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Make last minutes amendments to bachelors thesis or not?
I am currently finishing up my bachelors thesis. I am writing about an application I developed in a specific setting, so there are not many comparable works out there (that are known to me).
Since the company I'm collaborating with is actually using the system I've built, I am constantly working on it, I will probably continue to work on it after my thesis is formally done. However, now I've come in some predicament. My thesis isn't due for another two weeks.
I have recently made some changes to my system, which fixed some bugs. They were not breaking the concept or anything, but they impacted the way my system stores its data. I have not changed any of the concepts relevant to the essence of the thesis. I have also introduced some measures to increase the availabilty of my system significantly.
I am now involved in some other projects and have started an new job, since I finished my thesis. It is basically just waiting for me to hand it in. I really don't want to rewrite the parts of my thesis for these changes. Since I graduate in a field heavily related to computer science, I can trace my exact changes to the project through Git, a versioning software. What I want to do, is mark a specific version (commit) and let my thesis refer to that specific version of the code. However, I also made some changes after, that fall in the formal three months of the time, we have to prepare our thesis.
Is it acceptable to just ignore everything that happens after the day, I "decided I was done" ? Or do I have to mention it in the thesis? Basically, it's completeness vs. consistency.

This is a question for your advisor.

Agree with @Buffy - ask your advisor. That said, it's very unlikely that anyone will ever look at your undergraduate thesis. A note there saying that you continue to work on the problem should more than suffice.


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When should a PhD student be removed as first author?
As an advisor, at what point do you decide that a PhD student no longer deserves authorship on a paper?
I am an associate professor who is very active in engineering research at a low-ranked R2 institution. Most non-top-10 institutions have a hard time attracting good PhD students, but here it is nearly impossible without deliberate, targeted recruiting. Consequently, I frequently find myself in the situation where I bring a student onto a project, only to find (sometimes a year or two later) that they are simply not up to doing the work. So, I do (or redo) all of the work myself and usually end up re-writing the entire paper. But even though I effectively did all the work, it was still a project assigned to a student, and worked on by a student for a considerable amount of time. So, in all of these cases, I left the student as the first author on the paper, with myself as last/corresponding author - even though the student's actual contribution was effectively nil.
This is not just me being non-confrontational or altruistic. As a faculty member, it is usually better to be last/corresponding author with a student as first author, than to be first author oneself. Student-first-author / advisor-last-author shows off mentoring ability as well as scientific contribution. So there's not much incentive to take the student off the author list, especially since doing so can make one come across as a greedy credit-grabbing advisor.
So my question is: at what point do I finally decide that a student no longer deserves first authorship? When I realize that I re-wrote the entire paper and generated all figures myself? When the student quits the program? When I learn that the student never did any work to begin with? When I learn that the student has not actually been dedicating the time to the project that was expected?
Or, is it better to err on the safe side, give away first authorship to undeserving students, and risk letting them take credit for something they did not earn?
Edit 1: In my field, the convention is that the first author is the primary contributor (usually a student or postdoc), the last & corresponding author is the senior lead, and the other authors are ordered roughly in accordance with contribution.
Edit 2: I am talking about removing as first author, not removing from the paper. Few students contribute little enough to warrant complete removal. However as far as how it looks, it looks equally bad (or even worse) to make myself first author, as it does to remove a student from a paper entirely.

The title says "remove as first author" merely positionally, but the body says "remove as author" implying they have no credit whatsoever. Further, it is not clear whether this should be considered in light of first author = key contributor/leader and first author = Aaron A Aaronsan fields, where it would be a distinct consideration.

How important is first authorship in your field? In some places authors are routinely listed alphabetically. I also believe that often it makes far more of a difference if there are more than to authors whereas "you and student" or "student and you" may make little difference, but that for sure depends on the field and place.

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Can you remove them from authorship if they barely contributed anything and just give them a ''strong mention'' in the Acknowledgements section?

@Tom I would just leave them as authors (not first author) in that case.

@mrp True.  When I was in this situation, we did try to remove one of the authors who contributed almost nothing (they had zero experimental skills or intuition) and to put them in the Acknowledgements but they kicked up a fuss until we put them back in as an author (not first author obviously).

You realize this "sometimes a year or two later"? Perhaps it is worth working more closely with the student to track their progress and understand the difficulties they are having?

Is your field the biological sciences? Please tell us the actual field since different ones have very different customs about this sort of thing. In my field, Biology, the rule of thumb I've heard most often is that if you provided a single graphic used in the paper, or wrote a single word submitted to the journal then you're an author. Other fields are far more restrictive.

I frequently find myself in the situation where I bring a student onto a project, only to find (sometimes a year or two later) that they are simply not up to doing the work. So, I do (or redo) all of the work myself and usually end up re-writing the entire paper. But even though effectively did all the work, it was still a project assigned to a student, and worked on by a student for a considerable amount of time.

This seems all very wrong and troubling to me. A lot should be happening over a year or two of mentorship on a project, and at no point should a PI be unilaterally doing/redoing a project that a student is working on.
If this is frequently happening, then there is something seriously wrong about the supervision process, and I'd be extremely hesitant to put the weight of that on the students at all, this is a mentorship problem that needs a thorough review. I'd recommend seeking your own close mentorship from senior faculty colleagues, consider getting co-mentors for your students, and find out what is going wrong that students are so lost.
For the title question about when to change first authors, the key is that this should be an iterative discussion and agreement among authors, not a "boss decides at the end" scenario. You don't own these projects, you're a collaborator on them with the students.
A change in authorship should not happen simply because a supervisor is unhappy with the writing or the figures. Before a change in authorship is even considered, an advisor should be working with the student on specific ways the student's work can be improved. It might take some specific guidance and management, not just an insistence that the student somehow finish the work on their own. If a student can't produce a particular figure, why not? Their advisor should help them organize and work through any blockers. If a figure needs revision, what steps are required? What's wrong with the current version? What are the specific problems with writing, and how can the student address them? These are all learning and teaching moments.
If directing these individual aspects of a project is not getting anywhere, it may eventually be time to have a discussion about the overall ownership of the project. A clear plan should be made between the student and the advisor setting expectations for what must be done on the project going forward for the student to remain first author, and a timeline. The advisor should be working with the student to make clear what the expectations are for someone who is first author in your field. You should build from these expectations to make a plan that the student can agree with and is fair. In case of a dispute/failure to reach agreement, or a serious circumstance that may jeopardize the student continuing in their graduate program, it may be necessary to involve a third party that has the trust of both the advisor and student and a role in advocating on the student's behalf such as a department or graduate program chair.
Even for a student who has left a program, authors need to agree about how past work is going to be credited when an eventual paper is published based on that work. Remaking figures and rewriting text does not erase previous intellectual effort towards a project.

+1. Indeed, the strangest part to me is the statement that: after I year, I realize they've been goofing off the whole time and haven't actually done any work! Giving this much freedom to a novice researcher at a "low-ranked R2" seems very strange.

@cag51 Generally this happens at the point when a student transitions from taking classes to not taking classes. I give a lot more leeway when they are juggling research and coursework. It is only when they begin focusing on research full time (and the learning curve work) that their capacity becomes apparent. It's not a matter of freedom - it's the reality that comes from having to recruit and support students from year 1 of grad school.

@mrp I sense you are a bit frustrated with how things are going in your lab with your students, so it may be that your post and comments here are reflective more of that frustration than reality. But, if your comments do reflect reality, it sounds like you're giving students 2 years to figure stuff out on their own and then judging them incapable when they aren't fully formed researchers after that. Does everyone in your department have these issues? Have you asked your chair or other senior people in the department for help?

I should add that it's perfectly normal to be struggling with mentorship of graduate students; you've likely had no training in doing so. Learning doesn't stop when you become a professor.

@BryanKrause yep, there is definitely a lot of frustration :-)
One aspect of the problem that I did not talk about is time frame. Often, there may be progress, it is just not fast enough for me or my sponsors. So when it's the 11th hour and the paper needs to be submitted, and the student still has not come through, I have no choice but to do it myself.
(I'm one of only about 3 active researchers in my department and the most active by far. My chair and the other senior faculty could not care less about research.)

@mrp Are these industry sponsors?

@BryanKrause No, all federal. DOD, DOE, NSF.

Ah, well at least some DOD/DOE projects I could see having more of a delivery timetable than typical academic work from what I know of them. Specific deliverable dates for NSF sounds odd, though? That said, it's very much on you as a manager to manage throughout the project's lifetime, not only at the 11th hour. Break a project up into specific deliverables. Be prepared to manage down to the week. Have regular meetings on progress and blockers. You shouldn't be waiting until the 11th hour for a student to come through, you should be holding their hand through the whole process.

More broadly, I think your core problem has very little to do with the question you've asked here: you have bigger issues than figuring out what to do with authorship. If there aren't appropriate mentors for you at your institution, you may need to find mentorship elsewhere - your own past research advisors perhaps, other schools in your region, and your broader network.

@mrp: I guess what I meant is that I'm surprised you would start a "real" collaboration with an untested student. Because you're right, once you've assigned a project to a student, it's hard to take it back and publish it without them. So I would have expected that you would spend the first couple of months just having the student do odd jobs to learn skills and build trust with no paper in sight. And only after they hit a certain point, you can decide to trust them a real project idea.

@cag51 That is certainly the ideal. Unfortunately it is untenable where I am. The only way to fund students at my institution is with external funding. So, once you get funding, you are forced to recruit an untested student and put them right onto a funded project. Ideally, students should be recruited, put on a departmental RA or TA, test-driven for a year or two, and then put on a funded project.

@mrp: I don't mean to keep second-guessing your situation, but to make one last stab at it -- don't you have useful, funded work that is not "critical"? For example, a study that you'd like to do but don't have time, or maintenance on your codebase or hardware, or implementing a potentially-useful algorithm or something? This would let you justify funding them for a few weeks or months while they get their feet wet. And if there is critical work that absolutely has to get done and published, you probably want to avoid giving that to someone until you're sure they can handle it.

@cag51 That is exactly what I do. But it is a high-stakes game, because sponsors expect results, and you can only afford to replace so many students. Even just a couple months is a lot of time for a three-year project. And I know from experience that entry-level tasks are an insufficient indicator of a student's potential for PhD level research.

@mrp All those pressures and stakes are true for everyone in academia, not just you, and not everyone is answering those pressures by doing all the work themselves once students fail.

@BryanKrause What exactly is your answer to the question?  "It may be necessary to involve a third party" Are you saying a student should only be removed as first author if they agree or if a third party agrees?

@cag51 and Bryan Krause:  The asker says their problem is caused by difficulty recruiting qualified PhD students.  You have responded by insisting that the asker has not mentored correctly.  I feel that is not an accurate, reasonable, or respectful response.  Difficulty recruiting qualified PhD students is a real problem most academics who recruit PhD students face and it cannot always be solved by mentoring unqualified students.

@AnonymousPhysicist Yes, authorship changes should be an agreement among authors. A third party may or may not be necessary to facilitate that agreement.

Authorship is not a reward to be bestowed for satisfactory job performance. It is about having made a significant intellectual contribution (which might indeed be small and much less than what you had originally expected).
Your expectation what the students should have done and what they have done has nothing to do with their authorship. Hence the answer to your questions is relatively straightforward:

When I learn that the student never did any work to begin with?

Yes, you can and should you remove the student. If they truly never did any work that means they cannot have contributed to the paper and they should thus not be an author.

When I realize that I re-wrote the entire paper and generated all
figures myself?

No, just because you wrote every single word and made every figure does not mean the student did not make a significant intellectual contribution during the research or writing of the drafts.

When the student quits the program?

No, just because the student left the program does not mean the student did not make any significant intellectual contribution while they were in the program.

When I learn that the student has not actually been dedicating the time to the project that was expected?

No, just because the student underperformed does not mean the student did not make a significant intellectual contribution.
As others have pointed out, repeated failure of your students meeting expectations should result in some introspection on how you could possibly manage your students differently. For example, you may have re-evaluate what kind of research you can do and how much explicit guidance your students need. In the end, doing work for someone else is an extreme measure and a short-term solution that is not a sustainable long-term strategy. Good luck!

From a general perspective, you are (in danger of) engaging in "gift authorships", which are detrimental to the academic community, if you end up doing all the work. From an individual perspective, you might have not much of a choice, since an accusation of taking a student's work and appropriating it for yourself (whether the student has left the university or not) could be very detrimental to your career.
In general, the criterion for authorship is that an author has contributed materially to the paper and can be held responsible for all aspects of the paper. Since this leaves a lot of lee-way and also does not resolve issues such as the collaborator that can no longer be contacted or who after being involved no longer wants to have anything to do with the research group, the key is good communication before troubles start. When you accept a student, make an agreement on how publications are going to be handled. It might even be worthwhile to write a document for your lab, setting down the criteria for authorship. When you decide that you no longer want to supervise the student, talk to the student about what happens to the work.
You will not be able to avoid all conflicts. Let's say that a student is to write a simulation to lay the basis for some work, but does not provide code that you can trust or that even works, that you then reimplement the code yourself and get different results, showing that the student's work was close to worthless. Since knowing that something does not work still contributes to solving a problem, has the student contributed materially to the research work to be published and deserves to be named an author? Other difficulties arise from handiwork? If you ask a student to make an excel graph for a data sheet with your own data, is this worth authorship? (You can spend hours trying to make excel graphs look decent.) In this forum, you will find people saying that it does, but I would disagree. Then later, you create your own graph using pyplot? What now?
To reiterate: you want to avoid conflicts about authorships by being clear about the rules in your lab. Within reason, you get to set the rules, but they need to be set out before students start working for you. Treat such things as abandoning the Ph.D. and not being able to communicate. Make clear what your expectations are when you set a task for a student and how this would impact future authorships. To protect yourself, include students as authors if in doubt.

The example of a student effectively failing at writing a simulation code, but still "knowing that something does not work still contributes to solving a problem" epitomizes the conundrum. I agree with your last statement. The problem is that there is always doubt...

I'm a Ph.D student, so perhaps I'm biased, but I'm good enough to solo publish my own papers and ask other instructors to work with me, instead of the reverse. To me, authorship should be removed when the person who's meant to be first author isn't doing first-author stuff. Such as, taking an active role in the planning, analysis, code upkeep, and all stages of the project to the best of their abilities, including the writing process.
Note, I'm biased also because I have worked in teams of 2 to 3, so it's much much harder for a long chain of command to be messed up, but to me that's the general rule here. If no major work is happening over a year such that you need to go back and redo things, this sounds like an issue with supervison and bigger factors, as others have noted. I can't think of a situation where my mentor had to go redo everything me or my coauthor did, and if he had to, again I'd say this is a symptom of a bigger issue.

You sound like a good student and I am sure your advisor enjoys working with you. I have worked with several students who display that same kind of independence and drive, and it is an absolute pleasure. The problem is that students like you are born not made. So what do you do with the students who lack that innate ability? I'm not sure. If you eventually take an academic position, you'll see that it's quite different from the other side, especially if it's at a low-ranked R2 like mine.

Some students are not as smart or hardworking as others. You should set a minimum input that makes a student part of the authorship. Then set an extra for the order of authorship. Let the student know that if they can do task A, B and C they become first author. If they do only task A, B, they can be second author. And if they do none their name will be removed. This should be established at the beginning of the work. Students at that level are adults and are expected to understand and keep to agreements.

I'm going to take a somewhat different tack, and this is possibly because of disciplinary differences.  When you are working with students, it is work, you have to put the time in to allow them to learn how to do things. If you are feeling frustrated with a student so much so that you think they are not capable of doing what is required, you might need to step back and think about whether you are writing people off unnecessarily.
It is almost always easier to do something yourself when you are highly skilled than to have a student do it.  The student is not going to work at the level you are -- they do not have the experience.
I also think you might want to consider whether from the student's perspective they have put a lot of time and work in, even if you don't think it is good enough. Is this student still going to be upset about this loss of credit in later years?  What kind of acknowledgement will you give them if not an authorship?
Would you consider a "with" rather than an "and"?

I have been doinh this for a while, and I have worked with enough good students to know what are reasonable expectations. Believe me, this is not a mentoring issue. If anything I am concerned about not writing students off quickly enough.

That's fair, it's just a thought.

To add to this excellent answer:

Have a written authorship policy.
Provide it to all collaborators, PhD students or otherwise, before they start work.
Follow your policy.

Authorship is an agreement. There can only be an authorship policy if it relies on the basic policy of "I decide authorship by some set of rules" - which is a problem.

@einpoklum I view authorship as a matter of ethics, and ethics are not up to negotiation.  Agree with my standards of ethical behavior, or you can't work for me.  (I've never had a student or colleague disagree with my standards of ethical behavior.  Posters on this site often do.)

When enrolling at a university, one necessarily agrees to a set of rules provided by the university.

@einpoklum I don't understand your comment.

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Starting a PhD without any intention of staying in academia after graduation - Is that a problem?
My field is Statistics & Machine Learning
I have come to know that job prospects in academia are really (really) bad. Of course, it is discipline-specific, but it did discourage me from pursuing a PhD, not necessarily because of the imposter syndrome. It could be because of my initial expectation that I would stay in academia after getting a PhD.
Eventually, I decided that I would still pursue a PhD as it's still useful for me, but after getting the degree, I would work in industry instead of academia. At least, in my field, having a PhD will open many doors (e.g. data scientists). I still enjoy doing research (developing models and algorithms) and teaching mathematics. It is just that I think it's not a good idea for me to stay in academia after graduation. Therefore, I will also prepare myself for industry job market.
Is it a problem if I start my PhD with no intention of being an academic after graduation?

I know PhD graduates who now have positions in each of the following: industry, academia, government, and non-profit.

What might be problematic is the set of mind while working on the thesis. Being genuinely interested, fascinated and curious about the subject is a much better motivation than pursuing the PhD for the sake of becoming a PhD.

Of the roughly 1.5 million professors at all US institutions, about half are full-time. A small fraction of those have significant research funding (~150 R1 universities). Let’s be generous and say 20,000 positions. Let’s say a 30 year career, so average replacement hiring is order 3.3%, so perhaps 700 heavy research positions a year across the US at universities. My national lab would love to hire about 300 STEM PhDs next year alone.

I did a PhD in Computer Science, then worked for a big company for 25 years, and have now been running my own business for nearly 20 years. Don't regret any of the decisions I made. And when I started the PhD, I was pretty determined to move into industry once it was finished.

Is it a problem if I start my PhD with no intention of being an academic after graduation?

No. It is a mathematical fact that most PhD graduates will not obtain permanent research + teaching position at a university. Being clear-eyed about this is not a problem; just the opposite.

At least, in my field, having a PhD will open many doors (e.g. data scientists).

This is absolutely true, but it's also true (at least in this field, outside of universities) that a master's plus a few years' experience is equivalent to a PhD for all practical purposes. Certainly nothing wrong with doing a PhD, but also nothing wrong with "mastering out" when the time comes, if you're not excited about the prospect of finishing. There are advantages in both directions.

Therefore, I will also prepare myself for industry job market.

Yes, this is key. Invest in learning skills that are useful, even if not directly required for your PhD (e.g., try to learn about good programming practices, rather than terrible research code). Likewise, you can try to avoid projects that are not relevant to industry -- but it may be hard for you to judge which these are; most people underestimate the extent to which "theoretical" work can have real-world applications.

+1 on the "learn about good programming practices". Academics have a well-earned reputation for messy coding — after all, most research software will only be run a few times, total, and only on whatever systems the team personally use, with whatever specific versions of its dependencies they write it to expect. It's super-seductive to fall into that mindset, in research work, because it's all anyone expects... until you get a Real Job, and find out that code people pay for has to be maintainable and reusable, and it's expected to conform to any platform it's built on, not vice versa.

@FeRD Sure enough, but when it comes to good practices, sky's the limit. Setting aside time for maintenance to ensure the code is well-written and can run on any platform already takes quite a bit of time, and getting it to the industry levels of quality (high test coverage, minimizing tech debt etc.) pretty much means you have to start taking your time off research. Some things just can't be done if the funding covers about 5-20% of the team hired at the industry rates, and you can afford no people who would do just DevOps.

No, there is no issue about pursuing a doctorate intending to work in industry. The downside is that most jobs are in academia, however.
I know quite a few researchers at top international companies who have followed that path. They are quite well known and participate in professional/academic conferences and publish. But for every one of them there are many others in academia, I suspect.
But, it is good to have a career path and to work to follow it. A doctorate gives some skill (we hope) and practice in research, but doesn't imply that the research be done in a university setting.
Beware, however, that a lot of industrial research (not all) is product focused, not knowledge focused. That might be sub-optimal if you are forced into such a career - or  not. Your choice.

I have recently seen a post from someone on Twitter. She has like 40-50 publications 2 years after graduation from a PhD program. Still, unemployed - no postdoc position. Of course, it is discipline-specific, but it is still a bit discouraging.

Yes, the marketplace is brutal at the present time.

Industry and national labs hire lots of PhDs. I have difficulty finding staff candidates, albeit in fairly niche fields. The national lab I work at hires hundreds of PhDs a year.

@JonCuster, so, is your lab actually growing by hundreds of such positions each year? Permanent positions?  And, like you say, niche.

If you have thousands of PhDs employed you need to hire hundreds to maintain the workforce. We are growing a bit of late. My needs are niche, overall we hire pretty much all STEM areas. Yes, permanent positions, and postdocs (many of whom convert to permanent staff).

@JonCuster, I'd guess your situation is rare. And "growing a bit of late" doesn't give a lot of confidence. Sorry but I'm skeptical that this gives any reassurance to anyone.

Well, we have over 13,000 total employees, up about 500 or so in the last year. Our PhD hiring will continue…

@JonCuster, I think it is more like 15,000, but you are unique and not everyone would like to work there, if I have the right lab. There are about 5000 (fuzzy figures, though) colleges and universities in the US.

"The downside is that most jobs are in academia, however." I think that you have an observation bias. How can the majority of jobs be in academia? In a steady state situation, each professor on average has only one student who becomes a professor.

@Pikachu피카츄 Don't mistake quantity for quality. In many fields, seeing that many publications in such a short time would be taken as a bad sign.

When I got my PhD I was one of 5 in my department. My department didn't hire anyone that year. Some years they hire one person, most zero. Nothing about that department was unusual. There is no way the majority of PhDs work in academia ... this isn't the 60s where new universities are being created all around us.

@KateGregory, most PhDs in academia have exactly zero doctoral students because most don't wind up in R1 universities with doctoral programs at all. My undergraduate liberal arts program had 2000 students. Years later it has 7000, so a large rise in faculty that don't have doctoral students. Moreover, the place I earned my doctorate then had about 30,000 students and was considered very large. It now has 50,000. So, academia isn't in stasis. A single "large" state university (UMich) has 12,000 "faculty and academic support staff". And that isn't the only university in that state.

@Acccumulation, note that the US has about 150 R1 universities, which is where most doctorates are earned. On the other hand it has about 5000 colleges and universities where most doctorates in academia are actually employed. Moreover, in my student days, I was taught in my major subject by more than 30 individuals (plus many others as an undergrad for non-major courses) , not just my doctoral advisor. In the days of Socrates it was possibly 1-1 or so, but we've come a long way.

I agree with @Acccumulation. I'm a Ph.D. in industry and am surrounded by many Ph.D. colleagues. Without having any data to back this up, I would very strongly expect most Ph.D.s to be working in industry. But maybe I'm misunderstanding what population you are discussing. Are you saying that most jobs for Ph.D.s are in academia (I don't think so), or that most jobs in research are (where you might be correct, depending on how "research" is defined)? And even then, OP does not seem to be asking for advice against a background of wanting to do publishable research.

"I was taught in my major subject by more than 30 individuals" But not full-time. Did any of them spend 3% of an academic career teaching you? And if most people with PhDs go into academia, then what's the point of academia? I guess there's research, but if the main activity of academia is simply teaching the next generation of academia, then it rather looks like a pyramid scheme.

@Acccumulation The key point is that "one replacement PhD per professor" only tells you about the probability of becoming a PhD advisor, but the vast majority of PhDs never end up in that position. Yes, many end up in the industry, but a whole lot of PhDs is needed to teach all the millions and millions of undergrads. (And that's arguably "the point of academia" as far as most of the society is concerned.)

@TooTea Are those undergrads staying in academia? If so, we're back at the same problem. If not, then why are there all these jobs for bachelor degrees, but not for post graduate degrees? "but the vast majority of PhDs never end up [being a PhD advisor." The vast majority of PhDs in academia never end up being a PhD advisor? I find that difficult to believe.

This is going to vary significantly from field to field.  The question specified stats and machine learning-- while I would not expect there to be a shortage of seats for those in academia, there is certainly no shortage in industry.

Probably not ...
Since after all you are already accepted into the program, and it's virtually guaranteed that the list of things you need to do to graduate with a PhD does not include "find an academic job somewhere". In other words, you should be able to graduate with a PhD, as long as you are bright/motivated enough to meet the requirements.
... but your colleagues might look at you funny if you tell them you have no intention of staying in academia. Hopefully your supervisor is not one of those people.

Not a problem. Just ask yourself why you want to do a PhD program. Personally, I found a lot of value in having some years of time to just pursue my own interests, despite me also never really seeing a continued academic path as a reasonable option. Although if you are in it for that, make sure the spot you are applying for is actually anything like that. I know a lot of people who's PhD essentially amounted to a grind along a predefined path.

Is it a problem if I start my PhD with no intention of being an academic after graduation?

I decided to go into the industry during my first year of PhD studies. I started to work in a large company in parallel (as a consultant/trainer) in a tangentially related field (that I knew well).
The PhD studies were wonderful, I also knew that I would switch in a few years and that allowed me to be relaxed with politics and feudal hierarchy. It really helped.
I actually did the switch in my last year (or 1.5 years before the defense), after discussing it with my thesis director who was supportive.
One thing I would very strongly advise against is to tell everyone around that you will be leaving just after the thesis. I am not saying you should lie but rather not discourage people to be around you - you may end up cooperating with some later on as I did.
So to answer your question: no, it is not a problem.

I have no plan of doing a PhD just to obtain a PhD as I will do it seriously with enthusiasm, but at the end of the program, I will be actively preparing for the industry job market.

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text:
5th year of PhD, depressed with no results want to quit
I am a 5th year PhD student in Biotechnology from a mediocre University. Although my university doesn't have even basic resources I tried my best to do my work by managing things from here and there. Even my supervisor doesn't support me in any way, neither in any discussion nor is he letting me get support from anywhere else. He even called my results fake and copied when I showed them to him first. He doesn't let us do any kind of novel work either.
He is kind of toxic and paranoid and just involved in politics with his favourite students. I don't participate in this. He and some of my colleagues even tortured me and and did character assassination. Always poking in people's personal life and shaming them in front of others.
I didn't have any progress in that lab so after taking permission from my HOD I went into another lab and started my work. My results are still not up to the mark; I tried my best but am unable to do it. I don't know what to do now, I am so depressed and even suicidal, I used to be happy and full of confidence but now I am struggling to survive. Nothing is going well.
I am not even interested in this field anymore, I am interested in some creative field like writing. But I am scared to start from scratch with such a big gap and no significant experience. My parents gave me proper time to heal but I still I am not well, my father is telling me to go back to university. I get panic attacks only thinking about it.
Everyone has so much expectations from me as I was a very good student, and the single person in my whole generation to go for higher studies. I have no clue about my life. I HAVE NO IDEA. I am so depressed. Should quit or do nothing?

Sorry to hear that you are in such a bad place, but this is not the right place to go for help. This is a decision that ultimately you have to make. It sounds like your mental health is not in the best place, maybe go see a professional that might be able to give you some perspective. And, many people switch careers and studies, you are not the only one contemplating such things.

Duplicate/related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2219/how-should-i-deal-with-becoming-discouraged-as-a-graduate-student

Thank you very much for your reply. I really want to do something great in my life and I am ready to do that in life science also, earlier I had so much of great ideas and was so motivated but now I struggle with basic things too. I am not able to do anything and don't know how. I am mostly worried about my father's expectations as I don't want to let him down.

It is a noble thinking to carry not only your expectations, but also the ones from your family, acknowledging that they supported you and allowed you to go further with the studies.
However, no path is straightforward, and sometimes we are weighted down with the sunk costen fallacy: you spent 5 years on something, so you feel you need to keep it grinding harder to get it to the end.
I am quite sure you need a fresh start.. And the path to do something meaningful in life is not the same for everyone, nor must be a path of headwind and suffering.

@Sursula I wonder why people are so quick recommending professional help on a clear matter of a potential academic dead end. Much of it is a matter of strategy, and getting professional support is alleviating the symptoms, not the causes.

@CaptainEmacs I  think it is fair to suggest professional counseling for people saying they are depressed and suicidal.

If forward sucks, go sideways. No title, no employer, no nothing is worth being miserable. Never! Sure, success is a lot of hard work, but the moment you lose progress and start being miserable, run!

@A_girl_has_no_name May I know the country?

@Sursula There are "groundless" depressions. In which case, I would agree with you. However, OP has very good reason to be depressed, and here a clear path out is what OP needs, not just a patch. I am not saying that a professional cannot help to some extent, but it's not making the cause go away which is required to turn things around.

@CaptainEmacs You are, repeatedly, missing the fact that the OP stated that they feel suicidal (in addition to getting panic attacks from the thought of returning to uni), which is not a normal symptom of "my PhD isn't working out as I had hoped".

@A_girl_has_no_name "I am mostly worried about my father's expectations as I don't want to let him down." If you are feeling suicidal and are suffering from recurring panic attacks, perhaps your father's expectations aren't the most important thing in the world for you to be concerned about.

@AdamPřenosil I overlooked that specific word. You and Sursula are, of course, right.

Please seriously consider talking to a professional about this, potentially even the support services offered by your university. It is important to have someone who is outside of your situation (outside of your lab, your department, your friend group, your family) to gain some real perspective and help make plans and decisions that are right for you. That is what professionals are for and it is a sign of real strength to realise when you need to get a bit of help making sense of such a difficult situation.

Thank you very much for your reply. Unfortunately my university doesn't have such kind of facilities and I can't afford that on my own because I don't  work. Right now I am just looking to get some job but again no experience and career gap.

@A_girl_has_no_name You do not have a career gap, you are working on your PhD. That's a valid occupation.

@CaptainEmacs It indeed is but only if I am still doing it. If I tell people that I have quit it then they consider me as a fresher and ask for experience. Although I have more than 2 years of experience in teaching in that university and obviously my lab work.

@A_girl_has_no_name You have that factual experience, even if not the degree. I get it that it's not nice, but unless you see an orderly way out in limited time, it's probably better to cut your losses at some point.

If you were a good student, what made you a good student is still there, only the circumstances buried it. Change the circumstances, dig yourself out.
Understand what you can do, and what you need to do to achieve that.
Can you somehow wrap up your PhD, at mediocre level even, just to get it done? Your heart may not in it anymore for the time being, but if that is somehow practicable, it may at least get you something for the investment.
If not, maybe it is still a good idea to leave. You may be in an unlucky group or this type of research may not be for you, we cannot tell. However, not all groups are like that, but there are some cutthroat places.
You need to consider if it is viable for you to start a new PhD in a different group. If you cannot see yourself wrapping up in a reasonable time (say no more than 1 year from now), I think it is time to close the chapter, reset and decide what to do next.
Understand that, if you are destined for great things, you will achieve them, maybe not in the path originally envisaged. This PhD is not the only route, and maybe a PhD is not the route after all.
What you do not want to do is to continue as is. Give yourself some 2 weeks to reflect, then decide and act.
Good luck!

I am really sorry you are in this situation. Everyone else is right that you should consdier talking to a professional about this. I don't know your country, but perhaps look for a subsidised or "cheaper" option?
Regarding your issue with your PhD, have you talked to your HOD about this? Perhaps even though you think that your "results that are up to the mark" it is actually not the case and you can somehow finish your PhD with what you have. I have seen plenty of cases (even my own PhD to some degree) where people have just done what they could (not the "best" work possible, just compiled whatever good or bad results they had and wrote their thesis because they run out of time or had issues with their supervisors) and got their PhD.
Still, something that you should ask yourself is if getting your PhD is actually worth what you're going through. From your post I would say it isn't. Of course changing careers is not going to be a piece of cake, but it is definitely better than spiraling in a carreer that is only making you unhappy. I saw that you're worried about dissapointing your father and I completely understand that, but if he was dissapointed he would eventually get over it, and it would be definitely better than seeing their child suffer or doing something even worse.
Unfortunately I think these situations are too frequent for PhD students, so I hope your situation improves and wish you the best of luck.

If you were to complete your degree, what would your next step be, assuming you stay in the same field? If the next step would be to get a job at a company or as a research associate at a lab, it may be possible for you to still get such a job even if you were to quit the PhD (maybe it won't be as interesting / high-paying as you could get with the PhD). I say this for two reasons:
a. Often, getting a job after school is a matter of knowing the right people and reconnecting with genuine mentors and peers you have met over the years, who are aware of your skills and abilities independently of whether you actually gained the degree. If you can think of any such people you know, it might be a good idea to approach them about your situation and see if they can help you find a fit.
b. As has been pointed out, you've already gained a lot of the same skills that you would advertise about yourself if you did complete the PhD. So finding a job after the PhD is more a matter of finding a company / hiring manager who can see past the "Ph.D." title and judge you based on your actual skills and knowledge. It may not be easy, but I think it is certainly possible. At worst, maybe you'd be getting a bachelors-level job rather than a PhD-level one, but it sounds like you'd still be a lot happier.

Some schools / departments offer masters degrees, possibly research-based masters degrees. Perhaps you can inquire about "converting" your PhD program to a masters program, which presumably has way lower requirements for graduating, and just finish the minimum requirements for the masters and leave. That way, at least you get a degree in return for your time and efforts over the last 5 years. This option will almost certainly not be advertised on the website of your school because it is not a standard path, usually, so you'd likely have to ask an administrator. But in my opinion, if you plan to quit, then it is worth exploring this or something similar, because you have nothing to lose.

When things are not going well for a PhD student, it is often a bad thing not only for the student, but also for the advisor. Usually, in your situation your advisor should have every incentive to make you graduate and leave ASAP, so that they can stop funding you and start funding a new student on a different project (no reflection on you, this is just how advisors often think). After all, the advisor mostly wants publications, and if you're not publishing and your project is not going well (even if it's not at all your fault), then your advisor is just sinking grant money. If this is the case, can you talk to your advisor and reach an agreement such as "if I get the project to xyz state, can I graduate?" If your advisor indeed has issues with you as a student, then I would think they'd be more than happy to let you go as soon as feasible.

Switching to a creative field, such as writing, from life sciences, might be easier if you can come up with a strategy to hold a primary "day job" that you are already qualified for, and then, over time, build your creative portfolio on the side. That way, at least you can build financial stability while pursuing your passion on the side. Some may disagree with this approach and argue that you have to go "all in" to your true passion, which is also a valid point of view - it's up to you to decide which path works for you.

Of course, the suggestions above may not help with the pressure of expectations placed on you by others. Hopefully, the expectations are ultimately coming from a place of love and a desire to see you succeed in life. So, if you were to quit the PhD, start a job, and do really well at the job, then the people who have the expectations may be disappointed in the near term, but in the long term, when they see you thrive in the new setting, maybe they will end up being proud of you for fighting for your happiness.

Thank you very much for this detailed answer it really gave me a perspective. I'll try to do whatever you suggested. My original plan is to do a job in my field and do any course in creative writing only problem is getting job as a fresher.

It is hard to suggest something without knowing the context of the lab or professor. One of the sentences that jumps to my attention is My results are still not up to the mark, I think this might be a sign of either an advisor that has not helped you design good experiments (where there is only one good outcome) or improper training (where you have not been trained on how to physically do your work); know that none of these reflect poorly on you, they reflect poorly on your environment.
Regarding the resources that might facilitate a transition to a field that you believe would fit you better.
I know you mentioned my university doesn't have such kind of facilities and I can't afford that on my own because I don't work. but keep in mind that they might exist but not be 100% obvious. In my school this had the form of setting an appointment with the "Associate Dean of Academic Affairs" or your department head, with whom you can consult on what the alternatives are and what people in situations similar to your have done in the past. I know the general profile of the facilities and resources for "HR-like" issues can be almost non existent but I would encourage you to ask for advice to people in positions that could facilitate your transition.
Regarding resources that can help you with mental health. In my school there were support groups that were student-run that would help with this. Which is a time commitment but it is not a source of more financial burden. Try to post in your school's reddit channel asking for such resources, you are not alone in mental health struggles (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41578-022-00444-x).
Regarding whether the gap in your resume would reflect poorly on you ... it is not necessarily true, think of your CV as a story that you are telling interviewers. You can frame it as a period of your life that provided you with a more rounded understanding of science/academia/your current field and a time of personal growth in inter-personal relationships. So if you take control of the narrative and make sure you don't come across as "a serial quitter", you should be OK.
LMK if this helps!


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Is failing to cite similar work in a conference submission considered unethical?
My team and I recently encountered a situation where another research team, also funded by the same agency as us, had a paper accepted at a conference. Upon reviewing their paper, we noticed significant similarities to our own work, which was published half a year ago and also presented at an internal meeting organized by the funding agency. These similarities are evident in both the task definition and methods.
Despite the clear parallels, our work was not cited in their submission. I find it unlikely that they were unaware of our paper, especially considering the context – both teams are funded by the same agency and we have shared our work in internal meetings. This leads us to be concerned about the ethical implications of their omission. I have reason to believe this is due to the fact that we are competitors.
So far, we have reached out to the first author, a student, requesting a citation, but have not received a response. We are contemplating our next steps, which might include contacting his supervisor.
My questions to the community are:

In this situation, is the non-citation of our work by the other team an ethical concern?

What are the advisable next steps to address this issue? Would reaching out to their supervisor be appropriate, or are there other recommended actions? Their team has a much bigger name than ours.

@leonos I don't think this is the same issue. In their situation, they were cited by the follow-up work, although later, their work did not receive as much attention as the follow-up work. In contrast, mine wasn't even cited.

On the surface there's nothing outright unethical about not citing a particular related work, assuming there isn't plagiarism involved. No-one is expected to cite every single prior paper on a topic. I would say it isn't great science to omit important papers, but obviously people miss things.
But I'm hearing that there is more to your situation. It sounds like you found some objective similarities between the papers and also feel like you have evidence that they should know about your work.
So the question is, did they take ideas from you work without citation? Or did they just fail to give you a shout-out? I think those two situations are different. The first is unethical and you can rightfully ask to be properly cited, the second is a bit of a grey area and probably not actionable.
Either way, reaching out to the first author is probably a fine first step. I might have cc'd the supervisor on that initial email, but since it sounds like you didn't, I think you should give the student some time to respond. Anything past that depends on what they say and what your expectations are in terms of a satisfactory resolution.

Thanks. It is indeed a grey area. This is pretty annoying, actually, especially considering that during the competition, there were some other things that happened, like them intentionally delivering lower-quality work to us. I wonder why scholars from such a fine university would do something unpleasant. We cited their works in our paper with no bias.  But in this case, I guess I cannot be overwhelmed by emotions. If they do nothing, indeed what we can do is just to send emails.

That is frustrating. It sounds like there is something of a one sided rivalry - all I recommend is to do good work and not give in to the temptation to be petty.

True, it’s always great to reach out to the first author as a first step, to know where to go from there


text:
Preprint Best Practices in Computer Science
I truly believe in the benefits of pre-print distribution, however I'm not sure how to exactly proceed. Here are some questions I have in mind:

When should I make them available? Before peer-review? After camera-ready?
Where should I publish them? ResearchGate keeps asking for my pre-prints, although most of the ones I read come from Arxiv. And there's always my personal website at the University.
How do I handle versioning, or how many versions should I keep? Would that disperse any potential citations?
What happens to the pre-print after the paper is published? Should the pre-print make a reference to the publication DOI?

I would specially like to know what's the "state of the practice" in Computer Science.

Should the pre-print make a reference to the publication DOI? some journals require that you update the pre-print and add the DOI. Read the guidelines of the publisher carefully.

The best practices I've seen in sciences, including computer science, involve

making the pre-print available upon/slightly before submission of the manuscript to the journal/conference,
publish the pre-print on the repository where the manuscript fits in thematically, i.e. where you find most pre-prints you read/cite (like arXiv oder Zenodo), or use your institutional repository, and
update the pre-print with the post-print (the version after peer-review but without the journal/conference layout) if allowed by the journal/conference, so that you have one or two versions available.

You can check whether you're allowed to update you pre-print with the post-print in Sherpa/RoMEO, on the journal/conference webside or in the copyright transfer agreement you have to sign upon acceptance. There is also statet what other conditions apply, e.g. whether a link to the published version is necessary or you have to use a specific licence and so on.

About point 1: you may want to avoid doing this if the review process is double-blind (in which case making the pre-print available when receiving the paper is accepted could be a reasonable alternative)


text:
Is there a reliable way to measure how difficult it is to be admitted to a PhD program?
If I wanted to check how competitive it is to get into a school's PhD (or MS/PhD track) program, what should I look at? For undergraduate, I usually search for the incoming SAT/ACT scores and the acceptance rate, and I found that pretty reliable. Is there something like that for grad schools?

I am not aware of any absolute measure for this. However, you can have a general idea by:

Some schools provide last year(s) statistics about their programs
(usually in the prospective student section). For example, program A
has attracted X number of applications and Y applications were
accepted.
Also, some programs have a fix limit (i.e. due to number of equipments available)  for number of applications to be accepted.
Sometimes online admission results like the one in Grad Cafe
give you a sense on how strict the school is.

Although not entirely accurate, due to the high variability of individual applicants and admissions committees, UT El Paso created an "Acceptance Estimator" for Computer Science applicants. The Estimator provides an ordered list of schools the applicant is likely to be accepted to.
UTEP CS Acceptance Estimator
My gripe is that it largely ignores the most important component of one's application: Research Experience.
This Estimator is designed to help you find schools that match up to your skills, and by no means is 100% correct.

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


text:
What is exactly the role of a phd advisor?
I'm a westerner doing my PhD in an Asian country. While writing this I've just finished my first year, but I'm getting so fed up with my academical environment that I decided to move my PhD.
One of the reasons why I went to Asia is that I'm in a technological field. Now a days with all these Asian countries up-and-coming, developing innovative products, it felt like a good moment to ride along on their train.
In the last year I'm experiencing major difficulties with my advisor and I'm not sure whether it's because of cultural differences or just me. Let me highlight some of the major issues:

When I did my masters, my advisors were actually people who gave me advice. My current professor is somebody who gives orders instead of advice. The big problem with that is that there's usually no room for persuading him with counter arguments. As stubborn as I'm, it usually ends up in me ignoring what he says.
There seems to be a big difference in how I approach weekly meetings. I make a selection of what I investigated during the week and decide myself which direction I go into and thus what I eventually present to him. It seems that he wants every direction thoroughly investigated and presented to him so that he can make a decision about the direction eventually.

These and other reasons, I don't think it makes people better. It won't let people think for themselves when they are just following. I got the comment last week that he thinks that my output is too low, but in fact I'm making the most progress, I'm just not presenting as much as everybody else because I make my own decisions upfront. I noticed that I intentionally not share everything with him anymore, because he always manage to turn everything upside down in one hour per week and ends with "just do it." Like he always creates the strangest and most complicated experimental designs (e.g., 3x3x3) with factors that I don't think are related. I just want to perform a simple 2x2 design and deepening it more and more based on the results. It just feels very odd that somebody who only gets involved into a project an hour per week gives orders about the direction.
Well the thing is that I seems to be the only one who thinks this is not normal. Since I always hear those stories that doing a PhD is always tough and sometimes makes you hate your advisor, I'd like to know where the problem is. I don't mind toughness, but it needs to serve a goal. Before I'm accepted to a different PhD in another country, I'd like to know if I'm getting in the same situation. If so, I don't think a PhD is the right thing for me then.

Have you ever tried to talk to your advisor about the kind of advising you are looking for? Advising styles differ a lot from person to person - it seems your advisor prefers to micro-manage, which is not what you're comfortable with. Maybe a honest, non-accusatory chat may help?

Yes I've tried, but he just says this is just the way it goes. I think even though with this micro-manage strategy there still should be room for negotiation and not just expecting to blindly follow because he has authority. I'm just afraid that I'll find the same thing somewhere else. For me advisor means as the word implies; giving advice.

Asia is huge, but if this is China, cultural differences might contribute.  I've read that Chinese academia is actually suffering from a culture where speaking against someone ranked higher / someone older is frowned upon.  This may be related to what you're experiencing.

In some cultures more than others, gender can complicate things even more; one scientist I knew felt that when she was working in Japan as a young woman, when she would say something senior men didn't pay much attention, but when a male scientist would say the same thing, they did.  This in addition to age can make a difficult relationship in some cultural settings.  Now I don't know if you're male or female, but if you're female, it could be relevant in this case.

I'm a guy, but I recognize the situation. I had the chance to visit Japan after one of my female colleagues went there. I heard all the great stories of her; being taken on field trips by everybody. Basically when I got there, I was just left alone and needed to figure out everything by myself. So I guess it's not always bad to be a woman in Japan ;-)

I have a advisor just like yours and his style is counter productive to himself and other people.

My husband did his PhD in Germany with a famous name for an advisor.  The advisor was not very helpful.  Fortunately my husband found an INFORMAL advisor on staff who did all the real advising.  Inspired by this -- to help you make your decision, whether to stay put and switch advisors, or whether to switch countries, I would suggest trying to get to know some other people where you are better.  In other words, try to find out how much of the problems you've experienced are due to cultural expectations, and how much due to a particularly bad fit with this particular person.

My advisor was Japanese (but lived in the U.S.).  He was an angel.  He didn't dictate -- he asked questions and got me thinking.  But that is only one data point.

I wrote this post two years ago, didn't expect it to be active still. I moved in the meanwhile and started my PhD all over again, but it's worth it. My advisor at the moment is the opposite of what I experience back then. This one cares too little, but fortunately I have good people around me to learn from. Whereas in the other environment the professor was the only person. So, I can relate and agree with aparente001: you don't necessarily need to learn from your direct advisor.

The quality of your relationship with your PhD adviser is one of the biggest factors in determining your quality of life during grad school.  I strongly encourage anyone in your position to consider switching advisers (which it sounds like you're doing).
I don't know what field you're in, so I can't authoritatively speak to "the way it goes" in that field.  However, speaking as a mathematician, there are a wide range of management styles.  Often, even the same PhD adviser will manage different students differently, depending on their abilities and desires.
Some schedule a weekly hour meeting without fail; others say "come see me when you have something".  Some coauthor most of their students' papers, some rarely do. Some students, like you, feel micro-managed.  Others wish their adviser gave them more attention and cared more about their research.
 My adviser essentially let me pick all of my own research problems, which was what I wanted.  It took me longer to start publishing than some other students, but I also felt well-prepared for life on my own after grad school.
So in short, stubborn micro-management is not "just the way it goes"; rather it's just the way it goes when you're working for a power hungry egomaniac.  Run, don't walk, to find another adviser!

Thanks for your answer and advice. I guess we've the same opinion in what is best for us; making own decisions and faults makes you better prepared for later. I think a healthy discussion and persuasion is key to make a project better. Listening to each other and accept different opinions. Finding a new place is just not so easy. Let's hope a new opportunity will reveal to me soon :-)

Since you are a westerner in Asia, I'll add my thoughts.
There are all types of advisers in Asia but there are a greater percentage who expect you to shut up and do as you are told, and just say 'yes Teacher' and get the job done as instructed. In the west, this is not as common. This issue is part of the Asian culture. Of course, you can find exceptions everywhere and if you dig, I suspect you will be able to find an adviser in Asia whose style matches yours.
My advice would be to be careful before choosing an adviser and try to find someone who you can 'sync' with well. As Dan C said, that relationship is a very important one for you. If you cannot find an adviser with a suitable style in Asia, then you should consider returning to the west where you will not have the underlying cultural conflict.

Thanks for your advice. I think the safest option would be to go back to Europe. This year ended like a little waste of my time, but maybe I should take it as an once in a lifetime experience. Anyhow, let's hope for some positive submission responses

Asia stretches from the Bosporus to Japan and from Russia to Sri Lanka and Singapore.  In my experience, your description fits for e.g. China, but I'm not so sure if it fits India, Turkey, or Russia.  Do you really mean all of Asia, or a specific area?

I'm in the north east Asia part and for that I can say that this may be very applicable for this part of Asia

In addition to other good points made, and seconding the idea that one's relationship with one's advisor is very important, and agreeing that one must learn to think independently ... :
It is also important to have an advisor in whom one has confidence, and who is not merely a sounding-board or yes-man for your own ideas. Of course, some people are jerks, but hopefully when a senior person disagrees with a beginner, the beginner can see good reason to take this as profoundly good advice in itself.
That is, for example, good advice from a more experienced person can help a beginner avoid pitfalls, avoid re-inventing the wheel, ... even better, avoid well-known failures-to-invent-the-wheel. Good advice can save a lot of time and energy.
True, in some regards it's best to experience various failures, to relive them, first-hand, as a process to better understand what does succeed. But there is a cost, which can be high, including professional embarrassment. Ideally, a good advisor helps avoid this.
In my own direct experience, I have had a few PhD students who were convinced (or hoped?) that I was seeing or making things more complicated than necessary in their projects, ignored my cautionary advice, and publicly-professionally embarrassed themselves considerably. I would say this was unfortunate and completely un-necessary, and certainly represents a big waste of time and opportunity. (To have the opportunity to give a presentation and inadvertently use it to embarrass oneself is a sad irony.)
So, ideally, one's advisor is not merely "older", but also "wiser" about not only specific technical details, but perhaps methodology, and about folklore, especially dangers and traps.
Also, sometimes, if one fails to convince someone else, one should consider the possibility that one's argument is in fact unpersuasive, rather than that the audience is stupid. :)
No, I don't think "obedience" or "compliance" are high virtues, and I do not recommend obedience for its own sake. Rather, a subtler relationship with "advisor", that may superficially resemble "obedience", but in reality is more reason-based, is seeing/believing that the advisor's experience gives them wisdom which will help you. If you can't see that in an advisor, then they won't be able to help you, either in "objective reality", or else in your perception, and it hardly matters which.

Yes I totally agree with you. I think you can distinguish foolish stubbornness and reasoned stubbornness. Eventually foolish stubbornness makes you learn too, but as you said you may need to undergo unnecessary embarrassment. The thing with my current adviser is that I have good reasons to go into a certain direction (e.g., I did a preliminary study), but still he argues otherwise without any foundation. E.g. because he experienced a situation differently privately (implying that everybody is the same as him) or just because he said so. These kind of situations make me loose confidence in him

"Just because he said so" is not a good reason. A person who has good reasons should be able to give them, otherwise why be believed? Some older people do behave childishly.

Because these kind of situations happen a lot, I am having difficulties in drawing the line between: something to preventing me from the kind of embarrassment you talked about, or because he is just talking rubbish. It just results in that I'm ignoring him completely. Most of the times I do want to have advice and directions, but I'm just not sharing anymore because he just turns everything upside down instead of given insightful feedback. That's not even the worse part, the thing is that he doesn't let go when I'm not doing what he wants. I need hear it for months why I didn't do what he said

what you said is all true but can you put in the context of OP? His advisor obviously had micromanagement style which only caused anger to himself and everyone else.

@user10694, it is not clear at all to me that, perhaps from an abrasive personal style, the advisor was being  unreasonable, given the disparity of roles, in the sense of "wanting to make the final decisions". Conceivably there is a cultural issue as well, but my own preferred style would be to explain my reasons, at length, as advisor. I do suspect that occasionally my students think that I should have been persuaded by their arguments, away from "my opinion", and they may be annoyed that I'm not... and would say they think I have insufficient reasons. But...

... if a student really has insufficient confidence in the judgement of their advisor, including intangibles, then they should get a different advisor. Indeed, there is an element of intuition, of irrationality, in knowing whether to trust someone whose reasons for choices are incomprehensible or seem inadequate.

After finishing my PhD and getting a tenure track job, in my opinion, the following are necessary criteria for selecting an advisor as you transition from your masters into your research phase:

They are invested in your success and "care" about you. This is numero uno.
They have time and are willing to spend it with you and to do some of the real work. It is your job to do most of the real work.
They are generally available for you to "pop in" to their office to resolve a small or large roadblock.
They are still publishing papers in / close to the field you are doing your thesis / 3-papers in.
If you care about getting an academic job, they have placements under their belt and know some people in the community who are hiring new assistant professors. Placements demonstrate they understand the game. Knowing people means the hiring committees will listen to your advisor's letters and phone calls.

It is better if an advisor can give you useful advice and guide you towards both interesting and promising research topics. Ideally, your advisor would understand how to make you release all your work potential, but you cannot expect that from him/her. There are a lot of different situations, nonetheless there are a few universals that do not vary a lot:

First, you can be sure that your advisor will be somewhere between 'simply not there' and overactive. There are students who cope well with an advisor who is completely absent, because it gives them absolute freedom. They are probably a minority. Indeed, others feel good when their advisor greets them each morning with a few kind words. In order to find a good match, you need to determine how much time you want your advisor to spend on your case. So you need to find out how busy he/she actually is.
Then, one can generally expect from an advisor to be firm and polite at the same time. You might change your mind about your work, about your discipline, and even about him/her, so that steadiness is required as he/she is your reference point. For that reason, you may (temporarily) hate your advisor and/or overreact to comments and criticism made to your thesis.
I would say that another factor is about your feelings and your instinct, as your advisor will more or less be your mental punching bag because the major part of what you think about the work you do together and will/should be left unsaid. Most students forget that their advisor is just a person who is exterior to nearly everything they do, because one cannot generally help building an interior (mental) representation of this person as time goes by. So you have to ask yourself if you can imagine live with this person in your head during 3+ years.

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


text:
My supervisor worked so hard to get a research opportunity for me, but now I want to quit. How to handle this situation?
It is about my friend (an undergraduate student in Australia), but I used first person pronoun "I" for convenience. My friend needs advice, and I tried my best to describe the situation. The second-person pronoun "you" can be used in the answer.
After taking an undergraduate course taught by professor A, he offered me an opportunity to do research with him. At that time, I wanted to pursue a Master by Research degree (MPhil) after graduation, so I accepted the offer as having some research experience would be helpful for my graduate admission. However, it was an unpaid job. I was living in Melbourne, and the living cost was really high here. I had to work part-time to cover the living cost. As the result, I did not spend enough time on doing research. I decided to quit.
Later, professor A managed to find a source of funding for the research project, and he offered me a new opportunity to work with him. He really wanted me to do MPhil and PhD at the same university after graduation. It was a paid RA job. I decided to quit the part-time job, and focused on doing research. We have not achieved any significant result since then.
Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, the university faced financial challenges. They decided to cut funding for research students. It has become extremely difficult for potential MPhil students to get the research scholarship (tuition fee waiver + stipend) unless students have a publication(s) prior to applying. His field of research is also not a priority of the university.
As the result, he has worked so hard to get me opportunities to participate in research projects from other research groups at the university. He always suggests me new topics and upcoming conferences, telling me that I should try to publish something there. There was one occasion when he told me to submit a manuscript to a conference when there were literally only 3 weeks left before the submission deadline, and I had from zero because we had not done any research on that topic before. (2) Of course, I did not manage to do it and wasted my time.
I have completely lost the motivation to do research, and I no longer want to work in academia. I have decided to quit again. However, just a few days ago, he managed to get a new research opportunity for me. He told me that I would work with a research group in United States, and they were going to submit a manuscript next year. Now, he sends me emails everyday talking about that project, and I am so anxious everytime I see new emails from him.
I want to refuse the offer, but I don't want to hurt his feelings. What should I do in this situation? How to tell him that I want to quit?

Additional details:
(1) I don't have any other job offer at the moment. I am thinking of enrolling in a master by coursework program after graduation instead.
(2) The stress affected my mental health. I thought that he had done so much for me that I should not disappoint him, but I also knew there was no way I could submit the manuscript in time (within 3 weeks) because the topic was totally unfamiliar for me.

This all sounds pretty terrible, I'm sorry this happened to you.

This is a master's in philosophy? what is the major. this will have an impact on advice. Each field is a different beast.

Only you can decide what to do with your life. But after reading your story, two pieces of advice:
(1) The question is a bit ill-defined when your other option is "I don't know." It's like asking "Should I stay on a sinking ship?": it's easy to say no, but if the alternative is jumping into shark-infested waters, then the answer is less clear. So, I recommend you do your homework, figure out what your plan would be if you quit your RA spot, and then make a decision between two concrete options.
(2) Your professor seems well-meaning but incompetent. Telling an undergraduate student to come up with an idea, research it, and publish it within 3 weeks does not show good judgment. Especially after months of no progress on a different problem. And that he is now sending "daily e-mails" about this new opportunity seems very sporadic. He is clearly well-intentioned, and perhaps also desperate to make progress for the sake of his own career. But at this point, I would have serious concerns about accepting him as an advisor. And of course, you should not make decisions based on pity or a sense of obligation; that will not end well.

It is worse as she is an undergraduate student. I actually criticised her supervisor as I told her that her supervisor was kinda overambitious.

Oh, I misread and thought this was an MPhil candidate. Yes, the rule of thumb is that hiring undergraduate researchers is (much) more for their benefit than yours. It is definitely not a good sign that the professor does not seem to know this.

+1 "And of course, you should not make decisions based on pity or a sense of obligation; that will not end well." -- this statement should be framed somewhere.

@Outsider There is trying to decline an offer after accepting it, though.

@Allure It seems like the conditions have changed since the OP initially accepted the offer. That might be enough reason to decline the offer. Even if that were not the case, I don't think it is a good idea to work somewhere if you feel like you are doing them a favor or doing it out of pity. It'll probably lead to regret when you face any hardships and will likely lead to bitterness. Also, if the supervisor doesn't reciprocate the OP's loyalty down the line, they are likely to feel betrayed. It's just my opinion, though, based on my experience.

@cag51 Huh, I do not see a big contradiction between hiring undergrad researchers being for their benefit and supervisor's behavior here. I have encountered the situation where it would be beneficial for everyone if the advisor was more selfish enough times. Also, many were despaired that students do not stay in the lab, but were nearing ends of their respective active careers and clearly looking for a successor. I would not lump it into the same "personal benefit" category.

(one thing is missing in your question: Do you have another opportunity? like a job offer)
There are two options for you:

Continue working with your professor with no motivation. You might regret this for your entire life but it might also work out.
You get the courage to kindly tell your professor that you want to quit by stating your reasons. He might not like it of course because he needs to find someone else but he would understand. Even if you are happy and you get a better opportunity, he would understand because, in the end, he wants you to proceed with your career. This is also a success for him.

If I were your professor, I would prefer to let you go and keep a good relationship with you rather than have you in my team without having the motivation to accomplish your tasks.
Now, if you take the second option, it is better not to do it via email but after scheduling a meeting with him and informing him about your decision.
EDIT after "Additional details"
now it becomes opinion-based I think. If I were you I would keep my position (and perform my tasks properly) until I find something else or get enrolled in a master's program. However, if the stress is not affordable, I would quit ASAP. Your health comes first.

I updated the post to address your question. It is (1) in "Additional details".

@Pikachu피카츄 now it becomes opinion-based I think. If I were you I would keep my position (and perform my tasks properly) until I find something else or get enrolled in a master's program.
However, if the stress is not affordable, I would quit ASAP. Your health comes first!!!

Is the new research opportunity paid? what is causing the stress? lack of funding?
This also comes down to whether you want to pursue a career in research.  If not, then just let your supervisor know.  The problem will become more and more serious over time; i.e., a supervisor or student should rip-off a 'band aid' quickly.
If you want a career in research, then you should let your supervisor know to see whether he/she has a solution to your problems/worries.  If funding is an issue, then your supervisor needs to fix this.  If not, then you will need to go on a different path.
If there is funding, then you and the supervisor should decide on a work plan that is a win-win for both of you.

At the moment, my friend does not want to pursue a career in research anymore. 2 weeks ago, she said that she was still intetested in her research topic. I do not know if it is just because she is stressed, but thanks for the great advice. I also believe that it can escalate quickly if she does not handle it asap.

@Pikachu피카츄 I just saw that your friend is an undergraduate.    Unfortunately, the situation is quite different.  Looks like her supervisor is trying very hard to 'recruit' a student, seems a bit desperate, and perhaps a newbie.

I had a similar situation after my master degree, albeit less extreme but it stressed me out quite a lot for a few months.
I knew deep down that trying to do research would be a miserable life: low pay, constant stress because I'm a huge procrastinator. Also I didn't have the brilliancy and social aptitude to be good at it.
But yeah, I got propositions from a few professors to start a PhD program. Lots of back and forth, them trying to convince me it would be a good choice, but ultimately I noped out of it while not even having another job in sight.
In a sense you are in a better place than me as it's clear you really don't want to pursue a career in academia. For me it was more like, yeah well it looks nice and interesting but I'm really not sure I will get out of it alive.
The few minutes it will take to write an email explaining your decision and send it will be painful, granted. But far less painful than becoming even more involved with some project you don't care about. Occasionally hurting people's feelings (assuming this professor has really put a lot of effort into this) is part of life.

Thanks for your answer. I actually really like your last sentence "Occasionally hurting people's feelings (assuming this professor has really put a lot of effort into this) is part of life."


text:
What's the best ways to continue publishing while in hiding?
Asking on behalf of a friend's relative to maximize anonymity.
(Most details are left out to protect the identity of this person, and I was also not given much detail to begin with.)
Dr. X is an early career scientist who had to flee his home country due to credible threat for his family. His situation is not unlike those in a witness protection program --- he and his family fled the country, settled in the US, and got new names. And they do not want to be found.
Dr. X got a new research job at University A in the US. But during the hiring process he had to reveal his old identity so that the university could verify his degree and publication records. And he was still hired as Dr. X, his old name (for a variety of additional VISA-related reasons).
The university is kind enough not to list him on any publicly accessible website, and within the department, he has a nickname. So there is no problem on this end.
However, Dr. X still wants to continue publishing papers, and be active in his research community. What's the best way to publish under a different name?
Some current suggestions have their weakness:

Publish as Y, Ph.D., University A --- This will likely cause problem as anyone looking into this will not find a Dr. Y in University A.

Publish as Y, Ph.D., independent researcher --- Dr. Y's Ph.D. cannot be verified. Not acknowledging his affiliation is a tough request for a new-hire, and may cause problems with acknowledging grant funding.

Publish as Mr. Y, independent researcher --- He may not be taken seriously (by those who do not actually read his papers). And this also has the problem of not acknowledging his affiliation.

Officially change his name to Dr. Y --- This is not easy while he is still in the immigration pipeline, which can take years.

Publish as Dr. X from his old university
--- This will produce too much searchable mentioning of Dr. X, and it's hard to prevent something leading to his whereabouts from being accidentally leaked. The recommendation (from those who know about this kind of thing) is apparently that Dr. X should appear to be dead on the internet.

This story does not sound credible to me. Are you actually asking for a real person or for a fictional story?

@BryanKrause  I admit that I haven't verified this story, and I have no plan to (if true, I'm scared to know too much). This story came from a group I donate money to, so certainly it could all be a scam. But I found this to be credible and have no strong reason to doubt. The researcher in question was able to get fake IDs that are somewhat useful within his home country, which allowed him to escape. But fake IDs are no longer useful at US border. He had to enter US using his only valid passport, which must match his visa, which must match his employment record. They are all tied together.

Some clarifications have been edited into the post; the rest of the discussion about credibility has been moved to chat.

Being employed at a university where other people from his home country might be present (as students, faculty, visiting scientists, etc.) puts this person at a very high risk of being identified and outed.  Publishing under an assumed name may be the least of his problems.

Assuming "Do not publish" is not an acceptable way to continue publishing:

Most journals do not include authors' titles in publications.  They certainly do not verify titles.  They do not even verify the authors' species.
The consensus is that it's not necessary to include an affiliation with a university.  Check with university leadership before proceeding.
If the old identity is abandoned anyway, you might as well publish under a new name.
Legal name changes are not relevant to academic publications.

Between women who married or divorced post-PhD and people with e.g. Chinese names who adopt a Western-style name for working in the West, I would assume there are a vast number of academics publishing under a name that doesn't match the one on their diploma.

I hate to suggest it but there is probably no real solution that guarantees safety. If I understand it correctly, people in (formal) witness protection are strongly advised to break all ties with their former life and, especially, with contacts, any of whom could compromise them unwittingly. And a single mistake could prove fatal.
This is most critical when the potential enemies have power and agency, such as the mob or, I suspect, any foreign government.
Generally, people need to build a completely new identity, unrelated to their former life. That is hard to do and still maintain an academic presence unless an official agency (FBI, say) can construct a new academic identity that won't be questioned. But that requires governmental assistance and minimization of those who know the truth.
That said, with some risk, an academic could continue to collaborate with a (very) few colleagues who publish under their own names without reference to the person at risk. While technically plagiarism, it could be ameliorated by having cached documents revealing the truth until the period of risk ends, perhaps with the death of the person in question (and maybe relatives in extreme cases).
But a combination of government assistance and a (very) few trusted colleagues could find a way to publish under an alias that is updated when the risk ends, which makes the plagiarism problem go away.
In official records, if I understand correctly, people can be disappeared (legally dead) and artificial persons created with complete legal personas. But whether this is sufficiently important to those governmental agencies may be unlikely.
But doing this unofficially is probably impossible, especially if the opposition party has resources and the will to act. The world is too connected now and the opportunities for an inadvertent reveal too frequent and likely.

Also, keeping with the same specialized research topics and/or peculiarities in language (word choice, grammar, ...) may add to the risk of being identified by their work.

Academia is a very small world, there will always be someone who says: Hmm, Dr. Y, you remind me of Dr. X.

@DeboraWeber-Wulff, I write a lot here and I have a certain style (sometimes awkward, I know). I'm pretty sure that if someone wanted my IRL identity they could do a textual comparison and make an accurate guess since I also write elsewhere under a true-name. An AI could do it pretty easily.

@Buffy, actually, an "AI" would be pretty bad at predicting your identity. But there are non-AI algorithms that calculate stylistics. I was surprised when I compared three of my publications in widely different publications with (I thought) different styles. The stylistics predicted the three papers I wrote as being from the same author, and the three "confusion" papers as being from others.
What I meant was, that A knows B knows C and in my field (computer science) there is a lot of gossip. If A figures out X is Y, B and C will know it, too, shortly.


text:
How to interpret "I think you should apply broadly" from a prospective PhD supervisor?
What does it mean, that a professor says: "I think it would be great to have you at X university, and your suggested dissertation topic is a great idea, But, I think you should apply broadly, not just to my university" ?
I mean, does that imply he's really into accepting you? Is there any hidden subtext here?

only he knows. He might, but he might prefer someone else in the end as well.. in response to the question in the title: take it literally. apply at more than one place. no matter what a potential supervisor says - until you have a proper offer in your hands.

Who accepts you at that place?

I think you should apply broadly, not just to my university: Perhaps they won't or can't take you. Even though they may want you (I think it would be great to have you) and may like your idea (your suggested dissertation topic is a great idea).

My interpretation is that this is a negative response. Otherwise, the professor would say  please apply to our university without the word "broadly". I understand other users may have different opinions. So, I think this would depend on individual factors, such as the professor's personality, culture, location. Vote to "Leave Closed".

You should interpret it as good advice.
Apply broadly. Find the program that's the best fit for you. Many graduate programs are sufficiently competitive that many qualified applicants are not admitted. It's impossible to admit everyone qualified who applies if there are more qualified applicants than slots, and there is a lot of subjectiveness and a bit of luck in who makes that cut.
Maybe the professor is gently saying you are unlikely to be admitted to their program and lab, maybe not; there is little benefit for you in attempting to divinate their meaning. There is lots of benefit for you in following their advice (more choice, higher chance of admission), and risk in failing to do so (no choice, chance of not being admitted and not having a backup plan).
Sometimes advice is just advice.

Put yourself in the shoes of a professor trying to recruit a PhD student. You get many emails from students wanting to work with you. Even if you find one that you like a lot, the application deadline has not passed yet and there is still a chance you will find a student who’s even more impressive and more worthy of the position. (Also, it may be that it’s the department who needs to admit the student so even if you are sure you want the student, you cannot guarantee to them that they will be admitted since other people are involved in making those decisions.)
You also know that any word you write in an email to the student will be seized on by the student (and analyzed and over-analyzed to death, in conversations with friends and on academia.stackexchange) as evidence that they are going to be admitted or as evidence they will be rejected, potentially leading the student to make bad decisions in case the words are misinterpreted. So you do not want to set up unrealistic expectations. Imagine saying to a student “I was very impressed with you and think you have a great dissertation topic. Please apply!” Well, the student may well interpret this as “you’re in” and not bother applying anywhere else. This is a recipe for disaster if one of many things that can go wrong between now and the time that you receive an official acceptance letter, does. It is much better to be cautious and use language that indicates to the student that while you like them, nothing is guaranteed at this point.
Bottom line: there isn’t a subtext. “Apply broadly” is sound advice to give to anyone, both good applicants and less good ones. If anything, this is a small sign that the professor is a person of integrity who does not try to manipulate or mislead applicants to further his own self-interest. But even that is a very weak signal at best.

"Apply broadly" is sound advice that applies broadly.

I think the statement is one of general encouragement. But take the words literally. They might even be boilerplate if it was a first email exchange. In the US, individual professors don't normally have the power to admit students. Elsewhere they might, but I'm guessing that if he has the power you aren't his top choice. Apply broadly.
If it is something other than boilerplate then the person seems to be saying that you are a good candidate, generally, for graduate study, but that, for whatever reason, your acceptance here isn't guaranteed. You may be trying to apply at too competitive an institution, or even one that isn't competitive enough.
I would normally just ignore a lot of blind emails from students, especially when it was clear they were in some different field and had no knowledge of what I did. But, perhaps this person is a bit more polite and, thus, boilerplate is the result.