text:
What to say to a student who has failed?
A student has failed a course I just taught. Grades were announced yesterday. This student sent me a very long heartbreaking email about how this means she will be kicked out of her program, how she tried very hard, and how she wants me to reconsider her final grade.
I'm relatively new at being a university instructor; this isn't the first course I've taught at a university, nor is it the first time I've had a student fail a course. But this is the first time I've had a student beg and plead with me, and I'm not sure how to respond.
I genuinely feel bad for her, as she tried hard and came frequently to my office hours, but I ultimately believe that she did not demonstrate on the final exam that she had a good enough handle on the course material to pass.
What should I say to politely tell her that she will still fail, without sounding insensitive?
Edit: Some more relevant information, since some have asked. The course in question is a calculus course for an Engineering program. The student has previously failed and retaken courses, but she is not permitted to have any more failing grades if she wants to remain in the Engineering program. Failing this course is essentially her last `strike'. She will still be allowed to study at the university, but in a different program.
Edit 2: Thanks for all the responses. I wasn't looking for moral justification for failing her or looking for alternative solutions to the situation. I was simply looking for advice on how to respond in a professional manner. And I certainly got that advice from some of the responses.
In the end, I essentially responded with a concise email stating essentially that, while I sympathize with her situation, there was nothing I could do in good conscience to modify her grade at this time, and that I did not believe she demonstrated sufficient mastery of the material to warrant a grade of 50% on the exam. Then I closed with "I wish you the best of luck in your future studies. Sincerely, [me]"
It still doesn't make me feel any better about failing her. :(
(I also will add that this my first time teaching this particular course, and I have certainly learned my own lessons for next time. In particular regarding common misconceptions in the material and what to focus on in the lectures. This will hopefully mitigate the chance of a future student failing in a similar way.)
Edit 3: A few comments have suggested that I might reconsider the student's exam grade. To be clear, this student had about a 50% average in the course going into the final and would have therefore needed at least a 50% on the final exam to pass the course. However, the student only received about 35% on the final (while the average for the class on the final was 73%). I could not, in good conscience, bump the score so significantly to warrant giving out a passing grade in this case.
It was clear to me that the student had failed. I was only asking for advice on how to respond to her request that I pass her!

Is there a referral, retake or repeat possible? This is standard procedure in many institutions. Is there a slightly different programme available that she could switch to?

Is this a course directly related to what she is doing? Does she want to be a doctor and failed anatomy? Or is she a computer sci major that failed an English comp course? I might show consideration to the 2nd scenario, as she did work hard and really tried. Hard work and dedication are good characteristics this world also needs.

Somewhat related: How to deal with failing a student?

+100 (if I could) for posting how the story ended.

One of my professors just wrote: "You failed. I don't talk to failures. Bye."

Forget the "tea and sympathy chat," which doesn't do anything to change the situation. What she needs now is some straighforward practical advice about what to do next.
Set out the options she has to move forward from where she now is, and then stop writing. That might be a retake, or a change of course, or even facing up to the fact that not everybody is capable of getting a degree-level qualification - there is no sense creating false hopes by advising her to continue to attempting the impossible, if that really is the case.
If she is insistent about re-grading, you could point out that if you change the criteria for everyone on the course, the end result might not make much difference.
It seems like she had sensible study habits, put in a sensible amount of effort, but still lagged a long way behind the average. You can't (and shouldn't) fix that by tinkering with the assessment criteria. It can be a hard lesson that in real life, you don't get prizes for attempting something and failing, but everybody has to learn it eventually, one way or another.

Could you elaborate why one should forget the "tea and sympathy chat" and what exactly this is?

@user111955 I would say the tea and sympathy chat is “I’m sorry, my hands are tied. Have a tissue, and do you want a biscuit with your tea?” while alephzero’s answer suggests looking at the student’s options with the student. (I’m concluding this from the first paragraph: “what she needs now...”.)

@11684: In this case, I disagree wjth the answer. Of course, one should not write an essay about sympathy, but one or two honest sentences that show empathy with the student should be written.

Biscuits and tea aside, I upvoted this answer because it focuses on the actual, practical problem. The student wants to achieve something, and they're asking for a better grade because they see that as the way to get what they want. There may be other good next steps besides amending the grade. Ensuring the student knows about those options can give them something to actually go do to get what they want.

I don't think the professor, particularly at this time, should be the one to offer practical advice (or, worse, explaining how "not everybody is capable of getting a degree-level qualification "). Referring the student to academic advising would be more appropriate. That's their job and they may have school-wide policies on how to handle just these situations.

@Chelonian: You may be right. On the other hand, academic advising may be even less able to give that same advice -- say, tasked with "retention" as the top priority. Often the (tenured?) professor is the only one with knowledge and security to speak an unpleasant truth.

We don't know if she lagged a long way behind the average.  I've certainly had classes where 80% would fail on first attempt (statistical physics), such that someone who was just short of passing (which included myself) would actually be above average.

-1 for "not everybody is capable of getting a degree-level qualification"...

Can you explain why this student needs "practical advice" instead of "pratical advice and a sentence of emphathy"? Most people I know (outside of Stack Exchange) need empathy and human interaction.

Actually you can state it pretty much as you have here. You are sorry but her failure here doesn't indicate success in the future in this program.
Alternatively you could re-analyze your own grading procedures, possibly just for the future. Perhaps you are putting too much emphasis on the final exam and making it harder/impossible for students to recover from some common errors.
But that would be for future cases.
In this specific case you could, fairly, see if she can demonstrate the knowledge that you feel the exam indicates is lacking. There are a lot of ways to do that. If she has the knowledge but your exam indicates a false negative you can correct it with a bit of work.
And note that this is not being unfair to the other students. But her begging alone is not sufficient reason to change the grade.

This didn't necessarily have anything to do with the weighting of the final, as the student had about a 50% average on the previous material going into the final. She would have needed at least a 50% on the final to pass the course, but did not. (I might also mention that the class average (both median and mean) for the final was about 73%, while she scored about 35% on the final).

I don't mean to criticize your scheme, just suggest that you look at it.

Everything you say in your question and the comment above implies that the student just wasn't good enough to pass the class. All of your statements are things you can mention in your reply to the student: Make clear that you sympathize with her position, and at a personal level feel quite sorry about it, but that ultimately you need to be professional about your grading and about upholding the standards of the school -- and that consequently, however much you sympathize, there is nothing you can do.

You wrote "In this specific case you could, fairly, see if she can demonstrate the knowledge that you feel the exam indicates is lacking.". Yes, but if you go this route you must make such an option known and available to all the students, not just that one student, otherwise it would still be unfair to the other students. And you must hence be willing to put in the significant extra work to fairly handle all students who exercise this option (essentially asking for a re-evaluation of the final grade).

Can you clarify what you mean by “If she has the knowledge but your exam indicates a false negative you can correct it with a bit of work. And note that this is not being unfair to the other students”? How is it not unfair to the other students to set up a special process that allows a single student to have her grade reconsidered? And if the process applies to all students, will it really only take “a bit of work”? What kind of retroactive correction process did you have in mind really? I have a feeling that if it were that easy, all universities would have it as a standard process already.

@DanRomik, a system doesn't necessarily have to be uniform to be fair. Don't confuse the two concepts. You can correct for false negatives if you can see that they occur. Every student is an individual. Treat them as such to be fair. Also, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Workers_in_the_Vineyard

Well, every student is an individual and deserves to have their individual situations considered to the same extent (even if not uniformly) - see the comment by @user21820. So if you offer a process to correct a false negative for one student, fairness requires that you offer the same process to other students, even if the process itself involves some subjective judgements. So your approach is interesting (and honorable and well-intentioned), and I partially agree with it, but I feel like you haven’t addressed the fairness issue raised by my earlier comment and that of user21820.

All needs to be stated in the syllabus or else you will probably lose if a student hears about it and complains that someone with a lower score got a higher grade.

@ASimpleAlgorithm, Hmmm. What would I lose?

@Buffy the grade appeal.

@ASimpleAlgorithm, that isn't a loss to me. It isn't a game I win or lose. You are seriously confusing grading with teaching. I hope you learn to think differently in time.

@Buffy I'm not confused about anything. You are loading words with unnecessarily connotations. Whatever else I do in my job, I strive to give students grades they deserve. I would hope you try to do the same. If a committee seeks to change the grade, I wold argue against their doing so, as the new grade would be undeserved. If they change it anyway, I would have lost that argument.

@ASimpleAlgorithm I think you and Buffy are talking past each other. It’s clear that both of you want the student to “get the grade she deserves”, but have different ideas about what that might mean. And IMO Buffy is correct to point out that if you do what you think is right and have your decision overturned by some committee, you haven’t “lost” in any meaningful sense.

@DanRomikthen The point of confusion here, which you seem to also be tripping up on as well, is that I had nothing to say about Buffy's methods or decision process "in any meaningful sense". My statement was only about process. I.e. to maintain control over one's own grade decisions, one needs to have this made clear in the syllabus.

I‘ve had to write similar emails in the past. Here is a possible way I might approach writing an email in the situation you described:

Dear [name of student],
I sympathize with your situation, but please understand that I gave you the grade you earned in the class, nothing more or less - ultimately you did not demonstrate the level of mastery of the material that merits a passing grade. You should also know that I am not allowed to change your grade because of irrelevant factors related to your standing in your program or similar things. Even if it were allowed, I could not make such a decision in good conscience, as it would be a betrayal of the trust my university puts in me to impartially evaluate students’ performance in the class, and would be extremely unfair to other students who also worked hard and may each feel just as deserving as you to have their own special circumstances taken into account in assigning their grades.
I wish you the best of luck in your future studies.
Sincerely,
[your name]

As for “sounding insensitive”, keep in mind that there’s no language you could use that would make the student happy with your decision. It’s also possible that anything you can say will sound insensitive and cruel to her - that’s just human nature. Even telling her that you know she worked hard could have a similar effect and cause the student to just continue arguing and pleading with you. So I agree with the other answers saying the email should be concise: keep it short and professional, don’t try to offer personal or psychological advice, and offer your sympathy but in a way that doesn’t imply even a remote chance that you can be persuaded to change your mind.
Edit: thanks to everyone for their feedback. The comments, and seeing which ones got upvoted, are very helpful, and suggest my email may benefit from a bit of tweaking.
As a final thought, one takeaway I have from this whole discussion is that being told you failed a class for unsatisfactory performance and that the decision is final must surely be a very painful thing to hear (particularly in high-stakes circumstances such as those OP’s student is in), no matter how the message is delivered. One can try to be empathetic and sugarcoat or soften the truth, but the truth will still hurt.

While I never failed an exam, hypothetically receiving your email somehow feels like rubbing salt into the wound/adding insult to injury.

@lalala yes, I can see that and I think that’s both an expected effect and a necessary one. The email states a truth that is unpleasant to hear but needs to be stated, namely that the student failed because she did not achieve the minimal necessary level of mastery of the material required for a passing grade. Skirting around the issue may temporarily spare her feelings but will not help her face her situation with clarity so she can move on from it, nor help to bring the email conversation to a close.

I am not suggesting to skirt around the truth, but suggesting the student is asking you to 'betray' the department, and to be 'unfair to the other students' feels unnecessary to me. Your email implies that it was despicable for the student to even ask.

@lalala of course, it’s not necessary to say that. It’s what I might say, and I have my reasons for thinking it’s a good idea to say it, but there are lots of other ways the email could be phrased, and there’s no objectively “correct” email.

@lalala I didn’t use the word “despicable”, so I’d say you’re being a bit hyperbolic here. It is a true fact that changing the student’s grade would be unfair to the other students and would be a betrayal of the university’s trust in the professor’s judgment. But anyway, if you think that’s a bit too much truth for the student to handle, that’s a reasonable opinion.

I appreciate that in these answers, we are recognizing an important point: that giving grades for effort (as some places do) instead of for meeting the requirements of a profession, is unfair not only to the profession but to the student who will be fired for incompetence not long after graduation.

The phrase "irrelevant factors" seems harsh and unnecessarily insensitive here.  These factors are relevant to her.  You could just write "... change your grade because of your standing in your program ...".

+1 I have written this same email multiple times; the start and end (and broad outline) are effectively identical. In the middle I tend to use language like "I have a responsibility to be honest in grading, and it would be dishonest for me to report that you are proficient with the subject at this time." Which perhaps some readers would prefer as softer. But Dan's blunter language is recommended in the many cases of truly dense students with Dunning-Kruger syndrome.

Thanks for coming to my defense @Daniel. :-) The critics should also know that my advice is based on multiple experiences very similar to OP’s. In particular, I’ve found that even delivering these so-called blunt and insensitive truths will not be enough to get all students to stop pleading and begging. It is not uncommon to have to repeat those same harsh statements 2-3 times to bring the conversation to an end. So as unpleasant as it is, these things need to be said. But OP is welcome to try another approach and see where it gets them. And if anyone had different experiences, please share.

This answer is terrible advice. The most reasons you give ("I'm not allowed..", "even if it were allowed...", etc), the more openings you give them to argue.  Just say they didn't earn a passing grade (but more politely), and leave it at that.

@BlueRaja by explaining why this is terrible advice you’re just inviting argument. If that’s how you feel, just downvote my answer and leave it at that...

The answers by @BenLinowitz and others are excellent. Again, having had a one-on-one discussion, any email answers now need to be short and somewhat curt.
To expand on that: Anything you say can and will be used against you. In these cases, I'm actually a bit more verbose than my department office recommends (they suggest "All grades are final", end-of-message). But I do keep in mind that whatever I write is prone to be taken to an advisor or a dean and used as fodder to get them to overturn the grade somehow.
So I actually write those types of emails considering a possibly hostile administrator as part of the intended audience. To be maximally clear and transparent, I usually document the quantified ways in which the student was failing in the email (exact test scores, final exam, weighted total, etc.). For example, the fact you said this student was earning a 50% average pre-final, and then 35% on the final exam, should obviously end almost any question about whether the student should be retained in the program or not, and so I would include it in writing. This may be a bit sharp for the student -- but at this point your goal needs to be terminating the conversation.

(+1) There are enough risks to job satisfaction, and indeed in the worst case job security, that my general philosophy was cover your backside with cast-iron. But some issues are more likely to trigger student complaints, senior management intervention and even legal disputes. Assessment is a high risk area as it's high-stakes and high-stress for students, and it jars with the "consumer" or "customer" model of education - they may feel they've paid good money for this qualification yet you might not give them the piece of paper they wanted. On assessment issues, double-plate the cast-iron.

Fail grades form an even higher risk subgroup. They've run out of road with conventional responses. If still unhappy with their fail - they will be! - only more extreme "solutions" remain available, with nothing to lose by trying them. Begging their assessor to bend the rules is one of them. As that didn't work, their next step is to appeal above your head: their circumstances were exceptional, your assessment unfair, your grading biased, your teaching incompetent, whatever line seems their best shot at a second chance. Triple-plate yourself with failed students or those who seem likely to!

A couple arguments in opposition to reconsidering the grade:

Allowing students to pass who did not demonstrate the knowledge required is not only not ethical (or at least begs for accusations of favoritism - or worse accusations, in a disconcertingly large number of instances I've heard about), it could be argued that it is a reflection of your own failure as a professor to let students pass without preparing them well enough to pass legitimately. Let me explain what I mean by that:

I'm not saying that failing a student means that you're a failure. However, as a professor, it's part of the job that students who do not perform to the passing standard  cannot be given a pass in the class. As professor of the class, you are a gatekeeper. It is an inherent quality of your job to turn away those who cannot satisfy the requirements to pass, no matter what. (In college/university, this is true. In lower education, say, high school or more likely younger, perhaps leniency might be better, but collegiate instruction does not lend itself to this type of rule-bending.)

On principle, I would think that the answer should absolutely be a polite refusal to reconsider. Plus, if you allow it once, will you be able to refuse other requests from other students? Reconsidering the grade would, in my opinion, set a very dangerous precedent.

I hope that this post doesn't come across as accusatory or rude. I simply mean to provide an argument that you could use, if nothing else to appease your conscience.
Also, and this is just what I would do, I would not talk to that student about the refusal unless I was approached. It sounds cowardly, and it sure feels cowardly, but I'd rather not provoke any extreme emotional reactions if I can help it. Maybe I'm just too introverted, but that's how I'd do it.
Of course, I'd continue to make myself as available to talk about it as I was before, but imagine: if you were the letter-writing student, and had just been given the heartbreaking news by your professor, and out of the blue, that professor brings up the news, forcing you to talk about it and "relive" the experience and pain. As that student, and especially because I might be on a narrow emotional precipice, I could expect myself to cry, at the very least. As the professor, I would not be surprised if the student maybe brings the issue up, then is refused, then never mentions it again. But of course, I would prepare myself for that conversation, because some students do prefer to discuss this kind of thing instead of avoid it.
I guess what I'm saying is to be ready for the conversation, but I wouldn't initiate it.

Long story short, don't "reconsider" the grade. (Of course, you can check to make sure you didn't make a mistake somewhere, but don't change the grade just because of the letter.) It's not only a dangerous pattern to fall into, it's just something that has to be refused as a professor. Not everyone will pass the class, and some who fail may really have "worked hard enough to deserve it". But tough decisions must be made, and there is no justifying awarding grades on subjective matters like effort at any university.

Agree, but for a minor quibble: if a program is intended to prepare you for a particular profession, there is no such thing as “worked hard enough to deserve it.”  There is only “achieved the minimum standards to succeed in that profession.”

@WGroleau Bingo. Air quotes added in.

There is too much unneccesary detail. OP does not want to reconsider the grade.

Do not forget that you only happened to be the last one in a chain of instructors by accident. If she had taken her courses in a different order, you wouldn't have thought twice about failing her, and instead some other instructor would now stand before the same dilemma.
She is not being kicked out of the program for failing your course, she is being kicked out of the program for failing too many courses.
Would you have failed her with the same performance if she had taken the course last year?

At my own undergraduate university, it is considered academic dishonesty to tell a professor that the grade they assign might hurt the student [eg "if I fail this class, I will get kicked out of the program / lose my scholarship / etc"]:
ASU Student Policy Part C: Student Responsibility (section 2.k.):

Attempting to influence or change any Academic Evaluation, or academic record for reasons having no relevance to academic achievement.

The act of the student telling the professor what your student has said is sufficient for the student to receive a grade of XE, "Failure due to academic dishonesty."
If your institution has a similar policy, you might choose to inform her of it and that she will receive the grade she has earned and that she shouldn't try this approach again or she might suffer worse consequences.
It's never easy to tell a student they have failed, especially when they are begging, but you will be doing her a big favor by telling her you haven't turned her in for cheating, on top of it.

That is a really silly policy.

I disagree, I think it is a perfectly reasonable policy. Trying to get an unearned passing grade by making your professor feel guilty is cheating and manipulative. In my eyes it falls in line with trying to bribe, seduce, or threaten a professor - all actions meant to get a grade the student didn't earn.

I also think this is absurd. In the UK, most lecturers are teachers, examiners and pastoral support. If a student confides in me that they are struggling and concerned for their future, they should be able to do so without worrying that I might think they're e.g. trying to sway my hand in upcoming assessments, and might fail them for it. Academics should be protected against bribes and blackmail, but not vague feelings of guilt. If we can't handle feeling bad, we shouldn't have such considerable power over people's futures.

(Of course, you might say that the absurd thing is the conflict of interest in academics' roles as both bosses and counsellors. And that's fair. If your university has a demonstrably good, highly-rated, easily accessible, day-to-day support system outside of the professors, and it makes very clear to students where the boundaries between students and academics lie, then that's fine too. But, as far as I'm aware, that's just not how most institutions operate.)

I agree with @Billy. A professor should be able to handle such situation (e.g. by the means the other answers discribe). This is in no way comparable to seducing or blackmailing a professor (for what it's worth, I also think those two.should be handled by the law, not by some special grade).

@Billy the fact that it is unusual doesn't make it absurd. It is logically consistent to protect the school's reputation in this way. The blinder the "review" the better.

@ASimpleAlgorithm As I said, if that is how your institution deals with student welfare, that's fine. It is, however, logically inconsistent to expect me to care about my students' wellbeing, going so far as to even put "pastoral support" in my job description, and tell my students that I will fail them if they mention academic pressure or the fear of underperforming. (It's logically inconsistent and, far more importantly, it's cruel.)

@Billy yes we get it, your school/county has the opposite rule. That doesn't make the rest of the world who doesn't share your system into a land of absurdity. Though note that my school doesn't have such rules either way. Except for certain reporting requirements that the govt hands down.

Your comment indicates that you don't get it, and I'm disinclined to keep repeating myself here until you do get it, because I'm certain that I'm not that poor a communicator. But let me try one last time: I did not call such institutions absurd. The absurd ones, in my view, are the ones who make academics both harsh gatekeepers and the only pastoral support. And I have reason to believe that, in my country, they are the majority. If, on the other hand, your institution makes academics harsh gatekeepers but offers external pastoral support, it is not absurd, it is perfectly fine.

Most universities have a standard process which allows retaking exams a bit later (maybe at the end of the summer) or repeating the year. The main reason for those is to cover students who have issues in their lives which have interfered with that year's study or with the exams. Perhaps they've been ill. Perhaps there's been a bereavement. Perhaps a significant relationship has broken down badly.
Or perhaps they've just had an unrepresentatively bad day on the exam day.
So you should be referring her to the university's own procedures for this. Point her to the right person, and point her to the relevant documents online. And then it's up to her.
It's also important to point out that you're just covering one module of her course. Unless your module is a prerequisite for continuing, her final grade will be an average over all modules, so it isn't something which is as clearly on your shoulders. You might want to tell her that too.

As far as I know, most universities do not have such a process, unless the student produces valid medical certification of illness or reduced capacity to take the examination on that specific day, or provides documentation to support exemption on compassionate grounds. Just having a 'bad day' on the exam day with no evidence would not in most universities entitle a student to retake an exam and erase the original grade. However, it is true that most universities will allow students to retake courses they have failed, though the original grades remain in the transcript.

Also note that from the vague description in the question, it is likely that the student is in some 'special' program that requires maintaining the semester grade point average above some cutoff, and has to drop out of the program if she does not make that cutoff. This could be the reason for the 'begging'. In that case however, it is also likely that the student has tried to bite more than she can chew. A significant fraction of students in more demanding programs actually cannot cope comfortably with the level or workload, so dropping out may actually result in an eventually happier student.

"Most universities have a standard process which allows retaking exams a bit later" this may have already been her last attempt. Judging by luftbahnfahrer's name, this may be in Germany. In most German universities you can retake exams twice. If you fail three times and it's a required class (or sometimes even if it's not required) you're kicked out unless you can argue special circumstances.

@user21820 I would agree with that.  The UK system is that unis get paid according to the number of students who start the course, not the number who complete it.  So they are strongly incentivised to take many students who are simply unable to handle the academic standard required. I think that's profoundly unethical, but sadly it's the reality over here.

@Graham: That's very sad. Incidentally, I have even heard (second-hand information) of one case in my university of a student who cannot cope with a special program but does not want to drop out because he does not want to 'lose face' to his peers. It is rare, but such things happen. Personally, I think that the best system should allow a student to choose a certain small number of courses to erase from the transcript (but the courses that remain must fulfill the course requirements). This would almost completely eliminate the pressure on students to do well in every course.

I did this once. She student ultimately got kicked out and went back to China. I just sent her a two sentence email to her response asking for mercy. This was in April. But for the entire summer she sent me emails asking to change her grade. She might have sent me 15 emails for that summer.
I think you need to change your psychology: I don't feel bad for her. It's 100% her fault for not studying enough. Why should I help her? And if she is mentally not capable of handling the work, do I want her in the real-world screwing up again? No. I feel I did the right thing. She needs to take studying seriously or change programs -- simple as that.

Every professor I had followed the "if I make an exception for you, then everyone will expect preferential treatment as well" policy. So, they didn't provide preferential treatment.
The syllabus should state what kind of preferential treatment is allowed, eg: a student that plays on a team may be allowed to take make-up exams, a student that misses a critical exam due to illness or such may be allowed to make it up in a fashion professor deems fit.
If this student failed.. they failed.
If they were under some kind of hardship during the semester, then they should have addressed it with you.. found some way to get extra credit or what-not.
I had a lot of major stuff going down in my grad semesters, from a parent ending up in the hospital to me ending up in the hospital needing surgery. I didn't dump my problems on the professor and go "woe is me, please curve my grade b/c I'm special!" The parent in the hospital issue made me have to organize and plan things in order to care for them. Me being in the hospital caused me to drop all my classes for the semester (the recovery time was putting me behind, and that just added stress to recovery).
Part of being in college is learning how to proactively deal with issues instead of just showing up to the professor at the end of the semester going "pity me and let me pass."
If she was having problems in the class, she could have dropped it and retaken it. There's just things she could have done proactively instead of dumping her situation in your lap at the last minute.
As a professor, you have an obligation to the other students to ensure people that don't make the grade don't pass. If you magically just pass this person, then you're devaluing everyone else's work and potentially their degrees. You're letting someone that didn't make the cut move on, when everyone else had to work hard for it and make the grade.
In the grad program I was in, some folks got a strange idea that professors would auto-pass everyone with at least a "C" even if they didn't do any work. So, it came as a shock to some students when they didn't pass.. and had to go back home since they were here on student visas.
Another aspect is she could be the type of person that's used to manipulating people. She may have done this to other professors. This may be her modus operandi in college. Don't do the work, don't make the grade, but then email prof's and ask for a pity party to get a passing grade.
Bottomline, if she didn't make the grade, she didn't make the grade. Tell her to go take it up with her advisor or academic counsellor so they can tell her what her options are.
You are a noise gate. Your job is to filter out the wheat from the chafe. You did your job. She needs to move on and figure out what she can do, and the university has resources for her to do that. But, she's trying to get something out of you that she didn't earn..and thus trying to manipulate her way past the filtering process.
If you pity her and give her a pass, word will get around and you'll have more students expecting the same going forward.
So, make a stand now.


text:
Does CISA fund academic research? If not, which US Government agency primarily funds cyber-infrastructure resiliency projects?
The title pretty much says it all. Does the US Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency fund academic research projects related to cyber security or infrastructure security? If not, which agency is primarily responsible for funding this kind of research?

A little. You can see their forecast here. CISA currently has 8 solicitations, but none under the R&D codes. Of these, perhaps the best fit towards academics is this one seeking a vendor to evaluate the severity of vulnerabilities -- apparently CMU's software engineering institute is the "incumbent" performer.  Similarly, UT-San Antonio got $1.2M last year to "develop methods by which state, local, tribal and territorial agencies can better identify their high-value assets." But these are just a few, small-ticket items.
(Note, this answer does not address your second question, which was added later.)

Thank you for your answer! I edited my post to add an additional question. If you happen to know an answer to the second part as well that would be fantastic.

@graphtheory123 - that added second question is a shopping question, so please remove it...

Probably other offices within DHS or DOE, I don’t know specifically though. There is also (as of 2021) a “national cyber director’s office.”

And yeah, we frown on “what are some good sources” questions (so-called "shopping questions"), but you might be able to get away with rephrasing in a more answerable way, such as “which US government agency funds most of [this kind of work]”. I took a stab at rewriting along these lines.

NSF (National Science Foundation) funds a certain amount, but I don't have numbers or comparisons...

I see. Thank you for the answers and the feedback.

By looking top-down (i.e. not from past granted research funds, but from federal budget requests and from current grants funded by CISA), it is clear to me that CISA does not perform R&D, not even applied R&D, but it supports the implementation of the results of such research, by offering grants to the local/statal governing institutions.
On top of that, in this news article from a topic-related site

The White House’s discretionary funding request for CISA in fiscal
2022 totals $2.1 billion, or $110 million more than Congress allotted
the agency the previous fiscal year. Discretionary budgets are those
that Congress can alter with appropriations bills, in contrast to the
“mandatary” funding that is built into law.
The funding request also includes $20 million for a new “cyber
response and recovery fund” at DHS meant to help state and local
government recover from things like ransomware attacks. The request
also calls for more federal investment in cybersecurity research, with
the Biden administration proposing an additional $128 million,
compared to the fiscal year for 2021, going toward the National
Institute of Standards and Technology.

I am not sure if the NIST is responsible for the research funds you are interested in, but there is the page of the Department of Homeland Security which refers to its own Science and Technology Directorate (S&T), where forCybersecurity / Information Analysis R&D it states that:

Securing and protecting our nation’s cyber networks is a key priority
for the Science and Technology Directorate (S&T).
S&T conducts and supports research, development, test and evaluation
(RDT&E), and the transition of advanced cybersecurity and information
assurance technologies to secure the nation’s current and future cyber
and critical infrastructures. [...]
S&T supports DHS components such as CISA, FBI, ICE, DoJ, FEMA, USCG

And looking into their site one can find that

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology
Directorate (S&T), in partnership with the Cybersecurity and
Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), has awarded $2 million to the
Critical Infrastructure Resilience Institute (CIRI), a DHS Center of
Excellence (COE) led by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
(UIUC)

which should be the designed destination for your enquiries addressing applied R&D towards resilience in the cyberdomain.

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sort: votes


text:
Is it appropriate to ask a professor to bump up a grade when I suspect it may be at the cutoff?
Background: My course has three exams: I did really bad on the first, great on the second (97%), and I think well on the third. I regularly attended the professor's office hours and never missed class.
Question: I now estimate that my final grade could be at the cutoff. Is it appropriate for me ask if he can round up grades (or bump up..) now before the grade is out? Or after the grade is out..?
Details:
This professor didn't send out scores online for the previous two exams. He only allowed us to pick up the exam on the class. However, since everyone will be leaving, I don't know whether he is going to distribute the exam grade online or he is just going straight to put the final letter grade in the system. So, another option would be to e-mail him now and ask how he plans to distribute the exam grades.

Also I never missed any of his class.

Ah, the time of year when I pull out my grading bingo :)

Well, this old question got bumped for some reason. You're entitled to an explanation about a grading decision and have any errors corrected. You're not entitled to get a different grading decision, because that's literally what the instructor is hired to do.

Consider asking for an appointment to review the final exam.
Preemptively saying "I might be below the cut-off and would appreciate free points" is obnoxious. It's likely the professor has already taken your improvement and other factors into account. Further, asking for additional points for any reason other than a grading mistake is really inappropriate, though it's so common that most professors accept it.
On the other hand, waiting until the final grades might be too long. Once the professor has made a decision about what grade you deserve, they are much less likely to reverse that decision.
So, a good middle ground is to ask for an appointment to review the exam. This is a good thing to do in any case; further, the professor will take extra care when assigning your grade, as he will anticipate having to justify it to you. This also does not put you in an awkward position if you actually earned the grade you wanted -- you can just review the exam and thank him for a good course. Note, if you do this, you should make a good-faith review of the exam and an honest assessment of what you deserve; this is not "one weird trick" to get free points.

I think this answer is fine, but I'm a bit worried the OP or others in their situation will interpret it as a way to ask to bump their grade via a bit of subterfuge which might be even worse than blatantly grubbing.

@BryanKrause - good point, added a sentence.

Ah, I see. Ask for free marks on the pretense of "exam review" wink wink. That's smart! I'll definitely try this method out on all my courses next semester.

I don't think it is appropriate before or AFTER the grades to whine for a few points to get past a hurdle.  If there is a legitimate mistake fine (and not just you scouring for some debatable trivia), fine bring it up.  But that's not what you described.

It depends on the prof, but usually this is inappropriate before the grades come out.  It is "inappropriate" in the sense that you will either be turned away or ignored, not that anything seriously bad will happen.  Instructors get students emailing them all the time to talk about the exam they are convinced they have just failed before even seeing the results.  There are several issues.

The instructor may not have graded anything yet, so he doesn't know whether you passed or failed.
It depends on your professor's policy.  My personal policy is that students get the grades they earn.  However, if I see a student on the edge I will go over their exam to make sure that no unnecessary marks were taken off, and no mistakes were made.  However, I will not bump a student up unless it's something absurdly close, like getting 59.9 when the passing grade is 60.
Your prof may be intending to grade on a curve or some other adjustment anyway.  Asking them will not be helpful.

Ultimately, wait until your grade comes out.  Until then, there is not much you should be doing.  For all you know, you passed the course, then it is a small embarrassment to admit that in your stress you asked for marks.
Now, what happens when the grades come out?  As SolarMike said, it depends on your grade and the instructor.  If it's a 58 when 60 is a pass, you might be able to convince the instructor to bump you.  But yes, if it's much below a few percent or if the test was marked so that subjectivity doesn't count (as in: it's multiple choice or something), then it's unlikely that you will succeed.
I know that it is difficult to wait, especially if you think you failed.  But you will demonstrate a far greater professionalism if you respect the timelines of things.

Asking for a bump in grades is dangerous. There're many professors who will be offended. It doesn't matter if you're asking for a bump from a barely-failing grade to a barely-passing grade, or from an A to an A+. It can potentially kill your professor's impression of you if e.g. you need a recommendation from them. I suggest not asking for a bump unless you think there was a mistake in computing your grade. At the very least, it shows you're taking responsibility for your grade.
As for distributing the exam grade online, if by that you mean whether you'll be able to get your exams: that's something you can ask about. If it's the final exam and everyone has left campus already, then the professor can't distribute the exams physically, but you might be able to arrange an appointment to collect it (if you are allowed to collect it - it's possible they are archiving the exams for whatever reason).

It may depend on what you mean by "bump up"?
An increase of a couple of points to get you from 58 to 60 out of 100 (or eqivalent scale) may be one thing that may be considered prior to or at the grades or exam board..
But bumping your grade from 25 to 60 is completly different and not likely to happen whether you ask before or after...

Ah, the downvoter obviously wants to have their grade "bumped" from 25 to 60 ... :) LOL

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text:
What is the difference between an academic department and program in US colleges/universities?
What is the difference between an academic department and a program in U.S. colleges and universities? I am attempting to model the relationship between Departments and Programs. Thanks!

I am not sure everyone uses the words the same way, but here is the difference at schools I have been at:

A department is a collection of faculty who are organized into a unit for management and course planning purposes. Some departments have faculty from just one area, while others have faculty from many areas. The division into departments is used in particular for hiring and tenure decisions, which often begin with at the department level. Several departments are collected together to form a division, school, or college, which is the next level up the management hierarchy. Different schools use different divisions, but the smallest one is almost always called a department.
A program is a collection of courses that lead to a particular degree or certificate. These courses (ignoring general education) may be taught by one department, or by many. For example, a degree program might be "bachelor's of science in mathematics" or "bachelor's of arts in management".  The mathematics program will require predominately courses from the mathematics department, while the management program may require courses from the management department, the accounting department, the economics department, and maybe a computer information systems department also.

Some departments offer a single degree program, while other department offer multiple degree programs. On the other hand, some degree programs are interdisciplinary and are offered jointly by several departments in collaboration.
Each faculty member will work for one or more departments; these assignments are called "appointments". A student will not be part of a department in the way that faculty are, but a student may "declare" one or more degree programs, and in that way each student is typically "advised" by faculty of one or more departments.

It's important to understand that in the US system most degree programs at the undergraduate level require a student to take a substantial number of courses outside of their nominal field of study.  For example, a mechanical engineering student would typically have to take mathematics courses, taught by faculty from the mathematics  department rather than by faculty from the mechanical engineering department.  It's not at all unusual for more than half of the total courses in a degree program to be taught by faculty from other departments.

Yes, certainly. For terminology, undergraduate courses are often separated into general education, which is similar for all students at the institution (or sometimes the college); program requirements, which are preparatory courses required for a specific degree program but offered by other departments, such as mathematics requirements for engineers or science requirements for mathematicians; and "major courses" which tend to be upper level courses that make up the heart of the specific degree program. The boundaries between these are not always clear.

@BrianBorchers Some US graduate programs also require taking courses outside the nominal field of study. For example, the CS PhD program at Berkeley requires an "outside minor", which includes at least two courses from outside the EECS department.

In my experience in one case.  Departments group the faculty for purposes of finances, hiring, promotion.  Programs group the students, especially graduate students, according to what they are studying.  In many cases, each department houses one program.  But not in all cases.
Two hypothetical examples:
The program in Biochemistry has no department of its own, but draws faculty from three departments---some from Chemistry, some from Medicine, and some from Microbiology.)  A professor may be a member of the Department of Chemistry, but may teach courses in both Chemistry and Biochemistry.
The Department of Romance Languages and Literatures has programs in French, Italian, Spanish, and Portugese.  A professor may be a member of that Department, but teach courses in only one of those programs.

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text:
How to decide what writing sample to include in a phd application?
I'm finishing my MA in about a month and I'm thinking of applying to a Phd program in the US (political science). My GPA is as high as it gets and my recommendation letters will be great but I'm worried about my SOP and my writing sample.
I don't know how to choose a good research topic...I feel like my interests are too broad and I don't know what topics could actually work...My MA thesis was closely linked to sociology and my preferred Phd field is International Relations...should I change the direction completely and go with something more orthodox for this field?
Regarding the required writing sample...I wrote a 200-pages-long research paper on collocation of recent social movements and included an original case-study. It's written in English so theoretically it should work but my professor never corrected a single word...which is disconcerting...how do I know it's actually good? Part of the problem is that I'm studying in Italy so I can't find a professor who understands the American Phd application process or anything of the sort.
Any suggestion would be highly appreciated since I'm navigating this application process on my own and I'm afraid I'm running in circles...

What specifically are you supposed to submit for a writing sample? Is there a page limit? Are there any other guidelines?

@aeismail I'm applying to different universities so they have different guidelines...some allow an entire chapter as long as it's not more than 50 pages long, others have a 10-page limit...so I thought I should probably have a chapter/a research paper and then use a few paragraphs of it for the applications with 10-page limits...do you think that's a good strategy?

It's probably better if the writing samples are "self-contained": that is, they should be free-standing works of their own, rather than be dependent on material that the reviewers don't or can't see. Also, I wouldn't worry about hitting an exact page count, as long as what you've written is done well. (This is particularly true of the 50-page sample.)

oh, okay...It makes sense. Do you think that a 10 page writing sample needs to be a research paper or could it be for example an interview-based article or something other than hypothesis-results-conclusion? 10 pages seems very limiting when the text is double spaced and bibliography tends to take up a couple of pages too? Thank you very much for your advice!

If they don't say what style it should be in, you should pick what you consider to be representative of your best writing. But something where you're including a bunch of other people's quotes (interviews, for instance) probably isn't as useful as something that's less "derivative." Also, I don't think bibliographies normally count toward the limit (unless explicitly stated)—they're not writing per se.

This is very helpful, thank you! I'll definitely take your advice and submit a short article for the ten-page limit submissions and a separate paper for the longer ones! Thanks again!

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text:
GRE exams for those seeking a Masters in Computer Science
Since the Computer Science GRE exam was dropped, I have to take the normal GRE exam (sighs).  I've looked at a few sample questions, and it's something I'm just not good at.  I have a Bachelors in Computer Science with a 3.1 GPA (out of 4.0)  I have two core questions:

How well do I have to do to get accepted into most decent universities for a Masters in Computer Science?
What is the best way to study and practice for GRE exams for a C.S. major?

UPDATE (02/18/2015):
I got my scores in for GRE. Verbal: 153, Quantitative: 160, Essays: 4.0. I'm not sure how good this is or not yet.
I studied for about 4 months. First 2 months it was little studying every week. The third month was studying every other everyday. The first 2 weeks of the 4th month studying everyday. The last 2 weeks were heavy studying.

Mysterious downvoter, why?

try looking at thegradcafe's list of acceptance and rejection and gauge from that.

It's very good that you realize that the types of problems featured in the GRE are weaknesses for you.  Now the challenge is how you deal with these weaknesses.
There are many GRE prep books and even software. There are teacher-guided courses.  You should buy one or more and commit serious time over three months to prepare.  Don't buy any that promise to give you "secrets to success" or "short cuts".
Most graduate schools publish the average GRE scores of their grad students. I think I found them in directories of grad schools, though some post them on their web sites, often under "FAQ" or "Prospective Students".  If you are much below the average GRE, especially Math, then you should reconsider grad school or maybe apply to different schools.
But, most important, if you don't want to put the time and effort into improving your GRE, then it's probably a good sign that you aren't ready for grad school.  If you want to get into a good grad school and do well there, you can't coast through without studying or working hard.

Thank for the advice early on. I took some time away from considering grad school before starting to take it more seriously.

How well do you have to do on the GRE?  That depends entirely on how much weight the admissions committee gives to GRE scores.  Some universities may not really care.  Others may use GRE's as part of the screening process.  Universities have not adopted a universal policy as to how GRE scores should figure into admission decisions.
It doesn't matter if you are a CS major or any other major -- general principles of good study techniques for the GRE hold true for everybody.  If you are an independent learning who is self-motivated and skilled at structuring your own study, then you can probably just get some good test prep books.  If you need more structure, then you might benefit from paying for a course.

I actually never really studied for my classes.  I was slacking a bit early on, then when I started taking it seriously life started acting up.  I would review notes here and there and that would be usually good enough.  GREs seem a bit less content involved and some what more reading/writing/logic skills involved..


text:
Different Styles for Parenthetical vs Narrative format in Mendeley, Harvard referencing
My Supervisor has pointed out that Harvard requires different in-text citation styles based on whether it is in Narrative style or Parenthetical.

e.g.
It has been emphasised that good referencing is an important academic skill (Harris, 2015).
OR
Harris (2015) emphasised that good referencing is an important academic skill.

Is there any way to edit the citation style to reflect this? I've been playing around with the CSL editor with no success. I'm using Mendeley Cite-O-Matic in Word.

Don't have a good answer for Word but in case you would consider using LaTeX, it's pretty easy to do:
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[natbibapa]{apacite}
\usepackage{parskip}

\begin{document}

It has been emphasised that good referencing is an important academic skill \citep{doody}.\\

\citet{doody} emphasized that good referencing is an important academic skill.

\bibliographystyle{apacite}
\bibliography{biblatex-examples}
\end{document}

Output:

See this thread for more information.

I don't think Mendeley allows different styles like this. You just have to manually edit it in the text. Mendeley allows you to do this freely, unlike some others. For example, to make your second example, move the opening bracket and delete the comma.


text:
Lack of a second collaboration just after a successful first publication
I am a postdoc with some experience. I collaborated with a well known scientist (S), which resulted (after around 3 years) in a paper in the Nature Publishing Group, where I was first author and S was the last author.
In this multidisciplinary collaboration (involving two research fields/communities, mine and his one), my line manager stepped back to the second-to-last author, since the methodology used was closed to that of S.
The collaboration was very nice all the time, with an insightful exchange of ideas and opinions. The only "negative" thing in these years of collaboration came at the moment of taking a decision on the corresponding authors. In one community a less experienced researcher would usually be corresponding author, while in the other community, the last author would usually be the corresponding one. At the end we decided to put both names as corresponding authors, and after a while, everything was smooth again (at least that was my impression).
Just after the publication, and very happy about the published paper, I asked S if he wanted to collaborate again on a second paper, where already some results were achieved (sending him a summary of the results, basically plots with a brief explanation,...), but no reply came from them. Just silence.
Obviously, I do not understand this silence. A gentle reply could always be sent with an excuse like "sorry, I am very busy in this period" or something like that.
Any clue about this "ghosting behaviour"? Is it common?

This is too little information  for anyone here to have a clue. I think the tiff over corresponding author is irrelevant.

Many thanks @EthanBolker for your reply... Already knowing if a sort of tiff about the corresponding author could irremediably damage an academic relationship is already something to me, since such a kind of unexpected behaviour never happened to me before... Btw, I can say that S was always very nice, professional and available, replying quickly to the emails most of the times (I would say 95% of the times within a hour or two)... a very few times did not reply to some emails.. but I think it can happen to everyone to forget, or something.... [IT CONTINUES IN THE NEXT COMMENT]

[IT CONTINUES FROM THE PREVIOUS COMMENT] ...therefore, I was wondering if a complete interruption of communication, without an apparent reason (unless a real disinterest on the results shown for a potential second collaboration) is normal/common in Academia, since I have never experienced it before... to me and my collaborators, this behaviour is a big question mark... Again thanks for your comment @Ethan !

Do you assume that you are being "ghosted" on the basis of a single email remaining unanswered? Can they not just have forgotten to answer?

thanks a lot @xLeitix ...you are right, people can forget (even though, personally, I would not forget about a new/further collaboration...but it is just me) ....btw, you know, a small issue like that one of the corresponding author could be (in some cases and for some people) already an aspect to decide to interrupt a collaboration... well, maybe it is just overthinking, but it might be plausible.. and I was just wondering if this could be common in Academia, just a simple doubt/question... Again many thanks for your comment!

@user153141 I mean, sure, there could be any number of reasons why somebody stops a collaboration, but I would assume that common courtesy after 3 years of working would be to tell the other person.

@user153141 And about the "forgetting" thing - I think you underestimate how busy many people are. I have certainly forgotten about emails in the past, and I am probably one of the more organised people in my department ...

@xLeitix, totally aligned to your comments, I agree with you! Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

Only your collaborator can really tell you what the reason for ghosting you is, I'm afraid. There are many possibilities. Here are few:

A common problem with academics when they receive non-trivially-answerable mail is that it takes more time to answer than they currently have available. The mail then gets onto a "TODO" pile, which doesn't exactly get smaller over time. After a while, it gets awkward to reply to a mail and/or the mail is forgotten. This is especially possible if after an intense crunching period for getting a paper submitted, the other obligations of the researcher want some attention.
Perhaps there is currently no interest in spending time doing more work. For instance, funded project may need to be worked on with more priority (as there are reports to be written), and some researchers have a habit of not talking about the business aspects of science, which may cause them not to tell you this.
Perhaps your mail was just forgotten and got hidden under a pile of other mails when the researcher had too many other things to do for ~2 days or so. Again, after a while such mails are awkward to answer.
Perhaps there is really no interest in continuing this line of research for whatever reason.

One way of finding out is to call in by phone if you think that it's urgent. But perhaps you want to send a reminder mail first. If your past collaboration was fruitful and your mail suggesting doing future work contained preliminary results, reason no. 1 of this list sounds like a very possible one.

thanks a lot! A very nice reply and analysis! :)

Recall that sending an email does not mean it is received.  In addition to junk mail filtering, there are things behind the scenes that block email.  These can change over time.

Thanks @TerryLoring for your comment (I did not think about it) :-)


text:
What reference type to use in EndNote to cite GitHub resources and how to cite
What reference type should I use in EndNote to cite a GitHub resource? And how do I cite the resource in the fields used in EndNote for the specific reference type?

I hope this helps: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/14010/how-do-you-cite-a-github-repository

Yes, I have already read this question, but I need information on how to cite a GitHub repository on EndNote. I can't seem to find anything regarding this.

Is it possible to enter the details manually?

Yes, the information can be entered manually but I still need a Reference type in EndNote to insert the information in the specific fields.

Just use 'website' or 'electronic article'. Or create your own ref type: https://support.clarivate.com/Endnote/s/article/EndNote-Adding-and-Changing-Reference-Types?language=en_US


text:
Unclear comments from research proposal review
My research proposal received many comments such as "is not convincingly sound", "is not convincingly demonstrated", "is not convincingly developed". I was not able to draw the hints to improve the proposal using those comments. Does that mean the reviewers are so lazy to review it in details to make a clear comment or are they imply something else?

In some places, reviewers are actually prevented from giving useful feedback, because anything concrete they complain about could be used as an argument to try and contest the result in court. Yes, this is sad.

My research proposal received many comments such as  "is not convincingly demonstrated"

As a potential PI, it is your task to communicate the benefits of your proposed research clearly, and to convince the funding body (represented by reviewers) that your research program has a good chance to succeed and have a positive and strong impact. Reviewers can not engage in a lengthy dialog with applicants; hence, if application makes claims of novelty, importance and affordability of the proposed research, that are not properly explained and justified in the application, the reviewers can not say much except what "I dunno if this is true or not", or, in a more professional form "so-and-so is not convincingly demonstrated".

I was not able to draw the hints to improve the proposal using those comments.

I am sure this is not because you were lazy, correct? Implying something like that is never helpful or constructive.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to help without seeing your proposal and the exact reviewers' comments. Please consider asking a more experienced colleague in your vicinity to act as a mentor. An extra pair of eyes may really help you make sense of the reviewers' comments and find ways of clarifying statements in your proposal.

Well, I did not get what you mean. I did not imply anything. I only asks if there is something in the context of reviewer that they say so but mean so so. From the reviewer comments, the only thing can be concluded is that those part of the proposal does not convinve them. The only way is to rewrite it without knowing what is not exactly clear. To put in more context, the proposal is reviewed by other two senior colleagues in the field.

Were your senior colleagues lazy, then? See my point -- suggesting someone was lazy does not help to solve the problem. Try showing your proposal to someone not exactly from your area of research and ask them to explain it back to you. See how much of your reasoning they can follow and where they lose track.

@kstn Sometimes grant reviewers will offer helpful advice, but this is not really their responsibility. If you're looking for mentorship, I echo Dmitry's recommendation that you explicitly seek it out. Good luck.

This is more a long comment than an answer, but...
When I started my (current) tenure-track position (and I am now tenured), I did what many people in my position did, which was to write a grant proposal to the National Science Foundation.  It was soundly rejected with fairly unhelpful comments.
In part because I managed to get the same proposal funded (for much less money) by another source, I did not apply for an NSF grant the following year, so the NSF did what they frequently do to help unsuccessful applicants understand the process (and because they need panel members): they invited me to serve on a panel to evaluate grant proposals.  (This was many years ago; confidentiality of panel service is no longer much of an issue.)
Reading several (around 10, in a month) grants closely and participating in the discussion of many (around 40, over 3 days) more grants helped me tremendously in understanding how certain proposals were much more convincing than other proposals.
In my case, I learned that, given my publication record and the quality of the ideas I could come up with, the best proposals simply blew any proposal I could write completely out of the water.  Since funding rates are around 20%, I have never found it worthwhile to submit a proposal to the NSF ever again.  Indeed, there were no helpful comments I could have gotten on my first proposal, because the only reasonable comment was that, given the competition, it wasn't close to being competitive.

@Woo I found your comment very helpful. Is that what you mean that publication record plays an important role in the reviewer perspective?

Of course - the grantors are much more likely to believe you will actually be able to do the research you've proposed if you've successfully done similar research before.

if you've successfully done similar research before --- but of course, don't forget that your proposed research must be novel and not incremental ))


text:
How to find balance between overconfidence and lacking confidence?
Main Question:
I am an undergraduate student who just attended my first conference and gave a podium talk on my research from last summer. I tried talking with a researcher who is well-known in the field about his views and he was rather dismissive.  I am not sure how I should have handled the situation at the time or in reflection.
On one hand, his view is likely shared by only a small minority of people in the field, the view that no machine learning should be used in healthcare unless it is explainable (as opposed to "black box" deep learning models). He proposes we should use methods such as symbolic logic AI instead (what he did most of his career).
On the other hand, I am just an undergraduate in the field and he is a very established researcher.  I would expect him to be more correct than me.

How should I view the interaction?  Should I assume I am probably wrong? Should I assume that he is wrong?  Another option...?

In the future, should I press the debate more rather than only asking a few questions and thanking him for the info?  Would this be impolite at a conference?  Would it be an unwise career move?

Supplementary Info/Thoughts:
I find this balance of overconfidence vs underconfidence confusing in general for academics.  Ranking myself compared to my peers is rather easy (I view myself near the top, but not an outlier). But comparing myself to people older than me is more difficult, particularly in situations where "wrongness" cannot be definitively proven.
Should I raise my disagreement when this occurs?  How long should I debate the issue if we don't agree?  If we don't agree in the end should I assume I'm wrong? It seems like senior researchers are likely to be correct. I am just not sure what to do/think when I disagree with established, senior researchers in fields such as health informatics.
If anyone would be interested in discussing symbolic AI vs ML in healthcare I would be glad to do it (in the chat).  I currently feel unresolved since I could not do it during the conference and would like to know what points I am failing to see.

How was he rather dismissive?

@xedg It's worth keeping in mind that this really is a limitation of current machine learning methods. It seems weird to single out healthcare applications though. Maybe you could have gotten an interesting reaction by asking if we should also refrain from using drugs if we don't know the mechanisms through which they work...

@Anyon Perhaps the use of machine learning in healthcare can be governed by existing legal frameworks, such as those used for drugs

@Anyon  I agree, and I tried to ask at what point could the empirical accuracy of a system outweigh the lack of explainability, but he said it should always be explainable and they are called "clincial decision support systems".  I did ask a question similar to yours as well.

@user2768 He said a few things that made me think he was being a little dismissive such as saying "I already mentioned it" even though I was asking for additional explanation, not a repetition.  He responded at one point by saying that systems shouldn't diagnose because "they are called clinical decision support systems not diagnosis systems".

In my experience this is not a minority opinion, and part of his dismissive stance may have stemmed from him having had this exact same discussion dozens of times before (due to current hype around deep learning).

@xLeitix I am aware that explainable machine learning is a research goal for many people.  However, the more extreme view that blackbox methods shouldn't be used for any task in healthcare at all seems uncommon to me.  Granted, I have not had that much exposure to the literature, so I may be mistaken.

1) How should I view the interaction? Should I assume I am probably wrong? Should I assume that he is wrong? Another option...?

Researchers should have differing opinions on topics such as whether non-explainable machine learning techniques should be used in healthcare.

2) In the future, should I press the debate more rather than only asking a few questions and thanking him for the info? Would this be impolite at a conference? Would it be an unwise career move?

Such opinions should be debated, that's how research advances, and such debate should be encouraged, at conferences and elsewhere. Some researchers will be less willing to accept your opinion than others, only you can decide whether you want to engage with such researchers.

Should I raise my disagreement when this occurs?

If you want to.

How long should I debate the issue if we don't agree?

As long as the conversation lasts.

If we don't agree in the end should I assume I'm wrong?

No. There doesn't seem to be any right and wrong here, just opinions.

Could it be considered an opinion though if we share the same defined goal?  In other words, we can disagree what the best metrics of performance are, but one method will probably perform better than the other by the given metrics.

I also was at first under the impression that the point of conferences was to improve research through discussion.  However when I look at what the more senior researchers are doing, it seems more common for them to maybe ask a single question that hints at their disagreement and then leave it at that.  My adviser was saying he thought several studies were not very good, but I did not see him talk to the presenters at all.

@xedg I think you've already touched upon what I meant by opinion, e.g., with your formal sciences remark. the point of conferences was to improve research through discussion, conferences have many points, it depends a little on the field. ask[ing] a single question that hints at their disagreement and then leave it at that is perhaps a tactic to confirm their suspicion.

xedg, there seems to be two issues here which seems to complicate your mixed feelings. One issue is around status, which you alluded to, with your first author publications and strong academic record. The second issue is around where is the best environment to debate and clarify the pros and cons around the role of machine learning.
The first issue around status is quite unfair as you positioned the professor as being disrespectful or "dismissive". First conference presentations are usually always given great courtesy especially in question time. So what you interpreted as dismissive, may possibly be respectful distance. You are also not in a PhD program or have not finished your PhD, so experts will always back off and not put you in difficult spots out of respect of your position despite your accomplished publication record - common conference etiquette blog Remember having a bad experience at a conference will look bad for the conference and may also discourage people who may want to do a PhD. Attacking junior researchers will also diminish the professor in the eyes of other senior experts. Making junior presenters cry has been a subject of discussion among experts and does not look good at all. So all these factors may explain why debating an undergrad is poor form at a conference question time post-presentation. The other possible issue is around familiarity. As you attend more conferences and become a familiar face, people will be far more comfortable debating and clarifying complex issues with you compared to your first conference.
The second issue is what is the most appropriate format for this debate. If you want to flesh out "the role of machine learning in healthcare" at a conference, the short question time post-presentation is definitely not an appropriate timeslot for such a complex discussion. Symposiums or panel discussions are far more a satisfying format with the appropriate adjudication and moderation for this to occur. A senior mathematician would have a very different perspective than a clinician for example, but in a panel format, all the views would be respected rather than just your narrow focus on what is "right or correct" as implied in your question.
A review article examining the pros and cons of symbolic logic AI as the dominant approach in healthcare then be more appropriate in an extended article, rather than at a conference? To expect an expert to synthesize his academic focus and all the publications in a field is unproductive and not representative in a short question timeslot post-presentation.
I liked this Indian Hills presentation on how not to be argumentative might be helpful. Although you might not be overly argumentative, it always pays to move away from the "correct vs wrong" mentality in the academic realm. Most things are "more right" and "more wrong" depending on the scenario and circumstance.

Sorry I may have been unclear.  In the instance I talk about, I approached the senior researcher for clarification after the official question time had ended and people were conversing.  How much discussion is appropriate at this point in the conference?

There is another issue here that hasn't yet been raised. It is an ethical issue. I don't think it is, in the present day, a small minority of people who believe, on ethical grounds, that it is improper to apply medical procedures to people if they can't be explained. It is actually experimentation that has fairly strict protocols around it. Even before you can begin an experiment on humans you need some "reason" that the procedure might be effective and strong reasons that it won't be harmful.
So, the population that holds this view might not be those doing "black box" machine learning, but it is pretty strong among medical people and ethicists. FWIW, I'm closer to your field than his.
I think that was the message being conveyed. And even I would convey it, though I'm certainly not an expert in clinical methods.
Oddly, however, lots of things that are done in medicine have a historical basis that leads to standard practice that has never been explained to the standards of this time. Yes, ten thousand years ago, people tried things (herbs, say) and if they seemed to work, they were used again, even if, in reality they had no real effect. But we aren't in those times anymore. Scientific medicine requires a cause-effect reasoning path. Shall we try some ground up rhinoceros horn as a cure for that? Ivermectin?
There are many known flaws in black-box ML. The results are no better than the data, and might be worse. The data can be bad because of poor sampling (inadequate, biased, ...) techniques.
I don't see your interaction of one of expert vs novice so much as pointing out to you the ethical considerations required in medicine. That isn't a reason to stop what you are doing, but it is a reason to situate it properly in the world of medical ethics.
A similar experience in a field without such strong ethical considerations might be completely different. The more experienced person may not always be correct in any case, but a novice should listen carefully and try to take the right lesson from it.


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Software to draw illustrative figures in papers
I would like to have suggestions of good software for drawing illustrations in research papers. I already know about Xfig, but this works only on Linux and is at times, clunky when it comes to text. Moreover the resolution is not always perfect making it difficult to manoeuvre the objects. Besides it is tough to learn and master, with all its weird click procedures.
I would love to know about better alternatives. Not talking about graphs here, just block diagrams and explanatory illustrations.

There are similar questions at math.SE: e.g. this one and the linked question.

And at physics.SE - http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/401/what-software-programs-are-used-to-draw-physics-diagrams-and-what-are-their-rel.

See also this answer with more recent recommendations including gnuplot, matplotlib, and R/ggplot2: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/131445/recommended-tools-for-graphs-and-charts

As drawing software, I use OmniGraffle which is much more modern that Xfig, but based on similar principles. It's only available for the Mac and is not free, as far as I know. With little effort, one can produce very attractive diagrams.
I also use Tikz/PGF. It produces very nice diagrams and is very flexible. On the other hand, it requires that you specify the diagram in LaTeX and it has a bit of a steep learning curve.

I've given some arguments for the use of Tikz at the stats site as well, see here. Mainly Tikz is pretty simple for directed graphs, and that it is much easier to maintain a template between multiple diagrams in Tikz than it is with a WYSIWYG editor.

A free, fairly portable, and very complete tool for general illustration is Inkscape. It uses SVG as its native file format, and aside from attempting to be a decent drawing tool in its own right, one of its design goals was to provide complete coverage of the features available in SVG.
For block diagrams, flow charts, and other simple sketches of process and data flow there is Dia. It's primary design goal is to duplicate the features of Visio in free software. Like Visio, it uses a stencils and connections drawing model that works really well for diagramming relationships and flow, but gets tedious when attempting to do art.
For clean layout of directed or undirected graph diagrams, it is difficult to beat the Graphviz tools. They are primarily designed to be used from a textual description (a concise intro here (PDF)) of the graph, but there are various GUI tools that can edit their .dot files.

I know that TikZ was mentioned already, but I think it deserve its own answer. It is different from Omnigraffle just like TeX is different from Word. But, if you're up for the effort, you'll enjoy the freedom of producing extremely high quality figures!
True, using TikZ for "heavy" diagrams can lead to lengthy compilations, but this can be solved using the externalize library of TikZ, or the Standalone class. See also this possible approach using make.
Although TikZ is not at all WYSIWYG, there are several editors, that enable the use to draw "by hand" the diagram and export it to a Tikz snippet. Personally, I don't have experience with this kind of combination.
Another advantage of TikZ, that as it is somewhat a programing language (after all TeX is turing-complete) you can program your diagram and use external data sources and visualize them. To that end, you can use a combination of TeX, lua or other languages of your choice.
Finally, and most important; TikZ provides an amazing live community which can help you with everything related to it. A perfect starting point would be the TeX.se.
PS: You can also have a look at pstricks. It implements a similar spirit like TikZ but... Well, I'm not using it so I cannot say much. I can say, that I saw amazing outputs of pstricks.

GeoGebra is free and multi-platform dynamic mathematics software for all levels of education that joins geometry, algebra, tables, graphing, statistics and calculus in one easy-to-use package. Constructions can be made with points, vectors, segments, lines, polygons, conic sections, inequalities, implicit polynomials and functions. All of them can be changed dynamically afterwards. Elements can be entered and modified directly on screen, or through the Input Bar. GeoGebra has the ability to use variables for numbers, vectors and points, find derivatives and integrals of functions and has a full complement of commands like Root or Extremum. Teachers and students can use GeoGebra to make conjectures and prove geometric theorems.
To add something that I personally liked a lot, it has the ability to generate TikZ code for any drawing made using the software! Also, the community recently completed a kick-starter campaign, in which they raised enough funds for an IPad version of the software, to be also available for free!
[EDIT] - The tablet app is available now, both in App Store and Google Play!

Mathematica is actually good for making all sorts of graphics.
Think of it as vector graphics software, but that every control point/coordinate can be specified to the decimal.
Edit:
The syntax is really clear, it is easy to procedurally construct graphics,
and it has lines, arrows, bezier curves, and of course a bunch of nice builtin plot functions that one can add extra decorations to.
Furthermore, it IS a programming language, so if you have multiple images, it is easy to share common components, so that a singe change affects all images (provided you use a good programming technique).
It is also easy to get help with mathematica over at mathematica.stackexchange.
The included image was entirely produced via a few lines of mathematica code, for example:

I use Ipe almost exclusively. It's not well polished, and some things are non-intuitive, but it does those things I need well (simple sketches of math. structures with LaTeX formatted text). Also, LaTeX wiki book has some useful suggestions for alternatives.

The vector graphics language Asymptote is a very nice tool for both 2D and 3D images. From its website:

Asymptote is a powerful descriptive vector graphics language that
  provides a natural coordinate-based framework for technical drawing.
  Labels and equations are typeset with LaTeX, for high-quality
  PostScript output.

Checkout a gallery for samples. Just like TeX, you can "program" your image and obtain exactly what you want.

If you really care about typography, it is best to produce the figures and the text with the same layout engine. This is the only way in which you can be sure that fonts, stroke size and spacing match those of your text.
TikZ, already suggested in Dave Clarke's answer, solves this problem excellently for TeX. Although, like TeX, it can be difficult for a newcomer. Adobe InDesign is a WYSIWYG solution. MS Publisher is another one, although less powerful. Word has limited capabilities in this respect.
Most often, this requires access to the final article style of the journal, and is work for a typographer rather than a scientist. So it would be better left to the journal staff. However, it is an unfortunate truth that most journals try to reduce costs at the expense of quality when it comes to typography. Some of them offer "professional figure editing" as an extra paid service for authors. Some of them just take what is provided and do not care about fonts and stroke sizes.

TikZ/PGF is great when you get it to work. However, designing your stuff in this language can really be frustrating at times. If you want something a little bit easier to learn, but you still want to program your illustrations rather than drawing them yourself, check out Processing. There are a lot of excellent tutorials on this language, some of them specifically aimed towards people with no prior programming experience (for example this one).
If you want to check out what some examples of what Processing is capable of (and how you can do it yourself), take a look at this page. As an added bonus, if you learn processing, you can later use it for creating animations, interactive applications, games, and similar things, some of which might be useful in a scientific context.
Some random examples of what Processing can do:

Also, check out this video for an example of an animation with Processing, and this video for a tutorial on how to use Processing for data visualization.

All ways that allow you to produce the graphic you want is what you should use. I have used many different software over the years. I have gradually abandoned ones when I found better alternatives.
I usually make "raw" data plots using Matlab and then use Adobe Illustrator to put the finishing touches to them (Inkscape or Corel draw would work equally well). The benefit of doing things  this way is, for me, that I can add material from different sources or plots in layers and change them as I see fit. I am sure this can be accomplished in other ways but I have found my way to the final product. I also happen to like messing with graphics so that helps me to explore new ways.
I also use LaTeX and TikZ (which has been mentioned in replies) and so as I see it there is obviously no single way to generate the graphics but you need to chose the best ones. In my case: Illustrator (alt. Inkscape, Corela Draw), matlab, TikZ, and Photoshop (alt. Gimp) for photographic manipulation.

In general, if you intend to draw either mind maps or flow diagrams, you may use the conceptdraw tool. It serves both Mac and MS Windows users.

I really like using yEd for flow charts. You can easily arrange lot's of components, which is quite a pain if the tool does not provide functionality to do that (Inkscape does for example, but yEd does this even better). Also, the connections between components remain fixed, so rearranging a graph does not require you to redraw the connections. The tool is available for Linux, Mac and Windows.

To add to the mix, there are online diagramming tools available as well, namely Gliffy and LucidChart. Both have free subscriptions that allow limited use which is usually sufficient for simple diagrams. With these tools, you draw the diagram in your browser and can download it as PNG, PDF or JPEG. LucidChart allows a free upgrade if you register using a *.edu.* email address.
Another good offline tool is Microsoft Visio which works on Windows only. It is great for drawing flow charts and other simple diagrams. There are many Visio clones but none of them live up to the original. In fact, I stumbled upon the above online tools looking for Visio alternatives for Linux.

I used to use pstricks extensively, and now use TikZ/PGF. Both are excellent LaTeX packages and neither has any major advantage over the other, as far as I can tell. pstricks seems to be better at colour gradients, though possibly less accurate at colours for (.ps to) PDF output, whereas TikZ can be easier to use. Both are programming languages that allow you to use fairly sophisticated code to generate graphics, and TikZ in particular allows very helpful implicit calculations, such as "find the intersections between this curve and that curve".
Combined with other programs, these two packages can be really powerful. For more advanced pictures involving organic shapes and curves, I first draw a rough picture by hand, tidy it up with Inkscape, which is excellent vector-based graphics freeware. I then either export it to TikZ code and tidy that code up, or include the Inkscape picture as background image and manually trace over the outlined curves with TikZ. Either method involves some effort but the results are beautiful.
A second combination of methods is used when I want to show the output of computational research. After the computational work is completed, for instance by Python or C code, some further code can quickly create and compile LaTeX+TikZ code showing the output. This is particularly useful when updating a database or an Excel spreadsheet, and just running a Python script to update the associated TikZ-generated graphs and tables. It is even more useful for automatically generating high numbers of pictures, such as a large collection of heat maps to illustrate different data.

There are a lot of different options, as people have mentioned. For flowchart / block diagrams, I often use diagrams.net or sometimes Visio.
For further vector-image touchup I often turn to Affinity Designer, which has a commercial level of polish but is much less expensive than Adobe Illustrator.

A rather new option for creating illustrations for geometric objects is Penrose. It is able to generate nice figures for different objects described in a mathematical notation. See the paper for examples and more explanation.

Maybe I missed it but for any workflow diagram (and not only, I do all kind of diagrams with it), I'd also mention draw.io (which is open source and can be installed from Flathub), and its online version app.diagrams.net.


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Book recommendations for information visualization?
When writing papers, one specific problem is how to effectively organize the data we want to present so as to enable the audience and readers to quickly understand what we want to demonstrate.
I've browsed a very good book before which shows you how to draw figures and tables in academic papers in the "right approach" but seems I cannot remember its name.
If anyone has read any good book on this topic, please recommend their names.

Stats.SE is the place for questions on data visualisation, and this question would be better placed over there. But note that many sites, including this one, discourage "big list" questions like this, as they're no single good objective answer. If you do ask such a question, please mark it "community wiki".

The preeminent author on this topic is Edward Tufte, who wrote "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information". He has a few other books also available on his site (see previous link) that are worth checking out.

Yes this is a book I would recommend to everyone to read. Although don't worry about going to his One Day Course. Tufte doesn't talk about tables though. We have compiled some references for table presentation at the Stats site, see my blog post, Some notes on making effective tables and for more book recommendations see What is a good resource on table design?.

Two really well presented and interesting books are in the well known O'Reilly collections:

Beautiful Visualization Looking at Data through the Eyes of Experts

Visualization is the graphic presentation of data -- portrayals meant to reveal complex information at a glance. Think of the familiar map of the New York City subway system, or a diagram of the human brain. Successful visualizations are beautiful not only for their aesthetic design, but also for elegant layers of detail that efficiently generate insight and new understanding.
This book examines the methods of two dozen visualization experts who approach their projects from a variety of perspectives -- as artists, designers, commentators, scientists, analysts, statisticians, and more. Together they demonstrate how visualization can help us make sense of the world.
Explore the importance of storytelling with a simple visualization exercise
  Learn how color conveys information that our brains recognize before we're fully aware of it
  Discover how the books we buy and the people we associate with reveal clues to our deeper selves
  Recognize a method to the madness of air travel with a visualization of civilian air traffic
  Find out how researchers investigate unknown phenomena, from initial sketches to published papers

Beautiful Data The Stories Behind Elegant Data Solutions

In this insightful book, you'll learn from the best data practitioners in the field just how wide-ranging -- and beautiful -- working with data can be. Join 39 contributors as they explain how they developed simple and elegant solutions on projects ranging from the Mars lander to a Radiohead video.
With Beautiful Data, you will:
Explore the opportunities and challenges involved in working with the vast number of datasets made available by the Web
  Learn how to visualize trends in urban crime, using maps and data mashups
  Discover the challenges of designing a data processing system that works within the constraints of space travel
  Learn how crowdsourcing and transparency have combined to advance the state of drug research
  Understand how new data can automatically trigger alerts when it matches or overlaps pre-existing data
  Learn about the massive infrastructure required to create, capture, and process DNA data
  That's only small sample of what you'll find in Beautiful Data. For anyone who handles data, this is a truly fascinating book.

A book I would recommend is Kosslyn's Graph Design for the Eye and Mind. What I particularly like about this book is that all recommendations are based on scientific findings and are discussed as such:

Graphs have become a fixture of everyday life, used in scientific and business publications, in magazines and newspapers, on television, on billboards, and even on cereal boxes. Nonetheless, surprisingly few graphs communicate effectively, and most graphs fail because they do not take into account the goals, needs, and abilities of the viewers. In Graph Design for Eye and Mind, Stephen Kosslyn addresses these problems by presenting eight psychological principles for constructing effective graphs. Each principle is solidly rooted both in the scientific literature on how we perceive and comprehend graphs and in general facts about how our eyes and brains process visual information. Kosslyn then uses these eight psychological principles as the basis for hundreds of specific recommendations that serve as a concrete, step-by-step guide to deciding whether a graph is an appropriate display to use, choosing the correct type of graph for a specific type of data and message, and then constructing graphs that will be understood at a glance. Kosslyn also includes a complete review of the scientific literature on graph perception and comprehension, and appendices that provide a quick tutorial on basic statistics and a checklist for evaluating computer-graphics programs. Graph Design for Eye and Mind is an invaluable reference for anyone who uses visual displays to convey information in the sciences, humanities, and businesses such as finance, marketing, and advertising.

I'd recommend David Mcandless's "The Visual Miscellaneum". The author does information visualization for The Guardian. This book is probably best for "wow, that was a great way of getting this information across visually!" It's a lot less academic than say, Tufte's work but a great tool nonetheless.
Nathan Yau's "Visualize This" is a fantastic book that ranges from the "why" to the "how to implement."