text:
What to do when you are a finalist for a tenure-track position but you want to wait until you complete interviews at other schools?
I visited a school for a tenure track position and the chair informed me that I am a finalist for that position. While, I still have interviews at other schools remaining, other candidates seem to have finished their interviews.
The chair asked me whether I would take an offer before visiting other schools but they did not give me an offer yet. Is this common?
Does the fact that other applicants have finished interviews affect the school's decisions?

At the least you need a real offer in hand. Written offer letter and all. Otherwise it isn't an offer.

After serving and chairing search committees, I agree with Brian that gamesmanship is often central to the faculty search process. The other candidates for School A may have finished interviewing (assuming that you are correct - how do you know the other candidates' schedules?) but now School A has to make the offer to the candidate they like best AND will say yes. So, they are putting pressure on you.
Personally, I feel like the response can be simple. Your question implies that the chair is telling you that you're probably going to get an offer, but do not have one in hand. So, you can tell the chair, "I would be willing to cancel other interviews for an offer IF it's the right offer. If you draft an offer, I will look at it and decide if I can accept it without pursuing other opportunities." This is VERY important, because you legally do not have an offer until they send you one in black and white. Once you have an offer, if you are satisfied with it and like the department, then it may be easy to make the decision.
In my first academic position, I was told that an offer would be sent to me and there was an administrative hold up...for two weeks or more (this was several years ago). I called the chair and told him that I was going to go to other interviews before I have their offer in hand. GOOD LUCK!

I like your suggestion of the conditional response - it says yes to what they want, sets you up for any possible negotiation, and gives you a way out if you do get an offer that just isn't worth accepting. +1!

Thanks, Brian! Yes, you couldn't really fault a candidate for wanting to see the offer before making such a decision. However, if the candidate knows flat out that s/he does not want to work at that university, this declining early is also a professional way to go.

Thanks for your answer! Probably I should have said that. I said I would seriously think about taking the offer if I get it. They said "other candidates finished their interviews and some of them have offers"

Unfortunately there is no shared deadline with these sorts of employment offers, so gamesmanship, departmental deadlines, and immediate teaching need combine together to make timing of interviews and offers almost universally inconvenient and stressful. Different tiers of university also know very well what sort of tier they are on, and they regularly strategically time their offer so it becomes a "one in the hand is worth two in the bush" style conundrum for candidates. I don't think I've talked with anyone who's gone through the process and never had a schedule issue of this sort.
So, let's unpack this a little and consider the options.
The chair is asking you if you'd be willing to take the offer without visiting the other schools is a feeler for how you view this particular position. Is this job a top choice for you, or just a backup plan that you'll take if nothing else comes through? And if something else does come through, will you drop them in a flash?
There's a good chance that they are seriously considering who would actually take the offer now and give up searching, so they know they'll actually get them on-board. No one wants to fail a search, because their work loads will increase or stay high because no one new has come on board, and they'll have to do this whole terrible process over again next year. It wouldn't be unusual for a department to have already failed a search last year, and this can happen multiple years in a row, so they may be really trying hard to avoid it again - but it's hard to say if this is the case here.
So, how do you answer? You should probably reiterate your interest in the position and the school, and that you'd be open to discussing the matter. This is non-committal, and probably is as diplomatic as I can imagine you can be.
The alternative of saying, "I'd be very interested in discussing an offer with you, but I couldn't possibly accept without completing some other interviews" could result in them giving you an offer anyway, and they may or may not be willing to give you more than 1-2 weeks to decide...but they might also just not give you an offer. They could even still give you an offer, but only if the other person(s) they give exploding offers to end up dropping out on them, and you become a last resort.
If you come right out and say "yes, I would absolutely be willing to respond to the offer without waiting", you'll kind of need to do that, because the offer will likely be only good for a week or so. I suppose you could backpedal and come up with an excuse as to why you can't respond in this deadline and ask for an extension, but if they've been so upfront about being unwilling to wait they might simply refuse.
They can say, "You can roll the dice and hope you get other offers, and we understand, but we are offering this position for certain right now, and our needs prohibit us from waiting longer as we must fill this position." Then you'll just have to weigh the risk vs the reward.
As with all negotiations, it's usually a game of power dynamics. Are you willing to walk away from the deal empty-handed? If so, then the ball is in your court and you can just be upfront, phantom offer notwithstanding, and they either give you an offer with a long deadline or they don't. If you aren't in that position of comfort (you don't have a backup plan you are willing to fall back to), then that greatly limits your ability to negotiate successfully and you just have to do what you can.

Thank you for your comments. Seems like they decided to make an offer to someone else unfortunately. Feeling that playing this game is not that easy and a lot of waiting is required. I am going to visit other schools and see if I have luck with any of these schools.

@ChemBio My sympathies for the frustration, and yes that is universally the behind-the-scenes story of everyone I've known who's gone through it. You put your best face forward, roll the dice, and then wait to see what the results are - and it's all pretty much a black box, so you never really know how it goes down. Best of luck on the next round!


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How to know whether my submission to a mathematics journal is significant enough?
I have received the following referee comment:

This paper is well-written and the results appear to be correct. But I don't think the research is significant enough to warrant publication in ....(math journal name). Perhaps it would fit better with ......(another math journal name)?

How could I know that my article is significant enough?

Some of this (as in other answers and comments-to) is code-language for "status". Some status-enhancing things can be understood: solving old, important problems, for example. Beyond the obvious, status-determination depends on many things external to the literal mathematics. E.g., if you were already a big-shot, and your paper were merely-reasonably-good, publication would "add-status" for all but the top journals. I daresay that the same result from a lesser-status person would be treated differently...

@paulgarrett "the same result from a lesser-status person would be treated differently" if this is my case, how can I overcome this stumbling block.

It is not really a stumbling block for people with less reputation. It just means that they don't get a free ride but have to first produce some research of a higher quality.

The only way to see if your submission is significant enough is to submit it and see what response you get.

@TobiasKildetoft agree. It seems that is the only way.

@StigHemmer Also, I agree. I wanted to evaluate my article before submission to save time. But it seems that researchers usually face such problems.

Significance may be a very subjective judgement. Of course, for old, famous problems such as Fermat, any proof would count as significant, but the question becomes much more dodgy when one enters a side alley. As heuristic, ask yourself: is the result solving an old, unsolved problem? Is it connecting two unconnected or loosely parts of the field? Is it a beautiful, unexpected result? Is it generalising existing concepts?

Thank you. I read many articles. Some of them contains only new and non-trivial results and just generalizing existing concepts to higher dimensions or different spaces. I thought that my article is better than those articles.

@SamehShenawy Better in which sense? Could you be more specific? Is the journal they recommended perhaps a better fit? If you get an algebraic result which you submit to a functional calculus journal, the readers may not appreciate it, so readership matters.

The number and quality of results, as I and the second article author think, are better than those of the articles we motivated by.

Try somewhere else then. And be prepared for the long haul. Don't forget, the legend says that Newton introduced journals for the purpose of keeping his competitors out :-)

@SamehShenawy An issue with "the number and quality of results... are better than those of the articles..."  It's possible that you've gotten much better results, but that for an expert they are relatively obvious generalizations of the originals.  I've run into this issue several times in my own work - someone might publish something that in my opinion is pretty low quality and obvious, but that to publish the better result I need to show that there are important things that the original can't do that my approach can.

"Good enough for journal X" is not a mathematical claim.  Operationally speaking, it is precisely a matter of collective opinion.  Math journals group themselves into rough, approximate equivalence classes (which is also entirely a matter of collective opinion), and you should take this negative referee result as one data point that your paper is not good enough for a journal of that class.  If your prior belief was that the paper was roughly equal or better in quality to other papers published in journals of the same class, you should try at least once more at a different journal of about the same level.
A good referee report reveals something about why the referee thinks the quality of the paper is not sufficient, either in absolute or relative terms.  This may give you something to improve: either actual mathematical improvements or improvements in the exposition to make referees believe your work is more valuable.
In summary: it doesn't necessarily mean much on its own.  Revise if applicable and resubmit.  Good luck.

Thank you. I agree with you. One more thing, I have noticed that the IF of the suggested journal is more than the referee journal IF. I want to re-evaluate my work. How can I know that my work is significant enough for a certain journal. I want to avoid this report type.

"I want to avoid this report type." - if you wish to publish, you will have to live with a lot of this type of reports. Take the messages on board - sometimes you can ask the journal editors whether papers of the present kind are of interest for the journal, before you submit for review.

@SamehShenawy Impact Factors are statistically meaningless.

@DavidRoberts, or, to be more precise, impact factors are commercially-motivated products... cf. "conflict of interest", etc.

@paulgarrett http://ga.lsu.edu/blog/andrewsluyter/2015/01/27/use-of-isa-impact-factors-proves-statistical-illiteracy/

@DavidRoberts, hilarious! Indeed so. I'm glad people don't universally buy into such worse-than-nonsense.

But as I think, high IF journals usually have difficult acceptance  criteria.

In a comment to @PeteLClark's answer, you state "I want to avoid this report type". We all do, of course. But remember that good journals reject around 2/3 of all submitted papers. You will not be able to avoid having at least some of your papers rejected if you continue to publish, simply based on statistics and the fact that the reviewing process has a random element to it. It's just part of the process. Go with the flow -- take the reviewer comments serious (they are typically written by people with a good amount of experience), address them in your manuscript, find a different journal one rung down the ladder, and resubmit.

An additional point here - if you're not sometimes getting rejected that means either all of your papers are being published in the highest possible journal or you are publishing in much lower quality journals than you should be.

@Joel why the 'should'? People can publish wherever they can get accepted. Atiyah can publish articles in the Ukrainian Mathematical Bulletin if he likes; Lawvere can publish in an obscure Iranian journal if he likes, etc.

@DavidRoberts I don't think the OP has the reputation needed to get people to read his articles if they are published in an obscure Iranian journal, do you?  A good paper in an obscure journal will be ignored unless the author is so famous that people automatically read everything he/she writes.  A mediocre paper in a good journal will at least be skimmed if it seems relevant, even if the author is unknown.

@Joel I agree, just wanted to qualify the statement. "..than you should be, if you need people to read your papers in order to keep/get employment" is really what it is :-) I wish it weren't, but, hey, wishes aren't fishes etc etc

It's not really controversial that academics should publish, is it? If you "should" publish, then you "should" publish in a venue that isn't massively too obscure for your work. If you always aim too low, and taking things to extremes, you might as well just stick a few flyers to lampposts. Atiyah can holler proofs into a thunderstorm if he likes, he's a free man, but on the whole what he should do, as an academic, is publish in venues suited to the significance of the work. Which may or may not be the Ukranian Mathematical Bulletin depending on the paper :-)

@DavidRoberts Even if we forget about job prospects (which obviously is an issue), if the OP produces major results but publishes in obscure journals they won't get noticed.  Sure, it would be great if there were some other filter that got the important works through to readers.  But so many papers are published these days that I can't read them all, and I'm simply going to ignore papers published in lower journals.

Thank you all for this useful discussion. How can I overcome this stumbling block, I mean reputation.

@SamehShenawy -- you continue to write good papers, associate with others who have experience and from whom you can learn, and send your papers to journals that you think match the level of your results. This may occasionally fail, but in the long run you will get results that are commensurate with the true quality of your results and your writing.

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What does "upper division" mean in the context of undergraduate classes?
I'm in the process of researching graduate programs, and one of the ones I'm interested in prefers their applicants to have a B average in "upper division" classes. I just want to clarify what this means. I'm in a 4-year undergraduate math program, so would "upper division" be 3rd and 4th year courses, or would 2nd year courses be dragged into the mix?
Edit: I am talking about US grad schools, but I go to a university in Canada. Right now, I have a GPA of about 3.3, which I hope to surpass in 3rd and 4th year to look better on my grad school app.

Can you clarify which country you are asking about. Divisions may have different meanings in different systems.

Probably the question makes best sense in the U.S., where this terminology is widely used, but clarification from the questioner would help. In the U.S., indeed, it refers to typically 3rd and 4th year courses, especially in the major area, since (due to the nature of the U.S. educational system) "lower-division" courses are often far afield from the major, or designed to be easily feasible for a larger population, or have other features irrelevant to a more focused major-subject study and subsequent scholarship.

@paulgarrett You elaborated that comment to the point that it is viable as an answer.

Really?  I would think they would prefer an A average in upper division classes.  Basically they want to see you've done well in advanced classes.

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How long after first contact, where editor says "manuscript is still under review", is it okay to enquire again about status of manuscript?
About a year ago I submitted a paper to a very good math journal.
After 10 months I asked the editor for its status,
and he said it is still with the referee, and that he will remind him about it.
Two more months have passed. Should/could I write the editor again? or am I risking annoying the editor/referee? How much time should I wait between such inquires?

In the worst case, you end up getting no answer. But I've seen many occasions where reviewing process takes more or less one and a half year. Maybe they are still looking for a reviewer.

For reference: http://academia.stackexchange.com/a/29601/64074
And: http://academia.stackexchange.com/a/55666/64074

As an editor of a number of mathematics journals, I would be pretty irritated to receive two queries from an author within two months. What exactly is achieved by emailing a journal to ask for an update in the first place? Mostly, it helps on the (perhaps not so rare) occasion where the paper has fallen through the cracks, as happens when someone agrees to review the paper but then forgets about it. What would be achieved by emailing the journal twice in two months? It's hard to imagine it resulting in your paper being reviewed any sooner, and easy to imagine it annoying the editor. I would wait six months between queries.

If it has been an entire year, then I think you are well within your rights to enquire about the status of your paper. You have been remarkably patient.
Does the journal publish metrics on time-to-publication? Can you work it out from looking at the submission dates of articles published in the most recent edition?
If 12 months is unusual for this particular journal then something is not going as it should, and in the least the editor should keep you informed.

The average time for this journal from submission to acceptence is 14 months. Given that, do you think I should wait more?

I don't think that you have anything to lose by asking. If I was in your position I would have no qualms at all about contacting the editor again. I often contact editors if I have not heard anything after a couple of months! Worst case scenario - the editor says that your paper is still out for review. Best case scenerio - your email prompts him to speed up the process.

@GeneralJournal then why not wait until 14 months? If you have a pressing reason, like an interview or application coming up, then I can imagine wanting to know at all costs.


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Do professors think that teaching undergraduates is a waste of their time?
I am confused as to why highly intelligent professors would want to teach undergraduate students. It sounds to me like a lifetime of toil.
Do professors find the time spent teaching undergraduates a waste of time?

No, of course not.

Of course it is well known that many look down on grading.

I think you can conclude from the content of your own post that many intelligent people believe teaching is worthwhile.  People who think teaching is a waste of time probably don't know how learning works or how it helps students.  The "helps students" part, at least, is obvious to academics.  And probably too broad to make into a single answer.

Is trolling a waste of time?

I edited the text a bit to make it less trollish.

The answer is an emphatic No!

The only time teaching undergraduates is a waste of time is when the undergraduates think that learning is a waste of time.

I can only speak for myself with certainty, but I think most people who become professors are partly motivated by altruistic reasons.  We become professors because we want to help other people, and for most of us, we think that all people in society, not only an intellectual elect, are made in the image of God(*) and ought to be helped.
Of course I often find teaching difficult, frustrating, annoying, and so on (though rarely boring), but I also get the satisfaction of doing good in the world.
(*) substitute your favorite deity or cosmic principle

Some weirdos like me also find it fun (aside from hopefully making the world a better place, etc.)


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Is it legal or normal for a professor to require 65 or above on both assessments to pass the unit?
Our grades for the Coding class I am taking are divided between projects and exams. The professor I take the class under has the following policy on her syllabus:
If our cumulative average for either our exams or projects is below 65% we receive an F in the class.
For example, lets say your class grade was an 75% (C) with a 90% average for projects, but a 60% average for exams. You would receive a failing grade. To me this seems highly immoral considering some students simply aren't good test takers.
Just curious, but is this policy legal in any way?

Legal or not depends on your jurisdiction. Ethically, I would say that this is okay. Getting an average of 65% or anything (exams, projects, etc.) over the course of the semester shows that you lack understanding of the subject matter, and should repeat the course.

@ChrisCirefice I disagree, in the UK a 65% corresponds to a mid 2:1, and would be considered a fairly good grade (70%+ is a 1st, the highest possible grade).

@astronat true; I'm not familiar with the UK system. Whatever standard is being used, being on the lower spectrum of that scale means that you don't understand the material well enough.

@ChrisCirefice It assumes a lack of understanding assuming reasonable grading.  I ended up dropping a class once with a 51% on the homework--not because I didn't understand it but because I had a very hard time figuring out how to show enough work to make the teacher happy.  I was constantly being dinged for the right answer but failing to show "work" where there wasn't really any to my mind--by the time the equation was written down I knew the answer to it.

@astronat I think it's safe to assume in this context that the highest possible (numeric) grade is 100%, and the highest possible (letter) grade is an "A", which kicks in at 90%+?  After all, 75% is indicated as a "C", which is consistent with U.S. style grading; under which a 65% (or below) is never considered "fairly good".

@LorenPechtel: as a maths teacher, I couldn't care less about the answer of an equation (if you mean by that the numerical solution). What I care about is how you found it, if you found all solutions, or if your solutions are really solutions and not "extraneous" solutions.

@Taladris This was a physics class.  I don't mind a reasonable show work requirement but he was requiring "work" from 5 years lower down the math spectrum.  At the point I dropped I had a 67 on the one test--4th highest in the class of 120.  I actually had about a 97, it's just that when I got to the end of the third problem I saw my answer was "wrong"--tried again, same, tried a different approach.  In reality the problem was insolvable, my original answer was "correct."

Assuming a 90-80-70 grading scale (65% would be considered failing), the professor states that failing either projects or tests yields failing grade for the class. Under that rubric, you must decide based upon your test and project ability and experience whether to persevere or withdraw. Earn a 90 on both and avoid the problem.

I don't understand this question. If the professor asks the students to do something illegal, then your question makes sense. But, the policy says 65% means failure and you ask if it is legal? I am scratching my head and try to figure out what's happening?

65% would be a pass with safe margin in every course and university I've ever seen. Unless the first 50% is purely revision, giving no recognition to half the knowledge in the syllabus is farcical.

@Nij I can only assume you haven't spent much time in North America. When the top grade doesn't kick in until 90% (or even 95%), students expect to be able to get every single mark without too much difficulty. So 65% could potentially be more like only knowing 3/4 of the minimal learning outcomes.

90% is the boundary for top grades here. 50% is considered a bare pass and may be considered insufficient to advance the next level up. The top grade shouldn't kick in until quite high up; it doesn't follow that the lowest grade above a fail should also be very high up as well, unless the majority of the grade is just easy amd/or prior knowledge. In which case, why bother testing and/or grading it again, when the entry requirements mean they have it already?

Whether 65% are pass or fail obviously depends on how hard the exams are..

Only if you don't think about the difficulty of questions prior to using them. "Oops, I screwed them by asking grad-level work of a first-year, better just give A+ to anybody who didn't surrender immediately". Set an exam that tests the entirety of knowledge as deeply as possible, and then make the marks absolute. Someone who knows 8% of the content and can think through 80% of the work, shouldn't get 99% because everybody else was bad, or a 69% because everybody else was amazing.

It doesn't seem too unusual to me, and I don't think very many people will share your view that it is "immoral".
At least in US universities, the professor has quite wide discretion to determine the grading policy, so long as it is clearly described in the syllabus and applied equally to all students.  This seems well within the realm of acceptability.  Schemes based on some weighted average of assignments and exams are the most common, but I've certainly seen schemes where you have to have a minimum grade on certain components to pass.
As far as "legal", laws tend to avoid micromanaging academic matters, so I would be very surprised if there is any law that would forbid this.  University policy is more likely to address it, but again, I'd be surprised if what you describe wasn't allowed.  I don't think you will have any success trying to fight this at a higher level.
As far as it being unfair to students who are poor test takers, bear in mind that in many educational systems, it is common for the course grade to be determined entirely by a single exam.  Rightly or wrongly, there's a long history of evaluating students by exams, with the attitude that students who aren't good at taking tests need to find a way to get better at it.  (Accommodations may be made for students whose test-taking difficulties are due to a diagnosed learning disability, but this usually means adjusting the exam conditions rather than de-emphasizing exams in general.)
You are certainly free to express your disagreement with this policy, either directly to the professor or in anonymous evaluations, but it may not be possible for her to change it after the course has started.  This could be seen as unfair to students who have been setting their priorities accordingly.

Odd question: If someone argued against the commonality/history of course grades being determined by final exams, to what reference could we direct them?

@DanielR.Collins The UK Unistats website shows the weighting of different types of assessment for every subject at every university, each year (I think). That would show there are many places/subjects where exams make up a large component of the mark.

@JessicaB: Thank you for that! Anyone have a reference for U.S.-based schools on that point?

Most likely, the exam and the projects are intended to test different skills. So, it is only reasonable that a student has to pass both to pass the course. This is common practice at most courses in my department (in the Netherlands).
When I design a course, I have to specify the 'learning goals' and I have to explicitly state where and how I test them. My course might have five learning goals, three out of which are tested in an exam and two in some project work. As passing the course means that I testify you achieved all learning goals, it means that you have to pass both, and you cannot compensate a fail on one part with a good grade on the other. Therefore, in my view, the professor is doing the right thing.
Whether 65% is the right cutoff value probably depends a lot on the context, which is why we cannot judge that (see also the comments to your question).

"Legal" is a very specific thing - and there's almost certainly no law governing how university professors in your area grade. So I would abandon the notion of legal right now.
Now, is it a good idea? There are arguments that could be made both ways - as you've noted, some students might not be good test takers, but on the other hand, failing any particular aspect of a course betrays a lack of mastery of the subject. This also prevents people with "good enough" scores to blow things off that won't harm their average much but might lower their score in a particular facet.
When it comes down to it though, professors have a massive amount of leeway in how they grade courses.

How much leeway is also highly dependent on context. There is a great deal in North America, but much less in the UK. Close to none in at least some institutions.

It's an obvious way to stop students gaming the marking system, by only doing half the work for the course but still getting a pass grade.
It is a common practice outside academia for professional qualifications (e.g. accountancy) - why would you want to call somebody a "professional" if they aren't at least competent (even if not experts) in all the aspects of their profession?
Of course some people might take the view that anything which prevents every student from getting a degree is "immoral" - but I'm not one of them. If you take that to its logical conclusion, just issue everybody with a degree certificate when their birth is registered, and save all the time and money that is currently wasted on building schools, paying teachers, etc!


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Explaining bad grades in application: SOP or separate letter
Question
Should issues about past academic performance be addressed in the Statement of Purpose or a separate letter to the admissions committee.
Background
I had originally posted about my situation here: Should a dismissal from PhD in graduate application be listed as academic misconduct?
One of the answers to that question suggested that instead of using my statement of purpose to address academic concerns, I write a separate letter addressing the issue. However, others have suggested that colleges are unlikely to read such materials with the application. I have written a short (500 word) explaining the circumstances under which I received my bad grades and what I have done so this doesn't happen in the future. I have also written a short (500 word) statement of purpose that does not address my academic performance at all. Should I rework my SOP to incorporate the academic issue, and skip the additional letter?

I think the explanation of your bad grade should not exceed 200 words. The explanation needs to be brief, direct to the point.

Even 200 words seems a little excessive, a couple sentences should suffice as long as you are prepared to explain verbally if called back.

SoP should be just your SoP. I'd use the diversity statement to address additional factors that the committee should evaluate.

Some web-based application forms have dedicated fields for comments on grades or academic hardships. I would first of all take advantage of these if possible, and second, read the fine print if not: some application guidelines will forbid submission of additional materials. This doesn't have to stop you, but I would contact the admissions staff either way if there isn't a dedicated field. It should be as simple as asking, "May I enclose a brief additional letter explaining an issue in my academic history?"
In my opinion, that's what you should do however you can, unless admissions expressly forbids it, or if the issue at hand somehow affected your academic purpose. The statement of purpose is a fairly important and somewhat haphazardly scrutinized document, so anything tangential that interrupts your flow or the optimism and enthusiasm you express for your present and future work is likely to detract from the cohesiveness your message, the consistency and positivity of your tone, and the room you have to go into detail and cover other important information. You never really know what your readers are going to pay attention to in your writing, so it's best not to take any chances and leave it as flawless as can be, while conveying important but unexpected information through other channels if possible.

Mysterious downvote! Anyone care to comment on points of disagreement? I'm listening...

will the explanation for the bad grade and the SOP will not be read by a same person?

You should definitely explain it--it is going to catch some attention, after all.  Admissions committees recognize that people grow, develop, and change over time; they just need to know that you have.  It doesn't need to be much, but it definitely deserves a paragraph just to acknowledge the issue and briefly outline why it's not necessarily reflective of your current self.


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Do I have to wear academic regalia to a student's graduation?
I have been a postdoc and including occasional lecturer for the last several years. A former student just invited me to his graduation. Would someone at my career stage at an American research university typically be expected to wear academic regalia at a graduation ceremony? I have not seen any specific guidance for this.

This really depends on your institution. There are universities where you don't have to wear any academic regalia at any career stage (e.g. I go with jeans and t-shirt to the graduation ceremonies of my students).

This also depends on the capacity in which you're attending.  At my institution, regalia is required for faculty taking part in the procession.  If you're just sitting in the audience, you can wear whatever you want (although slightly more formal than jeans and t-shirts is customary).

It sounds as if you are going to be seated in the audience as guest (e.g., sitting with the family or as if you were friend or family), so just wear 'regular' clothes. It still is a very nice thing to do and to show support.
If you are seated with the faculty (in those universities which have the faculty march in with the students), then those faculty who are part of the ceremony would wear regalia. If you are sitting with the faculty, you probably wouldn't be asking your question, as it is usually arranged in advance to do so (both to make sure there are enough faculty showing up, and to help with renting the regalia for those faculty who do not have their own. And - depending on the size of the university, there will need to be a lot of instructions of where to park, where to mass up and what time to show up in order to march in.).
If the student is asking you to 'hood' him/her (for PhD in many US universities, the advisor can come up to put the PhD hood on the candidate) then talk to the department to find out how to get included in the 'faculty' who are formally seated in the ceremony.

As an aside, sometimes students do not wear regalia. And they look indeed as if they feel very uncomfortable.

@CaptainEmacs Those who do or those who don't?

@sgf In the context of graduation ceremonies as per OP's question,  practically everyone on stage wears regalia. Those who don't, look very uncomfortable. If you are only in the audience and never on stage (e.g. as academic), then wearing smartly is sufficient.

I face this situation many times as a visiting faculty to several institutions. While most of them accept us as part of faculty and offer cloaks, some accept us as guests only and do not offer cloaks. The only issue I notice in not wearing your academic regalia is when your students wishes to take group photographs with you or introduce you to their parents. You would look alien and un-recognized without regalia for a Academic photograph. This would cause most students to ignore you when taking photographs as well and it can become an insult to your academic profile.

Not sure I understand this answer, particularly the last sentence. What is an "insult to your academic profile"?

The internal faculty will wear regalia while you are not. So parents and the new graduates may assume you are a non qualified lecturer. Plus they may not wish to take photograph with you since non academic people in their family may ask why your lecturer is not showing the academic representation while the student does.

As already noted, if in the audience and not part of the faculty then no one would expect you to wear any academic robes and it would be most unusual to do so.
That being said, when my son graduated from my Alma-mater, where my wife and I graduated and where we met, we felt such a strong affinity to the place and the ceremony that we also wore our academic gowns in solidarity and pride for our son.
Although we were the only people in the many hundreds of friends and family in academic gowns, no one batted an eyelid or looked askance. It is likely, for many of them that this was there first time in the audience of such a ceremony and they have no knowledge of the protocol and would just accept anything as normal.
I also noticed the other phenomena, that if suitably robed you can go anywhere...

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text:
How can I thank a senior faculty who's written me a good reference which helped me land a desirable job?
I recently got a good job and I want to thank a very senior professor in my department, who spent time to write me a very good reference.
I am thinking maybe to give him a thank you card when I go to see him before leaving the department.
I come from a culture where gift-giving is considered obligatory if someone has helped you to achieve something major. I'm not sure this is appropriate in the UK context.
Any ideas?

I feel like a card is appropriate. I'm not familiar with UK etiquette, but in the US, if we really feel the need to give a gift, it's a $15ish gift card to a coffee shop. Perhaps you can ask a classmate about UK customs?

This may be applicable in very specific cases only but would be a(n additional) nice gesture: Assuming the professor has written a book (which you have also read or at least think/know is a great text to keep in your bookshelf), you may buy a new copy and request him to sign it.

Possible duplicate of On giving gifts to LOR writers

A thank-you card would be perfect, or even just saying thank you.
There isn't a strong culture of giving thank-you gifts in the UK so your professor won't expect one and certainly won't feel that you are ungrateful if you don't give him something. However, it's almost never inappropriate1 to give a small gift if that's what you want to do. The suggestions in the other answers (a gift card for a coffee shop, a bottle of wine or especially something from your own country) are all good ideas. I wouldn't spend more than about £10 on such a gift.
1 The situations where it would be inappropriate would mostly be cases where the gift could be interpreted as a bribe; that obviously isn't the case, here.

A thank you card is definitely a good idea and I cannot see that it would be considered inappropriate. If you are from abroad, a little something typical of your country of origin may also be appropriate. Like a small box of traditional sweets, a little traditional doll, a fan, or something like that. I have had this kind of little things given to me by students.
Also, the university will probably have a policy on gifts which you may be able to locate on their web site. The general idea is that it should not be something worth a significant amount of money.
Rather than asking a classmate, I would ask a junior faculty for what goes as the norm. A classmate may be as inexperienced in this as you are, because the rules in academia can be significantly different from other parts of society.

New car!  Do you know how little academics are paid?  I have written many of these letters over the years and to date have received (and expected) exactly nothing in return.   A $15 Starbucks gift card would blow me away.

@DaveKaye This is pretty trivial, but I'm puzzled by your reference to new car. In any case, I agree that a thank you card and a small gift would be a nice gesture, and completely appropriate in any culture I've spent time in.

Just a joke Faheem.  Trivial indeed.

+1 on asking a junior faculty member, preferably one who knows not only the norms but the letter writer and what they might like.  Believe it or not, some people don't drink coffee! Many people would love a free bottle of wine, others do not drink, still others are wine snobs and won't drink anything less that $30/bottle.

Let me be clear to any of my recommendees: I like wine and I am not a snob. :-)

A well thought-out thank you note would be good. Better if you know them well enough to know they like a particular place, e.g. their favorite coffee shop, and you could buy them a gift certificate. I'm probably reading my own biases into this, but I would not get them less than a $20 gift certificate, or maybe a nice bottle of wine (if you know they'd like it). If that's too expensive for you, just focus on making your thank you note mean more than a couple cups of free coffee.
But you're under no obligation. They performed their duty as they were obliged to do, likely because you did so as well. If you're on good terms, and I think it's safe to assume you are, a simple thank-you note is likely to mean much more than anything else you might do.


text:
What are some effective ways for someone without a graduate degree to increase their chances of getting hired as a lecturer?
Context
I am graduating from a Bachelor's degree (Computer Science) at the end of the year from a fairly large Australian university (top50 world). I am keen for a lecturing role (only teaching) at the university I am graduating from, specifically in the introductory computing subject (equivalent of Computing 101).
I am aiming for a lecturer (employment position), not lectureship (academic position, e.g. associate professor/professor). I assume that it will most likely be on a casual basis.
I have a great deal of previous teaching experience in computing areas. I have two years of experience as a course tutor for the same subject I plan to lecture for. This involves two hours of lecturing to a class of 20 students, plus four hours of lab assistance a week.
Things I am aware of

Lecturers normally get picked from the researchers. I imagine this is to save the costs of hiring a dedicated lecturer (correct me if I am wrong).
Lecturers normally are PhDs. My faculty has had several exceptions, notably in the COMP101 subject and the Programming Competitions subject. (bachelor's lecturer and undergrad lecturer respectively).
Even if I am successful, my job security will be nonexistent. I am okay with this.
My faculty is on a fairly tight budget.

Things I am doing

Trying to get a recommendation from existing lecturers I know. This may be difficult, because they are risking their reputation on a somewhat dodgy applicant.
Asking existing non-researcher lecturers how they got hired
Actively undertaking volunteer work in educational groups

Questions I am often asked

Why don't you teach for high school instead? Because I would be teaching on a much smaller scale (i.e. class of ~10 people) and making little impact. Because Australia's technology curriculum is miserable.
Why don't you do a PhD? I wish to avoid research. I believe I can be a good lecturer, and that I can make the course more interesting, and I think I can do that without a PhD. Sorry if I offended anyone.
Aren't you unqualified for the job? Are my academic qualifications substandard? Yes. Am I unlikely to get the job? Yes. Would I be a worse lecturer? Absolutely not. For an introductory subject, enthusiasm, empathy and communication are far more important than a postgraduate qualification.

So, my concluding question is:
What can I do to improve my chances of being hired?
_
Thanks to your great answers, I am considering:

Focusing on a casual instructor-type lecturer rather than a full-time academic position
Getting more industry experience (I have had only two previous software jobs).
Master's in CS or Education (preferably overseas)
Working (possibly for free) for an education company (coursera, openlearning, etc.)
Education startup

My faculty has had several exceptions ... and ... bachelor's lecturer and undergrad lecturer respectively.... Have you asked them the question: How did they get hired?

@scaaahu that is a great suggestion. That is one of the "Things I am doing". Not much success via email so I'm hoping to grab them in person once the semester begins again.

I edited out the "note" at the start of the question. The American usages of "college" and "school" might differ from the Australian usage, but the term "university" is universally unambiguous.

Two questions: 1. Have you thought about teaching at polytechnic level? 2. Have you considered a Master's degree?

What training have you done in education? Enthusiasm, empathy and communication are all well and good, but learning how to teach well is valuable. Having even a dual major in education shows that you're serious about it, and should help you succeed once you get there.

Can you clarify what the position of "lecturer" entails in Australia? In the US, that title usually applies to a job whose only duties are teaching. In the UK, I believe it's a step on the way to Professor and involves research.

@JW I had not considered that. The reason is that I know very little about how polytechnic courses work, while I am very familiar with the course I intend to teach. I am not confident I could be effective at the polytechnic level, but it is worth looking into.

@Telastyn More practical experience than theoretical education. Completed Educational Psychology courses, university tutor for 2 years, designed and lectured multiple computing workshops for high school students, private tutor. After your suggestion, I am considering a Masters in education overseas. Great idea!

@NateEldredge Only duties are teaching, but typically hired from the researching cohort (so they would do both.). edited.

"Even if I am successful, my job security will be nonexistent. I am okay with this." You may be now, but I am sure you won't be so in the future. That means that, among other things, from your low salary (per the tight budget), you would have to put aside a large chunk, just in case. And if you get fired, you would find yourself outdated in industry, competing with freshly graduates or with industry seasoned applicants.

@icedtrees: I have applied for a lectureship in Australia, and research was definitely part of the duties of the job.  I believe this is standard.

Oh, and you said "Lecturers normally get picked from the researchers. I imagine this is to save the costs of hiring a dedicated lecturer (correct me if I am wrong)."  I believe you are wrong, because, as I said, research is actually considered to be an important part of the job of a lecturer (in Australia, New Zealand and the UK).

@TaraB I believe that lectureship - the academic position, like the position of associate professor or professor, is different from the employment position of "[casual] lecturer" I am aiming for. Sorry for the ambiguity.

Ah, that would have been good to make clear in your question.  Yes, such positions do exist in Australia, though not generally on a full-time basis, I think, and also, as you said, with no job security.

I would actually disagree with the suggestion of doing a masters in education.  Such a degree would be a good advantage if going into high school teaching, but for university teaching a masters or PhD in your content area (computer science) would normally be expected.

"For an introductory subject, enthusiasm, empathy and communication are far more important than a postgraduate qualification." - I question this premise.  What evidence do you have for this?  I wonder if you might be starting from a faulty premise.  If you don't have experience of being the instructor of record for a large introductory course, how would you even know?  A course tutor for 20 students is a far cry from being the instructor for such a course.

@D.W. http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/33021/what-makes-a-didactically-effective-lecture is similar to my thoughts. note especially the answers about putting yourself into the mind of the student. Our faculty hires undergrad tutors and they unsurprisingly outperform postgrad tutors in this particular respect.

Gain specific professional experience in the subject you want to teach.
In my (engineering) department, all of the teaching staff who do not hold PhDs (or are not current PhD students) have industry experience in the subject they are teaching.
In other words, if you are a professional penetration tester, you may be hired to teach computer security. If you work for a major telecom, you may be hired to teach computer networks. Kickstart a successful electronics startup, and you may be hired to teach circuits. You get the idea.
The point is to have some domain-specific expertise you can bring to the table (because university professors are supposed to be subject matter experts, or at least be able to pretend to be). If it's not from research, professional experience can also work.

That's awesome! I didn't think of that. I'm not sure what industry experience is relevant to introductory computing, but I'll try to come up with something.

@icedtrees the point is to become an expert in the field, to be able to bring a good direction and insight to the introductory courses. For introduction to Programming, you would want to become a successful industry programmer, that knows what things are the essential foundation of a good, large project.

@Davidmh i agree that knowing the foundations of a good large projects make a great lecturer. If the lecturers you know are like that, then they are much better than mine. Another thing to be aware of is preparing students for more advanced courses in the faculty.

@icedtrees I wish they were all like that, but some of them were definitely, and it was a pleasure. From my perspective, already in first year, I could see a big difference between the professors that just knew enough of the particular topic, and the ones that had a deep understanding. Also, currently you can only teach a very small subset of the courses. This is not so good for the university, as they cannot adapt to a change in teaching load.

@Davidmh a good point about the flexibility in teaching load. This suggests getting an industry specialisation to expand expertise range is a good idea.

Don't worry so much about that.  It won't take you long to have more than enough industry experience to get in somewhere as an introductory co-sci lecturer.  Especially in schools that are not teaching traditional computer science but have a need for teaching computer programming like design/architecture/linguistics programs.  Once you get started if you're helpful and can help develop new and better curriculum you can keep going from there.  This won't get you in at Stanford, but might get you in somewhere like SCAD.

Part of the problem with academia right now is that supply (the number of unemployed or underemployed PhDs) greatly outnumbers the number of positions available. One of my colleagues told me he got 400 applications for just one t-t position, this isn't unusual.
Thus, universities don't have to lower their selection criteria in order to find willing and able candidates for even the worst of academic jobs -- the per-course, per-semester adjunct lecturer.1
Unless you are a relatively Famous Person®, it'll be very difficult to get past even the initial screening for a lectureship without a PhD at a university.
You may have much better luck at community-colleges, technical colleges, online colleges, and polytechnics -- but even there, the economics of oversupply have meant jobs are tight for all.
Fn1: There is so much competition in the USA that some adjuncts are  paid less than $1500 per course-semester -- that means that even if they taught a 5:5 schedule (10 courses a year), they would still meet the US federal poverty guidelines for food stamps.

This is a great insight into the academic world! I'm hoping that this isn't the case at my university, based on the quality of the lecturers and the occasional non-PhD lecturers, and the fact that undergrads are common as course tutors.

@icedtrees: Are the non-PhD lecturers recent hires? They may have started a time when the job market was very different. And qualifications to be a course tutor are really not at all related to those for a lecturer.

@NateEldredge Good point. The Bachelor's teaching Intro to Computing was hired probably 10 years ago, but the undergrad+Bachelor's lecturing Competitive Programming (they are a special case) were 2014 and 2015.

Undergrads are even cheaper than adjuncts (especially if they are work-study indentured laborers)....

@RoboKaren that's ridiculous! Is such a low pay common? On the bright side, the lecturer quality must be amazing, given the competitiveness.

If you think you can have quality while teaching a 5:5 load, I have a bridge in Kansas to sell you. See my link to the adjunct project (the actual range is between $1000-4000 or so): http://adjunct.chronicle.com/

Is this true in computer science?

I would only note this is rather field specific on the academic market - a PhD in an Accounting, for instance, is considered still so rare that my chats with faculty in the business department indicate they can't even get enough applicants to have a hope of hiring one, even though the offered salary is nearly twice that of other faculty. In English even it differs by sub-field, as for instance if you are a Dicken's scholar you'd better be famous, yet if you are in business/technical communication... And in computing for three years running my institution had 3 open slots they could not fill.

True that. Again, check the Adjunct Project's data to get a sense of the disparity between fields, between schools, and between geographic locales. Your mileage will certainly vary.

Agree that this is true in many fields a lot of the time, but isn't universal. I am teaching as an adjunct this semester because my department couldn't get anyone else to cover a specific course, and begged me to do it...

It's often preferable to hire one's own graduate students: 1) running an open search isn't always amenable to the provost and an internal hire is less paperwork; and, 2) hiring your own lowers your graduate and post-graduate unemployment rate making the department stats look better.

I am going to try to focus on your specific question: ways to increase the chance of getting hired.  I'll try to avoid digressing into a discussion of the pros and cons of such a career, but I'd recommend you explore those further - my impression from your questions and comments is that you don't yet have a clear sense of what such a job is like.  Also, my answer will be based on the situation in academia in general, based on my knowledge of it: it is always possible that your university is a significant outlier.
Since there is a lot of confusion over job titles across countries, in this post I'll use the word instructor to refer to a person who teaches in a university, and has full responsibility for the classes they teach.  It should be distinguished from a teaching assistant whose teaching is done under the supervision of an instructor.  In general, the basic qualifications to be hired as an instructor are content expertise and a record of successful university teaching.
Content Expertise
One of the features that most strongly distinguishes university education from high school is that teaching is done by content experts - people whose knowledge of their content area goes well beyond the introductory level.  Have you ever had a teacher who you felt was learning their material one chapter ahead of the students?  At a university, the goal is to get as far from that situation as possible.  The most basic way to demonstrate a level of expertise is to earn a postgraduate degree.  At many universities, a masters degree is an absolute minimum requirement for any instructor, and a doctorate is usually preferred.
I think it is easy for people to underestimate the importance of this.  After all, if you learned calculus your first year of college, why should you need to take 5-8 years of more advanced classes (many not involving calculus in any obvious way) before you can teach it?  But in my personal experience, I think that having deeper experience in mathematics (a doctorate and research) really has helped me understand calculus  - what it can be used for, different ways to interpret its results, how it relates to other parts of mathematics - at a much deeper level than I could as a college freshman, or even as a college graduate.  And it benefits my teaching: I can help students make connections, discover alternate approaches, etc, in a way that I couldn't do otherwise.
(In particular, it is not likely to be helpful to take the point of view that you don't need a postgraduate degree because it won't help you teach.  For one thing, the people hiring you are the university faculty - they will almost all have postgraduate degrees, and won't take kindly to someone suggesting they are of little value.)
It's quite unusual for someone with only a bachelor's degree to be a university instructor, and it would be extremely unusual for someone without a bachelor's degree.  I'm rather startled to hear you mention that your university has such people working as instructors.  (Is it possible they are actually teaching assistants?)  If it's really the case, this may not be a good sign - it may suggest that your university is operating below international academic standards.
Research experience beyond the PhD is viewed as an even stronger sign of content expertise.  If you aren't interested in research, then you should know that this is going to work to your detriment when you compete with people who have been active in research.
In some cases, there can be alternative ways to demonstrate an appropriate level of expertise.  In some fields, industry or clinical experience can serve as a sign of expertise, even if you don't have a postgraduate degree.  But it usually has to be pretty significant - the institution wants to be convinced that your work in the field has been extensive enough to fill in any gaps in your formal education.  And part of the benefit of hiring someone with industry experience is that their teaching can be oriented toward techniques, tools, approaches, etc, that are actually widely used in industry - so they will want to be convinced that your experience is broad enough that your sense of industry standards is accurate.  (For instance, if you only worked at one company that had some oddball approach, you might have a skewed view that this was common in the industry - if you train your students only in the oddball approach, they won't be well prepared for other industry jobs.)  So I'd say they'd want you to have pretty extensive industry experience - maybe 10 years or more.  If you are thinking of going into industry as a back door into academia, realize that you are playing a very long game, with no guarantee of success.
In any case, you should expect that you will be competing against other applicants who have masters and doctoral degrees, and that, all other things equal, those candidates will likely get preference.
A Record of Successful Teaching Experience
For an instructor-level teaching position, most employers would expect that you have experience teaching at the university level.  You don't have to have had experience as an instructor - it can suffice to have worked as a teaching assistant.  But they definitely want to see that you have taught university-level content to university students, preferably for several semesters, and that it went well.  Often, they want to see evidence of your success, in the form of letters of recommendation from faculty who supervised your teaching, student evaluations, or similar data.  Enthusiasm and idealism ("I love the thought of  teaching," "I have great ideas to revolutionize teaching," etc.) will not substitute for actual experience.
The most common way for people to start gaining this experience is, again, graduate school.  Most graduate programs have the option for students to work as teaching assistants, often as a requirement of funding.  You may not have full responsibility for your classes, but at least you are working in a university classroom and learning to address the challenges of teaching.
Your experience as a "course tutor" sounds like sort of a light version of this - a good start, but far less than a successful applicant would be expected to have.
In some cases, teaching assistants get greater autonomy, and have the ability to essentially run their own class with minimal interference from supervisors - such experience is a plus.  Also, many applicants for a university instructorship will have already had experience as an instructor at other institutions; in some cases several years.  So you should expect to be competing against people with such backgrounds.
I want to mention a special case of your situation - you're thinking of applying at an institution you've attended as a student.  To a hiring department, this has pros and cons.  Of course, they know you, and they know you are familiar with their institution's system and culture.  But on the other hand, there is a benefit in bringing in people with outside experience who can broaden the "gene pool" - if they keep hiring their own people, they may get stuck in a cycle of suboptimal practices which everyone just thinks are normal.  On balance, all other things being equal, I think most institutions will prefer not to hire their own students.  But if you go elsewhere for a graduate degree, or otherwise get experience of the academic world outside your current institution, that would help.
On the flip side, it's easy as a student to fall in love with your undergraduate institution, think it's the best place ever, and want to work there forever.  Honestly, it's probably not prudent until you have seen other places as well - your view is likely to be skewed.  Also, if you did get such a job, having your entire education and career at one institution is likely to be a detriment if and when you want to seek another academic job.
Summary
If you want a university teaching job, the most straightforward first step is to earn a masters degree in your content area and work as a teaching assistant.  You can then start to test the waters and see what kinds of jobs you might be able to get.  But it's entirely possible that you will have a very hard time getting hired without a PhD and/or further university teaching experience.
It would also be a good idea to talk to faculty at your institution who know you well - perhaps academic advisors - and let them know this is a career that interests you.  They will be more likely to have advice specifically relevant to your field and the job market in your area.

Liked your comments on calculus.  And there's a HUGE difference between knowing something and being able to teach it...as I found out my very first day of teaching!

You make some great points! Clarification: undergrads are common as unsupervised instructors, on a small scale (20) people. not on a large scale. Agree that further depth creates additional insight into introductory content, but with diminishing returns. I have 4 semesters unsupervised exp. so masters+more exp. looks like the next step.

Excellent answer. To add, I teach in Australia, and the positions are highly competitive with an expectation that someone who completes contract or tenured lecturing will also be producing research. Each level of an academic has a particular expectation to take on 2-3 units a year (depending on their teaching/research/admin points) alongside a publication output expectation and grant-money earning expectation.

My answer might be a little unpleasant. Please do not take any of it personally, because I do not know you and I really wish you the best. However, there are certain things that must be told.

"I wish to avoid research". I believe I can be a good lecturer"
..." and I think I can do that without a PhD".

This is wrong. Part of teaching in a university should be dedicated to helping students (even undergraduates) how to do research. How can you teach something you know nothing of? Lecturers should be able to supervise theses and guide those students with the potential to really flourish. How can you guide a student like that, when (and this is the really bad part) you do not even WANT to do research?
Also, as @ff524 has already posted in her excellent answer, you have no industrial experience and therefore you only know CS from what you learnt in the university. In case your students want to enter the industry, they should learn how to do that by an expert. Again, with no industry experience, how can you tell them of good software practises, facilitate those techniques in your class, teach them to write software reports, do debugging, when you have not actually practised it on a large scale outside the university?
Wanting to teach is a noble cause. But people should start small. You cannot simply teach in a high-ranked university with no real-world working experience and without a PhD degree. A PhD is not only learning to do research but TAing, supervising theses and get a grasp of how the university "works". If teaching is really your call, you should start from private facilities towards certifications (e.g., Oracle) although even then people will ask you first to succeed in those certifications yourself, before teaching them. Still, those classes are smaller and therefore you can learn the ropes in a more fail-safe environment. Then after a few years of experience and multiple teaching hours under your belt, you might realize that a) teaching is not really that fun or b) It is fun for YOU and this is really what you want to do. Then you must start striving towards your goal to teach at a university.
In a nutshell, wanting to be a lecturer at university in a Western World country, without a PHD and without industrial experience and straight out of your BSc is highly unrealistic. Gain some experience (teaching and industry as @ff524 suggested) and then come back in a few years.

This is a bit of a philosophical question, but I am convinced that there are indeed plenty of introductory (and, to a lesser extend, other) courses in a CS curriculum that definitely don't require a or profit from a teacher with an advanced degree.

@xLeitix, that may be true, but how many universities, in Australia, are large enough to have enough introductory CS courses to hire non-PhDed lecturers to teach them? I think Alexandros is right that the odds of this are very, very small. It's unlikely that there are enough courses to maintain even one full-time, non-research lecturer. If teaching at a university is OPs dream, then they'd be better served by getting started on grad school applications than applying fruitlessly to lecturer positions that they cannot get.

This might depend on what "lecturer" means in the OP's culture. In the US a lecturer is a position that only involves teaching, and would not be expected to supervise student research or theses.

Your answer makes sense, but I must respectfully disagree. My objective is to teach the foundations of computing in a clearer and more interesting way than previous lecturers. "Lecturers should be able to supervise..." - A lecturer's role at this university does not include being a research supervisor. There are far better people than me for that job. Industry: I have had two previous software engineering jobs. I did start small, as a course tutor for 2 years for the subject I plan to lecture. Finally, I am aware it is unrealistic, and I will make the attempt regardless.

The university I work with lecturers do have to supervise theses and dissertations. And "more interestingly and clearer way" is definitely not good enough for an University to employ you over someone with PhD, unless as others suggested, you have outstanding experience elsewhere. To be frank university do not care teaching as much as we all wish to believe, and if you are certainly not interested in research, community college would be a better choice for you.

@oce That is my own objective, not what I will put into my application to become a lecturer. I am unsurprised that universities don't care much about lecturing, based on the quality of lecturers I have received. I am aware the chances are unlikely, which is why I am looking for non-research pathways to a more successful application (e.g. industry exp.)

@icedtrees, that's good you know the sad truth already. And yes, don't put that's as an objective or you might annoy someone in the department teaching the course. Good luck with your application!

In the UK system (which Australia uses), lecturer is roughly equivalent to assistant professor in the US system: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_ranks_%28Australia_and_New_Zealand%29

I applaud your note that research CAN be a part of what is taught in a class, but this is a rather research-centric view of the world and you didn't note any qualification to such a statement. Liberal arts education as a philosophy doesn't require - or sometimes even include - research, and professional courses often don't either. An educational program that is designed to prepare students for industry might have no special interest or use in research at all - many existing programs pay only the barest lip-service to research, especially at teaching/4-year US institutions.

There's already a lot of good advice here, but I'll risk redundancy and enter the fray ...
@icedtrees, the problem here isn't your motivation - it's your inexperience. It's awesome that you want to teach, but the problem is that, from both an academic and a professional point of view, you don't really have much to offer.
I'll depart a little bit from the question of whether you need a PhD and instead focus on the fact that, from a computer science standpoint, you are woefully underqualified to teach, even at the basic level. I'm not saying this to offend you - I'm simply trying to help you understand why, as an individual without research or practical experience, you're not likely to be considered as a candidate to teach.
I completely understand that you don't want to research. Not everyone is built for research, and it's not the only way to make a contribution to the field. For many, their contribution to computer science is through actually working in the field and becoming an expert in certain practices and applications. That's completely fine. As far as I can tell, most successful developers don't have PhDs in computer science. What they do have, however, is loads of experience. Simply put, you don't.
The only experience you have is your college education, which, as admirable as it is to have completed it, offers you only the beginning of a glimpse into the world of programming. Your knowledge of computer science extends only as far as the curricula you have encountered - and even then, you likely only recall some of it (at best). You've not been pushed to actually apply it in a professional environment, and therefore, you're unprepared to lecture others. Most developers and computer scientists will tell you that the bulk of your learning happens outside the classroom. You'll learn more about the logic, philosophy, and practice of programming in your first year in the job market than you will in four years of undergraduate study.
Ask yourself this - is simply having passed a driver's education course enough to qualify one to teach 'intro to driving'? Sure, you've successfully received your driver's license, but that's only the beginning of your experience with driving.
It sounds like you could probably do well for yourself by setting out a five year plan. Why not complete a 2-year master's degree in computer science, and then seek out employment for at least three years? After five years, you'll not only be much more attractive on paper, but you'll have the confidence and experience to help instruct those who are just entering into the field. This would allow you to get your foot in the door without completing a large research project.

That is similar to my thoughts. I initially just wasn't sure whether industry exp would actually be all that valuable.

As a level-A lecturer in Australia, I can add the more specific expectations you'll have to meet should you wish to lecture in a university setting and the difficulty in getting a position in Australia.
Full time lecturers (either on contracts or tenured) have to meet a set of expectations that exceed teaching duties. The level of these expectations are also determined by your level (A-E). A level A position is rarely given for teaching (you see it much more often as a researcher position), and when it does occur, it is often an internal hire of a finishing postgraduate who has either just completed their PhD/MA or is close to doing so in that same department/school. Generally, this postgraduate will already have experience in teaching, lecturing and coordinating units as a sessional contract. Getting sessional contracts are generally word-of-mouth (I know so-and-so) or offered by your thesis supervisor if you are studying at the university. It is very (and I mean VERY) rare that they are advertised, and if they are, only internally.
Level A (for lecturing) are generally not advertised on job boards, you'll often see Level B-C as advertised positions, and levels D-E sometimes advertised or done through word-of-mouth. The expectations that you'll have to meet, apart from your teaching duties include:

Publishing a set amount of publications, where a % of those publications are in quality/high impact journals as determined by the university/faculty
Attracting a set amount of grant money
Supervising postgraduate students and meeting a % for successful completion for said students
Associated administrative work, such as coordinating honours degrees for your discipline, setting up/running seminars or conferences, etc
Joining research committees and being part of professional organisations

These will be based on set targets, either yearly, or every 3 years and so on. Some universities, such as the one I teach at, do not have set expectations for a Level A, but it is expected that you attempt to reach Level B targets (which will also help with academic promotion).
Most Australian universities want lecturers who can be on the cutting edge of research, and use that knowledge to teach their courses. It is also very, very competitive out there in Australia, there are plenty of PhDs with publications, research experience and so on who can't even get their foot into the door. They also want international scholars to beef up their reputations.
It's fantastic that you want to teach, but if you don't want to do any research, your options are very limited for university lecturing. The more post-grads that complete their degrees (many of which will have teaching experience), the harder it is going to be for you to get your foot in the door when competing against others for jobs. Australia also does not have the abundance of universities and technical colleges available that a place like the US has, so this limits your options even further. Australia has approx 43 universities, 18 TAFE/polytechnic colleges and 19 private colleges. The US has approx 2,618 (not verified) accredited institutions (which I think includes both colleges/universities).
This is by no means discouragement! It's just outlining the reality of teaching in Australia, and thinking about what you need to do to get there. You might have better success at teaching at TAFE/Colleges than in university if you don't want to do research, since it's all about skill, industry experience and practical learning.

Huge amount of useful information! This seems to suggest multiple alternatives: casual instructorship, moving to a less competitive country, TAFE. It seems like using research as a gateway to lecturing is not an option, since I would have to continue my research duties forever.

As the question is about computing and IT, there is another way in.   In some UK universities there are “instructors” these are people that teach but don’t do research, instead they run the universities IT systems.
In the first year programming courses there is a great demand for lab supervisors to help the students with their programmer labs, as well as interview the students to check that they have written the program themselves.
If you can get to work at the university in IT, you can then see if you can become a lab supervisor for a few hours a week.   Then once you have proved yourself, you MAY get the option to do more teaching.

Sorry, this is not clear in the question. I have been doing this for 2 years, and I hope this will help springboard my application to become a lecturer.

@icedtrees, I think it is more like you get called a instructors or lecturer after you have been doing this for many years and also lectured for many years without the job description.


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Does doing an Industrial Postdoc after PhD make an academic career more difficult?
I'm doing a PhD in Engineering and want to have a career in academia. I've been learning some people in engineering are able to do so-called industrial PostDocs where you do research in a company.
However it seems that most people who do this then go on to work in industry. Is it possible to do an industrial PostDoc then go back to a university and get an academic position? What are some factors to consider?
I'm guessing that doing an industrial PostDoc would hurt your chances to later get academic positions because you wouldn't have the same teaching experience. I actually can't think of any way in which is could help more than doing a normal PostDoc in a university lab.

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


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What to do if following website redesign, an online-only journal no longer lists my paper?
Because of a website redesign, a peer-reviewed, online-only journal no longer lists or provides access to an article I published with them. I have e-mailed the editorial board about the omission; is there anything else I should do while waiting for a response?

Presumably you have a copy yourself.  (If not, please clarify so I can give appropriate suggestions.)  You could make the pdf available on your own web page.

You should address your concerns to the publisher, not to the editorial board.
The editorial board is not in charge of the actual publication of the articles but only of their handling until acceptance. The only thing that members of the editorial board can do, is to forward your concerns to people at the publisher. (However, this may help, since the voice of the editors of the journal may have more weight…)
If the only thing that happened was a website redesign, than, presumably, all copyrights are still in place and you have to check your copyright agreements, if you can make the article available anywhere else. Depending on the copyright agreement, uploading the paper to some repository, a private homepage or a homepage at your university may or may not be allowed.


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Are references from an employer in an unrelated field useful when applying for graduate school?
I am applying for grad school and a bit confused about taking references. Should I take a reference from my employer where I had worked on an unrelated field for one and half year? Or Should I prefer taking it from academia from a Prof. with whom I have worked on unrelated field again.

@ElmerVillanueva In the linked question, the OP's industry manager knows the OP was working on the same field while the OP in this question has both rec letters on un-related field. In my opinion, it's not an exact dup.

In the U.S., you'd almost surely need at least 3 letters, so you'd want both of those. Much as @aparente001 says, the point of the letters (in the U.S.) is to convince the admissions committee (in the department to which you're applying) that your future potential is sufficient to get you through that grad program, and to be a contributing member of your professional group thereafter (or else possibly be a blot on their reputation). Pointedly, it's about the future. Relevant past accomplishments are a very good predictor. Dubiously relevant past accomplishments less so. What's the dividing line? Not so clear, perhaps, but it is amenable to rational reflection.

Good point that it's likely that multiple letters will be needed.  But is that a significant enough contribution to warrant writing a separate answer?  Or is there more of a difference between our answers than I'm seeing?

You need a recommendation that will convince a committee that you will be able to rise to the occasion (i.e. be successful in your coursework, exams, research, thesis and thesis defense) if they admit you to graduate study in their department.  Choose letters that will have as close an effect to that as possible.
You haven't given us enough information about your employment to enable us to provide an opinion about that potential letter.
Note that if someone asks for one reference, and you have two references which, combined, give the desired picture of you, then the thing to do is submit both letters.
Also note that there are threads here that provide advice to those who don't currently have any suitable references (e.g. take another class, do an internship -- something to garner a new reference).
After you've read some of the related Q&A threads, feel free to edit your question, giving additional information about your situation, and pointing out how yours is different from the others you read about.

My academic recommenders can vouch for my work in that field. I have a few papers with them. My industry recommender can stress mostly on my soft skills and characters. Mostly he can stress on my work ethics, cooperation etc. Is it a wise to do that or instead take recommendation from a Prof with whom I have worked but on an unrelated field. Also note I am currently working in the industry.

@UG_ - How about both?

Some schools allow only 3 reco, wherever possible I am going for both.

"My academic recommenders can vouch for my work in that field" -- glad to hear it.


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Is it cheating on lab report homework if a peer points out calculation error that you then fix before submission?
I am in a science class in which we have to write lab reports. Lab reports count for a significant part of our grade. I was working on my lab report but before I got to check over my calculations, a peer of mine mentioned the results he got. I realized that my results were different and saw that I had a very dumb calculation error.
I am not sure if this is considered cheating because I am not sure if I would have noticed the mistake had I not heard from my peer (although I did plan on checking over my work).
I was wondering if anyone had any opinions on this situation. I plan on telling my teacher exactly what happened tomorrow before handing in the report, I just feel really bad and guilty now. Any help/advice would be appreciated. Thank you!

Just learn from the experience.  Since this made you uncomfortable, keep your work closer to your chest in future. // As you continue with your studies, do check with each instructor whether group work is permitted.  If it's allowed, then you'll be able to compare notes with others without any feeling of discomfort.

I don't think this is cheating at all, unless you specifically asked peers of their results.
The important thing is the understanding of the material. Your peer may well have been wrong in their answer and led you down the wrong path, but the important thing here is that you've double-checked your own work and recognised a mistake.

Is this cheating even if you ask what their results were? You've never cross-checked your final answers with your peers before turning in your work?

@Mehrdad Well yes, strictly if it's an individual piece of assessment, then asking other course members their result is colluding in my opinion. And no, I trusted my own work more than others'.

lol, I guess I asked the wrong person, but surely you must've had a lot of classmates who did? Were they all cheaters to you?

@Mehrdad Haha yes, I did have a lot of people ask what my results were and I'm not denying this happens (and is very common!) but strictly I think it is cheating

I can't say your position is illogical :) but it's certainly unconventional. Generally speaking, what 90%+ of my profs have said is that homework/labs are meant to teach, not to assess. Assessment is what quizzes/tests are for. That's why they're so often even willing to work through problems with you during office hours (even in groups!), and even tell you if you did something wrong. Otherwise I would be thinking that everyone who went to office hours and effectively received the solution was cheating when I'm doing the work on my own and just checking my final answer with someone.

Generally speaking though, I think I can agree at some level. When it seems like the point is to see if you get the final answer correct, then cross-checking is likely to be cheating. But when the point is the proof (or code/lab/whatever) and the final answer is just a number you have to calculate, and when you've already sincerely done all the work and just want to know if your answer is correct, people see it as the right thing to do, especially given the problem is fresh in your mind, and, well, God knows when (or even if) you might get the assignment or solutions back to check later...

@Mehrdad Totally agree. But in my degree, a lot of the courses I took were split along the lines of 70% final exam and 30% on one bigger coursework piece, rather than an accumulation of labs/weekly homework. In this case when it's essentially an individual project, I think it should be done by the student alone.

Ooh, yeah, that's a pretty important context. I would definitely agree in that case. I was only talking about homework stuff here (or labs, if they're more like homework and not to meant to test you)! My suspicion was the OP's case was more like the latter. Thanks for clarifying that :)

If you corrected and understand the error, it may not be cheating, but there is at least  one caveat: If the syllabus or professor states that collaboration is prohibited, it is cheating because you violated the terms of the class.
The safest route would be to tell the professor (or annotate your work) documenting the careless mistake. If you explain that you understand the problem, it's probably ok.
In my view the goal is understanding the material foremost. In fact, I have graded exams with slight computational errors with only a slight (e.g., 1point) penalty if the process is correct. That's why students are often directed to 'show all work'.
Honesty is always the best course.

Honesty is always the best course. "Best" in a moral sense maybe. But don't be honest expecting it to always work out for you.


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Is it normal to feel impatient in lectures when a lecturer explains material that could be obtained from textbooks?
I am a senior PhD student who greatly appreciates learning about allied fields. I had been a huge fan of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and I believe some of them steered the course of my life towards grad school. However, I am more and more getting impatient in lectures. I am a Mathematician but I like to study Economics and Computer Science for fun. My university pays for any courses I would ever want to take as a PhD student so I try to enroll but I am losing my patience. I feel the instructor is taking up too much time explaining things that I could grab off the textbook in much lesser time and in the process, form the connections better. Is this normal?
As someone who has had 20 years of schooling since kindergarten, is it normal to get impatient and want to do things by myself. I know I am implicitly making the assumption that one is motivated enough to stick by routines but that's fine.

Why not just start picking up textbooks yourself and start learning by yourself? After 20 years of schooling no doubt you have learned how to learn so make use of it. You'll have 100% flexibility to learn what you want when you want how you want. That's what I have been doing and its great.

I see from a search that MOOC is Massive Open Online Course. I think this acronym is sufficiently obscure that it should be written out in full.

@FaheemMitha for simple edits for clarity like this, you should just make them (as I just did).  They will be reviewed and accepted in short order.

@KennyPeanuts Good point. Didn't think of that for some reason.

You have to take into account that many of the courses you attend are not made for you. They are probably made for people that have a lot less experience. Even though you might not have a lot of knowledge yet regarding the topic you are attending a course in, you have much more general knowledge and acquired learning skills throughout your PhD.
If you want to learn these new things through courses, I think you just have to suck it up as the focus of these courses is probably on less experienced people. Alternatively, you could pick up some text books and start learning like that.

Is it normal to get impatient and want to do things by myself?

Autodidacticism is a cornerstone of being a successful academic, and hardly surprising for PhD students.
There are number of goals of classroom teaching, e.g.,

Directed learning from an expert in the field (professor, lecturer, etc.)
The opportunity for students to ask questions about the material, and to have discussions about the material that goes beyond what is in a textbook or online.

You would presumably benefit from point (2), but unfortunately, you have to be patient with point (1), especially if the other students are expecting a lot of guided learning.
Instead of enrolling in courses, I suggest seeing what seminars are available in the fields you are interested in. You may have to prepare to get the most out of the seminars by reading up on current research, or learning a lot of the background material independently, but I think you'll get more out of the experience than sitting through formal classes.

In my experience as a professor I have with some regularity encountered students that are impatient with my classroom lectures and exercises.
The Problem
In virtually all of these cases it was because the student was missing the point of what we were trying to do in the class.  In most classes, content delivery is only one of the learning goals (and not even the most important one, since as you point out the information is available in texts and other sources).
The other learning goals typically are associated with trying to help students think critically about the content consistent with the best practices of the field.  Students with a experience in another field can find this frustrating because it requires that they relax their comfortable assumptions about how information is acquired and evaluated.  (True learning is always disruptive because it requires that we reconcile our current understanding in the face of new information, not just stockpile facts).
Suggestions
First, I would look at the syllabus of the courses that you are taking.  The learning objectives of the professor are probably listed.  If they are not, just ask him or her about what they want you to get from the course.  My guess is that it goes beyond simply understand the material in Chapters 1 - n.
Second, relax.  Don't be in such a rush to simply acquire content.  It sounds like you are good at picking up new material but you may be too quick to assume you "get it".  I am a biology professor and I regularly encounter this with the teaching of photosynthesis and other "elementary" processes.  Students get the details quickly because they have heard it since elementary school but they rarely delve into the deeper implications.  You may be missing some of the more subtle aspects of the subjects because you are in a rush to move on to new material.

I can't imagine a median econ, math or CS professor teaching a grad course to have ever heard the phrase "learning objectives". I agree with you, though, that the OP is probably missing a point. If I had a non-major student in my class who would show a smartypants' impatience, I would seriously doubt that his knowledge of the background material exceeds the level of preparedness of students who came from the major. Sure you know calculus and matrices better than an average econ student; but can you explain why economic agents make decisions on the margin? Now, without saying "derivative"?

If your level is far beyond the level of the other students in class, then this is hardly surprising.
Or perhaps, the teaching methods of the professor need to be improved.

You sound like a fast learner who grasps concepts easily. It also seems like you have a fair amount of self-discipline and initiative.
Assuming those are true, it makes sense that lectures wouldn't be an ideal way for you to learn something new, and that you might thrive in an online environment, where you have a bit more autonomy and can dictate your own pace through much of the learning.
Lecture halls have a lecturer – who tends to teach at a certain pace – along with a group of students. Some students may find the instructor's pace a little too slow for their liking, and a few who might find that pace excruciating slow.
A good lecturer should sense when the general mood of the classroom dictates a change in pace, slowing down when students are getting lost, or speeding up when students are getting bored. Unfortunately, there are plenty of lecturers who don't process the cues very well, or are simply not interested in doing so. Still, the students are individuals who make up an aggregate; it's not unusual for a classroom to have some who would prefer the professor speed up sitting alongside others who would rather the professor slow down.
I always enjoyed lecturers who taught at a relatively fast pace. Those who didn't got me multitasking; I often doodled in my college notebooks.
To answer your question, I think your restlessness is indeed "normal," particularly for students with your abilities, and your learning style.

You are impatient in lectures because they are fundamentally not a good way to teach.  If universities were about teaching then lectures would already be nearly obsolete - MOOCs are orders of magnitude more efficient.  But, for students, universities are about certification and MOOCs aren't trusted enough in that capacity.
This has nothing to do with your being a PhD student - the vast majority of lectures add nothing beyond what can be found in the textbook.  Well, perhaps a little, as a PhD student I would assume you actually read the textbook, and therefore have no need for the lecture.
This is not a popular point of view among those who must give lectures, but it is far more widespread among those who must attend them.  And, really, who are you going to believe?

@CharlesMorisset - I've gone to 2 prestigious schools.  I agree with you, but I think they were not below the norm.  They would not describe themselves as terrible, nor would their colleagues.

@CharlesMorisset - Sure, but the question is about lectures, which are (for almost all practical purposes) not interactive.

This answer makes a number of unsourced and unsupported assumptions about what universities and lectures are "about".

If universities were about teaching... But, universities are about certification. - I'm really sorry you feel that way. I went to the University because I wanted to learn, and the diploma I received was just a consequence. A very smart professor told me that since me and my parents payed for me attending (through tuition and taxes) I should get the maximum of it and let my self be taught as much as I can - and that is the best advice I got and have taken during my bachelors/masters days. Oh, and I had some awesome classes (the good ones always were very interactive).

This could be a good answer if you can edit in references to scientific evidence that support your anecdote

Not one other answer to this question has a reference to scientific evidence, yet no one asked for one.