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Etiquette when unable to attend a conference
I'm supposed to give a presentation at an academic conference in the coming days but have fallen ill. What is the best way to send my regrets? Should I also send a doctor's note? It doesn't provide details of my condition but does have other personal information such as date of birth and home address. I just wonder if any of this is the conference organiser's business. At the same time, sending an email without proof that I am truly incapacitated doesn't seem like it's enough either. I'm still not sure what to do about the presentation I'd prepared - whether or not to send it anyway etc. I'm trying to focus on getting better, but I am worried that this medical issue will ruin my good name. Any advice would be appreciated.

A completely different bur related issue is whether you can get refunds for the plane tickets you bought but didn't use. The obvious answer should be "yes, you should be entitled to", but sometimes there are people in administration whose job seems to be making everyone else's life difficult...

People normally present at conferences because they want to, not because somebody is making them do it. As far as the organizers are concerned, you have no incentive to lie about why you can't make it. That's why there would be no need for a doctor's note.

Just tell the convener that you will be unable to present due to unforeseen circumstances.  That is enough and will be understood — there can be many reasons and it won't be a first time.  He/she will be glad that you inform him/her at all — it happens all to often that people simply don't turn up without giving any information at all.  The convener shouldn't need a doctor's note.
That being said, is any co-author travelling to the conference, or perhaps a colleague familiar with your work?  If yes, you could ask one of them if they are willing to take over your presentation.  I've done this for colleagues and although I wasn't able to answer detailed questions from the audience, it's still beneficial both for me (visibility to experts in the field) and to the first author.

In addition to that, I think you should ask the organizers if you can send a video presentation, and/or attend via Skype. Showing them that you are keen to present your work to the attendees will be appreciated. You don't want them to think that you were just after getting your paper published and that's it.

@MohamedKhamis Interesting suggestion.  I've never seen that (I'm in the geosciences).

Too late now but don't say "unforseen circumstances"! Just say that you're ill. "Unforseen circumstances" is generic and sounds evasive -- it gives the impression that just couldn't be bothered attending, and couldn't even be bothered coming up with an excuse. It's not like "I'm ill" is some kind of private information that you can't share.

@DavidRicherby But there may be many other compelling reasons one doesn't want the world to know.  Loved one suddenly passing away.  Private urgent problems related to ones children.  And probably many reasons I can't even think of.

@gerrit Both of those come under "family emergency"; the second could also be "something's come up with my children and I really need to be here". I just don't see any reason for giving no explanation at all.

I agree. Unforeseen circumstances should be enough and will be understood. However, if you are feeling comfortable saying more (e.g. I am ill, family emergency, ...) do so. If you don't want to say more just stick with unforeseen circumstances. @MohamedKhamis The few video / Skype presentations I have seen were horrible and most of them took quite a lot of time and effort to get set up. However, that might be different in CS.


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Should I publish findings not from my field?
I have some findings (new but nothing ground-breaking) from my master thesis in the field of A which I could publish if I spent more time on the topic. However, my PhD and future specialization is going to be in B. So spending time in A and particularly trying to publish in the field may be a distraction from the B. When applying for postdocs and tenured positions, is any researcher/application assessor going to appreciate my publications from a different field?
I know one mathematician from Princeton. He comes to workshops and always solves some problem. He would never publish it (even if nobody else did) because it is a distraction from what he is doing. Then other participants write his ideas and publish it with his name as coauthors. On the other hand, my personal tutor told me that any publications are good as they demonstrate the researcher's independence and capability. Hence it seems, that unless a person is a top researcher in the field, publishing in other fields is not a distraction, but a plus.

How far apart are A and B? Are you referring to subdiciplines or chemistry vs physics? The Q is hard to answer without that knowledge. In general, I think published papers are counted as a plus either way.

@fileunderwater A is inductive logic programming (theoretical computer science), B is computability theory (mathematical logic). I have never seen a paper using the knowledge from those two disciplines before.

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Is being a good teacher a bad thing at a research intensive university?
In Do student reviews of teachers matter?, there are a couple of comments which suggest that being labeled a "good teacher" is a bad thing at a research intensive university. I have heard this in the past, but have always thought it was based on the fact that you wanted to be known for your research as opposed to your teaching. In other words that you want to be known as a "good researcher" as opposed to a good teacher. The way the comments are used in that question it sounds like you should in fact strive to be known as a "bad teacher".
Is it bad to be known as a good teacher? Is it good to be known as a bad teacher?

You might read that comment more in terms of the speaker finding it hard to come up with a complement. In other words, if a social situation arises when praise for the faculty member is in order and the best the speaker can come up with is "a good teacher" when the local focus is on research it might be taken to imply that their research was not praiseworthy.

@dmckee that is how interpreted it until I read the comments and answers on the question I linked to.

No.
I work at a university that focuses almost exclusively on research (we have only graduate students, most of whom are Ph.D. students, and the number of postdocs, research staff, etc. is approximately equal to the number of students).  A few faculty members are well known as excellent teachers, and a few are commonly known to be poor teachers.  In general, I don't think the distinction has very much influence on the respect accorded to each within the university (and even less in the larger academic community).  But I think the good teachers are better liked, both by their peers and the administration.  I certainly appreciate it when I find that students are well prepared thanks to having taken a course with a "good" teacher.  And bad teachers are occasionally so bad that they cause administrative problems, which makes everyone unhappy.
Part of each faculty member's annual review is an evaluation of his/her teaching (by the dean).  A positive review is definitely a good thing.

I made that comment so here's my answer:
Yes and no.
There are many great senior researchers at my r1 university that are renowned teachers as well. That is, they can easily hold four hundred undergraduates enthralled for hours on end. They are no doubt Great Teachers in the truest sense.
But there are also a great many junior faculty who did not get tenure at my university (our tenure rate was less than 1:4 for past several decades, although it has gone up recently).
The common reason given for their negative tenure decisions is that they spent too much time on students and not enough time on their research. That is where the faint praise, "at least they are good teachers," comes in.
Tl;dr: for senior faculty, good teacher is high praise as it presumes excellent research scholarship. For junior faculty, it is dangerous faint praise as it assumes misplaced energies.

Note: You should post a separate question about the "Curse of the Teaching Award"

Your mileage may vary.  I have never heard "spending too much time with students" used as a reason to deny someone tenure.  The only argument I've ever heard is much more direct: "Their research hasn't had enough impact."

I think "spending too much time with students" should not be taken seriously independently of "and not enough time on their research".  For one thing, one can tell whether someone has not spent enough time on their research (or not enough time for it to have the desired impact).  How does a tenure committee even know how much time a candidate has spent on the students?  (Just because evaluations are good and students say "He was always there for us" does not imply more hours spent.)

I think that some departments convey the lack of research impact this way, partially as a euphemism ("damning with faint praise") and partly as a kind of paternalistic I-told-you-so, to try to create the retrospective illusion that the candidate could have gotten tenure if only he had listened to the advice he was given.  Two comments: (i) I find this obnoxious.  (ii) I have not experienced it myself, although I have seen that when it comes to tenure and promotion decisions, grudgingly adequate teaching serves as well as excellent teaching at most research universities.

+1 to Pete for the paternalistic "I-told-you-so" comment. This is certainly the case where I work. We have an entirely lousy record of mentoring.

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Is math a bad discipline for teaching jobs or is it just me?
I saw a post on reddit about how "getting a R2/not R1 job/teaching a 3:3 load" is not so bad as long as you enjoy teaching the courses you teach. I agree with that sentiment, it's intuitive.
There's the thing: I am a math postdoc.  I like teaching, but I can't help but think math is a pretty bad discipline if you are taking the above POV.
Certainly at the PUI where I did my undergrad, 80% or so of math courses are first year "service" courses for other majors.  That means basically teaching undergrads how to walk or ride a bike from a math point of view.  If you have the patience for that, I guess it works --- but I worry this would eventually get very boring otherwise.
I have an engineering undergrad background.  Now that I have a math PhD, I would say some of the engineering courses I took (required, second and third year courses) are almost closer to applied math grad courses --- the kind of classes I would want to teach --- than upper-level undergrad math electives.
And, in terms of job satisfaction, I get the sense that engineering (just to give an example) upper-level courses have the benefit of "you will need this in the future" in a way that the non-major service courses (even upper level math) don't.  Students want to learn (or at least feel they should learn) what you're teaching.
As for upper-level math undergrad courses, I get the sense that these are so often taught as "get up to graduate level or else you are done" courses (particularly at the most competitive places) that it takes away from the fun.  (At least one R1 professor I TA-ed for gave joyless honors courses, where it was clear that 80% of what mattered was being the best student.  Granted, at a R2 or PUI (Primarily Undergraduate Institution), you would have to do something different and it would make perfect sense to bring passion to the subject or try to breathe life into the seemingly dry or difficult subject matter, but I imagine it's hard when you can easily imagine your colleagues at other institutions tsk-tsk-ing your efforts.)  I feel like if I was teaching undergrads at not-Harvard, it would be hard to escape the fatalism of "90% of you should already seriously consider not taking this class too seriously and finding internships in industry."  (Also a problem at most R1 places, but at least you have the sense that teaching undergrads is only one part of your job.)
You can contrast that with (again) engineering where students have a puncher's chance at doing an interesting course project or senior project --- and (in the US) may be interested in staying for a master's (hence potentially more interesting research/project topics) --- whereas in the US serious math students are basically trying to go directly to the PhD and master's theses seem to be quite rare (notably, compared to Europe).
So, am I on to something here?  There was never a question I wanted to do a PhD in math, but it seems like a bad choice if you see yourself heading towards "non-R1" jobs because so much of the teaching is quite low level compared to what you are doing your PhD in, your research projects, etc. --- and it obviously hurts that there isn't a big (industrial) source of interest in the topics that you want to teach.
Anyone else see it this way?  I thought I would possibly consider non-R1 jobs because I really like math and ideas and have fun preparing lectures and problem sets and working with students, but now I wonder if I'm too interested in solving interesting, really challenging problems* and my own personal growth for non-R1 to be a great option.  (It could be I'm giving engineering courses too much credit as well.)
I have certainly seen this "I'm too enamored with my own research to have the patience to mentor/teach you" mentality from R1 professors before so it's not hard to recognize it in myself.
I also contrast this with the humanities, where teachers basically seem to be able to skip prerequisites (often) all together and jump straight into "sexy" courses that meld current events with classic literature, etc.  (Case in point: I knew PhD students in English who were pitching their own "seminar" courses on trendy topics while all I taught as a PhD student was basic calculus.)
*No offense to teachers, I just think good teaching is more about learning how people think and managing people than sitting down and thinking through a challenging problem, or discovering something no one has noticed yet specifically.  But I guess that's part of the question: what do you do to keep yourself interested/challenged in teaching-heavier jobs?

I find this interesting, but it's more of a discussion forum post that seems likely to attract opinions than a question that sits well in the StackExchange format. By the way, I'm at a R2 that's maybe going to get bumped to R1 because of the reclassification next year, and our load is 2:2. This is something like the limit of being able to do research and have a life, but I thought I'd point out that your internal model may be slightly off on the teaching load distribution.

A position at a STEM focused college (e.g. a “school of mines”) might interest you.  The math teaching is still mostly service teaching, but it is in calculus based engineering/applied math courses.

In looking at this post for a couple of minutes, I can't tell what the question is.  Can you minimize your presentation to ask a single semi-objectively answerable question?

The take away I get from your post is, man, you had a bunch of bad teachers.

The whole math curriculum (here the word "whole" is only slightly exaggerated) from kindergarten through math graduate school heavily emphasizes mastering technical skills that are valuable only if one later studies things that most of the students will never study. (E.g. math graduate student take courses on functional analysis without ever finding out that its main uses are in the study of differential and integral equations, and freshman calculus students never find out that values of derivatives are rates of change (really!) and 9th graders never find out what algebra is for, etc. And....

. . . . and very rarely does any mathematician notice that that way of teaching math is obviously the cause of the misunderstandings of mathematics that the broad public has: The public (including professors in other fields) is unaware that mathematics, like physics and biology, is a field in which a torrent of new discoveries is constantly being published, or that mathematics isn't just mechanically executing algorithms. Those misunderstandings will continue until mathematicians wake up.

@MichaelHardy That's a complete mischaracterization. It is of course true that many mathematicians teach unrelated to any applications of the material. It is of course also true that many mathematicians really try to teach their students useful skills that will help them find jobs and be successful.

@MichaelHardy: "freshman calculus students never find out that values of derivatives are rates of change" well, maybe they are assumed to know that already? (Admittedly many years ago) when I was in school this was 11th grade math. But then, (IIRC grades ≈ grades 7 to 9) we also did proofs. I recall them most prominently in geometry. And of course it's bad teaching to assume such knowledge to the extent of never stating it in the course.

What is PUI? I'd really wish that people stop assuming that everyone is familiar with their own unique acronyms.

Have you considered a non-research type school? The college I work for (ITS and adjunct for programming courses) has an agreement with the local university, so we get a constant inflow of people who need the pre-engineering/physics math (up thru calc w/ diff equations IIRC) and are completing it with us as a pre-admission program to the big U.  No publish or perish, you get smaller groups of students (25 or 28 max class size), 4 sections per major term (fall/spring, summer courses are extra pay beyond regular contract) plus the usual state school benefits, etc.

This question seems to be asking two quite different things. The title asks "Is ... bad ... or is it just me?" and halfway down the body of the question, "Anyone else see it this way?". If that is the question then it's an opinion poll and doesn't belong here. The question at the end, "what do you do to keep yourself interested/challenged in teaching-heavier jobs?", is on-topic, so the title and the rest of the question text should be edited to make this the focus.

As the help pages state, "To prevent your question from being flagged and possibly removed, avoid asking subjective questions where […] there is no actual problem to be solved: “I’m curious if other people feel like I do.” [...] your question is just a rant in disguise: “______ sucks, am I right?”"

@cbeleites It sounds as if your experience in school was very similar to mine. But it is not at all like that of the overwhelming majority of students taking first-year calculus.

@Dilworth: PUI = Primarily Undergraduate Institution. It's not the asker's own unique acronym, but a standard designation used by the NSF (= National Science Foundation, the main US government funding agency for science and math). But I agree it helps to expand it.

@NateEldredge. Thanks. But it is unique to those living in the US. Majority of scholars, and people in general are not living in the US and are mostly unfamiliar with the unique American terminology and acronyms.

Consider the case of elementary school teachers. There are many who are truly excellent at it, love their job, and have all of the necessary skills. It's worth pointing out that being able to read and write, and perhaps do elementary school mathematics, is a rather small part of the skills you have to have to be good at elementary school teaching. It is profession (in the sense that the people who are good at it are professionals who are good at what they do), not a bunch of washed out philosophy majors. To think otherwise is disrespectful to those who strive to get better at their job every day.
The same is true for those who chose to teach mathematics. Many of those who chose teaching are truly excellent at it. Their daily challenge is to find ways to convey information better, in view of changing demographics and changing technology. Their challenge is not to stay challenged by the material they teach. To think otherwise is disrespectful of the professionals who on average do a far better job teaching than those tenure-track folks at R1 institutions who, largely, teach in the same way as teaching has been done for 100 years or more and who know (or should know) that there are much better teaching methodologies they do not care to learn (or don't have the time to learn).

In many cases, tenure-track folks at R1 institutions are teaching the way they do because they don't have access to enough resources to teach any other way.  Your options are limited when you have 200 students and only one TA.

should know: Academia has the peculiar situation that people who have received a good and full professional training in some field are then "subjected" to two changes of profession* which are never even announced in this way (and many do not realize this): from the professional on field x to management of researchers and to teacher of field x. To me it is extremely weird that tertiary education institutions do not seem to realize this and do not offer the corresponding professional training ("research management for STEM people", "STEM didactics for university teachers", ...)

one may even go a step further and argue that already professional in x -> to researcher is at least partly such a change in profession as well, and also there the training in the sense of tertiary level education is somewhat limited. (In my field, analytical chemistry, industry profession and academic research may be more similar than in other, even STEM, fields - so I don't see that much of a difference.)

@cbeleites I agree about the management stuff, but nearly every university has a Center for Teaching Excellence (perhaps under a different names) that provides training to faculty about how to teach well. It's just that the incentive structure for faculty is so that most don't make learning how to become a better teacher a priority in their professional development.

@WolfgangBangerth: over here (Germany), many but not all Länder (states) nowadays have a (= one) center for university didactics. Bavaria requires (new) professors to take some courses - and the didactic center states that they try to serve the new profs for now, all others who teach at university are not allowed to take those courses because they don't have the capacity ... A friend in the UK was denied by his university administration to take such a course a few years ago...

Don't make the (frequent) mistake of assuming R2 universities are less rigorous or have lower standards than R1 places. The difference between them is scope, not quality. R2 universities have research in fewer disciplines, even 1 (medicine, say) than R1 places. Even primarily undergraduate colleges and universities can have very high standards for teaching, while having moderate requirements for research.
If you are at an R2 that actually focuses on math as a key area, then you will have high expectations for research. If math is considered only as a support field, then less.
Moreover, most places you have some influence over the decisions on which courses you teach (most of the time). And, even at R1 places you might get a Calculus I course with 800 students and 30-some TAs on occasion. And most "research" universities also have a strong commitment to the undergraduate program. Some (Duke, CMU, ...) have specialized teaching faculty (Professor of the Practice) for this, but not all do. When they do, the "research" faculty is free to focus on upper level and graduate courses.
In some ways math is the ideal field for someone who wants to teach, and isn't too bothered by teaching lower level courses. This is because most majors at most universities contain some math requirements, leading to a relatively high demand for faculty since nearly every student takes some math (US perspective, of course).
How to keep challenged, has the same answer for everyone. You keep engaged with colleagues and find a way to have frequent conversations about theories of common interest. At an R1 (or R2 focused on math) you have immediate colleagues to engage with; as close as the coffee lounge. At a primarily undergraduate institution you need to find those contacts. One way is to find some sub-field of common interest with your local colleagues. Another is, depending on geography, to visit other "local" universities with more faculty and a wider range of interests. For the truly isolated you may need to find travel money for such visits and/or conference attendance. Once you have a circle of contacts/collaborators, however, it becomes easier in the age of the internet, Zoom, etc.
But even at an R1, you need to spend effort to stay engaged. It won't just fall on you.
See Wikipedia: List of research universities in the United States

At R2s, you still have colleagues close by who have common interests: Namely, how to teach well.

Fairly obviously, for the reasons you mention, teaching undergrad math is probably less satisfying than teaching undergrad philosophy, for example. For one thing, philosophy is not usually used as a filter, that is, not as a required course which may be intellectually disconnected from one's eventual major, but a good grade is required in order to get_into one's desired major. Math is used as a filter, so we find probably a majority of people being required to take some calculus... not because they necessarily need it, but, supposedly, that it's an "objective" test of intellectual strength.
A somewhat misguided reason for imagining that "it's objective" is that the daily lives of most people do not include constant interaction with (substantial) mathematical ideas. In contrast, people do use language all day long, every day, even on weekends... and use language to argue about amateur-philosophical, social, political ideas very often. So most people are literate in their native language, and familiar with using it to express a huge range of ideas. Good. But absolutely not familiar with mathematics to do anything at all.
Not unreasonable... but the situation does amount to teaching some incomprehensible language, with a different alphabet, syntax, referring to unfamiliar phenomena... to kids who don't have any reason to care. Dang.
All the worse, in large state schools (R1 or not), the huge bulk of required-course calculus students makes it simplest to have a uniform required text, uniform exams, etc., so that individual instructors have no control over any of that. And the textbooks are very profitable for publishers, so there's constant (artifical) churn...
... and the bloat in those textbooks does really give a stupid idea of what calculus is, and how useful it is. It's essentially "anti-calculus". :)
Apparently, at smaller schools, where there is more emphasis on undergrad education, there is also much more leeway about the textbook and syllabus, so that there is room for discretion and more-genuine discussion of actual intellectual ideas... rather than just gate-keeping the students.
Some of the coercion is in the name of "uniformity", but uniformity is a sad goal. Sometimes better than certain alternatives, yes, but, ... sad.

So most people are literate in their native language, and familiar with using it to express a huge range of ideas. I would challenge this statement. It is true that most people can connect the words according to the grammar rules (by the way, chatGPT can do it even better than most), but often what they say is ambiguous at best and self-contradictory at worst. The speakers/writers with really good command of the language are as rare as people with good understanding of math. and to master the natural language is harder because it is imprecise by its very nature. Math is way easier.

@fedja, haha! Yes, I agree, for some of us, math is waaaaay easier than other things. In part, possibly, because it does not necessarily require extensive acquaintance with human society. :)  But, in my observation, many/most people are completely accustomed to the imprecision of standard language. The very idea that anything could be "precise" is completely alien. :)

"many/most people are completely accustomed to the imprecision of standard language" Whether I agree to this claim or not heavily depends on how you define "accustomed" :lol:. But, OK, if we want to talk more about that, we'd better move to chat...

(Full disclosure, I have never taught, and my uni days are a few decades past, but I did enjoy some mandatory maths courses, and even took higher-level maths later on as a side-kick during my CS studies. So consider myself being on the receiving end of what you are talking about.)
From a psychological POV, on the side of the teacher, your line of thinking seems very pain-inducing to me. You are writing a lot about problems that your students may or may not have, like it only being important to be in the top-20%, not actually knowing the content.
I would suggest that as a teacher, that is not what your focus should be. Back in my uni, I was one of those very few who actually deeply enjoyed all the mandatory and voluntary maths I heard, compared to 99% of my fellow students. I especially enjoyed when the teacher was good. That was in a time when fully half of the new CS students had to abort after 4 semesters because of not managing the minimum scores in pure maths courses (not CS related at all).
Now don't get me wrong, aside from about 1 or 2 black sheep, I have nothing to say against any of those profs back then. But there is a difference between hearing a course about group theory in the context of cryptanalysis from a weathered old guy who not only wrote a standard book about the topic, or two, and has plenty of fascinating stories to tell; and another prof who starts the first lecture by writing "0.0.0.0 Definition 1", followed by "0.0.0.1 Axiom 1" and so on an forth in an unbroken line to the end of the semester, with not a single word that you wouldn't read in a (dry) book anyways.
So I imagine if I had decided to go into teaching, my focus would have been to not worry so much about how the pupils/students are doing, but about how I can motivate the joy or at least fascination about these topics. I mean yes, for many studies, the first maths courses are like "learning to walk", and for many of them the students don't ever need any of those learnings again in their lives, neither at the uni nor later when working. But still, I assume being into maths yourself you do find all of that fascinating; and I assume very strongly that it is possible to find fascinating aspects even in the basics (or especially in the basics).
So TLDR: don't worry about how great your uni or your students are, but about how you can make your courses as great as possible. Make your courses so great that non-maths students wonder whether they picked the right discipline and whether they want to switch to full-time maths instead... :-)

I know some people who were TAing parallel problem sessions in a math for computer science class, who even started an informal competition, about how many people they could convert. As far as I remember the year after that had a surprising number of people who switched their degree to mathematics. And it definitely makes classes more useful then the standard "here is what you need to know for the exam".

@mlk, surprising number of people who switched their degree to mathematics wow, nice to see that what I meant as a joke really happened somewhere. Probably more the exception than the rule, but still.

Consider this quote about bonsai, lightly edited:

... the word ["bonsai"] is [commonly] used to describe virtually all miniature container trees, whether they are authentically trained bonsai or just small rooted cuttings.
Technically, though, the term should be reserved for plants that are:

grown in shallow containers
following the precise tenets of bonsai pruning and training
resulting in an artful miniature replica of a full-grown tree in nature.

What do you do to keep yourself interested/challenged in teaching-heavier jobs? I'm challenging myself to consider an undergraduate course as bonsai research. Many researchers already do so, but casually. Dig up dead old theories, loosely graft on the state of the art, and hack corners off until it fits into a semester.
I don't want to denigrate this approach -- this is already an above-median teaching approach, compared to simply reciting and regurgitating a textbook.
But I am more curious, year after year, whether I can shape a course into an authentic learning journey, which is interesting and memorable on its own terms. One around which the time constraints are not just incidental or restrictive, but fundamental. (Then again, "real" research must be completed in finite time as well.)

If I began with one concept, how could I present it most simply and clearly?
How would I most naturally develop it?
What one pivotal misconception must I pre-empt?
If my audience only ever remembers one thing, what would it be?

By the way, these are fantastic guardrails for writing scientific papers and grant applications too. Communication is universal. Improving your communication skills will improve your research career, and teaching is a phenomenal test-bed for communicating.
But good teaching can also genuinely uncover new knowledge (not "just" better presentation), since it's usually bonsai pure research rather than applied research -- especially for earlier years. Just this morning, while testing a simple demonstration of ionic strength, I discovered that dissolving enough salt in grocery store double strength vinegar high-molarity ethanoic acid is exothermic -- dissolving that same salt in water hardly gives off any heat. This both demonstrates the ionic strength effect (in the same demo, the vinegar's pH decreases measurably) and connects it directly to energy release.
Or, put succinctly: there sits a point, between every student misunderstanding and its correction, where a theory plausible to the student is defeated by reality. The only difference between teaching and research is that in teaching I am, just occasionally, not the primary student.

I really like this observation, but unfortunately, it's not about math (and the crux of the OP is that math may be categorically different from other disciplines in this way).

OP just says 'I contrast this with the humanities, where teachers [can] skip prerequisites ... and jump straight into "sexy" courses' -- since OP came from engineering, I am really not sure they think engineering is fundamentally different from math in requiring prerequisites. If anything, I think "bonsai research" is more likely to flower into real research in math all the time -- two physicists just stumbled onto a new series for pi with one free parameter, in 2024! https://phys.org/news/2024-06-physicists.html

or an undergrad helping to disprove the local-global conjecture in Apollonian circle packings https://www.quantamagazine.org/two-students-unravel-a-widely-believed-math-conjecture-20230810/ or a teenager showing how frequently Carmichael numbers appear https://www.quantamagazine.org/teenager-solves-stubborn-riddle-about-prime-number-look-alikes-20221013/
By contrast, I highly doubt there is simple undiscovered chemistry that isn't being commercialized somewhere.

Mathematics is not about equations, formulas and such.
Mathematics is about logic and problem solving using "doctrine" of applying proven principles on, for you, undiscovered ground.
Mechanical and electrical engineering have huge advantage over math that you can touch the problem or visualize it more clearly than math concepts. It's much easier to get "gut feeling" about the solutions in mechanical engineering and electrical engineering.
On the other hand, without mathematics the engineers would waste hell lots of time fine-tuning their designs manually.
If you want to motivate your students don't tell them "Without [advanced calculus] you're done", tell them "Without [advanced calculus] you're done, because you won't be able to this [easily / cheap / fast]..." Curiosity is great motivator.
Use extensively (expected) real-life examples, especially interesting or funny, and apply methods you are about to teach.
My calculus teacher started derivatives chapter by question: "Do you know why could be imprisonned for taking pictures of important vehicles(*) in motion [in Czechoslovak Socialistic Republic]?" Then he showed us sequence of three images of a tank riding from a ditch. From the reference points in the picture (track width, fence height) and camera frame rate he derived rough estimates of the tank's power, in-field performance etc.
Then he started with definitions of derivative...
(*) Important vehicles were army equipment, trains, heavy trucks, airplanes.

There is, at a minimum, some marked differences of opinion about whether this is good practice in a math class or not, e.g.: http://www.madmath.com/2022/08/proofs-and-applications.html

That does not go in conflict. Motivate by real-life exampes and teach the concepts behind.

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text:
What actions can I take at the institution level if my midterm grade was handed to me after the withdrawal date of the course?
I am currently taking a course which I have no grades including assignments, final project, and other milestones. This does not mean I did not do them, its just that they are not graded. I had an ungraded midterm grade which I just received today. The midterm grade is indicative that I will not be passing the class. The semester ends on December 19th, and I have no grades in other categories. As well I have a final project due on December 19th to present. Is the situation salvageable and how? Do I contact the Dean or the chair of the department regarding the situation the professor is the director of the PhD program.

You should contact your advisor and Dean of Students with questions of this nature. I would not escalate all the way to the dean of the college at this preliminary stage. At most the chair for now. There isn't much we can help with because we don't know what the institutional norms and policies are regarding these issues. Some universities are not very strict with this (like mine), others are.

I don’t understand the situation. It’s very unclear to me what is actually part of the course and what affects grading, and actually whether there is grading at all. Various parts of the question lean one way, other parts another way. FWIW, what I am reading into the question is basically that you expect to be able to withdraw from every course that you would fail so that you don’t fail officially. At least for the universities I know (Europe) that’s really not the point of grading, withdrawal and tracking failures. Failure is tracked for a purpose.

It's not at all clear from your account how you are actually graded in this class. If your midterm does not actually have any effect on your final grade, then I would say that weakens your case. @MisterMiyagi It is normal in the US that there is a cut-off date for withdrawing from classes, perhaps around the time of the first midterm exam, and that students who suspect they might fail the class will take advantage of this option.

What is an "ungraded midterm grade"? Sounds a bit like a colorless green idea.

@AdamPřenosil To be more precise, in the US schools I've been at, the undergrad drop deadline is about 4-6 weeks in, roughly the first midterm. The withdrawal deadline, where a "W" grade is entered on your transcript, varies from 4 weeks prior to just before finals. The graduate drop deadline is very late, either the last day of classes or even up to the administration of the final.

@user71659 Right. I assumed that the OP meant the former but given how far we are into the semester they probably meant the latter.

I would first take a pause and try not to panic. You're enrolled in this course, the semester isn't over yet, your focus should still be on performing well in the rest of the course; even if all that is left is a final exam, it's important.
Your next stop should be the course instructor. Talk to them about your concerns about the course. It's possible the grades will be curved in some way and that performance on the midterm was poor overall - your grade might not be as bad as you think it is. Talk to your instructor.
Whether there is some way for you to still drop the course is entirely up to your institution's policies, but I doubt that there is. The purpose of course drops is not to evade failing: if you fail a course, you fail. There may be alternatives to replace a grade on your transcript or for your GPA, such as re-taking the course later on.
I understand you're likely frustrated that none of your work in the course was graded until so late. Delayed grading really destroys the pedagogical usefulness of grades to be a signal of where you need to improve and what you might focus on.
If in fact your grade really is as bad as you are thinking initially, this should not have been your first hint that you are struggling in the course. If you're in graduate school, you have a lot of experience by now at how academic courses work. You're responsible for your work in a course, and if you're feeling lost or struggling with the material you should have been doing something about it earlier (like talking to the instructor) rather than waiting for a grade to come in and see what it looks like. It's possible that the cost of this lesson this time around is a failing grade; you certainly wouldn't be the first to learn this way, though it's normally a lesson that comes earlier on. Even if you feel like you've lost control of this one course, you'll have an opportunity to determine how you use this lesson for yourself in the future.

Excellent answer.

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text:
Personal project vs. blind peer review
As a researcher in industry, I am interested in pursuing personal projects in my field (computer science) in order to improve my potential employability. With that objective in mind, I'd like to publish updates about the state of these personal projects (including partial results, and maybe code) on several social networks.
Now, lets assume that this work could eventually lead to publishable results in my field.
My question is: is keeping a portfolio of personal projects compatible with publishing papers about these projects? Which steps should I follow in order to avoid others to take advantage of my ideas, and in order to avoid problems during the eventual blind peer review process?

For your last sentence, is your concern that your public portfolio might allow a "blind" peer reviewer to identify you as the author of a paper you submit?  My field doesn't use double-blind peer review, but in any case my understanding is that the reviewer can pretty easily figure out who the author is, regardless.  (For example, by looking at the references and seeing who is cited most often.)

@NateEldredge yes, that is my concern.

Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/23961/how-to-make-a-paper-completely-anonymous-for-reviewers http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/16831/is-it-legal-to-upload-a-paper-to-arxiv-when-it-is-under-double-blind-review-for

Depending on your area of computer science, reviewing might be single-blind (the reviewers know who you are but you don't know who they are), rather than double-blind. Theory is mostly single-blind.

is keeping a portfolio of personal projects compatible with publishing papers about these projects?

Yes, it's certainly compatible with publishing. It would roughly fall under the concept of Open Science.

Which steps should I follow in order to avoid others to take advantage of my ideas, and in order to avoid problems during the eventual blind peer review process?

Use websites with some amount of academic reputation in your field to make your material accessible. Examples are preprint servers such as arxiv.org for scientific reports of (preliminary) results, or common code hosting sites such as Sourceforge or github for code, if available together with appropriate documentation on the project websites.
Publish anything under your real name to avoid being accused of plagiarism later on. Publishing such things on potential multi-author sites such as Wikipedia or StackExchange is not a good idea at all in this case.
When making something you intend for later scholarly publication online available, make sure that it get's a credible date stamp. The sites mentioned in point 1 would work fine with that.


text:
PhD in Nanomaterials
I am a doctoral student in metallurgy (joined 2014- about to finish it by July 2017) having my background of B.Tech Electrical and MS in nanoscience.
I wish to pursue my another doctoral degree in nanomaterials, Is it advisable to go for it.
I have some offers from abroad in prestigious institutes too. Is it good to go for it?.

Generally, you get only one Ph.D., then (if desired) a postdoc in the second area.  Two Ph.D.s is not unheard of, but WHY?


text:
Paid for article in OMICS journal
I submitted an article to one of the OMICS journals and also paid for it only to find out they are a predatory journal. article not yet publish. Any advice what I should do?

It can't hurt to try to withdraw the article and get your money back.  You can send an e-mail and request this, but they may not agree.  Once you have signed the publication agreement and paid, they are legally allowed to publish the article even if you have changed your mind.  I can't predict the likelihood of success, but you can't make the situation worse by asking.
You might want to withdraw the submission even if you don't get your money back, to avoid having it appear in a place that could damage your reputation.  If you ask them before publication, then they ought to agree to this.  (They aren't legally required to, but I don't see why they wouldn't if they can keep the money.)  Of course I wouldn't request this until you've found out whether they will refund some or all of the money.  Leaving them with the money would  be frustrating, but you may not be able to get it back, and a publication in a predatory journal won't help you.  It's better to be able to submit it somewhere else.
After publication, they shouldn't just remove the paper from the academic record.  You could ask them to retract it (which would leave a retraction record), but they might not agree to this if there's no problem with the paper, and it would be embarrassing in any case.  Once the paper has been published, you best bet may be to accept it and move on.

Additionally, check the copyright agreement you signed. You might have given away the right to publish your article somewhere else.


text:
How formal should I be when sending an email to the University's staff?
I'm about to write an email to the department of an English speaking University (I'm not a native speaker) to clear up some doubts I have regarding enrollment. I have never spoken to them before. How formal should I be?
My questions: is it OK to use contractions ("I've... I'm...")? Is it OK if I try to throw in one or two polite jokes or should I be strictly formal and as objective as possible? Does anyone suggest a template for such an email?
Thanks!

From a US perspective, I think the most important thing is politeness and clarity. "Official" contractions should be fine, as long as the writing is otherwise grammatical. ("You're" is fine, while "ur" should be avoided like the plague.) (There is a slight possibility that this differs at some very formal British universities(???) but it should be fine at any U.S. university.)
I would steer clear of jokes by email, since you haven't met them before and the communication is across a language (and culture?) barrier.
When I email people I don't know who work in staff positions, I keep in mind that they're busy and often deal with demanding people or people who are upset. I usually try to keep the "polite" parts of the email at the beginning and end, so the other parts are clear in the middle.

Good morning,
As a prospective graduate student [from country or university, if relevant to question], I have a few questions about enrolling in the English department that I hope you may be able to help me with. If there's a better person to contact about these questions, I'd really appreciate it if you could direct me to them. [If it's a question about funding or visas, e.g., it's quite possible they would probably have to refer you to another office.]

...
...

[Possible additional clarification about what you have already tried, e.g. "I saw on the department web page that all applicants must have taken an introductory British literature course (link to that webpage), but it did not specify whether courses taught in another language ('English Romantic Poetry in Translation') or about specific areas (like 'Irish Literature' and 'Indian Literature: Colonial Era' would qualify)."]
[If you're attaching any files, have a really good reason, and explain them here. E.g. "In case it helps answer the question, I am attaching the descriptions of the British literature courses I took, with my own translation of the descriptions from [my language]. The original versions are online at [link], [link], and [link]."]
Thank you for your time. Please let me know if you need any additional information or clarification.
Thank you very much,
Your name

I would avoid contractions or jokes, but also avoid overly subservient (Herr Doktor Professor) remarks.  Keep it straight down the middle.
When you know the language, dynamics, your role in it, etc., you may be able to do jokes.  But for now, keep it bland.  (And get the English checked.)

In my experience formality takes second place to clear and concise communication. Administration deals with paperwork all day, they don't want to read a text wall. Be polite, clear, and concise, and you will be fine.


text:
How To List Other Academics' Conference Papers Discussing My Artwork?
I am a Fine Artist, and art historians have discussed my work in conference papers... how would I cite these papers on my CV? Would I include them under "Publications", as I do catalogs, books and art reviews of my work, or should it be under a separate heading? Also, if someone discusses my work in a Master's Thesis, is it appropriate to list that as well?

Perhaps list them under a heading of "Contributions to published work" with a description of each piece?

They aren't your publications, which is what people assume(?)to be inside any sections that say 'publications' etc. However, they show the significant external impact of your work and I would list them under a section that is labeled something like that (Evidence of External impact)?. It clearly points out it is other people writing papers, reviews, including your work in their scholarship which I assume is a big deal for someone reading your CV.

This probably needs input from someone in your field.  In most academic disciplines, a CV should only include works authored by you - it would never include works authored by other people that are about you.  Perhaps art is special in this regard, but we would need someone who knows the practices of this field.

Are you going to use this CV to apply to a university position? Otherwise I am afraid that this question is off-topic here.

Looking at some example guidelines on fine arts resumes, it seems that one's "publications" or "bibliography" is handled quite differently than in the STEM world, being a collection of things written about you rather than things that you have written.
As such, the particular venue of publication should not matter: a conference article about your work goes in the same general section as an art review.  Now, if you've got a lot of these, you might choose to organize into subsections to make it easier to see the most significant publications, but that's a refinement rather than a high-level guideline.


text:
What time of day should I schedule my thesis defense?
With apologies for the attention-grabbing title: of course I am not actually asking you to tell me when I, specifically, should schedule my defense. But I have heard very plausible-sounding rumors that the time of day at which a PhD candidate holds their thesis defense can have an impact on the difficulty and even the candidate's chance of passing. For example, scheduling a defense just before lunch may mean the committee will ask fewer and less involved questions, because they will be anxious to finish so they can go eat. Similarly defending in the mid afternoon may lead to less complex questions because everyone is tired - or alternatively it could cause a more difficult defense because the committee members are in no hurry to get back to work. And so on; the rumors abound.
What I would like to know: is there is any research backing up the idea that there are better or worse times of day for a candidate to schedule their thesis defense? Any anecdotal experience from people who have sat on multiple PhD committees?
Of course I'm not claiming this should be a major influence on when one schedules their defense, but people do talk about it, so (as a scientist!) I can't help but wonder if there's any truth behind the idea.

+1 for overthinking it. :) You'll do fine I'm sure, just don't schedule it for midnight or something.

Do you really have that much freedom in scheduling? In my department, finding an hour when all the very busy committee members can be in the same room is always a struggle.

@ff524 Me too. The challenge was getting 5 faculty members in a room at the same time, and it was scheduled for the single two-hour gap that could be found in the tangled nightmare that is faculty scheduling.

Maybe this depends on your academic system, but in most, unless your advisor is incompetent or your committee is insatiable, your chance of passing is 1. At very worst, 1-o(ε). The effect of the time of day is like o(ε³). Stop worrying!

Our defences were always at 10am, we would have a common lunch after.

@ff524 that is often the case, but it is also often the case that one has freedom to choose the time. I'm lucky enough to be in that situation. Though I'm not concerned about this significantly affecting my chances of passing; I'm really just asking out of curiosity.

I'm just going to leave this here. Make sure you provide a small snack (cookies, cupcakes, traditional ethnic petit fours, etc.)!

Frankly, if you're worried about whether or not you'll be able to pass your thesis defense, it's quite likely that you're not ready for it.

I don't think this is overthinking, I think this raises a very important question: how objective (like machines) or subjective (like... humans) are the committees judging theses? And if they turn to be subjective maybe we should drop them in favor of other indicators for the maturity of a researcher, like publications. A researcher would not be a PhD Student, but a research apprentice, or a junior, or something else, and would move into senior according to publications, impact factor or something else. Maybe we all should think whether some things in academia are archaic and should be changed.

I think that the basic idea of hour influencing result comes from research which was done on parole hearings. The judges granted more paroles at the beginning of the day and after lunch, when their glucose levels were higher, and less before lunch and at the end of the day.

When I was in grad school everyone joked that the thesis defense was an examination of your scheduling skills, as getting everyone in the room is the hardest part of the defense.

For one, you could choose the time at which you yourself are most sharp. Actual research has been conducted and found that grades differ by half a point depending on the time of day (only visible in individual students since the group as a whole averages away all the individual students' prefered time) it seems plausible that regardless the question difficulty, there is some time of day at which you are better at answering questions.

@MartinvanIJcken Indeed, that's why I wouldn't have scheduled my defense at, say, 9 AM :-P Though that's not really what I wanted to get at with this question, but to be fair, I wasn't clear about it.

First, I have never heard of any research backing up the idea that defenses will be more less successful based on the time of day the defense is held.
Second, the best time to defend is whenever your committee can actually make it. When I defended, my goal was to get get at least three of our four committee members in same physical room (one non-chair member could attend via video). Within a six-week window, I felt lucky to find any two hour-window to schedule the defense.
Finally, you are overthinking things. Pour your energy and concern into the content and remember that if your committee is encouraging you to defend, it's because they think you are ready. Surprises are unlikely.
Of course if you are in the enviable position of having to choose a time of day, I personally like defenses at the end of the work day so that you can head out with others — e.g., students, family members, maybe even committee members — for a celebratory post-defense drink or meal.

I'm not disputing that any of this is true, but only the first paragraph really gets at what I'm asking. It's a precondition of the question that the committee members' availability does not determine a time, so saying the best time is whenever they can make it kind of dodges the question, and also I'm asking out of curiosity so it doesn't help me to be told I'm overthinking things. (I know it's silly to use this criterion to determine a time. But if I weren't a PhD candidate at all, that paragraph wouldn't make much sense :-P)

@DavidZ, people interested in the best time of day to schedule a thesis will almost universally be PhC's. They will almost universally be worried by the fact that their fate in others' hands and so are worrying about the the little things they can control. The last paragraph also gives you a concrete suggestion for when to schedule your thesis and a reason why. :)

For the sake of argument: my defense is long past and I'm still interested :-P

@DavidZ, Fair enough!

Whatever time of day all your committee members can all get together.  (Forgive the short answer but that's really it from my perspective)

There is nothing new in this answer that wasn't already in Benjamin's original answer above.

@aeismail, I didn't mean to offend.  I actually upvoted his answer. It is good.  I hope it keeps more votes.  However I felt a short, to the point answer was appropriate too. I've seen answers overlap a lot on Academia.SE. I'll reread the answer guidance to be sure I'm on target.  Thanks for keeping me straight.

There can be overlap, but when the entirety of an answer is subsumed in another, it's considered poor form. (Also, a one-sentence answer is generally frowned upon, particularly on "soft" sites where the questions and answers tend to be more experience- and opinion-based by their nature.)

@aeismail, Thank you. I agree regarding one sentence answers but I respectfully feel a one-sentence answer is very appropriate here. I didn't consider the "poor-form" part and will work to avoid that in the future. Thanks for the lesson learned!

@aeismail I think that this answer is good because it makes clear in one line what is the most important thing. The other answer is less strong in this sense.

I had mine at 1 pm. It finished at 3:30, which gave me one and a half hours to make all the necessary corrections and then get to the pub.
In retrospect, 1 pm was a good time. I'm not a morning person by any stretch of the imagination. 1 pm allowed me to roll out of bed at 10 am, have a good full English breakfast and have an hour just to flick through the thesis and post https://xkcd.com/1403/ on social media channels. If you're a morning person that's always super alert at the time of 9 am, then try to schedule it as early as possible in the morning.
Really, you know what time of day you personally feel most alert and responsive. Given the flexible working nature of a lot of PhD students, you've probably settled into a working routine that works well for you by now. My recommendation would be to plan it around that.

Sorry I just noticed this - definitely good advice. It's not quite in the spirit in which I intended the question, i.e. taking all else to be equal (including what time of day the student is the best suited to work), is there a better time and what is it, but I wouldn't hesitate to endorse this to any student actually concerned with scheduling their defense. (Fun fact: that comic was posted the same day I defended.)

This answer is the one I would accept. But, I know of one notable exception.
A friend in my PhD grad program choose his defense time for late morning (around 10 am) on a Tuesday. That way, his public defense would get done around 11 am and his closed door defense with only his committee would take less than a hour because his major advisor and several committee members always went to a local restaurant for their "Taco Tuesday" special around 11:45 am.
This worked for him, but my major advisor made me pick a different time when I tried to repeat the trick.


text:
Does paper acceptance mean an on-site talk is required?
I am sorry for naïveté.
I found a workshop that fits my research and I want to submit a paper to the workshop. The problem is that the location of the workshop is far away from my hometown and I don't have funding to cover the travel expenses.
Do you think it is obligatory to visit the workshop (conference) and to give a talk in case the paper is accepted?

Have you considered contacting the organizers to ask if they are aware of funding sources to support travel?

Personally, I have only seen conferences which require every paper to be presented on-site. Most conferences explicitely state that paper will not be published in the online proceedings, if the authors do not present their paper. If this is not stated on the conference's website, please write to the committee.
However, I recommend you to find a different solution. Discussing a paper at a conference is a very important part of your scientific career since you get in contact with other researchers. If you encounter financial difficulties, you can write to the committee and ask politely for a waiver or reduction of the fee.

The point of a workshop is to generally meet with other people and talk about your work with them.
For that reason, workshops with peer-reviewed papers typically expect all authors to appear to present their work---even more so than is typically the case for conferences.  In many cases, it is in fact strictly required, and papers will be officially unaccepted and removed from the proceedings if nobody appears to give the talk (IEEE, for example, requires this of all of their sponsored meetings).
In certain extenuating circumstances, such as illness or visa problems, some organizers may be willing to arrange for a talk to be given remotely. Likewise, larger meetings in some cases will offer scholarships that can help with the expense of attendance.  If you just don't want to go, however, then you should submit to a journal rather than a workshop or conference.

The best option is to contact the academic committee of the conference (by email) and ask them directly.
Some conferences allow the author to publish their work on the proceedings without the presence of the author on the conference. However, in many cases you will need to pay the registration fees.
I believe that is highly recommended to go to the conference to participate in discussions and receive feedback about your work, but is not obligatory in some cases.


text:
Advisor is moving. Issues with quitting PhD and settling for a MSc
I'm an international student. I have been in a PhD program in the US for 1 year and this is my second. My advisor informed me earlier this year that he is moving to another lower-ranked school. How to cope when PhD advisor quits midway deals with this issue. This is not what this question is about.
I have not been doing a lot of research and have been overwhelmed with coursework. By the time I finish my coursework, I'll be in my third year already. I also find that my advisor's work (after having spent some time with his group) does not interest me and is very different from what I thought I would be doing. I do research in a very specialized area. My advisor does work in a different area but is interested in how what I'm doing can be applied to what he's doing. However, we disagree on methodology.
I'm also not interested in research/teaching as a career and originally decided to do a PhD to gain more knowledge/training in this very specialized area that is not available in industry. My original plan was to finish my PhD and get a job. However, my advisor's move is making me reconsider this plan. Even though my advisor is moving, he will still advise me remotely until I satisfy my coursework requirements (and then I could move as a visiting student at this point).
By the end of the second year, I can quit my PhD and get a MSc but I see the following issues:

How should I handle this on my resume? Do I say that I'm doing a PhD or that I'm doing a MSc?

If I say I'm doing a PhD, how do I explain not getting it?
If I say I'm doing a MSc, does that violate an F1 student visa?

How should I handle my relationship with my advisor? At what point should I announce my plan to quit?
Will quitting reduce my chances of getting a job? If I say I'm doing a MSc, then chances are my employer will not seek a recommendation from my advisor but if I say I'm doing a PhD and decided to quit, then chances are my employer will do that and will seek an explanation.
Is it a good idea to get an internship this summer before quitting for a full-time position?

Oct 9 If you have an answer to only one or a few of these issues and not the others, please consider posting it.

my chances of getting a job Job in academia or industry?

@UV-D Thank you. This is what this question is about: How to tell the truth tactfully.

@scaaahu industry

Honesty is the best policy. It means you should not lie. It does not mean you must say everything about yourself on your resume. For example, you do not need to say where you attended high school on the resume. If you do not have PhD, do not say you have it. If you have MSc, say you have it. You do not need to say you were doing PhD unless they ask you that question.
If and when they ask you whether you were doing PhD, you should tell the truth with brief explanation why you did not get it. This will hurt your chance getting an academic job. Most industry people would not care that much. They are more concerned with your ability to make money. However, you probably will not get an industry job if PhD is part of job requirement.(Some companies do want PhD only)
You need to ask the international student office at your school or immigration office to see the requirement for F-1 visa. They are the authority to answer that question. We are not.
Internship is always helpful. You gain experience which you can put on the resume.

When you're applying for a job, you typically do that before you get your degree (MSc/PhD) and on your resume you put the degree you're currently doing. My question is should I put MSc/PhD during this uncertain period?

@user8922 Typically, you list the degree you have and the degree you are certain that you will have. In your case, my advice is that you do not list the degree you are not certain you will have.

So just list the MSc as long as there are no visa issues?

@user8922 You need to talk to international student office/immigration office about F-1 visa. You need to talk to immigration office/employer/lawyer about H-1 visa.

Will quitting reduce my chances of getting a job? If I say I'm doing a MSc, then chances are my employer will not seek a recommendation from my advisor but if I say I'm doing a PhD and decided to quit, then chances are my employer will do that and will seek an explanation.

This certainly depends on the field (if you go for a research-based industry position, notably) but otherwise whether you have a PhD or an MSc will not matter.
The country is important as well. A PhD in Germany is a differentiator. A PhD in France is less important. A PhD in the US seems to be on the lower scale of importance (as I could see in the HR process when I was hiring for US-based positions in the US).
So while a PhD would usually not hurt, having a MSc only sets you at the level other candidates will be.
If this was for a developer or devops position, the practical knowledge you have would be way more important (and interesting). As a matter of anecdote, I recently hired someone who did not have a MSc yet (he was two exams short) competing against a MSc and a PhD. Just discussing with him showed that he has done so many things on his own that he would be a an immensely better candidate that the others (who had a standard set of skills they were not that keen to extend).


text:
What are financial prospects for a postdoc as compared to a PhD student without funding?
I am going to start my PhD, unfortunately, I did not get any funding. I am thinking of taking a loan so that I could focus more on my PhD studies, but the loan will need to be repaid after PhD. Therefore my question is if my financial situation is likely to be better as a postdoc than as a PhD student. My reasoning:
As a PhD student:
I have to pay academic fees,
I do not get funding or a salary.
As a postdoc:
I do not have to pay academic fees or any other fees to a university (am I right?),
I may get a salary but may not to.
How many postdocs do get paid? I looked at research groups I am interested in and they say, they do not have funding for postdocs and their postdocs usually are supported by some grant that they themselves have arranged before coming to the group. So is my financial situation going to depend on if I can secure a grant for my research as a postdoc or I should expect to receive a salary? How likely is the success in either ways?

What is your field? I've never heard of an unpaid postdoc - I think in many countries that would even be illegal. All postdocs should be paid, whether that's through a grant you won yourself or from a professor's grant (both are possible). You pay no fees, but an "overhead" from your funding source is paid to the university. If after your PhD you cannot find a paid position in academia, the only sensible option is to quit and go into an industry job.

After reading the question several times, it sounds like you believe it to be possible to do a postdoc prior to obtaining your PhD (I hope I am wrong). Is that the correct interpretation?

@MadJack: My reading is that the OP is trying to get a sense of postdoc compensation in order to evaluate whether they would likely be able to pay back their student loans after finishing a PhD.

Um, no I interpret it as he is weighing postdoc or PhD student as current choices: " if my financial situation is likely to be better as a postdoc than as a PhD student. "

@RoboKaren I agree with Nate here. "the loan will need to be repaid after PhD": He is basically asking if he is able to pay back his loan after his PhD or if postdocs are also not paid.

Or to split the difference: the OP should clarify on that point.

I know that a postdoc position can be attained only after PhD. "the loan will need to be repaid after PhD" is the main point I wanted to make. Perhaps, the question was confusing because I think ahead too much - yes, I already have idea where I would like to do my postdoc and it is actually in Japan which clarifies my confusion of unpaid postdocs.

So is my financial situation going to depend on if I can secure a
  grant for my research as a postdoc or I should expect to receive a
  salary?

The question is not getting a grant or getting paid, it is getting paid by the institution you work for or getting your salary from a grant giving institution.

How many postdocs do get paid?

(As far as I know) All of them. Depending on the country you are talking about it may even be illegal to employ someone without pay.
However, (as @virmaior pointed out) there are some "postdocs" in Japan that are not paid and have no work requirements. At least in Europe and the US this is not common and in most cases this is probably a bad idea for someone looking for a regular postdoc position (see my comment below).

How likely is the success in either ways?

That depends on your field, the quality of your work, ... . We can not answer that but you can talk to your peers /supervisor about the job market to get an idea.

[as a postdoc] I do not have to pay academic fees or any other fees to
  a university

Right.
One general remark: If you are not not getting a (paid) postdoc position or a grant you should try to find a job in the industry anyway. Finding a more senior position is usually much harder than finding a postdoc position.

I think your second point is exactly what the OP was confused about.

Japan has some unpaid "postdocs"... It's more so a misnomer that gives you affiliation (normally no work requirements and no compensation)

@virmaior Thanks! I did not know that, I will add it.

@Davidmh Thanks, that was the reason why this is an answer and not a comment.

A postdoc is a time limited academic job, a PhD is a research student position. The latter is usually financed but does not have to be. I have never heard of a Postdoc that did not involve payment. In your question you seem to indicate there would be a choice between the two but a postdoc, as the name implies, requires a PhD so one must go through a research education (and receive a PhD) before applying for a postdoc position.


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"Awaiting Editors Decision" what could it mean?
I submitted my paper to a engineering journal. It underwent a major revision and then a minor revision. The minor revision was some grammatical stuff. Now it is in the "Awaiting Editors Decision" mode for the past one week. I am sort of tensed about it. What does this mode mean for a journal review process in general?

Once you submit your revised manuscript the editor handling your manuscript will look through your revisions to assess if they are satisfactory. Since revisions were in response to a minor revisions verdict, it seems likely that the next step would be accept unless the revisions were not satisfactory, in which case additional revisions might be necessary. In any case, the editor is now assessing your manuscript.
You write that the paper has been in this mode for a week. For any normal journal and thereby workload of their editors, you should not expect any change in status within such a short period. In "my" journal editors have three weeks to reach a decision on how the process should proceed. If the status remains for longer than, say, 3-4 weeks, you can start to consider contacting the journal and ask about its faith. But, please check if the journal has any specific time limits for their processes. Some do, some don't. The bottom line is that you are premature to worry at this stage.
EDIT: As Strongbad points out in a comment the term "Awaiting Editors Decision" strictly indicates that the paper has passed reviewers. this is indeed the general case,  also in "my" journal. So in your case, the signal is, as I was, albeit not as clear as I intended, aiming at above, that no additional review is necessary and the editor is assessing the paper for submitting the final verdict.

For the journals that I am most familiar with "Awaiting Editors Decision" means all the required reviews are back (although there is still the possibility of adding a final reviewer) on new submissions as well as revised manuscripts.

To be a bit more precise, this is usually an automatic status change once the required number of reviews (usually two) have been submitted to the manuscript handling system, of which the editor is (also automatically) notified via email. So the current status means that the editor was notified a week ago, not that he has been thinking about the decision for a week (depending on his schedule, he might not even had time to look at the reviews yet).

Yes and it sounds as if it is ScholarOne Manuscripts in particular.

(I am a belated guest here). I agree with your third comment @PeterJansson. Two of my papers show the status "Awaiting Decision" (15days and counting) and "Awaiting AE Recommendation" (1.5 months and counting).


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How do you know when your independent findings are paper-worthy?
I learn math on my own. And I sometimes end up generalizing theorems. I do not claim that these generalizations are ground-breaking. However, I feel these generalizations are not entirely obvious at first-sight.
Could I publish a paper on such a generalization?
Making this more relevant to the community at large, how do you know when your "new" ideas are paper-worthy? Should one pursue research directed only by external trends? As in, if I were to publish a paper, should I only look for current areas of research in order to conduct research that would be relevant to academia today?

Talk to someone involved in research-level mathematics (can be even a student). You will get some kind of feedback (it is hard to say anything in general). Especially as even if the finding is interesting, its clear presentation counts as well.

Try submitting it and find out!

This is a very hard question in general, and is defined by a combination of absolute standards and community opinions. It's very hard to answer your specific question ("can I publish these results") and I don't think this community is the right forum to even ask that question.
But your second question is a good one. There are some things to keep in mind:

make sure your ideas are indeed new. It's easy when working independently to be aware of the published literature, but not be aware of the large cloud of "folklore" knowledge that floats in the air of a community. You'll get a paper rejected because something is "well known", even though you can't find a specific reference and no one provides one. To figure this out, it would help to approach an expert in the field, or at least someone you trust.
What kind of research you pursue is a complex combination of external trends and your interests. If you go too much towards external trends you might not find much pleasure in it. If you go too much towards personal interests (unless you have impeccable taste) you might find yourself isolated. It's all about balance. Similarly, while looking at current areas of research will tell you what's likely to be publishable, that's not the same thing as what's interesting or useful. Again, having some contact with people in the community might help a bit.

The only way to "know" if your material is publishable is to know the literature on the subject. I used "know" because all publications go through per review and that is the final hurdle your paper must pass before the answer is given. So the question really becomes what must be done to pass peer review?
So you need to know your subject by finding and reading all relevant literature. An interesting personal observation is that it is easy to think you know more than you really do if you are not familiar with a specific field. Getting yourself up to date is hard work. Apart from the research literature, there is of course need to master the basics. As editor and reviewer I see many manuscripts presenting measurements that in themselves might be good but where interpretations are shallow and sometimes trivial because they have missed relevant research. Remember that journal rejection rates, although they vary, can be from below 50% to up to 90% for the more prestigious journals.

Even professional scientists cannot know if their last idea is original and new (and so, if it is worth publishing).
Today science is too big, too complex and too separated in different specialties to allow one person to have a general overview (this is the "Big Science" issue).
However, there are people who are specialist of evaluating scientific contributions. There are referee of Journals.
So my answer would be to try to be published. Even if the paper is not accepted, it is the opportunity to have feedbacks, references and to see what your idea deserves.


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How to cite in an appendix (and where to put the Citation list) of a PhD thesis?
I have a table of studies and formula per study in the appendix, so sth like
study A     E = mc²
study B     v = ma

etc. For each study I need to cite a source. Now normally the citation list for the main part of document appears before the appendix. How do I handle this? Do I create a new citation list after the table?

For a PhD thesis (as indicated in the tags of your question), check your university's reference style guide. I suspect, however, that it doesn't go into that much detail. So:
do what you like best, as long as it's clear and coherent.
If you have many citations in the appendix, and you suspect that people will want to read the appendix and main document separately, just maintain two separate lists of citations. It makes each of them shorter, and thus easier to read.
If you have very few citations in the appendix, you can also consider citing them in a different style, such as footnotes. It keeps them separated from the main references, for clarity, but doesn't necessitate to have a full “appendix list of references” if it's very short.

Thank you for your answer, the university isn't too clear about that.  I'll go with a second citation list then.

+1 for suggesting footnotes. Those are a good idea in an appendix, especially if there's just a citation or two. No need to bother with a whole second ref list.

Depends on where your appendix falls in your document (or whether it will appear in the document at all). If appendix precedes references, just include citations in the regular reference list. If it follows, have a separate set of appendix-specific references. If it is separate, do the same as the latter case (a separate reference list).
This will depend on your style manual and publication outlet.

Thank you for your answer. The appendix will appear after the reference list. I'll go with a second citation list then.


text:
Inviting someone to co-author a paper
I recently passed the M.Sc.
While I was reviewing a paper I found it interesting and potentially useful. I am planning to adopt the analyses that are utilized at that paper in my area of interest. The applications are quite different.
Is it feasible, usual and professional to propose that paper's first author (he is a post-doc student) to participate in my future work?
How about the contribution, to be more exact, the order of names?
How I can politely ask him for his contribution?

By the way I won't refer to a post-doc as a "student".

How I can politely ask him for his contribution?
Just sent him/her an email with a brief summary of the ideas you are interested in and ask him/her if he/she is interested on the project, it has worked for me. Otherwise, try to attend one of his/her talks and approach him/her and the end of the talk, if possible.
How about the contribution, to be more exact, the order of names?
Perhaps it is too early to discuss about this ("Before one brings home the bacon one must kill the pig"). Who knows whether he/she is going to generalise or improve the ideas you propose or he/she would barely be involved in the project (you will come across all sorts of characters while doing research). A safe option is to use the alphabetical order. It helps to avoid many ego-fights. Start with a document without the name of the authors. If you end-up with something worthy of publication, put the cards on the table and ask directly "what order would you be more comfortable with?" or "would you be happy with the order 'ME and John Doe'? ".

It is never too early to discuss authorship and author-ordering expectations.  It may be too early to make a decision about who will be first author, but the standard for making that decision should be clear from the beginning.

How I can politely ask him for his contribution?
Say, "I read your paper... It gave me the following idea... Would you be interested in working on it with me?"
How about the contribution, to be more exact, the order of names?
Because you are initiating the research, chances are good that you will be the main contributor. If you are sure that you will or want to be first author/main contributor, write your name first in the list of authors in the drafts. If you are not sure, write the names in alphabetical order, and in parentheses "temporarily in alphabetical order". As soon as it becomes clear that one or two people are contributing more than you, suggest to them that their names should appear before yours (unless you know things will change later). Just keep the discussion open.


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Why do admissions committees consider the Statement of Purpose to be important?
Why do admissions committees consider the Statement of Purpose to be important? Anyone with a command of English should be able to write a Statement of Purpose, in principle, so it seems a poor way to compare applicants' research potential. If I were to judge an applicant (obviously I've never been in this position), I would much sooner at grades than at their Statement of Purpose, simply because grades cannot (in general) be 'faked'.

I think you oversimplify "command of English". The amount of variability in writing skills of applicants can be substantial, and the statement of purpose can demonstrate this.

Actually, grades are a very poor way to compare students. They are better than nothing, but say much, much less than a piece of work by the person.

At least in computer science, command of English is not the most important feature of a strong statement of purpose (or, as it ought to be called, a strong research statement). Command of English is arguably necessary, but it is nowhere near sufficient.

I agree with you; in my opinion statement of purpose is an exercise in the art of BS.  You'll find plenty more of this stuff once you get in..

Why do admissions committees consider the Statement of Purpose to be important?

This question assumes they do consider it important, but how it's actually viewed varies enormously between departments.  In mine, it's not considered particularly important for most applicants.  If your statement is pretty good, then that's good enough (nobody was ever admitted by writing a great personal statement).  However, it can matter in special cases:

It gives you a chance to address anything non-standard or potentially worrisome about your application.  It can be really valuable for you to make a case for why these things are not in fact a problem.
It gives you a chance to shoot yourself in the foot.  For example, applicants occasionally sound like arrogant jerks, demonstrate that they like to talk about mathematics they don't understand at all (without admitting their lack of knowledge), or reveal that they have no idea how graduate school works.  The first two are major problems, and the third is worrisome.

It can also be helpful to learn things like the intended specialization or advisor, but we ask for that elsewhere on the application as well.
If you apply to a department that takes this approach, then you shouldn't stress out too much about the statement of purpose.  But of course other departments may do things differently, so you can't relax entirely.

Let me add another one to your list in #2: plagiarism. We recently had several cases of applicants to our graduate program where the graduate studies office identified plagiarized parts in the personal statement.

One excellent reason for requiring a statement of purpose is to make sure that applicants have "done their homework." Have they taken into account who works in the department, and what can be done there? Can they formulate ideas for projects they'd be interested in working on? Furthermore, writing ability is a very critical factor for success as a researcher; someone who writes a very poor statement of purpose is likely to have a very difficult PhD candidacy.
Grades are somewhat objective, but they're also subject to a lot of external factors ("grade inflation," "scaling," sample size, and so on). But that doesn't mean they're not also considered. All parts of an application are usually considered, although the weights given to the various factors may differ greatly between departments.

As a complement to other useful answers, I'd say that it is not possible to "fake" a good personal statement (unless one enlists already-successful mathematicians, and, even then, it's not clear...). The issue of grammatical correctness is non-trivial, but minor. The tone, the affect (all the more subtle in written language), speaks reams. The implied/assumed context? Etc, etc, ... And, indeed, all the better that most applicants do not effectively see how to "game" the personal statement. That's what I look at first, for graduate admissions. :)

It may be simple for some to write good English but to actually write something valuable is a lot harder. There are of course no perfect single tools to evaluate applications so having a multi-pronged approach provides some improvements in the weeding process. Grades provide insights into some aspects, particularly someone's ability to perform on exams. Such ability is not necessarily equated with ability to, for example, think critically or creatively (we do of course not know of the assessment methods underpinning the grades). A Statement of Purpose provides insights into the person's own insights into a research problem or field. Hence combining these two aspects with CV, letters of recommendations or whatever else is required, forms a more complex picture of the applicant than what each and every part of the application does on its own. The Statement will perhaps be the part that most closely reflects on the persons ability.


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How to make my CV attractive for a faculty position application?
When reviewing hundreds of applications, search committees quickly look for publications and groups the applicant has worked in to make the short-list.
I had a successful but unusual career, working in industry, successful startup, and even extraordinary educational programs.
How can I make my CV attract to persuade the committee to stop by and find the significant of my uncommon works?

Related (but not specifically for someone coming from industry): http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/41962/19607

What kind of faculty position are you looking for?  A research position?  A teaching position?  What those schools want is quite different.

@Kimball assistant professor of chemistry

Tim, at what kind of school?  Research?  Teaching?

@Kimball something in between. A normal university with both research and teaching themes.

Most applicants for an assistant professor position will have a PhD and some postdoc experience, and (hopefully) a solid line of publications in their main research line.
It is unfortunately not universally agreed what constitutes a "successful" career. So, if you are several years past your PhD, as a search committee member I would want to see what you had done in the intervening time, and I would want to know it was relevant to what you want to do now. You need to be able to reassure the committee that you are still an active researcher, you are still respected by other academics, and that you are (or could become) a competent teacher. The problem with CVs is that just listing a job title does not quite convey what is entailed there. How would I know how to evaluate your "extraordinary education program" just from a few lines on the CV? (I'm certainly not going to look at it, I have 100 other applications to read through.) Are you up-to-date enough for university teaching?
The real place to make your case for this is in your research statement or cover letter. That is where you can explain your unusual background, presenting it as a strength that makes you stand out above other candidates. You can describe your industry experience, framing it in terms of how this has aided your development as a teacher-scholar, and you can describe the principles and outcomes of the educational programs you were involved in.
An additional strategy would be to ask one or more of your referees to discuss your background in their letter. It could be beneficial to the search committee to have an outside opinion, from a real academic, that someone who may look unusual is actually really good.
So, is there anything you can do for your CV itself? Well, make sure the list of publications is solid. That's among the best evidence for a search committee that you're an active researcher.

The real place to make your case for this is in your cover letter. — On the search committees I've been on, what we really look at is the candidate's research statement: this is a great place to elaborate on how one's "unusual" experiences inform their research agenda, for example.

@MadJack Good call. I was thinking of jobs which don't request a separate research statement (i.e. it's implicit in the cover letter), but you're absolutely right. I've edited the answer to reflect this.

In my experience, the real places to make your case are in your recommendation letters (where you have to rely on your references to make the case) and your professional web site, on which you make all your publications freely available. But don't screw up the research statement.


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How to write a strong research plan?
This comes following my other question. When writing a research plan/statement when applying for an assistant professor position, how should be the document structure?
I have to explain a few (e.g., 3- 5) topics for my future research.
Should these be general topics or as specific as a research proposal?
Should I prove that I have a strong background in these fields or it is enough that the ideas are novel and attractive?
Should I include technical data/figures or the purpose is just the general description?
Should I explain expected outcome as we do in a proposal?

With your research plan, you need to convince a recruitment committee that you have a viable plan from which to launch your career.
Your plan will need to show the committee

that it is scientifically sound
that you have the skill set to carry it out (or know how you will acquire it)
that you understand what resources you need to carry it out
that you understand your funding streams
that there is something that gives you competitive advantage among the dozens of other people in the field vying for money from the same pool as you.

The weight of each of these considerations will be a function of your complete package.
So, the generic answer to all of your questions is "do what you need to do to accomplish the list above"
I suggest you work on your plan and carefully review it with some mentors.
As to the level of specificity, you shouldn't have to lay out complete experimental protocols, but you should be prepared to discuss each proposed line of experiments at that level.  In your statement, though, it would be quite useful to have specific hypotheses for each research path.
You should also be prepared to prioritize.  When asked about how you would spend the next five years, you should know the answer, and pretty specifically.

These are really broad questions, hence difficult to answer in a helpful way.
When writing a research plan/statement when applying for an assistant professor position, how should be the document structured?
If the application guidance gives no details, it's entirely up to you to decide on that. Have you approached the contacts where you are applying to ask them directly? If that matters to you that much, you should not mind asking for additional details.
Should these be general topics or as specific as a research proposal?
Again, it's entirely up to you to decide on that. Think also in terms of disciplinary habits. Are proposals in your discipline rather generic or thorough?
Should I prove that I have a strong background in these fields or it is enough that the ideas are novel and attractive?
Think if you were in a position to select applicants: what would you prefer? Probably a combination of both. If someone has little experience in a field, probability to come up with novel and attractive is smaller, I would think, don't you?
Should I include technical data/figures or the purpose is just the general description?
If you feel like technical data is needed and useful to make your line of argument and your whole proposal stronger and more compelling in order to be selected, why not go for it?
Should I explain expected outcome as we do in a proposal?
If you are used to explain expected research outcomes in your field of expertise, why do any different this time? Recruiting colleagues are bound to appreciate a clear and long-sighted research proposal and vision.


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Is it OK to invite PhD scientists (Bio and Pharma) to peer review manuscripts?
I recently joined the editorial board of a decent OA journal. I got requests to handle quite some manuscripts very soon.
I accepted to handle the first 2 and soon I saw another two and then another 2. So I got invitation for 6 manuscripts within a week and they are still coming.
I am a 5th year AP and don't have much time to handle all of them. So I need to make some decisions.
Finally I decided to handle at most 5 on my hands at the same time.
This is my first time being on editor board and I need lots of input. What's your suggestions?
The other question is that I was thinking about inviting some PhD scientists (Bio and Pharma) as the reviewers because I met them in related meetings and I think they could do some fair reviews. Would that be OK in general?
Thanks for the suggestions.

There are two questions here, and the first one seems very broad. Please, keep it to one question per post, it works best in this format. Feel free to add new questions.

I'm not sure I understand the situation here.  Why wouldn't it be OK to invite PhD scientists to peer review manuscripts?  As an editor, one of your main jobs is arranging peer review, and you can ask just about anyone who is qualified and impartial.  What is it about these scientists that makes you wonder whether they would be appropriate reviewers?