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How can I deal with a lecturer ridiculing me in front of class for making a mistake?
I have been working in research in computer science for 3 months in the Czech Republic, and have recently changed fields to major in mathematics, also in the Czech Republic. I'm stuck with bunch of courses I didn't want to study at all.
In my complex number computing class, the lecturer knew I was new. He called me to the front of the class and asked me to solve a task. I'm not very experienced in this field and I was very nervous and made a mistake.
He started to humiliate me in front of all my colleagues. He told me that this field is "not for everybody" and that in math classes there are "only very clever people", apparently targeting the fact I came from a different field. I felt like an idiot standing there and listening to his abuse. The other classmates were laughing at me and I was just standing there and waiting for it to stop.
He then told me to complete the solution. I wanted to solve the task step-by-step to prevent doing any more silly mistakes, but he didn't let me. After I wrote one step (completely correct), the lecturer told me he wants me to do it faster, not in so many steps and made some more "funny" comments. Finally, I solved the task and made a little mistake in notation of result. He pointed it out very loudly, so everybody could hear it.
This experience destroyed the lesson for me completely. I couldn't pay attention for the rest of the class and I was ashamed to talk with anybody. Now I'm terribly afraid of this lecturer, but it's not possible "to change" him, he's the only one for this subject, which is compulsory. I haven't offended the lecturer in any way, I literally had no chance to do it, because I've never saw him before the lesson. I really don't want to abandon this field either. I can't change this branch or else I would lose the whole year.
So, what would you advise that I do to prevent this situation next time?
I'm trying my best to adapt in the new field, but there are a lot of things I'm missing, so it takes a lot of time to learn it and with the research duties it's not really easy, so "just get better" advise would be great, but not achievable in short amount of time.
Update
I got a satisfying conclusion. After the exam, I met with the rude professor. To my surprise he told me, that I've surprised him very much with my score from final test and that I was "fighting bravely".
So, he probably really wanted to see if a "non-math" person will be able to withstand the pressure and pass his course.

I'm not happy with this choice at all, because courses which I wanted are not opened this year, so I'm stuck with bunch of courses I didn't want to study at all. Forget the lecturer, this is the problem you should probably solve first.

@JoErNanO No, regardless of study choice, public humiliation should not be a teaching strategy.

May I ask what level of the class "Complex number computing" is? Undergraduate or graduate?

To be honest, I'm not sure about this terms (I'm not a native speaker), but it's after B.S., so graduate, I suppose :-)

@A.Klomp That's not what I meant, and you are absolutely right. The OP should nevertheless mull over the fact that being stuck with courses one does not want to study for a entire year is a less than optimal solution.

@A.Klomp you can still take undergrad courses after graduating with a B.S. (like, if you're working on a second degree) -- you mentioned that this course is part of a major, right?

I find strange and worrying that the lecturer was publicly insulting a student and the other students were laughing. Have you talked with any of your classmates? Is this how they see what happened?

@Eenoku: The answer, unfortunately, may depend on what kind of rights students have where you live. To help us better answer your problem, would you feel comfortable sharing the country where this happened?

What exactly is your position? Are you uni staff, or a grad student, or faculty, or what? Why are you taking class? Do you have to take them? What if you just not take this class, or stop attending or coming to lectures and even exams?

Also, I will contradict the people claiming this is strange or unusual. With the exception of the last few decades, this was in fact a very common and normal ways of maintaining discipline in the classroom. It is still common in many parts of the world even today. Incidentally, what country, Eenoku?

This happened to me in my first semester of PhD school, except he was making fun of where I am from. In the end, I did great in the program and he apologized later. Please do not lose hope, just keep working at it!

As an aside don't be embarrassed about talking to the other students. They know the lecturer was being rude, and likely commiserate.\

It's impossible to advise without knowing the cultural context.  I can answer for the U.S. -- this sort of behavior is absolutely not tolerated, and a report to the dean of graduate studies in the department, or the department chair, would be effective.  Swiftly.  No recording would be needed.

I wonder what country, type of university this is happening. Also whether the lecturer is tenured (and eternally attached to the university).

What country is this in?  Standards vary widely for this sort of thing.

Improve the strength of your own mind...from a behavioral viewpoint you give him the power to hurt you.Bearing it silently you improve your potential strength. But having said that.. you have a recourse to bring to Dean's attention for a repetition of such hurts, if in someway you feel that the prerogative of a teacher has been exceeded.

and if, on the off chance, the material in this class might be over your head at this time (and i see no reason why that should be the case, a CS graduate should be well-qualified for a course on complex numbers and computation thereof), he should have let you know after class or sometime more discreetly if he/she thought you were over your head and didn't really belong in the class.

"The other classmates were laughing at me" - they probably didn't know what else was appropriate, other than calling out the lecturer, which would then attract his attention to them... I wouldn't take it personally, at least in their regard.

This happened to a friend of mine. Bullies exist; evil people exist. It has always been like that, and still global violence is declining as civilisation continues to rise (given that we finally tackle global warming). So ignore these bullies and enjoy the course! Don't think about leaving if you like the contents of the lecture! You surely can bear the bullying.

The instructor's behaviour is inexcusable, but to tell all the truth, if you wish to follow a graduate course in mathematics without having a solid command of complex numbers, things are going to be very difficult for you in the next months.

Actually, a classical syllogism applies: Taking for granted what the lecturer said, (1) Only very clever people are in math classes.  (2) You are in a math class. Ergo (3) you are very clever. - It seems the lecturer did not want to imply this, so he certainly made a much bigger blunder in elementary logic than you as a newcomer in that lesson ...

@HagenvonEitzen :D :D that's simply brilliant

@JoErNanO, What A.Klomp means is that your first comment is missing the point. Totally.

@TK, Why is your lecturer making fun of where you are from?

@Pacerier I am from the Southern US and I did my PhD in the North, where he was from. He was making fun of the uneducated "hick" types from my hometown area and called me an inappropriate word.

Well done on keeping your cool. I think I would have made my anger manifest.

There is nothing you can really do to prevent this behaviour. You can just report it to the university.
There should be a committee dealing with teacher behaviour; things may vary depending on your country and university, so I cannot be more specific. If you have student representatives, contact them.
Describe the abusive behaviour with as many details as you can, refrain from putting your own personal judgement and emotions into the facts, and have a colleague student support you as a witness.

Agreed. Remember the worst the lecturer can do to retaliate is to bully you in class. Which they are currently doing anyway.

@Peter The more bullying that happens, the more wood the lecturer is collecting to burn himself.

This behaviour should definitely be reported tot he HOD or the University dean-whoever is the higher authority.This will prevent the lecturer from continuing this behaviour henceforth.

David Hill's version seems more likely. And your suggestion is harmful in this case. Don't pull the trigger without any hard evidence.

@J.F.Sebastian I agree completely - I have pointed out the relevant body and assuming that the OP's story is accurate, but maybe it needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. In this case, hopefully having to describe the behaviour and look for the support of a colleague student will help OP put things into the correct frame.

We are seemingly moving into a "humiliation/offense" society. It was quite normal, in our time, for the lecturer to "slap the hat" of the students; as long as he didn't single out a particular person for repeated "slaps", this was unpleasant, but nowhere a utter humiliation. Usually, one should await whether there is a pattern. If there isn't, it is a generic put-down (someone linked it to noble-ness of the field), basically "only" the patronising arrogance of the "aristocrats of the field" to its foot soldiers. Once it is systematically directed to specific people, then it calls for action.

There is something a bit off about your description of events. You describe that your classmates were laughing at you as your instructor verbally abused you. I can't imagine that happening. If things were as mean spirited as you say, I would expect dead silence.
I am wondering if the lecturer was just trying to insert some lighthearted humor and had no malicious intent. Instead of reporting anything to the university, maybe it would be a good idea to politely tell your instructor that you were very embarrassed by the situation (privately, of course). It may be that he had no idea and will be apologetic.
Having said all this, I have to add that public speaking is an important skill. It is worthwhile to develop the confidence to defend your ideas to an audience, and to avoid taking comments too personally. Later in your post you refer to "funny" notes made by your instructor as well as a loud public correction at the end. Remember that everyone is learning in this class and the comments may have been for the benefit of the students who are making the same mistakes (and the last public outcry was probably because a lot of them are making that particular error).
Anyway, I'm very sorry you had a bad day. I hope the situation is as I described. If talking to your instructor doesn't go well, then perhaps you should consider reporting the behavior.

+1 We're hearing a dramatised story from a student with a freshly bruised ego. While the professor may have been insensitive to OP's embarrassment, it's hard to imagine it rose to the level of "abuse" and "ridicule".  Is there really a question here or does OP just want people to agree how badly-behaved the character is in this version of events.

I have definitely been accused of being mean spirited by a handful of students over my time when I was trying to help defuse awkward situations using humor.  Based on my evals, most all of my students appreciate it, but it's impossible to know everyone's background.  While I normally joke about gender agreement issues in the first year language classes (Oh, Mr [muscled star football player], you have a boyfriend?), I suppose there's always the possibility if the person has gender identity issues, the joke may ring a bit too true and offend. A quick e-mail to the prof'll make the intent clear

I can't imagine that happening. If things were as mean spirited as you say, I would expect dead silence.  Then you had a much more pleasant educational experience than a lot of people.  The cruel kids who had no problem being exactly that mean-spirited in high school don't magically turn into mature adults just because they're now in college.

"I can't imagine that happening." It happens like this pretty often. The crowd is often happy to support a bully. Also, I see no point arguing the assessment of OP. Even if he/she is in mistake, the question (what should one do in a situation like this?) is a valid one.

@guifa It doesn't necessarily take "gender identity issues" for a muscled star football player to have a boyfriend.

@Dougal I think there was a misunderstanding. I take it, the gender identity issues guifa mentioned are not the reason to have a gay relationship, but caused by it. Which is totally fine and understandable, because it is not easy to be gay in today's society. I think you two are both on the same page.

@mafu Gender identity issues need not be caused by being gay, but rather perhaps by authority figures suggesting that being gay is a source of amusement.

@Calchas That is exactly what I was trying to say.

Humor at someone else's expense is never okay unless you know that person well and know they can take it. Also You clearly do not know anyone with a learning disability, mental illness, or anxiety. Being picked on in class is an absolute horrific nightmare for people who struggle with those issues. Don't know if OP has those struggles, but this situation is embarrassing and difficult enough for people without them. I have a best friend with anxiety. Situations like this are destructive. This video is long, but I highly encourage that you watch it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0ye3L6CEEU

@DavidHill I didn't state it for privacy. Thanks. I suppose a B is a good enough. I refer here

The fact that this answer is still the 2nd most voted by a hair in what could possibly be a case of egregious bullying is very worrying. I say possible, because whether or not OP’s story is accurate, mine (recounted below) was very real. I now have a position in academia as a researcher and I still stand by my words of my awful experience. So yes, it can happen, and what this answer is doing is blaming the victim based on a just world hypothesis cognitive bias. It’s not OK at all.

Why are you letting this person get the best of you? You say:

he started to humiliate me in front of all my colleagues
I was feeling like an idiot standing there and listening to his abusive speech
This experience destroyed the lesson for me completely.
I was ashamed to talk with anybody.

These are pretty serious reactions, and I can only see them happening if you willingly participate and play his game. At the end of the day, he's just some guy talking about stuff at a blackboard. The title is "PhD", not "his majesty". If he thinks you are stupid, that's his opinion, and he has a right to it - and you have a right to dismiss his opinion as irrelevant.

Not being good at math is not something to be ashamed of. Plenty of perfectly respectable, even great people are not good at it.
Not being good at his particular narrow topic is nothing shameful. Nobody is born knowing everything, everybody starts somewhere.
Not being intelligent (the fact that you were did not know something at the very beginning of the class doesn't even have to do anything with your intelligence, but nevermind) is not something to be ashamed of. The vast majority of people aren't very intelligent by most measures - so what? We don't go around mocking and shaming them, that would be ridiculous.

The way you've described them, his contentions have absolutely no basis. He asked some specialized trivia that you weren't taught, and then tried to act horrified that you didn't know it. It's a ridiculous thing to do, so why'd you take him seriously? Your response should have been, "so what?". "Yeah, I don't know this. So what?" "Yeah, I can't solve this problem easily. So what?"
It would be one thing if he gave you some homework, and you brazenly refused to put any effort into it, and then came to class complaining you can't solve the problem that the homework was meant to teach you how to solve. But this is just ridiculous. If the student is fulfilling all the duties they've been given, and still failing, the instructor is the one who should feel ashamed.

He told me that this field is "not for everybody" and that in math classes there are "only very clever people"

Well, if he thinks the class is not for you, he should kick you out of the class (as in, officially, through the school's system). He's not doing it, is he? That's because he's full of hot air. The course is literally "for everybody", evidenced by the fact that the school system as supervised by the president of the school has allowed everybody (including you) to register for the course. That's really all there is to it, if he doesn't like it, he can go petition his dean to require a mandatory IQ test to take his course, or whatever it is he wants.

So, what would you advise me to do to prevent this situation next time?

Well, if you really want to take the class (maybe you think the material is worth learning in spite of him, or you are required to by the school administration), I think you have the following options:

Next time he tries to humiliate you, refuse to be humiliated and act as if you don't even see what's wrong. He will be forced to explain what's so worthy of humiliation, and when he explicitly says it, it will be plain to see how ridiculous and incorrect he is. It won't work, and hopefully he'll stop doing it. Beware, though, as he will probably take this as you challenging his authority, and may try to shout at you or eject you from the class - he doesn't actually have that authority, so if you stick to your guns and refuse to comply, he should eventually back off, but it may be difficult not to be suckered into complying if you can't handle people shouting you down.
Stop going to lectures, and only show up to exams. Independently study the material yourself. In my experience, the vast majority of courses these days are better learned from the textbook anyway, and it sounds like this guy is awful and wouldn't teach you much. The danger is if he somehow builds in required attendance (whether by actually taking attendance or doing daily quizzes or something), or if the course doesn't have a textbook you can study. In that case, you're out of luck.
Ask to speak with him privately. Firmly and clearly tell him that you disagree with his behavior, you don't appreciate it, and you won't allow it. Don't make excuses like you have in this question (eg. "I'm not from this field so it's hard for me") because you have nothing to excuse, and the excuses would legitimize his attitude. If he tries to take a childish tone with you (eg. by mocking) refuse to participate and speak like an adult. It takes a lot for someone to just say, "fine, I admit I'm being petty and childish, but you know what, I'm not ashamed, and I'm gonna do it anyway!" Even Nixon couldn't do it.

It really comes down to one of two things: Either you force him to admit he is treating you unfairly, at which point he should give up (assuming he is not truly malicious, which most academics are not), or make yourself too difficult to bully by fighting back (in which case it doesn't matter if he is malicious).
You also have the option of going through official channels, but I'm skeptical that for your situation it's likely to precipitate an immediate and perceptible improvement (the old joke about a garbage bin labeled "student complaints box"...). If bureaucracies worked, people wouldn't hate them.
But really, if you want to "prevent this situation next time" - the situation is being in a class with a bad instructor. You don't want it? Don't take classes with bad instructors. It's easier than trying to "fix" the instructor, and eventually questions will be asked about why this one instructor has so much trouble getting people to take his course (maybe even by the instructor himself).

There's some very good material here.  I would remove the first line, though -- it is coming across more blaming than I think was intended.  I especially like the suggestion to speak with him in his office hours, and let him know that you are not accustomed to being spoken to that way, especially not in public.

I agree, you have to stand up for yourself firmly and politely before you blow your lid at the wrong moment ;)

Depending on university policy, but I would ask to record the lecture for "notes". If he allows it, the recording alone is likely to change his behaviour, and if it doesn't you have proof of how he acts. If he refuses, ask kindly, and only once, ask why if he still refuses drop it. Then move onto other solutions.

Edit (July 2023):
I just read your question again, a few years later, because someone downvoted my answer ... and now I want to rewrite the whole thing. Instead, I'm going to keep the original as a quote, and put my updated view here.
It's one thing to make one remark that the lecturer might think is witty (but is also quite inappropriate), but it's something else entirely to keep at it, while watching the reaction of the recipient. Completely independent of that, it's also not very smart to keep a student in front of the class after seeing that the student is not able to solve the task in the way they're expected to. Teaching is about learning what you don't yet know, not about filtering out the people who haven't mastered everything yet.
It's also remarkable how easily people may rationalize or even defend such behaviour, particularly if it's something they themselves have to deal with. (...)
To everyone reading this: Please don't be like that. Don't be someone who puts people in such situations, and don't defend the abuse.
To everyone witnessing a scene like this: That's an object lesson in understanding that expertise in one topic does not make someone a better human (actually, it seems to make some people into self-important bullies). The fact that the lecturer was much nicer to the OP afterwards does not make their behaviour any better. If you're only nice to people who meet/exceed your expectations, you're not a nice person.
To everyone subjected to such treatment: Whatever your reaction in the moment, we all react as we do. It's an attack, and that can quickly shut down important parts of your brain. So, the best that most people can muster in the moment is to shut up, maybe even stop listening entirely for a few seconds, let the moment pass and then consider what to do next.
If you do manage to hang on to your wits: Try to leave the "victim" spot that the lecturer assigned you to.
There are some ways to do that, but they're hard to get right spontaneously. Some of those are: Asking an unexpected (ideally well-informed) question back (you're the student, and it's their job to explain!), making a return joke ("... I guess lecturing is also not for everyone, either". Haha indeed!), or maybe just stating that that was enough fun for today and sitting back down -- really, anything that demonstrates you're not just going to stand there and receive whatever they decide to hand you. This sort of thing demonstrates confidence, and most potential abusers will naturally stop at that point (or explode with rage, at which point you can sit back and enjoy the show).
A less good alternative is to directly fight back and accuse the person. That escalates the situation further, and you might not want that with a lecturer you still need to live with for half a year or more. It also carries the risk of looking like you're trying to cover incompetence with aggression -- particularly if you lose your temper halfway through your response. However: In some situations punching back is still better than taking a beating.
What to do afterwards?
I think the other answers already cover this to a large extent. Depending on how you feel about the incident, it's often good to talk to someone that you trust and/or who was there, to assure yourself that you're not making stuff up, and to find out what the procedures are for complaints about teaching staff. And then you can form an opinion on whether to file a complaint, confront the person directly, indirectly (i.e. by talking to others in the offender's environment or through your own behaviour), or to let it slide.
Letting things slide is often the "easiest" way (possibly hard on yourself but it avoids having to get up and confront anyone), but it's also the way that allows the offender to rationalize that their behaviour was totally fine because nobody complained. I hate to think that there are a lot of abusive people who continue exactly because most of the recipients of their abuse find it easiest to walk away, grin and bear it, or otherwise not force the issue. Some places have anonymous complaint procedures where the offender is not told who is complaining, in order to make that path easier, but there are of course some limitations to those... so it's not a very straightforward decision.

If, as you say, everyone was laughing, then I don't think he meant to be mean-spirited. Every time I saw someone be humiliated for serious mistakes, there was indeed dead silence, and everyone felt bad for the victim (although mostly no-one says a word...). If people are laughing, it means (in my own sphere!) that the lecturer made a joke.

8(!) years later: That's rubbish. One "joke" may be a clumsy accident, but keeping at it as you describe is not. The guy had a an attitude problem.

Now, does that mean you just got it wrong? No!
Not at all.

I know a quite a few people (especially in academia) who are just socially inept enough to think something was a good joke when they actually just really hurt somebody.

I can imagine the guy thought he was just poking you a bit. And maybe he has a somewhat-secret, somewhat-ironic dislike of non-mathematicians (who doesn't like to poke fun at "the others"?). All in good humour, of course... (he thinks).

I'd guess he probably really did not think he was doing anything wrong (obviously because nobody does something wrong on purpose), but there was a good deal of "that stupid student must be taught a lesson" in there, and that attitude can just fuck right off. Pointing out a deficiency can be useful, but embarrassing people is not. The correct behaviour in such a situation (student is at the board, trying to solve a task) is to not call students to the front unless they indicate that they can do it and to have a backup plan that avoids embarrassment if they fail.
Generally, if a student doesn't get it, that's the lecturer's fault for not having explained it in a way that works for the student.

In case that wasn't clear: I think it's his fault for not realizing what he did, not yours for feeling humiliated. Last time I asked students a question during a lecture, most of them had no idea, and I think this is the hard reality most lecturers live with. So if you were able to answer correctly, the guy has nothing on you, even if it took you a while.

What you should do? I think you should talk to some of the other students to get their view. Maybe you were easily humiliated because you're more used to success than others? Maybe they thought it was in good spirits (though maybe in bad taste)? Ask them how difficult they thought the problem actually was. Or what they thought the lecturer actually meant to say. What they say will not be "the objective truth", but maybe it'll help you understand better what the episode meant. If it turns out that actually, yes, he thought you were under-performing and wanted to make fun of you for it, by all means go ahead and report it (as others have suggested). But I'd suggest that before you do that, you should not just collect evidence from other witnesses but also try to get more of a perspective of what was going on, because that will help you understand it in your own mind -- which you have to do anyway.

Ugh. I mean: by all means go and get more perspective, and of course understanding the other is valuable -- but bear in mind that "understanding" is not the same as "excusing". It's more a tool to find a lever that you can pull. Something that gives you an idea on how to either push back or improve the situation. It's also really useful to get out of the "offender <--> victim" relation because it can give you confidence, agency, and an element of control that the offender may not have. The better you understand where the other's behaviour is coming from, the easier it becomes to stand your ground, talk back, or otherwise improve matters for yourself and hopefully others.

An agressive "joke" towards an unwilling person on which you have an authority and in front of an audience is not a joke, it's a humiliation. Whatever sense of humor you have, this is clearly not sane, and is not an excuse. A classroom is not the place to make fun of people, students don't need their teacher to make fun of them. If you really need to joke with someone, you have your collegues or your friends for that.

A agree in principle. The problem is that a) there is a fluid boundary between a witty remark and a humiliating joke, b) every individual puts that boundary in a different place, and c) although there are good indicators to tell whether something's crossed the threshold, most people are not aware of them. I also agree that aggression should not be excused because it was not "meant", but a violation out of ignorance needs a different response than an outright intentional attack. I don't know what that response should be in any particular case but it's worth clarifying things before acting.

I just don't agree with you @Zak, there are at least three objective, clear limits that draw the boundary between a witty remark and a humiliating joke: 1- when there's a relationship of authority , 2- when the person is unwilling, 3- when mocking someone in front of an audience. The first being the most important, because a (personal) joke cannot in any way be shared between the two protagonists if there's any relationship of authority, that's just tricky. You can joke about something else, but not about the other protagonists.

To illustrate what I meant: let's say your boss comes to you, joking that "you're just too ugly to be smart". What are you supposed to reply? If you attack him back, he can kick you out, or at least make your life a hell. If you don't, he can continue however he wants to. If you mock him just like he did to you, he can also kick you out. You see, there's no possible "fun" joke because the situation cannot be spontaneous, honest, because the relationship is asymmetrical, unequal. You just cannot defend yourself.

Those are not clear: Both 1 and 3 are clear criteria to be careful not to mock people but say nothing about whether I have done so or not. The only one left is 2, and that's exactly what I was refering to: Most people (not just many, but the actual majority!)  will not notice the difference between someone who's taken a remark as a joke, just ignored it, or are actually properly dismayed. This goes doubly if the joking person has a good time, and then tries to chase one "joke" with another to make completely clear it was not serious. Please mind that I don't say this was not a terrible thing!

Yes but since 1 is pretty clear, I think that when you have a relationship of authority, you should just never make fun of someone you have an autority on (except if it's outside of the professional settings, eg, if you invite your students at home then you are outside of the scope of the academic/pro setting anyway). About 2, I agree it's harder to define in practice but here it's pretty clear that the OP was unwilling since it was his first day! I mean, it's absurd to make fun of someone you've just met, that's clearly not the way to build any friendly relationship...

So to summary what I mean: I agree that humour is always a tricky thing, and it often depends on the context. So it's quite common to cross one or two boundaries unintentionally when trying to joke. But when you're crossing this many boundaries, it's clearly intentionally done to hurt, not just to have fun.

I (unluckily) experienced a very similar situation to yours. I will first describe my own experience, and then my advices to you.
My story
I had a teacher who fancied bullying every students, particularly when they were at the blackboard. Every single mistake was spotted and laughed at, with lots of ad hominem attacks (you did a mistake ? => you are less worthy than a scum ; your writing is not that pretty? Just like your face! ; your answer is correct? Yes but you're wrong because you didn't write it fast enough! ; there's a mistake in the lecture? No, it's just you being too dumb to understand that this mistake is insignificant, even if it's a basic theorem of the field and the mistake change every subsequent results). The thing is that he forced randomly picked students to go the blackboard, so you just had to wait your turn. I spotted his behavior since the first lecture, and I was ashamed that almost every other students were also mocking the student at the blackboard, not realizing that their turn would come. This was a very sad scene, seeing each week a student at the blackboard being bullied and clearly suffering from the situation, while at the previous (and the next!) the same student was laughing with everyone else.
After one lecture where our teacher corrected (with "funny" remarks aloud) group homeworks, I took the opportunity to reply and speak for our group. Even if my collegues agreed with me about the teacher's wrongful behavior, they instantly feared and backed off when the teacher's got upset by me replying. The tipping point was when he started to menace me and our group to make me fail this course, without even evaluating the exam (which is totally illegal in my country).
I will now pass the details, but I tried to reach for the supervisor of the course, which allowed me an interview, but it in fact turned out to be a punitive interrogation for me, and I was (illegally) sanctioned to exclusion from the rest of the lectures. I then appealed to the department director, which (explicitly) tried to shut the case off. In the end, I was still excluded from the last weeks of the course, but we had another examinator for this course's exam to avoid bias in the evaluation, so I had a fair evaluation and I could graduate.

My advices
Now on to my advices: you cannot do, at your level, anything to prevent the bullying from this person, for several reasons:

it brings him pleasure, since he clearly has some type of narcissistic pervert personality. Thus, you can become however better you want, even better than him, he would still bully you (and probably more if you threaten his ego by being better).
he has an authority over you, and a legitimate position. This is a point that currently all other answers are missing. You cannot just reply or defend yourself directly, because he has the authority to shut you up, and even to make you fail the course. He is also probably a respected professor in his university, so even if you go to the supervisors or deans, they will probably side with the professor (it's not a good thing for the university if a professor gets blamed for wrongful behavior, they obviously prefer to blame the student or shut the case off).
the university's staff, and even your co-students, will probably deny everything and not support you: the staff because of conflicting interests as I explained in point 2, the students because of fear of retaliations and the just world fallacy (the belief that if something bad happens to you, then you necessarily provoked it. This is clearly shown in some other answers here...).

So, what should you do?
First, you should focus on your goal: graduating. So, if you can change your course and take another in-place of this one (even if it's a course of lesser interest for you), you should try that, because you will of course not be able to attain your potential in such a setup, and you will probably fail if in addition the professor fancies bullying you in particular (ie, if you're his whipping boy).
If that's not possible, and since he's the only professor for this course, then you have two choices:

stay low and just try to follow the course the best you can. If you can study alone then try that, if you can't because the material in class cannot be found or for whatever reason, try your best to not be affected. I know, that's very hard and impossible to totally be unaffected, but remember that your goal is to graduate. Once you graduate, you're free to never meet this awful person again in your whole life. (Note that this strategy can fail, particularly if you're already his whipping boy, because ignoring his attacks may infuriate his ego and he will bully you even more.)

report and request action from the supervisors/deans/directors of your university. In that case, you should first try to collect objective information, because everything will be denied. Written emails, remarks on your homeworks, or even a hidden voice recorder to record the bullying when it's taking place. Usually, it's perfectly fine to record a lecture even without asking the teacher, since the lecture is public (ie, you're not talking about your or his private life). However, be sure to not post or share or propagate this audio record to anyone nor anywhere on Internet, because in some countries this can be assimilated to diffamation and punished by law. However, having this kind of proof will allow you to defuse any denying in case things go wrong in your requests (ie, the university trying to blame you and cover the professor) just by citing the transcripts. In my case, this allowed me to get the replacement of my professor for the examination, and thus my graduation. If there's a students association, you can also try to ask them for help and to accompagny you to interviews to defend you (they were a bit useful for me but not that much, they've got a lot to do with bigger matters). Anyway, if you want to choose this path, be aware that this will be even harder on you (the burden of proof will be on you, and you will probably be interrogated like you were the abuser, instead of the victim), and it is also highly costly in time. Remember that your goal is foremost to graduate, not to make the world just and fair.

Lastly, I would like to say that I am deeply sorry for you, scholar humiliation can deeply affect your trust in academia and thus your whole subsequent career, so I wish you to be able to overcome that bad period and I wish you to have a great career.

POST-OP UPDATE
Congratulations OP for passing. Unfortunately this does not make your "rude" professor’s behavior OK, but at least you won’t have to meet him again.
What you wrote, especially:

I got even my satisfaction in the end - after the exam I met with the rude professor. To my surprise he told me, that I've surprised him very much with my score from final test and that I was "fighting bravely".

Seems to confirm what I suggested: your professor is indeed engaging in bullying rooted in "nobility" of academic field culture, as the sociologist Pierre Merle identified. Unfortunately, you won’t be the only one to suffer from it: you survived it, other students’ careers may/will not.
But that’s not your problem, but this IS a systemic problem in academia that will have to be tackled eventually by universities administrations.
(For Pierre Merle reference, see: Pierre Merle, « L'humiliation des élèves dans l'institution scolaire : contribution à une sociologie des relations maître-élèves », Revue Française de Pédagogie, no 139, avril-mai-juin 2002, p. 31-51.)

thank you for sharing your story. I don't know where you live but at my old institution teaching was taken extremely seriously and anyone accused of insulting students like this would be straight onto the audit list. Even as an undergraduate though I would never have tolerated these kind of insults from someone I was paying to teach me.

@Calchas: my story happened in France at one of the biggest and most renowned university (both nationally and internationally). In theory, yes, this should have been taken very seriously, but in practice it's just shrugged off.

I can only say it would really not be taken lying down in the UK, probably not by the student either! Indeed some staff will claim it's gone the other way, even a suggestion by the students that your teaching is subpar will result in the head of the teaching committee sitting through your lectures to check how good you are.

I think it also depends on what kind of department you were in. There were some studies by Pierre Merle about the impact of the perceived "nobility" of the field you're studying, and it seems that scholarship humiliation was more prevalent in more "noble" fields, mathematics being at the top. But also I guess the univ staff I had was just really not good at all at managing this kind of issue...

Yikes... from my own experience: If you manage to gain the confidence, it's often possible to figure out something to do about it. Learning to just absorb abuse can get you through a limited time but can also have long-term consequences. The best longer-term method I know is to get support, understand the situation better, building your own confidence, and then act in whichever way works best in your case. Ideally without direct escalation, because that avoids retaliation.

This is an excellent lesson for a student. There are a host of people, especially in senior positions, who will bully, ridicule, belittle, or otherwise be obnoxious to you throughout your life.  Einstein, Tesla, Hertz, and a host of others have stories of school troubles.
You get to decide how you want to deal with these people. You can become a victim, and waste your time and energy trying to correct them, get revenge on them, change them, etc.  why?
Pursue your life goals and your passions. Ignore them, work around them. Let them become speed bumps instead of real obstacles. If you simply marginalize them and carry on with your life, you'll be far better off. Then, when you are a successful and happy adult, you can look back and laugh about the poor mean fools who tried to sabotage you to make themselves feel better about their own inadequacies.
Any teacher who ridicules students isn't a real teacher. They're just weak minded bullies who are bad at their job.  The last thing you want to do is allow such fools to drag you into their ridiculous game.

The lecturer must have very low self esteem. He gets a sense of self worth based on his superior knowledge of the subject matter compared to that of a novice. Pragmatically speaking, since this person has power over the poster, I think it would be important not the threaten the lecturer's fragile self esteem in any way. It might even be a good idea to suck up to him, distasteful as that would be.

Neither Tesla nor Einstein were poor students.

I have witnessed something similar before in the Czech Republic. It is an exception, but it can happen.
Unfortunately, this behaviour is not taken seriously enough in our country. Even if you report it, you may not achieve anything and more people can turn against you. It would be better to find out if something similar was reported before at your faculty and what happened afterward.
If you fear the teacher can revenge if you report it, then at least note it in the student survey. If he is a TA and there are other parallel groups running, you can ask to change the group. That is probably not possible if he is the main lecturer of the subject.
The peers which are worth caring about probably feel sympathetic to you anyway. And they know who is behaving wrong.

I faced a similar situation in the [XXXXXXX programming language] community. Being a novice I used to make it a point to only answer questions of other novice level people. However one moderator guy kept correcting me (more like nit-picking) and that made me feel like this guy was trying to tell me not to try and answer any questions until I became an expert.
It set me back by a whole year on the forum, as I had to build my startup also and didn't have the interest to go and be an active part of the community. Finally I decided to act on my problem and spoke to the moderator group that I was being attacked by this guy. Nothing much happened, but the net effect of this is that I was able to communicate my feelings and sensitivities to the community.
The problem you are facing is not restricted to your Mathematics teacher alone. There is a lot of arrogance caused by intellectualism today. Those who are in a position of power and influence easily forget that they were novices too.
 It is very important that you don't allow that to change your basic person.
And that takes time. For me its taken one whole year.
I can even share one more example from my engineering days, there was this lecturer who used to take COBOL. He had a habit of acting very serious and senior, to cover up for his total lack of knowledge and experience in the subject matter. We were asked to write programs in a notebook and if we get even one period (.) wrong, he would NOT ALLOW US TO USE THE COMPUTER. He particularly singled me out for correction, because I was very good at English and communication, which I feel threatened him. Most lecturers in my engineering college were like this person, if you compare their experience and teaching ability. As a result I did not become an expert at COBOL, as I was miffed with the subject and the teacher. I am not suggesting that I did the right thing, but I was a vulnerable, impressionable young kid in a rural engineering college. I completely screwed up in engineering, and from being a top grade student, I just ended up with a first class and absolutely no technical knowledge whatsoever. It then took me two years to start learning JAVA, Swing and EJB from scratch and get a plum job.
The moral of my story is - never give up. RESPECT YOUR SENSITIVITIES AND YOUR LIMITATIONS. They are as much a part of you as your STRENGTHS.

I was going to comment: "Does your university really run a COBOL class these days?" Then I read this article and I've thought that maybe running COBOL classes is not such a bad idea...

oh that was a long time ago in 1998 during my engineering 1st sem. Now in my country COBOL is taught as early as high school (6th grade, 7th grade etc)

A long prelude to my actual answer:
You can see from several of the answers here that you'll have an uphill battle even getting folks to acknowledge the validity of your observations about the situation. This is where bad culture enables this kind of abuse: it doesn't even acknowledge the reality of it.
So, for starters, I will say that I take your observations and descriptions of the event at face value. His actions as you describe them certainly have an overt or pronounced quality to them, so that there really can't be a valid question that what he did was egregiously harmful. Likewise, the students who had mirth at your humiliation were egregiously heartless.
It's possible the man isn't consciously aware just how uselessly destructive his behavior is, but whether he is aware or not, I second one of the comments that his behavior is absolutely not acceptable. I'm talking about objective truth here; I frankly don't care much for casting things in a frame of reference of culture. If culture tolerates this kind of thing, culture itself is objectively bad.
Which leads to my answer: find literature about how to effectively handle abusive behaviors and rotten folks. Learn to be prepared for every kind of awful verbal and emotional muck which people might hurl at you.
Suzette Haden Elgin's books are a great start. "The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense" is an excellent starter. Mrs. Elgin stated in that book that academia is too often home to very advanced verbal (and I would say emotional) abuse.
And no, I'm not an expert at handling verbal abuse.
One other thing I've learned is that agreeing with unfair accusations is the best way to put the lie to them. Even when the accusations are ludicrous, agreeing with them shows that you care and have an interest in improving yourself, which makes the whole accusatory nature of the situation moot. It demonstrates the futility of nasty accusations where someone clearly gives their best, to the point of acknowledging their shortcomings (or "shortcomings" where the accusations are false). It can also "kill them with kindness," because as a gracious response, it sharply contrasts with the most ungracious behavior of the accuser, who is then compelled to either keep up their cruel game willfully, openly and knowingly (in openly exposed shamelessness), or drop it.
Lastly, I second the suggestion that if you wish to, reporting his abusiveness to his bosses is appropriate.

I believe the OP is not lying, and that he truly felt deeply offended; and the professor's actions are wrong for that. What I am not sure of is whether his interpretation is accurate, and that is a key point to the solution. For all we know, the professor may be Asperger, and not realise the consequences of his joke, in which case he should be educated so it doesn't happen again. In that case, "kill it with kindness" may be misinterpreted and only reward the behaviour.

I see. Yes, good point.

I'm very sorry to hear about your ordeal with this lecturer. Unfortunately there are lots of lecturers out there who are allowed to do this and get away with it. This is not a professional behaviour and certainly this would not be tolerated in other professions-you can't humiliate your customers/clients and get away with it or humiliate your patients if you're a medical doctor. I think the problem is that some academics don't see themselves as professionals and this reflects on the way they treat their students.
On the brighter side, I think you have to be careful how you react to this situation. You have to try to be in control and try to make friends with other students in class. The fact that you're new to the course means you have to give yourself a good chance and if anything prove that lecturer wrong. Of course, you can always report to the authorities if you feel this would help but sincerely, this may not change him and don't forget he is the one grading you for that course. I hope you resolve this and come out successful in your course.


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Is it dishonest to not list papers published in predatory journals when e.g. applying for a job?
Will someone be considered dishonest if they do not list papers published in predatory journals? I'd like to know in the following  scenarios, when

applying for a job
listing on, e.g. a personal University web page or a Google personal profile of Google Scholar
asked by researchGate to confirm “Am I the author?”

Does it conflict with the idea that honesty is the most important factor for researchers?

I am a bit confused why this is a concern... Why don't you want to list your papers... Did you do a crap job but at least it was published? As long as you did good quality work, it shouldn't matter where it was published..

@Questor If they are published in predatory journals presumably they are not good quality work. If they were they should be able to get into a (possibly low ranked) respectable journal. Low ranking and predatory journals are not the same thing.

@quarague Not necessarily... Its possible that someone new to academia who didn't know what predatory journals were, who felt the pressure from publish/perish could have published a paper in such a journal because they were the first 'scientific' journal to accept the paper. Not all papers published in predatory journals are bad.

Will someone be treated to be dishonest, when not listing papers published in predatory journals?

I'd prefer not to see predatory journals in someone's publication list, because those aren't scientific journals. Also, the fewer mentions predatory journals get, the better (except, of course, in predatory journal lists).
You mention that "honesty is the best policy", so just keep the honest journals.
"Selected Publications" lists are typically much more selective that weeding out predatory journals, so I don't think it'll help your case, as you seem to aim for an exhaustive publication list. But obviously if you aim to do a shortlist with your best papers, then your shouldn't mention the predatory journals.

Thank you the reply. I agree. But isn't "honesty is the best policy"?

@MikeLiu yes so just keep the honest journals

@KRyan you have misread.

@FranckDernoncourt I did, wow. I have no idea what I was on about; sorry. I can only plead 1-year-old kept me up all night. Unfortunately, my downvote is locked in—if you want to edit, I’d be happy to switch it to an upvote.

@KRyan no worries

For 2 ... I often see personal web pages with "Selected Publications".  If that is the label, then it is not dishonest to omit some publications (for whatever reason).

And indeed there's no reason you can't also say "Selected Publications" on your CV, although CVs are traditionally complete. There's a chance that an employer might follow up asking for a complete list of publications, and that may also be required for e.g., tenure review. In such cases, honesty requires being complete. But in general, you don't have to advertise every paper you've published if you don't want to.

@Kodiologist Regarding "although CVs are traditionally complete", I have to disagree. The standard size for a CV varies widely from one country to the next. In a country where your whole CV is expected to fit into a single A4 page, including work experience and education, you can't be expected to list all publications.

It is a good point thought that if the employer asks for a full publication list, it would be dishonest to delete the publications in predatory journals from a list presented as being full.  I have plenty of papers in good journals that I wouldn't want to waste the panel's time with (not worth reading today), "selected publications" is a good approach.

I agree with this, and was just about to post the same, pointing out that to leave papers out in a fashion that doesn't show that the list is not comprehensive might well be considered dishonest.

I'll add that I try to not do stuff that I wouldn't want to tell people about.

Showcasing your best published papers is not dishonest..

@ScottSeidman I agree, e.g. for pre-mature papers.

@Stef the shortened ones are usually called resumes.

@Džuris There are two meanings of the word, and preferring the term "resume" will only confuse things in those countries that favor the other meaning. It's much like the question of whether football involves touchdowns or throw-ins.

@Kodiologist, "CVs are traditionally complete" - not really. I have never seen a CV which lists an experienced applicant's early jobs at McDonalds and the like.

My experience is that in the US, a CV, as opposed to a resume, is generally expected to contain a complete list of your publications. It might not list all work experience or education (like high school) and there may be variation between countries.

You pose an interesting ethical dilemma.
However, in general, honesty does not imply to provide all information. It would be dishonest to withhold information that puts the other information given in a bad light, along the lines of: "I was never convicted of murder" ("but I was convicted of voluntary manslaughter"). This would be dishonest because most people would assume that manslaughter is murder. But this is not the case here.
If you published in a predatory journal and you made a mistake, there is no reason to advertise this mistake. If you published because a co-author desperately needed a publication, even a bad one, then you do not need to advertise your good deed.
In my (Christian-Catholic) faith tradition, there is a distinction being made between information to which the receiver has a right ("Did you just cut me off in the parking lot?") and to which the receiver has no right ("No, Herr SS-Officer and Herr Gestapo, there are no jews in the attic" is the proverbial example). This avoids choosing the minor infraction of God's law, which is what we do not do. But you do not have to be in the same tradition in order to use this reasoning. The secular world is full of examples where you do not have to reveal something that is going to do harm to you. Scientific integrity is mostly about what you publish in your papers and present at talks.
From a utilitarian perspective, having published in a predatory journal is not relevant to an employer or grant giver, just as having made a mistake on a calculus exam in your first year undergraduate is irrelevant. But including the journal in your list would indicate that you believe it to be a valid publication, which would be contrary to the truth, or it would force you to discuss this in a document that is inappropriate.
So, in good conscience, leave it out.

Wait, why does the receiver have a right to know "Did you just cut me off in the parking lot?"?  (I'm assuming you mean this as a matter of intention, not action.)

"But including the journal in your list would indicate that you believe it to be a valid publication, which would be contrary to the truth" I disagree.  It is the contents of the paper that determine whether it is a valid publication, not where it was published.

"From a utilitarian perspective, having published in a predatory journal is not relevant to an employer " in your opinion (or in this case for your measure of utility).  The Golden rule means we need to consider the employers likely views on utility, not ours, which will be highly uncertain.  Unfortunately that is why ethical matters generally can't be legislated.

@DikranMarsupial on the other hand, a paper in a predatory journal with no meaningful standard of peer review has not been judged to be worthy of publication in the same manner that one in a proper journal has, and so from that perspective including it in a list of other papers which are published in good journals could be seen as dishonest. In that sense it's on par with a preprint which has not been accepted by a journal, in my opinion.

@llama peer review is an absolutely minimal indication of quality.  There are plenty of obviously wrong papers in top quality journals where peer review has failed.  There is one true test of quality - post publication acceptance (and use) by the research community - citations is one measure of that.  There are plenty of really good publications on ArXiV with lots of citations that have never been through peer review.  It is the contents of the paper that matter, not the journal.  A paper in a predatory journal that has had impact is better than a Nature paper that has been ignored.

This isn't to say peer review is useless, it isn't.  It's main purpose is the improvement of the paper by constructive criticism, not deciding whether it is worth publishing.  It is better than no peer review, but it is only the opinion of a couple of people who may or may not have genuine expertise on the topic.  I've written a fair few comments papers on bad papers in good journals, and that has rather tempered my expectations with regard to our judgement of whether papers are worth publishing.

" so from that perspective including it in a list of other papers which are published in good journals could be seen as dishonest. "  It would only be dishonest if it were presented as a list of papers in good journals.  If it is just a list of publications, then it is factually correct and honest.  If it were a "full publication list" it would be dishonest to exclude it.

Whatever the quality of the journal is, do you consider what you published there as good enough that I should read it, with good conscience?
The difference between this publication and one (by you) in a better journal would be: You might have put in more effort to get accepted in the better journal. It will have had a better review process, with you making improvements as a result. Or it might not have been accepted by the better journal at all.
But it is your decision, is the publication good enough for the audience, even if the journal in general isn't? Even if it isn't your best work, because it wasn't of that much importance to you, does it benefit me? That's the question to decide.

I'm sorry but I don't understand the question, as well as some of the answers here. It is dishonest to publish on predatory journals in the first place. Research is supported by funding from the state (tax payers) or private research foundations (donations). Research funds are meant to support rigorous and ethical research, in order to advance human knowledge. Predatory journals are not scientific journals and do not publish research articles. They would publish any piece of garbage you submit to them without any peer review process. I understand that some inexperienced researcher may have accidentally published on a predatory journal without even knowing that the journal was predatory. Honest people learn from their mistakes. However, if someone intentionally and repeatedly publishes on predatory journals using grant funding, the university or the institute they work for will certainly take actions against them. To conclude, if you have published several papers on predatory journals, listing these papers on the CV or university web page does not make you look more honest.

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Can a journal be freely indexed?
Am I allowed to compile the index to a journal and publish it, or should I ask permission to the journal first?
(By index I mean a list of all articles in all issues of the journal)

What do you mean by "indexed"? Are you thinking of the kind of index which says "if you're interested in ____ topic, look on this page"?

@Allure Or does he mean “indexed” as in “have a computer program automatically add every word in the journal (aside maybe some extremely common words like ‘the’) into a structured field that then records their position in the journal to allow for computer searching”?

I'm fairly sure it's allowed since (1) Google Scholar and many other databases do it and (2) it's in the interest of a journal that its content is as referenced as possible... but IANAL.

It is better to ask, because it is not obvious whether you can use their materials or not. As you can see from the link there are different types of cc licenses.

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Rejected by fellowships, worrying about my future
This is the first time I use Stack Exchange. Here are my backgrounds. I am a first-generation poor male immigrant from China to America. None of my members have education beyond middle school. So they cannot help me. Because I was 19 years old, I was too old to go to high school. I attended a community college, transfered to Berkeley to study nuclear physics. I am now a Physics PhD student at MIT. I am now a naturalized U.S. citizen. I applied for all fellowships that I am elligible such as NSF, DOE CSGF, DOE SSGF, Hertz, Soros, Ford, SMART, and NDSEG. I get rejected by Hertz for two cycles and NSF, Soros, DOE CSGF so far. I still have 5 fellowship application pending (DOE CSGF and DOE SSGF are not submitted yet).
I just wonder how to win (or even just get honorable mention or even just move to the interview) these fellowships. I have similar experience when I applied for REU. I applied to about 20 REUs and got an only one REU because the PI was Chinese. I suspect there are connections requirement for some fellowships, which I obviously do not have. Do you think you have any suggestion for my future career in academia if I end up with not getting any fellowships. I also attach the comments of my reviewers from NSF GRFP here. NSF GRFP Comments. Thank you for your inputs.

Have you discussed this with your advisor? Or any of your professors? They are the contacts who could be helping you with your applications.

I have rolled back the edit so that the question and answer can be of help to others with similar problems. If you want the question deleted please just use the "delete" option.

@Drecate: A user can't delete their own question if it has an upvoted answer, an accepted answer, or multiple answers.  All of those apply here.

@NateEldredge so what's your advice for the OP who apparently would like to delete the question?

@user67369: I wouldn't know off the top of my head whether any particular person got fellowships or not.  (That's some indication of how little it matters.)  But lots of academics have CVs on their website, and those would usually list fellowships if they received any.  Remember, though, that correlation is not causation - even if a high proportion of successful people received fellowships, it does not follow that a fellowship is necessary, or even significantly helpful, in achieving future success.

@Drecate: I believe the Stack Exchange policy is "too bad, you can't delete it".  Once posted, it belongs to the community.

In addition to what @NateEldredge says, please don't take as example someone who started their career almost 70 years ago: the academic market changes with time, and such an example is nowadays totally irrelevant.

Most physics graduate students at MIT (and elsewhere) are not supported by fellowships.  Certainly, a fellowship would not hurt, but whether or not you get a fellowship will have very little impact on your future career.  What will matter in the long term will be the quality of your research.
As a graduate student, both your research output and faculty members' evaluations of your research skills will be important.  As you advance further, it will be your personal research quality that will most matter.  Other factors, like the quality of your teaching and presentation skills, will affect whether you get good jobs, but whether you had a prestigious fellowship in graduate school will be basically irrelevant.

Thank you very much for you answer. It is quite frustrating not getting one fellowship. I am worried about my future grant applications if I plan to stay in academia. I think I just do not understand how to get funding. I think I should talk to my advisor for my next year's application. This is my first year and I have not done a lot of research. I think my advisor will be able to help me in my next year's application.

Having seen many applications, it is easy to tell which students had advisers who had looked over the application and given their input, and those who hadn't. That's because you can't write good applications (or papers, or basically anything else) if you don't know how good applications look like. You should definitely talk to your adviser about this.

The undergrad REU is a very different species compared to graduate fellowship, and if I were you I would not draw too much parallel between them.
From the NFS reviewer's comment you linked to in your question, I think the problem with your application is not with your technical background, but it has more to do with a lack of "soft skills" and a clear understanding of the funding agency's requirement. Remember that fellowship application is not just a numbers game. If you make the same mistake in every application, then the chance of rejection is going to be correlated.
As others have made clear, a one time failure in fellowship application is not the end of your career, but I think the failure is nonetheless a revealing experience that should be taken seriously. My suggestion for you is that you should find people with experience in fellowship application and seek out their advice on the appropriate style and scope of such applications. Specifically, you should read the reviewers' comments very carefully to understand why exactly your application is rejected. A broader suggestion, based on your bio, is that you should socialize more with your colleagues who have a better handle of the American culture. As one reviewer for your NSF application pointed out, some statement you made in your application suggests certain language habit that some may consider to be naive and lack in sophistication. Although this is probably not a make-or-break problem for your career, knowing how to put things in a diplomatic way will certainly reflect well on you in the long term.

This: "If you make the same mistake in every application, then the chance of rejection is going to be correlated."

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How to calculate person months for postdoc proposal when planning to work full time on multiple work packages?
I am currently in the process of preparing my proposal for a postdoc position. In specific parts of the proposal I need to refer to person months for each work package. I will be the project coordinator and the leader of all six packages, as this is a small, qualitative research project that requires only me and my mentor. I assumed that I will work full time = 12.00 for each work package, but the sum comes to 72 months! How should I complete this section?

If the six projects take equal effort, you can only at most dedicate 2 person-month to each of them, because 12/6 = 2. Notice that person-month is not a time line, it's how much time will elapse between start and finish; if you fill in 2, it just mean it needs about 60 days from a person, regardless how they are distributed along a year.

Working full-time on 6 projects would require you to put in 240 hours per week (40 hours x 6 projects). You are instead planning to spend one-sixth of your time working full-time of the time time on each project.

This is actually very helpful, thank you very much

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The importance of credentials in pursuing an academic career in pure mathematics
I would like to get some information and opinions of how the prestige of your so-called "credentials" helps or hurts in getting an academic job. I'm interested in this with respect to pure mathematics (I state this since I'm not sure if this is the same of all STEM subjects).
I guess that it is universally accepted the most important factor in one's academic career is his research. Of course, there are some more intricate relevant matters like a relationship with faculty of the department you apply to, success in teaching and the intersection of your research interests and faculty members' research interests.
However, the I wonder how pure prestige of one's credentials matter. Let me state it more clearly:
1) The prestige of your graduate school. If we have two candidates for a postdoc/tenure track with relatively equal research experience, but one holds a PhD from Harvard, while another from University of British Columbia, or University of Pennsylvania, or something else good, but not as famous and "shiny" as Harvard (or MIT/Princeton, for that matter), would a Harvard alumni be in a better position?
2) The fame of your doctoral advisor. Again, I advise you to consider how much the pure "fame" of your advisor matters, all other things aside, like the fact that a strong mathematician could help you mature as a mathematician too.
Would having a Breakthrough Prize in Math/Fields winner boost on CV in way that math departments would more readily accept you as a postdoctorial researcher/assistant professor? Of course, this question is not only about Fields medalist, it was just an example.
3) The prestige of the institution where you did your postdoc. While points 1) and 2) were also related to getting a postdoc position, this matters only to getting an assistant professorship/tenure track. Usually, the advice for choosing a postdoc is to find a suitable researchers with respect to your interests. But this question again asks you to look on the matter from a different angle: the one of how being a postodoctorial researcher in a high-ranked institution assists in getting a tenure track.
Again, I wish to emphasize that this question is not about how a quality of a graduate school, a strength of a PhD advisor and a research atmosphere in a postdoctorial institution matters to an aspiring mathematician with respect to getting stronger as a researcher and a teacher. This much I know.
I wish to hear some opinions on more "petty" stuff like "shiny", "glowing" names of departments or advisors, or relatively less famous ones.

I wonder if this has been empirically studied anywhere...

First, the statement that your research is the most important factor only applies to research universities.  Other academic institutions have, for good reason, other important criteria.
Second, the first thing you should understand about academic hiring is that the hiring committee is unable to evaluate with a high degree of accuracy your research.  The error bars on the evaluation of your research are very large, and, particularly for more junior mathematicians, the noise can be almost as big as the signal.
Third, for junior mathematicians, a significant portion of the evaluation of your research comes from your letters of recommendation.  The quality and significance of your publications is much more important than the quantity, and we all know the journal reviewing system is very noisy, with a very large difference between the best and worst papers in a given journal.  Furthermore, your most significant work may not even have had the time to go through the peer review process.  You might think that the committee could try to directly evaluate your work, but in almost all cases, no one on the committee will have the expertise to do so, and in the remaining cases, only one person on the committee will, and they still have to convince everyone else.
Now to actually saying something about your question:
The fame of your recommenders is generally thought to be a noise reducing factor in evaluating your letters.  If a mediocre mathematician thinks you are good, who knows?  They aren't good themselves, so what do they know about being good or not?  If a well-known outstanding mathematician has worked with you and thinks you are good, then it seems more likely that you are actually good.  (In reality, I'm not sure how well ability in mathematics correlates with ability to judge mathematical ability in others, but I'm talking about how search committees tend to think.  There is at least some positive correlation, in that people who aren't mathematicians almost certainly don't have anything useful to say first hand.)
The places you do your PhD and postdoc(s) also likely put some floor on your ability, so they are also noise reducing factors.
Generally speaking, noise reduction on the bottom end helps your candidacy.  So going to a strong department and having a well known advisor doesn't just make you a stronger mathematician; it also makes you look like a stronger mathematician, or, at least, look less likely to be merely average or good.
On the other hand, search committees also recognize that people who went to less prestigious departments and had less capable advisors have had less opportunity, and more of their success can be attributed to them alone.  This might lead the committee to think the candidate is more likely to be successful in the future.  This means someone from a weaker program who can be a convincingly strong candidate might have an advantage.

"First, the statement that your research is the most important factor only applies to research universities. Other academic institutions have, for good reason, other important criteria."  That would be logical, but it isn't always true.

"The quality and significance of your publications is much more important than the quantity" That would also be logical, but often not true, because quantity is easier to measure than quality.

@Anonymous Physicist: I don't know how it is in physics departments, but in top math departments, at least, the quality of applicants' best papers is much more important than how many papers they've published. In my experience, this is true for hiring at all levels.

Look at the Jenny Harrison case. Jenny Harrison sued U.C. Berkeley, claiming she was denied tenure because she was a woman. She said that she had two "major results" when she was denied tenure, and that at least one man had received tenure with no major results. And I don't think anybody disputed that looking at "major results" was the appropriate metric. (Of course, some "major results" are more major than others, so opinions on whether she actually deserved tenure could differ.)

@PeterShor In the UK and Australia, the people who are making the decisions often are not even members of the same department.  In the US, outside top departments, many universities will not have an expert in the applicant's area capable of judging quality.

@AnonymousPhysicist: That's why letters are so important.


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Can I make a citation only in the beginning of a chapter?
I asked a question related to my current thesis on MathOverflow and got there a really helpful answer by Iosif Pinelis. Obviously, I want to cite his answer. Is it enough to put something like the following sentence at the beginning of the proof's chapter?

The following proof based on ideas given by Iosif Pinelis in a proof on mathoverflow.net [1]

([1] points to the reference of Pinelis' answer in the bibliography of my thesis)
Do I need to cite Pinelis' answer whenever I use a notation/an idea from his post (it might be hard to tell afterwards, which are my original ideas and which ideas come from his post)?

First, I would modify your sentence as (Mathoverflow etc. goes into the bibliography):

The following proof is based on the ideas given by Iosif Pinelis [1].

Then,

Do I need to cite Pinelis' answer whenever I use a notation/an idea of his post?

For the notation, you can make an addition to the sentence above (but explain the notation in the appropriate place):

The following proof is based on the ideas given by Iosif Pinelis [1]. The notation employed in this section shall follow closely that of the cited work (or some equivalent sentence).

Instead, when using an idea, yes, I would put again the reference "[1]".

More generally, you need not only to cite "that" you have used the work of another, but you also need to cite "what" it is that you use. There might be various ways to do this, but both are essential.


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What should I do if I believe my former advisor is alleging to journal editors that I have copied his study?
I have been through many different things with my previous advisor.

He wrote publications with my research proposal with his former female student after forcing me to give up the topic.  Also, as soon as I completed the simulation study for a different study, he asked me to stop again and then gave it to her again (she published it as a single author).
He simply asked me a personal relationship. I told him no.  Then he did his best to kick me out of my program. Even my Dept. and graduate college forced me to leave without my degree for about 6 months.

Luckily, I completed my Ph.D. and I am now doing my post doc.  Recently my paper has been rejected in the 2nd round from a top journal.  I heard from a colleague that my previous advisor called the chief editor (who was his student) and asked him  not to accept my paper, alleging I copied his study (it cannot be true).
Despite my experiences as his advisee, I haven't ever talked about anything about him because I need a job.  He just made a lot of crazy rumors about me, but I have been quiet.  Should I be quiet again?

I'm not sure what you should do, but if what you say is accurate, then you have been treated in a gravely unethical manner. Indeed, if what you say is true, and I were your former advisor's chair, I would make unusual efforts to get him fired.

I would at least consider telling this story to the editorial board of the top journal where your paper was expected -- especially if you have some kind of evidence to prove your claims.

What does "He simply asked me a personal relationship. I told him no." mean?

Un which country is this happening? In some countries, universities have formal ways of reporting what sounds like harassment.

What reason did the journal editor give you for the rejection?

for the two reasons: but one reason was not related with my study (i used estimated values, but he mentioned that I used true values); the other one is that my study is same with my previous advisor's (however, I did the simulations for him and so I clearly know that it is not the same).

Everything about what you said happened during your PhD, you can report it to the university council. However, regarding the paper, this is just an assumption, and an editor does not necessarily follow his former boss's instructions (especially as you said a top journal). Your paper got rejected,  you can submit it somewhere else but not accusing the editor based on a bad experience with someone else.

This is clearly cheating. Do you have physical evidence or any evidence in written form?

I would talk to the conciliation board on your university and to the editor . Ask your colleague, if he/she will confirms that information in front of the conciliation board. Furthermore, I would do some research (or hire someone) about code of conduct on your university valid this case. Last but not least I would write down every single accusing in a chronological form (kind of factual report).
Maybe you can prove by the timestamps of your files, that he copied ideas from you and not the other way.

Well, I guess it is then up to the personal character. I would fight back, even if I might loose. Try to get him some unpleasant nights and in case no one wants to hire me, go to europe or to a company. Do you have something like a law ensurance (do not know if this is common in the US) ?

@user41655 My school forced me to leave without degree because I mentioned his unethical problems I'm confused, in your question you say that you have got your degree and that you are now a postdoc.

Thank you very much. I am collecting the evidences from the people to take a legal step.

Maybe you might loose, and maybe it is really a bad idea. But if everyone just ducks, guys like this one will win always.

Have you ever heard of Dr Ali's case "sex for pass mark?" (See https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/curtin-lecturer-implicated-in-sexformarks-scandal-with-students-20100902-14p4g.html). Even though your case is not quite similar to the above, because your previous advisor seriously violated academic protocol, he deserves to be sacked.
If what you said were true and that you had adequate evidence, I believe that you might have a chance to sue him through the media. Talk to the media first and then discuss the matter with the vice Chancellor.


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Is there any recognized online portal where anyone can publish articles without being associated with any university or organization?
Suppose some working person has interest in physics and mathematics and he want to publish a paper either review or research, so is there anyway he can publish? Obviously person is not associated with any university so he can not name that.

You don't need to be a member of a university or organization to submit a paper to journals. You can simply list your affiliation as "independent researcher."

A warning, which you may already be aware of: if a site or journal asks you to pay anything at all to publish your article, be very wary. There are legitimate journals that have page charges (which would normally be waived or reduced for an independent researcher with no research grants) but many pay-to-publish journals are total scams. By the time you're ready to publish, you'll probably have enough reputation on this site to ask about this in [chat] (you need 20+ rep).

Yes, http://www.arxiv.org is the place for you.
But you can of course also publish in regular journals without being affiliated with a university. Science does not require a formal affiliation, just good ideas and data. If you have the latter, you can publish as a private citizen, an employee of a company, an employee of a government, or with any other background.

These days arXiv is decidedly not open to everyone. You need either a history posting to the site, a affiliation that inspires confidence in the editorial board or a endorsement. If the work is good getting an endorsement is a doable thing, but it's not trivial.

@dmckee Should arXiv reject you, then viXra is for you. Just be aware that there is a small stigma of "crackpottery" from some scientists when regarding viXra submissions, because it (deliberately) has no quality standards.

@MarioCarneiro I would say that calling the stigma "small" is an understatement. Many serious researchers consider the endorsement requirement for arXiv a minimal amount of effort that anyone who is actually interested in contributing to math research should be able to put in.

@dmckee It may not be trivial, but compared to actually writing a worthwhile paper, it is certainly a very minor thing (yes, even if it involves contacting a dozen different researchers in order to find someone who wishes to put in the time to read your work).

@Tobias Kildetoft: For what it's worth, I put a fair amount of effort into trying to get an endorsement a few years ago (for the manuscript I mentioned here), for example see this 1 June 2011 sci.math post, and I finally gave up.

@DaveLRenfro Sure, I am not surprised that it is hard to get endorsed for the general mathematics section, as that is a place very few research mathematicians publish, but the place with the largest amount of poor math. I must say that posting a reply to someone wanting to solve the Riemann hypothesis seems like a bad way to attempt to get endorsed. Usually I would recommend contacting someone who has written papers in a related area, but it is unclear if that would even be possible here.

Regarding my Feb 23 '16 comment, I happened to notice that the 2nd link I gave is now a dead URL. Using the Internet Archive's wayback machine, the following has a non-dead link: ... see this 1 June 2011 sci.math post ...


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What is the difference between "request for proposals" and "call for proposals" in the context of applying for funding?
Funders use different terms to publicize opportunities, sometimes issuing a "request for proposals" and sometimes a "call for proposals."
What is the difference between "request for proposals" and "call for proposal" in the context of applying for funding?

Different funding agencies use different language for essentially the same thing---and also the same language for very different processes!
In the United States, at least, every different agency has a different process, customized to its mission and to the community that it is trying to interact with.  Moreover, even within agencies there are often radically different processes behind the same names.  For example:

With NSF, applying through the Program Solicitation for "Expeditions in Computing" is an entirely different (and much lengthier) process than for a standard NSF small/medium/large like the CCF core programs.
With DARPA, every Broad Agency Announcement has its own individual customized process, which is typically explained at the associated "proposer's day" meeting.

You really need to get to know the particular agencies that you are interested in.  A good way to do this is to meet program manager or listen to the talks that they give: program managers often attend major conferences in the fields that they fund, and in particularly organized fields, they will sometimes have a workshop at the conference in which program managers give "how to get funding from me" talks.  Another good way is to talk with colleagues who have worked with the agency before and know the ropes, or to become a partner in a collaboration with them.


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If I accept an offer of admission to MSc in UK, can I later decline to accept another offer?
I have applied for a MSc in a UK university for the academic year 2017/18. I was offered an unconditional offer and I have to make a decision on it within 4 weeks and now two weeks have passed. But as I have not yet heard from other universities, I would like to take more time before accepting the offer. When I requested for more time to consider my decision the university informed me that it is better to accept the offer as I can always decline it.
But I would like to know whether there are any rules which state like I have an obligation to study at the university if I have accepted a place because if I get a place at another university which I am interested in, then I may drop this offer. Would the process allow me to decline the offer after accepting it, should I need to, and accept the offer at some other university?
I am not a student from UK, so if anyone can provide me guidance on this it would be helpful.

I am not based in the UK (hence the comment and not an answer) but I am pretty certain that nobody can force you to do a graduate program if you don't want to. So, you can always drop it. Although it might be frowned upon, since it would mean that they have to restart the recruitment process if you drop out.

In some education systems there is something called the 'census date'. It is the date on which you would be considered committed to a course or program. Before the census date you can pull out with no strings attached. Call the Program Advisor, she or he will know the details, and you will not look bad for asking.


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Is assessing grant proposals CV-worthy?
So far this year, I have been asked to be an assessor for proposals submitted to three different international funding schemes, with the value of the proposals ranging from $0.5M to $10M. I acceded to the first two requests (one of which has me assessing 7 proposals, the second only one proposal) because I thought it would be useful experience to see how proposals are assessed, in case it brought insights that would be useful next time I submit a proposal of my own. The time commitment is starting to become an issue, though, and starting to clash with my other commitments, so I am hesitating about the third.
So: apart from the small honorarium that some of these schemes pay assessors, is there anything in it for me? Is assessing grant proposals simply seen as part of one's academic community service, to be performed as a good citizen like reviewing papers, or is it seen as a measure of esteem that is therefore worthy of putting on a CV?

I've seen senior faculty do it on very long CVs.

I think you glossed over the big reason: I thought it would be useful experience to see how proposals are assessed, in case it brought insights that would be useful next time I submit a proposal of my own that insight is much more valuable then the honorarium or even your time.

@StrongBad more valuable than an honorarium, certainly, but not more valuable than my time, beyond a certain point. I have deadlines, grant proposals to submit, and commitments to colleagues.

There's also the benefit of learning some science from reading the proposals.

You performed a valid service and gained valuable experience. You should definitely include this on your CV.

I think that you should keep at your little job because of the extremely valuable skills it will give you .Putting it on the CV is a nobrainer. Assessing grant proposals tends to go to very senior people in my country so it would be held in high esteem that such a young person is entrusted with such an important task.Many employers are confused with the grants system and would complain to me about it being a "paperwork nightmare"         and want some of thier staff to know the ropes in this regard .  I remember that the research job that I got in 1986 payed less than working on the door of the Students Association .I did not get the job on the door .For me it is clear that that research job was the best thing .It led to one thing and another and another ...

I think you have a bit a mismatch between the title and the actual question, which has lead to you getting answers that don't address your real question.  You say:

Is assessing grant proposals simply seen as part of one's academic community service, to be performed as a good citizen like reviewing papers, or is it seen as a measure of esteem that is therefore worthy of putting on a CV?

But that's a false dichotomy.  Reviewing papers should go on your CV (not the individual papers, of course, but the list of journals you've reviewed for), so the answer is yes and yes.  If you're asking whether the sort of grant review you're doing will be seen as a research accomplishment like publishing a paper, winning a grant or an award of some kind, it won't (at least by most people).  If you find yourself inclined to say no to doing it, say no.