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Letter of Recommendation Expiration Date
I have 9 and 10 months old recommendation letters. Can I use these when applying to graduate programs (United States)? Is that okay with the admissions committee?

It would be much better to ask your writers for updated letters. It should not be very much work for them.

@Nate Eldredge the problem is that 2 out of 3 recommenders are out of town so it will be very hard to contact them to redo the letters.

Well, that's what email is for :)  If you've left it too long and they are not able to update their letters before the deadline, you may be able to submit the old ones with your application, and have the writers send the new ones directly to the department as soon as possible.

In addition to other points already made, in most situations you do not send the letters yourself, but have the recommenders send the letters directly. Sometimes this involves simply uploading the letters to a web site, but this would be done _by_the_recommenders_, not by you.
Thus, some action will be required by your recommenders.

I wondered about this point a little bit.  However, s/he may mean either that the letters are uploaded to an online service like Interfolio where they can be securely sent out by the recomendee without action by the recommender, or maybe that a staff member in his/her department has the letters and can send out new copies (this was the standard arrangement at Berkeley when I was a student).

@BenWebster, my current letter-writing for undergrads (in math, for a dozen or so of the better-best schools) uniformly requires that I upload my letters and interact with a site, whence my conclusion. Yes, it would be better to have a centralized/organized site like mathjobs.org, certainly!

Actually, Interfolio can go through at least some of these systems.  Anyways, this just reinforces the point that the thing to do is talk to the recommenders.

One of my recommenders told me he doesn't like the current way of writing letters for job applications (one can basically only write one letter) because writing "You are as good as Gauss" in a letter to Princeton has completely different meanings from that in a letter to Minnesota business school for instance.

@ZhouFang I don't understand.  Why can't one write more than one letter?  It's a bit of a pain, I'll admit, but if it bothers you, I don't see what the obstacle is.

@BenWebster My recommender meant/means that it is sometimes optimal to write more than one letter. That is, if one applies for a great range of places, a single letter won't usually suffice. (It doesn't bother me...) Because being as good as Gauss is much harder at Princeton, it would be better to write a different letter to Princeton from that to Minnesota business school.

@BenWebster In a more straightforward way: a recognized "Gauss" in a business school may probably be regarded as a far secondary mathematician at Princeton. That is, the standards are so different that letters should not be the same.

@ZhouFang OK; I'm still not I understand the problem.  In your initial comment it sounded like this issue was that your recommender wanted to write multiple versions of the letter and some external force was stopping him; now it sounds like he knows he can do this and that maybe it would be a good thing to do, but he laments the effort involved.

I don't think anyone likes the current way of writing letters.  There's a funny sort of inflation is which one can't say anything negative, and one has to leave the application reviewers to deduce how strong you think the candidate is from just how positive you are.  The fact that you could write many different versions of the letter for different audiences is just one small sub-problem inside a much larger screwed up situation.

@BenWebster The "external force" is: one can only submit one letter to a centralized server (mathjobs.org) that will distribute this single letter to various universities. Btw, I don't entirely agree that "one can't say anything negative"--e.g., see http://www.rackham.umich.edu/downloads/admissions/RecFormPaper.pdf (one can select "Next 50%" if applicable.)

@BenWebster Since I've never read/written any letter for graduate school/job applications, I'm not qualified to form any opinion on the differences among all the "positive" comments you described... (But if the differences were huge, ...)

@ZhouFang I think you misunderstood what I meant by "can't." You are, of course, free to check the "Next 50%" box, if you don't want the person you are recommending to into that graduate school.  But then why are you wasting your time writing the recommendation?  This reveals exactly the problem I was discussing.  If lots of other recommenders don't check that box even if they think the person is in the bottom 50%, how can you in good conscience?  You'd just be hamstringing everyone you recommend.

@ZhouFang You're wrong about MathJobs.  You can put up as many different versions of your letter as you want, and you can specify exactly which schools can see which.  This is a laziness issue, not a technical one.

@BenWebster Well, first I think it might be better to use "one" instead of "you". :) But is the problem you describe a decisive factor about letter writings? It depends. It depends on the qualifications of recommenders. It depends on the strengthness of the undergard/grad program. It depends on a lot of stuff. "X got a good A in my class" will have completely different meanings as the factors I mentioned above vary. It may be impossible to expect how positive a letter is can address everything.

@BenWebster I said, that's what my recommender told me. I said, I've never written letters for grad school/job applications.

@BenWebster Simply put in this way: if Gauss said student A has a moderate talent in math compared with Riemann and I said student B is even smarter than me, which student would you choose?

To elaborate on Nate Eldredge's point, this would be a bad idea on several levels:

It will look bad with the committee.  Presumably the letters are dated and people will notice.  It will probably not be interpreted charitably.
Presumably an updated letter will may more good things about you, since it will mention whatever you've been doing for past 10 months.  Hopefully you've done something worth noting in that time.
It's also bad form to use letters so long after they are written without contacting the authors.  I don't think there are any precise cutoffs for when one transitions from OK to not OK, but I feel like 10 months is pretty firmly in not OK territory.  You need to give the letter writers the chance to update their assessment, hopefully for the better.

I don't understand why people being out of town is a problem for contacting them.  As Nate says, just send them an email. The ball will be in their court, and they can figure out whether it's practical or not.


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What incentives do supervisors get for supervising undergraduate projects?
What is the prime motivation/incentive for people to supervise undergraduate projects? Students want the degree obviously, but what do the supervisors get? Is there some incentive? Are undergraduate supervisors paid per project as well?
I am an undergraduate computer science student. We mostly make applications and computer programs as final year projects.

Institutions vary, but often the answer is "none, but their department expects them to do it anyway".

Are you working on a project completely irrelevant with the supervisor's research interest, or are you working on part of his project?

It might look good on grant applications.

@Wasim It is OK to let an undergrad work on one's own academic project and it happens most of the time.  An undergrad is just like a FREE grad student. You may want to (very politely) ask him if there is any possibility of a compensation, and I know some undergrad do get paid.  Some prof even post adds publicly to recruit undergrads. It won't be a lot of money.

@XiaoleiZhu Undergrads are not free. Even when they don't cost money, they cost time.

Sometimes undergraduate projects can form an extended talent scouting, looking for good matches of personality and interests for future graduate students.

Ohh, that is clever.

Beyond a general desire to train students to be good researchers, a few of the benefits of undergraduate supervision for the academic include:

Workload: Some departments have a workload model with various degrees of formality. In such models, supervising undergraduate projects would count towards an overall workload. Thus, if you preferred supervising undergraduate projects to some other tasks such as teaching or various service roles, you could do a little more. In a similar way there might be a default expectation that each member of academic staff take on a certain number of undergraduate students.
Facilitating research: Some undergraduate research is publishable. Thus, the research can contribute to the academic's research track record. Obviously undergraduate students don't usually have the research skills of a PhD student and the time frame is shorter. That said, with proper design of projects and some work by the supervisor, it's often possible to get a publishable research project or perhaps a piece of a publishable project. In other cases, merely supervising a project keeps the supervisor thinking about a project.
Identifying potential doctoral students: It provides an opportunity to get to know a student and identify those with particular research talents. Such students may consider doing a PhD.

In community/junior colleges, faculty members may be offered a small fee for supervising student's honors projects. In my experience, most of those who agree to do this put in far more work than would be covered by the stipend. Although some may agree to supervise projects just because they are expected to, most do so because they enjoy working individually with motivated and talented students.

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Is pregnancy a valid explanation of a weak academic performance?
I am a foreign student and currently applying to several PhD programs in the US. My GPA in the 6th semester was a lot disappointing, and pulled down my overall GPA and ranking significantly. The reason is that I got pregnant, by accident. I want to explain this situation in my statement of purpose or address an email to the admission committee, so I want to know how Americans, especially professors, will normally react to this explanation? Will they regard it as understandable mistake or unforgivable sin?

I'm going to side-step this question by simply saying: in PhD admissions, grades are not nearly as important as one might think.  Far more important are 1. your letters of recommendation and 2. tangible evidence that you are capable of being creative and productive in a research environment (e.g., class projects, publications if you have them, etc.).  One semester of bad grades is not going to kill your application, especially if the rest of your grades are strong.
Some even broader advice is: draw attention to the good rather than the bad.  Compare the two statements:

(A) "Despite my poor performance in area X, I believe that I am still a strong candidate for the program in (your field of study)."
(B) "My strong performance in area Y demonstrates that I am well prepared for a research career in (your field of study)."

Both statements communicate the same idea ("I am qualified"), but (B) draws attention to the good, whereas (A) draws attention to the bad.  Don't draw attention to the bad.  If people think something is bad, they'll think it's bad no matter what you say about it.  Get them focused on the good stuff instead.

I fully agree with Dnuorg Spu's answer (emphasize strengths, not perceived weaknesses), but it could be worth a brief, vague mention of this issue somewhere in your application.  For example, something along the lines of "You'll notice that my grades dipped briefly during my 6th semester before returning to normal.  This was due to a personal issue that has been resolved."  The idea is to reassure the admissions committee that it's not a sign of flakiness or ongoing difficulties.  I'm not sure whether such a statement makes a real difference, but at least you would be stating on the record that your 6th semester was anomalous for a reason unlikely to be repeated.  Hopefully your 7th semester grades will be available to the committee and will demonstrate that you are back to normal.
I would recommend against going into more detail than this, however.  There's too much of a risk of distracting people, since the whole topic (young mothers raising children, adoption, abortion, etc.) is emotionally charged, especially in the U.S.  You don't want this issue to be the most attention-getting or memorable part of your application.  It would probably not hurt your chances, but what happened is none of the committee's business and the details are not relevant for whether you should be admitted, so it's safest to keep the discussion focused on academics.

"the whole topic (young mothers raising children, adoption, abortion, etc.) is emotionally charged"  Yes and yes.  It's actually quite sad that a person would ever have to refer to the conception of a child as simply "a personal issue that has been resolved."  But IMHO, one can be much more effective at fighting that battle after they've achieved a position of power within academia (rather than, say, during the PhD application process).  Good luck.

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Preparing a curriculum vitae for an undergraduate internship
I am currently a scholarship student in my sophomore year in a double major programme in theoretical physics and pure mathematics. I wish to apply for an internship, for which they have asked me for my CV. I checked traditional CVs and I couldn't find anything that is relevant to my current situation. What should I put in my CV and what must I ignore?
The following is the skill set that I have in my arsenal. The internship is for a physics research topic so what must I include?

Skills  (academic) :

Physics (The courses that I have taken with my grades on them)
Math (The courses that I have taken with my grades on them)
Random courses in the branches of languages and arts
Currently involved in a theoretical research project in physics, but haven't really achieved anything in it as yet as I was headed tangentially in the topic
High school results (top 1% of the cohort)

Skills (miscellaneous):

hyperpolyglot
artist (professional impressionist and surrealist)
writer and poet (free verse)
active quizzer and debater
football striker (out of context, but you never know ;) )
swimmer
sculptor

Interests:

Philosophy
Psychology
Theology
Occult Sciences
Art and art history
Reading (I would read anything with words on it)
Literature
Languages

And a couple of other things here and there. Also, is there any particular formatting that I should adhere to?

I mailed the professor I wished to work with and he replied as follows:
Send me a CV and information on your coursework and results

So what must I put in and what must I deduct? Thanks in advance :)

If it's longer than one page, I think you can take out the Skills (miscellaneous). They are irrelevant to the internship. As the prof. says, write your coursework(contents and grades) of every physics courses. Don't forget your lab experience (I know it's theoretical physics, lab experience and skills are still important).

Ah yes of course :) Does lab experience imply my grades on lab courses?

You don't need to include grades if you also send a transcript. Non-physics interests and skills are likewise irrelevant. What you've also left out are skills that might help in research: programming, knowledge of statistical or mathematical packages such as R, Matlab, or Sage, and any laboratory skills that might be relevant to the specific project you're working on. (For instance, measurement techniques or prior laboratory work.)

This question can be generalized to non-undergraduate purposes (for instance, a "summer school" application for graduate students). I would therefore recommend reopening the question.

It looks like your list here is pretty comprehensive. I would focus less on the "interests" and more on the relevant skills and experience. interests are nice as a snapshot on your personality, but I wouldn't sweat it if the section is a bit barren or void of "in depth" content here.
From my understanding, a CV is nothing more than an expanded resume. If you have an existing resume, take a few moments to expand a bit on your roles and accomplishments beyond simple bullet points.

I definitely intend to elaborate on the bullet points haha :) I am just not sure if it is sufficient for a good CV.

I completed a CV and it was pretty much a non bullet version of my resume with small paragraphs as descriptions for the jobs. I had two sections of content: "Relevant experience" and "Leadership experience". Relevant exp I listed those roles that clearly met the job description, and for Leadership i added in experience covering volunteer work, teaching roles, mentor-ships and public speaking engagements. As a note, CVs are generally more robust and should be more than a page...Mine was 3 pages and it was formatted with the assistance of a hiring agency. If they want a CV, they want more info.


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Cite a Twitter conversation?
Let's assume that while researching and writing a paper you find a Twitter conversation between domain experts that is particularly useful for you.

Given that it is not the sources that these experts list, but the spontaneous grouping of these sources for an argument that is useful, wouldn't it be dishonest to find sources that verify this information and then just cite the papers without citing the experts that led you down this line of thinking?
Is it acceptable to cite a conversation from a social media source, such as Twitter, in an academic paper?

I think that this can be clarified with a thought experiment.  Let's say that rather than observing a Twitter conversation (or other social media), you were part of a three-way discussion with the two experts in the hallway at a conference.  During the course of the conversation, some key facts and sources are mentioned, and this inspires you to look them up.
Would you cite the hallway conversation?  Absolutely not.  At most, you might mention your source of inspiration in an acknowledgement, if it was particularly important to your work.
Likewise, I think that you should feel no obligation to cite a conversation that you observed on Twitter, which is effectively the same thing in an electronic hallway conversation.  (You can, of course, cite Twitter as a primary source, e.g., if you want to give an example of Twitter conversations, but that doesn't seem to be particularly germane to this question).

Frequently conversations are cited as "J. Doe, private communication", though I've never seen this applied to three-way conversations.

Both "private communication" (or variants thereof) and "The author would like to thank X and Y for their helpful conversations on Z" in the acknowledgments seem fairly common to me.  I think "private communication" is more suitable for tangible, new results that can fairly unambiguously be attributed to the other person, but are not publicly available, whereas "conversations" is suitable for more generic and broad-ranging stuff.

I mostly but not entirely agree. Unlike a conversation in the hallway, which typically is not recorded, there is a written record of the conversation on Twitter people can refer back to. But because of the nature of Twitter, these conversations usually don't go into great depth, so probably an acknowledgement or "private communication" is good enough.

@LambdaMoses The "written record" of social media is ephemeral at best, since it can generally be readily modified, hidden, or removed by the individuals involved or the company that runs the site.

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Can I accept two federal fellowships simultaneously and defer one?
I recently received both an NSF and an NDSEG fellowship.  I see that I am not allowed to accept funding from both fellowships, but I wonder if it is possible to do something like: accept both, put the NSF on reserve for two years and forfeit the next year, then accept the last two years of funding from the NSF after the NDSEG has expired.  Can someone confirm whether this is possible or not?

I putting this Q&A on stackexchange because I had difficulty finding a straight answer, and wanted to make it easier for others in the future.

Any idea about one federal fellowship and one other source of funding? (This will likely depend on each funding source's specific rules.)

@StephanKolassa: for private or institutional funds, NSF definitely allows deferrals. See the page linked in the answer below.

Thanks for putting this and the answer up. I think this is helpful information (although I would have never expected this to work, to be honest).

Answer: No, it is not possible.  I called the NSF office concerning this issue, and they told me that I have to decline one of the fellowships.  The same is true of any two federal fellowships: you can only accept one, period.  This page also says the same thing, addressing the specific proposal mentioned in the question.

You are also often prohibited from accepting pay from the university for the same work while holding a federal fellowship. It falls under the purview of double dipping.

Also, in case you're wondering which one to accept, the NDSEG is the better deal---it pays ALL your expenses, whereas NSF only pays a portion of your tuition.


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What is the academic value of posts on LinkedIn?
As LinkedIn is a network of professionals, there is a great scope for sharing one's professional expertise in the form of a short piece (or otherwise write something to influence a cause).
Most posts are well researched (often hyperlinked to relevant sources) and reflect the writer's knowledge and experience in a particular professional field.
I am wondering what perceived value is there for this contribution in terms of any academic recognition. Would it be appropriate to list these posts in a job CV?

This is a reasonable question... but the point is that LinkedIn is a commercial enterprise, so has motivation to include as many people as possible, really regardless of their professional situation. But there's no fact-checking, and no real limit on who can be there, or whether what they say is real or fantasy. Net: nothing. It has no weight.

An ancedote of it's importance: until recently, I thought it was "Linkedln" (last two letters ell en, not i en).  I still think that's a better name.

... and, belatedly, one wonders whether one will be sued for defamation.

In my experience, when a researcher starts making posts on LinkedIn, especially if they are substantive posts, it means either that they are temporarily unemployed or that they have left academia and become a consultant. LinkedIn posts seem to be primarily a way to build a network for consulting.

LinkedIn certainly has some value, as a general professional networking tool. However, that value has been declining for quite a while and rather rapidly more recently due to various factors, mainly inability (or lack of care/desire) of LinkedIn's management to manage the quality of the community, provide consistent user experience, fix issues and improve features, just to name a few. Whether the recent acquisition of LinkedIn by Microsoft will help LinkedIn to remain a major player in the market and improve its dominance or, vice versa, will enable its stagnation and transform it into Microsoft's technology- and talent-focused support division, remains to be seen (I make no bets).
Having said that, the value of LinkedIn from the academic publishing perspective is quite bleak (which is a nice way to say "close to zero"), in my humble opinion. The following are some of the reasons for my such assessment.

Quality / scientific rigor. LinkedIn lacks a peer review process, which means that any published piece there should be taken with many more grains of salt than, if such process would be in place (not that is expected).
Relevancy. LinkedIn is not very relevant to academia. LinkedIn's network of people from academic circles tend to be much less comprehensive than academia's specialized networks due to some of their colleagues, collaborators, etc. using LinkedIn rarely, if ever, or just not having any presence there at all. Therefore, disseminating scientific information, using LinkedIn, is a much less effective option. Nevertheless, if one has important academic contacts on LinkedIn that are missing from the person's other networks, it might make sense to publish there a brief post (similar to an abstract) with a link to a full-text article (preferably, a DOI link).
Information persistence. LinkedIn lacks a mechanism of persistent identifiers (again, not that we can expect that from a general networking platform), which implies lack of guarantee that a link to an article published there will not become broken over time (which jeopardizes scientific information dissemination).

P.S. There is no such term, as "job CV" - I understand what you're trying to say, but IMHO it sounds pretty bad and, thus, I would recommend against using such word combination in any context. HTH

@NajibIdrissi: The parts that I italicized might look random to you, but they IMHO represent relatively important aspects that I wanted to emphasize.

The two major reasons why LinkedIn is not taken seriously by anyone who knows what they are doing are

LinkedIn don't verify what you put on your profile (so possible identity theft, false credentials, etc)
major security flaws (~120 mil accounts were leaked a few weeks back).

Honestly, just stick with your university space or personal website. I know of plenty people who would think that actually using LinkedIn references in your CV is rather unprofessional.

In my experience a link to your LinkedIn profile in your CV is definitely helpful, however referring to individual posts may not be.


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As a TA, how to react if I come across a Facebook group in which students insult me?
I am a PhD student in Europe and also TA for some bachelor's degree classes for my supervisor.
Just by chance, I have found an open Facebook group (normally, the group aims to create an interaction between students and opened by students as well.) in which people in class insult me very harshly about the way I do the tutorial and my personality. (How I look etc.)
How to react or not to react, really? Any suggestions in order to be objective in evaluation of those students?  Because, I don't want to introduce any personal judgemental issue for those who insult when I grade midterms.

If you think it is appropriate and if you can bring this up calmly, it looks like a good opportunity to remind your students that, even though on the Internet, they are responsible for what they say. But, IMHO, this incident should not interfere with how you grade them.

Not the same thing, but somehow related: Anonymous Student Feedback: Moving forward from abusive comments

First of all, insulting criticism can still be useful. If something said in this group (even in an insulting way) needs to be improved on your side, fix it. We learn more from people criticizing us, than for people praising us. Second, you are a TA and they are students. Even if you were perfect, some students will still hate your guts. So, do not take it that too personally.

It might be nice to project the page on a screen in the next class and read the comments aloud. Then ask someone to raise his hand if he's the one that wrote the comment. That would surely embarrass the people responsible, and from now on if they have complaints, maybe they will say something to you directly instead of mocking you on FB.

Are you from a country where, if you receive an insult, you must retaliate and get even?  I believe most European countries are no longer in that category.

Embrace it. Bring it up and laugh about how funny you thought it was in hindsight and agree with them. The point of what they are doing is to elicit a negative response and any negative response you give only helps them and hinders you immensely. Move on after. If they see how it's fun for you it will no longer be fun for them. Maybe do an update each session with all the funny stuff in it until it stops

By talking about it in class, you'll just give them even more arguments against you.
You become a somehow public person when you become a TA - those are things you'll have to live and deal with.
The only useful thing you could do about that group is try to get if there's any real issue they're talking about and you should address - ie, some fault you're making and you think you should correct. It's the same with all critics - take them as an opportunity to improve.
If you will take it personal with whoever is insulting you, just avoid reading that group and that's it.

Your critics are your best advisors. Especially if they criticize you in a public forum where they have something to lose by being discovered.  When I was first learning to drive I was overly cautious. This irritated a lot of drivers (I was learning in Brooklyn). I used the drivers who honked as guide that what I was doing was unacceptable. I am more experienced now, so when people honk at me, I generally dismiss it as an indication that they don't take into account all of the factors on the road. Well, as a TA, you are just beginning to learn how to teach. And they are honking at you.

All the people suggesting you bring it up in class -- to the OP - be prepared for the online criticisms to continue and grow harsher after such an act. You cannot stop it, there are no laws being broken. Someone is speaking ill of you, first look to see if anything you do has caused the reaction, and maybe make personal adjustments. Otherwise, just shrug it off and move on.

What course are you TAing for?  Maybe there is a humorous way to incorporate their, uhh, "comments" into your lesson plan.  That will keep them attentive in class AND let them know that you know about the Facebook page.

How can this question have upvotes when we have no idea what was said to the OP?  We have no idea if the insults were even insults or simply things the OP didn't want to hear.  Please add more information.

@blankip If you wish, I can say publicly the words translated in English. It will not be a appropriate to say publicly these words. For example, you don't have the right to say somebody "son of a b..." no ?

I ran into this several years back.  It hurt me personally and career-wise.  But, I looked at what the comments were and used the opportunity to learn.  If the comments were BS, I asked myself "why would someone write that and what can I do to make sure they don't write that again?"  It helped me to grow.  I would have preferred a gentler approach.

Is it some kind of news that students like to make fun of TA and professors? If it wasn't for facebook those same thing will still be said, but you would never know about it. I have said "yeah that professor is a son of a b.." many times. Most of the time I did not really believe it, it was just to have fun with friends. To bond, even: one must have a common enemy! :D So take what you can to improve the course and do as countless generations of professors have done before you: ignore it completely as it never happened.

If you are been attacked on a personal level as you said, and it is no longer a mere criticism on your teaching then immediately escalate it to your professor. If your professor pays no heed to it, then consult your department to learn about their harassment policy and issue a formal complaint to the faculty who is in charge of TA allocation or directly to dept. chair. It is definitely possible to criticize someone without causing emotional duress, if that is the culture among students of that particular class, then they need to be educated on basic code of conduct.

@optimalcontrol - I think we need to see everything with context.  I know when I use SOB it is more in the good natured way.  I might say a friend is one tough SOB.  That isn't an insult.   Again you need to post some detailed examples for people to give you a correct answer.   I answered but it was more of a general answer and really had nothing to do with you personally.  I could probably give a better answer more specific to you if you had details.

Was this in a private group or a group you weren't intended to be in (you saw it while leaning over someone's shoulder, etc)?

@Chipperyman no it was an open group.

Teach them to set their group settings to private if they want to insult you.

Wow, these are some harsh comments... people are saying awful things about you behind your back and academia.SE's response is, to exaggerate only a little, "well, have you considered that they might be right about you being an ugly loser?". It wouldn't hurt to express a little solidarity – it can be really frustrating and unfair that you have to put up with stuff like this from people who you are trying to help.

@BenMillwood I am open to all kinds of critics. I have any problem with this. It is always good to have critics in order to make things better but not insults. Anyway, I appreciate all the helpful and plausible advices here.

I agree with the suggestion by @gerrit -- have someone ask the admin to set the group privacy settings to Closed, so that only students can see comments in their NewsFeed, and not the public or all their friends-of-friends.

This is too puerile to make an issue of it, but one way to calm it down is let them know you know about it - and the smart ones will figure out that if you know, every other person on the university staff might know, and they can't do anything to stop that fact. On the next batch of homework or whatever, just add a comment like. "If you wish to give me any anonymous feedback regarding this course, you can leave a message at [the facebook-group-name they are using]".

@alephzero they can say whatever they want in their causal conversations, I really don't care (if it is not constructive criticisms) but as it is an open facebook group, It bothers me that other people could reach these messages.

What would you do if this wasn't Facebook, but something like a bar or restaurant? For example, you are in a booth at a bar and you overhear your students insult you in the next booth?

@GreenstoneWalker It is not at all a problem for me that students talk behind me. It is even not a problem if I hear them insulting behind me. The problem is that it is accessible to everybody. This idea bothers me. Also, I try to be objectif whatever the situation is, for implementing justice among students. That's one of the reasons why I asked the quesiton in order to take advices.

Oops, there was supposed to be another sentence on that comment. Sorry about that. I think that the actions you would take in a physical setting should (somewhat) match the actions you take in a virtual setting. If, in the bar, you'd go to their table and ask for clarification, then consider doing that on Facebook - post a comment asking for clarification. If, in the bar, you'd ignore it, then consider doing that on Facebook.

First time I ever wanted to post an answer, but I can't :( , so it's going to have to be a longish comment. (Sorry.) In essence: the insults concerning your appearance you can do one of two things (1.) shrug them off, how you look is your own affair, you are a TA not a movie star or a model. (2) take on board the criticisms, and start doing something. Weight issues? Start exercising more, this will help you make you feel better, and look better too. Buy some top gear, look the part of a professional etc. Great self-esteem booster, that's if you need it. You may not, in which case see (1).

Insults about teaching: (3) Listen very carefully, view this as a great opportunity for receiving "impartial" feedback. Are they valid, are there grains of truth, is that why the insults are hurtful? Are all the comments negative, is there no one "defending you"? If so, then you need to look at your teaching skills in a new light. There are courses which can help one tremendously in improving communicative skills, and transmitting knowledge onto others. Even buying the odd self-help book could work wonders.

Join that group with a fake profile and post some insults and embarrassing facts about yourself.

Sometimes students behave childishly. They've only been adults for a few years, and some of them are still transitioning. In groups in particular, and with the anonymizing effect of the internet, immaturity can be amplified.
The first thing to do, when faced with childish behavior, is increase the maturity of your own. Show them how childish they are by contrast. In this case, the most mature thing to do would probably be to take the valid parts of their criticism on board, and ignore the rest. If you feel you must mention it, reduce your comments to the absolute most reasonable and objective part of what you feel needs to be said: you didn't enjoy reading this about yourself, they should come to you directly (or go to your supervisor) with valid criticism, and they should consider the nature of internet posts for the sake of their own professional career.
Don't put the comments on the projector, don't single people out and don't open up a discussion. Just mention it as briefly as you can, and move on.
If it helps, consider that you are in a position of authority, and this is what happens to people in authority. Any boss or manager in any company will have to deal with the fact that people will have little bitching sessions behind their back, and usually not very mature ones. The higher up you get, the more people will gossip about you. There's no way to escape it: no matter how cool or normal you are, the tiniest idiosyncrasies will be magnified.
It's usually not meant in a bad spirit, just a way to blow off steam about forced circumstances. The problem here is that they did it on the internet, instead of in the coffee room.

"They've only been adults for a few years, and some of them are still transitioning." And some adults never stop behaving childishly.

@T.J.Crowder, “Grown men, he told himself, in flat contradiction of centuries of accumulated evidence about the way grown men behave, do not behave like this.”

To add to Johanna's answer, I think the professor should also say something about when the students are looking for jobs before/after graduation.  If a potential employer happens to see a prospective employee's negative posts, the employer will think, "What if this person has that kind of attitude here?" -- and pass over the applicant.
(For a similar reason 20 years ago when our company took our product show on the road, I had to tell our CEO to stop lambasting an existing customer in presentations to potential customers.  He agreed with me that potential customers might wonder what we would say behind their back, so he stopped mentioning the existing customer.  And, probably like the TA, the existing customer didn't deserve the criticism anyway.)

I think that could very easily be a stand alone answer. OP could do it themselves even without mentioning the group, saying something during the  along the lines of "As an aside, Facebook is a public place and unprofessional behavior will live forever, future employers are likely to find it and judge you based on your comments online. Consider that before adding anything to Facebook"

Well here's a bunch of rep so you can post comments now :)

Yep, this is definitely its I own answer. I don't even agree with Johanna's answer, but you make an excellent point.

@KyleStrand - Except that by making this point he may look rather foolish with both the professor and the rest of the administration.  Seems like a lot of risk for almost zero reward.

I can't disagree more with Johanna's answer - which is currently the most upvoted.  It is completely ridiculous and has sparks of fairy-tale revenge.
Let's go over the basics:

These are kids.
I am assuming you are in a country that accepts free speech.
Making fun of someone is not online harassment nor harassment of any level.  It is simply making fun of someone.  Now if these students emailed you insults that may be harassment, but probably not in the judicial sense... Sense you can easily not read the emails (or Facebook posts).
You are a TA not a professor.
You didn't even tell us what the insults were.  There is the distinct possibility that they what they are saying isn't even insulting and is in fact factual.  If they say you dress sloppy or don't comb your hair or if you stink this may be true and they don't like listening to an uncouth TA.  Also your teaching style might be bad too.  I don't think anyone should assume that these are insults unless we know what is said and more about you.

What will happen if you listen to the advice to involve the professor and talk about it in class:

It will be uncomfortable for you.  Very.
It will be uncomfortable to the students - a little.  Then they may laugh.  and there is the possibility that they start talking about their "insults" to you and the professor because the truly care about the issues.
The professor will probably think you are stalking the students.  The students will surely feel this way.
The professor will think you can't handle criticism.
The professor will probably think less of you as a TA because he will think that nobody likes you (unless you can find a Facebook page dedicated to complimenting you) and he is seeing all of your issues highlighted.
The administration at your school may get wind of what is going on.  Although they in theory could say something to the students or feel sorry for you, you can be assured that they wouldn't seriously think about hiring you.

It is simple.  Think about what they said and see if you can improve.  If it is just petty stuff ignore.  Never bring it up - to anyone.   Please.
Note:  I want to be clear that I am answering this for a person that found students blowing off steam with criticism.  The OP did not provide enough detail to answer otherwise.  My advice would generally stay the same on how to handle it with the professor and the students but would vary greatly with how the OP should react within himself.  And even then these are still kids and sometimes kids just say shit and when we were kids we were dumbass bigmouths too.

OP asked how to deal with online harassment. They had a reason not to reproduce the insults here. I don't think "probably you are not confronted with harassment at all, and also maybe you really stink" answers the question.

@henning - harassment is a very broad term.  If I called you a "dumbass" right now is that harassment?  Saying someone stinks, maybe factual.  And if the person does stink then they need to take more showers and be prepared to be around others better.  Again we need an understanding of what the "harassment" was.  By your inclination everyone writing a review on yelp is harassing?  Just not sure where you are going with your comment.  We have no idea what was said on Facebook.

We have no idea, indeed -- except for the statement given by the OP. But prima facie it is implausible and not helpful to assume that the OP's statement is wrong. It would simply lead away from the question.

@henning: OP was not harassed online, he stumbled upon people talking trash about him, that's all. And - blankip - harassment is not such a broad term.

@einpoklum - You are correct.  I should say the word "harassment" is used in a very broad way.  Example being the top 2 voted answers here.

@henning I kind of have to agree with the others, this really doesn't seem like harassment per se. The post were about the OP but they weren't directed at the OP since they only found them by accident.

"These are kids." -- no, they are (young) adults and should be treated as such. They have been through social contract bootcamp and acceptable behaviour drills, which they consciously violate. I'm not saying that that makes the issue actionable, but trivialising it is an inappropriate response.

@Raphael - The 19-21 crowd is made up of kids and young adults.  Very easy to deduce which group ranted on Facebook.  I am around this age range a lot.  The young adult would be a very nice way of categorizing them, very nice.  Also I do see a lot of passive aggressive electronic medium behavior from them - were they act sane and normal in person but then bash each other/whoever online or via text.  Quite a phenomenon with the under 30 crowd right now.

@blankip I'm still part of the under-30 crowd, and this is not common behaviour among my peers. The fact that a group of a**holes has ages under 30 does not mean that their age is the main factor in them being such, nor that it is an excuse.

I've been trying to consider if the question were asked this way, "As a supervisor, what to do if I came across a facebook group in which employees insult me (personally, and my procedures)" I agree with you that the equivalent of heading to HR and reporting the group wouldn't be a good action. At the same time, I think choosing to address the procedure issues, but not the personal attack ones, could be improved on still. Wouldn't you want your employees to realize that they could come to you about your procedures, without resorting to personal attacks or hiding their issues behind your bac?

There are two separate issues here: the first is that the students are saying abusive things about you in a Facebook group, and the other is the risk of introducing personal judgement in your grading.
The students' behaviour is inappropriate. I suggest that you bring the group to your professor's attention, and look through the student handbook/Code of Conduct and see what it says about how students should treat teaching staff. This seems like a clear violation. I would recommend two things should happen.
First, you should mention the website in your next recitation, or whenever you see the students next. Don't name anyone, just tell them that you found a Facebook group where students say hurtful things about you as a person. Tell them that you appreciate if they come to you with any constructive feedback, and that any other comments about your personality or appearance, are online harassment, which is illegal (in many jurisdictions).
Second, your professor should follow this up during the next class by having a short talk about appropriate behaviour in a professional environment. This discussion should again be very general, without naming anyone. He just needs to mention that adults give each other constructive feedback in person or over email, and keep negative comments about others' personalities and appearance to themselves. And, of course, that the school strongly disapproves of bullying and harassment over Facebook or other online communities.
If you're worried about the grading on the midterms, you can either ask your professor to grade those specific students' papers, or if you think you can grade them yourself, ask the professor to look over the grading of those specific students afterwards to make sure you're not being unnecessarily harsh.

+1, though I'll note that online harassment may not be illegal in the OP's jurisdiction.

i don't see how what the students are doing is any way "inappropriate" ... maybe rude, but it's well within their rights to talk about someone behind their back. that's just the way the world is. no one has the right to not be offended. they're not harrassing the TA, either—that's a ridiculous notion. it's a facebook group, not a private email directed at the TA. definitely don't bring it up in class. now THAT would be crass.

@sgroves Really? You think it's appropriate for students to have a Facebook group with negative remarks about the TAs personality and appearance? A university is a workplace, for both the TA and the students. This would be inappropriate and lead to consequences with HR in any other workplace I know of. Standards should not be different in a university.

@Johanna The students are well within their rights to speak negatively of the TA (or professor, or university president, or the US President even...). It is appropriate. You cannot go through life demanding nobody speak ill of you, simply because you cannot control what others think. Instead, you need to examine the criticisms and determine the root cause of them -- perhaps it's something you do and needs correction? In the end, if you decide the criticisms are just for criticism's sake -- ignore it and move on -- you will never make everyone like you.

@Johanna And, frankly, it's not harassment either. For it to be harassment, the behavior needs to be ongoing after you have requested it stop. And just to quell the rebuttal - you can't claim harassment if you go looking for someone who's speaking ill of you (searching facebook groups looking for someone who said something about you)... in fact, that very act could be viewed as stalking of the student! So, in the end, just grow a thick skin and move on.

Don't listen in into a group that is not directed at you if you may not like what they say.

I've had an unfortunate situation like this where the students accidentally invited me into the Facebook group. They were making fun of one of the instructors who recently had a stroke and was stuttering when he talked during lecture. It was very sad.

How to react or not to react really ?

First of all, do not take their insults seriously or let it affect you. Your job is to assist in teaching not manage their behavior. Unless they are being disruptive to you in class, ignore it. If you are offended by the comments, just forget about it and do your job.
It's important to remember that a lot of college students are like this and social media only makes it worse. College is not that different from high school/secondary school where your image and social standing is extremely important. Many people feel a sense of inflated self-worth by putting others down. Additionally, I have found many students are frustrated with the work in the class and often use social media to vent their feelings. If they are upset with their performance on the exam, the easiest way to feel better is to put someone else down. Sometimes the TA is the most convenient to blame because they do not have the same authority as the professor. It is unprofessional and wrong for their comments to venture into the territory of insults but it is going to happen whether or not you interfere. And in some cases interfering can just make the situation worse. Even if you get them to shut it down or stop, they could easily just make another private group and continue doing it anyways.
However, since the group is public and intended to help students interact it may be wise to interfere just to make that page open for those who actually want to learn and study in groups. Sometimes the students respect the professors more than the TA so this might be something you would want to ask your supervisor to get involved with.

Any suggestions in order to be objectif for evaluation of those students ? Because, I don't want to introduce any personal judgemental issue for those who insult when I grade midterms.

Once again, it's your job to be an objective grader. They aren't being graded on how they respect you but how well they know the material. If you want to be objective then hide the names when you grade or find a way to randomize the grading order.
Lastly, remember that the vocal minority often makes the most noise. The kind, respectful, and studious students are sometimes the quiet ones. Don't let the comments of a few rowdy ringleaders affect your ability to be a fantastic teacher.

In addition to the excellent suggestion already made to anonymize the exams you'll be grading:
If you are concerned that this might affect your personal or professional future, because they have used your full name, then the department should contact the moderator of the group.  Either the group needs to be made private or your name needs to be removed.
Otherwise -- ignore it.  Do not read it.  People are so much ruder and more disrespectful online than in person.  Just as you don't need to go poking your nose into your students' bathroom habits, you really don't need to be reading what they write to each other when they're letting off steam about school frustrations.
Now, if your students have limited opportunities to be active partners in their own education, that is something that needs to be remedied.  (Example: course and instruction evaluations.)

Here's a suggestion about evaluation: Try to institute some mechanism in which you're not aware of who you're evaluating. With written exams this is usually pretty easy, just have people write their IDs rather than their names; and while you could theoretically figure the IDs out, that would require you actively want to discriminate. A stronger alternative would be a distribution of random tokens, with someone else holding the token-to-ID mapping so that when you grade you can't cheat and check who it was.
Of course, if there's an element of personal impression in your grading of people at the end of the semester - and this sometimes happen and is relevant - it's obviously more of a problem.

Just ignore it.
When you put energy into your tutorials, most students are going to recognize your effort and passion and the gift that that represents, and they will respect you for it.
If the criticism really affects you, try to remember that people often put others down because they feel small themselves.  I don't think it's a good idea to engage with them about this issue or even to let them know that their comments have affected you enough to go to the professor.  They might get the feeling of power they're looking for, which might make things worse for you going forward.
Ideally, you should be able to grade the midterms neutrally.  If you can't do that, explain to the professor why you can't be neutral and ask her what she wants you to do.
Focus on your research, on your tutorials, and on the people and things that matter to you in your life.

I'm not sure what country you are in but my impression would be that it is not illegal, and probably not even against a student conduct code. That said it is rude and un-professional, but in life people are both of those things, especially undergrads.
I would take one of three approaches.

Ignore it.
Read what they are saying, ignore most of it but try to learn from it. (e.x. If they are saying " really smells" maybe consider taking a shower more often, or " is incompetent" realise that they probably mean something else like " is poorly prepared")
Troll the shit out of them, it's a public group join it, I'm not a very creative when it comes to trolling but I'm sure some fun could be had.

Gotta be careful trolling as you don't want to break the law yourself. I could see myself responding "Yeah, so I don't look that great. Trade you fashion lessons for tutoring, because after that last 25% on your test, you are going to need it."

I downvoted this question because "trolling back" is, first, likely to escalate the situation. Second, not taking things personal and distancing themselves from the harassers is more likely to make the OP feel better than lowering themselves to the same level. Third, I find trolling immature and unprofessional, no matter who "started it". It sets a bad example.

@henning I guess it depends on your definition of trolling I beleive that trolling can be done in a way that both teaches a lesson, provides humor and is reasonably professional.

"un-professional" Students aren't professionals. They're students.

@DavidRicherby On the other hand, the term "professional student" exists.

By "troll them", the first thing I thought of was to post something agreeing with them, and talk in the 3rd person about yourself. Maybe share something extra that they would find amusing. - and suggest that you're going to bring these points to him(yourself) tomorrow so he(you) can act on this great feedback. This would probably scare the crap out of some of the loudest, but be amusing to the others - though I admit it isn't really "trolling"

@DoubleDouble yeah, that would be pretty funny and make a point.

@henning You downvoted the question?

@KyleStrand the answer.

Being specific, in France, free speech stops where dignity starts. Public insult (and, an open facebook group is a public place) can be punished by a 12000 € fine.
Insult seems to be defined as (translation attempt) : any offensive speech, deliberately meant to hurt, by affecting honor and dignity.
Moreover, its position as teacher may worsen the legal classification.

I agree on all points ! except the first one... since it may ends with a 1 € fine and a written apology, it could be an interesting way to teach them something. Any judge will be smart enough to know when to repress or educate :)

@NajibIdrissi Your reputation is that of someone who doesn't let himself being trampled over.

you can teach them the law :) we call it "rappel à la loi", or "remainder of the law", one tool available to a prosecutor, which looks like a kind of official sermon. Efficiency with no harm :)

@NajibIdrissi We may live in different realities. I would expect the university, as well as the majority of students, to side with the professor and reaffirm that they value respect.

Well, this point is tricky but, in France : if it can factually and precisely be proved right or wrong it is defamatory, else it's insulting. "dumbass" may be right (if he's really a dumbass) but too vague, hence insulting... which is nice because defamation is a much more serious matter :) law makers, judges and lawyers are funny geeks which love those kinds of word plays.

Hurtful speech is illegal in France even if it's factually accurate? I am so very glad not to live there....

@KyleStrand Having lived in France for a year, I relay to you the following fact about France that many of its natives relayed to me: "This is really a communist country."

@KyleStrand please relax, insult or injury have to reach a broad audience (public media) or touch a recipient of a governmental function (cop, civil servant, judge) to hope for something more than a dismiss in court.

I would ignore it. Many times people say negative things about others which are true, but not the whole truth. This is a form of self-expression (as opposed to the Platonic form of the good). Gripping about those in positions over you is the way its always been and the way it always will be. The alternative is to have an unhealthily close relationship to all of your students.

Also one can consider the identification of opposites. If they were nice to you, that would be a patronization and thus a disrespect.

I agree with most comments here - just ignore it / laugh it off.
Or at least convince yourself and others that you are.
Once that is done, see if it does have any merit. Is it what could have been a constructive comment, disguised after having rolled in mud? If it read "his / her last lecture was so boring that my table slept off" - just laugh it off but see if you could make it more interesting next time. Or just ask the class for their suggestions (smilingly and not angrily), saying that you read that comment on fb.
It is interesting how good some inputs from students can be.
Or if the student just said it out of spite - well, ignore it and dont see their fb posts. Everyone has a right to express themselves on fb - do what politicians and media people do.
Lest it sound by now that I am preaching, trust me - I have also been there and felt that, and it can feel very bad. However....
Welcome to academics (at least the teaching part of it) - it does not pay much, but you do get the limelight / stage for a good hour or three every day :) - and while some students may like you, some don't (there may not even be a reason to it!) and the latter often do hurt by their astringent comments, written on fb with the bravado that accompanies all of us when we are young.
Remember - as a teacher (though we all are human) we are supposed to show that we are more mature than our students and hence are able to shrug these sort of comments off (no matter how badly they might sting inside)
Sometimes, it can even help to just vent it to the class - tell them you read blah blah and you did not like the comment. the student may not stop his / her action (they may even write more often as they now know that you are affected by it), but you sure will feel better (which is important). When they write next time, do any of the other above suggestions.

If the question is "what to do in reaction to something on social media", the best first-order approximation is "nothing".
Maybe it's the best second-order approx, too, because one might want to not make any decisions based on students' social-media activities.
Even to higher order: the students who'll do this have self-selected, so it's a highly biased sample of student attitude.
Etc.
And, of course, even if one accidentally discovers such stuff, one must attempt to ignore it in evaluating students' work. Easier said than done, obviously. But, also, obviously, kids do foolish things, to not imagine that "grown-ups" would ever be listening, would behave better if they did imagine that, and so on. Being a good teacher cannot possibly take all that into account.
I think the only feasible route for a conscientious teacher is to consider the immediate environment, while, yes, considering the palpable fact that kids/students exist in a broader environment, but that the latter is not within the teacher's power.
So, don't be crazily unrealistic, but, still, require something...

Any time you are being criticized, you have several options, including:

ignore it
deny it
evaluate it

The mature thing to do would be the third option. Why do students say these things? It is often said that "perception is reality" - that is, if these students say certain things about you, that reflects their impression / opinion of you at that moment in time.
Instead of getting angry or defensive, ask yourself: "what is it about me that makes them say these things? Do they have a point? If they do, am I willing to make a change?"
And then you can choose to do something about it - quite possibly in a way that demonstrates "I am going to make a change" to your students. For example, if the comment is about your worn-out (but comfortable) jacket, you might one day appear in a different jacket, and say "I heard that some people don't think my jacket is suitable for a TA; so I am putting it up for auction and donating the proceeds to charity X." With a bit of luck, the culprits will realize that you saw their comments, and maybe somebody will donate a small amount for the jacket. Situation defused, everybody wins.
Obviously what approach you might take depends on the kind of insult levied - but whatever it is, consider that they might have a point. The mature thing to do is to think it over.

"Listening is the art of hearing what somebody says, and being willing to be changed by what you hear"

Read what they are saying about you (if you have the time),
See if there is anything useful to add to your things I want to improve about myself pile, and
Discard the rest.
Be happy you got genuine feedback (if there is anything useful there) and move on.

If they become aware that you know the group exists they'll just "move operations" somewhere else (possibly a private group). At least this way you have an idea of what others are saying/thinking about you.
Remember they're young and it's possible they're just venting their frustration about classes/life.
Alex Measday said the students could be affected by this when searching for jobs after graduation. Following from this, it's also possible it could affect you negatively. Say someone is searching for your name and finds the group. They might decide decide to stay away from you because of what they read. "They" could be a prospective employer. In this case you might want to do something about it: maybe use the reporting mechanism of the social network; still no need to let anyone know you are aware of the group's existence, and easily solved on your own without involving the university.

(Most of what I said has already been mentioned in previous answers, except perhaps for the last bullet point.)


text:
Publishing (and being cited) in youtube, twitter, or facebook
This question here  left me thinking that maybe I am too old and intolerant towards those things young people are doing.
I always think that academic publishing is peer-reviewed articles, or material that goes through some other academic filter, like a publisher or a conference board.
Are youtube, twitter, or facebook acceptable venues of academical work? Are they sources that can be safely ignored? Excepting the case pointed out by the respondent, which is that the object of the study is youtube, twitter, or facebook, obviously. In this case, it must be cited.

What do you mean by "acceptable venues"?  They're not peer-reviewed publications, but people can have a big impact with them in the scientific world by getting the word out about something.

@jakebeal: I mean when it comes down to progressing in an academic career, building an impressive CV and related stuff. Do you expect original research to appear through them?

At least in some fields, peer-reviewed articles are not the only type of research impact that is valued in academia.  I have seen successful tenure and promotion cases based (in part) on successful startup companies, on patents, on widely-deployed open-source software, on widely-read blogs, and even on significant contributions to Wikipedia.  These are not replacements for peer-reviewed publication, which is still the most highly-valued vehicle for original research, but alternative forms of dissemination and impact.

As for citation, if a result is correct (which I can judge for myself), why should I care whether it's passed through an academic filter?

@JeffE: 1. can you disclose more details about contributions to Wikipedia being considered, at least in part, for a tenure position? 2. in some fields is difficult to replicate experiments, and basing your actions on a blog post would be unthinkable.

@QuoraFeans 1. The example I have in mind is David Eppstein, whose WIkipedia contributions were a significant component of his full-professor case.  2. In experimental fields, do referees and editors replicate experiments?  If not, why should I trust their judgement over my own?

We prefer sources of different sorts for different reasons. Journals and conference proceedings that are printed on high-quality paper and bound professionally are considered archival. They have lasted for hundreds of years at least and may be found (even with difficulty) for generations. Online publishing of traditional-style articles provides easy and quick access, and properly converted to text, annotated, or indexed is highly searchable. Both of these modes are typically bound up with peer review in order to also provide some measures of quality, correctness, and authority, though no system of peer review is perfect.
Blogs, online videos, and social media appear to lack basically all of these features, but that doesn't make them unciteable. Given the choice between citing a video lecture of a professor demonstrating the proof of a theorem or a journal article where the same theorem is proved, cite the journal. But given only the video, the culture of academic publishing and writing is that you must cite it. If Terry Tao proves something new on his blog that relates to a paper you are working on, you should cite to it if your article is to be published before he can turn it into a traditional publication.
There's a hierarchy of sources with some disagreement to the ordering. But if there's something that you can point to which backs your point, proves your theorem, or demonstrates your idea, you have an obligation to consider it for citation. Different fields will have different standards for how compelling this obligation is. Pointing to a random blog to bolster your theory of the American Civil War probably won't pass muster in most History circles, but primary sources testifying to the fact you want to demonstrate usually will. In math or CS, the standards are probably a bit different.

To give a slightly different perspective: In mathematics a proof is a proof. If you demonstrate a proof of an interesting and important Theorem in a youtube video, then the mathematics community would probably pick it up (and pick it apart).  If it is a really important fact, experts will reproduce the results and it will appear in the "written history" of the subject in some form or the other, with credit to the original authors (if identifiable).
In other fields, I have doubt that youtube, etc. are the right media to document that gathered evidence supports claims.
An interesting discussion in this direction is the debate about Susan Greenfield.


text:
How many times can I apply for a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship?
It is not clear to me how many times one can apply for a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship. I was told that I can apply for such fundings only two times. Is that information true? I couldn't find any place where this is mentioned. Can someone confirm that?

I can't answer, but It may be relevant whether your first application was successful or not. Want to edit that into your question?

this page says that you have to score above 70 to resubmit

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


text:
Is it possible to switch from a "normal" IT career to an academic career?
I have a long experience of working like a programmer in many companies, but I was always tending to research. Is looking for PhD position real for me? Is it like looking for a job and how is it different? Do they pay money for research at PhD position? :D
I was passing a lot of exams on my jobs, but have no publications at all.

Have you looked for similar questions here?

Depends on country and the exact position if it is paid, similar to job etc. In STEM subjects, full-time phd positions (the ones which takes as much time as a job away) are usually paid (rightly so).

Do you have any academic background? A BSc, for example?

In the US, most graduate students in STEM fields work as research assistants or teaching assistants for 20 hours per week and take courses and work on their theses in the remaining hours.  At the high end, a TA or RA stipend might pay you $40K per year (but they're often much lower)  This would probably be a significant drop in income from your current position.

@BernhardDöbler I have MSc in physics

Its very possible - but it also depends upon your profile. If you have a bachelors already its very easy to do a masters with a thesis component and then move towards a PhD. Or maybe if you have a masters already you can look into a Mphil and then PhD.
Something similar


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Should I decline a PhD offer due to writing problems?
I finished my masters with a good GPA, it is an 4.0 equivalent to US grading system. However, I know that a PhD is heavily related to writing a lot and writing is by far the most important thing in science. His idea is to put me in a multidisciplinary team. There most papers are quite long (more than 14 pages). My masters is related to mathmatics.
My English is not good. Should I decline the professor's PhD offer because of that, as I know I want to go to industry afterwards, as jobs are paid much higher and have better long term perspective? I do not have much problems to create new methods in research. My main problem is to get those things somehow into written form.

I'm an American, with US English as my mother tongue. My mother was an English teacher, so I learned to write English essays pretty well (papers in high school and college). Once in grad school I had to work hard to master technical writing for journals. You get to skip straight to working hard on your technical writing, which all grad students have to do because the style is quite different from everything before.

Would the PhD be in an English speaking country ? Your English will improve much quicker if you are using it all day even outside a research context. If it's not in an English speaking country and you are required to publish in English, you might want to have a closer look at Cheery's answer.

What would be your motivation for doing a PhD?

I studied Engineering in Canada, and had a few professors with questionable English speaking skills. It apparently did not keep them from obtaining their PhD. Go for it.

Something I haven't seen mentioned in the comments nor answers is that most universities have some sort of writing support center. As an alternative, when working in Japanese universities, many colleagues would use a professional copy editor. My point being that there are various resources you can draw upon for help.

Do you believe that there will not be writing required in an industry job? Communication is going to be necessary no matter what the setting is. (Fortunately, as many have said, it can be learned with practice.)

At my university, they had a writing center to help people improve their writing. They would critique papers for people and show ways to improve, among other things. Check to see if the university has resources to help.

Like many others, writing is a skill that can be learned. You are not the only (prospective) PhD student struggeling with writing. At my university, they offer courses for academic writing and there are also writing clubs for PhD students where people regularly meet and write together (separately on their own paper), and help each other with things they struggle with. Also, as you have written a few papers, it gets much easier as you learn more and gain experience while doing it. Good writing skills also will come in handy in industry, where you might have to write project reports and proposals or other texts.
So do not let your lack of writing skills now keep you from doing a PhD! If you are motivated to learn, you will be able to improve enough as you go. Also, publications are rarely written alone, so your co-authors can assist where you might struggle.

Do not decline a PhD offer solely due to (what you perceive as) insufficient writing/language skills.
When you start a PhD, you are not expected to possess all skills that enable you to be a brilliant researcher from day 1. A PhD is very much about learning and acquiring new skills that prepare you for further steps in academia, industry, or other sectors.
You have received an offer because the professor (and other people involved in the recruitment process) see large potential in you to succesfully develop into a great researcher. You say that your English is not good. This will have likely become known to the recruitment panel during the process. Nevertheless, they made you an offer, which means that they are willing to work with you on improving that skill (and one may argue that this is actually one of the easier skills to learn).

I don't think that the OP should decline the offer, but I will say that each year I see grad students who fail because their English is not very good. If the student wants to work on their skills prior to accepting the offer, that's a great idea.

@Parever Sorry but this sounds like there is a lack of support for grad students or something wrong with recruitment of grad students at the institution(s) where you witness this.

"see large potential in you to succesfully develop into a great researcher"  That is a dangerous but common lie.  The offer is made to the applicant who is most likely to help the professor/program achieve the professor/program's goal.

@theoretician Yes, but that does not mean that the problem does not exist. I'm just being honest because I'm not the only one of my colleagues who has experienced this issue with students who may have good enough English test scores but who cannot write graduate-level research papers. Again, I do not mean to discourage anyone--I'm just stating my experience in higher ed.

Don't decline the PhD offer --- just work on your writing
So long as you are interested in the substantive work in a PhD program, and you have the interest and motivation to commit to four years of research, a better option here would be to work on your skill gap just like any other.  Practice your writing and seek help from the study skills centre at your university; you can also undertake courses if you like.  Try to get into the habit of reading a lot of books/essays by good writers, and not just in your scientific field --- read novels and all sorts of other books for fun too.  (This is a big one; one of the best ways to get good at writing is to regularly read the works of good writers.)

All of the answers here are assuming that your English writing is in the passable category (for me, that would be C1 on this table, but some may argue that B2 is enough.) And if that is the right assumption, their advice is correct.
However, let me give you the contrarian view, from the perspective of an academic living in the US, and for whom English is his second language.
I get a lot of undergraduate and prospective graduate students who just don't have the language skills to communicate (A1 or A2). A lot of them seem to come with the idea that to get a degree all you need to do is to really want it and to believe in yourself. Well, neither is a pre-requisite for a degree, but English skills are. Just like any other pre-req for graduate school in Biology (my field.)
My first language is Spanish, but I split my time between Germany and the US. We speak German at home, but I would not even think of trying to get a job at a German-speaking workplace without some serious years studying the language until my writing skills were at C1. If only because in my experience, Germans are less forgiving when it comes to written communication.
Try to get an independent evaluation of your English writing skills. Or you could try a self-assessment, like this one from the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR).
It could be that you are just suffering from impostor syndrome, have other anxieties regarding the prospects of doing a PhD, or have an unrealistic view of other people's writing skills. If that's the case, follow the advice from the other answers, accept the offer, and just work on your skills. But if you are seriously lacking, as in not being able to write a sentence without serious grammar issues, then you'd be well served by taking a year off and using that year to improve your skills. It can be done. I used to a have a recent immigrant as a student, and she did not speak a word of English. Two years later she was speaking and writing. Two years later she had a Master's degree. Last week I heard from her and she's finishing her PhD thesis at an R1 institution.

This seems overly pessimistic. The OP has an offer in hand. Something in the application suggested the possibility of success. You don't attend an educational program to prove to people that you don't need it.

I suggested the OP get an independent evaluation. This could be someone familiar with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), if the OP is not comfortable with a self-assessment https://rm.coe.int/CoERMPublicCommonSearchServices/DisplayDCTMContent?documentId=090000168045bb52

Assuming that the recruitment process was conducted in English (or at least partly), I think it is a reasonable assumption that anybody holding an offer has "passable" English skills.

@Theoretician That might be true. But I am trying to help the OP self-evaluate so that they can gain the self-assurance they seek.

Anxiety about your writing skills is not a good reason to decline a PhD offer. You can work to improve your writing skills during your PhD. You have already convinced your potential advisor that you have the skills to work with them; do not sell yourself short because of imposter syndrome.
On the other hand, wanting to have a more stable or higher paying job than you could achieve in academia is a good reason to decline a PhD offer. A PhD is not for everyone, and you have to make a personal decision about whether the benefits (such as doing interesting research you love) outweigh the downsides (such as the opportunity cost of lost wages) for you.

Important to note, even for the PhDs which have relatively high industry demand, you would most likely have higher lifetime earnings by skipping the PhD and going straight into the workforce rather than doing the PhD first.

You seem to assume that writing skills is not important for a successful career in the private sector?
In academics you can often write articles with other people or if you are sole author you can always find someone to read your drafts and make suggestions. In the private sector you do not have that privilege. And having the right communication skills in general is much more important in the private sector than in the academic sector.
In any case writing is a skill you can learn. So lacking that skill (at present) is certainly not a valid reason not to pursue a PhD.

Compared to peer reviewed journals, many parts of the private sector are far more forgiving of poor language skills.  Not all, but many.

"In the private sector you do not have that privilege."  Not true.

Do not get a PhD unless you are completely certain the PhD is right for you.
I have a bit of disagreement with most of the other answers.  Yes, you can learn to write better during your PhD.  Yes, a decent university provides help to PhD students who need to learn to write better in English.  However: A PhD is not writing school, and the people who work there are not experts in helping PhD students write academic papers in English.  Your supervisor is an expert paper writer, but not an expert in teaching people to write papers.  The staff in the writing center are experts in teaching writing, but they are not experts on academic papers or experts on learning a new language.  The people in the language center are experts on learning new languages, but they know even less about the kind of writing you need to do.  If you enroll in a PhD, you will find yourself surrounded by mediocre writing help.
Before accepting the offer:

Decide what you want to do after the PhD.
Find people who have gotten a PhD in the program and then done what you want to do.
Ask them if the program helped them achieve it.

If nobody in the PhD program ever went on to achieve the goal you had in mind, it's probably not a good program for you.  To apply this to your situation, contact former PhD students in the program who have the same language background that you do.  Ask them if they learned to write better while they were in the program.  If they say no and you still want to get a PhD, find a better offer.

I know I want to go to industry afterwards, > as jobs are paid much higher and have better
long term perspective?

What do you need a PhD for, then?
Get a Masters and go to industry.
(5 years of PhD will improve your writing -- at a huge cost, in terms of stress and high wages not earned. )
You still need writing skills to succeed in industry.

I am currently finalizing my thesis and my writing is still poor. It has improved substantially from when I started but my papers and chapters still need quite ruthless editing.
As a maths graduate I feel your pain, but you will pick it up and your supervisor will support you. Writing isn't the only thing you'll do and actually, a very small part of the overall "work". While writing is important, arguably the analysis you'll do will be the most important thing.
Please don't give up before you've even begun, as others have pointed out a PhD is a time for you to learn, so take it with both hands!
Best of luck, I never regretted accepting mine.

If this program is in the U.S., there will be a Writing center on campus that provides tutoring and feedback. There might be other programs for English as a second language grad students. Which leads to my second piece of advice: learn more about the program to find it's a good fit for you. As you talk with professors and other students, do they seem friendly and supportive, or are they competitive? Grad school will be your life for awhile, and it will be challenging but shouldn't break you. And that means it's ok to seek help with your writing and speaking skills.

Based on your writing of your question, I would say that there are many, many graduate students in the U.S. who do not write in English nearly as well as you do, even when they are quite intelligent people.  It will be a bit of an issue, but not at all a deal breaker.


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Withdrawing from a previously accepted offer of admission due to lack of funding
This autumn, I applied for an MPhil at Cambridge as an international student. Here are some key points:

Only 10% of MPhil students in my area of study get full scholarships.
I stated very clearly when I applied that I won't attend if there's no funding for me.
So the department knows they are sort of taking a risk on me.
I plan to apply for a PhD program next year at the same department with the same proposed supervisor.

I was made a conditional offer of admission and I accepted it without knowing my funding situation because all the funding decisions are made later than the offers of admission are sent.
Now that it is June already, it looks like I didn't get any funding. Not a problem, I'll get my master's degree from elsewhere. I have looked through Cambridge's website and they pretty much expect you to accept and then withdraw if you don't get any funding. My department also won't be surprised if I withdraw, because I was very straightforward about it from the get-go.
I am still worried a little bit, because I plan to apply for a PhD program next year and contact the same professor as my potential supervisor. I want to part on as friendly terms as possible. How should I go about this? Should I write to the department? To the professor? What should I say?

Did you personally contact this professor during the application process? otherwise don't worry, you are just a name on some obscure internal site/excel worksheet, in 3 months your name will be forgotten, unless you do something spectacularly bad (and even then ... instead of 3 months maybe 2 years and you will be forgotten)...

@EarlGrey Actually yes, I wrote to the professor and she took a look at my research proposal. I also met her during my zoom interview. So it's (relatively) personal, that's why I'm thinking about writing her an email saying effectively "tough luck for me, you're still the best, maybe better luck for me next year".

In your offer letter (or the like) it should give a point of contact to accept/reject the offer. That is where communication should be directed at the very least. I would consider including the professor in this communication regardless.
Now, let us be clear: Graduate school admissions are not a charity. This goes both ways. We should all get this. You were (rightly) clear that your acceptance was contingent on being funded. No one should be surprised that you are rejecting an acceptance offer.
I myself rejected a poorly funded offer for my MSci and then ended up attending the same university that I had rejected two years prior, this time for my PhD. (My funding was much better for the PhD offer!) No bridges had been burned.
As always, be respectful and be clear. Any reasonable professor/university will be completely fine with you rejecting an unfunded offer and then returning later to have a further conversation about PhD funding. And, at least for me, if I had a potential advisor who was turned out of sort because I did not take an unfunded offer, that is not an advisor I want to select for any further potential work.

I'd say only about 10% of the overseas students that accept positions on our Master programmes actually turn up. The vast majority don't even bother to say they are not turning up.

Professors are human beings (although sometime they try hard to hide this fact), not humongous figure of infinite knowledge and peculiar sensibility.
If you had personal contact with the professor, then write a nice, formal, concise email to them, saying thanks for the potential opportunity and mentioning you are looking forward to have future chances of collaborating (because you are, and a PhD is a learning process for the student and for the professor).
If you had no contact with the professor until now and all the communications were with the "department": such an email will be felt as spam. Think twice about that.


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Some questions about math postdoc offers
I am a math PhD student and on the postdoc job market for the first time. I would like to know how job offer (hopefully) comes and what I should keep in mind in accepting the offers. I am interested in the US job market.
The first question is: When do most job offers go around? I am aware of the earliest deadline (most math department agreed with this).
So I think the early offers go around in January and only the best people get an offer in January. I would appreciate it if someone could tell me about your experience.
Is it appropriate to ask about my application after a certain time? I think once one accepts an offer, one cannot decline the offer. So I may want to send inquiry to the school I want to work for before accepting the offer from some other schools.
I also heard of short lists (for assistant professorship). Could anyone explain how short lists work (I have only vague idea of what they are)? And are there short lists for postdoc positions?

Here's a little more detail about timing of math postdocs offers, since that seems to be a particular focus of this question.  What I'll describe applies only to research-oriented postdoctoral positions offered by mathematics departments in the U.S.  Tenure-track jobs and anything teaching-focused are on a somewhat different schedule, and positions outside the U.S. may be totally different.
Everything is synchronized by the AMS common deadline, because most or all of the top candidates (depending on how strict your definition of "top" is) will have accepted offers by then.  In particular, just about every position will have been offered to someone by then, but many of those offers will be turned down.  Most departments will not set an earlier deadline than the AMS deadline, but they nevertheless encourage earlier decisions if possible.  When a position is turned down, a competent department will try to make another offer as quickly as they can.  Who gets the next offer depends not just on relative rankings of candidates, but also on factors such as research specialty and game-theoretic issues such as perceived likelihood of accepting the offer.  Administrative dysfunction may limit how quickly offers can be made, but it's not uncommon for a department to go through several rounds of offers in January.
In practice, it seems to work out more or less as follows:
A few people get offers in December, but this is rather unusual.  You shouldn't worry at all if you have no offers as of January 1.
The people perceived as top candidates generally start to get offers in early January.  If you make it a couple of weeks into January with no offers, then you probably aren't going to end up getting tons of offers, but you shouldn't feel discouraged.  All you need is one offer you're happy with.
As January progresses, more and more offers are made.  Quite a few candidates, but certainly not all, will get an offer in the second half of January.
If you do get an offer, you should immediately do two things.  First, you should withdraw any applications to (or turn down offers from) places you are no longer interested in, so they don't waste time and so you don't tie up offers someone else is waiting for.  It's reasonable to hold onto several offers at once if you genuinely can't decide between them, but you do this only when truly necessary.  Second, you should write to any departments you would prefer to your current offers to let them know about your upcoming deadline.  The competition may increase their interest in you, and in any case they need to know they'll miss their chance at you if they don't move fast enough.
If you haven't yet received an offer, the second half of January is a good time to make inquiries.  You can do this yourself, but it's sometimes better if your advisor looks into it.  (All you can do is express interest, but your advisor can put in a good word for you and try to find out how things are going through back channels.)
As the AMS deadline approaches, there's a flurry of activity.  Many offers are turned down or accepted around then, and departments are eager to get their favorite candidates before they accept another job, so there's a lot of turn-over for offers.
If you make it past the first week in February without an offer, it's a bad sign.  It's certainly not a disaster, and plenty of strong mathematicians have gotten offers later than that.  However, this is the point at which you need to start taking action, with your advisor's help.  You need to figure out which positions are still open, and make sure they are aware that you are still interested.  It's really useful if your advisor can work his/her contacts to help figure out what might still be a possibility and to make sure you don't fall through the cracks.
The more times passes, the more you need to actively search for a job, rather than just waiting to see what happens.  If you hit March, then you're in trouble.  You can still find a job then, but you need to be open to possibilities you weren't originally hoping for.  For example, there are often late job postings for unpredictable openings, such as a temporary replacement for someone on sabbatical or leave.  In March, you should be applying for every new opening you would be willing to take (and you should have a backup plan for what happens if you don't get a job at all, to help you decide where to draw the line).  This is also a good time to review options with your advisor.  Could you delay graduation for a year, or spend the next year as a lecturer?
I don't mean for this to sound discouraging.  It's certainly possible to get a job quite late in the season, and you might even get lucky and find a really good job.  However, I think it's worth having an overview of what the plausible outcomes are at each stage.
TL;DR: If you are hoping for a research-oriented postdoc in math, don't worry until late January, worry somewhat in February, and worry a lot in March (but don't panic).

Here are my two cents (I am faculty in a math department, and I've served on postdoc recruiting committees):
Most math postdocs are department-wide competitive positions (e.g. "RAP").  More rarely they are attached to specific profs on specific grants.  This answer addresses the former case:
Offers do go out as early as late January but the process extends well into February and even March.  I've heard of people getting offers even later, once the landscape has "settled" more.
A short list is an internal list of top candidates, so that if one rejects a postdoc offer, it's easier to decide whom to give an offer to next (by only considering people from the short list).  Offers are not always given in order starting from the "best" candidate -- as you can imagine there is some game theory involved on both sides.
It's definitely appropriate to contact places upon getting an offer.  You can write: "Dear [X], I got an offer from [Y] but would prefer to go to [X] instead.  I have a deadline of ...".  Lots of things often get decided under such circumstances.  And you can send such an email to multiple places. I wouldn't do it to toy around, but only write to places you genuinely prefer over [Y].
Until you accept an offer, you can feel free to try to drag out the deadline, contact other places you prefer more, etc.  Universities try to get the best postdocs they can, and students try to get the best positions they can.  Everyone understands this is how it works.  But once you accept an offer, you can't really change your mind.

Just to clarify, is the first round of offers usually finished by the end of January?

Probably late Jan or early Feb, but this is an over-generalization.

Just curious: where do math departments get funding for postdocs

I'm not the most qualified to answer this, but I think there are two factors. 1) Math postdocs are not formally postdocs but are non-tenure track assistant professorships. My understanding is that faculty positions are "given out" by the administration via different procedures across universities. 2) Math departments have extra funding from the large amount of teaching they do. Pretty much everyone takes some math and many non-math majors take a lot of math. This can't really be said about any other department.

What does the acronym RAP stand for? Postdocs are surely more familiar with POP (publish or perish).

Research Assistant Professor

I can at least comment on the "short list" phenomenon—the other areas are outside of my purview.
A "short list" is the list of finalists for a position. These are the candidates who are invited to the campus for a formal interview. However, it can also refer to the final ranked list of candidates to determine in what order they will be invited to accept the position being offered.
In general, short lists are restricted to faculty positions and "competitive" postdoctoral fellowships (such as the named fellowships at the US Department of Energy national laboratories, and at most mathematics departments as well) that are done at a departmental level. For a traditional postdoctoral vacancy, no such list is likely to exist, because hiring is done by the professor whose grant is supporting the position.

In pure math, I am under the impression that the majority of postdoctoral fellowships are "competitive."  This agrees with the posting on mathjobs.org as well.

Just clarifying for anybody who might read the question who isn't in math.