text:
Is it possible to work full time and complete a PhD?
Is it achievable to perform a doctorate while working in a private company (not in college) full time (8 hours per day, 5 days per week)? Or is it too much work or stress?

Is the work in the private company research for the PhD, or completely unrelated?

completely unrelated.

I am doing that right now.  I have a full time job and am working on a PhD in Computer Science.  It is definitely possible, but has been the hardest experience of my life.  I am past the hardest part and am wrapping up my first publication.  I've also been at it for 3 years (already had my masters degree), so it's taken me much longer to get to this point than it would be for a full time student.
It has been extremely stressful and you can kiss your life outside of work+school goodbye.  You will also need to be very good with time management and be aware that over the course of several years, there will be life events that pull you away from school.
When I was deciding whether or not to do it, I vastly underestimated the amount of time and energy required.  I'm very glad I stuck with it so far, but I have to say, if I had an accurate picture of the workload I probably would have opted against it.
You need a huge amount of dedication to the goal in order to pull this off.  If you have only a casual interest in the degree, then you will probably fail.  I think I remember somewhere that the graduation rate for PhD's is around 50/50.  Add a full time job on that and the odds are against you.  But it is absolutely possible to overcome that with enough effort.

I would +1 what Nick said. A full time PhD and a full time job is like having two full time jobs. It's very probable to say goodbye to your social life for years. If you live in a relationship, I'd strongly advise to reconsider it as there is a danger to emotionally lose more than what actual benefit it may bring you.

:) I'm at the same point as you are, and to make things works my graduation (Law) is very different from the PhD (Computer Science)...

Similar to Nick I am finishing up a Ph.D. in Computer Science.  7 years in and ABD and I've finally admitted I can't be the parent I want to be, the student I want to be, and the worker I want to be all at the same time.  It's a sacrifice and I am fortunate enough that at this time I am able to sacrifice the full time work.  A full time Ph.D. takes a toll on your health, social life, relationships, family, etc.  Compound that with full time work especially in a salaried field.  I've seen some people be more successful with paid summer internships.  Depends on the industry.

If you have done job+phd together, does it plays a negative role if you want to stay in Academia as a postdoc?

I'm working on a Ph.D. in Technology as well, working full-time. Challenging but possible. Time management is critical to success. You must be willing to sacrifice your daily desires in favor of the long-term goal.

Virtually Impossible.
Doing a PhD is a full-time job that requires vast amounts of commitment in terms of mental effort and time. If the PhD research comes in number two position, then the results will never be very good. Also, not being available in the department to interact with your colleagues and supervisor will severely reduce the benefits you gain from the experience. Even if you finished the PhD, it may not be really worth anything, because you won't have been able to fully commit to doing it well.
On the other hand, you may have staggering genius and be ridiculously productive and have a fountain of energy, and then it should be doable.

IMHO, if one has staggering genius and is ridiculously productive, then one can probably find a better use of one's time.

I love the last sentence... "staggering genius and..." :)

You seem to be implying that German politicians are either staggering geniuses or they are huge frauds.

@KonradRudolph: Indeed, there is another path to a PhD my answer did not consider.

I know people who have done it. Software engineers working full-time while working towards their Ph.D. on the subject. It helps tremendously when one's line of work aligns with a particular line of research. That most software engineering gigs are quite flexible in scheduling, it also helps. YMMV in other fields, though.

The big question here is what you mean by "completing a PhD".  At one extreme, there's completing a minimal PhD: choosing the least demanding school that offers a PhD in your field, finding a flexible advisor, and doing only what is absolutely required to get the degree.  This could be worth doing in certain circumstances: to develop greater expertise in a personal interest, or for certain sorts of career benefits.  (For example, in the U.S. high school teachers with doctorates often receive extra pay, but they are not expected to do any research or really make use of the degree, so there is no need to write an outstanding dissertation.)  Completing a minimal PhD can certainly be done while working full time in an unrelated job, if you are very diligent.  That's a big if, though.  The danger of working full time is that you won't make progress without constant effort.  If you slack off or become distracted from your dissertation, nobody will complain since it's not your real job, and you can easily let months or years go by with very little progress.  This is a common pattern, with an enthusiastic start that gradually trails off and never actually leads to a completed dissertation.
At the other extreme, you might aim to become a well-known researcher and have an academic career at a top university or industrial research lab.  This requires doing far more than the minimal requirements, which is almost impossible while spending 40 hours per week on something else, since you'll be competing against people who are similarly talented and hard working but have an extra 2000 hours per year.  It's possible in principle, if you are really exceptional, but most people will just find it too difficult to catch up.  For example, imagine a competitor who spends 60 hours per week for 5 years on a PhD.  If you can spend only 20 hours after work, it will take you 15 years to put in the same number of hours.  Even if you do this, you won't really be in as good a position, since many of your hours will have been spent 10-15 years ago and won't reflect recent research trends.  The only way to catch up is to work harder or more efficiently than your competition, and that's difficult if you are competing against the smartest, most diligent people in your field.
Most paths lie somewhere between these extremes, but generally closer to the second case (since all academic or research jobs are very competitive).  I would not recommend holding a full-time job while working on a PhD unless you have very modest goals for what you intend to do with the PhD.

The universities that I am familiar with in the US and UK have regulations about the number of hours that can be worked for full time students. These rules would prevent you from being both a full time PhD student and having a full time job.
For example, the UPenn Psychology policy states:

The Department expects full time effort in return for its support during the five years of the program. Thus, students may not engage in outside employment while on departmental support.

and the MIT policy states:

The student interested in working part time off campus, and who is a US citizen or permanent resident, should first speak to his or her research advisor about the nature of the proposed work. The advisor must be assured that the work will not compromise the time that the student is expected to devote to research at MIT, and that the outside work does not compromise or infringe upon patent or intellectual property rights related to the student’s MIT research. The student also must ensure that the outside work does not violate any departmental policy.

There are many universities that take part time PhD students and expect them to be working full time. So yes, one can get a PhD while working full time, but as for the second part of the question

It can be too much work, stress, etc.?

Not only can it be, it likely will be. This is equally true for both full time students without family commitments and part time students with other work and family commitments.

Along the lines of number of hours, many scholarships, RA-ships, and other sources of funding for students are conditional that the student works a maximum number of hours at a job per week (often 10 or 20). In other words, if you work more than 20 hours a week, you become ineligible for many scholarships and fellowships and therefore will need to start paying for school from your pocket.

Really? I don't know any university in the US that restricts outside employment for domestic PhD students as a matter of policy. Mine doesn't. (International students are restricted by US law per the terms of the student visa.)

@ff524 I edited the answer to include links to the two universities I am most familiar with.

@ff524 All of the programs I applied to did not allow you to work outside of your graduate work position (e.g. teaching assistant, research) and it is in contract and the handbook. I am sure there are nuances between each school, but the general idea is that the hours expected from you between coursework and your graduate work position put you at full time, and to do any more work than this would overload the student. If you are not taking on funding via your work position, you can work. This might have to do with the fact that each school had a union that negotiated these terms.

I have done it and do not recommend it. While I did not require an extension of the time required, working a full-time job will generally prevent you from travelling to conferences and from establishing contacts essential for success. You are more likely to end up in a backwater than a vital research area. You become less identified with your research than with your work, which in my case is involves specializations often considered necessary within academia and which are remunerated well outside of academia, but which have low academic value themselves. It has been a struggle changing this perceived identification--I might as well attempt to retrain Pavlov's dogs.
Consider yourself fortunate to have access to academia.stackexchange.com. My relatives were unaware of the commitments involved and provided well-meaning but uninformed advice ("you're smart enough"), not recognizing that scheduling has to be considered independently of ability, effort and experience [see Decio Coviello, Andrea Ichino and Nicola Persico. Don't Spread Yourself Too Thin: The Impact of Task Juggling on Workers' Speed of Job Completion NBER Working Paper No. 16502]. Employers often don't recognize or choose not to recognize the independence of these factors either, so I cannot blame my relatives for bad advice. Most of all I blame myself. I am not proud of the outcome. I had published a paper in the beginning in graduate school, but left the field. It was a mistake not to build on early successes, but the distractions of full-time work made it difficult to absorb the right lessons at the right time.

I was able to complete my PhD while working full time as a consultant.  Based on that experience ...

Have a mentor that's done it, preferably one at the school you're thinking about attending.  A lot of the 'for profits' have very interesting models for keeping students on track.  For me, it was someone who remains an important mentor in my life.  Prior to applying, I spoke with her and she mentioned she earned her PhD while working full time as a consultant and then provided some sound advice and encouragement.
Some programs do a better job then others at scheduling graduate level courses so they don't conflict with normal working hours.  You might have better luck with a metropolitan university or one that accommodates non-traditional learners.
There is a trade off related to there only being 24 hours in a day.  The university experience includes many talks and presentations that enrich all scholars, whether or not the scholarship being presented relates to your area of expertise.  The more flexibility you can find in your work schedule to take advantage of these unique opportunities the better you'll be for it.
Plan 2-3 hours out of class for every hour in class except during final project time.  Then, plan lots more.  Also, the academic calendar and many industry calendars are tied in subtle manners.  The client wanting a project completed before everyone goes on varying summer breaks means extra work during final project time for classes.
Have a fairly good idea of what you want to study and/or who you would like to study with sooner rather then later.  Find out which professors are able to graduate their students in a timely manner.  A lot of time can be spent trying to figure out what you want to write about, and that is time that could be spent either writing or working towards the end goal of graduation with PhD and job still intact.
Have a detailed plan/schedule for your day once you transition from classwork to dissertation work.  Practice the plan the last semester you're taking classes.  Stick to the plan, even when the alarm goes off at 4am and you were up until 2 taking care of something else.
Some might be luckier, but for me, for both my master's thesis and my PhD dissertation, I had to scale my work hours way back - 6 months for Masters and 12 months for PhD - to be able to produce work at the level I was demanding of myself.  This is something that needs to be planned for re material needs.
If you have responsibilities to others (spouse, parents, significant others, kids, some combination of) make sure they're on board as well.  I am grateful for the 2 am bottles fed to children as I read through thousands of lines of code because I was up anyway. I'm also forever grateful to my teachers and committee members who understood the work-school-life balance issues and worked with me to be as helpful as was fair.

Finally, know there are a lot of us that viewed earning a PhD as an important milestone in the senior part of our careers.  For me, it led to a teaching position in a regional public university that was more rewarding and fun then I had imagined.  Hang in there, take it a day at a time, and enjoy what you're learning.  Best of luck!

I'm doing it now. The big issue for me was learning how to balance school work with the rest of my life. That's something that needs some thought prior to beginning your program.
Make sure your significant other is TRULY onboard. School takes a lot of time, and resentment can build, if otherwise.
Know how much you can take. I was taking two courses a semester in order to satisfy a university requirement. It was killing me. I'm only taking one course a semester now, but I'm much happier than I was.
Understand how long your coursework stays valid. Coursework only lasts for several years, so plan accordingly.
Make sure your faculty will give you the attention that a full-time student receives. In some programs, part-timers are second-class citizens. Not good.
Try and graduate prior to the fall semester. Appointments usually begin at the beginning of the fall (winter) term. Don't want to wait too long for a position to show up.

That's possible in some fields, impossible in others
I am in TCS, and I know of several high school teachers who obtained a PhD in TCS after a few years. Basically, they were able to work 1 full day on week-end for their research + a few hours during the week. Of course they needed more than 3 years to graduate, but this is possible.
My wife is in history/archeology, and many (more than half of them) PhD students work full-time in library or other places since there are very few fundings. We have friends who graduated after 10 years. In this field it is difficult for those who work full-time in a place unrelated to their studies since access to old sources is needed for doing research. Most of these students took their holidays to go to libraries/museums/field archeology places in foreign countries.
I have relatives in plant biology and in animal biology. It is impossible to complete a PhD in these fields without working full time in a lab. Indeed, most of the time is spent in doing heavy experiments, with living things, which means being available when needed.

During the first year of my doctoral studies I had no departmental support and kept myself indoors and fed by working about 2.5 part-time jobs.
Put bluntly that situation was not sustainable: it was physically wearing me down  notwithstanding that I did nothing but work, study, eat and sleep.
Moreover, later in my studies I needed to devote more time to school than I did that first year. Perhaps there are exceptional individuals that could manage it, but if you are merely smart and productive you should not count on managing.

Your story is very enlightening.

Possible: yes - I personally know two persons who did it. The question is if YOU can do it, not if its possible. If you want to finish your PhD, I'm sure you will somehow get the time to finish. But if you are doing your PhD just to get the title, then you will probably not finish it.
Edit: After 7 years, the last 4.5 of them working full a full time job and raising 4 kids, I managed to finish my PhD. So yes, it's possible :-)

Yes it is possible. Just passed my Viva in the last week after submitting at the end of September. I found that in the lead into submitting that I was almost full-time working on the thesis. This may just the way it is or down to my poor time management in the build up. If possible store up your holiday days to use for this final write up period. In the last month I was probably working a day and a half and doing my thesis write up ever other waking hour.
--
I would hope that it is not impossible as currently I am in the third year of my part-time PhD and hope to complete it.
Some background info:

I work full-time 5 days a week (9 to 5)
PhD is in History (completely unrelated to my work)
PhD is self funded

A number of factors need to be considered for what I think you'll need to be sucessful in obtaining a PhD.

Time Management. You will need to have a fairly regimented time plan that you can stick to so as to ensure a steady workflow. Just to sum up my weekly time spent on my PhD (and this can always vary depending on other commitments.) About 4 nights a week 6pm to about 10.30pm, Saturday 11am to about 10pm and Sunday about 1pm to 7.30pm.
Regular meeting with your supervisor. In my own experience about once every 4-5 weeks is enough. A good hour meeting can really refocus your work and every 4-5 weeks means you don't go to long procrastinating or mulling over an idea. Also in this time frame would also have sent a couple of emails. Also I work in a family business so this also gives me the flexibility to be able to arrange meetings with my Supervisor at working hours times.
Get writing as early as possible. In my first year I had got down about 15,000 words of a draft thesis. Now at the end of the day I may half of that in the final thesis it is a good habit to get into. Set yourself weekly, monthly targets. Sometimes you might get sidetracked, like if you have to prepare a conference paper etc but writing early and often can keep you motivated.
Be prepared to make sacrifices. For example my last 4 holidays were either solely for research or a mix of holidays and research. (I shouldn't complain too much as I was able to go abroad for these trips.) Also though you are probable going to see less of family etc.
But also be prepared to take some time off. Don't feel guilty if you go for a night out with friends or take a weekend away from it all. Sometimes you will come back to your PhD work rejuvenated from the time off.
Don't underestimate the support of your family, friends and colleagues. Most people will want you to succeed and will give you much moral and practical support along the way.

Is it too much work and stress?
It is definably a lot of work, but I would like to think so far it is not to much work. Be aware that your university will possibly have many support structures in place for PhD students. Every year my university run workshops on time management, dealing with stress, how to write a thesis etc. Personally I don't think the stress would be any more than say working 2 jobs but that said I think everyone deals with stress differently.

Usually we refrain from putting editing comments like “edited” or “update” into an Answer, since StackExchange’s software tracks the changes you make with edits anyway.

@nick012000 Good point. Have updated (pun intented!) answer.

That heavily depends on your PhD mode, if you have to attend classes it would almost impossible, if your PhD just a research then that will be between you and your supervisor unless the university is hiring you as a full-time researcher, I am working on my M.Sc. the first year I had to attend classes and it was impossible to find job, even my part-time job at the time was hard to handle, however, once I've started my research phase recently, I could find a full-time job which I'm starting tomorrow.

This will depend on your program and the policies associated with it.  At least where I go for undergraduate studies, it is not allowed because being a PhD student is a full time job and having two full time jobs concurrently would make your life a living hell.
But, there are exceptions.  There is this one student who was literally the smartest human being I've seen, who came for undergrad, finishing a double major in only two years, then went straight to being a Computer Engineering PhD student at the same school.  He's so madman smart to the point that the department granted him an extension, allowing him to work a full-time job at a local software company in addition to pursuing his PhD because he's so bright even for a PhD student.
Unless you are that type of madman smart, I would take the peanuts style of living for the sake of preserving sanity.  But maybe you might be that type of exceptional.

It is possible. But the actual benefit you get from your PhD program is correlated with time spent.
A PhD is not only a title. In the process of obtaining a PhD, you get opportunities for studying a particular topic in-depth, establishing yourself as a member of a particular community of scholars (e.g. by publishing in certain journals or going to certain conferences), acquiring ancillary know-how relevant for an academic professional, etc.
You might complete a PhD program and earn the title, without gaining these other qualifications. And that may be good for you. But when it comes to, for example, landing an academic job, you may be competing with people who have invested more in their development as academic professionals.


text:
How to get credit for a new method that I invented?
I'm a PhD student, and I invented a new method to assist and semi-automate the writing process. Since I need to add more papers to my CV I decided to teach some of my PhD student colleges the method and convince them to put me as a coauthor in one of their papers. I know getting a paper is quite hard, because I've written some during my PhD.
Since I could get trouble at work, how to do this is an elegant and professional way, like a technical assistant?

"I invented a new method to assist and semi-automate the writing process". Crank alert!! "I decided to teach some of my PhD student colleges the method and convince them to 'pay' me back putting me as a coauthor in one of their papers". Fraud alert!!! "student colleges" Perhaps your novel method could involve a grammar and spell-checker as well.

It would be unethical to list you as an author to any paper if you did not substantially contribute to it.

I could contribute substantially, such a statistician can do. The problem is that my job is not well valued.

@Alexandros, you don't know the method. It has mathematical and statistical basis. Also, you are deviated from the main question.

@biotech Where it was published? I could read it there. No need to put identifying information just mention the name of the journal.

Has not been published yet, is not yet formalized.

I was sure about that. So, publish first and then convince others to use it.

Ok @Alexandros. I will try to formalise it, but it could be already exploited. I'm already using it.

It is hard to beat Scigen (http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/) or mathgen (http://thatsmathematics.com/mathgen/)

@santiago, correlation between 'hard work' and productivity is less than 1, other factors are involved.

I, like many others, am skeptical that your new writing method is actually valid and/or useful.
If by some chance your method is actually valid and useful, however, then you should not be given a co-authorship by those who use the method.  Rather, they should cite your method, just like they would any method that they used in conducting the experimentation.

When too much information is available and decision-makeing becomes difficult, simplification is key. This is the basis of my method. Is a very high level method, doesn't care about details.

Thanks for your comment @jakebeal. I understood the way a person should be recognised their merits, and via publication and cites is fair, rather than co-authorship.

You invented a new writing method? You're kidding, right? As far as I know, there exist only one writing method known to mankind, which hasn't changed much since the invention of writing. If you're talking about some NLP technique, not only it is likely not novel, but I think that the value of all that is close to zero and actually can be damaging to research and writing skills of potential users of such method and corresponding software.
However, what is more important and troubling is your planning of a rather unethical behavior with your "smart" payback scheme (unless you've poorly described your role). It is neither elegant, nor professional - the indication of that you can see in a series of downvoting of your question as well as comments. I would suggest you to reconsider your "shortcuts" approach to earning academic reputation or, at least, be careful with similar approaches, as they might be damaging career-wise.
The minimum requirements for an authorship, according to the Vancouver protocol are:

Conception, design, analysis and interpretation of data;
Drafting an article or revising it critically for important  intellectual  content;
Final approval of the version to be published.

The value of the method could be close to zero, but not zero. Thanks for your answer. NLP techniques seems similar to what I developed. I will have to read a bit more. I just want to help people, hope not considered as malintended.

@biotech: You're welcome. In regard to the value, it is difficult to assess that properly due to lack of details. In regard to your intentions, perhaps, you've described the situation not correctly, hence all that negative feedback. You can try to reformulate your question, but IMHO it doesn't make sense at this point, as, with a negative score of 3 or more, any question will not appear in the recent questions listing.

For now it's OK, I got enough feedback with your answers and people comments. I will try to formalise the method and back here again for help if necessary.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Is there anything that I can do while waiting for the decision on scholarship
I applied for a PhD degree and has received an offer for it! However, I have to wait until next two months to know whether they give me a scholarship as well. I'm very nervous as the number of scholarships is limited and it's highly unlikely that I can join the programme without it. I am also applying for other universities as well but none of them offer scholarship covering everything for international student like the one I'm waiting for.
Is there anything that I can do while waiting in order to strengthen my application?

In two months there is very little you can do. Fishing might teach you patience. Or perhaps, write a paper.

The period between admissions and scholarship decisions is not really any different from the period between submission and acceptance notification.
If you have any major changes in your status—if you receive a significant award ("Best paper," teaching award, or similar), or if you have made a notable research contribution (published a paper, or at least submitted one), then that would be relevant information for the department. Otherwise, you'll just have to bide your time.

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


text:
What to do when my course-mates are making up research results for a class paper?
My course-mates and I have a scientific paper to do for a class and, despite having had almost 3 months to do it, no one has done anything (or at least tried to do anything) on the research, and now they're starting to fake the results of the research (which hasn't even been done), and I know that this falls under scientific misconduct.
Since I'm planning on moving to another college (not related to scientific research, because this is not what I want), what should I do in this case? Should I stay in the project or should I ask to have my name removed from the authors' list?

You should probably have your  name removed, so they cannot drag you down with them, when the truth comes out. Better safe than sorry.

@Alexandros agreed, except that you should probably not use words like "probably" in such a clear cut situation.

Sounds like those guys have a bright future in government-funded political panic du jour related research. If you want to do real work distance yourself from these silly people immediately, and think back through what caused the situation so you can identify and avoid it in the future. OTOH, if you want to see how successful some charlatans can be, and maybe even witness the lack of sincere penalty for this sort of insincerity, sit back and watch the show (but jumping ship first might be a good idea).

[..] almost 3 months [..] no one has done anything[..] So you did not do anything, either? Did you try to understand the group dynamics that lead to this situation?

I'd say you basically run

@hagello You can't do much when two of your course-mates keep playing computer games in class and the other one is at comedy websites and facebook. I could do everything alone and then get out of the group, but I had three other assignments with the same people (and two other guys that actually DID something), so I was hoping this assignment would turn out ok. Turns out that sometimes I rely on people too much.

I didn't think that this question would raise that much attention, thank you all for the advices!

@guilherme.oc97 This experience, while probably very uncomfortable, is teaching you something very valuable about life. In my view, lessons like this are one of the most important things you learn in school -- in environments where a screw-up isn't the end of your career just for being around the wrong sort.

You can't do much when two of your course-mates keep... — Sure you can. You can find other people to work with.

@jeffE Probably in this case. Sometimes students get lumped together without choice. That really is unpleasant, especially if drastically disparate ambition/talent/etc. are forced into the same team.

@CaptainEmacs Sometimes students get lumped together without choice — Even classes with assigned partners have to include a mechanism for requesting reassignment.

@JeffE "have to include" - that's the theory.

First of all the term partner is a bit confusing here, are you talking about course-mates or colleagues?
Otherwise ask yourself whether or not you want to be associated with forgery, regardless of whether or not you intend to enjoy the fruits of the action. As an analogy, would it be OK to help with forging counterfeit money just because you don't intend to use the fake money to buy anything with it?
Then there are different levels of taking distance from the act; you can either:

blow the whistle on the data-forgery, which is what I would strongly advocate for if this work is supposed to be published on a peer-review journal, or
just ask to have your name removed from the report if it's just coursework. That way you avoid having a fallout with your "partners" and still maintain some level of plausible deniability.

The first option is important in the case of a scientific publication, because data forgery on a publication is not only cheating and ethically wrong, but also is potentially harmful to others who might try on to build on your research results. That aspect is obviously not as important if the paper in question is just a hand-in assignment for some course at the uni.
The second option isn't really the most ethical alternative, and might still be problematic (e.g. if someone questions why you insist on being removed from authors list).
Bottomline is you can't have your cake and eat it at the same time.

Thank you for the answer. I was considering on blowing the whistle, but this is coursework, and maybe it isn't worth it. My main worry is: would this affect my career or academic life in another college?

@guilherme.oc97 I think you have nothing to loose from blowing the whistle. You may gain the animosity of your cheating colleagues (that they brought it upon themselves), but you are leaving anyway. An accusation of data forgery may chase you across institutions.

"If you are an undergrad then the question is a bit off-topic here." What difference does it make if the project is for a graduate class vs. an undergraduate class?

@djechlin good point, I'll edit accordingly

If we can't both have our cake and eat it at the same time, I choose to eat it.

Many schools have an Academic Integrity office or officer. Usually you can talk over the problem, learn about your options, and decide to file a formal report or not.
If this situation relates to a for-credit class, I assume you will get a poor grade in the class as a result of not having done the assignment or as a result of asking to have your name removed from the assignment that your partners are submitting. If you are switching fields, maybe that doesn't matter to you.
Reporting academic dishonesty (as opposed to just getting yourself out of the situation) is the right choice, but I know from several personal experiences that it causes short-term stress that you may not want to endure. You probably will find that it's not just the perpetrators who get angry at you. Some people within the school organization may well be annoyed that you are reporting the incident. There will be stress, so if getting yourself out of it is as much as you can contemplate doing, at least do that. Not everybody is ready to be a hero all the time.
Over the years, both as a student and as an employee, I have witnessed academic misconduct. I have never regretted reporting, but I have sometimes decided that reporting wouldn't be worth the trouble it would cause for me. I have taken on a considerable amount of trouble related to reporting, so I don't feel that I have been "weak" on the occasions when I have decided not to. If you've never done it before, you might find it to be an eye-opening experience.

This is the type of situation that department deanships are created for.  Meet with the dean, explain what's going on.  The dean will go over your options with you, and probably ask you to sit tight (=wait) while he or she looks into the situation and confers with colleagues.
(The above answer is written for almost all countries.  The exception would be if you happen to live in a country where corruption is rampant.  In that case, the best thing would be to keep your head down and be as little noticed as possible.)

Others have suggest to have your name removed from the project. I would like to add a detail to this.
If you have invested a lot of time and effort into the project, it would be annoying and unfair to be set back by just discarding this work.
Instead I would try:

Clearly separate your work from the work of others. Denote which work you did. I suggest to set up a 'git' repository for the group, which will connect all additions and modifications with a name and a date.
Privately but in writing, inform the lecturer that you can only vouch for your own (and denoted) part, not the parts of others. This is justified as you were not given the chance to review their work. They started work late, and it would be unreasonable to assume that you can critically review everything within a few days before the deadline.
Depending on the circumstances, you may or may not additionally inform them of your suspicions. If you do, it might be possible to arrange a separate submission of your work, such that it is detached from the others.
As the report cannot be published without you, as an author, being asked, I would not worry much about the report including your name getting out.

The idea is to keep your work alive and grade-able fairly.
I have experienced similar situations myself but at the time, I had not followed the advise I gave above. So I cannot speak to how well it works - I would be glad if anyone can enlighten me on this.

Do you know that you have  answered a six year old question?

@EthanBolker yes

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


text:
Why is the admission process centralized, when the professor who is actually funding may not be in the committee?
This question is based on some observations which could be wrong (in that case, let me know).
I am applying to PhD program in various universities in US in theoretical computer science (TCS). Some of the things that I heard is that getting admission in TCS in top 15 theory universities is tough. The toughness is obviously due to the large volumes of applications that these universities receive (I don't know how much?). However one of the big factors is limited funding available with professors.
So who funds the students? Professors or universities? In some cases I heard, that it is the professor who funds the student. Then in that case, why is the admission process centralized (the professor who is actually funding may not be in the committee)?

Welcome to Academia.SE. I would just point out that your question really isn't CS specific. Your basic question comes down to: "Why do individual professors who fund students directly not admit students directly as well?"

yes the question isn't CS specific but my interest is in CS dept and therefore just tried to keep the focus there.

Interesting related question: Implications of being accepted without funding?

I'm a theoretical computer scientist currently serving on the admissions committee of a large top-15 computer science department.

Some of the things that I heard is that getting admission in TCS in top 15 theory universities is tough. The toughness is obviously due to the large volumes of applications that these universities receive (I don't know how much?).

This year my department received about 50 PhD applications from people whose primary interest is theoretical computer science and probably another 50 with secondary interest in theory, out of 750 PhD applications overall.  We've offered admission to about 10 theory PhD students (out of about 200 PhD offers total).  We realistically expect three or four theory PhD students to accept our offer (out of about 80-100 total).

However one of the big factors is the limited funding available with professor. So who funds the students? Professors or universities?

It's complicated.  A typical PhD offer from a strong department includes guaranteed funding in some form.  My department promises five years of funding to every incoming PhD student, assuming they make steady progress toward their degree.  (Do not accept a PhD admission offer without funding.  If they really want you, they'll pay for you.)  Most of our students take 6 years to finish, but in practice, (100-ε)% of our students are funded for their entire stay.  A typical theory student in my department is a TA for 2-4 semesters and an RA of fellow for the rest.
When a student is admitted, the department is making a contractual commitment to funding that student, assuming they make adequate progress toward their degree.  In practice, most of that funding comes from individual faculty grants, most of the rest comes from the department's budget for teaching assistantships, and a small fraction comes from fellowships (university, NSF, DOE, NDSEG, Hertz, etc.).
The number of students that each group is allowed to admit depends primarily on three factors:

Advising capacity: How many students can each faculty member in the group reasonably advise?  The limiting resource here is faculty attention, not money.  Theoretical computer science faculty tend to have relatively small groups, compared to some areas in CS.  Steady state in my group seems to be about 3 PhD students per faculty.  This is the most significant factor, in my opinion.
Funding capacity: How many students can each faculty member reasonably expect to fund?  This isn't just a function of the faculty's current grants; a typical grant lasts only 3 years, but each student needs 5-6 years of funding.
Teaching demand: How many TAs does the group need to support its teaching responsibilities?  Conversely, for how many semesters are students in the group expected to be TAs, as part of their PhD training?  The ratio of these two numbers basically determines how many students the department is willing to pay for on its own dime.

In some cases I heard, that it is the professor who funds the student. Then in that case, why is the admission process centralized (the professor who is actually funding may not be in the committee)?

In US computer science programs, departments offer admission, not individual faculty.    Students are completely free to change advisors or even research areas, even if their existing advisor is funding them.  (Of course, they have to fulfill their funding obligations, but that's an orthogonal issue.)  Formally, students in my department do not even choose their thesis advisors until the end of their first year.  (One of my recent PhDs entered the department as an RA in distributed systems/sensor networks; he switched to algorithms at the end of his first year.)  For that reason, it's crucial that the admissions decision does not rest entirely with a single faculty member.

There are several models for funding graduate students: often times the professor is responsible for funding. However, in many cases, the system has "joint" sponsorship—at first the students are sponsored by the department (while they do teaching service or are taking classes, for instance). After that, they are then paid for by their advisors.
The role of centralized admissions is to cut down on the cumulative workload. Especially with the ease of submitting applications electronically, if each professor were responsible for selecting his or her own students, faculty would be swamped by applications. Having a central pool makes the process simpler for everybody.

Centralized admissions also helps maintain uniform standards, and it diffuses the blame for rejection (rejected candidates blame the department as a whole, or at least a faceless admissions committee, rather than a specific faculty member).

Depending on the university, funding for students can be allocated in different ways.  From what I've seen in Computer Science, you can be guaranteed funding, which usually means that your tuition will be covered to some extent and you may receive a living stipend.  You can receive no funding, which means that you have to pay your own tuition and your own living expenses, or you can receive partial funding which is some subset of guaranteed funding.
Some universities or departments don't admit graduate students unless they are guaranteed funding by either the department or by a professor.  In these cases, sometimes the department/school might have some money set aside to fund graduate students, usually as TAs, but professors will have their own funds through grants.  This allows professors more latitude in choosing graduate students that they think are promising and who share the same research interests.
Other universities/departments will admit students without guaranteed funding.  Students that are admitted without guaranteed funding will need to find their own funding sources through scholarships, fellowships, or finding their own paid positions (e.g., research assistants, project assistants, or teaching assistants).  If the student is unable to find any of these, footing the bill for tuition will fall directly on them.  This can be very stressful and can lead to students needing to drop out because they can't find funding or a mad scramble/funded positions being very competitive.
My observation, and your mileage may vary depending on university or department, is that if the university does not offer all graduate students guaranteed funding, they still try to limit the unfunded students that are admitted to be balanced against the number of funding opportunities that may become/be available.  Departments also tend to admit slightly more students than they have positions for in anticipation of some students choosing to go to a different university after they receive all of their admittance letters.
As to why it's centralized, what people said about uniform standards and saving on administrative costs makes sense, and there's also an argument that many universities like to keep statistics and information on how many students are applying and being admitted to each department, what their demographics are, etc.


text:
How to prevent physical/psychological health side effects of workaholism in academia and research?
As a research student, I spend most of my time working on my research career, even when I am at home, I am awake until 3 or 4 A.M just doing my research-chores.
As a matter of fact, long-term having not enough sleep, putting myself under huge amount of stress and hard work and more important, not getting enough exercise will directly put the person's health in to danger.
Q: How should a researcher balance their life to both maintain their health and do their academic job?
I am wondering whether professionals and scientists really hardly worked this much and how their healthy and balanced academic/work life-style is.

@enthusiasticstudent I highly recommend you to change your lifestyle. I've experienced the same for over 12 months. The consequences will appear later on. In my case it started with back pain, hemorrhoids and ended with disgust (psychological feeling) towards the work. I think the way to change it is to know that you dedicate a fixed amount of time per week on your research, and use this time as good as possible. Use tools tools/addons to avoid distractions and make sure to keep the promise you give to yourself. "This amount of hours per week"

@WolfgangKuehne I am suffering from some of those unhealthy signs and I am wondering whether professionals and scientists really hard worked this much and how was their healthy and balanced academic/work life-style.

I am not sure what your exact question is. Are you looking to maintain a healthy work-life balance, or are you interested in polling how much other people work (and how healthy their life is). The former looks similar to the linked question, the second one is probably out of scope.

That being said, if you actually work until 3AM every day, you need to stop this pattern now or you will be burned out in (at most) a few months.

@xLeitix: or just don't start work until 7pm, that should be fine ;-)

Also please remember that workaholism doesn't necesarily imply good results: for example, South Koreans by far have the highest weekly workload (>60hours) in the OECD but South Korean has also the least productivity per hour.

This doesn't seem specific to academia.

I'd say this is pretty much standard, whether in academia or business or the military or wherever. When I was a fresh-caught young naval officer there were times I was up for more than 48 hours straight, what with operational commitments, watch-standing, "normal" work stuff, multiple underway replenishments a day (I was stationed on a supply ship) - it was just Business As Usual. The more senior officers got a decent amount of sleep, but us "kids" were go-Go-GO! Today (at age 57) I wouldn't do that ever again - that's why there's "kids" to show us oldsters How It's Done. :-)

@BobJarvis I know that younger people may have to work much more than the elders but, in academia it seems that people are all doing research. But I can see that older researchers/scholars are working with a more relaxed and steady way than the younger researchers. They are more organized. They really pay attention to exercise, they are happy, they pay much more attention to their family than younger students. It seems that they have minimum standards to save their physical/psychological quality of life that younger researchers do not really pay attention to.

Leave the academic world. You'll thank yourself for it later.

@EnthusiasticEngineer The tenured profs can afford to do that. The young ones cannot. Plus, the young ones often also enjoy the bursts of productivity. They just should have a pulse on when it is getting too much, before it does so.

First of all. Sleep. And sleep well. Increasing sleep hours increases productivity and not the other way around. Sleep early (people are not supposed to work too late at night) and wake up after good-solid 8 hours of sleep. Then when you wake up, you will realize that you have amazing clarity and excellent productivity. Also, two hours before sleep abandon work and do something relaxing, such as listening to music or spending time with your significant other. Work or stressful activities before bedtime, disrupt your sleep and its quality. So, that leaves you about 24-(8+2) = 14 hours to work which are more than enough.
Devote at least one hour per day on average for exercise. Any sport, workout is better than nothing. Also, try walking. One hour of walking per day does wonders for your heart, lowers stress and you can still think about research while doing it (I do not advice this though). It also alleviates headaches (stress or work related). Also, mind what you eat. Keep your weight steady and do not eat too salty or fatty foods, that inhibit body and mind performance. Use a multivitamin every two days (after consulting your doctor). Also remember that a healthy body always performs better, including mind activities. Also maintaining a good, healthy appearance increases your chances for a fruitful social life, which will prevent you from overworking and overstressing yourself.
And just a reminder. You should not spend too much time on Stack Academia as well :-)

Why did you say this: And just a reminder. You should not spend too much time on Stack Academia as well :-)?

It was a joke. But spending time on any website when you are missing sleep should be avoided.

I am not missing sleep because of spending time on any website (as stated in my question). :) Thanks for your answer.

As hard as I try I can't seem to convince myself to do the "8 hours sleep" routine. If i get 6 solid hours I'm quite happy though

I put my health first by committing to healthy activities that involve other people, so I will have to stick to them.
For example, I

Have a standing weekly running appointment with a faculty member at my school. I won't cancel this appointment because she will be disappointed.
Have a standing non-academic volunteer commitment one afternoon each week (giving back to my community is essential for my mental health). I won't cancel this because there's a classroom full of 12-year-old girls waiting for me to come help them with their homework.
Spend 25 hours each week, from Friday night to Saturday night, completely disconnected from the Internet and anything work related. (I do this as a religious observance, but it's definitely good for my physical health, too!)
Hold meetings with students and faculty in other buildings in their offices, not mine, so that I am forced to occasionally go outside during daylight hours (if only to walk from one building to the next).

All of these things are non-negotiable to me. That is, no matter what how busy I am or what deadlines are coming up, I will not compromise on any of these things. They're essential to my health and well-being, I arranged them so that other people are depending on me, and so I prioritize them.

Sounds cheesy, but having a hobby really helps. I played table tennis at a club during my PhD, which meant regular training, league games, and tournaments, all entirely non-negotiable (can't let down your team just because you are terrible  at time management).

including other people is great, because it forces the person to stick to the plan

Agreed. Hobbies and friends are good. Some kind of stress management like meditiation or, in my case, powerlifting is also invaluable.

I know that for myself, regular running has helped a lot in the past.
The miraculous thing about regular physical exercise is that even though it takes time, you may find that it seems like you suddenly have more time overall.

Prioritize you're health, happiness and relationships first. Nowhere is it written that a graduate student needs to work insane hours, answer every email the minute it comes in, etc. Frankly, if I worked for someone that had that expectation I'd leave. In fact, I did work for an advisor who was like that and I switched after a year. Life's too short. The stress, fatigue, unhealthy eating, lack of connection with other people outside of academia... it wears on your health.
Don't fall into the rat race. I don't know your field, but in mine it's common for grad students to work insane hours because they just work inefficiently, so just work smarter.
Also, under-promise over-deliver... always.

Under-promise. Over-deliver. Great, great advice. In the United States, we violate that constantly. In fact, we reverse it.

@IsaacWannabeeNewton Speak for yourself, please.

You are only as busy as you want to be. How many hours you can put into work activities without affecting your mental well-being depends on how much you enjoy your work. Given that you describe your work as chores, you should be trying to adjust the cause, not mitigate the symptoms.
There is no way that you can realistically handle the kind of workload you describe long-term. Putting in that many hours to the point that you're basically pulling all-nighters might be justified at crunch time: when a project is due and external factors or bad planning prevented you from finishing in time. The first step to improving your situation is to give yourself a realistic workload, likely something between 40 and 60 hours a week. Then set up a plan for your research that takes into account the hours you have available and set your goals accordingly.
You can try this for a week to see if it helps with your mental fatigue and what the impact is on your research. There are any number of studies that prove the importance of work-life balance for productivity so while you might feel like you're working much less than you should, you should be accomplishing much more with your time.
In other words: Work smarter, not harder.

You should work less and take breaks, for the sake of the success of your research! Out of experience, most, if not all insights/breakthroughs came while taking breaks/ holidays etc…
These breaks allow you to take some distance and give you perspective w.r.t. to your current work. On top of all the good reasons given by the other answers.

On the issue of workaholism, I think it all boils down to why people feel they are more valuable if they work hard. What makes them believe this? Are they trying to impress people and gain acceptance to fill a void?
Does a person "work to live" or do they "live to work"? The latter seems a waste of life to me.
If working very hard makes a person happy then perhaps they should do it. But if they are doing it for another reason and are not very happy, then maybe they need to reconsider.
Maybe a lot of this comes from popular culture when media personalities talk about somebody's "amazing body of work". We've heard that phrase many times. Ironically, very, very few people are remembered for their "bodies of work". It takes an EXTREME amount of EXTREMELY high quality work to be remembered for it.
People remember Mozart, but they don't remember the very good violinist that played with the city symphony 10 years ago. People remember Isaac Newton, but they don't remember lesser mathematicians who still contributed somewhat significantly.

authors: Bob Jarvis - Слава Україні

authors: علاء الاسدي علاء


text:
Authorship allocation - is it common to grant equal credit to two last authors?
I am working on a project in which I have a direct supervisor in addition to the head professor of the lab. The direct supervisor only agrees to being written first or last on the article we are writing. Needless to say, my professor won't agree to be anywhere but last. He also feels that I deserve to be written in the first place. Is it possible to write both of them in the last place as co-last authors?

Is it possible to write both of them in the last place as co-last authors?

No.
As expected, an author list is not a tree or a weighted graph, but a simple flat (one-dimensional) list.
There is exactly one last author. Possible solutions or mitigation of the issue include:

Alphabetical author list. This happens in some field, and is totally unheard of in some others (including chemistry and biology, which is your field, so this might not be a possibility).
Having two contact authors, or have the professor who is not last author to be the contact author. In the past I have used this as a way to “pacify” a co-author who wasn't happy with his spot on the author list. (Needless to say, it's a perversion of the system, and should only be done if the author can actually act as contact author.)
Have a statement indicating the contributions of each author (“X and Y contributed to this work equally”). Some journals require such statements, some will refuse to include them, so your mileage may vary. I doubt this will pacify your reluctant supervisor, though: people who are worried about their rank in the author list are most probably thinking about how it looks like on a publication list or CV.
Have the head professor take responsibility for the final decision (as senior professor and project instigator). That's the most sound solution, but it does not mean it's an easy one.

Good luck with your negotiation! And remember that they're not yours to handle (see my last point)!

This happens in biology quite frequently.  Take a look at this example:

§ Both authors contributed equally to this work.

In this case it can be any two authors on the list.  If the notes are on the first two or last two authors, then this is often viewed as the two primary and equal collaborators.


text:
How do you know if a PhD is for you?
After starting my PhD a few months ago I'm now not sure if research is the thing for me. I'm uncertain on whether I should continue in the PhD program and try to make myself like research more, or if I should just stop and drop out of the program.
How can I know if research is for me or not?

Do you like your topic but not doing research about it? Or you both don't like the topic and research?

What do you think are the pros and cons of research? What aspects/activities do you like and dislike?

Possible duplicate of (http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/9827/7921).

Why do you not enjoy your PhD research? Have you previously done research that you enjoyed (and what's different about the PhD project that makes you unhappy)? If you can remedy things so you're enjoying yourself, by all means continue (even if that means changing topic). But if research just doesn't suit you, then it's better to decide this early on rather than halfway through the project.

While the decision to continue or not is highly localized and opinion based, this question is asking about how one should go about coming to that decision. In my opinion that is an excellent question.

I think this question is vague, but I think vague questions are the ones that provide the most general answers and thus the most useful. Thus, I'll try to answer.
Why is it vague?
Research is not "one thing", there is nothing like the "one true research". There are many different aspects of research that can influence this decision and the experience of doing research. Among others I can think off the top of my head about: The area, whether it is applied or theoretical, formal or empirical, the people in the lab, if you work alone or in a team, the supervisor(s), the project(s) or grants that provide the funding.
And then you have to consider that all that collides with your personality, assets and skills, or the lack of. Some people have natural skills for writing and communicating, some other people for rigor and analytic thinking, etc. So even if two people are doing the same "amount" of writing and analytic thinking, for the former writing may take 80% of the time and for the latter it may be the other way around.
If you think you like some research but you don't like your research it may simply be that you don't like that research.
This is why the answer cannot really be answered. But as I said, those are the best answers, what we should do in these cases is lifting up the level of abstraction and providing some guidelines so that anyone can find their own answers. I'll do my best.
First thing to do is find out what do you want. Do you want to do some research or not, even if it is some Utopian idea of research that does not really exist anywhere. Then try to find some place where this research is being done. Then try to see if you can access this place. Then you will have to find a compromise solution between what you want, what is available and what is available and accessible for you. If this compromise solution seems to be satisfying for you, then go for it, if it is not then leave it for some other life.
The hardest part is trying to know if a place that seems to fit your interests is really that way or that's only a delusion, the best approach is try to speak with the PhD students there, find out how do they feel about that, if they are similar or different from you, etc. You can also check the statistics like how long does it take for them to finish, number of publications, etc. that will give you expected values.
Remember the difference between expectations and reality, wishful thinking is a hazard. There are quite a few pictures with a skeptic/pessimistic meme about expectations and reality to help you.
Back to some specific details of your question, you should compare this Utopian place with your current place, and possible alternative PhD programs you could start. That way you have an additional option:

Not doing a PhD.
Doing a PhD in a place that suits you, even if it is a compromise solution (life's hard)
Doing a PhD where you are, it's again a compromise solution maybe less optimal than #2, but you save a year with this option, this may pay off or not, that's something for you to consider.

In the end nobody knows, life is about choices with partial information, choose wisely and work hard, no matter the path you choose, this train doesn't move without your effort. If you choose rationally, considering all the information that you have, you may make mistakes, but since they will be caused by information that you don't have, you should not regret them, that's life. Basically, if you do your best, you should not regret the consequences.
Good luck.


text:
Is it bad for one's future career prospects if the PhD thesis topic is broad?
As a graduate student in the PhD program (I will be graduating in about 2 months), my research has covered a wide range of topics rather than nailing down one specific topic (super-specialized). In fact, my thesis is broad enough that my current working title is something along the lines of "Toward the Application of Electronic Structure Theory to Solve Relevant Chemical Problems." (Can it get any more general?) There is nothing informative from that title as it completely leaves out details. The problem is, each paper I've published is its own research focus without any connection to the next outside of the fact that computational chemistry was used for each.
I've read in other places that a thesis topic is critical because it is the basis on which you launch your career. Is it bad to look like a 'jack-of-all-trades' person? There must be a better way to handle this.

I personally don't find 'Application of Electronic Structure Theory to Solve Relevant Chemical Problems' to be that broad. I would change 'relevant chemical problems' to something more precise though. What most comments here are omitting is that your situation is not uncommon at all. I know of multiple PhD students who, for various reasons, got involved in different projects and had to stretch the boundaries of logic to make everything fit into one coherent story. Note that in some biomedical fields, it's perfectly ok to write a short intro, paste your 3 papers and write a short conclusion.

Please see http://meta.academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1057/judgments-and-etiquette for discussion on this question.

Quite sincerely, the way one says one's advisor is not a discussion point conveys a lot to me. If this sort of reaction weren't based on looong decades of experience, I'd worry that I were reading too much into such "details". And, of course, in any particular case, such stats/experience-based inferences have iffy relevance. Not so easy to talk to quasi-anonymous people on the internet, I guess. Best wishes...

Some of the comments here fail to mention that there are different academic markets where people with diversified skill sets would appeal. In my field (sociology), most schools (R2, SLAC, teaching colleges) would hire generalists over specialists. If you demonstrate that you can teach many different topics, it might give you an edge at smaller teaching schools (at least in the US). However, if you want to carve out a research path, it might be harder having scattered interests as others say.

short answer: I think the title is not suitable as it is, and thus may harm your career: currently it doesn't look like a jack-of-all-trades, but the title looks like jack-of-no-trade.
However, it may not be a problem if you are already comparably well known for your work (i.e. people know jack has his trade(s)).
But I think it would be good to put in some effort to make it more precise about your contribution to the field.

long answer:
Disclaimer: I'm chemist. Not theoretical chemist, but chemometrician which means that I also do calculations (though of a different kind) in order to solve application problems.
I believe my situation is similar to the OPs in that we both work at problems where in order to solve application questions some method needs to be developed further. I call these 2 aspects of my work the "theory" and "application parts of the work.
In my experience you can easily end up with the title of all or most papers emphasizing the application, and thus looking very diverse while the common topic (the theory) is de-emphasized. Several reasons can cause/contribute to this:

the application problem may be understandable and important to a much wider audience than the small field of experts on the theory you use and advance to solve the application question.
therefore, the pubications are targeted to journals the application audience reads
and you do not want to frighten them away by heavy theory terms in the title.
Also, in my field it is much easier to get funding for working towards the solution of some medical application (and doing the necessary data analysis theory development under that hood) than to get funding for developing data analysis theory (and demonstrating this with the medical application).
And this of course may bleed through to the paper and thesis titles.

In the end, the theory development - thus the common topic of the papers - is mainly to be seen inside the papers. Of course in this situation it would be good to have also a theory paper out that brings together the theory developments and just touches the applications as examples. However, this may look like one more disjoint topic on the first glance.
For example, my publication list has a whole lot of medical application (though I always try to sneak in the theory developments also into the title of the application papers), and a few papers which focus on data analysis methodology - while the common points of all these papers exists: chemometric data analysis and vibrational spectroscopy.
Two more points to consider:

The very general title you give sounds like a typical working title to be  put into the forms at the beginning of the PhD before the specific line of the thesis is known. I don't see anything unusual in a situation where at the end of the work this working title is updated by a specific title.
To me, this seems to be the underlying question here.
If you are in a theory group or are the one in your group who does theory development, the fact that you actually do theory development may be so obvious that you didn't think of stating it. But the fact and preferrably also the specific type of theory development should be in the title.

So my questions to the OP are:

Does this description of application vs. theory aspects reflect your publication situation?
In particular: by unrelated topics, do you mean something like the application question/chemical problems you solve are unrelated? Or do you mean that neither the chemical problems nor the methods you used to solve them are related?

My recommendation without knowing more specifics is:

Explain to your non-chemist grandma what you've been doing. Make a list of the points.
Fill in the sentence: My papers tackle application problems about ...., but what I've really been doing is ....
Don't be afraid of a long title. My guess is that the working title you posted is shortened too much: as you say it is not informative any more as the specifics have been cut out. Put them in.

Comprehensive response.  To address your two questions: 1.) I've made contributions to both theory development and solving chemical problems (application).  2.) The chemical problems I've solved are unrelated to each other.  However, each problem that was examined are important topics.  If I wrote a more detailed title to encompass my work's variety, it would be an awfully long title.  Maybe something like... "Mechanisms, non-covalent interactions, and benchmarks. Oh my!" but that doesn't seem very professional.

@LordStryker: I still suspect that there is an  underlying common subject in the theory developments (however, not knowing your work I obviously cannot say anything definitive). Overall I recommend trying around with longer titles. "Development of a novel computational technique/algorithm/... for eletronic structure bla to describe mechanisms and interactions of chemical foobar including numerical or other benchmarks" is long but to me sounds like a title of a PhD thesis in computational chemistry. Two more months of frequent polishing and shifting  around terms should get you a shiny title.

Coming from a somewhat different field (mathematics), I have seen some theses that were essentially bundles of not-strongly-related papers, each good enough to get published, and considered (by the advisor and the department) good enough to earn a PhD. Ok.
But this is indeed different from "getting a job". From what I have seen, job applicants don't succeed so much with "broad appeal" alone, but also must have strong appeal to a particular research group/interest. Thus, a too-diffuse body of work, especially if described in a fashion that makes it appear diffuse _and_unfocused_, will not get up to the thresh-hold of having a good chance at job opportunities.
To my mind, the point is how one portrays such work. If (in contrast to the situation of the question) the papers really are completely disjoint and unrelated, it is not easy to describe them as fitting together into a coherent research program. If, indeed, as apparently is the case in the questioner's situation, there is a coherence to the body of work, it is very important to re-describe things to emphasized that. "Novel computational methods whose potential is illustrated by making progress in several important problems"? That sort of thing?
After all, presumably/often the author of several papers does have some underlying theme/principle/concept/whatever that is merely manifest in various way ... that may superficially appear very different.
So, in summary, the description of the body of work would best emphasize the common thread(s) underlying the several instances. Although often labels are simplistic, hiring committees do use them, so figuring out how to position oneself among those labels is probably smart. (In effect denying the relevance of admittedly simplistic labels and categorizations is most likely just self-sabotage.)
One's advisor's approval of the body of work as meriting the PhD is a different issue from getting the advisor's recommendations about an appealing coherent description of the whole of the work.

Some great answers here, but I would upvote this one a few more times, if possible.

The answer to your question is field specific. You should show some specialization in your PhD and in many fields (probably the vast majority) this will be delving deep into one very specialized topic. However, this does not mean other types of dissertations are necessarily bad for your career. I have heard anecdotally the following: If you are a theoretician in an experimental field, often a diverse set of interests is a good thing. Why? In some fields, especially particular branches of biology, the vast majority of people on the hiring committee will know very little math/theory, so there often isn't that one person fighting for you. However, if you applied your methods/theory to solve a wide variety of questions, you might peak the interests of many people on the hiring committee as a future collaborator. Sometimes the set of methods or theory is the unifying/specialized aspect of the dissertation even if the applications are seemingly unrelated.
That being said, this is the type of question that is best answered by your advisor, and ideally in your first year of a PhD program. If your advisor is good, as you say he is, and he knows your goals, he wouldn't allow you to go down the wrong path with your thesis subject, so hopefully, you specifically are fine. However, you should spend some considerable time thinking about how your thesis chapters are related, as such deep thought will greatly help you write a research statement, and perform well in job interviews, regardless of your field's general view on the structure of the thesis.

Following up on that last sentence, I wonder if there isn't really some specialized aspect to the work. Have you developed any novel methods in computational chemistry, or have you just been applying out-of-the-box analyses to various low-interest problems? If the later is true, you might be in a good position for teaching what you've learned. If the former is true, you are in a good place for research. Sometimes, a student is so absorbed in his work that it all seems obvious, and the student does not recognize how advanced his work really is.

@adam.r: "Sometimes, a student is so absorbed in his work that it all seems obvious, and the student does not recognize how advanced his work really is." I think this is a most important insight.

Working in the field of computational chemistry, it is not unusual, that one focusses on many different topics. The field itself is as broad as chemistry itself as it may be applied to any experimentally raised question. It may be considered as one of the most advanced tools up to date in chemistry.
Its applications may range from simple things as the elucidation of the molecular structure, developing accurate bonding models, or deriving physical and chemical properties. It may also be used to derive complicated reaction mechanisms, characteristic reactions of compounds, classification of novel compound classes and prediction of yet unobserved molecules. Taking this as a basis it may be used in the development of more effective catalysts, it is used in drug design, deriving kinetics and many more.
All of the above is connected via electronic structure theory or more general the approximate solution of Schrödinger's equation. The field of computational chemistry focusses on applying approximations derived by theoretical and/or quantum chemistry to real life questions.
Working in many of these fields is neither uncommon nor unwelcome. Sometimes one particular subject of the starting hypotheses evolves into a huge complex, that may be carried on for years to come, while some other projects are helping in a shorter timescale. Both of them are equally important.

The problem is, each paper I've published is its own research focus without any connection to the next outside of the fact that computational chemistry was used for each.

In this you state, that you already published papers about your subjects. I am guessing these publications were peer reviewed, so they are already proven to be valuable to the scientific community.
Applying quantum chemical calculations to various problems proves, that you are fit in the field. You know how to tackle different questions, you are versatile  and your knowledge about the field you are working in is as broad as necessary. It may also show that you are not narrow minded and thinking out-of-the-box.
If the content of your thesis is already published in peer reviewed journals, you will have quite a good chance, that your thesis will remain unread by your peers. Scientific articles tend to be of much higher importance, than the actual thesis.
If your career options include doing a postdoc, than you will still have enough time to specialise yourself. If you want to become a professor yourself you should use that time to develop a specialised, yet versatile and broad research field.
If you plan on working in the chemical industry, the employers are probably more interested in you as a person, your ability to adjust to certain problems, and working according to their standards. Having a broad thesis should not be a hindrance in that case.
However, the title you are currently using may not be very well chosen, since "Relevant Chemical Problems" is a very fuzzy term. On the contrary to some other opinions offered in this thread, I would be very scared of using a long title. Make it as short as possible, while keeping it as precise as necessary.
In conclusion, I do not expect that the title of your thesis will harm your career in any way once you have published in peer reviewed journals.

Addendum
I know LordStryker from chem.se and therefore I know at least one publication he suggested I read, upon a request of mine. (I will not disclose this source here, because this is up to him.) I am certainly no expert in this particular field of computational chemistry and my understanding might be incomplete. However, I do see the significance of this particular work not only to our community but also to tangenting fields.
I found two other publications, one appeared in a top level journal of our field, the other I cannot judge. From what I understood the presented work is thoroughly, concise and well prepared. I could also see that connecting all these samples is very difficult from a concise topical point of view. However, these all are applications of quantum chemistry, so they all emerged from the same field.
Not receiving a degree for this work is absolutely out of the question.
On a personal note, I would like to state, that it was my own personal decision to get involved in this "discussion" - I was never approached by LordStryker, nor do I have any affiliations with him. Our communication is solely through the se network.

The answer is completely dependent on what the next step of your career is. If you a seeking a post-doc position, then what matters is if people with money are hiring researchers with your skill set. If so, you are set for now and you can build more expertise as a postdoc. If you are seeking a faculty position at a research university, then your research needs to have a direction that excites people -- are you able to address important problems that other people cannot (or have not)?
Since other people are commenting on whether your research constitutes a "real PhD", I'll give my two cents: what matters is that you have applied your creativity to solve a difficult problem. If you have simply learned techniques that others have developed and applied them in a mindless manner, then you are a technician, not a scientist. If your thesis has demonstrated creative problem solving, then you should be fine (see first paragraph)

Overly broad topics usually make for unsatisfactory thesis subjects, because it becomes substantially harder to make a significant intellectual contribution in a larger field than in a narrower one. More importantly, it can take much longer to build a "does-it-all" solution.
However, that doesn't mean that your research can't evolve in such a direction—some topics broaden significantly once means of "generalizing" it are discovered and applications to different systems and cases can be developed. But it's not normally a good idea to start with such a broad topic.

It also becomes very hard for reviewers to create meaningful metrics for evaluation when a subject is overly broad.

My response answers the top-level question posed in the title.

I am someone who dropped out of a PhD program, so I am answering on the basis of others in the program that I knew.
One student was pleased that his thesis was "broad" because he planned to carve several papers out of it. (From what I understand, he did.) Your situation reminded me of his model.
Another focused his thesis and research efforts around a narrow area so they would "all point in the same direction."
These were two of the best regarded students in a class some years ahead of mine.

Finding something is harder when you search for something specific than when you simply search for "something".

Is it bad to look like a 'jack-of-all-trades' person?

That depends, for all trades individually, yes, it's bad. If you research on topics A to Z and people focus on only one of them, then for any job related with one single trade you will be at a disadvantage.
There are several good things, though. First one is diversification. It is much more likely that there will be some position in any topic from A to Z than in one particular topic from A to Z. It is also more likely that one of those positions is hard to cover because there are no good candidates, or for what matters you, there are no better candidates than you. So you get it.
Q: Are those topics with fewer candidates the not-hot boring and bad topics?
A: They are to the standards when people started their PhDs, but things may be different now. Starting a PhD is an act of speculation (to some extent) you have diversified your time investment, this has pros and cons.
The second good thing is the broadness of your knowledge. Who would you pick to be the head of the department in computational chemistry? Someone who knows a lot about one particular topic in computational chemistry or someone who has a reasonably vast knowledge in the whole area? Probably someone with management and political skills, but assuming no differences wrt in the candidates, then the second one with a broader knowledge.
In short, a broad or a deep knowledge about something is not a good or a bad thing, both have pros and cons. The objective is setting some goals that make the best use of the pros of your assets and in which the cons don't really matter so much. This last statement is so broad that it can be applied to almost everything (e.g. on Saturday night in a club) but that doesn't make it worse, that makes it better, maybe not an universal law, but I'd like to think it's somewhat close.

The working title "Toward the Application of Electronic Structure Theory to Solve Relevant Chemical Problems" produces a bit of yawn factor for me.  Regarding your career, a bad thesis and an unread thesis might have similar outcomes on reputation.  "Electronic Structure Theory relevant to chemical problems which exhibit at least property P, but seemingly not when Q is present" would be better, even if you've only managed to notice and characterise the matter, and have yet to account for why it is so despite ruling out the obvious questions by systematic research.
'Towards the application of' (vague) and 'solve relevant' (hedge) are signals that I am not likely to find anything interesting to read in the thesis.  I will most likely find a summary of some research that was done.  Probably I already read the papers documenting such research when they were published, and I'm not really wanting to read about the same research again.  Rather, I want to hear a definitive statement that hasn't been heard before, which has the potential to shed light on my own pursuits for the truth.  If the title doesn't come right out and make some concrete statement, it seems unlikely that the rest of the text is going to get any better.  At the very least, I want the title to hint at which chemical problems are relevant and why.
What your peers require of you is some (falsifiable, useful, bold) statement which hasn't been made before in your field, and your best effort to put that statement above reproach.  Most likely, you'll reference your own research as part of trying to make your case - but really, aside from the fact that your head has necessarily been places the research has forced it to be, it would be stupid to assume that the thesis must therefore rely mainly or exclusively on that research which you were personally involved in.  The thesis-statement comes as a consequence of research (by you and countless others), but the mere result of your research (already documented in other papers) is not itself the thesis-statement that you will be making.
If you've got multiple statements to make which are not related in an interesting way, write multiple theses.  Why not?
In well-established fields, all the existing ground has been staked out, and your role is maybe to just do some (entirely necessary) chipping away at the edges - adding some qualifications to previous statements made in your field, or (more interestingly) attempting to account for why previous statements with good pedigrees yet still differ.  In this case, your thesis statement will necessarily be quite specific (not merely to conform to expectations).
Now if application of Electronic Structure Theory has not previously been applied to chemical problems before (which would seem odd, but I'm outside that field), and your thesis is proposing the terms on which this may in fact be done (thus birthing a whole new sub-field) then your 'apply(x,relevant-y)' title might fly.  I'd not expect it from you on your first serious paper though. In this case, I'd still want some clue as to how it's done, which problems are relevant, and a little more ... enthusiasm .
Maybe you're not quite at the point where you have a candidate thesis-like statement to make, or unfortunately, still have some systematic research to do, because your research to date, while good and useful in its own right, isn't useful as a systematic exploration supporting your thesis statement.

Disclaimer: I'm not an academic, and the above advice may not be practical in actual universities or academic practice.

note in some fields nearly all theses are unread; what matters is whether the journal articles are popular, important and generally well received (of course this is untrue for many other fields)

Oh right, I forgot that one's thesis is just a hoop-jumping exercise and as such, is totally meaningless in relation to the science allegedly being conducted.

A PhD thesis is all about focus and depth, more than any other degree I know of. It is the antithesis of the jack-of-all-trades.
You say that you are two months from completion.
But you do not have a specific research question.
Nor do you have a very focused thesis, just unrelated papers in the same field: your words were: "each paper I've published is its own research focus without any connection to the next outside of the fact that computational chemistry was used for each".
It will depend on the institution, but at the institution I work, you would not be two months from completion. You'd be two years from completion.
If your supervisors are happy with your work as it is, then they've either completely screwed up, or your institution is happy to offer PhDs for theses which do not meet the standard that I and others expect: that they study a very specific question, deeper than anyone else has. I think you need to work out which of those two is the case, before you submit.
Not that there's anything wrong with being a jack-of-all-trades. But that really is the polar opposite to a PhD, which should be providing novelty, rigour and depth.
This does look bad for your future career, because it looks like you've spent several years being a jack-of-all-trades across a field, when you should have been very focused on a specific research question: at many institutions, that would mean that you simply would not be getting your doctorate; and having spent the time, and coming away at best with an MPhil, will look like a fail.

that they study a very specific question, deeper than anyone else has.  - Can a set of loosely related papers just be a series of very specific questions that were explored deeper than anyone else has?  (they were all published so they haven't been explored previously...)

It seems to me that multiplicity of one's research interests cannot be problematic in itself.  In other words, if someone has during the course of their PhD studies published three separate papers that are only loosely related (or totally unrelated, even), then if any one of the papers is sufficient for a thesis, all three certainly should be.  The problem is that if each paper is individually insufficiently substantial and they are not closely related, then they may not add up to a thesis's worth of work.  Right?

I completely disagree with this post and frankly find it a bit condescending. A PhD thesis is all about what your field defines it to be about. The three paper thesis is actually quite common in several fields, and while it may be banned at your specific institution or department, it's the norm in certain subjects. A simple google or academic stack exchange search would have turned this up http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8829/article-based-phd-and-advisors-new-role. Now certainly the papers need to be related, but not enough detail is provided for us to determine this.

note I'm not saying you're wrong in your opinion about what a thesis "ought" to be like. I think your argument is convincing, but it will only be useful for some fields.

but if you are very familiar with the customs of computational chemistry, then you should edit the answer to reflect your experiences.

-1: you seem to judge the quality of the work on the basis of the working title. Besides the very general wording of the title we know that the OP is unhappy about it because it is so general that the OP is afraid that the work actually done is not conveyed. If you in fact read the papers and concluded that they are not worth a PhD, IMHO you need to state that explicitly in order to substantiate the grounds for your judgment.

Note that the sentence you quote does give a relation between the papers - not a specific one, but neither do we know any specifics why the papers should really be unrelated.  What I'm upset about is dealing out a serious judgment that the work does not deserve the degree without knowing the work at all. And after asking for your statement that you know more than is written in the question if this is actually the case (as well as @MHH's question about your field-specific experience) I think I'm entitled to assume that you don't.

@EnergyNumbers he says the applications are unrelated. He never says that the methods are unrelated. In fact he says "computational chemistry is used for each". That in and of itself may is probably too broad, if it means math and computers are used for each, but I kind of doubt the tightest relationship between the methods used is that they are all in the field of computational chemistry.


text:
Should I choose a postdoc with greater potential for collaboration over a higher ranked institution?
I'm in the market for math postdocs and was just offered some positions. Essentially my situation is as follows. I have two offers from AMS Group I universities. One has higher "ranking" and is in the top 15, and the other in the 30s. However, the lower ranked university has a great group and there is a greater potential for collaboration.
I'm concerned that if I go to a lower ranked place, faculty positions at a good institution will not be easy to find. How important is it to go to a famous university for you postdoc? I'd also like to hear about the experiences of mathematicians who didn't go to a top 10 university for the their postdoc, but worked their way up.

But I'm specifically interested in math postdocs and faculty positions. I'll try to migrate it there if it doesn't work out. Thanks!

Actually there are quite a few mathematicians there who offer really good advice. Congrats on getting the positions, and good luck at where ever you end up going!

This question would be more appropriately placed on Academia.SE.

related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/16188/how-to-choose-between-multiple-math-postdocs-offers

My answer here should be relevant.

I would suggest going where you think you'll be happiest and do the most productive and visible research, taking into account whatever factors of these places are relevant to you.    Ultimately your chances at a faculty position will depend on the strength of your results and on your letters.
The advantages of going to a more prestigious place is that, in general, such places have a higher concentration of good mentors and collaborators.  Such factors make it easier for most people to get good results and high visibility.  But in your specific field, for your specific needs, a lower ranked department might be the better fit.
If you were saying you were considering department #100 over #5 (via some standard ranking), I might suggest you consider such a choice very carefully.  However, a "30s" department might easily be a better choice than a "top 15".