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What can I tell a student I am mentoring who claims: "I want to do pure mathematics because it is superior to any other subject in the world"?
This question is partly inspired by this thread.
I am mentoring a student who claims: "I want to do pure mathematics because it is superior to any other subject in the world like applied math, statistics, science, and engineering".
On one hand, I like it when he finds the thing he really loves. But on the other hand, I really don't want him to have such a belief that what he wants to do is the most important thing in academia while other subjects are inferior. Such arrogance will hurt him in the long run as a scholar. But I cannot give him a convincing reason since I also do research in pure math myself and have to confess that it was not until I found it hard to find academic jobs in pure math did I realize that pure math may not be so "superb" compared to other subjects.
However, I also do not want to tell him that he will find it hard to survive in academia if he does pure math. But if you believe I can say this to him you are welcome to explain in your comments and answers. I am happy to know!
It is not uncommon in the math community that people have the belief that what they do is sacred and pure math is the supreme of all subjects in the world. Even within pure math, I have seen the very hilarious hierarchy (this student is also aware of this without me telling him):

number theory, representation theory and algebraic geometry > topology and geometry > analysis and PDE

(although I cannot deny that Fields Medal and Annals of Math do favor people in number theory and algebraic geometry)
So, what can I tell him?

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An eminently deletable comment/joke, but just occurred to me this afternoon: "yeah, what about the choice between pure and impure mathematics?" :)

(1) I know many famous researchers who also think/say this way - it seem to never have hurt them. (2) Are you sure this is not a joke? Often, people say things like that to their collegues in the same subject or to friends in other subjects, but only in jest. While the applied mathematicians are proud that their work is "useful", the "pure" mathematicians are proud of the beautiness. Again, it's most often a joke.

Mandatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/435/

I see no real reason to tell him anything. If he’s being an obnoxious or abrasive jerk, you could advise him to knock that off. And of course, you can share your views and experiences if the right moment arises. But it’s probably not the case that “something must be done”: immature views and partially-informed opinions have a way of resolving themselves with age and experience.

Yes. Don't do anything that might kill their passion for a subject. Any subject, actually.

Agree. Just roll your eyes (out of his view) and let him be a sophomoric undergrad. I can neither confirm nor deny that I made similar remarks at that age.

I heard a completely different suggestion of approach after having lunch with a friend, posted as an answer below: https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/209204/54886 As someone without much mentoring experience, I would like to hear your thoughts on this before implementing it, or stay silent.

I'm downvoting this because not telling him anything is odds-on to set him up for some major disappointment down the road.

To be clear, my advice that OP be silent only extends to the student’s claim that pure math is the most worthwhile subject (which is what the question asked about). Elsewhere, I wrote: “it’s hard to get paid to do pure math, your student should definitely hear that as many times as possible from as many sources as possible.”

@cag51 Then perhaps make this part clear in your answer. I thought you also meant I am also better not to tell him it is hard to find a job in pure math, etc.

@cag51 it’s hard to get paid to do pure math, your student should definitely hear that as many times as possible from as many sources as possible Well, that heavily depends on how good you are at it. I don't think Terry Tao had any difficulty except which offer out of 50 or so to choose. I found it pretty easy too, even at my rather mediocre (by the standards of the 21st century) level. But if one is below mediocrity, it may become difficult, indeed. However that applies to any profession; math is not an exception here.

@fedja But you have to realized that Terry Tao is one of the top mathematicians in the world and how many mathematicians can make that much? On the other hand, how much could "top" software engineers, dentists, lawyers, politicians make? (I am even trying to avoid mentioning "top" businesspeople)

@NoOne Certainly I realize that. Of course, it is not easy to get Tao's salary if you are not at Tao's level, but to make enough for decent living by doing and teaching pure math is not too hard, IMHO. If one wants a personal yacht, one should choose another profession, indeed. I guess for most of us a house, a car, and (optionally) a small aircraft is about where we'd better stop our material ambitions. But these three are affordable :-)

Yes, immature views might evaporate with age and experience. But IMO it’s a mentor’s job to accelerate this process.

Oh man, this question triggered me so much that I actually created an account.
So I'm a "pure" mathematics dropout; I finished a PhD in 2012 and did a couple of postdocs. It was fantastic. I had a great working relationship with my advisor. The community was great. Sure, there were politics between journal editors, referees, and authors, but not to the extent that I could see in physics or computer science. I genuinely loved it, but life shoved, and I opted for a career transition to better accommodate my wife's career.
So as someone who once thought like your mentee, here are some thoughts:

"Pure" math ain't a thing. Math all over the spectrum finds applications somewhere. Elliptic curves are applied to cryptography. Banach spaces show up in compressive sensing. Even category theory shows up in programming language design. "Applied math" has heretofore been restricted to PDEs and I think is a ploy by the PDE community to ensure they get a pile of NSF funding without competition, but there's plenty of math that has real world impact outside of PDEs.

The math research situation wasn't great 10 years ago, and has only gotten worse. I used to argue with my mom that my math professor aspirations were at least a safe career choice if I could get tenure. Then WVU cut their PhD program and laid off tenured faculty. I always said that a university ceases to be a university when they don't have a math department; WVU is officially a professional basketball team that oddly has some math teachers attached to it. They won't be the last to make such a move. Imagine being 50 and having been a research mathematician your whole life and hitting the open job market. I had a hard time transitioning at age 30.

The equation changes if you decide to be a normal person and get married. It's emotionally draining to postdoc thousands of miles away from your spouse; it's also unfair to expect them to just follow you around the world while you build a career. If you're not Fields Medalist material, you might have between 0 and 1 "good" tenure-track opportunities in a given year during your postdoc. So be ready to have the "Are you cool moving to Columbia, Missouri?" conversation with your spouse. And be prepared for them to say "Hard pass." (Nothing against UM... I've never been. But I was in a similar situation with a comparable place.)

Even when you love the subject, you'll end up joylessly writing a paper that you know doesn't need to be written and citing your buddy's paper that also didn't need to be written because it helps your careers. It'll go to some minor journal. It's not dishonest. It's just life in modern academia. Where's the "purity" in that? Sure, the goal is to write the paper that revolutionizes X and wins you a Fields Medal. Even if you don't do that, you'll write a couple of things that you're actually proud of. But in between, if you want to have a career, you'll write something that sucks a piece of your soul out. A little academic Horcrux.

If any of this depresses you, don't fret. I have nothing but great memories, great friends, and pride left from my time as an academic. I landed in a good-paying tech career where I work remotely and can spend lots of time with my family. I have a few regrets, but nothing I would change if I could do it again. I would never tell someone that they shouldn't try their hand at academic math, but just like to point out the difficulties, obvious and not with trying to live this life.

"Pure" math ain't a thing. - Yes. It ain't.

"Applied math" has heretofore been restricted to PDEs and I think is a ploy by the PDE community to ensure they get a pile of NSF funding without competition" how true ... it should be called "applied math to engineers" :) .
However, your quotation marks should be on "dropout" rather than on pure.

Great answer. Thank you.

I would gently push back if he seeks validation of these beliefs, or brings them up on his own volition in casual conversation. If that happens, I would point out that yes, pure mathematics has a certain kind of beauty to it that is not found in other domains to the same extent, namely that which comes from results being in principle rigorously provable starting from whatever foundational system of axioms one subscribes to. I would then point out, however, that there are some caveats about this.
First, hardly anybody really does this. Pure mathematicians produce things (natural language proofs using naive set theory) that could be turned into really rigorous proofs (doing so is called formal verification), but ask most mathematicians to actually do this and they will run, because it would involve a lot of mechanical work that is more like programming than the part of mathematics they love. Instead, they present their argument at the level of detail and rigour that will satisfy themselves and their peers - much like other scientists do as well.
Secondly, being rigorous means being able to really prove something (which, yes, is beautiful when it works), but it also means you can solve less. So the ability of pure mathematics to present clear, complete, absolute arguments is part of a trade-off, where we trade the ability to do this for ignoring a lot of interesting problems that people want answered. Applied mathematics and other sciences get around this problem by introducing modelling assumptions and having experimental grounding, both of which comes with a different type of beauty in thinking that pure mathematics lacks.
Third, if we order fields by purity, then normal pure mathematics does not come out on top. Depending on your viewpoint, I would say it is either formalized mathematics instead, or mathematics based on intuitionistic logic, or maybe doing both? In any case, normal mathematicians would view these I think as interesting subjects of study, but they would think anyone weird who would claim that actual, practical everyday pure mathematics should better be done this way. He can expect a similar reaction from most people outside and probably also inside pure mathematics if he claims that pure mathematics is in some way superior to other fields.
So in summary, if he brings it up, I'd validate his passion for pure mathematics while nudging him towards a more expansive and generous view, emphasizing the complementary beauty and importance of other fields, the perils of status hierarchies, and the shared culture of all scholarship.

Regarding purity arguments, I recalled circles being made out of this idea, and after a few moments not getting anywhere with a direct google search, I looked in the sci.math archive and found a 2 June 2002 sci.math post that included: Psychology is dirty Biology; Biology is dirty Chemistry; Chemistry is dirty Physics; Physics is dirty Mathematics; Mathematics is dirty Logic; Logic is dirty Philosophy; Philosophy is dirty Psychology (Probably "relies on" works better than "dirty".) Other circles are in the same thread.

It's all a circle, man.

I would first discuss with him what he means by "superior". I see at least two possibilities:
First is the one you seem to be hearing: He thinks pure math is really the best subject, in some intrinsic and objective sense, and other subjects are worse, implying that the people who study those subjects are also worse - maybe just dumber, or maybe worse as people.
Second, the notion that it is superior for him. That it brings him more joy and satisfaction than anything else.
The first is obviously pernicious and will lead to difficulty with the 99+% of people who don't do pure math. The second is fine.
In the first case (well, really both), I recommend a wonderful book: The Cruise of the Aardvark by Ogden Nash, about an aardvark who goes on a cruise to escape the endless rain. At the beginning of the book he wishes everyone was an aardvark because being an aardvark is wonderful. But, over the course of the 40 days, he learns that, while it is, indeed, wonderful to be an aardvark, the other animals are also necessary.  Note that this book has nothing to do with math. Also, despite the obvious allusions, it's not remotely religious.  But it's very funny.
I also recommend books by Carlo Rovelli. Rovelli is a physicist and a renowned one. But he writes about all sorts of things.

There are, unfortunately, plenty of people who subscribe to the xkcd ranking of fields in terms of purity: https://xkcd.com/435/
With my students, at least, I can guide them towards the POV that much of pure math, historically, was enriched by applied math problems, and there is a lot of benefit to paying attention to how one's pure math might be used someday. Additionally, it's very wise for a pure mathematician to keep some time free to interface with applied math problems, because these are often interesting and can reach a large audience.
Regarding it being hard to survive in academia in pure math: Don't despair! Plenty of people have great careers in pure math, whether or not informed by potential applications. I think, much more than the pure/applied choice, it's essential to do research in something one is passionate about.

Don't forget to read the mouseover text on the xkcd, though...

It’s also essential that someone sees value in your research and is willing to pay you to do it.

The xkcd just summarizes discussions that we had as undergrads. However, we always felt that mathematicians secretly envied physicists, not because of the slightly crude xkcd mouseover, but because physicists had this amazing flights of intuition and would come up with all these wonderful new concepts out of modeling necessity that mathematicians might never have come up with if left to their own devices in the realm of pure thought.

Tell them - tongue in cheek - "available funding is inversely related to purity of a field". Of course, that's not strictly true, but then neither is the statement "pure mathematics is superior to any subject in the world".
Kernel machines are a very nice piece of mathematics across functional analysis and Linear Algebra, and are quite useful. Representation theory is supremely elegant and feeds large parts of physics. Number theory has become central in crypto methods. Topology is now used in Machine Learning. Category theory is relevant to data bases and programming language type theory.
All these fields have ("The horror, the horror") now real applications.
It is the privilege of young students to be cocky and overconfident. That's how they are ready to push towards the unknown. With time, they either will mellow, or they will succeed, or both.
My suggestion here is to take it with tolerance and benevolent humour and just hint to them how much more there is, so, when they/should they become more open, they know what to pay attention to.
Bottom line: If someone burns for a topic, that's a flame you do not wish to kill. Just help them open their eyes a bit further.

I predicted, when I finished my dissertation (Classical Real Analysis) that it was so esoteric that it would never find application. Imagine my surprise, forty or so years later, when it turned out that it did. Oh, the shame.

@Buffy You are in good company. Hardy, just saying.

I would simply answer that humility and respect are qualities a researcher needs.
You can be humble and respectful and still love your field above everything else - it's not exclusive.

"humility and respect are qualities a researcher needs" - it's nice to have, and many good researchers have them, but they are not needed. "Integrity, honesty and attention to detail" is what a researcher needs. If they are braggarts, but otherwise do good work, that's fine. I know quite a few excellent researchers with these traits. Some people find them obnoxious, but nobody forces anyone to work with them.

Sure, its not meant in the sense of mathematical necessity. I just meant that as a statement of opinion and not as a universal fact. Feel free to add "in my opinion" or replace "needs" by "should have".

Fair enough. I just feel that there is so much emphasis on nicety these days that many people that are actually quite brilliant people, but abrasive, opinionated, not socially nimble etc. end up being marginalized and shunted out, and do no longer find their place. I think this is ultimately a loss.

Well, being not nice is not something that is an inherent part of the personality. It's not very hard to not be a d*CK

I used to think that, too.

"Define superior?"
The student might notice what they are doing if you simply ask that question. What is the ordering of this?

Order by difficulty?

Not having to think about whether the model fits reality reduces difficulty, you can just make the assumptions which are most convenient for the theory (look most general, regardless if you can practically check them). This frees the pure mathematician to do more difficult theoretical theory because they do not have to be bothered by whether it actually explains anything. But is it really easier?

Order by usefulness? Order by job opportunities?

No application, uff...

Order by truth/rigor?

At this point you could go into the direction of formal proof verification, proof assistants such as lean. But that will most likely feel like programming and fighting the proof checker.

Order by personal preference?

"It is good you like your subject, but maybe you should highlight this personal prefence more to be viewed as less arrogant."

Order by ...?

"superior" is very ill defined. It is really just saying that there is some ordering relation in which something is greater than another thing but nothing about this ordering relation. Is the ordering even complete?

"I want to do pure mathematics because it is superior…”
Setting aside the deplorable arrogance and snobbery for a minute, here are a few thoughts.
Depends what he means by “do”. If he just means he wants to take more pure math courses, then fine.
If he wants to do pure math in his free time, as a hobby, also fine. It’s an exquisite art form (though with a tiny audience), and it can be very satisfying, for some people. That’s why I do pure math.
If he wants to do pure math to earn a living, he should understand that the road ahead may be rockier than he imagines. It might be hard to find a job in academia. If he’s lucky, and finds one, he might have to teach calculus courses, and spend lots of time applying for grants. Personally, I think it would be irresponsible to allow the guy to remain unaware of these difficulties. They’re not insurmountable, but statistically, they’re quite likely to arise.
I’d advise the guy to think a bit more broadly — consider how pure mathematics relates to his life goals. Does he want to be respected, fall in love, raise a family, become rich, win a Fields Medal? Doing pure mathematics as a job doesn’t leave much time for falling in love, is a somewhat shaky way to support a family, and it’s a terrible way to become rich. He might get some respect, but only from a tiny community of people who understand his work.
If he says that his life goal is to do mathematics, then in my opinion he’s seriously unbalanced. The proper balance might return sooner or later — if he falls in love, starts making mortgage payments, or his children need braces. A good mentor can (and should) help to accelerate the enlightenment.

Today I had lunch with a friend who told me that I should simply tell this student frankly how difficult the life of a pure mathematician is --- doing research, getting a PhD, publishing papers, applying for jobs/grants etc. --- and how many brilliant people I knew from pure math had to eventually quit academia and go to industry.
This is a test for him: If he is unmoved by all of such stories, then he may be a true mathematician --- no matter how arrogant he looks, and arrogance is not rare in the pure math community. Otherwise, pure math is not suitable for him, and he will find his own path of life.
I think what he said is reasonable, but before trying (or not trying) it on this student, I would be grateful to listen to your opinions, since this could change the path of a young person (even if you want to downvote this. I don't care about points).

This is what I tell graduate students who want to work with me. I also tell them after the meeting to go home and think seriously about this.

This seems sort of orthogonal to the main question. Yes, it’s hard to get paid to do pure math, your student should definitely hear that as many times as possible from as many sources as possible. But the main question asked about the student’s “arrogance” about math being the only worthwhile academic subject

@cag51 It is relevant to this "arrogance" thing, since my friend told me the best way to suppress his arrogance is to tell him some hard truth about pure math --- he would be more modest if he knows the difficulty.

@NoOne but this advice about the difficulty frankly applies to many fields. It's worth seriously considering these aspects before committing to a PhD in general, of course, but maybe it's more likely to address a different type of arrogance ("I'm obviously good enough to make this a career" vs "pure math is superior").

Why are you trying to "test" your student? Besides, if doing pure math is really such a hard and difficult life, that seems more likely to support your student's position than to defeat it.

@CalebStanford I am not, not yet (this is just a suggestion of a friend from the lunch we had).  I only want to help him to stay modest a little. I also don't want him to discover that pure math is actually not suitable for him at the end of his PhD. Too late. That is why I want to hear your opinion.

Setting aside the rest of it, the logical flaw is here: If he is unmoved by all of such stories, then he may be a true mathematician. Well, this could be because he has correctly assessed his own aptitude, but it could also be because he is stubborn or he doesn't care what you think. And there is risk in the other direction -- what if your student does have what it takes to be a brilliant mathematician, but they are so discouraged by your warnings that they give up before they even try? I try to avoid giving advice -- especially unsolicited advice -- unless I am damn sure I am right.

@cag51 I think you are right. Maybe I should just stay silent on this. In most of the time, "giving advice" is difficult and never appreciated. If you give people "bad" advice (even if it is benign), people may still hate you in the future.

I'll also add that it's very hard to predict the effect of your advice. I once had a student who was mathematically certain to fail my course, but when I told them this and encouraged them to petition for a late withdrawal, they insisted on remaining in the course and trying to salvage their grade (which I had already told them was literally impossible -- and I would know, I was the freaking instructor). On the other hand, I occasionally learn years later that random comments I made off-the-cuff and never gave a second thought to ended up being at least remembered many years later.

@cag51 May I ask a clarification of your last sentence a bit? Sorry I didn't get what you meant...  random comments, least remembered?

In simpler words: I am sometimes surprised when I learn which of my comments ended up being important for another person's life. If I had known they would take my words so seriously, I would have put more thought into what I said! Whereas quite often when I give very good advice and I am sure that I am right, the person ignores me and has to figure it out "the hard way."

"If he is unmoved by all of such stories, then he may be a true mathematician" -- oh no no no. This just reinforces the arrogant belief that pure math is "better" than other fields, and only the chosen ones "deserve" to work in pure math. Furthermore, it discourages talented students who like math itself, but who don't want to work in a field surrounded by arrogant colleagues. Instead of being seen as a voice of sanity and humility, these students are derided as "worse" mathematicians who just couldn't cut it. Do you really believe that yourself? Do you want your students to believe that?

In a sense, what the student is saying is true in that pure math is the best for them. But it's a little weird to say that it's just "the best". I work in econometrics. I don't think it's the best or most important research on the planet. Rather, it's perfect for me, and makes me happy (and money) doing it. So I just think some perspective may help, that not everyone feels as they do about pure math, and that's okay.

Galileo Galilei said that "Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe." This quote reflects the idea that mathematics provides a universal framework for understanding and describing the patterns and relationships found in the natural world.
"Mathematical relations/equations" are the biggest gift of pure mathematics. Mathematics serves as a precise and universal language that allows scientists and researchers to express complex ideas, formulate theories in terms of mathematical relations/equations, and make predictions about the physical world. Just as language is used to communicate thoughts and ideas among humans, mathematics is used to communicate the fundamental laws of nature that underlie the workings of the universe.
Thus what can be more beautiful than pure mathematics! This sentence is just symbolic, indeed the universe is beautiful.

"'Mathematical relations/equations' are the biggest gift of pure mathematics." No offence intended - but as a mathematician I have no idea what this sentence is supposed to mean.

@JochenGlueck, As a PhD scholar in number theory, it is my understanding. I am completely convinced what I said. "Mathematical equations/relations" governs the universe, no one can deny it.

@JochenGlueck I think he's talking about things like "F=MA", "V=IR", or "E=Mc^2".

@nick012000: I do of course know how mathematical equations in physics look like. I just don't understand the meaning of the sentence I cited. Regarding for instance Newton's second law F=ma: What is the "gift of pure mathematics" here? You can, of course, also consider more complicated stuff, say Schrödinger's equation. But again what is meant by "gift of pure mathematics"? The fact that one can write down a PDE? The insight that the equation is well-posed since the Hamiltonian is self-adjoint? But the latter insight (called Stone's theorem) is not an equation.

@learner: The derivative dv/dt in Newton's second law is neither an equation nor a relation, though. Calling derivatives and calculus "pure mathematics" is also quite a stretch. And, most importantly, the derivative in Newton's second law is certainly not a gift of pure mathematics. It was invented by Newton himself in order to do physics. That said, yes, there is obviously a lot of mathematics in the sciences and in engineering and it is very useful there. But this doesn't explain the meaning of your sentence that I cited, nor does it explain how this sentence helps to answer OP's question.

"Regarding for instance Newton's second law F=ma: What is the "gift of pure mathematics" here?" I'm pretty sure it's the existence of mathematical equations at all. Have you ever read the really old mathematical texts from before equations were invented? They tended to be quite wordy.

(Just for the record, it did not downvote.)

Regarding “what can be more beautiful than pure mathematics”. Beauty is somewhat subjective, but here’s a few things on my list: ocean waves breaking, clouds billowing in the sky, sunsets, tigers, hawks hovering in the wind, my child, my wife. Pure math isn’t even in the top ten, for me, though $e^{i\pi} + 1 = 0$ might come close.

There are two issues here: potential arrogance and job prospects.
As to the first, when he says that pure math is "superior", how does he mean this? If he means simply, "I think this is the most interesting subject to study and that's where I want to devote my life", then hurray! It's great that a student is passionate about a subject.
If he means, "People who do anything else are lowly scum and I am a better person than them", well that's a problem.
If the latter, I'd try to gently tell him that, yes, pure math is a very worthwhile field of study, but other people have other preferences and your value as a person does not depend on your major. At some point this goes beyond your role as a mentor. Is it your job to guide the student's moral and social development, or just his academic career? I mean, if a student disdained anyone who didn't agree with him about some political or social issue, like gun control or abortion or trade with China or whatever, would that be a proper matter for you to get involved in? This is a question of an academic field so maybe it gets borderline.
Regarding job prospects, I would straight up tell him, "This may indeed be a very interesting and worthwhile field ... But have you considered what sort of job you will get after graduation?" Some majors lead to many job opportunities, like business administration and IT. Others not so much, like history and gender studies and ... pure math. Some majors, the only job prospects are to become a teacher or professor to teach them to others. Pure math is probably not the most limiting, I'm not a job recruiter but I'd guess it could lead to jobs in science and engineering as well as teaching. But yeah, not the same prospects as BA or IT.

However, I also do not want to tell him that he will find it hard to survive in academia if he does pure math.
To me, as an advisor, I think telling the truth about this is one of the responsibility of an advisor. After presenting the truth, it is up to the student to decide on his/her own.
As also mentioned by many other comments, no need to tell him anything to change his/her mind. It is his/her belief. He/She may have some other beliefs on other stuff besides maths that do not fit yours.
Unless his/her belief does not violate any rule within your institution, no need to intervene.

I'm sure it wouldn't hurt for your mentee to begin "soft searching" now to familiarize himself with the volume - and quality - of current (relevant) job postings in the field. I, for example, have been subscribed to HigherEdJobs since 2015, and I have a strong idea of what is - and equally importantly, what is not - available in my field/discipline. The reality check that ensues can/will be helpful as he continues to consider what his next steps should be going forward.

Just let him do pure mathematics. In some senses it is superior and in some it is not. Let him discover it on his own.

I studied pure math as well.
I would pose the question, what good is studying something if the results are never used? And then provide an analogous subject. To the mentee propose, Suppose a you study cooking. You come up with new techniques, ideas for recipes, food and drinks pairings, delve into the chemistry of scents and flavors. And you never make a single dish. You surround yourself with like minded individuals who explore the theoretical. They expand on your theories, and vice versa. But no dish ever manifests your individual work nor the collective work. So while your fulfilled, is their any value in the work you do beyond that? Should there be? Is it possible le that some element of cooking knowledge is being missed because you didn't apply or experiment, or consult with those who do?
Like this analogous cooking g example pure math and other disciplines are supportive. Inspiration derived by application of math to other disciplines have spurred other examine object leading to new fields of Mathematics, line of Inquiry in existing fields, new techniques, ect.
I would put forth that nothing can be superior if it has been, is currently, or will be dependent on the things it claims superiority over, directly,or transitive.

Is he good enough? If he is potentially a Wiles, or a Ramanujan, or a Conway, or a Perelman, then let him go for it. Otherwise he may need to learn a little humility. Caution him gently about funding, and let him find out for himself. I expect that you live in a country where people aren't killed for making simple mistakes (very often), so he probably won't be harmed too much for his attitude.

Sounds like a good time to have the academic equivalent of "the talk" with him.

The ultimate goal of studying is to put food on the table, both for oneself and for one's family
To put food on the table, one needs to earn money
To earn money, one (probably) needs to find a job
To find a job, one needs to acquire skills that employers want
Since jobs in pure mathematics are so hard to come by (and because it involves lots of travel that inconveniences one's family), it's a good idea to prepare a fallback plan

By all means study pure math and take it as far as one is able (or willing). But be ready for it not working out and prepare a backup plan, to avoid situations like this.
It's likely the student won't take you seriously (c.f. point #2 of this), but you should still at least tell him, since your comments here could easily have a major impact on their life.
By the way I don't consider this a "pure math vs. every other subject" issue, since once one starts preparing a backup plan one inevitably starts to appreciate other subjects.

Nice and Interesting!
In my understanding,
Firstly, the responsibility of a mentor is just to guide the student by providing the required information and knowledge. Usually, sometimes, by answering the questions, sometimes by giving a task or asking answers and sometimes being silent.
Secondly, it is really nice when student decide what to do. Half work is already done. Then the mentor just need to show the road map. In this case being kind on him (understanding the level of knowledge of the student), a mentor just need to show the required path. For example, a possible answer could be, "You are right, mathematic is a major subject but we do not have any proof for the superiority of it above all subjects in the world. So, it is arguable, but if you want to choose mathematic than that is also a good choice."
I hope this will be helpful.

What can I tell a student I am mentoring who claims: "I want to do pure mathematics because it is superior to any other subject in the world"?

I'd ask them to back this claim with a proof: if they take the challenge seriously, they should stumble upon Hume's law at some point, and you can point to it in any case after they struggle with the problem a bit


text:
Why do people keep saying 'it is your responsibility' to make sure your supervisor uploads their letter of recommendation (or similar)?
It is very common to see statements like "it is your responsibility to make sure [someone with higher rank, like your advisor/supervisor/mentor] to submit/upload [something like a letter/approval] by deadline XXX" in many application systems/websites.
It is reasonable to say that it is your responsibility to upload your CV, fill out the form and pay the fee. But why is it considered your responsibility to make sure another person does something, as if you were "law enforcement"? In practice, such wording only adds unnecessary anxiety to junior people in academia.
My understanding is that, once you send the request for a letter from Professor A through their system, a large part of responsibility is passed to that professor. They should either submit the letter by the required deadline or decline it ASAP. Students are not supposed to take the blame that the professors they asked neither decline it nor submit the letter by deadline.
Although there might be a culture difference, this is based on the understanding that students are in no position to push their advisor to upload their letter and it is also unwise for them to do so since if you say anything that sounds aggressive or compelling to your recommender, there is a risk of getting a perfunctory/lower quality letter or at least students might worry so.
What also confuses me is that people who write "it is your responsibility" were also students themselves before and they should feel sympathetic or at least be aware of the subtle situation from student's perspective.

I think the issue comes down to as far as the application process is concerned, the student is the person in charge and the person who (by a long shot) has the most stake in the outcome. This seems to me the same as paying your electricity bill -- if it gets "lost in the mail" (paying by postal mail) or an internet issue prevents it from getting through (paying online), it's still my responsibility for it being paid, thus (if I was sufficiently concerned, which I'm not, but I would be for a job application), I would follow-up to make sure the bill arrived and my account was credited.

@DaveLRenfro If a check lost in postal mail, you could resend it and hopefully probability theory will fix this problem. If there is an internet issue at your home, then you can go to Starbuck or a library to use their WIFI to get your work done. BUT if a particular professor doesn't upload a letter for you, what can you do?

But the issue is how would you know that there is an issue with the postal mail or the internet UNLESS you followed up to make sure the payment arrived? Similar with a job application, and here you would remind the letter writer or find another letter writer. And you (not the mail service or the internet provider) would have to pay any late fees, as Bryan Krause said in a comment written the same time I wrote the earlier portion of this comment.

@NoOne But if there is a late fee associated with a missed payment, your next mail has to include that late fee, or else you'll likely continue to accumulate fees. It won't be the postal service paying the late fee. Why? Because you're considered responsible, that's the point of Dave's analogy.

@BryanKrause But you can try to avoid this at your end. Say if your rent is due May 1. Then make a payment on April 15 and check it with your landlord on April 22 or try electronic payment if available. My point is, unlike asking for letters, this is something you can control, not completely up to another single important person.

@NoOne You can give sufficient notice, you can remind in various ways, you can choose an alternative person to recommend you if the one you want will not (obviously this is harmful when it's a supervisor specifically, but you're also not guaranteed a letter of recommendation from anyone). Not quite something entirely out of control, you could identify the same issues with making a payment; electronic payment may not be available which is not under your control. You can't control that the mail carrier arrives. You can control sending a payment earlier than required to keep options open.

I don't see a single person in that thread saying that it's your fault if a professor neglects to send a LoR that they promised you. I think you may be confusing explanations why the professor might have neglected to do this, or advice for how to avoid this, with excuses.

@AdamPřenosil I also can't even find the word "responsibility" in that thread referring to the student, either: not in an answer, not in a comment. There is one person who mentions the responsibility of the professor. What have I missed?

I think the meaning is that although it is the professor's responsibility, it's you that get harm if he doesn't do his responsibility. Because of this, people try to avoid any problem made by the professors' fault. This may caused some professors interpret it as everybody agree that it is not the professor's responsibility!

"were also students themselves before" Probably not, actually. Those portals were most likely made my staff, not professors.

‘It is your responsibility …’ I’d say, practically, get used to it. Otherwise maybe a better fit here.

You have a situation involving an interaction between three parties. Ignoring the details and thinking a bit more generally, let's call them Alice, Bob and Chris.
Alice is asking for something from Bob, but needs a document from Chris to get Bob to consider her request. So she goes to Chris and asks for the document, and Chris says he will provide it.
Bob says to Alice: "It is your responsibility to make sure that Chris sends me the document."
What does Bob mean? He means that as far as he is concerned, Alice is the only person with whom Bob is entering a transaction of mutual commitment. It is a kind of implicit contract. He is saying: I, Bob, promise that if you, Alice, do X, I will do Y. Any part of "X" that requires assistance from other people is not my responsibility.
This means that if Chris doesn't do his part, Alice cannot complain to Bob that he (Bob) did not fulfill his commitment to her, or ask Bob to chase after Chris to do his part.
What about Chris's responsibility? Doesn't he have any? Of course he does. After telling Alice that he will help her, he has responsibility to Alice to fulfill his commitment to her, and if he does not fulfill it, Alice can rightly feel betrayed and complain to Chris. But this is irrelevant from Bob's point of view. When Bob is telling Alice "it's your responsibility to get all the documents sent", he means that he considers Chris's involvement a private matter between Alice and Chris, and not his concern.
Summary. Responsibility is a concept that exists between one person (or group of people) and another person or group of people. In this situation, Alice has certain responsibilities to Bob; Bob has certain responsibilities to Alice; and Chris has certain responsibilities to Alice. But Bob and Chris have not made any promises to each other, and do not have any specific responsibilities towards each other.
Coming back to the academia context, it is of course unfortunate that professors who violate their responsibilities to students can cause so much harm and anxiety. I don't know what can be done about it. But graduate programs require letters of recommendations, and it's completely reasonable of them to not accept any responsibility for those letters getting sent. Nominally, they are interacting with the applicant and not anyone else, and from their point of view it is therefore the applicant's responsibility that those letters are submitted.

Well written.  Still, this gets to be an unfortunate situation.

In short the main message being conveyed is that it is not the responsibility of the graduate program (or of whoever else is saying this) to ensure that the letters get sent.

Before I got far enough into your answer to see who wrote it (i.e. before the writer's screen name appeared at the bottom my my viewing window), it was obvious to me that this answer was written by a mathematician, or at least someone with a fair amount of mathematical background. I felt somewhat the same way (but not as strongly as here) when the unabomber's manifesto appeared, and probably many others felt this way also, although from what I recall only one or two people were actually reported as saying this.

@DaveLRenfro thanks. When I publish my manifesto I’ll take greater care to disguise my background. (Or perhaps I already have…)

FYI, I was thinking of transitivity and domain issues for relations when I read your answer.

while this is literally true i think the other answer is likely much more to the OPs interest

+1 for "Responsibility is a concept that exists between [two parties]." The OP's thinking appears to be based on a simplified view of the world where "responsibility" for something is seen as absolute, as if determined by some single superior authority. This simple view is enough for children, who only need to know what is their responsibility vs. their parents' or teachers' responsibility. But in the wider adult world, responsibility is something one person has to another. Person A can be responsible to you for doing X, while you are responsible to person B for seeing that X gets done.

OP needs to see this answer :) Getting used to the phrase "it is your responsibility" is part of adulting

@IlmariKaronen In this context, the problem with your viewpoint is that it opens Bob up to an endless parade of complaints from Alice, and people like Alice, demanding that he reopen some concluded process due to the failures of third parties.  Alice needs to hound Chris until he does what he needs to do.  If she fails to do that, and Chris does not perform, that needs to be Alice's problem and not Bob's.

@tbrookside: I interpret Ilmari's comment as agreeing with you.  It certainly agrees with the answer.  So why do you perceive a problem there?

@BenVoigt Reading Ilmari's comment again, I think I had interpreted it to mean the opposite of its intended meaning.  I thought that they were saying that assigning responsibility to one party (OP) was childish and simplistic - but they were actually saying that the responsibility is, in a way, transitive.  My bad.

I think you're missing the meaning of this. In the case of a supervisor submitting a recommendation letter, it's not that the supervisor doesn't have any responsibility, it's that the committee or person evaluating applications has to evaluate what they're given, and that ultimately is coming from the student applicant. If that package doesn't include letters of recommendation, then the applicant doesn't have letters of recommendation to support them which puts them behind other applicants.
It isn't an admissions committee's job to investigate whether it was a professor's fault or whether the student didn't give them sufficient notice or instruction.

Students are not supposed to take the blame that their professors they asked neither decline it nor submit the letter by deadline.

But...they will. At least to some extent. For, say, admissions, I think a lot of administrators and committees will be sympathetic to letters that arrive late because they've all interacted with the professor that can't follow through on these things. In other cases, there may be more rigid policies or even legal requirements that, say, grant application materials arriving after a deadline cannot be considered.
"It is your responsibility to make sure someone to does something" is advice to the student to make efforts that will best set them up for success and warning them that they will be the ones to suffer consequences if it doesn't happen. It is not absolving anyone else of responsibility.

If I were the one who write such statements I would probably say: "please remind you recommenders to upload the letters by deadline XXX, so that your application can receive full consideration". In this way, students would know how serious the matter is while not getting hurt by the unsympathetic words: "it is your responsibility"

@NoOne You're free to use whatever language you want, but don't assume the language of others is unsympathetic.

Stating something as the responsibility of someone who cannot fully control that thing is unsympathetic.

@NoOne No, it's warning them that they'll be held responsible. Not issuing this warning is naïve. Your phrasing is very indirect as far as the consequences even though it's direct in the instruction: full consideration will only be received if the letter is uploaded, not merely if the student reminds someone else to submit it. Anyways, we may not come to agreement on this. Your question asked "why", I answered "why" from my perspective. If you actually meant to post "I'd like to argue with the people who explain why and call them unsympathetic" then I think you came to the wrong place.

and, not to take away from other angles, one also might note directly that it typically is indeed part of the "test" to be able to navigate getting the letters sent.   The letters are very often a measure of relationships as much as any endorsement of skills. So having good relationships you can call on to complete the task is not secondary but something being assessed.

People are responsible for things they can't fully control all of the time. It's part of being an adult.

@BryanKrause I am deeply unsympathetic to this statement! Language has meaning, words have meaning, those meanings are in fact inferable purely from the corpus as LLMs like GPT demonstrate. Language like "it is your responsibility" is objectively unsympathetic; it expresses the fact that the speaker, whatever emotional state they may have internally, is ultimately going to make decisions according to unsympathetic guidelines.

You can argue the practicality or justice of the wording, but I think it is hard to argue the implicit meaning.

@linkhyrule5 Huh? What does ChatGPT have to do with this? ChatGPT definitely doesn't have any sense of what's "sympathetic" or not, it strings together statistically likely phrases. And what is objective about sympathy? I think this phrase accurately describes the state of the world: applicants will be held responsible for the state of their application package. That is objectively true, and it would actively harm a student to tell them otherwise and have them face the consequences unaware.

It's a warning!
Warnings need to be direct, not subtle. It's "BIOHAZARD, DO NOT ENTER!", not "If you think about entering this room, please consider the effects biohazardous materials can have on your health."
Why is it a warning? Because, if the letter doesn't arrive, the only one facing consequences is the student. Not the professor. Not anyone else.
Is that fair? Maybe not. But as long as this is reality, we do students a favor by warning them. As clearly as possible.

What they mean with "it's your responsibility if the letter isn't uploaded" is "it's your problem if the letter isn't uploaded".
As with many things in life, it may not be your fault, but if you're the only person hurt by the problem, you better make sure yourself that the problem is solved/doesn't come up. Because no one else will.
That's all there is to it. Your problem, your responsibility.

Another 'translation' might be "We aren't taking responsibility for making sure this task is done."

In this context, it means that the end recipient of the necessary documents will not contact the document provider to request them.  They will not make an initial contact, they will not send reminders, they will not send repeated requests, etc.
The person who does that will be you.
The assumptions are:

Some or all document providers have a lot of other things to do, or are forgetful, and will not provide documents without repeated requests

The document recipients have a lot of other things to do, and even if they didn't, it is not feasible for them to be chasing 10, or 50, or 100 document providers.

The only feasible arrange is for each person caught in the middle (i.e., you) to bear the responsibility for each individual set of documents.  Since you are presumably the person with a real stake in this document transfer, the incentives align nicely.

Also, this isn't just the case in academia.  Many situations like this put the burden on the person in the middle, because it is the only feasible arrangement.

One small but important detail that doesn't seem to come out clearly in existing answers: the instructions usually say something like

Applicants are responsible for ensuring that two references are submitted by the deadline.

rather than

Applicants are responsible for ensuring that Prof. Jones and Prof. Smith submit references by the deadline".

So, in principle, the applicant does have control over the situation. They get to choose who they nominate as a referee, and it's up to them to choose reliable people and/or have backup options in place. Of course, many candidates will not have much choice in practice - the pool of credible referees may be small. Still, that is a strategic choice on the candidate's part: nominate Prof. Smith and take the risk that he doesn't submit, or nominate Prof. Davies and accept that the application will be weaker.
This is really no different from an airline saying

"It's your responsibility to arrive at the airport in good time for your flight.

You get to choose when and how you travel to the airport, and it's up to you weigh up the relevant factors and decide what you're going to do. And if things don't play out as you expected - perhaps someone drives into the back of your vehicle on the highway - that's your problem, even if it's not your fault.

A slightly better airline analogy: Airlines routinely say: "Its your responsibility to ensure you have all the paperwork necessary for entry prepared for your flight". You get to chose where your going, what sort of purpose you are applying for, and how to present that to the nation you are traveling to.  If you choose to try and travel to a nation that isn't interested in having you, or don't submit the correct paperwork, thats your problem, not the airlines.

+1 for the airline comparison; I think that’s the clearest analogy in all these answers.  Once you make an agreement with someone for transport, they may be undertaking some responsibility towards you (to variable extents, depending whether it’s a taxi, a bus, or a ride from a friend) — but as far as the airline is concerned, it’s all your responsibility, regardless of who else you’re getting assistance from.

The responsibility is similar to the project manager's responsibility in an industry project.
They may not be the line managers of the people whose project they manage, and thus may not have any immediate power of directives.
Despite that, it's the project manager's job to ensure that all pieces come together to achieve a successful outcome.
I suspect the stringency of the formulation ("it's your responsibility") is due to the fact that there is - unfortunately - an increasing number of students that think that if they trigger certain processes, these will "magically" just work out of the box, or they even forget to trigger the right processes at the right time and then they think they are entitled to to get special dispensation for their botched submission because of circumstances that, had they been mitigated with more due diligence, might not have arisen in the first place.
Personally, I think this formulation is more directed at this particular type of students rather than those who diligently set all things in motion well on time and due to unfortunate coincidences find themselves without a properly completed submission.
However, given the - from experience - substantially increasing number of students with a tone of entitlement, the default formulation chosen might have become harsher, to manage expectations and deter from complaints that arise through the students' mistakes.
Of course, I do not sit on the board that wrote this text, so all of this is just an educated guess.

This statement is to try to clarify that the institution does not have a duty or is not to be held accountable for incomplete applications regardless of how an applicant may interpret the situation.
Students/applicants sometimes will blame others where it is not appropriate or enforceable. This statement is intended to make it clear that it is NOT the responsibility of the institution offering an application to ensure that incomplete applications are completed. That duty is with each applicant. Without this statement, it is possible an applicant could sue or otherwise think they can rightfully blame a third party for failure of duty in the process, especially if other statements or circumstances imply the institution or a third party is offering or has such duty.
For example, a student may assume that since their professor is an alumnus of an institution that they are applying to, that relationship as an alumnus creates a "duty" for the professor to provide a recommendation timely. Then if the professor fails to provide it, the student may try to place fault with the institution or professor because of this assumption, which may seem reasonable but it is not.
Another example is a system that sends a request for a recommendation directly to a professor based on an action by the student. A student may reasonably assume that once they have made the REQUEST for an item to complete an application, they have fulfilled their duty to complete that portion of the application. This also could seem reasonable but it is not.
Conversely, a request by a student to a professor to provide a letter should not be considered a contract based on the request, the application itself or a system that helps a professor submit such a letter. For example, a professor that is provided a login to complete a portion of an application on behalf of a student should not fear that a student could sue them for failing to provide the letter. A login or even receipt of that request might be seen by a student as a contract or other duty created by the system, and not one that exists solely based on their relationship with the professor.
In other words, "responsibility" in this context does not mean "control" but "duty" as in:
"it is your DUTY to make sure [someone with higher rank, like your advisor/supervisor/mentor] to submit/upload [something like a letter/approval] by deadline XXX" in order for your application to be considered complete.
It attempts to make clear that this duty does not lie elsewhere, as your question suggests. While you may believe such a request creates a duty, it only does so as a social agreement. An application, on the other hand, is usually a legal contract and as such there are obligationsand duties that are often legally binding and enforceable.
You may feel like "responsibility" means "control" but it means "to have a duty" or to be the party that is accountable. Most often, the only other party in an application is the institution. A person providing content/letters on behalf of a student for an application is almost certainly not a party to the application.

Frequently we perceive we are being pushy, when we remind someone to do something. But usually, this is just in our heads because we are anxious. Do you have an example of someone who was punished for reminding your supervisor to do something too frequently?
In most cultures I am aware of, at least 2 reminders on top of the first ask would be expected. No one from Australia, USA, Japan or Europe (that I know of) would view 2-3 reminders as pushy, provided the student gave roughly 4-weeks notice for the letter.
If you want to err on the side of caution, you could ask the professor "How would you like to receive reminders and at what frequency?" This is very respectful and has the added benefit of relieving your anxiety around the uncertainty of how they will feel about being reminded.

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How to use data from a colleague who retired in my thesis without commiting fraud or plagiarism
A colleague of mine who worked on the same project retired one year ago. I would like to use some of the data he measured and reproduce some of his figures. He gathered the data while performing a routine analysis of our raw material e.g binding kinetics or adsorption isotherms. In general, nothing groundbreaking. Unfortunately, he did not publish the particular dataset. As a consequence, I cannot cite him.
How can I use that data without being accused of plagiarism or fraud. Of course, I will ask him for the permission to use that data.
Would you state that in the introduction or the figure legend? And what would you write?
EDIT:
I forgot to mention that I will write my Thesis as a monograph and publish it later.

I would probably add him as an author since the data contributed to your current work.

You should edit the title - I read it as "he retired in order to avoid being accused of fraud or plagiarism"! But maybe it's just too early for me.

(Bob colleague, unpublished)

If your colleague would be willing to publish the data set on a repository like figshare, you would be able to cite it and this becomes a moot point. With his consent, you could actually do the manual work of setting up an account for him and then organizing and uploading the data under his account, if he doesn't want to do it himself.

No way we can do that. We signed a confidentiality agreement.

As PatW says in a comment: the general correct action in this case is coauthorship. This gets a little bit trickier with a thesis, which does not typically allow coauthors per se. For the thesis, the thing you should do is give explicit credit where the data is introduced. If it corresponds with the practices of your field, you can also put in a citation to your colleague as an unpublished document or personal communication.
When you republish this material as a journal manuscript or other conventional form that allows multiple authors, however, your colleague should be amongst the set of coauthors.

Maybe a paragraph in the introduction, in which I declare what data/graph was produced by my colleague? Or really at the point the data is used?

@Moritz Depends on how exactly the data is being used.  For example, if it's fundamental to the work and used throughout, then put it in the introduction.  If it's only for a particular aspect of the work, then when you start dealing with that aspect.  The guiding principle is: declare your colleague's work in the place where you normally would put the citation.

This approach is very common in my field (bioinformatics) , where it is frequently the case where one student will analyse the data produced by another. In this case neither student could get anywhere without the other.

It is usual to change the declaration from something like "I declare that the work within is entirely my own" to add "except where explicitly specified". A note on who did work not your own in the acknowledgements would also be good.

The other answers have dealt with the possibility of co-authorship. This is field specific; in some fields co-authorship is readily given, in others it requires more than just contributing some data. So if the amount of data you use means that co-authorship is not really appropriate, or it if is not an option because you are writing a thesis rather than a paper, it is still no major issue, because referencing unpublished materials is actually very routine! For details you should look in your field's appropriate referencing style guide.
If the data is available as an unpublished document, then it should be referenced as normal, but usually with some annotation. In MLA, it will be MS (handwritten manuscript) or TS (typescript):

Author. Title. Date. TS. Institution.

If you have access to the raw data but not as a document, then it should be referenced as a personal communication. In MLA these are also referenced, but other referencing systems may recommend just appending (p.c.) after the author's name and not listing it in the final bibliography. For example in MLA:

Author. Letter to the author. Date. TS.

The simplest answer I can give you: Talk about it to your supervisor.
Beyond that I can mention two examples from my own experience:
In my master's thesis there's an acknowledgment to a colleague of mine who helped with the research by organising copies and scans from original documents. He also assessed the content of many of those Mss. Hours of work I would have had to do. I put a paragraph at the beginning, stating what he did and thanking him for it.
Right now I "coauthor" a bachelor's thesis. He does some research on something related to Islam but cannot yet speak Arabic, so I do the translation work for him. He will also just put a small paragraph at the beginning, stating that I did the translations for him.

Given it hasn't been published, nobody can prove plagiarism. Being accused of it isn't your problem. Your problem is how to support the claims without a formal citation.
I suggest that after obtaining permission you include the entire work as an appendix. Attribute it to your colleague and preface it with a note that it is the previously unpublished work of a retired colleague included with permission. Then you can reference the appendix.
It's verifiable, his work can be peer reviewed at the same time as yours and you haven't implied you did the work. Better yet if anyone wants to quote him they'll have to cite you.

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Is the degree conferral date the same as the completion of degree requirements date?
I am an MSc student in Greece, and this year I am applying  to PhD programs in US universities. My question is about my BSc degree.
Most universities require a conferral date as well as a start and an end date.
The start date is the date I was registered.
The end date is Jan 2020.
Now, my BSc transcripts state that I have completed my studies but I have not attended the graduation ceremony yet. The examination period (Jan 2020) during which I completed them is also mentioned. Furthermore, the date the last exam result was announced is mentioned as well - that is, the last course grade (that result was announced after January). Finally, I don't have the degree certificate yet, because no graduation ceremonies have taken place due to COVID-19.
Is completing my studies equivalent to being a graduate or to being conferred/awarded a degree?
I am worried that if I state that I have earned my degree, I will be required to provide the degree certificate (which I don't have yet) and that my transcripts won't be enough. Should I state that I am expected to earn a degree and leave the expected conferral date blank, or that I have indeed earned my degree, and give the date I fulfilled the requirements as the conferral date?

"Most universities require a conferral date as well as a start and an end date." Most? I've never seen this.

My transcript clearly states a conferral date - does your not?

@AzorAhai-him- Greece. I've seen most universities asking for those dates. I guess if you are not done yet you can leave the end of conferral dates blank, or give the expected dates. No, my transcript doesn't state a conferral date. It states what I mentioned above.

Then, have you earned the degree? In the US, you apply to graduate, which is mostly pro forma, but the official check you've completed the requirements. If I finished all my classes on 6/9/2017 but never filed to graduate, I would not have a conferral date, and would not have a degree. So the question is to you have you earned a degree? (The certificate is immaterial, at least in the US)

Well, I have applied to graduate (I did last Spring). But I haven't attended the graduation ceremony yet. Nothing regarding the graduation application or the conferral date is stated on my transcript. All the dates mentioned on my transcript are stated above.

Generally, a degree can be given to you at graduation even if you are not physically present.  However, if there was no graduation ceremony at all (because of Covid) then it's possible you don't have a degree yet.  You have completed all the requirements for a B.Sc., but you might not technically have a degree.  The culture in the US is that people overlook stupid technical requirements and, when they can't be just overlooked, grant exceptions to them.  Other cultures may differ.

We can't answer most of your questions (by the way, one question per post please) without knowing whether you  have actually received a degree. That's something only you can answer. Maybe there was a mistake - contact your registrar (US name) and ask.

@AlexanderWoo Yeah, people are similar over here as well. The ceremony is treated as mere formality (I am enrolled in a master's program without having attended one).

This is a question where any answer would depend very much on the rules at the two institutions involved.  In general, if you've completed all requirements for the degree but are waiting for a conferal of degrees that happens on some regular schedule (say once a year) then there is likely to be another way in which you can get your institution to confirm that you've completed all requirements for the degree.

Generally, a degree can be given to you at graduation — At least in the US, degrees are rarely actually given at graduation.  Graduation is theater; diplomas are props.  Degrees are conferred by the registrar by setting a field in their database.  (At my PhD graduation, for example, I was given an empty diploma folder, and undergads were given rolled up sheets of printer paper.  I submitted my thesis two months later, and my degree was formally conferred five months after that.)

Is the degree conferral date the same as the completion of degree requirements date?

No, not necessarily. Most schools award degrees once per term (whether that's semester, or quarter). So if your last final was on the 8th, you would have received your degree on the same day as your friend whose last final was on the 10th.

Is completing my studies equivalent to being a graduate or to being conferred/awarded a degree?

Again, not necessarily. In most places, you have to "apply" to graduate or similar, which as I mentioned in the comments is the formal check you completed the requirements. This means "completing" your studies doesn't mean anything until you've asked the university "I've done all these courses, can I have my degree now?"
For example, you could have done enough coursework to earn two separate degrees, but if you only apply for one, you only get one.
This very well could be different in some places (or for other types of degree). But it is certainly not a rule to rely on.

I am worried that if I state that I have earned my degree, I will be required to provide the degree certificate (which I don't have yet) and that my transcripts won't be enough.

Nobody needs the certificate in the US, the (sealed, official) transcript will tell them whether you have a degree. If that doesn't say you have a degree, then they won't ask for a certificate, they will think you don't have a degree.
It sounds like there is a possibility you weren't conferred with your degree, because of COVID. You will have to follow up with your university to verify.


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google scholar switching my first and last name
Google scholar switches my first and last name although the journals publish my name correctly. And now due to people downloading citations from Google Scholar, other journals are also citing my first name as last name. How do I fix this? It is very frustrating.

Is your name in Western order, that is [given name] [family name]?

I'm confused and I try to do the right thing. My interpretation of your name given how you sign in here is that Yi is your family name and Soojin is your given name (since it has more than one syllable). If that is wrong then others are confused as well. I don't use Google Scholar, but suspect that for indexing purposes they need to use your family name and got it wrong. They probably have an algorithm that says "(Asia or Hungary) therefore swap names", though a bit more sophisticated but still incorrect.

@Buffy that would be really weird, I would expect Google Scholar and the like to simply use the name in whatever form it appears in the original publication.

@GoodDeeds, except for the indexing problem. The don't want to index by personal name. If someone "westernizes" their name and someone else doesn't realize they have, it can get confusing. A problem with bots in general since they just assume stuff.

@Buffy But the alternative of "swapping" names you suggest seems a lot worse due to the possibility of false positives, using what the author gives at least gives them full control on how they want their name to be indexed. At least in the submission systems I have used, I've only ever been asked for first name, last name, and perhaps a middle initial, there never was any mention of given or family names.

@GoodDeeds, you are starting to see the problem."First name" for a Hungarian is the family name. The terminology is insufficiently accurate. Thats why I used family name and personal (given) name. I'm aware of the issue but need to look up "surname" on occasion (old brain).

My first (given ) name is Soojin and my last (family) name is Yi, and I have a middle initial V. All the original journal publications have my name listed correctly. For some reason Google Scholar often indexes me as VY Soojin, as if VY is my first name and Soojin is my last name.

Well that's certainly weird then. Are these articles originally published in English?

@Azor Ahai -him, yes.

Curious, if this paper is yours, Google gives it as "VY Soojin" but it imports to BibTeX just fine. I'm not really sure, sorry

Thank you - I think for some other papers, the import option switches the first and last. Appreciate your time!

If you create a Google Scholar profile with your correct name, you can claim authorship of articles. Google Scholar results will then list your name correctly when the article is returned in searches. If you still have a problem after you have a profile and have claimed your articles, you can ask Google Scholar support for help.


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How do I go about asking my supervisor how he'll remedy a mistake with my stipend?
I'm a PhD student at a university that is in the process of evaluating updates to stipend policies and one of the students involved in providing feedback on said policy updates. During a meeting a few weeks ago with the PIs in our department, our department's official policy on minimum student stipends and how they should be adjusted if the student wins a funding award was discussed. As a student with a large funding award I learned I should have been topped up by $5,000 above my original stipend amount, however, my supervisor had only topped me up by $500 annually. As my supervisor was in the meeting as well they are aware they have not been matching policy and acknowledged they need to fix things.
While my supervisor is trying to figure out how he can manage his lab budget to change things going forwards he hasn't said anything about making up for mistake of the last few years. I've had my award for 2.5 years now, meaning I'm effectively out $11,000 he should have been paying me all this time. I know lab grants are tricky and finding money for students in existing ones can be quite hard, but this should have been budgeted in if he had followed the policy properly.
How do I go about asking my supervisor if he is considering paying what are effectively back-wages from the past two years without ruining our relationship? It's been very good up until now and while I don't want to put a strain on it that money would really help me a lot financially.

What country? .

Canada. Hope that helps clarify

I don't see how you can do anything other than schedule a meeting and have the conversation directly.
You're probably best off if you assume this was an honest mistake and treat it as such in your conversation, as accusations otherwise might prompt defensiveness. You'll have to decide how you want to act going forward depending on what the response is like - it's possible your advisor will do everything in their power to remedy this for you, and it's possible they won't. It seems like a good sign that they agree and understand that something is wrong, though.
I'd say that while this is ultimately the advisors' responsibility, I'd also note that professors are not really experts in this sort of thing, they're experts in their field, not HR. Departments usually have support staff in HR or as part of graduate programs to help professors keep track of their students' salaries/stipends/benefits. It's quite possible they handed this off to an administrative person "Hi, CS won this award, can you make sure that this is taken care of with their stipend?" Other people could have also caught this mistake and didn't. In some cases, professors may even have students in different programs/departments with different policies applying to each one, so I think it's forgivable that they not be on top of everything.
This also seems like the sort of policy that would be available to students, so I'd certainly advise to make sure you're being an advocate for yourself and reading any materials available to you about compensation and benefits due to you in this position and all positions you hold going forward. It's almost always easier to fix such things ahead of time rather than retroactively.

I would first contact the graduate coordinator in your department. They prepare many of the contracts, for e.g.- TA contracts or funding plan for the year, etc (at least in my department they do). Let him know about your situation. He might be able to resolve it himself or might contact your supervisor on your behalf or he might refer you to the HR.
If this doesn't work, then I will setup a meeting with my supervisor to talk about it.

Although it's probably a graduate coordinator or someone in a similar role that will eventually turn the mechanisms that directly remedy the problem, I think it would be better to start with the supervisor and go to this person together.


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What are the ethics involved in teaching my chair's child in my undergrad class?
I'm a faculty member, and my department chair's son is enrolled in a course I'm teaching. Actually, this happened twice during the past academic year and is slated to happen again this fall.
I'm uncomfortable with being placed in this position; my point of view is that the situation is improper if an instructor feels in any way threatened or influenced by the fact that a student's parent is the instructor's boss.
However my online searching failed to bring up much discussion relative to this type of scenario. May I ask the Academia Stack Exchange community for opinions on the ethics involved here?

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

Teaching your chair's child presents a minor conflict of interest for both the instructor and the parent/chair.  Consult your university's conflict of interest policy.
Fair grading and a positive evaluation are in conflict for the instructor.  This is a minor conflict because most instructors have little interest in their chair's evaluation as it is not in doubt.
Fair evaluation and obtaining a good grade for the child are in conflict for the supervising chair.  This is a minor conflict because most chairs would see fair evaluation as more important than helping their child fraudulently get a good grade.
Ideally, the student's parent should not be permitted to evaluate the teacher's work.  Someone else should be assigned to do the evaluation, such as an assistant chair or dean.  This would eliminate the conflict of interest.
In practice, I would guess most people just ignore these situations to save time and money.  It is perfectly reasonable to decide the cost of changing the faculty evaluation process outweighs the disadvantages of a minor conflict of interest.
Off topic clarification:  Conflicts of interest are not unethical.  They are situations.  Decisions may be unethical, but situations cannot be.  A conflict of interest is a situation where a decision-maker may benefit from two different choices.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

The ethics are simple, actually.
For you, ethical behavior is to treat the student exactly like any other.
For the department head the ethical behavior is not to apply any pressure, even implicitly, to get you to behave other than as suggested above.
For the student, ethical behavior is not to try to exploit their relationship with their parent to get any advantage.
Not everyone behaves ethically, of course, but most places provide some procedure to address unethical behavior, though they can be difficult to bring to bear if you are vulnerable and pressured.
But, act ethically, hope for the best, and evaluate your options if the best doesn't occur.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

Background: I am a former department chair at a large university, and also served for several years on my university’s conflicts of interest committee.

The situation you are describing can indeed reasonably be categorized as a type of conflict of interest, specifically one involving nepotism, but it is not your conflict of interest; rather, it is the department chair who will be said to be in a conflict of interest, or at least a potential conflict of interest, in this situation.
Moreover, this is a relatively weak or indirect sort of conflict, in the sense that between the holder of power (the chair) and the family member whom they might be inclined to favor (the son/daughter) there is at least one intermediary level of decision makers (you, the instructor). This makes it less likely for nepotism to occur, but does not altogether eliminate the possibility for it.
I found one US university that covers this situation in its policy on nepotism. The University of Minnesota defines a class of situations that are considered prohibited nepotism conflicts, and another class of situations that are considered potential nepotism conflicts. Your situation falls into the latter class, precisely because of this indirectness I mentioned above, see this quote (bold formatting added by me for clarity):

Nepotism is a prohibited conflict of interest that occurs when:

a University member directly influences the University employment (e.g., hiring, promotion, supervision, evaluation, and determination of salary) or academic progress (e.g., grading and advising) of a University member with whom they have a personal relationship (e.g., a relative, romantic or business partner, or close personal friend); or […]

The following are examples of nepotism:
[…]

when an instructor grades the work of an individual with whom the instructor has a personal relationship;

[…]
Potential nepotism situations occur when University members in a personal relationship interact in their University roles in a manner that does not constitute nepotism, but that gives rise to a reasonable possibility or perception that nepotism may occur. Examples of potential nepotism situations include:
[…]

when a parent faculty member and child student are members of the same academic department and: 1) the parent faculty member does not currently advise, instruct, or evaluate the child student, but reasonably could do so in the future; or 2) the parent faculty member’s status or relationships with other department members are reasonably likely to influence, or be perceived to influence, those department members to provide favorable treatment to the child student.

Despite making the distinction between nepotism and potential nepotism, the policy goes on to say that both of them must be treated in the same way:

These and other potential nepotism situations do not constitute a prohibited conflict of interest. However, to prevent prohibited conflicts of interest from occurring in the future, and to prevent the perception that a prohibited conflict of interest exists, potential nepotism situations must be addressed in the same manner as nepotism.

The policy then refers to a companion procedure document that explains how these sorts of situations need to be addressed. You can look up the details in the link, but I’ll emphasize one important point that touches on a surprising and counterintuitive aspect of conflicts of interest: in academia, conflicts of interest are not considered an absolutely unethical thing that must be avoided at all costs. Of course it’s good to avoid them when it is practical to do so, but at other times, the discussion will be about how to mitigate or manage the conflict. This is the case here: your situation certainly warrants a healthy dose of caution and awareness on the part of the involved parties, and compliance with university policy and fairly obvious ethical principles. But, since you ask about the ethics, I wouldn’t say that the situation (based on the few specific details you described) is necessarily evidence of any unethical behavior.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

As noted in the comments, the children of departmental chairs and administrators who have matriculated at an institution have a right to the services that are provided by that institution.  Someone has to teach these students.  Assuming that everyone is committed to behaving ethically, there is no problem here.
Some practical considerations:

If you are in the US, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) requires that you keep your educational records private, and that you do not share those records with third parties.  How this interacts with college students is a little complicated, but the long-and-short of it is that (in the US) you are not generally required to share educational records with parents, and there are circumstances under which you may not share such records.  If you are worried about your boss demanding information about their child, you might have a conversation with someone else in the hierarchy (e.g. a dean if you are teaching the chair's kid; your chair if you are teaching the VP's kid; etc), a union rep (if you have one), an institutional ombud (if you have one), or someone in your legal department.

My general policy is to grade everything anonymously.  There are services out there which make it much easier to do this, e.g. I have used both GradeScope and CrowdMark in the past (I don't necessarily want to drive traffic to those sites, but a quick Google search should give you the information you need).  Grading anonymously makes it much easier to defend a claim that you are not giving any particular student any special treatment (either positively or negatively).

Generally speaking, the expectation is that everyone is going to behave ethically.  One hopes that you are an ethical instructor, that your boss is not going to attempt to exert influence upon you, and that your student is not going to attempt to exploit their relationship with your boss.  You really should not have any reason to fear teaching your boss's children—this happens all the time, and is rarely a problem.
In the highly unlikely event that things go wrong (e.g. your boss attempts to influence your instruction of their child), make sure to document everything.  Keep contemporaneous records, add some narrative, and make sure that your behaviour is impeccable.  Should your relationship with the student and their parent rise to the level of formal proceedings (e.g. a grievance is filed), you are going to want to make sure that you have covered your ass.
That being said, I must reiterate that it is very unlikely that this will be a problem.  Teach the class, treat your boss's child like any other student, and don't sweat it.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.


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What are examples of epic refereeing?
From time to time a paper is submitted that has (at least) one of the following characteristics :

extreme length
technical tour de force
obfuscated/confusing wording

What are examples in your area where it took a mammoth effort from the anonymous referee to get the paper eventually accepted, and were said paper became an important milestone ?
Was that benevolent work later recognized in a somewhat non-anonymous fashion ?


text:
Gofer work in exchange for Letter of Recommendation
I want to apply for master’s programs, but I need two letters of recommendation. I was never very close with any of my professors, though I did receive good grades in all of my classes.
The professor who probably knows me the best is one of the core faculty at the college. I asked her for advice on how to start with undergraduate research, which wasn’t a requirement, just an interest of mine. I also received an A in her class, and suggested an outing for the class which she then took up.
It’s also been about a year since I graduated.
Would it be appropriate to ask her if she could write a letter of recommendation, perhaps in exchange for some gofer work (filing, watching class while students take tests, running errands)?

In exchange for running errands? Are you suggesting you professor would write a letter of recommendation for running errands? Why not offer her $10 at least?

Some profs have a rec letter policy and put it online.  Mine says that you have to give me a copy of your resume, (in whatever shape it's in) and supply me with stamped envelopes and/or directions for submitting electronically.  You might check and see if your prof has a published policy.

Wasn't there an answer by Solar Mike?

What you are proposing is called a bribe, and it is the type of thing that will get you and your career taken to the woodshed.  Don't do it.

FYI, I up voted @QuoraFeans comment under the assumption it was sarcastic.

@computercarguy: I expect that people will see it as sarcasm

@J...: one would hope it does, in my experience, however, this is not true.

@J...: i must also say that I would really be surprised if somebody's career was destroyed because of doing what OP suggests (especially, since it seems to be one professor and master's admission), no money or physical goods are involved. Do you have any examples for your claim? Or can you tell me how and to whom one would report such behavior such that it would destroy the OP's career? I agree on not doing this, however (but for other reasons).

@J...: i do agree that it is bribe and morally bad. This should be the reason to avoid it. I do not agree that a behavior like this can realistically get ones career taken to the woodsheet. One reason for this is that I cannot think of any reasonable way how this could come into light -- especially since there is no physical proof. thus I don't understand and ask how this could hurt a career.

@J...:  I'm trying to argue that people who commit bribe like the OP discribes indeed have their tracks covered -- there is(in my eyes) no realisctic way how they can get caught. Hence it can not destroy their career. It is bad nontheless (because it is not the right thing to do), but I can't see how it can destroy a career. If you would report a student for bribary because they helped watching an exam, I'm sure nobody takes you seriously. As I understand, you seem to argue that OP's proposed actions can indeed destroy a career. I would be happy to see an explanation how.

@J...: i dom't know who Lori Loughlin is. I would be really happy if bad people would always suffer consequences -- in this case, I think it would be impossible (I would be l happy if you disprove this!). In my eyes, the argument not to do this kind of bribary is not "it destroys your career" (in my eyes this is a lie) but "it's morally bad". Do you disagree?

It’s appropriate to ask for a letter, but completely inappropriate to offer a thing of value in exchange. Professors are already paid to do their job, which includes writing letters of recommendation, and it would be unethical for a professor to accept a favor or other thing of value in exchange for agreeing to do what is already a part of their job.

Does a professor's job generally include writing such letters? I believe I have read in this forum that it does not and also that one prof has a policity not to write letters for applications into the US.

@user111955 yes, in the US, and all other countries whose academic norms I’m familiar with, it‘s seen as part of a professor’s job. I can’t vouch for this being true everywhere, or for all professors being equally conscientious about taking this duty seriously.

In their answer to https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/100404/professor-refusing-to-write-recommendation-letter-to-make-student-work-longer/100405?r=SearchResults#100405 and especially in the chat, @NicoleHamilton emphasizes that it is completely wrong that in the US people have an obligation to write refernces letters.

@user111955 there is no obligation to write a letter for any specific student who asks for one. But generally speaking, writing letters is part of a professor’s job.

Just ask for the letter. Writing recommendation letters is part of a professor's job. No need to be a gofer, and importantly, offering some sort of service in exchange for a recommendation sets up an unethical situation: recommendation letters should not be paid for in any way.
Assuming your request is granted, it might be helpful to remind her of some of the things you've done related to her course, etc, as you've included here, since professors have many students and may not recall all the details.

Thank you. I’ll probably email her and bring up the things I mentioned here. Not sure if scheduling to meet her in person is better.

@user352848 I'd probably start with just the email asking if she can write a letter; you can offer to be available to meet but I wouldn't organize a meeting just to ask. Some professors like to meet in person to discuss letters with students, others prefer written information to help them structure the letter (such as a CV, reminders of your association with them like I suggested, future plans, and particular attributes you might want them to focus on).

To supplement this answer, a standard request email could be something like: “Dear Professor Jones, Would you be willing to provide me with a letter of recommendation?  In case you don’t recall me, I took your course on Practical Theorising in spring 2018, receiving an A, and you also gave me some very helpful advice on finding undergrad research projects in Theory of Modelling.  I am now applying to Masters programmes in Applied Theoretics, and would be very grateful if you can provide a letter of reference. Many thanks, @user352848.”

A much better way to help out this professor is simply to remind them about your interactions ("I took class X and received an A and you gave me excellent advice on how to start my undergraduate research project") so that it's easier for her to recall your background and actually write the letter.
I remember being mildly upset by the fact that I had a letter of rec written by a professor who remembered me by name, yet several years later the letter was accidently given to me, I saw they had written "He received an A in Linear Algebra from me", when it should have been Differential Equations.