text:
Is it reasonable to request an exemption from certain degree requirements?
I am a physics student at a small North American university. As part of the requirements for my degree, the current policy dictates that all students must take 6 humanities courses before graduation.
I believe I understand the benefit of this requirement: it ensures that students are well-rounded. However, this requirement is making it difficult for me to take two extra math courses that are relevant to my future and my degree.
My goal is to continue my education further after graduating. I have asked two of my professors and they have told me that these two math courses would probably be relevant to my graduate studies. Moreover, I am very keen to take them because they are interesting and challenging. The reason these courses are not in the current curriculum is just due to the large number of physics courses required for the degree; they simply do not fit in the usual honours degree pattern.
As a student, is it reasonable for me to ask for this exemption? If so, what should I say to the department chair to increase the likelihood of getting the exemption?
For context: I am a physics major and the courses I want to take are Discrete Mathematics and Real Analysis.

Re. "off-topic unless they can also apply to graduate or post-graduate academicians".  >> "My goal is to go to graduate school. I have asked two of my professors and they have told me that these two math courses would probably be relevant to my graduate studies."

I just opted for an edit that should make this on-topic and will vote to reopen when approved.

Assuming masters level counts as 'graduate' then I am aware of masters by coursework programs that have required humanities components ('professional communications' and ethics subjects for instance). Also the questioner already brought up the fact that "these courses are not in the current curriculum is just due to the large number of physics courses required", this is something I've experienced myself, and counters the assumption of 'ample opportunity'.

...Furthermore, they've asked a question that they hoped would assist their path towards post-graduate study, they've ben told that's off limits for the academia stack site - which stack site should this question be referred to? (that wont close it and suggest that academia is the relevant forum...)

Please note that there is active discussion on whether to close this question for being off-topic on the meta site: http://meta.academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1888/undergrad-course-exemption-with-interest-in-grad-school   (Please take discussion of the issue of topicality there)

I wonder, is there any reason you can't or won't take these two math courses as extracurricular ones? This way you get your relevant math, still meet your humanities quota and you can show demonstrable extra effort which should prove beneficial if you're serious about continuing your education after graduation.

One thing to keep in mind is the research direction. A number of universities/funding bodies are moving towards interdisciplinary research. At my university there's even an internal seed fund for collaborations between the engineering and arts faculty. If you never took a humanities or social science as an undergrad, you could be missing out on some great collaborations in the future. This doesn't mean they wouldn't happen, but they can be helpful in thinking about how to address social issues etc through the use of technology, math, physics etc.

Since you're an undergrad, might I offer the possibility that you take your science courses as extra coursework BEYOND your graduation requirements?

As a former Humanities Professor and Dean, my answer is "nope."  We heard so many times from the Engineering College that they wished their students would have more Humanities, that there's no way I can say okay, go ahead without it.  So many students would rather give it a pass, but I can say (besides my being on the Humanities bandwagon just in general), that my father worked for a professional organization of engineers, and the thing they wanted most at their professional conferences was work on writing and communications.  And that's what you learn in the Humanities.

That may be what Humanities departments intend to teach, but it's not what most engineering undergrads actually learn from them. Students derive much less value from courses taken only to check a box than from those taken out of interest or as prerequisites for the same.

A mature student will understand that every course in the university -- including all the General Education courses -- serves a purpose and adds to his/her status as an educated citizen.

While that's true, it sometimes seems that the fraction of "mature" students out of all is not as large as some thing. Hence, designing curricula assuming maturity is, in my experience, a fallacy.

The curriculum is designed for other reasons than students' maturity, of course.  I was responding to @GhillieDhu's comment that students derive less value from courses they're forced to take in a program like General Education.  We tried to make our GE courses as attractive as possible, things like The Vampire Tradition or Shakespeare on Film.  I know other departments in the Humanities did the same.

Unfortunately, that just makes it worse. Engineering undergrads are already predisposed to disrespect Humanities; offering such courses gives them additional fodder to mock those departments & reinforces their prejudice against "fuzzy subjects".

Well, their faculties keep trying to squeeze more humanities into their programs, and I think you are overgeneralizing quite a bit, to the detriment of engineering students.  Are they really as closed-minded as you say?  Is that going to serve them in their careers?  Are they taught to be good critical thinkers and communicators in their engineering program?  I had to take biochemistry and astronomy and political science as an undergrad -- I think all of those courses added to my knowledge and my right to call myself a well-rounded individual.

"And that's what you learn in the Humanities." - are you sure this applies so generally? I studied a computer science-like major, and writing documents and communicating about facts related to this major were inherent parts of many of the technical courses and projects. On the other hand, more than one instructor seemed to spend quite some effort to make us forget about much of the more specific humanities knowledge everyone would bring from highschool, as (for instance) "literary" writing style as taught by language teachers is not useful when writing a user manual or a technical standard.

designing curricula assuming maturity is, in my experience, a fallacy — As opposed to what?  If you don't assume some level of student maturity, you're handing out degrees in exchange for tuition and busywork.

Students derive much less value from courses taken only to check a box — Exactly the same can be said of most mathematics courses.  Do you really want your engineering students to take less math?

-1 for an idealized (people will learn from a course!), biased (one-sided + of course X students need my courses) and authoritarian (same for everyone, no exceptions) answer.

Gee thanks, Piotr, for picking on me -- you'll notice that I'm not the only one with this opinion.  And things like GE courses aren't dreamed up by one person, but by faculty from all departments, and they make the rules for exemptions.  I could say yes to you, but the next level or the next level up to the Dean of Undergraduate Studies could say no.  And they're the ones who send memos around to faculty saying no exemptions.

@ewormuth, I am generalizing from myself & my peers when we were engineering undergrads; that was admittedly over a decade ago, but I'd be surprised if things have changed so much.

@JeffE, engineering undergrads can easily see the utility of the math courses they're required to take, but typically miss the utility of the humanities courses.

And I'm generalizing from 30 years as a faculty member, director of a program, and college dean.  If an engineering student wants to come into my composition class and say that you're going to disrespect my course and feel that it's useless to you, I guarantee it will be.  If you want to waste time like that rather than learn what you can, be my guest.  Mike's original question had to do with whether a request for an exemption was likely to be granted, and the academics answering have said no.  I don't know what we're arguing about and maybe it would work better in chat.

@GhillieDhu  Perhaps most engineering undergrads eventually see the utility of most of the math courses they are required to take, but certainly not all.  To give concrete examples:  many (most?) computer science students bristle at having to take discrete math, automata theory, algorithm analysis, and multiple semesters of calculus, and many (most?) engineering students bristle at epsilon-delta proofs.

@Jeffe, perhaps, but that's still far more than for humanities courses.

@ewormuth It is good that you view students are indistinguishable, without having their individual goals, needs or interests - so the same education, or rather - processing, fits them all (if there is a consensus among faculty on that, I couldn't be happier I didn't study there). Prussian-style education at its best. Plus, the slippery slope.

@Piotr, where did I say I don't see students as individuals?  Unfortunately, on a campus that has over 30,000 students, it's just not possible for everyone to design an individual program for themselves, and they know that when they enroll.

As a Computer Science undergraduate, I really see no need to force students to take certain electives. Humanities (imo) are very important, but my CS major alone is 86 credits, 12 of which are sciences (biology, chemistry, physics, etc). I took advanced placement chemistry I and II in high school but never took the AP test. Now I have to take a 4-credit intro-to-chem class that is costing me $2,000 in tuition which comes out of my pocket. In the U.S., can you not see why students are pissed about taking meaningless elective-esque courses?

Exemption from a humanities requirement generally needs a much better argument than "I have two additional classes I want to squeeze in" -- more like "I've published a novel; can we count that against the writing requirement?"
Greater depth is one of the things the Masters' degree is for. Or you can put yourself on an additional-year degree plan, if you can afford it
Summarizing from the comments: Focus on finding a way to both meet the humanities requirement and acquire the extra knowledge you want. That may mean doing independent/summer study for one or both, or letting the math slide until your Masters degree or later. There is essentially no way to avoid distribution requirements.
Everyone deals with this, even those who plan their schedules three terms in advance and overload their class schedules. If there weren't more classes you wanted to take than you could squeeze into four years, it'd be a pretty lousy school. One of the things you're learning is the art of tradeoffs and compromises.

Or take the humanities courses over the summer. Or by correspondence. Or at the local junior college.

In your opinion, what is a circumstance that would allow for an exemption from this type of requirement?

Or take the additional math classes over the summer,  with or without transfer credits if you take them at another school.

@Mike The answer to your question is that such a circumstance does not exist. As Bill Barth suggests, you can ask to substitute another humanities courses (e.g. those taken in a summer, or in a different institution), but there is no way to escape them if you want your degree.

Does not exist, or requires a truly exceptional case impossible to provoke or simulate; I'm not going to try to speculate on which kinds of disaster might persuade someone to make an exception. The requirement exists, you've known about it since freshman year if not since you started applying to schools, everyone deals with this.

I agree with the above answers that there is no way around this kind of requirements.

It's always easier to get exemption from a class related to the substance of the degree. To escape a boring class in your major subject, you just have to demonstrate that you can be a competent expert without it. Avoiding miscellaneous requirements is harder, because the purpose of the required classes is often less clear. Sometimes the reasons are ultimately good, while sometimes the classes are just the local equivalent of Mao Zedong Thought.

I would say asking to get out of humanities is a battle not worth starting. Chances are you will lose.
The best course of action for you, in my opinion, if you are really determined to take those 2 math courses is: take them.
If your university offers summer courses try to take one, or both, of them then. If the courses aren't offered in the summer get into contact with the instructor(s) and talk to them about a DS (Directed Study). I took a DS while obtaining my undergrad so that I wouldn't take a semester with just 1 course that I needed to graduate.
If your university doesn't offer summer courses then try to take on an extra course a semester. While you may be faced with a lot of courses at once - if you're really determined to take those 2 courses then taking 1 extra course a semester may be a lot better than trying to wave humanity courses.
All of this aside, the person who will be able to give you the best advice based on the university, grades, etc. Is your advisor

This, but why not just attend the course in its usual installment?

@Raphael I mention taking the course within it's normal parameters in the 2nd to last paragraph. If summer courses aren't offered there's no much you can do besides just take on an extra course.

To answer a different aspect of your question, I would say that yes, it is generally reasonable to request an exemption.
In your specific circumstance, the answer would almost certainly be no, for the reasons described in the other answers. But faculty typically appreciate it when students take the initiative for their own education, and in general I think you won't burn your bridges by making such requests. Just be prepared to take no for an answer.

"faculty typically appreciate it when students take the initiative for their own education" - that is an interesting point of view with respect to requesting exemptions from requirements.

@O.R.Mapper - I'm not sure what you mean by interesting.  That word can have a couple of completely different meanings.

@aparente001: True, I meant something like "unexpected, not necessarily matching my personal interpretation". My impression is that the (fictitious numbers for the sake of argument) 95% students in a major who stick to the available options (which, mind you, are usually already defined with considerable leeway for variation) are fine, and the 1% that truly have any specific restrictions that require a deviation from those available options are ok, too, and so few as to be negligible, anyway. It is just the remaining 4% who think they need to actively start searching for reasons to get ...

... around the fixed requirements or get a permission for a custom modification thereof who quickly build a (very negative!) reputation among faculty for creating a lot of hassle, being hard to work with (as their first reaction to a given problem will not be analyzing and solving the problem, but trying to renegotiate the organisational framework the problem is embedded within), and (often unreasonably) thinking they deserve a special treatment compared to most of the other students. Thus, "taking the initiative for ..." is a rather favourable interpretation of this behaviour.

@O.R.Mapper - Okay, I'll take it the "interesting" in your comment was a euphemism for "weird."  I'm glad I asked!

In the United States, at least, there is a movement toward putting the student in the driver's seat.  This movement has been around for more than a generation.  At the extreme end, there are colleges where there are no set degree programs, and each student creates his own degree program -- e.g. Hampshire College.

@aparente001: In a well-designed curriculum, these restrictions are not arbitrary hurdles to complicate a random selection of courses, but rather, they are a carefully balanced framework to ensure that with all the choice and freedom of decision students have about their curricula, students will still touch upon all the aspects their degree is meant to certify. Without such restrictions, many students would simply choose what they like and skip everything they do not like, which seems to make the resulting degrees quite meaningless.

@O.R.Mapper - When you wrote "which seems to make the resulting degrees quite meaningless" I hope you meant "which could easily make the resulting degrees meaningless."  Otherwise, I think you would have linked to a scathing critique of the movement I described, or the institution I mentioned.

@aparente001: Well, either, there are certain requirements that have to be fulfilled, in which case the resulting degree certifies that these requirements were met. Or, there are no specific requirements to be fulfilled, in which case the resulting degree certifies that ... hmm ... something was done at a university.

@O.R.Mapper - If you have a critique or question relating to the approach I described, that might make an interesting question on some SE site.  But basically I'm just trying to point to a cultural trend in the U.S. (forgive me if my assumption that you work in academia elsewhere than the U.S. is incorrect).

I will just chime in to say that if a student said "I'd really like to take Y, but X is required for my degree, I can't take both, and I'd prefer to take Y. Is there any way this is possible?" I'd respond favorably, even if the answer was no. If a student said "I have to take X and it looks boring, can I get out of it", then I'd only be sympathetic if the student was already an expert in X.

I've been in this position in 2 undergraduate degrees. You can only ask, but be prepared to have a convincing argument.
Ask yourself, is it actually reasonable?
Unless you can answer that and convince yourself you're likely to fail.
Consider the fact that you're asking that question here, so you may have some thinking to do.
Also, keep in mind that some of the humanities courses you'd be missing would have trained you in developing convincing arguments :)
I'm not sure what the deal is with your university, but for most undergrad courses the class numbers are large, you can always sit in on lectures... (not ideal, but it is something)

There's no reason you can't ask, but you should plan for a "No". I don't think you should ask, but rather figure out how to take all of the courses. As the OP says, the requirement makes it "difficult", but it's not impossible.
Personally, as a working engineer, I find as much application in my work for what I learned in the humanities courses I took as an undergrad as I do for my math and engineering classes. No matter how good you are technically, if you can't communicate your work effectively with non-technical people, you're going to be of limited use to an employer. The people with the money don't want to fund work they don't understand, the sales and marketing people won't know how to sell it and customers won't buy it and so on. The days of the mad scientist toiling away in his own world of inscrutable genius are over.
Like you, I wanted to take grad level math classes that I felt would be beneficial, but fell outside the requirements and options for my program. I wound up taking them during the compressed 8wk summer term immediately following my graduation while I was looking for work.

As a student, is it reasonable for me to ask for this exemption?

The worst that could happen would be to get a 'no' for an answer.

If so, what should I say to the department chair to increase the likelihood of getting the exemption?

Show that you appreciate the reason for the requirement.
Show that you are by nature a well-rounded person (you can cite classes and experiences in high school, college, school breaks -- and don't forget to mention volunteer work and community service; you need to show that you have spent significant time thinking about the world you live in and how to be a good citizen, that sort of thing).
Present some programs of study at similar schools, for similar majors, where the number of required humanities courses is smaller.  (Six courses strikes me as exceptionally high.)
Present a letter of support from at least one authoritative person who knows you well -- preferably two or three; someone from a humanities course you took would be great; how about a supervisor at a volunteer position?

A few other thoughts:

If your college has a Winter Session, that would be a good time to
squeeze one or two humanities courses in.  If not, how about next
summer?  Perhaps online courses would work out better for you.
The two math classes you're interested in sound great.  But before
you go to bat for them, find out more about the instructors, the
syllabi -- make sure they're as good as they sound.
Check if there's a slightly different degree you could get that
doesn't require SIX humanities courses.

Yes, it is reasonable to ask for an exception.
If your motivation is to learn more and without this exception it wouldn't be possible - just ask. But be sure to argument it in a positive way, writing why do you want to take these two specific courses.
Of course, the decision is up to them. (I don't have experience with US system, but I know that in Europe attitudes vary with each department, or dean, or a dice roll.)
However, if your main motivation is to sneak out of the humanity classes - don't do that. Such requirements are exactly because an university wants to have well-rounded students and not everyone would take 6 humanities courses willingly.

It's a very reasonable request.  You should get the education that'll better prepare you for the future, and it sounds like these Math courses would do just that.
Arguments in favor:

Additional technical competencies are usually worth more than additional writing or presenting skills.  Sure it's great if you're a better writer/presenter, but it's usually not worth the loss of talent you'd have by diverting focus away from your core skill set.
Writing and presenting skills taught in the Humanities are not the same as those required in STEM environments.  I'd go so far as to say that, in a significant number of cases, it'd have been better for undergrads to have not had Humanities classes that taught them bad habits.
Technical courses often do require writing.  These writing assignments are better for technical students since they're the right kind of assignments.  Why prepare to write Physics journal articles in a Creative Writing class when you could instead take a Physics class that includes writing assignments?
You're more likely to learn if you're enjoying the course work.

Personally I got exemptions from my Foreign Language requirements in undergrad to pursue my four Science and Engineering majors.  This worked out very well for me.  It's painfully absurd to think that some folks would've argued that I needed a few semesters of Spanish more than the extra Math major.
I would recommend being polite yet persistent in pursuing the course exemption.  It took me a lot of office visits to get my forms signed, but in the end it was very much worth it.

I am a professor in a STEM subject, and I find the first three arguments to be terrible, liable to create a much worse impression than "I really want to take these other classes, and I don't see how to do it otherwise."  The second argument in particular is quite repugnant to me.  You seem to be saying that you find no value in a liberal arts education.  There are schools for people like that, but the school that the OP has chosen is not one of them.  There is no chance that this blatant disregard for the college's own requirements will go over well.

@PeteL.Clark: The listed arguments were for the poster's own consideration, not to be presented to the Humanities professors.  Also the decision to attend a Liberal Arts college was made while the poster was still a high school student and potentially colored by considerations other than the curriculum; obviously their current interest is in a more technical education.

Upvoted, as particularly items 2 and 3 absolutely match my experience, even though I do not agree with the conclusion that it is a reasonable (individual) request if the requirements are in place as they are. I very much agree with item 2, though it should be pointed out that the writing skills I came in touch with in humanities were indeed focused on very non-technical things such as poems, prose-style stories, newspaper-like writing, etc., which are very different from writing in technical contexts such as design documents. As I implied in another comment here, I found it quite ...

... difficult at first to suppress many of the writing habits that had been beneficial for me in humanities, but that were detrimental when it came to writing technical things. I also fully agree with item 3, and in fact, occasional remarks here on Academia SE that STEM majors would have to take humanities courses to learn and practice writing regularly surprise me. The STEM programs I am familiar with invariably include a great deal of writing, always taught by STEM departments. This is not to say that creative writing is a useless skill, just not one that will help with writing STEM texts.

@O.R. Mapper: You are from a part of the world which doesn't have a clear analogue to the American liberal arts degree.  So I hope you are not assuming that humanities courses and writing assignments mean what they would in your schooling.  The percentage of humanities courses in which students do "creative writing" of any sort is probably less than 5%.  I know of no American college in which such courses would be required.....

....Rather what you learn in humanities courses in the US is how to read texts closely, understand and critique arguments made there, and how to make clear, convincing, insightful arguments of one's own.  I have never heard anyone in the liberal arts system claim any direct usefulness in writing technical manuals: rather we would say that it teaches students to think and write clearly and that will be useful in whatever they do.  The skill of technical writing in a given STEM field is rarely taught at the undergraduate level in a liberal arts program.

@PeteL.Clark: Ok, I somehow suspected this might be a language and culture issue to some extent. Over here, we would count a writing course suitable for STEM as a STEM course, not as a humanities course. Likewise, we would count courses as the ones described by you as STEM courses, as long as they are at least slightly focused on something STEM-like (if only by using e.g. a physics text as an example for practice), which may well blur the issue. Note that the answerer specifically refers to "creative writing" sometimes; possibly, the answer is based on a similar interpretation (?)

@PeteL.Clark:  Less than 5% of Humanities classes do creative writing of any sort?  I just looked up UGA's curriculum and that really doesn't seem accurate.  Could you elaborate on what creative-writing-free Humanities courses compose 95+% of the undergrads' credit hours?

@ChemicalEngineer: For instance, see Area C of this page: http://bulletin.uga.edu/fall1999/bulletin/prg/core_curriculum.html.  There are a lot of courses here.  So far I've looked through about one hundred of them and found two that mention creative writing: English 3800 and English 4800.  In the second hundred: Drama 3020 and Drama 4000.

@PeteL.Clark: I guess we just see these subjects very differently.  From where I sit, they're pretty much all just creative writing courses with different flavors.  For example, the massive section on Foreign Languages is just "creative writing using different words".  And those English classes are "creative writing about other creative writing".  Etc.  I always felt that they were easy-A's, but regretted having to sink time into attending lectures.

@ChemicalEngineer: Did you go to a liberal arts college in the United States?  (By the way, you are not using the term "Creative Writing" in the sense used by American academia.)  As advice for someone who is seeking to take two additional classes, "I've never seen any value in the courses that you are required to take" is not very practical.  As I've said, the American academic community does see value in these requirements, so this kind of distaste is not going to do anything positive for the OP.

@PeteL.Clark: Yes-ish.  I've been to about a dozen colleges - started young, kind of a weird story - and two were liberal arts colleges.  However, my primary and preferred experiences have been at more technically focused places.  As for the advice, honestly, I really don't see value in such classes.  The Liberal Arts curriculum strikes me as a historical artifact; it's clearly receding against the increasingly technical focus of academia.  Just, it's slower to modernize in some places than others.

You are entitled to your opinion.  I've said it doesn't seem helpful to the OP; having any whiff of "I see no value in the humanities" in his request is his worst strategy for being able to take the two math courses.  (Rather, the OP should satisfy the requirements and take the extra courses.)

I can only end by saying that the liberal arts education I received greatly enriched my life.  I write a whole bunch of math papers these days, but I could imagine not doing so.  I could not imagine my life without having learned to read, think and write as I did from my liberal arts coursework.  I hope some day you will be similarly enriched.  No hurry:  I am not worried that these skills or courses are on their way out.

@PeteL.Clark:  Dunno, I've taken more of those classes than you have yet can't claim to have found a value in them.  If this were a better venue, I'd have been interested in asking why you'd credit them with teaching you to think.  I'm new here, but gonna hit that "automatically move this discussion to chat" link to see what happens in hopes that it'll prove to be such a venue.

@ChemicalEngineer perhaps another way to look at taking these requirements is considering new research directions. Research is taking a interdisciplinary approach between different faculties and schools. It's becoming more expected that arts and science faculties start working together to generate new research and funding. As an engineer said to me (a social scientist) "we have the tools and skills to engineer great things, but we haven't got a clue on what to do with them." Humanities/social scientists know how best to apply the new technology in ways that might be invisible to the scientist


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Would a masters in maths at a much lower ranked university be a good preparation for a masters course at a very top university?
I have finished my mathematics undergraduate degree in the UK at a low ranked university. I just missed out on a 2:2.
I struggled with modules such as statistics and Operations research but excelled at pure maths and applied maths modules.
I have miraculously still been accepted by a university to study for MSc in maths.
This university is not part of the Russell group universities but does do better in the league tables than some of the universities that are part of the Russell Group.
Out of fun I was researching the masters course in maths at Cambridge.
In the handbook they mentioned something interesting.
They said that if your first degree is not up to scratch then you may take the second and third year at Cambridge to bring yourself up to the right level.
After contemplating this, I am thinking about doing a second masters in maths but with the aim of doing it at Cambridge.
Off course I will need a very high distinction to do this.
I was wondering in general, would a masters in maths at a much lower ranked university be a good preparation for a masters course at a very top university?

This really depends on what you want to do after you graduate. Do you really need a second masters? Do you plan to go on to get a PhD? Industry?

Related: Can a masters student apply for a second masters in the same field at another university?

They said that if your first degree is not up to scratch then you may take the second and third year at Cambridge to bring yourself up to the right level.

Are you talking about Körner's unofficial guide to Part III?  He says "If you are a very able student whose first degree course is not up to the standard required for Part III, it may make sense to apply to become an 'Affiliated Student' taking the second and third year of the Cambridge mathematics course to obtain the Cambridge first degree."  This is closest statement I'm aware of to what you mention, but it means something different.  It's talking about repeating undergraduate studies (when the applicant did very well in courses that are insufficient preparation for Part III), rather than repeating a master's program.  Furthermore, admission as an affiliated student at Cambridge requires first or upper second class honours.
I'm not at Cambridge and can't offer definitive guidance about what they will or will not allow.  However, I'm skeptical about the idea of studying for a second master's degree.  You shouldn't plan on this unless you have a clear indication that Cambridge will consider it.  I'd bet that the chances are low.

Yeah but instead of being an affiliate student and doing two years, would a masters degree not be sufficient preperation?

Yes, it probably would, but I doubt they would allow it.  As a general rule, universities frown on repeating degrees in order to upgrade them to a fancier or more demanding university, on the grounds that spaces in programs are a limited resource and this is not the best use of them.  Sometimes they allow it (for example, via being an affiliated student at Cambridge), but it generally requires special permission.  Maybe Cambridge would allow this for Part III, and the only way to know for sure is to ask.  However, by default I'd assume they wouldn't, unless you hear otherwise.

(In particular, the fact that Cambridge has a university-wide mechanism for repeating an undergraduate degree doesn't imply that they will necessarily do the same for master's degrees.)

I completely agree about the fancy degree stuff. But my argument for doing another masters degree would be that my first masters does not go Into as much depth or is not rigorous. For example my first masters covers all aspects of applied and pure maths but does not go into much depth and the modules reflect this I.e my first masters course offers 3 pure maths modules but Cambridge or imperial offer a separate masters for pure maths.

I interpret the information you found about Cambridge to mean if a person with run-of-the-mill grades in his Bachelor's degree does very well in his first year of his Master's program, he may apply to transfer to Cambridge to continue his Master's there.
I you're not sure whether your interpretation or mine is correct, I would suggest contacting Cambridge by email to ask for clarification.

You know, rank isn't everything.  In your studies this fall, try to find out what parts of mathematics you like best, and work hard but enjoy yourself and try to have some balance in your life.  Try to take all that competitiveness and ranking and so on with a grain of salt.

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How reasonable is it to ask about my application status to the Chair of the search committee?
It has been more than 4 months I applied for a tenured-track faculty position in a research university. However, I have not heard back from anyone (e.g. representative of the Chair of the search committee or someone else) regarding my application status. Unfortunately, there is no online status-checker system available. I am even not sure whether my application has been rejected. In such a circumstance, can I place an inquiry to the search chair and ask him to let me know the status of my application?

It may matter only slightly, but what country? I suspect that most US departments are long done hiring for this year, though they may have left job postings open for the next academic year. Other countries haven't even finished their spring semester yet (I just learned that Japan's spring semester starts April 1, for example).

Sorry, forgot to mention, I have applied to an US university.

It is often useful to contact the Department Administrator, Secretary, or Assistant to the Department Chair.  This is the person who coordinates all (or most) of the administrative work in the department, or supervises people who do if it is a large department.  These people typically respond promptly and are knowledgeable about the status of various processes in the department, including filling open positions.  Most important, they have great insights into the quirks/ dysfunctions in the department, including people.  They know who to approach and how to approach them to get things done.

Did you check the academic job wiki? You should be able to figure out whether other candidates have reported progress. Be sure to edit/update it if you can.

It is completely reasonable to ask about the status of a job application at any time, let alone after so much time has passed.  Definitely feel free.
Since you have applied for a tenure-track job in the United States, I wanted to mention that my first thought was that it is overwhelmingly likely that the job search has concluded by the end of the academic year.  However, you say that you applied for the job "more than four months ago", which I guess means you applied in February or March.  That is an unusually late job application: most commonly applications are due sometime in the fall semester -- say, between September and December -- and the hiring process takes place either at the end of the fall semester or the beginning of the spring semester.  So if the application deadline was indeed in February or later, this is a somewhat unusual time (although such things certainly do happen occasionally) and it is not as overwhelmingly likely that the process has been completed.  Still the chances are not good: most American departments do not do tenure-track hiring over the summer, and once the new year starts there will be a flood of new candidates so they might as well start the process all over again.
For your future use, you might also want to look back carefully at the wording of the job application.  Some job applications have a "rolling deadline", and if you apply on certain automated academic job serves the application will be "accepted" in the formal sense for many months (usually; this depends upon the way the account is set up).  In most cases there is some text like "Candidates who apply before XX/YY/ZZZZ will receive full consideration."  You definitely want to get your application in by that date.
Finally, I hope you know that with the current amount of job applications, many if not most departments make no effort whatsoever to contact candidates negatively.  It is also not in their best interest to do so: maybe another job opens up at a weird time or maybe the person who they thought would take the job cannot or does not for some reason.  If that happens they can go back and look at the applications that are still there and see if people are still interested and available.  Unfortunately the current academic climate is such that this not especially considerate policy has some strategic merit.

In the university homepage, it is clearly written :Application material must be received by March 1, 2015 to receive guaranteed consideration, though the search will remain open until the position is filled. Importantly, I submitted my application prior to this date.

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How important is the Statement of Contributions to Diversity in applications for faculty positions?
I have(am) applied(ying) for a junior faculty position (i.e. tenure track assistant professor level) at research-intensive US universities from this fall. One of the opening announcements I recently came across is asking to submit "Statement of Contributions to Diversity - Statement addressing past and/or potential contributions to diversity through research, teaching, and/or service. (Optional)" in addition to standard documents. Does anyone have any experiences with this document? Since it is optional, I am not sure how important this document is to be submitted. If I submit it, will it strengthen my application?

@aparente001 Unless a question about diversity specifically asks about diversity with respect to ability, the [tag:disability] tag is inappropriate. (Similarly, the tags [tag:gender], [tag:religious-issues], and [tag:international-students] would also be inappropriate, even though those are related to diversity, because this question does not ask about any specific kind of diversity.)

So you want to make a "disability-statement" tag?  It would be nice to be able to find other posts on this topic!

If you submit a strong statement of contribution to diversity, it will help your application in the sense that if you are clearly qualified for the job, this statement would be a plus and would get people excited about your application.  On the other hand, if there are reservations as to whether you are really qualified for the job, in terms of academic merit, teaching experience -- basic stuff -- then a strong diversity stance will not help you.
If you have no previous or well thought out contributions to diversity to speak of, then submitting an anemic diversity statement might hurt you more than not submitting one at all would.
If you are someone who has never given it much thought, then I would advise you not to submit a statement for this particular application; but at the same time, I would encourage you to start doing some thinking about the special challenges diverse students can face getting started, continuing with, and finishing their studies, and what you could contribute to lessening the difficulties.


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Why are (university-) teachers also examiners at the same time?
For most university classes I have come across, the professor teaching the class is also responsible for making (and usually grading) the exam, or holding an oral exam. As far as I can tell this is true in most (at least Western) countries.
There are a few exceptions, e.g. some (but certainly not all) universities do not allow the supervisor to be part of the examining committee during a PhD-defense, and many high school educations have a centralised exam at some point.
Does combining "teaching" and "evaluating" in a single person not create a conflict of interest - and why is this so prevalent at universities?
EDIT:
As people were wondering which conflicts of interest I was referring to: all of them :)
I was mainly thinking about the fact that teachers are usually evaluated based on their performance, which is either measured through e.g. student pass rates and/or student evaluations. Both of these provide an incentive for the teacher to make the exam easy to pass, either by making an easy exam or by preparing students on very specific questions in a hard exam.
But there are also arguments to be made that this system is not particularly good for the student-teacher relationship - I personally find it a lot easier to teach and motivate students when I am not evaluating them, because it has more of a "I am helping you to pass the exam", and less of an "learn this or I will fail you" atmosphere.

This is not only true for university classes, but for most of education in general. Of course if there are standardised topics to be learned, there can be centralised exams, but with courses where the whole curriculum is set up by the teacher and might even be the special research interest and results of this teacher who else should evaluate the students? (Of course, sometimes tutors are involved in holding and preparing the exams, too.)

+1 I think this is a great question, even though it is not fundamentally about academia but about the relationship of teaching and grading in general. I don't really have a comprehensive answer, but one practical issue on the advanced level is that if you want the teacher and the grader to be independent persons, this requires you to have two subject experts in your faculty. Many, especially smaller, faculties don't have this kind of redundancy.

At my university, I believe most of the exams are written by the lecturers since they have the best understanding of what exact material was taught that semester, especially what was emphasised. If a different 'examiner' wrote the exam, it might assume knowledge which wasn't assumed during the rest of the semester. This is especially important for higher tertiary education, where lecturers tailor the courses to suit their area of expertise. It does mean some courses are harder in some semesters than in others however, which is a drawback.

This dilemma has been recognised as an interesting problem and there is some work related to how to get the balance between teaching and examining, collaboration and competition, right: http://www.brandeis.edu/now/2008/november/pollack-catalyst.html

At least at the university level, I think the biggest issue is practicality: who is going to write and grade the exams, if not the professor in charge of the course?
I think this is especially true in things like humanities courses, where the content is so often individualized according to the professor's interests and preferences. (The same thing also happens in STEM courses, but there's often much less freedom in what can be covered, often for "continuity" within a larger degree program.)
For example, say I'm teaching a French literature course with a specific set of goals (at least in my mind). How much information do I have to communicate to someone else, so that this other individual can write an exam that fairly assesses what the students have actually studied, as opposed to what the examiner thinks they should have studied?

You are probably right, that on very advanced (and hence usually niche-) subjects, the ease of understanding the subject is likely one of the main reason, and a different professor might have to do a fair amount of reading in order to create the exam. I am not sure whether I agree with the argument that it's not clear what the course's content is, though: shouldn't the course have a curriculum and learning goals before it actually starts?

Also, your last paragraph illustrates one of the potential conflicts of interest: essentially, students learn what the teacher wants to hear, independently of whether this is objectively correct or not. (But this was not my main point - see above)

In my understanding, the conflict of interest actually goes in the other direction: if the teacher is not the examiner, then the teacher has a conflict of interest because their job depends on the performance of the students on the exam.
In the United States, tying lower levels of education to test scores has created quite a bit of "teaching to the test," as well as other ethically problematic practices like schools cherrypicking good students and attempting to expel special-needs students because the funding of schools and the careers of individual teachers are both closely tied to how their students perform with external examiners.
As such, I think that it is a very good thing that at the university level and postgraduate level, most education is allowed to be much more customized.  Note, however, that in professions where there are strong ethical and safety issues involved, such as law and medicine, there are still external testers but these tests are more holistic certifications rather than individual class evaluations.

It's not clear to me how having the teacher set the exam resolves the conflict of interest you describe - it seems like it just shifts it from the admissions/teaching arena to the assessment arena. If teachers are judged on students' performance as measured on exams, they either have an incentive to game the educational system as you describe (if they have no control over the exam) or game the exam (if they set the exam themselves) to make their teaching appear more successful.

Excellent points, both: you always have a conflict of interest. However, from psychology and other domains it is known that external goal-setting carries the danger of promoting "overfitting". Intrinsic motivation (e.g. by a university lecturer to have a well-educated class) can avoid this - however, in strongly bureaucratised environments the requirement of a given pass rate can again introduce external goal-setting and thus promote teaching/examining to the "fail rate". It is thus the job of good academic management to keep the intrinsic motivation up and external goal-setting under control.

In most of my student life I have been graded by my teachers, and in most of my lecturer life I've graded the students I teach to, and I never heard complains of my students nor my fellow students that exams were too easy. In fact, I can remember the opposite: students claiming that exams were too hard. Therefore, I don't see any generalised conflict of interests that teachers grading their own students unfairly raise grades.

authors: Александр Алексеёнок


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issue with discontinued or missing journal
I published a couple of papers for the International Journal of Security and Its Applications which was run by a publisher called SERSC (Science and Engineering Research Support Society). The link in Scimago is the following:
https://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=21100199112&tip=sid
One of my papers was indexed in Scopus and the other one was indexed by ESCI. The reason for that is that in 2017, approximately, Scopus stopped indexing this journal.
The problem is that since November of this year the journal and the publisher links are not accessible; some authors also have claimed through Scimago that the emails of the editors are not actually working. The question that I have is what to do with the two articles that were published in that journal? Because it is no longer accessible, should I put it on my personal web page? Or just wait and see?
In general, what can an author do with their published works when the journal "disappears" eventually?

Was the journal printed on paper or electronic only?

only electronic, that was a problem also @AlexanderWoo

If I were in your situation, I'd probably put my paper on the web where people can access it. Of course, I'd be ready to take it down if the publisher told me to (assuming I had transferred the copyright to the publisher), but if I got such a request then that would probably also enable me to contact the publisher.

References:  https://www.lockss.org/ https://clockss.org/

Publishers who care about the availability of published works tend to join archival initiatives such as the Controlled Lots Of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe (CLOCKSS) or Portico. These archives become public after so-called 'trigger events' occur (as determined by a governing body of these initiatives), such as when the articles are no longer available through the original publisher. This archival is a primary function of a scholarly communication system (see also Roosendaal & Geurts, 1998)
If your publisher does not have this policy, you could rehost the article on your webpage or another file sharing site. Note that this would depend on the copyright status, because if the publisher (for example) went bankrupt the copyrights might be transferred in a firesale of that company.
Edit: Centralized => Controlled

I'd be very surprised if "Centralized" was part of the CLOCKSS acronym. Their FAQ ( https://clockss.org/faq/ ) says it's for "Controlled".

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


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Listing all papers which cite my references
I would like generate a list of all papers which cite my references, sorted by most recent. In other words I want all papers which are "2 publications away" from mine, which cite the references in my papers, but which are not references of my references. This would provide an easy way to see what new research is closely related to mine, even if they do not cite my papers.  Has anyone thought of doing this?  How could it be done?

What search options are on the sites that contain the papers? This sounds like a coding / scraping task which will be off topic here. Why not do a search on scraping websites and then adapt what you find.

You can do this using Google Scholar: Suppose your paper is Alternative to mental hospital treatment: I. Conceptual model, treatment program, and clinical evaluation. The cited by link lists the papers citing your paper (and can be sorted by date). Now you just need to click the cited by link for each of the papers identified in the previous step and merge the resulting lists.

I do not see how to merge the lists?  What I want is a sort of automatically generated list (I do not want to click each paper that I have ever referenced individually)

It does appear that some coders could probably compile the data from Google Scholar though.  I just don't know who to ask for that.

@DouglasSirk You'd have to merge lists manually. This method is surprisingly fast. I just tried it for a paper with seven citations, it took maybe thirty seconds to open all "papers which are '2 publications away'," and it wouldn't take much longer to merge, you could always automate the merging.

For the merging, you could use automated websites for sorting lines alphabetically, and for removing duplicate lines. Like https://miniwebtool.com/sort-lines-alphabetically/ and https://miniwebtool.com/remove-duplicate-lines/

If you know how to code, the path to the solution is:
You need the DOIs of your cited references and create a script which regularly checks their newest citations via CrossRef's API.

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


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Does APA style require a cover page for short student papers?
My students are required to use APA style. I'm familiar with the research paper format, which requires a separate title page (like a cover page). This makes sense for longer papers, but how should students format the first page of a one- or two-page assignment?
My question is: What do students do if the paper is one to two pages? How do they format their name and information w/o a title page?
In the style guides, I can only find information for research papers.

I'm surprised that you aren't in complete control here. What is the external force requiring this?

General points: APA style is principally designed for submitting manuscripts to academic journals.
When it is used as a style guide for student assessments at universities, it is common for the requirements to be adapted. So for example, many people completing honours, masters, or PhD theses in the behavioural sciences will use APA style for referencing. But their university may have other requirements for the formatting of title pages, heading formats, line spacing, paragraph indentation and so on. Or these details may be left up to the student.
If you are setting the assignment, you are free to pick and choose which aspects of APA style you want students to follow.
Your specific question: Note that APA style calls it a "Title Page" rather than a "Cover Page". Any manuscript submitted to a journal using APA style requires a title page (i.e., with title, author names, affiliations, author note, etc.). Those who create a university assignment based on APA style are free to adopt or not adopt aspects of APA style when it pertains to APA style. In some respects it doesn't even make sense to fully adopt APA style for Title pages on student assignments. For example, you wouldn't require them to provide a "corresponding author address" (a key requirement of APA style title pages), but you would require them to include their student number.

Well, that's really what APA style is there for: Research papers. If you're using it for a different purpose, then it presumably doesn't have much to say about these other cases.
But: I assume you are requiring your students to use APA style because you want them to learn how to write research papers in APA style. In that case, it makes sense to let your students pretend that their short papers are research papers. So then, if APA requires a cover page for research papers, you should also require a cover page for student papers.

The APA style guide has specific instructions for how to format the title page for "student papers", i.e. course essays etc. It provides specific instructions of where to put things like the name of the courses and instructor.
Rule number 1 is that any rules set by the instructor (you) or University trump those of the style guide.


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What to do when another researcher used my results without credit in a science documentary?
A former colleague (not collaborator) used main results of two of my published papers in a science documentary featuring their work. They had briefly mention to me at some point, that they wanted to use my work, including images from the paper to help explain their work. Of course, I said it would be fine, as long as they would contact the senior author of the work (images are copyrighted) and cited the authors/project name. This researcher never contacted the senior author and in the documentary there is no credit to any of the studies, not during the doc nor in the final credits. Also, the person never even mentions it is not their own work, so it makes it seem they did the work themselves. I would already be happy with something along the lines of "previous research has shown". But not one word indicates the work is not theirs.
I want to take action about this, but not sure what to do. I am no longer in the University where I published both papers, nor in the University where we were both colleagues. I emailed the senior author already and I am awaiting reply. But I want to take further action as the documentary just aired a couple of days ago.

Would it be advisable to contact the makers of the documentary (it's a big US TV network)?
Should I contact the University where this researcher is now working at? (The University name appears in the documentary as the person's affiliation)
Should I approach them directly by email? What should I say?
What would be the appropriate steps to take?

I want to take action, but don't want to get myself in legal issues either... so any advice is appreciated!
Update: One of my former advisors (not involved in any of the studies) strongly encouraged me to let it slide arguing that published information can be used by anyone in documentaries aimed to the lay public. And that documentaries cannot cite everyone involved in the research, as this is not interesting to the public. I am surprised this is their position. Does anyone else thinks this is the correct way to think about it?

Consider any science documentary you have ever seen broadcast on TV.  Not a YouTube video; an actual TV broadcast.  How many citations (by name) to the original researcher(s) have you ever seen?  Maybe they mention it if it's Galileo or Hawking.

Did you carefully check the credits for proper attribution?

When you say the images are copyrighted, are they copyrighted by the author?  Or are they copyrighted by a third party and you merely obtained permission to use them in your work?  If the latter, then there may be another aggrieved party here as well.

It's worth noting that this researcher may have credited you properly during the 10 hours of footage the documentary team recorded, but the director decided that was not interesting enough for the general public to make it into the 5-10 minutes that was actually aired.

What did you enter the field for in the first place? Do I need to cite Pythagorean every time I use his theorem?

I think that what the former advisor has said is much sensible. Of course it does not mean that there shouldn't be any resentment on your side. But I see it as an interpersonal issue and that's it...

Did they give credit to other researchers and just snub you? It's unlikely that viewers will think that a documentary is just about one scientist's work, they'll understand that it's about the field in general.

"Does anyone else thinks this is the correct way to think about it?" I might second the opinion but let me ask first if you have a link to that documentary. Without seeing it, it would be quite hard (for me) to take sides in this story, forget about giving any advice.

Some answers to your comments: 1) Yes, in the credits is only the name of the person in the documentary. 2) I did not want necessarily to be named in the documentary, but the very least would expect the person to make it clear they were talking about another's people work, something like "it has previously been shown", instead of "we did this".

So, if it is ok to talk about someone else's work as their own in a doc, does this mean the definition of plagiarism does not apply to science documentaries?

Regarding the images, they were created for my work specifically by a hired artist. And they are not published in any open source medium.

haha! But by using Pythagorean theorem, everyone knows who created it and you do not need to make it clear it is not yours. But for recent important work published, still relatively unknown, that is not the case. My issue is with the straightforward definition of plagiarism, i.e. using someone else's ideas or work without credit and if it's their own.

I agree with your former advisor: let it slide...published information can be used by anyone in documentaries...[they] cannot cite everyone, perhaps even anyone, as this is not interesting, moreover, it's distracting. This applies not only to documentaries, but most manuscripts outside of academic publishing, e.g., textbooks, company reports, magazine articles, ... (That said, authors should ideally be able to produce sources.) Bask in the glory of having your work included, mention the media coverage on your CV, on your web page, in future research papers, etc.

Furthermore, it may well be that the attribution was cut by the documentary folks in post-processing without your colleague knowing it.

I agree you can't expect a citation during the presentation, but surely it should be in the credits and they should've asked permission from the senior author as instructed?

@Kat I think it depends: If a presentation focuses on one author's work, then that author should surely appear, so credit is given. Focusing on one author's work is surely less common though, which means many works will be considered, at which point the presentation will likely be focusing on the domain, rather than a particular author.

@Kat I won't comment on the issue of crediting the source, but I strongly believe that permission is not required and people should be able to use public research results even if (for example) the senior author explicitly refuses to give permission and "prohibits" the use, noone should have (and, as far as I know, doesn't have) the ability to prohibit the use of published research. Copyright applies to the specific expression, and academic credit of origin is a thing, but the main results of your papers are available for everyone to build upon as they wish even if you would not approve.

@Peteris it sounds like they used copyrighted images, not just the general results of the research, though.

@Kat I doubt they used copyright images. They'd be well aware of the issues.

The problem, of course, is not at all building upon my research or even using it in a documentary. I am more than happy with both. The problem is using someone else's work, without any kind of credit, and hence giving the impression they did it themselves.

You can contact the TV network and the University.
Point out the issue, without mentioning that you suspect intention or anything. As for your colleague, they promised something and didn't keep it, so they are not really reliable.
Without claiming that they left out your name intentionally (it quite easily may have been an oversight), the loss in terms of visibility is now so large that you want the information corrected, at least for future reference.

I disagree with the other answers.  This is journalistically poor.  There is a reason why there are credits at the end of documentaries, and acknowledgement is part of this.
That said, the wrong is not the lack of citation to your work, it's the use of copyrighted images.  It's your publisher who has really been wronged.
If you choose to pursue it, use whatever mechanisms your publisher requires to report improper use, and leave it at that.  It's the publishers decision whether they pursue this.

They asked to use copyrightright images, it is unclear whether they used them

They can't ask you to use copyrighted images unless you hold the copyright.  Are you sure the proper attributions aren't in the credits somewhere?  It doesn't seem like you've seen the documentary.

Are you asking me? Or the OP? I'm only referring to the OP's words.

The images appear in the documentary. There are no credits anywhere, neither to the images, to the source of the images, or to any of the authors.

@anonymous Did they appear legally?


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As an undergrad student, what should I do after taking 2nd-year grad-level math courses?
I'm an international undergraduate junior at an university in the U.S. whose math PhD program is ranked about 20th in the nation. By the end of my next semester, I will have taken 16 math graduate courses, most of which are for second year graduate students (e.g. Shimura variety, advanced algebraic geometry, and some special topics courses). Thus, in my senior year there will be not many courses new for me. Also, I have to pay $40k/year. Therefore, I'm considering to graduate a year earlier. However, applying directly to the PhD programs of my choice, such as Princeton, is not a good idea, since I don't have as much research experience as the successful applicants of those programs. Therefore, it is preferable if I can concentrate on research without paying too much. One solution is to go to a less competitive PhD program, including the one of my current institution and then to apply to programs of my interest a year later. Is my idea bad? What other opportunities do I have?

You really need to be asking this question to the mathematicians that know you best -- your professors.

One solution is to go to a less competitive PhD program - based on your coursework, I'm going to wager that this is exactly what not to do.

Try to get an REU (Research Experiences for Undergraduates): http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=5517&from=fund

tonysdg, what my adviser said is similar to what you said. I decided to be patient.

From my personal experience it is unusual for undergrad students to have taken 16 math graduate courses while he/she is still in the junior year. What you have taken clearly exceeds the expectations of most graduate programs. If the professors who taught the classes think highly of you, that could be a strong selling point for your graduate school application. As for research experience, you may not want to take it too seriously as a budding mathematician. As Krantz explained in the book A Mathematician's Survival Guide (which, btw, is a book you may want to read):

Mathematics is a bit different [than other natural sciences]. We don't use test tubes. The hard fact of life is that mathematics is a subject that builds vertically. You are not really qualified to do serious research - the sort of research that mathematicians actually do - until after you pass the qualifying exams.

So research experience is great in exposing you to the world of math research, but your coursework performance may be sufficient to get you to the graduate school you want to be. I think most graduate programs won't mind that you are graduating in three years as long as you complete the same workload as those who graduate in four years.
I should say that I'm not in a math PhD program; so take my advice with a grain of salt.

(Speaking as a math professor.)
For one thing, I recommend working on a research project now. Don't worry too much about graduate courses; instead, do what successful grad students do: go to colloquiua and seminars, chat visitors up about math, try to generate research ideas.
I also recommend applying to Ph.D. programs. Although I haven't been involved with graduate admissions, I suspect there is no harm done in applying this year to Princeton and to any other schools which you are extremely excited about.
That said, your professors will know, and they should ask them. They will know how strong their recommendation letters will be. Either they will think you have a good chance of getting into your top choices of program, or they will know what you should do to improve your chances over the next year and will likely be eager and willing to help you.

Thanks for your advice, Prof. Anonymous. I will do my best on research from right now and apply to PhD programs. Today I found that I can be a visiting student at Berkeley, MIT or Princeton, and that Princeton has a "qualifying student" system, which enables me to be a non-degree seeking grad student at Princeton for a year. Even if I will be rejected by all PhD programs of my choice, I will be able to do research in such a nice environment and probably get a nice letter of recommendation there.


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Is it ethical to get suggestions/corrections about my PhD work from a consultant?
I am doing a PhD in Mechanical Engineering. I have little experience with CAD programs, and I have to design an assembly in my project for manufacturing. As my supervisor is busy, and also not a specialist in CAD, I am thinking in hiring a CAD consultant of a company. Her tasks are basically to verify my CAD parts and ensure that everything is fine for manufacturing, and, if it is not, to send correction and comments about what to do to fix the parts/assembly and brief tutorial on how to do it.
My question is: if I do the work myself and only get suggestions/corrections from someone else, can I encounter any problems later, like having my PhD degree revoked?? I don't want to ask help from my supervisor, as I don't want him to spend 20 hours or more with my work.
Please tell me if I can do it; and if yes, if I need to inform someone, or put something on the thesis regarding it, or anything else.

You will have to mention external contributions in the thesis.

Why don't you ask this very same question to your supervisor?

"I don't want to ask help from my supervisor, as I don't want him to spend 20 hours or more with my work." That's his job!! Let him decide how much time he can devote to helping you, instead of making that decision for him.

You need to do two things here:

You should ask your advisor in advance whether this is acceptable.  The answer may depend on the details of your situation (exactly what is involved in this CAD verification and how central it is to your research), and your advisor is one of the few people who can give you a definitive answer.  I'd bet that it will be OK as long as you do the design yourself, but my opinion is not so relevant: if you end up in a disagreement with your advisor, it won't help if you complain that people on the internet assured you it would be OK.
You must acknowledge this assistance in your dissertation and papers, the same as any other contribution to the work.  This is a matter of intellectual honesty.  However, acknowledging the assistance afterwards can't substitute for asking your advisor in advance.  (In particular, your advisor might say "There's no issue of honesty, since you described exactly what you did.  However, you hired someone to complete a substantial part of your thesis, so you have not done enough yourself to graduate.")


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Publishing academic research in more than one field
I have an important question, so please try to answer it precisely and carefully as possible.
If I want a career in one field in academia, would it be inadvisable to publish some other academic researches in other fields.
I have seen an article in a blog that suggest against it. But on the other hand I think that ability to publish research and practise this process is important for academic persons.
Nevertheless, lately I browsed Shanghai ranking and they have a rule that divides the researcher contribution by the number of departments they published in.
To expand my point,for many fields it is necessary to combine expertise from different disciplines in order to sythesis some new approaches. So frankly, I really do not understand the logics behind such an archaic approach.
So the question is, will it help publishing in more than one discipline or will it really make everything more difficult?

Could you publish under a pen name?

Interdisciplinary research is both an advantage and a disadvantage.
Interdisciplinary research is advantageous because the interaction between fields is often extremely productive in creating new knowledge and breakthroughs.  Lots of extremely important things start out as interdisciplinary research, and it's where entire new fields tend to emerge.  In my opinion, most of the most exciting research you'll encounter is interdisciplinary in nature.
The disadvantage is that until the new area starts to be recognized as important, interdisciplinary work isn't well "claimed" by any discipline.  This means it's harder to get published, harder to get funded, and generally harder to get respect from colleagues working in "core" areas.  There are often very few people who fully understand the content of an interdisciplinary project, and the importance of an interaction is often only recognized in retrospect.
This tension is, I believe, the reason that you often see articles calling for more interdisciplinary research.  Many people recognize its importance, but if it was well-supported by existing community dynamics, they wouldn't need to write these articles.

A matter connected to your question is discussed in the recent issue of ACM XRDS Magazine (Vol. 21 No. 4, Summer 2015) under the title, "Crossing Boundaries". It describes the need for interdisciplinary research.
Publishing papers in diverse fields allows you to explore your opportunities and provides insights for novel ideas. In the early part of your research career, it would be admirable to have a fine understanding of various domains in your domain. After which you may delve into the details on what interests you the most from what you have broadly researched.

I get that there's a large demand for interdisciplinary research but I'm not so sure that diverse publishing always looks beneficial (as an early career scholar with a PhD and some publications in philosophy but now also some publishing in CALL).

If you're interested in several different research fields and manage to publish on a good level, then go for it! The crucial question is whether you can align your work in the different fields such that they form your unique profile. You should therefore take care that your published work always relates to the research profile that you want to establish for yourself.
Regarding job prospects, I guess the pros and cons balance out. On the pro side, you can apply for a wider diversity of jobs that are not limited to one specific field of expertise. On the con side, you'll probably intimidate some committee members with a diverse publication record, certainly containing journals that some of them never heard of (and hence can't judge).
Essentially, you'll have to own your diversity and make it a point for you. But you'll have to follow through and make diversity part of your profile. If it's just a side project in a loosely related area that you probably will have no long-term interest in, then it's probably just a waste of time.


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Why do breakthroughs in science and research that have enormous (and obvious) potential often not (or barely) go beyond the lab?
Sometimes advances are made in science research that have enormous and very easily visible potential. There are two examples that I have seen recently.
One example is this newly engineered inexpensive process to convert carbon dioxide into methanol, for fuel. As the article says, "Making methanol from carbon dioxide, the primary contributor to global warming, would both reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide a substitute for the fossil fuels that create them." This has huge potential, and it seems this should be of great excitement to researchers and activists alike working in this field.
Another example is this development of four strategies that represent partial but significant progress into the fighting of general cancers. This also has lots of potential in its field, and clearly is more advanced than many methods used today.
These two advances are by no means the only ones of such significance that I have seen, and there are surely much more that I have not seen, yet none of us see these go beyond this stage.
Why do breakthroughs in science and research that have enormous (and obvious) potential often not (or barely) go beyond the lab, and what makes them different from those that do become applied in the real world?

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Most of the answers (I have not read all of them yet) respond directly to the first provided example, and then generalize slightly. I am still looking for more answers that focus on the second example more, and generalize more.

They are just flashy press releases.  They're really not as cheap (including both capex and opex), easy, high yield, resistant to catalyst impurities, or scale-up able as written.
I've been seeing these flashy press releases on thin film fuel cells and the like (methanol production, energy production, F-T synthesis, biodiesel, switchgrass etc.) since at least the 90s.  The current press releases look amazingly similar to the same press releases from back then, with little evident improvement in the field.  Or realization of (or shame for) the past press releases that went nowhere.  Just a new assistant professor and another press hungry R1 school putting out more sizzle, sans steak.
And don't get me started on "nano".  That was already max hype in the 90s and has basically gone nowhere commercially (i.e. outside the realm of ivory tower careers).  And it still seems like a hot area for NSF funding and the like.  And it's a field that really attracts the ego scientists and self-promoters.

Yes and no. The "inmense breakthrough that will revolutionize all of X industry" is standard fare in more yellow press since forever. Yes, some breakthroughs happen. Often they aren't recognized as such in the beginning (they are just too off the left hand of the field, think Internet and WWW), other times they are really more or less "mainstream", and need years or decades of tweaking and fine tuning to be useful and comerciallly viable, other times it is just a flop that promised much but didn't deliver.

You are making a general comment about more than what is in question. I am responding to the locus of the question which is these breezy academic press releases.

Your statement on "nano" is utterly wrong. The field of spintronics in physics deals only with nano-devices and nano-effects and boosted storage density of HDD's exponentially and still does and now mass-production of magnetic RAM is starting in fabs...but this tricky technology took 20-30 years to be developed and become competitive, not surprising when a standard CMOS silicon <10nm chip-fab demands investments >10 billion $, then the new technology has to be economically and technologically very prosperous

@vonbrand: Though ironically enough, I used to work down the hall from a guy who actually DID revolutionize an industry.

@user48953094 Not to mention the use of nano-structure materials in all sorts of industrial chemical processes and such. There's plenty of huge gains you can get from nano-scale engineering; it's just that so many people seem to think that it would make sense to build an engine block with nanomachines or such, and are disappointed when nobody actually wants to do that.

Exactly. New ideas and inventions do not exist within a vacuum, they must inherently compete with already existing things and to be viable, they must, in some significant way be better than what already exists.  So when someone claims to have developed a process that is better than plants at exactly the thing that plants are best at, you should probably take that with an enormous grain of salt.  Beating a couple of billion years of evolution is a pretty tall order and being better than plant life at “turning CO2 into fuel” makes revolutionizing an industry seem like child’s play.

In short, it is extremely likely that the only way to beat plants at turning co2 into fuel is with a better plant.

Agreed with @user48953094.  Sure 'nano' was a hot topic buzzword for a while, and sure there was no shortage of academics piling onto the nano-grant bandwagon, but to suggest that nothing useful came out of nanotech during that time is not a defensible position.  Just MEMS alone have produced revolutions in optical data network switches, biochemistry (lab on a chip), IMUs and other sensors, etc.  Nanotechnology has directly contributed to an incredible array of real, practical technology advances in the past 20 years.

@RBarryYoung Although it seems surprising, plants are in fact astonishingly inefficient at this, and it's not unreasonable to think that a controlled industrial process could do it more much more efficiently. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency However, as you point out, monetary costs are also relevant, and the capital costs of growing plants are very low.

Because technological developments and scientific discoveries are processes at very different size and time scales of a development often under very different boundary conditions (lab vs. real world surrounding) of an in series producable technological product.
On average it often consumes even for easy transformable high-technology concepts and ideas 5-10 years to produce a prototype that can be used to optimize a ready-to-use technology in industry.
To measure the status-quo of such a development the "technology readiness level" was conceived and is widely used in academia (research reports, funding calls,...) and industry to qualify and estimate necessary time, personnel and financial requirements to achieve a distinct readiness level or decide if a concept is in the stage to transfer it from academic R&D to industrial realization and product development.

Economical requirements are not the key factor to realize a technological concept up to the final TRL level, mainly the societal use and profit (for example, nuclear fission energy/technology has long term much higher cost for society due to nuclear waste and it's correct disposal than the revenue of the companies selling energy with it).
From an economical perspective it is known that most of the high-tech startups fail. If this is due to a unknown/misestimated TRL level of the development and too early technological realization or just a bad idea or bad economical project managment would be interesting to know. But as this failure rate of high-tech startups is pretty high, likely this is not well known or statistically studied by anyone.
When you see that the number of patents is growing exponentially but money spent on R&D rather stagnates or grows slower, a lot of breakthroughs and concepts cannot be testified for readiness at all practically.

The spending per year is "billions" not "millions". That's a mistake in the graphic.

@okintheory correct, thanks for pointing out!

"(for example, nuclear fission energy/technology has long term much higher cost for society due to nuclear waste and it's correct disposal than the revenue of the companies selling energy with it)."
Nitpick: Nuclear energy actually is cheaper in the very long term. The problem is that it takes 20-30 years before the ROI surpasses a gas plant because of the longer construction time and higher construction cost. Modern waste storage is the easy part.

Also the patent graph is at least partially explained better by the state of the legal/patent system. Patents today are less often an indicator of a genuinely new idea than they were. Patent offices grant many patents that aren't genuinely novel, and patents are often used to give startups potential value in corporate buyouts, and for corporate legal warfare, rather than just to give inventors an extended window to convert their idea into a successful business without competitive pressure.

One example is this newly engineered inexpensive process to convert carbon dioxide into methanol, for fuel.

The reason in this very specific case (and probably many other cases) is economics.
Carbon dioxide is a gas. In the clean energy economy of tomorrow, carbon dioxide is available only if (a) stored or (b) when wind/solar power is not plentiful and thus fuels are burned for energy. The process requires an energy input, so you can use it only when wind/solar power is plentiful. There is a mismatch: you create CO2 when clean energy is not plentiful and need it when clean energy is plentiful, so you need gas storage.
I'll assume here that the process cannot operate on 400ppm of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere currently but requires concentrated carbon dioxide. There are processes such as photosynthesis that operate on 400ppm of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere. In fact, there is millions of years old technology called "tree" that converts carbon dioxide into solid fuels using sunlight by doing photosynthesis. I know this because I'm a forest owner and own tens of thousands of these things called "trees".
If you're going to store significant amounts of CO2, you already have gas storage capacity and thus are not restricted to liquid fuels. You can store gaseous fuels as well. In particular, you can store methane (natural gas). As lot of natural gas has been used, there is a huge number of depleted natural gas fields that have the demonstrated ability to store methane for millions of years. So, for this methanol process to compete in the marketplace, it must displace water electrolysis (invented in 1800) and Sabatier reaction (invented in 1897). Both of them are well-known technologies and when used together, convert carbon dioxide into synthetic clean methane.
If I'm an investor with focus on clean energy and considering whether to fund a methanol production process, I'm primarily looking at these things:

Longevity. The equipment must withstand use for tens of thousands of hours at the very least.
Energy efficiency. The equipment must show energy efficiency gains over water electrolysis + Sabatier reaction to be able to successfully compete with synthetic methane.
Usefulness of output. Current cars do not run on methanol which is a highly corrosive fuel. Electric cars and hydrogen cars are emerging. We may not ever have a large fleet of methanol-powered cars. In contrast, cogeneration and combined cycle gas turbines have a very high energy efficiency and can already burn methane. I'd much rather invest in methane production than methanol production for this very reason. There is a huge amount of methane powered electricity generation capacity already installed, and we probably have more methane powered cars than methanol powered cars.
Cost of output. It must successfully compete with biofuels, for example, for internal combustion engine cars that do not excel in energy efficiency and are soon replaced by plug-in hybrids at the very least or fully electric cars.
Investment cost of equipment. The equipment must be cheaper than electrolysis cells and Sabatier reactors.
R&D cost. Commercial companies for example have invested in electrolysis cells and already paid the R&D. Does it make sense to pay further R&D for methanol production?
Other alternative investments. For example, if you can store gas, you may be able to store hydrogen (*) which requires no CO2 capture, if fuel cells + electrolysis cells will ever become cost-efficient. Hydrogen has better energy density by mass than methane, but poorer energy density by volume than methane. Yet, it may make sense to have a hydrogen economy for the reason that no CO2 capture and storage is required with hydrogen.

I'm sorry to say that as an investor I'll put my money into wind power, solar power, inverters, maximum power point tracking equipment, hydropower, electrolysis and forest. (In fact, I have already put my money into electrolysis by investing into an electrolysis cell manufacturing company, into hydropower, into forest, into MPPT equipment, into inverters, into solar power and into wind power.)
(*): there are challenges in storing hydrogen because it's a very light atom so it can diffuse easily, and hydrogen can embrittle steel

Trees are decent enough for converting atmospheric carbon dioxide into solid fuels. But this is meant more as gas recovery from power plants - capturing the carbon-dioxide rich waste gases, bubbling them through a solution, and getting fixed carbon (and free oxygen) out. So a better comparison would be vats of algae, which have also been considered for much the same reason. The nice thing is that you don't have to throw away all of the capital in those power plants, and achieve much higher efficiencies in the fixing. That makes the economics much more appealing, and tends to be opposed by ecos

@Luaan: But you still need a large area exposed to the sun in order to collect the energy needed for the conversion.  The amount of solar energy collected obviously has to be AT LEAST as much as was generated by burning the fossil fuel in the first place (conservation of energy, you know).  In reality, it's going to be at least double, because fossil fuel power plants are roughly 50% efficient.

@jamesqf Sure, no argument about that. It's not realistic to expect 100% of the carbon dioxide to be captured either. This is all about the economics - either this is a cheaper way to turn e.g. coal power plants carbon neutral, or it's not. I don't know about you, but the power plants around where I live have plenty of land area around them (coal power isn't exactly clean or healthy, to say the least). Using such "exclusion zones" for solar power doesn't sound too bad. There have been experimental setups with algae for decades which do much the same thing.

"If you can store gas, you can store hydrogen" as a chemist I do see significant differences beteen storing hydrogen vs. say propane.

@cbeleitessupportsMonica Agreed, answer slightly revised.

@Luaan: Two points.  First, the question was about why "breakthroughs" aren't implemented quickly.  Here it's the cost & construction time of the machinery for the artificial leaf, even IF it can be scaled up successfully.  Second, even if implemented, it doesn't make a power plant carbon neutral.  It simply turns the CO2 into methanol, which is later burnt, releasing the CO2, which still winds up in the atmosphere, just a bit later.

@jamesqf You could create a mostly closed-cycle plant this way, though; that's the main point. It could be basically a solar power plant retrofitted to an existing power plant. But even if you used the methanol e.g. for powering cars, it still means that you significantly drop the total carbon dioxide emissions - you essentially use the same carbon twice (assuming the consumption doesn't increase, which is unrealistic, of course).

I would like to provide an answer from the biological/medical perspective.
The process of developing a drug for a disease is extremely long, complicated and expensive. This means the whole process typically takes more than a decade and over 1 billion USD. This is a major investment for a pharma company, and some initial "scientific breakthrough" in the lab is just the first of many steps needed to make a new drug. For example, basic scientific research cannot be done on humans, so it is often done in other biological systems such as mice. However, mice are not humans, and what often happens is that a treatment that works great in mice either does not work for humans or has some very serious side effects which make it unusable. So even if some initial work seems promising, it can mean that the chance of it becoming a drug increases from 2% to 10%.
Another thing to consider is that even for breakthroughs that do become drugs, it takes so long for a breakthrough in basic research to become a drug, that it may seem like nothing happened. Only a decade or two later the impact will be evident.
Finally, what may be presented as a "scientific breakthrough" is sometimes not really a breakthrough. This can happen for several reasons, for example the university PR which wants to attract attention from the general public, or the scientists overselling the results in order to publish it in a high-impact journal.
Ultimately, science advances in small steps, with work of many scientists building on the work of others. Each of these can be considered small breakthroughs, and they push the boundaries of knowledge a bit further. Big scientific breakthroughs are rare.

That billion USD for the 1 drug out of n promising lab results that makes it to regulatory approval, right? Wheras for the other n - 1 promising substances it takes another whole lot of money to find out that after all they don't work out that well.

These are all good answers, but one thing that hasn't been mentioned is what can unkindly be called Fraud.
Or as they say in research circles "The inability of third parties to replicate the results".  To say this has become pervasive in scientific research is an understatement.
So in addition to all the above reasons why a "breakthrough" cannot be commercialized, today we have to acknowledge the very high probability that it in fact doesn't exist at all.

Although I fully agree that there are far too many "results" not reproducible, I wouldn't go so far as to link it that directly to fraud. I'm freely using Hanlon's razor, i.e. no need to talk about evil intent where stupidity is a sufficient explanation.

Eliezer Yudkowsky has written a book, Inadequate Equilibria, on this subject.
The table of contents describes chapter 2 as How, in principal, can society end up neglecting obvious, low-hanging fruit? and if chapter 2 is the how, chapter 3 attempts the why.
I'm not an economist, so there's no way I can explain this as well as the book does, but it's a principle of stack exchange that I try not to leave link-only answers. The gist of these chapters can be summarized by the quote Usually when things suck, it's because they suck in a way that's a Nash equilibrium.
According to this theory, there would need to be at least two broken things about the system preventing their immediate, widespread adoption by single actors. In other words, two sets of independent actors would need to coordinate through a nest of conflicting incentives and inadequate information.
In the case of cancer care, you can observe pretty easily that effective, shared information is hard to come by. Patient  privacy laws are a net good, but they do make some kinds of research harder. Since healthcare in general is very resistant to change, convincing evidence is both hard to come by and very much required for anything to happen.
Such lucky coordination doesn't happen very often or very fast.