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Student keeps asking about attendance policy
I'm offering a new grad course this semester; this is my first teaching role. One student reached out to me four months ago, asking about the attendance policy. I did not have one because I had not considered it, being new to teaching.
I told him I'd have the syllabus ready a week before the start of the semester. He reached out recently asking about the syllabus and I sent him the syllabus, which does not discuss attendance. Then he followed up with a question about attendance policy again.
As this is a grad-level topics course and is highly specialized, I don't see an attendance policy as a good fit for a grad course in general, and I don't want to enforce one. At the same time, I don't want to have it in writing that I don't care about the attendance. When it is not in the syllabus, it is not in the syllabus. I'm not too fond of the student's attitude, who keeps asking about the attendance policy four months in advance. I want to let him know that being absent is fine, but if that is his plan, this may not be the right course for him. But I don't want to book a negative teacher assessment for myself either.
Question:
Should I be straight with him and reply that this course may not suit him? Should I ask the department to remove him from class? Should I just answer that what is in the syllabus is what I care about?
Update: Following Dan's answer, I sent a short reply stating that I don't have an attendance policy. I received a reply thanking me and stating that he asked only because he will be missing 2 sessions for a conference (I hadn't even asked why). I also added a short section to my syllabus (per David's answer) stating that I don't have an attendance policy but that students should talk to me if they will miss many classes. Thanks to all for the advice.

Will it be in person only? Hybrid? Zoom only? That should be in the syllabus (or other official communication) - is it?

You're considering having a student removed from your class for asking a question about course policies?

Why do you find the student's attitude problematic?

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Since he asked about an attendance policy and you don’t have one, the appropriate way to reply would be to tell him “I don’t have an attendance policy.”
If he asks for clarification, you can say “that means that there is no requirement for you to attend the lectures.”
I don’t see what basis you have for wanting to tell him that your course “may not suit him”. That’s potentially an offensive and unfair thing to say to a student when your only reason for saying it is that he asked an administrative question about the course’s attendance policy.
If you think that the course might not suit people who don’t attend your lectures, well, it sounds like you might need an attendance policy after all, or at the very least a note in the syllabus expressing your strong belief in the importance of attending lectures. But jumping to the conclusion that the course might not suit someone merely for them wanting to know what the attendance policy is is uncharitable and, in my opinion, illogical.

@Trunk there is zero evidence in the question that the student has a bad attitude. Wanting to know about course policies (and asking again when the original answer is unclear) is 100% legitimate and not a sign of a bad attitude or of anything else. (And even a student with a not great attitude deserves to be treated fairly and not be the subject of hasty assumptions.)

@Trunk You made a correct guess that I had no obligation to offer a course, and did so to establish myself by teaching in the field of my research. And also that I sought advice before making a rookie mistake.

@Trunk you write that the student was, "baldly asking on attendance without any suggestion of why" without considering that it's truly none of the teacher's business. We are talking, quite literally, about what happens outside of the classroom. Just as teachers are not required to divulge personal details unrelated to the course, the student has no obligation and in fact should have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

@Trunk in the places I’m familiar with, students are not expected to show appreciation to university instructors when they ask administrative questions about course policies. There is also no expectation that they provide an explanation to the instructor about why they’re asking the question. So I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.

@Trunk " student getting used to being more of a colleague and less of a subordinate" if you do not know the rules, like the attendance policy, because they are not clearly explained, you are at mercy of any person in charge, so you intrinsically become a subordinate.

Risking an interpretation of what the OP sees as problematic, I would add "there is no requirement for you to attend the lectures" however in my experience it is very difficult to achieve the course's objectives without attending, since it would require a lot of extra effort on the side of the student.

@Trunk There should be no need for the student to disclose any private issues to get an answer regarding a basic administrative question. Full stop. Making the requirements clear, especially when directly prompted, is a fundamental responsibility of any instructor.

@Trunk As someone who has to deal with lots of organizational questions in a business environment the idea that people have to  be grateful for me giving them answers seems weird - if I organize something I'm expected to provide that information, simple as that. Fostering an environment of "indulge personal information to get treated better" on the other hand would most certainly lead to a serious reprimand from HR - that's just not acceptable in any way, shape or form. Just to give you an idea how this would be treated outside the protected environment of a university.

@Trunk "initially presumed the wrong motive". That actually nicely sums up my problem: If your policy requires you to assume (and judge!) the motives of someone in a subordinate position, that should be a red flag. You could make the same argument about grading policies "I don't want to inform students about the grading policy, after all they should come to my class because they enjoy learning"

I'm not too fond of the student's attitude, who keeps asking about the attendance policy four months in advance

I'd much rather a student ask about a policy in advance than after they've missed classes.
I would consider also that students in your course may have a lot of reasons to miss class that are not merely because they don't care about the course. They may be considering travel for conferences, and if they are undergraduates/masters students they may have graduate school/PhD interviews to schedule, which often interfere with ordinary coursework. They may have once-in-a-lifetime travel opportunities or important family obligations like a sibling's wedding. They may have a medical condition or ill child or parent and know they sometimes need to change their plans at the last minute to take care of those things. Your world might revolve around your course, but theirs does not and while they should make their courses a priority they need not make every course their top priority.
I would ask the student to clarify why they are asking about attendance in advance. I would guess that they have some known reasons that they may need to miss one or more classes, and are trying to plan ahead. I think it's fine to warn them that they may struggle if a class is missed, though I also think you should make at least a moderate effort to help them keep up, such as pointing them to reading material (you don't need to design a separate curriculum for them, just inform what will be covered). In some classes based on lab work or discussion, presence is absolutely necessary and you can certainly tell them this and let them make a decision based on that information.
Particularly for a graduate-level class, I would operate under the assumption that your students want to be there. These are the courses closest to their area of interest, not merely a necessary box to check to get a degree. I understand not wanting to be explicit about this sort of thing in the syllabus, but consider that this student is close to being a colleague of yours as a person educated in your field. It seems rude to me to refuse to answer their question or to answer by responding with a syllabus that lacks information about attendance expectations and leaving them to read your mind.
I think you should trust them with something similar to what you've written here: you don't think attendance policies are appropriate for a graduate course, your expectation is that students do everything possible to attend every class, and that they will miss out if they can't be present. If it were me, I would also ask if they are planning to miss certain classes and how many, and be honest about any way that will impact their grade. I think it's certainly reasonable to ask they do not take the course if they plan to miss an unacceptable number of sessions (and very reasonable for them to ask to find what this boundary is!).

In the current Covid climate, I've found that "need to miss one or more classes" translates into "I'm planning to live 250 miles from campus and never come to class."  Students who try this invariably end up in trouble even though there's no attendance grade.

@BrianBorchers That's quite possible, I think in that case it'll be clear what the student is after if they are asked to clarify.

I'll add that my experience of these "topics" style courses is that they're organized a lot like a "journal club", so the assessment may not be about exams or written papers (where a student who doesn't attend might struggle proportionately) but about presentation and discussion of papers (where being present is the whole point of the course), and if that's the case, OP should be clear about how this assessment will work even if they do not want to codify it as "you can only get an A if you attend X classes".

"I would ask the student to clarify why they are asking about attendance in advance."
If I were the student, I would prefer not to have someone with power over me (the professor) asking personal questions about problems I did not disclose beforehand.

@EarlGrey That question does not require a personal response beyond what the instructor needs to know.

@BryanKrause How would knowing the reason change anything?

@JSLavertu Perhaps OP would not be so concerned if they knew the student was asking because they had a known conflict with one or two of the class sessions. If they knew the student planned to miss half the class sessions, that would similarly guide their answer. I never said they need to know the reason for the absence, only the reason for asking about attendance policies, though it may be relevant as pertains to institution policies about absence types that require instructors to accommodate the student.

"They may be considering travel for conferences" after the edit, we know that this is exactly what happened

@BrianBorchers Even if that's the case, it has no relevance at all. There either is or isn't an attendance policy. In both cases, it is the student's, and not the teacher's, responsibility to decide whether or not they will attend. The teacher's responsibility is to make the rules and consequences obvious. No less, but no more. He has no business digging into the student's private reasons behind their decision.

@Neinstein I do not think finding out how many classes a student plans to miss or whether they will be absent for reasons protected by university policy are "digging into the student's private reasons". There is no need to treat a student exactly the same who is absent for reasons within versus outside their control.

@BryanKrause Two thing: a) there's already a bit of a mental jump in assuming a student will miss any classes for whatever reasons just from asking about attendance policy. b) If there is no attendance policy, the students are free to not attend for any reasons. A severe sickness is just as valid as their cat asking for more pets. If it was in any way not the case, there would be an attendance policy in effect by definition, which would include valid and invalid reasons, and require the student to prove the validity of their reasons, in whatever way.

@Neinstein Not sure it's such a jump, and in this case, my guess was totally right: the student was asking because they planned to miss two sessions and presumably wanted to know if this would impact their grade. If that's not the case, "I don't have any plans to miss class, but wanted to know what would happen if I do" is a fine answer. I think from the OP it was a bit unclear what the actual expectations are around attendance, because there is conflict between A) there is no attendance policy, and B) a student shouldn't take the class if they will be absent.

@Neinstein With respect to Brian's point about COVID and expectations around remote learning, I think it's very reasonable the instructor should be made aware if a student plans to live off-campus and not attend any sessions. For some courses designed around in-person interaction, this will simply not be an acceptable situation, and even if there is no policy around attendance per se, I would expect a student to fail a course if most of the grade is about those in-person discussions. "No attendance policy" does not mean "not attending class cannot affect the student's grade".

@BryanKrause I respect your points, but the student does not seem to ask whether "not attending class can affect the student's grade". He literally asked whether there is an attendance policy, and what is it; on which the clear and only answer is that there is none. Of course, not attending might indirectly influence the grades, but that's not what he asked. Also, lacking a policy, this is the only possible consequence of not attending. He could choose to never attend anything besides the tests without any negative discrimination (including being ejected from the class).

@Neinstein I think the student could have done a better job communicating in the first place by stating why they were asking about the policy, but I think it's also reasonable for the instructor here to guess that there is some information missing and ask about it. It's not necessary to be so strict and analytical here. If the instructor just said "there's no policy" and then the student never showed up for class but failed because they didn't get any points for class participation, I think the student would be quite upset.

(as I mentioned in another comment, often these "topics in X" graduate-level courses are more of an opportunity to present and talk about current research papers; there may not be any exams or formal assignments)

@BryanKrause I still maintain that that would be solely on the student, but I think it's a good time to agree to disagree. I agree there's no harm in doing some mentoring while answering the student's question, it's just that OP seemed to consider the absolute opposite of this.

"It seems rude to me to refuse to answer their question or to answer by responding with a syllabus that lacks information about attendance expectations and leaving them to read your mind" This should be in bold. Uppercase. 2x font size.

There are many legitimate reasons for missing class, such as needing a part-time job to support themselves, if they are a carer for a family member, if they live far away and have transport difficulties.
It seems presumptous to assume poor attendance means a disrespectful or a student with a poor attitude...

Why all the negative judgment? Either you have an attendance policy or you don't. A grad student is an adult who can make his own decisions. If you expect people to attend and will penalize them if they don't, then you have an attendance policy and you should put it in the syllabus.

Don't remove them. The student sounds great. They want to know what is expected.
The student explicitly asked about the attendance policy and instead of answering the question directly, you hinted it would be in the syllabus.
The syllabus was distributed with no mention of the attendance policy. Instead of apologizing for misleading them when asked again, you get annoyed. They have every right to know about the policy / lack of.
Leaving things vague seems like a lazy way of trying to cover yourself in case of problems.
Another reason to keep the student: The student hasn't complained. The student has every right to be frustrated with you for not including the information they requested in the syllabus you suggested it would be in. They waited almost four months for an answer for no reason.
I believe a short email from the start would have been the best way to go.

"There is no strict attendance policy; however, if you expect to miss a lot of [activity], please speak to me by [date]."

That's actually a good policy to include in the syllabus. Thanks!

Academia varies more than you think it does. Policies -- and implicit norms -- regarding attendance (and much else) differ widely from university to university, country to country, department to department, and professor to professor. What may seem clear to you may seen quite unusual to another.
As such, my advice is to cheerfully and politely explain your expectations to any prospective student who asks.

If you don't have an attendance policy, you don't have an attendance policy. This is the answer to the student's question.
Your reply email could consist of a mere six words. You are wasting your and the student's time by not answering a simple administrative question directly.
You can't have the cake and eat it. If you want to encourage attendance, then implement a soft or hard attendance policy in the syllabus. If you don't, don't try to make it look as if there is one.
Besides, the student's question is very reasonable. The requirements for your course right now are unclear. Even considering kicking him out of the class seems like an overreaction.

I would not consider a syllabus to be complete without an attendance policy.  I think you should fix your syllabus.
I am not saying the policy needs to require you, or the students, to do anything.  The policy does need to set expectations.  For example:

Students are expected to attend the scheduled course sessions.

Is a good policy because students know what you expect (attendance) and they know how attendance relates to their grade (not at all).
No policy at all is bad because some students have a history of success in classes they did not attend.  No policy sets expectations that your class is not worth attending.

"they know how attendance relates to their grade (not at all)" - it's not at all clear to me from the policy you've presented that non-attendance would have no affect on students' grades. On the contrary, expectations often come with consequences for not meeting them.

After a certain age, it is in a students responsibility to know how they can learn and how they can't. If he asks, it might well be that he has big other plans that conflict with the lectures, like an internship or living with his girlfriend who lives in another country.
You should just answer the question as early as possible, in order for him to be able to make plans - "No, you don't need to be present in the lectures."

Others mentioned that this might, or might not be, a student with a bad attitude and/or one that intends to skip your course.
Another possibility is that the student is being extra diligent or has a specific reason to ask. Many people with Autism function best when they are given highly detailed rules checklists and flowcharts rather than expected to rely on social nuances. If this is the case, providing explicit guidance on attendance is just a reasonable accommodation. Another possibility is that the student has had previous experience at an institution or with an instructor with a highly draconian attendance policy and is actually in fear of facing major negative consequences for minor attendance issues. The high school I attended as a child had a policy that any student with nine unexcused late arrivals during a quarter automatically received a failing grade. If you had passing, or even high, grades throughout the quarter but had already racked up eight late arrivals, you were right to be frightened as being even 30 seconds behind the bell would result in losing every one of those of those hard-earned points! If your student was previously at an institution like that, they may just need some reassurance that you will accept a reasonable good-faith effort and that you won't automatically flunk them for being 30 seconds behind the clock.

I almost fell off my chair reading that you were going to remove a student for asking about attendance policy, that is really unfair to even think about. Lecturers don't usually come up with the policy, the university policy makers do that, so all you had to do was forward him to the correct department and it sounds like for 4 months you didn't do that. Unless you make something optional it falls under university policy usually.

My wife taught at an institution where there was a mandatory attendance policy in place.  The history, so she was told, was that there was a trucking college that got in trouble with various government funding agencies because students were not really attending classes.  I've put that history here before and various people think it may not have really happened.
In any event, if your institution has a mandatory attendance policy, then implement one, because it is mandatory.  If it does NOT have such a policy, it is up to you.
When I was an undergrad, two of my co-students skipped 1/2 a certain class to attend another one that met at the same time.  The instructor didn't like this, but they did just fine as students.
Some lab courses, or courses with integral pars such as labs, have mandatory attendance, so the grading would flow from that.  [NOTE:  I re-worked this sentence based on a suggested edit, but with my own wording].
If you have a virtual option, it makes it easier to attend classes, especially as there may be a recording, but that was not available in my time as a student, nor really for the courses my wife was teaching in the late 1990's.
I tend to concur with the opinions registered that it would be too harsh to not allow the particular student in your class.
Best wishes on your journey.


text:
Should I quit a PhD with little supervision at a prestigious university and start a new PhD?
I am a second year PhD student studying at a prestigious university in the UK. My main supervisor recruited me 2 years ago just because he is interested in my field and hopes to develop a new direction for his research center. I have 3 supervisors but none of them has expertise in my current field. In fact, their fields are quite different from mine (in totally different disciplines) and consequently they cannot give effective supervision on my PhD research. For example, when I present my research they usually just say my research is good without any useful technical suggestions. In addition, my main supervisor and third supervisor meet me for supervision meeting every 3-6 months, and my second supervisor meets with me every 2 weeks.
I don't think I get enough supervision during my PhD studies (my fellow students seem to meet with their advisors once a week), and so I am thinking about starting a new PhD at another university which is strong in my field but not as reputable as my current university.
However, my parents (who are funding me) do not agree on this. They mainly care about the reputation of my current university and the diploma I get rather than the little supervision. I am quite confused about this. Considering my future plan is to work in academia, should I quit my current PhD and start a new PhD in this case?

Have your tried publishing? What do reviewers say?

I have recently published my first paper recently in a Q1/Q2 open source journal. Reviewers think it's good and I received only minor revision during the review process. But the work receives little supervision.

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Can you be more clear both about what "supervision" means generally, and how it affects your work specifically? Is their saying your research is "good" more, or less than half the battle?
If it's more, are you in a position to ask who they might suggest could give you useful technical suggestions?

You're a PhD student at a prestigious UK university, who is (I presume) halfway to completing. You've recently published your first paper, which was well received by your supervisors and your reviewers. But you don't seem happy with it. Perhaps you're suffering with impostor syndrome. That's nothing to worry about, just something to live with (or, preferably, get over).
You currently meet with your main supervisor once every two weeks and you're concerned that they aren't an expert in your field. You'd like a supervisor that meets more frequently and is an expert, and you're considering moving universities to find such a supervisor. Rather than moving, maybe you can find a mentor, co-author a paper with an expert, or seek an internship.

please see my comments on the answer given by Wetenschaap

Yes, it seems like there are good opportunities to improve the situation with some more advisors/mentors without starting over . . . it may or may not happen, but maybe worth a try! :)   Do you know if you can even have committee members from other schools?  (it's possible in the US for a really good reason such as this;  don't know about UK)

@nbgsrc If you make specific comments, I'll try to address

It sounds like you're starved for colleagues directly in your area.
Assuming you haven't already, you could just contact the experts at the other less reputable university. Tell them what you're doing, and ask them questions about their own work. Propose writing a joint paper if you think that makes sense, or visiting a seminar they run (or zooming one). It doesn't matter really what you propose - you just want to form a relationship with experts in your area. Once you have, you'll get a better idea of where what you're doing fits in.
Also, reluctance to co-author a paper isn't necessarily a sign of disapproval or low opinion of the work. It could just be straight up honesty in not wanting to take someone else's hard work.
Also it makes sense to be explicit with your supervisors, explaining that you would like to continue in academia, and asking whether you're doing enough to secure a post-doc, and where you could do this.

This sounds very sensible. Currently, due to Covid-19, everyone(?) is doing home office anyway, so it does not matter whether you collaborate with people in the office next to you or across the globe. In fact, OP's advisors might even help OP here: They might not be experts in OP's field, but they might know people who are (because they are better connected in academia in general) and might help OP "get a foot in the door".

Consider adding said prof to your committee as well. They could even supervise you while you get the high powered degree.

I can help with this one from personal experience! I have finished a PhD with little to no supervision. To give you an example of what I mean, my advisor worked in a completely different area and hired me just because he was interested in a discipline and wanted to explore that by having a student. During my entire PhD, he was extremely supportive as a mentor and a friend, but academically speaking there was effectively zero supervision. He had no knowledge in my topic, could not guide me research wise or support me when I encountered difficulties, and had no knowledge of even the introductory aspects of my field. This is not to discredit him, he is a brilliant researcher in his field, he just had no knowledge in mine and had no interest in learning it either.
I had some very difficult moments where I experienced problems and felt very alone. I could not get the help I needed and his support came mostly in the form of statements like "Don't worry, it will be fine". I don't know how much this mirrors your situation, but honestly I have a hard time imagining a situation with less supervision than I had. Here are some thoughts I can give.
Trust your advisors a bit more than you currently do. They may not have experience in the field, but they have experience of what good/bad work is. They can judge the merits of something they may not be familiar with simply by intuition over decades of experience. Moreover, assuming they are supportive and kind otherwise, their letter of recommendations can go a long way especially since they are at a prestigious university. A letter saying that the student's research was more or less independent speaks wonders. At the end of the day, if you want to continue academia you will have to become an independent researcher anyway. No one is going to guide your hand. The fact that you get a bit of a "tough love" approach and become independent from day 1 may be a terrible experience at first but it can be very helpful later on. A lot of postdocs struggle at first because they never had to do anything independently, they were guided all the way. You don't have to worry about that.
Overall, I strongly recommend you stay in your current program unless you dislike it for other reasons. I know it sucks, trust me, but at the end of the day the best case scenario for an advisor is to have a strong and independent student. It seems like you are exactly just that. They don't have the need to micromanage you or to guide you perhaps because this appears to not be needed. Things will work out and you will be stronger for it. Not to mention that going to a completely new place is always a bit of a gamble. What if things don't work out there either as you would have hoped? Then you went to a less reputable university for nothing. Looking back at my case from years of perspective, perhaps my advisor indeed had no need to interfere exactly because things were going smoothly even when I felt they weren't. If something ain't broke don't fix it as the saying goes. It probably is the same in your case.

Your experience feels very familiar to me. My field is economics. Back in the naughties I got a PhD from Oxford (technically, a D.Phil). While a small number of students were part of a "team" of researchers, were given assignments by their supervisor, and got joint publications for their effort, most of the students were left to figure it all out on their own: some did, some didn't. Many didn't.
The amount of supervision you describe would have overwhelmed most of us. I had only one supervisor and met him once every two months. Some of the students I knew would meet their supervisor only twice a year. As head of one of the Colleges, my supervisor would meet me in his gigantic office from behind his gigantic desk. I would sit on an armchair with my notes at my feet. Unlike most of the supervisors, he'd actually read my stuff. He would point out a typo (that "t" on page 12, line 5, must be an "i"), climb on a ladder to grab an obscure book he'd edited in the sixties, would urge me to read it: It had no relevance to the problem and even if it did would be outdated by about forty years. We would be interrupted a couple of times by phone calls from the Chancellor or the Bank of England. This went on for a couple of years until he said, "well it looks like you've got yourself a thesis", we'd better ask around for a committee: Stiglitz, no, he wouldn't let you talk, Phelps, no I think he's off to Argentina, how about X and Y?". And with that I had a committee for my thesis.
A committee but no thesis. Had he confused me for another one of his students? I asked for 6 months and in a frenzy wrote whatever came to mind. I honestly didn't think I was going to pull it off and had plans to re-enroll somewhere else, but in the end the stunt worked. At the end of the viva, one of the committee members asked me what I thought was my greatest contribution. I mumbled something vague. He said, "Well, as the train was pulling into Oxford station, I noticed that trick you did with the exponential. Wow, that made my day. We all need these tricks. I enjoyed that." The other committee members did not say a word and a few months later at a conference did not remember me. Don't worry about the lack of supervision. In my experience, that is/was the norm back in the twentieth century.
Having a doctorate from a famous university is the best thing that ever happened to me. Been able to milk that for twenty years now. In my humble opinion, your parents are wise: stay, do what it takes, move on.

I like your approach. I think the difference between you (in short: colleagueA) and your former-colleague-now-on-its-way-to-star-professorship (in short: colleagueB) was only ego and self-confidence (not that you did not have, you had a normal quantities of both) and maybe, really maybe, colleagueB being a genius.
Then the world outside do not understand a thing and thinks your skills are coming from the imprinting you were given from the famous university. Go, milk it :D !
I guess being a PhD with a big name is very important because of the freedom (=lack of supervision) you get.

The most wonderful thing about studying at a prestigious university is meeting the people that will shape our world. A friend of mine had written his thesis by the first Christmas and was offered a professorship right away (having been enrolled less than a year and being about 25 years old), but stayed around for a bit longer as a JRF to enjoy the great lifestyle.

Interesting how even after twenty years of milking it, you spend four more paragraphs doing the same.

@PatrickT independently of quality, only a superego can write a PhD thesis in six months, without having doubts/taking the time to address any doubts about his own work (even in the case of a perfect work).
I personally think it is a very dangerous strategy, for society, but successful for the individual (high risk high reward) strategy.
If you fuel this attitude with  then you understand the irrational economic behavior of many financial actors (and sometimes of political-economical actors ...)

@user1936752 :-) Good one!

I know this is not what you are expecting to hear, but I believe the experience you get by doing an unsupervised PhD is superior to the one you would get as a supervised student. You are already publishing, so you are doing well, in spite of the lack of supervision. This is much closer to what real world experiences are like.
You don't need a supervisor. Your supervisors act more like mentors than anything else. You need peers and collaborators, and a long term plan.
The professors supervising you can't help you with your technical issues, but they could help you find someone who can. What you need is close collaborators. You can meet such people at conferences, and if not, your many supervisors could introduce you to someone in your field they know and trust. You can also pester your advisors to invite someone whose work is close to yours to give a talk at your university.
Restarting the PhD somewhere else is worth it only if you enter a very strong group working in your field, and you can be sure you have both senior and junior researchers that will work with you. If I were in your situation, I'd rather find good collaborators, and try to work with them, especially if travel money is not too scarce (assuming travel is possible).

Firstly: I have been in the exact same spot than you. I did a PhD in a field my supervisor barely had any knowledge of. I taught everything myself and yes in hindsight I would not have done it again, however I still feel that I gained much deeper knowledge than being supervised fully so you definitely have an advantage here as everything you do is YOUR achievement, it did not happen because someone told you to do X and Y. This is something that makes you an independent researcher, as suggested by Wetenschaap.
However, I feel with you that the lack of exchange is frustrating. Yet, I would not quit after two years as I also think you are doing well. I am not sure how common this is in UK but could you go for an internship or plan a research collaboration with another group from the University you would want to start over? This way you get a cool new project with some post-doc/PhD student and get some exchange. I know currently everything is really messy with Covid but try to look for other ways to meet PhD students in the field and exchange your ideas. This way you can stay where you are, complete the two years and still talk to peers.

have you discussed your situation with your current supervisors? Before making any dramatic move I would suggest you clearly and openly make your needs and concern clear to them. There may be a myriad of reasons why they don't seem to give you all the attention you'd want, not necessarily all negative: as others suggested here, maybe they are simply happy with your work? You will never know until you clarify with them.
If you need more interaction with people in your field, they may be happy to have you collaborate with other teams (which would be good for their networking too), send you to conferences, having you spending visiting periods elsewhere... etc. So potentially there could be many opportunities which you will never know about until you make your needs clear.

Continue to pursue your degree at your current institution. Seek an advisor outside of your current institution, and add them to your committee. That way, you can get the best of both world.
This is fairly common in the US, especially at Universities near national labs. I have a friend at NIST who is not a professor at University of Maryland (UMD), but is currently supervising 4 PhD students from UMD. All of them have an "academic advisor" at UMD who are the committee chair, but are not the direct research advisor.
All in all, this is good because it will help for you to start building relationships with additional people. Or course, this should be done with the consent of your current advisors.

This will be very dependent on what you want to do later and your personal character.
I did my PhD with no supervision from my two thesis directors. I was extra happy with that because I could push the research in the direction that I was interested in. I ended up publishing very novel approaches (today that would be called AI-Powered Physics TM) without anyone trying to push a way or another.
This said, I was not planning to stay in Academia afterwards (mostly due to the medieval organization, not because of research) and I am very independent - so that was an ideal situation for me.
I wanted to have a PhD for personal pride (since I started it), because it helped me to understand research and science, and as a useful entry on my CV. YMMV.

This would very counterproductive in almost all aspects--for the same
reason that no one is making >1 diploma, or >1 Phd (with very rare
exceptions).

You complain about the lack of supervision, but think pragmatically
and try to build connections with experts in the field.

By working at you current place you have an advantage of having
interdisciplinary connections (with your supervisors). This is quite
valuable.

It is good for a PhD student to get a broader view. If you get into
narrowly specialized team, you will be missing this opportunity.

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Having problem in getting LOR for higher study because of my corrupted undergrad thesis supervisor
I am an engineering graduate in Bangladesh. During my undergrad thesis, my supervisor took students for working on a topic that was for the first time in our department but he didn't help any of his thesis groups. Every year he takes thesis group for money but never ever teach or help any of the students about respective research work. Students somehow spend the year & gets out of the university. If somebody can do something better, he forces the student to include his name in the research paper as author though he has not helped in any aspect.
Since the beginning, my thesis group requested him a lot to teach & help to do our research work. He just wasted our time by telling repeatedly "contact me next week" & at the end of the year he said: "I can't help, whatever you can do submit it soon".
He didn't take a single tutorial class on research topic but forced us to submit thesis. We didn’t know what to do, how to do, we had not worked on research project before, we were newbie & he was destroying our future...
At last all the groups (12 students in total) passed the course submitting a simple copy-paste project. We complained against him to the Head of the Department since he betrayed 12 students; HOD didn't take any corrective action. That corrupted professor got angry against us.
I've become very much frustrated because I spent 1,600,000 BDT (around $19K USD) for undergrad tuition fees, didn't learn about doing research & the outcome is such a miserable condition.
How can I, from whom can I collect LOR for my higher studies in USA/Canada? What should I do? I've become utterly clueless.

Are there other professors who know your work and can speak to your skills?

Due to COVID19 my country banned physical classes since last 16 months & it's going on till now. I had to do online zoom class throughout my entire final year, teachers just appeared online, took the class & left. We didn't get any opportunity  working with other professors because all labs are normally taken by newly recruited lecturers. Professors are just responsible to take theoretical classes & to interact with his thesis groups only.

During my last semester, I attended a non-credit course offered by an associate professor of another university. Fortunately, I achieved certification of excellence from him. But it's non-credit course offered by another university faculty, not of my own.

Very closely related: Because of past conflicts, I don't believe my advisor will write me a good LOR for postdoc positions. What should I do?; see also How can I get a reference letter if I was never close to any professors? and If I cannot get sufficient recommendation letters, what can I do?

Unfortunately you are in a bad place, but you have to make the best use of the resources that you have available. I don't think that using a professor from a different institution is necessarily bad, provided that they can honestly predict your future success.
You might also talk to the Head and see if there is something they can suggest. They have a responsibility to work with you even if they haven't been very supportive in the past. But your success or lack of it reflects on them as well.

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How open should I be with my PhD supervisor about the problems in my personal life?
My marriage has been going through some problems in the last year which has affected my PhD. My supervisor has been very understanding and was keen for me not to interrupt and granted me a two month extension on my upgrade paper.
Last week my wife walked out. She came back but this totally put me off my studies. I was supposed to hand in a paper - an optional paper since this was for a journal submission - but I haven't even drafted it and the draft was due tomorrow.
My supervisor knows I have been having marriage problems but she doesn't know any details. Also she doesn't talk about her personal life much and I don't know if she's the kind of person who would be receptive to such details, so I have so far withheld them. Should I tell her my wife walked out? At the moment I have just said there was an incident. She also knows that I have been diagnosed with symptoms of moderate/severe depression, but I thought it best that she knew this since it could affect my work.
Should I carry on being vague or should I test the water and treat her like an intelligent adult and give her more context and details of my issues? Or should I just keep the personal stuff as separate as possible?

This is a personal preferences question.  Also, will your supervisor find out anyway?

@AnonymousPhysicist no, she won't find out anyway, not unless my wife contacts her, for which there would be no reason at all. It's not just about personal preferences though, but about appropriateness and how/if divulging such information would positively or negatively affect my PhD.

A very hard situation to be in. Sadly, here we can't be of much (any?) help.

I think your vagueness is entirely appropriate and urge you to continue it. As long as your supervisor knows that there are difficulties that cause you to miss deadlines occasionally and as long as you feel she is supportive, there is no reason to say more. It would be a burden for her to know some of these things and yet, she isn't in a position to help you, other than to be understanding and supportive of your studies.
But you should seek some sort of professional help elsewhere, perhaps at the university if it has a counseling office open to you for this, perhaps elsewhere.
Also, sharing too much of the problem can start to sound whiney and like you are making excuses for things.
Keep it light. Keep your relationship to your supervisor professional. Seek personal counseling elsewhere. And good luck.

This is a great answer, thank you. And I am receiving counselling, yes. Outside of uni, though. I actually have an appointment tomorrow [which my supervisor knows about because we had to schedule our tutorial around it]. Thank you very much for your help.


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What is the term for a list of interviews?
If 'bibliography' is a list of literature and 'discography' is a list of musical recordings, is there a term for a list of interviews?
Of course I could just cite everything under 'references' but my research is varied and covers many different media, and it would be good to know the term for a list of interviews [of course, I could just write "interviews" but I would prefer to know the proper term if there is one].

Is this you interviewing someone, or different people interviewing you?  What is the result of the "interview"?  Are they published?

This question might fit better on https://english.stackexchange.com/

@ScottSeidman it's my interviewing others. Some are published, some are not.

Your "appointments" comes to mind... ie an appointment list per interviewer...

I don't know how they call a list of interviews, but in practical terms, I would simply use "Interviews" as heading for the relevant section. I've seen this quite frequently.


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Should I share a scan of my published paper with an academic in my field?
A notable academic in my field has asked for a copy of one of my papers which he says he wants to assign to a class. For me this is a big compliment and a good opportunity to get my work out there. Now, I could share the post-print with him, which is allowed by the journal, however, this does not have the correct page numbers and wouldn't be much use for any citations.
My institution always photocopies articles from books and sends them around the class. It's probably quite naughty but they do it a lot. Should I send a scan/photocopy or should I just send a post-print, which would effectively just be a Word doc?

Do you not have a PDF?

@AzorAhai I have the final proof copy as sent to me by the journal but it does not have the correct page numbers on it. I would have to scan a copy myself and email it.

I'd be kinda annoyed at getting a scan when PDFs exist ... personally, I would recommend sending the highest-quality PDF you have, and if you are very concerned, just send along a complete citation for them to use (with the correct page numbers).

While I've always done it properly, in the age of mostly-digital journals, I've always wondered if anyone really cares about the page numbers...

Why not send both and just explain you don't have an electronic version of the published paper? I would not, however, send the proof. Journals are touchy about those. (I've had one sent to be with security protections even though I was meant to mark it up with corrections. I had to break the security even to print a copy myself.)

Isn't the citation enough to find the paper? If you are worried about the students using the wrong page numbers when they cite it, I would assume they are familiar with citing papers and that they are able to find a paper when they are provided a citation. As such, wouldn't providing the student the citation or a link to its web page (so they can retrieve the pdf on their computers rather than someone printing it for them) be more convenient (for all parties involved)?

@mbrig There are people/journals who still have the infuriating habit of citing a journal based on a cryptic abbreviation, year, issue number and page numbers. And that is despite a simple author, title, year reference being much more convenient and simple. Those cryptic references are also great when a number is wrong...

Of course send the post-print. Why does it matter that it doesn't have the right page numbers? Presumably, your colleague wants to assign it to his class because of its content, not because of its page numbers! Send a note with what the proper citation information would be, in case anyone wants to cite it, or better yet just write that on the top of the document ("Please cite this work as: ...").

Why not send it in it's best form, since students are going to be using the information you wrote in it for academic purposes. I think the journal guys should not mind what and how any academic work is shared.

What you think the 'journal guys' should think, and what the journal staff think (and they aren't all guys) are likely different things...

The term "guys" is commonly used in a generic non-gender-specific sense.  There is no reason to give an uncharitable reading to the post.

@JonCuster Yes they are different things. The journal "guys" keep strict rules about not leaking the papers published in their journals. But how is this gonna help when all you did was withhold useful academic information from a poor student in India. Universities in India buy university level access to IEEE and other journals to overcome this.

@Ben - I don't doubt that it is commonly used and even listed as 'non-gender-specific' in dictionaries, but that is not necessarily how everyone interprets it. Having asked a number of my staff, in private, how they feel about 'guys', the evidence is pretty clear that it is often seen as exclusionary. I now avoid using it.


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How long should one wait for a reference before writing to the course convenor?
I am getting a little worried about my PhD application. I submitted it three weeks ago with reference requests going out to Prof A and B. Prof B wrote to me the same evening to say it would be done asap, and Prof A didn't respond, but that's fine. Three weeks later and Prof A has written back and completed the reference, though nothing so far from B. I have written to B with a polite reminder but they haven't written back. How long do people take on average to get these things across and should I be concerned? I know these academics are very busy but at the same time this is the only thing holding the application up. Should I write to the convenor about my concern if this goes on for a couple more weeks? What other ways could I politely encourage a response?

Who is the convenor and what does he/she have to do with the letter of recommendation from the professor?

@TobiasKildetoft my thinking is that it may expedite matters if the convenor happens to mention it in passing to the prof, since they're in the same dept. At any rate it would let them know there is an application pending which is waiting on one ref from their department.

I don't recommend going to the convenor, if his rank is above Professor B's rank. Instead, it is better to write to him one more time explaining the urgency of the situation. If the PhD application portal lets you add a third reference, can you add one more?

Well, there is Prof C, the problem is that Prof C is terrible at responding to emails. In the time I have been at the uni, he never once responded to an email I wrote, so am not too confident about writing to him. I think I will let it go another week and then write a slightly shameless, pleading email to B.

I'm going to answer this question myself for the benefit of people who may stumble upon this in the future.
In the end I didn't email the convenor, but I phoned the Prof in question. I initially thought maybe I needed to give it longer than three weeks and I was being impatient, but it turned out that they totally understood and said they had been very busy but of course they would do it. They ended up submitting the reference the same day. To those people who may be in a similar situation: don't be too shy about phoning or visiting your professors for this reason. They understand the necessities of getting it done and done in good time, but understandably get waylaid by priorities.

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How long do editor decisions take at Science/Nature?
What does the distribution of wait times for a editor decision look like for a manuscript submitted to Science or Nature?
(You are not allowed to say "Gamma" unless you give a shape and scale parameter)

In my experience rejection is quite rapid - 48 hours or so. No news is good news?

Exponential? ;)

@Fomite so you still said gamma with just 1 parameter... What is the other?

Usually they decide in less than a week after the initial submission. Either rejection or sending it out for review.
Sometimes they are more busy. For our last submission the decision took 25 days for which the editor apologized.

My experiences with these journals have not been this positive. It's true that editorial rejections can be very rapid based on scope and perceived 'gee whiz' factor. I've had Nature hold up papers for months and been forced out by a singe powerful reviewer with advice to publish the paper in another highly ranked (but not glamour mag) journal. These are very political journals.

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Is there a term for Purism / Purist Ideology in Academic Philosophy?
As I look back on my education over the years, I have been a gradual disconnect in students between learning for the sake of understanding your field, craft, profession, where this alone is the fundamental reason for studying at an institution.
In contrast with this other attitude where educational hierarchies are simply a game meant to seek some sort of status or social power. In more concrete terms it is the difference between:
"I am taking this educational opportunity to understand phenomenon X better, in hopes it can help me answer a larger academic question"
vs
"I am taking this educational opportunity since it looks good on a resume, which in itself provides me with an advantage over others in my situation"
I heard someone refer to the first attitude as academic purism (drawing from purist art movement and those ideas), but there is not much literature referring to this term. Has anyone bumped into a term for this ?

Is this part of a literature search? You could look at the entire economics of education literature for research assuming that people primarily. use your second reason for studying.

Why do you think these are the only two reasons?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Careerism

And why do you think it is either/or, rather than both. I never thought about 2, but I did want to be a professor of mathematics as well as understand the deep things in Analysis and Topology. But it wasn't a competitive feeling. People's motivations are generally mixed, I'd suggest.

“Education” in a classical sense vs “(vocational) training”?

Your question sounds like a “single word request” in the sense of the tag/category of that name at English Language & Usage stack exchange. Try asking there. Some related terms that come to mind to describe the attitude of seeking pure knowledge are “intellectual” (the noun not the adjective) and “philosopher” (a word derived from two Greek words combined to mean “lover of wisdom”).

Those are two general motivations for attending university, but they are far from being broad and encompassing enough as a world-view to constitute an "ideology" that would have a name.
As a general rule, people attend university both to acquire valuable knowledge and to acheive the certification of knowledge that the institution provides.  In a full degree program it is unlikely that a student will see all the applications of particular courses at the time, so there is always some extent to which the student trusts the academic experts in setting an appropriate curriculum to give them a well-rounded education in their field.  Most students see the certification of their knowledge as a desirable aspect of what the university provides.  Of course, it is possible that a student can develop an attitude where they become entirely focused on grades and credentials at the expense of learning.  That is usually related to motivations of careerism, status-seeking, or a certain mercenary approach to professional advancement.  Academics usually try to guard against that, and encourage their students to concentrate on learning ideas and skills for broader reasons than passing assessments.
Some people might wish to pursue the acquisition of knowledge entirely for its own sake, without any concern for the knowledge-certification service that the university provides.  However, such people are largely self-selected out of the university, since they can acquire uncertified knowledge at lower cost and with less restriction outside the university.  The people who pursue this path are usually people who have little need for accreditation of their knowledge, either because they are independently wealthy, already have easily proven skills in their field, or they have no intention to pursue careers that require accredited knowledge or skills.  As Will Hunting famously put it, “You dropped 150-grand on a fuckin' education you coulda gotten for a-dollar-fifty in late charges at the public library.” (at 2:51)

I have to diagree with the second part of this. While you can aquire uncertified facts at lower cost, you can't neccesarily aquire academic skills, such as critical thinking, analytical thinking knowledge synthesis, experimental design, empirical reasoning, arguement construction and rhetoric, etc. A university course that teaches only "knowledge" and not what might be called academic skills or even "wisdom" is a very poor university course.

@IanSudbery: In any case, I think you are being generous in imagining that universities impart such a thing with any real regularity.  There is quite a bit of evidence in Caplan 2018 suggesting that universities confer little to nothing in the way of critical thinking skills.  As he quite validly asks, if university actually provides such things, why aren't people simply sneaking into the lecture theatres to get it for free (which they could easily do)?