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Unsuccessful job search with an MS in Math degree
My question is similar to this one
Career for a mathematician outside academia
but slightly different: what can I do with an MS in Math degree, if I don't continue for a PhD?
I wrote an MS thesis, spent about a year with a good research lab on campus, and have made good progress in research.  The feedback I've gotten from the lab directors has been pretty good.
The problem now is that I'm testing the job market, and currently nobody really seems to want me or value me.  They don't seem to care that I wrote a thesis or worked in a research lab.  And, people are taking a long time in getting back to me on the phone, on email, etc.
This is interesting to experience; however, how can I figure out which companies or industries will actually value someone with my background?
I've been looking for entry-level to mid-career finance positions, at banks and hedge funds -- nobody seems to want to talk seriously with me yet.
(I have a bit of coding experience but not a fully developed computer science background, e.g. I don't know anything about operating systems or compilers.)
For context: I'm in the United States.

It's good you're wondering about this now, before you commit another 3+ years to doing a PhD after which you might face the same questions but after paying a much higher opportunity cost. Questions such as these are what I consider paramount to ask before applying for graduate study.
The good news is a Masters degree will open up at least some doors. There are things that you can do with a Masters degree that someone with only a Bachelor's cannot. The bad news is that there are fewer of these positions. Because you're more highly qualified, you can also overqualify yourself out of entry-level positions since the employer assumes you'll move on quickly and they would waste their efforts training you.
Regarding what you can do, I wouldn't usually start with which companies are interested, but rather which jobs require a MS math degree. A quick search on monster.com turns up results such as this and this. By extension the companies posting these ads are interested in you. As you look through the ads, think of all the things you learned that you might be able to apply to the requirements listed. For example you say you have coding experience. The Data Scientist job specifically asks for familiarity with SAS, R and Python. Do you know these things? If so, you're in business.
If after responding to lots of these ads, nobody still wants to talk to you, then chances are your application isn't very good. This could be because of your cover letter, CV, transcript, or a multitude of other factors. Talk to your alma mater's career center, if they have one, or ask on Workplace.SE. It's not that different from applying to 10 different graduate schools and getting rejected by all of them. Diagnose why, fix it if possible, and apply to another 10 graduate schools.
You can also look at jobs that require a PhD in math. If you find you like these jobs a lot more than those that only require a MS, that's a good time to think of doing PhD studies.

Great answer, +1; only quibble is with the last paragraph.  The answer might lie in making a slight change of course rather than going for the PhD.  What I mean is that unemployment is not necessarily the best reason to pursue a PhD (which is probably not what you meant, but that paragraph could be read that way).

I got a degree in Math as well. I was unable to find a job. After a summer of living back at home with my parents. I figured enough was enough and just took a temp job in a warehouse.
In this warehouse I worked as a stock boy. I nearly got fired my first week (the manager was awful) because I did not know the product very well (I don't want to be specific). After my first month I was one of the better stock boys. Eventually they made me a cashier.
I did a great job as a cashier. Quickly I learned the entire inventory and was easily able to help customers with any problems they were complaining about. Then I was moved to customer service.
The customer service team was behind by 6 months. After me being there for 2 months, we had caught customer service up to 2 weeks. As a customer service rep, I was allowed to sell parts that the customer may have needed. Many times a customer would buy the wrong product. Thus I would have them return it, refund them, then get them to buy the correct product. They noticed that my sales were fairly high and they put me on the sales team.
Once again, I was horrible when I started. Customers were typically in a rush, and expected you to understand much of the slang related to the product. After a few months, I became the top sales man. Out selling someone who had been there 20 years (he was very upset about it).
Then I was told that they were having problems with managing there data on their clients. It was several large excel sheets that had the information of hundreds of thousands of clients on them. They wanted particular statistics from them. I simply converted the excel sheets to CSV files, then I manipulated them. Thankfully there was an API within there Inventory Management System that allowed you to upload CSV file data to it. So I did that and any statistics that they could have wanted they were able to generate themselves now. Before I had done this, there were have 3-4 guys works on these excel sheets for months. Hundreds of man hours waisted.
My entire career has been similar to this. If there is one thing I have realized it is that there is always work that needs to be done. It is much more important to find a healthy environment where what you accomplish is acknowledged than finding your dream job. I don't know why people buy into the 'a degree will get you a cushy job'. I don't think it will. But it sure does make you more intelligent and a better learner. And that is much more valuable than a good job.
This was over 8 years ago. Now I work as a product engineer. Doing mostly Embedded, Fullstack and Mobile development. I typically just follow wherever the money is and work is needed. You should definitely do something that you enjoy, but these days I think people confuse that with doing something you love. Not everyone can do something they love for work. Be realistic about your job options. Make sure you pick a field that pays very well. Start at the bottom, work your way up.

The twisty career path you describe is very common, probably the norm for the last few decades. Best of luck to you! It would behoove students keeping an eye on career paths to be aware of this.

"You should definitely do something that you enjoy, but these days I think people confuse that with doing something you love. Not everyone can do something they love for work." Sage advice.


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How do I find out more about former PhD students of potential advisor?
How do I find out more about former PhD students of my potential advisor? Shall I ask him/her himself/herself, or how would you go about this? I do not want to make somebody angry, at the same time I do not only want to speak to pre-selected students who are going to tell me that everything is awesome when it isn't. How do I create a realistic picture of my (potential) future professor?

Literature search to find names of past students. Literature search to find papers from past students current job. Perhaps contact, perhaps not. You will find that many current students will happily gossip about professors...

What field are you in? In mathematics and theoretical computer science, many professors list current and former students in their webpages

A "pre-selected" PhD student isn't a bad thing, it actually implies consent! I would never give out my PhDs' email addresses to strangers or volunteer them to answer questions unless I asked the PhDs' permission first. Also, you risk cold emailing a PhD who doesn't want to field such requests for whatever reason and who then complains about you to the potential supervisor.

Ask directly
It is a typical part of the application process.  Prospective students want to know what career paths previous students have ended up taking.  I would find it concerning if the potential advisor was threatened by this.
As for this concern:

I do not only want to speak to pre-selected students who are going to tell me that everything is awesome when it isn't.

you can ask any students who you are put in touch with to tell stories about other PhD students they knew at the time they were there. Such non-vetted students might give you a different picture.  That said, PhD students typically end up knowing all of their advisor's strengths and weaknesses, so if you are put in touch with several, you should be able to assemble a good picture of what you are getting in to.
Note that advisors want a good fit with their potential students as well, so all of this should be in their interest too.  No need to hide it.

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Ethical Concerns of Uninformed Authorship: A Case Study on Student Recognition by Supervisors
Previously, I asked a question and greatly appreciated the responses. Today, I would like to present a more detailed scenario for consideration.
Let’s assume the following situation:
PhD Student A, under the supervision of Professor B, has some experience in thermal simulations. Professor B collaborates with a research group at another university to publish a paper on thermal sensors. After the paper is completed, the main authors revise the manuscript.
Since the sensor design requires thermal simulations to determine the optimal design parameters for subsequent sample production, Professors B and C (the corresponding author) recognize that Student A’s extensive experience in thermal simulations within Professor B’s research group could add significant value to the revisions. After discussions, they decide to list Student A as the tenth author.
However, Student A was not informed of this decision before the paper was submitted, was unaware of the paper’s existence, and had not directly participated in the project. A only became aware of their authorship upon receiving the submission notification. A tacitly accepted Professor B’s decision. It wasn’t until after the paper was accepted that Professor B first explained, 'This is a collaborative project with another university, closely related to your work.'
Is this considered inappropriate authorship? How severe is it? Should Student A bear any responsibility? Could this affect A’s degree, assuming the paper is unrelated to their dissertation and doctoral research?
If the above scenario is too complex, let's consider a simpler one: Two research groups, Group X and Group Y, collaborate on a project, but Student A from Group X did not participate in the project. If Student A meets the following criteria: (1) they work in Group X, (2) their research area is highly relevant to the collaborative project, and (3) the primary authors believe A should be included as an author, do these three conditions warrant substantive authorship (i.e., relative later authorship, such as being the tenth author)?

"recognize that Student A’s extensive experience in thermal simulations within Professor B’s research group could add significant value to the revisions" I don’t understand what this is supposed to mean. If B and C are interested in A's experience, then they would include that in the paper somehow, wouldn’t they? Based on that I would expect A's expertise to directly (via advice on the content of the paper) or indirectly (via work on simulation used in the paper) contribute to the paper. Was there absolutely none and just the name added to the paper?

@MisterMiyagi  I'm sorry, my previous wording might have been inaccurate. What I meant is that A was working on their thermal simulation project under the guidance of Professor B. While revising the paper, Professors B and C realized that the paper could be improved and refined based on A's work (A's simulation work is much more complex than the thermal simulation mentioned in the paper).

@MisterMiyagi  Essentially, A did not make any direct contributions, but Professor B believes that A's work is highly relevant to the content of the paper, and B considers this relevance sufficient to constitute a contribution. The other authors also agree with this.

Not in academia, so please take this with a grain of salt, but I feel like there is a step missing here. They realize student A can contribute. Surely then Student A needs to do some actual contributions to then be considered an author. What did Student A contribute? Was their work on other projects helping the professor on this project? Can that count as a contribution or would that have to be a citation?

@user_ababa_gwzddx There is quite a difference between "the paper could be improved and refined based on A's work" and "A's work is highly relevant to the content of the paper". The first means some of the student’s work was used in the paper, the second means nothing concretely. Please don’t focus on making the story more or less complex, focus on explicitly spelling out just how student A's work was used for the paper or not.

Is the idea here that student A’s prior discussions with B or presentations in B’s lab helped B to formulate the ideas in the paper? This is something that is sometimes argued in the other direction… as in the professor had lots of helpful conversations with the student on the topic of the paper (even if not directly on the paper contents) so should be an author. But that is not the bar for authorship in most fields.

To clarify my earlier confusion, "their research area is highly relevant to the collaborative project" doesn’t say anything about whether their expertise was actually used or not and how. For almost every paper I did contribute to my research area was highly relevant, and for lots of papers I did not contribute to my research area was highly relevant as well. Relevance is not an indicator for contribution either way.

@TheEvilMetal  Thank you very much for your response! Since A did not contribute to any part of the article or make any direct contributions, I believe the most appropriate course of action would be to cite A's previously published related work. If A has not published any related articles, then acknowledging A in the acknowledgments section might be more suitable.

@MisterMiyagi   Thank you very much for your response. As you pointed out, there is indeed a distinction between 'the paper is based on A’s work' and 'A’s work is highly relevant to the paper.' I understand your confusion and will clarify further.

@MisterMiyagi  Here is the situation: A is conducting work highly related to the content of the paper within Professor B’s research group. Professors B and C believe that A’s work provides valuable references for the improvement and refinement of the article. If Professors B and C had not collaborated and A had published relevant articles, Professor C would have directly cited A’s publications rather than including A as an author. However, since A is part of Professor B’s research group and B and C are collaborating, Professor C chose to list A as a co-author instead of simply citing A’s work.

@Dawn  You make a very valid point. Following your reasoning, let me further explore the following scenario: Suppose A frequently discusses their work in Professor B’s lab, and these discussions are closely related to the thermal simulation section of the collaborative paper. For example, they discuss variations in temperature distribution across different-sized geometric models under the same heat source and the extent of thermal deformation caused by high temperatures.

@Dawn  This detailed experiential knowledge might be highly valuable for Professor C’s research group, especially if their primary research focus seldom involves these specifics or if they lack expertise in simulation details. In such cases, would this kind of support in simulation experience warrant substantial authorship?

Maybe- if by “support” you mean you helped the main authors with their code in a critical way or discussed their problems with them such that they had a breakthrough. But in my field all authors must not only contribute in such a way, but also be sent the paper in advance, read it, and approve.

Based on the "clarification" comments on the question and some answers, I have to ask: Is this an actual situation that happened and you are just trying to generalise/anonymise, or is this an artificial scenario? Specifically, the comments on BryanKrause's answer shifting the timeline of when the student was expected to contribute their expertise seems to ever so slightly change the scenario.

@MisterMiyagi  Indeed, the scenario described is based on real cases and is drawn from the experiences of many students around me. It appears very authentic because it is based on genuine occurrences. These situations are not confined to a specific individual; therefore, I have used hypothetical scenarios to illustrate the points.

@MisterMiyagi  The scenario I have described is based on real occurrences. As a student, the concern is that papers published under the student's name may not reflect any actual contribution from them. The student is deeply worried about the possibility of being accused of academic misconduct in the future and is seeking advice on how to address this issue.

Probably too late now, but for future, please avoid writing questions with more than one variable. It's much easier to follow if the names are "my advisor" and "the prof at the other university" than "Prof Y from Univ A with Prof Z from Univ B...." If the question is hypothetical, you can always clarify that at the end (though we generally discourage hypothetical questions, since the answer is often "it depends").

@cag51  Thank you for your feedback. I used multiple variables in my question because the scenario was a composite of several real situations. As a result, I opted for variables like A and B rather than using terms like ‘my advisor.’ I understand that this approach can be confusing. Perhaps a better method would be to present the scenario directly from the perspective of ‘I,’ narrating it as if from my own viewpoint.

It is possible that your supervisor and professor C believe that your work contributed to their approach to the problem and the paper in a (less direct) way. Perhaps you made critical points when presenting your own work during a lab meeting or similar. In this case B might feel that your unpublished work and ideas changed their part of the paper.
In most fields, this would not be enough for authorship. At the very least, they should have given you a chance to review the manuscript as well. You should also have been told in advance.
However, it does happen that these sort of “advisory conversations” are sometimes claimed as a basis for authorship. Usually what happens is that a supervisor insists they should be an author due to giving general advice. The direction of your situation is more unusual.
I can tell you are very worried about this problem. In general, it is recognized that PhD students don’t have a lot of power in these situations and overall need to accept what their supervisors say regarding the conventions of authorship in their field. If ever asked, you can say that your supervisor informed you that you contributed ideas and should be an author, which you accepted because your advisor is more knowledgeable about professional norms of authorship in your field. It should not get you in trouble in terms of your degree because you have the support of the advisor, whose opinion is most critical to degree completion.
I agree that you should ask to be more involved in future work where you are named as an author, as Bryan says. You might suggest to the students in labs B and C to develop a process where the paper is sent to all authors for “final approval” before any submission in either lab. This may work because I doubt the professors are doing the administrative work and submitting their own papers. But the most important thing is that if you are ever a faculty member you should only include authors who make substantive contributions.

First, I greatly appreciate your response! In fact, the scenario described above is based on real events and reflects the experiences and situations of several of my peers. What is most frustrating is that students are deprived of their right to be informed.

By the time the issue arises, students often find themselves powerless to change the situation, as the paper has already been submitted, and any changes to authorship would imply a public conflict with their advisor. In other words, regardless of whether the student made a substantive contribution, they typically have no choice but to accept the situation.

If a student later finds out that they did indeed make some contribution, this may only involve the issue of being informed. However, if the student is certain that they had no involvement in any part of the paper, such an authorship without contribution is clearly a case of academic misconduct. At this point, the student would have to choose between contacting the editor to withdraw the paper—potentially offending their advisor—or accepting the fact that they are implicated in academic misconduct.

I understand the power dynamics. Maybe the thing to ask in the future is that at least all authors should be sent the paper and attend a meeting for giving approval before submission. At least that will be closer to correct practice and should not be a huge ask of the PI.

Your observation is accurate. The scenario described is not an isolated incident; such issues have been persistent within the academic community. From a student's perspective, the current concern is that papers published under the student's own name do not actually reflect any substantive contribution from the student. There is a significant worry about the potential for being accused of academic misconduct in the future, and guidance on how to address this issue is being sought.

Most of the academic misconduct is on the part of the supervisors, and it would be very costly to try to change the past with these fuzzy grey areas. I would suggest trying to change the future. I doubt that B or C are submitting their own papers. Have an agreement that all of B’s students will adopt the practice of sending the manuscript to all authors before submission. Then maybe say, we always do this, we request that C’s students also do the same as a matter of courtesy and respect for us. Don’t accuse C of anything, just ask their students to adopt a professional practice.

At least if you know you are being named as an author you have a chance to evaluate if you maybe contributed somewhat and try to wiggle out of it if not.

To facilitate the discussion, I will use "I" to refer to A. I have been listed as an author and, upon evaluating my contribution, I believe that while my simulation experience may have been useful, it does not merit authorship.  I am attempting to disassociate myself from this authorship. However, it is clear that directly withdrawing the paper or contacting the editor would likely offend many and jeopardize my research career. Contacting my supervisor would also be ineffective, as such issues with improper authorship should not occur if they were an ethical and principled researcher.

Yes, I understand and you don’t need to clarify. My advice of dealing with this somewhat for the next paper vs this paper stands.

Thank you very much for your advice. What's done is done, and we should focus on the future.

Initially, I had the impression from this part of OP's post:

Professors B and C (the corresponding author) recognize that Student A’s extensive experience in thermal simulations within Professor B’s research group could add significant value to the revisions.

that Professors B and C were abusing the peer review process by submitting an incomplete manuscript and hoping to get it through review, while having A proactively on the author list for expected revisions in their area of expertise. In that case, they should be adding A's contributions now, not after peer reviewers ask for it, if they think it's important enough to justify adding an author the paper.
From a lengthy comment discussion, it instead seems like B and A had discussions previously that B found pertinent to this paper and informed the direction of the paper, and that this is why A was added to the author list, not because A might contribute to future revisions.
The things that happened wrong here seem to be 1) that B and C added A to the author list without consulting them about it, and 2) that the manuscript was submitted without all coauthors approving, which is a pretty standard requirement from journals and expectation for authorship.
However, I wouldn't expect any of this bad behavior by B to have any negative impact on A. Even if the paper is poor quality (which isn't mentioned here), that would mostly just reduce its value to A rather than causing negative value. If the paper is worse than poor quality (e.g., fraudulent) that could be more of a problem, but it's probably not this particular paper that would be the issue but rather the overall culture of the research group that A is in.
In fields I am familiar with where work is collaborative and author lists as a result can be quite long, it is not unusual for Jth and Kth authors to have had relatively small contributions to the sum total. These fields use authorship to recognize the value that someone with distinct expertise can offer a project even if it only affects one figure panel that is necessary for the paper. That also means that being a Jth or Kth author doesn't represent to third parties that someone in A's situation is claiming to have had a central role in the project: they're 10th author, so what. In a collaborative environment, it may be expected that someone has several of these sorts of contributions for every "first author" work.
Rules against "gift authorship" (adding authors who have not actually contributed to a paper) are mostly targeted towards adding senior authors, who may use their clout to manipulate others to inflate their own publication count, or attempts by authors to add importance to their paper by including someone famous. For junior authors, it's much more common for contributions to be under-recognized. There is little abusive potential in adding a junior author to a publication. In some cases a well-meaning advisor might abuse the system to prop up a mentee who is having trouble with their own publications, but that's still something that is the fault of the advisor, not the student.
I would recommend A ask firmly that they be consulted before their name is added as an author to anything in the future but otherwise to focus on their own work and progress toward their degree. If they make it to more of a decision-making role as a PI in the future they can choose to behave better than their mentors have. I do not think it is feasible that anyone will go after A with any accusations of misconduct for any part of this, A hasn't done anything wrong.
I also don't think B is intending any malfeasance here, it seems more of an oversight and a bit of sloppiness while trying to do the right thing by crediting junior personnel who contributed to a project (whether or not they knew they were contributing at the time).

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over 2 weeks with editor after major revision
I would like to know if it is normal 2 weeks after major revision my paper is still with editor and he doesn't send it to reviewers. I'm concerned that maybe my revision wasn't satisfactory.

No, do not conclude "revision wasn't satisfactory".  Probably the editor is busy with start-of-term activities at his "real" job.

Please see the duplicate. Briefly: If the editor concluded that your revision wasn’t satisfactory, you would already know.


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Is it okay for a male to wear bracelets/necklaces with sparkly rainbow beads in college?
Is it okay for a male to wear bracelets/necklaces with sparkly rainbow beads in college? Asking this because this is normally what girls wear, so that it is often perceived that it is likely LGBT(Q)-supportive for boys wearing jewelry of these colors.

This is a) probably not on-topic for this stack forum, and b) so wildly dependent upon location/other factors that you are not likely to get a good answer here. In undergraduate classes/courses in many universities in the US, students are well-dressed if they wear something other than sweat pants/pajama pants to class and no one is going to care what jewelry a student wears. A graduate program in the middle east might have extremely different opinions on the topic.

Asking this because it is about dress code & professional ethics in college, as part of academia

This wouldn't be professional ethics. Regardless, you are very definitely going to need to supply a location. Whether the college in question is private or public is also a huge factor. Is this graduate or undergraduate level? Is the worry that fellow students will see the beads and assume you are LGBT(Q) supportive when you don't want them to make that assumption (for whatever reason)? Or that you don't want them to assume that you are a member of the LGBT(Q) community? Or that you're worried that gaudy jewelry will be seen as a distraction/unprofessional, regardless of LGBT(Q) connotations?

Sorry, questions about "undergraduate life or culture" are off-topic. Even beyond that, you would need to tell us what part of the world you are in and what you mean by "okay" -- what your peers consider okay will likely be different than the faculty.

One begins to wonder about some things here. Eigrp four, have fun with it!

In the US it is fine. Same for many other countries. There are places where it wouldn’t be safe however, but I assume you aren’t in Afghanistan or somewhere else with morality police that have life and death authority over citizens.
It isn't an issue of ethics, or even etiquette in the parts of the world considered modern or liberal, but you can find haters everywhere.
Moreover, college should be a safe place for those with unconventional views, though that shouldn't be a description for LGBTQ+ support.
If you are in a place where this would be "frowned" upon or you would be attacked for it or looked down upon, consider it a personal safety issue.

Note that while this is a possibly off topic question for this site, I consider the advice to the OP to be important enough to make an exception, based on the personal safety aspect. I hope you, and the moderators, agree.

Not every place in the US is the same either. I wonder how that would go over at, say, Liberty University.

@WolfgangBangerth, probably not so well, but I'd guess a student or faculty member there wouldn't ask such a question. And, they do seem to have "morality" police.


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Can getting an online masters degree in business grant me the ability to work as a TA in UK
My fiance is in business and we will soon be moving to the UK... would getting an Online masters in her field grant her the ability to work as a TA in universities?

Your partner would probably be technically qualified for TA positions, however, some things to realise about TA positions in the UK:

Most classes in the UK don't use TAs, consquently there are fewer TA positions that there would be in somewhere like the US.
Where TAs are used, the are usually mostly recruited from the Graduate student population at the university, rather than the public at large.


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How do I ask to draft recommendation letters for my references?
My references for my graduate program applications include an adjunct professor and an industry professional (both not very academic) and I am not sure if they really have time to invest in writing the recommendations for me, although I am pretty sure they will write for me if I asked them to.
I heard that often time the reference would ask the students to draft the letter before they even edit and send away online because they are usually busy and really don't give a damn on your application or simply because they haven't written any recommendation before. So I wonder if it is okay to just ask in the first place something like "I can also draft the letters for you if you don't have time (Are there better ways to express this request?)" when I reach out to my references to write the recommendations for me?
Another good thing about this is I can basically write in a way that includes what I think the admission committee would consider valuable in my letter. I mean, after all, I know about my program much better than my references, and I know how to better phrase my experience to make them relevant.

"include an adjunct professor" For some academic fields, an adjunct often has more experience with issues related to job searches than a tenured faculty member.

Be sure to tell your referees what the deadline is.  The reason should be obvious, but if I had a nickel for each request without that information...

Both as a recommender and someone who occasionally needs recommendations, I suggest bullet points as a good middle ground between drafting your own recommendations or just leaving it to the reviewers.  Figuring out what you want the recruiters to know about you, in bullet point form, is also helpful in deciding who you want to write your recommendations.  Make sure that everything you want the recruiters to hear is "covered" by at least one recommender.
So you might decide that Professor X can talk best about your personal qualities like creativity and determination, whereas Professor Y who has been to graduate school can testify that you have the qualities needed to succeed in that kind of work.  (Just an example.)  Then you write something like the following:

Dear Professor X,
[blah blah blah... make the "ask"]
Thank you in advance!  If it helps you to write the letter, here are a few points that I think it would be good for the admissions committee to hear:

creativity and teamwork, demonstrated by my course project on [topic] in your class
persistence: remember how many versions of that term paper I went through until I got it right?
academic excellence: got an A or A- in all my major courses (see my transcript attached)

Bullet points like these first two are also a great reminder for your professors. Chances are, they remember your name and face, and know that you were a good student, but probably can't remember specific episodes or what your term paper was about.  The last bullet is okay, even though you're not asking the recommender to give his own experience with you.  It can be very effective to have a trusted person point out aspects of your resume or transcript that you don't want to brag about in your cover letter.

Short of asking to draft the letter (which many letter writers consider inappropriate), you can simply ask the letter writer to address particular issues in your letter.   You should also supply copies of your resume, academic transcripts, and any statement of purpose that you've written so that the letter writer can tailor the letter to support your application.
For example, you might say something like (to your industry professional), "I think that your letter could help by commenting on my work habits and skills in software development.  As you can see, I'm particularly interested in doing a dissertation related to machine learning, so you might also address my experience in machine learning at XYZ corp."

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What's the best way to ask a professor for their syllabus before the term starts?
"I am taking your course in Spring 2021. Is it possible for you to send the syllabus if there is one ready?"
Is the wording okay?

Does this answer your question? How should I phrase a question about an *ordinary academic matter* to a Professor?

Thanks for your question, but please bear in mind that Academia.SE is not a secretarial/proof-reading service.  It is likely that your question will be closed in its present form.

LGTM.  I think it's very fair to ask a professor if you can see the syllabus for their class before you sign up.  How else would decide if it's something you'd like to do?

Typically an email with the phrasing you had is enough. Most professors recognize that it’s a common thing for students to be curious about what they will be learning.


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Accused of cheating on online final exam
Last month I took my final exam for accounting online. My grades in the class are very good as I have a tutor for the class. I got an email from my professor telling me that she had to talk to me and I assumed it was because I did very well on the final, but when we talked she told me that I was getting taken to the board for academic misconduct because the written part of my exam (solving equations) was "almost identical" to another students. She said after reviewing she noticed that our midterm exams were also almost identical. I did not cheat, I don't know what I got on the exam as she would not tell me, or who the other student is. I would not be worried as I know that I am not guilty, but I have already talked to the board about plagiarism as there was a mix up with some homework in a previous class (it was not stated it was individual work and I worked on it with a classmate) it was an honest mistake and they just gave me a warning. Anyways, that really stresses me out as the teacher claims "there is no way this could be a mistake" but she won't let me know who the person is or what the similarities in our tests were? I feel like I have no way to prove my innocence.

It isn't up to you to prove your innocence. It is up to your instructor to prove your guilt. Insist that you did nothing wrong, assuming that is the case. Don't try to explain how you aren't guilty, but do explain, if asked how you solved any questions on the exam.
Let me note two things. Two correct answers are frequently likely to be the same, as that is just the nature of truth.
Second, all of the students had the same instructor and learning materials, so it is natural that they work in similar ways. It is natural that they approach problems in the same way. It is almost inevitable that there will be overlaps in how they solve problems.
No one can guarantee that injustice won't be done here, but similarity is not proof. Even using the same phrasing, if it is similar to that of the professor or the learning materials, is completely natural and to be expected. Especially from the better students.

You have a difficult task and can only suggest that if there is another faculty member who would be willing to speak for you at any hearing as your advocate, then it might make a difference. It is hard to stand alone against authority.

Also note that in technical subjects, there is frequently the situation that there are a limited number of ways to express something correctly. It is why some things in mathematics, for example, can't be copyrighted.
My personal opinion that a statement like "there is no way this could be a mistake", is both foolish and biased.

Surely the instructor should know whether "similar solutions" are common in their subject or not?

@user111388, "common" isn't the standard here. We don't use statistics to determine guilt. Or should not.

Of course, if there are the same mistakes in both exams (even if minor), it is much less likely that this could be a mistake.

@Buffy: But what is your point in saying "it is common in some subjects that two people have the same answers"? If this is relevant for OP's case, then the instructor knows and prosecutes OP out of malice. Or what is the point of that line?

@user111388, simply that the instructor has made up her mind already. That combined with the inherent authority makes it especially difficult for the student.

@Buffy: Ah, okay, I thought it was some line of "defence" the OP should bring. That instructors act sometimes  out of bad faith is true of course.

Shouldn't "Insist that you did nothing wrong" be "Insist politely that you did nothing wrong?"  Antagonizing professor, dean, honor council, etc. is never helpful and frequently harmful.

@user151413, actually it depends on the nature of the mistakes. Don't assume that every question in an exam is correctly stated. Even slight errors of statements can lead people who learned in the same way to make the same errors. The situation is more likely to be as you say, of course, if there are many errors and those errors aren't made by a lot of other people. I once reviewed a sample exam designed by a person in a course in educational practice and found many misleading questions. Or it is also possible that a misstatement in a lecture leads students to errors on exams.

@Buffy Sure, I didn't mean the former. I meant unexplicable errors which are made at exactly the same place in exactly the same way.  Say, sign errors, or maybe rather slightly more subtle things.  (That's a risk if you just copy a solution: You don't understand where there's a mistake.)

Could your tutor have tutored another person (or people) in your class? Did the tutor work with you on possible written answers?


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Masters in math, bland PhD in CS, want to go back to math
All of the following is in Italy.
I have a master's degree in mathematics and at the moment I'm in the final months of funding in a PhD in Computer Science (not sure if I'll be able to finish my thesis in these months).
I'm in this PhD due to a series of unfortunate circumstances and mistakes on my part, fact is that I am totally unhappy with where I am and I'd like to plan on the best way to go back to doing mathematics.
The reasons that I'm unhappy with my PhD are:

lack of interest in the subject (basically a very out-of-trend subfield of Natural Language Processing, more like a one-man project that my advisor started a few years ago and keep pushing it but never took off, which I instead thinks is a dead-end and the community seems to go in other directions);
the fact that my PhD is totally unstructured, by this I mean that there was never a clear plan of action, no courses to take, no real training at all, and no real topic for the thesis, just relatively uncorrelated publications that now I find difficult to unite in a thesis; for the same reason there was no possibility of changing advisor mid-term, nor there was any help like a career center or similar structures (I actually discovered the existence of such things on this site). also there is no formal recording of my experiences (for example as a teaching assistant) so there is not much I can show for this three years;
last, I plain and simple find out that I like mathematics way more and I miss it a lot.

So I would like to ask opinion about what is my best course of action given that:

I have a rather uninteresting CV: master's grades are not bad but most are in courses not pertinent to what I'd like to do; moreover my master thesis was not strictly mathematics, but was done with the professor that later became my PhD advisor, and I fear that not having done any mathematical research is a serious problem;
As mentioned before there is not much I can show for the three years of my PhD: no transcript of courses, no formal review of my work, just a few publications and the word of my advisor, with whom I don't even have a great relationship;
I never spent time to create a network, I don't know any other professors to which I could ask for letters of recommendation;
by the time I'll have finished my PhD I'll be 30.

In Europe, most people do not have transcript of courses for a PhD. Why is this a disadvantage?

Can you go into a mixed direction, i.e. applied mathematics with some of the techniques you have already gained?

The main thing you will have to show for the three years is your thesis, so the first objective should be to finish it on time. If you feel the project is at a dead end, maybe you can target making your thesis the capstone that closes it out. Turn your papers into sections each of which resolves a loose end. That way, it does not matter if they don't relate to each other.
Meanwhile, can you audit courses in the mathematics department? Get to know some of the mathematics professors, and get their advice on how to transition.
Don't feel too old - I was 60 when I finished my PhD, and I'm still learning new stuff. You have decades of research in front of you.


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Can University revoke my degree if I change some results, and how can I correct it?
In my research I was asked to edit some conclusions making them more significant at the behest of my adviser. I did what I was asked because I was immature at that time in my thesis work. At that time I didn't know its was wrong.
These changes can't effect the anyone because I only changed the "p value" of the result. I changed a little in an  "ANOVA table" for some result significance. If I put all results without change the "p value", the thesis can also be approved at that time. This all happened because of less knowledge of my adviser on how to tell me to change some results, which now I understand after my work and experience in teaching, but I inserted  all the experimental data accurately in my thesis.
If someone checks my experiment data in "ANOVA" they can find the change in the "ANOVA table" (my mistake). Now I am worring about my thesis and Master degree. If someone complains in future about my thesis, will the University revoke my degree and how I can defend my degree? I worked on machining of some material in my thesis. Can I do something now to correct my thesis?

Your adviser asked you to create fake data?

yes. but my co adviser say me to edit only analysed data (few answers), not experimental data for making few answer significant. so i just edit few answers. but all other analysed data is original and final results also original.

How about doing real experiments and reporting real results? A paper/thesis shouldn't be judged on P values alone!
I'd say university could revoke your degree because of scientific misconduct, and for that it wouldn't matter if you falsify all or just some data.

so what about my advisers. they have signed my thesis work. can i defend my degree that time.if something happen like this in future.

It won't happen again, because you are going to look into scientific misconduct and are going to prevent that. Right? My university offers courses on Scientific Integrity, maybe your university has that as well?

so what can i do now..any sugession

Probably no one will ever actually look at the thesis again.  You can't publish fake data though.  Learn the lesson, don't fake data again, and move on.

Thx Hobbes..i hope so..

Then what can i do now..?

The liquor store analogy doesn't fully apply, but let me try to run with it. You still did something wrong - so your chance to avoid any consequences have already passed. However, if you were a store owner and someone brought you a couple cases of beer and said "hey, I stole this earlier but thought better of it, my friends made me do it" he probably isn't going to have you prosecuted. If that store owner also happened to be a parental figure to you, he might instead ask "Okay, thanks for being honest, who are these friends who told you to do this?"
You have a responsibility to report this.

(to clarify, I mean your chance to avoid all consequences has passed - you still have an opportunity to limit the damage with your actions in the near future)

What action Should i take now, or if someday in future someone found mistake in my thesis then what maximum problem can i face?

This is very serious academic misconduct, of the type that reduces the confidence that the public and other scientists are able to have about scientific results. It doesn't matter if you did not change the raw data - you can't expect any readers to actually go through and do this analysis. Therefore, it is the results of the statistical tests, p-values, etc, that truly matter.
You should correct the problem as soon as possible, and beg for forgiveness. If this was done at the instruction of your advisor, that could be grounds for their dismissal from their position regardless of tenure. If you have submitted this work to any peer reviewed publication with these errors, you should inform the editors immediately and submit corrections that include the impacts on interpretation or withdraw the paper entirely.
Your program and your advisor have failed you in their duties if they have made completion of your graduate degree dependent on significant results. You should always design experiments that teach you something regardless of the outcome. Your institution should grant your degree as long as you have done sufficient work; this may be a lengthy, difficult process for you, particularly if you lose support of your advisor for this, but you may not want the support of your advisor if this turns out to be a pattern in their work. Most institutions have staff dedicated to academic misconduct that can assist you in this process.

You may also want to retain a lawyer.


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Chair and one of directors insisted that my project is theirs... what should I do?
This is my first semester as an assistant professor.  I developed a project (with three publishable sub-topics) and got the IRB (Institutional Review Board) approval.  I prepared a proposal to attend a conference, and submitted it to get my Departmental approval.
Then suddenly my Department Chair and a director "insist" that the project is from their idea; so I should stop working on the project and then give it to them.  Even my chair sends me a formal email including staff members - I developed their idea and so it is unethical....
I decided to leave this school from this ridiculous situation.  However, I am still unsure how to handle this situation.  I really do not care whatever they do.  I just do not want that they use all of my instruments such as surveys for their study.  However, I really do not know what to do.  Would you help?

What documentation do you have that it is your idea? Can you produce dated documents showing that you've been involved since initial conception? Emails are great for this -- they're automatically timestamped -- as are really any file whose metadata can be examined (for a creation date). Additionally, what outcome are you looking for? If you simply don't want to turn over your data, you may be able to simply transfer it to a private encrypted device. However, be aware that the school may legally have a claim to (parts of) the work you did using university resources -- check with HR.

What country is this in?  Is there an ombuds office or some sort of faculty oversight committee?

I'm not going through every single scenario, but assuming that you are "right" and "you cannot do anything about it", can you quickly publish what you have (under your name only)? Will this help (if it is doable)?

Give us the whole history.  Were you there, in another role, before you started your current position?

Please note before reading: The text below contains only my opinions.
Accusing someone with stealing ideas is as ugly as stealing the idea itself.
As far as I understand, the department chair really liked the project and trying to get on the gravy train. Therefore, I do not believe trying to be reasonable with these kind of behavior will get you nowhere. Especially including faculty members, who have literally nothing to do with this matter is extremely rude and unprofessional.
If I were in your shoes, I would do follow these steps:

Explain the situation to the students working in the project (if any).
Ignore his mobbing (yes, I think this is heavy mobbing), and hand in nothing including surveys, project reports etc.
Write to IRB about this matter immideately and ask them for approval that the work was submitted by me.
Ask him to file a written complaint with the evidence that proves the idea belonged to him originally.
Collect/copy/back-up everything that proves the project proposal does not belong to the department chair.
Write to the dean (or whoever he is subordinate of) about this matter, asking to resolve this by official methods (as I have stated, this is clearly mobbing).

It is your own decision to leave the school. I would do the same, probably. But please keep in mind that these kind of issues can only be solved by legal process. All he can do is denounce you, and at this point, he will do it anyways if you drop the project.
Also, I believe that keeping your so called "ideas" to yourself is a responsibility. Either you immideately execute your ideas, or you accept the risk that someone can do it before you.
And there is nothing to do after that happens.

Why hasn't 'let's collaborate' been considered?
If it's that good an idea, it's in your departments best interest to pursue it. Moreover, inter-departmental collaborations look good, and often lead to a powerful product. Remember, you're fighting for the same team.
Is it really the case that you both have the exact same idea?  More commonly, you've wandered into a field that your colleague feels territorial over. Give him or her their props, toss them a compliment, then suggest you team up. Suggest a two-paper series with them as senior author on one and you on the other.
You have to be able to navigate these things because they don't go away, even if you do decide to leave the institution.

If you were smart enough to have it version-controlled, ask them to provide the documentation that theirs is older. If they can't and still demand you turn over your work and credit, inform the board of regents/trustees for your institution that an exposure of an ethics crisis and bad publicity for the institution are looming unless this problem is addressed immediately. Nothing gets the head honchos moving like the threat of a scandal being broken on national news.
If their project is older, ask to collaborate, because you've obviously shown the initiative to get as far as you have. If they're not open to that, say you will publish only derivative or orthogonal work to theirs and give them ample credit, but that you're passionate and want to pursue it. Usually even the old guard can be brought around by a combination of congeniality and reason.
In reply to the person below: I fail to see how that's harsh. I was using Git since my third semester in university, and the professor who introduced it had worked in university for the bulk of his career as a theoretician. Academics not keeping up with tech and best practices is a reason academics get a bad rap. If you did not defend yourself reasonably against known problems in academic power structures, I have no sympathy for you. I had my own poaching attempts I had to fight off as a Computer Science grad. If you don't cover even basic defences like this, exactly how smart are you really?
In regards to further replies, you can't back-date verified version control very easily, and you certainly can't do it at all with Git or Stash. If you're still using SVN, seriously, get out of the stone ages.
And as a final defense against these parasites, just encrypt your data with AES 256 and throw away the keys. It's a cheap, effective way to prevent their ill-gotten gains.

If you were smart enough to have it version-controlled -- that seems a bit harsh, as I doubt most people use version control (outside of anyone who deals with software). Though hopefully with projects like the Open Science Framework, it'll become more and more prevalent.

A question: how does vc solve the problem? The OP could have changed the dates on their system and then post-hoc version controlled their work. What's the protocol that you have in mind that would guarantee authentication?

I think the problem the OP has is more than you think. He is talking about a project/proposal, not a paper. If it were a paper, your suggestion may work, i.e. put it under version-control. The problem is that the project underwent IRB and then a proposal. It's hard to say the date in the VC system is the proof that it's the OP's because the IRB/proposal may have to pass the Dept. Chair and the director. I think it's in the muddled water now. Please don't be so harsh to the OP and academics. Not keeping up with tech does not necessarily mean they live in the stone age.

Of course you can back-date with Git, since it uses your computer's local date settings. And why would people be using version control for everything they do? That is just unnecessary work with no useful effect for most people (you seem to be under the impression that the sort of situation the OP is in is common in academia which is just so far from true).

I have a git commit dated in the 18th century. That proves that I am 300 years old, and I invented computers, Linux, and git before the French revolution.

@Davidmh Well 300 years ago is out of the stone ages :)

Now that I can finally reply...
Github people. You can't fake a commit and push time on GitHub as far as I know.
I'm being perfectly fair. This is exactly how I kept my own project from being poached by a parasitic professor in Germany. And I've friends in the U.S. who underwent similar poaching attempts by fellow graduate students. If I have commits up on a private Github repository which prove my project is mine going back to date X, it's admissible in court.
Tobias, it's more common than you think, both in the U.S. and in Berlin. It's incredibly useful. It keeps you protected.

So in a post where you make disparaging remarks about the knowledge of technology in others you fail to understand the difference between Git and Github. The irony is great.

Github is ok assuming you are happy to have it public (or are ready to pay). In the first case, your bosses are not the only one that can scoop you.

The payment is quite cheap. Protect yourselves people. You have the right to be stupid, but other people have the right to exploit that.


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Advisor suggested me to typeset my thesis with a software that I don't know
I am writing my dissertation and my supervisor recommended me this LaTeX template.
https://bitbucket.org/amiede/classicthesis/wiki/Home
However, I have been using MS-Word all along and don't know LaTeX. What are some approaches I can consider given this situation?

Google for thesis template filetype:doc and find something that seems acceptable.

This is not the right place asking for technical formatting help, but I have revised your question to make it read more like an academic life problem, as I do think your question has some essence that'd be useful for this site. Hopefully people may retract their close votes.

Your course of action depends on how closely you need to conform to the recommended formatting. If really closely, there is no substitute for learning latex and using the template. If it is just a general suggestion, you could ask your supervisor to recommend some well-formatted dissertations and copy their style. If you intend a career that involves a lot of paper-writing, this may be a good time to learn latex anyway.

I think "how to get your thesis done" is very much ON TOPIC.  This is not a microscopic question about a particular software but a general question on approach.

MA:  My advise is to stick to Word if that is easier for you.  I did so on my thesis and had way less issues than some people who dove into LATEX.  There is a set of people who are good at it, advocate it, etc. (not surprisingly strongly represented at Stack Exchange).  But if you are familiar with a normal word processing software, diving into LATEX when you just want to get your thesis done is a hassle.  I vote to ignore the advice (not an order) from your advisor and stick with what tool you are already using.

The template in the link appears to be fairly generic, so presumably another generic template will work. But asking the advisor is the only way to resolve any uncertainties. I think this is off-topic, as the only possible answers are “ask your advisor” and “figure out an alternative”.

Latex is a pretty good environment, and you may have to learn it eventually if you want to continue working in academia. If you have enough time to work on your thesis, equip yourself with a book about latex (for example, google for 'lshort') and give it a try.

Write in absolutely whatever software you want. If your advisor would prefer you used X, say you'd prefer to focus on your research rather than learn a new document preparation system. If they insist you really must use something else, ask if you can just give them a PDF or a printed version; if they really insist anything final be prepped in a specific software, then keep writing in whatever you want as you learn the bare minimum to copy-paste into their preferred format when it is time to send them something. If you decide to learn a new system, sure, go for it - but don't get bogged down.

As background, in the writing process I've used a mixture of Word, Google Docs, Notepad, ShareLaTeX/Overleaf, scraps of paper, pictures from a smartphone (often of whiteboard scribblings), screen caps, code comments in half a dozen coding environments, and in a past career I did desktop publishing/commercial printing (QuarkXPress, Publisher, InDesign, and a half-dozen other weird bits) - and let me assure you, absolutely everything is awful in its own unique and terrible way. Do whatever it takes to get the thing written and move on with your life.

I don't agree that this is off-topic, but it could use some clarification and context. For example, why did your supervisor give you this template? What are other students in your program doing? And what field are you in?

I think the TEX versus word processing is a good general question and have seen it discussed (in passing) elsewhere.  It is not trivial or "ask your advisor" since the decision is really up to the student in most cases.  It is a question of should I use what is comfortable or bother learning some new system while also dealing with the content itself. (My vote is no.)  Finally it differs a lot by field (math/CS/physics types seem comfortable with TEX and push it.)  Rest of the world hates it because it feels like writing in computer goblidigook, not English.

If you choose to follow Allure's advice. I suggest you see this site http://detexify.kirelabs.org/classify.html

Assuming you don't want to learn latex, this question seems to boil down to "how do I use Word to produce a document that looks like this?". That feels like too big a question to answer on stackexchange...

Learn how to use LaTeX.
LaTeX is not hard. If you have any experience programming you'll probably find LaTeX extremely elementary. You can conceivably have issues rendering certain characters or equations, but Google is likely to easily find solutions to that. TeX is also quite powerful as a word processing tool, allowing you to write obscure symbols (for example, \cdot) easily. This doesn't mean LaTeX is better than Word; certainly some things are easier done in Word than TeX. But knowing both means you have an additional weapon in your arsenal, and you'll have a better idea which weapon to deploy given what you intend to write in your dissertation.

While you're at it, learn how to use some of the many tools that work with LaTeX, starting with the BibTex system for bibliographies.  Also find a good reference manager such as Zotero.

We also have a [Tex.SE] stack exchange.

I strongly recommend learning LaTeX if the OP will stay in academia/research (and doing so whilst writing a dissertation is an excellent time to do so), but it probably isn't worth the effort if the OP is leaving academia/research (after their dissertation).

OP should learn how to use LaTeX, but LaTeX is very hard. Sure, following the simple examples isn't, but anything beyond trivial, any bit of customization is rather hellish, and the ecosphere is difficult to wrap your mind around.

@user2768: It is well worth the effort if OP ever wants to write anything seriously, academia or no.

There are a gazillion people writing things without ever using Tex.  Word is the norm for journalists, office workers and academics outside of math, physics and computer science.

"LaTeX is not hard" might be overstating things. Sure, it's not terribly difficult for someone who has exposure to programming, but the OP hasn't given us an idea of his field. I suspect LaTeX would be much harder for someone writing a history dissertation vs a math one.

@AzorAhai Tools such as LyX can help

Good advice. Let me suggest this site http://detexify.kirelabs.org/classify.html

First, the repository you linked to has a PDF showing exactly what the template looks like. So, there is really no issue, you can follow that template in whatever typesetting system you want. This technically answers the question you asked -- you can follow your advisor's instructions and still use Word. I hate to see you waste time recreating everything in Word when it already exists in LaTeX, however.
A better option would be to search for thesis templates written in Word. Depending on how flexible your advisor is, you could either tweak the templates until they look like the one your advisor wanted, or you could sit with your advisor to find one you both like, or you could just find one you like and see whether he complains.
An even better option, assuming you are in STEM, would be to learn LaTeX. This is something you should know anyway if you are getting a STEM degree. You'll be able to copy-and-paste your existing text into LaTeX (with some minor modifications); you don't have to type it all out again. Assuming you know how to program, you'll learn LaTeX in about 90 minutes -- read chapters 2 and 3 of "The Not So Short Guide to LaTeX." If you don't know how to program, this will be a heavier lift, but it's still a low-effort, high-reward endeavor.
One last point -- are you sure your institution doesn't have a required thesis format? Most universities I'm familiar with are very particular about how thesis should be formatted, especially the front matter -- mine even had institutional templates floating around, in both Word and LaTeX.
Edit: One last, last point: Elizabeth makes an interesting distinction between a writing program (where you write your content) and a typesetting program (where you make it look nice). If you share this concern, you could always continue to do your drafting in Word, and then set aside a few days at the end to TeX-ify it (or hire someone to do so). I personally would find it more efficient to use TeX end-to-end, but to each their own.

My institution was also very particular about the thesis format, which they changed slightly on a fairly regular basis (just to make it harder on us, I guess). Page numbers had to be a specific distance from margins, different amounts for chapters and front matter, etc. They sent it back to me to edit it to fit requirements like 8 times (and they allowed a maximum of 9 I think). Sometimes fixing one thing had weird impacts elsewhere, but mostly they simply didn't point out everything that was wrong at once.  Just found one thing, bounced it back over that, rinse and repeat.

@zibadawatimmy Didn't staff at your university have better things to do than being overly pedantic on the format of a thesis?

@o4tlulz Apparently not.  I'm fairly sure it was the explicit job of at least one person there.

The issue here isn't whether LaTeX is hard to learn. The issue is that a LaTeX editor is a terrible writing environment when compared to a word processor. Some people are bothered by this and some are not, and which side you're on is entirely a matter of personal preference.
What is not a matter of personal preference is the expectations of your supervisor and your field. Some fields (and some supervisors) regard producing LaTeX-typeset documents to be matter of professional necessity. Others just think it looks nice, or they like the tech-cred pretentions. So it's impossible to give a good answer to your question without knowing what your context is.
EDIT: This doesn't add much to answering the OP's question, but judging by the comments there seems to be some confusion about what a word processor is for, as well as about what a downvote is for.
Word processors were specifically designed for writing documents, and have features such as outline view, tracking changes, commenting sidebars, etc. Moreover, many writers use formatting features such as highlighting and font color as part of their writing process.
TeX on the other hand was specifically designed for typesetting documents, and the introduction of LaTeX and its variants made it a marginally usable system for writing documents. But the standard LaTeX front ends don't have the features of a word processor and many people find having to read around markup cumbersome and distracting. For these reasons, using a word processor is an objectively better environment for writing.
Of course, many other people are perfectly happy writing in a text editor and don't mind reading around markup. But this doesn't make you smarter, "more efficient," or a superior human being. It just means that you have a different work process.
The point for the OP is that being expected to trade Word for LaTeX is generally a lousy deal, but there might be constraining or mitigating factors in any particular situation.

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


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How do I politely decline an internship opportunity extended to me by my former internship supervisor?
A little background about me: I am an undergraduate engineering student (graduating in June 2022) currently doing my semester of bachelors. In my penultimate year, I did a research internship with an overseas university with a great professor. Although I learned a lot from that internship, I would be lying to say that I enjoyed my time. The work was pretty tedious and the tools were not at all helping me in any way. I grew frustrated. The task was large and often I ended up getting scolded by him. The expectations were high, weekly deliverables were massive and I was often left helpless without much resources both on the internet and text. Although I was able to complete my stipulated internship duration of 6 months under him, he asked to work informally under him, even remote, without an incentive as long as I could. I worked for a month more but then graciously asked my supervisor to relieve me of my duties as my home college session had started and I had to return to campus full-time.
Present: It's been almost 5 months now since I ended my internship and although I hated my internship work, I wrote an email to him thanking him for all the good learnings I had under his guidance and wished him a very happy new year. Today (after 10 days of wishing), he e-mailed me with the proposition to work under for the same role, the same task again. I would not want to work under him again (as I believe my interests vary from the internship and my struggles) but I don't want to hurt him as he is a very good and humble human and lots of students would love to grab the opportunity he's extending to me.
How should I decline the proposition of working under him, politely? We're about to have a team meeting online this week? Any suggestion is welcome as to how to deal with the situation as I am clueless about this.

Do you have other opportunities?

I can't give a recommendation about whether you should accept the opportunity or not, but I can suggest a two-fold plan for making the decision.
First, is that you should consider what other opportunities you have at the moment. One of them is to just focus on coursework, but there may be other things with other professors. Try to rank these in some way though precise linear rank may not be possible. I'd assume, from what you say that this one would rank pretty low.
Second, and possibly more important, is to consider both the short term and the long term. Short term pain for long term benefit is often a good tradeoff. You probably take some courses that you'd rather not, but they may open some doors later.
Depending on the status of that professor and the perceived value of the project (to others as well as yourself), you might come to the decision that it has potential. In particular, you will eventually need good letters of recommendation for your next steps.
Don't ignore the "pain" factor, but evaluate it in terms of other longer term benefits that might come.
But try to find the sweet spot between the two considerations; current opportunities and short v long term considerations.
And, if you do decide that declining is your best option, then just say thanks but you have other things/requirements/options that, at the moment, make it impossible for you to accept.

Thanks, @Buffy for your advice. Pointing down the pros and cons in a ranked list should definitely help me. I shall do that pronto. I do have other opportunities and they diverge from the current field of work(research). I will do keep all other factors in mind while ranking. Letter of recommendation is what led me to the dilemma. If I decline the opportunity, he might get offended and I may end up in his not so good books. I definitely want to avoid it. But anyway working on that project seems a bit too tightly stretched for me right now. I shall also evaluate that accordingly.

There is no reason for him to get offended, but who can predict personalities. It seems like you've done the right thing up to now in keeping it positive.


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Bachelor thesis defense (math) - powerpoint sheets or rather traditional with chalk on a blackboard?
I recently finished my Bachelor's thesis in math and I am about to be having my bachelor thesis defense (colloquium). The topic I've covered in my thesis is highly theoretical (differential- and algebraic topology) but also quite geometrical, i.e. I've added quite a lot of illustrations into my thesis.
I am now preparing my bachelor thesis defense where I am going present the work I've done and answer questions from my supervisor and maybe some other professors.
However, I am quite uncertain whether to do it the traditional way, i.e. writing myself a short lecture-script and writing the things I am presenting on the blackboard using only chalk.
Or rather setting up a "fancy" LaTeX-Powerpoint presentation where everything might be already written down and illustrated and I am basically just explaining what is going on.
The obvious advantage of using a Powerpoint presentation is that I might save a lot of time I would otherwise spend on writing everything down on the blackboard such as definitions, theorems etc.
On the other hand, I actually like the traditional style where I can draw the pictures on the blackboard and write things down my own (similar to a lecture). I am also always a bit sceptical about Powerpoint presentations (in mathematical lectures) since it forces me to read things out rather than write things down.
What would you recommend? This might indeed be a question I could ask my supervisor, but he will most likely be open to both and I think this is more a question about "personal preference" where both directions might be appropriate.

You really should ask your supervisor, even if he's open to both.

And if you settle for a PowerPoint presentation, make sure to check whether the room is equipped for this kind of presentation.  And have a plan B in case something goes wrong.

Present it all in slides.  You want to avoid writing up anything remotely complex on the fly, in front of a live audience, unless you're very practiced at doing so.  Even the simplest things become harder to get right under pressure.

Use LaTeX Beamer for your presentations

why exactly is my question downvoted? what exactly is unclear in my question?

You typically want to maximize the amount of interesting content that is presented. (Where the definition of interesting can vary significantly by field and purpose of the talk.) So, the primary questions I think you should be asking are "How much time will it take to draw on the board?" and "Is this time well spent?".
Some pros for slides:

Drawing/writing on the board takes time, and often the audience just has to sit around and wait for you to do this. If this takes a significant amount of time, you are wasting the time of your audience.
In a thesis presentation you may have some material you want to present superficially, which is much more efficient with slides.
If there are good explanations that require visuals (animations or complex figures), you can't do this on a blackboard like you can on a computer.
I often (but not always) find that when people begin drawing on the board in the middle of an otherwise slide-based presentation that they just haven't spent the time to prepare proper slides.
If you want to give the talk again later, having slides can make it easier to repeat. This is especially if you go to an environment like a conference presentation where you can't use a blackboard.

Some pros for lecturing with no slides:

I usually write things out on the board when I am trying to teach a concept to a class, because I want to go through the content slowly and methodically, asking questions of the audience along the way. If you have time to do this it can be much more engaging and the audience can understand things more deeply.
When lecturing on a board, you can dynamically make changes based on the questions of the audience in a way that you can't do with slides.

All the usual caveats about giving good presentations apply. You're going to have to decide what you're most comfortable with, and go with that. In the end its up to you and your advisor.

I'd advise you to be very careful about this part of your question: "The obvious advantage of using a powerpoint presentation is that I might save a lot of time I would otherwise spend on writing everything down on the blackboard such as definitions, theorems etc."
That time you "save" might well be the time your audience needs to absorb the meanings of those definitions, theorems, etc. The biggest danger (in my opinion) of slides is that they make it too easy to go too fast. Even if you decide to use slides, make sure that your theorems and especially your definitions remain visible long enough for the audience to understand them (not just long enough for you to say you've presented them). This may even require repeating a statement on two or more slides.

Don’t make the classic error of just reading off the slides...
Instead, point out the interesting parts: “this term in the left hand side controls the rate of dive” etc.
However, ppt or chalk is minor, it’s how you put it across and how you answer the questions... They have probably prepped their questions anyway, either about interesting bits or parts they did not find clear.
Good luck.

A thesis defence for a Bachelor degree is at a rather different level than for, say, a doctorate. Your audience already know everything you are likely to say, but they are there to judge whether YOU know it and understand it. (I am assuming that the bachelor's degree in question is a particular subject rather than teaching skills, to which entirely different principles would apply).
So the question is how do you persuade them that you do indeed know what you are talking about.
To me, that suggests very strongly that you should spend minimum (maybe zero) time writing already known stuff on a blackboard, but maximum time on showing how well you understand it. So, you could use slides to set the context and to define your nomenclature so that when you say 'x' they know what it is that you are referring to.
Then focus your energy on explaining what you have done. I know that it is not easy in words, but if your starting point is how to use words, and then what picture would help, and if you get that far, what equation is needed to display my work, there is a good chance that your audience will be impressed.
It is very easy if you have been immersed in your subject to start with the equations and work backwards to the words. I urge you to start with words.


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Revison due date "by"?
I have a question regarding the deadline for submitting a revised paper. Does "due date by" mean the day before or that very day?
I know it's better to not put myself in such situation in the first place, but for the worst case scenario, has anyone ever experienced a situation in which submitting the paper on the due date was unsuccessful? And the submission system has already closed on the due date?
I should add thet in the email sent by the editior, there was no specification of time, time zone or anything else. Just A simple "due date by"

I suspect that for a paper revision, they will interpret it generously. Conference submissions might be different. But if you are late, things might get delayed. But "end of day in your local time zone" is used by at least one organization. End of day Universal Time is a bit less generous. But, I think that "prior to beginning of day..." is very unlikely. But it's a big world with a lot of different customs.

Thank you for reply! Well if that's the case, its a big relief. Hope the journal be as generous.

I voted to close because the question is about a typo.

In my experience with academics, many of us will do things by the absolutely last moment. No person that knows what they are doing would set a deadline of "by January 11th" and expect everything to be done at January 11th 00:01.
When it comes to "deadlines" for submitting revised versions of journal articles (non special issue) are there predominately to avoid the case where authors just always prioritize something else and never get it done. The editorial systems I have worked with from the editor perspective would just auto-fill those in a few months time. But there is no real point for the editor to enforce those - it means that the work they've put in the refereeing process is for naught.

Exactly. Most editors are also happy to give extensions, unless this is for a special issue.

Even for a special issue, it's sometimes possible to get a (short) extension.  I've done that.


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How to guide Junior Lecturers in teaching a short Mathematics course
I joined a university recently as a senior lecturer. I became senior recently too and with the new environment (new university is private and previously I have been in a state university), continuously I experience doubts on how I should respond to some situations. Even previously I had doubtful situations though...
I am kind of introverted and I highly appreciate your advices and any insights regarding practical situations on how a senior lecturer should behave, how she can create an environment to guide the assistant/junior lecturers and also to maintain good social connection.
My specific problem is however below:
I have been asked to guide some junior lecturers to conduct a kind a a fun type mathematics short course for a group of undergraduates who are hoping to come to the university for the first time after a couple of months. Their degree is Bachelor of Computer science but they will be studying some mathematics modules too. What is the best way to guide the junior lecturers to do this, as a senior lecturer?
Currently, I planned to tell them to mainly teach them basic algebra computations and refresh their memory on that, do more exercises on that - may be in a more engaging way like by asking the students themselves to come and do it on the board, do a few math games in the class, do quizes etc. But what else can I possibly do?
Also please note that in the setting that I'm placed in, it is importsnt that through the way I guide the I show that I'm well professional, and I have some nice techniques. But how can I do it?
P.S. The junior lecturers are kind of stubborn too. What type of a tact I should use to overcome it?
Thank you very much in advance.

How experienced are you as a teacher? As a pedagogy designer?

I changed the topline question to better match your specific question.

Maybe a better fit at math educators SE?

I suggest that, rather than "telling them what to do" you hold a "round table discussion" with a few sessions in which people, including yourself, can offer suggestions and can comment on them.
If this series of sessions runs concurrently with the short course, all the better, since people can have a chance to comment on what seems to be effective.
Provide coffee and snacks if possible. This will increase the social interaction component, hopefully fulfilling some of your wider goals. You could also invite other experienced teachers to one or more of the sessions to get a broader perspective.


text:
PhD - unhelpful supervisor, how normal is it?
My question maybe trivial but I really want the opinion of others if the problem is with me or with my supervisor/ the lab.
Half a year ago I started PhD in a small university town in Europe. I am a foreigner that does not know the local language but during the recruitment process they assured me that it shouldn't be a problem (yeah right no lab workers know English and even in the office where I am sitting everybody just ignores me and speak in the local language if they are not addressing me personally). Another problem is that I came from a similar yet different scientific background and I have no experience working with the topic that I got.
I understand that I should work independent on my topic and not rely on others yet this is kinda ridiculous in my opinion that everybody just assumes that I should develop my protocols, starts working and ordering the lab equipment without any supervisors straight away. Of course I try to adapt and I am starting to do research yet as my only help are articles and google. As my daily supervisor just insists that I should be independent from the start. What is even more funny I am working for almost half a year but I haven't even met my "official, main supervisor" and I don't even know what is my project timescheldue. I am constantly just left out of the information loop and get angry or confused stares if I try to ask these questions.
Is it normal? I am not expecting guiding by the hand on every step of the PhD but at least at the start when they know that I have 0 expertise in the topic, would be helpful. Basically, I am almost on the verge of nervous breakdown and feeling like a moron that is wasting time.

Who selected your topic? You? Or was it given to you? How much freedom do you have?

I'm seriously wondering what is the attraction of this place. Why do you want to stay? Wouldn't everything be better if you were elsewhere? It isn't you and it isn't the supervision. It is the entire environment. How effectively could Atlas tap-dance?

Are you paying your own way through the PhD or do you receive stipend from the supervisors' host organisation?

@Buffy First thank you for your answer.
The topic is part of gov. funded project. So the topic was selected by somebody else and I fully know what it entails after taking the offer. To put it into context, I applied for a different project but the lab director said that they have somebody in mind for this job and they would be happy to hire me for a different position. Reassuring me that I will learn everything on spot.
Why do I want to stay? Well to put in bluntly the salary, especially during corona times is good and the project IS interesting.Just I need some help(or I am too stupid)

What effort have you made to find out your rights and to speak to people and tell them what you need?

I also offer a more optimistic view. Period of down are common even for students in almost perfects environments. So, while it seems that you are in a bad place, you could have felt isolation and scientifically desperate anyway. Work as hard as you can, make some moves towards better communication with the main supervisor. One should know better the group and the details. Be sure that such isolation is typical for big group and big names. Usually a big name don't fail.

This is mostly advice beyond the scope of the question, but to try to answer the question itself, the entire situation seems horrific and unsustainable.
I don't think it is literally "normal", but I do think the situation is far too common. It isn't really you and it isn't really the PI,  but the entire set up from top to bottom. Only a few (and there are a few) doctoral students could thrive in such a situation.
However, along with the bad, there seems to be something good about the current situation or you would have fled by now. A salary is good and avoiding pandemic chaos is good, but I'm not seeing an obvious path, here, to a doctorate.
But, you are early in your studies (half a year). I'd suggest that you spend some effort looking for a better situation, preferably in the English speaking world unless you are fluent in some other language. Even if you were to learn the local language fairly fluently in the next few months, the time to completion in Europe is normally expected to be quite short.
Look at all the options. It would be hard to find a worse one, I think.

To be honest it is. I need to mentally brace myself every Monday to even come to work. My daily supervisor's behaviour is also not helping. She tries to be too casual but almost every week she gives 'not serious, joke like' nasty comments about what I wear or even stupid stuff like picture on my desk. Not to make excuses, but I know that I am capable of independent and good work as without any prior knowledge I developed a lab administrative system. Just I need to understand at least what I am doing and how to press further.

I really need to think about what I want to do in this messy situation. To be honest I am already considering your solution. Just this situation is an emotional rollercoaster. Thank you!


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Math PhD program admissions: what happens between December and February?
I have a question about the "black box" of PhD applications. After the December 1 or December 15 deadlines students are just told they are going to receive a decision between February and March. My question is: how does the selection work? I know it varies between universities, but I am pretty sure there may be common factors.

Is there a first selection where someone (who?) already rejects the lowest applications based on (no more GREs for some universities) GPAs?

After that, if some student highlighted a willingness to work under the supervision of a particular faculty member in their statement of purpose, does that particular faculty member review the application as well, or is there just a yearly chosen committee of just a few professors (one per each math field?) that go through all student's portfolio and decide regardless of the other professors of the department?

In a nutshell, how is the organization for high-rank math PhD programs in terms of procedures?

Does this answer your question? How are Ph.D. applications evaluated in the US, particularly for weak or borderline students? Am I likely to get into school X?

I have already read it and I think not. My question is really not about what is important to get accepted, but about what are Faculty member actually doing: if there is a chosen committee or if every professor has a role in the admission process. Or things like who is reading all the statements of purposes? Who is deciding in the whole process?

Clear - close vote retracted

There is more at the answer for US to the following question, though it may not be enough: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/176908/75368

I'll take a stab at it, but this is just a general, hypothetical, answer since every university in the US will have its own procedures and even different departments in the same university will. But, for a variety of reasons, attention is taken to fairness in analyzing candidates, partly because of law and partly to avoid scandal. Note that this isn't restricted to math alone.
Initially, the work is likely to be clerical. Some applications can be rejected without much analysis for having missing parts or (some places) falling below a GPA expectation. I'd guess that such clerical decisions are only made when values are very bad, so that missing GPA by a few hundredths probably doesn't result in a clerical rejection, but 0.5 might. Such decisions might just be initial sorting ("likely reject") and serve as advice to the committee rather than being final.
In the clerical period there might or might not be room to try to get missing parts (letters...) into the student's file, making the deadline a bit soft.
Now there is a set of "viable" candidates that must be considered by the committee. The committee membership is a matter of "service", one of the expectations of faculty and fairly often newly tenured faculty are "rewarded" with committee membership (ha). But people can volunteer for the committee as well and it likely has a mix of junior and senior faculty.
Whether advice can be sought outside the committee or not is a matter of local rules. Can the committee ask a named professor to comment? Possibly, but it depends. I doubt that the fairness rules permit too much weight to be given when such consultations are allowed. But things vary as noted above.
In any case, the committee will schedule a series of meetings. It will have a target for the number of admissions and that is also likely a bit soft.
The process is one of winnowing. First you make three piles. The obvious accepts, the obvious rejects, and the "further consideration" group, which is probably fairly large. Individuals on the committee might object to the placement of one or more candidates and will keep their own lists of people who they want to revisit later if possible. This winnowing may take one or more meetings, but the meetings are likely long and people are busy with other things so it may take more than one meeting and the meetings may be spread out.
Subsequent meetings revisit (mostly) the "further consideration" applicants and people comment and files may be moved to other piles. I would guess (weasel word) that in many, perhaps most, such committees it is a matter of consensus rather than formal votes that cause a file to be moved. But in large committees that may not be possible and voting is used.
As the deadline to announce acceptances approaches the harder cases get considered and more attention is paid to the allowed number of acceptances and, perhaps, finances for student awards (TA and such). A new pile will also start to grow, which is "alternates"; people who might be offered a slot if folks in the accept pile don't accept, some of which is certain. The committee will have some historical information about how many such there are likely to be.
At the final meeting there may be a call for further comments on individual cases (or not) and, by consensus, probably, the committee declares its work done.
Note that the work is hard. Every applicant is different in some way. There isn't an obvious way to choose between some pairs of candidates so much of the work is guesswork. Predictions need to be made about the likely success of candidates in the program. In the modern age some balance is usually sought for different groups of people so that the marginal decisions don't, for example, always favor males or young people, or a particular ethnic group. This later can become very contentious, outside academia at least.

In the above, note all the "weasel words" such as "likely", etc. Things vary. Some places will be more rigid, some more flexible, but care will be taken to avoid conflicts of interest and unfairness. And note that at any time, a member can raise issues of the distribution, which can lead to a discussion and perhaps a rebalancing of the weight given to various things.

I also know of one program that differs radically from the above, but it isn't math, it is very small, and it isn't "top-level". There, the director of graduate studies is, alone, responsible for accepting students but with advice and consultation with faculty willing to advise students. There is no committee at all. The distribution of applicants to that program is broad enough that the fairness question doesn't arise.

"clerical decisions need to be clear and stark, so that missing GPA by a few hundredths would be less likely to result in automatic rejection." This seems contradictory.

@AzorAhai-him-, for a purely clerical decision it needs to be an obvious choice. Stark in the sense of starkly apparent. Better?

Wouldn't a "clear and stark" decision mean that 3.199 < 3.200 = rejected?

@AzorAhai-him-, my intent was the opposite. 2.8 < 3.2 = reject (or suggest reject - see the edit).

Do you mean something like "rejections based on clerical decisions should only be done in obvious cases, i.e. even if the published cutoff is a GPA of 3.2, only applicants with GPAs much lower than that are clerically rejected, and those with GPAs close to 3.2 may still be forwarded to the committee"

@AzorAhai-him-, that sounds about right. Or they are all forwarded but with recommendations/sorting. And everyone's mileage differs. Clerical decisions are more likely when the scale of the problem is huge.

Thank you very much for the kind and very helpful answer!


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What is the difference between 'declarations of interest' and 'disclosure statement'
In a journal application, there are two fields need to be filled but I can not tell what is the difference between the two:
Declarations of interest
Disclosure statement

Is there anyone of them where I can write the Acknowledgement for the funding body?
I looked at some published papers for the same journal trying to see some examples. I found one journal have this in the Disclosure statament:

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Now, where should I report conflict of interest? Where should I add the acknowledgement?

I'm surprised if they don't explain it somewhere on a web site, say. Or ask the editor for guidance.