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Can a student who graduated from a lower-ranking school in a developing country be admitted to a graduate school in a western country?
Most colleges in developing countries are sub-par by western academic standards. In one developing country, for example, professors are not obliged by law or by their institutions to pursue a doctoral degree. Even worse, this country’s state colleges lack decent science and computer laboratories, affecting in turn the quality of learning experience. No doubt, higher institutions in improvised countries have much to invest in their facilities, research, and faculty.
Having said this, does a student who graduated from a lower-ranking university in a developing country have a chance to be admitted to a graduate school in a western country? Based on your experience, do graduate schools give much weight to the reputation of your undergraduate school?  If your school is accredited in your country, will this help?

There is a chance, but it is not easy, unfortunately.  We get a good number of such applications at my department, and the problem is that we have no context to evaulate what the transcript means or what standards are used in the recommendation letters.  (In fact, often the letter writers do not seem to know how to write useful letters.)
As a result, you will probably need to do something else to (i) make sure you are prepared for serious graduate studies, and (ii) show that you are prepared for serious graduate studies.  For instance, study some serious books and write notes on topics online, or get actively involved in an SE site in your discipline.  If you can arrange to do something like an independent study with someone, or study abroad, at a reputable institution, that's even better as you can get a meaningful reference.
When you do apply for grad schools, say if you want to get a PhD from a good school it is probably easier to try to do a masters' degree at decent but not top school first, then try move onto a PhD program at a better institution.
See also the related question: How handicapped am I in graduate admissions if I graduated from a lower tier university?
PS I doubt if the admissions committee will have any idea whether a random school from your country is accredited or not, but if it's not, there's even less of a chance it will have prepared you for grad school.

Agreed. I went to a no-name non-ranking public university in the states because I was a first generation student, and that is what I could afford. I scored very well on GRE, and had a more substantial lab experience than most of my colleagues from known schools (e.g., received a fellowship in the thousands of dollars to run my own research project, etc.), but I found I was met with a bit of snobbery in the application/decision phase. I didn't understand it at first because there is a general feeling that your work should stand on its own merits. I'd interview and professors would say things like: "I'm very impressed, but where was your college again (the state was in the title!)? Oh, I've never heard of that. It sounds quaint." Ultimately, I found an advisor who took a risk on me, more because of what my profession was outside of college and how it related to her project. I found once I was in the PhD program and it was decision time that people would talk quite openly about how coming from a certain institution meant that the candidate likely had the "right pedigree." Maybe they were/are right, but it reeked of elitism.
It's going to be a tough climb. It doesn't mean you shouldn't try if you want really want it.


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What are good argument against strict attendance policy, and university making it harder for students to maintain attendance?
My university have a very strict attendance policy, attendance affect the students marks a lot and if attendance is lower than 75% at the end of the semester, students are not allowed to sit in finals. Not only in the end of the year, if attendance get lower than 75% at any point of the semester Internal marks are lowered a lot.
Not only this, University administration keeps trying to make it harder for students to maintain students by adding more and more classes, sometimes by cutting the holidays or by adding more classes in already busy schedule of students.
I reached out to students, and almost all the students are finding it hard to give time to self study and for other stuff.
What are good arguments against this to be presented in front of higher authorities of the university.
thanks in advance.

This seems to me a perfectly reasonable question, particularly because the described attendance policy seems silly.

There are a few details I don't understand. (1) How can the university add classes to students' schedules without their consent? (2) How can the university penalize students for missing classes without instructors' consent? (In particular, how do they know when students have missed class, unless the instructor tells them?)

I find it rather odd when people ask for good arguments for their position. Presumably you have arrived at your position for a reason. Why is that reason not good enough? Perhaps more to the point, if you know your reason is not good enough, why should people help you manufacture a different reason?

@SolveIt Good arguments that have contributed to a lecturer or student reaching their position are not necessarily the same as the arguments necessary to persuade university administration, because administration has different objectives.

What are "internal marks"?

@JeffE re (1) Likely there's a timetable of required classes and more class time keeps getting added. For example, instead of meeting twice a week, meeting 3 or 5 times.

@problemofficer, our final exams only account for 60% of our result, rest 40% is our internal marks, these internal marks are calculated from our monthly tests. and monthly tests will only be allowed if attendance is above 75%.

@JeffE according to our time table, Saturdays are off, but in order to add more classes in a week, university will add some random class on Saturday and students are informed by email.

The best argument against any rule you find unjustified is just not to enforce it in class or to enforce it selectively.
The attendance issue is a difficult one. IMHO, your university policy is quite justified for poorly performing students and totally ridiculous for well-performing ones. The main argument I would put forward is that the main objective of the teaching is to pass the knowledge and that having free time is an indispensable condition of learning at the top level. So, if somebody appears in the class now and then but has consistent top grades on all exams and quizzes, I would let it slip. However, if his performance drops even a bit, the attendance rule goes into full effect for him again.
Whatever way you argue, keep in mind that your administration is not doing something "totally wrong" when requiring mandatory attendance. It just a) aims its policies at the bottom level with the usual idea that "the law should be the same for everyone" (the idea I strongly oppose in most settings except the completely trivial ones, but this opposition is a hard sell in the modern democratic society) and b) tries to solve the problem by using brute force instead of being a bit inventive about it (a much more efficient thing to do would be, for instance, to require a mandatory tutoring for anybody whose current performance is <60%, say, and to have a free tutoring service offered to students).
This was (my humble opinion) about the attendance issues. As to "adding more and more classes", I suspect they are just trying to pump the tuition money at the highest rate they can. If so, there is no argument against a person who just found a way to get 11 dollars per hour instead of usual 10. That is, no doubt, detrimental to the education process, but in every fight of greed against a lofty goal, the greed prevails. See if there are some regulations that explicitly bound the number of credit hours and the student workload in general (you may be (often pleasantly) surprised with what you can find in the university regulation books if you ever bother to read them). That's technically your only chance (again, IMHO).

A hard part of this is that it is not as easy as said. The vast majority of students are (while legally adult) not sufficiently mature, and particularly susceptible to peer pressure. Mandatory attendance (which our university doesn't have) attempts to address this. Fact is that students tend to be poor judges of the benefits of attendance (or prioritising the wrong parts - lectures over seminars or labs). With the right pressure many students can be taught more than if they are left to their own devices and from a student recruitment perspective it is seductive to put the protective measures into place so that the students will gain the relevant subject knowledge, understanding and skills (which are much more prominently assessed, and easier to assess than vague things like study attitude and independence).
Another problem is that when few students attend it is easier for other students to not attend. When students believe that they can pass the exam (that is due in 6/7 months) doing memorization a few days before the date you are fighting against a well established belief that has been reinforced through years of regurgitation exams in secondary (and primary) school. Anything helps.
At the same time, overworking students is also overkill, but in case that selection on entry is not feasible it may be a good way to quickly separate the wheat from the chaff. In many systems, withdrawals only count against the university after some months of study, so getting students who will quit (or are really not up to it) to quit early is quite important.

University is supposed to be about reaching a certain standard. Unlike school, university is where students are supposed to be treated like adults. So if you do not turn up to enough lectures, you have a greater risk of failing. It is up to you. If the student passes the Exam then they have reached the standard. How many lectures they attended is up to them. The punishment for not attending could be failure because there is let's say 60% of Exam questions that are based on the lecturers course notes. If the pass mark is 50% then, if you are good and go to all the classes but are no Einstien, you will pass with a C. If you are brainy but a bit lazy and attend some lecturers and can think outside the box you will probably get a C  Clever people that work hard with full attendance should get an A. So Attendance regulates itself. There is no need for extra punishment. For lab courses you mark the lab write up at the end of the lab so if the student is not present there is no write up and no marks which would mean that if you made a habit of skipping labs you would end up repeating labs. Boiling all this down it means that low attendance causes you to repeat courses which speaking from experience is punishment enough.

Some people don't need to attend any class to get an A in the exam.

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What happens if too many student withdraw from a course
I am taking a four week online summer course in the U.S. and the professor just canceled it because all but me and one other student (out of 30+ students) withdrew from the class within the first week. I guess the minimum for the class is 20 students. Is this normal? I'm not sure yet but I think we get our money back for the course, I just am not sure if it is standard for this to happen. and if so what happens on my transcript?

Courses are sometimes cancelled due to low enrollment. Usually this happens during the first week to allow the students to transfer to a different course. Since this is before the "drop" deadline, the course does not appear on the student transcript and no tuition is charged.

As others have noted, there should be no charge for a course not delivered, nor any effect on the transcript.
But, in addition to enrolling in "another course" one option is to request an independent study from that professor. That might be possible or not and the other student might also be interested. But it is worth an effort to ask.

Yes, I realize the question is very old, but others might have a similar question in future.

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strange potential plagiarism case(missed the acknowledgement page)
Forgot to mention supervisor's name in the thesis(due to pressure) and submitted it and got an A for it. Can I be accused of plagiarism at a later date, if this professor wishes to push it forward? This professor was my thesis advisor or guide.There were some portions of the thesis which we both worked on it and some portion was mine. I missed the acknowledgment section

What kind of thesis, PhD, master, ...?

Master's thesis

First of all, the Ph.D candidate is always considered the only author of the thesis and the only one to respond legally in case of plagiarism. Despite all the input introduced by your supervisor along your research, he will never be entitled to accuse you of plagiarism due to the lack of acknowledgements. This is just an impolite thing to do, nothing more.

I think it depends on the field as to whether advisors' names go on theses. Not in math, usually.

@DSVA,  I understand your point. For a long time, that was my experience, too (I'm a mathematician). But in the last 10-20 years I've encountered many situations in engineering and computer science where, because the advisor supplied equipment and a room and a stipend, the students listed them as authors. There has been much discussion of such things on this and other similar sites.

@DSVA, ah, yes, the distinction between "thesis" per se, and "papers in it or derived from it" are two different things. Maybe it's not so clear what exactly the issue is for the OP...


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Appropriate way to discuss genetic conditions in a large lecture?
I want to cover the topic of achondroplasia, the most common form of dwarfism, in a large introductory biology lecture. How can I discuss it in an appropriately sensitive way, one that respects people who have the condition or are close to people with the condition? I'm used to lecturing about sensitive but biologically relevant topics like race, incest, and "extra-pair copulation" [mating outside of a socially monogamous pair, which would be adultery in a human context], but these are topics that are applicable to a broad audience. In this case I'm more worried about offending or annoying particular individuals. (I may be feeling particularly sensitive about this because I've had a little person in a couple of my other classes in the last few terms.)

the talk page for the Wikipedia article mentions that what to call achondroplasia ["a medical condition, disorder, disease, disability, or none of the above"] is controversial; "condition" feels most neutral to me.
the online FAQ for the Little People of America doesn't say much more than

Such terms as dwarf, little person, LP, and person of short stature are all acceptable, but most people would rather be referred to by their name than by a label.

(this is in a section explaining that "midget" is considered offensive).

For what it's worth, I'm going to be discussing the rate of mutation in the gene responsible for the condition; the strength of natural selection against the condition; and how we can calculate the expected frequency of the condition in the population from this information. This does raise some potentially problematic topics (such as the lower probability of survival and reproduction). In the past when I've covered this topic, I have mentioned Peter Dinklage, a little person who has been both professionally (Emmy-award-winning) and reproductively (he has a child) successful.
The reason it's worth discussing achondroplasia in class is that it's a surprising example of a deleterious, autosomal dominant genetic condition that's maintained by pure mutation-selection balance (i.e., we don't know of any counterbalancing selective advantages that would have caused it to stay in the population).
Any suggestions?

I think this is a great question and I'm interested in seeing what others have to say. It might be helpful to know what aspect of biology you plan to address when covering achondroplasia and why you are choosing that particular example. And although you mentioned concern about offending or annoying particular individuals, I think the most likely pitfall is going to be the risk of singling out one individual - similar to talking about race in a room with 1 black person and 99 white. Thanks for all the time you've put towards helping SE users with mixed models and R and welcome to Academia.SE.

There are several aspects to this:

terminology
how to show that when you're not talking genetics, you see the person first, and the genetic make-up second
how not to put your foot in your mouth and inadvertently say something offensive
how to be an ally

As the parent of a child with Tourette Syndrome (TS), when I go to scientific talks about TS, I'm listening with both intellectual curiosity and an ear for information that will be useful for me -- to improve our quality of life, help me advocate for my child, and help my child advocate for himself.  I like it best when the tone is neutral.  I hate anything that suggests that people should feel sorry for a person with Tourette.  If the speaker is naturally a person who's good at seeing the humorous side of life, I enjoy that -- but it's not necessary.
Terminology: In general I like disorder, condition, trait and anomaly better than disease, but whenever I can I use the word difference.  In his case it's a neurological difference.  In some sentences the plural fits better (differences, neurological differences).  When I'm advocating for his educational rights, sometimes I need to use the word disability because this word is effective in that context.  Note that person with a disability sounds neutral to me, whereas disabled person has negative connotations.
I think it's fine to include images and short biographical sketches of famous people with the condition you're going to talk about, but I would put those in the beginning, where they will give your general audience a positive image of what you're talking about.  If possible, try not to have only one famous person with achondroplasia.
You can also include images that differentiate between achondroplasia and other forms of dwarfism.
It might be interesting to talk briefly about how scientists' understanding of dwarfism has changed over time, and how medical management has changed.  For example, you mentioned the lower probability of survival and reproduction.  Have these probabilities changed over time?  If so, what has helped?
If there are terms that hurt, that were used historically, I would advise you not to mention them at all, even if you're talking about how things have changed over time.  Keep your language positive.
If there are any take-home messages from the science that would be especially interesting for those with a personal interest, they would give you a nice note to end on.  But it's also okay to end with pure science ideas.
You mentioned you had a student with this trait in your classes recently.  If there's enough lead time, perhaps you'd like to invite him or her to co-present with you.  I mean, just ask if s/he would be interested -- with no pressure.

This is all useful. A couple of quick responses: (1) this material only takes up about 5-10 minutes of lecture time, so going into more detail (e.g. achondroplasia vs other forms of dwarfism) might not be an option. (2) I did think about running this by my former student, but I thought it might be creepy/too personal to ask them about it (due to power imbalance, age difference, gender difference) ...

@BenBolker - (1) I see, I thought it was the topic for a whole lecture.  (2) I would disagree if it were a longer chunk of time.  In my case, I would jump at any chance to present to people about Tourette Syndrome.  And I hate it when people see my age or my gender before they see me as a person.  But the bottom line is that it's only 5 or 10 minutes, so I'm not sure if an invitation would make sense in this case.

Poking around the LPA website, I found a list of discussion groups. I think that making a post there would be an excellent way to get feedback from people with the condition and get questions about terminology, etc. answered. The best way to design sensitive education is with the input of the people who it affects. I would also recommend calling LPA and asking them if they have any reference materials that they would encourage you to read.
This essay about where to draw the line when it comes to eugenics, written by a little person, might be a good thing to read before talking about that topic.
This profile of a late Harvard Law professor who was a little person might be another good person to talk about as an example of someone who has led a successful life. However, you should be careful with the tone of stuff like that. You don’t want to present it as “look! Some little people can manage to lead regular people lives!”

Unfortunately, "was." Paul Miller passed away in 2010.


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Is it normal to "extract a paper" from a master thesis?
I have finished my master thesis and now a couple of colleagues who were involved (one of which was the supervisor) are interested in "extracting a paper" from it. We have already written one paper on a topic covered in the thesis, but in a bit more detail. I am worried that this would be considered self-plagiarism since I have already done the thesis and am only really summarizing one part of the thesis.

In which field?

It is plagiarism only if you do not properly cite it.
If you have not published the thesis itself, of course you can publish parts of it or summaries of it or even the whole thing unchanged.  The requirement to avoid "self plagiarism" is to cite.  For example, in the introduction write:

This paper is taken from my thesis [title] done in [date] at [school] under the direction of [advisor].

I would just add that one of they key points is that the thesis was not peer-reviewed (in the traditional, (double)-blind sense), so while it should definitely still be cited if it was published internally (by the University), it should be completely okay to reiterate the same ideas without much novelty (except maybe a more concise interpretation, or other "wrapping" added when packing it in a paper).

"It is plagiarism only if you do not properly cite it," I disagree: Publishing a paper from material that previously appeared in one of the author's thesis is not plagiarism. Nonetheless, it is worth mentioning that the paper was derived in this way.

Note: I said "only if"; I did not say "if".

It's totally accepted to publish journal articles based on thesis chapters.  For one thing, MS theses are not well abstracted or searchable.  Even with Ph.D. theses, they are rarely looked at.  Getting something into a journal article is doing the scientific community a favor.  It's also good for you and your coworkers in terms of pub count.
Consider the opposite--should one not publish any articles during grad school (to save them for the thesis)?
Just cite the thesis.  That's sufficient.  Nobody considers this double publication.

If you treat the thesis (and the other paper) like you would any other previously published work, then you avoid self plagiarism. In other words, cite the thesis as the source of the ideas and quote from it as necessary. Since it is also likely that you hold copyright on it, though maybe not on the published paper, you can quote more extensively from it than you might if it weren't your own work.
Self plagiarism doesn't mean that you can't restate your own ideas. It means restating them without indication of the original. The problem with self plagiarism is that it makes it difficult for a reader who wants the complete history of an idea to follow it back to the origin. The reason it is a problem is that the original contains additional context that the reader wants. The original itself normally cites other work and contains other ideas that form the context of the idea under examination.

Ignoring the plagiarism issue and answering only the top-line question, yes, it is normal to extract publications from theses.

Would you consider a bachelor or master thesis as published work?

@Uwe, it is probably safer to consider it so rather than not. If it can be found by others it can raise issues. Some universities "publish" student theses in their own libraries and index them. While this isn't always the case, taking a conservative position is less likely to cause you grief later. In any case, going through the steps suggested is good practice for later work and less likely to give you experience (habits) with sloppy practice.

I don't see a self plagiarism problem, since the work hasn't been (formally) published. There's no need to "quote from [the thesis]" either, the paper can be published as an original work. Nonetheless, in the interests of "[preserving] the complete history...back to the origin," I recommend citing the thesis.

Adding to a few answers here, I agree that there's nothing wrong or unusual about this. My MS thesis lead to two conference papers and a journal paper.
It's usually a good idea to publish papers from thesis work for at least three reasons: first, papers in well known conferences or archival journals are much easier for other researchers to find, so there is a much greater likelihood that your work will be recognised and cited by others. Second, condensing your results from a thesis, which is usually roughly 100-200 pages, to a paper, which is usually 5-25 pages, depending on where you publish it, will make it easier for the community to digest your work. Few active researchers have the time to wade through a 100-200 page thesis, a great part of which will be a survey of basic concepts and results that they already know well, but almost everyone has an hour over lunch to read a 5 page article. Third, almost nobody reads thesis work because graduation timelines often make it incomplete or not fully peer-reviewed. While it's true that most theses must be defended in front of a committee, the background of the committee and rigor of the process vary considerably between institutions and departments. Submitting the research to a journal or competitive conference for review opens it up to criticism (very, very harsh criticism) from the wider community. There's a good chance that the remarks made by reviewers will give you a clearer idea of what's missing or could be better in your work. Although it's painful in the moment, in the long run it will make your research better and more likely to get picked up by others.

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Going to a lower-ranked school for better advisor fit
Computer Science PhD admit here.
Is it crazy of me to turn down a top school (MIT/Stanford) for a lower-ranked school (think Cornell/UW/Columbia/Michigan) if I think there is better advisor fit?
Obviously all of these are fantastic schools and I am very lucky to be choosing from them. However, I felt like I got along really well with my would-be advisor at the lower-ranked school than I did at MIT/Stanford. People have told me that it's crazy of me to turn down MIT/Stanford since they are, along with Berkeley/CMU, on a different "level" than the other schools.
(My field is somewhat narrow so there is only 1~2 faculty at each of the schools doing research in the area. So regardless of which school I go to, if the advisor doesn't work out, I would be in a dire position.)
EDIT: Both advisors are well known in the field (and both have produced outstanding graduates), but the MIT/Stanford professor is good deal more senior. Also, talking with their current students, the MIT/Stanford professor is known to be pushy and have a "strong" personality (which may work for some people, but not sure whether it will work for me, as I've never worked with such people before).

In my humble opinion, it is your  research output in the future you really should be concerned. If I think I can do better research with a better advisor, I would choose that advisor, regardless of the school.

Also to consider is the city the university is in. Are any friends or family living there or nearby? What is the lifestyle in the city like? This probably isn't so important as choosing your advisor, but you don't want to be miserable in the new city if you knew you would not like living there.

Make sure that a potential advisor has money/time to actually take you on before deciding to go to a school based largely or solely upon that advisor.

This question reminds me of a previous one I read on this site. It was discussing the idea of adviser type (something about a good adviser will make you cry at least once). I think the idea was that look out for advisers that are too nice. You are not looking for a friend here. Liking eachother/being likable could actually get in the way of a successful working relationship.

All of the schools that you are discussing are first-rank computer science schools with global leadership in their areas of specialty.  In this area at least, the only real difference between the "top" and "top of the top" schools that you are considering is the number of different areas in which the school is a global leader.  Thus, if you already have a clear, narrow focus that you know that you want to work in, and there are 1-2 people in that area at all of the schools you are choosing between, the distinction between "top" and "top of the top" is pretty much null.
Furthermore, your graduate career will be primarily determined by your advisor relationship rather than the school within which it will occur.  Beware of being misled by first impressions, but a good match with your Ph.D. advisor is worth much more than the incremental difference between schools.

There are some aspects of the decision that are independent of your advisor, such as having a large pool of impressive peers to learn from and work with, but the degree of fit with your advisor is certainly a major factor.
If you believe you can't work effectively with the potential advisors at the higher-ranked schools, then there's no point in choosing one of those schools.  If the advisor at the lower-ranked school is performing at or above the level of the other possible advisors (as judged by influential papers and successful students), then again you don't have to worry.  But your phrasing makes me a little uncomfortable:

I felt like I got along really well with my would-be advisor at the lower-ranked school

This sounds like you are describing how quickly you clicked and became comfortable, but you can learn an enormous amount from someone even if you never develop an easy rapport with them or feel you could be friends.  It's worth thinking about whether the less comfortable relationship could nevertheless be productive.  Maybe it can't - it depends on the personalities and the details of your interaction - but it's important to distinguish how much you like the advisor from how fruitful the intellectual relationship might be.
I wouldn't stress out too much about this decision, though.  My impression is that Cornell and UW are not so markedly far behind MIT and Stanford in computer science.  (There's a gap, but not a huge gap.)  If one of them feels like a better fit, you are not jeopardizing your career.

All of the above answers are correct.  However, do trust your first impressions.  I didn't click with my first prospective advisor and picked someone else.  That prospective advisor failed to get tenure after his next couple of graduate students opted to switch advisors and start new research projects in the 3-4th year of their theses.  These choices were made in spite of the fact that he was a really bright guy and working in a hot research field.
He was apparently a nightmare to work for.
It wouldn't hurt to confirm your first impressions by communicating with people who have worked with and for the advisors you are considering.  Former research students, collaborators, et cetera.  Being personable and likeable is a moderately positive sign, but there are a lot of different components to being a good PhD mentor.


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How we can look active both in class and after class in our supervisor's mind?
I have started my master's degree and I am a fully funded student.
I want to get perfect marks and do my research perfectly.
What steps should I follow to become an outstanding student in my supervisor's mind?
How can I be a perfect student?
I also have a class with him this semester. I am also doing research with him.
It really does matter to me to have a very good relationship with my supervisor.
Please, give me any advice that you think is useful.

Always be early... You should consider improving your English - typos etc.

@ Solar Mike for classes? I was a bit late last week. what is wrong with my English? I had typos now?

Research is never perfect. The process of research is never perfect. Learning how to perform research (as a new master student) will require of mistakes and false starts. It is all part of the process...

You are pursuing the wrong goal. If you want to strive for perfection, do it because it is worth being a perfect student/researcher for its own sake, not because of what your supervisor will think. Do the right thing for yourself, and a positive reputation and the respect of your colleagues and supervisors will follow on their own. On the other hand, if you’re just doing things you don’t care about in order to impress someone, they will see right through you and will not be impressed. Related.

@ Dan Romik. I do not want to fake it. English is my second language I might could not convey my goal perfectly. I want to be perfect. and I study since I love studying.

You seem very intense. If you apply that to your studies, as I suspect, you will do well. Good luck - good studies.

@nikki2 good to hear. You might want to edit your question to reflect that. Anyway, follow your passion, work hard and I’m sure your supervisor would be impressed with you (though as I said that is only a side effect of something much more important).

Try not to "show yourself as an active student", be it! There is really a difference in it.
As an active student, you are genuinely interested in the field, you are asking question no mtter how stupid they seem, you are going an extra mile in assignments, be helpful to others (even if no one notices it), be active in students activities, ...
In fact there are way too many things you could do to do them all. So try to be you and pick what's best for your personality. Then you will shine.

"no matter how stupid they seem". I agree, though this feels risky to a new student. In many ways the only stupid question is the one not asked.

what do you mean about "going an extra mile in assignments,"? how can I do that

@nikki2 e.g. there might be bonus excercises or an extra difficulty level. But be careful about yourself: I'm usually offering more excercises then anyone could do without severe health issues, just to give them a choice - don't try to do them all and don't forget to sleep and have some time to recharge your batteries.

@OBu why I should not do all of them?

well, I had many eager students like you - and many of them developed severe health issues because they tried to be perfect - beeing less perfect would have made them more perfect ;-).
It's hard to give advice since I don't know your field of study and how your supervisor ticks, but the important message is that you need to find a good balance and often I'm more impressed by the "second best" student who does other things besides studying as well...

Unfortunately there are many professors which don't like you when you ask easy questions..

@nikki "Going the extra mile" on assignments means that your work is always turned in on time, is neat and well-organized, and that each part is completed fully and thoroughly.  Don't turn in work that was obviously done hurriedly, and don't pad your work with extraneous material thinking that "more is better."  Less is better until you begin omitting essential material because the professor must read what you submit.

No one is ever a perfect student, because no such thing exists.
You will make mistakes. It's a part of life and failure and errors are a fundamental part of the research process. Surving the adversity and challenges of research will make you a better researcher than doing everything "perfectly." I've seen people who try to hard to be perfect, and crumble when things don't go their way for some reason.

+1 Learning how to handle failure is #1 in the real world.

You should consider timeliness, for classes, setting up the lab, meetings, any planned activities...
So get there with time to spare to be able to help sort problems that may (or will eventually) arise... That is the type of attitude that will get noticed...

Let's assume that you are very smart and knowledgable about the prerequisites for the course. That seems obvious from your question and how you state it.
When I was a beginning graduate student I was thought to be very bright because I asked a lot of questions - good questions, not just anything. But if I didn't get a point during a lecture, I asked about it by raising my hand and asking. Of course, I'd done my "homework" so the questions weren't disruptive or insincere. I really needed to know.
But the interesting thing is that my fellow students also wanted to know but many were afraid to ask.
This is something you could try, starting out in a small way, and seeing the effect. If you get any "push back" you could try something else. But it is really important to use lectures to really learn things and not let important things go past because a question wasn't asked.

when I review the course at home questions come up. how can I ask them? what is the common way to ask these questions?

Try looking at other sources - they all tend to have slightly different explanations or examples and most times, one is enough to give you the nudge or "the penny drops" or "gestalt" moment

Some professors will start a class asking for questions. That is a perfect opportunity if it happens. In some large classes it won't, of course as there are too many students. But in such situations, there will be a teaching assistant who can help. Professors also, typically, all have office hours scheduled for student questions and help. Take advantage of that. When you ask a question and get an answer, if it isn't already obvious, you can also ask where you can learn more. Of course, if the textbook covers things that question is superfluous.

Also, I teach Tai Chi as a hobby. Our prime instruction is "Relax". Don't let stress build up or it will be harmful to you. Find a way (Tai Chi is good for this) to reduce stress.

@nikki2, talk to your classmates, ask older students, go to the TA's or instructor's office hours, look (Google!) for other sources (lecture notes on almost anything are plentiful).


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Activities for welcome event for incoming PhD students?
My department is planning an event (2-3 hours) welcoming incoming PhD students and giving them a chance to meet the rest of the department.
So far, the proposed activities for this year's welcome event are: welcome from department head and graduate program director, happy hour, followed by dinner and more drinks. (The idea behind all the alcohol is to "lull them into a false sense of what a PhD program will really be like.")
Any ideas/suggestions for what to do at this kind of event?

The idea behind all the alcohol is to "lull them into a false sense of what a PhD program will really be like."  I love it.

Seven years of forced alcoholism? I'm not sure why it's a false sense at all. :-)

How about something not so centered on alcohol? It's a great social lubricant, but also a great way to make non-drinkers feel excluded and to create an unfriendly climate for those who may feel threatened by being around intoxicated people.

Recall to read them Dante's Inferno, Canto III, line 9: All hope abandon, ye who enter here.

Drinking games!

Possibly a break-the-ice game like assigning the new students to "interview" for five minutes each other or professors then "report" on their findings. Give a prize for the most interesting/strangest fact.

Personally, I can't stand too much forced activities at this kind of thing. I'd much rather just talk to people. These are adults, they should be able to socialize (well, PhD students, but still). I would focus much more on a pleasant atmosphere. Make sure there are places to sit, and enough reasons to mingle. Make sure there are different kinds of drinks and different kinds of food, so nobody feels left out.

Board games, card games, and Euro games.  Or, depending on the crowd, dance music.  If it's an outdoor get-together, volley ball.

@aparente001: Just out of interest, what are "Euro games"? All explanations I can find indicate they are a subtype of board (or possibly card) games, but your comment sounds like they are a separate category (?)

I definitely do not recommend showing the movie 12 Years a Slave.

@JeffE - How many PhD students does it take to screw in a light bulb?  Answer: One, but it takes him seven years.

@O.R.Mapper - Probably the one most familiar to the general public is Settlers of Catan.  They are games that can be played on a variety of levels, and that can be won with a variety of strategic approaches.  (Monopoly would not be an example of a Eurogame.)  There is an annual prize, Spiel des Jahres.  There are websites.  One is called Board Game Geek.  There are clubs.

@aparente001: Ok, than it is exactly what I found out, a subtype of board games. I was just confused because you listed board games, and then Eurogames, as if they were not already included in the set of board games ;)

@O.R.Mapper - There are some card games played at Eurogame clubs as well.  There are also games involving dice, games involving plastic pyramids -- what Eurogames have in common is geekiness.  Eurogame aficionados generally do consider their hobby pretty separate from the phrase board games.

@aparente001: Ok, that part was not known to me (as WP describes "Eurogame" as "A German-style board game"), and maybe it is also specific to the English-speaking or the extra-European world, given that here in Germany, the Settlers of Catan are simply known as a "Brettspiel" ("board game").

@O.R.Mapper - How do you distinguish between games requiring some smarts, and stupid (but sometimes fun) games, such as Mensch Ärger Dich Nicht (apologies for any crude spelling)?

@aparente001: We don't, they are all called "Brettspiel" (Brett = board, Spiel = game), also among the game aficionados among my friends. For more precise info, this could be a good topic for German SE (as it is becoming off-topic here).

At the risk of making this event too serious, I would suggest that you have several speakers who talk about their personal experience concerning how they survived grad school, in this department/school or in others.
There is no more valuable information for incoming grad students than information about the personal side of grad school and how to avoid the pitfalls.  And there no better way for them to feel connected to the professors and students in the department than through personal and meaningful stories -- both the highs and the lows.

I offer this suggestion because, personally, I find such meet-and-greet events to be dull, boring, and worthless, no matter how much alcohol is on offer.  I realize that many academics have meager social skills and that standing around with drinks in hand can sometimes get conversation started.  But I still find it a waste of time.
Likewise, "welcome" speeches are typically vapid and cosmetic.  You will never here any new graduate student (or new employee of any kind) say:

"I didn't feel comfortable starting at X, but  then I heard that amazing welcome speech by the Department chair."

An alternative approach is to focus on the practical information a new grad student needs, combined with getting to know some people.
A good way to do this might be to split the new students into small groups, and add a professor and one or more existing students as guides to each group. The group can then go on a walking tour of the building(s) and immediate surroundings.
The guides can convey the practical information, both verbally and by showing the group around. Where are the restrooms? Showers, if available? Nearest good coffee cart? Eating places? Mail boxes? Printers? Who to contact if your office chair breaks? Where do you have the best chance of parking? ...
At the end of the tour, each new student will know a few others relatively well, and also know a professor and some more students. Then put them all together in a large room for a reception, which will be much less awkward with some prior contacts than if each student faces it alone.

I would suggest adding at least one piece of a more "organized" program to get people started and let even the introvert people have something to talk about. Maybe a short Pecha Kucha-style presentation of your recent projects?
Be sure to prepare name tags for everybody.

How about getting the existing staff & phds (or just phds, if there are lots) to do pecha kucha style summaries of what they work on?

The idea behind all the alcohol is to "lull them into a false sense of what a PhD program will really be like."

Well, I've never drunk as much alcohol as during my PhD, so it might not be far from the truth. Jokes apart, there's really no way to communicate what being a PhD student really is, because, apart from some rough generalizations, each student will live their PhD in their own personal way (e.g. I see my students getting stressed for things that, at the time, didn't stress me at all).
Now, a suggestion that we tried this year with the new bunch of PhD students. I don't know if it can work for you due to the different way of organizing the PhD programs.
We had 8 new PhD students (for our specific program) and we asked each of them to deliver a non-technical 15-min speech on their plans for the PhD, describing in which project(s) they were going to be involved, which courses they plan to attend, and if they planned to spend a period abroad. The speeches were delivered in front of the PhD program board and the advisors.
If the above is not applicable to your case, because maybe the students don't know yet what they are going to do, you may ask them to deliver a short(er) speech on their backgrounds and interests. I think it's important to let them present each other in front of the others.
In any case, make them speak before they get drunk.


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What would be the difference between Lecturer and Assistant Professor in the UK in terms of salary?
Out of curiosity I did a search of average salary of a Lecturer and Assistant Professor in the UK on indeed. There was a significant difference in the average salary for the two positions.
What I do not understand is that in the UK a Lecturer position is equivalent to an Assistant Professor position in the USA, so, how come there's such a big gap in salary for these two positions in the UK?
Shouldn't Lecturer position be the same as the Assistant Professor in the UK as well?
Average Lecturer salary in United Kingdom: https://uk.indeed.com/career/lecturer/salaries?from=top_sb
Average Assistant Professor salary in United Kingdom: https://uk.indeed.com/career/assistant-professor/salaries?from=top_sb

I believe this is a perverse selection effect - the "Assistant Professor" title is used in the UK only by a few top universities who want to copy US standards with respect to titles (and perhaps get around union negotiated salaries) - naturally top universities pay more than average.

Makes sense but the difference in average salary is huge. Almost 35% increase from a Lecturer's. That doesn't make sense.

In the US, an assistant professor at MIT probably gets paid more than double an assistant professor at Berea - so variation between universities is huge.

Location, stature, demand, and other factors determine salary. It's extremely hard to compare within the US much less between the US and another country. This doesn't even include positions listed as lecturer that are visiting assistant professor or assistant professor positions under a different name.

If you look at the "top companies for lecturers in the UK" only one of them is actually a university. It seems to me that Indeed is including various employers, like professional training companies, and secondary colleges (that teach kids 16-18 years old) that use the title "Lecturer" in its calculation.

Firstly, note that not all jobs in the UK with the title "Lecturer" will be at universities. Many further education colleges (which mostly teach teenagers, between 16-18) use the job title lecturer, as do several private training companies. I'm pretty confident that no one in the UK works as a university lecture and is only paid £34k. But there could be another reason for the difference:
UK academia pays people on a single pay spine, nationwide (except, oddly, for Imperial College). This is divided into approximate 50 pay points (I think). Universities may decide which points on that pay spine relate to which jobs. That said, there isn't that much in the variation between universities of a similar class (except Imperial).
The job title "Assistant Professor" is new to the UK, although an increasing number of universities are using it (Including Oxford, Warwick, Leeds etc). At the universities that have changed over, it was a direct substitution for the title Lecturer (everyone who was Lecturer became assistant professor).
There are two be categories on university in the UK, the pre-92s, and the post-92s. The post-92s are so called because before 1992 they were not called universities, but rather "polytechnic colleges", and taught vocational subjects, while universities stuck to academic subjects. The post-92s tend to be more focused on education that on research, tend to have more students, and importantly for this discussion, pay their staff less.
For example, there are currently jobs available for the lecturer grade at Manchester Metropolitan University (post-92) starting at £37k (spine point 30), Huddersfield (£39k), Birmingham Newman (£37k), while at The university of Sheffield Lecturer jobs start at £46k (spine point 38), £44k at York University, £45k at University of Leeds Leeds
The majority of the universities that use the Assistant Professor title are older, more prestigious, research intensive institutions, but not all such institutions use the title Assistant Professor.
So, the real distinction here is not that Assistant Professors are paid more the Lecturers, but that entry level faculty are paid more at pre-92s (some of which use Assistant Professor, and some Lecturer) than at post-92s (almost all of which use Lecturer).

I think Indeed's data for "Lecturers" also includes lecturers at Further Education Colleges, which are institutions offering post-16 education, often (but not exclusively) focussed more on vocational training. I suspect this is more significant that the pre-/post-92 issue.

@avid yes,  as I point you in a comment to the question.  However the is a gap between pre and post 92 salaries.

@avid ne clear, I'm pretty sure no Lecturer in a UK university is paid the £34k indeed is claiming.  But I wouldn't buy I think a lot of post-92s will pay new lecturers on a scale that looks more like a postdoc to those of us at RG places.  This fits with the fact they will hire people earlier in their career.

"At the universities that have changed over, it was a direct substitution for the title Lecturer (everyone who was Lecturer became assistant professor)" worth noting that there are universities e.g. UCL using both systems, where lecturer still exists and is one step below ass prof, which would have been senior lecturer/reader before they changed

The UK uses a ranking of teaching personal: lecturer, reader, assistant professor, [full] professor (from lowest to highest). They all do roughly similar things but have quite different salaries.

@quarague This is only true at one university I know of (UCL). Almost all universities use EITHER asst. Professor, assoc. Prof, Full Prof (Cambridge, Warwick, Imperial, Nottingham). Or Lecturer/Sr. Lectuer/(Reader - many places have done away with readers)/Professor (Sheffield, Manchester, Bristol, Birmingham, York). Oxford has both Lecturer and Associate Professor, but lecturers are a bit different - employed by departments, rather than the university/college and there is no straight forward promotion pathway.

Okay, looks like its also the case at Leeds

Then my information is somewhat outdated/ specific to some universities. I do recall some universities had lecturers, reader and (few) professors in the same department but that was around 15 years ago.

@quarague Everywhere has professors. In my university you will find Lecturers, readers and professors, but the professors are all (Full) professors, there are no associate professors. It may be the case that at some universities had people with both Senior Lectuerer and Associate Professors while they were in the process of changing over.

@quarague In my discipline at least (mathematics) it is incorrect to claim that reader is a lower rank than assistant professor in any UK university I am aware of.

At my Uni (post-92), the Lecturers and Postdocs share the salary grade they are on. The minimum starting salary is £37k (spine point 30). The exact point one would start at depends on the years of experience after a PhD. My department is moderately research successful, so most of our candidates for academic positions have postdoc experience, therefore start higher than that. Lecturers automatically progress to senior lecturers through yearly progression at spine point 35 (and can keep progression to top of SL, spine point 43 - £54k), while postdocs cap at spine point 35 (£43k).

Essentially, Iain's answer is on point. Also, at my Uni, Associate prof replaced Reader, so while we still have some Readers (the ones which were Readers before the change), our current progression is Lecturer -> (automatic) -> Senior Lecturer -> (internal application process) -> Associate Prof -> (internal application process) --> Prof


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Transitioning from academia to industry
I am currently doing post doc at the University of Toronto with quite a renowned scientist and my tenure will end in the next month. I have been awarded Marie-Curie Fellowship with Research Centre (Beamline specifically) as the host. Will the Marie-Curie Fellowship make me a more attractive candidate for industry R&D jobs in India since I would want to settle in India eventually.

Seems a fairly personal decision. Pros and cons either way, up to you to make a decision based on your situation and values.

We cannot tell you which job to take. Is there some missing information that might help inform your decision? For example, "Will the Marie-Curie Fellowship make me a more attractive candidate for industry jobs in Canada" might be a good question (although even this example would not a good fit for Academia.SE, since few of us hold industry jobs in Canada).

"preparations for a non-academic career" are not on-topic here -  the site caters to academics and careers in academia, industry really isn't in our scope.

@BryanKrause - given the number of questions around this topic, we might consider accepting some, or a canonical question. Seems like many students/post-docs don't get good advice locally...

@JonCuster Pretty hard to get advice about industry if you're only asking people in academia, whether on this site or locally. I'm not sure it's a good fit for a canonical question, but it's something that could be raised on Meta.

Some of use have been through academia, but are not in academia...

I proposed an edit to narrow the question to industry R&D jobs, since these are technically in scope. Still, "industry R&D in India" is a big place, so the question may still be difficult to answer. If you are not pursuing R&D jobs, that's fine, but then your question can't be answered here, unfortunately.

A degree means something, but beyond that what do you have to offer? This might be your initial exploration of careers outside academia, and, if so, I wish you best of luck. There are many, many opportunities to work, though possibly not at your postdoc area. Cast a very wide net, the world has plenty of researchers.


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How much technical content is appropriate in a presentation while interviewing for an assistant professor position in the UK?
I have been invited for a Zoom interview for an Assistant Professor position in the department of computer science in the UK. I have been asked to present a 20 minute presentation on an area of my current research that I am particularly proud of, to include at least one slide/section on my approach to teaching. The audience will be all the staff in the department and a few PhD student representatives. The presentation will be followed by 10 minutes for questions.
On seeking clarification about what is expected in the teaching part of the presentation, I was told the following – “one of the slides of the presentation will be to do with the way or method or style you will use to deliver your teaching. You can combine this with your research, e.g. if you are going to deliver the research topic you are interested in teaching, how will you do that?”
Looking at the brief given for the presentation, I am planning to divide the 20 minutes  in the following way - 2 minutes for my overarching research vision, 14-15 minutes for a problem that encapsulates the research vision, and last 3-4 minutes for teaching.
The part for a specific problem would essentially be at a similar level as a conference presentation and it would include mathematical results. In the part for teaching, I would speak about my University Teaching Qualifications, and my teaching and supervision experience. I would also briefly mention that students evaluations for my courses have been positive and they have improved with time.
However, looking at similar questions asked on Academia.SE, I wonder if I am going too technical in the part for a specific problem and/or spending too much time on it?
Could academics who are familiar with the UK system advise me on the appropriate time division for the presentation? I would also like to have some pointers on the kind of questions that I should expect following the presentation? Will they be mostly about research? Or should I expect questions about other issues like funding, REF and TEF etc? Thank you.

Edit following the answer given by Ben
Perhaps, I could show how I improved my teaching skills using some of the knowledge that I learnt while studying for University Teaching Qualifications.
This could be something simple like how I improved my skills in making illustrative slides by showing them the first version of a slide and then later an improved version of the same slide.
Or it could be about how I used feedback from students evaluations’ to introduce another learning activity in one of my courses.
This would showcase my critical thinking skills and ability to improve and it would also give me an opportunity to mention University Teaching Qualifications organically.
Does this sound like a better way to present my teaching skills and a better fit to given brief for the presentation? Thank you.

In the part for teaching, I would speak about my University Teaching Qualifications, and my teaching and supervision experience. I would also briefly mention that students evaluations for my courses have been positive and they have improved with time.

I recommend against most of this.  Your presentation is your chance to wow your audience and show them that you are an engaging presenter.  It is also the thing that they will use to gauge whether you can explain things clearly and simply, hold their attention, and do all those other good things that make a good teacher.  Almost everything you suggest here is boring, unnecessary, and grating for your audience.  Consider applying the following general principles:

Don't bore your audience with your résumé: You should not be using this valuable presentation time to reiterate qualifications that are already in your CV and your application.  The people who care about your qualifications already have them written down in your application, and the people that don't have access to your application aren't interested in your qualifications.  When was the last time you heard a presenter going through the qualifications in there résumé and thought: wow, this is really engaging stuff!

Don't ask the audience to substitute references for their own senses: Your audience is seeing the quality of your presentation and explanations right now, with their own eyes.  They certainly do not need to be told that other people found your teaching to be positive or to have improved over time.  Again, this material is boring, unnecessary, and should already be in your CV and your application.  Those assessing you will already know what your past student evaluations were like if you have mentioned it in your application.  Now is your opportunity to let them make their own evaluation with direct observation of your presentation.

Talk about interesting aspects of your experience: It is okay to talk about your experience learning to teach if you are bringing up engaging and interesting things about this experience (maybe even a funny anecdote) that illustrate your method or style.  But as with the other points, it is not useful to "talk about your experience" in the mere sense of rattling off résumé points --- e.g., number of years, etc.  All of that information is already in your CV and your application.  If you want to talk about your experience, it should augment your discussion of your method or style by showing how and why you got to this point, and possibly some of the interesting things that happened along the way.

Also, you ask about time division between the research and teaching part.  While that is a reasonable question (and you may be devoting too much time to the research part), I would recommend that you try to see your presentation as a unity.  Ideally, your presentation of your research should show what a great teacher you are (e.g., by exhibiting your engaging style, the ease of explaining the material, etc.) and your presentation of your teaching style and method should show what a serious and thorough researcher you are (e.g., that your method is informed by pedagogical research, etc.).  Each should augment the other so that the exact split of time between the parts is not to the derogation of one or the other.

Thank you for your answer. Perhaps, I could show how I improved my teaching skills using some of the knowledge that I learnt while studying for University Teaching Qualifications.
This could be something simple like how I improved my skills in making illustrative slides by showing them the first version of a slide and then later an improved version of the same slide.  (continued in the next comment)

Or it could be about how I used feedback from students evaluations’ to introduce another learning activity in one of my courses.
This would showcase my critical thinking skills and ability to improve. It would also give me an opportunity to mention University Teaching Qualifications organically.
Please let me know your thoughts. Thank you.

You're still thinking like a student --- show my good grades, my qualifications, my working, my improvement, etc.  Try to elevate yourself above that level; you're a fellow colleague giving a presentation to an audience of other professionals.  What will make them laugh, smile, etc.?  What will they find interesting?  How can you engage with them on their own level?  How will you stand out from other applicants?


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What sort of questions are typical when interviewing for an Assistant Professor position in Ireland?
I have an upcoming interview for an assistant professor position in computing in a university in Ireland. The interviewers are Vice President Academic Affairs and Research, Dean and Vice Dean of the Department of Computing and a HR consultant.
Could academics who are familiar with the Ireland system advise me on the sort of questions that are typically asked in these interviews? Looking at similar questions asked on Academia.SE for UK, I understand that in UK, the questions are typically about funding, REF and TEF (although I believe REF and TEF are not applicable in Ireland), past employment and salary expectation plans for career development. Are the questions similar in Ireland? Thank you.

Note that Ireland proper (not Northern Ireland) is EU, not UK.

Which just leads to the question of how different Ireland and Northern Ireland are in academic culture. I'm useless there...

I'm not in Ireland so can't answer, but Trinity College Dublin careers service has a section on academic interviews which I would assume applies to Irish universities.

@JonCuster My limited understanding is that the academic culture is similar, but I don't know if the funding environment and political pressures/incentives are different.


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How to recover work output from past lab when the head is uncooperative?
I have done a part of my PhD project in the lab that was not in our university and in another city. At the end of my work I produced a mutant enzyme that was necessary to perform another experiment to measure one of its characteristics. but they did not have the facility. So, the head of that lab told me that they would send my samples for the measurement to one  of their collaborator. I left their lab and returned to my city to continue my project. After that, whenever I followed up about the measurement the head of that lab postponed sending the samples to another time. After Six months I have asked him to send my samples to the lab that I introduced him. But,... He did not. It is almost two years but they did not send my samples for the measurement. Once I complained about this issue to him, he replied that whatever produced in his lab "is exclusively him". Is my samples really exclusively him? It was my idea and my work. How can I handle that? Is there any place that we can complain about these kind of issues?

So, this may come down to the details of the contract and lawyers, but even if you win, will the samples you get sent be damaged or spoilt ???

My samples are not efficient now for the measurement. I did not have any contract with him I just get permission from him to use his lab to do part of my project. Because I did not have any contract with him, I do not know how to solve my problem. The samples were important for publication. There were result of my work.

were you able to resolve the issue?

Unfortunately, not yet.

I have complained about that issue to ethics committee, unfortunately, they did not give me convincing answer, so I am trying to follow up this issue from my university side as a former PhD student. I suggest you first contact the ethics committee. Also, if you are in Europe, you can contact ALLEA (All European Academics) they are not responsible to solve these issues but when I contacted them, there are really nice people to guide you and they will tell you, who you can contact about these types of issue.

If an artist borrows a canvas and a brush to create a beautiful piece of art, who owns the art? The person owning the canvas or the artist himself? Who owns the intellectual property (IP)?
Your problem is a very ethical question and I would expect that there are laws and agreements between your university and the guest university governing that. If your University or Faculty has a dedicated law department I suggest you get in touch to figure out what regulations apply to your specific case; Asking "who owns what".
You should escalate this issue to higher levels: Supervisor, Head of Department, Devision, Faculty, [...] There are people with enough power and knowledge to deal with this issue in the correct way. You are not the first person to face such an issue; You will not be the last =) In fact you should have done so 1.5 years ago.
I am no lawyer, so I suggest you speak to somebody more qualified (and local). As a rule of thumb, IP belongs to the person that pays for the work.
If your guest professor contracted you he owns it and there isn't much you can do.
'produced in his lab "is exclusively him" ' is not enough to claim IP as that is merely providing the tools [at least in computer science]. That's saying "I gave Picasso his brush and he painted this in my Café, I own that painting".
In your case you are using his hotbed, ... "Consumables" (e.g. the paint and the canvas) are again different. There it very much depends on local regulations and there could be a caltrop hidden somewhere. Again speak to local people with more experience, in my experience they are more then happy to help.
Now above is something you can do. The consequence is that it will ruin the relationship between your two labs (plus some potential other consequences). On the other hand you managed to work over 2 years (at least half of your PhD) without those samples. How important are those samples to you and your work?

Thanks for your reply. The samples are important for the publication and they were result of my work. If I knew, he would not send my samples, I would go to that lab to talk to someone to receive them. But, he always told me that he would send for the measurement. Every time that i asked there was an excuse.

@bina You cannot change the past, so there is no point dwelling. Learn from it and make a better decision now. My advice is involve your supervisor right now. If he is unsure what to do keep moving up the chain. You will find someone that at least knows who to ask. The department's secretary also might know where to look, they know surprisingly much ;)


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Significant new developments since rejected paper -- do I still try to publish the original one?
I'm working on a topic in engineering and submit a paper to a journal about 6 months ago (which I also posted on ArXiV).  The paper was recently rejected.  Since the original submission, I've made significant progress on the problem, and I've written that progress and additional developments, into another paper which I plan to submit to a conference at the end of the month.  I had originally been planning to cite the earlier paper, but in fact a lot of what was in the original paper is made essentially obsolete by my new developments.
To try to summarize the situation: paper 1 does "X and Y", is on ArXiV, and was rejected by a journal.  Paper 2 does "X++ and Z", and I'm planning to submit this to a conference soon.  Content "Y" is not significant enough to be it's own paper, but contains some important information that needs to be referred to in order for "Z" to make sense.
Should I still try to publish the original paper somewhere?  Should I combine that paper with the new developments and publish that (i.e., publish "X++, Y, and Z")?  Or, should I just leave the original one standing on ArXiV and forget about getting it through peer review?

Why was it rejected?

The reviewers wanted to see some extra content about "W" (some simulations of sensitivity to certain inputs) which we had thought seemed out of scope, that some of the content was superfluous (which I agree with now), that the conclusions were not quite what the journal wants (this is pretty fair), and that we didn't make enough contribution over and above a paper we took inspiration from (which I think is inaccurate, our formulation is similar, but not identical, and our analysis and conclusions are much stronger).

Both options can be good. It really depends on the paper(s) and the preferences of yourself and your coauthors.

Are you in an area where conferences are a publication venue?  Are conference papers considered real papers, or is it expected that the papers presented at conferences will be submitted (perhaps with further work) to journals and the journal version will be the real publication?

Thanks for this feedback -- It is my impression that good conference publications are considered "real" papers, but I think my advisor strongly prefers that we publish in journals.  Often, he publishes early work in a conference, then a much longer and expanded version in a journal.

Will the paper be too rambling if you include the parts of X and Y relevant to X++ and Z in your new paper? They might make sense to bundle together even if you leave some parts of X and Y to remain only on arxiv.

That is the path I'm leaning towards, it makes sense to put a lot of it together and definitely makes for a better paper.  I think my main concern, which I didn't articulate in the original question, is if it's okay to leave the arxiv paper standing and have a lot of repetition from that version (e.g. the introduction and literature review will be very similar) in another published paper.
i.e., is it bad to have "dangling" arxiv papers?  It seems a bit unavoidable if I post to arxiv before getting it accepted, which is the point of arxiv in the first place right?

It's fine to leave dangling papers on arxiv.  You should put a comment in the "Comments" metadata for both papers on arxiv.

This question was asked a long time ago, and the OP got advice in the comments, but it remains on the unanswered queue. I will try to answer it.
First, the situation described here is similar to another academia.SE thread. It's also related to a MathOverflow thread I recently wrote an answer for.
My view is that, early in your career, every publication counts, so I advise anyone in a similar position to still try to get the first paper published. If the publication system was more efficient, or if you worked more slowly, you would not have subsumed your own paper. I don't see why you, the author, should be punished for working fast.
The literature is full of examples where papers in a series were published out of order. This happens when the first is rejected and resubmitted while the second is already under review, or sometimes even if the papers are accepted in order, they can be published out of order due to journal backlog times.
Unless I viewed the first paper as embarrassing, I'd probably do just what the OP originally suggested. Have the second cite the first, resubmit the first somewhere lower, and send the second to the conference. You could also have the first paper cite the second, to point out that the techniques developed have already found an application. I much prefer this over a dangling arXiv paper. You never know when some future researcher might need that "superfluous" content, and if it's an eternal preprint, they might be less confident to rely on it. If you see some quick ways to edit and improve the paper based on the referee report, then do that before resubmitting, but try to delay as little as possible. It's ok to have two different approaches to the same thing, and get both published. The new referees for the first paper will probably not even be aware that you wrote the second paper. Or, if you cite it, then they are aware of it in a positive way. In math, it would be very rare for a referee to reject a paper because the author had written a subsequent one generalizing the first. Having the arXiv timestamp helps you a lot in that regard.


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Why do American universities receive lots of endowments?
The amount of endowments that American universities receive is much more than European counterparts. Why alumni of American universities and other people have such a big desire to donate money to universities.
This happens in Europe too, but much less than America. Almost all American universities (at least major ones) have many named chairs (funded by external donors), but you see it rarely in Europe.

In many EU countries, universities are public, they receive money directly from the state and are free to enrol. Thus, they do not need that much extra funding (other than grants) to operate.

@Alexandros In the US, many universities are public but receive lots of endowments. Most of these endowments are spent for research, for example named chairs are mainly focusing on research.

Some universities are very good at building a sense of loyalty and community among students (Oxford/Cambridge in the UK do this well and they receive a lot of alumni donations - and named chairs). Some universities I have been to feel more utilitarian and therefore perhaps alumni don't feel the same desire to donate - they feel that they are paying for a 'product'.

In the US, many universities are public — "Public" doesn't mean the same in the US as it does elsewhere.  I work for a public university in the US, but less than 25% of the university budget is provided by the state; the rest is from tuition, grants, and gifts/endowment.  And that 25% is significantly higher than most so-called public universities in the US.

@mg4w I think "emotional attachment" is the core point. You should extend this into an answer.

The American mentality is that the government should do as little as possible and influence people's lives as little as possible. Citizens should be free to make their own choices in most every matter. This is reflected here, in that a big part of university funding will come directly from people rather than governments/organizations, and also in (to me) ridiculous situations where the local police is phoning people and asking for donations. Consider that one of the most basic responsibilities of any government is to maintain the police and provide security.

@Szabolcs To be fair, there's no single American mentality, we vary quite a lot over matters like this, though yes, it is trues that a large percentage of Americans do feel this way.

@Alexandros "Thus, they do not need that much extra funding (other than grants) to operate." -- that used to be true. Nowadays, severe underfunding is becoming the norm.

There is a greater tradition of alumni giving in America, which European universities are trying to also foster (especially in the public funding cuts to universities seen in the UK).
In America there are also generous tax breaks when giving money to charities and foundations which encourages gifting.

+1. Charitable giving is much more ingrained in the American psyche. For instance, my favorite webradio station (sorry, couldn't resist that plug) is running its annual fundraiser right now - and lots of supporters will pledge to double any donations that come in during some particular time period. Nobody in Germany would even think of this.

One different viewpoint to the other answers here: endowments are necessary instruments for most American universities, and are essential for private universities which are not directly supported by the government. They can provide essential resources for meeting the budget needs of these institutions—particularly for costs that cannot be paid for using state or federal funding received. (These can, of course, be supplemented by tuition and other income.)
More importantly, American universities receive lots of money for their endowments because they devote significant resources to recruit and solicit donations. Most universities have some sort of "alumni relations" department to seek out such funds, and typically a development office as well.

+1 for the last paragraph - I was going to post something similar.  I think you could say that donating to universities is a tradition for Americans - but development offices work hard to ensure that it remains a tradition.

Another factor may be that, since in the US the student is very aware of how much the official costs have been offset by scholarships and/or loans through the school itself, many of us feel an obligation to "pay that forward" if we can by putting money back into the endowment funds. Similarly, we're very aware of the non-tuition costs of making the school community and experience what it was, and we don't take a good education and its effect on our salaries for granted; there too we have something of a debt to repay.
Not true of everyone, of course. But for some of us it's real.
There are also the endowments made because someone wants to see the school do something in particular, for reasons ranging from ego to investment in research to you-name-it.
Really, it boils down to "that's how the system has evolved over the past two centuries, as it has interacted with the society and economy it's surrounded by." History is less a matter of grand design than of lots of people making impulse decisions whose sums happen to lean one direction or the other on any given day.

I believe a major factor is the experience students have while studying. Certain universities are very good at creating a sense of loyalty, community, and attachment which endures after students graduate.
For example, in the UK, Oxford and Cambridge receive disproportionately more donations than other universities. 41% of all alumni donations in 2013-2014 went to Oxbridge. There are also a large number of named chairs. Historically Oxbridge students have had a strong loyalty to their college and are keen to give back once they are alumni.  This loyalty is built through many means, such as the links to tradition, virtually all undergraduates living together in their college. There is a lot of inter-college rivalry in sport, academics, who has the best may balls, etc.
While I have never been to university in the USA, I would imagine that a similar loyalty exists in Universities which receive a lot of donations. For example, College sports in the United States, in particular (American) football and basketball, have a very large following and people are very loyal to their team. For example the University of Michigan has the largest Football stadium in the USA (107,601 seats) and is also in the top ten in terms of endowment ($10.06 billion). Could this simply be a coincidence?
Some universities take a more utilitarian approach. With more students commuting to classes, fewer sports facilities, etc. In this case the education process could seem more like purchasing a service. Not that it would necessarily detract from the quality of the degree/education, but it would not instill the same sense of attachment which would lead an alumni to donate. I would suspect that universities structured in this way would rely more heavily on government funding and attempt to keep costs down by reducing the non-essentials.

It's not just the UMich stadium, either. The fifteen largest American football stadia are all university stadia. Pick any one of the eleven smallest states or D.C.: you can sit the entire population in those stadia. Memorial Stadium on match day is the third-largest "city" in Nebraska; Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, AL, seats 102,000 but the population of Tuscaloosa is only 90,000. These things are huge.

Some years ago, the (then) president of the University of Michigan told a meeting of the faculty senate that donations from alumni are higher when the football team does well.  (That strikes me as an unfortunate reflection on how we (the faculty) have "educated" these folks.)


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Freshman applying to REUs, only know one professor well
I've just finished my first semester and I'm planning to apply to physics/math REUs. REUs ("Research Experiences for Undergraduates") are competitive, US-Government-funded grants for undergraduate students to do scientific research over the summer.
I know my math professor well and he agreed to write me a reference, but I do not know any other professors at that level. A possibility is another mathematics/CS professor who I have approached multiple times to ask questions beyond class material, but it's a large class so I wouldn't count on him knowing my name.
Being a freshman, would REU admissions look at my lack of one recommendation (most require two) as mitigated by my freshman status, or would I be laughed out of the applicant pool?
Aside from this issue I have good credentials (above average but not insane). I won't have a Putnam score until after most application deadlines.
I would also appreciate some guidance on how to proceed with applications given my situation: should I shoot for the moon or focus on other things besides REU for this summer?

If possible, you could also ask your math professor or someone in the physics department if it's possible for you to do paid research at your home institution over the summer. That's what I did my sophomore year after I wasn't accepted into the REU I applied to. And besides, you're only a freshman. You've still got a couple more years to build up your reference list.

That's true, I'm certainly going to try and get research at my home institution. However I am very interested in some REUs, and it would be nice to get in (again, it wouldn't be too bad if I didn't)

This question was asked a long time ago but never got an answer. I get questions like this from my students. Here's what I tell them.

Should I shoot for the moon or focus on other things besides REU for this summer?

As a first-year student, it is very early to be applying to REUs. Most REU slots go to rising seniors, and a handful go to rising juniors. There is no expectation at all that a rising sophomore will do an REU, because after just one year of college, their knowledge base is still insufficient for most research. A better use of that first summer would be to teach yourself something that's not in the curriculum, or do some independent projects (e.g., implementing algorithms you learned) and put the results on Github. It's also perfectly fine to just work a summer job unrelated to your major and make a bit of money, or to travel, or just hang out. Soon enough, there will be an expectation to do things during the summer that go on your CV, so that might be an argument for taking advantage of the fact that in this summer there is no such expectation. I used the summer after my first year to go backpacking in Australia and New Zealand, and that was a wonderful opportunity for personal growth. I did REUs the summers after my sophomore and junior years.
Ok, but suppose a student really has their heart set on a research opportunity. There are some that are tailored for younger students, e.g., at my university in the USA we have an S-STEM grant from the NSF that funds such students for essentially summer learning opportunities that fall short of what most would call "research."

Being a freshman, would REU admissions look at my lack of one recommendation (most require two) as mitigated by my freshman status, or would I be laughed out of the applicant pool?

Unless the REU specifically seeks first-year students, then you are really going to be competing with the older students and your status does not mitigate a lack of preparation. If you apply for a summer opportunity that wants two letters of recommendation then you should give them two letters. Pick two people who know you well as a student. Ideally that would be two professors that have taught you. A first-year student with any real chance of getting into an REU would have taken a pretty heavy course load, so there should be two professors that know you. If not, you could use one professor and one teacher from high school, but this might indeed hurt your chances. It does not hurt to try, but there are plenty of other opportunities for the summer after your first year. Lastly, it's not a winning strategy to worry about being "laughed out of the applicant pool." Better to try and fail than not try at all, if it's important to you.

What is an REU? Not familiar with that abbreviation.

@NAMcMahon, "Research Experience for Undergraduates"... in the U.S.

+1. I would just add that REU applications are free (at least I assume they still are), so there is no reason not to "shoot for the moon."

I have gone through the same process, in the same field, and am now a graduate student. Generally speaking, not everyone who writes your letters has to be your best friend. When it comes to REU applications, you might have one letter from a professor who knows you well if you're lucky, and after that, it is socially and professionally acceptable to ask for a letter from any professor whose class you have done well in (i.e. got an A). If they accept, they might get to know you a bit in order to write a better letter. Hopefully you will have managed to make yourself stick out even a little bit during class or office hours---professors do tend to remember such students even if just by face.
But more realistically, as a first year who has only been in college 1 semester, it'll take some time to build better connections. It is fine, even for top math PhD admissions, to do unrelated activities in your first year summer.