text:
Online Quiz Times Given Last Minute
I am an Engineering undergraduate student at a Canadian University and have had trouble in a course with regards to time to complete online quizzes. The course syllabus says there are 4 quizzes worth 4% each throughout the semester and gives the weeks that they will be conducted on, but does not give the date or time of the quiz. The quizzes are online using our university teaching website that all courses use.
The first issue arose after the very first lecture. During the first lecture nothing was mentioned about the first quiz. The Saturday following the lecture the professor emailed us and said that the first quiz would open Monday morning at 8am and be due at midnight. He also said all further communication would be through the teaching website we all use. (The syllabus also says all communication should be through the website). I planned to do the quiz (it's only a 10 minute 5 question quiz) Monday after my other classes in the evening around 9pm. I go to do the quiz only to realize it is closed. I check my email and apparently the professor emailed Sunday evening at around 7:30pm saying that the quiz will be closed at 8pm on Monday. I don't check my email every single day as it has never been a form of important communication for any class I have ever taken. I do, however, check the class website daily and there was not a single notification about the quiz. Every other course I have taken has given notifications on the website. I felt like this was unfair as the professor has said clearly on the syllabus and in his earlier email that all communication would be through the website. He then proceeded to change the quiz time (which is not on the syllabus) the day before on a Sunday evening through an email. I emailed showing him the discrepancy in a very professional manner and he simply replied with "check your email, things may change".
I found this last minute change to be very unprofessional and was upset at losing 4% of my mark. I have never missed a single assignment or test in all my 4 years of university and I attend every single lecture.
I would have taken my complaint further but in class the professor said that since some students were not enrolled in the class yet since it was only the first lecture that the lowest marked quiz would have its mark replaced with the average of the other three. Although not a direct remedy to my problem and not exactly fair I let it slide since it was good enough and I don't like complaining.
Now 4 weeks into the course the same thing happened. I check my email Tuesday morning to find that the professor emailed again on a Sunday (two days prior) saying quiz 2 is now open until Monday at midnight. I missed the quiz again. I checked the class website all throughout the weekend and Monday, no notifications were given. This is the second quiz I have now missed because I don't check my email every day and there is no remedy in place for missing it, it will be a zero. I have not yet contacted the professor or anyone else yet as I don't really know what to do except maybe talk to the department chair.
I feel like these last minute quizzes are not professional and should be announced in the lectures ahead of time or at least have their dates and times on the syllabus and if things change a notification on the class website is the bare minimum that should be done to communicate this.
Am I wrong to suggest that the professor is being unreasonable with the way he is communicating the quiz times? Should they not be set ahead of time or at least communicated in class and on the class website as opposed to email one day before? Do I have a case if I talk to the department chair?

The first one there's a legitimate complaint (having said, "all further communication would be through the teaching website"). Any one after that is on you (having then said, "check your email, things may change").

Fair enough, although I did not interpret his comment to be a policy change since he only said it to me and not the rest of the class. What if someone else was in my position but hadn't contacted him previously? I'm more upset with the policy being unfair/unclear in general rather than my individual case and I feel like other people could easily fall victim here.

It's 2 AM and I can't sleep, so I'm posting a new quiz for you all. Hurry, you have 30 seconds!

When the syllabus says one thing and the policy says the same thing, idiosyncratic/arbitrary changes are absolutely not on the student, regardless of how many times the professor has gone against policy, syllabus or previously stated expectations.

The first one, suddenly announcing closing the quiz early half an hour before, is an unreasonably short notification. Anyone could not check their emails for 30 min, or receive the email immediately but not be in a position to take the quiz right away. The second one, however, giving a whole day, seems reasonable. What is stopping you from checking your email every time you check the course website?

The professor has been jerking you around (whether intentionally or not).
For now at least, you will need to check your email more often during the target dates.
It is fine to present your concerns to the department.  (In my view, being a good citizen of one's university includes providing constructive criticism that will help improve students' educational experience.)  I recommend presenting your concern in a calm way.

I'm confused: When you first brought this to the attention of your professor, you were told: "check your email, things may change". Then, later on, you say:

I checked the class website all throughout the weekend and Monday, no notifications were given.

Why would you check the class website all through the weekend and Monday, and not check the one place where your professor told you alerts would be coming? Near as I can tell, you answer that when you say:

I don't check my email every single day as it has never been a form of important communication for any class I have ever taken.

Well, it looks to me like now you're in a class where it's an important form of communication, and you'd be better off checking your inbox than the class website.
I'm seeing some irony in your allegations of "unprofessionalism," given the fact that, when you first talked to your professor about this issue, you used email to do so:

I emailed showing him the discrepancy in a very professional manner...

Now, as for your bottom-line question:

I feel like these last minute quizzes are not professional and should be announced in the lectures ahead of time or at least have their dates and times on the syllabus and if things change a notification on the class website is the bare minimum that should be done to communicate this.
Am I wrong to suggest that the professor is being unreasonable with the way he is communicating the quiz times?

There are couple issues here, and you seem to be mixing the two:

How much notice is given between when the quizzes are announced and when they are due.
How the professor is alerting the students to the fact that the quizzes are now open.

As for your second question, I don't think email is an "unreasonable" way to announce quizzes, particularly if the students at large haven't yet indicated that this is inconvenient or ineffectual for some reason.
As for the first question, a 48-hour notice might be reasonable to ask for, but your issue seems to be more about email vs. the course website than the amount of time actually allotted.
By the way, I think you should be willing to be more flexible in this regard. (Perhaps the professor finds it very easy to use email but onerous to update the course website.)
In short, I don't think using email as a primary form of notification is "unprofessional," and I certainly don't think you should go to the dept head with a complaint before hashing out the current procedures with the professor in class. And, if you do elect to discuss this in class, be very wary of accusing your professor of acting "unprofessionally," as you did twice in your question. That smacks more of whining than an earnest effort to improve the process for all stakeholders.

What about the rest of the class that was not told to check their email? Is it fair to them since the syllabus still says use the website? Also I don't see how less than 1 business days notice is reasonable in any form of communication for an out of class quiz. When I emailed the professor it was in response to an email by him wondering why I did not complete the quiz, it was not confrontational in the least. I am not mixing the two, I just think they are both problems. I don't have an issue with email if it is given with enough notice and if that is what the official policy is, but it isn't.

In regards the "unprofessional" allegations, that was in reference to the fact that he specifically said all further communication would be through the website and then used email to change a previously set quiz time a few hours before the quiz. Using email is not unprofessional if sufficient notice is given (at least more than 36 hours would be nice) and that it is the policy that all students are expecting.

@Alex: The SE site doesn't function by arguing about every proposed answer. If you think you have an answer, post it, and see if it gets upvoted or not.

I know, I was not trying to argue the answer, simply provide more context and information. I can see how it could be taken in an argumentative manner, so I will refrain from that in the future. Thanks for the comment.

I understand you are being upset and i can relate. However, chances are your professor does not do this on purpose but is busy with other things and only remembers the tests shortly before the next lectures.
What you can do to try and change the situation:

ask about the test time frames in lecture ("Professor, when will the next test be online?")
put up a forum post or similar stating that you have trouble adjusting to the tests due to their somewhat spontaneus openings and short times, asking for either the time frames to be lengthened or notifications about upcoming tests in advance.
check your email more often (yes, really!)

I would not recommend talking to the department chair before doing all of these.

How does this fix the problem that a student has missed 8% already, exactly because the professor is conducting themselves very unprofessionally? Being busy isn't an excuse: they have had to go back onto the system, change the closing times they already set, send new emails about the change, and then respond to the criticism. It takes more effort and time, not less, to do it this way!

it does not fix the 8%-problem, I cannot do that. I do think the professor is to blame, but i don't think that complaining to the department chair would make any impression other than "person not checking mail often enough is angry" hence my recommendation to first try and adapt to it.

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Best way to apply for position as a teaching assistant
Soon, I'll start my last year of undergraduate studies in physics.
At my university it is possible (but not too common for undergraduates) to be employed as a teaching assistant for a first year's course. In order to get some work experience and do what I really enjoy, namely explaining physics-stuff to other students, I would be ecstatic if I got such a position. However, on the university website, there is no information given about how to apply, or whether they aleady have enough teaching assistants for the next semester.
Therefore, I plan to directly "apply" to the lecturer of the course I would enjoy getting involved in the most, and ask her if she would employ me as a teaching assistant. I'm planning to include the following things in the application e-mail I'm sending her:

A cv (created using LaTeX, to show I'm capable of using LaTeX)
My grades (that aren't too bad, especially the ones of when I took this course myself)
A well-designed guide I created in LaTeX, which describes how she could use the video communication software Zoom's "breakout rooms" as a system to host the otherwise in-person question time each week, in the likely case the university doesn't allow attendance classes

Now, my question is about if the above listed attachments will be effective in making a good impression and persuading her to consider me for the position.
I'm especially unsure whether including this "guide for doing the question time in Zoom" is any good, as I might leave an impression of being overly controlling, or she might feel obliged to use this guide if he employs me, and, thus, won't do it in the first place. On the other hand, including it would show her that I am highly motivated and have a lot of initiative.
I highly appreciate your answers and advice. Getting this position would mean a whole lot to me.

To start with, figure out whom to apply to.  (Adding specifics about country/subject/... could also help to have more tailored answers.)

@user151413 so you'd suggest directly contacting the lecturer wouldn't be the best idea? I have already taken two courses with this lecturer, and done quite well in them, thus, I think my chances would be best for directly applying to her. (Because there is no information about where to apply on the university website, and I fear getting instantly rejected otherwise)

Well, it is not clear whether the lecturer is in charge of hiring undergrad TAs.  At the places which I know (Germany), there is usually some central hiring of TAs in the department, and then the TAs are distributed to the individual courses (certainly for large undergrad courses where lots of TAs are needed).  In such a case, you would have to apply with the person coordinating the TAs.

I would just offer a general caution that "explaining physics stuff to other students", while fun for you, is not necessarily an effective way to teach.

Ask a faculty advisor, if you have one.

Personally, I'd be turned off by receiving your guide to using Zoom: it seems to carry an implication that (a) I don't currently know how to use Zoom, and (b) I couldn't look things up for myself. I suggest not sending this unless you have clear evidence that it is welcome.

I would omit all the materials in your initial email, and just ask the lecturer a simple concise question:

I would be interested in working as a teaching assistant for your course.  Are there any openings, and if so, what is the procedure to apply?
If not, do you know who I would contact about working as a teaching assistant for another course?

There is no point in attaching your materials until you know that they are wanted and that you are sending them to the right person.

You might want to specify that you are an undergrad in the email. Different universities have different cultures, but in general TA jobs often go to grad students, you don't want to get the wrong information. If you intend to go to grad school next year you might also want to say that, as it might make you a more attractive candidate for TA as an undergrad.

@sig_seg_v: It sounded from the comments like OP has taken classes with the lecturer, so I assumed she would recognize OP's name.  If not then your advice is certainly good.

Nate's letter is good, but I would recommend attaching an unofficial copy of your transcript.  Undergraduate TAs are usually selected based on their grades or on the faculty's personal knowledge of the TA.

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Recommendation letters post master's
I'm presently in a master's program. The program is much more relevant to the area I wish to do a PhD in (I switched majors from Bachelor's->Master's). I took two recommendation letters from my undergraduate institution to apply for master's, but the strong one was about a relatively unrelated subfield and I have not kept touch with the professor in question due to the switch. I'll be applying 3 years post undergrad. In this situation, can I forego the folklore rule of 1 letter of recommendation from an undergrad university ?

Hmmm. Never heard that folk tale.

I don't see much value in a letter from an old relationship that is no longer relevant. Your recent work will almost certainly be considered more heavily than anything you did as an undergraduate. (Extraordinary cases aside.)
Get letters from those who know your work and can make a (positive) prediction about your likelihood of success in the new program. That probably means professors and/or advisors from your MS program.

@FareedAbiFarraj You should probably include your degrees. Name followed by MA or MS (or whatever) is enough. You can include the field in parentheses in the signature area.

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The Curious Case of Disappearing Funds
I am a Marie Curie early stage researcher in a H2020 funded project (early training network, for those aware of the terminology), that's spread between several universities in Europe (including where I am now, London /snark). I'm approaching the end of my contract.
This project is, according to the published figures, rather lavishly funded (€4 mil in total). Just in the "Research, Networking and Training Costs" there's approx €200k for three researchers for three years (that comes to 1800/mo per researcher!). This excludes salary costs, management costs, etc.
This project has been plagued from the beginning by a serious lack of transparency and mismanagement, which has been slowly revealed throughout the duration of the project.
Some examples:

We, as researchers, were not consulted as to what training we need, and were "forced" to go to courses & workshops organised by the consortium partners, which half of the time were useless (completely off topic).
Even if we didn't attend said workshops (out of desperation to get work done, in my case), the host university would still pay the organising partner a set "participation" fee.
I was told there's no budget to go to conferences, even if I had a paper in. Some of us had to pay up front for our secondment related travel costs (at our industry partners).
We were told secondments were mandatory 8 months, whereas actually they were maximum 8 months.
My host university slotted me in at the wrong pay grade for two years (was being underpaid - this issue is sorted, but just goes to show). They're still using the wrong conversion rate, instead of the ECB rate (£0.7 for €1), but apparently that's going to get sorted at the end of the contract.

My conundrum is simple: I've just been told that my host university has overspent, and there's no more money for me to go to an important industry board meeting where I was invited due to the research I've been doing so far, and supposed to talk about it in front of a couple of important industry actors in my field.
I'm a bit fed up. I have never seen a single excel sheet of sorts on what the money has been spent so far, by whom and on what. It has been consistently denied to us. From my own book-keeping, I've spent, so far, somewhere in the range of 1/5th of my total budget.
I'm afraid to push too hard on my supervisors for details, as I  still need to (write and) submit a dissertation with them, and maybe get a PhD degree - and they might easily get offended.
I also believe this should be "sorted out" at one point or the other. I've been previously working in practice (Architecture & Engineering) for 4 years where such behaviour would have spelled instant trouble and litigations. How would one report/flag serious concern/blow a whistle on such a project, in the rather sensitive British cultural context?
Disclaimer: I do realise I am in a very lucky position, and life can be much worse in academia & research than I'm having it... it's just that I might have a too developed sense of justice or need for clarity for my own good.

UK universities do weird stuff with conversion rates. I know Marie Curies that got 1.5€->1£ and others 1.3€->1£... Depends on how much money your university wants to grab for themselves, and often this is a university-wide policy. It sucks, true, but its legal.

Your post seems to mention a lot of quite precise numbers. I'm not sure how easy it would be for people closer to your project to identify faculties or persons involved (including you), so you might want to edit those a bit..

Plus, as a Marie Courie in the UK, you generally need to pay the university fees from the salaries, there it goes another 6K£/year at least. Often too, as Marie Couries are not students, but staff, there is an overhead of money to pay taxes, plus university "staff fees", etc. Yes, its good you are worried and that want to check where your funding goes (paying for your own conferences is definitely not the norm at all), but I'd threat carefully about calling funds "disappearing".

@nabla - good shout. edited! (i'm afraid my chance at being anonymous has been foregone, but besides the potentially frustrated tone, i stand by what's written there and hope they're valid questions)...

@AnderBiguri, you're right. the title is a bit sensationalistic  The salary parts + employer's costs are covered from a different money pot, university cut yet another one, afaik (vague info from the eu project people at the uni). The tuition fees (5k/year) do come out of the money pot i'm worried about.

I guess, more specific question would be: "How to politely raise this issue and seek clarification from the project leaders?"

@AnderBiguri reading the plural of Marie Curie is like hearing the sound of dentist's driller...

@HermanToothrot

@HermanToothrot Marie Curii?

"They're still using the wrong conversion rate, instead of the ECB rate (£0.7 for €1), but apparently that's going to get sorted at the end of the contract. [...]
My conundrum is simple: I've just been told that my host university has overspent"
Sure they did, they applied a rate 20% off!
"London, Snark, Europe" London has always (or never, depending on your point of view) been in Europe, do not mix Europe with the sh*tty bandwagon called European Union (which is even incapable of properly check its own reearch funds, as you clearly show).

These are public funding from the EU, I don't think there should be any secrets how the money has been used, because eventually the universities involved will have to report this to the EU. Don't go point blank to the secretary or the PI until you have gathered more information, there might be expenses or costs that are legitimate and that you don't know about.
A first step would be to ask the secretary/auditor in charge of the bookkeeping the documents documenting how the money has been used.
Secondly you have to go through these and flag transactions that according to your knowledge don't sounds right. You then need to gather some information if these flagged expenses sound right or not, you could also contact the EU for this.
Third step, if some of these transaction don't make sense ask to the people who reported these expenses.
Last step, if you find discrepancies you have to bring this up with the EU.

Thanks for the sensible answer. I've asked for an update and it seems we're going to get one. Agree with the EU being last resort. I'm not looking to cause potential lasting damage due to miscommunication, or revenge. Let's see how it goes.

@Dimitrie in most UK universities the relevant individuals for "bookkeeping" will be in the "Grants department" who are responsible for tracking the spending across all awards. This dept should produce monthly reports, especially for large external grants such as Horizon2020. Any large transactions should have been approved by the Finance dept. Grants may be reluctant to share spending info with you as you're not the PI, but if you raise your concerns with them discretely (i.e. send a vague email and voice your concerns directly in a video call) they should take it seriously. Good luck

I am not detailedly aware of European Training Networks, but it sounds like you are grossly misunderstanding some things here.
1. €200k for three researchers for three years are absolutely certainly not only for your travel and consumables.
As you correctly assessed, this would be very lavish and no EU project that I have ever seen gives you that level of funding. European Training Networks in particular are, as far as I have seen, generally underfunded when it comes to travel, and assume that the host institutions also chip in. Assume that there are costs calculated in here that you are not seeing, for instance institutional overheads or the costs for organizing trainings.
2. I understand that the "lack of transparency" is disappointing, but this is not your project, it's your supervisor's.
Quite frankly, PhD students generally have no detailed insights into the finances of the projects that they work on because they are also not formally responsible for them (i.e., you are probably not formally responsible for signing expenses).
Your supervisors report to their administration and to the European Union, not to you. They do not owe you an Excel file of where the project finances go. But do not worry - there is a formal audit at the end of the project which will look very carefully into where the different funds went. If it was actually grossly misspent (as opposed to spent on things that you or the other PhD students didn't want), legal issues will come up. However, I presume this will not be the case, as your supervisors are almost certainly aware of the mandatory end-of-project audit.
3. Project politics are a thing.
Your university presumably commited to sending you to certain trainings when they signed up for the network. Yes, it sucks if they are unrelated to your work, but sometimes you'll have to do things for your project that are not key to your personal research agenda. In a Training Network those are a few trainings here and there - in an IP project it could have easily been as much as 50% of your work time. Without knowing the details, I would still guess that you are complaining on a fairly high level here.
That said, your institution still screwed up.
There should be money for you to go to conferences and present your research. If the project funds do not suffice for that, they should have made sure that the university can co-finance from other sources. If they are unable to do that, they should not have hired a PhD student.

Agree with point 1. Those monies are not just for our travels, they do need to cover many other things too - like 5k/year tuition fees, which just in itself is a lot... This project is lavish, as it discounts travel monies for industry partners to attend said events - fair game, but I guess your last point is nailing it at the end of the day.
With regards to transparency - I am leaning towards @Herman-Toothrot's answer. A simple update (for which i was asking since last june) on the budget a couple of months ago would have allowed me to plan better and avoid these kind of situations.

I only partly agree with point 2, while the PhD student shouldn't care too much about finance, it should know clearly what the stipend is, how much money is available for travel, conferences, research costs, etc, because part of the PhD is to learn how to manage funding. I don't like PI that are too secretive about funding.

And further to point 2, the whole appeal to authority thing seems unnecessary and misplaced.  Say the project supervisors don't "owe" the PhD student anything.  So what?  If the project is publicly funded and being legitimately operated they should have no qualms about sharing this information whether or not it's "owed" to anyone.  Whatever personal objections they might have to doing so are surely non-relevant.  If they want to be 'the boss' and entitled to order their underlings to do any arbitrary thing they like without question perhaps they should seek a private sector management job.

Generally a good answer but H2020 isn’t generally coupled to compulsory course/conference attendance in the way described by OP, somewhat contrary to what your point 3 says. And H2020 is indeed fairly generous with funding for travel and consumables. Maybe not to the tune of 1800 EUR/mo but definitely enough to fund a conference per year on top of typical consumables for an expensive project. In fact, a per month figure is misleading since the requirements will obviously vary drastically across the course of the project. 200k/3 total is plausible.

@KonradRudolph H2020 STREP or IP projects not, but Training Networks such as the one that seems to fund OP often are. And 200k/3 is factors more than what I have ever seen in per-person travel funds in any European project or network.

@xLeitix “200k/3 is factors more than what I have ever seen in per-person travel funds” — including consumables? I think you underestimate how expensive those are; for instance, wet-lab work in biology (which is what I can assess; no idea how much you’d need in architecture & engineering, or whatever OP is working in), and that value corresponds to just 22,000 EUR/year. Not an outrageous amount.

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text:
How to refer to a source with "minor" typos in the title?
This questions supplements the existing: how to refer to a source with typos in the title, where OP spotted grammar mistakes in the title of papers mentioned in the reference list and wondered whether or not they should correct them.
As a major con:

The purpose of references is to help readers locate your sources as easily as possible. Correcting titles might give the impression that you are referring to another work.

But what about mistakes that have little to no influence on search engines or paper identity such as, for example, punctuation and missing accents?
In my specific case, an important keyword features an en-dash and the french circumflex accent. I find it written in four different ways in the titles of my bibliography.

Depending on where your sources have been published, the format/style guide you are using, and where you have found them, the definitive way of referring to a source is to cite it using the title as it is written in the source publication.
In some cases you will find character accents missing as it is not always a trivial matter to write accents - this depends on the character set you are using. I have seen that older papers and articles that were typeset for English publications simply did not have those characters available in the character set used at the time. Thus accents and special characters were "anglicised" - for example, château as chateau, leçon as lecon, etc.


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In which section of a research paper is it best to justify the choice of methods?
I'm currently writing the methodology section of my thesis and wondered if  I was including too much.
In the methodology section I have currently included:

Alternative approaches I considered
The pros/cons of those approaches/applicability to this project
Why I selected the approach I used

This information is needed somewhere but it is resulting in a very long methodology which is going a lot deeper into "Why I chose this approach" than "Here's how I did the research".
Does this "Why" discussion belong in the methodology section of a research paper or should it be placed somewhere else? If so, where?
edit
As an example: I can either survey people or perform an analysis of existing discussions on the topic. There are pros/cons to each approach (sample size, recruitment, etc) . The approach I choose will impact the research but I want to discuss the differences in the possible approaches and explain my reasoning for my choice.

Methodology section should focus on your own method (or algorithms or mathematical modeling) for the research.

Alternative approaches should also be discussed there in the same section precisely (if the alternatives are not highly different from the principal trunk).
The pros/cons of your approaches should be discussed in "Results and Discussion" or in the "Conclusion" section with points.
Why you selected the approach belongs to "Introduction" along with a small statement in "Methodology" itself.

Overall, methodology section tells the story of "HOW" rather than too much of "WHY". "WHY" should belong to introduction.

Thanks. I've added an example of what my "why" discussion is about. In this case, I don't think "Why I selected this approach" makes any sense until I describe the different approaches so putting "I chose to do it like this because" before "Here are the choices I have" feels illogical. I'll think about re-wording it and see if it makes sense.


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What is the mean in an standard exam? (For grading on a curve)
Suppose a grading system is used in which grades vary between 1 and 100. Grades below 50 are failing grades. If I want to grade the students on the normal curve, which grade should I choose as the mean of the distribution? In other words, what should be the mean of the new grades? The number 50 is somehow counter-intuitive, as it results in half of the students failing the exam.
Note: This question was previously posted to stats.SE, but was voted as off-topic there.

Grading on a curve sucks.

The whole concept of grading on a curve seems wrong - it means paying no attention to how good students are in absolute terms, and only how they compare to each other within a given class. Why would one want to do that?

@Flyto.  Good point, but in the case of a very difficult exam,  grades are indicative of absolute performance only indirectly (if they are so at all, in that case). I mean they are only proportionate to the absolute (objective) performance.

“Grading on a curve” means that you select what percentage of grades you want to correspond to a given final grade. It’s entirely up to you how you choose the resulting mean grade using that system. If you want to make the mean a 60 or an 80 or anything else, that’s your call. Ultimately, though, the point of the curve is to avoid having “grades less than 50 are failing.”

Thanks @aeismail, BTW What is usually done on this respect?

Your last sentence tells me that you do not want a normal distribution to be your "curve" since, in the symmetrical distributions, the mean and the median coincide. In reality, in my experience, the distributions of students' performance are more a right skewed (right tail long) chi square distributions. These distributions of course depend also on the difficulty of the exams and how instructors tamper with the examination procedure. In cases of those who want to pass the whole class you may see chi square distribution drastically skewed to the left, where, like in lake Wobegon, "all students are above average". That much for the distribution of students' performance. Grade "curving" does not have much to do with these distribution curves, rather has to do with the ranking of the students and instructors (or sometimes implicitly or explicitly departments') manipulation of grade or passing percentages. So "curving" amounts to drawing segments on the ranking score line and assigning appropriate grade labels, arbitrarily, with one restriction that hopefully higher grades imply higher overall class score...

Thank you @Rado. Regarding your first sentence, isn't a normal distribution with mean 50 as symmetric as one with that of 70? And would you please explain this part ranking of the students and instructors (...) manipulation more?

@Kaveh When you talk about percentage of students below certain point, you are talking about a percentile. When, like in your case the number is 50%, you have the median. The mean is not to do with percentages. In symmetrical distributions the mean and the median coincide...

@Kaveh Many instructors and schools manipulate exams and then the resulting scores to get passing grades for as many students as possible. This applies to measly community colleges to Ivy League Universities, with a negligible number of exceptions.


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How long should your answers be for a postdoc interview?
I have a postdoc interview, I found a video that talks about the most common postdoc questions where the person says "the general rule of thumb is that all your answers should start and stop within 30 seconds", he also suggested to summarize your answers to 3-5 sentences. He insisted on this especially for the "tell me about yourself" question, is this really the "general rule of thumb" of postdoc answers? Because I have tried this for the first question and I found myself talking for 1 minute or so.
Edit:
For the sake of clarity, how long should your answer be for the "Tell me about yourself" question? If I am supposed to summarize my answer to 5 sentences, I feel that I will leave out a lot of details !

Try to behave as you always should try to behave: In a socially sensible and sensitive way.
Try to see if people want to ask another question, or whether they are happy with you to continue. Ask whether/offer that you can add more details, state that you will be happy to discuss X further ("I have also worked for a while on X, I will be happy to provide more details if you are interested"), and so on. Maybe make a short break/take a breath, and see if someone jumps with another question they have been waiting to ask since 30 seconds, or if they are waiting for you to continue. Attaching this to times seems silly.
Generally, it is better to err on the side of being a bit too talkative, as long as you watch out for (non-verbal) signals (i.e. people trying to find a point to interrupt, etc.): If you read the signals, you can easily stop.  On the other hand, having people in interviews who wouldn't say a word about themselves and just answer questions with "yes" and "no" is a pain, and also most likely not the profile of someone you want to hire (after all, postdocs should actively collaborate, supervise students, etc.).
Just keep in mind: People have (hopefully) read your CV.  If they say "tell us about yourself", they want to know things beyond what is in the CV, or at least get some hooks where to start asking questions about things which go beyond the CV.

to give aspies a chance, when you are interviewing someone - please give clear signs and don't rely on these so called "non-verbal cues"... just interrupt, create a short moment of mutual confusion, and ask/say whatever it is you want to say/ask ;)

@Mark Sure, but this is not what the question is about.

true - not criticizing the answer or expecting it to be added. But it felt relevant enough to mention so a potential interviewer (who might read/answer here as well) understands that non-verbal signals aren't understood by all of us

I'd say if non-verbal signals don't work, most interviewers will eventually interrupt. But adding it certainly doesn't hurt.


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What's holidays entitlement for postdocs in the UK?
I applied for a postdoc position. In the job description, they mentioned that they offer a 30 days holiday plus bank holidays and Christmas closure. But when I received a formal offer, they mentioned this: "219 hours plus all customary and statutory bank holidays per holiday year". This means at most, 2 weeks per year? Am I missing missing? Is this common for postdocs in the UK?

Isn't a 8 hour day/40 hour work week customary in the UK? 219 hours for me in the US would sound like 219/40 = about 5 1/2 weeks or 27 working days; adding in some other holidays would easily bring that over 30.

Actually, "8" hour days includes a meal break. 219/30 = 7.3. So that sounds about right.

Yes, @BryanKrause is correct. Your contract will have a nominal number of working hours per day (probably 7.5), and so you need to do 219/(hours per day) to get the number of days' holiday. Then you additionally get all bank holidays. 'Customary days' depend on local factors, but probably amount to any days between Christmas and New Year that aren't already holidays.

I think I wasn't seen it that way. Since they've mentioned my hours per day which 8.5, I thought that directly mentioned the number in days. I am applying from overseas, so I don't know about this stuff. Can you kindly answer the question with a general rule?

Probably 8.5 hours per day assumes 8 working hours and a 30 minute lunch break.

They've mentioned this "9am to 5:30 pm Monday through Thursday and from 9am to 4:3p pm on Fridays, with an hour for lunch daily". So, I think it's assumed in their calculations!

Right. So you're expected to work for 36 hours a week. 219/36 = 6 weeks' worth of leave = 30 days as promised. Plus bank holidays and customary days.

Thank you so much everyone!!

Maybe you are thinking you need to take a full 24 hours of vacation to get the day off?
Typically you take hours off for your working hours (I'm in the US but I can't really imagine this being different for the UK; also the math works out). So for a job as stated where you have a total of 36.5 hours of working time per week, 219 hours would then be exactly 6 weeks (aka 30 work days) of vacation, which you can take in whatever increments are suitable (say, 4 hours if you need just half the day, 7.5 hours for a full Tuesday, etc). There might be some limits on when this time can actually be taken to not conflict with certain job responsibilities, but given proper notice they should accommodate your requests.
It would be reasonable to clarify exactly how vacation hours are awarded and taken (I'd search on the university website for some regulations before asking someone about it) but the numbers stated seem like they fit with the "30 days" in the job description.

Sorry - I had a typo in my comment above - the required hours are 36.5 hours per week so 219 hours is exactly 6 weeks.

@avid Whoops, took your word for it :)

Just two small notes: #1 a lot of UK universities will typically allocate vacation days per academic, not tax year (so, September to September, rather than April to April). Unless you start in September, you are likely to see proportionately less days for the current year. #2 our system allows booking half and full days off (but no finer than that).


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I was invited to an unexpected and urgent second postdoc interview (in less than 24h) - Is this fair?
I had postdoc at a top 10 university in the world. The email of the first interview said I should expect questions around the job description. The first interview was very smooth and I felt very good about it.
A few days later, I received an email in the afternoon, the email said I have a second interview tomorrow morning and I should expect questions around the job description (I think these are just automatic emails).
The second interview however, was a bit different. In order to decide between me and another candidate, they said they needed a technical interview which they presented a problem I needed to solve in 10 minutes, the problem required a lot of programming skills and classic concepts. I haven't programmed in a while now and nothing in the job description not in the email says "programming skills".
I gave okay answers and played it safe a lot in my problem solving approach. I couldn't solve the problem in the given time because I simply needed to refresh my memory and remember some concepts, but I did get a "thumbs up" from the potential PI when I was explaining some stuff. Unfortunately, I wasn't selected and I think the other candidate gave better answers.
Now days later, I can't stop thinking about that whole process. Normally, if the panel expects a presentation, they mention it in the invitation email. It's very weird and a bit unfair to do that to candidates they clearly liked in a very short amount of time. I truly believe that the interview could have been way better if they mentioned anything about a technical interview. Just because one candidate performed better (obviously, people are different), doesn't make the evaluation process fair. What do you think about the situation, is this a normal routine for postdoc interviews?
PS:
The postdoc was in the UK and I live in north Africa. I am saying this because perhaps it justifies why the HR send an email and didn't call (perhaps they can only call candidates within the UK). The field is Computer Science.

If all interviewed candidates were treated the same way, the process was at least equally unfair. (Fair and equal are not always the same).

They probably didn't call because email is typical, I wouldn't worry about that

Taking the PI perspective... she/he got two exceptional candidates and needed to select among you two. Good that she/he did not just flip a coin, but gave you a chance. Short notice was (hopefully) equally short for both of you. You say that she/he was kind (giving you thumbs up).  Maybe short notice was on purpose, sincet the PI needed to assess the skillsm rather than knowledge, she/he did not want you to (over)prepare for this, but just let it flow.
As long as the other candidate was better I would not worry too much and have a feeling of loosing in a fair battle.

They might have already had their candidate selected but needed to go through the motions for compliance purposes.

@eps that seems unlikely - if they already wanted a specific candidate, they would not go to the trouble of extra assessment

That sounds wholly unfair, which leaves you with two choices…
Would you rather take the job and play their game… whatever that might mean in X month's time?

To be honest, it sounds like the kind of additional job interview you might well get from well-meaning but absent-minded people who haven't planned out the interview process properly (or who aren't experienced at interviewing). It's possible that they weren't sure who to select, they couldn't think of any better way of distinguishing between you other than an extra interview (which they hadn't planned for in advance), and HR were chasing them to get on with the decision. That easily leads to people cooking up a random interview and choosing based on that. Unfair? Maybe. But understandable.

It's not respectful to applicants for the interview process to be unclear or changed at the last minute. However, for various reasons, many of them completely innocent (busy people, miscommunications), this may happen.
It's also not always transparent what an interviewer is looking for. If the interview has you attempt "Task A", it may not be performance on Task A that you are being evaluated on. Instead, you may be evaluated for how you handle an unexpected change in plans. Or you may be evaluated on how you ask for clarification around a task, how you manage time if a task cannot be completed within the window you are given, what you do when you find you are stuck on something (do you ask for help? Stop and admit you are stuck? Make something up that might work? Pretend you know what you're doing?), etc.
Judging "success" on this sort of task is entirely up to the interviewer's views and opinion. As far as whether it's "fair", well...the definition of "fair" is a moving target and various opinions would give various descriptions of "fair". In one sense, as long as the same information is communicated in the same time frame to all the candidates, and all candidates are judged by the same criteria, it is "fair" among those candidates.
As far as whether it's the process that selects the true best candidate for the job, well... if we had a better way of determining the best candidate than the clunky interview process, we'd use that method instead.

I'm not sure you can do much about this except for continuing to interview for positions that interest you. Positions at desirable universities are likely to attract many qualified applicants, and you aren't guaranteed a job just because you're qualified. Ultimately, they have to select someone, and it's not even really possible for the person doing the hiring to know that they've got the best one.
I'd recommend not spending more time thinking about the process of this one interview. Maybe their expectation is that programming is a bigger part of the role but didn't think it was necessary to mention it. Maybe they had a preferred candidate already but lacked the justification they needed and invented this task on the fly to create it. Maybe they're disorganized. The answer, whatever it is, won't help for your next interview. Maybe you even dodged a bullet and this is a bad work environment, and had you been hired your next Academia.SE question would be about being stuck in a post doc where you're just treated as a programmer and aren't making any progress on independent research projects. Move on and forget this one.

Thank you for your answer.  For the record, I was really happy with my second interview because I was proud of how I handled the unexpected change, I stayed reasonable and methodical in my answers. But I know, in a normal circumstance, it could have been a lot better. I will turn this page and move on like you've mentioned.

If the interviewer has you attempt “Task A”, it may not be performance on Task A that you are being evaluated on. Reminds me of this discussion about an extreme version of such practices.

What do you think about the situation, is this a normal routine for postdoc interviews?

No. It’s not normal in several ways.
It’s not normal for a postdoc interview to have someone else schedule your interview for a specific time without consulting you first about whether the time works for you.
It’s doubly not normal when you are informed of the interview on such short notice, in the afternoon before an interview scheduled for the following morning.
(A possible exception to the above would be if it had been previously communicated to you ahead of time that this is how the scheduling would be carried out. But it sounds like that isn’t what happened in your case.)
Separately from that, it’s not normal to be tested on specific skills like programming, when you cannot reasonably guess based on the job description or obvious things about the PI’s research that those skills would be relevant for the job you’re being interviewed for.
Overall, it sounds like you had an unpleasant experience - sorry! - which does not reflect well on the competence and professionalism of the people who were interviewing you. Hope things go better next time and that you end up working with more thoughtful people.

I would also agree it is not good to do spontaneous tests at interview. People should always be given time to prepare.

I would jump with the typical "bullet dodged" comment. I would not take that job even if it was offered. I have seen this type of interview, and it is often that they have a "preaccepted" candidate and just want to get rid of the other. I'm not saying it is the case here, but in my country this is a routine occurrence.

@Magicsowon I don’t know about dodging a bullet, I think that’s impossible to say with any level of confidence. Everyone has flaws, no boss is perfect, and some bosses have flaws but are still very good to work with in many other ways. Also, being unemployed could be worse than having a boss who sometimes behaves unprofessionally, so I find the “you dodged a bullet” comments people like to throw around to be a bit tone-deaf.

Actually while I would normally agree to all points, I find applying for a post doc in CS to requiring a lot of programming skills should not be unexpected. (yes I know there are some niches in CS which are basically math, but isnt this the exception nowadays?)

@lalala I said in my answer that it would not be normal to test programming skills if the relevance of such skills could not reasonably be guessed from the PI’s research. So yes, I agree that if PI works in areas of CS where programming skills are an obvious requirement then OP has no grounds to complain. However, as for “isn’t this the exception”, I think the answer is a strong no — many research areas of CS have nothing to do with programming (and many areas of math do involve a lot of programming, so “basically math” isn’t a very helpful characterization anyway).

+1 for @DanRomik about the programming skills requirement. Just because the postdoc is in CS doesn't mean that you will have to do a lot of programming. For my particular case, the job description is more about network security and no signs of programming. The only skill that would make a difference for them is a knowledge of a particular tool and some standards (I have +4 year academic experience of the tool and I have 70 % knowledge of the standards). It's a bit strange to make the deciding factor a programming problem. But hey, may be I simply scored second.

Maybe you should try to see it from the other perspective.
What would you do if you had to decide between two candidates and cannot decide based on the interview.  If you are not involved in HR hiring standards, you could easily try to break the tie by scheduling a second round of interviews on the fly. Postdoc positions tend to be short for getting collaborative work done and you do not have the time to wait for the post doc to acquire skills that you now have decided are needed. (Projects evolve and between posting an opportunity and interviewing the profile of the ideal candidate has changed.) Maybe you would want to break the tie by looking for something that is valuable, but not part of the original description.
So, (quite) a bit ad hoc, but presumably no malice nor indications of a bad working environment. My reading of the situation is that you came in second, which is disappointing, but should also give you hope about your employability.

@tschwarz I agree with most of the points you've mentioned. Here why I used the word "fair", I really match with all the criteria in job description (essential and desirable). In fact, I really understand the project and where it's going (from the team's publications). The whole situation didn't feel like "we need more information (about the skills needed for the project) to decide between the two candidates" but it's more of "we only need one candidate to fail", I am saying this because the test is a general computer science problem and it's not related to the current project...

... But perhaps I am wrong, and simply failed the interview. The good thing is that I was able to have 2 interviews at a top 5 university, so I should focus on the positive like you mentioned!

You might've been the subject of a stress interview. These interviews are supposed to put you on the defensive and see how you react under pressure. For example, the interviewer might ask "your CV looks inadequate, what makes you think you can do this job?" This question is obviously aggressive, but it's kind of the point: it shows how you react. Other examples of stress interview questions are "How many rats are there in New York City?" or "Here's a problem, how would you solve it?".
Stress interviews are of course stressful, but don't take it personally. The interviewer doesn't hate you, they just want to see how you perform when stressed. From your description it sounds like you performed OK, but the other candidate was simply better. It's probable you could've done better if you had more time to prepare, but that probably also applies to the other candidate. Such is life. Good luck with your other interviews!


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A PI gave me 2 days to accept his offer after I mentioned I still have another interview. Is this normal?
Last week, I had a postdoc interview for a "senior" role. They call it senior because they've asked me to lead on a (perhaps the) research problem. For the interview, they asked me to prepare a 10 minutes presentation where I propose a research plan. My presentation focused on a particular case with a detailed plan. I proposed to work on a particular case simply because it's all I can do at the moment (in terms of my current knowledge and research experience from my Ph.D.).
They complimented my presentation and the fact that I have a clear plan. But they did say that they want someone to work on the research problem from a general perspective and then perhaps at the end, target a particular case. The researcher is also expected to show leadership during his research when working on the project. The issue is the general case will require a lot of reading. The interview was really good and I have answered all of their questions. But they didn't ask much to be honest (I guess it's because my presentation was technical and focused on the particular case and not the whole problem). But I wasn't expecting an offer because our research goals weren't the same.
Now that I gave some background to why I am hesitant, I will get to my question. The PI sent me an informal email just two days after the interview, saying that I did a good interview and I should expect good news. The next day, he did say that he's going to offer me the position (again informally) and that I need to accept so he can send a formal letter. I told him that I am interested but I have another interview next week in which I've confirmed my attendance. I said that we can start the formal procedure next week after my next interview. He basically said that you have 2 days (before my next interview) to accept otherwise he will move to the waiting list. It's my first time receiving an offer, is this normal? To give 2 days as a deadline knowing that I asked for more time for my second interview? Note that a 5 day-deadline is more than enough to have an idea about both postdoc positions!
Update
I want to thank you for answers. Really good points were mentioned that help see things from both sides (candidate's and the PI's point view). For this particular case, I decided to quickly decline the PI's offer informally.

@Libor, colorful. Possibly correct.

If you accept informally (nothing written) you can still reject formally. If they send out rejections to the other candidates upon your merely informal "acceptance", it's their loss if you have second thoughts; and they can still inquire with a rejected candidate if they are still interested in the position anyway.

This might be region-dependent. Where are you applying?

@Libor still though an accurate description of the hiring process of academia in the country I am in. People say they want things done yesterday, because it needed to be done yesterday (not like in industry where this is a hyperbole)

@user151413 It's really is very country/region dependent. From my (EU) perspective, having to make a decision before even seeing the formal offer feels completely backwards. Yet there are countries where a "formal offer" is pretty much the last step in a hiring process.

@TooTea No kidding? (Or: What do you call a formal offer?) E.g. in Germany the contract is often only signed on the first work day. Then again, the offer and acceptance is considered formal, and you would leave a very bad aftertaste if you cancelled after offering/accepting without good reason. (Of course, this were no much different with a contract: No-one wants a postdoc who is unwilling to do the job, and during the initial few weeks/months, it is realtively easy to terminate the contract on short notice.)

Run away! Run away!!!

This is how the PI would treat you if you agree to work him. If you're OK with that--- and the fact that you made this post at least suggests that you aren't--- fine, but at least know what you're getting into.

@user151413: Then again, the offer and acceptance is considered formal Is considered formal, or is formal? I am surprised if you would not get a binding engagement fromù the company before resigning at the current one.

@WoJ What I typically know for PhD and postdoc offers is an oral or email offer, which both sides consider formal, but it is not legally formal. (I've seen similar things in the US where I signed my contract on the first day, though of course visa issued required some formalities beforehand.) If you wanted, you could get a contract beforehand, though it is not that common in my experience. Note that typically postdocs don't resign somewhere - their old contract just expires.

In negotiation theory, such a tactic is known as an exploding offer, and its adverse effects are well-known: rushing people into hasty decisions and giving them the feeling that they're disposable can create distrust and a flawed work relationship. It also signals desperation, which will damage the PI's brand if the word gets around.
Such offers can happen, but they are definitely not the norm, and could be interpreted as a red flag. Proceed with caution.

Thank you for your answer. I mean it was discouraging enough for me that they wanted someone to basically lead the project and working on research problems that they're going to define.

@U.User That alone would not be a red flag for me (but possibly a mismatch of expectations). A post-doc is supposed to be the phase in which you grow to become an independent researcher, a quality you will need when you apply for faculty jobs. Defining and leading your own project is a good way to achieve that.

I understand. However in this case: they wanted me to lead research problems that THEY'RE going to define. My issue it not leadership, I have got an offer because my profile screamed leadership and autonomy. As I mentioned, they admired that I can develop a research plan, but weren't excited about the research problem itself.

@U.User Already a bit more special, but still not a red flag per se - apparently they have some interest in this topic, but not much own experience, and are looking for someone to drive that topic. Of course, if you don't care about the topic, there is a legitimate mismatch of expectations which might ultimately not lead to a good experience if you accepted the offer.

Agreed, I'd clarify to ensure they understood but never work for someone who'd force me into a situation like this.

Great answer. You might consider quoting some of the adverse effects from the source.

Related: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2008/11/26/exploding-offer-season/

@lighthousekeeper While it is true and an ideal world it should be like that (and there may be variations between fields), the vast majority of PD jobs are sponsored by grants and directly working under a PI where you do not own the project.

I wanted to also provide a different perspective, which adds to Ian Sudbery's answer.
I was recently in the interview panel for a postdoc position. The first two candidates both performed really well, and first choice was a close call, with another great candidate following. It is common in the UK to extend an informal offer to the 1st candidate within a day or two of the interview. The first candidate was offered a generous (too generous?) two-week deadline to respond. 15 days later, he responded in the negative. The second candidate was very surprised
when we got in touch 16 days after the interview... 3 days later he apologised saying that he unfortunately already accepted another offer.
Now, the funding for this particular position was time-limited: it expired on a fixed date, regardless of when the candidate started. Advertising for a position generally takes at least 5+ weeks: the position needs to be advertised for at least 2 weeks, and there needs to be at least 2 weeks between informing the shortlisted candidates and the interview date. A week or two are usually lost in between -- and often, new hires can only start in 1-3 months time, or even longer if they need to get a visa sorted.
Add to all of this that over the last year, due to covid, the Universities' budget is much tighter, individual research groups get less (or no) discretionary budget, there was even a hiring freeze in play for a few months.
I'll let you draw your own conclusions from this. 2 days certainly seems very insensitive to (you) the candidate. But if this is the second time the position is advertised in a similar situation to above, the PI likely has a fire burning under their chair as well.
On the more practical side, I would suggest:

If you really do not think the position is a good fit for you, reject quickly.
You have expressed many doubts. Also, as many answers point out, this kind of pressure at the offer stage might indicate negative things about the PI. Or the PI might be under a lot of legitimate stress to fill the position in this call, and is yet to learn how to handle it better. You need to decide what you think is more likely.

If you think the position might be a good fit, tell the PI that you are happy to start the formal paperwork.
Then go to the other interview. Under no circumstances cancel the other interview unless you have a signed contract -- and if it's just a video call anyway, just attend it. The paperwork will likely take a week or so -- and if you have a point of negotiation, like salary, it might take a few days longer.
If you want to "be nice", accept the contract if everything seems in order, and reject the other offer quickly if it comes.
If you want to prioritize your own interest, and don't care about leaving a slightly negative impression -- wait to see if you get an offer for a better position. And then reject the current offer ASAP. If this is before the paperwork was signed, great, just let them know that you accepted a better offer in the meantime. If this happens to be after the paperwork was signed...  well, let's just say that most PI's will understand that forcing somebody to stick to a contract for the duration of their notice period is just causing more delays and does not benefit anybody. Also, most PI's don't remember that one guy they never worked with a year later.
Don't do this if the 2nd offer comes in much later. But, if you do this within a few days, it should still leave the PI plenty of time to contact their second choices. If they send the rejection e-mails to their backup choices that quickly, especially without a signed contract for you, they should improve their hiring process. (You decide which duration of "much later" and "few days" makes you comfortable)

I think that the PI is pressing you improperly. I'd suggest replying that you need to have the details in writing before you can formally accept an offer. You can say that you are interested and "inclined to accept" but without making a definite decision prior to having the actual details.
This is likely to give you the time you need for the other interview. And if it isn't acceptable to the PI, then I'd worry whether everything is proper or not on their end.

The two days deadline is to a time-frame to accept or to start the formal procedure. This basically means that I am going to accept since I'm talking to the PI directly. I didn't want to use that strategy. I saw it like this "if I tell him that I confirmed my attendance to a second interview, he should understand that there was another committee that made a lot of efforts to prepare my interview, and that I can't just decline after confirming". But 2 days is too short for me.

Again, you can only accept or reject knowing all the details. You can be "interested", even at a high level. But no commitments without full disclosure.

Ah I see what you mean. The PI here says that he will generate all the details (or send the formal letter) after I accept informally. This means that he might send reject letters to other candidates if I "accept" informally.

How he deals with his other candidates is his problem, not yours. I wouldn't think too much about the informal accept.

If they send rejection letters to other candidates based on an informal acceptance and without a signed contract from both sides, they should improve their hiring practices.

@U.User You just answered your own question here... "But 2 days is too short for me." Thank them for the opportunity, but move on. Make sure you let them know that you simply cannot define your next several years work in two working days.

That "he will generate all the details after ... I accept informally" is a HUGE red flag. You should not accept until you know exactly what you're getting into, and the PI should know this.

Asking for an informal decision to go ahead before generating a contract is completely normal in some places (like here in the UK). In fact we are not even allowed to ask HR to generate a contract until the candidate has given us a commitment. That's a completely different thing to the fact they want the answer in 2 days.

What's the harm in giving them a commitment? there's no legally binding contract here, there's no obligation to, say, take the job if you find the terms are shitty - should, ideally, you commit to not doing the other interview? Sure! Should, they, ideally, not push you to accept without a decent amount of time to think? Sure! I'd argue these cancel each other out - make the informal commitment, do the other interview, and if it is a much better job than this, accept.

@lupe, the harm is to your reputation and to your self esteem.

@Buffy, it's true - but I'd strongly argue that without a contract, you don't know enough about the role to make a commitment, apart to express your strong interest in the role. However, you do owe them a very speedy answer - I'd be tempted to contact the other role, and ask if it's possible to interview early - I know we've done this before for someone we really wanted

Just to provide a somewhat different perspective to what has been discussed already, I'd say that what you have just described is very common (no comment on whether its morally suspect or practically counter-productive).
I was given a short time limit to accept both my PhD position and the one postdoc I had that was secured via a normal advertised position. While the same tactic wasn't quite used when I got my faculty position, they did want an informal commitment shortly after the offer, even if they accepted that it was conditional on successful negotiations of the conditions.
Generally the explanation given is that the recruiter wants to not keep others on the list hanging around too long. Of course, the other reason is to try and get you to take this one rather than bothering to interview at the other and therefore secure a superior worker for what might be a less good position for the worker.

The faculty position negotiation and outcome described here seems to have the correct nuance. And the last sentence of the post is critical to keep in mind.

When you say "short time", do you indeed mean 2 days, like in OP's case?

For the PhD and the postdoc, yes. I think in both cases I interviewed on Friday, and they wanted the answer by Monday morning. For the faculty position, it may have been more interview on monday, answer in principle by friday.

From friends and such outside academia, I would say this sort of thing is even more common there. 2 days may even be generous.

@BryanKrause Makes sense because the stakes are higher in academia. Hiring a PhD student or post-doc is a bigger commitment than hiring a run-off-the-mill service worker, so a sane PI will prioritize "hiring the best candidate" over "hiring some candidate fast".

I had a job when after the interview I got a call and had to "decide" (actually, it was more like confirming that I am interested) that I want the job on the spot. And then it took the university 2 months (!) to give to official offer. So I agree, 2 days is not ideal, but I can imagine it happens often, depending on the field.

@lighthousekeeper It very much depends on the situation, but I have seen many hirings when the process had to run in a very short time, because of regulations, constains of the availability of money, length of the administrative process, etc. Also, but they may be in a hurry because OP was the only acceptable candidate or the last of acceptable few ones. They have to re-start the whole hiring process if OP rejects the position, too (I have seen such situations). I do not defend these practices, I just highlight that they exist, and PI can be unintentionally too harsh on the deadline.

It might be country-dependent. I once got a postdoc offer from a university in the UK with a deadline of 2 days. I know the PI well and trust him, and according to him he had little influence over that part of the hiring process; it was handled by the uni HR department. That deadline seems to be standard for that uni and possibly all of UK. (I was able to extend the deadline one day, which was enough time to obtain an offer from my preferred university and decline the UK offer.)

Yes. The experiences I discuss above are from the UK.

If the company desperately wants you, they will wait for you. (A university waited for me a full year after I just finished my grad school.) If you desperately want the company, you will accept promptly. You do not seem to be in that situation, rather a feely-touchy one. So your response should be of that kind too. I would tell them that I was honored to be considered for employment and that, for your final "yes" you would need to see the details of the offer. Upon seeing the details you can negotiate the parts that are not agreeable to you. In the meantime your second interview will happen and you will know whether it is worth waiting for the second company to possibly offer you the job, etc.

You're thinking from your perspective, with information you have.
There might be another candidate available, as good as you, but you seemed (bit) more promising AND they want to fill position ASAP. 2 days is not much, but not 2 hours as well. If you came to interview, you should have been ready to accept it. If not, why waste yours and others time, especially if they clearly indicated before, that they'll think they'll give you an offer.
Imo, it's more of a "take it or leave it" offer. You (and a lot of people here) might think it's "insensitive" or "too quickly", but if you've been on the other side of the table, You'll get my point- either candidate wants to work with you or no. No one needs doubter, "window shoppers" or CV builders, who'll probably leave the very moment the better opportunity arises.
You can try stalling of course (by say, asking for written offer or saying you'd like to have another call and schedule something for 1 week later or ...), but don't think it'll change for you much, because apparently they either want you to accept or move on and you need to make that decision now, not in 2 weeks from now, when there will be second answer available.

An interview should be a 2-way process: you do not come to the interview ready to accept, as the interview conveys a lot of useful information about the PI/team/University that you can't see from the advertisement. It's not window shopping, it's a mature attitude when looking for a position.

authors: Bob Jarvis - Слава Україні


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Is it okay to change the research area of interest that I specified in my statement of intent after submitting an application for a PhD program?
I had submitted my application to the PhD program in Statistics, and in my statement of intent I specified that I would like to do a PhD research in Computational Biostatistics. I am in a Master's program right now and in this my last term I am taking a course in Statistical Learning. The problem here is that, I really like the materials covered in my Statistical Learning course, and now I want to do my PhD research in Statistical Learning / Data Mining, rather than doing Computational Biostatistics.
I already have exchanged few emails with a Biostatistics Professor at the university that I applied to, but no official contract was made between me and this Professor for me to do my PhD under this Professor's supervision. Also, the policy of this university is that new PhD students are initially not assigned a supervisor, but each new student will be choosing their supervisor towards the end of their first year, after taking the mandatory PhD reading course with a faculty member(s) that the student is interested in working with.
Is it okay for me to change the research area of interest that I specified in my statement of intent after submitting an application for a PhD program?
Thank you,

Under the conditions you state it is perfectly ok for you to change areas. I doubt that it is even necessary to state it prior to a decision being made on your application, since they don't assign supervisors early on. It might be different if you needed to pick a supervisor prior to acceptance.
In fact, you would be wise to look carefully at potential supervisors now and after you arrive to be sure you have someone compatible who does work you are interested in.
However, just as an option, you might want to correspond with the professor mentioning your "broadened" interests and asking for advice. I wouldn't claim you have made a firm decision, but are just exploring your opportunities and would like advice. However, I don't guarantee this is the right approach since I don't know either of you or your past correspondence. You have to judge it.

Thank you for your answer. Maybe I am thinking about this a bit too much, but wouldn't department accept new PhD student based on the availability of the professor in the area of students' interest? In that case, would the department be okay with me if I change my research area of interest? Thank you,

I suspect that if they had such concerns their procedures would be different. They would probably ask for an early commitment. Since they don't, is think it is no issue for them or yourself.


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Is it possible to become a tenure track Assistant Professor at the same university where I did Post Doc?
I know that there is such thing as "intellectual incest" and that many universities are against hiring their own PhD graduates for their faculty positions.
But what about the movement from being a Post Doc to a Tenure Track Faculty at the same university? If a person did his PhD at University A, and did Post Doc at University B, would it be possible for the person to get hired as a tenure track faculty at University B straight from his Post Doc position? and if yes, why doesn't the "intellectual incest" apply in this case?
Thank you,

I think this might vary by institution, but for most, at least in the US, there wouldn't be any problem with such a move. Of course, you are unlikely to get any advantage in your application and regulations most places will require that you be treated like any other.
I know of one situation like this in which the university really wanted to keep a post-doc so wrote the specification for the tenure track job that matched him nearly perfectly. Nearly everything except the Father's middle name. They sent out the required national search and got back three candidates (among many others) that seemed to be a better fit (on paper) than he was. But he got the job in the end.
So, not impossible (most places) but likely no advantage either.

thank you for your answer; is this because Post Doctoral Fellows develop their own independent research program, so the institution is not risking a lot of intellectual incest by choosing to hire their own post doc?

Much of it is just regulations that require everyone be treated the same.  Not every place worries a lot about intellectual incest, at least not for every hire. There is value in building synergy as well as having diverse backgrounds. Some places are even willing to hire their own graduates though might prefer they move on.

(I am acquainted with mathematics...) To supplement the other reasonable answers, it may be worth noting that there are generally several times more post-docs available (at R1 universities and high-end R2s) than there are tenure-track jobs at those universities. In my observation the ratio is something like 4 times more post-docs than tenure-track. So, roughly, only a smallish fraction of those post-docs will get tenure-track jobs at comparable institutions.
To get one at the same institution is, in fact, even rarer (statistically), because one tends to move to "somewhat lower status" institutions... in part because the high-end R1 postdocs who do not get high-end R1 tenure-track jobs do often get lower-end R1 TT jobs or high-end R2, squeezing out the people who did post-docs in those places.
Of course, it is not so stupidly simple as this, but statistically it is approximately so, and for obvious reasons. For individuals, of course, things can be wildly different.
So, yes, it is "possible", but statistically the chances are not so good. That is, the majority of post-docs at a given place would not turn out to be competitive for tenure-track jobs there. But, emphatically, this predicts very little for individuals.

If you are a superstar, people will tend to want you regardless of "incest". Too strong/loaded a term in my opinion.  It's not like we are talking about that strong of a legal position or social taboo.  Just that schools want to get fresh blood and not become 100% bound into one way of thinking.  But "freshbloodedness" is a factor, not a go/nogo.  [For most people, it is likely a go/nogo in terms of practical statistics.  But not in the sense of a rule that is impossible to break.]
On a departmental level, an occasional person having some experience from the school is not the end of the world.  Not like their whole program has no fresh blood/ideas.  And having a superstar might outweigh the fresh blood concern.
You still have experience from outside the school, based on your grad degree, so it's not like you are 100% "family".  But even in that case, there are occasional times when schools decide to let someone go direct from Ph.D. to tenure track at the same school, without even a postdoc (elsewhere, or even at the school). Rare, of course. But if you are a superstar or in demand because of an expanding field with few experts...
A lot will depend on the specifics.  For example, does it create an issue of too much weight or internal competition (e.g. two professors doing East Elbonian mosquito protein research)?  Or can you do something differentiated enough from your advisor? Or perhaps are they even looking to grow scale in a particular hot topic (e.g. climatology 20 years ago)?  Is your advisor about to retire.  Etc.
But trumping it all will be how much of a superstar you are.  Nothing wrong with asking of course and putting them as one part of your 150 letters (perhaps even having a couple conversations given you are on site).  But I would rate likelihood as low unless you are pretty darned special.

It's not common, but it is definitely possible. In North America, in  mathematics, I'm aware of concrete cases where

Professor works at the university where they got their undergraduate degree;
Professor works at the university where they got their Masters degree;
Professor works at the university where they got their Ph.D.;
Professor works at the university where they did their postdoc.

In all cases they did "the rest" at other universities.


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Why do colleges force students to study for so many years when most of won't be needed?
I have all the respect for students of sciences who go to a university to fully divulge themselves into a certain topic and understand it in and out.
But the truth is, that description simply doesn't fit most students. Most students go to university because they want a degree so they can get a job, and a lot of the stuff you'll learn simply isn't useful.
The obvious example is computer-science (but it applies to many other fields too, like engineering, economics, etc). If you study computer science at a university, and then choose to enter the field of software engineering, 95 % of your degree will be useless. In software engineering, it's mostly just knowing your tech and being able to code efficiently in it.
So why are students being forced to spend years and years studying to obtain a degree to get a job when that degree simply isn't necessary for that job?
Obviously you don't NEED to get a degree, but in today's environment, most employers expect it, so your hands are forced.
This seems like a gigantic waste for all of society.

I do suspect that in many cases education could be made radically more efficient, but here are a couple points: 1) It's only recently that programming as a career has existed, and only in the past ten years or so has it become easy to teach yourself to program online, so the system hasn't had much time to adapt yet; 2) I think a major idea behind university education is that it's good for society if people know about things like history and philosophy and literature so that we can have a more enlightened civilization and be more informed voters.

"95% of your degree will be useless."  Probably so.  The thing is, you don't know in advance which 95% will be useless...

@NateEldredge Agree. Also, large part of university training to acquire skills, learn methods and approaches of the field, gain a perspective so latter one can pick new information faster. It is not just about memorizing the 5 most important piece of lexical information from some laundry list.Even learning languages is more than just remembering the 100 most common words of a language. STEM is more then remembering 10 - 20 math tricks.

If you aren't using 95% of whats taught of in a CS program in a job in software engineering, you might not be doing software engineering at all.

"If you study computer science at a university, and then choose to enter the field of software engineering," But what if you don't?

Please edit out the ranty parts and I'd be happy to retract my close vote.

Teaching people how to think is under appreciated. Likewise, learning things like history and psychology lays a contextual foundation that helps structure thought in a variety of situations. I wouldn’t want to live in a world full of totally specialized individuals.

I think a lot of the commenters here are missing the point in the original question which is not "is a University degree valuable?" but rather "why should seemingly every job require one when a) many jobs that do require such can be done without if one has the right skills obtained otherwise and b) [perhaps not mentioned but others who argue along these lines have brought it up] University education is so expensive, sometimes even creating a lifetime of unpayable debt?"

Lad, CS is a lot more than knowing a language.  What is your basis that engineers don't use but a fraction of their education.  This is baseless.  The are masters and PhDs.  If you learned more than needed as an undergrad there would be no purposed to an advanced degree.

Because nobody has a crystal ball to see the future.

By having a reasonably broad curriculum, a university can prepare the students for a good deal of possible scenarios, which gives them flexibility.  No more jobs in your specific subfield? With the adequate background, provided by a good university, you can pivot fields to keep earning your pay. Been there, done that, it's quite handy :)

University education is about education, not training. The university wants to contribute to an educated citizenry, not just industrial drones. You can, as you know, turn yourself into a drone, but don't try to make university education so impoverished, please. I studied mathematics. My daughter studied philosophy. Neither of those is training for anything specific. But we both learned how to think and to evaluate and to learn.
But even in CS you are very wrong about what is useful and what is useless. The most important skill isn't your use of existing technology to do something that someone wants done. The most important skill is to understand what should be built. Only then can you participate in the future without damaging the world and civilization.
There was a news article in the past couple of days that discusses the fact that at some large and important companies, Google in this case, are asking why are we building this. It is a very important question that you will get answered if you study history, philosophy, ethics, psychology, literature, etc. You won't get a sufficient answer by studying Java and DotNet and SQL.
European education is a bit different and the necessary education in what makes us human is normally taught to students before they enter the university. In the US, it is a continuous process, but secondary education often falls short, so, traditionally in the US it has been an important aspect of an undergraduate education. Graduate education is for specialization, but even there, it isn't just the technology to build todays tchotchkes.
What seems useless to you is what makes the future of the planet and its people viable.

"There was a news article in the past couple of days that discusses the fact that at some large and important companies, Google in this case, are asking why are we building this. It is a very important question that you will get answered if you study history, philosophy, ethics, psychology, literature, etc. "
However, to really answer that you need people specialized in those fields, no? So if you specialize in something not those specifically, how does that help in that regard?

Moreover, this seems to put serious kosh on that nonsense that goes around on conservative internet sites about that there are such things as "useless" college majors (typically named are "liberal arts"-type majors.). A college major is more as useful or useless as you make it to be and what you get out of it, in the end.

If your educational system includes a viable vocational training sector (like Germany and the Netherlands), then students have a choice, between getting trained at "only useful stuff" and being educated. In these countries, people with vocational training typically earn a good living and are able to attain a stable career. However, people who have learned all the "useless stuff" at a university tend to do even better (higher income, lower unemployment, etc.)  There are exceptions, but the overall pattern is clear. Apparently, employers want to pay for useless stuff...

The universities don't have much of a choice in this matter. Whenever the university issues a degree in [topic], it's staking its name and reputation that the recipient of the degree is competent in [topic]. If the degree holder turns out to be unable to answer basic questions on [topic], then the university's degree is worthless and its reputation in tatters. For example, I would genuinely wonder what a university is doing if its physics graduates don't understand classical electromagnetism.
In other words, the real crux of your question is:

Obviously you don't NEED to get a degree, but in today's environment, most employers expect it, so your hands are forced.

If most of the things that are taught in degrees aren't needed, why are most employers expecting a degree? That is a question for another Stack Exchange.

I must admit that your question reads like a bit of a rant but the basic question still deserves an answer.
You are right that most of the "factual content" of the college education is not used by most employees after their university education. However, "learning facts" should not be the primary goal of a college education.
Ultimately, the goal of higher education is (or at least I strongly believe should be) to teach students three main abilities: critical thinking, independent learning, and communication. These are tools that are universally applicable and allow graduates to be adaptable to an ever-changing environment. The issue is that you can't teach those abilities in the abstract—you need to have something to build that around and that's where the formal content of the college curriculum comes into play.


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should I publish in journal that has no IF
I have written an article in the field of Information Systems and Security and I would like to publish it in a journal. From downloading the Scimago journal rank, I decided to publish in a journal called International Journal of Intelligent Information Technologies (IJIIT). The scope of the journal is really promising for my paper and appears to be in the quartile Q3 of Scimago.
My concern with the journal is that it has really low bibliometrics, I didn't find its Impact Factor, and and has an H-index of 12. The only thing the journal has is something called "Emerging Sources Citation Index". Wikipedia says that most journals with the Emerging Sources Citation Index index are predatory journals.

Is publishing in journals with no Impact Factor a bad thing for my carrier?
Can I verify whether this journal a predatory journal or not?

There's a lot behind your question that should be clarified.

You are not finding an impact factor for the journal because it is not indexed in Science Citation Index (SCI). All journals not indexed by SCI do not have an impact factor. SCI has its criteria for indexing, one of which is whether papers published in the journal receive citations from the other journals already in the index. Not having an impact factor is usually a bad sign in the sense that the journal is not prestigious. It does NOT mean that the journal is predatory.
ESCI is a lower-ranking index. Journals listed here are being considered for the more prestigious indices. Notably the ESCI does not feed into the SCI, but to the "next tier" of citation indices. If the best the journal can say is that it's indexed by ESCI, it's definitely not a prestigious journal.
I don't know what HSCX is and can't find it via Google, but assuming it's got to do with the h-index then it literally means nothing. A h-index of 12 means that the 12 most cited papers published by that journal/person have been cited at least 12 times each. Since this calculation is so generic, the moment a single paper is published, it can be calculated. If you've ever written a paper before, you have a h-index.
Quoting a h-index on the website does not mean that the journal is predatory. Predatory publishers do something completely different, the most important hallmark being they publish without really performing peer review. They can afford to publish junk because the authors pay for it (i.e. open access). Since the journal you linked is subscription-based, I can virtually guarantee it is not predatory.

tl; dr: the journal is likely to be low-prestige, but it is almost surely not predatory.
As to specific questions:

Is publishing in journals with no Impact Factor a bad thing for my carrier?

Usually, yes. The more prestigious the venue of publication the more people read it and the better it's regarded.

Can I verify whether this journal a predatory journal or not?

Yes. See this question.

So the journal is not predatory. But honestly, is this a journal that you would usually recommend? I've spent more than 9 months submitting and dealing with desk-rejections (out-of-scope). I've tried many tools, but I only managed to pass the first editorial assessment once in a prestigious journal (I've got pretty good review, they rejected the paper but all said that  my approach "has merit and pretty reasonable"). Long story short, I am back to looking for journals and I don't want to waste another 9 months. This is why I started looking for journals with a more general scope.

@U.User If you have spent 9 months on desk rejections, then you are doing something tremendously wrong, and you probably need guidance from someone more experienced with the field.

@U.User I can't give you a recommendation for which journal to publish in, because I haven't seen your paper and don't know your field. As Tobias Kildetoft suggested, ask someone with more experience in your subject.

Well at first, I have made the mistake of submitting without paying careful attention to the scope of the journal. But later, I have started to be more methodological, we've changed the structure of the paper many times, we even added more case-studies. The problem with paper is the variety of tools it uses (Information security solutions, Mobile Agents, and performance evaluation). The paper was examined by my two supervisors and we even discussed the contribution with a specialized engineer. I think the problem is that I do not know how to find proper journals and I have bad luck too.