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How to cite a site from the dark web?
For my masters degree in computer science, I'm currently working on a paper on ransomware. Goal of this paper is to focus on academic writing and citing sources correctly.
Trustworthiness/Quality of sources
As I wanted to show what kind of business ransomware is and what amounts of money are dealt with, I had a look at the TOR onion network - a deep web only accessible by TOR browser.
I found some interesting results. Despite the fact that the pages are completely anonymous and it's not sure if the authors can be trusted, would it be ok to cite those pages on ransomware-related questions, stating their poor trustworthiness immediately after the citation?
BibTeX
Other questions came up on how to cite these pages. My bibtex file now looks like this (I replaced some parts by * for obvious reasons):
@misc{Darknet:****,
    title={**** - The Better & Cheapest FUD Ransomware + C&C on Darknet},
    howpublished={\url{http://****.onion}},
    note={Abgerufen am 12.03.2017}
}

My question here is how to state that the *.onion url only works in TOR browser? Or should I better include a screenshot in case the page gets shut down?

I would cite the .onion url like any url, and also cite TOR.  I would also include the screenshot as an illustration, but not as a citation.

I don't think it's necessary to state that *.onion URLs only work in the TOR browser. Anyone who knows what a *.onion URL signifies will be aware of that, and anyone who doesn't shouldn't really be poking around there anyway.

I'd put the correct term "(Tor hidden service)" behind the address to clarify that it's not a regular URL and besides that proceed as with any ordinary link. Also note that "Tor" isn't all caps.

Wikipedia archives web references to screenshot/archive services in order to be able to refer to the content with a time stamp. Would it make here, too? I mean, additionally to the original URL.

Ideally, in the most strict sense of the word we should cite only material reviewed by professionals who have no conflict of interest with the authors, and this material better be published in a reputable journal. That's how we try to ensure trustworthiness. However, Web content is mostly not reviewed, and we wish to cite it, since there is some useful data over there. But there is also a lot of junk in the Web, and the presence of the author's name or nickname John Doe sometimes adds nothing to the trustworthiness. (Even professional agencies like Reuters, AP, or TASS sometimes produce junk which later goes to the websites of newspapers.)
That's a hole in the publication process: reviewers do accept papers citing low-quality websites, and the Tor sites are not an exception; simply the author of such sites is unknown. In terms of trustworthiness, all the following signatures are completely equivalent:

[no signature]
nickname like Sally6pack
pseudonym like Fred E. Ricks
unknown person like Max Müller
very well-known person like Bill Gates but on an unknown third-party website.

Whether you use this hole (and if so, how) or not is your own, personal, ethical decision.
(If you care: my own, purely subjective take on it would be that stating the poor trustworthiness of a website immediately after/before the citation or in the bibliography is fine.)
As for bibtex, use the note field to provide any information of how to access the material. You might alternatively consider biber+biblatex and use @online. I would refer to a different website with a HOWTO regarding accessing .onion.

In regards to your first question, it is absolutely fine to cite anonymously published content. This is just a special case of citing  a primary source. Primary sources often suffer from issues from trustworthiness, bias, and verifiability and they are routinely cited.
Anytime primary sources are cited, it is the authors' responsibility to provide sufficient context for readers to effectively evaluate the source. You might do this by explaining that the authors are anonymous and you cannot verify the veracity of any of the claims. You might even point out that there is evidence that the claims might be false. As long as it is framed responsibly, you should be fine.
In terms of your second question, I don't think there is any style guide that will help. In these case, I would just focus on the fact the goal is to allow people to easily and unambiguously identify exactly the page that you are referring to. There are a few approaches that I think will accomplish this goal. Providing a .onion address with a note like "(Tor hidden service)" might be enough to help people identify how to access because they might then look on the web for how to access this.
That said, since the .onion URLs — like all URLs — are likely to disappear, I think a better idea would be to use a perma.cc archived link of a Tor2web proxied URL. Tor2web proxies do not protect the anonymity of readers and are, themselves, not entirely stable. That said, for the purposes of creating an archival copy of a citation, they will be entirely sufficient.

Is it OK to cite? Yes.
But... While I recognize that some valuable information can only be obtained from the dark side, it is unfair to air a source’s opinion when the source’s identity and motives are shielded from scrutiny.
So, describe the anonymous sources as clearly as you can. I totally agree with you: "stating their poor trustworthiness immediately after the citation". And note that not everybody knows that *.onion URLs only work in the Tor browser.
About the URL format, cite as any URL, as Anonymous Physicist recommends. I would also suggest you to create permanent records of the web page. Services like perma.cc might help you, it cannot resolve .onion domains, but you can upload your own archive. Another way can be find here.

How is the source's identity being unknown "unfair"? To me it seems that the source is unknown even to the author of the question, so author has no information advantage over the reader of the paper. But even if this was not so, what good is not citing the source going to do for the reader or for the quality of the paper?

Perhaps "unfair" isn't the word. As I wrote, you can cite. Just be fair with the reader stating from where those ideas came from.


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Is there such a thing as a "postdoc" for master's degree graduates?
I have recently graduated with an MSc in nuclear physics, and am having a hard time finding appropriate entry-level openings for a job. I have looked at multiple openings at several national laboratories as well as private contractors, but everyone seems to either want a full doctorate for a post-doc position, or a bachelor's/masters with 5+ years of experience. Is there such a thing as a position similar to a post-doc but for master's degree graduates? If so, where could I find such a thing? If not, is there any advice on where to look for openings that I might qualify for?

For industry positions in particular, it's become a bit of a meme that "years experience" in job "requirements" are completely meaningless. A common example to joke about is when a job says it requires more years experience in a technology than the time that technology has existed (here's the first example I found searching just now: https://twitter.com/tiangolo/status/1281946592459853830 )

My national lab hires masters folk into technical positions, but you would need to pay attention to the Required vs Desired lists in the posting. If applying to positions requiring a PhD, HR will reject you.

Unlikely. Post docs are academic positions and someone with only an MSc is unlikely to be qualified for any similar position. Postdocs are a way for those with doctorates to get a bit more experience, usually research, so that they can get a more permanent position.
That isn't to say you couldn't be hired by some academic lab as an entry level employee, but it wouldn't be likely to be similar to a postdoc. Postdocs have a certain amount of independence in setting research agendas (not always) that you would be unlikely to have. CERN probably hires quite a lot of technicians. Some experience in field might be valuable. But not a lot of places work at that scale.
If you want to work in academia or a national lab, your best path is probably through a PhD.

Once upon a time labs would hire "research assistants", which someone with a master8s degree would be very competitive for. Such positions do still exist, but as funding levels have diminished in recent years, and numbers of graduate students has gone up, RAs have tended to be the first positions cut from grant proposals, while maintaining postdoc positions. They do still exist though.

We regularly hire masters graduates as research assistants at my institute. We often advertise for a 'postdoc / graduate research assistant' and if the best candidate has a PhD, we have a postdoc, if not, they're hired on a research assistant salary. Often, our research assistants end up transitioning to PhD student and then graduate with a great research portfolio.
Usually this happens if, for example, we need some heavy mathematical analysis done on a medical dataset, but all the PhD-holding applicants are from a biological background and the only one with a maths background is finishing a masters. The maths master is more useful than the biology doctor in that case.

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text:
How useful is a master's degree if you're working in IT-consulting?
I'm currently working as a Software Developer (Azure, .NET, Scrum) for clients. I currently have an applied bachelor's degree in IT. I'm considering to do a parttime master but I'm wondering what the added value is. I mostly study for my IT-certifications. If I obtain a master degree in business and IT, what value does it really have?

I think you'll get better answers from people in IT consulting rather than a bunch of professors.

@AlexanderWoo, some of us also do consulting of various kinds. Consulting to multinationals can keep you abreast of what trends are like in the real world. Especially in computing, perhaps.

"If I obtain a master degree in business and IT, what value does it really have?" You'll have a master's degree.

There are two ways that a masters can help your career. For one, the credential might bring you a few more clients and will probably increase their early faith in your skills.
But, if you choose the right program you might get some additional skills (mad skilz) that actually make you more effective in consulting.
As a bonus, it might also get you thinking more about your career choices and options. Who knows. You might even meet some interesting people.

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How does teaching experience help field experts to become more succesful?
I noticed that so many field experts in different disciplines (politicians, lawyers) become part-time teachers (next to their full-time job). I'm just wondering, how does (building up) teaching experience actually help them to become more successful?

Some don't care about that, and just love teaching.

What is a "field expert"?

You may have it backwards. Successful and prominent people may be approached and asked to do some teaching. Many decline (and you don't see those, so you already have a biased sample). Others do it because it strokes their ego. It may or may not help them get more successful.

@Jochen Glueck: Subject-Matter Expert (SME),  a person who is an authority in a particular area or topic. Think of politicians, lawyers, engineers working for many years in their occupation and then decide to go teaching since they have a wealth of experience.

Every person have different motivations for teaching. Some reasons include

Some people enjoy teaching (as noted by Buffy).
Intellectually, some people find teaching to be stimulating (e.g., Richard Feynman as described in this link. However, as a counter point, another well known physicist, Robert Oppenheimer realized later in life he did not want to teach, as noted here).
Closely related to the above point, teaching material helps people to better understand the material for research or application. Feynman talks about this in one of his books (Sorry, I don't have time to look up which one).
Teaching can build credentials and reputation. For example, if somebody adds to their bio "I taught at Prestigious University" this helps them appear to be an expert in the field. Likewise, this is another reason some people write books (e.g. this blog post).
For former politicians, teaching helps them connect to a younger generation (e.g., this story). This can also be a resume filler while they figure out if they want to do something else.
If the politician or political appointee was controversial, a faculty position may be a way to put some space between themselves and their controversy and re-build their reputation (e.g. do more research on this linked story).
For current politicians, they may do so for any of the above reasons. For example Mark Rutte still teaches. The linked article does not include his motivation. (Thanks to MSalters for the link.)
Some more reasons, adapted upon a comment from avid

Teaching allows people who may have moved into high-level positions to stay in touch with the fundamentals.
Teaching provides an opportunity to identify and recruit upcoming talent. Personally, I have encouraged students in my guest lectures to apply for internships I have and I have also seen faculty advertise for grad and postdoc openings during seminars and technical talks (e.g., science meetings).
The teacher gets an attractive compensation and support packages. The institutions benefit from being able to advertise big-name faculty. Personally, I have a friend who gets paid ~$10k to teach a week long summer course in his field of study at an Ivy League School and both parties like the agreement because he's done it several years.

It's not just former politicians. Dutch PM Mark Rutte has a side job teaching at a local high school. But it's indeed a good point - I have met quite a few of his colleagues during guest lectures.

@MSalters got a link? I'll add in your example to my answer.

Wikipedia has an article, with official government sources. It's pretty well known since Dutch politicians are supposed to list side jobs.

A couple of additions: (i) Most people find that as their career progresses they spend less time 'doing' and more time 'managing'. Teaching may be an opportunity to stay in touch with the fundamentals of a subject. (ii) Teaching provides an opportunity to identify and recruit upcoming talent. (iii) Institutions benefit from being able to advertise big-name 'faculty' and so offer attractive compensation and support packages.

@avid Good points. I've added them in. I also added some of my own details to support your ideas. Thanks for suggesting them.

It's a sad thing to work very hard to gain new knowledge only to find it's impossible to share. Teaching provides feedback. You learn if your explanations work. And sometimes, just sometimes, you learn you didn't know what you thought you knew.

There are other reasons to teach besides gaining skills for an ancillary profession.  Nevertheless, I'll take it that this could be a partial motivation for teaching in some cases, so I'll try to answer your question on that basis.
The discipline of teaching a specialist subject generally requires one to have a broad and detailed knowledge of the subject, with good recall of key facts and reasoning for core principles.  Forcing yourself into a situation where you are expected to have this knowledge and recall it under questioning is good practice for ancillary work in that field.  Most teachers learn more about their own subject in the course of preparing for and teaching that subject --- teaching a specialist subject usually gives rise to at least some issues that you have not previously considered in depth, or it gives rise to questions that you have not previously encountered in your practice of a profession.
In addition to developing better knowledge of a subject, teaching also involves practice in communicating ideas to others and defending those ideas under questioning.  This is useful in any profession, but it may be particularly useful in adversarial professions such as politics and law.  Teaching involves contemporaneous responses to unpredictable questions, which is a particularly useful skill in adversarial professions that require the ability to put forward an eloquent argument for a position under time pressure.

Deeper knowledge of a subject:
I learned a heck of a lot more about differential equations by teaching the courses than I ever did by taking them. I expect that in other disciplines this is similar.
Better technical communication skill:
Most (almost all?) professions benefit from more skilled communication.  Teaching helps build these technical communication skills.  On my project, team work is so important that an engineer with good technical communication skills is often more successful than better technically qualified engineers with poor communication skills.  In fact, one could argue that good communications skills are so essential for success they are a job requirement.
Enjoyment and passion for a subject:
A lot of us teach by answering questions in our fields of expertise on the Stack Exchange sites with no compensation.  I've learned a lot of Astronomy by answering questions on that site, but that learning is a tangential benefit.  I mostly just like answering questions!

It is not until we try to relay our own learning to others, so to teach, that we get to fully explore how to articulate our opinions and to truly appreciate the opinions of others.
It is generally accepted that you have not mastered a martial art, until you have instructed someone else to mastery status. (technically by that definition no one can ever be a master) This same concept applies to all fields, if you only have a vague level of understanding it may be enough for you to bungle through your day to day tasks, but if you are not challenged in the field to do something else, you will not know if you can meet that challenge until it presents itself.
To instruct others is to open yourself to their criticisms and be challenged before you may need to in the field. You must formulate your arguments or instructions in ways that others can understand them, it is not enough to state facts, or recite doctrine, for many students you will have to find different ways to explain phenomena and theory. Through the journey you yourself will be challenged and forced to view the same material from different perspectives, gaining a much deeper understanding in the process.
Having teaching experience will not necessarily make you a master or successful in your field, but if you are a master of your field and have the ability to be able to teach others, then you can more easily become successful as you will increase the understanding of the team around you. With a team of people that you can effectively communicate with and can relay instructions and ideas, then together you can achieve great things, these great things will become the external measure of your success.
You however, should judge your success based on the success of those who you have taught and inspired.
I couldn't find a specific article to cite, but the Four Stages of Learning is pretty close to what I was looking for, teaching being the fifth stage

If you plan to teach something, it's not enough for you to just have an understanding of the discipline. You must have an in-depth knowledge to teach, and while you do it, you continue improving your mastery and background knowledge. Teaching also requires the individual to continue self-development. I think the answer is quite obvious.


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I found a nontrivial mistake in my currently-under-review paper. Should I send a correction to the editor?
I submitted the paper to a respectable journal about five months ago. My field is mathematics, and I'm at the postdoc stage of my career.
The proof of one of my theorems is more or less completely wrong. It's not just full of small errors; the approach I use doesn't and can't work. The theorem is actually true, and I have a correct proof now. (I've checked the new proof with senior colleagues--yes, I should have done this before submitting the previous version of the paper, but that's neither here nor there.) For context, this is one of three main results of the paper, but its proof only takes up about two manuscript pages (out of 18 total).
Should I send a corrected version of the paper to the editor, or should I wait for the referee report? For those with experience serving as editors: would an incorrect but correctable proof of a main theorem cause you to reject outright a paper you would otherwise accept, or is this more likely to lead to a recommendation of major revisions? I say correctable because neither the theorem nor the (correct) proof is particularly surprising in the context of the problem, and there's a good chance a referee with experience in the subfield would, upon discovering the mistake, have a rough idea of the correct approach to take. (Which, of course, makes the mistake all the more embarrassing.)

See this question on MathOverflow.

Related http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9982/what-if-you-have-submitted-a-research-article-in-a-reputed-journal-that-has-a-sl

@anon, if you're still getting messages from this account, the curious among us would be interested to know how this turned out for you.

If the mistake is important, you should send a correction now, rather than waiting for the referee report.  (If it's not important in the context of the overall paper, then the right course of action is more debatable, but in your case it sounds like an important enough mistake to require notifying the referee.)

If you wait, you are wasting the referee's time figuring out something you already know.
I think it looks better to catch your own mistake than to have it pointed out by the referee.
If the referee doesn't notice the mistake and suggests accepting the paper, I imagine the editor will rescind the acceptance after you point out the mistake, or at least suggest further refereeing (since not noticing a completely wrong proof calls into question the reliability of the referee report).  On the other hand, if you point it out, the referee may still recommend accepting the revised manuscript.

For context, this is one of three main results of the paper, but its proof only takes up about two manuscript pages (out of 18 total).

This sounds like an ideal case for pointing out the mistake: it has real importance, but I'd bet the chances of acceptance remain reasonable.

Thank you for your answer! I think I'll send the corrected version.

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What is or should be the meaning of a "grade"?
What is or should be the purpose of a "grade"?
I am going to be entering into TAing and grading students and this is a concept that I still can't wrap my head around. It still amazes me that this concept seems to be taken for granted, considering how many questions there are about grades, and yet the purpose is not clearly defined.
There seems to be a huge amount of arbitrariness in how grades are currently evaluated.

Is the purpose:
To evaluate the overall performance of a student in the course?

This seems to be how most teachers grade courses. I don't know that this is necessarily the best way.
Consider a student who completely understands the material, but refuses to or does not value doing homework. Should this student receive a lower "grade" in the course simply because she or he did not desire to put the time/value into your course, even though they already knew all the material?

To evaluate the final performance of the student?

Some teachers will treate courses this way, but it rarely seems to be explicitely stated.
Consider a student who fails every midterm, but she or he gets the highest grade on the final exam. You, the teacher, feel that the final accurately assesses someone's complete understanding of the material. Should this student not receive an "A" even though they seem to be able to complete your final exam better than any of the other students?

To say what the student is dedicated to?

Many teachers seem to put this as a value into grades.
Consider a student who attends every lecture, and office hours, but can't seem to completely grasp the material. He or she continually scores lower than other students (getting B's or B+'s on exams, while other students achieve A's). Should this person be bumped up to an A because he or she seems to care and be dedicated to the material, while someone else might have the same grade? You, the teacher, probably wouldn't have consider bumping up the less dedicated student without having heard from the other less dedicated student, and felt a sense of "fairness".
In reality the way I look at this situation, is that there is no way the more dedicated student should be bumped up. Consider that they spent so much more time and still aren't capable of grasping the material, while someone else was able to spend less time and grasp it to a better extent.

To show what the student will be capable of?

Consider that many students take very difficult conceptual courses and quickly forget the material. They would receive an A, and then quickly forget most of the importance of the course if they don't use it on a regular basis. On the other hand, some math courses are taught such that the student just has to be able to do the material, and they will be expected to understand the material later only if it is needed. This person would not receive an A in the prior, but would receive an A in the latter.
Most people would look at this question and say to just evaluate the course itself and leave the remembering to the student. Then the question is, what's the purpose of the A, if you don't care that the student actually be able to retain the information.

Others have stated that a clear objective leads to better grading.
By giving a rubric of what material will be graded on, you fix the issue of what's expected to be known.
However, this doesn't fix the issues of:

Should there be homework? If so, how should it be weighted?
Should someone be able to completely change their grade with the final?
Should a student's dedication be taken into consideration?
Should the students be graded on pragmatic knowledge, or knowledge they may quickly forget?
Should the course be difficult so the grade the student receives feels earned, simply to keep the student humble?
Should students be allowed to retake exams if they understand the material after reviewing their mistakes on the midterm? These students would understand the material better now and should be able to receive a higher grade.

And many other important questions that don't come to mind at this present point in time.
Please tell my I'm just crazy, and everyone sees something I don't.

The answer is subject to university/department policy and personal preference. There's no universally agreed upon standard on what a grade should reflect.

@ff524 this is probably the real answer, it's just hard for me to look at a student and grade them when so much of it is somewhat arbitrary

It's not totally arbitrary. You decide on the grading standards for your course based on its educational goals, you communicate them clearly to your students, and then you follow them.

@ff524 I didn't say it was totally arbitrary. It's just disappointing if a student asks why I grade a certain way and I don't have a very good answer for the question. I think if I had a choice, I would allow the students to choose what they would be graded on. If you wanted to be graded on HW, Quizzes, and the Final, or if you wanted to be graded any of them individually or together, then why not allow that? If it ultimately comes down to personal preference, then why not allow the student to decide what you will grade them on? I feel the answer is because it's easier not to

You can't answer the question because as a TA you didn't design the course, not necessarily because there is no reason. There are several good reasons to require students to be graded on HW, quizzes, and exams, but that isn't what you asked.

@ff524 The question never asked what my role is in deciding grades. The question specifically asked what a grade is supposed to represent (what its purpose is). The TA part could have been left out entirely and wouldn't have affected my question.

A course on learning theories might help answering your question?

@adipro That is very true, but I asked the question so I might get some information on it from people whom had already spent time researching those types of subjects. My question may be too open ended for stack exchange's model. It's just every teacher "grades" people so I would like to see some very detailed thought on why they do their way as apposed to alternatives. I also highly doubt all, or even most, professors have spent a significant portion of their time studying learning theory.

One theory that I was introduced to recently as a part of a course required for TAs is the constructive alignment. It seems to be quite widely adopted. See this introduction, as well as an accompanying video. Thinking in terms of the SOLO taxonomy also helps. It might be common-sensical, but I find it useful.

Is the purpose:

To evaluate the overall performance of a student in the course?

Yes.  This is how people reading a transcript will interpret the grade.  When there is a single letter next to the name of a course, clearly it is meant to represent overall performance in this course.  However, this doesn't really answer the question, because "overall performance" is not a precise term.
There is no single right answer to the question "what should be the meaning of a grade," but neither does it follow that your grades should incorporate every single feature that anyone has ever proposed.  I think you are making the question too hard for yourself.  However, I will share my thoughts on some of the points that you raise.
Is the purpose:

To evaluate the final performance of the student?

No, this is what the final exam (or final project) is for.  It is possible to make the final exam be worth 100% of the grade, but the problems with this are (1) it makes it harder to motivate the students to do other work earlier in the term, (2) it may be more stressful for the student to have so much riding on a single exam, and (3) the effect of a grading mistake on the final exam would be magnified.  Ideas like "let the final exam grade replace a lower midterm exam grade" are similar (to a first-order approximation) to making the final exam grade count for a larger percentage of the course, so they share these disadvantages.

To say what the student is dedicated to?

No.  While dedication and hard work are admirable, they should only be reflected indirectly in the course grade (all else being equal, a hard-working student would tend to write a better paper, turn in more of the homework, and be better-prepared for an exam.)  Attempting to short-circuit this process by measuring dedication directly is probably a bad idea.  One reason is that it is a very difficult thing to measure objectively.  Another is that it would be unfair to penalize a student who can do well without working hard; if the course wasn't hard enough, that's not the student's fault.  So I agree with your assessment on this point.

To show what the student will be capable of?

No one can predict this.  It would be silly even to try.  Moreover, how could you defend such grades?  You may be able to imagine saying "I gave you a relatively good grade, even though you scored poorly on the coursework, because I know that you will be capable of great things,"  can you really imagine saying "I gave you a relatively bad grade, even though you scored well on the coursework, because I predict that you will never amount to much of anything"?  The ultimate worth of a grade is relative, so you can't say one without the other.  (On second thought, maybe I am misunderstanding the meaning of this question; it is unclear to me.)
The answers to some of your other questions will depend on the course.  But I think I can answer the following ones:

Should the course be difficult so the grade the student receives feels earned, simply to keep the student humble?

No, the course should be difficult only because the material is difficult to learn.  Humility may be a desired side-effect of learning, but it's not what you should aim to produce.

Should students be allowed to retake exams if they understand the material after reviewing their mistakes on the midterm?

No, not the same exam; this would simply reward memorization.  Learning from mistakes on the midterm exam will be rewarded on the final exam, assuming that it is cumulative.

Thanks for spending the time to work through all of this, I will start with my conclusion/theory. Courses are taught for a small group of students rather than for individuals... There are a couple statements made that I find slightly biased/without evidence... "No, this is what the final exam (or final project) is for." -Why can't you have both? If a student does well in the course but can't deal with the pressure of the final, then it won't count for as much, if the student does get one of the highest grades, then why not give them an A?... I wish stack exchange promoted more discussion ><

To show what the student will be capable of? -This is more in reference to the course material... Should the course be more difficult such that the students are more likely to cram and forget, or should it be such that the students try and focus on gaining the more general knowledge that will allow them to understand the more difficult things later? This probably has a lot to do with the course, but in a general course, some teachers prefer to try and teach everything and end up with students that cram and lose sight of the purpose of the material. Grades are assigned based on these styles

Should students be allowed to retake exams if they understand the material after reviewing their mistakes on the midterm? -I should have indicated that I didn't mean retaking the same exam. If a student take a midterm and then realizes many simple mistakes, then why shouldn't they be allowed to have a second chance to show their knowledge of the material? I know the final exam can show this, but generally teachers don't replace the midterm scores for these sections with the final exam sections covering the respective topics. This goes back to total vs. final performance.

Courses are taught for a small group of students — Small?

@JeffE Perhaps a large subset, rather than the individual students would have been better worded.

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Guilt about quitting PhD as first student of the lab
I am a first year PhD student in a lab in Europe. I joined the lab 6 months ago and soon afterwards realized that the topic and institute are not what I had imagined it would be.
It took me quite some time of thinking to come to the difficult point to realize that I have to quit my PhD to find another topic where I can do fulfilling work within my interests.
I also started to apply for other PhD positions and I got an offer, which would suddenly start very soon, in 2.5 months.
My problem is that I feel very guilty about leaving my current PhD position, because I am the first PhD student of my supervisor. He is currently still in the process of setting up his lab, the money is tight and time limited and we are few people (2 other PhD students). I feel that if I leave as the first student to join the lab, it would have a big and negative impact on the lab and the career / reputation of my supervisor - But does it?
I feel very guilty about my situation and I don't know what to do anymore. But I have to decide whether I move on with the new position which I would prefer as a topic. If so, I need to speak with my supervisor about quitting my PhD, but I currently lack the courage.
How would you judge this situation?

The first student leaving amicably after a few months is less bad than that student performing poorly for several years because they're not happy...

If the money is tight, your leaving may open up opportunities for your supervisor that were tied up in your salary. Especially if you aren't passionate about it, you can be replaced by someone who is and more productive.

Of course there will be a few raised eyebrows (or at least there should!). But lasting damage? Come on! If your supervisor doesn't survive that, he shouldn't become a prof. Definitely the wrong job for him.

While it might have a negative impact on your supervisor, it also might not have a negative impact if you handle it properly! And it will definitively have a negative impact on your career if you do not make this switch.
Handling it properly in this sense means soon and professionally. Schedule a meeting to talk to him about your expectations not being met and how this other opportunity is the thing you actually want to do. Offer to help in your remaining time there, document anything you can. That is the best way to limit negative impact in general.

From a professionalism perspective, it probably would have been better still to have talked to the supervisor before applying for other positions.  It might be that a satisfactory accommodation could have been made.  Indeed, that might still be possible, but "I've got an offer" is a negotiating stance with a different and more sour flavor.

@jeroen, thats such a nice and clear cut point! Thanks for sharing it, it really helps putting the facts out like that. Indeed, I realized I would also not help anyone by forcing myself on this project for 4 years just to please my supervisor, which in the end would just result in bad work from myself that no one would be satisfied with. So handling a transition with most professionalism I realize is for both sides the best outcome.. Thank you for your thoughts!

@JohnBollinger I see your point, it would have been probably the better way. I did not want to inform my supervisor before applying for other positions as I was afraid of getting quit immediately and therefore end up in a financial very difficult situation without a job. I also was thinking at the beginning, that I will not be selected by another supervisor, being "branded" as someone who already quit a PhD. The fact that indeed I did got an offer from a new position quite soon after my first applications was therefore not expected and led to the situation that I found myself in now.

@Kev123 If you can explain that, it'll likely help reduce hard feelings even further.

Consider the alternative:
Six months into my six year program, I realized I made a bad decision. I doubled down and finished.
That was the worst mistake of my life and I am still trying to dig myself out of the personal, financial and professional hole that I dug for six years (I finished 5 years ago).
You don't owe your supervisor anything.
By the end of my program, I tried claiming federal disability to obtain reasonable accommodation to address the depression, anxiety and stress disorders that I developed.
I currently work a job nearly identical to a member of my cohort that dropped from the program about the same time I made the decision to stay.
The only thing I 'earned' by staying are negatives. Not one positive resulted from my decision to stay.
You are fine. Sleep easy.
*Edit: Just to give you an idea of 'What-could-have-been'.
Toward the end of my program, I read a news article about a student murdering his supervisor and committing suicide on campus. My immediate reaction was 'The student really comes across as the villain in this article'. Thats a true story... and it wont be your story because you had the GUTS to make the right decision.

"YOU OWE YOUR FORMER SUPERVISOR NOTHING." I would perhaps temper this into: you owe your supervisor being reasonably upfront and open about your situation (assuming that they have also behaved ethically towards you) so that they can plan accordingly, but you certainly DO NOT owe them several years of your life.

yes, thank you @AdamPřenosil, i get a little worked up sometimes. dont be like me and dont lose a second of sleep over not being this way.

@user150207 this got me in the feels. I likewise took my sweet time (4.5 years) to realise my PhD journey was not working out and making me significantly depressed. I was fortunate in one regard, the project was such a train wreck it is hard for me to imagine quitting as anything but the best decision in the circumstances. I can relate to the reaction you had to that article, and wonder just how large the population of people whose lives are devastated by PhDs really is.

@user150207 This really is such a eye opening answer - Thank you very much. It really puts things into perspective to hear such an experience directly from someone who sadly had to went through it. Thank you very much for sharing this. I hope your situation as worked out to the better since then, but either way all the best to you!

I don't get the point of the murder anecdote, why wouldn't they come across as the villain? Also second Adam's point. You do owe them something ...

@AzorAhai-him- I think the point is that after user150207's experiences, they empathized and related to the sentiments of a student committing a murder-suicide, feeling that casting that student in a villainous light was unfair (at least as a gut feeling). Their anecdote served as a demonstration (and warning) of the level of emotional damage they put themselves through by staying in a program they didn't like, I'd say.

Well, you are all capable adults, aren't you? Feeling guilty is normal under your circumstances, and you might offer your supervisor some extra help to smoothen things out, but at the end of the day, you have already made your decision and are not staying, and it is in their capacity to handle the lab.
The sooner you two start working something out, the better. You do them a disservice by having them make plans you already know won't work out. The best you can do is to have this tough talk early and try to maintain a good relationship. Best of luck!

It's the supervisor who should be offering extra help.

@Lodinn very true! That is also an important aspect of the story to keep in mind, is that I dont help anyone by being around when knowing anyway there is no future. Thanks for the insights!

@AnonymousPhysicist in some aspects, yes. But the usual work ethics applies: if you quit some already agreed-upon obligations, you offer to make up for it and try to comply with reasonable requests. Staying for an extra year is not reasonable, staying for an extra week or two and helping to pass your current work on - maybe?.. Not that there's so much of it done in OP's case, but I'd expect some assistance along these lines in general.

Some of the longest days of my work life were those before I actually left somewhere I had already mentally checked out of. And the least productive. And the grouchiest.
Do everybody in that lab a favor: leave, and soon. Rip the band-aid off. Like long goodbyes, long transitions are highly overrated.
Truth: you aren't anywhere near so unique that you can't be replaced. You will be. Despite any BS guilt trip you supervisor may try to lay on you to save themselves some trouble, it's just a boring 'ol management issue. Replacing you will just be yet another management to-do for your supervisor. That's exactly what they signed up for by opening their own lab: personnel management, funding management, supplier management..., you get the picture, i.e. doing business.
Besides, it sounds like you were sold a bill of goods, at least to some extent.  At very worst you may or may not make an enemy (probably not), but everybody eventually ends up with a few of those. To make omelette, you have to break eggs.
You've learned something. Just be sure to ask the hard questions before taking the next position. Even if embarrassing to ask, assume nothing. This is important: keep repeating or reformulating questions until you get full, straight, non-evasive answers. Otherwise, you'll know it's another bill of goods. Talk to people, future peers. Ask around. Fool me once...
Be that as it may, guilt or no guilt, it's your life and you only get one of 'em. You're at a stage of your life when big decisions have irrevocable, life-long repercussions.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences! This all is super helpful for me to read and see how other people had similar experiences. And it is so true as you say, the one important thing is to learn from this experience and make sure it doesn't repeat itself. This is what I also try to keep in mind as a positive aspect of this experience. Truly this stage of life becomes more serious than the ones before and a bad experience is still an experience.. maybe these hard times have a good thing after all. Thank you again for your insights and all the best to you!

One of the most important/common challanges of management is to deal with staff turnover.  It is a standard part of running any enterprise, and something that managers have to learn to deal with.  If you feel that your present placement is not good for your career, and you would prefer this other offer, it is reasonable for you to act on that.  This will be inconvenient to your supervisor, and may exaccerbate the difficulties with setting up and running the lab, but that is part of the responsibilities of management.  (It is unlikely to harm his reputation; you don't lose reputation merely because your students decide they'd prefer to study a different topic to your specialty area.)  In the long run this is something that is a good skill for a new supervisor to learn.
Contrary to another answer here, I don't think it is reasonable to say that you don't owe your supervisor anything --- you owe him gratitude and thanks for taking you on as a student and for his assistance in your program.  But you don't owe him your life.  If you decide to take a position elsewhere, just be honest with your supervisor and try to give him a reasonable period of notice/work before you leave.  It is best to accept this offer immediately and put in your notice for your present position as soon as possible, so that you give your supervisor as much notice of your departure as you can.  Before you leave you can do other helpful things like teaching your work responsibilities to your replacement, and making sure you leave on a good note.  Two-and-a-half months is plenty of time for you to finish up your immediate duties and brief someone else on your work responsibilities in the lab.

Setting expectations is very important in any relationship, whether it be in a personal, romantic, or work relationship. Changing those expectations is tough and needs to be done in a transparent way to everyone involved. This time, your current situation didn't live up to your expectations. That's perfectly fine. Now you need to let your supervisor know that and what new set of expectations exist.
Just sit down with your supervisor and have an open and honest discussion with them. State any mistakes you think you made in your assumptions prior to joining and that you are leaving. Give them any constructive criticism you can to help them in the future, let them know any positives you had while there, and maybe even offer to help them find a replacement for you. Basically put yourself in their role and do what you would want someone else in your role to do for you. Well, do them if you can actually and reasonably do those things.
FYI, in most situations 2.5 months isn't "very soon". In the non-academic world, that's a long time. Most people don't give more than 2 weeks notice and, in some industries like retail and food service, giving zero to 2 days notice is common.
It's unfortunate that this situation is happening, but it'll probably happen several times over your career. It's unfortunately normal and the sooner you understand and accept this, as well as how to deal with it without unnecessary guilt, then the better off you will be. There's very many different variables when joining a new job or any situation to know 100% that it'll be perfect for you. Employers know and understand this. It's why so many jobs have a probationary period (often 3-6 months), so they know you are a good fit for them.
It's actually a good thing that you've recognized the problems this early. You aren't wasting your time, energy, or mental health any longer than necessary. Being in a bad situation, or "just" an uncomfortable one, can seriously damage your self-worth, your confidence, in working other places or even wanting to work other places. I've seen people in bad work environments that are afraid to change jobs for fear the same problems will exist or be worse. They got to the point where they think that kind of problem is normal, even when everyone else tells them it isn't. They think "better the devil you know than the devil you don't know", giving up and believing every employer is "the devil".
You haven't said your situation is this bad, so that was just me making a point.
Yes, it's hard to come to the realization that a choice you made was wrong and/or that other people aren't living up to their promises, but don't dwell on it. Use it as a learning experience, deal with the emotions that come up with, and move on to the next opportunity. Unless your supervisor is unreasonable, they may take you leaving better than you think they will. A reasonable person would understand that, as a first time supervisor, they aren't as polished as other supervisors and need to learn how to do better. They should also understand the existing time and financial constraints the lab is under and realize that it's not great conditions to work under.
You have to make the decisions that work best for you, not everyone else. It's not always easy, but it gets easier the more often you do it. Don't worry about your supervisor. You leaving will likely have very little impact on their reputation and future.


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Harvard citation style: Is it "...as mentioned in Author (year)..." or "...as mentioned in (Author, year)"?
I know that you can distinguish two ways of referencing scientific work in the Harvard (or author-year) citation style:

You cite the idea or work in general:
"Recently, a new approach for SOME STUFF was demonstrated for the first time (Author, year)."

You cite the author:
"Recently, Author (year) demonstrated SOME STUFF for the first time."

However, what is the correct way, if you want to state that something was mentioned in a certain work?
"...as explained in Author (year)..." or "...as explained in (Author, year)..."?
My personal opinion would be the second option, because the idea is not located "in" the author, but "in" the work he published. But in our group opinions differ strongly on this one. Can anyone provide a reliable and authoritative resource?

I think the problem is "in". If you say "by" then the first option make sense. You read something "in" a paper but forget it is written "by" someone

For sure the problem is "in". But the question is: If I want to say that a certain thought was published "in" a certain work - how do I do it?

In the second option you suggest, the sentence is not complete. If you would leave out the part between (),  the sentence would not make any sense.
You should, as also @Peter Jansson suggests, write sth. along the lines of "As author (2013) explained, ..."

A useful reference is http://www.staffs.ac.uk/assets/harvard_quick_guide_tcm44-47797.pdf which shows the use of both styles. It suggests that a reference to the body of work is followed by (Jones, 2015) while an active description:

Jones (2015) argues the opposite

Has the form author (date)
This makes sense, intuitively. And the your second option becomes the preferred on since it refers to the body. But as others pointed out, perhaps a slightly different turn of phrase would make the problem go away more naturally.


text:
The best way to prepare an undergraduate student before entering scientific research
I am a student in the second year of a university majoring in mathematics. I am trying to publish scientific research. Of course I know that it will be very difficult to do it at this level of study. At this level I try to prepare myself to do it. I try to study anything in detail with the proofs, and to solve some diverse and difficult problems that are often from IMO.
Since I started doing this I have noticed that I find it very difficult to combine rigorous self-study with solving very hard problems. It seems that it is better to do one thing. By this I mean either I try to study without going too deep and without knowing the details, with solving difficult problems, or I try to study in depth without trying to solve very difficult problems.
As a note, by hard exercises I mean Olympic exercises, not medium-difficult exercises like the one in "calculus" Spivak's book. My question is this:

Do you need to be good at solving difficult problems or just enough to understand everything you have studied, in order to be creative in mathematics?

From your experience in scientific research, what is your advise for a student who is still trying to hone their skills to enter the field of research?

what is your advise... - find a mentor

@kimball that is the problem, i had the education system i am alone without any relation ,so i can't find a mentor

In some sense maybe you've framed the question backwards? I think you need creativity to be good at solving difficult problems (necessary but not sufficient)?

For example, you can be an expert at turning the crank using analytical tools (integrals, derivatives, etc.), but if you don't have creativity, you're going to have trouble solving difficult problems.

Is Mathematics a science?

@Gilbert That's a deep question! :)

Questions/answers/comments relevant to aspects of your question: Learn university maths or train for high school competitions: which is better? AND Why are the contents of contest maths so different from contents of degree-level maths?

@Anas I don't understand---why do you think the problem of preparing for research should be easier (in your situation) than the problem of finding a mentor?

Focusing on some terms in your two questions ...

Problem solving is honed through disciplined practice. While some folks may have an inherent ability, most if not all folks benefit by focusing time on improving the practice itself independent from the need to solve a problem.

The chances of solving a "difficult" problem in a reasonable time by randomly applying everything you understand at any given moment are far smaller than the chances of solving the same problem by disciplined practice in problem solving.

"Difficult" problems do not continue to exist because we have too few smart folks who understand enough about everything that we can know to connect their knowledge with successful answers. Difficult problems continue to exist because the steps to connect one field of knowledge with another require both the fullest mastery in the fields and the ability to apply careful, rigorous problem solving to make the connections between the fields in a robustly acceptable manner

At any point in life, everything you may have studied to that point could be only a subset of everything you will need to comprehend to solve a particular problem. Hence the phrase behind the practice of life-long learning.

Creativity without discipline can fall / fail to anarchy.

Understanding has various levels of meaning in theory and practice. Find references on the Bloom taxonomy for but one case (know, comprehend, apply, analyze, synthesize, evaluate).

So, to your questions directly ...

Creativity in any discipline is near the top in the taxonomy of mastery. Before you get to that level, you must build your confidence in your knowledge and your ability to analyze problems on hand your knowledge. Creativity has nothing to do with just solving (difficult) problems or just understanding (comprehending) everything you have studied as an either-or choice. It is the application of both to analyze wide ranges of problems.

Hone your ability to analyze problems that test your comprehension of the knowledge you currently have. Hone your ability to report on the results of your analysis in a way that others can also comprehend what you have done and apply your method to their own needs.

In summary, difficult problems will still exist a few years from now, and they will not be the same ones as now. As second year undergraduate student, this may not be the best time to try to find fields that have "difficult" problems. Rather, it can be the best time to explore to find your best skills, greatest abilities, and deepest passions.

Frankly, you are just at the beginning of your career in Mathematics and should give yourself more time. Hopefully, your program of studies will teach you how to make and formulate a valid proof. Once you get into these classes, your professors will take note of you if you have the exceptional capabilities that you ascribe to yourself by wanting to solve difficult problems. Hopefully, you can find a mentor this way. If you can, take the Linear Algebra or Algebra classes early as they will give you an introduction to how modern Mathematics works and will also give you some idea how big Mathematical knowledge now is.
Also, notice that you need mathematical creativity in addition to problem solving skills. When you do a Math Olympiad problem, you know that there is a solution and you just need to find it. Finding a handle on an unknown field requires more creativity.
Finally, if you want to do research NOW and independently of others, you need to find an area that has not been mathematized for centuries like algebraic number theory, algebraic geometry, or complex analysis of several variables. In this areas, even a genius will need a few years to understand what has already been done. It used to be relatively easy for amateurs to make contributions to Graph Theory, but I am not sure that this is the case any more. Some other topic in Combinatorics might still be fresh enough. If you are good at programming, you might want to look at some aspects in applied mathematics. Modeling biological systems probably still has some low-hanging fruits. You might also look into adjacent areas. Algorithms in Computer Science is a rather Mathematical topic, but there is more to discover there.

While problems from mathematical olympiads can be fun and rewarding, I would claim that at your stage, they do not really prepare you for research.¹ These problems are very specific in their structure. By their very nature, they generally have an intended solution that is less than a page and uses nothing but high-school knowledge and some tricks that in principle can be taught to any gifted student in less than an hour or two.
Contrast this to mathematical research, which often builds upon material that takes years of university lectures to assemble all the required concepts and often involves proofs that in total extend along many pages, where the difficulty rarely consists of finding some clever trick, but mostly of splitting the problem into the right steps and sub-problems that then can each be solved using some standard methods.
This splitting into sub-problems is something you can best learn from an advisor, e.g. when writing a thesis. It is something that can rarely be put into the form of a problem, as there often is no clear right or wrong way to do it, just a better or worse one. So to learn this, it is best to have a guide, who at each step can tell you the problems with your specific approach and point you in a better direction.
Now, if you are not at the level of having an advisor yet, the thing you can study on your own is the other prerequisite mentioned, application of the standard methods. And by this I mean methods from university topics, so you will not find those in the IMO-problems but in the same medium level textbook exercises you mentioned.
¹Just to make sure that I am not misunderstood, there are indeed many brilliant mathematicians who did well in the IMO. But apart from the problem of reversing causality, they studied IMO-problems when they were in high-school, which helped them by introducing them to mathematical thinking earlier than most. But at a late undergraduate level, you should already know mathematical thinking well enough.

Math can be very useful in many fields of scientific endeavor, statistical analysis, and engineering.  It can be useful in some fields of computer programming, but not as much as some would think.
So my answer would be:  It depends on what 'science' you want to do, and whether you envision graduate studies in pure math, applied math, physics, engineering.
I would advise you to study 'Numerical Analysis' on a computer, as most of these fields (except possibly pure mathematics) will use that extensively.
I myself have a Ph.D. in electrical engineering(EE), and a solid grounding in 'Fourier Analysis' can get you far in EE.
Also, you are very young yet, so over your lifetime you may switch course many times.  I got my degrees in EE but now am exclusively a software engineer!
One thing is to try to appreciate general concepts such as design, documentation, research, and how to analyze a problem (e.g. convert a story problem to a math equation).
Hope this helps, best wishes for a bright future.

yaeh ,i want to do pure mathematics


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Should I negotiate visiting lecturer pay with my previous department
I recently left an full-time academic position in the UK for industry and the department wants me to continue to teach a module I have been in charge of as a visiting lecturer in future.
I do enjoy teaching this module to my students and I also think it's a good for me to keep links to academia this way. However, the visiting lecturer pay is less than 1/30th of my full-time annual salary before I left, while I probably spent 15-20% of my time teaching this module last year. Although I don't do this for the money, I do feel that the contract pay is too low to the point where I don't feel my time and effort in teaching this in my spare time is respected. Also, since there is no one else in the department that can teach this, I think I'm doing a favor by just agreeing to teach in the first place.
In short, while I'm inclined to accept the visiting lecturer position only for maintaining relations and not for the pay, I do feel a bit shocked at how low the pay is. Would you negotiate  pay in this situation?

The question is: it is possible to negotiate? In many countries, university salaries even for guest lecturers are fixed by labor contracts and cannot be changed (easily).

Was last year the first time you taught the class? Or is that time spent representative of near steady state effort? Does your new job care about a 10% or so commitment to the university? Would class time interfere with work?

@Sursula-they- The value of each point on the salary scale is negotiated at the national level, but the scale point at which an indevidual is appointed is up to the university in question. Also, they amount of hours they hire a visiting lecturer for is up to them.

Are they asking you to teach on the module, or lead the module? The difference in time commitment from administrative burden and grading could be very large, and reflect the difference in hours they expect.

Yes, part-time teaching pay is atrocious everywhere. Just opt out.

Usually, remunerations for visiting professors are fixed and geared towards people who love to teach and have the time.  You can ask, but do not expect any movement on their side. You might end up in a situation where both sides think that they do the other side a big favor. If this is the case, hurt usually follows.

If both sides think they are doing the other a favor, then there has been a communication problem. So the advise is not so much to start negotiating, but to start communicating. What do you want out of this arrangement, what do they want out of this arrangement. Maybe you come to the conclusion that the goals are better attained if you visit the local colloquium once in a while and give a talk to students about what live is like outside university.

I recently left an full-time academic position in the UK for industry and the department wants me to continue to teach a module I have been in charge of as a visiting lecturer in future.

Just say no.  That is not a reasonable request.

However, the visiting lecturer pay is less than 1/30th of my full-time annual salary before I left,

That's not a reasonable offer.

Also, since there is no one else in the department that can teach this

That is not your responsibility.

Would you negotiate pay in this situation?

No.  It is pointless to negotiate an unreasonable offer.

I also think it's a good for me to keep links to academia this way.

It is better strategy to develop new links with a different university.  That is how you develop your skills and reputation.
You left your job for a reason.  Stick to the plan.

The only thing I disagree with here is the hard no on negotiation. OP certainly can try to negotiate, but should decide upfront what would be a reasonable offer that they would be happy with (i.e., avoid anchoring bias by the super-low initial offer), and should expect that most likely the outcome of this negotiaton will be negative.

I don't know what is possible in UK, so I'll assume for this answer that it is. Laws and regulations and union negotiations and such might make this impossible, of course.
But, assuming it is possible, there is no reason not to open a negotiation. If the course is important and you are the obvious person to teach it, and there aren't viable alternatives, then the administration will have an incentive to work with you in the short term, though they will likely want a different solution in the long term. This isn't like a course that any part-timer is likely to be able to cover adequately. That adds value.
I would start by asking for a prorated stipend based on your last salary. If teaching was 1/3 of the job and six courses were required of regular faculty, then the stipend for a course would be something like 1/18 of the last salary you earned.
I once had such a relationship with a university in the US for a couple of years for just the above reasons. And, as suggested, it was temporary.
As long as it is possible, you lose nothing by asking.

In the UK, negotiating the rate per hour might be difficult (although you can certainly demand you were on the same salary point you were on when you left). But you should be able to negotiate how many hours they deem teaching the module to require. A common formula is 4 hours per lecture + 20 minutes per student. I'd ask for at least double that (as that better represents how long it actually takes).


text:
Managing difficult situation with PhD advisor: substance abuse/health crisis or emotional abuse? Do I speak up?
I am at the very end of my PhD, and my PhD advisor has been repeatedly inappropriate and overstepped boundaries that would probably fall into "mandated reporter" territory, if I were to tell anyone. I do not say this lightly, but I literally feel traumatized by the majority of my PhD experience. I also worry my professor might be mentally or medically suffering, and they might need serious help. tldr; I am confused about whether I should tell anyone at my university about my advisor's behavior or just walk away, as soon as I can graduate.
tw: Substance abuse and sexual harassment (?)
While intoxicated, my professor told me in detail about their sexual history (including detailed description of specific sex acts), while I was at a work event with them, which has made me incredibly uncomfortable (I tried to change the subject and then walked away). It was completely unsolicited and off-topic. I really hope they don't remember telling me these things, but I feel very disturbed. It didn't seem like they were propositioning me, but more of uninhibited exhibitionism.
My advisor also pressures people in the lab to drink at lab events (while they themselves get intoxicated: entire bottles of wine or several bottles of beer/hard liquor) and to do unsafe things ("don't wear a seat-belt" while on group trips, insisting on driving after several drinks, and telling us we have to tell white lies to cover for them when they break university policy). I have tried to change the lab culture around this, by always bringing and offering non-alcoholic drinks and other distractions.
My advisor has also pressured us (PhD students/postdocs) to stay overnight at their house or share a hotel room with them at conferences, for various reasons. I sincerely don't think they have gone so far as to ever assault anyone, but I am the only student of theirs that has not staid overnight at their house, which I feel caused a social divide and stigma towards me. It is super awkward, at best, to share sleeping arrangements with a drunk advisor (sometimes, they are an angry drunk).
There have been other major behaviors that would be too identifying to describe, but they are very abnormal, threatening, controlling, and/or point to mental instability or some kind of illness that seriously impairs judgement. I have experienced extreme stress in response to these cycles of instability, and it has taken a toll on my mental and physical health.
My plan has always been to graduate as fast as I can, try to have the "best" relationship I possibly can with my advisor, move on, and forget all of this. I feel ashamed, because I wish I listened to my gut and switched labs, the first time my advisor used threatening language towards me and/or behaved in ways that made me feel very uncomfortable, years ago. I have a next job lined up, and I'm just waiting for my advisor to give any final edits on my complete thesis and sign-off. This last part has been a huge struggle and has been dragging on for a very long time. The thesis is in good shape (it is "ready to submit to journals" according to my committee), but it still needs to be published as several separate manuscripts (which requires extended collaboration with my advisor).
I am worried if I talk to someone at my university about these concerns, it will be career ending for me (I will not be able to get a letter for any future fellowship or job applications from my PhD advisor, which will "raise a red flag," and my papers will be in jeopardy). My advisor has tenure, so I don't know if it would even have any proactive or mediating outcome.
I recently learned, however, that another student has also been experiencing extremely similar verbal/emotional abuse as I have, and I am especially wondering if I should say something to someone. This other student is extremely emotionally distressed and worried about their professional and financial future. I also feel worried about the several more junior students in the lab that I will leave behind.
Does anyone have any advice/experience in such a situation?

Who should I talk to, if anyone: Should I talk to an ombudsman? Should I talk to my department head, but only share a selection of these issues (leaving out things that could fall into mandated reporter territory, ie sex and otherwise; things I didn't write about here, but are worse)? Or should I tell someone everything? I tried talking to my thesis committee, but they stopped me and told me there were mandated reporters (so I decided not to proceed in asking for their advice).
When should I talk to someone? After the ink dries on my graduation papers? After my publications are accepted? After I get my first non-trainee job offer? What should I do if their behavior gets worse in the meantime?
Is there any way my career can recover, if I am transparent about my experiences to someone who is a mandated reporter? I am not so naive to think "reporting" my concerns would actually change anything or make my situation better: it would be throwing myself under the bus, to potentially generate awareness or encourage this advisor to get help, if I'm lucky.
What special care can/should I take, if I worry this behavior might be driven by substance abuse or some other untreated medical issue?

Thank you to anyone who read all the way through, this hot mess. I really appreciate it.

What country are you in?

How much do you trust your department to “take care” of the current advisees if this advisor needs to be put on leave for a time?

Also, have you connected with lab members (especially the person who is struggling) about their preferences for your actions?

Let me ask another question. What would you feel if you don’t report it and the behaviour continues and becomes worse with other/new students?

Thanks for the comments. The other student who is struggling has more to lose than me (their immigration status & future job uncertainty) and less of a social safety net than me (financially), so while they are beside themself with the abuse, they feel like they have to put on a smile and keep a low profile. I wouldn't drag them into this more than they wanted. To answer the other question, no I don't really trust my department to handle this at all or support the other students. There aren't other PIs in the department that could easily advise these students without changing topics.

And yes, unfortunately, the behavior has gotten progressively worse, so I do worry that it will be worse with current and future students. I excused A LOT of bad behavior due to the stress of the pandemic/the general chaos that it caused, although now I realize the worst behavior was prior to the lockdowns and within the past year.

Related: I reported a fellow student who said inappropriate things repeatedly to my advisor. I also spoke to the ombuds. Ombuds could not do much except "education". My advisor dismissed me at the end.
In hindsight, the fellow student might have a mental illness or were neuro-diverse.

Most universities have an anonymous tip line. Use that and let someone else come to you to ask questions. This way, you're not the one who tipped the university off (i.e., nobody will know that you did), only the one who answered questions in the same way as hopefully some of your colleagues will. Be specific and detailed in your initial, anonymous report to make sure the university cannot just dismiss it as "he said she said".
You are probably right that there is a price you will pay, if only that your adviser can no longer write letters of recommendation if they are removed from their position. You can mitigate this by making your report only after you have found a different position. On the other hand, you gain peace of mind that the next generation of students does not have to go through what you have gone through.

Actually, I've never heard of an anonymous tip line for a university, but agree that an anonymous message is appropriate in this situation.

@Buffy Every respectable university has ways to report things anonymously. If you're concerned about someone's wellbeing, here's the website at my university (note no name of reporter is required): https://cm.maxient.com/reportingform.php?ColoradoStateUniv&layout_id=12 For the case in question, the Title IX page is better suited: https://cm.maxient.com/reportingform.php?ColoradoStateUniv&layout_id=17 Again, no name required. Both of these pages are run through a service external to our university, presumably to provide for better anonymity.

Regardless of where you report, if the description is serious enough, one can probably presume that the report will eventually be forwarded to the right person.

I really appreciate this suggestion (and all suggestions) but even if I were to report this anonymously, there are only a finite number of people in the lab, and I'm sure my advisor would deduce that it was me (the person who is graduating & has a job lined up elsewhere, compared the more junior students who need to stick around, or the other graduating student who still needs to find a job). Thank you though

@throwaway_4obviousreasons Maybe. An anonymous report provides you with plausible deniability. In the end, however twisted that is, there is no good way for you to report the issue without paying some kind of price, for example by not getting letters of recommendation. That can be addressed if you talk to your adviser in your next job about the issue, and they can mention why you don't have a letter from your old adviser in their own letters.

Thinking about it, both NIH and NSF have recently also been trying to be more proactive about sexual (and other kinds of) harassment. I bet that with a bit of searching, both institutions also have ethics offices that could be contacted to report the behavior. Since they have the force of the Federal government behind them, they will almost certainly not drop the ball assuming that your adviser is funded by NSF or NIH.

Short term concern:

I will not be able to get a letter for any future fellowship or job
applications from my PhD advisor, which will "raise a red flag,"

you stated as well that

I have a next job lined up

So who cares about the reference letter from your advisor.
Let's build a worst-case scenario. You do nothing, no one does nothing. You get your reference letters, you build your career, your advisor keep on behaving  then 10 years down the road someone reports your advisor and you are then put in the spotlight "look, he/she was referenced by them and he/she build a career" ... good luck with pushing your me too connections then to save your face.
Ok, back to reality, you are a lab PhD under immense pressure (even with the best advisor, because productivity increased 5000 times in the past 50 years, in research as well, but PhDs are still pushed to perform the same breakthrough science like if they were the lucky 0.01% of the population, while now they are the 1% and growing).
Unfortunately many labs groups have a "collegial" style, and this plus the  practical attitude required to "get s**t done" make people forgetting they are humans and behave like animals, because if the time of the people has to be dictated by the machinery/lab equipment, they will start as well behaving like machines and not like humans.
Ok, enough with philosophy.
If you do not know to whom you should address your concerns, you are already in trouble: it means the institution is not pro-active in preventing such behaviours, so whatever you will do, it will almost for sure retort against you. You mention "university policy", is there an anonymous way of reporting? Since your advisor is tenured, they will not go full power against him, but after they collect enough anonymous reports, they will start doing something (something ultra mild, like writing them "please adhere to the rules" ... but that is not your duty, although it is something you can escalate)
You should speak with the students representatives, without specifically naming the advisor, but being transparent about their acts, or you can speak with the department head, asking to have a private chat. Then you can speak with the head, mentioning your advisor had some erratically behavior that made you very uncomfortable. However, you do not need to be precise on the behavior, at first. But you can open the discussion. The remarks I can leave are

yes, you have to do something for the next students;
yes you may professionally suffer in the process (you already suffered a lot at the private level, this is just a small drop, not suffering at the professional level or even benefitting from your advisor at the professional will not make up for the personal suffering you had, unless you are ready to have personal disorders in the medium-long term...)
no, things will not change in the short term, so you have to best assess your way out from this group, consider that you should not have any relations with them after your graduation.

In short, you have to decide how much more personal pain you are ready to accept to benefit professionaly from this relation. Professionally speaking, having a PhD in STEM is a sure thing to get a job.
Without your advisor support you will not get the profesorship at Cornell, but if the single reference letter from your advisor is so important, it means you do not have so good contacts so you will not become the next big shot (sorry being blunt).
Good luck, you have all my sympathy and probably the sympathy of many people in the lab, although you feel the stigma ... animals move in herds.

Thank you for taking the time to answer this. I appreciate the frankness (and humor at times) of your answer. Part of my anxiety with speaking up is that I had previously hoped to go for a tenure track job in academia. I am very fortunate that my CV is very strong & I have others that can write strong letters for me, but I realize it will be a red mark to not have a letter from my PhD PI.

@throwaway_4obviousreasons Not having a reference letter from your PhD advisor is much less of a red mark than you think. But, be read to justify its absence during the interview (if you feel the need or if brought up). How? however you prefer, from the neutral "I could not reach my advisor, they are getting drunk at a conference and workshop for the previous and next 2 weeks" (which is not far from reality) to the defensive "I feel my advisor tried to cross the boundary with me, from a professional to a personal level, I am not sure they can give an objective ref"(not sure, it's tricky)

It is not uncommon for problems on this scale to be known in the discipline. People remember when you get drunk too often on conferences, especially if you behave inappropriately.if that is the case than you don't need to explain anything.

You have lots of options here, so you will just have to figure out which option is best for you.  Also, in relation to potential career damage, it is primarily your advisor who is in danger of serious career damage, not you.  From what you have described it sounds like your supervisor has a problem with alcohol and has bad judgment in relation to some social matters (especially while inebriated).  Your best course of action depends on a number of factors relating to your view of your supervisor and your preferred approach.

Option 1: Report the problems to the university
One option here is to report these problems to the university and let the university work things out using its usual disciplinary policies.  Since there are multiple students witnessing these behaviours it should be possible to establish those behaviours with evidence, and this is likely to lead to some kind of requirements being imposed on this academic.  The consequences will depend on the university and their approach; it might lead to termination, or it might lead to some lesser response like a period of detoxification and some requirements for reforms in his work behaviour.  In any case, once you report the issues and provide relevant statements, the university will do the rest.
If you were to take this approach, it might negatively affect your ability to get a letter of recommendation from your supervisor (or it might not, depending on his attitude).  Even if this were to occur, it is likely that the university could provide you with some reasonable alternative, such as a letter of recommendation from another academic or the Dean of the Department.  (For example, the Dean might supply you with a form letter stating that your supervisor was removed for disciplinary reasons and this has led you to be unable to get a letter of recommendation from that supervisor through no fault of your own.)  The university will feel some responsibility here since it has placed you under the supervision of someone who is not behaving himself, so it should not be difficult to get something that can act as a reasonable substitute for a letter of recommendation.
As to any other possible career damage to you, I think that is unlikely.  If you can get some alternative to a letter of recommendation from your supervisor (e.g., a letter from the Dean) then this ought to function perfectly adequately.
(Also, I'm not sure there is any such thing as a "mandated reporter" for sexual harassment unless you are a minor.  Sexual harassment against other adults is something that can be reported, but I'm not aware of anyone having an onus to report on behalf of another adult.)

Option 2: Write your advisor a letter
It sounds like you still sympathise with your advisor despite the problems you've described.  It also sounds like you want to do something, but don't like the idea of reporting the behaviour to the university.  In view of that, one option you have is to wait until you've graduated your program and then write your advisor a personal letter setting out your thoughts on the problems you've raised.
To maximise the chances of this being received in a postive spirit, you could frame this as a thank-you letter where you thank him for his work supervising you and set out both the good and bad points relating to his supervision.  When you get to the bad points, raise the problems you are concerned about and tell him that these detracted from the quality of supervision and made you uncomfortable.  You should note that you have observed that he appears to have problems with alcohol and you think this has caused him to display some bad judgment in some cases.  You might also mention that you had considered reporting these issues to the university, but you have decided to just talk to him about it instead.
I may be naive, and I can't really say how a person would react to this type of feedback, but I would think that there is a pretty good chance that a supervisor hearing about these problems would be pretty embarrassed and want to reform their behaviour (and probably also cut down on the drinking).  You mentioned that your supervisor asks students to cover for him with the university, so he's aware that he's doing the wrong thing.  He might be labouring under the illusion that his behaviours are okay with the students, and your letter could break that illusion.

Option 3: Do nothing
You are at the end of your PhD program now and you have obviously already put up with this behaviour for a substantial amount of time.  Therefore one reasonable option you have is just to finish out your program and go on with your career elsewhere, without ever resolving things with your supervisor.  This has the advantage of being an easy course-of-action, but it also has the disadvantage that it doesn't fix anything for other students who come in to be supervised by this supervisor later on.

Thank you for laying this all out and taking the time to write this out. It is indeed a very hard decision to make.

If you decide to act on this, I'm sure the forum would be interested in an update on what you did and how it worked out (preserving relevant anonymity).

Im in a similar situation and talked to the responsible person, after years of gathering courage/self gaslighting. The name of the person u have to talk is „ombudsperson“. I created an alias and wont gibe information unless the uni does something, also because he would guess it was me. You got this.


text:
How do you handle giving an invited university talk in a smaller room compared to previous speakers?
I am a university professor in Europe and was recently invited by my alma mater in the Middle East to give a talk on a topic of my choosing. Excited to accept the invitation, I traveled to the university to deliver my lecture. Upon arrival, I discovered that my talk had been scheduled in a small room, in contrast to the larger main halls used for other talks in their guest speaker series, including those given by graduate students from other institutions. This disparity left me feeling disrespected and considering declining the invitation.
Additionally, I noticed a cultural trend in my home country where accomplishments are often exaggerated. For example, a first-year PhD student's biography might seem more impressive than mine, despite my more extensive experience. I'm unsure if this detail is relevant to the situation but wanted to mention it for context.

Have you tried to bring this issue up with anyone from the university and tried to inquire why your talk is scheduled to take place in the small room. Or do you feel that would not be considered appropriate culturally?

Is there any cultural or local consideration that I am not aware that suggests that room size should be correlated to the prestige of the speaker? Maybe you are reading too much into this choice. It is possible that they simply had a busier schedule for that day.

Is it possible that your topic/field is narrower and therefore has a smaller potential audience population to draw from?

I assume you were at talks in the past at that institution when you were a student - was the room ever full then? In my experience these seminars are often held in a room far larger than it needs to be, and something as simple as a scheduling conflict like a course using the room at the same time could move a dept seminar.

You can, of course, decline future invitations if you feel slighted.  But it would be unprofessional to back out after having accepted the invitation merely on account of the room chosen for the talk not being to your liking, especially after having already traveled to the institution for the event.  Give a good talk, with good grace.

It is possible that you are reading too much in this situation. At my University, when we schedule a talk, the room size only depends on two factors: which room is available and what is the expected audience. The room availability is the most important factor... As a side note, I would expect my talks to be in smaller rooms than my student's talks, since my talks are very technical and typically too advanced for our students, my student's talks are much more accecible to their peers.

Was the room actually full for your talk, and do you know of people who wanted to attend but were unable because of the small number of seats?  If not then I think this is "no harm no foul", and that in fact they did a good job choosing a room of an appropriate size.  I personally would rather speak in a small room that is reasonably full, than in a large room that is mostly empty.

You'll feel real silly about complaining about room size if it ends up only a dozen or so people end up showing

Is it possible that the room size choice is based on the number of people that expressed interest?

A few years before he won the Nobel Prize, Zhorez Alferov spoke at my department in a room that seated about 20.

The last time a talk of mine was moved to a different (not great) room it was just because of room availability.

If I was you, I would feel slightly surprised and puzzled for a few seconds, and then forget about it and carry on.

Cultural and local differences aside: As long as there are a few people in the audience who really care about what you have to say, it is worth it to give a talk.
I have talked for an audience of 6 and for an audience of 600 - and they can both be great talks and great discussions (usually better discussions with a smaller crowd). So I would not be too hung up on the room size (actually, as a host I always try to book a room that is easier to make look full, which is then by definition a smaller room so it doesn't feel too empty if the audience turn up is smaller than hoped). Let us know how the talk went!

I think this is an excellent point - if attendance for talks has been low recently, I've shifted talks to a smaller room. It's nothing to do with any of the speakers attributes, but more a desire to avoid it being embarrassing if only a few people show up for a giant room, and some recent historic trends on talk attendence

I disagree with your underlying notion that the size of the room has anything to do with the importance of the speaker. There are many perfectly normal reasons why you might be scheduled for a smaller room:

You were added late to the roster and the larger rooms were already booked.
The larger room has some sort of special equipment or resources that the grad students need for their presentation but that you do not (or vice versa).  For the same reason, some presentations may get recorded, and will necessarily end up in whichever room has the A/V equipment set up.
Some rooms (large or small) get reserved for presentations that are part of a series, where audiences can easily sit through multiple talks on connected topics. Whether or not your presentation fits one of those series can dictate where the presentation takes place.
Student presentations could be expected to draw large crowds of friends, fellow students, etc., that would necessitate the larger room.

The last time I gave a conference presentation, the organizer put me in a smaller room because he was particularly interested in the topic and the smaller room meant that it was easier for him to hear me since there wasn't a microphone/loudspeaker involved.
All said, I wouldn't think twice about the size of the room that they put you in.  Unless you have reason to believe you'll draw a crowd that's beyond the room's capacity, I don't think it's worth mentioning at all.

It may simply be that there's something else going on which needs the larger room.  For example there's an exam that needs NNN students present there at the same time.  Your talk is flexible in terms of space allocation, the exam isn't, so the exam wins.  If there are actually too many people than will fit, you could always offer to give the talk a second time.

Audiences for in-person events are much smaller post-COVID. Many people attend events online. Our department seminars are typically less than half as big as they were in 2019 because many more students and faculty work from home. And, during the February one we held in-person (we asked people to come in if they could to make the big name person feel appreciated) several people got COVID. I am guessing that the next ones will be smaller again.

We have a series of hybrid talks at work. Presenters at different locations don't need to come, but it's quite disparaging for the speaker if they only see six people in the audience, even if they know another 80 are watching online. Many online participants, including some speakers, joined remotely despite being in the same building. We're looking for ways to get more people to join in-person (sadly we can't sponsor cookies unless external guests outnumber internal guests).  Next time it'll be mandatory for speakers and their PIs to attend physically — let's see how that goes.

Conference organizers usually assign room sizes for presentations based on how large of an audience they expect.
Some topics attract large audiences, others only small audiences. But just because the organizers expect that the topic of your talk to be aimed at a niche audience does not necessarily mean they consider the topic or the presenter less important.
Note that conference organizers do not always have the best intuition regarding how popular each talk is going to be. I was on conferences where I couldn't join talk A because the small room was already full, so I went to another talk B in the great hall instead where only the first 3 ranks were filled.