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Academic Writing other than Publication for Grad School Admission
I've graduated from a Chemical Engineering department and I am planning to apply for a Master's degree. I wasn't involved in research that produced a publication when I was an undergrad. Is there any other option for academic writing that I can use to strengthen my application?

When you apply to a Ph.D. or research-based Master's degree program, we often look to see how much prior experience you have with the academic research process. This includes successfully working on research alongside a faculty advisor, and when possible producing the oral conference presentations and co-authoring the scholarship (publications) that document the findings.
When faculty evaluate graduate school applicants, we are excited when we see someone who already has experience with the research process that is fundamental to graduate school and when our peers (applicant's former advisors) can recommend her based on her performance. Producing publications is an incredibly important part of the research process, so it is obviously best when someone has seen work through to that finish line. We also understand that this sometimes just doesn't happen for undergraduate researchers for a variety of reasons.
While it is also helpful for us to simply see examples of your writing, this is not really why we value the publications of an applicant. Don't be too worried if you have not yet worked on research leading to publications; you still may be considered a high-potential applicant. Be sure to impress with clear and cogent writing in your Statement of Purpose, on your resume, on your linked webpage/blog, etc. Good luck!

Absolutely. Peer-reviewed publications are the most valuable, but other writing can show your abilities and interests. For unpublished academic work, I recommend posting it at a pre-print server. In Chemical Engineering, this looks like a good one to reach your audience: https://engrxiv.org/ . It's becoming more popular lately: https://cen.acs.org/acs-news/publishing/Chemistry-preprints-pick-steam/97/i3
You can also write about the field, or science, or science and society. The best pieces go to leading outlets like Scientific American, The Conversation, or as an opinion-editorial to major newspapers. That's hard to do, so you can also target smaller services. At the easier level, you can publish yourself, for example at Medium.com, Twitter.com, or Reddit.com. However, you're unlikely to get as many readers as using an existing news service.

Thanks, I'm thinking about writing some literature review and post it and give a link to download on medium


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People who have run an online conference, how much does it cost?
I am looking at moving a small online conference for around 200 ppl digital, and quotes from suppliers are all over the place. I'm sure this is because no one knows what good looks like or costs....  So, if you have run one, what are your recommendations for estimating cost?
Clarifications:

A satellite solution is not necessary, though I imagine some participants may lack the internet connections to participate effectively. It might be necessary to send hotspots to such individuals.

Will there be deaf or blind people at the conference?

All four I know of have cost zero.  However, they have piggybacked off university licenses that the host institution already purchased for teaching classes and some small amount of university IT support, and various organizers may also have chipped in small amounts of personal funds for small items.

I've seen several conferences go this route recently, and both costs and the fees charged have varied wildly, but for good reasons.
The key components driving cost are, in decreasing order:

Salaried staff (especially if the conference is a major support for a society or similar organization): tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars
Publication fees (e.g., for archival proceedings of an IEEE conference): thousands of dollars
Organizational costs (e.g., servers, corporate fees): thousands of dollars
Teleconferencing software: hundreds of dollars

The conference fees thus shift accordingly.  The models that I have seen so far are:

The large conference supported by full-time employees didn't change its fees much at all.
The mid-sized conference associated with IEEE charged authors about half the normal price (since their papers were the dominant remaining cost), and everybody else a pittance.
The mid-sized independent conference charged PI and industry attendants a couple hundred dollars to cover their fixed costs, while students were free.
The small interest group meeting made everything free.

If (as it sounds) you are running a conference for just a few hundred people using all volunteer labor and don't have fixed costs, then something like a monthly Zoom (or equivalent) webinar subscription would likely be sufficient to manage all the online aspects (assuming you let connectivity be the problem of the attendees).  That will cost only a few hundred dollars, and you can likely cover it with a low registration fee --- or maybe even just use an institutional account from one of the organizers.

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How to proceed when graduate advisor treats me terribly, possibly because of age?
I am an older graduate student who went back to school after getting laid off.
Going back to school wasn't easy and I had to take some classes to prepare myself for graduate work.
I had one professor who later became my graduate advisor and demonstrated a very harsh attitude toward me. For example, one class he taught was advanced statistical analysis which he did not use a book but used his own notes. I checked out a few books at the library to help with the subject. However, during a visit during his office hours I mentioned that I was using a book as well as his notes and he literally blew up at me. This wasn't the first nor the last time this happened. During one of the classes, he basically yelled at me and told me I was wrong when I answered one of his questions. But oddly, this seemed to back fire on him because another student rose his hand and asked why I was wrong? The professor then back-peddled immediately and stated that I was technically not wrong but would not explain further why I was wrong. As well, I have noticed that it seems that my grades are always marked down despite being equal work or better work than fellow students: I have compared solutions, quizzes, and exams numerous times. As well, to make things even harder during the second class I took with him, he called my cell phone at 10 PM on a Saturday and asked me, “What issues I had with him?” I felt this was completely unorthodox and weird. I replied I had none and even asked was there something in particular that I did to merit him calling me; he replied "no."
I know this sounds weird but I really think he is biased against anyone who is over 35 year old. I have had one other older graduate student tell me that he treated him in a similar fashion.
I currently have completed all required classes and electives but I need to finish my project to graduate. However, he is my project adviser. After much asking, he basically gave me the project late and I didn't finish on time. I am now into another semester. I now believe this is his weird attempt to play some final games with me in an effort to block me from graduating.
I have become so frustrated that I want to leave the university. It is hard to deal with him and he is very nasty at times.
I had a class with an associate professor who ended up leaving the university for full-time faculty position elsewhere. She never came out and said that this program wasn't good but she hinted that there are some better programs out there. I began to look around and actually found several that are about 35 minutes away that offer similar programs and may actually allow me to transfer with some credit.
I need to get a better job and that MS on my resume would open a lot of doors.
So I have several choices, I can either continue to try to work with a hostile university adviser or leave for another university. But if I transfer I will end up staying at the crummy job for about another 1.5 years. I would like to hear any suggestions.
Update October 2019
Not to drudge up the past but the short of it is, I graduated and the university awarded my MS degree.
That professor whom I had issues with or had issues with me, ended up leaving the university. What I ended up doing was taking some of the advice that JeffE posted. I contacted the former professor I had a good report with, and asked for a reference. She basically asked me why I would want to leave the program when I had basically finished, and I explained to her what had happened. Apparently, she is still on good terms with the department chair and actually called him on my behalf. I then contacted him per her advice and he assigned me a new adviser; within about three/four months of that, I had my final work submitted, presented the results to the graduate board, and it was approved. I graduated following semester.

Get away now. Get away fast.

Please edit title to be specific about the core issue of your Question. The current title is too general to be of use.

I'm not sure it is relevant to the question, but it could be: Is the professor actually younger than you?

Najib, I was given no choice. He is a junior professor in the department. As it came time close to graduate, I talked to him on several occasions what was required of me and he attempted several time to side step the issue. However, he finally did it begrudgingly. I understand that I should have reported him but I didn't. I am now figuring out where to go from here.

Pipe, yes. This professor is several years younger than me. I am in my late 30's and he is in his early 30's.

use @username to notify people when you reply to them.  You get pinged when people reply under your post, but @NajibIdrissi wouldn't get a reply notification (except from this comment.  Najib: see John's reply earlier.)

Thank you for the update. Congratulations!

Don't walk. Run.
Your advisor's behavior is unfair, disrespectful, abusive, and deeply unprofessional.  Their behavior reflects horribly on the department, and since it's unlikely that you are the only victim, may undermine the value of your degree.
The moment the professor blew up at you for using another textbook, it would have been appropriate for you to walk out of his office/classroom without another word, drop the class, report his behavior  (both in writing and in person) to the department head, and find (and/or demand) a new thesis advisor.  Even now, I would recommend all of those responses.
If the department has your back, break all contact with your old advisor, finish the degree, and get out.  Block his phone number (but save his voice mails).  Reroute his emails to a separate folder (but don't delete them).  If he shows up at your office, ask him to leave; if he refuses, leave yourself; if he follows you, walk to the department chair's office.  In any case, document everything.
If the the department is unwilling or unable to help you separate from your abusive advisor and finish your degree, then the department is being abusive and unprofessional.  Again, since you are unlikely to be the only victim of this abuse, it will get out, and it will undermine the value of your degree.  Then your best choice is to leave the degree program, apply elsewhere, and try to transfer as much credit and research progress as possible.
I recommend contacting the associate professor who left to act as a potential reference, and for more general advice about how to proceed.  She knows the local political landscape far better than any random stranger on the internet.
Your age and educational background is not relevant here.  Your advisor's behavior is completely unacceptable, and you should not have to put up with it for even a second longer.  Get. Out. Now.

I was tempted to write your first sentence as my comment, but I thought I would leave the honours to you, Jeff! +1

Current tenure-track faculty here, and I can't upvote this answer enough. Document everything, report everything, and above all, get out of there.

Thank you so much for the advice. Jeff, I do appreciate it. My next question is if I even asked talked about the issue with someone else will it get worse? The issue is that the school typically doesn't have allot of older students and I think that the older students are reluctant to talk about their bad experiences. I am saddened by this because I am suspecting that this is the way the department acts. I do appreciate your comments and will take them to heart.

I suspect the behavior of the department might have a greater effect in academia than in industry.

aeismail, what do you mean? I did mention that to him, I was looking for a job in industry or something outside of academia.

if I even asked talked about the issue with someone else will it get worse? — Yes, unfortunately, it could.  But that's much less likely to happen in a supportive department. — The issue is that the school typically doesn't have allot of older students — I strongly disagree. The issue is that your advisor (and possibly your department) is being abusive. Your age is neither an explanation nor an excuse for that abuse.

my question is how can we victims get letters of recommendations to apply elsewhere?

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Is it reasonable for a new PhD student to take a week to read two papers?
I have just started my PhD (first semester) in electrical engineering and my adviser is concerned with my progress. My supervisor requires me to present at least one paper every three days. How do I go about handling that? Reading one paper in only three days is a struggle, and most of the time I don't do that well on the presentations, as it is hard to remember the details of the paper.
What is the normal pace of reading research articles when you are new to the field?

Please mention your department as well. I'm myself a current first year student, but I suppose other people will be better able to provide an answer if you mention your department. Expectations vary across different departments.

Unfortunately, it's really hard to say without more info. If you're reading cutting-edge papers in a new (to you), highly-technical field when English is not your first language, 2 papers/week seems reasonable. I admit that in most cases, though, 2 papers/week does seem a bit on the slow side. Maybe you need to read more papers less deeply?

Would reading papers from the latest reputable conferences be considered cutting-edge ?  And yes a lot of peers I talked suggested not to read papers that deeply. What do you exactly then mean to read a paper ?

"Papers-per-week" seems a useless measure of progress or of effort. Some papers are three pages long; others are over 100 pages long. Some papers are well-written; others are a confused mess. Some papers introduce amazing new ideas; others just slightly modify things you already know. All these differences will affect how many papers you can read in a week.

I agree with @AndreasBlass that "papers per week" is an odd measurement of progress. I would recommend not reading the article word-by-word in its entirety. If the articles are discussing similar topics, then a lot of the introductions or reviews of literature will be redundant. Focus on the key points (usually found in results/discussion/conclusion/implications) and try to only carefully read the articles in its entirety if it's critical for your own research (for the sake of saving time).

As you guys are suggesting this is not a good measure of progress then how should I or my professor should gauge ? By the hours spent of literature review ?

In my first year of my PhD in statistics (I am now in the second) I sent my supervisor a few unsolicited notes about what I had been doing. They of course included references to papers I had read. He was then able to suggest other papers that I should read, but he could also see what progress I was making.

@JeremyC You method does sound reasonable but my supervisor requires me to present at least one paper every three days apart. How do I go about handling that? It is achievable sometimes but most of the times I don't do that well on the presentations.

I edited your question to make it more answerable; perhaps it will be re-opened. Note, I removed your secondary question about how to give a good presentation; that's a separate question that would have to be in a separate post (though "how to make a good presentation" is too broad to be answerable).

In my field of biochemistry, biophysics, and molecular biology, we discuss 2 papers per week in just one of my classes. The depth of knowledge that we (including my instructor) glean from these is relative to our knowledge in the field. Biophysics papers make a lot more sense to my instructor than molecular biology papers, but we discuss everything. My favorite journals and document types are "Methods in Molecular Biology" (tells you exactly how an experiment was performed in reproducible form) and review articles simplify things quite a lot. I also sort articles by citation popularity.

Also, if you select the text of a PDF article in XODO PDF Reader and Editor, it will audibly read the article for you. I think Google Chrome also has an extension for reading articles, too.


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What to do when you hear many bad stories about your supervisor on the first day of your PhD?
Today was the first day of my PhD. It's a very prestigious institution and I was extremely excited to start. However, it seems there is a general feeling of discontentment with people in the group and I was told some stories that, quite frankly, shocked me to the point where I was legitimately considering packing up then and there.
I was told that the supervisor of this group has extremely suspicious working practises, blocks papers from students to give the credit to 'preferred' students, has insanely unrealistic expectations (I was told that some students were expected to work through the night regularly), blocking people from graduating to get more cheap labor out of them, and many more things. The term "psychopath" was thrown about a lot.
I have recently completed my master's in a group where there was an extremely poor PI with an incredibly abusive and parasitic attitude towards the group. I don't really wish to go into it because I want to maintain anonymity, but suffice to say that I do not want the same experience in my PhD. I had met this PI before and had a good impression, so I was surprised to hear such negative reports.
As you may realise, I'm extremely concerned that I've made a truly terrible decision and I would like some advice going forward. I realise that this is only my first day, and I am not going to make any rash decisions without more context and experience, but what should I be looking out for? How do I protect myself from abusive behaviour? And, most importantly, how do I decide when enough is enough and I should cut and run?
I would really like to get the PhD as I'm extremely passionate about the subject, so in order keep a science career possible I think if the option to quit is on the table, it would have to be in the first year. I don't however think that a career in science is worth the exchange of the toll on my mental health that an abusive boss will cause.

Some additions will help formulate an answer. What country is this? What field? Is the PI a young and new academic who is trying to get tenure, or an older, more experienced person?

It’s been five years. How did things work out for you? Any lessons worth sharing?

Comments and answers in comments have been moved to chat; please do not continue the discussion here. Before posting a comment below this one, please review the purposes of comments. Comments that do not request clarification or suggest improvements usually belong as an answer, on [meta], or in [chat]. Comments continuing discussion or containing answers will be removed.

I believe you should step back and reconsider your options. If you gather any solid evidence supporting what you have been told, start focusing on your next step full time.
Strategically, you must realise you probably find yourself in an advantageous position. I believe you're being paid or at least supported as a PhD student. From what you said, this is exactly where you wanted to be. You have plenty of institutional resources and time in your hands. Make use of these, to your favour. You have received privileged information about serious issues in your group, right at the beginning. Not many are that lucky.
I once found myself in a similar situation. I joined a group far from home, as a PhD student. You know the scene: moving elsewhere, arranging rental, basic furniture, saying goodbye to the world, and there you arrive fresh in the cool morning to start a new life. Within 4 days of work my closest colleague closed our office door during lunchtime, and told me the workplace was absolute crap. That "the boss" clearly only liked having pretty girls as students, and on top of that we were both outsiders from other institutions. So that we would have to live off scraps of whatever is rejected by locals -- funding, data, attention. And I had no salary yet.
I seriously considered packing up and leaving. But I didn't. I decided to stay stay and measure myself to "the boss".
Long story short: it worked. For four bloody years. It all proved true. Examples: The "boss" didn't make any effort towards securing my salary, but after I cornered and yelled at him at least he signed the necessary papers: I got the funds. He hinted reallocating my funds to lab equipment "for the girls", but I vehemently denied and summarised by an email statement with copy to others. He asked me to keep raw data file records, I gave him incomplete sets. Etc, etc, etc. Towards the end of my PhD I hired a lawyer regarding a conflict with the department (I had exposed plagiarism by a local big-shot) and clearly seeing a lawyer around reaffirmed a safe distance to my "boss". I was usually left alone.
Main advice here: being ready to quit makes you ruthless. I wasn't too afraid of dropping my PhD from start so I played all cards. My focus is in getting things done, not degrees. This "ex-boss" is an insecure professional who apparently never had anyone stand up against him before. Also I had full support from a co-advisor who was highly interested in our project, and that guy does have a strong, political personality. I went through my PhD between this delicate balance of power. My "boss" was eerily uncomfortable (I believe scared) in my presence and my co-advisor mediated any significant conflict towards the completion of the collaboration. I finished my PhD fairly easily (from a technical point of view) and today I remain active in the same topic of research.
I am not saying you should do the same. I am not saying it was easy or usually comfortable. Perhaps I should have left and gone elsewhere. But it worked nonetheless. Because I was warned and thus made up my mind, and a strategy. This is what I recommend you to do.
Good luck.

I think the piece about having a coadvisor is probably the best piece of advice.

@Dawn Yes but it can easily backfire, largely depending on local culture. I ultimately had them both ganging up on me a couple of times but the lawyer incident came in just handy by then. It is a nasty, dangerous game. So perhaps moving elsewhere is the wisest solution, but I cannot say for sure as I didn't.

-1 Yuck. This whole story sounds incredibly toxic and (in the long run) self-destructive. It would have been much healthier, and probably more productive, to leave your advisor behind and move into your supportive coadvisor's research group.

"in the long run self-destructive" 10 years elapsed and I am exactly where I wanted at the moment. Plus, I am in fair terms with the ex-"boss", even got a nice LoR he once said he'd never write. On your point about moving groups, yes I thought hard about doing that and perhaps I even hinted but this is not locally simple. Apart from having to wait for 1 year for a necessary re-entry, swapping advisors is generally frowned upon in my country.

The things you mentioned could've been worth exploring before going to the institution - for example, you could've emailed the supervisor's former students and asked about their experience. But now that you're committed, to pack your bags and leave means a lot of effort has gone to waste. It can't have been easy to relocate & enroll, or if you're an international student, to get a visa.
Now is not the time to take action based on hearsay. Keep doing what you're doing, and if there's truth in the things you're hearing you'll find out soon enough. It should be very easy to see if other students are working late into the night for example, or if they are miserable. Don't think about leaving before you confirm the rumors.
As for when to cut your losses and run, that's easy: when you no longer wake up looking forward to the day, when going to university becomes a chore, when you find yourself thinking you'd really rather be doing something else, that's the time to quit.

I don't disagree with you, but I should say that emailing professor's students can be useless as per my experience. When I wanted to do my PhD I contacted one of the students who gave me comments-from-paradise on my PhD supervisor. When I started, I learned they were good friends, and the comments were exaggerated.

You don't make decisions based on sunk costs. That's a fallacy. But I agree with the yardstick you propose in the last paragraph.

@henning it's not so much the sunk costs as it is the fact that moving now means paying those costs again.

@henning  More accurately: You shouldn't make decisions based on sunk costs. But you do. Everyone does.

@JeffE Right, that's what I meant. As in: you don't do that kind of thing.


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Accused of copying code for autograded assignment
I'm an undergraduate studying computer science at a local community college. Currently, I'm enrolled in an intro computer programming class that I unfortunately am unable to test out of (I asked my advisor). It is the prerequisite to the OOP class at my college (the class that AP Computer science would transfer to), which I took four years ago as a freshman in high school. I have already taken data structures and algorithms and am presently taking discrete math. The point being, I have very little to learn from this class. Last night, I received an email from my professor saying that my code on a recent assignment was identical to the solution in the textbook.
I will admit that I did search to find the answer code because:

The autograde is extremely bad and requires spaces and other punctuation to be identical, all while not telling you what is wrong unless you look closely. It runs a series of units tests and compares the text output.
Again, I won't learn from this class, so I'm not hurting myself by not properly learning
The tests are worth 80% of the score, and I have been doing those fairly, so anything I do on the assignments will have little affect on my grade.
The problems are incredibly fake and are nothing like the real world problems I engage in at work.

Generally, I've been searching to find a solution to a similar problem and then editing it until the autograde accepts it (so what I'm copying serves as a template to save time). In this case, I stumbled upon what turned out to be the actual answers.
So technically I did copy the answers, but it was not me attempting to get out of work that I would actually learn from or need to do to pass the tests. I am very frustrated with how awful this class is and please note I would not do this for any other class.
What I am not sure of is what to do now. I already have received a zero for that week's work (a tiny percentage of my grade) so I could go forward as if nothing had happened and ignore the remaining assignments (each week is about 55% easy work that I have been doing, 45% horrible labs that I often skip) and end up with about 85% on the course assuming my future test scores represent those in the past.
Looking at the academic policy on the syllabus, as my first offense I will likely not see any other actions against me, but I don't want my professor to think I am a cheater. I have never cheated in any class and I don't consider what I did in this case to be a problem (I would argue it breaks the letter, but not the spirit, of the rules). How should I respond to this and go forward?

I guess that this question is outside of the scope of this site. However, perhaps you want to add some information on what "autograde" is. So it is a tool for automatic grading I guess? But then what is "the autograde solution"?

In any case the approach to start wth an existing solution and modifying does not appear what is expected. If you want to avoid being accused of plagiarism, always start from scratch and then add what you want to do in your program step by step. Point (2) is not a reason for anything - the professor will need to grade ignoring your motivation. Point (4) is typical for introductory CS courses. Real-world problems just have too many details that distract from the learning objective so the problems are "fake" because that is what enables you to focus on applying the recently learned concepts.

I edited it for clarity. The autograde system is turingscraft to be specific. It runs unit tests and compares text output. @DCTLib
And those are fair points. Still frustrating though. :/

If I read you correctly you copied an answer you found somewhere and used it in homework, got caught, wish you hadn’t, and now rationalize it shouldn’t really matter. Certainly food for thought.

You cheated and got caught. Until you recognize that you're going to continue making trouble for yourself. You're not "accused" of something, you're guilty of it. You didn't technically copy, you copied. What you did here is a problem whether you want it to be or not, it's cheating.

I would argue it breaks the letter, but not the spirit, of the rules. Okay, go ahead and try to argue that and see what happens. I think it will be an educational, eye-opening experience.

May I suggest that you should try to challenge your self-perception? If your programming skills are really so good that you have nothing to learn from this class, most of the assignments should be extremelly easy to you and require only very little time to solve them. So why would you copy the solutions then, rather than coding them yourself?

A fair point, but the nature of the autograde system makes that difficult. @JochenGlueck

@Mr.Technician: Thanks for your response! If I understand your point 1.) correctly, the autograde system requires the formatting of the output of your program to be precisely as specified, not the formatting of your code, right? There are various very practical situations where precisely following the specifications is essential - so I'd argue that we have already found one point where you can learn something in this class.

"anything I do on the assignments will have little affect on my grade." If you believed that, you could just choose to not turn in any assignments. Instead, you have now found one way to handle your assignments that could make a very big difference to your grade.

"requires spaces and other punctuation to be identical" Adhering to standard coding style guidelines is industry practice.

Honestly, your best course of action is to apologize to the professor, admitting your fault and vowing to do better in the future. You can beg weakness and panic, but don't try to justify it to them or others. Such an apology is best made in person, possibly impossible now, and embarrassing, but it adds an extra element that you understand the error.
If you learn from your mistakes you are becoming a better person. But if you refuse to learn, others will cease to respect you, with long term consequences.
But by stepping forward with an apology you might assure the professor that you understand the issues, in which case they won't feel quite the need to watch your every future step with a jaundiced eye.
You screwed up. Own it. People aren't perfect. We can learn, however.

I suppose I can't make anything worse. I guess I'm not sure how to approach the apology.

I would suggest to just bite the bullet for that small assignment and be careful in future ones. If your CC has a page where students can leave reviews of courses, considering leaving a review of this course describing your professor's actions to make future students aware.

Make aware of what? What did the professor do wrong?

Not that the prof did anything wrong, but future students should know how the autograde system compares to other classes.

Yes as Mr.Technician says, in case other students are in the same situation as the OP.


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Is My Mentality Good for Academia / Grad School?
I am wondering if my mentality is good for an academic. Or does my mentality mean I should not go to academia:
(1) I am not an avid reader and I do not read for leisure. I do not read in the free time. However, I like learning topics and I if I find that  the topic is interesting, I will try my best to understand it with all the resources possible.
(2) I am a shy public speaker, but I like explaining the things I learned through writing / one-to-one communication.
(3) I am not a passionate teacher, but I DO NOT agree that people are stupid and cannot learn certain things. I am willing to teach someone if they are willing to learn. I DO NOT like making classes that are just tough, but I like creating tough problems and guiding people on ways to solve them, so that people become good problem solvers.
(4) My although I like learning things for internal satisfaction, my main goals are glory, honor, and prestige. I do not brag because I find bragging cheap and mean. But I like when people respect me and I am willing to help people in their careers if they respect me and/or if they are genuinely good people. (*and good people are polite, kind, honest, and genuine)
(5) Scientific knowledge is a tool for me for glory, honor, and prestige; while philosophical knowledge is something I use to guide my life and actions.

Academia is generally not for “glory, honor, and prestige.” You should consider the Navy Seals instead.

Hmmm, @gnometorule, a lot of the fights we see detailed here over "first authorship" makes me wonder if it isn't a pretty widely held view - glory etc.

@Buffy I don't think the first authorship issues have anything to do with glory, they have to do with the issue of getting appropriate credit for work you've done (in fields where author order indicates contribution), which is key for many goals that have nothing to do with glory, like getting admitted to grad school, getting prime post doc positions, getting hired as faculty, getting tenure, etc.

I don't think that the person you are describing is all that different from a hefty fraction of academics. Most of us are driven in some way by our interests in research and/or teaching.
You will have some things to learn to be successful, of course, but graduate school is designed to teach many of those things.
A lot of us are pretty introverted, and that is something that needs to be overcome to the extent that you can communicate effectively. But communication ability and introversion aren't inconsistent. Don't be so "shy", however, that you can't speak up for your needs when you recognize them.
No one can guarantee your success, but hard work can help get you there.
Consider all of your options, of course, and stay flexible until you are sure you have found the path.


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How can I justify doing a second Master's in Mathematics?
I'd like to apply for a PhD in Mathematics/Applied Mathematics in Europe. I have a BSc in Math and a taught 1-year MSc in Applied Math (without thesis) both from top US universities. I have taken advanced courses during my undergrad, I do have research experience, but not in Mathematics (it was in Data Science, mostly involving computational programming) and have no independent research experience (all of it was directed research).
Now I'm looking for ways to make myself a more competitive applicant, for which I asked for suggestions in this questions. But here, I wanted to ask specifically about doing a second Master's in Mathematics.
I have seen this question, but this doesn't apply to my case, since I may actually pursue a Master's in a more general field (Mathematics instead of Applied Math). I've also seen this one and this one, but these two don't apply to my case either, since I'm actually open to getting my second Master's from a "lower ranked" university (especially since I'd most probably need a scholarship, which would be hard to get from a university at a level of reputation comparable to that of my undergrad and MSc institutions).
Do you think a second Master's, most probably in pure Math (not Applied Math), and most definitely with a substantial thesis component, would help me to get into a competitive PhD program (in Math or Applied Math) in Europe? If yes, how do you think I can justify that in my SOP? My personal justification is the thesis, and the fact that most of my MSc courses were in Differential Equations and Numerics (and very applied stuff in general), and I definitely miss graduate-level knowledge in areas such as Algebra, Analysis (proof-based side of it), and Geometry. But would that be acceptable for the committee and would I have any chance for a scholarship with that justification?!
Edit: As for the specific countries in Europe I'm looking for, my top choices are Germany, Switzerland, UK, and France, but I'm open to other options if I find a good opportunity.

(Note that my perspective is US.) I think your first priority should be applying directly for the doctorate. You can simultaneously apply for an MS, of course, but I suspect that you are underestimating your chances for doctoral admission.
Yes, candidates are expected to have a pretty broad education in math on entry. Yours seems pretty broad if a bit non standard and you are missing a few things, but you won't know until you apply.
Doctoral studies are almost always about specialization, however. If you intend to work in an area in which you are already prepared, and say so in your application, then the missing bits might be overlooked. Not necessarily so, but you won't know unless you get into the process.
A second master's will broaden your education a bit. It may make a difference. Or not. Many places (US, at least) will treat the Bachelor's degree as enough. UK and EU may be more strict.

OP seems to be specifically asking about Europe.

I agree with Buffy, I think you're really selling short your current prospects as a PhD candidate, and I get the impression you have a huge anxiety over being rejected, which seems very unfounded. It sounds like what you already have is exactly the correct pre-requisite for any PhD in mathematics, so I'm a little confused as to why you feel doing another Masters would increase your chances any more.
Have you actually tried applying anywhere yet? Have you asked the admissions departments of your preferred universities what their requirements are? Many, you will find, ask for high undergraduate and Masters degrees in relavent areas, which it seems you already have. I can't help but feel doing superfluous degrees gives an impression of time wasting, and otherwise just seems a bit odd. You'd be going sideways in your progression instead of up. If you had been in an entirely different area and wanted to change, I could understand, but you have BSc Maths, MSc Maths, and want to do PhD Maths. Perhaps you had some specialisms in these areas, but this really shouldn't make much difference, as rarely do educational tracks perfectly feed into a PhD thesis.
A PhD is essentially an apprenticeship in your chosen area. If you already have an idea of what it is you want to research, write a research proposal and pitch that to institutions you like. If you're so scared of rejection, pitch it to some institutions you DON'T like to test the viability of your proposal. It's a bit of a sneaky tactic but you can gain some valuable experience this way if you can get feedback (or even make it to interview). One thing I really must stress, is that any shortcomings in experience you feel you may have can and must be made up for by drive and enthusiasm. Academics do not want to hire students who are not interested in the PhD they've applied for. You need to not only want this, but you need to love it, and that needs to shine through in an interview and application.
Honestly, I don't really know why you're so worried. Unless you have really awful grades, you almost certainly do not need another Masters.
Just for some context, I'm doing a fully funded PhD in CompSci a UK Russell Group uni and my undergraduate degree was in English from a university with a less than stellar reputation, so anything is possible! Good luck with your applications.


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What should I do to get into a PhD in Mathematics in Europe without a thesis in my BSc and MSc?
I'm going to apply for a PhD in Mathematics in Europe with my BSc and MSc in Mathematics and Applied Mathematics (respectively), from two top-tier (say, top 10-20) US universities with advanced courses, and good GPA. Neither of my BSc and MSc had a thesis component though, and a capstone project wasn't available to me.
I do have some research experience, but my research mostly involved computational programming and data analysis, not serious Mathematics. More importantly perhaps, none of my research experiences were independent research, meaning that I was working on a project defined by my supervisor and my work was pretty much directed by my supervisor.
I'm aware that the norm in Europe is that students write a substantial thesis for their Master's degree, and possibly for their undergrad too, and then they'll apply for PhD. I did want to do a 2-year Master with a substantial research project, but since funding was an issue, I went with the 1-year MSc program that would fund me, and that one didn't have any thesis.
Given this situation, I'm looking for a way to fill that gap in my resume to make myself competitive for a top-tier PhD in Mathematics (or Applied Mathematics) in Europe.
First - do you think I'd have any chance without doing some sort of independent research before applying to a PhD?
Second - do you have any suggestion on how I can fill that gap?! I thought of doing an MPhil or an MRes in the UK, but financing is an issue for those programs (I'll apply for scholarships, but chances are high that I won't get one). Is there any sort of program where I can just spend some time doing a self-directed, but supervised, research in Math and get paid for that?
Edit: As for the specific countries in Europe I'm looking for, my top choices are Germany, Switzerland, UK, and France, but I'm open to other options if I find a good opportunity.

@yahoo.com Why isn't a structured PhD good for my future career? What do you mean exactly by structured PhD? Do you mean 4-year PhD's that include one year of courses and some sort of "rotations" (like the doctoral training program in  Oxford)?

@yahoo.com Does it make sense to apply for a second Master's when my undergrad and MSc are actually quite strong course-wise? How can I justify that? (I was gonna ask this question, but realized I should probably ask it in a separate post)

First - do you think I'd have any chance without doing some sort of independent research before applying to a PhD?

Possibly. However, it would likely involve you finding some "angle" on the basis of which you can strike up a relationship with a prospective supervisor, who could promote/sponsor your Ph.D. candidacy.
But there's a deeper issue here:
Why do you want to enter a Ph.D. program?
Hopefully, you have some subject you are interested in studying. If that is not the case, and your motivation is to simply get the title and the piece of paper - then you should seriously reconsider. Working on a PhD without focused motivation is not just exceedingly difficult, but also exasperating. You may well find yourself in the middle of it, two or three years from now, grabbing your head by your hands and asking "What was I thinking? Why in blazes am I even doing this?" - and not having a good answer.
So, do consider some independent research, or even going into industry doing something you are interested in, but with a mind to sketch out relevant mathematical challenges to study more deeply in academia. These are my suggestions for filling the gap.

my top choices are Germany, Switzerland, UK, and France

Once you find something relevant to research, locate relevant research groups in that field (in those countries or elsewhere), and talk to them.

I can only speak for Germany, but maybe the answer is transferable to the other mentioned countries as well.
Usually, Bachelor and Master in Germany should sum up to 300 ECTS (10 Semester, 5 years) as a pre-requisite for a PhD (well, in fact "Dr." ;-) ). In most cases, universities are having specific rules if you don't have enough ECTS, and since you are not from the European Union, you will always have to ask how your specific case will be treated.
So I would suggest to
a) choose a research group which you would like to join (e.g. by looking for open positions)
b) If they are interested in you, ask the PI / supervisor about the regulations and for support
c) ask the administration about your specific case.
It will be much more important to convince the potential supervisor to believe in you even without a thesis (since they will pay you for your work in a project) then sorting out the formal stuff.


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Open university and admissions into a US Masters
Can a student with a bachelor's in engineering with very little chemistry take some courses in chemistry to get into a chemistry masters? How do US masters view courses taken from Open University, particularly in chemistry?

What do you mean by 'open university'? What do you mean by 'some courses'?

@buffy Its a Distance learning university centered in the UK. It's basically online degrees or single courses. Maybe I should edit it to have capitals though there other open university's. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_University&ved=2ahUKEwjiyK61zePcAhXOJt8KHdmTBrAQmhMwC3oECAoQPw&usg=AOvVaw13k4eSkrJGzRTalOAUDoUf

Actually, yes, Open University. It is a highly respected distance education institution that provides excellent support to students. It isn't like what many people think of as "online learning". A student will generally have access to lectures from a professor backed up by a team of professionals. Additionally, students have face to face access to tutors close to home. It is actually a lot like on-site education at a large university (with large classes) except that you don't have to actually be there to take advantage. I don't know if the others have the same quality or not.

How about 'some courses'?

@buffy Well to get into a masters degree you wouldn't have to have an entire bachelor's in the subject of if you've already gotten a bachelor's. I would just have to fulfill some prereqs(Two general chemistry, one organic, a few others). So you could just complete their certificate of higher education open and complete the equivalent of one year of a B.S. And I edited it to have capitals.

Are you UK based? Or US? The US educational system is quite different from anything in Europe. OTOH, I don't know about Chem specifically, but Open is pretty highly respected.

Some of this may be superfluous but the US system is very different from anything in UK or EU. In the first place there is no national system at all. Even within a single state, policies can differ widely, though the official state university system (so called public colleges, but not the same idea as UK public colleges) will usually share a set of policies within that state. But many schools, including some very highly rated ones (Stanford, Harvard, Yale, etc. i.e "Private colleges") aren't part of any system. Some "flagship" schools within a state may also have more rigorous admissions than the rest of the state system (UCBerkeley, UMichigan, etc.)
While Open University in general is highly regarded, each college (or system of colleges) will have its own admissions policies. These can even differ by discipline, so Chemistry might be different from Mathematics. Some admissions systems are more personalized, depending on interviews, and some have various requirements on grade averages, required courses, and other things.
The only real way to know if X is acceptable at a US university is to ask that institution or to apply formally. If your situation is non standard you might get asked for additional information. If an educational program is very popular and also highly regarded the unusual cases might be easier to simply reject as there are enough very highly qualified applicants who are easy to judge.
In general, however, a Masters degree application won't face extremely rigorous requirements. This may be different from European experience. It would be a different story for doctoral study, of course.
With all that said, I would guess that if you meet a particular school's requirements for prerequisite courses, roughly what an undergraduate would be expected to have in that discipline, and your grades were good, and you represent yourself well in the application, then I doubt that having studied at Open U would be an issue - most places. But the only way to know is to ask the institution in question and expect to get different answers from different institutions.
BTW, students in the US think of this "system" as perfectly normal.

I'm US based. I realize that every university had its own policy, I'm just wondering how generally US university's see Online courses not taken in a bachelor's program.

@Orion, don't confuse Online generally with Open University. There are wide differences in Online courses. Open University is a real university with a history. The other offerings will be judged differently and individually.


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I find my masters topic extremely hard what should I do?
I'm writing this because I'm in a real trouble and I need to hear from experienced people.
I'm new here so please excuse me if I get anything wrong.
I'm doing my masters in Deep Learning and I'm having toughest time ever.
I have a research paper very similar to what I wish to make, with the codes in Python which is working fine and is giving results. The problem is I can't understand that  code it's beyond my knowledge.
I read books looking at codes but couldn't achieve that level of being able to understand the code or the paper.
The paper is about Recurrent Nueral Networks and motion prediction.
Unfortunately I'm not good at Python or Deep Learning and feel like I'm really stuck.
My supervisor didn't know much about Deep Learning but he approved my proposal. Now I don't know what to do.
Should I stick to the topic and take courses in Deep Learning like the one in Coursera even if It means to take extensions beyond the deadline?
Or should I change the topic completely?
I asked my supervisor and he was against changing the topic he suggested to simplify the topic and choose something simpler than Deep Learning like interpolation. He said that submitting a proposal will take time and it's not guaranteed that your new topic will be easier than your current topic.
I tried to find some codes about interpolation motion data to begin with but can't find anything related to my topic.
I'm not lazy at all, I love researching and I have hundreds of codes in my machine but still can't understand the code I have about RNNs.
I contacted the authors of that paper but they weren't cooperative.
I feel like I ran out of energy and very confused.
If you were in the same situation what would you do?

Is there anyone nearby you can ask for help? If not, there are programming and data science sites on the StackExchange network where you can look for advice, help, background material etc. for your specific research project.

The paper is implemented already and I want to understand their implementation and make my own with some changes.

I think your background is simply too weak for the area.  The question then is how you should go about getting the required knowledge?  If you are not good at programming or Python, then start from the beginning.  Get a book and do lots of exercises.  For Neural Nets, look at the pre-requisites for standard textbooks and get the required background before you start.  Also you cannot read the source of any concepts without having a solid understanding of said concepts.  End of the day, you have to go back to basics and spend a significant amount of time to build your foundation.

It's necessary to learn the basics of deep learning at the level of a Coursera course before diving into some complicated paper. Go ahead and learn deep learning properly and you will find it's not very hard.

I should say that mistakes seem to have been made, and not (only) by you: putting a student with (as you say) limited programming skills and no experience in deep learning on a topic as notoriously hard to get into as deep learning when the advisor also has little understanding of the topic seems to me like a recipe for desaster. That said, it happens to all of us occassionally.
Your advisor's proposal to move forward with a simpler algorithm seems smart - this is also what I generally do if the original plan turns out not to be feasible. That said, your general approach to "find codes" that implement your algorithm for your use case would worry me, to be honest. Extrapolation is a fairly simple principle - simple enough that if I told a student to try extrapolation for a given problem, I would expect that they can come up with a solution themselves in fairly finite time (that is not to say that you shouldn't use an existing solution if one is already out there, but in the absence of an existing library just writing it yourself should totally be doable).
If that is outside your reach, actually changing topics may really be the most sensible thing to do for you, but I suggest having this conversation with your advisor.

Thanks for the reply. Yes unfortunately it was a mistake to choose that topic. Fortunately I have 2 years to finish my degree. I can ask for extensions after that If I need to, but hope to finish earlier. I was excited to learn about Deep Learning at the beginning but then I feel very nervous about it. I will try to do my best whether to go for it or to change to an easier topic.

It's a bit hard to bring this all together to give good advice but let me make a few suggestions.
With regard to the Python code you are looking at, it is possible that it is just terrible code that no one could understand easily. That may not be the case also, but it happens. On the other hand, if it is a sensible program, then it is probably based on some underlying model that doesn't itself depend on the code. If that is the case, you could find that model and understand it first, then attack the code. The paper you have found probably has some bibliographic references that may help you understand everything.
Furthermore, you could try to find someone locally who is a Python guru and have them look at the code and give you advice about it - perhaps with the model in hand.
But your advisor seems to be giving good advice. He or she is the one who will need to approve your result in the end, so it is good to take the advice offered. If doing a bit less is acceptable to them, then it is acceptable, and probably easier. Doing a simpler project should also give you more experience and better enable you to take on harder work later. As a Master's level student it may be a mistake to go beyond the understanding of your professor. Doctoral students normally need to do that, but they have a lot more experience by then.
Running out of energy (burn out) is a serious academic issue. One way to avoid it is to make a plan, in conjunction with your advisor, that you can execute properly. Once you have a plan it won't feel like you are just thrashing around, as long as you follow the plan.

Thanks for the advice. I really appreciate that. I think I will stick to it and follow my supervisor advice. The code is built on a model namely Recurrent Neural Networks. I will search for other codes and try to figure out the basics of it. Simplifying things sounds good, I'm not sure how but will think of a way to do so.

Remember that compilers aren't smart. If they can understand the code, you can too.
What to do now:

Relax. Code written by someone else is not easily understood. The last time I tried, it took weeks before the code started making sense, and even longer before I was able to use it confidently.
Get a high-level understanding of the code. You can do this off the Coursera course for instance. Knowing roughly what each part of the code is trying to do helps a lot with understanding it.
Test the code with different parts changed. For example, if you find a piece of code that doesn't seem to do anything, try commenting it out and rerunning the code.
If you still can't understand it, phrase your questions in a way someone else can understand and ask at Stack Overflow.

Thanks for the advice. You gave me some hope . I will try to attack that code relentlessly. Wish me the best of luck.

Your advisor suggestion is wise. simplify the technical basis for your thesis while you try to improve your python programming skills.
you could be able to get some support from other python programmers in your university and online. people would be able to hep more if you have specific programming question related to one problem at a time. so try to break your project into smaller chunks of problem and then solve it one by one.
Also There is many websites that run python courses like data camp.com and, as you mentioned, coursera.

Thanks for the reply. Yes I think it's better to follow my supervisor instructions. I haven't tried asking questions in forums, maybe I feel like I'm very novice when I look to others questions₩, but I will do it, I hope things will work.


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Formalities for video submitted with paper?
A conference mentions "Supplementary material (images, video, etc.) may optionally be submitted with papers, must be submitted as a single zip file and be no larger than 100MB.".
So along with my conference paper, I'm considering submitting a video that shows the working of my program. Few questions:

I couldn't find any specific info on how to mention or cite in my paper that there is a video included with the paper as a supplementary file. Can I just mention "...in minute 2:05 of the video included as a  supplementary file..."?

Since the video has no audio, I'm considering adding to the video, some pleasant background music that's from a website which allows such music to be used royalty-free, but asks us to cite/attribute the creator of the music. So firstly, is it proper etiquette to use such music in a conference paper submission, and secondly, how would the attribution be mentioned? In a separate text file or as a citation in the paper itself? Also, is citing it enough, or do I have to explicitly obtain the creator's permission, in the same way, publishers ask for proof of copyright consent from the creators of images when I include somebody else's image in my paper (even after I've cited the source)?

A warning. Not a problem, but be aware that somebody, somewhere, will probably issue a takedown notice for you video because of the audio. It won't be correct, but it will probably happen. The US DCMA makes it too easy to issue such things inappropriately. Be prepared to respond, because the video will be taken down unless you complain. And complaints might not even be listened to.

Well in that case, I could use a software that generates music. There are some such free DJ electronic music generators. Thanks for the timely word of caution.

I think you have given the answers to the question in the question.  If you don't put the video on a site known for music piracy (like YouTube) I doubt you will get any automated DMCA notices.

Can you specify the field? I do not see why you would submit a video edited to add music. Supplementary material for a paper is supposed (in my field) to be raw data, samples of program inputs, interview transcripts, etc. A video with added music would be in my view somewhat unprofessional or a PR stunt. (I have no objection whatsoever to adding music for a video you will show during the conference, but a presentation has a different purpose from supplementary materials)

Also (again from my understanding of supplementary materials) the paper should be readable without them. If what happens at 2:05 is particularly important to your argument, consider including an image or series of images in the main text. (I am aware that this is not always a workable solution.)

@UJM Thank you, and I agree with you that adding music may get interpreted as unprofessional. The thought had crossed my mind, and I'm glad you corroborated it. This is in the field of Computer Science. Specifically, Artificial Intelligence, where I've created a legged robot that climbs obstacles in a simulated physics environment.


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Master's and Bachelor's theses on the same topic?
I am a student of a M.Sc. in Economics.
For reasons that are really beyond my control, a week ago I was asked to write a one-page draft of my Master's thesis topic, so that I can be assigned to a supervisor. The draft must be handed in by July 31st. This notification came out of the blue for me (and my classmates), so we don't really have anything in mind so far.
Of course, I have thought about the potential topic of my Master's thesis before. However, I haven't been able to come up with a subject that is "satisfying" yet. So far, I have mostly encountered topics in which I don't feel like I could give a significant contribution.
On the other hand, I am still quite excited about the topic of my Bachelor's thesis (which I wrote about a year ago). I remember being kind of "proud" of this thesis, mostly because it stemmed from my original idea. I used a methodology that I found "creative" to investigate some classical questions related to International Economics. I recently read my thesis again and found that there is much room for improvement. With the experience I have gained in the last year of studies, I feel like I could research this topic in much more depth.
Do you think I could choose this topic (or a strictly related one) also for my Master's thesis? I fear this could be regarded as a "lazy" choice by someone who would review my academic curriculum in the future. Is it possible to write both your Bachelor's and your Master's thesis on similar topics?
Thank you in advance for your help.

I don't see any problem studying the same subject. You could consider it an extension of your Bachelor's thesis. As a reviewer I would welcome such a proposal, as long as the one-pager is well written and has clear statements of the problems you want to solve.
I even suggest you think about what you could have done differently in your Bachelor thesis and include it in your proposal.
Remember that you are submitting a project proposal and, during the course of your masters research, you might change your mind and decide to pursue another direction.

In the end staying in the same topic is neither a necessarily good nor bad choice. If there is still room for improvement or even better to answer alternative questions then continuing in the same area can be a decent choice: You already know parts of the literature, you know relevant outlets and researchers - and you feel happy and confident with the topic.
However, you should make sure that your thesis is substantially different from your Bachelor thesis. So ideally you do not try to fix the same issues or questions, but rather find something related to work on. Because in the end you want to avoid that people wonder whether you just "warmed up" something that worked before again and are not able to do something "novel". While this might be less relevant if you plan to leave academia after your Master's degree, it could come back to you if you plan to stay ...

If the topic of both your bachelor's and master's thesis is the same, the master's thesis should be a far deeper exploration of the topic. My Master's thesis was a continuation of the same project that I began during my undergaduate degree with guidance from the same PI. At the end of my bachelor's degree, I felt I had only scratched the surface of the topic.

I don't, personally, have any problem with the concept provided that you can clearly explain how the future work goes beyond the past work in some meaningful way. At the MS level it may not need to be earth-shattering, but it should be "meaningful".
The problem, however, is that even if your professors agree with me, they will be the ones to decide whether what you say is meaningful enough to let you go ahead. So, a bit risky. But if it is all you've got then you can try it. But I'd suggest that you keep looking for alternatives in the time left to you.


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Can I publish while doing an internship at a company if I did that research before starting the internship?
I’m currently doing research at my University in Spain, and soon I will leave to do an internship in Germany at a company (one among Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google) on a related topic.
Then, the work I’m currently doing will be carried out by others and published once it is finished, when I will be gone (the internship contract says I cannot work for others while working for them). Of course, since I worked for months on the project I should be one of the authors in the paper, but is this against the internship contract? Can it be considered as competition against the company?

Obviously we don’t have your internship contract to read… is the question really “How/who do I inform/ask at the company to make sure my publication doesn’t break any rules?”

Well, internship contracts are very similar in FAANG companies when it comes to this kind of stuff, and I think there is probably more people that have faced similar situations, for example phd students, so I though someone might know

Are you concerned purely about legal aspects, or also whether it might make your employer/boss unhappy beyond legal aspects? - Regarding "contracts are all very similar", this is probably only within a country - also internship contracts have to follow certain legal standards which differ by country.

As long as you can convincingly argue that the work in the publication was done before the time of your internship, or the amount of work still to be done during the internship was small enough to be done in your spare time, you should be fine. (From a legal point, you should anyway be fine, unless it becomes clear that you spent a lot of time on this during your internship.)
However, you should not put the company as an affiliation on the paper, unless you talk to them and you approve of it. In any case, since the work has been done at the university, the university would be the natural affiliation you put. If you are only on leave from your university for the internship there should be no problem to do so anyway, but just to be safe, I would ask whoever at the university supervised the project.