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Should live sessions be recorded for students when teaching a math course online?
I am a course instructor. In my courses, which are now online due to the pandemic, I have optional live sessions. In those live sessions, I give examples of how to solve problems (it's a math-based course), and answer student questions in a group setting.
This design comes as close as possible to pre-pandemic settings: students were never required to attend my lectures, but were always encouraged to do so.
Lectures have never been recorded.
I think that if I were to provide recordings of these live sessions, more students would not bother to attend. I strongly believe that attendance at these sessions is pivotal for understanding, and that watching posted videos of these sessions will not have the same effect. However, some students have indicated that they strongly prefer recorded videos, so that they can watch them in their own time. I specifically do not want to allow this, as I think it discourages proper time management and may lead to problems down the road.
There are already additional posted videos to help students who may be struggling with the content.
Other instructors: do you record your live sessions? If so, why, and if not, why not? Do you agree or disagree with my thoughts, and why?
EDIT (clarification as asked for in a comment):
The institution I teach for has emphasized the importance of teaching time management skills to first year students. These are first year courses, and so I am expected to teach time management in addition to math.
Additional notes of clarification requested in other comments:
All of the content I discuss in the live sessions has also been provided in multiple other formats: text, linked videos, etc. I think the value of the live session is the fact that it is live. When I was in undergrad, if I didn't attend a lecture, I didn't understand the content. Some lectures were recorded, but since I couldn't ask questions in real time, I couldn't benefit in the same way. There are already videos of this content - why would recording my live sessions add value if this is the case?
Adding another point to the discussion
Does anyone have any concerns regarding intellectual property? At my institution, all course materials created (including any assessments, posted lecture notes, lecture videos, etc.) are the property of the institution as far as I know. How should intellectual property rights factor into this discussion, if at all?
And another point
My understanding of the goal of putting instructional materials online was to preserve the "in person" experience as much as possible during the pandemic. If there is no live component that is unrecorded, that doesn't hold true to the pre-pandemic experience.

I'd suggest that people who advocate a certain answer to the question, especially those supporting that recommendation with experience and/or other evidence, post it as an answer instead. The question author can't accept an answer if it's in a comment, and comments can't be edited to improve them either. Also, @StatsSorceress, you should edit any of the clarifications you've made in the comments into the question post instead, if they may be relevant to those answering the question. Comments are ephemeral and can be cleaned up at any time.

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I do provide recordings. At my former university it was a policy to do that, but I had started it already before when I didn't have to. Where I am now I can decide whether I want to do it, and I do.
A major reason why I'm doing it is because students love it - at both universities, as long as it wasn't obligatory, students in the feedback always asked for recordings where they were not provided, and seemed always to be happy when they were provided, and I mean fairly big numbers of students and a striking majority of those who wrote anything about it (I think I have only ever seen a single student writing anything critical about it, and I have seen lots of student feedback).
Now I accept that we shouldn't do things just to make the students happy, but on the other hand I think it is somewhat partronising to not do something they ask for that I could easily do and wouldn't affect my overall didactical concept much.  I have the attitude to give the students responsibility for their own learning (I do tell them what I think is reasonable but if they want to do things in a different way it's up to them), and I want them to show up in my class not because they have to (due to withholding of resources that I could easily give) but because they decide to do so and they want to be there. My experience  is that providing recordings makes students' presence go down a little bit, but really not a lot (let's say 90% attendance with recordings relative to without, but I haven't systematically counted so this is a guess), and I am under no illusion about whether students who'd be there otherwise would properly concentrate on the lecture all the time - in fact in the old pre-Covid days there were student groups that annoyed me quite a bit by obvious lack of concentration and listening in presence. My impression is that the handful of students who don't come because there is a recording largely belong to the bunch that didn't get much out of being there either.
I have occasionally revisited recordings of presentations I attended, so I see where the benefit is. As others have already written in the comments, a student can go through an argument slower and more than once, or may remind themselves of something they missed in real time (we should not think that students listen all the time during live sessions - I once learnt that it is extremely hard if not impossible to keep attention up for more than 15-20 minutes). There is definitely some use in having recordings, so not only do I listen to what the students want, I also see a good reason why they want it.
A potential disadvantage is that some students may not ask questions or contribute to the class if they know there are recordings out of fear to come over as stupid. I never heard any student admitting to this for themselves, but I have heard and can imagine that this is an issue for some. My impression is that student participation hasn't gone down significantly because of recordings, but these "data" are very noisy and I'm actually not totally sure.

Thank you for your thoughts! I agree that the student reviews would likely improve. However, another concern I have is: if I provide recordings, what's the point of my being there at all? Won't the university fire me, because I'm superfluous?

Over time, every subject will have very high quality explanations on Youtube, parallelizing the pedagogical process. 3B1B said millions of people are learning Algebra 1 around the world, why not create one very good explanation of it? Embracing the nature of online video will help far more students in the long run, and make you more indispensable to the university

@StatsSorceress If you teach an introductory course (and your patronizing attitude supports that guess) it's very likely there are already many youtube videos about the exact topics of your lecture, and either probabilistically through the sheer number of people who made one, or because someone is just a genius who worked hard on it, at least one of those is bound to be much better than the byproduct of your live sessions. Why is your university still paying you to teach? Certainly not because there are no good videos (or books, actually, because what is the difference, really?) available.

@Nobody, yes, I specifically link to those videos to provide students with another perspective. Please refrain from unflattering chacterisations - this is meant to be a debate! I value your input, but please don't resort to name-calling. You've hit the nail on the head: why am I being paid, when so many recordings are already out there? Is my job in jeopardy if I add to that, and will I jeopardize others' jobs as well?

@StatsSorceress I'm sorry my comment is a little harsh. I don't know a neutral word to substitute for patronizing. Maybe that's because limiting other people's choices for their own (debatable) good is just harsh, even if it might really help some students. I omitted a tangent about several good reasons to keep paying lecturers for brevity: Because you can curate good, current material (videos, books, exercices, exams, etc.), because you can create or update material, because you can answer hard questions, because social interactions with an authority figure might help motivate students, etc.

@StatsSorceress Maybe flipped classrooms (where students are supposed to prepare the material themselves and lectures are just q&a sessions) are the way to go, but qualified instructors certainly won't become obsolete. Ever. The job might just change, with especially the repetitive parts (giving more or less the same lecture about conditional probabilities or whatever) being cut out and replaced with more of the hard stuff: For example deducing from a vague question what kind of misunderstanding the student has and how to resolve it most efficiently.

@StatsSorceress That's getting more and more speculative and off-topic, but in the long term it can also depend on the political climate: If we make students pay horrendous sums for formal education which basically just rehashes educational materials which are freely available, maybe formal education will suffer and decline as a whole. If on the other hand we make use of increased productivity to improve education beyond what is practicable now, maybe the demand for good instructors (of all levels) will even increase.

"A potential disadvantage is that some students may not ask questions or contribute to the class if they know there are recordings out of fear to come over as stupid.". There are tools out there that allow students to ask questions anonymously. Those have been used to great success at my university, even before the pandemic. the lecturer would show the access token before the lecture, and then people would ask via smartphone. It was already great when used in an actual lecture hall because people asked stuff they otherwise wouldn't dare to and its even more effective now.

@StatsSorceress two things: 1. the entire point of a job is to create value. You should aim to perform in a way that's the most valuable, not to save jobs. A job which can be eliminated without impact may as well not exist in the first place. I'm not saying your job creates no value, but you seem to be worried that's the case and your approach is not a good solution to that problem. 2. This site is not designed for debates. If that's what you want to have, then you should find a different site which is a better fit.

@Polygnome what was the tool used for anonymous questions? Sounds awesome!

@StatsSorceress https://trypingo.com/ and https://frag.jetzt/home. With the latter its literally two clicks. Give the room some name, click create, click "copy link" and post the link where the audience can see it, e.g. on the beamer. Done. We have used them with 400-600 people. I don't know if there are limitations on the # of participants.

I'm going to address this from a student's point of view. I was recently a mathematics student and I was involved in department meetings on this exact subject. I have little in the way of a direct answer, but there are many things that I think that I can bring up that you will not have considered.
For reference, I think that I've lived through the full spectrum of lecture attendance:

In my first year, I only ever missed a single lecture.
In my second, I missed them only when I was too far behind to benefit from the lecture or just too busy to attend it.
In my third year, I picked up the habit of simply leaving a lecture if it was covering ground that I already knew. For some courses, I give the lecturer a fair chance before skipping all of their lectures.
In my final year, my apathy peaked, making for many cases where I left the third lecture of many of my courses and never returned.

So, here are some benefits of recorded lectures that I believe that you may have not considered:

In my department's experience, most of the student's uses of recorded lectures were during the pre-exam revision period. I recall being told that there was evidence to suggest that this was not cramming and that the use patterns suggested that students were watching specific lectures to cover where they were weak.
From personal experience, it's a fantastic way to check the lecturer's published notes for errors. I'm sure that you can imagine cases where shy students will read your notes, see something that they don't believe, and write it off as an error. When they check your lecture's recording and see the same "error", it's a major red flag that warns them that they've missed something significant. This leads to learning.
Sometimes a lecture just doesn't sink in. The benefits of being able to relive it are obvious.
I find mental illness is extremely common in student cohorts. Many such students will benefit greatly from avoiding the strain of being surrounded by hundreds of others. This includes allowing would-be disruptive students to exclude themselves (regardless of their mental health).

You've cited poor time management as a reason against providing these recordings. I could not disagree more. I know what you mean. You mean that publishing these recordings will encourage students to cram it all at the last minute. In practice, I have never seen this. In fact, I have seen the opposite - students being saved time by the recordings, reducing their need to cram. Have you considered the time management benefits of a student not attending your lectures?

If you're covering ground that a student knows. A student in your lecture will probably turn their brain off, or worse, chat and ruin the lecture for somebody else. A student watching your video will simply forward through it or increase the playback speed. This benefit is particularly pronounced in practical sessions. I simply do not care about the long conversation that you're having with the student who is stuck on a problem that I solved in 10 minutes. I'm waiting for question 8d.
You probably can't speak as quickly as you think. One of my mistakes in my final year was that in week 7 of one of my courses, the quality of the lecturer's online notes dropped dramatically and I had to rely on the recorded lectures to make sure that I understood everything. When doing this, I discovered that I could understand the lecturer's speech at beyond 2x speed, slowing down only when absolutely needed. This meant that I could absorb an hour long lecture in about 20 minutes and without the tedium of listening to somebody speak in the familiar slow academic tone. Over the course of your course, this will save your students hours and the benefits to your student's concentration are obvious.
The time saved by not attending lectures is dramatic. No travel time (this could be as much as half an hour there and back), no 5 minutes waiting for the lecturer to set up, no 5 minutes to leave, no hour lost to a "quick coffee" with your friends after the lecture, and no wasting time on campus when you've not got your next lecture for many hours. The time saved attending to your hygiene is another benefit (no shaving, no ironing...), but that comes at a clear cost.

Of course, some of these benefits no longer apply when every attendant is online, but you can see my point.
As a final note, I always recommend that mathematics students attend as few lectures as possible. However, my reason for this has never been related to lecture recordings. It's been about lecture notes. In my time, I have only met a handful of lecturers who were so much better than their notes that their lectures were worth attending. The vast majority of the time, the lecturers were clearly inferior to their own notes. By trade, mathematicians are authors, not orators. Sadly, it shows.

It's great to see a student perspective here! Thank you. This differs very much from my undergrad experience, and the experience of my friends, so I really value hearing your point of view.

I cannot comments on mathematicians as a specific subgroup but in most cases the lectures serve to prepare the students for an in-depth study of the material outside the lecture times.  In physics at least, most lectures are priceless introduction to a topic more than a learning experience.

CS student here (so maybe my experience is somewhat comparable to math, but not the same thing) and I wholeheartedly agree with the observation that skipping lectures and looking at the recording or notes saves time, while a boring lecture will make me think I spent two hours learning but retain absolutely nothing.

From another student perspective, during my second undergrad year I skipped a specific lecture session every week past the first two for an entire semester and watched it online, because it was the only lecture I had on that day. I had to get public transport to uni, which was 50-60 minutes each way depending on timings so I'd leave home an hour and a half before the class started. With the lecture only being 1 hour, that meant ~3.5 hours away from home for 1 hour of learning, when I could just study at home instead and catch up on the lecture later. An easy decision.

I find the high up vote count of this answer disturbing. It's not a direct answer to the question, and most of it is just me advocating lecture skipping. Am I getting so many up votes just for telling students what they want to hear?

It may well be that some students cannot attend the “live” lectures.
International students who could not travel on-site may face a significant time-zone difference.  There might be bandwidth issues: some students who share internet connections with brothers or sisters might not be able to tune-in for live lectures.
These are exceptional times: pre-pandemic settings may apply to most but are unlikely to apply to all: there are students at a real disadvantage because the usual logistic support they get on campus is not possible where they live.
I do record my lecture (I have to do so this year because of the pandemic).  It requires minimal extra work: uploading a file on a server.  Attendance to live lectures is down from previous years.  I would prefer they tune in “live” but students know best their schedules and obligations, so it’s up to them to choose if they can or want to attend the actual live lectures; the recordings gives them additional flexibility in this matter.
As a final observation: if this has taught us something, it is the value of in-person lectures where the instructor can interact with students, get a “feel” from the reaction of the class to this or that part of the material.  Students uniformly prefer the in-person format, so I doubt the job of any half-decent instructor is in danger.
There is already plenty of on-line stuff on pretty much anything, but it’s mostly used as complementary material.  Students who regularly showed-up pre-pandemic were obviously not satisfied with this format, so why would your school do away with the competitive advantage of a good faculty giving engaging lectures?

Thank you for your thoughts. I agree that the supplemental video content is designed to be just that - supplemental. I suppose an argument could be made that live sessions are also supplemental, in a way. The way my institution has things set up, it's not that easy (IMO) to record material and upload it to a central area. In my case, just to upload a 45 minute session would take 5+ hours during which I can't do anything else on my computer. It looks like your institution has mastered the uploading part! Would you be willing to share which software they/you use?

We are using Zoom for lectures and I record on my local computer; recording to the cloud takes significantly longer.  I do not back-edit anything so it’s really recording a live lecture.   This is then uploaded to a d2l platform https://www.d2l.com/ that serves as the university platform for online material.

@ZeroTheHero The long time for cloud recordings to be available isn't universal (I suspect it has something to do with whatever contract the university has with Zoom), as my lecture recordings are typically available within minutes of ending the lecture. Uploading (to Brightspace/d2l) usually takes about five minutes, after which it is processed on their/the university's servers and I am no longer part of the equation (except putting the link on the course page).

@StatsSorceress I want to add another example (of own experience): I am a mother and a student. My child need to attend online lessons (I am very happy they have school in all) with my guidance (at my laptop) at the same time as I may have lectures. I am very thankful for every instructor, who give me the option to view the lecture in the evening, when my child is asleep :) The pre-corona-plan was, to attend the face-to-face lectures while my child is in school... No plan stands the real life...

Do you agree or disagree with my thoughts, and why?

Let's go through them:

I think that if I were to provide recordings of these live sessions, more students would not bother to attend.

Common sense dictates that if you provide an alternative to attendance, fewer students will attend. So this is the one part I agree with.
This part suggests that you already have some students not attending. This is a problem, because you:

strongly believe that attendance at these sessions is pivotal for understanding

It's a problem that, as far as we can tell, you are not addressing. This makes me inclined to disagree with any explanation you might give for other problems you have in your course.

I think that if I were to provide recordings of these live sessions, more students would not bother to attend.

Writing this off as students "not bothering" is patronising, as has been said in a comment on another answer. Students already had legitimate problems outside of their education before the pandemic disrupted everything.
Another way of looking at it: If the students really were just lazy, they probably wouldn't have attended anyway, recordings or no recordings.

I strongly believe that attendance at these sessions is pivotal for understanding, and that watching posted videos of these sessions will not have the same effect.

This is probably true for some students and not others. It's up to them to determine that.

However, some students have indicated that they strongly prefer recorded videos, so that they can watch them in their own time. I specifically do not want to allow this, as I think it discourages proper time management and may lead to problems down the road.

Apparently "proper time management" is defined as fitting in with an instructor's arbitrary schedule for supposedly optional activities. I disagree with this definition.
In any case, your job is to teach math, not time management. Of course, you should encourage good time management, but not at the expense of teaching math. So, if posting recordings creates time management problems for some students, but helps other students learn math better, then it's the right thing to do.

There are already additional posted videos to help students who may be struggling with the content.

You seem to be suggesting that some videos are OK and some are not. I disagree with this, especially since you haven't explained why.

Thanks for your thoughts. Respectfully, I disagree with your point on teaching time-management. I had neglected to say that these are large first-year classes. My students struggle with time management, and those who attend the live sessions have told me that they find it helpful to have that structure during the week. I agree that if students were lazy, then they wouldn't attend at all. The videos that have already been posted show examples and explain theory. Why should I post recordings of my lectures, if the points are already basically covered in the videos that are already online?

StatsSorceress, I think you also need to consider this from an equity lens. You seem to think that teaching time management is the same as teaching the ability to make a specific lecture time. Consider parents with kids at home during online learning or students in low-skill work where they cannot effectively set their own schedule (and may get hours cut for being too “picky” about their schedule). Is punishing these students for not being able to fit YOUR schedule the goal?

@Dawn It's not my schedule - it's the schedule set by the university, which the students know when they register for the class.

Some instructors feel strongly about doing what they can to encourage attendance and some feel strongly that one should just offer students tools for learning and let them choose how to approach it.  I believe the efficacy of these two approaches depends a lot on both the culture and maturity of the students involved as well, the goals and content of the course, and the way in which one runs the class.  Consequently, there's not one "right way" to do things.  In normal times, I personally require or strongly encourage attendance in some classes, and don't care in other classes.  However, my experience is that on this site, there is a strong bias towards the "let students choose" opinion.  See my reasons to require attendance in some classes (which apply in covid-times as well), and then compare with some other answers there.
During this pandemic, there are two conflicting issues: (1) it is especially hard for many students to be disciplined and focus on their courses, and (2) there are lots of extenuating circumstances that may hinder live attendance (internet connection, noise at home, illness, ...).  Some of my colleagues (typically those teaching lower level math classes) do not record live sessions and they have found this greatly improves participation and attendance so helps with (1).  That said, I think the general consensus is that "synchronous learning" (live only) classes puts   certain students at disadvantages because of (2).
The point is you should try to find some sort of balance, which may depend on your class.  I personally use both pre-recorded lectures and live non-recorded discussions.  At one point I asked students to let me know if they wanted to record discussions, and no one did---recording does make some people more shy.
My advice is to be especially mindful of (2) in these times, and consider other tools to help keep students on track with the lectures: e.g., regular quizzes or require them to answer a couple of simple questions about each lecture within a few days.  If there are clear notes/text or other videos students can easily follow if they miss the live class, maybe recording videos is not too important.  But if not, maybe recording at least some videos will be helpful.

Thank you very much for your reply. I agree that recorded content can supplement a live component, and I have provided recorded content in addition to my live sessions. I just haven't recorded those live sessions. I also agree that weekly low-grade-impact quizzes are a great way to maintain engagement. Thank you for acknowledging the multiple perspectives on these issues, and providing your thoughts.

@StatsSorceress From the question, I wasn't quite sure the nature of those videos (e.g., can they in effect substitute when students can't reasonably make the live classes).  By the way, have you discussed this issue with fellow instructors at your institution teaching similar classes?  It's one thing getting advice from random people online, and another getting advice from people you know in similar situations as yourself.

My answer is an extension to ZeroTheHero's answer.
Even pre-pandemic there were a variety of reasons why students might have difficulty making classes. It could be commute related, it could be conflicts with their job(s) that they need to pay for their classes, it could be trying to take care of their children, etc. Even though your optional lectures were potentially better for them, by not posting videos, you were still inadvertently putting these types of students at a disadvantage.
Now, for something important you should reconsider:

I specifically do not want to allow this, as I think it discourages proper time management and may lead to problems down the road.

I used to have the same perspective. But it's not our job to teach students time management. They are adults, and are responsible for taking care of themselves. Learn to accept this and your job will be less stressful.
Now, to be fair, some students were never taught anything about time management and don't realize it's something important. If you really want to help those particular students, then include some time management resources in your syllabus and emphasize it on the first day of class.
So here's where I am personally with designing courses that can be taught entirely online:

Prerecord lecture materials and post them early. Doing this gives me a chance to edit them for conciseness, fix errors, and change examples or explanations that I realize don't work well.
Lecture hours are flexible and optional. If students want me to teach concepts in person, I can do that. Otherwise I use it to answer questions. Then if there's time, I can use it for one-on-one help

A course I've helped teach as a TA for several years switched from in-person to this format for the pandemic (the lecture hours are online as well), and it's been really great and the students love it. This format is nice because if your videos are good, then you can just reuse them in the future, which saves you time that can be used for more one-on-one help time for students.

Thank you for your answer. In my first-year courses, yes, my students know nothing about time management, so I feel it's part of my job (as does my institution) to incorporate this somehow into the course. Yes, I'm following the same model of optional live sessions (I think these correspond to your lecture hours). My question was more around: why should my live sessions be recorded, if all of the material is available in other formats already? The value of the live session, in my opinion, is the fact that it is live. All of the material is already posted in smaller recorded videos and text.

@StatsSorceress you keep coming back to the question of what value you are adding. I think the key value a lecturer adds is selecting and structuring the material that should be taught. Which theorems, algorithms and so forth will you present, to what depth, and which ones first. It's not that hard for a student to seek out a web lecture on any of them. But crafting a coherent course by selecting and structuring, that requires experience which they don't have yet.

I'm answering this question, like others, from the perspective of a student. The start of university for me represented a large change in my life and I struggled mentally to adapt to the new environment. I'm not going to go into too much detail but lectures were particularly difficult to attend. Lecture recordings allowed me to keep up with the class in a safe space. If there weren't lecture recordings I wouldn't have made it through University, simple as that.
Recordings help to make University more accessible.
Let me also just say, trying to predict the outcomes of a particular change on the behaviour of students through nothing more than hearsay/anecdotal evidence is pretty weak. The fact of the matter is is that you have no idea what will happen until you've tried it for a few years. You should base your decision on what you know WILL happen, not what you think might happen.

I'll write mostly from the perspective of a student but also as TA. My university moved most classes online during the pandemic and overall, it's worked out pretty well. Not every class took the same model for how to do lectures;

One of them just has prerecorded lectures, one big one per week. There is also a Q&A hour. Half the time the lecturer is there, the other weeks only the TAs. There are only two required assignments, the deadline for the second is approaching rapidly but we haven't had feedback on the first yet. This class is not very well-regarded.
The second course has a prerecorded lecture every week, as well as a homework set that can be completed mostly by just attentively following the prerecorded lecture. (Maybe 20% extra reading/online research needed.) There is also a Q&A session which for me is at an awkward time, so I rarely attend it. The homework is due in a batch every three weeks so I sometimes go a week without watching the lecture and then catch up when the homework deadline approaches. Overall this strikes a very good balance between letting students manage their own time, but giving them some guardrails.
The third course has a prerecorded lecture every week cut up into thematic chunks of 12-30 minutes, which works very well for people using Pomodori time management methods. It's also hugely convenient when you need to review a particular detail. The course also has a mandatory lecture time where students have to critically present papers (and others have to attend). The TAs for the course are quite active in coaching the students that have to present and the level is unusually good in my experience. There are four individual assignments where we have to implement a technique explained in one of the video lectures. These assignments are small but quite challenging and you really need to grasp the topic to be able to implement them.
The course I'm TAing has a couple of individual assignments based on lectures. These lectures are recorded and students can re-watch them. The students have to implement some techniques given in the lectures.

I think by now you see the common thread here. The most effective video lectures are the ones that are useful to students, mostly to complete assignments. Re-watching a lecture, or a key segment of one, multiple times to grasp a complicated bit is extremely useful. As exams approach, I expect I'll also be re-watching most of the lectures again to refresh my memory.
I agree that naively switching to recorded lectures poses a time management risk. But I question whether the pressure towards effective time management was really all that good to begin with, if this is all it takes to pull the rug out from under it.
I find that you get the best time management when homework has these traits:

Deadlines aren't too far into the future. This usually means multiple assignments instead of one big one.
Predictable deadlines. Try to publish all deadlines at the start of the semester. It's pretty hard to manage your time if some teachers suddenly dump surprise work on you.
Reasonable size. Remember that your course isn't the only one people are taking. You don't teach people time management by overwhelming them, or forcing them to choose between your course and another one.
Sufficiently rewarding. If homework is only a small percentage of the overall grade and a lot of work, then a student with limited time should actually not waste time on it and instead concentrate on more rewarding study activities. Good time management includes watching the return on investment for doing homework for your class.

Overall this means that homework should be challenging enough that it forces students to pay attention to the lectures, but light enough that it has a favorable effort/reward rate.

Thank you! I agree that short assessments with clear predictable deadlines are useful. When I was in undergrad, we had 3-6 weekly assignments in our courses, and each assignment would take 10-20 hours to complete well (on top of attendance at lectures, labs, etc.). We were all under significant stress all the time, which severely impacted our learning. I avoid this with my students, because I know what it can do to your mental health, but I know instructors who, like you say, dump surprise work.


text:
Emailing to have a discussion
I am an undergraduate student in physics who has been self-studying certain subjects in humanities/social sciences due to the pandemic. I'd like to gain more perspective on the subjects, but have been unable to, due to the few people I know in the field and the quarantine.
There are interesting research papers, books, and articles (or even talks) in the fields I am studying, and I wonder how the author would feel should someone email them to simply talk about the topic they're writing. For example, an email about your opinion on the perception of reality based on their research papers, books, and maybe also from other sources. Is it okay to email the author to discuss what they're researching?
Thank you!

In my opinion, cold emails are unlikely to lead to the sort of open-ended discussion you're looking for. I would guess that they would likely be ignored.
You might have better luck attending conferences -- possibly online, and possibly undergraduate-focused. They are a traditional venue in which to meet new people, and people might be more receptive there to invitations to chat about their work.
Good luck!

Yes, you can email, but expect that almost every such mail will be ignored or (possibly) answered in only a perfunctory way. People are busy both with their own research and in working with their own students. Most such emails are likely to wind up in the trash.
As an undergraduate who wants to make contact with a professor at another institution, you can have better (not perfect) success if you work indirectly through one of your own professors. If I get an question from a student of another institution, my willingness to deal with it depends on my current workload (and work/life balance). I might be able to reply with a short note but not likely to start a longer conversation.
If I get an introduction to a student from another professor, however, I'd be much more likely to give it serious consideration, just as a courtesy to a colleague. And I would depend on that colleague to vet the seriousness of the person being introduced with some assurance that my time isn't  going to be wasted. I still can't guarantee that time and effort would be available, but you might make it past the door labelled Trash.

I’d be more likely to answer an email from an undergraduate student that’s well written and has questions based on clearly having read the material. I get too many emails that start “Dear Professor” and then say something nice about my “lab” and how they’d like to join it. However, I’m not a professor and I have no lab, showing that they’ve done no prior research on me and my work. So, I just ignore those. However, an email that was properly addressed and came with questions about some specific elements of my prior work would be much more likely to get an answer.

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text:
After 20+ years of lecturing, 3 masters (2 M.Sc.), at age of 54 years, is it feasible to start and finish a Ph.D., be hired as a Professor?
After 20+ years of (part-time) lecturing, 3 masters (out of which 2 M.Sc.), at age of 54 years, is it feasible to start and finish a Ph.D. and be hired as a Professor?

This question has been asked many times before.  In short, you're never too old, but it's certainly true that you might have to deal with age based discrimination.

could you please clarify what type of career you hope to achieve?  A tenure-track research career? or a teaching faculty position? something else?  The answer depends on your specific goals.

At least the PhD part has been done before, for example by Brian May, who received his PhD in astrophysics at around 60 years old.

Suppose you start your PhD at 55 and you complete within X years. Further suppose you plan to retire at age Y. Thus, your question reduces to: after completing a PhD, can I be hired as a Professor in Y - X - 55 years?

Checkout the formal requirements at your actual goal. There might be a notion similar to "usual requirements (PhD, bla, bli, blup) might be not needed in case of extraordinary foo, fiz, baz of the candidate". It might be easier for you to show extraordinarity. Say, you have published 20 course books, but never formally bothered for a PhD. Or you have something named after you as a widely accepted notion.

@DanRomik - but Brian had basically done all but finishing the thesis. Plus the topic was a small enough niche that not much else had been done in the intervening decades so the thesis was still topical. Not a generally expected outcome...

@JonCuster well, Brian May’s case is unusual in other respects that are much more significant than the one you point out. For example, probably OP is not extremely rich and was not ranked among the top guitar players in the world by Rolling Stones and Guitar World magazines. So, possibly nothing useful can be learned from this example. Nonetheless, OP asked “is it feasible to [do X]?”, and since X is such an unusual thing to do, I don’t see a better way to meaningfully answer the question than to point the only examples I know of people who did X, or something that’s somewhat close to X.

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text:
Academics with ADHD or autism: What workplace accommodations have helped you?
Folks,
I have ADHD, and I'm considering a career in academia after I get my PhD. I am about to defend my dissertation proposal, and I expect to defend by May 2020.
Part of the standard package of accommodations for students with ADHD is extended time on tests, but I have never needed this. I can complete tests fine. And it won't be relevant when I'm a faculty member, anyway. I'm more interested in this: for those of you who have ADHD or autism who are academics, what specific workplace accommodations have you requested? These can include formal or informal accommodations. Hearsay (i.e. I know a colleague with ADHD, and she has XYZ) is fine. Autism included as this condition also affects executive function, albeit in different ways.
Inattention and making mistakes while creating Excel tables has been a problem before. In an academic job, I would work with my colleagues and any students I'm supervising to check any tables I'm putting out - not to mention I'd probably be the one checking any tables my students put out. I've been able to automate a lot of the table writing through statistical software, which really cuts down on cut and paste errors. If I were in the private sector, one of my accommodations would need to be something along the lines of needing to work with others to check my work.
Alternatively, per @Elizabeth Henning's question, I'd also be interested to know if anyone was offered accommodations that aren't actually helpful, and what accommodations those are. Perhaps those answers will be informative to the community.
The site is warning me that the question I'm asking appears subjective and is likely to be closed. A lot of the questions here involve some degree of subjectivity, so I find the rule to be very ill-defined. But, so I don't get the question closed, please limit this to discrete workplace accommodations that you have received, or that you have heard of others receiving.
Some related posts on StackExchange that don't address this specific question:
What specific techniques can help someone facing mental health problems (depression, anxiety, ADHD) have a productive academic career?
What type of workplace accommodations are departments required to make for a mentally unhealthy faculty member?

I don't have an answer, but I wonder if it is possible for generalized solutions to actually work. Or is it better for a person to work out some individualized solutions depending on their specific needs. In other words, would a given solution that works for you be likely to work as well for another. Perhaps you can give some insight into that. There are other sorts of conditions that require individual accommodation, of course - blindness, deafness, etc. Some are rare, some not. But some require a case-by-case approach I suspect.

@Buffy I agree. I realized that when I visited the students with disabilities office and asked what accommodations were available - only for them to tell me that extended time on tests was one of the standard ones. That's actually why I'm trying to solicit specific solutions: I want to review them and see what might apply to me (and hopefully, this might help others in the future).

I think this is a very interesting question in an academic context, because academics generally have so much more control over their working lives and processes than is typical in many companies (most never need to deal with a time clock, just showing up to teach class on time, no daily meetings with a supervisor), and most of the formal reporting/evaluation happens in writing and with generally long (month or year) advanced warning, etc. So I'm not sure what an option could even be that would be helpful - but would really like to find out! Its an important topic.

I've heard of some german companies that hire autistic people due to their special abilities and offer their services to other companies while overtaking and optimizing workplace accomodation or enabling home-office work for them. Without necessary tasks like teaching it's likely much easier in industry than in academia nowadays...

The one professor I knew who had ADHD did not receive any accommodations and he was very successful.

@AnonymousPhysicist Your comment kind of proves my point.

@AnonymousPhysicist This sounds like an example of survivorship bias in action.

@GeoffreyBrent I would not draw any conclusions from a single anecdote.

@AnonymousPhysicist That seems prudent... but then why post the anecdote?

@AnonymousPhysicist good for that professor! However, there are two faculty in my department who I suspect have ADHD. If they do, I also suspect they are less successful than they may want to be on account of having ADHD. I do want to ameliorate the impact of ADHD on my career, hence my question.

Should this be split into two questions for ADHD and autism respectively?  They are rather different.  Or is there really enough similarity that accommodations for one would be relevant to the other?  (Probably a naive question, sorry.)

@NateEldredge They're not etiologically similar, but they both express as nonconformity in work and social style, which is what causes the "problem" that requires accommodation. In my experience, ASD is better tolerated in academia because a lot of people think ADHD is bogus and instead write off ADHD traits as just being a screwup.

There is an article in today's New York Times about workplaces designed for autistic employees. Not academia, but maybe something helpful there.

@NateEldredge You're correct that autism and ADHD result in very different challenges. They both do affect executive function. I wonder if accommodations related to executive function would be similar. Sensory sensitivity is a common feature of autism but not (I believe) of ADHD. Social coaching and having a social coach on the job helps many people with autism, but it may be less relevant to those with ADHD. You raise a good point.

@NateEldredge Sensory sensitivity is often a characteristic of ADHD as well since the underlying problem is attentional filtering. Social coaching as an accommodation is not uncommon for kids with ADHD, but I haven't heard of it used for adults, except in a more indirect way where an ADHD coach/therapist will help manage socially dysfunctional ADHD-typical behavior like impulsivity or emotional volatility.

I’m quite late to the party here but just leaving this note in case it helps future visitors. JAN (Job Accommodation Network) is a resource that keeps a database of various conditions or impairments and some accommodations that may help. ADHD info is here: https://askjan.org/search.cfm?srchstring=adhd

This is a very difficult question to answer because people with ADHD/LD aren't treated very well in higher education in general, so (anecdotally) they seem to be extremely underrepresented among both academics and grad students. Even though ADHD/LD people make up at least 10% of the population, there doesn't seem to be much interest in diversifying faculty to include them, or in consulting with them about how to help better serve the needs of ADHD/LD students.
Plus, there's a worse problem of fundamentally misunderstanding ADHD/LD and thinking that a few minor changes is the same thing as "accommodation." You often hear ADHD/LD described as having "attention problems" or "learning problems" (as someone on ASE did here). But in the case of ADHD, the underlying issue is actually difficulty regulating attention, which results in differences in how attention gets used. And in the case of LD, the underlying issue is difficulty processing certain information formats. In both cases, there is a significant mismatch between natural strengths/preferences and the way neurotypicals are expected to do things. (I am not autistic, but I have heard that ASD people are in a similar situation.)
The standard accommodations you mention are the product of what I call the "test in the envelope" mentality, which is as far as 99% of academics get in their understanding of ADHD/LD. It's a horrible accommodation because it sends the message that having ADHD/LD basically means that you're just like everyone else but slower. Needless to say, that creates a lot of false negative assumptions and stereotypes, especially in a career where being smart is prized above everything else.
In other words, in the current academic environment of widespread ignorance and unwillingness to really deal with people with learning/attention differences, ADHD/LD accommodations are nearly always reactive rather than inclusive: the person with ADHD/LD has something "wrong" with them, so they posture as "needing help," for example by asking someone else check their Excel tables. This raises the question of whether it's necessary to work with Excel tables at all if it's a task that you know is going to be problematic. Is there some completely different approach that is better suited to your learning differences? What should universities be doing to provide an inclusive environment for that, rather than going small potatoes with Excel proofreading?
So at this rather benighted point in time, it might be more on-point to reframe your question as: What are examples of nonessential expectations that are typical in academia, but which put ADHD/LD people at an unfair disadvantage?

This is a good point, but I'm an eternal optimist, so I will not reframe the question entirely. In my case, I can't avoid having to deal with a bunch of information that is vulnerable to editing errors. Automating things as much as I can and offloading a lot of the data manipulation to people who are skilled at it and who don't have executive dysfunction (or who have ameliorated said dysfunction) is what I do.

You should post this as a question instead of posting it as an answer.

@WeiwenNg In light of your new comments, it sounds like what you're really asking for is individual ADHD management strategies, which may or may not also require formal involvement by the institution. As far as "accommodation" goes, I strongly believe that for holistic conditions like ADHD, universities absolutely need to be structurally more inclusive towards non-neurotypicals, both students and faculty. No matter how good your management strategies are, you're going to be at a significant disadvantage until that happens.

2/ Trying to minimize the fundamental differences with ADHD and "pass" as a more-or-less round peg might work for a few lucky individuals, but it's a losing strategy overall.

@ElizabethHenning Can you elaborate on how universities can structurally be more accommodating to non-neurotypical folks?

@WeiwenNg I don't have time right now to start listing all the specific things that I have personally struggled with or witnessed, but I can say that the zeroth step needs to be for all university faculty to recognize that (1) some people really are different and (2) dealing with them can't just be outsourced to Disability Services. And faculty (at least as far as I know in the US) don't even have access to any sort of formal support services, so they're left to hash it out with their department on their own. Which means that success depends on the department being enlightened about this.

I'm actually thinking about writing a blog about this. Maybe.

Clearly a number of people seem to think the original question was useful, but nobody has actually provided an answer. I am accepting this as the answer because it's well thought out and highlights some of the challenges in answering the question, as well as (maybe) to a flaw in my premise. Responding to one specific point about learning difficulties and autism, my wife actually has autism, and she has some sensory processing issues that make listening difficult in some contexts (especially when there's any competing noise).

@ElizabethHenning could you say, have you written a post after all? If yes, could you send me a link please?

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Central dot as decimal point in top journal
The Lancet, one of the top medical journals in the world, requires 'Type decimal points midline (ie, 23·4, not 23.4)'. Does anyone know why this is? As a mathematician, I'll always read 23·4 as 92. Seems odd to me that such a high profile paper would insist on such a strange formatting choice, which goes against the SI standard, so I'm guessing there's a good reason for it.

Not really an answer, but there is precedent for use of a midline dot as a decimal point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpunct

When some of us hand write numbers with decimals (gasp! Pens & pencils still exist) we were taught to put the decimal point in the middle, as it could get “lost” when using lined paper...

I have only one paper in a British journal (Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society). Their copy-editor changed all the decimals in the paper. If I used 5.243, that was changed to 5･243 .

"...which goes against the SI standard..." There are many things in the world going against the SI standard.

When I was in school (in the U.K.) we wrote the dot in the middle of the line for decimals. When we got to dot products we wrote them with a lower dot. When I went to university we wrote a middle dot for dot products and multiplication and I’m not sure I ever wrote a number with a decimal point but I guess I’d use a lower dot.

I cannot comment (rep!) but authors in a similar position might like to note that the Alt-0183 approach (as recommended in the authors guide for the journal mentioned in the OP) looks fine in body text, but it looks grotesque in a Word Equation/Formula. In that case a 'hyphenation point' (2027 then Alt-x) seems to do a neater job.

Thanks for asking this question. What a waste of authors' time. Such cases can easily be replaced using regex \d(\.)\d

This notation was more common historically, particularly in the British empire. My guess would be that the Lancet, being an old journal founded in England in 1823, is sticking with it because of tradition rather than a really good reason.

It would seem to me that tradition is a good reason.

@MaxW It's not a terrible reason on its own, and I'm not calling for an end to all traditions here, but if there are good reasons to stop or continue a practice, well, those reasons generally trump "we've always done it that way". Note that, for the purposes of this answer, I accept OP's premise that the notation is unusual and somewhat confusing.

Yep, I have seen this in other traditional British journals as well (London Soc or Edinburgh Math Soc maybe).

@darijgrinberg Do they still use it? Proc. R. Soc. A and Phil. Mag. seem to have moved away from it, for example.

Actually, it seems that they are phasing it out. This paper, for example, has bottom-aligned dots for decimal numbers (see page 3) but still has centered $\cdot$s for "Theorem 1$\cdot$2" etc.

To expand on @Anyon's answer more generally, mathematical notation is not universal between countries. Where the decimal symbol appears—and what the decimal symbol even is—varies significantly. For instance, in most of continental Europe, the period and comma are switched so that what in the US would be "24,321.12" would be "24.321,12" in Germany or the Netherlands. Similarly, the "dot product" is sometimes written on the baseline rather than on the center line.
So this is just an expression of a stylistic preference or tradition.

Sometimes the dot product is even written with a cross (and the cross product with a wedge). This confused me a hell of a lot in high school

@DenisNardin and sometimes dot product is written with angle brackets like 〈a,b〉

In fact, modern scientific guides suggest to use a small space instead of a comma or a dot to separate thousands.

@MassimoOrtolano This is the SI standard since 2003 to not use the comma or dot for anything but the decimal separator (https://www.bipm.org/en/CGPM/db/22/10/)

That rather stuffs up the CSV file then...

@JAB to add to the variation, in Russian literature dot product is commonly written as (a,b) (example), while cross product is [a,b] (example). And this despite comma being decimal separator. What a mess.

The unspaced centred dot, as in 23·4 (= 234 ÷ 10), means the decimal point. To denote multiplication, spacing is necessary: 23 · 4 = 92. As long as one sticks to this convention, no confusion arises. From some people's point of view, it is nice to distinguish thus the marker for decimal point from those for multiplication and the end of a sentence.

This sounds like a very error-prone convention.

I didn't downvote BTW. It's good to know this convention exists, even if it's a dangerous one.

-1'd because I disagree that this avoids confusion, though this answer does seem otherwise helpful in describing the thinking.  It does seem a tad strange to have such a convention based on spacing when spacing already distinguishes decimal points from periods; and while someone might well argue that the existing convention could lead to confusion in some cases, it's strange to then invent a new convention that has the exact same weakness.

All mathematical text-books published in the UK used the interpunct for the decimal indicator.  It was not only pupils in school! (I am old enough to remember pupils being reprimanded for failing to place the decimal point accurately.)
I wonder why and exactly when we made the change to the decimal point on the line.  Was it in the 1980s, when people started to use computer keyboards?  Specialist knowledge is required (and a numeric keypad) to produce an interpunct · and this could well be the explanation.
This change is at least something for which we cannot blame the EU!

And even though it is possible to produce an interpunct via keycode, numeric input to most software must use the ordinary key.


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Does graduating a UK PhD in 5 years look bad (with circumstance)
So in UK, people generally complete their PhD in 3.5 to 4 years.
Before, I intended to finish in 4 years as I wanted time to publish everything before writing up. Towards the end of 3rd year, I applied for a grant to do research abroad which could be anywhere between 1 and 12 months which I got accepted for earlier this year. I originally planned to do 2 to 3 months for experience (and a mini-holiday), but in the end decided to work for 12 months as it is in a good research group and I would like a publication out of it.
For this to work within the time period, I have decided to start this position 2 months before the PhD submission deadline, in which I will come back to UK after to submit - meaning I have put my PhD on suspension for a year (which has been accepted). I will not be able to finish my thesis before I go so that is why I am doing it this way.
The position itself counts as a post-doc, even though I have not graduated my PhD. I understand this may look good as I have applied and got my own funding for this, but also thought it might look strange in academic bios, as graduation years are usually listed. Therefore people see that I took 5 years to complete it (whereas in reality it is 4 years + 1 year suspension).
Any thoughts on how academics may perceive this kind of bio?

In my area (electrical/computer science), candidates are evaluated on the quality of their publications.  Another consideration is types of works; these will determine whether a candidate will flourish in our university.

I don't think it will look particularly strange - it will be clear to anyone looking at your CV (or at least, you should make sure that it is!) that you had a break during those five years during which you were doing something useful.

@user Thanks for your comment, that is a very good suggestion that I should reinforce myself.

I'm not in the UK, but if you would accept that your question is "Does graduating with a PhD 1 year later than normal look bad?" I would say no, it doesn't, and especially if it results in 1 additional good publication, it might even look better. As @ProfSantaClaus mentions, publication records are typically most important.
Additionally, having received a presumably competitive grant looks good, doing work with an additional research group looks good, and expanding your network by working with another research group is also good.
I wouldn't worry too much about this as long as the whole process makes good sense for you in other ways, and it sounds like it does.

Thank you for your detailed reply. You definitely made me feel more confident in my choice!

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Reputation of Frontiers Journals (Received Invitation Chemistry)
A few years ago, the Frontiers family was listed in  Beall’s List of potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers. At the time, there was a lot of backlash by them and a number of publishers about this addition. Since then, Beall's List has been taken down.
Recently, I received an invitation to contribute in one of Fronters in Chemistry's research topics - the journal currently has a decent JIF of 3.994. I was wondering what the community currently thinks of this journal family?
I am used to receiving spam invitations but this is the first where I have received one where I feel it is more legit, however, I would not want this to damage my record if there is a bad reputation. I am an early career researcher so this makes me more tempted.
A similar question was asked back in 2014 with some negative responses, but I would like to see how the times have changed:
An invitation from Frontiers (Frontiers Research Topics)

So, what is your question : how to deal with spam email? Or has Beal’s list been replaced? Or do others think a Jif of 3.984 is good / relevant or other?

What is the reputation of the Frontiers family in the academic community.

Have a look at (a) who is publishing in Frontiers and (b) who is organizing/publishing in their "research topics".

I think you should draw your own conclusions. All the facts are available (see the Wikipedia page on Frontiers and the sources cited), what's left is for you to decide whether Frontiers is legitimate.

I don't have a problem with the version in my field, and generally I think people have been overly-critical of them. (I don't see "for-profit" as a dirty word, when did that become a problem?) However I also think their solid impact factor doesn't reflect the rather low value of their papers. It seems like people publish stuff that barely works there and isn't suited for a good journal.

Just adding to @Allure's comment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontiers_Media and a Norwegian assessment: https://dbh.nsd.uib.no/publiseringskanaler/KanalTreffliste.action?xs=frontiers&tv=true (click on the field journal you are interested to know about the rating)

In my opinion, Frontiers journals are only modestly predatory. They are clearly for-profit, and seem to have a journal for every sub topic, not to mention the constant invitations for submission and ‘special issue’.  However, they’ve done a pretty good job maintaining reputation, though it certainly differs per-journal. An impact factor of ~3 isn’t that far outside middle-tier, non-profit, established journals. If it helps, I have a publication in the top-tier journal Neuron in 2012 with 156 citations and a pub in Frontiers in 2014 with 120 citations. So worry less about it being ‘frontiers’ and worry more about writing a solid work.


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How to calculate funding amount from fellowship award to list in CV?
Many people list the monetary funding amounts awarded from successful grants, especially PIs who apply for multiple grants.
As a young researcher/postdoc, I would like to know how to calculate the total funding amount from a fellowship, e.g., Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Postdoctoral Fellowship, etc.
These kinds of fellowships usually list a maintenance grant (salary) for the number of years the fellowship lasts for. Additionally, you can apply for funds for research. Is the total amount of funds simply these added together or is there a way to find out? The research fund part is a little bit difficult as the group I am working with essentially applies through my successful award.

Either you give the correct order of magnitude (unless the fellowship is an "obscure" one  is sufficient) or you give the exact amount as reported in the grant agreement (i.e. 112'356€ plus travel funds up to 7558.32€).
Please remember that fund-hungry head of depts and professors know the (huge) value of these fellowships, in general there is no ranking about how much money were brought in (unless that group is led by such a person...).

In all cases I've seen (e.g. a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship) the total grant amount will be listed somewhere in the grant agreement.


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I am studying computer science but I am passionate about electronics
I am studying CS but I am passionate about electronics and hardware. However, I can't study CS and EE at the same time. So if I study electronics by myself with online courses, can I work in that field after graduation?

You can work everywhere you want, IF an employer takes you. The employer takes you if you can convince them that you can solve problems. Whether you can convince them of that depends on what you know and have studied. The answer to your question is "Yes, it is possible." but this will probably not help you because it is just as broad as your question. Also this would fit more into Workplace Stackexchange, if at all.

You should look into computer architecture, and take as many relevant courses as you can.

Patricia Shanahan if i did it would it be useful ?

Why can't you go into EE or computer engineering? In the U.S., at least, computer science department enrollments are generally currently oversubscribed, while EE departments don't have enough students. If the place where you're studying has an EE department, why wouldn't they let you transfer?

my score is 91% and  EE department requirements is score above 93%
Iam not in U.S.

@JoeAdel I don't know whether it will be useful or not. That will depend on luck, as well as your own abilities. Computer architecture is the aspect of hardware development that is closest to computer science. I worked for several years for as a server architect, with degrees in mathematics and CS, not EE.

"I can't study CS and EE at the same time" [citation needed]. Anecdotally off topic, at my alma mater, it was not unusual for undergraduates to double-major in EE and CS, as you could do so with only 3-4 additional courses if you planned your studies right. A handful of students even triple-majored in EE, CS, and math sci AKA applied math. These were usually students who had matriculated with at least a semester's worth of credits already, so they had room to spare in their schedules. OTOH, if OP's question is about graduate school, then it's on topic and this comment is irrelevant.

A friend of mine came out of university with a piece of paper saying he's electrical engineer. He has a bachelor in electronics but now what he's doing is virtualization, servers and networks, absolutely not related to what he studied (actually he told me that low level languages he learned were helpful for understanding how optimization works, but that's it), and he earns pretty well! I think your degree will matter only for a short period of time in the beginning, but if you can get a job in a field even if it's different from you education, you can use it to continue learning in that field by yourself. Your degree won't be the most important thing for your future employers, experience will.

Engineering tends to be pretty strictly regulated in terms of accreditation. It's much easier to be a software developer with an EE degree than the other way around.
If you want to do EE, try to switch to EE.

That may depend on what country you're in.


text:
Is it justifiable to closely mimic the structure/organisation of another thesis for your own thesis
I am currently in the process of writing my masters thesis. During my research I found this another thesis and I really like the way it is organised and structured.
By structure, I mean the heading titles, the organisation of results and their order etc, for one chapter only. Although the topic of both thesis are similar but I will be presenting my own original data and results in the thesis.
Would it be ok for me to closely copy the structure of another thesis or could that be seen as plagiarism?

Is your plan to use it as a starting point for yours? Or to use it for yours?

It is almost certainly mandatory.

It is usually fine to copy the organizational structure
of another thesis or journal article.
However, you should take a short pause just to think through
whether that is the best way to structure your own writing.
As an aside, in some fields, it is almost mandatory
to write your article/thesis to follow a certain organizational structure.
For example, virtually all original journal articles
in the health sciences follow
a very standardized structure known as
introduction, methods, results, and discussion (IMRAD).
Source:
Sollaci, Luciana B., and Mauricio G. Pereira.
"The introduction, methods, results, and discussion (IMRAD) structure: a fifty-year survey."
Journal of the Medical Library Association 92.3 (2004): 364.


text:
How do I get to know research areas in Physics and Mathematics?
I posted this on the Physics Site and I was warned that I would be best fit here.
I'm a freshman undergrad and I plan to get a Physics major. I don't know actually in what area I want to follow, I do have an idea that I don't want to be and Experimental Physicist but I'm open to every experience. I know many universities offer their colloquium/talk on the Internet which most of the times I find very interesting and informative, but I find it hard to get to know many good colloquia. I will be very glad if you can recommend me anything that would help me to understand the research fields in Physics and Mathematics.

This type of questions is considered off-topic here. This is referred to as shopping question.

I can't really think were I should ask this, I'm truly lost on this question. I can't even find the words to google so I can get anything haha

Pardon me, I actually read the "What topics can I ask about here?" post now. Can you please tell me in what site my question would fit?

I am afraid there would be no site (at least with StackExchange) that would suggest you something. Try following good quality research articles from Journals and conferences.

@Coder Would it be worthwhile to edit the question to be more relevant? I'm not quite experienced enough on this site to know the correct protocol.

@deckeresq There are few answers including yours. Let see if the OP has got what he wanted.

@Coder Sounds great. I more meant for future questioners (i.e. to help avoid duplicate questions by making this more general), but I think you're right.

@deckeresq People (we) are always there to help newbies. I was new as well, I learned with comments from the learned and experienced users; and still learning.

While I agree with Coder's comment that this is probably off-topic here, perhaps I can provide a general answer which would apply to users looking into any new discipline, not just physics or math.
In order to really come to terms with any field, I would recommend the following (in no particular order):

Take relevant classes. As an undergrad, this should be extremely easy.
Talk to people currently performing research in these fields. This can include your professors or perhaps emailing researchers whose work you've seen and been interested in. This is the option I would suggest most, as you're likely to get a wider array of viewpoints.
As Coder mentioned in the comments, go check out some of the recent research papers in your field's top conferences. You'll likely be unable to follow the majority of the work, but you should be able to get a good feel for the general tone of research being done in the field.
Per Carol: Attend the colloquia and seminars that the relevant departments host.

and attend the colloquia and seminars that your department hosts.

I think this is a valid question and deserves an answer.
As an undergraduate you don't get to choose specialization. If you have some freedom to choose a few electives you should take the ones that would give you competitive advantage (second semester of E&M, QM2, hard math etc...) . If you are looking to go to the graduate school, you'll have to take a thesis option of your bachelor's degree. You will also have senior seminar (or research). Use undergrad research opportunities. Attend conferences. This is where you are going to be exposed to different areas of research and meet people in different fields. Subscribe to "Physics Today". It won't teach you physics but you will get some idea of what physicists are working on today. By your Senior year you will have a very good idea of what you would like to do after graduation.

Since you are eager to know the answer, I would advise the following. When I had started my quest for a topic (research area) to focus on, I did the following:

The first point of contact is professors in your own university: I would advise to take an appointment with a few professors and meet with them. Keep the conversation short as they might not entertain you if you start with vague discussions. Better to seek appointment via email (or any other means that your university follows).
Attend the talks or seminar of the Ph.D. students and professors in your university. This will boost your willingness to focus more on specific areas. Further, you could talk with Graduate students in your own university related to this.
Do some good amount of googling to find out the upcoming conferences, workshops or meetings in which the venue is expecting top researchers of the world in Physics (or Mathematics). Try to meet them and have a brief talk with them.
If you have already found something from the internet search or any other means, start following the research papers from the journals or conferences that publish similar stuff.
Since you are in freshman year, I would advise against sticking to the one specific research topic. It is time to explore various research fields (or subfields) and find out what you think you could contribute more onto and to the world of research.

Good luck!