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Getting into math ten years after a BA in English
I got a BA in English at a pretty good school, spent the next 10 years in a fruitless pursuit of screenwriting with a day job in a legal department, and now that I'm sick of all that, I'd like to do something mathy. And it seems pretty clear that that's going to require going back to school.
Since this is a HUGE redirection -- a ridiculous one, really -- I assume I should get a second BA/BS before even considering a masters, right? I did well in math in school, but I left off at single variable calc. (I'm currently studying linear algebra on my own and loving it.) But what, really, are my chances for even getting into a decent second bachelor's program?? I'm thinking of taking college extension classes to get more experience and recommendation letters for that purpose. If I get some online bachelors degree (EDIT: or a post-bac), are any (reputable) masters programs even going to consider me??
You may well ask what my eventual goal is, but I'm at such a basic level that I'm not sure that that question is all that relevant. If I were to pick a goal just for the sake of aiming for something, getting a job in statistics sounds interesting, but who knows what I'd want to do after getting a second bachelors. I'd like to try my hand at research, but that sounds way too pie-in-the-sky given my background.
Thanks for any advice or feedback.

You might be interested in these relevant questions and answers: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3153/how-does-one-change-fields-between-undergrad-and-grad-school and http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2950/is-it-possible-to-attend-graduate-school-in-pure-math-after-undergrad-in-cse

@ff524 Thanks for those; I didn't see them when searching the topic. They seem a bit different to me, however, since the OPs' undergrad degrees were math/science-related.

The questions are very different, but a lot of the advice in the answers still applies (ask the grad school you plan to apply to what you need to do to be considered for admission; look into taking some classes in the new field as a non-degree student)

@ff524 Oh, yes, they're definitely helpful; I was just justifying my somewhat overlapping question. Those answers make it sound like making the switch is unlikely-to-impossible. I already spent 10 years on attempting something unlikely/impossible. Am I just setting myself up for another such attempt?

Am I just setting myself up for another such attempt?  That's something much too personal for strangers on the Internet to answer, unfortunately :) What you propose to do is difficult, certainly not impossible, but the cost/benefit ratio and the likelihood of success depends on your motivations, your abilities, your goals, etc.

@ff524 Just the fact that you didn't answer with "don't even try" is a good sign, imo. :)

If you're interested in a second BA and want to push yourself, consider Columbia University's School of General Studies. You can major in math and get a second bachelors. It's expensive, but may be what you're looking for.

You are not prepared for a Master's program right now, which I think you recognize. That said, it may not take too long to prepare yourself. I would recommend looking at requirements for continuing education and graduate programs at nearby regional universities. Many of them have programs designed to accommodate a student with your needs. For example, here are the requirements at CSU East Bay, a regional school near Oakland. Note in particular the Post-baccalaureate unclassified status. You might not expect it, but many such programs are quite strong and have a solid record in placing students in PhD programs. Don't discount them.

Thanks for suggesting those. For some reason I hadn't thought of it, and it looks like that's going to be the best possible avenue for me--both academically and financially.

If you want to go into math, should you get a BSc?
I'd say "yes". It often is quite doable to pick up a new subject on your own if you have academic experience, but English and Mathematics are so far apart that I'd doubt there would be a lot of synergy. Mathematics has its own way of thinking, which is probably picked up best by going through an undergrad degree.
Should you go into math?
Enrolling for a degree is of course a rather strong decision. In my experience quite a few of those who start anew later in their lifes drop out rather early. Maybe taking an online course first could both be a good preparation if you go through with it, and helpful to figure out if you really want to it.
Can you get in somewhere?
I don't know about your country, but both the UK and Germany often have places reserved for mature students, which have fewer formal requirements. So in those countries, getting into a decent program would be quite doable.
A final comment
For me at least mathematics is great fun. If you believe you'd like it, and you are willing to put in the effort, give it a try.

Well, I commend the OP on having the heart to contemplate such a step. I'd like to mention a factor that has not yet been mentioned in the other answers - your age, and more specifically, the responsibilities that you have to shoulder while attempting such a career switch. If you do decide to apply for a undergrad program in maths, and happen to be accepted in a reasonably good one, you'd be starting from scratch in a field governed by abstract concepts that take a good deal of focused work to wrap ones head around! This is a lot easier if all you have to worry about is yourself, and don't have the weight of other responsibilities (family obligations, relationships etc) to bog you down. Even if you don't have such responsibilities, you'd have the inescapable feeling of being a generation behind your peers, and unless you have a very determined and strong force of mind, you would be having to fend off doubts regarding your decisions/capabilities at regular intervals - which could hinder your focus significantly, and make your mental faculties less acute than they ought to be!
(This is a personal opinion of mine - I've seen many later-career grad students struggle with these issues, and hence I thought it was wise to know about the possibility of such a train of events before committing to such a momentous decision!)

Thanks for the heads-up. I'm lucky in that I don't have to worry about family (if I had kids I don't think I'd even attempt this), but I do have to support myself, which makes taking classes (most of which are during the day) in preparation for a formal program rather difficult.

I'm answering from an American point of view, on the supposition that is your background also. I'm not sure how applicable this advice is to a non-American.
You already have a bachelor's degree, so you shouldn't need to take a second full BS. There are two ways that I can see you going. Either way, you should be taking the equivalent of a major, or at least a minor in math before you pursue graduate studies.
Enroll as a full time second, or third year "transfers" student in a math-science oriented BS program, using your BA credits surrounding your English major for your non math credits. You should be taking something like two to three math courses (and one or two courses in physics and/or computer science) a semester, until you have completed a math major.
Enroll as a "special student" somewhere part time, taking one to two math classes a semester, until you have 10-12 math courses that constitute the equivalent of a math major, or at least 6-8 courses for a math minor.

Yes, I'm American. :) I actually ended up taking the accepted answer's advice and enrolling full time at a state school. Quit my job and everything (and LOVING IT). I'm currently officially enrolled as getting a second BA in math, but actually intend to change this to fulfilling prereqs for a masters, as you suggest, based on advice from an advisor. However, I've decided to do CS instead of math (being more practical and all), though I'm still going to try to take as many math classes as I can. :)


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How can one find a promising research project that doesn't just fall apart?
I'm just starting my second year of a master's program and hoping to apply to PhD programs, but I still haven't even submitted a paper for publication. I've worked on 3 research projects over the past 3 years, all of which have fallen apart for different reasons. [EDIT: They fell apart not because they didn't validate my hypothesis or something, but in two cases, because of advisor drama and in one case because another student found a significant flaw.) How can I choose my next project in such a way that minimizes the chances that it'll also just fall apart?
My experience with these abandoned projects has, I believe, taught me three things:

Vet potential advisors more thoroughly,
Don't waste time on a project you don't think is all that promising right from the get-go, and
Get on a project with a team, not one that you'll work on individually.

However, my experience has also shown me that:

It's really impossible to know what an advisor is like until you've already crashed and burned with them.
Good projects are hard, if not impossible, to come by. At the time that I worked on the projects that fell apart, they were basically my best options.
Having to find a team to work with puts you at the mercy of whether people a) have something you're even able to do, b) are actually good to work with, and c) want to work with you (unless, I guess, you're just assigned to the team by your advisor). I've already been shot down by one potential research partner.

Meanwhile, I know of an undergrad who worked on a project for one quarter and now has a publication at a major conference. Do I just have to face the fact that I'm not cut out for this research stuff? I'm starting to get the impression that I'm just a "quitter," but I feel that every time I've quit, I've done so for completely valid reasons, not just because the "going got tough."
Is there something I'm not thinking of or doing in order to find a good project and take it all the way through to completion?

Having a publication is not a mandatory admission criterion for any PhD I have ever heard of.

@astronat Certainly not mandatory but isn't it important, especially for getting into a top program? And for an applicant who is already in a master's program?

Important, yes, but not crucial. I would consider myself to be in one of the top institutions in my field in the UK, yet myself and none of my cohort (6 of us) have published yet, and all but one of us has a Master's degree of some description. I therefore think the answer very much depends on US vs Europe.

Hm, I'm in the US so maybe it does. I also heard that publications don't matter all that much from a US professor, but her proof of that was that her publications prior to acceptance into a PhD program weren't that great -- not that she didn't have any at all.

I wouldn't expect master's students to have publications going into a Ph.D. program, even in Europe (and I've worked in Europe and in the U.S.).

I've been in a somewhat similar situation. I agree with your point #1 - advisors are crucial! To better vet them, I would try to talk to PhD students who have been working with them for a few years. Ask them about how their work is going, and how they came to their subject, how their advisor handled it when they ran into trouble with their approach, etc.
For how to pick a subject that has high likelihood of leading somewhere, it's always a gamble but in my previous group, the people who were taken on as part of a EU project grant seemed to do better in this regard - the subject has to be very thoroughly thought out for the application, with "worst case results" analysis where you practically have to guarantee publishable results (even if those will not be top-conference results).

I did talk to several of students of one advisor, and they only said good things, and he turned out to be the worst of all! Then I talked to a student in the same dept who has a different advisor, and she mentioned that she'd been warned about that guy. So I think asking people who aren't students of a particular professor but instead just know of him is the way to go. As for grant applications, that's a great idea and supports my decision to apply to the NSF fellowship even though I don't think I have a chance in hell. At the very least it might lead to clarifying my ideas.

The fact that your projects failed should not be a bar to your continuing on to a Ph.D. program. The reality of research is that most research fails! Remember that Edison tried over a thousand combinations before finding one to work for his light bulb. Nobody is 100 percent successful in research and projects end up falling short of expectations or failing altogether a substantial percentage of the time. It's how you persevere through the failures that distinguishes a successful researcher from an unsuccessful one.
Moreover, projects working or not working can be a matter of luck, and sometimes it can take an extended period of time to make a breakthrough. During my Ph.D. project, I had basically nothing but failed approaches to show for two and a half years (!) before I had my "Eureka!" moment. I wrote six papers in the remaining three and a half years after that.
So I wouldn't worry about finding a "good" project: ideas that seem sound on first blush can fall through, and a "high-risk, high-reward" type project can lead to big breakthroughs in the long run. Focus on doing something that interests you, so that you can keep going when you run into rough patches (and they will come).

The issue with these projects though isn't that the results weren't in line with my hypothesis but drama with advisors: in the 1st case, the advisor was just impossible to get a hold of, in the 2nd case, the project wasn't really in my advisor's wheelhouse, so he didn't notice a glaring problem that was identified late in the process by another student, and in the 3rd case, my advisor claimed the project was publishable, and after I worked on it for months, one of his co-authors revealed that they had no intention of publishing it.

So if the problem is with the advisor, why are you worrying if you're "cut out" for research? It just sounds like you need to choose a better advisor, and that's a different problem than choosing a research project!

Well, it's been three different advisors. And in the case of 2 of them, their other students seem to get publications just fine.

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Reverse journal editor search
I was wondering if there is a tool that allows to search for journals where a given researcher is one of the editors.

I believe the simplest way to achieve something of that kind would be to look for the CV or research website of said researcher and look if they list their editorship responsibilities.

I do not think there are many researchers that are editor for more than 1 or 2 journals.

I guess if someone wants to advertise what journals they edit for, this will be visible on their web-page.

It's a fair question. Google Scholar does not currently support any search operator for this; I'm not sure about other portals. There is a more complex data scraping solution, but I imagine the easiest way is to search the individual's name, then click it and it should bring up a list of works they're associated with, although that would mix together ones where they are an author as well as an editor. Or use their CV.

Are you trying to avoid a certain editor, or is it something else?

@Buffy In this case I am asking in the abstract. In the past it occurred to me to use the opposite tactics: "Prof. X might like this sort of thing, is there an appropriate journal where they are also an editor".

Alternatively, you could just send them an abstract, ask if they'd like to see the whole paper and, after a bit of communication, asking for recommendations about where to send it.

EDIT:
Try Open Editors, a newly published dataset of ca. 480.000 editorial board positions across 6.000 scholarly journals at 17 academic publishers.

OLD ANSWER:
There are no open data* about editorial boards yet.
Thus, research articles that analyze the composition of journals' editorial boards unfortunately collect their data manually. For instance, a paper in 2016 writes at p. 4:

We began with a collection of 605 abbreviated titles of journals
[...]. Crowdworkers from Amazon Mechanical Turk then expanded those
abbreviations into full journal names and collected the individual
editorships associated with each journal.

It has not gotten better since then.
However, there is a reason for optimism as ORCID allows users to list their editorial board positions. Unfortunately, ORCID remains underused; but perhaps in the future its API could offer a greater treasure trove regarding data on journals editors. (The same is true with WikiData).
* Note: By "open data" I mean data that are, inter alia, interoperable, machine-readable, structured - see, for instance, the explanation of "Open Data" at the European Data Portal.

"There are no open data about editorial boards yet." No, it's listed on journal websites.

Dear @AnonymousPhysicist, I edited my post to clarify what is understood as "open data".

That's clearer.

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Should a dismissal from PhD in graduate application be listed as academic misconduct?
I'm wondering whether dismissal / withdrawal from a PhD program should be listed as disciplinary action on subsequent applications. A Master's program application usually asks questions like:

Have you ever been found responsible for a disciplinary violation at any post-secondary institution you have attended, whether related to academic misconduct or behavioral misconduct, that resulted in a disciplinary action?

I was academically dismissed from a PhD program after four semesters for not being able to maintain the minimum GPA. I plan to fully include this information in my application (e.g. through transcripts from the institution from which I was dismissed), and address why I was dismissed (and what steps I have taken to address academic concerns) in my Statement of Purpose.
Q: However, I am not sure if my dismissal counts as one that is due to "disciplinary violation" related to "academic misconduct or behavioral misconduct". I was simply dismissed due to not being able to maintain the required grades. Should I answer the above question in the negative?

"Academic misconduct" is not the same as "Lack of academic performance."  "Academic misconduct" is things like claiming undue credit, fabrication of research or sources, outright plagiarism, etc.  Simply not making the grades might reflect on your academic aptitude, but (unlike academic misconduct) does not necessarily reflect upon your character.

This is correct. What the OP experienced is also called "academic failure" and is distinct from academic misconduct. "Behavioral misconduct" would include things like being sanctioned by the university for sexually harassing your students, dealing drugs on campus, or starting a fistfight with the Dean.

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What data analysis software should a supervisor recommend to their research students?
Often I have found that research students who have learned to do experiments have not learned to use software to handle their data effectively.  It's not within my power to insert the appropriate training into their prior education.  Teaching people to program or use software is not within my area of expertise or a priority for me.  I have observed other research supervisors expecting their students to "teach your self to use what I use" but I realize that what I use, while very powerful, may not be best for a beginner.  Also, I picked my tools a long time ago so the state of the art may have changed.  What should I recommend to my students, and why?  I would like for students to rapidly acquire flexible, durable analysis skills.

What kind of analysis do they need to do? And what volume of data?

This might be better asked at Software recommendations. They should be able to deal with academia-related requirements just fine. Consider flagging your question and requesting migration.

@StephanKolassa First rule of migration is whether it's off-topic at the current site. I think it should stick to Academia.

I would like for students to rapidly acquire flexible, durable analysis skills.

Your criteria are quite stringent! I think you are going to have to compromise at some point along the line. If you want them to acquire the skills rapidly, then they are probably going to have to use menu-based software, which will be limited in its flexibility. The long-term and more flexible solution would be for the students to learn statistical programming, but that of course has a steep learning curve.
In my opinion, R has a lot of advantages. [I imagine you have already come across it, so I may be stating the obvious here and you may have a good reason for ruling it out, but...]

It is free and open source, and therefore once learnt, the skill can be taken anywhere.
It's massively flexible when you take into account all of the add-on packages
Students can "ease" into it using R commander, which gives a menu-based interface but also outputs the corresponding code.
It is popular and therefore very well resourced.

The best compromise that I can think of would be to start the students off using the menu-based R commander package, but encourage them to inspect and customise the code where possible. If you are not able to give training yourself, it would probably be a good idea to arrange for someone else (either in your department, or pay someone external) to give a course. There are lots of good self-learning resources available, but a course ought to speed up the learning process. When they see how powerful the software is, it is likely to encourage them to put in the time and effort to learn to use it well.

R is a good answer only if the OP asks about statistics. In general, you can do whatever R does and more with, for example python and pandas.

Also, keep in mind that R has a rather steep learning curve. Unless you are handling lots of statistics, Python is a better choice for a general programming language to perform data analysis (and also do stats). It's also free, open source, and its usage is growing fast across disciplines.

@AnderBiguri I disagree with the first part of your statement. R is perfectly capable of handling lots more than just statistics.

Having recently self-taught both R and statistical python, it felt like the free resouces for R were considerably more accessible than the resources for numpy/pandas.

@Racheet yes, but python is a better tool for Artificial inteligence, computer vision, image processing, .... Not saying you cant do those in R, its just to as good for it.

@AnderBiguri oh I agree entirely that python is a stronger toolset, that's why I learned both. I was just commenting that the self-study resources for R are much better than the ones I could find for Pandas.

R commander is an interesting suggestion.  The one reservation I have is that usually hardware does not come with documentation for interfacing with R.

Teaching how to program should be a priority in research, in at least Sciences. Doesn't matter what STEM field you are in, almost certainly you will need to deal with data, and using "black box" software only teaches to do whatever the software tells you.
I've seen people give results using standard deviation and mean for non-normal distributions, and its just because they didn't know how to plot their distribution and just used black box software. I've seen people rename file by file a folder with 500 files with data. These are worse than "Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion".
Since nowadays almost all research in STEM is performed using computers, understanding computers is a must.
My recommendation is to make people learn MATLAB if you have access to it, or Python if you don't have access to MATLAB or you are a Open source / free software supporter. Both of this languages are designed to be very high level, and not need "advanced" computer science skills (such as inheritance in OOP, or pointers in C)*. Both of the languages are widely used and there are numerous free online courses to learn, in Coursera, Codeacademy, Udacity, EDx or any other online learning platform.
Learning how to code to the basic point should take less than 2 months, considering that meanwhile the student is also doing other things. And they can save thousands of hours of tedious work.
Let me repeat the key message: We need researchers with programming skills. Its incredibly important skill to be able to perform research in the XXI century.
While this answer mainly focuses in STEM, basic programming in other fields that use statistics is also useful.
*Of course, knowing about that helps.

I don't know about the absolute need for programming skills. Things like Excel are very powerful and do not need programming skills, some understanding of scripting lets you do a lot already. People who don't know how to stats will not learn by learning how to code.

@CapeCode I have used excel for sciences because my advisors wanted it. It would take me about 10 times longer to make something than in Matlab, because excel is not a tool designed for science. No one says you can not use notepad to write papers, its just not the right tool for it.

It's probably not designed for science but it does a lot of the basic and not-so-basic stuff. Also, you can increasingly use Matlab functions and toolboxes without having to write a script. My point is knowing to code is useful but I don't think it addresses poor statistics proficiency. I see a lot of researchers wasting their time coding stuff that already exist as off the shelf products.

While programming is definitely useful for handling large datasets (I do a bit of coding myself for my bioscience research), for small datasets (such as a single qPCR run, or a few cages of mice), specialised programs such as Excel or R are much more useful.

@CapeCode the statistic deficiency was just a simple example, that would definitely be better addressed if the person would know what he/she was doing instead of using a black box software, which is the point.

@MarchHo I dont agree. for very small (very) programs such as Excel or R are as useful as knowing how to program at best. Definitely not more useful than programming skills. Also, Excel is very far from being a specialized program for  sciences.

I'm sure we all agree that knowing what you're doing is a good thing. I don't see how using a Matlab or Python function without understanding it could be superior to doing the same with an Excel function or macro.

We're talking about students here, not currently practicing researchers, and so my comment is really made with respect to future trends rather than the current state of play which I believe the other answers address.
I believe that in the future, more and more people will be expected to know how to program if they are going to do any kind of data analysis. Perhaps not on the more theoretical side, but since you said your students are doing practical work, I will assume that is not an issue. Tools like R and Matlab are good places to start if you are unfamiliar with programming and want to get something done right now; but honestly, since the barrier to entry for programming in fully-fledge generic programming languages is so low these days (and expected to get lower), I see no reason not to point students in the direction of a full programming language and the modules they might want for doing statistical analyses that are relevant to their field.
Whilst R and Matlab are fine choices, personally, I would introduce my students to something like Python, and the excellent modules that are avalible to do all the data analysis that can be done in R/Matlab that exist in the Python ecosystem. Python has a very gradual learning curve at the beginner end of the spectrum, while at the other end advanced programmers can write code thats just as fast as C if they take advantage of the newer, optimized interpreters. These 2 pros, plus the plethora of modules for doing any kind of analysis/plotting R or Matlab can do, is what has made Python the defacto language of choice in my field (Bioinformatics), and likely a powerful tool under your student's belts going forward with whatever they decide to pursue in life.
Of course, there are other languages out there, such as Java, Julia, Rust, etc - however I would rather teach those as second or third languages to learn, once you have a strong foundation in Python.
For the record, i'm not saying "teach them python", i'm saying just make them aware of it's existence.

Matlab/Octave is appropriate for physics (experimental)
Matlab is very well documented. and get all the graphs done you need as a physicist. It will allow your students to focus on the physics problem instad of hunting bugs or documentation.
Be sure that your university includes the statistics toolbox in the license.

The specific platform is going to be discipline specific so what will work for my students may not be best for your students.
However, if you teach them a proper digital-data-analysis workflow, then they will be able to transfer good habits to whatever specific analysis tool they are using.
For my students, I emphasize:
1) proper data archiving - each data set contains only data stored as plain text
2) proper metadata - each data set has accompanying detailed metadata
3) using code for data analysis - all data manipulations are completed with reproducible code and the original data are never altered
4) version control - we use git but that's just my preference

This is very good general advice, but not sure that it really answers the question.

Often I have found that research students who have learned to do experiments have not learned to use software to handle their data effectively

What kind of data handling and what kind of software program you're referring to? Is it programming language that analyze experimental data (R, Python/C++) or software (like SPSSS/Minitab, Matlab/Octave, Atlas.ti/VUE etc)?
R, C++ would be have a very steep learning curve. Even Python would not an easy entry for student who have no basic programming in their undergraduate years (based on my personal experience, it's not the syntax itself, but the early step on choosing and install IDE, configure module etc but maybe that just me).
This may sound cliche but for not starting flame wars about which software/program is the best, it all depends on the needs and background of the users. For example, those who has background in statistics would like to use R (R can do lot more than statistics, I know) but for biology students who do research in fermentation, maybe Minitab is enough. Same thing with Python/Ruby/Julia or C++/Fortran or Word/LaTeX etc.
Ask them what they learned in their undergraduate years and see if they can fully maximize it in their research. For me, the first step is not to learn fancy software but to have a clear understanding how to do research and a good research practice (research methodology, workflow, raw data management etc) and only then introduce software/program to help them.

Software that I have tried in my field:
MATLAB, SPSS, WEKA, GAMS, DigSilent, ETAP, PSpice, MS Excel, MS Word, MS PowerPoint, ...
My recommendation: MATLAB
Positive points of MATLAB:

It has both GUI features and coding (of course, they should go for coding).
The community is active and good.
Their documentations is very good.
Their examples are excellent.

These all help learn MATLAb quickly.
What I have done in MATLAB:
Genetic Algorithm, Linear and Nonlinear Optimization, Clustering, Classification, Plotting, Parallel Computing, Neural Networks, ...
Plus, tell them to work with LATEX as well. They will thank you later. Though, they should also be already an expert in MS Word.
When they get into one area in detail, let's say Optimization, then it might be time to move to a new software like GAMS. You will still need MATLAB for plotting your results, ...
Although almost all academic institutes support MATLAB and have a license, industry are fan of more freeware, like Python.

This answer adds nothing to the already existing answers.

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Would a Professor be responsive to a meeting request from a PhD student like this?
I am a graduate school applicant and am considering requesting a meeting with a professor while I'll be visiting a city near their university town.
The current e-mail format I have in mind goes roughly as follows:

Dear Professor X,
I am a graduate school applicant at University A. Before this I
  graduated from University B and have worked with Professor C* on some
  research projects. I am visiting City D for the next two weeks or so
  and I would be delighted if you could meet with me for a few minutes
  to discuss your latest work on topic E. I've been very interested in
  topic E and have been spending time trying to learn more about it, writing up
  some notes on this and related topics along the way (which you can
  find on webpage F).
Thanks for your time. (signed, me)

*Professor X has coauthored many papers with Professor C and they still collaborate frequently.
My question is that would you as a Professor be responsive to an email of this nature? What improvements or extra information would you suggest to add that would make you more likely to grant such a request to meet? Is there something in the above which would make you not want to meet?
Other info: I have never had any contact with Prof X before this. Prof X is a big name and an extremely active researcher in the relevant field.

If X is really such a big shot then I'd suggest you to invite C to make a formal introduction; that should make you stand out from the crowd of people who also want to meet X. If for any reason you don't feel comfortable pulling C in, then don't use C's name in this e-mail. Also, don't say "few minutes," say 30, 45, over lunch, whatever is enough for you to do the job. X will likely pass it to his/her assistant and "a few minutes" is confusing.

Penguin is right. If you can summon C's support for the visit, that helps and you can mention him; if not, don't. However, quite a few great people are quite open to meet even unknown interested students with relevant interests; just suggest a brief imposition on his/her time. It is hard to estimate, but ~30mins might sound about right. And if it doesn't work out, don't worry too much, people can be busy.

You write The next two weeks.  That's very late to open up ½–¾ hour in the agenda of a busy professor.  Better plan such a meeting at least a month ahead.

When I was applying to graduate school I once did this successfully without C or F, and while almost entirely ignorant of E, and the meeting went well. You've prepared much better; good luck to you! But do keep in mind that X might randomly not reply, and it doesn't mean too much. In that case I'd try again when (if) you get admitted to A (assuming X is a professor at A).

@Penguin_Knight's comment is the best advice in this situation: ask Professor C to introduce you (via email with you in CC) to Professor X and mention that you will be in town and would like to chat.  Professor X may not have time to read all the messages she gets from students and other people she doesn't know, so there is always a chance your message -- not matter how well-crafted -- may be overlooked.  But a message from a coauthor will immediately stand out and is sure to be read carefully.
This is a very natural thing for Professor C to do (assuming she has a positive opinion of you and your work); you should make the request politely but you don't need to feel that it is a huge favor.
If you leave a good impression, this introduction and the subsequent visit will usually drastically improve your chances of admission.

Thank you for your suggestion. Asking Professor C is a bit of a complicated matter but I have decided to go with requesting that he introduce me. Why do you say that it shouldn't be viewed as a huge favor? After all like you said if X agrees it could improve my chances. Is this something Professors tend to do often if they think the student under consideration is good?

@user24542: It's more a favor from C to X than to you.  Finding good advisees is (1) important (2) fraught with difficulty.  And "So-and-so's been doing great work for me and will be in your area next month.  (s)He'd like to meet you if you can spare 30 minutes." is a much easier way of moving a student's career forward than writing a full letter of recommendation.

My question is that would you as a Professor be responsive to an email of this nature?

Yes, quite likely.

What improvements or extra information would you suggest to add that would make you more likely to grant such a request to meet?

It's perfect as is. Maybe remove the "a few minutes"--hopefully discussing research would take a bit more than that?

Is there something in the above which would make you not want to meet?

No, although before responding I would probably take a look at your application.

Just remember that your willingness to participate in AC.SE likely shows your interest in communicating with strangers, which may not be the case for everybody.

Ok, putting myself in your shoes, I would probably do things like this.
First, if possible, I would try to get a positive introduction from my professor. I think that you should try to see if you can get this introduction before you proceed as the willingness of professor C to support you will be crucial. More than likely Professor X's decision whether to work with you will be based on whether Professor C says good things about you. If Professor C  doesn't seem like he will have good things to say then Professor x will almost definitely not want to work with you, and you might need to revaluate whether it is worth your time to pursue meeting with him.
Assuming you do end up deciding to go ahead with the email, I would send something like the email below. When doing this make sure you give the Professor a lot of notice as they sometimes have hundreds of emails to deal with.

Dear Professor X,
I am sorry to bother you as I am sure you are very busy. [optional but
  shows your consideration and respect]
I am a graduate school applicant at University A. Previously, I worked
  with Professor C* on some research projects at University B. [Add
  lines with information about the projects' outcomes, e.g., are they
  soon to be published/ how did they go well?]
As part of my work with Professor C* I became very interested in topic
  E, particularly your work [example/reference]. You can read some of my
  notes about this and related research on website F.
I am contacting you as I would really like to
  discuss your latest work. I will be visiting City D from [Add when you
  are going to arrive] for approximately two weeks and I would be
  delighted if we could meet during that time. However, I can also
  understand that you may be too busy to accommodate me during that
  short visit, in which case I would be very happy to skype, or talk over
  phone at sometime in the future.
Please let me know if either option would be acceptable - it would be an honor to speak with you.
Thank you for your time. (signed, me)

Shortened version:

Dear Professor X,
I am a graduate school applicant at University A. Previously, I worked
  with Professor C* on some research projects at University B. During this time I became very interested in topic
  E, particularly your work on [example]. You can read some of my
  notes about this and related research on website F.
I will be visiting City D from [Add when you
  are going to arrive] for approximately two weeks and I would be
  delighted if we could meet during that time. Please let me know if this is possible - it would be an honor to speak with you.
Thank you for your time. (signed, me)

Concur with 37208. I would add that it assumes a priori that what you're saying is a bothersome imposition -- why lead with that impression?

@user37208 I would lose a lot more than that.  I think this email can be 1/3 - 1/2 this length.

I have updated the answer in response to these comments.


text:
Is it normal to preferentially invite female speakers when there would otherwise be few female speakers?
My institute is creating an annual list of invited speakers and solicited suggestions from staff. It was at pains to point out that although only "n" 18% of suggestions received were female, they made up "n+1" 31% of the speakers selected to talk. As a female student, this makes me feel uncomfortable that women seem to be getting preferential treatment - is this normal practice in academia, in the UK or elsewhere?
Edit: I didn't mean my question to sound insulting, I'm sorry if it sounded that way. Everyone invited is perfectly qualified and I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. It just seemed a little strange all the women on the shortlist made it through whilst quite a few men didn't. And that the email took on an apologetic tone and emphasized this so heavily. I was just interested in whether this is common as it makes me feel a little uneasy that gender plays such a prominent role in the organizers' thinking. Thanks.

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

First of all: if the women who were invited to speak are in fact highly qualified for this invitation, they are not getting a "free pass". A "free pass" implies that they are invited only because they are women, and are not otherwise qualified. Qualified women are at best getting a "priority pass" to make up for being often overlooked (especially when the organizing committee is all male), and possibly not getting any kind of special pass.
It is a bit insulting (although I am sure this is not your intent) to suggest that these women were invited to speak because they are women, and not because they are doing quality, competitive work. I can see why you were uneasy when the organizers sent an email emphasizing the gender of the speakers, instead of their contributions to research; I would also be.
Second: depending on the sample size, it may not be entirely significant that 31% of invited speakers were women when they made up 18% of the list of suggestions.
In answer to

Is this normal practice in academia:

Yes, sometimes a conference or workshop organizer will look at the list of invited speakers, see that women are heavily underrepresented, and think carefully about whether there is a qualified female researcher doing excellent work who could be added to the roster.
This is done as a deliberate response to counter a known bias. We know that we (as humans) are very bad at evaluating people based on merit alone; we tend to let our cognitive biases get in the way. (See, for example: Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students.) Deliberate attempts to increase the representation of women in underrepresented fields exist to counter this known bias.

I regret using the phrase "free pass" and updated the question to hopefully make it fairer. I think you're right to highlight the unconscious(?) bias angle. In light of that it's probably sensible to take corrective action... just wish it wasn't necessary!

@user15422 It's also possible (though I have only anecdotal evidence to suggest that this happens) that all of the women who were suggested were "superstars" (because the "ordinary" female researchers were overlooked) and so all of the shortlisted women were invited.

Interesting thought, although hard to quantify without the original shortlist. Certainly many "seem" prominent and it seems like a plausible angle, psychology-wise.

I agree with this answer except that I think it is a bit strange to impute the insult to the OP rather than to the organizers.  Indeed, your link for "a bit insulting" talks about a male faculty member saying that his department "'went out of their way to accept more women' that year," which seems more analogous to the e-mail that prompted the OP's question than to anything that the OP said.

"Underrepresented"? 18% already seems overrepresented to me. We have a far lower ratio of women among students (which may differ between locations).

@Raphael certainly the gender balance varies by location and field (OP never said what field this is in)

Very true; my bad completely assuming this was about CS. Doh.

@Davor: if there were no sexism involved in the original imbalance, then it might well be the case that introducing gender quotas is "full blown sexism". However, if the imbalance is caused by prejudice or bias at some level then it's not "sexism" to attempt to flip the "free pass" that the 82% men have been getting all along. Whatever your feelings or mine on the question of whether society is perfectly non-sexist other than positive discrimination, I think it's always pretty clear that the people positively discriminating believe that it isn't and so their choice is not necessarily sexist.

@SteveJessop - Discrimination remains discrimination, no matter your motives. You might believe that it's OK to discriminate certain people just because some other groups were/are discriminated, but I don't and never will.

@Davor: Right, the act of removing a privilege from men (by transferring some of their free passes to women) is perceived by some as discrimination against men regardless of motive. Hence the otherwise-bizarre notion that anything less than 82% men would be sexist against men. In the view of the organizers, of course, that 82% figure already factors in a great deal of discrimination again women, and hence holding to it would be (in their view) discriminatory against women. I don't know whether the organizers are correct or not about their field, but it's relevant and explains their tone.

This sort of positive discrimination is fairly common, in a number of areas, not just academia. For example All-women shortlists and for a less severe but more academic example women only scholarships.
The ethics of positive discrimination is a complex issue. Personally I agree with you that I find it a bit distasteful, mainly as it encourages the incorrect stereotype of women being less valuable researchers. Although, in this particular case I suspect if it hadn't been explicitly pointed out no one would have noticed or cared.

My worry is that it creates resentment and backfires - some research seems to indicate it's a common reaction (although mostly involving race rather than gender).

What is "positive" discrimination? Anything that fits the zeitgeist?

@Raphael I think this sums it up quite nicely. It is a fairly objective thing where one group of people is favoured or given special opportunities due to discrimination (perceived or real) against them. It is not really affected by previewing views beyond what groups are viewed as being discriminated against.

Even though suggestions were solicited, that by no means binds the department to selecting only  women who were suggested—the organizers who choose the speakers are free to augment that list however they choose, or completely ignore it, if they feel the choices are inappropriate or inadequate.
The real question to ask is:

Are the speakers who were chosen qualified?

So long as the speakers merit inclusion in the seminar series, it shouldn't really matter what the gender balance is (particularly in the small sample size of a single year!).
The only way you could argue that women were getting a "free pass" to speak is if unqualified women were being given an opportunity to speak.

Why is this the real question to ask?  It seems like you are saying that there can be no objections to discrimination on the basis of sex (or any other attribute) so long as all the invited speakers are qualified.  Would you still say this if the organizers had bragged about selecting disproportionately many men?  I don't mean to say that situation would be analogous, only that this answer seems a bit simplistic.  It also seems misleading to talk of "small sample size" when the question clearly suggests that the discrepancy was deliberate on the part of the organizers.

The question was not if it is OK or if it should (or shouldn't) be considered a free pass, but [I]s this normal practice in academia, in the UK or elsewhere?.

I'd argue the better question is "Of the topics, expertise, and people available, which ones will provide the intended audience with the most value?" In some academic situations having a specific representation of women might be of value to the audience.  A lot depends on what you want the audience to gain from the experience.

About 10 years ago, I was on the organizing committee of a fairly large conference in the US. At one point, a society that was providing us with some funding told us that we didn't have enough women among the keynote speakers, and that we ought to go get some more. The society is a well-known one with a good reputation -- it's not ACM or IEEE, but some group like that. We told them to go pound sand. Several prominent members said they would resign from the organising committee if we had to follow this decree. The society eventually backed down, but not without a bit of a fight.
So, in this case we did not give preferential treatment to women, but we were certainly encouraged to do so.

NO, in all likelihood you were being encouraged to make sure you actively recruited the best female speakers and then gave all who applied equal treatment.

Well, I was there, and you weren't (as far as I know). We were told to get more women to make the numbers more balanced. BTW, people don't "apply" to be keynote speakers.

The only thing that matters is qualification based off of merit. Unfortunately, in school and infesting its way into corporate culture, it's more about filling quotas than worrying about who is most qualified or who deserves it the most.
"Free pass" may not be the correct term for all 31% of those women, but it's more than likely the case for at least some of them. The organizer is sexist, plain and simple. People can bat words around and pretend that any particular group of people "have it harder," but in the end, it's just sexism and discrimination. Who's to say whose upbringing was worse and why that entire group of people should have more rights than another group? You don't see any of those same groups of people complaining about the lack of males in nursing or the lack of females in hard manual labor jobs.
If you feel uneasy about it, that's good. It means you have a fair mind and don't like one group having preferential treatment over another.

It's nice to assume that society functions as a true meritocracy, but there is so much overwhelming evidence demonstrating that hidden biases play a huge role in virtually everything, from promotions to awards to opportunities to .

So it's okay to give some a preferential treatment because you think an entire group of people have it harder than others? You can make up any excuses you want, it's still sexism and discrimination.

There's sexism, and then there's "I will make a deliberate effort to overcome my own unconscious bias and invite some people who don't look just like me"

No, that's still sexism/racism/discrimination. It's assuming that every person who "looks like you" is "like you." They're not. It categorizes people.

Why is "qualification based off of merit" the "only thing that matters"?  More importantly, how do subjective statements of your own values help to answer the OP's question?  It's tempting to treat the site as a discussion board, especially when a provocative question comes along, but I think it's best to stay focused and stick to the question/answer model.

@TrevorWilson - I did answer it in my first sentence. Every answer here is subjective, especially the one marked as an answer. That's the normal course for a question that relies on subjective responses. As for your question, once you dip your feet into the nonsense world of "what group deserves more rights than others," there's only a varying degree of even more subjective thinking to get someone from taking the stance that some people deserve even less, or aren't really people. The intelligent and fair route to take is to be equal and be judged off of merit, not gender, race, etc.

@Jackson I don't think you're giving enough consideration to the possibility that the bias actually exists. A quick google search found this Science paper on the topic, I suggest you read it and consider your viewpoint.

No, I think I've considered the possibility, I'm just not sexist so I don't think any gender should have any advantage given to them because they may or may not have a vagina or a penis. I've read countless gender studies. Almost every one is subject to the bias of the conductor(s) or flawed study methods that link correlation to causation. Yale will be no different. They never take into account the natural desires of the individual. They start with a false premise and build illogically. If anything, factually, the system, even on a governmental level, is in favor of women and "minorities."

If qualification is the only thing that matters, then it seems that the percentage of qualified women was higher than the percentage of suggested women speakers, right? What's really wrong is that due to a missing penis presumably, fewer qualified women than qualified men were suggested. Since there is a discrepancy, what reason do we have to believe that the number of women invited was too high, and not that the number of women suggested was too low?

@gnasher729 Not sure what you're talking about. We don't "know" anything, except that allegedly 31% were women speakers even though only 18% were suggested, suggesting that they were picked more heavily off of the fact that they were women, not because they were [more] qualified, along with the follow-up email.

So it's okay to give some a preferential treatment because you think an entire group of people have it harder than others? — Yes. Exactly.

@JeffE That's fine. Your opinion is your opinion. Just don't deny being a sexist/racist and support discrimination on the basis of gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, etc.

When your darts consistently hit the right side of the board, even though you aim for the middle, you can insist that you're aiming for the bull's eye, or you can deliberately aim to the left.

Your personal goal is to aim for the middle, while others may be intentionally aiming for the right side. Why are you aiming for other people? Are women not capable of making their own choices?

@JeffE no one is actively discriminating against women, less women simply enter STEM on their own accord. Let's encourage equal opportunity, rather than equal outcome.

no one is actively discriminating against women — [citation needed]

@HugoZink Encouraging equal opportunity involves making sure that the opportunities also appear equal from the outside, as otherwise well-qualified and interested people will not even try to get in (why would they if it appears to be a hostile place to be?). And part of this is to make sure that female speakers make up a decent fraction of a conference.

@JeffE where's your citation that they are being discriminated against here?

@TobiasKildetoft that's still attempting to force equal outcome. That doesn't work and is sexist.


text:
Is it the number or quality of internships that is more important for Graduate School admission into Computer Science?
I'm an undergraduate in Computer Science who's has just completed his 2nd year. However I could not get an internship for the summer leaving me extremely tense about the future since there would be only one summer left (i.e., the summer of 2015 since I graduate in 2016).
I intend to apply to graduate schools in North America and Europe after my UG. However since I will have only one internship under my belt (assuming I bag one in summer 2015) will it put a damper on my prospects? Or is it the place of and quality of work done in my internship (coupled with good recommendation letters—which I doubt I will get) that would be far better than the number of internships under my belt?
I'm in the process of building a portfolio of real-life projects to demonstrate my skills and capabilities. I am also contributing code to open-source organisations in the next two months à la Google Summer of Code (however without the formal recognition) on a totally voluntary basis. Will that help in overcoming lack of an internship between my second and third year? What else can I do that can help me build a better application for graduate school?

What kind of graduate school are you applying to - MS or PhD?

@ff524 So far my research suggests a mix bag of graduate schools i.e. both MS and PhD. However a PhD schools are more in number than MS.

A terminal masters (e.g., MSCS) and a PhD in computer science are two very different degrees with very different profiles of admitted students and with very different post-graduation paths. You should decide what you want to get out of graduate school and then look for schools that can provide that.

The short answer is a lack of internships is not a problem.
The long answer has two cases:

MSCS programs in the United States are profit makers for
universities.  It is much easier to get into an MSCS program at a
top university than the PhD program at the same university.
Research experience is a plus, but I don't think industry experience
matters.  Grades and recommendations from professors are most
important.
CS PhD programs in the United States almost exclusively admit
students that they are willing to fund, so they are much harder to
get into.  In addition to strong grades and letters of
recommendation, schools want to see that you are capable of working
independently at research.  The best way to do this, as Leon palafox
answered, is to have research experience, including a thesis and/or
publications.  Next best is to have completed projects not required
for any class.  That shows you are capable of doing a project
without its being broken down into lots of steps with intermediate
deadlines.  I'd say Summer of Code-like experience is at least as
valuable as an industry internship.  It shows passion and the
ability to work independently.  Incorporate that into your essay,
and get a letter of recommendation from someone on the project (or
from a professor at your institute if one is nominally supervising
your work for internship or independent study credit).

I am not knowledgeable about admission into programs outside of the United States.

If you are applying to a PhD, that portfolio of real life projects might not matter much.
In Graduate programs, they are very interested in proof that the student is capable of pursuing research, which is usually proven via a BS Thesis or a couple of Publications. Here in the US, many take a year off to work in some lab to get both a letter of recommendation and at least a publication in some conference.
I'm evaluating having a Grad student right now, and I would certainly would be more interested in him/her having proof that they know what grad school is all about rather than showing that they are good programmers.


text:
How to weigh these pros and cons of applying to PhD programs?
I know people have posted LOTS of questions about whether they should apply to PhD programs, but I haven't seen some of the issues I'm currently facing addressed.
I'm currently a master's student in computer science at a top 15 university and am faced with the current pros and cons:
Pros

I strongly prefer research to software engineering. Apparently this is the only valid reason to get a CS PhD (other than wanting to become a professor, which I don't), and this reason is certainly true for me. I've worked on 3 research projects, all of which I have found vastly more interesting than the software engineering internships I've had. I'm especially excited about finding solutions to unstructured problems, which apparently is the core of doing research.

Cons

According to what I've read, it's likely that even if I get a PhD, I'll end up in software engineering anyway. That's a lot of time and energy spent on something that will end up having little effect on my career. Ideally, I'd like to get an industry research position somewhere like Google, but from what I can tell, only a select number of superstars get those types of positions. I spent my 20s chasing a similarly uber-competitve pipe-dream, and I'd rather not waste my time on another one.
I'm 34 years old. This fact has two repercussions:

Continuing to get paid very little for 5-7 more years seems flat-out irresponsible at this stage of my life. I wiped out my savings and took on loads of debt to quit my job and go back to school. I'm afraid that if I don't to make as much money as possible as soon as possible, I'll end up having to resort to eating cat food when I retire.
If and when I do graduate with a PhD, and if I'm unable to secure a research position and go the programming route, I'll be a new entrant to an industry that is notoriously ageist in my 40s rather than my 30s.

PhD programs are, infamously, very stressful, and I'm not sure I want to put myself through that. I've had chronic depression for my entire adult life (albeit managed and medicated), and I honestly wonder if I could handle the anxiety that PhD programs apparently bring. The PhD application process alone seems enormously intimidating and demoralizing to me.
I frankly just don't think I'm a competitive candidate. My grades are excellent, but I'm not currently at even a top-10 school and I have no publications or good connections to professors at other schools. I also just had a sort of falling out with my current advisor, who's famous in his field, and I'm probably not going to get an LOR from him. I've heard that publications don't really matter in PhD admissions, but I'm looking to apply to top-five schools, where, based on bios I've read and students I've met, they do matter.

Given all these considerations, does it seem obvious that I shouldn't apply to PhD programs? Research seems very alluring and fulfilling to me, but these various drawbacks make it seem like it may not be worth it.

Believe it or not, you are facing very common issues. I think it comes down to what your life goals are, keeping in mind that 34 is by no means old, and also keeping in mind that by your statement, the end result is the same (you will 'end up in software engineering anyway').
If the end result is the same, its just a question of whether you want to have that experience and ultimate reward of holding the highest degree offered. Yes, you might lose 6 years of industry-level salary, but given that the salary trajectory of PhDs is somewhat steeper (on average) than Masters, your lifetime earning potential might still be higher with PhD. So don't think about your age (too much).
Also keep in mind that the experience of getting a PhD trains you in "finding solutions to unstructured problems" as you state, making you a very desirable candidate.
Your point on the stress of working on a PhD, plus some depression, is worth some reflection.  Its not easy, and its going to poke at your weak points.  But you'll also find that depression in PhD students is almost epidemic, so you would not be alone in that. From someone who also struggled with that, I found the process made it worse at times, but ultimately better. I had to learn coping strategies.
Finally, on being a good candidate, publications certainly DO help in PhD applications (it demonstrates you understand the job). If you are not the strongest candidate, don't expect to be considered by top-5 schools. But also know that in industry, those affiliations matter far less than you think.
I generally advocate for 'going for it', but really its just a matter of what life experiences matter to you.  At 34, an extra 5 or so years really isn't that much, but if having a PhD isn't that big a deal for you, jumping straight into industry may make sense.

Having a PhD is only a big deal for me in the sense that it may open doors in industrial research. However, it will be effectively worthless if it doesn't. I wouldn't get some weird pride out of having it. As you identify, the choice then comes down to whether I'd simply enjoy spending 5 years doing research instead of software engineering. In that case, the choice is obvious. My biggest fear is being bored at work the rest of my life, and it seems that, for all its drawbacks, being a PhD student will at the very least not be boring.


text:
Is it possible to recover after completely botching my best chances to get a PhD?
I'm currently a master's student in computer science, thinking about applying to PhD programs. As I detailed in this post, I had the audacity to ask my advisor why he hadn't let me work on projects that he allowed other students with equivalent qualifications to work on and instead had me working on a project that, according to one of his co-authors, was not publishable (it was more of an industry thing and they were just going to stick it on the internet somewhere). In response, he fired me from my gave someone else the TA position he had said I would have and now isn't even responding to my emails. (And he refused to answer any of the questions I'd asked him, btw.)
Is it even possible to salvage my chances of getting into a top PhD program after this? He's a famous professor and very well regarded in his field. A letter of recommendation from him would have been CRITICAL in my applications to PhD programs. Now, I not only don't have a publication to my name, but have NOTHING to show for a project I worked three months on. I know that conflicts between advisors and students are typical, but do they typically result in a totally burned bridge without even a LOR? Presumably, my potential bridges with everyone he knows (several professors in other schools) are also burned for me as well!
I suppose I can try to find someone else in the department to do research with, but

this setback has delayed my application by at least a year, and
the only professor in my area who seems nice enough to work with is a very junior professor, and my understanding is that a LOR from a well-known professor is critical. (I've met all the other professors in my school in my chosen specialty and they all come off as complete assholes.)

I am left with a few questions:

Did I just completely blow my chances? If not, how can I possibly get on my feet to be a competitive PhD applicant by next year?
How is it possible to find a nice, supportive advisor?? I had done my due diligence: I talked to several of my advisor's students, and they had nothing but good things to say about him. I'm not sure what other sources I could possibly find. A friend of mine did the same with a different advisor, only for his true colors to come out after several months of working with him as well. Is it really just a roll of the dice, where even if I get into a PhD program, odds are the advisor is going to turn out to be an asshole?
In the future, am I just supposed to keep my mouth shut even if I have reservations about the project I'm working on?

UPDATE: This experience (and a couple others) soured me on academia completely and I ended up going into industry instead. So far so good.

You were a Masters student, so having an industry project to show instead of a paper is not a bad thing. Your depiction of the case, unfortunately, sends off a message of entitlement. Your enemy in the present case, as described in your question is not your former advisor. If there were other things not discussed, my opinion may yet shift.

@CaptainEmacs Sorry, in the interest of keeping this post short, I wasn't fully clear on what happened: the co-author said this during a meeting with the advisor; he wasn't "inveigling" me against him. Secondly, I actually didn't bring up his comment during my discussion with my advisor; I just said that since I was looking to apply to PhD programs, I was hoping to get on a project where I could contribute something novel rather than simply coding up what they had already come up with. And I was confused and hurt that people with my same background were given that opportunity and I wasn't.

@CaptainEmacs I am in no way insinuating that I don't think I was in the wrong here. Although I think never talking to me again is an overreaction, the very title of my post refers to my having completely botched this.

Ok, point taken. It's not easy to get out of such a situation. You can see if you can find some friendly prof somewhere in the faculty - or tone down your expectations about the ranking of the school. There are some less known places with good and interesting research.

a LOR from a well-known professor is critical. — "Well-known" and "junior" are not opposites!  In particular, most junior faculty in strong departments are well known, and most senior faculty in weak departments are not.

@CaptainEmacs sends off a message of entitlement — I couldn't disagree more strongly.  OP is entitled to ask his advisor why he wasn't given more interesting work.  Moreover, OP is entitled to an honest and well-considered answer.  I find your suggestion that OP is somehow responsible for his advisor's tantrum offensive.

@JeffE Thank you so much; both of your comments make me feel so much more hopeful and less like I need to whip myself over this.

@JeffE I had a bit of a conversation with the OP about that (it is still around). He convinced me that this was not intended this way (see my later response). To me, the original formulation of the question, without the context of prior developments, was ambiguous. Please note that I had qualified my statement on (then) possibly lacking information.

@JeffE: I mostly agree with your post, but note that a partial cause that contributed to the advisor's tantrum may have been the OP's previous own "tantrum" ("I was confused and hurt that people with my same background were given that opportunity and I wasn't." - the way I read this, at least, they actually said it like that).

@O.R.Mapper No, I didn't say that. I simply asked why I couldn't do a project like those other ones. I mentioned in that comment that I felt hurt in response to the accusation that I felt entitled. But I won't hide the fact that I subsequently did have something of a tantrum: I noticeably went out of my way to avoid him in the following days and privately expressed my frustration to one of his students (a friend of mine). If that's sufficient grounds for being permanently blacklisted, then so be it, but it still seems like a gross overreaction to me.

@user124384: "And I was confused and hurt that people with my same background were given that opportunity and I wasn't." and "I felt hurt in response to the accusation that I felt entitled" look like two quite different statements to me (both from your comments), but it's good to know you didn't literally say you felt hurt, thereby possibly exerting some pressure and exhibiting possibly unrealistic expectations (that the professor can summon projects at will to make everyone happy). Without such an implication, I fully agree with JeffE in that the professor is overreacting.

@O.R.Mapper No. Sorry, I'm still not making myself clear. One of the commenters accused me of feeling entitled. However, I claim that I did not feel entitled; I felt confused and hurt by the fact that I wasn't given a different project. If there was a valid reason that those other people were given those other projects, or even if it was arbitrary, then fine. I just wanted an explanation since it seemed rather unfair from my perspective.

@user124384 - Have you spoken with a department administrator?

@aparente001 I have an appointment with one in two weeks. I might try to find someone with better availability.

(1) If you're in computer science, then even failing to get into a PhD program immediately after finishing your master's degree is not an insurmountable road block. There are even industry projects you can work on to improve your application.
(2) Yes, it is ultimately a roll of the dice. Some advisors are, in fact, just assholes who will ruin your career, and there's no amount of due diligence that will completely remove the chance of finding one. It's horribly unfair that a choice that will determine your career and entire life will depend on making a random die roll, but there's really nothing you can do about it; you have little power as a prospective grad student. (And don't expect much understanding or sympathy here; this board is mostly composed of people who have made that roll, and don't realize the amount of luck involved or that there was a die roll in the first place. The same remark applies to a wide variety of such die rolls in life.)
(3) Few people will say so explicitly, but yes. You have little power in the advsior/student relationship; and as a student (and not even one of his PhD students), you're probably beneath his notice. It is also massively unfair, but see point (2).

Then I'm not interested in getting a PhD. If I have to kiss someone's ass, I'd rather be paid 6 figures while doing so.

Well, the upside is that if it does work out, it's the perfect job: You get to work on legitimately challenging, original research (which is impossible outside academia in some fields, such as mathematics), have the time and support to do so, and get to pursue your own goals and research interest. The downside is that getting there comes down to a matter of luck (although I'm sure most people here would insist that you can avoid the dice through sheer force of will--- and if it doesn't work out, then you must not be talented enough or want it enough).

+100 for "don't expect much sympathy or understanding here"...so true!!

While I generally agree with this answer (and upvoted it), this community is also filled with people who have seen their fair share of unreasonable students, so I think many of the senior members here take a somewhat balanced view on a situation that they only know one side of. (and, philosophically speaking, Stack Exchange is not and is not trying to be a place to get comfort, it's a place to get actionable recommendations)

That said, I agree and have always agreed that we, as a group, often forget about survivor bias.

@xLeitix: Definitely agree that stackexchangeable isn't and shouldn't be a place to look for sympathy from, but I am annoyed by the preponderance of answers (on other questions) that boil down to, "Well, things will magically work out if you're talented enough and try hard enough; and if they don't, then you must not have been good enough or wanted it enough." It's like a board full of lottery winners telling people that they just need to keep buying more lottery tickets.

It looks that your relations with this professor are coming to an end, and you can't rely on his future support. That's a shame; however, there's still a plenty of fish in a water, and hopefully enough time to get some.

Why don't you focus on establishing some contacts with another professor or lecturer in your university? Maybe someone slightly less senior and/or less famous, but still sufficiently established so that their LOR would matter? You probably attend classes of other professors, perhaps doing some sort of projects with some of them? Could it be expanded into a collaboration resulting in a publication or a research report?
Are there other TA/RA positions advertised? Or maybe someone is seeking an hourly-payed students to collect some data for their experiment? A professor is running a Math Society or a club?

You probably did your homework studying this professor really well, but sometimes the relations simply does not work out. Maybe he is not a very good person; maybe you could've been a little bit more delicate (or cautious) with the language you chose to make your inquires. Maybe you should've waited until the contract is signed before hinting your unhappiness with the arrangements. It is impossible to say at the moment; and there are more urgent matters pressing. The understanding will eventually come.

Many people adopt the strategy of "keeping your mouth shut" and are successful in academia. Many did not, and they are successful, too. Academia is diverse, and in parts it is still a place where academics are allowed to be weird and insubordinate as long as they deliver outstanding research and excellent teaching. But the flip side is of course that sometimes someone else is behaving inappropriately led by his/her ego, or a sense of entitlement, or simply as a result of heavy sleep deprivation, and you occasionally become a collateral damage. It is important to remember that we all are people and try to treat others in the same way you would like to be treated yourself.

If you are a student in the US, consider reaching out to your institution's ombuds services. They are usually an informal and neutral third party that can arbitrate disputes such as this. Although I can't elaborate on the terms of your termination (what does your contract say, are you at will?), knowing of this avenue of resolution may serve you well.

"Fired" was a quick, dramatic way of describing it. The full story is that I hadn't signed my contract yet. He had told me that he'd chosen me to TA for him, and then after our discussion occurred, I discovered that he had given the position to someone else without telling me. Regardless, though, talking to an ombudsman is a great idea, thanks.

Fired =/= not hired. Since you never signed the contract, I presume he never signed, and HR never signed, I can reasonably presume that you were never an employee (TA) in any capacity.

Your presumption is incorrect.

Being promised a job =/= does not mean you will actually get it. The employment contract is not valid unless all parties pertaining to it sign in agreement.

I never said anything about what my assumptions were. I simply reported what happened.

Some profs lord their power over their students as they have the student future in their hands. This gives them a sense of God"ish" power and when its questioned, some profs act out. The result can be something like this. Even asking fair questions of them, can drive them in to a passive/aggressive rage. They may not raise their voice, but you'll know you've stepped in it when they don't reply to your emails and won't respond about your thesis.
Sadly, the best course of action may be to simply play the game and go throw yourself on the mercy of Mr. God and appeal to his vanity/ego. With such folks, that is usually their softest spot. :)
Todd

Thanks, this echoes what a professor friend of mine had to say about the incident. I'm unable to appeal to his ego, however, if he won't respond to my emails. I already sent an apology, with no answer. I've thought about going to his office, but that seems like a bad idea under the circumstances.


text:
Including travel grants on CV
In the UK, a number of scientific associations like the Royal Society of Biology or the Institute of Physics offer competitive travel grants to PhD students and early-career researchers. They are typically small in value, around £500. Nevertheless, it is funding that I have independently obtained, and I would like to include such travel grants on my CV for postdoc applications.
What is a good way to include such funding on a CV? I'm not sure if putting them under "grants" is the best approach because that's usually for research funding. Also, should I list all such small awards separately or, if I have several of them, just state that I obtained a number of travel grants totalling £XXX from organisations YYY and ZZZ?

At this point in your career, I would include them, especially if you have nothing else. They show you've done some successful grants.

Is it a competitive process? Or pro forma?

@AzorAhai-him- They are competitive grants indeed, which is one of the reasons why I think it's worth to highlight the funding in some way at least.

I had a similar thing. If you can find the award rate, and it's low, you can add that

I suggest placing travel funding under the "Awards" heading, because they are funding for your travel expenses and not your research.  Funding for research I would call "Grants."
However, there are many reasonable ways to do it.  People are not much interested in small amounts of travel funding.


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Manuscript acknowledgement for students who helped with lab maintenance
I am working on a manuscript for research I performed in graduate school - the first manuscript from my research has been accepted for publication, so I am getting things started for the second one. Anyways, I am thinking about how best or whether to acknowledge other students in the laboratory who were involved in background maintenance work for the project. I have already acknowledged individuals who contributed working space/instrumentation and performed tests that were directly impactful on producing the manuscript. The background work includes items such as washing/drying glassware, being the student who received and started maintenance of microbial cultures that were shipped to us, was involved in discussions with myself and our advisor about the culture medium, etc. One of the students had a similar but different project that required us to use the same type of culture medium, but I prepared all of my own and adapted the process (not the final chemical concentrations) to my needs. It's been a couple of years, and I vaguely recall that somebody may or may not have assisted with sampling one time for the experience. Any advice on how to address these minor/negligible contributions?

Personally, I would be generous with the acknowledgments.
Adding somebody there costs nothing and generates goodwill.
But, check with your advisor.
Part of your advisors job is to mentor you on being a scientists, including cultural norms such as writing acknowledgments.
Perhaps they have their own standards.

Agreed. Generosity costs nothing in such a situation. Look at the co-author list of many publications that come out of CERN, for example, though I'm not suggesting co-authorship here. But some things can't happen without such assistance.


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What to expect from a postdoc interview for a field rather different from mine?
I'm currently applying for postdoctoral positions in Mathematics in a field rather different from mine (computational complexity/algebraic combinatorics). It's a broad question, which I am sure some have asked before, but what questions should I expect, given that I am likely to have different expertise from them? I'm not sure what to show... apart from enthusiasm.
I know this is a vague question, but I'll accept any educated advice from the community.

Just out of curiosity, what is your current field?

Also, what is your reason for applying for a different field?

@JW says in the question: computational complexity and algebraic combinatorics. By different field I meant 'slightly different' (spectral theory/quantum walks). It's differnet as in it is somehow related but not quite my area of expertise.

Thanks for clarifying. I read it as the different field being computational complexity and algebraic combinatorics.

I would recommend being prepared, to the extent possible, to give a clear explanation of your own work on demand. What did you do, and why is it interesting? Do you remember how the proofs go? When you cite others' work, do you remember how the proofs in their work go?
Keep in mind that they might show the most interest in parts of your work that seemed peripheral to you.
If you have a friend willing to help you (someone in your graduate program, perhaps), I'd recommend asking them to look at your research statement and then ask questions (in person or over Zoom, etc.) about anything that they find interesting or don't understand. Don't try to steer the conversation; rather, insofar as you can, allow them to.
Good luck.

It's very much like a job interview, as in that in can vary widely depending on the situation! The important thing is that you know what you want out of this, believe in that goal and let others know this.
You did your PhD in your dedicated field so you're an expert in that. Don't try to convince other people that you know what they know. Your fellow colleagues want to see that you're passionate and that you like what you do. Prepare what you can and convince yourself how you can excel in this new field by using your background.

What they will want to know, even if they don't make it explicit, is how your work and interests will complement theirs. In a truly good place they will also want to know how their work can help yours.
Along with this is the question of how flexible you might be and how open to collaborative work.
If there is someone at this place that you actually want to work with you might have an opportunity to mention that.
But the questions actually asked might be along the lines of "why do you want to come here?". Also there will likely be questions about your long term goals.


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Should I leave out research in my NSF fellowship application if I'm not getting an LOR from the professor I worked with?
I'm pretty sure that my former advisor lied to me, manipulated me, and thinks I'm an idiot, so understandably I don't think it's a good idea to ask him for a letter of recommendation for the NSF graduate fellowship. However, my most recent academic research experience was with him, during the Spring quarter, and it's probably the most impressive research I've done, especially since he's a well known professor. I do have other research experience to talk about, but it's not quite at the same level.
But if I write about that project in my application, I imagine the committee is going to wonder why I don't have a letter of recommendation from that professor. Should I strive to minimize that research or even leave it out completely? Or is the benefit of talking about that research experience greater than the risk of being judged for not having a letter from him?
EDIT: This is why I think my advisor lied to me, manipulated me, and thinks I'm an idiot:
1) He said I couldn't work on a certain type of research project I wanted to work on because I hadn't taken a particular class. He then let two other students (undergraduates) who had not taken that class work on that type of project. One of those projects led to a publication.
2) I asked him why he let those other students work on those projects and he said it was because, while they were working on the projects, they learned stuff from that class on their own. I asked why I couldn't have also learned that stuff on my own, and he just said, "ehhhh" and refused to answer any further. [Response to comment below: those students, former classmates of mine, had not learned the material from that class on their own prior to being assigned the projects.]
3) There was only one project he said I was capable of working on. I asked if he thought it was publishable, and he said yes. I worked on it for months, and then met one of his collaborators, who said that it was not in fact publishable, but reassured me that they would post it on the internet somewhere. [Response to comment below: The collaborator didn't say this because something in the project was revealed to be less promising than they originally hoped. He said this because he viewed the piece I was working on as a small addendum to the larger project, which had already been published.]
UPDATE: In case anyone is curious, it turned out that my advisor did in fact lie to me and think I was an idiot. He did not, however, manipulate me -- that part was due to a misunderstanding.

Can you explain why you think that your former advisor lied to and manipulated you, and why he may think you are an idiot? Did you talk with him about recommendation letters?

@Mark Sure. Added to the original post.

@Mark He's written me an LOR before, but I haven't discussed it with him since our falling out.

Well, I think it's fair to say you don't want a letter from that guy because he doesn't seem to have a lot of respect for you. Is there someone else who can authoritatively speak to that research?

Based on your edit, I would not conclude that he lied and manipulated you, and thinks you are an idiot. #1 sounds reasonable to be honest - a student may really not be able to learn the content of a course and work on a project in a quarter - the other students may have learned it before starting their projects. #3 is quite a normal thing in science, first one thinks something is going to work and have an impact, then one realizes that things weren't so great after all. Have you seen the LOR he wrote for you, or did you get some details about it?

@ElizabethHenning Yeah, and what's really bizarre is that he asked me to TA for him, which doesn't make any sense if he respects me so little. (I've since been fired, after questioning him about all this.) I really wish I knew what I did to make him think so ill of me, but that's a different topic. He has two co-authors on the project, but I didn't work with them at all and have only met them once. They're at totally different schools.

@Mark #1 They had not learned that stuff prior to those projects. I know that because I was in the same related course that they were in the preceding quarter. #3 Nothing in the project changed enough to merit a difference in impact or importance. It's not like the collaborator said something changed; he just stated that what I'm doing is more like a small supplement to the real meat of the research (even though it would take like a year of work).

@Mark No, he didn't show me the LOR he wrote for me several months ago, but now that he's apparently fired me from my TA position, I imagine an LOR he'd write for me now would be quite different.

Based on your edit, I would not conclude that he lied and manipulated you, and thinks you are an idiot — I would.

@JeffE What's astonishing to me is that his basis for thinking I'm an idiot is the fact that I didn't get a near-perfect score in his class, though I did get a solid A.

As someone who has reviewed applications for the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship program, it would definitely be weird to see someone talk extensively about a research project and then not have the advisor write a supporting letter. It would certainly raise questions among the panelists assigned to review the application, especially if no other explanation were provided.
Normally I would not make such a suggestion, but this might be an instance where you should list the experience (if you can), but not talk about it so effusively or in great depth.

Include it, but only as one piece of a larger research narrative.
As someone who has reviewed applications for the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship program, I think omitting research experience from your application is self-sabotage.  You need to sell your research potential in the strongest possible light, and nothing sells research potential better than actual research experience.  I would find the lack of a supporting letter from your former supervisor suspicious only if the letters you did submit were weak.
That said, even with a supportive letter from your supervisor, you wouldn't want to make this project the centerpiece of your application, because you already have feedback suggesting that it won't lead to publishable results.


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How to obtain the h-index or number of publications for a given academic as a function of time?
Services like Google Scholar can provide you with the h-index of a given author at present. Is there a way or a service that provides a time series of the h-index (or the number of publications) as a function of time, or even provides a plot of this time series?

Are you interested specifically in the Google Scholar citation data, or would a visualization of the h-index as measured by, for instance, Scopus also do?

Scopus also works, it can be any service. I am aware that different sites provide different measures of h-index that are not consistent between themselves. Any would suffice to get the general gist of h-index evolution.

Scopus has an author search option. You can then examine a range of graphs that show academic output over time. Many universities have a subscription to Scopus.
As with any citation and  publication based metrics, the values are contingent on the citations and publications included in the underlying database. Scopus is fairly broad, but there is quite a lot of quality control. So the numbers will be quite a bit smaller than for example Google Scholar. Another option might be PublishOrPerish which is a downloadable free program which uses Google Scholar as the underlying data source.
Below I show an example for Albert Bandura (one of the most highly cited psychology researchers) using Scopus.
Citations per year

Documents by year

h-index by year
I could not see any easy way to just get the h-index by year. However, the h-index tab, does allow you to filter on different years. So you could manually, change the end year and repeatedly obtain the h-index to see how it went up each year.

My repository allows you to do exactly this. You can input the name of an author and the program will output a graph of citations and h-index over time, based on Scopus data.
Here's an example graph generated by my tool. You can choose between historical and document-based analysis (if future citations count immediately) depending on what you're looking for.

I am not actively aware of any tool that does this, although I vaguely remember seeing such timelines for various bibliometrics tools. However, if you are able and willing to do a little bit of coding, it should be reasonably easy to code this up yourself.
For instance, SCOPUS has an API that you can use to get all citation data for an author. From there, you should be able to can just browse the publications that cited this year to year backwards, remove all publications whose publication date is after the date you are currently looking at, and recompute the h-index. A Python script to this end should be quite easy to set up.


text:
What algorithm does Google Scholar use to order papers in a search?
When you perform a search on Google Scholar, is there any detailed explanation of how Google orders the results?

Please explain what you mean by "Google uses to rank its papers". You mean those papers authored by Google? Or papers found by Google?

I've edited to capture the implied question, which I think is now both clear and interesting.

I believe it uses this

"Google Scholar aims to rank documents the way researchers do,
  weighing the full text of each document, where it was published, who
  it was written by, as well as how often and how recently it has been
  cited in other scholarly literature." About google scholar

For more detailed answer,

"Google Scholar also strengthens the Matthew Effect: articles with
  many citations will be more likely to be displayed in a top position,
  get more readers and receive more citations, which then consolidate
  their lead over articles that are cited less often." Google Scholar‘s
  Ranking Algorithm: An Introductory Overview