text:
Software for personal remote monitoring of exams
I suppose many instructors are looking for such a software. I give an exam that requires pencil and paper and computer software. I want to be able to look at computer screens students are using, I want to be able to look at their webcam output, their desk, etc. I want to be able to send messages by chat or voice to class or to a single student.
I do not want to share the screen I am looking at, by default, with the entire class.
Of course only external webcams, relocated under command, will have the necessary effectiveness. Integrated webcams have many blind spots.
Some software attempt to automate the monitoring of exams. They produce videos and record student's computer and environment. In my case it has turned out to be of limited value.
What software do you plan to use in the coming fall semester?
Edit- 8/11/2020
I just used Blackboard Collaborative Ultra (BCU) in a summer junior-level class with 15 students. Perhaps BCU it is not meant for this purpose but it worked better than the automated monitoring software. It has 20 breakout rooms. So you can accommodate 20 students, or 40 if you are willing to give two  different exams. From the main room you have no view. You have to rotate among the rooms to see anything. So it feels a bit clunky. If you want to check students' work environment  ask them to show up in advance (you end up acting like a TSA agent at an airport).
Edit- 8/18/2020
Zoom has 50 breakout rooms. Spreading students into rooms seems easier here. I have not tried it yet though.
Independent webcam allow  you to inspect the environment with much more ease and certainty than an integrated one. However most of these do not get secured to anything easily and do not have a tripod or base. They can be secured to objects like a paper towel.
Please note that this is not a discussion about privacy issues, unless it is in relation to a comparison of two software.

Probably nothing can meet your needs. It would require too much equipment (and bandwidth) for each student. The situation is too chaotic now for any well-thought-out solutions.

Most webcams are integrated to the screen of the computer which sits on the student's desk, so it's impossible to have a full view of their desk at any time. Also there have been privacy concerns raised about this kind of requirement.

Check out the Lockdown Browser and Respondus Monitoring, but it is not a live feed to you.

I know everyone is doing this, but it will never work.

@AnonymousPhysicist they said that about the sound barrier...

I don't understand why you use one breakout room per student: I usually put around 20 students per breakout room. 15-18 students is the best, so that I can have on the monitor three rows with 5-8 students each row.

@MassimoOrtolano  My students are working on a computer and entering answers there. If I want to see their screen then I have to share screen. Then the students who are in the same room can see each other's screens via shared screen. So If you want to be able to see their screen then only one student can be in a room. Or give as many distinct exams as there are students in a room. 2 student per room then needs 2 distinct exam.

I intend to use no such software, because it does not work (there are many ways to work around it, depending on its complexity), and it is incredibly invasive of student privacy (and the harder to circumvent it is, the more invasive it is).
When you ask students to take exams using software like this, you are asking them to:

invite a camera into their home
install invasive software that can take substantial control of their computer
subject themselves to continuous monitoring, either by a person (looking into their home!) or an AI system
if the monitoring is by an AI system, subject themselves to all of its errors and biases, running a nontrivial risk of being falsely flagged as cheating, especially if they are a racial minority, poor (so they have less space for the kind of 'clean' environment the software expects), in any way act in a way the system does not expect (e.g. does a student stare off into the corner when they are thinking? what will the system due with that change in eye contact?)
expose their computer to potential security vulnerabilities, because invasive software, that may be employing clever workarounds for operating system features designed to protect the user from software trying to exercise the level of control it demands, probably has some security vulnerabilities of its own

And all of this as a prerequisite for obtaining their education, and the students who want to cheat will find a way to do so anyway. All it accomplishes, in practice, is invading the privacy of honest students.
I believe it is better to structure assessments to disincentivize cheating and/or be robust to it, rather than to subject students to substantial privacy invasion and circumvention of their computers' security in order to try to prevent it.

Yes I agree, as mentioned in my post too, I find the automated software that monitors exams not to be effective.  However students are already using Blackboard and Zoom and these are not as invasive. There is not much that I dislike more than looking into someones home, but when exam average goes up by 25 points, from in-class to on-line, and we see questionable responses we need to do something. One can make the opposite argument too, by not doing anything about cheating we encourage students who are on the fence to go to the easy side. How do I disincentivize cheating?

"when exam average goes up by 25 points, from in-class to on-line, and we see questionable responses we need to do something" - it does not follow that supervision software should be used (see: politician's fallacy).


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France/USA collaboration funding for young researcher?
I am a French citizen, I defended my PhD in Paris in November 2014, and I am working as a post-doctoral researcher in the US since December 2014. I am working in between Astrophysics and Computer Science. I have already submitted several NSF proposals to get additional funding in the US (but I am waiting for the answers).
I am currently searching for European of French funding opportunities (1 year, 2 years, or 3 years programs) that would allow me to create my own collaboration plan between France and US. Ideally I would like to be able to travel back and forth both countries. I already have 1 lab in each country that would be interested, and if necessary I can also add one non-academic partner that is interested in my work.
To what programs should I look?
EDIT: The biggest list of potential programs, the better

A good option seems to be a Marie Curie Global Fellowship, funded by the European Commission. See http://ec.europa.eu/research/mariecurieactions/about-msca/actions/if/index_en.htm for more information.
Note that this allows setting up a collaboration plan between any European with any non-European country, so it's more general than what you're looking for.

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How to build relationships with colleagues as new faculty member?
I have just started a new job
as an assistant professor in a tenure-track position.

What are the most important things that I can do
to build good working and social relationships with my colleagues?
Related to the above question,
what are the tasks that require faculty members to work together,
and how do I work well as a member of a team in such settings?

Background
I felt that I did not do a good job
in developing relationships with other students during my PhD years.
I observed that other students seemed to go for lunch/coffee,
hang out together, go out to a bar or for a movie,
but somehow I did not participate in such social activities.
I hope that I do not make the same mistakes
as I start my new job as a new faculty member.
Clarification
in response to the question
How do we have to imagine that you did not participate in such social activities?
I did take part in some department social events,
e.g. a student retreat, student BBQs,
the intermural soccer team, open houses for prospective PhD students, etc.
I didn't join people for coffee
because it is not a habit for me to drink coffee.
Perhaps I should have joined not for the coffee but for the company.
As the stress oh PhD piled up I became more insular
because it takes energy for me to socialize with others
and I wanted to conserve energy.
Now that I look back,
I feel that if I had spent a little more time with other people,
I could find a happy medium where I am neither
too exhausted being with other people (too much social interaction)
nor feeling lonely (too little social interaction).

Read the timeless classic, How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Solve the social things by being proactive. Go to your colleagues individually, after committee meetings, or during their office hours, introduce yourself as the new guy, and offer to buy them lunch or a coffee. If colleagues go to lunch after departmental meetings, politely see if you can tag along. The "somehow" in your question is indicative of someone who did not look for such opportunities or dodged invitations. Lunch is probably the easiest time for colleagues in a work setting to begin their socialization. Everyone eats and almost everyone like some company.
As best as I can tell, there are only a handful of things that bring faculty members together for forced work, e.g. departmental committee meetings. That being said, departments have social and semi-social functions. Attend as many as you can. Volunteer to help with student move-in at the dorms. Volunteer to be a marshal and graduation ceremonies with other faculty. Find a hobby and check out the university club (exercise oriented ones like cycling, rowing, and running tend to be popular).
Solve this problem like it was your PhD. Set goals and be deliberate. Also, be friendly.

I agree with everything except for the bit about "offer to buy them lunch or a coffee". This may vary a lot depending on the culture this takes place in, but offering to pay for coffe or lunch (especially if it's the same coffee or lunch that the respective people buy themselves on all other days, anyway) can come across as very pushy. "I'm the new one, and I haven't spent any real time with this team yet, nor gathered any working experience with you, but my first and most important goal here is that all of you guys like me, right now!"

Continued from above: The only exception may be when the OP is actually the new head of a team, in which case it might be more expected (though by no means should it be required) to invite one's new team for a "welcome lunch" or something like that. But in that case, a little more distance to that team the OP is superior of would be somewhat more natural, anyway, maybe making it less likely that they are automatically integrated in social activities of the team. The OP may want to clarify in the question in what way the colleagues they want to get in touch with are organisationally related.

@O.R.Mapper indeed, I think it's necessary to know what culture the OP is in to say anything definite about that. In my experience, asking someone to get coffee or lunch or something with you is a very common and accepted way to get to know them, and if you make the invitation, you should be willing to pay.

@David Z: In my experience, academic invitations to lunch between faculty members rarely carry the assumption of payment.  (Between a faculty member and a student: that is more likely.)

Let me offer a somewhat different answer.  For many departments in the US, particularly small departments, you don't need to be too proactive to cultivate relationships, because departments are often pretty friendly.  Even ones that are dysfunctional often try to be friendly to the new faculty.  The most important thing is: just be there.  This means be in the department during most normal working hours, and participate in normal things like department seminars and go to department teas.  People, especially other young faculty, will naturally talk to you and probably invite you along for lunches or outings if that's something they normally do together there.  Of course it's not bad at all to be proactive, provided you want to be, and it can certainly speed up relationship building.
I'm just saying you don't need to force yourself to do a bunch of things you don't want to do to have good relationships with your colleagues.  There are differences between being able to work well with someone, to get along with someone socially and to spend a lot of time with someone.  Some people are less social than others, and that doesn't make them worse colleagues.  (I can't tell if your goal is to participate in social activities with colleagues or just have good relationships, but my answer is for the latter.)
As for the other question: the main tasks that require faculty to work together are committee work.  Various faculty will also likely ask for your assistance on random things which may not be part of a committee.  However most of this "working together" is just discussing ideas and coming to a consensus at meetings, then doing whatever you were assigned to/agreed to do.  Provided you can listen to other people and you're not argumentative or irresponsible, you shouldn't have too many issues with this.  And when you're not clear on what is expected of you, or how to do something, ask.  Senior faculty are usually happy to help junior faculty learn the ropes.

My answer is so strongly weighted towards proactivity because OP seems unable to understand how they didn't make more friends in grad school. Labs/groups tend to be even more tight-knit, so it seems like OP needs some encouragement to be active in seeking these relationships given the clear desire to have them. They don't just materialize, usually.

@BillBarth It seemed to me there was some confusion in the question about hanging out with people versus having good relationships with colleagues, which is what I wanted to point out in my answer.  As for making friends, it depends a lot on the department.  In my department, you need to actively shut people out to not make friends, but I've been to other places where you need to be proactive to even know who your colleagues are.  But I think most departments in the US at least try to be friendly to new faculty--it might even be easier for the socially challenged to make friends at this level.

Bill's answer is excellent, I just want to add the obvious that you should definitely look for as many academic partnerships as you can as well.
You've probably already found the people at your new university within your field; if you haven't, search papers and find authors from your university. Beyond that, you'll want to reach out to people in other departments whose work is related to yours. Most fields require collaboration across many specialties, and you'll want to reach out to a lot of different people to identify collaboration opportunities. In my case, I was doing biomedical research, but I was working with faculty from electrical engineering, neuroscience, and statistics. Your situation is probably similar. As you talk to people in your department, try to get names of folks in other departments whom you should meet.

Find a mentor within your department.
Attend seminars.  If no one is bringing cookies, bring cookies.
Read the descriptions of your colleagues' research interests.  Pick one or two to ask to give you a tour of their lab.
Find someone you feel comfortable with to have lunch with occasionally (sandwich brought from home).  Don't be afraid to choose a post doc or advanced grad student for the lunch buddy.
Read bulletin boards to see what group activities are happening, such as informal soccer games.
When talking with someone, make sure you don't only talk about yourself.
When you have a question, make sure to begin with a friendly greeting before blurting out your question, for example, "Hi So-and-So, Happy Monday!" with a smile.
Treat the secretaries with friendliness and respect.
Find a hobby that has nothing to do with your department, for example folk dance, canoeing, whatever you enjoy.

Those are good starting points.

"If no one is bringing cookies, bring cookies." - and then you learn that the group of seminar attendees originally always brought cookies, but mutually agreed to discontinue that out of respect for their diabetic colleague ;)

+1 for "Treat the secretaries with friendliness and respect." First, because they deserve it. Second, because secretaries wield a lot of informal power - you do not want to get on their bad side. (But better call them "Administrative Assistants".)

But do get him or her a card and a gift certificate to a nice restaurant on Secretary's Day (April 26).

@O.R.Mapper - Sugar snap peas are a healthy treat that usually goes over big.

Don't say "Hi So-and-So, Happy Monday!" if it is in England.

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What to do if I can't get a visa to attend a conference that accepted my paper?
My work got accepted into a very good category in a very good conference in my field. Due to complicated visa issues it will be very hard for me to attend that conference.
If I don't attend the conference they are certainly going to remove my work from the proceedings.
I am worried I won't be able to claim any sort of achievement if I don't attend this conference.
Can I still add it to my CV and specify that my work got accepted in this conference in a very good category?

Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/13943/etiquette-when-unable-to-attend-a-conference

When I was a PhD student, another PhD student was asked to give an oral presentation for a complete stranger who couldn't attend.  I think his supervisor knew the other scientist.

Major ideas have been delivered by stand ins. Pauli sent an assistant to deliver his suggestions that the beta decay spectrum might be explained by a light, uncharged third particle (i.e. what became known as the neutrino).

@gerrit I've heard this practice called "Powerpoint Karaoke".

Did you know when you submitted the paper that you wouldn't be able to get a visa? Or is that something that only happened after the paper was accepted?

@FedericoPoloni PowerPoint Karaoke requires you to give a presentation using slides you never got a chance to see – usually from a field you never heard about. That may happen in these situations, but in PPK, it’s officially intended, so while the comical value may be the same, I think there still is some difference.

In what country is the conference ?

If your paper gets withdrawn, then there may be no public record that it ever was accepted (and if there were, it could potentially be misconstrued as a withdrawel for other reasons). I can't say I've ever seen such an item on a CV.
On the other hand, even if you cannot make it to the conference in person, you can try to either:
a) have someone else give the talk in your place.
b) give the talk via telecommunication, e.g. Skype.
Both options are certainly not too unusual in my field (theoretical computer science/math). If you have to go for the second one, make sure not to leave contacting the conference organizers for the last moment, and be aware that this causes quite some work for them. If you can provide enough detail on your visa issues that it is clear that it's not just "You waited too long to apply", most people will be quite understanding.

+1 Most conference organizers are aware of possible visa issues for people coming into their country, and many conference organizers "hate" their countries for that. So they'll understand. At my last conference, there was a similar issue, but not with visa, rather with a sudden illness.

Pro-tip: if you decide on a Skype presentation (which is actually preferable to having someone else give the talk on your behalf), you should give your talk as if you were actually at the conference venue (because you are there; its just that Skype extends the location of the venue). That means, deliver it from an university room (i.e., not your bedroom), wear conference-appropriate clothing, clear all other appointments for the morning/afternoon, look directly into the webcam, etc.

I have seen one paper listed in a home page that didn't show up in the mentioned proceedings—it turned out that the presenter left because his home was flooded, and the publisher removed the paper from the proceeding, even though the organizers wouldn't have done that.

You will need to find some way to have the paper presented. At the most recent conference I attended, a speaker was unable to attend for visa reasons and sent in a video talk. That talk was played back by a friend who also took some (simple) questions.
At pretty much every conference I've been to in the past few years in the US at least one person has had visa trouble, so it's not uncommon at all. But you will need to do due diligence to try and get the visa as far as possible. Once that fails, then the above three suggestions (someone else, a skype talk, a video talk) become available, depending on what the conference organizers want.

As I'm not in a field where we publish through conferences, I'm curious about the first option.  Is the substitute expected to be someone who worked on the project, who can give a useful talk and answer questions?  Or, in order to get the paper into the proceedings, is it sufficient to have a pro forma talk, where J. Random Attendee stands up and reads from the paper until time expires?  How is this normally handled?

you really do have to make a strenuous effort to present it yourself. it's not enough to get J. R. A to present "to get it into the proceedings". In fact some venues now require one author of each paper to register. In any case, the best option is the first one, or someone who's very familiar with the work. I've never seen a random person present someone's work.

If you really can't make it, despite good faith effort, the talk should be given by someone who understands your paper.  The speaker is still representing you and your work, so pro forma nonsense reflects badly on you.

@NateEldredge Quite often you have people in the audience who understand the topic quite well. For me (TCS/Math), this means that they understand well the important results and they are able to see why the problem is complicated, as well as that they are aware of related topics. If there's a general friendliness in the area, these people are willing to give the talk or at least answer the questions, and it makes sense in the end.

This happened in my lab. The solution was to either present the work by a co-author, or present the work by a lab mate that was attending the conference.
Pay attention that in the second case (non-author, lab mate) you need to get in touch with the conference staff in order to expose the case to them and make sure they agree. Some conferences consider it a paper withdrawal when none of the co-authors attends the conference to present the work. Also, you will still have to pay the author fees, even if you can't assist to the conference.

I recently gave a presentation at a conference on behalf of a colleague who was unable to attend, so it's certainly a possibility in at least some fields (I'm in theoretical computer science). I had nothing to do with the research, but I do know the person, so I was able to talk to them beforehand and get a decent briefing on the material.
If you know some of the other attendees, that may be a possible route to getting your work presented. In my experience of glancing at the rules of various conference (all CS though), there is only a requirement that the work is presented - it doesn't strictly say by whom, and that at least one of the authors registers.

I have encountered multiple instances of this. Once, the airlines messed up my connections so badly that I did not make it to the conference (which was in a remote region) although I had given myself 48 hours "leeway" for just that eventuality. We ended up setting up a Skype connection (voice only - the internet connection was quite poor) and the talk was well received. I have to say though, that not seeing your audience and gaging their reaction / understanding is a HUGE barrier to effective delivery.
On another occasion, a hurricane caused severe flooding of the house of an academic acquaintance, and he chose not to travel abroad to give a presentation - instead he dealt with the flooding, insurance, etc. He asked me to give the talk for him, and we discussed it at length so I would be able to present effectively. The only problem was that I could not answer follow-up questions: instead I put up the author's email information as the last slide so people could follow up with him directly.
On a third occasion, travel restrictions (funding) required me to stand in for a colleague; while I was not an author on the paper, I was very familiar with the work (from my group) and was able to present and field questions from the audience. That is the ideal scenario.
On no account should you simply be a "no show": that will affect your acceptance at future conferences (even though it is "not your fault"). Everyone understands that stuff happens - but the show must go on. So find a sub - preferably someone you know and trust, with knowledge about your work. If necessary, just call all the other authors who are presenting in the same section - they are likely to understand the material best. And presumably you know some of them from other conferences?

As you know, most conferences accept papers on the condition that one of the authors attends the conference to give a presentation. Of course, sometimes things come up and somebody who planned to attend cannot; organizers are sympathetic to that, as discussed in the other answers.
However, I think it's worth pointing out that, if you knew at the time of submitting the paper that getting a visa would be difficult or impossible, you should probably have agreed that one of your co-authors would attend the conference from the start. If all your co-authors were in the same situation, it would, I think, have been best to contact the organizers for advice before submitting.

Have you considered converting your presentation to a poster? If the conference organisers have accepted your presentation as a talk, then they should - I expect - accept a poster from you on the same topic, even if you can't attend owing to your visa difficulties.
If you submit a poster, your contribution will at least be on record. Additionally, you might be able to convince someone at the conference - via your network of collaborators - to spend a few precious minutes of their presentation talk to advertise your poster, adding, perhaps, that but for your visa difficulties, you would have been in attendance to present your work orally.

Just to forestall comments to the same effect: I fully realise that a poster has less impact at a conference than an oral presentation. I offer the suggestion of a poster as an additional option to the OP which he/she might in turn suggest to the conference LOC.

In my field, the point of posters is to talk to the poster presenters — so a poster without somebody next to it makes limited to no sense.


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How to reference "letters of gratitude" on the CV?
On my CV, I would like to reference some "letters of gratitude" I have received from different institutions about training courses I have given to them.
I imagine these letters could go under "Honors and Awards" section on my CV, is that right?
How should I mention these letters? Something like:
Letter of gratitute from [institution] on the [course details]

or is there any better, formal way of saying it?

What's a letter of gratitude?  In the academic systems I'm familiar with (math in the U.S.), there's no special concept of such a letter.  If you give a series of lectures, it would be polite for the organizer to write a thank you letter, but the letter carries no extra significance and wouldn't be mentioned on your CV.  (Instead, you'd just list the lecture series.)  If you are working in a context in which formal letters of gratitude carry extra weight, it would be useful to clarify in the question, as well as on your CV if you end up applying for jobs outside this context.

Thanks @ Anonymous Mathematician. Well, the thing is that I am working on two separate areas (academia and industry); in the second one, it is sometimes useful to acknowledge these thank you letters when applying for jobs. These letters come usually from official institutions who acknowledge partipation on training courses, projects, etc.

@AnonymousMathematician: I suggest making your comment an answer. And to add my input: the suggestion Javier posts for mentioning the letter on his CV sounds like the right way to me.

I am working on two separate areas (academia and industry); in the second one, it is sometimes useful to acknowledge these thank you letters when applying for jobs.

I'd recommend having two versions of your CV/resume, for use in applying to different sorts of jobs.  The industrial version could take whatever approach is standard for such applications.  For the academic version, it would be safer not to list these letters of gratitude under "Honors and Awards", since that's usually reserved for more clear-cut cases (such as prizes, awards, competitive fellowships, etc.), so including them there could look odd or like you are padding your CV.  If you'd like to mention them on the academic version of your CV as well, one possibility would be to write "received letter of gratitude from university" in parentheses after your description of the training course.

Actually, if you have given training to corporations or universities, this should probably be listed as a "teaching" activity on your CV. You can list general details of the kinds of courses you have given, and the frequency and kinds of institutions to which you have offered them. Referencing specific letters probably doesn't need to be done on an academic CV.


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Can referees publish in the journals they are responsible in?
Can the referees publish an article in the journal they review or the editorial board members publish an article in their journal? Is it ethical? Can you give examples for my question? Your answers are quite important for my research.

Referees publish in the journals they review for, and peer review is anonymous so this should not be an ethical problem. If you don't publish in a journal, how can you review for it?

In many cases editors ask people who recently publish in a journal to do a review or two.

@BenNorris: Well, you could publish in another journal.

@BenNorris "If you don't publish in a journal, how can you review for it?" If there are several journals in a field, it's perfectly normal for somebody who happens to have only published in journals A, B and D to be invited to review for journal C. Why shouldn't they be?

Your question is really two: reviewers and editorial board members.
Reviewers are peers reviewing other peers papers, or put differently and in very general terms, everyone reviews each other's manuscripts. Reviewers are not a professional occupation tied to a journal. This means that a reviewer is just as much welcome as an author as the author who was reviewed.
When it comes to editorial board members they are (of course with a few exceptions in a few, probably wealthy, journals) also scientists just like anyone submitting to the journal. They are as such not prohibited to submit manuscripts to the journal in which they serve. It is of course important that the editor's manuscript is edited by someone else. Even this may seem poor to many but if one takes an opposite stance and view it from the journal's side, having editors sneaking in papers at will will not reflect well on the journal so for no other reason, self preservation keeps most from doing so.
As an editor for a journal I would be very hesitant to submit to "my" journal but at the same time, if the field is narrow and possible publications venues are few then the choices may not be overwhelming and publishing in the "own" journal may be the only possibility. It is not fair to think of editors as pariah and person's who should be banned from communicating their science. It is just important that they can and that it is done in such a way that they receive the same treatment as any other submitting author.

There's a difference between "editorial board" vs Editor-in-Chief.  The term "editor" is ambiguous, so it might help to edit this answer to distinguish between the two clearly.  Often there's an editorial board of 10-20 folks.  I've never heard of any negative impressions when someone on that editorial board publishes in that journal, and I'm not sure why one of them should hesitate to publish in "their" journal.  However, often there's a single Editor-in-Chief.  That's a quite different situation -- it seems reasonable for the Editor-in-Chief to be hesitant to submit to "their" journal.

Also you have to arrive at a viable trade-off in avoiding conflict of interest between editors and submission on the one hand and on the other hand: you want to have the best experts in the field both contributing (because that presumably yields the best content for the journal) and editing (because the best experts should enforce the quality of the contributions).

Speaking as an editor: one of the reasons that many journals have a large pool of associate editors (in addition to spreading the load), is to avoid disqualifying editors from publishing.  This is particularly important for field-specific journals with all-volunteer editing, as otherwise you would lose some of the important contributors and also discourage people from being willing to be editors.  Most good journal software supports this by blinding an editor to any operations involving papers on which they have a conflict of interest, which automatically includes their own.  Now, it is much more tricky for a chief editor to publish fairly: even then it may be handled appropriately if there is more than one chief editor, but should be very rare in order to avoid the appearance of impropriety.

It is not only that you'd loose "some" editor or contributor: you'd loose those people who you need most in order to have high quality both on the submission and on the quality assurance/acceptance side.

You will find that the pool of reviewers for many journals comes from its recent submitters. I have often gotten a review request from an editor shortly after submitting an article of my own. It's very common and not unethical. Peer review is driven by this back and forth between reviewers and submitters.


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Should I tell the interviewer that I solely rely on scholarship to finance my MBA?
I am preparing for my first MBA admission interview that will take place in a couple of days. I wonder how should I respond if I ever get asked about my plan if I do not get the scholarship I have been aiming for.
A little background: I can only take an MBA if I get a full scholarship. Without a full scholarship, I simply cannot afford the whole tuition and living costs. Even if I do, I doubt the ROI will be good, given that I'm already 35 years old and MBA salary in my country (Indonesia) is not high enough to justify the total costs (retirement age in my country is 55).
I have applied for a full, government-sponsored scholarship and will know the result in mid December. That one scholarship is the only full scholarship I know that will cover MBA in my chosen university. If I don't get it, no back up plan, my whole MBA plan ends.
If I tell the interviewer that I will not be able to proceed if I don't get the scholarship, will it hurt my candidacy? How will the admission see this problem? Do you have any suggestions on what to say?

Is there a published deadline for accepting an offer of admission? If you'll know the result of your scholarship application before said deadline, then you can decline the offer in good conscience.

@Moriarty Usually schools give 1 month.  I will know the scholarship result within that time frame.  But should I let the interviewer / admission know that I cannot pay for the MBA if I don't get the full scholarship?  How should I say it?

Who is providing the scolarship? Is it also the university?

@Davidmh No, I'm applying to a government-sponsored scholarship (my government).

@stelle you should include that point, it may make a difference. Also, specifying your country may provide some context, if you are willing (I can infer it from your profile, though).

I recommend being forthright with your interviewer: Answer if asked, but don't volunteer excessive information such as an explanation of why a scholarship is your only option. Aim for factual and try to avoid appearing as if you are seeking pity or extra consideration for your circumstances.


text:
When should a professor recommend a student drop out of college?
I am a college professor, and sometimes I learn of a student's career goals.  I think some should drop out despite having good grades.  If they do not learn much (because they are advanced or because they do better on their own), or if a degree will not help them with their specific career goals, I think that they should drop out.  College is not cheap, and I can tell some students do not enjoy going to class or doing homework.  I am afraid if I suggest a student leaves the school without a degree, I will be fired.   When should a teacher recommend a student leave the university without a degree?
I am in the U.S.

Are you speaking from the position of an academic advisor? I think that's a different situation from someone that primarily interacts with students in the classroom.

Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/117042/how-to-intervene-with-a-student-struggling-in-the-major

I removed the answers in comments because they bypass the voting mechanism. If you have an answer, please post it as such.

What on Earth do you propose they do instead? Ever tried getting an entry level job without a college degree?

@GlenPierce: Presumably they would say "Since you want to become X, you should not study Y but Z, here are references." Also, I have many friends who dropped out of university because they got a job (or got a job even though they dropped out)..

The career goals of an undergraduate change on a regular basis. How many of us are doing exactly what we thought we would do at that point in time?
If the student is doing well, grade-wise, and is on track to graduate, in most scenarios it is much better for them to finish an undergraduate degree. It opens up more doors both initially as well as for some time afterwards. If the work is too easy, suggest harder classes.
If a professor were to suggest to one of my children that they drop out of college even though they are doing well, I would have an in person visit with them to discuss their complete abuse of power. My daughter had a professor suggest she was not suited for her major - that was inappropriate enough (and totally wrong as time has told). For better or worse, your attitude towards those students is condescending at best.

Out of curiosity: where in the world are you? In the places I know it would be completely socially uncaccaptable as a parent to speak with a professor about their children (and not legal for a prof to give the parents information on theor chidlren).

@user111388 - I'm in the US. I am well aware of FERPA - it sure doesn't prevent me from talking to them, and their chair, and the dean, if not president (which I have done). I would not hesitate to let a professor know directly of my displeasure and strong opinions about their ability to deal with young adults should they tell my son/daughter in good standing to drop out.

@JonCuster While I understand the general sentiment, the idea that a parent would take an active role in the relationship between their adult child and the university sounds completely out of bounds to me. Would you also do the same if their employer did something inappropriate to them?

In my field, students lament that they haven't been told to change to sth. different early on. I wouldn't say "drop out" but "if you want X you want get it here but perhaps in Y". This, ultimately, means that they would need to drop out of their current studies.

The idea of parents talking to faculty is addressed in a very different way in public universities than in private universities, where parents need to be involved at least by paying large amounts of money. That's my experience in some universities in Barcelona, but in other countries where students usually finance themselves by loans it may be different.

It is one thing to suggest to a student that they examine their goals and their  path to achievement. It is entirely different to provide them with your solution, which is, of course, based on your own value structure. +1.

I feel like the complaints about this post are missing the point; a parent talking to a professor is inappropriate, but a professor actually encouraging a student who is doing well to drop out is so much worse that it overshadows that. +1

@Pere I think it's not so much public vs. private as it is now vs. 40 years ago. In the 1980s, parents sent their kids off to college and considered themselves lucky to get a letter once a week or once a month. Nowadays college students text their parents multiple times a day, sometimes with questions about things as mundane as how to work the coin-operated laundry machine. I have also read anecdotes of fresh college graduates taking their parents with them on job interviews and then when they have conflicts at work, having the parents call the boss.

@shoover This is highly dependent on the culture though, I've not seen this here (Berlin, Germany) at all, but I may be biased.

@Jeff Indeed. I think the issue with the parent would be generally inappropriate, but when I read it, it even hardly figured in my considerations in comparison to the prof's action. I stick by my +1.

This seems far from ideal. If you can only ever advise in one direction it is no advice at all. Like if a surgeon asks "Should I recommend a patient forgo surgery when I don't think it will help them" and gets told "never recommend against surgery!". Worse if they have to worry that honest advice over what they think is best for the patient will see the patients dad screaming at the hospital president.
Not every student is going to be in a suitable course or major to best achieve their goals. This seems like bowing to the worst kind of helicopter parents to the detriment of students.

@shoover: I have also read anecdotes of fresh college graduates taking their parents with them on job interviews and then when they have conflicts at work, having the parents call the boss → in which country did it happen? In France and pretty much all the European countries I know that would be completely unthinkable (and  would tremendously impact the social and professional life of the adult child)

@WoJ United States, same as the question is tagged. This article about workplace helicopter parents is from almost 10 years ago, but it's still happening. Also helicopter parents in college.

Bulldozer parents attending their kids' job interviews. There are many of these articles. Some offer truly amazing lists of things parents have done.

@shoover: thanks for the links. That was unexpected. I did my fair share of interviews over 25 years, if the candidate showed up with their parents (in the interview room)  it would be a very short interview (and a memorable one).

If the parent is paying the tuition, that makes the college project a joint or family undertaking or enterprise.  I think even a non-helicopter parent might take umbrage with a third party directly attempting to scuttle a joint undertaking, particularly after years of time and hundreds of thousands of dollars have been put into it.  If I spent $200,000 jointly with my "adult child" to build a house, and you tried to convince them to burn it to the ground, I would not hesitate to argue with you about that, and wouldn't care if you thought it out of bounds.

There are adult children who may be in a situation where parental support is appropriate at the university and even professional level. This would include adult children with certain disabilities, victims of trauma or abuse, or those who might suffer from some mental illnesses. Many of them are exceptional students and employees, and plenty of the conditions I mentioned aren't immediately obvious to others. I've done some work with children from challenging backgrounds and would not be surprised if a university was made aware of an issue only for a prof to forget or fail to be informed.

"Standing up for oneself." is a tough life skill.  At age 10, adults are as superhuman demigods, at 15 they are mere tyrants, and at 18?  Especially w.r.t. adults in positions that are powerful even in adult world, such as professors.  The better thing to do would be to encourage and teach the child that professors are human, that their although their knowledge on Supramolecular Hydrogel Kinematics is beyond doubt, their advice about life choices is probably not worth more than anyone else's, and that if you want to study Chemistry then fuck what anyone else thinks about it.

Based on what you reveal about yourself by asking this question, I recommend that you give up your career as a college professor
Actually I don’t really mean that. I take it back. I only wrote it to give you a taste of what it might feel like for a student to hear such an outlandish recommendation from their professor. If you think that was a foolish and presumptuous thing for me to say and that there’s no way I could possibly know better than you what course you should direct your life in, take a look in the mirror and ask yourself why what you are proposing is any different.
In short, the answer is “never”.

I think that's a poor analogy.  The OP has made his way into his current career based on his own choices over a long period of time.  What you will see as a university teacher, especially of undergraduates, is that many of them do not know why they are there, except that their guidance counselors told them they'd be failures if they didn't go to college. They may not have even chosen their majors or classes for themselves. As a result, many get little or no value from your classes, might be better off doing something else, and might benefit from that advice.

@workerjoe the analogy I’m drawing is between my lack of ability to tell whether OP is more suited to be a professor than something else and OP’s lack of ability to tell whether a student is more suited to a life with a college degree (taking into account the cost in time and money of finishing that degree) than without one. What you’re saying about some students lacking direction may be true, but does nothing to support the view that such a student might benefit from dropping out, or that even if some of them might, OP could be trusted to distinguish those who would and those who wouldn’t.

It's a poor analogy.  You don't know the OP or his context.  The OP does know the student and the context.  The question is not about whether the advice is right (presumably OP has good reason to believe so), it's about whether it is professionally appropriate to give it or withhold it.

@workerjoe It is about whether the advice is right. More than that: even if objectively wrong, it may be advice that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I downvoted because if I heard this recommendation, I would want to know what makes you think that is the best path, not react with outrage. It's certainly possible you know better than me what course I should direct my life in - in the OP's context, it would be coming from someone who has already done a college degree to someone who hasn't, and one would expect the former person to know more than the latter.

This answer is mean.

@Allure understood. Actually I think you should upvote my answer rather than downvote it, and I have several college degrees... ;-)

@DanRomik clever! However it needs to be related, e.g. if you have several college degrees in math and I'm considering a college degree in math, then you have directly-relevant knowledge that I don't and I should listen, but I don't see a direct relation between college degrees & whether I should upvote this answer.

@Allure thanks. I’m flattered that you think my math degrees mean I’m so smart that I can accurately predict that a math student with good grades would be best served by dropping out of college and would have a better life as a result than if they stayed in school. It seems a strange belief to have, but it’s flattering.

Okay, this answer was rather amusing.

A perfect analogy.  If a professor had noticed one of the multiple times I was struggling with material and told me to drop out, I can't imagine how damaging that could have been.

@Jeff Ah, but it wouldn't apply to you as "struggling" student. The OP wants to give this advice to a student with good grades. ;-) [although I would find it hard to believe that you were struggling]

@workerjoe no, I disagree that it is a poor analogy. It is a very good one. How could one professor know a student's life goals, family support, financial support, reason for being at the college, everything that should be taken in account, enough so that the single professor could ever be right in suggesting what the OP is suggesting. A single professor should only take it upon themselves to provide guidance and recommendations about the class or classes that professor is responsible for teaching, not an entire academic career.

@CGCampbell That's kind of solipsistic isn't it?  As an academic you must have taken some philosophy of science, and hopefully whatever your perspective, you at least accept the axiom that it is possible for humans to know things.  Right?  Your axiom here seems to be "if you don't know everything, you can't know anything" and it's going to be hard for you to succeed at research or teaching...

I will argue for something like: "rarely, privately, in extraordinary circumstances, and likely only by tenured faculty".
I'm at an open-admissions community college, and for such colleges in the U.S., the average graduation rate stands perennially at around 20%. So it is a hard fact that most students are not prepared for college work and won't succeed. Also, many are confused and have poor executive functioning skills to determine what is best for their future. Official advising by the college is spotty and mostly focused by administration on "retention" (i.e., continued income stream) to the exclusion of other factors. I'm arguing that in certain cases the (tenured?) faculty are the only ones in a position to understand the student's long-term arc, the actual requirements of the academic major, and to give honest advice.
Others have provided anecdotes of success-after-incorrect-drop-advisement. Here's my counter-anecdote:
Within the last year, a colleague was mentoring/tutoring a math major who was having inordinate difficulty in the basic coursework: failed calculus multiple times, linear algebra multiple times, etc. (this itself is not rare). The student was keenly unhappy and unsuccessful but kept bashing their head against it. Finally my colleague opened up a big-picture discussion:

Faculty: "What do you want to use your math degree for?"
Student: "I really want to be a welder, and I was told I had to be good at math
for that."
Faculty: "You don't need a math degree to be a welder. You
can just go to trade school for that."
Student: "Really?"
Faculty: "Yes, really."

Now, the next day the student came back very emotional and said they were dropping out of college to go be a welder like they always wanted, and was incredibly sorry for wasting my colleague's time, etc. But in my view my colleague might have been responsible right there for the single biggest positive impact in someone's life that maybe anyone in my institution ever made. They saved the student years of coursework and lost time, possible continued tuition payments, relief of a huge emotional burden, and gave them permission to follow the path that they had always hoped for (but were somehow derailed by bad advice along the way).
I wouldn't recommend that my colleague tell anyone else on staff about this episode (for reasons explained in other answers). But I celebrated that as a huge win for the student, and I don't see that anyone else in the institution was going help them in this way. I also wouldn't advise that non-tenured faculty take this risk, which makes me feel bad about our system for that.

That’s a really good answer - upvoted (though it’s sad to hear about the poor outcomes at your college). But did your colleague really “recommend that the student drop out”? It sounds like the colleague merely gave the student information that the student didn’t have and helped the student reach a decision that was right for them. It’s worth stressing a fact that seems lost on many people here, which is that this debate isn’t about whether there are students who would benefit from dropping out - as your anecdote shows, such students certainly exist. ...

... Rather, the question is about whether it’s appropriate for a professor to assume that they know what’s best for the student with such a high level of accuracy that they can recommend a particular course of action in a matter involving a drastic, life-altering decision. Those are two separate questions, and your counter-anecdote only addresses the first one, but not the second.

@DanRomik: I suppose I should say that my particular community college has an above-average graduation rate of 25%, and has been ranked in the top 5 nationally by the Aspen Institute. I tend to emphasize the "average situation" more because so few people are cognizant of it.

I think the summary of your anecdote is "discuss their career goals with them, ask questions and correct any misconceptions they may have using facts". The student wasn't told to drop out in that discussion, but rather decided that themselves.

@DanRomik This is about differences in the expectations of a student and what the university indeed provides. About the latter, the prof should know well enough. The former can be found out in a talk with the student. Then both can work out a better solution to the student being frustrated. It's not about being "too bad" for uni (as OP stresses).

-1 for implying it's the students' fault that 80% of them don't graduate.  Community colleges have tiny budgets, which explains a very large portion of the failures.

@AnonymousPhysicist: Respectfully disagree; that does not match the situation on the ground. E.g., state officials report that 3/4 of incoming students cannot pass a 9th-grade level reading, writing, and/or math test (https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/04/nyregion/04remedial.html). Some years ago our senior colleges here made the same claim as you, then a few years later gave up and washed their hands of these students.

Upvoted. That's precisely how it should be done. A discussion about options. Not an advice to drop out. The decision very clearly was taken here by the student.

@ssquidd: Well that's a very different experience than I've had. Professors can talk verbally to students one-to-one anytime both agree to it (in an office, in the hallway, on the green, etc.)

Yes, exactly.  I had one conversation like this when I was tenured faculty.  ONE.  The student wanted to be a filmmaker, his goals were clearly set around this, he had some work already done supporting this, and our program did not really offer the means for him to go much further than he already had.  Another faculty member and I met with him privately and made this suggestion to him, he dropped out, and is now a successful film maker.

Notably, in your anecdote the professor did not directly advise a student to drop out. They corrected the student's understanding of what was required and what options were available. While obviously related, they are not the same thing.

I know of somebody with a good trajectory which had a bad period, and their supervisor suggested them to leave academia and to proceed outside of academia, without having insight in their past or track record. When I hear about such unpedagogical and tactless, ill-informed academics, I wonder whether the advice should not have gone the other way around.
Good people have been derailed, sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently, by such advice. It's none of a professor's business to decide a student's career.
What the professor can do is to explain what the student needs to do to achieve certain goals, so that the student can take an informed decision as to how to develop their future.

It's true that a professor should not decide a student's career, but the question is about advising, not deciding for someone.

Good people have also become stuck in debt traps by advice to stay in college.

I understood OP that the student wasn't bad or stuck but rather frustrated because they have wrong expectations about what the university provides and what they need for their future career.

@AnonymousPhysicist As is the answer.

@JBentley No it is not. "It's none of a professor's business to decide a student's career."

@AnonymousPhysicist Advice by a prof is very weighty. You can easily demoralise people in that position and I have seen this done. I believe in self-responsibility, and that the student needs to understand the consequences of their decisions, and this is what the prof should provide. They should not suggest which of these routes to take, sorry. A parent may have this additional authority, but not a prof. Show the map and let the student decide.

Making a recommendation, as posed in the question, is not "very weighty."   More harm is done by cowardly professors who do nothing for fear of being wrong than by professors who give bad advice.  Giving advice is certainly a key part of professorial duties.  It's very unfortunate that you trust the judgement of the typical parent over the typical professor, and that you consider traditional parental power to be a right, instead of something that should be earned.

@AnonymousPhysicist That's being overly pedantic. It's quite clear from multiple uses of words like suggest, advice, explain, etc. that the word decide in this answer is in the context of advice and should not be taken literally to mean that a concrete decision is being made on the student's behalf. "It's none of a professor's business" is the justification for not giving the advice, and I think this answer is pretty clear about that.

@AnonymousPhysicist An advice by an authority has a lot of influence to override the individual's decision-making, except for very self-confident (or rebellious; that's not the same thing) individuals; I am not saying it's outright bullying, but, as supervisor, I have had to undo quite some damage in self-confidence generated in talented, but self-conscious students by previous teachers. It's unbelievable how supremely insensitive people can be. I stick to my response. Individuals have to be made aware that the ultimate decision is theirs to take. Parents may have a stake in it, not the prof.

@Allure That's why I am saying it should be the student's informed decision.

@CaptainEmacs recommendations doesn't mean making the student's decision for them, however. It's still the student's decision to quit or not.

@Allure I think we are moving in circles here. Of course it's the student's decision. If one is committed to the goal, they will not be easily swayed. However, some people are more easily swayed than others. You can scare people out of a career. Self-assured people do not realise how easy this is. As concrete example: Having had an over-proportional number of successful women alumni in my group, I know that this has been attempted (and almost succeeded) with some of them. All this talk about "structural discrimination" is just theoretical. It all starts with careless communication.

If they do not learn much (because they are advanced or because they do better on their own),

Do not recommend dropping out for this reason.  If your students are not learning much, this indicates the university needs to change to teach them better.  It does not indicate the students need to leave.

if a degree will not help them with their specific career goals

Preparation for a particular career is not the main purpose of higher education.  There are many other benefits to being educated besides having a career.  If the student is enrolled in a program that only provides preparation for one career, it would be reasonable to suggest a more versatile program that would suit the student better.

When should a teacher recommend a student leave the university without a degree?

The student is in danger from being at the university.
Under the university's rules, it is impossible for the student to complete the degree.
The student can obtain better educational opportunities elsewhere. Personally I think the students' interest is more important than the university's finances.
The university will cease to award the degree before the student completes it.
The student has an ethical duty to be elsewhere, such as if they can provide emergency services during an emergency.

None of these things happen often.

I think the third bullet points is crucial. OP voices that the student is actually not necessarily bad but simply frustrated about what's provided by the university and has a career goal which has different prerequisites. If this is the root of their frustration, then they should remedy that, eg. by dropping out of the current studies and seek a different opportunity that's more aligned with their goal.

These are valid reasons to drop out, but the professor is the wrong person to offer such advice.  Even if the student explicitly asked their professor for advice, the correct thing to do is to refer the student to their academic advisor.  E.g., if a degree is being shut down before a student will be able to complete it, the right thing to do is to discuss this with their academic advisor.  Possibly the relevant department head would also need to be involved.

@Brian Depending on the institution and country, this might in fact be the prof in question or any prof. But this isn't clear from OPs wording.

"Preparation for a particular career is not the main purpose of higher education. " This is the best answer to OP's question.

This question hits me personally. My answer is: never!
I have been advised by a student adviser at a Dutch university to stop trying to obtain a master's degree. This hurt me, but luckily I was stubborn enough to ignore it. A few years later, I graduated from computer science with a solid 7.8 GPA. More importantly, I think doing and finishing the study has been the best decision of my live.

This is a tough one.
College/University is a time when we expect the students to be mature adults, with solid executive function and decisionmaking ability. With that in mind, and given the power imbalance, we need to be super careful in offering unsolicited advice, especially of the "tough love" variety. How would you feel if your Dean/Department Chair told you, unsolicited, that they think your teaching job is not the right one for you and they suggest you leave academia?
At the same time, not all those students are those mature adults, or see the truths that should be staring them in the face. And we ought to and want to help them, and sometimes moving on sooner rather than later is clearly the best solution.
I think you can offer this type of advice only when asked for it, i.e. on the basis of the student wanting your advice as a mentor, not just from the privilege of your positional authority. If you feel up to it (time is limited, and we need to prioritize how we spend it...), show the student you care, ask them questions how they're enjoying and what they're getting out of the experience, how the degree will fit in with their long term aspirations, etc. If this leads to them genuinely asking for your advice, then you can give your tough love advice, but not before.
Finally, College culture varies tremendously as to the level of semi-structured mentoring provided to students to help bridge the "maturity gap" of suddenly being treated like adults. If some time of official mentorship/regular counselling does exist in your institution, and works well, you could reach out to the mentor for a conversation. However, I would carefully phrase it as you expressing your concern about what you heard (and may not be interpreting properly and have full context), and therefore asking what the mentor knows -- and wants to share -- about the student. This is as opposed to you sharing your conclusory opinion about the student, which would be as bad or worse than pushing your opinion on the student from a position of authority.
All of this is aspirational, with the goal of helping the student. I won't pretend academics don't sometimes get frustrated and say things suboptimally, or gossip in frustration with colleagues, "look at X, they shouldn't even be here!"  We can debate how much that is out of line, but it's about making ourselves feel better, not helping the victim, so that's different from this question.

I want to give a different perspective than the US one, for completeness sake.
For the record, I'm based in Germany.  Here the university, even Bachelors, is quite an academic study (although this is changing, but nobody really has a clear vision forward) and depending on the field a Bachelors, and more so a Masters, doesn't give any benefit when you're not going to be an academic (be it in your later job or because you enjoy the general education).
Frequently, in Computer Science, we have the case of people dreaming to be programmers or system administrators, something the Bachelor doesn't really prepare you for. Unfortunately, most do not make this realization after >4 years of frustration about the theoretical focus. However, there are institutions that provide you with the skills to become a programmer. Due to a rather wrong and twisted picture of what CS is, people don't even consider these.
If (not professor, but I regularly teach my own course at uni) I notice things like these, I try to clear up misunderstandings about it: "You won't learn these skills here, though" or "Yes, you need to learn higher maths in CS to go into academic computer sciences". I usually advice them to take 1,2 semesters to test waters and then decide while also showing them alternatives and emphasizing that going into a non-academic field is not less good, but equally valued.
So rather than blatantly saying "drop out" I do:

clear any misunderstandings about wrong expectations
focus on expectations and plans they have voiced
let them take a bit of time, maybe they change their viewpoint
make clear that dropping out isn't bad, you just pursue a different path. It's more comparable to switching majors.

I've also seen students who, after that talk, took those courses that they've failed again.  But now with higher interest, as they recognized their value for CS while before they evaluated them w.r.t. programming.  They then noticed that the course they dismissed as boring and useless is actually fun and adjusted their goal to become an academic.
But many don't want to become academics. We currently have a public chat for the whole department including everyone who's here, ie. students, secretaries, TAs, PhDs, profs, etc. with quite enlightening conversations. One was basically students saying that they wish university had been more clear about its goals upfront, as almost noone knows what CS is when starting the studies.
Note: As I view it (and have experienced it to be) profs and students are in this together, ideally knowing each other quite well. The profs aren't just there to hold lectures and then vanish into their offices. In this environment it's rather frequent that the prof is not only seen as a lecturer and examiner but advisor and mentor.

As someone who did a CS degree in the UK, I strongly disagree that it is not a good path to being a programmer. Sure, you can become a programmer by just doing a course in Python etc. but having the theoretical knowledge to underpin it is very helpful in becoming a good programmer rather than just learning a bunch of syntax and churning out code without any understanding of what is happening behind the scenes. It also helps to develop interests in a variety of different topics and if you find all that boring, you're probably not going to be a great programmer anyway.

@JBentley: The programs larkey talks about are different than "just doing a course in Python etc." I know many great programers who do say that certain CS courses were theoretical, useless and boring.

@JBentley There are different programmes that have different foci, some more "practical" some more academic. It's not a bad path to become a programmer but it's not the only one and many students prefer a different one. You can also learn much about background without a university degree, here in Germany we have eg. FHs (tradeschool) that do give you background but tone down on things like 'lambda calculus' or 'primitive-recursive functions'.

You should never make such a recommendation.  In many cases, your schools probation policies and separation policies will kick in. That's what they're designed to do, and there's little reason for you to get in the way.  Decades of experience went into those policies, and they're often pretty accurate with respect to a student's ability to attain enough credits to graduate.
You should perhaps guide students in such a situation to counselors who are trained to guide students.
In my academic advising role in engineering, sometimes I encounter students who have a lot of trouble getting better than a C- in engineering classes.  The approach I take with them depends very much on the vibe I get from the student.  If I sense that the student is OK with this situation, and is willing to work very hard to pass courses, I'd let the student continue, but try to guide the student to some more practical courses or experiences that might help the student more aware of why they're valuable and to help them find their niche for employment (high grades aren't the only valuable things to an employer  -- in fact, a student without the best academics who has the wherewithal to stick it out can be a wonderful employee!).
If it's pretty clear that the student is absolutely miserable and anxious, and dreads going to classes every day, I might start suggesting that they might be happier in another major, and start working with professional advisors in the school of engineering.  In fact, if they can't get over a certain GPA in a particular subset of our courses, they can't be considered for admission to the degree program, which forces them to find another major.  This largely accomplishes the same thing, but my experiences come from the bad old days when we granted "conditional" admits that dragged the process out.  The last thing I want for a student is a miserable college experience.
We also ask our students to submit career plans.  This provides another discussion opportunity, if the student's goals are not in line with their portfolio.  In this case, I have a frank discussion, and encourage the student to speak with one of our preprofessional advisors (if a student with a  2.5 intends on going to med school, for example), or a career counselor.
In very rare cases, some situations pop up in which a student is in a situation incompatible with successful completion of a degree, such as a mental health crisis that needs to be resolved before they can successfully resume course work, or they seem like they might be a danger to themselves.  In this case, once again, I'm not qualified to make any judgments, but we have mechanisms to get the student to resources that are.
In ALL of your conversations with students, I recommend a "let's find a way that you can be successful" approach, but they are adults, and make their own choices.  Find resources at your school that you can reach out to to get the students the services they need.

It's sounds like your school has a very nice set of procedures; not all do. E.g.: I'm curious what you'd suggest if a declared science major failed first-semester calculus or programming two or three or four times in a row, and no such sequence of failures at a given school would ever trigger a probation/separation event?

Cynically, professors never recommend students drop out of college (and departments fire anyone who does), because the student's tuition fees pays their salary.
Less cynically: I think the key thing to avoid when making this kind of recommendation is the impression that you know what the student wants better than they do. In turn, this means you should only offer the recommendation when they ask for it & when they are already unsure. Ideally you also offer the recommendation for reasons other than academic ability.
Some examples.

Student is having financial difficulties. As you write, college is not cheap. If they're going into massive debt to pay for it, suggesting they keep at it could easily wind up destroying their lives. In this scenario, instead of outright suggesting they drop out, I'd suggest making sure they understand their finances. If they keep borrowing to pay for college, can they realistically pay for it? Work through the math with them, make sure they understand it, look at scholarships or bursaries if available, and (importantly) if they decide they can pay for it then they're right, and you should not suggest they drop out.

Student's parent dies and the other parent requires someone to take care of them or someone needs to take over the family business. If they ask, you could work through the alternatives with them, but "I guess there's no option except to drop out" should be fine. There was an answer to a similar question a few years ago suggesting the student quit, and it's at 94 upvotes as of time of writing.

[Cynical Option] My advice would not have changed if I were at a German university which do not depend on fees. The rest of the response I mostly agree, except for actually saying something like "I guess there's no option except to drop out". I really think such an action advice is inappropriate. I do not see the "drop out" suggestion linked, rather a suggestion to realign the academic career. That's not "drop out" or "quitting" advice, thus the answer here is misleading. Otherwise (and without the cynics comment that makes assumptions about the profs motivation) I would have upvoted.

As a practical matter, for the good of OP's own career this is the correct answer.  They seem to dramatically underestimate the degree to which their employer will value paying customers over staff (assuming OP is not tenured).  OP literally wants to put himself in the position of a waiter standing outside a restaurant yelling to customers, "You should leave, the food here sucks!"

I think it depends on the student's level.
Graduate level? sure, be brutally honest and do tell students that they won't make the cut if they don't get serious about their work. They are wasting precious years of their youth otherwise. Especially since there are many things that you can do beside graduate studies that lead to a satisfying career, if your goal is not to be an academic.
Undergrad, I'd say let them figure it out. I was probably that student, especially the first  2 years of my undergrad. Then some things changed and I got my act together and graduated. I agree that many people would be better off without a college degree, especially in countries where you have to go into debt for it, but that's not your role as a professor to make that call.

"they won't make the cut if they don't get serious about their work" generally means "they need to get serious about their work". I would not interpret that as "they need to drop out", as the question asks about. In fact, the question specifically mentions the student getting good grades, so that part doesn't seem all that relevant here.

When I was about 10 yo, a medical doctor told my father that I would never be an engineer because I was colorblind. He said that in front of me. Fuck you, doctor - from me, an engineer.
A psychologist at school (when I was maybe 15) told me that I should look at art studies (or something like that) because I would never be good in math and science. Fuck you, psychologist - also from me, a PhD in physics.
Please do not be that one about whom someone, someday, will think "fuck you" - because they may really take to their heart your recommendation and regret afterwards.
By that, I am not saying that your recommendation is necessarily wrong. It should just be kept to yourself because you may not know why they are seeking the degree in the first place.
Should they come to you for advice, you can of course show all the possible situations you anticipate, including the ones where they could be better elsewhere. It is fair to show them the whole palette of your thoughts at their request.
Finally, you mention that

if a degree will not help them with their specific career goals, I think that they should drop out

Are you sure it will not?

On what planet does color blindness stop you from being an engineer? I would also recommend people not to assume too much out of other branches of learning. I once did a questionnaire at my university and turns out that most people did not in fact know what other departments actually do. Though most of them rated their own knowledge quite high. I should probably redo that and publish a paper...

What any advisor is ethically bound to do, is to discuss the paths that are most favorable to the also ethical goals of the student. If for example, the best path for a particular student based on their goals was to take a position offered to them somewhere that prevents their continuing school, you don't say "I think you should drop out." Instead, you say, "it looks like that position might be your best path. It really seems to fit what you want to get out of life. You should consider taking it."
In other words, avoid telling a student what to not do. Instead discuss the best options for what they might do, potentially including options that might result in the student dropping out.

Disagreeing and downvoting is appropriate when you believe an answer is bad, but it is helpful to leave a note why. What is incorrect or inappropriate about this? I can't imagine a case where it is inappropriate to try to act in the best interests of a student.

The person asking the original question may be asking masking a situation in which the student is doing poorly and he isn't going to make it. In other words, he may not be able to graduate and just step in bigger, major financial date. If this is the case, you have several options.
Options #1, are you willing to put some time in to help this student? If he's doing poorly, it's more than just that he can't do the work. Everyone has the capability to do the work. They just usually don't have the work ethic. Or, something else is going on in their lives. It can takes years to develop the necessary work ethic and the kid doesn't have that much time. You would need to baby him by treating him like a high school student and forcing him to attend his classes. He will pass his classes and graduate but it will take some time on your part.
Option #2, you don't have the time to help the student. You can explain it to his academic advisor that he needs someone to make him accountable and he will be able to do the work. You see a lot of students turn out this way. They don't too well in college because it's all about self-initiative. But, when they start working, they are fine because if they don't get into work by 9 pm, they are going to get reamed. If the student can't create an atmosphere of accountability in college, then he will fail but it really isn't your responsibility.
These next options are if the student is doing really well and you think he can do better by starting work earlier. I have no experience with these types of jobs. All the jobs I know all require a degree. Especially corporate jobs in which these are hundreds of applicants for one job, the minimum requirement is a college degree and so your resume is simple thrown in the trash even before someone gets to see it. Maybe others can chime in but I wouldn't just rule out a degree so easily. And, I say this even though I'm one of the people who truly believe that college degrees are a waste of money. Most student do not learn anything that they are going to apply in their work.

You have to assume that the person asking the question means what they say.  Otherwise there's no point asking it in the first place, is there?

You are assuming that what you are saying is true, so that is why there will be no point.
But, what if they are asking the question in a round about way so they won't feel bad for the student.  Or, possibly more likely, the student won't find the teacher asking the question about him on StackExchange!  So, the point is the professor really wants to know all the different possible perspectives!  Or, maybe they want us to read between the lines.

@john If you want to start second guessing everything, then there are million more scenarios that you could dream up and try to answer. That is just insane.

I don't mean this in a condescending way so please don't take it like that. You really think that considering the possibility that the above author might have been fudging the facts a little bit in order to stay anonymous is a big leap in logic? You ever watch the movie, Interstellar? Remember when the robot says "Absolute honesty isn't always the most diplomatic nor the safest form of communication with emotional beings." Also, you said there could be a million other scenarios. What other scenarios can there be?

Do nothing unless you are really really altruistic person and certain you are right.
The other answers are harsh, and this is only a minor sample of problems you will see in real life if you decide to advise somebody to drop out.
Even if we assume you can precisely determine students future goals/career your problem is that facts do not matter.
University is selling a product, if you get in a way you are a problem.
Parents/kids have this romantic notion of getting a college degree (what is 40k in student loans when you are following your dreams), if you point out that logically education they are getting is not worth $40k you will be the problem.
So all this depends on your personal morality/certainty you are right, if I were you I would offer my opinion only if asked explicitly, while making sure this is discussed in a private setting.
Life is not a Hollywood movie, do not expect doing the right will be rewarded or acknowledged.

Being certain that you are right and being right are two very different things. This is the core issue here. A truly altruistic person would hopefully be humble enough to recognize that about their own fallibility.

Never, because it's a bad idea to do something that might get you fired.
Today's college degree courses at today's prices are inappropriate for most students, and students often have little understanding of what a degree course is really about before starting it. You can't fix these problems by giving advice to individual students.
However, even though degree courses are inappropriate for many careers, employers increasingly require applicants to have a college degree before their application is considered. The system is broken in many ways. Rather than risk your job by giving advice which will provoke hostility in many people (see above responses), do what little you can to improve the system by discussing education issues with colleagues and perhaps publishing articles outlining possible improvements.

Hmmm. Never, because its a bad idea to do something that might destroy someone's life.

Wow your answer provided zero consideration for the student. It is all about me, my job.

For students who have borrowed money to study, correlation suggests that completing the degree is better for their finances.
The probability of defaulting on student loans is inversely related to the amount of money borrowed.  Students who enrol briefly and drop out are not able to repay their loans.  Students who persist longer and borrow more money are more able to repay their loans.  While correlation is not necessarily causation, it does suggest that completing a degree is better for personal finance.
Of course money is not the only reason to get a degree.

Can you cite your sources? And which country(s) are those statistics about?

There are two reasons a professor might make such a radical recommendation:

underperformance, for circumstances the university cannot take responsibility
misintention:  the student enrolled with a misunderstanding or poor rationale, the latter which should have been caught by the university.

Everything else is the responsibility of the university.

How might the university catch this? In universities I know, you go to the administrative desk, show that you passed high school and then you are enrolled.

@user111388:  then fix your university.  That approach assumes that a university education is right for them, but a trade school could be equally right.

Yozr statement sounds like something was wrong with those universities. The idea is that everybody should be able to study whatever they want (as long as they have the high school completed), which is a great idea and something I fully endorse. Of course, there are drawbacks, eg that the uni cañnot catch those things.

@user111388:  Being able to study whatever you want is something libraries are for.  Just because people want to learn doesn't mean a university education is the right path.  It's a big investment on everyone's part.  The wrong rationale leads to disappointment and liabilities.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Transitioning from Electrical Engineering to Applied Physics/Materials Science
So I have a bit of a dilemma. I'm an American. I graduated with a BS in Electrical Engineering and worked for the past two years in the RF field. I'm heading to school this fall to get my master's. A somewhat unusual step, but I want to gently re-enter academia and improve my chances at getting into a good PhD program (undergrad was good, but not spectacular). Overall my goals are:

"Master" classical electromagnetism
Learn semiconductor devices design and fabrication
Get publications (I will be working with metamaterials)

Essentially I want to master the classical side of physics, dip my toe into quantum physics, and then for my PhD do research in solid state/device physics. The closer to basic science I get, the better. My university has plenty of classes on the semiconductor device design/fabrication and I know how I can fit that into my schedule. The problem is:

Can I apply to an applied physics program without filling the gaps in my physics knowledge prior to applying (statistical mechanics, solid state physics, etc.)?
Does the answer to question 1 change if I apply to a European university?

I won't comment on Europe.  The difference between a PhD in electrical engineering, applied physics, or solid state physics is often very small.  There is no reason not to try switching between those fields when you start your PhD.
To successfully apply for a PhD program, you should fill gaps in your knowledge.  You will likely need to obtain a good Physics GRE score and pass qualifying exams for programs in the US.  Exact practices vary, but you'll find most students have gaps in their knowledge that they need to fill.  Also, many of the students will have forgotten quite a bit of that material before they finish their PhDs.

Thank for this. I have a question about the order in which to take physics classes. I know I will need to take: Classical Mechanics (Physics 1&2 doesn't really suffice, I think), Classical Emag( the more advanced portions, Quatnum Mechanics, Statistical Mechanics, and Solid State Physics. Is there an order I should do these? Are there any topics that I left off?

Electromagnetism first.  Otherwise it doesn't matter much.

The simple to your Q. 1 would be yes. You can apply for Applied Physics Program but keep in mind that you need to take more classes as compared to usual Master's program because you need to fulfil prerequisites first.
Do not apply to European University if you can go to American one. Because the Business environment in US is way more favourable to any degree as compared to Europe.

I highly doubt that the second part of this answer is true or good advice. Firstly, you cannot generalise European and American universities like this. A "European university" can mean something very different depending on whether it is in the UK, in Germany, in Italy or somewhere else. Similarly, there are big difference between US universities. Secondly, OP explicitly mentioned their interest in basic science, not business-oriented degrees. Also, the EU/US question was asked in reference to where it would be possible to apply for OP and not where the better universities are.

I agree with jfeis. The second part of this answer is nothing but a personal opinion.

@Pedro yes it's a personal opinion.


text:
How much time does a university typically give a professor to draft a syllabus and how long before they are approved?
I was wondering about the process of accepting a syllabus, and if it was different for the Humanities and in the Sciences.  Suppose, just so the question is less abstract, there is a new software program that helps research, and a professor wants to add it to a syllabus.  Would he/she need to get approval from the department chair?  How long do changes/updates to a syllabus usually take in a US University?
Let's take for example an Introduction to Literature class, and typically there are six texts in the course.  A professor wants to exchange one of the texts for another one.  What would be the process of getting that done?  Would there be endless meetings or could the professor simply add the text.  Who would need to approve this sort of change in the syllabus?
Or let's take a Science class.  There are always advances in science.  How long does it take for a syllabus to change to include updated texts?

Are you talking about the "syllabus" you hand out to your students at the beginning of the semester? Or about the "catalog description" that appears in the university's pages listing all regularly running courses?

The answer could be anywhere from 2 seconds (ie no approval needed) to 2 years. Can you be more specific? E.g. Are we talking a large undergrad class like biology 101 with hundreds of students across multiple instructors, or a grad level class with 5 students?

Academic freedom means instructors can choose the material they teach.  Professor are loosely bound by the course calendar - if you are assigned a course on Greek drama and you teach instead Latin drama you may be reassigned - but otherwise you’re largely on your own: you can choose the Greek dramas to be studied in your course.
If the material is repeatedly too hard (high fail rate) then the Dean (usually in consultation with the chair) may reassign you but in a functioning unit some collegiality will usually resolve such issues, and will efficiently link courses in a pre-requisite chain.
There is usually an administrative procedure to make substantial changes to a calendar entry for a course.  Where I work it takes 2-3 months, mostly because the appropriate meetings (which must be done in a specific sequence) are rarely held “on the spot”.  The change is approved by the department, then by the Faculty, then scrutinized by some academic committee for justifications, additional resources etc, and if approved then onwards to Senate for final approval.
Completely new courses are usually tested out as “special topic” for,one or two years  to see what works and what doesn’t work.

four rounds of meetings for approval - wow! Our syllabi are approved in two:a Program committee meeting and an Academic Committee Meeting, seems like a lot of bureaucracy.


text:
PhD courses instructs language in Germany
What's the main language used in PhD courses in Germany for most of the fields ? CS, chemistry...
Thanks

In Germany, there usually are no PhD "courses", except for some specialized programs ("Graduiertenkolleg"), which are still in the minority.
Most PhD students conduct research from day 1, under the supervision of a specific advisor. The language of communication will depend on the advisor and the student. Working with international students is not an issue for most advisors.

PhD students might follow relevant BSc and MSc courses though. These are instructed in whatever language the instructor prefers. Often, this is German.

One might add that the reason that PhD students in Germany usually don't take (many) courses is that in virtually all cases an MSc (or equivalent) is required before starting the PhD.

@cheersmate Indeed, although many departments have a "fast-track" program to go from BSc to PhD without MSc (in case of which they might need to attend some MSc courses). But that's still the less typical option by far.

@Mark In these cases, there probably will be accommodations for international PhD students. The main message here is that lack of German language proficiency is usually not a limiting factor for being able to complete a PhD in Germany.

@Mark "These are instructed in whatever language the instructor prefers": This is rather unlikely in the BSc. There's probably a main language which students can demand. Also in the MSc, there are several places which have changed the master's programme to English, in courses will be taught all in English (or at least students can demand it).

@lighthousekeeper One might add to the answer that even in the case of structured PhD programmes, there is usually a lot of flexibility in which courses to attend, and there's always courses offered in english.

@user151413: I know of several such programs which are officially to be held in english. In practise, the instructor sometimes asks the audience for their preferred language and sometimes says "I want to do this in German. If you don't speak German, learn it." even though the course is announced as English. And more often then not, there is no person you can complain to de facto.

@user111388 Sounds like the stuff that formal complaints are made of. I never heard of a comparable case.

@user111388 What field would that be?  I agree I never heard of a comparable case in math or physics.  Most people lecture by default in English, or would only do it in German if everyone was fine with it.  In fact, my experience is that even most German-speaking students prefer to take their exam in English after an English lecture. But it might depend on the culture of the place or the subject.

@user151413: I have seen it only twice in maths (and one time where a prof every lesson from the middle of the course just forgot he wanted to lecture in English- after some time, students just gave up reminding him and dropped the course). From friends, I heard it's common in subjects like law, politics studies etc. - most of the time in courses where - the prof is older/ politically well-connected and - where there are so many students that people just want to get rid of students (sometimes with strange exam questions "On what page in the textbook was this information?").

@user111388 Law, politics, etc. is a different story - I find it hard to see how you would teach German law in English.  The role of language is an entirely different one there.

@user151413: In this case, I think the official homepage should not say "program offered in English" if a prof can say in the first lessson "I don't do English".

@user111388 Such a case surely sucks for affected MSc students. In the context of this question, it's maybe not that relevant. It seems unlikely that an international student would sign up for a PhD in German law without speaking German, only to be sent by his advisor to a colleague who tends to give his courses in German.

@user111388 That shouldn't be the case, indeed. One issue might be that, while professors in Germany are obliged to do a certain amount of teaching, it is rather unclear whether they can be forced to do a specific type of teaching (i.e. which subject, but certainly also which teaching language).  (It was even debated whether the teaching duty includes teaching online.)  So there might be no way for the university to force those colleagues to teach in German.  Then again, it would be wisest to not assign them to those courses.

@lighthousekeeper: I agree it's probably not relevant to the question. My goal was to answer user151413's question to Mark.