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Is it inappropriate to tell my students to check their school email?
I am a new STEM faculty member at a primarily undergraduate institution. I emailed my students (through the school-mandated online course management system) before the beginning of the term about the availability of the syllabus online, as well as other things. Several students told me that they hadn't checked their emails and didn't know where to find the syllabus. I have also sent emails to students about their testing accommodations, only to learn that the students hadn't read my email to them even though it concerned an upcoming quiz.
Would it be inappropriate for me to make a general announcement in class that it is important for students to check their school email accounts frequently, as that is how I plan on communicating with them? I certainly won't call out any students or mention any specific scenarios that prompted this announcement.

Does your school email system allow forwarding? The only way I check my school mail... is by checking my mail - which has school mail forwarded to it.

If you are wondering why students may not be keen to reading that email: most of the time the only email sent by that channel are useless emails about non interesting events, or questionnaires from some student doing an easy bachelors or stuff like that. Utter crap that is only a waste of time. At my university important information about exams, thesis discussion etc is not sent via that email but you have to manually search it on the website (which sucks incredibly too). To overcome this most of my professor ask your email at the beginning of the course and communicate via personal email

I suggest to entertain the idea that students that claim that they looked for specific information, but checked neither the course web page nor their university email address may just be making up excuses.

What reason could you possibly have to wonder why this would be inappropriate?

At every (US) institution I've attended or worked at, there's been an official school-wide policy that students are expected to check their school email regularly, and that sending official communications there constitutes sufficient notification.  So check your school's policies; if you have such a policy, then it's certainly appropriate to remind students about it.
Moreover, in such a case, you can enforce it: if you send an email to school accounts saying "Please respond by date X if you want Y", and they don't respond by date X (whether because they didn't check their email or for any other reason), you may not be under any obligation to give them Y.  (Disability accommodations could have special rules so contact your school's disability office to check on that.)

If you want to be extra helpful and have already found out how to set up forwarding from the school's email account to a private account, tell your students about it, so they can set it up to forward to an account they check anyway on a daily basis.

In every single school I have been to and have taught at, every single syllabus that I have seen (including my own), has always included a statement saying something like the official school email is the only medium of official communication for everyone and it is where all such information will be sent. In the USA, NOT using the school email can get you in trouble for violating the education and privacy laws (FERPA). So I always verbally remind my students, send me emails from there and check that email regularly. They can forward it all they want but I am only sending/receiving from there.

Not just US wide. When they get their school mail, they are told that this is how anyone will communicate with them. They can forward the mails anywhere they want, but are expected to check this. Like faculty and staff are expected to check their official mail address. Communication among a big group of people can only work if you are able to stick to some rules.

@Sumyrda: Some schools actually forbid forwarding, in part because of incidents where (let's say) Gmail filtered important official messages as spam.  Rather than try to make allowances for this or just say "too bad for the student", they prefer to try to completely avoid the situation.

As a former instructor at such an institution, I wasn't allowed to communicate with students by many other ways. I wasn't allowed to email privileged information (such as anything containing student names) to non-school emails, and I wasn't allowed to email grades at all (they had to be done through the electronic assignment submission system, BBLearn).

@NateEldredge Back when I was in undergrad, my problem was usually the opposite: the university's e-mail server rejecting messages as spam. Or just deciding they didn't really need to be delivered for no reason. Or keeping them around in a queue for several hours to a few days. Once I actually had to post a submission on my website and just e-mail the prof a link after 3 failures to e-mail it to him (for which no bounce notification was provided.) When I tried zipping up the source files and sending a .zip, the server actually stripped the source files out and delivered an empty zip file.

@reirab: Oh yeah, I'm not saying the university's email system is immune to such problems, or even really functional at all.  But at least in theory they have the ability to do something about those problems (not that they necessarily will), as opposed to third-party service over which there is no control at all.

Not just the US either. It's commonplace in the Netherlands as well and, as far as I know, in most of Western Europe.

Would it be inappropriate for me to make a general announcement in class that it is important for students to check their school email accounts frequently, as that is how I plan on communicating with them?

Absolutely not. I would find the above completely appropriate. Whether you just announce you will use that e-mail system to communicate or whether you will explicitly tell them they should check the e-mails (instead of letting them come to that conclusion themselves) is up to you.

I certainly won't call out any students or mention any specific scenarios that prompted this announcement.

If by "specific scenarios", you mean referring to specific students, that is fine.
If by "specific scenarios", though, you mean the scenario of sending an e-mail about testing accommodations, resulting in "some students in this room" being unaware of the contents of the e-mail, I would find it fully okay to be specific to this (concrete, yet anonymous) degree. Bonus points if you can point out an actual disadvantage that resulted from that for the (still unnamed) student who failed to read the e-mail. Most likely, it won't happen again.

If there were several students who were disadvantaged by failing to read the email, go for it. But do not make an example of one student, even when they are anonymous. Most likely, that one student has told some of their friends about the problem and those friends will recognise that you're talking about Bob, even though you don't use his name. And it only takes one of them to say, "Oh, it was Bob" before the whole class knows, and that's a much more interesting thing to know now that Prof Mapper was complaining about it.

And even if nobody else knows who it is, the anonymous student doesn't need to be made to feel any worse about their mistake.

@DavidRicherby: I tend to disagree here. The identity of the student who committed the mistake is confidential. The consequences to expect for a given kind of mistake are not (in fact, they are at least indirectly publicly announced). As such, I see no issue with pointing out that said consequences have actually been applied in one or more anonymous cases, to indicate that, yes, we're serious about it. In fact, I don't see a difference between one and several cases; would "it was Bob" not simply be replaced with "Bob's one of them"?

@DavidRicherby: "And even if nobody else knows who it is, the anonymous student doesn't need to be made to feel any worse about their mistake." - failure to check the messages is either due to sloppiness (forgot to check) or laziness (failure to get acquainted with the procedures for getting crucial information on the class). I don't see what's so bad about taking away the possible excuse that "many others surely acted the same way" (as I've been told various times by students).

It is an official communication system, so reminding students that they should pay attention to it is completely appropriate (at the same level of appropriateness as telling them that they'd better get the textbook by a certain date, etc.) If you ask me, I would even include the corresponding reminder sentence in the syllabus saying something like "Most course announcements will be made by e-mail, so you are expected to check it before every class". Now, it is still a good idea to spend a few minutes to repeat the really important announcements during the class time if you teach face to face rather than online, but otherwise you are well within your rights demanding that the students pay attention to what comes towards them through all official channels.

Additionally in the suggested syllabus statement, I would specify checking their school email account, which may be a lot easier for you since it may be doable through the school's course management system.

I agree with everyone saying that of course it is appropriate and the students should already be doing this. However, it might also be to your benefit to find out what the students DO think is the normal means of getting course announcements. If all the other faculty are using the same course management system (Blackboard, Canvas, Piazza, etc.), and the students are in the habit of checking it multiple times a day, it might be easier to accommodate them, even if only to an extent of setting up a Blackboard page which redirects to the course webpage.

The answers present already answer the "appropriateness" of the question.  I would only like to add an extra point by focusing on @Ben Crowell's comment.
It is very important that the schools setup includes features that make the school email system convenient to use.  The most prominent of these features is the ability to forward email from and to the schools email system.
If you are asking your student to check an email that works well on a specific browser (I had a school which email system only worked on Internet Explorer, and I hadn't a single Microsoft machine at the time), or that can be accessed from school machines only, this is asking some of the students to put extra effort just to read emails.  Effort that can be better employed in other places.
Assuming that the school computing system is pretty good and offers convenient features:

some students will be happy to login to the school email and their personal email separately,
some students will prefer to forward their school email to an inbox they check more often,
and some students will even prefer to use the school email as their main email by forwarding their other emails to it (Yes that happens, a lot of students on cantab use it as their main email.  This is mostly because cantab can be used even after the student leaves the university).

You are giving freedom and decision making to your students, which should (in theory) never be a bad thing.
Disclaimer: The base for this answer is my experience as a system administrator (including email server administrator) in institutions that actually were not schools or universities.  Yet, I believe that user behaviour would not change much for a school.  Unfortunately too many places do not consider this behaviour at all when setting up their email systems, even that that setup is trivial to make on pretty much all MTAs.

I would consider this to be a standard request at many universities, and certainly there is nothing inappropriate, especially if there is an official policy that students must check their email.  However, depending on your student base, you could have students with more/less trouble getting access to email, and you might have to be aware of that and possibly work around it.
For instance, students without internet access at home (http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/12/what-happens-when-kids-dont-have-internet-at-home/383680/) or homeless students (http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-cal-state-homelessness-20160620-snap-story.html) might be a little more out of touch. It's probably worth considering why your students aren't checking email before you make the announcement.

Provided the university does have the necessary equipment - once the students arrive (physically) at the class, they are on campus, and once the students are on campus, they are free to check their e-mails on one of the public computers meant as student workplaces. Indeed, I do think it is the duty of the university to provide such workplaces, especially (but not exclusively) for the cases you mention.

Depending on your institution's policies, almost certainly yes, you can require that that your students check email and use it for broadcast messages.  But you have to be reasonable.  You can't expect they will check email any faster than you do.
Also, here in the US, where we operate under FERPA, fairly strict privacy laws, I try to avoid using email for anything related to an individual student's performance.  I can't prevent a student from sending me email complaining I gave him a C, in which case I might respond by email.  But with only a few exceptions, e.g., a LOR for which I ask for explicit permission to discuss the student's grades, or a limited discussion with my department chairman or a coinstructor on a course, I avoid discussing my students' performances via email.
I would definitely never report grades to my students via email; I do that only via our university's secure websites.  This is in keeping with our policy at University of Washington where I teach.  YMMV.

Notification of grades via e-mail is in violation of FERPA. There is no guarantee of confidentiality on the Internet. The institution would be held responsible if an unauthorized third party gained access, in any manner, to a student's education record through any electronic transmission method.

"I would definitely never report grades to my students via email; I do that only via our university's secure websites." - I thought the point of university-provided e-mail (well, one of the points) is that access happens within the university's secure websites.

While it's possible to make a "private" or "secure" email system (at least, as much as it is to make such a web site), standard internet e-mail doesn't pass muster as such.

I appreciate both your points about university mail.  But ours is forwardable, meaning it's no longer end-to-end secure.  Many of my colleagues use it for anything and everything and I respect their choice.  But I personally try to limit my use of email for discussion of grades where I have a secure website alternative.

@O.R.Mapper There are plenty of (usually smaller) universities using Google for email.

I'm not sure what you mean by "discussion of grades" via "secure website". Do you mean some non-email messaging/chat feature? Or are you just talking about the grade roster in the learning management system (which seems to preclude any real discussion/question/response)?

@MichaelHampton: Universities using an external provider for e-mails are indeed problematic in that respect, and depending on the jurisdiction, signing students up with a foreign provider who is not bound to the local privacy legislation might even be illegal.

@Daniel R. Collins, yes, we have a secure website for instructors to  post assignments, lecture slides, announcements and grades and for students to upload their submissions that includes chat and messaging facilities.  We have another secure website for instructors to report final course grades to the registrar.

Email is too loose to be secured in every scenario. The teacher may email it over a http connection, the server may not use ssl connections to communicate with external  servers, a student may download/view it in http, or use a non-secure port for pop3 or imap - which can be intercepted and/or logged. Even if securely transmitted, does google / yahoo / microsoft / etc "scanning" your email constitute breach of privacy? Maybe, maybe not.  Keeping it on a https site helps to ensure that info is transmitted securely from the server to your computer, without loose ends or questionable behavior.

It's a given, when a Professor gives instructions, to check your school access portal email for upcoming test and general information, as long as the school policy does not dictate otherwise.
I personally have seen many students who like to play the "I didn't know I had an email for school game." Expecting to be given extra time to complete testing due to the simple fact they spent so much time not studying and focusing on party time.
Every course I've ever taken as a graduate and undergraduate, we were always notified that testing information and scores would be released to your student school email account. In some courses I took, all of your assignments for the upcoming week were given through student school email account, this account being a WAN "Wide Area Network", an access portal secured for the access of the school only.
This would be absolutely acceptable, and also a time saver for the Professor in case some students didn't show up on any particular day that an assignment was given verbally in class.
As far as homeless students are concerned, every college and university I have attended there was always a computer accessible area in the library or student representative lounges and even computer labs for study to access school email portal.
I would never send any official mail concerning the students grades or assignments through the public email internet system such as Google, Microsoft etc.

I upvoted because I agree with the content. I do not agree with the total lack of any paragraph structure.

I have attended three different universities now (as an undergraduate and a graduate student).  Two of the three had official school email systems and students were expected to check their school email regularly.  The third, for whatever reason, had discontinued its school email system for the students and emails were sent to whatever address I had registered to my name with the school.
I believe it is very reasonable to expect your students to check their school email, and it is very appropriate for you to tell them that they should be doing it.  You may very well be doing them a favor by doing so, because it's likely you're not the only professor/administrator at the university who is sending important emails to their school email addresses.
One thing I would suggest mentioning to the students when you explain your expectation that they check their school email: it's likely their school email will have an email forwarding they can set up.  Both schools I've attended that had school email have the option to set up email forwarding to any email address I want.  I used this and had all school emails forwarded to my personal email account.  This was very useful, all emails were in one centralized account (that was easier to use than my school account) and I never missed a single one.

(Joined just to address this Question...)
In the absence of being able to comment as a newbie, I'll answer in this way as a related answer.  I think it's appropriate and not an onerous requirement to check the official email regularly.  If the official email is available via POP or IMAP, there will most likely already be instructions on how to set up your favorite email reader (Outlook Express, gmail, etc) to retrieve the school email to read in your email reader.  It can be tricky but if a student is using the popular set of readers there is likely to be step by step instructions for setting it up; If you are using something other than those, you are probably technically inclined anyways and should get by.
So, you don't even have to "Go Elsewhere" to read mail, the students just set it up to funnel into their email reader, and away they go.
And like other contributors, I can't imagine that there's a policy that says that you should not expect your emails to be read.  It's the whole reason teachers and students have email in a college.  Now, privacy and webmail, that's another issue that could come up, and that is more of a question than expecting them to check their official email.

Am I the only person who thinks there is a problem here indeed? As mentioned, most schools advise their students to verify their e-mails regularly, but what does this mean? On a daily, two-daily, weekly basis?
It is commonly known that once you start a computer, you have the tendency of browsing the internet, checking social media, ..., in other words, losing time, and it's only fair that schools don't encourage their students to lose time, but to use it effectively.
So I would advise schools and teachers to set up a rule, saying that students are expected to read their e-mails on a weekly basis. If a teacher wants to communicate with his or her students using e-mail and the message must pass in less than a week, the teacher must mention this e-mail during the class.

Most students are on a computer of some sort frequently throughout the day (smartphones count). More and more, teachers at all levels are encouraged to incorporate technology into the course, which means students will need be using the computers in class, as well as to complete daily homework assignments. If an individual student is trying to limit their technology exposure (which is a laudable goal), it would be up to them to make special arrangements with the professor to receive urgent communications.

"On a daily, two-daily, weekly basis?" - as often as necessary, the specifics of which are left to the students' own judgement. It is the students' responsibility to retrieve appropriate information that allows them to judge how often is often enough. "So I would advise schools and teachers to set up a rule" - no, just no. You are educating future professionals who have to be able to autonomously navigate the challenges and obstacles of a complex job in an advanced field, and you expect them to fail as soon as no-one tells them when exactly to check e-mails? I think you underestimate students.

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Which date to cite
In an article I'm writing, I work on a problem/conjecture first raised a few years ago. The publication date for the article that asked the question is 2014, but the question first appears in a preprint by some of the authors in 2011.
In the abstract, I want to write something along the lines of "This solves a problem question first posed by X et al. (YEAR) about ...". Which year do I write?

This is close to a duplicate of A specific term was first coined in a preprint but publication took many years. What to cite?, but the fact that you're asking about the abstract might change things. I know I would be less comfortable following the advice to cite both preprint and published version in the abstract than in the main text.

I usually avoid bibliographic citations in abstracts, because the abstract may appear in places where it's separated from the rest of the paper. So I'd write "first posed by X et al. in 2011" in the abstract. In the paper itself, I'd have a genuine reference like [7], where item 7 in the bibliography includes the publication data with the year 2014 and also mentions the 2011 preprint. Alternatively, I could have two separate bibliography entries, one for the paper and one for the preprint, and cite both in the text.

Carefully consider if this is information that really needs to be in the abstract.  It feels unnecessary to me.

Consider the purpose of citation. It is more than just avoiding plagiarism. The reader of your work may require background provided in the previous work (the complete context) rather than just a note about who had priority.
In the case you cite, I'd suggest that you list both, unless they are essentially identical. Especially if you want to give the date it first appeared in public. I assume the formally published paper has more (including its own wider bibliography). I would cite it by listing the published paper first and adding a note "first appeared as ... in 2011".
Completeness is probably more important than trying to avoid a bit of clumsiness.

+1 always better to provide access to more information.

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Accessing scientific research papers post university
As part of my coping mechanism for leaving university and accepting the inevitable loss of scientific knowledge post university, I am considering subscribing to a scientific journal so that I can continue to learn and not completely lose touch.
However, there is not much on how I should best approach this. How does one chose the best journal? There are many out there and the subscriptions are not that clear on how they work.
I’ve looked online and some websites quote figures of over £1000 a year which is not feasible.

So what is the best way to access scientific research (i) online and (ii) in hard-copy form as an individual with no affiliation to an institute.

Does this answer your question? Access to journals for individuals outside of an institution?

This is perfect thank you, you may close the question

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Is it a good idea, for a young researcher, to submit to arXiv a "mediocre" paper?
I'm a PhD student in physics, working on some projects with my advisors, which are hopefully going to be published soon. I have a profile on ResearchGate, on which I posted my theses, a poster, and a short piece of writing I did for an exam. I posted the latter because it was fun to write and I enjoyed the subject a lot (and also got a good grade on the exam!). Some of my collaborators read it (and more than 100 other people on ResearchGate too), and they told me to send it to the arXiv.
I'm reluctant for a couple of reasons: first, I don't think it's super well-written (but this could be solvable by rewriting it a bit); second, I don't think there is anything "original" in it, as I just tried to give a contour of a well-known physics concept from a different perspective. It can be a pleasant read for a physicist who wants to have a more philosophical look at this subject, but I don't think anyone would cite it (because, as I said, there's nothing properly original about it).
With these premises, would it still be a good idea to send it to arXiv? Why or why not?

A couple of answers in the comments have been moved to chat. Please avoid answering in comments. Comments below this one that do not request clarification or suggest improvements may be removed.

Submitting to arXiv does not mean you will get in. There is some review, particularly if you've never submitted before. So therefore, I would be inclined to trust your collaborators and the arXiv process about whether your paper belongs there.
The main reasons to put something in arXiv are 1) to share it somewhere it can be discovered, and possibly cited; 2) to establish precedent in case someone later plagiarises you. If you are circulating it, 2) might possibly matter too.
I understand your worrying about a reputation cost, but basically it's not that likely someone will see your paper there that doesn't already know you. When you have better work, that better work will be more discoverable – search engines will put it higher, etc. I think everyone understands that drafts are drafty. If you do see the paper getting a lot of attention, you could always put some more time into making a better draft.

Since you are a PhD student, I recommend talking to your advisor to solicit advice on how you could develop this idea/paper further and whether it could lead to something of sufficient value for scholarly publication.  There are a few things from your post that stand out as issues you should consider with your supervisor:

You say that your paper does nothing original, but you also say that it provides a "different perspective" on a well-known physics problem.  A different perspective is something original (or to take the contrapositive, if it's not original then it evidently is not a different perspective).  If this new perspective is helpful to understand this physics problem better then it could —in principle— constitute an original contribution that could warrant scholarly publication.

If you were to write a paper developing an original perspective on a well-known problem, it would be important to connect that perspective to broader philosophical perspectives and explain how your different perspective on the problem helps to understand some aspect of it better.  It would need to be developed far more than what would be possible to write in the limited time of an exam.  In particular, you would need to do a literature review and connect your perspective to relevant literature.

In the course of developing your paper further, and reviewing the relevant literature, you might find out that your idea is not original and not publishable.  This can happen because you rediscover something that is already known in the literature, or because you learn more information that shows a flaw in your original idea.  This happens sometimes and it is a bit frustrating, but it is also a good learning experience.  It is a perfectly appropriate use of time for a PhD student.

Sometimes a paper has a good kernel of an idea but it is not ready for publication yet.  Perhaps it provides some insight into a problem but the level of insight is not yet enough to justify publication.  This is a reasonably common thing even for experienced researchers, and in such cases we usually shelve these papers but come back and look at them periodically to see if we have any new ideas or leads that would help us develop the paper further.  In some cases a paper might sit in your files for several years and then you have some further insight that lets you add to it and now it looks ready for publication.  It is actually a good idea to build up a cache of half-written papers of this kind and keep mulling over them from time-to-time.  There are cases where a paper might remain half-finished for years and then you learn some new thing or have some new insight that adds value to it and renders it ready for publication.

Another possibility is that this manuscript may be suitable for a physics education journal. For example: https://doi.org/10.1119/1.3636655

It seems like you're trying to think through (a) can it hurt to put this on the arXiv; and (b) can it help.
Can it hurt
An arXiv submission with your name on it is likely to show up in various searches, like on your Google Scholar page. That means that if it's really bad, it could potentially hurt you. That said, if you use an appropriate title and abstract that show that this is meant for pedagogical reasons rather than research, it's unlikely it will receive much scrutiny at all. The people who do look at it are also unlikely to be bothered by anything short of obviously wrong or nonsensical material. So, just don't make it really bad.
A different way in which this could hurt is if you simply can't afford spending time on it. This seems unlikely to be a problem since it's already written, but it's worth thinking about it and maybe talking to your advisor if it's something that could delay more urgent tasks that you need to tend to.
In short, it's extremely unlikely this could hurt you in any way.
Assuming the contents are correct and not misleading, it will also not hurt others---always an important thing to consider.
Can it help
It sounds as if people have already found your writing helpful enough to encourage you to put it out as a preprint. That suggests that it could very well help other people.
In terms of helping your career, it probably won't do anything miraculous---it's unlikely many people will read it. However, it could be helpful especially if you're applying to a position with teaching responsibilities.
Do it well
All in all, I would say it's probably overall positive to submit this to the arXiv. It won't work miracles, but it might well help you and others, and it's extremely unlikely to hurt you.
The one thing to keep in mind is to do it well. You probably won't need more than a couple of days to go through and fix any typos and grammar issues, and ask for comments from a couple of people to get it ready. You should do that before posting.


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Could I choose a PhD supervisor from a different university?
I want to apply for a PhD at a Canadian university, but I currently am in a Masters Program in the US. If I attend this new university, would I be able to choose a PhD supervisor from my current university?

If you want a supervisor from your current institution you want to attend a PhD program at your current institution, not elsewhere.

It is very unlikely, probably impossible, that you could have a primary supervisor from another university, especially in a different country.
You also really need someone at your doctoral university to guide you through the rules and such of that university. Someone from the States wouldn't be very good at that.
However, some universities permit co-supervisors, so that might be a possibility. It would be easier if your primary supervisor has a professional relationship, already, with the person you would like from the States. It would be up to the primary (local) supervisor to agree to such a relationship.
And bad things can happen if it turns out that your various supervisors don't agree on things.

Not to mention the "ask" here of the local advisor is pretty big: "hey I don't really want to work with you, but could you help facilitate me working with who I actually want as my advisor?"

It is technically possible to have 2 advisers, in which case one should be from the institution you are currently in and another can be from wherever you want. How exactly your interaction with them is organized concerns only the three of you but in the end both advisers should be confident signing the defense paperwork. I just had a colleague who left to another place and his student stayed. We agreed that I would become a second adviser and though I interacted with the student quite a lot (having a reading course with him, checking the progress, etc.), the main work on his dissertation was actually done with my former colleague. This was sort of a forced arrangement under the circumstances, but it can also be done from the start: we faced no formal objections when doing it. Whether somebody from your university will agree to work together with somebody else from a different university in that way is another good question, of course.

I changed universities between my Masters (actually, German Diplom) and PhD. However, it was in the same country. And I knew my supervisor-to-be by attending her lectures – there was a collaboration of both universities.
So, a good idea might be to go to your preferred institution as an exchange student.
Else, all the other answers on choosing a supervisor on this site apply.
Oh, and the affiliation of the supervisor matters. A bit simplified, you cannot be a PhD student at one university and have a supervisor somewhere else. Exceptions mostly involve the supervisor moving out and are, basically, a recipe for disaster. Don't do this.


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I am about to be a senior in high school and I just have a question about doubling majors, minoring, and getting Phd's
So i am really interested in psychology, law, film studies, and writing. (very different topics) Could i double major in psychology and say political science and minor in film studies and something like English, and then go on to get a Phd in either law or psychology? By the time i get to college i am sure my interests will change and i could go into quantum physics or something else, but i am starting college applications and for some colleges it is smart to have a good answer on your desired major instead of putting down "undecided." I am just very interested to see what graduates think of doubling majors and minors and if it is even a smart decision to do so. thanks

Savannah-Jane, It's commendable that you are thinking so far in the future so early, but my advice is to stop. Take classes you find interesting, work with professors that have interesting project, meet the people you can only meet at a college campus. When JR year starts, start talking to professors about after college. Ramp up the summer after your JR year. These things will work out. Find someone at your school who can give you good advice, and have fun.  Visit college campuses, and go to the one you feel most at home.

@neo I think that has the making of an answer. I would agree that senior year of high school is probably too soon to be thinking of a PhD.

Also, people have been known to change majors while in college (gasp!).  What you say on applications now gives them an idea, but is not a lifelong promise to anyone but yourself.  You will be forgiven for changing it.  Also, there are ways to pick up the material without declaring it a second major or minor.  The first priority is to determine what you want to do for the next five years.  Then do it, or find a good reason to change it.  For example, if you know you want to work for a company that hires only double majors, that is a good reason to do it.  I can't think of other reasons.

I think looking so far into the future can be a good idea. For example, if you wanted to be a clinical psychologist, you would need to know that very soon if you wanted to not "lose" a year or two. You need to take courses in your first year so that you can take courses in your second year, and so forth. Also consider what you need to do a job, and not just what to study. For example, to get into certain graduate programs you would need an honours degree with a thesis and not just a regular major (or double major).

Savannah-Jane,
The future is always exciting, especially for someone who has promise. But I would caution you into looking too far ahead and "smell the roses".
You have probably one of the most important decisions you will make in your life right before you; where you will go to college as an undergraduate. That is the decision I would focus on. The questions you are asking now are important to consider when choosing a school; no one with graduate school aspirations wants to attend a college that sends very few people to the types of schools you might want to attend. But, conversely, it would be unwise to make a decision about where you study just because you want to go somewhere else afterword: make sure that you go to a place you love for your 4-5 years. If a school doesn't provide enough undergraduate research opportunities, you can always do a masters degree before your PhD. If your classes are too hard senior year and you can't study for the LSAT, you can find a way to take a year off and apply next cycle. These things are important, but they aren't the most important.
When looking for a college, look for a place you can see yourself living. And studying. And getting drunk Friday nights if you are into that sorta thing. A place where you might fall in love. A place where you can make friends you can trust. Look for that professor that takes a special interest in his students, and work with him or her. When the time comes, bring up graduate school, what you are interested in, and these things will work out. There is always a way to study what you want if you work hard and are curious. There are certainly kids who would do better at a small liberal arts college than a large state school, but the converse is also true. Figure out the differences between those types of experiences.
My very good friend ended up studying computer science in college, but is now getting his PhD in political science. English majors go to medical school. Physicists go to law school. There will be some "general" decisions you will have to make in the beginning, like if you are more science or humanities inclined. It would be very hard for an English major to go into a Physics PhD program, but that's all you really need to know. There is no rush in picking a particular major. Don't try to design your whole life. Leave some things up for chance. Curious minds always remain curious.

I graduated with a Bachelors of Science, double major in Management and Electrical Engineering.  I did them sequentially, first graduating with a BS in Management in 3 years (I took courses in summers) and then back to the same school for EE (in 18 months, again via summer courses).
The best argument in favor of double majors is that you can develop competency and strength in two fields.  I personally think it's best if the two fields are related, so that your double major creates a hybrid mix.
This combination was an advantage for me in the job market (industry), mostly because it opened more possibilities (companies, and jobs within companies).
I'm a PhD student now (several decades after my BS) in Computational Social Science, which is in the neighborhood of my original degrees.  This gave me a big advantage over other students who had either no background in computer science or none in social sciences.
As for your college applications, it may be fine to list your current ideas for a major, even if it's a double major.  But much more than just listing them, I think it would be vital to explain in your essay why these two majors seem right for you, and therefore what this tells them about you as a person.  Are you especially good at "creative synthesis" across diverse fields?  Have you demonstrated this in the past?  Are you intensely curious and thus you want to start with these majors as an entry point for a path of intellectual/personal discovery?  And what does the preference for these two majors say about your choice of colleges?
It would also be good to avoid giving the impression that you want to go in all directions at the same time like an espresso-crazed humming bird.  (If you are, in fact, an espresso-crazed humming bird, then you might want to get some help and support with that prior to entering college :-)  )

In high school and the first couple years of college you are allowed to explore different fields and it is easy to change your major. Sometime around the beginning of your junior year you will need to settle on one or two specific fields and enroll in the specific courses needed to obtain a degree in that major. Sometimes it is possible to complete a double major with an extra year of school work. As you get closer to graduation it gets harder to change majors because you already have a significant investment of time and money in the courses you have already completed.
While it is good to be a Renaissance person with many different interests, in today's world you will probably need to be a specialist in one or two narrow fields if you wish to obtain employment in that occupation.
There are some exceptions, the famous astronomer Edwin Hubble completed a law school degree before chucking it all and starting over in astronomy, but that is not usually an option for people who graduate with a mound of student loan debt and a desire to get on with life.
It is not unlike dating, in high school you should be meeting a lot of different people, as you grow older you will probably want to develop a more serious relationship with only one person, but you need to try out a few (or a lot of) different people while you are young before you can decide on "Mr or Ms Right" when you are older.
Obtaining a PhD will require you to choose one extremely narrow field of study and to publish a thesis that represents a piece of original research in which you invent or discover something that nobody else has ever known before. One joke that is frequently heard in academia is that a PhD is "a person who knows everything about nothing", which refers to the fact that you will be a world class expert in a subject that is infinitely narrow. It is not uncommon for different faculty members in a university department to be working and publishing papers in fields that are mostly incomprehensible even to the professor who works across the hall from them.
A PhD is typically preparation for an academic career, which is nice work if you can get it, but academic positions are highly competitive and difficult to obtain. It is also the "license" that you need that will allow you to apply for grant money from government agencies or private foundations to fund the conduct of your research program. Notice that I said "allows you to apply for", not "assures that you will receive" such grants. Unfortunately there are many excellent grant proposals that never receive funding. Your proven ability to obtain money from external funding agencies is the primary thing that universities will evaluate when you apply for a faculty position.
As a result, there are many PhD's working in jobs outside of academia that they could have obtained with a bachelor's degree and a few years of on-the-job experience. There is a serious overproduction of PhD's which has led some academics to talk about the need for "academic birth control" to avoid producing excessive numbers of PhD's. Of course they usually mean that other universities should practice such restraint, not their own institution.
Employers outside of academia may be wary of hiring PhD's for jobs that don't require such a degree out of fear that you are planning to work for them for just a short time until you find the academic research position that you really want. Thus, you may find that a PhD actually limits your job options and the possibility of earning a middle class income in the future.

Here is MY personal suggestion for a specific approach to planning your education when you have so many different areas you want to study. I assume you will attend college in the U.S. as a full time student (12+ units per semester) so please adjust if that is incorrect.
In your first semester take the following 4 courses if you can:

(1) a class on managing life as a college student (typically these are categorized as Human Development courses but check with your college counselor). These classes are survival skills training for college. Alternatively you could independently study the following textbook while you are still in high-school:
"Becoming A Master Student", Dave Ellis, Cengage Publishing, ISBN 978-1-285-19389-2 (I recommend this specific book because it helped me immensely a long time ago. I am not connected with the publisher or author in any way).
(2) a class in "how to tutor" which oddly enough will teach you about excellent techniques and habits for studying. It will also prepare you to be able to get a campus job as a part-time tutor if you decide you want to do that later on.
(3A) if you need to, now is the time to take "English 101" (it may be called something else Like "English 1" or "Writing 1" but it teaches standard college-level writing). English 101 is typically a pre-requisite for many other classes. Also take any workshops your college offers on writing research papers. Depending on the subject of the class you will need to learn about using MLA, APA, and CMS citation styles. Purdue University's OWL website can be helpful with that.
(3B) if you do not need to take English 101 (ask your college counselor) then take a course that is required for your "general education requirements". These are those fundamental classes every student has to complete in order to graduate, regardless of their major.
(4) take ONE course for sheer fun! This is for helping you deal with the "pressure" of college. Find an introductory course in some creative hobby you have always wanted to try. Enjoy it (because learning should be fun sometimes) and don't stress about the final grade. But do give it your best effort nonetheless.
(5) if by this point you are enrolled in less than 12 units fill in the rest with more "general education" classes (item 3B above).

For your subsequent semesters during years 1 and 2 be sure that 75% of your classes are "general education" classes so you can knock those out of the way. Work with your college counselor to use the other 25% of your classes as a means to explore beginning/introductory courses in the majors you are thinking about. Sometimes an introductory course can reveal information about a subject that can help you decide if that is really what you want to focus your education on.
One Warning: Do not take too many "excess" classes because this will affect your financial aid in the long run.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
Order of author names in a textbook that is to be published
I am currently working on a book with several fellow researchers, and there seems to be a disagreement of how the author names should be listed. The book will be published by a major university press and will be listed on its website as well, so the order of names of the authors has become a touchy subject and disagreements ensued. I will describe everything in third-person to objectively portray the situation.
Z is the lead researcher of the project. Z has done more than 90% of the work and everyone seems to see this. Z is a professor.
A and B are staff researchers and their jobs were mostly editing and proofreading. A and B are professors as well.
U, V, W are graduate student researchers and have done the remaining 9% of the work, which were mostly grunt work that do not have particular intellectual value.
Now here is where the situation becomes sticky. The book made its way to a major press and A and B suddenly want a piece of the action. The problem is, Z's last name is the last in alphabetical order and making A and B authors will push Z's name to the back of the author list. While Z is considering adding A and B as the authors, U, V, W feel that A and B did not add much value to the book and therefore strongly believe that Z's name should appear in the front. Some even think that they themselves did more work than A or B, and A's name and B's name should not be listed as the author just like them.
Is there are way to resolve such issue? Is there a way to distinguish between the lead author and supporting authors, possibly by forcing the lead author's name to appear in the front? Or is there a way to make everyone authors of the book but make only the lead author's name appear in the book cover rendering the other two merely authors in name?

And this is why we agree on authorship issues before the work is done. I must say, it seems strange to me that somebody whose main contribution is proof-reading is being considered as an author at all.

Almost every textbook I've seen has a lengthy "thanks to the following individuals" page on the inside for proofreaders, grad students, etc. If the situation really is as you claim, this seems pretty cut and dry -- include A, B, U, V, and W on the internal "thank you" page and let "Z" be the author. If A and B don't like it, tough luck -- they are not authors.

"A and B are staff researchers and their jobs were mostly editing and proofreading. A and B are professors as well." You lost me -- I don't understand what it means to be a staff researcher and a professor.

You also lost me -- Who cares if A, B, U, V ,W, and  Z are professors, grad students, or janitors?

@JeffE - It matters politically. Pissing off fellow researchers and professors may hurt more down the line than pissing off the janitors. Or, in my experience, vice versa (since janitors have lots of keys and papers lying around can go "missing").

First of all, I agree with @tonysdg that A and B don't sound like they deserve any form of authorship. The same may be true about U, V and W, but I feel less strongly about that. So Z can simply argue his/her case forcefully, and if necessary appeal to the department chair or other outside objective parties. The facts are on Z's side, so I expect he/she will win the argument, though possibly at the risk of alienating his/her colleagues.
Second of all, with regards to your comment that "The problem is, Z's last name is the last in alphabetical order and making A and B authors will push Z's name to the back of the author list", I don't see this as a problem at all. There is no rule that the list of author names on a book has to be in alphabetical order. So, it is perfectly acceptable and legitimate to list Z's name first, and indeed sounds like a very good idea (regardless of which other names end up being on the author list) considering that the project is overwhelmingly Z's intellectual offspring.
Third of all, one idea for an author byline that allows including minor authors but would still make clear the large disparity in contributions from the different authors is to use the "with contributions from" pattern, as in:

The Great Book of Science
By Z
  With contributions from U, V, W, [optionally:] A and B

See here for a real-life example.

It sounds to me like your group is trying to apply a model and understanding of coauthorship that is suitable for academic papers (in some fields) but is really unsuitable when it comes to books.
As an aside, I wonder whether you really mean a textbook, which has the connotation of a book used for instruction rather than the dissemination of cutting edge research.  It sounds to me like what you have written is rather a research monograph.  If you were actually writing a textbook, then a significant amount of editing and proofreading would be done by the editorial staff of the publishing company.  So I suggest that you clarify the situation in your question.  (At the extreme, there are certain books which are essentially book-length articles and such that treating as an academic paper would be more appropriate.)  Here is one key question:

Does the book contain new academic results, so that by including someone or not as an author the results will be attributed to them or not?

If the answer to that is yes, then this could be a major issue, such that not publishing the work as a book may turn out to be easiest and best.
As others have already pointed out, one has to say that it is not a good practice for a book to be written and worked on by several parties without discussing the authorship issue.  In this case, you say that the book was submitted to the publishing company and accepted for publication without this issue having been sorted out.  I wonder how that is even possible: certainly when you submit a text it includes a list of authors, and the editors will take the information very seriously.  What is the list of authors on the version that was accepted by the university press? How did Professor Z convey the authorship situation to the press?  (If he really didn't say anything at all, then it is not clear that you should proceed with the publication.  If Z comes back and says to his editor "Actually the authorship issue is very complicated," then the editor may well agree.)
Anyway: here are some options:

Have Z be the sole author of the book.

If Z did over 90% of the work and even more of the intellectual work, then in my view this is the option to work towards if possible.  The amount of work it takes to publish something is so great that even 10% of it is a lot, so Z should be looking to compensate his coworkers in some way.  Of course they should be warmly acknowledged at the front of the book.  I think Z should also consider some sort of payment.
It took me a little while to remember this, but the summer after I finished my PhD, my postdoctoral advisor asked me to proofread his book, a research monograph.  Or rather, he offered me a certain amount of money to do it (I can't quite remember the amount, as this was 2003; maybe $1000).  I accepted, and this was a nice experience for me.  I really can't remember how long I spent on it; 20 hours would be a very rough guess.  Of course I did not appear as a coauthor!
But one of the main differences between books and articles is that for books, people who are involved are usually directly paid.  The A and B who did mostly editing and proofreading seem like good candidates for being paid, and perhaps paid by the publishing company.  By the way, for a major university press, the company itself is almost certainly going to do editing and proofreading of its own, which makes it a little stranger that Z got his colleagues to do it.

Have Z be listed first as author, followed by A,B,U,V,W.

Since Z's name comes last alphabetically, having him appear as the first author should signify an extremely unbalanced authorial contribution.  Since he is characterized as doing more than 90% of the work, this seems appropriate.  The question is whether everyone else did enough to be included at all: did they actually write some of the book or not?

Have Z be the sole author, and add a line "with A,B,U,V,W"

This is a bit unusual, but not really irregular.  If there is no other way to compensate A,B,U,V,W for their secondary work then maybe this is the best solution.


text:
Rejecting an accepted PhD offer for another - Would really appreciate some advice/opinions!
I just got some great news that I have been offered a full studentship on a PhD program that's currently my second most favourite option. I have only until March 16th to accept it or reject it. In the meantime, my most preferred option has not gotten back to me yet, even though I even emailed them explaining that I have a time-sensitive decision to make about another program, and that I would love to know what my chances of getting an interview invitation are. Even if they respond, I'm probably not going to know anything for sure before the 16th.
The potential supervisors at my second best option (and currently only certain one) are wonderful people - both of them got super excited that I got in, sent me the most supportive emails and well wishes, and are clearly looking forward to working with me. They also supported me quite a bit during the application process. I really like them, I really like the project too,but I would still want to hear back from this other option (which is at a more prestigious university).
I cannot get an extension on my current offer - the studentship is pretty competitive. If I reject it, they will be offering the PhD to someone on the waiting list. I can't help it but feel that the right thing to do is accept the offer now and then wait and see how the rest is going to play out - if I get the other (dream) PhD, I fear that I'd have to cancel my current offer later in the year and that the supervisors - albeit really nice people by the looks of it - might hold it against me. It will probably create some administrative hassle for them anyway..
If it does come to me being offered the other PhD (with funding), I don't really know how I'd have to approach my current supervisors. I know this is all hypothetical at this stage, but I can't help but overthink all possible scenarios anyway. I'd love to think that I will then just be able to be completely honest with them, explain my reasons and end on a respectful note. I don't want to ruin my relationship with them and I wouldn't want them to hold my decision against me. However, many people tell me that going back on an accepted offer looks really bad, that I will burn bridges, that it will be damaging for my future career in academia because I am likely to see and meet these people again, and that I should just accept my current offer and be happy that I got a fully funded PhD that >100 other applicants were apparently hoping to get. I haven't mentioned anything to the supervisors yet, as my other options are at best unclear, so it didn't really make sense to mention anything as yet. I was very motivated to get the PhD that I got too, and I think they see me as someone who is super motivated to start this particular PhD. While this is somewhat true, it's not entirely the case.
Has anyone been in a similar situation? How did you approach your supervisor/team, were you honest? If some of you have been in a similar position a while ago, do you feel you have suffered any negative consequences as a result? Any advice would be extremely helpful, also from people who have not necessarily been in that boat but would share their opinions and insights. :)
Many thanks in advance!

I suggest checking our archives, there has been a lot of discussion about this over the years (including, but not limited to, the question linked above). But as you might expect, there is no "correct" answer; some people feel that turning down an accepted offer is unethical and should never be done, while others feel that applicants have to do what is best for them.

Just my personal opinion: you've been offered a highly competitive Ph.D. position that you clearly like and where you have good rapport with your potential supervisors. It is quite possible that if you accept it and later withdraw, this will be seen badly, and more importantly it is highly inconsiderate towards the other applicants. Are you sure that your preference of the other option is based on reasons which are tangible and certain enough to outweigh these considerations? The only reason you have mentioned is prestige of the university, which makes me doubtful that this is the case.

Among many friends doing PhDs in Oxford, UK, the running joke was they were paying fees so that they can do all the work themselves and be exploited by their supervisor. Some stories were horrific, like a friend who could only get any feedback from her supervisor if she did unpaid translations for him. Defo not claiming it's the norm, but certainly don't discount a supportive environment, and don't assume a "more prestigious" place would be as good.

As an aside, this sort of situation is why many US grad schools abide by the April 15 Resolution.

It has been my experience that it is uncommon to get a chance to do the work you want, with people you want to work with, and who want to work with you.  I regret the times I've turned my back on these chances, to chase money and prestige.

"I can't help but overthink all possible scenarios anyway" but all I can see in your question is the scenario where you accept option B and then option A tells you you've been accepted. What will you do if you reject option B and then get rejected or never hear back from option A?

Couple thoughts:

Ask for an extension to make your decision on the offer you have.

It is a mistake to assume that a prestigious institution will give you an advantage in any way simply by nature of being prestigious. This may be true for undergraduate work, but as a PhD student you will be judged on what you have produced during your PhD and truly, no one cares about the name of the institution. So if the other school gives you better access to resources that will advance your research or better funding, thats one thing, otherwise it doesn't really make a difference.

If you cannot get an extension, ask yourself what it is about your top choice (other than prestige) that makes it better than the option in front of you, and do your best to weigh whether that is really worth turning down this offer for. Understand that you may never get an offer from the other school.
Accepting an offer and then turning away is unprofessional and ill advised. Keep in mind that if you are in the sciences and these labs are both in the same subfield, the supervisors are potential future collaborators and it would be a mistake to spoil their impression of you at this stage with actions that would make you appear unreliable and unwilling to follow through with your commitments.
At the end of the day, remember: a bird in hand is worth two in the bush.

"... and truly, no one cares about the name of the institution". This is certainly how it should work, where we judge new PhDs on their work instead of the branding of their university. But unfortunately I've seen hiring committees form a first impression because a CV features a prestigious university. It's a shame. Still, this answer gives good advice.

Not an answer, but too long for a comment.
I would think hard before trading this kind of support

The potential supervisors at my second best option (and currently only
certain one) are wonderful people - both of them got super excited
that I got in, sent me the most supportive emails and well wishes, and
are clearly looking forward to working with me. They also supported me
quite a bit during the application process. I really like them, I
really like the project too.

for the prestige at the other place.

Is that also based on your experience? I still have no way of knowing how supervision at the other place might look like, but the initial conditions seems pretty good too. I don't think I will be having bad supervision at my more preferred option, I simply don't have enought information yet and will hear back from them a lot later in the year.

Not my experience, just a response to the really good impression this place makes. To answer the question you asked: accepting now and reneging later is unprofessional behavior. Reneging "a lot later in the year" is particularly egregious since they can't then offer your place to someone else they also wanted when they chose you.

Whatever you decide on March 16, I sincerely hope you think about how your decision impact your credibility. I do not recommend you negate your decision once you accepted the offer.

I disagree with this.  Institutions put pressure on student by deliberately having early deadlines.  If an institution makes a fuss about a student rescinding an accepted offer to choose a better offer elsewhere that comes in later, the student should not go there in the first place.

Can both of you expand? Why would that make me seem less credible, if I do explain that when I was accepting the offer it was the only one available? I'm planning to be honest if it comes to this, not to lie.


text:
I'm a working professional. How do address my lack of (recent) research experience in my SOP?
I am working as a senior computer vision engineer in a startup. Two years back I worked as an intern at DRDO (national defense institute) where I published two papers related to computational neuroscience. Due to personal issues I didn't apply then. Now I want to apply for a PhD position at a good European university in the field of computational neuroscience. But I am worried as to what I should include in my statement of purpose. Can I include my achievements related to my job in it? Does participation in a one week workshop count? Do I need to do something else in order to increase my chances of selection?

A Personal Statement and a Statement of Purpose are different. Which do you mean? How is it labelled? Don't confuse either with the CV.

I mean Statement of purpose. I know what is a CV, it is not that. Some of my colleagues used it interchangeably, So I assumed that both were same when it comes to PhD application its just that some call it SOP and some call it PS.

A personal statement is about you and maybe why you want to study at some particular place in a particular field. This can also be in a cover letter if available.
But a Statement of Purpose is a future directed statement of what you intend to study and how you intend to achieve success, both in study and thereafter. Entirely future directed. In particular it isn't the place to explain failings or missed opportunities of the past.
If you want to talk about the past it needs to go elsewhere, such as in the CV. In the US, letters of recommendation can be used to support you and explain (better than you can) how missing pieces from the past won't inhibit you. I don't know if it is the same in India. In Europe letters can have some importance IIRC, possibly less than in the US.
However, in the SoP, it is possible to use short phrases as part of a longer forward looking statement but that comments on the past. "My successful experience on several projects at DRDO has pushed me towards a deeper understanding of ...". Or some such.
Workshops and stuff can be in the CV under a heading like "Other Educational Experiences".
The CV is about the past. The Personal Statement is about motivation. The SoP is about the future: goals and how you are likely to achieve them.

For more see: How does the admissions process work for Ph.D. programs in Country X?


text:
Is it advisable to use Wikipedia for note-making?
Some people summarize the content of a lecture to deepen their understanding, but I am thinking about using Wikipedia instead. Specifically, I mean finding the Wikipedia article (in my primary, non-English language) that covers the lecture material and adding any  suitable content that the article does not already have. In some cases, this may mean making a new article from scratch.
I thought of several reasons that writing and editing a Wikipedia article on what you learned would be beneficial not only to other readers, but to yourself as well:

It will be more durable to write on Wikipedia than to keep it in a paper notebook. Even more, it could be get even better by someone adding to it, or correcting errors.
Wikipedia is usually found at the top of a google search, so it's easy to find. You don't have to flip through your notes to find it.
Wikipedia requires references, but you can use the textbook you used in the lecture as a reference.
Of course, I will be careful not to reprint the textbook or lectures as is.

While it has all these advantages, I think the only disadvantage is that it takes a lot of time. Or is there some other reason for not recommending it?

While I appreciate the enthusiasm, this idea really sounds like if you say “the best way to prepare for my exam is to write a textbook on the topic on my own”. While Wikipedia is not a textbook, it assumes (ideally) some level of expertise in the topic, while the whole point of university lectures is to talk about topics you have little idea about. Listening a lecture once doesn't make you acknowledgeable in a field.

What field are you in? There is a significant difference in the reliability of Wikipedia articles depending on the field. Hard sciences are usually much more reliable than history, sociology and politics, because the latter is very prone to be dominated by ideologically motivated editors.

There are a lot of options between a paper notebook and Wikipedia. Many programs and websites can be used for note-taking. If going to Wikipedia is more convenient than checking your notes, I'd argue that your notes aren't particularly well-organised. If anything, well-organised notes should be comparably searchable, if not more easily searchable, than Wikipedia. People being able to add to it is a double-edged sword: they can improve things, but they can also remove all your edits or add a bunch of things you don't care about. A cloud backup should be "durable" enough for any personal notes.

No, this is not a good idea. Wikipedia articles and the kind of notes you'd write while following a lecture are very different types of text.
Audience: A Wikipedia article should be written for a general public, your notes are written for future-you.
Context: A Wikipedia article would start much more with a blank slate for context, your notes fit into the surrounding lecture materials.
Level of detail: Your notes may often be so specific that the corresponding Wikipedia article would get deleted/heavily abridged for lack of notability.
Expert-level of the author: You write notes at the beginning of your journey through new material. The appropriate time to consider writing a Wikipedia article would be once you have actually mastered it.
This is not to say that writing/editing Wikipedia articles cannot be a great way to solidify your topic-mastery in a university course while simultaneously doing some good for the general public. But this cannot replace the role of note-taking.

Also a personal wiki (private or public) using standard wiki markup would be a nice way to structure notes, and a possible source of snippets of material ready-made for contributing to Wikipedia. (carrying on from the last paragraph).  I actually did create a couple of Wikipedia articles for something I was reading up on in a professional context. They were a decent start and once created were improved by people with more knowledge than me - but there was nothing at all to start with

Another point to note is that things you write in Wikipedia should be supported by references. "My prof said that" isn't sufficient.

Wikipedia is also increasingly monitored by either official or self-appointed page guardians, such that your edits - especially on a big topic - are likely to be undone if you don't have their respect and blessing in advance.

This is not what Wikipedia is for but you can use a personal Wiki.
There are several ways to do this.  You can actually run a personal webserver on your own machine and access it like any Wiki.  There are several open source projects that provide source code for such websites.
You can also use applications that are standalone.  Lots and lots available out there.  I sometimes use Zim for this kind of thing (everyone has different ways of working and it's worth trying out all the options to get what works best for their own needs).

I thought of several reasons that writing and editing a Wikipedia article on what you learned would be beneficial not only to other readers, but to yourself as well.

Wikipedia aims to be an authoritative source of information just like any major encyclopedia.  Whether you consider it successful in that regard is neither here nor there.  You have to be writing articles that you have a good faith reason to think your material is accurate and precise.  Your notes will unlikely to be that.  You could even end up banned as the site is moderated and they don't like people abusing the site.

I've also used a wiki served off of a university site in teaching as a place to share "note" with students. Students could also edit.

While technically it is not an answer to the question, but a personal Wiki is a great tool of note-making both for studies and for research.

@Buffy we had a great group wiki in the past.  Then central IT took over all servers, refused to allow MediaWiki, and shifted everyone onto an expensive proprietary alternative.  It took a year to get them to enable LaTeX support (physics). Whenever you make a nice tool on a university server, someone seems to want to break it

@ChrisH, yes, I lost access to the one I was using (and maintaining) for security reasons. There are certainly important issues around such things.

One of my lab instructors introduced me to TiddlyWiki, a personal wiki which I found great for note-taking.  One particularly-relevant feature is the ability to easily export content to a standard-format file (like HTML), which makes it easy to share notes with others who don't use the software.  Supports MathJax, and can be customized to fit your specific workflow. Fairly easy to transfer content to Wikipedia later if you so desire.

Other have already pointed out many valid reasons why to not abuse Wikipedia for personal note making.
However, one more reason comes to mind:
You have no guarantee that someday somebody will alter your notes.
Wikipedia is written by everybody.
Granted, there is a review process,
which incidentely might also prevent you yourself from making you notes. Reviewers might question the relevant/quality/ and opt to delete your notes

I used to do this to some extent, that is, adding new things I learned from books and articles to the relevant wikipedia entries (the Schur polynomial entry is perhaps my main victim).
However, I quickly realized that I wanted to add information which is of interest for people in my field, but is perhaps somewhat too specific for wikipedia. Moreover, I wanted to be able to use LaTeX syntax for more general things (tables, etc).
So, I did what StephenG suggested, and made my own web-page about symmetric functions which is publicly available (but not editable by anyone but me). I occasionally get emails from researchers suggesting edits (where I have made some typo), or other inquiries.

tl;dr: In theory this could be useful for all concerned.  If you have bags of time and patience, including patience with people, you are more likely to succeed, but there's no guarantee.
Is it "advisable"?  Well I wouldn't advise it, for several reasons, which I will come to in a moment.  But there is benefit if done properly.

Firstly in ensuring that the content is covered you are improving Wikipedia.
Secondly in the process you are revising your knowledge from the lectures and getting supporting information from both Wikipedia, and the references you need (which won't be just the course text book) - and other reading you will do to make your edits good.

As to the negative reasons:

It's important that each article is reasonably balanced, your professor may have an idiosyncratic approach, or be on one side of an academic dispute, or just be plain biased
You may have to deal with gatekeeping behaviour from Wikipedians. In particular you may need to go through the Articles For Creation process which was designed to make it easier (or at least less traumatic) for new users to create articles, but arguably sometimes has the opposite effect
You may risk being drawn off into side-tracks that are not relevant to your course
The articles you edit or create may change (or even be deleted) leaving you without your "notes" (though you can keep copies, or links to specific versions of pages that still exist)
Wikipedia is not keen on single-source articles, so you would need to spend time on other sources (which is a good idea anyway).
Special sourcing requirements apply to medical claims, essentially requiring recent high-standard review articles as sources where feasible.

Another comment, somewhat neutral, perhaps: if a section of an article expands out of proportion this is called undue weight - provided the matter is sufficiently well sourced it should be split off into a separate article, leaving a summary behind.  There is, however, no guarantee that this will happen.
Good luck, whichever path you take.

Please, no. I spend so much time fixing things that students believe that they heard in lectures on the German Wikipedia. Excellent points have been made above. I suggest installing https://bitnami.com/stack/mediawiki on a machine under your control and keep your notes there.

The lecture material was provided for you and your classmates.  You haven't been authorized to share it with the world.
Until you have permission to do so, you should not post your notes on Wikipedia.

Why would an authorization be needed for a student to share its own notes, of which the student holds the copyright? Moreover, law aside, it just doesn't make any sense. What's the point of attending lectures, if you need authorization to use the information in them? Both legally, and ethically, your statement is wrong.

@Andrei -- It's unclear if the student holds copyright, and depends on how much raw lecture material the student chooses to share.  I was very careful to describe this in terms of "lecture material".  Unauthorized sharing of course material is specifically prohibited in our academic honesty code, and "lecture material is course material.  You obviously don't need permission to use the material, and that is an absurd reduction and thus a logical fallacy.

Indeed, if we are talking strictly about lecture materials, then you are right, the teacher/university holds the copyright. But then your answer doesn't even touch the question, which is not about lecture material, but about the notes that the student takes, on which the student holds the copyright. My bad that I jumped to interpret "lecture material" in this context as "notes", although you explicitly refer to notes in your second paragraph. Student notes are obviously not part of lecture material. I would suggest you remove the reference to notes, which is wrong.


text:
Canadian Med School Professor looking to work in USA
Background info
I’m a medical school professor at a Canadian medical school and was interested in potentially seeking a job in the US. Currently I make around $160k CAD pre tax ($124k USD) although our taxes are generally higher.
I’m tenured and has been a full professor for a few years now. (About 15 years in total of work experience as assistant and associate professor after post doc) Also ONLY PhD not an MD (not clinical)
Questions:

What are the differences between medical school professor jobs in Canada vs USA? (Salary, work life balance, culture, position openings)

Is it true in the USA medical school profs are paid mainly in grant money (soft cap?) and a small base salary (hard cap)?

Are there certain areas I should be looking at since I’m open to any part of the US as long as it pays similar (or preferably more)?

That’s basically my main question right now but if you have any further additional info it would be much appreciated since I basically know nothing about applying for jobs as Ive been at the same place for my entire career.

You might want to split this into multiple questions, lest it be closed for needing "more focus."

I can only answer one of these questions, and that is that yes, USA medical school professors are paid mainly in grant money (soft cap) and a small base salary (hard cap). I don't have much expertise on this subject, so I would recommend looking at the other answers, but from what I know and have heard this is true.

Med schools must be different than regular schools since most US schools pay their professors for 9 months and encourage them to find funding for their summer months. NSF technically only allows 2 months of total time to be paid to a prof from NSF grants, which seems to be enforced by some program officers more than others. I don’t know if teaching summer courses is at you regular rate or something else.


text:
Is it right for a professor to assume every CS student has a laptop?
I'm an undergraduate student in computer science, and my university has a rule of prerequisite that one should have a sufficient computer (exactly the same word my university uses) to work outside of campus. Although my university is in China, it uses a British university system.
I have a desktop for this and I have used it for three years to study with no problem, until today the professor of one of my modules designed a coding assessment where each student must bring a laptop to a lecture hall with no computers to take this assessment. In addition, he requires that while taking the assessment one must record their face and screen (probably to prevent cheating). Besides of my desktop, I only have a tablet used for note-taking in lectures, which is obviously insufficient for coding and running multiple tasks simultaneously.
So the question is, is it right for the professor to request that everyone must bring a laptop for this, given that the university only requires a computer? If it is not, how can I protest against this?

@Ian Actually my university can be regarded as a British one. For each module we have a Module Handbook. Unfortunately, such hardware requirements are not described there. I think I should add this info to my question. Thank you.

I recently audited the only course offered by a law school that is open to students not admitted to study for a law degree. We were required to have a laptop computer.

Did you ask the professor?

Kind of related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/176434/in-the-us-can-a-college-require-a-student-to-purchase-an-access-code-to-turn-in

The country is probably important here, and within the country the institution. For example, at Stanford I'd consider the assumption reasonable (even though I can imagine that at the same time the faculty tries more than elsewhere to be politically correct and not discriminate by wealth); In a poorer country or at a poorer institution I'd not be so sure.

Despite being perhaps similar to a British university, I don’t think your university can be regarded as one. For one thing, I very much doubt it would be legal for a British university to require students to activate the front-facing camera and record themselves using their own laptop. That sounds like a privacy/GDPR nightmare.

@Michael I did not read new messages after I borrowed the laptop and just checked new messages now so I just saw your comment. After the assessment I spoke to the professor who said he would consider a better way the next year. I guess at least that's something good.

@JanusBahsJacquet Yeah you are right. Privacy is not so important here. Our university is the result of the cooperation of a Chinese university and a British one and it uses the British system. Still some cultural or ethical things of China apply. I didn't mention too much of the details because I didn't think that was so important to the laptop problem, yet I agree with you that the word "regard" that I used was not so correct.

@Peter-ReinstateMonica I wouldn't mind if they require that you have a computer. Requiring that you have a laptop is something different. The question is: Can they require that I have a computer that I can carry around with me.

The first step is to check whether your university provides laptops for students. For example, at my university students can borrow laptops from the university library.
If this is not the case, then inform the professor that you don't have a laptop, and thus cannot bring one. It seems to be that this assessment really ought to happen in a computer lab. Trying to prevent cheating if people use their own laptops is a very weird idea anyway.

Hello Arno, thanks for your helpful answer. BTW, do you think it is good to report this to the university even if it's not for changing the professor's design but for preventing this from happening again?

@GuanyumingHe It's not clear to me that anything is wrong or needs to be prevented. If you can borrow a laptop from the university library, or can use some other university computer, then you have a solution to your problem. I guess I was a student some time ago now, but people at my US university frequently borrowed library computers, most often for giving slide presentations in class. I suppose that the people who did not have their own laptops learned after the first time how to deal with it and it made no issue after that.

@BryanKrause It is very reasonable. Thank you. I don't think the library provides laptops for temporary use, but I think I can manage to borrow one from my friends, and now I guess I should first try to solve the problem myself instead of hoping to change the professor's design someway.

@GuanyumingHe I think it's fine to let the instructor know about the problem and ask if they have any suggested solutions, just that the attitude should be towards collaboratively solving the problem rather than protesting/complaining. But yes, generally if you can solve the problem yourself that is ideal.

@GuanyumingHe  yes, it is generally easier to change one's own behavior than to persuade someone else to change theirs, especially when it involves a significant amount of effort on their part.

At my university, the laptops could only be rented for a few hours at a time and then must be renewed in person at the library, or else the student would incur a significant fee. This was at a large and fairly well-regarded public state university. If the student needs to have certain programs installed on the laptop ahead of time, this could add a massive amount of stress to the exam that wouldn't be conducive to scoring well.

@GuanyumingHe notifying the professor is a good idea. At the very least, they can amend the requirements for next year to include a laptop.

@Davidmh Yeah I realized that after I saw the helpful answers and comments from you all and I did speak to him after the assessment, who said he would consider something better next year.

Your question title asks "is it right?" Later on the text you change that to "is it reasonable?" (Edit: the question was edited after I posted this answer, but the point remains)
It is not right for a professor to add requirements to the syllabus after the course has started, especially requirements that cost students money.
It is, however, a very reasonable requirement to ask CS students to own and bring a laptop to class or lab. I'm a professor and I do that all the time, even though the University has no such requirement. Carpentry apprentices are also required to bring their own hammers.

Comments about carpentry and other topics have been moved to chat; please do not continue the discussion here. Before posting a comment below this one, please review the purposes of comments. Comments that do not request clarification or suggest improvements usually belong as an answer, on [meta], or in [chat]. Comments continuing discussion may be removed.

Arno's answer is a good one (+1 from me and it is currently the accepted answer). But as a general rule it would not be unreasonable for a computer science course to require a laptop, with certain minimum specifications (e.g., camera, WiFi, recent OS, etc.).
The analogy with a carpentry course is a good one. A carpentry course could require all students to bring tools meeting specific requirements (not just "any" hammer, but a particular type/size/weight, etc.) Or an art course may require the students to have particular supplies to do required projects. All of these are reasonable if the specifics are available on day one of the course, or possibly even in advance of the course. Really no different, except for the cost of a decent laptop, than requiring particular textbooks. (Actually, some textbooks cost more than some laptops...)
But requiring a laptop late in a course does not make sense. While laptops are quite common for students, a desktop can be far more ergonomically friendly and the combination of a good desktop with a large monitor + a tablet can be comparable to a good laptop. Except for college students and people who travel a lot, I actually recommend desktop computers to a lot of people - many of them don't even realize it is an option any more, and in fact OP's professor may not be aware of the many reasons why someone might have a desktop instead of a laptop.

I would expect a carpentry course to provide tools in the lab, an art course would have painting supplies, etc. Students might bring their own if they have them, since they're more familiar with their own tools, but it shouldn't be required.

But even if the carpentry course requires students to supply their own tools, the cost difference between hammers and laptops is substantial -- 10's of dollars versus hundreds.

@Barmar Absolutely true. Which is why that information has to be available at the beginning - or preferably before - the start of the course.

@Barmar If I recall correctly, my daughter took an art course in college and was given a very specific list of supplies that were required for the course. The course was not required per se (it filled some category of course but she could have taken something else) but she wanted to take it and on day 1 she knew what she had to get - and most of the things she had to purchase as they were not things we had around the house. But in my mind no different from textbooks - you get what you need for a course or you drop the course. The problem here is it wasn't a requirement stated on day 1.

A carpentry course is a good comparison, and it proves you wrong. While you may be required to bring small and cheap tools like hammers and chisels, absolutely no one will ask you to bring your own table saw, which would be price equivalent of a decent laptop.

Did you mean to say the combination of a good laptop with a monitor and table is comparable to a good desktop?

@chepner A good desktop + monitor + tablet is comparable to a good laptop. ("Apples to apples", well not Apples actually - a decent mid-range desktop + monitor + Android (not Apple) tablet compared to a nice thin (but not absolute top) laptop.

@Davor Yes and no. A laptop (even a Chromebook) costs more than most hand tools (and a starting carpenter isn't going to have top-of-the-line stuff). But I believe the analogy holds. And there are options - rentals, etc. Plus if you buy a laptop that you only really need because of one course, you will almost certainly end up using it for plenty of other stuff.

I'm not sure what you are comparing. Computationally, most people will see little difference between a desktop and a laptop (the days when all but the most outrageously expensive laptops underperformed an average desktop machine are long gone).

Trust me there are differences. You still pay a premium to get a given amount of computational power and other features squeezed into a thin box. If that premium is $200 to $300, that's enough for a 24" monitor and a basic Android tablet.

The question was about specifically requiring a laptop. When the student has a perfectly fine desktop computer.

@chepner I can get 8TB storage for a desktop computer for 200 pound. Built into my laptop it’s more like 2,000.

@gnasher729 Most people won't need 8TB of storage. But I see now we're talking about price, which is fine (I was just stuck think about utility).

@chepner - I mean, my "1 generation behind" desktop is running a Ryzen 5950X and an RTX 3090 with 24 GB of memory. It costs half the price of my work-provided M1 Macbook Pro, but it will obliterate it in any computational task, while remaining significantly cooler. Yes, the differences are not as big as they were 15 years ago when I was a student, but they are still pretty hefty in my opinion.

Of course it is. Don't expect the school to give you one. Pay for it.

As other's have stated, while it's not unreasonable to assume that CS students have a computer (or specifically a laptop) why do you say this? The OP does have access to a desktop as required. This is an apparently sudden requirement. Also, schools/libraries loaning laptops is common and obviously something the OP should look before buying a laptop for one class.

Not if they don't tell you ahead of time BEFORE you registered and paid for the course.