text:
Is there any way to escape a terrible cumulative grade average?
I am an undergrad student studying engineering at one of the top institutions in my country. Doing this degree was not my original plan and I came to it after I was unable to gain full financial funding to study at a prestigious music college overseas in the United States which I got into on a partial scholarship. Regrettably I entered this degree with the mentality that because this was not what I had originally wanted to do it didn't matter if I achieved highly or whether I just passed. I was there to get the certificate. I have what I consider to be a very poor academic record due to bad study habits which have led to me having to do several rewrites of exams despite walking in with decent predicates. At my university when a student does a rewrite the final mark is capped at 50% (We work in percentages and not GPA like in America) and so my academic record is littered with these 50% results for modules.
I am nearing the end of my undergraduate career and sadly only now after having failed a module for the first time last year have realised that a little bit of hard work before exams can actually produce really great results, and that I am capable of doing so when I set my mind to it. In the past year I've become more interested in my field of study and in my own free time have made considerable progress learning a particular foreign language. I recently found a postgraduate scholarship to study overseas in the country where this language is spoken. I think I would stand a good chance of getting it however the minimum requirement for application is 65% in previous studies. Masters programmes in my own country also require this 65% average in past studies. My average currently sits at 59% (equivalent an E in the US) and I have worked out based on my remaining modules that for all practical purposes it will be impossible for me to raise my cumulative average to 65%. In fact even if I get distinctions for all remaining modules I can at most raise my average to 61% (equivalent C in the US).
I know my abilities and that I have many fantastic qualities that would be desirable in a postgraduate environment however I feel that I've now somewhat shot myself in the foot for future studies due to very poor choices in my past. I feel like if anyone looks at my academic record they will only see my potential based on that cumulative average. Is there any way to escape a terrible cumulative average and to continue down a more academic path?

It is hard to evaluate the numbers you give. Grading standards vary tremendously over the world.

Code 7 (A Symbol): 80 - 100%
Code 6 (B Symbol): 70 - 79%
Code 5 (C Symbol): 60 - 69%
Code 4 (D Symbol): 50 - 59%
Code 3 (E Symbol): 40 - 49%
Code 2 (F Symbol): 30 - 39%
Code 1 (FF Symbol): 0 - 29%

It's not just that, unfortunately, it is how instructors typically assign those grades typically in a particular academic culture.

There is a huge difference between music, your initial interest and engineering, the degree that you did poorly in. Are you also able to work in engineering first and build a strong research portfolio before applying for research scholarships?

Perhaps something to look into are post-baccalaureate programs. I'm not sure about in your country, but in the US there are a handful of post-baccalaureate programs for students in your situation -- students who want to go to graduate school, but haven't performed well enough academically in undergrad to have a good application. The programs vary, but usually consist of a year or two of courses on a particular subject and a certificate is awarded at the end.
A friend of mine wanted to go to medical school, but she went to a very difficult engineering school for her undergrad, and thus had a low GPA and didn't get into any medical schools the first time she applied. So she did a one-year post-baccalaureate medical program, where she excelled academically, and then applied to medical schools again and got accepted.

Something to keep in mind now however is that even getting in to a post-bac program can be very competitive.  I wanted to get in to a pre-med post-bac program but because my undergrad academic performance wasn't stellar I couldn't get in.  I was left with only one option - I started doing the post-bac program on my own. I got in to the university under the guise of continuing education which limited me to registering dead last for my classes and I had to remain under 8 semesters hours.  After a year and half and straight A's in all my classes I asked to speak with the dean and got in.


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How to find a mentor when your PhD advisor isn't enough?
I'm a third year PhD candidate and have been working in a field that is very cross cutting. For context, my department is chemistry, although my research is very far removed from chemical application.
Red flag 1:
I was given a topic, not a project.
My main thesis project involves some topics that are not in my or my advisors direct area of expertise. I don't think my advisor understood the breadth and depth of the topic they gave me. As I came to understand the topic better, it became clear the initial goals were out of reach. There was no way a single graduate student working alone could satisfactorily complete this project. I spent literal months trying to find a tangential question that could be turned into a proper research project. Eventually I was able to land on one that I've been working on since.
Red flag 2:
My advisor doesn't have the expertise to advise me on this problem.
My advisor has given me very little in the way of advice, excepting the recommendation of often vaguely
related papers I've already studied.
In our rare meetings, it's just me updating them on what I've learned and them asking me extremely basic questions. Beyond them, I don't have anyone who knows the topic enough to point me in the right direction and I spend a lot of time getting stuck in rabbit holes without guidance. There are no postdocs or other more senior graduate students to rely on.
I understand the PhD is mine to do, but I'm feeling more and more incapable of doing a good PhD on my own.
In all I feel isolated, frustrated, and hopeless as I feel my way through darkly. There are others in my university who have the expertise, but my advisor hasn't really helped me to spur collaboration with them.
I came to grad school to be a research apprentice, but currently I'm just an independent researcher. If I ever finish publishable results, I'll just slap my advisors name on the end without them having any idea of the validity or value of the content. It seems like this isn't so uncommon in chemistry, but it just feels like this is seriously wrong.
How do I find people who can mentor me when my advisor is unwilling and unable to assist me? It feels wrong to have an advisor who at this point feels incapable of actually giving advice. I know that with an advisor who has expertise here that I could make much more rapid progress by getting pointers in the right direction.
Of course the people who have this expertise would have to be willing to train someone from outside their area, and without an advisor to spur this on, it feels like a big ask to get supervision outside of my department. Why would a professor take a struggling grad student from another department when they could just train their own to do what I've been trying to do, but better?

Do you have a committee yet, or part of one?

Yes, I've already passed my qualifying exam. They don't have any expertise in my project at all

The first step I would take is to schedule a meeting with your advisor. The topic of that meeting is that you would like more input from someone specialized in the other topic. How this can be organized is something that differs from country to country, university to university, and even department to department. It could be that your advisor can invite someone from another department to join your committee, or as a co-advisor, or ...
As to why some other professor would want to advise you:
First, that is not your problem, it is your advisor's problem. Let her/him/them deal with that.
Second, regardless of all the horror stories on this forum, most professors just enjoy talking to someone interested in their field and helping those persons get started. Whether they have time to do so is another story, but at least it is a good starting point.
Third, university is a big bureaucracy. It is a big informal market where favors are exchanged all the time. Tenured professors are in the same organization for a long period of time. It is quite likely that situations will come up where it helps a professor when another professor owes her/him/them a favor.

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text:
Is it true that people over 30 are not preferred as Phd candidates in Germany?
I'm asking as someone who's planning to apply for a Master in Germany after an academic hiatus of 8 years for personal reasons. So, what I want to know is if I would find it very difficult/impossible to get accepted as  a Phd candidate in Germany upon the completion of my Master. My subject is English Literature and I am an Indian.

I'm in STEM, doing my PHD in Germany and over 30, a lot of others at my institue are also doing their PHD with over 30, it is not that uncommon. But as @Roland said in their answer, in the humanities it is generally harder to find a position indent of age

Note that "getting accepted for a PhD" is typically an uncomplicated formality in Germany. The difficult part is securing a funded position, or, if one wants to do the PhD without a funded position, an advisor.

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How to be an independent student?
I started my MSc 6 months ago. I was supposed to work on an idea given to me by my supervisor to publish it in a conference. The problem is that I have been way too slow, I don't understand a lot of things and feel dumb. I am making lots of stupid mistakes, I work on something for a week and then it turns out I was working on something totally useless. I don't deliver anything to my supervisor because of not working wisely.
Because of that, my supervisor asked one of his PhD students to help me which he did. I did the bulk of work myself but he helped me with debugging etc. At the end of the day we made the submission and included him as co-author.
But the fact that I'm not that much independent  makes me worry. I know that I'm a junior researcher and I know, I need to get help, nothing wrong with that. However, I feel I'm dependent on others' help more than I should be. How can I not make lots of stupid mistakes? How can I be more clever? Sometimes when I talk to senior PhDs in our lab, I wonder how I really can make these silly mistakes.

What are your thoughts on why this is happening to you? And how well prepared for entering graduate school do you see yourself having been?

@Aruralreader Not that much, I was not that much ready for entering graduate school tbh. I'm trying to catch up however. I don't know why this is happening to me, maybe because I'm not ready that much.

OP, if that’s the case, this awareness might prove helpful in guiding your next steps, and when discussing your situation with your advisor.

@Aruralreader tbh, I'm not feeling good with expressing this fact explicitly with my advisor that I'm uncapable.

That’s additional useful self-awareness.

How do you avoid stupid mistakes? By making stupid mistakes, getting feedback about them, and then learning from the feedback, so you don't make the same mistake again.

You're a MSc, not a PhD, it's normal that you're not as fast and need help.

Debugging is harder then building... If you built something that took all of your skill/knowledge to make you are not skilled/knowledgeable enough to debug it...

The very fact that you came here and asked this question suggests you're more "independent" than you think.  Hang in!

I think it would show exemplary maturity and willingness to learn if a student who felt they were struggling or inadequate came to me as supervisor to ask if their perception was similar to mine. If you would approach me with "I feel like I am making too many mistakes and that ... [whatever else bugs you the most]..., and I'd like your honest feedback on how I am doing compared to other students you have seen at my career stage and to hear any suggestions on how I can improve" then I would give you my honest opinion and - provided that you take the feedback well - have a productive discussion.

People go to graduate school to learn how to become an independent researchers. If they already knew how to be an independent researcher, then they would not need to learn it and gradschool would be a useless waste of time and resources.
Just to warn you: the learning won't stop after gradschool.

Wait and learn. You don't need to be independent yet and if you try to be you won't end up independent, you'll end up lost.

I don't know what kind of school / program that is, but publishing a paper within the first year of your MSc sounds incredible to me! In Germany, no MSc student is expected to publish a paper at all - let alone without help from a supervisor or senior PhD student!
The first paper I published in my life was 9 months into my PhD program, and that was with lots of help from my supervisor / professor. The first paper I published without any substantial help from his side was about two years into my PhD.
The amount of time I spent working on ideas that wouldn't lead to results is certainly more than one week.
Unless you kept making the same mistakes over and over again during those six months, then I'd say you are not stupid. Your supervisor is setting incredibly high standards, and getting close to meeting them is already a good sign.

I am going to stop you right here "I did the bulk of work myself but he helped me with debugging".
You sound like a very independent researcher to me.
If only more PhD students were as capable as you are. heck, a lot of new postdocs have difficulty doing the bulk of the work by themselves...
Now to address your concern that "you needed help to debug your work and to write the paper".
1st kudos for writing a paper that you submitted to a conference, that is very impressive.
2nd everyone needs someone else to provide a fresh perspective and look over their work to see what stupid things they missed.
3rd writing a paper for a conference is very different from writing regular papers in college. It is really hard. I know postdocs who still need help writing papers (that last bit of polish is hard). That you wrote one with a little bit of help from a PhD student says only good things about you.
It sounds like you are suffering a bit from Imposter Syndrome (look it up). Just want to let you know that it sounds like you are doing a great job. you deserve to be where you are.
Also, I want to let you know that you can talk to your professor, about your feelings/doubts etc.. Believe it or not your professor was once where you are right now. I think that its likely that your professor is pretty impressed with you.

I think that, in your case, it takes time and patience. It is essential to learn from your mistakes. If you're working on something and find it useless, that's good. You are already researching for yourself. You find out what is good and what is not, what is useful and what is not. I think this is a good start for an MSc student. Many students of your level do not receive such assignments and do not work on them. So here you have a chance to get to know the world of science and the rules of financing and building prestige much earlier than others.


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Why are the number of reported sex crimes so high at Ivy League Schools?
It seems like the % of sex crimes (rape, statutory rape, etc.) are way higher at ivy league schools / schools with a low admission rate compared to other schools.  Other crimes like assault and robbery are higher at schools with a higher admission rate.
https://www.collegecrime.org/schools
https://www.collegecrime.org/school/5225/criminal/harvard-university
Why is this?

I can't find it now, but I'm quite certain I once saw a question around here similarly asking about why cases of sexual misconduct occur so frequently in North American universities compared to some other places, and one of the answers pointed out that whether the university is rather a large campus with little daily contact to the outside world, or a set of buildings spread across a city, largely contributes to the perception whether certain cases of misconduct happened "at the university" or "somewhere in the city".

@O.R.Mapper Also, in my experience, Americans tend to be much more aware of these things than others, particularly Europeans.  As an American living in central Europe, I witnessed what I would have considered sexual assault on a regular basis that was silently accepted.

@JeffL. It's not necessarily awarness: personal boundaries vary a lot across countries, whether it refers to private life, workplace behaviour or sexual behaviour.

@JeffL. I don't think that rape and robbery are silently accepted in Europe. But sexual assault as using a position to put pressure to subordinates, this could be more prominent in Europe, and dependent on culture, personal boundaries etc.

Via NBC, these numbers may reflect higher levels of reporting, rather than more crime:

Experts do not think the reason is because more sex crimes are actually occurring on Ivy campuses.
"I think higher numbers of students reporting sexual offenses suggests there is a process in place that students feel comfortable going to," said Suzanne Goldberg, a Columbia law professor who helped write the university's policy on gender based misconduct.
Goldberg says recording more sex complaints is not necessarily a bad thing.
"I think actually all the data suggests that sexual violence including rape, including sexual harassment, including sexual exploitation and domestic violence, takes place fairly evenly across the population at universities."

Inside Higher Ed similarly reports:

While it makes for good headlines, researchers and advocates say using federal reporting data to assess the prevalence of campus sexual assault or to rank the relative safeness of individual colleges is ill advised and even irresponsible.
“It is really misguided to use sexual assault reports as rankings, because schools with higher rates are actually doing a better job of encouraging reporting and addressing the issue,” Laura Dunn, founder and executive director of the victims' advocacy organization SurvJustice, said. “By ranking schools with higher rates as unsafe, the media's uninformed coverage is actually discouraging schools from better addressing campus sexual assault. We don't want to push reports into the shadows; we want [assaults] to be reported and dealt with appropriately.”

and

Clery data should not be used as a tool for comparing or ranking institutions, said Mary P. Koss, a professor of public health at the University of Arizona and a pioneering researcher on the prevalence of campus sexual assault.
“It is a completely, totally invalid assumption,” Koss said. “In some respects, high numbers can be good. If you’re revamping your approach to sexual assault, you would actually expect the number of reports to go up. But even those high rates are not credible, as they are just the number of reports, not actual assaults. The bigger story is looking at those numbers in the context of how many rapes are being identified by climate surveys.”

What I've always found astonishing is that there is even a single case of sexual assault among students. As far as I recall, in the last twenty years in my country a few cases of sexual misconduct have been reported and judged in courts, but they involved a professor and a student, never just two students or more students.

@MassimoOrtolano To infer from this that there are no (or few) instances of sexual assault among students is the same mistake the OP makes. The number of reports of sexual violence may tell us more about the reporting climate than about the number of crimes. Here are some statistics on Italy.

I'm quite aware that unfortunately in Italy there is a serious problem of violence against women, especially in family contexts, with a number of homicides that is shocking. However, after almost thirty years inside a university, and having had many female friends and students, I feel confident in saying that, compared to the outside world, interstudent violence is almost unheard of.

@Massimo Why do you think your friends or students would tell you about something like this, if it happened?

@MassimoOrtolano -- over the course of their lives, about 1/3 of women will experience sexual assault and/or rape. That would suggest that a sizable fraction of your female acquaintances are among them. For how many of them do you know that to be true? -- As a man, you are not likely to see or hear about the actual size of the problem.

It's a long and delicate discourse, and it's impossible to exhaust here in comments. For what concerns friends, there's absolutely no doubt about whether they would tell me something about this or not, for many reasons I cannot delve into here. For what concerns students, of course there can be doubts and I cannot swear about it. @WolfgangBangerth "For how many of them do you know that to be true?": One hundred percent.

@MassimoOrtolano - You may be right, that the rates are low where you are.  But I would imagine that your sample set was extremely small.  So the best you can get from your sample set is a hunch.  You'd have to perform or read some systematic research to go beyond the level of a hunch.

@aparente001 I tried to find one specific related to universities in Italy and for the moment I couldn't find any. I'll continue to search. I've also looked in the news, but they were all about the issue in US universities

@MassimoOrtolano - a good starting point might be women's organizations in Italy or Europe.  You could also write a Question on Academia SE!

@aparente001 I already checked the statistics from those organizations in Italy. There's no indication that there is any usual form of interstudent violence in universities: either it is statistically insignificant with respect to the other environments (which is what I think according to my experience, and claimed before), or it is absolutely hidden, but I doubt that nowadays it could remain hidden for so long if it were significant. It is true that in Italy we don't have US-like campuses, but we have university dormitories anyway.

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text:
Turning a conference proceedings into a book chapter. Is it self plagiarism?
I've recently sent some of my research to a local conference entitled "XIX Simpósio Brasileiro de Sensoriamento Remoto". After the conference, I started getting contacted by some publishers asking me to publish the work I sent to the conference in the form of a book chapters and another one even invited me to publish as a paper itself in a journal. None of them required me to edit the work in any way.
I'm aware that academics get scammed this way (I managed to identify some myself), but this particular invitation seemed okay. The editor was very honest about the publisher status ("We're not big", "We aim to achieve this and that in X months", etc...) and I have colleagues that have published with them and nothing went wrong (meaning publication really happened, the e-book is available for download and all).
Then, I received an e-mail by the conference staff alerting all participants to the risks of plagiarism if one is to accept these publishers' offers. They argumented that the conference proceedings are open access, they have a ISBN and used this as to validate their statements. Additionally, they said they would be taking legal measures. Honestly it seemed more like a power play than anything.
Normally, I would agree with the e-mail, face this as self plagiarism and don't even consider this as an option, but a fellow colleague pointed out that conference proceedings doesn't count as a publication because it has no DOI nor ISSN (both entries are used on my country to score for PhDs and funding, but not ISBN). In his mind, as far as academy goes, my work is still "new" and there would be nothing wrong in publishing it, especially considering nobody cites conference proceedings.
I understand that it is normal to use the conference proceedings as a type of feedback while you're developing your research, but I published a substancial amount of my results on this paper and I don't really know if I could only cite it on this book chapter invitation I received, otherwise it would be nothing left to talk about.
So, what I want to understand is: what are the rules to consider something properly published, and therefore, accountable for self plagiarism? Is there a way to publish this book chapter in a unethical way? For example, including that this chapter is a reissue of conference yadda yadda would do?

As part of the process of publishing in the conference proceedings, did you transfer copyright? Or do you retain the copyright to the work? The legal actions referenced by the conference organizers probably relate to copyright, not plagiarism.

No, I retain all copyright. I didn't sign any type of transferral term.

After the conference, I started getting contacted by some publishers asking me to publish the work I sent to the conference in the form of a book chapters and another one even invited me to publish as a paper itself in a journal. Check they aren't predatory. (Academics get bombarded with such predatory mail.) There's no doubt about it because colleagues have published with them and nothing went wrong. How can you be so sure? _ I received an e-mail by the conference itself alerting all participants to the risks..._ This seems like a red flag.

You have a few misconceptions. Having an ISBN is no guarantee of legitimacy, honesty, or quality as anyone can purchase such. In bulk they are very cheap. I currently have several unassigned ISBNs myself, intended for future work.
Second, if your paper has been submitted to a conference and appears in the proceedings then it is "published" and so subsequent uses are not original.
However, self plagiarism only occurs if you reuse some work without citing it. If you still hold copyright, as is likely, you can reuse the thoughts and many of the actual words as long as you are careful. Cite the original conference work as appropriate and formally quote from it as necessary. Perhaps you gave up copyright already, but I think that is unlikely in this case and you would know anyway if you had signed a transfer. And it isn't the ISBN on the original that makes it self plagiarism. It is copying without citing.
Cite your own work the way you would that of another author.
The main purpose of avoiding self plagiarism is to permit a future reader to trace the full context of the ideas in the new work by examining the old with its full context, including all references you cited there. Future researchers want a full record. Ordinary plagiarism includes this as well as other concerns, of course.
But some of what the publishers seem to be saying seems a bit of a scam. I can't say without more information, but it has that feel. Legitimate publishers also have "page charges". Try to assess the legitimacy of the publisher using other information before you agree.

Thanks for the answer, Buffy. However, I'd like to clear some things up (please, I'm not refuting your answer in any way, I'm merely trying to remove some of the ambiguity i might have created upon writing):
I'm well aware that having a ISBN isn't a guarantee. I was only citing the information provided on the e-mail I received. Also, I understand that legitimate publishers have page charges. But 50 usd/page for a non-indexed journal seemed a bit too extreme. This particular publisher I was considering to accept charged me a compatible price compared to other publishers and...

... explicitly told me it wasn't necessary to change my paper to publish with them. Is this considered unethical (on the publisher's perspective)? If so, is there a feasible way to use my published paper's results in this book chapter?

Yes, I do think that the situation sounded like a bit of a scam. But the information about the reputability and quality of the journal is probably available to you. You could also ask the conference chair about their opinion about this - especially about publishing unchanged. Sometimes a publisher has an agreement with the conference making this possible. I've had some papers published under those rules - no page charges though.

That's exactly what I did. I presented the situation to the conference staff. Let's see what happens.

Then, I received an e-mail by the conference staff alerting all participants to the risks of plagiarism if one is to accept these publishers' offers. They argumented [they argued!] that the conference proceedings are open access, they have a ISBN and used this as to validate their statements.
Legalities aside, if the conference organisers belong to the core of established and respected workers in your field, you do not want to aggravate these people!
Re visibility of your work: they have a good point in that it is already as prominent as it is ever likely to be.
Also, in a years' time your thinking on the topic will have moved on and you will not even want to re-publish an unedited version of the work, but something better. Right?

I have seen books with things in them along the lines of "A big part of this chapter was already published in XX Journal in XX year. The publisher was kind enough to allow me to duplicate some if it here in order to complete the narrative of my book...". It is important to note that in such cases, the entire book was by the same Author, so the book had a considerable amount of new content by that author in it.
One book with such statements in is is Causality by Judea Pearl. I feel like I have seen it elsewhere too, but none others come to mind at the moment.

The DOI and ISSN systems were introduced in 2000 and 1976, respectively. Does your colleague think it was impossible to plagiarize articles published before then? Or impossible to plagiarize old articles that have not yet been assigned DOIs? And the ISBN system provides identifiers for books. Does your colleague think it's impossible to plagiarize books? I would hope the answer is 'no' to all questions.
In any case, this could be self-plagiarism if not cited properly. As ff524 states in a comment, the conference cannot really take legal actions based on the plagiarism itself - but they could certainly point it out to any journal you might try to publish in, or blacklist you for future years. Any respectable journal will have a policy against prior publication. Such policies often has exceptions for e.g. publication in the form of a thesis/dissertation, but I have never seen a policy making an exception for a published article that happens to lack a certain identifier. Of course, less respectable publishers might not care to have or enforce such a policy.
If you did transfer copyright to have the article published in the proceedings, then the conference can pursue legal actions (such as takedowns) to protect their copyright. If you did and you want to convert the article to a book chapter, you or the publisher of the book would have to clear the copyright issue with the conference. (That is, obtain permission before publishing.) If the article gets re-published anyway, the conference could conceivably sue the publisher for damages. The publisher could, in turn, conceivably try to sue the author for damages if the author certified that the work had not been previously published.
What if you didn't transfer any copyright, and the license granted to the conference was non-exclusive? Well, if you manage to find a publisher willing to re-publish the article under another non-exclusive license, and you cite the original one properly, you shouldn't be on the hook legally or in terms of self-plagiarism. However, in most cases, for most publishers, I think you're unlikely to gain much from it. Certainly from your story, these publishers sound mostly like opportunists, and possibly scammers, approaching you right soon after the conference. Now, if it is a legitimate, well-known publisher putting together a volume on a certain topic that would see wide distribution? Yes, that could certainly be worth considering.

I can't say if it applies in this case, of course, but there are legitimate uses of such things in books if they bring together ideas on a given topic from several authors. A conference paper is only a brief snapshot. A book can present a unified and coherent picture. But there are a lot of scams, of course, as you say.  But, for example, a hundred years ago, a book on Relativity might usefully have brought together the work of the previous fifteen years or so. It doesn't have to be a scam.

@Buffy Thanks for your comment. Yes, there are certainly legitimate reasons to write such book chapters. I think I need to rework that statement.


text:
What to say at a wake for a professor's wife?
The professor taught me a course many years ago, while the wife died in a road accident that I learned about in the news.
What should I say at the wake? Can I ask about the professor's research and work, or should I focus on non-academic things?
Edit:

I don't know the professor's wife.
The wake is, as far as I can tell, public. An email was circulated among the department with details, and the email did not say "keep within department".
Country: Singapore

Just wondering: why are you attending at all? From the question, it sounds like you were one of many students many years ago and haven't kept in touch. But personalities and cultures differ; perhaps this is normal where you are.

@cag51 If I'm being honest, it's because he supervised a close friend once, and the friend is attending. That said, I feel like what you wrote is even more reason to attend - it should be always better to keep in touch than to not keep in touch, and the professor did teach me once (although I did rather worse at the course than I should have, oops).

@Allure a wake is generally not a social event.  You can keep in touch via email, conferences, dinner invitations, etc. - not a wake.  I would expect such a wake to be quite emotional, possibly even devastating given the circumstances.  I wouldn't plan on saying anything beyond: "I am a former student of yours, Allure.  I'm sorry for your loss".

@Gauss I don’t think Allure is mistaking the wake for a social event. My interpretation of “it is better to keep in touch” is that Allure thinks this is a way to show support to the bereaved professor. Personally I agree, people in mourning typically appreciate a broad show of support including from relatively remote parts of their social and professional circles. One does not need to be a close friend to reach out and express empathy to a person mourning a loved one.

@Gauss can you explain how wakes are like in your corner of the world? In the wakes I've been to, there are many tables set up. We go, talk to the deceased's immediate family, pay our respects at the coffin, and then settle down at one of the tables to chat. In that sense it is very much a social event not dissimilar to a marriage, except the overall mood is much more suppressed and the topics talked about are more macabre. Still, eventually people stop talking about death, and talk about work, life, etc.

I live in the UK. I've certainly seen open "any former student can attend" invitations to (usually) funerals when an academic died, but never if their spouse died.

For what it's worth, the absolute last thing I would appreciate at a time of intense grief is some random student from years ago showing up and forcing me to make small talk/be polite. I would feel an obligation to talk to them and deal with them and that would be the last thing I'd want to do while grieving my wife. And if I were to feel that this student came to my wife's wake as a way of "keeping in touch", I would never want to set eyes on the student again in my life.

@Allure I don’t have any thoughts to offer, sorry. This is very location- and culture-specific, I’d suggest consulting friends or colleagues where you are for advice.

The reception after the funeral (if there is one) is a better place for such socializing.  The wake is supposed to be a somber event for consoling the family and paying respects to the deceased.

@Allure I am in the United States, but it may be more dependent on religion.  In my experience losing a close relative, the people attending pay respects to the coffin and then came to me/my family to express condolences.  It's possible the other guests socialized quietly after doing so or outside, but I was too busy trying to keep it together.  Perhaps it's best to clarify and say that I don't think the immediate family (i.e., your former Prof) will be up for socializing.

Here in Ireland, wakes and funerals are a much bigger deal than they are in the UK. (It's one of the biggest cultural differences between two such near neighbours.) But still I would be inclined to go to the funeral, not the wake: it's less personal, more public.

"What's a good boat for a mathematician?"

@TRiG - At my wife's father's funeral in Lancashire, we met a middle-aged Irish lady, a distant cousin. She got out a hip flask and offered us each a swig (which we took). She confided that she 'only came to these things for the wakes'. She kept whispering wisecracks and sarcastic remarks all through the (Catholic) service. We couldn;t stop laughing.  At the wake she located the Jamesons and kept us topped up. She was just exactly what we needed, and we were so glad that she was there.

The wake is, as far as I can tell, public.  Unless this is a Singaporean thing, this is odd. Funerals are public (they're just church services, after all), but wakes are generally an invited event.

We hosted a wake for my grandmother just the other da, @mcalex. Friends turned up earlier in the day and made a legion of sandwiches. There were cakes and buns. They also supplied extra tea cups and an urn. The next door neighbours supplied four extra chairs. At the time of the wake itself, many  many friends and neighbours dropped by. We certainly didn't invite anyone.

@TRiG, a) generally, b) did the friends & neighbours know about the event previoulsy? if they did, I'd suggest providing that information amounts to an implicit invitation unless you tack on '.. so you can't come around because the house will be full on that day' when you tell them.  If they didn't know and were just being neighbourly and friendly, my congrats on having such positive relations with so many people. :-)

@mcalex The way it works here is that the funeral director puts the details up on rip.ie, and the local radio stations pull it from there and announce it. There's a whole section of death notices after the news. It'll include details of the wake and funeral, which are both expected to be public events unless otherwise specified. This is Ireland: we do deaths right.

You should express condolences for the loss of the person... in the time of loss of a partner, academic stuff is not primary. Don't even mention academic stuff. If you say anything at all, just tell your sympathies for your professor's loss of their life partner.

This is good general advice. Most people say way too much when offering condolences. All you need to and should say is something along the lines of "I'm so sorry" or "I'm sorry for your loss". If you know the person well and are friends you can offer to help (food, listening, etc.). People often accidentally cause unknowing emotional harm when they try to say things to reduce the other's grief. Grieving people usually just want to know that you care about their grief; they don't want you to try to eliminate it because you can't, and trying will often make it much worse. So this +100.

As others have noted, a wake is not a social event. If you have no reason to be there, don't go. It is an event for those who were close to the deceased person and/or are close to those they left behind.
But if you need to go, the English language has phrases that work well in this context: "I am very sorry for your loss" or "My condolences". In all likelihood, the professor will spend time with those he knows well, and your only contact will be in a line of people offering their condolences to the husband. You are not expected to make small talk there -- you shake that person's hand, say your sentence, and move on to let others in line have their turn. If for whatever reason, the professor chooses to talk to you at a later time, repeat the sentence and then let him choose the topic of conversation.

If you have no reason to be there, don’t go. This is tautologically true but does not actually support the claim of the next sentence, which I disagree with. A wake is for anyone who knows the bereaved family and wishes to express support for them at a very painful time, unless they specifically asked only for close friends to come. Thus OP absolutely can (and in my understanding, does) have a reason to be there.

@DanRomik I disagree: "The professor taughta  class I was in many years ago" does not qualify any more to go to a wake than "I read about a radom person dying in the news today". In fact, this is exactly what happened. Don't go to a wake if you heard about it in the news. If you are close enough, you will have heard about it in a personal message.

This is a great answer. OP seems to assume a protracted conversation with the professor, which is not realistic. But if it happens, OP should listen and let the professor lead. Great answer. I also agree that if OP doesn't really know the professor and/or the professor doesn't really know OP, it may be better for OP to stay home.

Forgive my ignorance, but what exactly is a wake?

@Nav It's ceremony after someone's death: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake_(ceremony)

According to the first sentence in this Wikipedia article A wake is a social gathering. Why is everyone saying it's not a social event then?

Without knowing where you are in the world it's hard to answer. My answer is therefore biased towards the German (and Catholic) way.
Before deciding to go
Were you especially close to this professor? Was he a special advisor to you or did you work for him? Did you know his wife? Is it an open wake? If the answer to most of those questions is "no", then don't go.
You said your friend is planning to attend and that's why you want to go. If that's your main motivation, don't go. You two are presumably adults-- you don't need a buddy system. If your friend was invited they should go alone.
For example, I did not go with my partner to a funeral for his best friend's mom. I knew her, but we were not close. My partner was there to show support for his best friend and that was that.
Using a wake to "keep in touch" would not be well-received by most people where I live. Wakes are about remembering the deceased for the benefit of the bereaved.
If you want to reach out to your professor send a hand-written card with your sympathies.
If you still want to go
Two things to keep in mind:

Your professor has lost his spouse in a sudden and traumatic way. Most of his day will be about accepting condolences and possibly comforting/being comforted by those close to him. If you do go, keep condolences short and to the point. Getting condolences all day is tiring. Don't bother trying to talk about academic stuff with your prof. He just lost his wife. That is time for him to be with his family.

Other bereaved will be there too and if you end up staying for a while, they will probably chat with you. More than likely you will be asked how you knew the deceased. If you never met her it might be awkward.

Honestly, if you didn't know his wife or him in a more personal way, it's not appropriate to go. Something similar happened to my family at a funeral for a loved one and it was very uncomfortable and exhausting.

I disagree with some of the answers/comments that say a wake is "not a social event"; my experience of wakes is quite like OP's description in a comment:

In the wakes I've been to, there are many tables set up. We go, talk to the deceased's immediate family, pay our respects at the coffin, and then settle down at one of the tables to chat. In that sense it is very much a social event not dissimilar to a marriage, except the overall mood is much more suppressed and the topics talked about are more macabre. Still, eventually people stop talking about death, and talk about work, life, etc.

However, it is important to note that this is a social event with quite a bit more formality to it than a mere dinner party. While it's typical in my experience to gather with close friends and family and talk about a variety of topics - some mundane (the weather, sports, TV and movies) and others connected to the deceased (favorite memories, specific things you will miss), the important thing to recognize in this situation is that it appears OP is in an outsider position. That is, they have a very tenuous connection to the spouse of the deceased, being merely a former student in some course.
As such, they should expect to be a very low priority for conversation by their former professor, as that person is going to be much closer to other attendees. The event is likely to be quite an awkward arrangement for this outsider person, as they may have an opportunity to say a brief phrase of condolences as others have suggested, but after that they are likely not to have much else to say to anyone else. The other attendees will be conversing with the other people there that they know, not with strangers like OP. They will likely feel interrupted and put off if it appears they are expected to make small talk with a stranger. If that leaves OP with only one other person that they are familiar with, the spouse of the deceased, that's just not a good situation for anyone.
I'd recommend not attending at all in these circumstances, unless the existing relationship is far, far more personal than the current description indicates ("The professor taught me a course many years ago").

I agree with your answer, although maybe it is hair splitting about terms. For example, I would not describe my Christmas family's dinner as a social event, although some friends of family's members may be brought in "uninvited".

@EarlGrey A social event is a place where people come primarily to socialize; that's what a wake is, at least in the US traditions I'm familiar with. It doesn't mean everyone is invited, it doesn't mean it's a place to meet new people, it doesn't mean every possible topic of conversation is suitable.

There's no preemptive answer to this question. You have to go there (or not, +1) and read the room.

In my experience with wakes, there are a lot of people there who don't know each other - e.g. the wife's work colleagues are not likely to know the professor's work colleagues. It also seems like some other former students are going ...

@Allure It's not that everyone needs to know everyone else, it's that everyone needs to know someone. You talk to the people you know, unless you're introduced by someone you know to another person.

@BryanKrause But more than that, they need to have known the person who died very well. (Or, exceptionally, be the partner of someone who did.) The OP really doesn't qualify.

@Graham In my experience a lot of people come to wakes/funerals due to their relationship to the surviving family, rather than the deceased, and may in fact have never met the deceased or met only in passing; however, I agree with you, that having merely been a past course student of the spouse of the deceased is not a close enough relationship. It may be appropriate for a current/former PhD student in some cases.

This answer comes the closest to acknowledging that a wake may be a very different event in Singapore than in Europe or in the US. I personally don't know what it's like in Singapore, but I'd recommend OP (if not from Singapore) to ask someone who is

Singaporean wakes can be like this. Drinking, card games, things like that.

A wake is generally not a social event. You can keep in touch via email, conferences, dinner invitations, etc. - not a wake.
I would expect such a wake to be quite emotional, possibly even devastating given the circumstances.
I wouldn't plan on saying anything beyond: "I am a former student of yours, Allure. I'm sorry for your loss"
To put it ultra-rational: don't say anything beyond this, really nothing!
What percentage of your time did you spend with this professor in the last 3 years? Then the professor deserves to spend the same % of time of his wife's wake with you.

Most of this answer is from the comments section ( @Gauss ) , since comments may be deleted unexpectedly.


text:
Can an associate professor be a postdoc supervisor
I am a young researcher searching for a postdoctoral studies. I found a researcher that works in a field similar to mine and I have in mind a project for postdoctoral studies supervised by her.
However, she is not a full professor. In fact she has been named as an associate professor just a year ago. Is it appropriate for an associate professor to be a supervisor for postdoctoral studies in this case?

Why would that not be possible?

In my department, associate professors can certainly supervise postdocs, but it seems quite possible that other universities, and especially other countries, may have different rules.

In my institution in the United States, you need not even be an assistant professor to supervise post doctoral fellows. Whether that's a good idea for the post doc is another question...

Assuming you don't mean a part time faculty member, yes, it it possible. The only real issue is whether she has, or can obtain, funding to support you.
Supervising a postdoc would be a boost to her career as well.
You should ask her what the possibility is and what funding is available. Describe the project or research arc you have in mind.

I would think that even a not-full-time professor could supervise a postdoc and graduate students. Various job-share appointments and other posts that enable work-family balance should not impair the ability to actually perform all aspects of the job.

I meant full professor. My apologies!


text:
Does Web of Sciences indexation implies a JCR impact factor for a journal?
Does an indexation of a journal to the Web of Sciences means that it must have a JCR impact factor?
JCR = Journal Citation Report

Impact factors require a two year history.

Suppose it has.

Not just a mere Web of Science indexing. Within Web of Science, there are subgroups and it should be under SSCI or SCI or SCIE, inorder to have an Impact factor score.
For example, journals indexed in Web of Science, but under ESCI group, do not have an impact factor score.


text:
Ethics of contacting potential post-doc mentor in mathematics
It is rather common in many different disciplines to contact faculty members(potential post-doc mentors) asking if they take post-doc students. I was wondering if it is ok to contact a potential mentor of a post-doc position in mathematics that is publicly advertised?

Yes, totally OK, but do not expect a response (although they might respond if they're nice); they probably get hundreds of such emails.

I'm pretty sure hundreds is the wrong order of magnitude.  (Agree with the first half of the sentence though.)

Yes it's good idea, but the point is just to make them aware of your application.  In particular make sure the application is already posted in mathjobs when you send the email.  Keep your email short and don't expect a reply with any content.  You want to say your name, your advisor, a sentence about what you work on, and a brief expression of interest in working with them.

I think it's reasonable to write to a faculty member in your field, even if you wouldn't work with them, if they're the closest person in the department to you.

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


text:
Advice on conclusion of a purpose statement
I am currently applying to PhD programs in mathematics and need to complete a purpose statement as part of the application. There are several things I'd appreciate any advice you can give me on the following:

What is a good way to end the letter in a strong way? I wanted to say something along the lines of "I greatly look forward to further understanding the intricate theory of XYZ" but this seems a bit cliché.
I wanted to mention my specific  interest in school XYZ/professor XYZ, but I don't know enough about his/her research to say something intelligent or insightful about it. What should I do? Is it better to have some indication I did my research for this school than to say nothing at all? To be clear, I am interested in the field of these professors but my knowledge is too shallow to fully understand the impact of their work. How can I add something substantive but not sound like I'm making things up to sound smart?
For one of the schools I am applying to, a big reason I want to go there is due to their well funded program. Should I mention this or will it seem tacky?
What is a "smooth" way of mentioning I want to work with a professor? It seems too abrupt to just say "I want to work with professor XYZ". What if this person doesn't have any current students (or at least doesn't have them listed in his/her Web page). Should I take it that this person is not currently taking students?

Any and all advice would be helpful. Thanks in advance!

What is a good way to end the letter in a strong way?

It doesn't really matter too much as long as it's not too cliched (although even that's probably fine) or overly memorable.  An example is to say something nice like "Given my background and the excellent research faculty at University of State, I look forward to making a contribution to the research program at University of State."

What should I do? Is it better to have some indication I did my research for this school than to say nothing at all?

It's definitely better to have some indication that you did your homework.  You don't have to have any particularly insightful things to say, just explain why you found their work interesting and why you want to work with them.  Those are questions you should answer for yourself anyways!  Definitely don't make things up to sound smart.

For one of the schools I am applying to, a big reason I want to go there is due to their well funded program. Should I mention this or will it seem tacky?

Mention it tactfully.  Say something like you appreciate the commitment they make to their graduate students and that it speaks to their commitment to good scholarship.

What is a "smooth" way of mentioning I want to work with a professor? ... What if this person doesn't have any current students.

There's nothing wrong with mentioning that you want to work with specific faculty; it's expected that you have some ideas of what you want to work on before you get in.  So say who you want to work with, but make sure you list several faculty members who work on things you're interested in.  This way, should it happen that the person is not taking students, your application will still get a fair shake.
This next piece of advice is maybe controversial given how many emails professors get, but after you have applied, you can send a short email to the faculty you mention in your statement of purpose telling them that you've applied, you are interested in their work, and if they're looking for students to keep your application in mind.

Should I take it that this person is not currently taking students?

Not necessarily but it is strange for an active research professor to have no students.  Ask a graduate student in the department why they have no current students.

"[I]t is strange for an active research professor to have no students."  I wonder what field you're in. In mathematics, this is quite common.  I just looked at my own department and roughly half the research active faculty currently have students.  Nor is having students perfectly correlated with research quality: one of the greatest living mathematicians has had three students (two were coadvised) over a 60 year career: http://genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=34222&fChrono=1.

By the way, I don't mean to be harsh: the rest of your answer is completely on point, and I upvoted it.

That's a fair point, and I agree in pure mathematics it's not a big deal to only have a handful of students (in fact it might be the norm as you say).  It's slightly different in applied math where I come from.  Thanks for pointing this out.

I didn't say pure math.  FYI, the percentage of applied mathematicians in my department who have students is slightly lower than the departmental average.  FWIW, my guess is that globally the trend would be the opposite, but I could certainly find hundreds of tenured applied mathematicians with no graduate students.

This got me curious so I did some reading and I think you're basically right.  Wow.  A study by the ILR school at Cornell sampling in the years between 1996 and 2002 finds that on average in the physical sciences a professor supervised 2.3 students, but over one-third supervised zero and one supervised 17(!).   Huh. TIL.

If you're looking for that data it's in Table 1 on page 18 of that link.

@SumedhJoshi Thank you for the response. My intention with question 2. is to ask what to do if it is difficult to come up with why something is interesting. A lot of times in mathematics, it takes a lot of background knowledge before one can appreciate (e.g. find interesting) a result. I guess I can say that I am interested by the research because it involves topics/objects I am familiar with and would like to study, but short of this I find myself stumped at saying something "substantive".

@KevinSheng Presumably you also like the "topics/objects" you are familiar with, right?  Can you explain why you like them?  What about them you find interesting?  Can you read a recent paper of one of the faculty member's who you're mentioning and describe what you think about it?  These are all good questions to answer for yourself before writing a statement of purpose, right?  You probably have at least a vague sense of your thoughts on all of these, it's just hard to articulate it well.

Tips*

I would NOT follow rubric guidelines that are plastered all over Father Google. Advisors, committee pupils etc that are reviewing your app amongst a thousand others will see the same "This got me into Yale so you should do it to" ;goes straight to the trash.

What I would do is make sure I answer all necessary criteria they have with no glossing/rambling and make it sound meaningful. Definitely follow proper grammar structure, rules etc but make sure that you standout

You'll know it's ready when you read it and you're like I wrote that? :)

*I didn't answer your questions directly because our input on how to write what will sound like someone else wrote it. Needs to be consistent!

What if the school simply requires a purpose letter but doesn't say what to put on it?

Hmmm are you sure? What school is it? I'm pretty sure they would have a rubric for what they'd want to know and anything you'd like to say. Below is a good example of what you need to touch. http://grad.berkeley.edu/admissions/apply/statement-purpose/

UWisconsin Madison (http://www.math.wisc.edu/graduate/applying); in step 5. it says "[submit] A statement of reasons for graduate study. Submit this electronically with your online Graduate School application."

Killing me smalls!!  Get to reading! Running out of time! https://grad.wisc.edu/prospective/prepare/statement

You don't need a strong ending because this isn't an article, and you want to keep your essay concise.
Mention the field or sub-field you are interested in.  The department will know who is working in it.  Don't worry about sounding pretentious -- this essay is not going to be published anywhere -- but do make sure you don't make statements you really don't know enough to make with confidence.
Don't mention the financial support available at the particular school.  However, since many supported students at UW and many other schools are expected to serve as teaching assistants, it might be helpful to say something about your experience and interest in teaching.
See Q2; also, don't assume the person is not taking students.

I would also add that the link @FirebladeDan found looks very helpful.  And it's a model of conciseness!


text:
Teaching Special Adult Populations: How Much is Too Much?
I teach in a social services environment, where adult dropouts are working toward a GED and perhaps furthering their education.  I embrace a transformative education model (Mezirow, 1991) and strive to instill confidence in my students.  Most of the learners are female with multiple lifestyle challenges, such as addiction, domestic violence, and so on; when they enter the class, they face an uphill battle.  Some give up; others stay, but constantly complain about the time commitment or workload.
I am considering some kind of point system or reward to motivate the students who complete assignments on time and are prompt with meeting deadlines. I wonder if this incentive idea is going too far with adults?  Should it not be enough to pull themselves up out of their situation and move forward? Unlike young learners, where candy and snacks are shamelessly used to motivate, I wonder if this too much?

Have you asked your students whether points would motivate them? Or, perhaps more sensitively, have you asked what they think might motivate them?

I am 35, and I am motivated like hell by Stack Exchange virtual internet points. Don't assume that adults react to completely different things than children.

Also, in my advanced university classes, I use candy bars as reward for good questions. Some students chuckle, others genuinely like the candy, some don't care, and so far nobody ever complained that this is too childish.

Do the students typically have jobs and/or childcare responsibilities?

Regarding childcare, jobs, etc., some do, but they are in the minority.  Most are starting over and in some cases, learning these life skills for the first time.

@xLeitix Your advanced university students know that you know they are smart, so there is no risk they will think you are condescending to them with the candy. The OP is in a more sensitive situation.

Well, the only way to be sure is to try.  However, I would never encourage anyone to use candy in an incentive system, for children or adults.
For anyone interested in using an incentive system, I would suggest that the first step would be to brainstorm lots and lots of possibilities.  Here are a few ideas and considerations to get you started.

In my piano lessons at age five, the teacher would put a sticky star on the page once I had "finished" a piece.  There were three colors.  Gold was the best, of course.
Sometimes it is helpful to let the student self-evaluate.  (As an example, you could offer the three-bin box of stars and ask if she wants to choose one.  She could then fish one out herself, or point or tell you a color.)
One of the most effective incentive systems I ever saw for my son, who was 10 at the time, was the following: his art teacher kept the kids motivated to stay on task by reminding them from time to time that the reward for productive work was a popcorn party at the end of the month.
My dentist has a basket of inexpensive toys for the patient to choose from at the end of the visit.  I'm thinking, if a large number of your students are mothers, they might enjoy picking something out to take home to their child (not every day of course).  You can get some real bargains at thrift stores.  Also try the party favor aisle at a big box store.  Children may like a strip of animal stickers, a tiny box or a strip of fake tattoos, a fancy pencil, silly putty, Groucho glasses, etc., etc.

That's just to get you started.  This list can be expanded.
But I wanted to bring up another aspect of this.  You mentioned they "complain about the time commitment or workload" and you mentioned also the challenge to "complete assignments on time and are prompt with meeting deadlines."  This makes me wonder what the homework load is.  I remember in college the rule of thumb was to expect to put in 2 hours on my own for every 1 hour in class.  Of course this is quite variable but that was a general rule of thumb I heard at some point.  What is the ratio you are anticipating to be needed by your students, on average?
A homework to classwork ratio that is difficult for your students to carry out might be part of the root of the problem.
If so, it might be helpful to design into your program some required or strongly encouraged "lab" hours.  The "lab" could be staffed by a minimum wage person (as opposed to you, who hopefully have a substantially higher pay rate).  The "lab" could be the place where the homework assignments are done.

I will share this with co-workers who have expressed similar concerns with their groups; very relevant, detailed. Your 1 hour-2hour ratio is correct.  That is about what I expect and what the workload requires.  We modify to accommodate special circumstances, too (extensions when health, court-related or other emergencies arise, for example).  Many of the reactions may be due to former lifestyles that did not involve taking responsibility or managing a family independently. Again, we take that into consideration, but we have short windows to accomplish miracles, so to speak.

@M.C.Jones - Note that the 2:1 ratio is not what is used in high school.  On the other hand, I suppose that the GED experience is more concentrated, because after all, middle school and high school don't just accomplish education -- there are other goals under the surface, such as socialization, physical activity, lunch, enrichment, and last but not least, child care so parents can have time to themselves, e.g. to be gainfully employed!  Do keep us posted after you try out some ideas.

Yay for parties!  Parties rule!

If you are not sure how they receive it but want to try you could go with the goodie basket way. If they earn a reward, they can choose to take it or just be happy about a spoken reward. Don't hand them a candy bar, put the basket where they can take something when they are leaving and tell them they are allowed to do so. This way, being adults, they can opt out.

The beauty of teaching adults is that you can have conversations about how they learn and how they learn best with them. You can make them partners in your quest to make them learn what they need to move forward in their lives.
In my (college) classes, I often emphasize that -- while it is true that formally I'm a teacher and they are students -- ultimately we are partners in learning. As such, we need to have conversations not only about the material being taught, but also about how it is taught, and that between partners and as a group, we need to find ways to make this work best. I see no reason why incentives should be off topic in such a conversation, but surely there are other ways as well in which you can affect how motivated they are. For example, let your students come up with a schedule for when what is due, when exams are held, etc, within the constraints that you need to keep some form of rigor for your class. As an example, I usually let my students determine whether they want the deadline for homework be a Monday or Friday -- i.e., whether they do or do not want the weekend for work. I imagine that that would certainly be something very relevant for people who have a day job and who may have much greater trouble meeting Friday deadlines than Monday deadlines.
Either way, since you're teaching adults: Talk to them about these issues. Make them part of the solution!

That weekend vs weekday decision -- I like that.  Very considerate.  How many times have I struggled to get my children's middle school and high school teachers to be more flexible in that regard.


text:
Skills gap for high-school to university transitions
I can find a bunch of articles about the skills gap between university graduates and job requirements, but it seems that there are limited resources on the skills gaps that high school students have coming into university.  Does anyone have any good references that might illuminate any skills gaps?  I'd prefer a world-wide perspective, but that might be asking for the moon.  I'm in Canada, and specifically Ontario, working in STEM.
To be fair, I can definitely pin-point some things I've personally observed, but I'm looking more for data and studies that are more in-depth than my personal anecdotes will allow.

Much of this also could depend on the university we are speaking of. Students entering an Ivy League school might be more "ready" than students going to a lower tier state institution.

I don't necessarily disagree, but my own experience with three institutions seems to cast doubt.  I've so far worked with students at a mid-tier university, a university with an emerging/new program, and a top-tier university (at least for Canada) and I've found no major difference.  Awkwardly, it seems that grades from high school seem to make little difference

@MichaelStachowsky One difference is that in my experience in the US, universities often have programs in place to assist with those skills gaps. I am particularly thinking about major state-run universities that admit a non-negligible number of students from disadvantaged backgrounds who may have high potential but limited skills due to educational disparities. You might have more luck looking for information about the function of those sorts of programs.

There are several academics who study this topic.  https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=related:Zxks6ZO7udEJ:scholar.google.com/&scioq=remedial+higher+education&hl=en&as_sdt=0,11

In the US, the ACT College Readiness Benchmarks reflect academic skills that students should have before entering college.  Sadly many high school graduates don't meet these standards and end up in remedial classes to make up for their lack of preparation.

Is there any data on which skills are missing, and by what measure?

Follow the link- there's a wealth of data on that website.  They're lacking in academic skills across the board, but particularly in mathematics preparation for STEM fields.

In addition to academic issues, students also struggle with motivational issues and adjusting to the culture of a particular institution- I don't want to imply that those aren't important factors.  However, if you can't pass your classes because you don't have adequate background, then it simply won't matter how motivated you are or whether you've made a good adjustment to college life.

There is a problem, not often recognized, that affects some of the best students as they progress through the educational system. Early on, many of those who do well, don't actually have to work very hard to do so. School is easy for them. They are comfortable with the kinds of exams they have to take and no one challenges them very much. That isn't true for everyone, or for every school, of course, but some students can just coast for a while. Often into the beginning of college or even further.
The problem with this scenario occurs when they finally reach something that isn't obvious or easy. But they haven't developed good learning skills in order to deal with it. So they crash, not wondering what happened.
In my view, the real issue is that learning is a skill like any other that actually needs to be taught, and no one taught these students how to learn, thinking it wasn't necessary as they did so well.
I've had college students (in their third year, actually) that had no idea whatever of how to learn anything in a lecture. They didn't know the material before they got there, but just watched, passively, thinking that they would absorb it as they had simpler things. In particular they had no idea at all of how to take notes effectively, how to summarize their notes, nor how to abstract out the two or three key points of a lecture. It was just a picture show to them.
So, even in a third year CS class, I had to teach these students how to learn the material. They didn't know how to take notes, and didn't really even know that it was necessary.
As I said at the top, this can affect the best students, not the strugglers. The not-so-best students know that they have to work. I was fortunate to learn fairly early that I didn't learn easily, so developed better habits that others who outshone me academically early on.
Some things are counterproductive. Hi-liters and text books are a bad idea unless used with discipline. I've seen used books where nearly every line was hi-lited. Likewise laptops aren't actually effective as a learning tool in lecture. There is not enough brain-engagement when you are just listening and typing, trying to capture every word. True, having the whole lecture may be valuable for something, but not for learning unless you also abstract out the essential ideas. It is too easy to forget that part. I've found that index cards are very effective for note taking, precisely because you can't write too much on them, so you tend to write the key ideas, not every word. You can also use index cards rather than hi-liters when reading, making a note of essential ideas.
The other key thing about index cards is that they can be organized and re-organized with new thoughts inserted with new cards. They can also be easily carried and referred to in odd moments when you would otherwise have "dead time" but could review the day's lectures.
Learn how to learn.

I think this is an excellent and (often) under-appreciated point, summed up very well in your first para. This actually happened to me in my 2nd/3rd year of undergrad and it was a real eye-opener, I remember actually floundering a bit just before my PhD until I found useful subject-specific "learn how to learn" advice, e.g. https://www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk/~wtg10/mathsindex.html

My response is also anecdotal, but it is based in over a decade of working with college students in various roles (advising undergrads, teaching undergrads).
The number one issue I see with students coming from high school is not that they are unintelligent or incapable. Rather it is that they have not learned how to work at learning. When you go to college, you spend maybe 3 or 4 hours a day in class (assuming a normal schedule). What you do with the remaining 12 or so waking hours will determine the amount of success you have in college. The school day does not get shorter in college, it gets longer.
I would have students come to me complaining that they had studied THREE WHOLE HOURS for an exam in real analysis (junior level class). I would then tell them that I studied more than that for a 10th grade algebra exam in high school.
Overall, I would say that the number one skill that incoming college students need to obtain is the skill to sit for multiple hours every day and teach the material to themselves outside of class. The professor is there to aim you in the right direction and facilitate your learning, but he or she cannot make you learn the material. That needs to be done on your own time.

If I were to summarize my own anecdotes that would basically be it.  However, I'm still looking for more data.  For instance, is my premise - that there is a skills gap - even valid? Are we remembering only the stand-out students and ignoring the majority of good learners?

Time management was a skill many college students needed even 30+ years ago. For a good student, high school was easy. At a good college, all your peers experienced the same thing, but now everyone is held to a higher standard.

I have heard this referred to as the problem of articulation.  For example:
2015 CUPM Curriculum Guide, Articulation Issues: High School to College Mathematics


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General Advice for Deciding a PhD Experiment?
If you have already completed your Master's work and are considering several options for a PhD thesis topic, what factors are most important in deciding what is appropriate to continue working on for a PhD? While this question could be field-specific, I think more advice from a variety of fields could be more enriching for providing deeper insights.
I am specifically asking toward doing what is most feasible and practical but is a topic or area that will be interesting enough to have enough motivation to work toward for several years. PhD projects are your baby and you have to commit to working on a specific niche area of expertise.
My initial sense is that the findings from my Master's thesis should inform my PhD. However, I am not entirely sure  the findings are as simple and eleagant of a design that I imagined.
The factors I am currently weighing are whether it could be much simpler to implement. However, the tradeoff is whether it would be as novel or interesting. Additionally, I am trying to see if my supervisor would be willing to pursue an area that interests him more, because I am concerned if he would be able to invest time into guidance on a topic that is uninteresting. However the tradeoff could potentially be a topic that might not be too interesting to me.
So what should be prioritized most in deciding a thesis topic:

simplicity/ease of implementation vs. novelty and more work striking work that could have a lot of potential applications in different fields?
doctoral advisor's input and guidance in deciding a topic that motivates him to invest more in vs. a topic that interests me more?

Are there any additional factors worth considering in deciding a PhD topic?

I don’t think this is possible to address so generally. A lot of this depends on the people involved (at least you and the supervisor, but possibly also a research group) as well as the customs of the domain.

Choose the option where you learn the kinds of things you want to learn. (Too lazy to expand this into a proper answer.)

@mistermiyagi what if there is not a research group involved but moreso an option to get a few international collaborators involved in the more complex design yet with minimal assistance vs. a simpler design that has fewer people involved? I say this without being too specific at risk of getting flagged for "highly dependent on individual factors"

@Neurostar A few international collaborators is a research group, they just share less infrastructure/time/… than usual. It again depends on the people involved, how reliable/sociable/… they are.

Then the question is not dependent on any research team.. They are not the ones who decide the direction of the topic, only that there is an option to work with collaborators. I have a lot of flexibility over the design.

@Neurostar While the people want decide for you, they should be factored into your decision. For example, a "novelty and more work striking work" with an established research group has much higher success chance. Plus, "any additional factors worth considering in deciding a PhD topic" is going to be a long list of things depending on the circumstances.

A "simple and easy to implement" problem may not be sufficient for a doctoral research project. Generally more is required. In particular, one needs (generally) to come up with something that is publishable, which implies novelty and an extension to what is known.
An extension seen by experts as trivial  or obvious probably won't be accepted by those who judge the work, leading to failure to attain the degree, nor is it likely to be publishable.
Additionally, very few people can be successful in doctoral study unless their advisor "signs on" to their research project and is sufficiently skilled to assist when the going gets tough. There are a few but even those require an advisor who is willing to stand aside during the process but still approve the result.
So, your number 2 seems best and that probably implies a significant problem to be addressed. There are exceptions, but only for exceptional candidates. And those people don't need to take the easy path in any case.

To clarify, I am not looking for a design that is so distilled to be manufactured as a "trivial" research problem that sits on the desk of an editor in a pop science column only to be discarded by the reviewers. My current work (not only thesis) in some capacity supercedes that of some doctoral colleagues. However, the technical limitations can be such barriers that it can be difficult to replicate. And any open science published work should be written in that way. Not to mention the overemphasis on "novelty" in academia. See specific replication journals. https://aisel.aisnet.org/trr/


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5th year PhD student with no publications. How to proceed?
I am doing a PhD in physics at a US school in my 5th and I would like to seek some advice. My PI provides absolutely zero guidance and it is not possible to have any technical discussion with him. Guidance is "at least on paper" provided by the postdocs. I have no publication up to now and I feel like I don't have an actual working research project. During the last two years, I have asked other professors if I can switch to their group, but they refused. I do not really want to drop out. Is there a hope in my situation or is it very likely that there is no hope in submitting a dissertation? What should I do in this situation? Is it possible to finish a research project with no supervision from a PI?

What field is this? In some it is no problem.

theoretical physics

Is changing to a different institution an option?

I hope this is the case, but I am not really sure how to get the recommendations and how professors at another institution will think about my case, given that I have spent around 3 years now working on research after the 2 years of courses but with no publication output.

"Is it possible to finish a research project with no supervision from a PI?" Yes (depending on how independent a student you are), but you need to have an actual viable research project and get repeated feedback on it from experts. It seems like you have neither at this moment.

It seems that you have done well in your graduate classes, so you can ask professors from those classes if they would be willing to write you letters. The trouble is, you are facing a very short deadline if you were to apply this year (maybe you already missed deadlines in many graduate schools).

Take a look at my answer here. This is not quite your situation though, but, I think, my answer still applies.

In my department, if the advisor is cool with that, then the student is fine. I hate to say this, but in some departments, it is really like this. Even if people may despise this

You ask whether there is hope of graduating, but the focus of your question is on missing publications. What is the relationship? Is it necessary to have publications to graduate?

@WolfgangBangerth I don't think it would be possible to graduate without publications.

@quark You should know what your graduation requirements are by your fifth year.

To me, the most important issue in your post is that you don't have a research project and the advisor seems unwilling or unable to get you to a viable one. In a highly theoretical field (mine was math) the lack of publication may be less important, but I'm guessing there for theoretical physics.
If you have passed comprehensive exams you are in a fairly good place intellectually, though without a viable project perhaps in trouble for finishing.
I had an unhelpful advisor after four years and changed institutions to succeed. It was to a higher ranked institution, actually, and a wonderful advisor, full of ideas. The change in institutions was facilitated by another professor who was able to attest to my likely success, but it wasn't my advisor.
The quickest path might be to find another group at the same university, but it that is impossible, as you suggest, moving might be necessary. Look to other trusted faculty for help and advice in that, as in other possible options.
Some people can succeed without guidance, but I think they are rare. I was not. I don't think I was really a mathematician until after I'd earned the doctorate. I had some skills, but hadn't yet achieved the capability for self guidance and problem/project insight and evaluation. If you are like that, then you may need to take drastic action. The lack of a project after five years is an indicator.
In highly theoretical fields, the highest level is insight about "what might be true" and how to go about obtaining evidence (proof in math) about the correctness of the insight. A good advisor should have that.

Thanks, I have passed my qualifiers and also all first-year PhD courses with top grades. I have a few ideas that I am trying to work on, but I find it hard to write a manuscript from scratch without any external guidance or collaboration. And honestly I find it depressing to find almost all of my classmates proceeding much more quickly than me, so I feel like I am handicapped.

@quark, the question is if the problems of writing a manuscript are based on describing the methodology and summarising outputs or if they are more technical. In the case of technical issues, you usually copy the style from the papers of others, or you may ask librarians of your university to help you. If the problem is summarizing your thoughts, what about reaching fellow scientists elsewhere and asking them for help?

You are in a very bad situation and you are running up against the deadlines that most programs have. You should talk as soon as possible with the people that supervise the Ph.D. program, in this order: the director of graduate studies in the department if this position exists, the chairman of the department, and the dean (which depending on the institution can be the dean of graduate studies, the dean of Sciences, the dean of Arts and Sciences). You approach them in this order.
It is disconcerting that you were not able to be accepted in a different group. This either means that you have acquired a reputation of being a student who is not creative, or more likely, it can mean that nobody wants to "poach" a student from another group, or something in between. If the latter case is more important, then an intervention by the person in charge is all that is needed. If the impression you give us is correct, (and someone else might have a very different view, this happens without malice on either side), then the system is failing you, but only because you do not turn to it. No academic institution likes to have students who "age out" of graduation.
The final outcome might be (a) giving up, because you are judged to be a bad prospect by several independent people, (b) moving to a different institution, which will be much easier if you have help from your current institution, (c) join another group, which again is easier if there is a push from above, or (d) graduating in your current group after misunderstandings etc. have been cleared up and responsibilities reassigned.
We do not know you, but we know mostly how academia in general functions. Dysfunctional departments and institutions are rare and usually are quite obvious to people on the inside, so I at least trust that your institution is benevolent to you in principle.

My specific experience is in high energy theory at universities in the US, though I'm more broadly familiar with other areas of theoretical physics as well. I'm going to be honest, and I'm sorry that my assessment will be less rosy than some other responses.
Usually it is not possible to graduate without publications; one sees this only very rarely. When universities have a specific requirement, often it is 3 publications. Not always though. You should figure out the situation at your university as soon as you can.
I am sorry that your adviser has not been responsible and has let you down. This is not fair to you, and it is not an ethical way for them to act. Spending three years after being done with classes but feeling like you 'don't have an actual working research project' is frankly a lot of time to have wasted.
It is possible to write papers as a graduate student without any people with PhDs. I had a couple, but this was after I had written a few papers with my advisor, and I don't think I could have done it without this earlier experience.
If you have talked to your adviser and they are unwilling to step up, then you must put maximum effort into finding someone else who can mentor you. If other professors are not an option, you should try to have some frank conversations with postdocs and ask if you can assist them on some of their projects (or if you have good enough ideas, if they can work with you on them and guide you). If it doesn't work with postdocs, then you should ask other graduate students if you can collaborate with them.
Unfortunately, spinning your wheels with no guidance is not likely to get you anywhere. I hope you can find someone who is willing to collaborate. In your position I think you should be happy to do the lion's share of calculations on some project in exchange for a senior collaborator's guidance.

First, publication expectations differ greatly based on discipline. With STEM, my understanding based on talking with various academics and current PhD students is that there is an expectation to publish. Across the four years of a PhD, I understand that, at least in my country, students will publish around two to three papers. Of course this should be taken with a pinch of salt.
The key issue is that post-doctoral positions are highly competitive. PhD positions are competitive and realistically only a number will be able to gain postdoctoral positions. During applications and interviews for these, the interviewer will very much ask questions concerning yours research at PhD level, and will likely ask if you have any papers, or at least a research project.
The good news is that this is fixable, and you should not put pressure on yourself or feel that you are falling behind. Clearly you have the knowledge necessary - you passed what I imagine were difficult qualification exams, and the fact that your university admitted you to the program is evidence that they have faith in your abilities.
Your supervisor should be guiding you to do this, focusing your research interests to a specific project idea. They should help you learn the ins and outs of research, and provide technical advice. If this has failed, all I can suggest is that you consider asking around the department as much as possible. Email professors, search the website for the various staff’s research interest and see which align with yours, and mention this in the email. Explain your position and your desire to do research and to focus on a specific project. Whilst they may not be able to replace your supervisor, various professors may be conducting research which they need assistance with, and if you can help collaborate with this, it’s great experience for you. Even if this is not an option, asking professors who have similar interests for advice can be greatly useful because they may be able to help you pick a research topic which aligns with your interests.
Also make sure you talk with other PhD students.


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Remind professor of email a second time?
Disclaimer: I know there are some similar questions around. However, I don't feel like the answers there suit this situation completely. This is why I am asking.
Some backstory (not necessarily important, but maybe of interest, just to give the complete picture): A student of mine was talking about a thesis (undergrad, so a relatively informal project of 1-3 months) at an external research facility. The professor there answered her first few emails in a positive way, they started discussing timetable. Professor says, he's away for some time next year. Student makes suggestion for time to work on the project. Professor answers, says he forgot to think of some traveling he had to do during that time.
Now, student proposes another time for the project, later in the year, when the professor said he was at the institute.
Now the problem: Professor doesn't answer anymore. Student waits 2-3 weeks, sends a friendly reminder, just as recommended in a lot of the answers on here. Waits another 2-3 weeks - no answer. Student seems to be a bit insecure now, emails the secretary of the professor saying she might have missed the professor, maybe he was absent, asks when he's in office. Gets an answer, saying he is back in office at date XY, not really clear about whether the professor was absent before or not.
Now she came to me, asking whether I had any experience with this. She tells me the story I told you here and says that he feels it is rude to remind a second time but she a) might have missed the professor, he travels a lot, so there's that possibility and b) she also feels like the professor would send at least a short notice if he decided to cancel the project. On the same time there is a time problem because she has to find another thesis at some point if this one doesn't work out. However, contacting someone else might result in an awkward situation of having to cancel on of the projects in a late stage of preparation. She also really wants to work with the professor, he was no. 1 on her list.
I - sadly or luckily - have experienced no situation like this. But maybe there is a higher ranked academic (I am only a grad student myself, her tutor) or someone who had a similar experience here who can give his opinion on that. I genuinely feel bad for her and want to give her some good advice.
Thanks a lot!

It seems like a good idea to go the professor in person - in my expierence, the professors who are worst at handling emails are the ones who enjoy it the most when you just come and talk to them.

I echo the comments to talk to the professor in person. However, if that's not possible due to distance (since you say it's an external research facility), your student could call their office.

I would track down the professor in person, coordinating with the secretary if necessary. People get busy, and dragging out the email chain seems unproductive. If the student meets the professor in their office, this can probably be settled in 30 minutes. Assuming the professor tends to be very busy, I would email the secretary and ask when the professor has 30 minutes free for a short meeting.


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Can I post on the Internet a page which summarizes the essential technical contributions of a paywalled article?
This is a follow-on to this question.  Suppose I have a collection of research articles, written by other people, and related to a specific topic.  Suppose I want to post on the Internet a page which is a bibliography of those articles together with a link to an elsewhere-posted PDF of the article, when that is available, which could be either free and open or paywalled.  When the article is paywalled or not available on the Internet, I want to post a summary of the essential technical contributions of the article.  The summary would be what I would provided as lecture notes for a class if I read the article for understanding, and then wanted to teach the article to a group of students.  Do you see anything wrong with that?

I sure hope there isn't a problem with this! I've been posting results and summaries of papers in internet discussion posts for so long that many were done before digitization and paywalls for the papers existed. A couple of relatively recent examples are here and here.

Dave L Renfro, it seems that it is OK.  Context: A former mentor had a project which built up, in 3 or 4 filing cabinets, a collection of 3000 or so papers in his topic.  20 years ago he changed topics and gave the library to a colleague.  5 or 10 years after that, the papers were discarded.  Based on a sample of 56 papers that I took 30 years ago, 50% of papers will be freely available as PDFs online.  Another 35% are behind paywall, and another 15% were never digitized.  A way to present the whole library online, is to write summaries of the paywalled and never digitized articles.

As long as you write the summary yourself, rather than copying the important sentences, there is no problem. It would be the same as an open newspaper article reporting about some research study.
Don't forget to provide proper citations, but as far as I understand, you are already doing that.