided what his/her PhD is about?
Finally, does s/he confide in you (= his/her supervisor) as a friend? If not, and you're essentially the person who keeps tell him/her how he's done poorly and committed many errors, perhaps you should try finding a third party - either informal, such as a friend of his/hers who you can approach, or formal, such a PhD program counsellor, to try to initiate some indirect communication about the way s/he views things. I would not be entirely surprised if there are certain hardships, difficulties, challenges your PhD candidate is not sharing with you considering the dynamic you described.
The bottom line is that I suggest you find out the answers to these questions; the answers will likely be a far better guide than our suggestions here based only on our limited information. In Proverbs 22:6 (of the Bible) it says "Train the youth by his own path, and he shall not stray from it even to old age."

I agree, but I'm not sure this is an answer.  Definitely the PhD student faces some challenges, but there could be more they have not disclosed.
How would you suggest encouraging greater independence?

@AnonymousPhysicist: See edit. And - sorry for quoting a religious source but it seemed appropriate.


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Should personal hardships be mentioned in a personal statement?
I moved between my BSc and my MSc to a different country, where I had a bit of a culture shock which hurt my grades on a few key courses. I then had to work to fund myself, and another bunch of key courses suffered.
I compensated my the MSc thesis, with full marks (luckly, it had high weight). This means that my overall GPA is not terrible (3.66/4). However, the programme explicitly states that they care about relevant courses.
What is your view? Do these personal hardships matter/should I mention them?

Whatever you do, I would recommend against calling these common things "personal hardships" in your application.

@XanderHenderson Moving abroad, having some culture shock and having to work, does not count as an experience so traumatic it might sound fabricated in my book.

@Anyon sure, but the solution is the same.

What you describe doesn't sound like something extraordinary or even worth mentioning. Most people have to fund themselves and change countries from time to time. So I would recommend to focus on your actual accomplishments and not on excuses why they are less optimal than you would like them to be.

What actually matters is your preparation and your likelihood of success in a doctoral program and thereafter. Some places (US) this needs to be "verified" via letters of recommendation of people who can honestly predict success.
So, while stating that you succeeded even though your path was rough isn't a bad thing, it probably counts for less than other things. Many students overcome difficulties.
And, if you can get a letter writer to say such things, rather than saying them yourself, it has more credence.
If this is a formal Statement of Purpose, then focus it on the future, not the difficulties of the past. Focus on your goals and on your ability to work hard to achieve them. In a separate "Personal Statement" you can mention that you've worked through some difficult times to get to where you are, but don't expect it to have a large effect.


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Can I ask for a faster reply from graduate school?
I am currently a MSc student and I have applied to the same school for a PhD. I have some connections in the department, but nobody from the admissions committee.
On the admissions page, the standard procedure states that applicants shall receive an answer within 1 to 3 months from the deadline. So far, just over a month has passed.
The problem is that I have an interesting offer from a company, and is unreasonable to ask them to wait 2 more months for me to decide. Would a polite email to the official email of the admissions committee explaining this situation be perceived negatively? Is there any chance it could help speeding up a reply?

You can ask, but it is unlikely that you will get a decision and maybe not even a reply. Processes will be followed in fairness to all candidates.
Rules probably prevent any early decision in most places.

... depends on the place.  Some places (maybe not the US) might have several ways in which applicants could get hired.


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Asking for a letter of recommendation from professor that offered me a position
I am currently an undergraduate in Computer Science, and I am seriously thinking about getting a PhD (I have to apply next year, and I like to do my homeworks way beforehand).
Last year I worked as an assistant researcher in a group at my university. Everybody was really pleased with my work and they said they would be very happy to have me as their student, including the head of the group (he was also one of the professors of some undergraduate courses).
The problem is, while my School is quite good, and I wouldn't mind at all to pursue my degree in this group, I would like to try other opportunities. This would imply requesting a letter of recommendation from him.
Is there any way to suggest that I want to try to apply somewhere else (quite objectively a better grad school, in a different country) and, if that fails, I would like to stay in his group, without being rude? How would this be perceived?

I think it is reasonable for you to pursue any and all opportunities, and reasonable for you to expect your current group to support you - that's no guarantee that they will, but I would suggest being up-front about your intentions, without unnecessary rudeness like referring to your current group as a 'last resort' or something like that. There are many reasons to pursue a diverse education, even without 'ranking' the quality of your opportunities.

When I was finishing my masters, my supervisor offered me a PhD position. I truthfully told him that I was looking to move and searching positions elsewhere, so he offered me any letter I needed. Later on I changed my plans and asked him if I could still get the position... and in the end I did. If he is willing to employ you he sure is willing to provide you with a nice letter. Just be truthful about your reasons.

To your first question, yes.  There's nothing inherently rude about wanting to look for positions elsewhere despite having an offer.  Professors often want to their top students to stay on for graduate work, but these students often go to other, often better, schools (or don't pursue graduate studies) so your situation is completely normal.  Most professors wouldn't be offended by such information.  (There may be some cultures where professors' expectations are different, but not the ones I know about.)
I would suggest a frank discussion where you say that, while you'd be happy to continue your studies under that professor, there are some other schools in other countries you're interested in.  There's no need to tell him now, but if it comes up again, there's no need to withhold it either.  You can also bring it up as a question to see if he has any advice: "Yes, I'll probably apply to the program here, but I'm also thinking about trying to study at XXX--what do you think about that?"


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Is it realistic for a postdoc to negotiate for a private office?
If a postdoc requests a private office when negotiating an employment contract, is there a possibility the request would be granted?

Anything can happen during negotiations.

Stranger things have happened.

What if one new postdoc gets a private office, but the others all share 3 or 4 to an office...  Will that cause friction among them?

@GEdgar: Yes, probably.  Thus my guess is that this will not be negotiable.  On the other hand, it still might be useful to ask whether you will have a private office; that could be something to consider when weighing competing offers.

Please let us know the outcome of the office space negotiation. It will be a useful data point for future postdocs.

Be prepared to explain why you need it.

I've seen undergrads with private offices and labs.

The best offices are not one-person offices but two-person offices. There is someone to have a conversation with if you want to, but if you don't want to have a conversation no one else will be speaking.

@jwg This depends on your personality. I vastly prefer a one-person room. Also, if you have a two-person office, but you don't really like the other person, it's about the worst.

What I want to know is why all the financial admin in my building, who do no research, all have their own giant offices when post-docs and even some professors do not. Sure, they play an important and vital role for us but surely they could share an office like the rest of us?

If this is in the US: Do you need a window?

Just ask. The worst thing they can do is say no. It all depends on availability of space. I've personally had a private office as a PhD student, and I've known Professors with a shared office.

The big issue in having a private office is available space.
Most departments have a limited amount of space available, and what is given to any particular research group is correspondingly restricted. There may not be a private office available to the group, in which case it wouldn't be possible to accommodate such a request. In addition, if there's a more senior person, then usually such an individual would have a "higher claim," so you might not get one.
Of course, if you never ask, you'll never know.

Out of curiosity, how does negotiation work in academic settings? Is it like "Hey, can I get a private office?" "Yes" (or) "No". I don't see how exactly one could negotiate...

Yeah, it's not really a negotiation—you just ask.

"Yes", "No", or in one case the departmental secretary's thousand-yard-office-politics-stare and "Don't even ask."

@gokul_uf it works just like in any other setting. You apply for jobs, get X job offers, and if X>1, you are in a pretty good position to negotiate the terms with each of the places making you an offer, and then select the job that appeals to you most.

Sure there is a possibility. I have seen PhD students have private offices in some places. In others, even Assistant Professors had to share. And my current employer famously had a (short-lived) initiative where they wanted to implement a hot-seat scheme for everybody except top administrators (it did not go over well with faculty).
However, in practice you may not so much negotiate but ask for it. If they have the room they will be happy to oblige (since it costs them little), and if they don't have the room they will hardly be able to change this to accommodate your request. Further, note that room situations change, sometimes quite quickly - you may have a comfy single office when you start, and a few successful grant applications later you need to share the same space with two others. It is unlikely that your PI will guarantee you in writing that you will have and retain a single office at all times.
One of the comments also asks whether there will be "friction" if you have a single office and others on your level need to share. This is of course possible, and it depends a bit on your personality whether you would mind this (I personally wouldn't). However, there's usually advantages and disadvantages to all rooms. Your single office will likely be of the "small dark room in the corner" variety, while their three-person office is surely larger, and often nicer - so it's not a straight up "you got a much better deal than others". Further, if you always worry that others might be envious of whatever you manage to negotiate on top of the standard package, then why bother negotiating at all?

My title is Senior Lecturer, and I am sharing an office with 3 Senior and 1 Principal Lecturer.

If a private office is important to you, there's no better time to ask than at recruitment / when you have an offer letter in hand and have not yet accepted.  On the other hand, be prepared to accept a "no" answer.
On the gripping hand, the answer is always "no" to a question you haven't asked.


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How best to split up a comprehensive literature review
I've written (with a co-author) a comprehensive literature review on a particular subject. Here's the preprint (it needs some editing).
We're very happy with the way it turned out, but the problem we are running into is that it's too long: 49 pages, 23000 words if you include the references and a big summary chart at the end. It's "only" 33 pages and 16000 words if you remove those. We've been rejected from two journals already just because of the word count; most journals in this field max out at 8000 words. So, we're looking to split this up into 2-3 smaller parts and submit them separately.
But this is turning out to be tricky because it's a literature review, which means that while we do summarize research literature on four separate topics, we are also synthesizing what the whole of the research says and looking for broad trends. So it's very hard to disentangle the parts of the paper and repackage them without losing context or repeating ourselves.
The paper is currently structured as follows.

Overview
Methods -- including our methods for finding the research, databases we searched and queries we used, our inclusion criteria, and overall characteristics of the research literature we found
Findings on specific research questions (there are four of these; in the preprint we have each question as a separate section but we've since combined them all into one big section)
Discussion -- Primary themes over all the research literature, limitations of the studies, current holes in the research literature
Conclusion

It would be easy enough to write up just the findings for the different research questions, since our first and second questions are closely related and the other two could be lumped together, making two papers. But what's the best way to deal with the methods and discussion?

If I were to split this up into two papers, should I include all of our methods in the first part and then just refer to those methods in the second part? Or summarize the methods from part 1 when we write part 2? Or something else?
Should the discussion be split up so that the discussion section in part 1 only deals with the findings for part 1, and similarly for part 2? Or, should I save all discussion for just part 2? Or something else?

I worry that if we put all the methods in part 1 and all the discussion in part 2 (or part 3, if there is one) that people reading part 2 won't have the info they need for part 1 and vice versa. But if we split up the methods and discussion, I worry that we'll lose the sense of the big picture, which I think we did a good job capturing in the Too Large version.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

I would try to do 4* topic papers (one on on each subtopic within section 3).  Then do a wrapup.  I.e. 5 LPUs.
In the four topic papers you can be a skimpier on the methods (or perhaps go full bore on methods in first one and skimpy on others, but "referring" to the discussion in first one.)  The wrapup will "review" the previous 4 and make some general observations (cross-correlations, etc.).  I would be brief on definitions (less than currently in there) for the 4 topic papers.  Just basics with some footnotes (skip history entirely).  You can go more in depth on history in the wrapup self review paper.
*If a couple naturally combine, fine, do 2 or 3.  But 4 is fine too:
P.s.  I'm not an expert in your topic and I really just glanced at it.  But what I saw looked solid.
P.s.s.  Chopping into LPUs is not sleazy.  It's actually in some ways more efficient to process (at least for a reviewer!)

Thanks! I've never considered chopping up articles as being bad -- I've seen it done effectively many times but this is the first time I've encountered it myself. If nothing else it'll help my co-author who is untenured and would love to have 4-5 publications instead of just one :)


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Summer funding for math postdocs in the US
I will be starting a math postdoc position with salary x for 10 months. Nothing is mentioned about summer funding in my contract.
How do math postdocs generally draw a salary during the summer? If they choose to teach in the summer, do they get the same amount as salary as during the rest of the academic year? Although things may differ from department to department, I am just curious about the norm.

Opting to take the 9/10 month salary over 12 months is usually an option, should one choose to have the summer free to do research.

Are you sure this isn't a 12 month appointment?

You should certainly ask about possibilities for summer salary.  This could come from teaching summer school classes or working on research grants.   You might also consider working in industry in an internship role.

The norm for postdocs, as for most professors in the US, is that the fact that salary is for 9/10 months is an accounting fiction, and the salary is treated as a full year salary, going unpaid over the summer.  Frequently, it is possible to arrange with the employer to pay your salary out over 12 months if you have trouble saving.

In my experience, research postdocs are often on 12 month contracts.  I've heard of 9 month contracts more often in the case of "postdocs" that are more teaching-focused positions like visiting assistant professors.

@BrianBorchers: Math postdocs almost all involve teaching - usually with the same or slightly fewer teaching expectations as regular faculty, but with less teaching than "visiting assistant professor" positions.  Remember that math research looks like humanities research, not science research.


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Etiquette of telling hosts that you wish to apply for a faculty position
I am a postdoc who wishes to apply to a university in the United States for a faculty position in the future. I asked them if I could speak in their seminar, and they invited me.
How should I tell them that I wish to apply there for a faculty position in a year or two, and that they should assess my talk with that in mind?

Maybe stating the obvious here, but they aren't going to "assess your talk with that in mind". What you are now doing isn't your job talk, it's not going to replace your job talk. You can make yourself known as a potential candidate down the road and bring yourself into a good position for a future application, but it's not going to replace a real interview / hearing.

Treat every seminar talk as if it is your one and only job talk. Treat every job talk as if it is one of your high-quality seminar talks.

In universities I have worked at, this is not how junior appointments work. It is more how senior appointments work. You might be able to inquire about the the department and if they expect to have any new lines or retirements in the next couple of years. But not every department gets to hire every year, and often it can be 4-8 years between hires in smaller universities or departments.
They probably already know that you will be on the market in the next couple of years, as you are a postdoc. But it would not hurt to tell them that part. I would not do it in advance, but just as a point of conversation during informal meetings.

Yes, they will know that you'll be on the market, but they won't necessarily know you are interested in joining their faculty specifically.

You could say something like, “I would consider a university like this to be an excellent job market result. What do you think the chances are that you would be hiring in my field in the next 2-4 years?

How should I tell them that I wish to apply there for a faculty position in a year or two, and that they should assess my talk with that in mind?

You shouldn't. Don't mention it at all. This is like telling a girl on the first date that you plan to propose to her a few months in the future. I assume you have an intuitive grasp of why that might not be the best idea.
So what should you do instead? Actually, you are doing exactly the right thing by getting yourself an invitation to give a seminar. The next thing to do is to go and give it, and give an amazing talk that leaves a really good impression. Also meet with people at the department on the day of your visit and impress them with how smart you are, how interesting the topics you're working on are, how cool your future research plans are, etc.
If you do all of those things successfully, you are setting the ground in the best possible way for a hypothetical day when you apply for a job at that department. And you will be doing all that without saying anything about your wish to someday get a job there -- an awkward topic that can only detract from people's enjoyment of your visit, and is best avoided for the time being.

Except if one tries to impress, it usually achieves the opposite effect. Just try to be a reasonable personality.

@akostadinov true. I guess what I meant was "be really impressive, without giving the impression that you are trying hard to impress." That's a difficult act to pull off of course. But anyway, if OP can be impressive then that's a good thing and certainly better than being unimpressive or worse, and that's true even if his hosts pick up on the fact that he is making an effort to be impressive. And definitely try to be a reasonable personality!

I was working on a similar response yesterday, but had no opportunity to finish it.  I'm glad somebody made the point.  I'll add that everybody who sees a postdoc giving talks pretty much knows that at some point, the postdoc will be applying for jobs, so there really is no need to announce it.

Good answer, and good analogy.

In the informal talks leading to the seminar, tell them that you would like to apply for a faculty position in the near future, in a year or two.
It will be of mutual benefit if you already address the funding parts, so you can propose to collaborate in bringing in some grants, rather than going there full of requests but with no concrete plan of action.
The seminar after all will be an excellent chance to show all the interested people the research you have been involved, however having slides explicitly "nodding" at the department and future work to be done there by you would be more of harm than anything else, I would perceive it as patronizing.
However, gentle and subtle hints at possible collaboration, to be then discussed informally/orally and in follow up communications would be helpful.
Again, you are proposing some research activity, you should also be able to propose the funding mechanism or the possible industrial partners, and you are expected to do the work on your resources, do not expect much support: everyone wants to jump on a moving train, no one wants to build the railway.
If your future faculty position is as advanced as a train almost ready to start, you will have a better reception for your planned goals ...

Good answer, but funding discussions might not be necessary in many fields. Prior notice is a good idea so that interested faculty are more likely to attend.


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Etiquette for hotel booking during an invited talk
I will be visiting a university in the US to give an invited talk. The organizer told me that I could choose to arrive a couple of days early, and leave a couple of days late. They will be paying for my hotel reservation and airline ticket.
I love to explore new places, and do not have constraints on my time. Hence, I'd love to to be able to stay a couple of extra days in the city and explore. However, this would mean that the department I will be visiting will have to pay more money to the hotel.
What is the etiquette for negotiating this? Will it not be looked upon disfavorably if I tell them that I wish to stay an extra couple of days? Can I tell them that I'd like to pay for my own hotel reservation for the extra days?

When they told you, you could arrive a couple days early, leave a couple days late, they probably had in mind that you visit their department during that time.

@TimRias- What would visiting the department entail? Note that I am looking for a postdoc, and they're aware of this. Does this mean interacting with the faculty in my field?

Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8364/what-is-the-etiquette-about-the-length-of-a-visit-when-giving-departmental-semin

Matters of etiquette are (i) personal and (ii) cultural, so there is probably no one-size-fits-all answer here. However...
If you are invited to "arrive a couple of days early and/or leave a couple of days late", there is usually an implied "and spend the time meeting people from our institute". Typically you will be given a desk to use, a few meetings will be organised for you, and some students/postdocs may be assigned to take you for lunch. Your formal schedule will probably be quite relaxed, allowing some time for sightseeing and other 'vacation' activities, but you should be prepared to prioritise meetings and other work-related matters.
If you want to combine a visit with anything non-standard, the best thing is to be straightforward and just ask your host: "I'd like to extend my stay for personal reasons/bring my partner/come via Las Vegas/etc. What is the easiest way to arrange this?" Generally you'll get one of three answers:

Don't worry, we'll just pay for it.
OK, we'll pay your travel costs and a hotel for these dates; sort the rest out for yourself.
OK, why don't you make your own arrangements and we'll reimburse you up to $XYZ.

Agreed, but I would emphasize "relaxed schedule" quite a bit more. Normally, when I have done such site visits outside of formal interviews, the "daily schedule" often boiled down to one or two meetings and a lunch per day. So there would usually be plenty of time for sightseeing, and hosts tend to be entirely understanding if you tell them "I have my partner in tow, I will leave after lunch to go see the Cathedral of Foobar".

Also, in my experience, not all universities are very good at organizing these visits for you - I have also done visits where the host organized a talk and a lunch, but then left it mostly to me, the visitor, to figure out who else I should talk to and arrange that it happens.

Most likely they will pay for the days they expect to and you will be responsible for any extra days. This is easy to arrange with any decent hotel. In fact, some of these arrangements are that you put the bill on your own card and get reimbursed later.
You can ask if they'll pay more, of course, and it is not likely to be insulting and they sound flexible. But don't expect that they will pay for too many extra days. You can also decamp and move to a cheaper hotel if you like for the extra days.
Likely the flexibility comes from a grant fund for just such a purpose and it isn't too constrained.

In my experience, if you are exploring several days on your own you need to pay for a portion of the hotel cost.
On the other hand, it is common that the locals will want to show you around, do a hike or visit a museum with you.  And drink coffee and later alcohol with you if that is legal and appropriate.  If you are doing that, and suggest you want some time on your own to visit some odd-ball attraction, or get some forest bathing done on your own, that is not an issue; you can still expect them to pay for the entire hotel bill.
Generally one needs to hint to your host that you are interested in seeing their glorious city.  Talk about what restaurants you want to visit.  Most researchers want to have some down time where a great idea might pop up, but the main focus is on the hike or dinner or snake museum.   They also like to have a bit of time apart where they can catch up on email and take the kids to the dentist.


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Is it impolite to send holiday wishes to one's advisor?
I am an international student in the US. Whenever I wish my PhD advisor on holidays (over email), like on Christmas or on Thanksgiving, he never responds.
Is it impolite to wish your advisor on such holidays? Is it common to maintain professional boundaries with one's student by not responding to such holiday wishes? I am not sure what the etiquette is here.

Why not say it in person?

devil's advocate: maybe they work all the holidays, so they do not really care about your wishes.

I don't think it's impolite. However, I don't think it is particularly common.
In the absence of any other information, I would interpret "no response" as neutral, meaning the person read the email, but didn't feel it required a response. I would say it's likely that the person either appreciated it but had to move on quickly to other things, or else did not care one way or the other; I think it is unlikely that they thought something negative about you. I can understand how a non-response might feel cold to you, especially if you were expecting them to send a message in return. But, people are busy, especially around holidays, and you generally shouldn't expect responses to non-work-related emails from people you have a purely professional relationship with. That's not to say that you can't have a more personal relationship with your advisor, but that will depend on you and your advisor and isn't required for a successful advisor-advisee relationship.
As was suggested in the comments, I think it's very likely that if you wished the person happy holidays face-to-face, they would appreciate it and respond in kind.
One caveat is that not everyone celebrates Christmas. So it is possible to commit a faux pas by wishing Merry Christmas to someone who does not celebrate it; generally "Happy Holidays" is safer. However, I think most people would likely treat that as a well-intentioned mistake if you did that, or else gently correct you if it mattered to them. (And, on the other hand, I have wished "Happy Holidays" to a professor who corrected me with "MERRY CHRISTMAS", so sometimes even when you try to be careful, you can't win :-))

No its not impolite all. I wish everyone in my research group a happy Christmas, and they all wish me the same. I also generally intend to send a happy Christmas message to my undergrad tutees, even if i don't always remember.
It is generally considered polite to respond to such a message. However i wouldn't expect a reply on the holiday day(s) itself - holidays are about resting and if your advisor has any sense, they won't be checking their messages!
I would see failing to get any reply an impoliteness, but a minor one. There are much worse things an advisor can do than fail to acknowledge holiday wishes.


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Are recommendation letter writers asked to rank their students?
Suppose a PhD advisor has multiple students who are applying for postdocs to the same universities.

Do the universities ask the advisor to rank these students when submitting their recommendation letters?

Do universities generally choose to not accept multiple students of the same advisor?

Not sure "the university" would even notice. Are they applying to the same department, or postdoc advisor?

Which part of the world are we talking about? I am a bit confused because post-docs are not usually selected at the university/departmental level, at least in the parts of the world I'm familiar with.

This does happen for PhD admissions (referees have to answer questions like "is this applicant in the top 1%/5%/10%/25% of students you've taught?" etc) but I would be very surprised if it was done for postdocs. You're being hired by an individual to do a job, not being admitted to a university for a course of study. Many factors beyond a simplistic ranking are more important in that case.

I would find it improper to ask for ranking. There are too many factors and an individual professor will only know some of them. Moreover a person has to be a good fit for a particular position and the letter writer can't really make that judgement. I would ignore such a request if it happened and speak only of the qualities of the individuals for whom I'm writing. I can't, however, say that it has never happened.
And, I doubt that the second factor is more than a very minor consideration. While a university might prefer to take students or postdocs from a variety of other places, refusing a great candidate on such grounds would be sub-optimal all around. But, again, it could happen, though I hope rarely.


text:
Changing major in the graduate school
I am a second year under-graduate student studying mathematics, but also taking courses in economics. I am not sure at this stage if I will continue with maths in my graduate school. My option B is economics. Roughly, I would give 60-40 in favour of math as far as my graduate study is concerned. My question is this:
Which major should I focus for doing internship and research while I am doing my under-graduate  before applying to grad school?


text:
How to select which conferences I should attend?
I am in my first semester of a computer engineering PhD in the USA. At my University during your first year they will pay for your expenses to attend, up to $1000.00, for a conference. Every year after that they will pay your expenses if you get a paper accepted.
I am wondering how others look at/find conferences that they feel are worth the monetary and time commitment for what they provide. My areas of interest are embedded systems, computer architecture, and security. I have found many conferences but am unsure of how I should vet the quality of these.
What criteria do others use when looking at conferences and judging their relevance to the area they address?
What opinion or otherwise do people have of academic conferences vs industry type conferences vs enthusiast type conferences?

Ask your advisor.

There are many different types of conferences and many different reasons to go to a particular conference.  The most relevant that I would say for your situation are:

Flagship conferences that everybody in a field goes to because that's where everybody goes, and where research presented will get the greatest audience.
Niche conferences and workshops that serve some particular smaller interest group.  They are less prestigious, but are where the communities they serve have a lot of key interactions and get a lot of actual intellectual work done.
Crap conferences that would like to fool you into believing that they are one of the first two.

Some good tactics for judging the quality of a conference:

Where do the people whose work you respect (particularly your advisor) publish and attend?
Where are the organizers and program committee members from?  Are many of them from high-profile research institutions?
Google Scholar metrics

Given your early stage and breadth of interests, I would recommend going to one of the broad flagship conferences, where you can hear about lots of things from lots of different types of researchers and organizations.  Those conferences often have a lot of industry attendance as well.  I don't know your specific field too well, but even from outside I know that USENIX is a large conference with a strong reputation.  Still, use the heuristics I suggest and see if it's really the one you want...

I worked as an administrator for the 21st McGill International Entrepreneurship conference and we listed our conference on a conference announcement directory called PaperCrowd.
It attracted several delegates from around the world. I found out it was in the same city I lived in and I applied for a job there and got it! I am now the proud community manager of PaperCrowd. We are working hard to improve the services for researchers worldwide.
You should try PaperCrowd - a global directory of academic research conferences. You can search by topics, geography and keywords for research conferences you are interested in such as law, legal etc.
Organizers add their events in a couple of minutes and it’s free. It’s restricted to academic research conferences.
It feels good working for a company that I have seen myself was effective.
https://www.papercrowd.com/


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How should I cite a website which includes institutional information
I would like to cite a webpage which I am accessing with credentials through my academic institution. In this case (and I've seen this often) my institution is indicated in the url. For example:
http://ulrichsweb.serialssolutions.com.libdata.lib.ua.edu/...

Given that this url seems dynamic and will not be effective for others attempting to access the page, what is the best way to cite this page? In this particular case, the page gives no option for permanent link or link to this page or anything like that.

What type of information are you accessing at this URL? Is it available in any other format? Is there any other non-electronic document you can cite with the same information?

@eykanal This is the site for Ulrichs Periodicals Directory. The problem there is twofold: 1) I don't have physical access to the print edition, and 2) the latest print ed. I could even ILL is 13 years old.

I think your intention of not citing an URL like that is correct, since it won't be useful to anybody outside your institution (and maybe not even within, if the URL is session specific). It doesn't make sense to give information in the bibliography which is not useful to the general reader.
First, check whether there are other means to cite the content. If it is a journal publication, you may not need an URL: generally, the standard bibliographic information including the journal name, volume, and page numbers is sufficient. Also check whether the content has a DOI. Then you should always be able to link to it via http://dx.doi.org/<DOI>.
If there is no way to refer to this content such that the general public can access it, then it is just not citable. You can only cite publicly available material, and not everything on the internet is publicly available (think about a Google Mailbox in the extreme case).


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What should we say to affected students about Trump's travel ban?
I am an American working overseas.  I work with several students from Iran who have never been to America.  What should I say to students who have been banned from entering my home country?

This.

I see no way how this becomes a productive question that fits the SE format, and not a political discussion.

The world is bigger than the USA. If they aren't interested in their talents, than there are many other countries that are.

Put it in its historical context.
The United States can be a wonderful place to visit or even live, but it does have a long term history of periods of political unreasonableness. During those periods, it becomes so afraid of some group of "others" that the fear overrides human rights, treaties, justice, common sense, and the US constitution. Keeping the US safe from the feared group is the overriding concern, and nothing else matters compared to that. Often, the feared group includes a few people who really are dangerous, but the danger gets grossly exaggerated and makes the US deeply afraid of an easily identified larger group.
There was a mild one during Nixon's presidency, when the feared group was people protesting the Vietnam War. The most recent really severe one, in the 1950's, was McCarthyism, when the feared group was communists. In WWII the feared group was people of Japanese origin or descent. Now, the feared group is Muslims, and people stereotyped, based on e.g. national origin, as being Muslims.
The good news is that, after a period of fear-based unreasonableness, the US always sorts itself out and gets back to sanity.
Any students from one of the affected countries, and perhaps Muslims in general, who need to make immediate decisions about e.g. a postdoc should consider going somewhere other than the US. If you are planning an international conference, it may be better to pick a country whose visa policies make it more likely that all interested academics can attend.
In the longer term, the current fear of Muslims will go the way of fear of Irish Catholics, fear of Chinese immigrants, Japanese-American internment, and the McCarthy era.

My takeaway from this is that in 50 years there will be a new set of innocent victims?  It makes Americans sound stupid.

Regarding the last paragraph: as a Chinese used to live in the deep south of the U.S., I can tell you that the fear never go away. I upvote the answer because it is what I hope to see.

@AnonymousPhysicist I am afraid the takeaway is that it won't take close to 50 years. We were long overdue, apparently.

@xLeitix I had hoped that the civil rights movement, and the resulting discrediting of racial prejudice, might have helped prevent a repeat. Unfortunately, it seems only to have delayed it. I do take heart from the Americans who have turned out to protest this, and the pro-bono lawyers sitting on airport floors preparing filings.

@AnonymousPhysicist For anyone who thinks countries never act stupid, which tends to lead to sounding stupid, I strongly recommend The March of Folly.

Just tell them "I think it is unfair that everyone from your country has been banned from entering my country."

Did you answer your own question?

I agree the travel ban is a problem, but I don't see the point of your question and answer.  Anyone who thinks it's unfair already knows to say this.  Anyone who doesn't think it is unfair is just going to downvote you and post comments that will likely turn into a political flame war.

@NateEldredge I would like reasoned and thoughtful feedback on this answer, or alternative answers.  You can check my history; I don't post political trolls here.  This is a real issue I actually face.


text:
Applying to Ph.D. with 5 years in Bachelors
I will finish my 4 year bachelors program next year, in a total of 5 years.
I had failed many many courses in 2nd year and my cgpa was around 2.4
Then I had that enlightenment and decided to become an academic. Since then, I have increased my cgpa to over 3.5 and turned all F's to A's. For last 3 semesters I get averagely 3.9 gpa each semester
I still have some C's in few courses from 2nd year and instead of graduating this year, I will graduate next year.
I have managed to boost my cgpa amazingly after such things but I want to know if this extra year will cause me any trouble during Ph.D. applications.

cgpa was around 2.4 — A CHALLENGER APPEARS

This sort of thing should be explained in the cover letter. This trend is pretty common; freshmen enter college ready to party, realize halfway through that their grades are actually important, and then buckle down and do good work for the rest. You simply need to state that, despite your initial behavior, you are fully committed to your education. Given a 3.5 GPA at the end, I don't imagine you would have too much trouble.
Do note that this will vary as a function of the universities to which you apply; some may take a harsher view than others. Still, you have a good explanation for the one bad year, so it shouldn't post too much of a problem for you.

@Nunoxic - That's a very valid point. I wouldn't try to put lipstick on this pig, so to speak; acknowledge that your freshman/sophmore year was bad, and simply point to your improvement in the remaining years as evidence of your new attitude.

PhD programs do not just look at your GPA(well they do look at it, though!). They want to know that you will be a successful candidate. They put more weightage on your research experience and its novelty. They would look at your research interests that you have mentioned. They want to know that you can bear the stress of the PhD life. They want to see what is your career orientation, what do you intend to do with a PhD degree in hand. They want to see how you and your research would help in the progress of their program and institute as whole. They want to make sure they aren't wasting their resources in a bad investment(you) which is avoidable.
Show them that you are worth it. If you can prove that you will be successful in your PhD, you will get it. People have good and bad times. Good times are good, no one questions them. The question is how did you and how well did you handle the bad times.
You brought your your GPA up again, which is a good sign. Make sure it doesn't gets neglected. Mention the bad times and its challenges that you overcame, in your cover letter/personal statement/essay.
If you really want it, you will get it. Good Luck! :)


text:
How often do US graduate programs reevaluate their requirements?
The spark for this question was a remark (you'll know which one when you see it!) made in this answer. My other reason for asking is that I recently learnt that one physics PhD program went ~25 years between curriculum evaluations. That seems like a long time period to me, but is it unusually long?
My question is, in principle, quite simple:

How often do US graduate programs, particularly in STEM fields, tend to reevaluate their curriculum and requirements? Is there a typical time frame?

Note that I'm not talking about year-to-year changes to the syllabus of individual courses, or the institution of new elective courses. Rather, I wonder how often a department might have a curriculum committee (or a similar structure) evaluate the program's structure for core courses, and the mandatory number of other courses. I'm also primarily interested in established programs that have been around for quite a while (that a two year old program is still figuring out its policies isn't terribly surprising).
Note also that I have added the reference request tag. If there is an actual report or survey out there, that would form an ideal answer. If someone happens to have experience from multiple programs that would also be useful, but if, like me, you only know the answer for a single program, a comment is likely more appropriate.

The only one i know of does about every 10 years

Pure guess, but I suspect it will depend on bureaucracy above the department level. For example, UK-wide rules essentially determine how often this happens for undergrad courses.

@AzorAhai Thanks for the data point! A period of 10-15 years seems natural to me, as it allows a few cohorts to graduate, and is a reasonable period over which you expect some changes in most fields, as well as in the demographics of incoming students and the careers of graduates.

@JessicaB Also a guess, but yes, I think it's likely this is often set at the university or college level.

Another data point: in my math dept, although formal updates occur only every few decades, there is constant informal updating and reconsideration of requirements, course content, and re-interpretation of the formal description of requirement... which, by design, are very flexible in the first place.


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Is it necessary to submit papers to IEEE conference which are PDF Express Plus approved?
I submitted one of my papers to an IEEE conference: NGCT 2015 which is supposed to be happening soon (the final paper submission deadline is gone) and I had submitted my paper in PDF format, written in latex, without getting it approved using PDF express plus.
Is it necessary that I should have submitted the PDF express plus paper? If yes, do I still have an option of changing the submitted paper?
I tried contacting the conference organizers but they were unreachable for quite sometime now.

PDF Express is basically an automated means of making sure that you didn't mess up your document preparation in a way that will later become a headache for you, the conference organizers, or the IEEE.  For example, you might have things misconfigured such that you ended up with A4 instead of US Letter paper, or have some bad fonts in there.  If you're using the standard IEEE LaTeX templates and not doing anything particularly creative with your formatting this shouldn't happen, but even then sometimes it does.
The IEEE camera-ready sites will typically tell you that you are required to check beforehand, but de facto allow you to submit.  This is sometimes very important, because sometimes PDF Express isn't working (we had an issue of this type with a conference earlier this summer).  Checking with PDF Express is a good practice to follow, however, because it's a few seconds of insurance against the possibility of a whole bunch of headache for yourself and others down the line.

I have written my paper using IEEE template. And when I checked with pdfexpress (after submitting the final paper to the conference), it said it found no issues and asked me to approve it for collection. So it does mean it is not mandatory right?

It's not generally mandatory, but avoiding it is foolhardy.

You can indeed avoid using PDF Express. I have on one occasion submitted an IEEE conference paper that was not checked with PDF Express, and that was published without problems. However, you should make sure to:

Read the instructions for authors very carefully. Make sure you use the right font size, paper size, column layout etc. Also make sure you use the correct options for the IEEE LaTeX template.
Check that your fonts have been embedded properly. On Linux the pdffonts command lets you do this. (It's OK to have fonts embedded as subsets.) On Windows, Google is your friend, but I think some versions of Adobe Reader can check it.
Make sure any figures are of appropriate resolution: good enough to look crisp, but not so huge that you get a 50 MB PDF. As a rule of thumb, you want a full-width figure to be ~ 2000 pixels wide for single column layouts. This is approximately what is called 300 DPI. For line graphs, vector graphics (like .eps) are always best.

For images, I use .pdf files along with the respective .pdf_t files. Will that be a problem with pdf-express? If so, how can I generate .eps files from the (.pdf, .pdf_t) pair?
I use Overleaf which doesn't generate .dvi file (which is required by pdf-express). Any ways to generate the corresponding .dvi from .tex?


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Order of taking courses
I take my courses in a very specific sequence which I believe maximizes my learning potential and enjoyment. Unfortunately, that means that some key 'checkbox' courses I am to take might be put off until senior year. Will grad schools assume that I'm just not taking them at all? Or will it be OK to take them even as I'm applying?

The courses you take are not the most critical part of your application for grad school.

Could you give an example of what you mean by a very specific sequence?

If you are applying to graduate schools while you are still enrolled as a student, you will normally be asked to provide the most up-to-date transcript you have at the time of the admissions process—and may have to provide a mid-year report if a quarter or semester has elapsed between the time of submission and the decision date. So, the only courses the school may not see may be the ones in which you enroll after such a mid-year report.
Now, in general, if you're not leaving too many classes until the very end (in other words, the "standard" load for someone in the field), there won't really be any questions asked—people know that different departments have different ordering and sequences for classes. However, if you are leaving "standard" courses normally taken earlier in the program for the end, you may need to explain why. However, your local academic advisor should be able to guide you on whether this will actually be necessary for your particular case.


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Is there an implied requirement to include citations?
As part of a freshman Computer Science course, I've been assigned the task of writing an MLA-format essay on a relatively fundamental subject within the field. The instructor stated that "This essay may require additional research outside of the text." However, I'm able to completely describe the topic entirely from my own knowledge and experience.
In this sort of situation, is it implied that I must cite at least a few external sources, or is it acceptable to write an essay entirely from my own personal knowledge?
And, if so, do I omit the Works Cited page entirely or just put "None" under the Works Cited heading?

It would be worth asking your instructor. In general for academic research papers, one does include citations, because original academic research builds upon existing knowledge.

(this might strictly speaking be out of scope of this site, but I'll answer anyway as I think the question in general comes up quite often)
Generally, when one is asked to write a scientific paper of some sort in university, there is an explicit or implicit expectation that you will use references. Often, students think this is unnecessary because they feel they know already "everything", or at least enough, about the subject without searching through the literature.
This is usually a fallacy for a number of reasons:

Oftentimes, students check web pages like this one and learn that in a published research paper, a certain level of common ground can be expected and does usually not need to be referenced. However, what "can be expected" is clearly dependent on the type of paper you are writing, and a published research paper works differently than a term paper in a freshman course.
Further, there is an underlying misunderstanding of what one needs to reference. References are not only required for what you are learning from literature "right now", i.e., in the current class. The things you already know you probably did not research on your own, entirely independently. You learned them in a previous course, and (maybe long before that), there was a paper or textbook that introduced these concepts.
Keep in mind that any paper writing assignment in a course is foremost a learning experience. One of the goals is that you should learn to research additional material (hence the "This essay may require additional research outside of the text."), and to cite it correctly. Circumventing this learning goal by basically just writing down what you feel does not require citation usually does not make instructors happy.
Generally, writing (only) about your "own experience" is a bit of a fallacy in itself. You should understand that you are in that case basically generalizing from a sample size of 1 (you / your experience). Let's look at an example. Maybe you have, for instance, worked a bit as software engineer, and hence believe that you do not need to read the literature in order to write a paper about software engineering processes (I am making examples up here). However, in that case, you know exactly your own company processes, and know little about how everybody else is building software. This is where you would look over published papers for more rigorous studies.

All that being said, in the end Dave Clarke's comment is accurate: It would be worth asking your instructor.

It is a standard assumption that you do not need to cite "common knowledge" in your own field. In physics, for instance, you don't need to reference Newton's second law or Schrödinger's equation. Typical "textbook" material doesn't need to be referenced, unless you're quoting specific text.

@aeismail in a research paper yes. In a freshman's term paper, the level of what should be considered common knowledge should be significantly lower. Correct?

Well, basically the level would be what a freshman in CS would likely know.

Just to add, the functions of citation include 1) giving others a chance to find out more about the topic 2) giving others a chance to verify that you've understood the original source correctly 3) give credit to the original source. Even if someone is writing something based on their own knowledge, crediting the sources they originally learned it from still serves all three functions. (Of course, a freshman essay is probably only read by your professor, but it's still good to get into the habit of proper referencing.)


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How should I present data written in another language?
I'm writing a research paper in English but the topic is about a different country and the data is written in a different language, Arabic.
Should I translate the data into English?
If yes, should I include a version of the excerpt in the original language?
If yes, how?
Apart from using excerpts of data, I sometimes have to mention certain words of the original language such names of participants and research fields, but I do not know whether I should use transliteration, translation or both.
Thank you

As an aside to the other answers. You should normally not include personal names of participants in papers at all. This violates the privacy of the participants, and you would need permission to do so.

It would depend how much your translation of the story makes a difference to your thesis. If it doesn't particularly matter with respect to the finer details, it would be sufficient to provide the entire story in Arabic and then give a synopsis in English. If it's more critical that the audience knows what each line means, then give each sentence with its English gloss.
If you wanted to go to the extreme, you would have an interlinear gloss, which means that each word, or even morpheme, is glossed individually, and then a free translation given at the end. Here's a Hungarian example (from the Leipzig glossing rules):
Gila abur-u-n      ferma  hamišaluǧ  güǧüna  amuq’-da-č.
now  they-OBL-GEN  farm   forever    behind  stay-FUT-NEG
‘Now their farm will not stay behind forever.’

In linguistics we use these literally hundreds of times in a thesis, because this is where our data really is. It's probably more depth than you'd be willing to go into, and I would advise against it unless the Arabic syntactic and morphological features are absolutely critical to your thesis. The conventions that most linguists use (and tweak to their own subject language) with respect to the names of various grammatical features (OBL and GEN, for example) can be found in the Leipzig Glossing Rules.
I think you'd be fine to select from either giving the entire story followed by a synopsis of whatever detail you'd prefer, or a line-by-line transliteration.

Thank you for the answer, but my research is not related to linguistics and I'm not interested in such detailed translation. I just need to have the reader understand the meaning.

The example sentence you use doesn't sound Hungarian to me. Are you sure about the language?

You should be concerned with more than whether readers understand the data: you need to present the data in the rawest form practical, when there is a possibility of error in rendering the data in an altered form. If the data were transcriptions of interviews conducted in Arabic, and was not generally available to readers, then the data should be presented in its original form. This allows diligent readers to verify your conclusions.
For practical purposes (assuming the readership isn't a fluent Arabic-speaking population), a translation should be provided as well. Depending on the amount of material involved, you might present consecutive texts, first the Arabic and then the translation. If there is a lot of material, it may be best to put the original text in an appendix, unless issues of translation need to be discussed in the paper. For Arabic, there is also the question of how to present the text, i.e. in Arabic script or in (augmented) Roman letters. For Classical and Modern Standard, there are standards that lead to interchangeability so it does not matter too much, but for Colloquial dialects it would matter how the data was created (did the subject write it, or was it spoken and someone transcribed it?). In the latter case, questions of accuracy are especially bound to come up (you can't write ث as "th" in a dialect where it is pronounced "t").
There is no need to translate personal names. If you intend to use a term such as مقهى repeatedly, it should be translated the first time and transliterated all times (maqhā).


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Does starting a question with 'what is the impact of' make a good qualitative research question?
I am studying the impact of the internet on a cultural practice in my country. I have been working on this project for months. I have already started data collection and analysis. However, lately I've become unsure of my principal research question.
So, I'm studying an online community through online ethnography.
I am sure it is only a problem with the wording of the question.
What is the impact of the internet on ...?
I wonder if this is a qualitative question because I've read that qualitative questions should not start with 'what'.
Is studying the impact of the internet on a phenomenon consistent with my methodology?
Thank you

For ethnography, you will need an overarching question; say, how the internet shapes the cultural practices of CountryA. However, do keep in mind that you need a lot to say about motivation of the research. And, what do you mean by cultural practice - which itself assumes that in CountryA has specific cultural practices. I think you get the idea where it is heading.

For any decent research question, I try to test it with all these criteria. Some of these sound very simple, but as I try to answer them, there isn't one of them that I find consistently simple. That might just be an indicator of my own limitations, though.

Does it look like the sort of question that gets answered in the journals (/ conferences / predominant outlet in my specialism) I want to publish in? In your case: are there impact studies in the literature that use qualitative ethnography?
Does it tell me who, what, when, where, why, and how? e.g. What sort of impacts? How will the impact be studied? Over what time period? Impact by whom, on whom? and so on.
How will I know when it has been answered well?
Is this a definite gap the literature?
Will answering it make the world a better place (in however small a way, but at least in a net positive way)?
Is this answerable with the resources (time, human, material) that I have available?

It's worth putting a lot of effort into getting the research question right. John Dewey is credited with saying something to the effect of "A question well put is half solved". Richard Feynman described research as being along the lines of: "write down the question;  think hard about it; write down the answer"; and it's too easy to assume that the middle part deserves all the effort, but the first part and the last part repay effort too.

They are all good suggestions. However, I will add that take them with a big pinch of salt. The question is about ethnographic inquiry and the answer invokes scientific rationality. With all due respect (and some more) to Feynman, I think better guidance can be sought from Anthropologist such as Clifford Geertz and sociologists such as Erving Goffman.


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Is relevant self-citation an effective way to promote your work?
This question was inspired by the confusing headline (now edited) for
How should I respond to a reviewer's complaint about self-citation?
Does self-citation actually promote your previous publications?
We have questions about inappropriate self-citation, but what about self-citation that is relevant?  Does it bring attention to research?

Related questions
https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/95736/how-to-define-self-citation
https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/59109/when-does-self-citation-become-citation-padding
https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21797/how-to-discourage-irrelevant-self-citation/21798#21798

This answer, to one of the linked questions, more than answers the question posed, ... see https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/122613/72855

@SolarMike I think you linked to the wrong answer.  corey979 actually argues both ways.  https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/122611/13240

Clicking on the link I provided, takes me to Buffy's answer, which is the point as it is about self-plagiarism...

You probably want to explicitly say "...where relevant and justified" to avoid misinterpretations.

The answer might depend on how you define "effective promotion", but there is scientometric research concluding that self-citation leads to more citations - crucially including more citations by others. Instead of a comprehensive literature survey (which I'm ill-equipped to write), I'll just refer you to one of the more important papers on the topic as an inroad to the field.
Studying citations to Norwegian scientists, Fowler and Aksnes: "Does self-citation pay?", Scientometrics 72, 427-437 (2007) found (non-paywalled version)

that the more one cites oneself the more one is cited by other scholars.  Controlling for numerous sources of variation in cumulative citations from others, our models suggest that each additional self-citation increases the number of citations from others by about one after one year, and by about three after five years. Moreover, there is no significant penalty for the most frequent self-citers — the effect of self-citation remains positive even for very high rates of self-citation.

A pretty simple answer is that google scholar weights citations highest of all search criteria in its rankings. Citing your own work (where appropriate) increases its rank order under google scholar's search results. You increase a few other metrics with self-citation including your h-index. This seems like a pretty straightforward incentive for scholars to self-cite themselves.
From a practical point of view, though, why would you not cite yourself? If you are producing quality research in your sub-discipline, not citing yourself would be inappropriate. This is especially the case if you have a strong and directed body of research.
Here are relevant citations:
Beel, J., & Gipp, B. (2009, April). Google Scholar's ranking algorithm: the impact of citation counts (an empirical study). In Research Challenges in Information Science, 2009. RCIS 2009. Third International Conference on (pp. 439-446). IEEE.
López-Cózar, E. D., Robinson-Garcia, N., & Torres-Salinas, D. (2012). Manipulating Google Scholar citations and Google Scholar metrics: Simple, easy and tempting. arXiv preprint arXiv:1212.0638.

Self citations should be no different than any other citation you're going to make.
I think you shouldn't, for the sake of imparciality and objectivity, see your previous works any differently than any other previous works. The person conducting the research is not relevant to the subject being studied, only the findings are of scientific relevance. So, it should not matter who is being cited, just the content being cited. Citations shouldn't really be made as a way to promote one's work (or anyone else's work, for that matter). They are there to serve as a basis for further advancement of the scientific knowledge on the subject being studied.

Citing your own work that doesn't contribute to the current work should be seen as wrong. That is improper self promotion. Citations, whether of yourself or others should be done to support the arguments of the current paper.
Citing things not relevant is a disservice to readers.
Use citation for the purpose for which it was created: allow the reader to follow arguments back to their source.
The exception would be a survey paper in which you are simply gathering the important documents of some subfield. But for a paper that hopes to advance scientific knowledge, leave out the things not relevant to the conclusions. You cite yourself in such work so as to avoid self-plagiarism.
Needing to "promote" your own work also seems a bit odd to me. If the work is good, it doesn't need promotion. The work should stand on its own. Or not. Spend your efforts on doing good work, not on advertising it.

-1 off topic, this is addressed by other questions, as mentioned above.

@AnonymousPhysicist You expect users that provide answers to check whether previous questions have answers that address the same points? Even when a user's answer is written -- as is seemingly the case here -- before anyone has uncovered those previous answers?

Promoting one's work is a big part of a researchers job. If we do not disseminate the knowledge that we create, then what is the point?

@AustinHenley, yes, but that is the purpose of publishing. Spurious self citation, even of "relevant" work, is a completely different issue. No-one suggested hiding your work or failing to disseminate it. If another work doesn't contribute to the current work, there is no need to cite it. The same concept should be used when I consider citing myself or I consider citing you. I don't need to cite Euclid in every math paper.

@user2768 I wrote the title and question to specifically exclude these answers because there were already questions that suited them.  I mentioned those other questions in my question and linked them to the first comment.  Generally I do not expect people to check for other questions before answering, but I do expect them to read the question.

@AnonymousPhysicist I know you "linked them to the first comment," but Buffy's answer looks like it may have been written before your comment appeared (at least, started to be written). In any case, relying on user's reading comments before answering is still an additional burden.

@user2768 Surely you know the questions, comments, and answers have time stamps.  And as mentioned, it's right there in the post title.  I will not reply to you again because your arguments are implausible.

@AnonymousPhysicist Yes, I read the timestamps, that's how I ("implausibly") deduced that your downvote seemed unfair towards Buffy.


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Do graduate schools consider courses that are exclusive for one country?
In Norway, it is mandatory to do a course in philosophy named Examen Philosophicum. I got a B in this subject, and as such, it hurts my GPA. Do graduate schools (in mathematics) care the least bit about such subjects?

This depends on the nature of the subject and the program to which you are applying. Anything that's "on-topic" for your field would of course be considered—so if you're doing a graduate program in something like philosophy, theology, history, or something in that part of the "spectrum," such a course probably would be considered. However, if you're studying something in, for instance, the sciences or engineering, or something in the humanities far removed from this—such as music—such a course would probably receive much less consideration.
Moreover, a grade of B in such a course is almost certainly not going to make a significant enough difference in your GPA that you would have been admitted if you had gotten an "A," but will be rejected because you got a "B."


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What to do if my professor is plagarizing
I was in the middle of doing my homework for a class (its a worksheet for a word document) and I noticed that the author of the word document is not my professor.
I looked it up, and it turns out that the person who wrote the document teaches a related class at a different university.
I checked the rest of the document, and nowhere (other than the word metadata) says that it comes from this other person.
Should I do anything with this information, and if so, what?

Also see Is it acceptable for paid online course to use quizzes and materials from elsewhere on the internet?

Also see How widespread is sharing of slides/assignments among educators?

Also see Citing sources of problems in assignments and Plagiarism of Lecture Slides


text:
Is having recommendation letter writers from the searching institution valuable?
I am applying for junior faculty positions this fall. I know professors at several of the institutions where I'll be applying, but not in the same department to which I will be applying. Are letters from people at the same institution where I'm applying more valuable than an equivalent letter from someone at another institution?
Also, what if I do know someone in the department where I'll be applying. Should I rely on their input into the search process occurring naturally during faculty discussion, or would an explicit letter of recommendation from that person be looked upon favorably or disfavorably?

Related, but relevant to Ph.D. admissions, not job searches: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/30390/how-are-letters-of-recommendation-handled-when-they-come-from-a-member-of-the-ad