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It has been 5 months since my postdoc appointment in a project and I have still not started my work. How can I tell this to my advisor?
I have been working as a postdoc with my PhD advisor since June 202O. Since March 2021, my funding comes from an industrial project X that is very new to me. I never worked with the simulation technique before. I spent March and April to install the software, trying out basic examples and understanding the theoretical foundation.
Since May, I have not worked on the X project. I have been working on my projects from last year and other collaborative works, which has resulted in the submission of one first author paper and two co-authored (2nd author) papers. And, I am also finishing writing up the first draft for another first author paper.
In addition, I have been feeling homesick and unmotivated for the past 6 months. I have barely worked 20 hours/week for the past 3 months.
I have had meetings with my advisor and the industrial partners every month since March and I have been presenting the theory or just some basic stuff. I am yet to do actual work on the project. I was planning to complete a majority of the work by August end. Now, I am totally at loss.
I am afraid I am going to be fired. How do I get out of this? My contract ends in June next year and I have nowhere else to go this year if I get fired!
What can I say to my advisor and the industrial partners? Should I tell them the truth during the next meeting (to be held next Wednesday) that I have not worked on the project for the past 3 months?

Talk with your supervisor first.
Sure, you're behind schedule because of working an inadequate number of hours over an extended period of time, but you know what won't help? Covering it up and pretending everything's fine until the deadline comes and there's nothing to show for it.
Come clean, talk to your academic supervisor, and work out a plan for the two of you to meet the requirements of your industry partner in time to deliver something to them. I imagine that one of the steps of this process would be to increase your hours up to the equivalent of full-time work!

I would just start working and on the next meeting honestly present what you have done (installing the software, trying out basic examples and understanding the theoretical foundation counts towards that though your partners would, probably, expect a bit more) and what is the next stage (I hope that you haven't made the mistake of claiming that something that you haven't touched yet is ready and functional; that would really screw things up). You don't need to state it explicitly that you didn't touch the project for 3 months or to explain all reasons for why the things go slowly unless somebody asks directly, but you certainly need to give your partners a very clear idea of where you stand now, what has already been accomplished, and what difficulties you are currently facing in the process, and that is something that should normally be done during every meeting from now on.
If you can get something working by the time of the next meeting and present it, it will surely allow you to avoid many awkward questions. It doesn't matter whether it is big or small, just make sure that it works and goes beyond "general theory and basic stuff" you talked about all the time before.
How much to disclose to your advisor beyond this on your own accord depends on your relationship with him/her. Just play it by ear and be reasonably honest (meaning "always say the truth, but, perhaps, not the whole truth"). If you are new to simulations, your advisor should be aware of that, so you'll get some "discount" based on this fact. In general, normal people understand that hiccups and delays may occur now and then for whatever reasons and have learned to tolerate them. What they usually don't tolerate is either complete stalls, or false progress reports.
Setting up a work plan with your advisor, as nick012000 suggested, is a great idea regardless of whether you are falling behind or not, so you can just approach him/her with "Here is where I stand now; the things go slower than I expected, so I got a feeling that I need a clear plan and some of your help to meet the deadlines; what can we do?". I believe that your advisor is more interested in having the project completed than in finding someone to blame for its failure, so he or she would spend most time discussing with you how to get things done rather than why they haven't been done 3 months ago in that case.
Good luck with straightening things out :-)


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Is providing funding and minimal corrections to a paper enough to become an author in it?
Recently a researcher shared on Twitter

I've reached that stage as a supervisor where the students have the idea, do the math, write the code, run experiments, draft the paper and I contribute by fixing the formatting errors in their bibliography files.

If this is the case, should the supervisor be on the author list? Or, on the acknowledgments?
If the supervisor contribution is just small suggestion to the redaction of the paper and that she/he gained the grant paying the student, is this enough to become an author?

It depends on the standards of the field of study.  In some fields, the person who provided the funding is listed as the last author of every paper from that lab.

@GEdgar ain't this unethical?

Agree with @GEdgar. That is the way it is in chemistry.

@DanielHatton could you share the codes of ethics? By my understanding to be an author you need to contribute to a paper, if not it's unfair sittuation

FWIW, I doubt that tweet is meant to be taken literally.

I think that there's some ambiguity about "providing funding": quite often the funding is the result of the supervisor applying for some grant by submitting a plan for some particular research direction. The fact that the grant was approved is supposed to show that the submitted plan is considered solid. This would mean that the supervisor has at least put some decent work into the initial stage of the project, maybe they had the idea to study the broad question on which the student focuses and they established the motivations.
In this scenario I think that the supervisor has some reasonable claim at co-authorship: their contribution is at a more abstract level but it is substantial nonetheless.
But in general it's certainly a grey area, there's no simple way to determine in which cases a contribution is significant enough for co-authorship.

Very good point!

I think that, in some fields, the last author listed on papers written as (part of) a dissertation is understood to be the supervisor/funder only and is, at best, a minor contributor. If that is the general understanding in the field, it is probably benign. Most readers will be in that field and will understand the convention.

If the "small suggestion o the redaction" did not include substantive ideas, your case might serve as an example of unethical behavior. Unfortunately, it happens in academia.
"Acknowledgements" are meant to mention funding and such kind of "redaction" support. In my opinion, the supervisor's name should be in the acknowledgments if he or she made no intellectual contribution to the work.

"Redaction support"?

This is how I understand it. Thanks!

I would respond to the twitter post suggesting that in these circumstances an acknowledgment would be appropriate and quite sufficient.
Coauthorship seems like cv padding. Better to take credit for being a good supervisor in the next grant proposal.

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Inability to review a conference paper
I am reviewing a paper for a conference. The paper contains a lot of work, and from a high-level perspective seems good.
But when I go into detail I can't actually parse the paper. I don't understand many things, even if the paper is within my field. I am a 2nd year PhD student that writes papers within the field. The paper is very close to my research topic.
Some of the causes that block me from correctly reviewing the paper might be:

My impostor syndrome when seeing overly mathy papers.
Their math formulation is not the traditional one and they do naming and formulation variations. Even though they can be properly defined.
Over relies on the appendix to understand the content of the main body of the paper.
The paper content is very dense.

I have spent already 3 days reviewing and I am not understanding it. The paper might be good/bad but I can't tell.
What review should I give? Push for acceptance, even if I can not tell if the paper is flawed/bad/good? Push for rejection when the problem might be that I don't understand it myself?

One thing to note here is that arguably, as a 2nd year student still "trying" to publish work in the same area, you are way too junior to be an official reviewer (there is nothing wrong with helping somebody more senior review in your career stage, but then the answer becomes "tell this person that you have troubles understanding the paper and ask them for advise").

I guess that when you start getting papers accepted they invite you to be part of the reviewing process no?

Without knowing the subject area, hard to tell.  In some areas three days to understand some math is too short.  How much time is alloted for the review?  Who advised you to accept the review assignment?

@TerryLoring you don't choose the paper you review, it's automatically assigned based on your publication

I am not asking why you reviewed this paper.  I am asking why you agreed to review any paper.  Is it standard in your field to review papers when you are an unpublished graduate student?

I have published in similar conferences. I guess once you review correctly one they start inviting you for reviewing more. See Youness answer

Ahh, so you have published papers.  You only mentioned writing and attempting to write.

Our group was expected to (and did do) reviews of papers as graduate students.  We were U.S., Electrical Engineering, the 1990s and 1980s.  I think it is a reasonable request for graduate students.

"I have spent already 3 days reviewing and I am not understanding it." Do you normally understand a paper within 3 days and was this all you worked on for those 3 days? Also, while you can't reason your way out of imposter syndrome, consider this. The paper is "very close" to your research topic, so you have probably read similar papers. Compared to those, what makes this one hard to understand? If the exposition is really confusing, this should be mentioned in your review. Other than that, you can comment on the high-level ideas and say the proofs are correct "to the best of your knowledge."

You are not really supposed to push for anything, you should report honestly on the paper. "if the result is true, I find it very interesting", "I have trouble understanding the proof of lemma 4", etc are all very relevant comments. Maybe some other reviewer will have understood lemma 4, or maybe they all have trouble there and it likely means the proof is badly written or wrong. You are not the one making the final decision, you should provide information to the people who do decide.

Mate, I wish I had your excelent CV when I was in my second year of PhD. You are doing great. Honestly. I work in ML (since recently) in a maths department, but I don't have math background. There are papers that I know I will just never understand. That is OK, you are not supposed to know everything. Explainable ML is a damn hard topic.

I do not agree with Kohan that a 2 years PhD student cannot review papers at least in my field (AI & ML). PhD students are often assigned by the PC members as sub-reviewers or directly as PC members by the SPC when they have papers in the same (or better) conference level.
Back to the question of the OP; as an author, I NEVER felt that the reviewers have understood my papers to a very high extent (especially when there is a detailed mathematical formulation) and as a reviewer, there are often disagreements between reviewers. In very few cases, I noticed reviewers trying to understand the math behind the papers they review and when they do, they are most probably PhD students because they are keen to read every word in the paper. In contrast, senior researchers have a lot of duties and usually a lot of papers to review so I do not believe they would spend one day per paper. Please note that I am not saying that senior researchers do not review papers seriously but they trust the authors in the mathematical formulation and their reviews are from a higher level perspective (you usually understand what is the role of the equation by understanding its context in the text).
As a reviewer, you are not supposed to understand everything (better if you do) but you need to write the reviews from your perspective and mention to the SPC that you have low confidence in your review. Note also that there is a deliberation in the end and you can adjust your review based on the discussion with the other reviewers.
If you are worried, you can write to the SPC and put him/her in the loop and follow his/her suggestion.
EDIT
After reading the comments, I think I have missed something in the OP's question. The OP mentioned that the paper was assigned to him without giving him the chance to accept or reject the invitation (As far as I understood from the comments). I find this an unusual situation (or the OP did not understand the invitation email) because the common practice in all conferences and journals I know is to send an invitation with the title and abstract, based on which the invitee assesses whether the paper is within his/her scope of expertise. If not, The SPC/PC/Editor expects the invitee to reject the invitation.

For the record: I did not say that a 2nd year PhD student cannot referee a math paper. What I said is that I would never ask a 2nd year PhD student to referee a paper. While it is possible that such student can successfully referee a paper, chances (in my field of math) are not high, as they are typically not ready to evaluate the significance, originality, etc.

@MoisheKohan I think also that the review practices vary across disciplines. My answer is from the perspective of AI/ML community.

"I do not agree with Kohan that a 2 years PhD student cannot review papers at least in my field (AI & ML)."  followed by "I NEVER felt that the reviewers have understood my papers to a very high extent " seems like there may be an association there?  This is a big problem in AI/ML - as a rapidly growing field the pool of experienced peer reviewers is much to small for the number of papers submitted and the quality of peer review has gone down rather sharply (resulting in a lot of papers with significant issues being published).

Learning to review papers alongside their supervisor should be part of the training aspect of a PhD, but it is not a good idea to review papers by yourself while still a student.  You simply won't have the experience (this is no criticism of the student).

@MoisheKohan Could I have rejected to review the paper? https://twitter.com/zacharylipton/status/1536799053790445569

@DikranMarsupial I again do not agree with this statement :) " it is not a good idea to review papers by yourself while still a student". As a counterexample, I am serving as SPC at one of the top 10 conferences in the field and I checked the pool of PCs proposed by all the SPCs. Almost 40% of the proposed PCs are labelled with the position "PhD student". A PhD student is an author in the end and I think he/she -probably- serves better as a reviewer than a senior researcher who has tons of papers to review.

@DikranMarsupial "This is a big problem in AI/ML - as a rapidly growing field the pool of experienced peer reviewers is much to small for the number of papers submitted". This is an analysis of the fact that PhD students serve as reviewers in some disciplines. I don't think it is the right place to argue whether this analysis is correct or not but what is important for the context of the OP's question is that it is a fact (either we like it or not).

@Younes the PhD students do not have to accept the review request, and they are learning a bad lesson about peer review by accepting if they accept without having the experience to give a competent review.  They are seeing peer review how it should not be, rather than how it should, and it would be a bad thing if it just came to be expected.  A better approach is to have more unrviewed or lightly reviewed conferences, to take the pressure off the competent peer review pool.  As I said before, this is not a criticism of PhD students, experience takes time to acquire for all of us.

@DikranMarsupial I couldn't agree more!

@CarlosMougan: Yes, of course. People decline to referee all the time. As an editor, I typically ask 5 people (on average) before finding somebody who agrees.

I believe that a typical reviewer of a paper should be able to understand everything in the paper.

To convert my comments to an answer:
Return the paper to the editors and say that you have hard time reading the paper and suggest they ask a more senior mathematician to evaluate it. Personally, I would never ask a 2nd year PhD student to referee a paper. (However, in the past I did solicit referee reports from PhD students close to completion of their degrees.)
PS. Sometimes, the right answer to a question is "I do not know" or "I cannot do this." Knowing own limitations and being able to acknowledge these, is a sign of mathematical maturity. For all you know, by writing a lukewarm report, you might set up for rejection a great paper, written by an outsider to your research area, bringing nonstandard (for you area) tools and terminology.

If PhD students cannot read it, the audience is too narrow.

@AnonymousPhysicist You are extremely mistaken.

@AnonymousPhysicist there is a difference between being able to read a paper and to be able to peer review it.

@DikranMarsupial But if the reason he can't review it is because he can't even understand it, that seems like a problem.

@Barmar in this case, it is apparently the detail that is giving the trouble, but it isn't clear exactly why.  It may be that it is a case of "proof by intimidation" and the reader is not intended to understand it without unreasonable amounts of effort

@DikranMarsupial. Sounds like a poorly written paper. The goal is to communicate, and one way or another it's not doing it well.

@MadPhysicist The goal is to communicate, but sometimes the intended message is "look at me, aren't I clever?!".  Personally, I'd prefer my papers to be useful to somebody ;o)

@DikranMarsupial. If that's the message, it's a crap paper. The content of it may not be crap, but as a paper, it's crap.

@DikranMarsupial: The thing is that neither one of us has any idea what the actual quality of the paper is, etc. Incidentally, many (not all!) ground-breaking papers in math were very hard to read and, superficially, could have been regarded as  poorly written. Many mathematicians then spent decades cleaning up the presentation, writing more efficient definitions and proofs.

@MadPhysicist Ironically it is often very bright people that do this, and the paper can be valuable in terms of ideas/content, it is just that they waste the time of the reader.  The problem is that to be a competent peer reviewer, you need to be able to tell whether it is worth improving the comms.  As a reader you can just ignore it as a waste of time.

@MoisheKohan indeed, I was just discussing a limiting case.

As mentioned in the comments, odds are you are too junior to be reviewing this paper. However, you also mention that they're using nonstandard notation, which is not a good sign. You could return the paper to the editor and say you can't understand it, but there's an easy option: ask your supervisor. They're there to mentor you after all. Your supervisor can help identify if the paper is an obvious reject, and if not, they might be able to point you at resources to understand the paper. It's possible your supervisor will also tell you not to review the paper because you are too junior, but even in this scenario, asking your supervisor is much quicker than asking the editor, so it makes sense to do that first.

Publishing papers is not just about getting work out there, it is also about making other people understand the work done. As a 2nd year PhD, you are already part of the target audience of papers in your field.
As a reviewer, it is perfectly fine to come to the conclusion that a paper is not properly presented. Do not hide such a conclusion just because of the conclusion itself.
If your general impression is good, then a weak accept may be appropriate. If you are basically guessing the content, then a (weak) reject is no shame either.

My impostor syndrome when seeing overly mathy papers.

This is really where you should put your focus on. Is the paper hard to understand because you generally struggle with mathy papers? Is the paper hard to understand compared to the usual mathy papers?
In a proper review, you can rate you degree of confidence. If you generally struggle with such papers, then a low confidence score is appropriate. This allows other, more thorough reviews to take precedence.

Their math formulation is not the traditional one and they do naming and formulation variations. Even though they can be properly defined.

This seems like a clear shortcoming of the paper. Using obscure formulations – be it for math or prose – can hide veritable errors or blunders. At the very least, it makes it needlessly difficult to understand and/or reproduce the findings – one of the key goals of publications.
If you are feeling unsure about this point, check the paper's references. Do those use the same formulations? Is there a consistent formulation for key points that the reviewed paper deviates from?

Over relies on the appendix to understand the content of the main body of the paper.

This depends strongly on the field and publication formats. In some it is perfectly fine to use the appendix for background and explanations that is already known to scientists in the field. In others an appendix is more of a technical addition to thoroughly reproduce a paper.
If you are unsure about this, note it as a comment to the editor. There may be formal rules about the appendix that have not been communicated to you.

The paper content is very dense.

This ties in with some of the above points. Is the paper very dense compared to usual papers? Does the denseness make the paper needlessly hard to understand?
Try and identify specific points where content seems either superfluous or too short. It is fine for a review to suggest that some parts should be dropped in favour of expanding others. Take into account the appendix as well; it might be acceptable in the field to have a dense paper and supply lengthier explanations extra.

I would suggest giving the paper a general fairly positive review, or a lukewarm review, based solely on the high level introduction (if that's what you feel), while providing the lowest confidence degree (if that metric is available), and writing to the editor in the "note to editor (wouldn't be revealed to author)" that you understood the high level but not the details or technique and couldn't verify the proofs/arguments.
If you don't understand anything in the introduction, I would write that as far as you see you couldn't understand the merit of the paper from the current presentation (still specifying low confidence degree), and explaining that this is due to either inadequate exposition or your own misunderstanding (e.g., "I couldn't understand the overall merit...").

Well, I have a Master's Degree (not a PhD) and I've reviewed dozens of papers in my career, and I think I was more than sufficiently qualified to review them (even when some were written by PhD's). I don't believe the degree (or lack thereof) is the real problem -- a 2nd year PhD candidate should have more than enough academic knowledge to review technical papers. If the OP has not spent any time outside of school (i.e., from BS & MS directly to PhD), then it may be more a matter of lack of experience in the "real world" where they could have been exposed to more work being done in that discipline. Please don't take that as a criticism; it's more of a potential explanation of why they may be having some difficulty.
As far as reviewing papers is concerned, I use these general "rules":

A paper to be presented at a conference or published in a journal is a way to present the results of some research or study to the world so others can benefit from that knowledge. The key is: COMMUNICATING the work done and the conclusions drawn from it. The subject (problem statement, proposed approach, assumptions, etc.) need to be communicated clearly enough for a practitioner in the field to understand, even when they aren't "experts". In this case, it sounds like that paper isn't doing well on this point.
There should be enough explanation in the paper to allow a practitioner in the field to replicate the analysis described (although the data itself may not be accessible), and should include a sufficient level of detail on how that analysis was done. Obvious and common methods (like how to do ANOVA, for example) shouldn't be needed, but constantly referring to external references in the Appendix without providing specifics to more involved methods/tools does make it difficult for the reader to follow what the author is describing. It also doesn't allow the reviewer to determine if the author actually understands those methods and knows how to apply them correctly, specifically in the context of the paper.
Also, if the author is not following standard notation or methods used by other practitioners in the field, then it undermines the 1st bullet (communicating clearly) as well.

There is nothing wrong with saying that major portions of a paper are unclear and confusing -- I've met many people who were clearly technical experts in their field, but were extremely poor communicators. That's made even worse if the author is writing a paper in English, when English is actually their second language. I know they can't help that themselves, but it is up to them to seek out a native English-speaking colleague to proofread and provide feedback before submitting it for a formal review. If that is the kind of review you're doing, then the feedback you provide is that much more important.
If it's really beyond your level of knowledge, there's nothing wrong with saying that you're not sufficiently qualified to do the review.
But DON'T just approve it to get it off your desk (there's far too many "junk" papers out there that should never have been published because some reviewers were a little lazy).
At the same time, rejecting something just because you don't understand it may deprive others from being able to benefit from that research.
That's just my opinion, but I hope my perspective helps you decide what to do.

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How do I change my PhD stipend from a private to a public one whilst keeping the same research project and owning the IP? (v2)
I'm 1 year into my PhD and don't want to be involved with the private cooperative research centre (CRC) who is funding my PhD anymore. How do I change my stipend from a private to a public one whilst keeping the same research project, direction and owning the IP?
I'm wanting to change my PhD funding from their private stipend to a public one (e.g. "RTP" scholarship) and continue the project as is without them as I don't need their input at all, don't see it's value and it would give me certainty that the IP is mine (in truth i dont care if its mine, i just don't want anyone else to stop me) and there wouldn't be any issues with me publishing my research or taking the IP further commercially if I wanted to . Now I'm wondering how I can change it over? I've already been funded by them during my first year.

Well, this version is not much shorter than the original. But regardless, my previous statement still applies: It is of course possible to decline the money you currently get; the question is where you will find someone who will replace the loss of income in the future.

Made an attempt to shorten this further. We don't need a list of all the complaints you have.

I worry about your "owning the IP". Anyone can have the same ideas that you do. Anyone can follow up on them. You can't "own" ideas, though you can have certain rights in their expression once made (copyright, patent, ...).

@buffy I've miscommunicated, what I really mean is to have the IP and to have the freedom to do what I want with it / have no else stop me. I'm fine if someone else came up with it I just don't want anyone to limit me.

@BryanKrause I disagree as I feel it added more context to the question. However, as you've already edited it, I hope I'm wrong and get more answers.


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How to tell a famous professor emeritus that I no longer want him in my dissertation committee?
A little background about the situation. I am a third year PhD student in the US and in addition to that I work part time with a famous professor emeritus in my field. He has been overly pushy with being included in my dissertation committee. I honestly don’t think he can add too much and I already gathered my committee. The problem is when I communicated that to him. He wasn’t too pleased. He went with talking again and again of why he thinks he is a good fit, what he brings to the table. He just doesn’t want to respect my decision. Any suggestions?

This is a very strange situation. Why do you care whether he’s on your committee, and why does he? Most of the time being a non-directing committee member is not a very significant task one way or the other. I’d consider very seriously whether you really want to offend a senior member of your field this way, regardless.

If you really want to do this, I suggest that it be your primary supervisor that handles it. But, I seriously think you are making a mistake. You would be far better off cultivating his interest in your work.
You don't describe any improper behavior from this person, such as demanding authorship when it isn't warranted. There are some red flags but some of us old folks can still manage to think and contribute. I'm about to finish 8 decades on this soil and have just recently published some books (plural). He probably has a lot of perspective in your field that you don't.
I suggest, pretty strongly, that you rethink this.


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How often do you have to cite a source when stating that you follow someone's work at the beginning of the section?
I am writing my thesis at this point and I have some sections, which started as follows:
Throughout this section we follow  \cite[Section 3.2.1]{...} for solving ...
I am wondering whether I have to cite the same source more than only the one time at the beginning of the section or not. This is because I use his/her work through the whole section.
Any explananation would be appreciated.

If you clearly state that a certain section of the text is based on a named reference you do not need to repeat the reference again as long as you do not insert another source somewhere. The basic rule is generally that a reference is valid from its appearance until a different reference is encountered OR you reach the end of a paragraph. Normally references are not carried across paragraphs. So as long as you can clearly explain to the reader what in the text comes from the reference in mind, then you should be in good shape.
Another technique, used in papers that frequently reference a specific paper, is to create some abbreviation for the reference such as (Smith and Jones, 1975, henceforth referred to as "S&J") and then use S&J instead fo the reference itself. This is not a frequent solution but can be a solution where the paper otherwise becomes full of the same repeating refereence.
In the end, the important aspect is to make sure there is no question as to from where the information comes.

Thank you for the clear explanation.

Be careful here. There is another consideration. Saying that you "follow" a source doesn't give you license to copy their words. Nor does it give you license to paraphrase so much of the work that the copyright owner sees a violation, which they would if they believe that you lessen the value of the original.
Plagiarism and copyright are, in some sense, orthogonal, and you need to consider both.
If you copy words, quote and cite each or make it clear that all quotations are from the same place.


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PhD in statistics vs applied math for quantitative research?
I'm currently a rising undergraduate senior pursuing a dual degree in both mathematics and quantitative finance. I am interested in pursuing a PhD with the dream of going into quantitative research. I haven't had too much exposure to research since my junior year and this upcoming fall I'll be doing two senior theses (one is a pure math topic and the other is more quantitative research orientated (applied math topic). I have done 3 other research projects (applied in financial mathematics), worked two summer internships, have several teaching experience in math and computer science courses (optimization, real analysis, introduction to python).
I have been studying for the GRE Mathematics Subject Test with the main goal of pursuing an applied mathematics PhD but lately I have been questioning if I want to do applied mathematics or statistics. From my school, we have a small mathematics department and most of the faculty come from pure mathematics backgrounds, so it is difficult to get their input on this. I have taken several statistics courses and applied mathematics courses, but my main goal is to go into mathematical modeling and do extensive research.
Should I stop studying for the GRE Mathematics Subject Test and take the General GRE Test for a statistics program or should I continue with the GRE Mathematics Subject Test, regardless if I choose statistics or applied mathematics? And would a statistics PhD equip me with the necessary tools for quantitative research or would an applied mathematics PhD be stronger? I also am interested in fields such as optimization, financial mathematics, and differential equations if it makes a difference.
I am more drawn toward applied mathematics programs at the moment, but I am not sure whether I'd be a better fit for applied math PhD or statistics PhD programs. I also have looked at what research faculty are doing at certain schools that I am applying to and both the applied mathematics and statistics research are something I would be interested in.
Any thoughts on this? Any input is greatly appreciated.

Is the mathematical modeling you’re interested in doing more related to statistics (e.g., regression, machine learning) or more related to differential equations? Something else? // As an aside, you might find yourself interested in two fields that are not especially well known: 1) Topological data analysis & 2) Information geometry. If you do not know these, I suggest checking them out!

To be completely honest, I really like both regression/machine learning and differential equations. At my internships, I had more exposure to machine learning and regression, so I do feel a bit more comfortable with those topics, but I feel like differential equations may be more useful in quantitative research (I could be wrong). I haven't looked at information geometry but I have at topological data analysis. Would information geometry fall under an applied math PhD or a statistics PhD?

It could be either. The particular faculty interests would probably matter more.


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Is this professor being unnecessarily harsh or did I actually make a mistake?
As a first-year PhD student, I've been receiving feedback on my dissertation plan from my supervisor and other professors. One of these professors recommended that I contact a professor from a different university whose research is similar to what I'm planning to do. I've done this type of thing before — contacting professors from other institutions — and have always received positive replies. I used the same email structure that I've used before, asking at the end for feedback on my project's relevance and feasibility, which my supervisor recommended me to do. However, I was surprised that this time the reply was negative and aggressive. Could you please help me understand if this professor is just unfriendly and unwilling to help, or if I actually did something to offend him?
This is the structure/content of my email:

Dear Professor [name of the professor],
[Introductory paragraph in which I introduce myself, mention that I'm a PhD student at X University, and mention the professor who gave me his email address and told me to contact him.]
[Paragraph briefly describing my research topic in 2 sentences.]
Since my research is related to X topic, on which you are a specialist, given your extensive research on [mention this professor's specialization], Professor Y recommended that I contact you.
As a first-year PhD student, I am currently defining the details of my research plan. I would appreciate your feedback on my project's relevance and feasibility. If possible, I would like to share a brief one-page summary of my research plan.
Best regards,
[My name and affiliation]

His reply:

Dear [my name],
Thank you for your email.
First of all, however, I think it would be better for you to learn a more appropriate way to ask a favor from someone you don't know and have never met, especially in the case of a professor, like this time, if you intend to pursue an academic career.
Regards,
[his name]

I don't know if this is relevant, but neither I nor him are native English speakers.

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When getting in touch with people with special titles like Dr, Pr, Hon'ble... expect unexpectation. Your email is just fine but in my case i would have not been specially in hurry to give an answer. The reason is that it looks like a copy/paste from a standard model. I would suggest that you drop standards and write following your real style. Otherwise, probably I would have only suggested a meeting without giving much details about the project and even myself. The most important points are the fact that your a student of a teacher who recommended you to get in touch with that professor.

One thing you didn't provide is the subject of the e-mail you sent. Sometimes that alone can trigger a bad reaction.

Is this professor being unnecessarily harsh or did I actually make a mistake?

I would say a bit of both. The professor’s reaction does seem a bit over the top. But your email would annoy me. Aside from the minor etiquette issue that you don’t include “thanks” or “thanks in advance” anywhere, which I would probably roll my eyes at (in a good-humored, “young people these days” sort of way), it’s really the request itself for unspecified “feedback” that I find annoying rather than the way it is expressed.
Providing feedback on your research plans is your advisor’s job, not mine. If you want to call on my expertise as an expert in topic X, you’d better ask me a specific question that I can help you with, efficiently and without going too much out of my way. But reading the research plans of graduate students from other universities and coming up with constructive feedback to offer about them? No thank you. Don’t get me wrong, I do love to help people out (and frequently do) but it’s simply too much.
To be clear, you stated that it was one of your professors who recommended that you contact the outside professor, in which case, if I was on the receiving end of the email, my annoyance would probably be directed at least partially at your professor for giving you what appears to be misguided advice. I certainly wouldn’t respond in the manner the other professor did. Nonetheless, I do think your request is too open-ended and probably should have been more focused.
Moreover, if your professors are in the habit of frequently telling you to email people from other universities to ask for general feedback of the kind that it’s really their job to offer (which based on your description may be the case), then my impression is that they are essentially outsourcing their advising duties, which is inappropriate.
Good luck with your thesis and research!

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Your email looks mostly fine and I share the view that the response is needlessly harsh.
That said, instead of

I would appreciate your feedback on my project's relevance and feasibility,

which just bluntly states a request and gives no agency to the other side or no acknowledgment that you are making an imposition on them, you could say something like:

I fully understand that you may well be busy with other things, but in case you had some time to provide some feedback on blah blah, it would be very helpful to me.

You also don't seem to use the expression "thank you" at all in the email. You could e.g. say "Thank you for your time" instead of "Best regards".

I think you captured the main issues that would bother me - the tone of the OPs email is more like a vailed demand rather than an opening conversation which can allow the faculty to either engage or not based on their availability. I think the response is a bit stern, but I don't know what other nonsense that professor was dealing with that day, and one more useless demand pushed them over the edge.

I agree. "I would appreciate your feedback" is how I email my advisor when he's weeks behind on reading my stuff.

@AzorAhai-him- interesting,  I didn't read that into it at all.  When I'm behind on reading one of my students things, the email I get is generally "Ian, have you had a chance to look at that thing I send you 2 weeks ago, I really need you to do this by X". I actually find false politeness and grovelling as more of a valued demand. I think my brain sees it as passive aggressive.

@IanSudbery I suppose I mean the general phrasing not in a question, but as an expectation (since the ask was made previously). Bu, everyone will have their different phrases for different personalities and cultural contexts.

Up-voted, but I would even go further than "...which just bluntly states a request."  The quoted section is not even a request.  It's a statement, and it reads like a demand.  Isn't that how a polite teacher, parent, or supervisor would tell one of their subordinates to do something?

@Adam Thanks for summarising so well my discomfort. I also felt the way OP wrote as a demand and not a favour, and the quoted phrase plays the main role here.

I think it's worth pointing out the difference between literal and implied meaning in this particular phrase. "I would appreciate your feedback" does not literally make any request it all nor does it directly make an imposition, it's a statement purely about the writer and how they feel. But that's not the same as the actual implied meaning where the phrase is often used when the receiver does not actually have a choice.

@R1NaNo "vailed demand"? sounds interesting.  I'd expect "veiled demand".

How is "I appreciate your feedback" different from "Thank you for your feedback"? Both of these phrases convey gratitude

@AgnishomChattopadhyay They are the same. Both are impolite to use when the other person has not agreed to provide any feedback in the first place.

While in agreement with the answer of Ian Sudbery and the answer of Adam Přenosil, let me make a suggestion for the future that will avoid such things and likely increase the probability of positive responses.
Ask the person who recommend another to send a mail themself introducing you to them and saying they would appreciate their giving you feedback. You can be copied on such mails and you can wait to send details of your request until asked, making the initial mail short. It is difficult to ignore mail from a colleague and negative responses are also less likely.
(Yes, I realize this is a frame breaking answer.)
In the current case, however, you could also ask the person who recommended this person to follow up with an email to them after making them aware of the history. They may not want to do that and it might amount to nothing, but the response was inappropriate. You can't call them on that, but a colleague can. It reads like an immature response of an arrogant person. You bump into them occasionally in academia, I'm afraid.

It reads like an immature response of an arrogant person. --- This fits with how the response felt to me, rather than "unprofessional" or "harsh". The word that went through my mind was "pompous". That said, perhaps "I would appreciate your feedback on my project's relevance and feasibility." came across as seeming to ask for too much up-front, and maybe a slightly softer approach would have been better (e.g. "I am very interested in any suggestions for my project's relevance and feasibility that you might have."). Nonetheless, I still think the professors reply was "pompous".

This is excellent advice. I would never tell a student to randomly cold contact someone.

I tell my students to get in touch with various colleagues at other institutions all the time, and I honestly don't feel like spending the time doing it for them. I always tell my students to let my colleagues know that I sent them, however (just like the OP did), so it's not out of the blue.

@Sverre For me, it would depend on what sort of pre-existing relationship I have with the colleague, and what sort of political capital may be needed in the exchange. There's plenty of people who know me and where "RM sent me" would be more than sufficient in-roads. There's also many people who I've no contact with, and where me versus a student cold-calling would be equivalent. But there's a number of middle-ground people at the acquaintance level where an intro from me could potentially finesse the situation and leverage some political/interpersonal capital to grease the wheels.

Whenever my supervisors have put me in touch with someone they already know, they have emailed the person they're putting me in touch with and cc'd me to make the introduction.

Your email look fine to me. I might have structured slightly differently if it were me. Its slightly on the long side, and you have to read all the way to the end to find out what you are asking for, but its a minor and common flaw.
I don't think you've done anything wrong, and the reply is, in my view, unnecessarily negative.
I would, however, it careful about how much to interpret from this. Perhaps the person in question has had a lot of requests on their time recently. Perhaps something is going on in their lives which is making things difficult at the moment. Either way, these are not your fault.

+1, even though I would choose a slightly more negative wording to describe the reply than "unnecessarily negative".

@lighthousekeeper unlike the proffessor in question, I try to keep my public responses to things polite, and not unnecessarily negative. Particularly as we won't know what is going on in this person's life.

All that said, I can understand that the professor had little interest to provide what is effectively gratis PhD supervision to a student they have never met. I don't know why they felt like they needed to lecture OP about it, but that they didn't want to do what OP asked for is understandable in my opinion.

@xLeitix Sure, I don't deny that. But there are different ways to decline to help. Personally I'm generally gratified if someone is sufficiently interested in my work to ask my opionion about something related (as long as it is related, and not, for example, actually nothing to do with my work).

A non-impolite but appropriate word would be "unprofessional". The lack of willingness to help is understandable. However, telling off a student without actually explaining what they did wrong is not. People may behave unprofessional for all sorts of reasons, some of which would be seen with sympathy if they were known to the receiver, but that doesn't make the behavior less unprofessional.

@lighthousekeeper I don't think I'd  disagree with that assessment.

Perhaps the person in question has had a lot of requests on their time recently. Perhaps something is going on in their lives which is making things difficult at the moment. Passive aggressive replies are not the way to go. If he has a hard time he takes time off, not react on people who contact him.

This may be a cultural thing1, but your email seems to be primarily a time sink.
It is not until the fourth paragraph that you make it obvious what you actually want. Even then, you are not actually asking for what you want but merely stating you would appreciate their time investment. Even then, this is for a vague task at an unspecified time since you do not provide the thing you want feedback on.
An unfavourable reading of your mail is that you have not bothered to invest any more time than the bare minimum, yet expect them to volunteer to committing to an unknown task completely up to your own discretion. Whether that makes a harsh reply justified may depend on how bad their day was going, but a negative reply seems not unjustified.
If you want feedback, ask for that clearly. If you want feedback on something, provide that something.
Don't state you would appreciate to ask. Just ask.

1Talking from the view of German efficiency.

Yeah I'm surprised by the suggestions to add more groveling. My main issue with the email is that it's not actionable. It asks the prof to write back and commit so he can actually get the materials to turn it into an actionable task. On top of being an open-ended review instead of a specific question.

Good point. And really, the amount of work that would be needed would be dependent on the status and quality of the proposal, so they'd have to agree on that before seeing it.

That the response begins with a completely disingenuous, "Thanks for the email." I wonder if brevity and directness is really the problem here :)

You received an unnecessarily rude reply to a slightly irritating request. Commenting on the feasibility of your research proposal is your advisor’s job, and if your advisor is not also an expert on the topic, you are in the wrong place. If your advisor is an expert but there is some minor aspect of the proposal that they are not sure of, perhaps they should be the ones emailing for more specific advice from a colleague that they know and trust.
Your individual request seems harmless in isolation, but I have recently been hearing from more and more students who I don’t know at institutions on the other side of the world that have nothing to do with me, all requesting and seeming to expect increasing amounts of my time and energy. I don’t know whether this is a new phenomenon as young people are growing up more assertive or if it is simply new to me as my own profile rises. I get high school students sending me lengthy questionnaires that have been poorly researched and will me take days to answer well and correct all their misapprehensions. I get undergraduates sending me their draft research reports and asking for feedback. I get recent PhD graduates sending me their draft funding proposals and asking for help. At first I said “yes” to all of these requests, but rarely received any thanks or acknowledgement of the time that went into it. Your request would just seem another vague and open-ended request for my time. To be honest, unless I knew your advisor, I would probably just ignore it.
So, no, you personally did not really do anything wrong. You are following your advisor’s instructions. But your email does come across as a little entitled — you write as if you expect some stranger to give their time and expertise unrecompensed, and as if you do not realise how much of a favour you are asking.

From OP it does not sound like it was their advisor that made the recommendation to reach out to this person, rather some other professor.

The external professor's email was rude. But I think he or she is right to decline to assist at this point. He or she is right to call out your request for what it is: a "free favor". Just like photoshop experts and cake decorators expect to be paid for their art and hate getting conned for free work, professors are often victims of the "oh hey can you just..." e.g. providing free reviewer services for journals, being keynote speakers at half-baked conferences with no honorarium, etc. Their only tangible obligation is to their current departmental role - they mentor their students, teach their courses, sit on their committees and of course, win grants for their department.
From what you have outlined, it does not appear you are anywhere near calling in external help. You were thrown into an unbelievable predicament. Your advisor sadly was incorrect in asking you to reach out externally. Perhaps you sensed this already, or perhaps not. Then, there are two "hard truths" to get up to speed on.

Your mentor is not an all-knowing god.
Thinking critically and pushing back, even against seniors/superiors, is an appropriate and successful strategy for a future PhD wielder.

If all you have so far is a one-page summary of ideas that just needs external eyes, you may still be in the lit review stage, or outline. Point is, there are several additional steps before calling in external help. You technically have access to all the literature this other professor has published, and if you have read it and understand it as it relates to your proposal, why can't you ask a more targeted and direct question?
Case in point, I would bookmark that this external professor was extremely rude, but I would respond cordially and explain that you understand they are busy and you will work closer with your current mentor and reach out later when you have a better understanding of the connection between your mutual works. (then don't reach out to them).

OP's advisor was not the person who suggested that they reach out to this outside professor.

To make things worse, OP was implicitly asking for a written statement with some accountability. This statement might be quoted in potentially bad future contexts, e.g. he could pull the card "But I have proof that the reputable professor XYZ had approved my research plan!!" at a poor PhD defense. People don't want to hand out such statements without good cause.

If I were the professor. I wouldn't feel offended in the slightest. I don't like comments here who give you responsbility with all due respect to them. The fact the professor didn't even explain what make him offended make him look self-centred. I think you should avoid him if possible. He doesn't seem like a healthy guy to work with.
Some people say you should add thankness but I disagree. You used other words like "I appreciate" which are alternative ways to be polite.
What I find it the best proof that this professor is the one with bad attitude is him not explaining why he felt offended and try to belittle you by saying "before you become academic". That to me looks like a red flag of emotionally immature person. He could be not. We didnt see your work. In case you send him some big workload then he has the right to feel offended and and taken advantage off. We not knowing that and ignore it make us sympthesize with you more. Also the fact that your first professor send it to you could mean you are demanding and he went to get rid of you. These are my genuine thoughts and I don't mean any disrespect.

@Trunk that does not give them license to be a jerk.

@Trunk
He has no right to be a prick. and the belittling remark is straight-out rude. The only way to excuse it is if the studnet send him some big workload that would make OP looks very entitled. But it wasnt the case. based on his message it is because he think op is not polite enough. No one should accept such remark on him.

Expanding from a comment:
Your request has several problems:

It is sort of open-ended, in the sense that the recipient doesn't know the situation and quality of your proposal, but they have to agree to it before seeing it.
But the amount of work is sort-of-fixed. I mean, I can agree to have an informal chat with you for, say, one hour about your research. Depending on your situation and my expertise we may go on one direction or another, but the commitment is time-boxed. On the other hand, reviewing a proposal kind of implies going through the whole thing in a certain amount of detail.
You are asking them to have some level of responsibility over your work. Let's say they say it is fine, but your committee fails you. You may think it is their fault. Similar to asking doctors online to diagnose you for free: even if your symptoms are v ery clear, and they can be rather certain of what you have, giving you a diagnosis puts some undue responsibility on them.
Opinions on things like feasibility depend on your expertise. My PhD was in bioinformatics, and if someone asked me about the feasibility of an idea, I could confidently talk about the informatics side of it, but I would definitely miss if there is something intrinsically biological that makes it harder or easier. Someone that knows me well would be able to take my comments into context and find a biologist to complement; random stranger, I am not sure.

On the other hand, I think you aren't far from doing something sensible. You can ask for feedback on specific parts, ideally something the person you are writing to is an expert in. That makes it a collegial discussion -- rather than yet another teaching duty --, and allows them to put in as much time as they wish. But it has to be narrow, and ideally you need to include enough detail so they know what you are working with.
That said, I think he was unnecessarily rude.

I do not see anything wrong with your e-mail. It might be a bit lengthy, but it certainly is not offensive.
What is offensive is the answer. Never would I have expected such an e-mail from somebody in his / her position. Even if s/he felt annoyed for some reason we do not know, s/he could have answered much more politely.
Do you have a good relationship to the person who recommended him/her to you? If so, I would show them the e-mail. Perhaps the situation can be clarified.
Apart from that, just forget about this e-mail. Some people do not deserve keen and gifted students.

OP said "him"...

The professor is being a jerk.
Sure, your email could have been better, and as discussed in the other answers, it is also debatable whether it was even a good idea (from your supervisor) in the first place, to be contacting this professor in this situation.  But this doesn't change the fact that the professor was being a jerk.
If he didn't feel like it was worth his time to reply, he should have simply ignored you.  If he wanted to help but didn't know what to say, he could have simply asked, even a one sentence reply like "thanks for contacting me, but can you be more specific and state any particular questions?" would have sufficed. If he really wanted to educate you on email-writing etiquette, he could have done it in a more polite way. The fact that he took the time to write a reply like what he did, means that he did it out of spite.

Now regarding how your email could have been improved: it definitely helps to be more specific. Ideally ask specific questions, or at least include concrete information.  Instead of saying "If possible, I would like to share a brief one-page summary of my research plan",  you could have tried to condense the summary into a couple of paragraphs and included it in the email itself.
Beyond that, it is hard to say anything at all. What looks polite to one person may not look polite to another.  For example, some people think that "thanks in advance" is a good phrase, while others find it obnoxious, since it assumes that the request will be answered in the future. (And to some people, even a "thank you" without the "in advance" part may seem rude.) The only useful general advice is perhaps (1) try to be polite in general, whatever that means to you, (2) be concise when possible, and (3) if you're not confident in your English abilities, get feedback from a native speaker.

In alignment with most other answers, let me state that the professor was indeed rude. I might not be happy to receive an email with additional work, but there is still more polite ways to respond..
The one thing I would like to add is that your email misses two points.

flattery: as others stated, e.g. Scott Seidman in his comment: you missed pointing out that you did your research. A sentence like "I read your paper X, and it sounds like your research is highly valueable for my own." not only shows that you read up on them, but also strokes their ego a bit. Of course you can extend on  that by some more direct flattery. "Your results on topic Z are really significant to that area!"...
future collaboration: now this is the main point I want to make. Give them an incentive! Extend the previous sentence to "I read your paper X, and it sounds like your research is highly valueable for my own. I was thinking of combining your technique with Y, would you be interested on collaborating on this in the future?" and suddenly he has a stake in your research.

Now that he has something to gain from your academic future (even if only hypothetically), continue with your question.
Should any of that be necessary, in order to not receive a rude negative email? No! But if your question is on how to prevent it in the future, this might help.

The effectiveness of flattery is cultural, and based on my experiences appears to be more Eastern than Western culture leaning. Personally, that type of flattery when being contacted by students or postdocs (usually from Eastern countries) makes me cringe. I don't know where the OP is, and perhaps flattery is culturally appropriate in that area, but not always. Similarly the offer of collaboration is field dependent. In some fields students navigate independently and collaborate whereas in others the collaboration is driven by the head of the research group.

@R1NaNo While falttery is cultrally specific (and personally I find it cringy), the student demosntrating that they've done their research (by, for example, stating the paper of mine that they think is relevant to the research proposal they'd like me to look at) is probably universally a good thing.

@IanSudbery of course, it's good to show engagement with the topic and place some context for the otherwise cold email. I just don't want anyone referring to my research group as "esteemed", as I assume they got the wrong person.

I agree with other commenters that your email was slightly out of line, but not terribly so, and you can't be blamed for following your advisor's suggestions as a first-year student. The professor's reply strikes me as both rude and unnecessarily vague.
I agree with the highly upvoted answers, so I'll just add a couple pieces of advice:

Include your research plan as an attachment. That way, if he decides to do the favor you're asking for, he can do it immediately and then forget about it. Asking someone to commit to do something in the future, even if it is just to respond to an email, is a bigger ask in my opinion.

Ask a more targeted question, and phrase it in a way that you don't necessarily expect a reply. For example, instead of

I would appreciate your feedback on my project's relevance and feasibility.

try

If you are able to read this, and see any issues with my project's relevance and feasibility, or have any other comments, would you please let me know?

As others said, "please" and "thank you" go a long way.

Finally, don't expect to always get positive replies to emails like these. The professor was unnecessarily rude, but in my opinion not replying, or sending a reply such as "I'm afraid I'm not available to read this at the moment, but best wishes on your research" is perfectly polite on their part.

I think yes.
You email is slightly rude as mentioned by others that you basically did not use any word like 'thank you' and it sound the professor is obliged to help, which is not true.
However, I think most professor would consider you are junior ( year 1 phd) and will use a 'forgive' attitude, instead of responding you in this way. At most, I think the professor may ignore your email.
Next time I think you may ask your advisor, or some more senior people to read you email.

if this professor is just unfriendly and unwilling to help, or if I actually did something to offend him?

This professor falls in the category of the megalomanic asshole who sees himself as a demi-god. You will find such specimens in the Academia zoo. Handle with caer because his fragile ego may break and spill its guts on you.
That's for the professor.
Now to your letter.
If I received this I would look on the other side of the paper for the one-page summary, do a French pfffff (or rhoooooo), and reply to you yes, sure, send it in but please keep it condensed.
It is better to send everything at once than lose time in email ping-pongs.
TL;DR: make your request self-contained and prepare to meet assholes in Academia (there may be more or less of them depending on the topic you are in*)

* That itself could be an interesting study, compared with a random population, CEOs, middle-managers and a few jobs

EDIT -- Looking at the downvotes, I find it interesting how much leeway such people have in power interactions. In normal life, you would not assume that such answers of people full of themselves are acceptable. Here, because he is a Professor, suddenly other criteria apply.
EXTRA EDIT -- I know the word rude ("I do not have time for you" is rude). Someone who states that because you are writing to a Professor you are expected to show special diligence is, well, you know

Why the downvotes? Because of the appreciation of such individuals? Feel free to change this to something that will not offend if this worries someone. English is not my first language so asshole and megalomaniac may not reflect the specific posture of these people who belive that their time is too important for students.

Your attack only adds unnecessary noise to your answer. If you switch the relevant information to appear first and then place your rant afterward, I may consider removing my downvote.

I downvoted. The professor was brusque and rude yes, but falls very far from "megalomanic asshole who sees himself as a demi-god," especially given this is an L2 interaction.

@TheDoctor this is not a rant, this is an assessment of the person. he acted as an asshole full of himself and should be treated as such. Then came the letter part.

@AzorAhai-him- I do no know what an L2 interaction is but I find I think it would be better for you to learn a more appropriate way to ask a favor from someone you don't know and have never met, especially in the case of a professor, being straight from a megalomaniac asshole. The fact that he is an (angelic orchestra) Professor requires special treatment according to him. It does not, he is a normal human being who happens to be teaching. No special deference is needed.

@AzorAhai-him- (cont'd) I could never thing of sending such a message stating that since they are writing to a (super senior exec title) they should start by kneeling and using words that would tickle my pride. Seriously - let's stop this idea that being a professor requires others to pray in front of you. This is ridiculous and ridiculed outside of academia.

Sorry, it's shorthand for "second language." I never claimed any of those things you are stating. Again, yes the prof was rude, but the point of mentioning his job is to say that he is a busy person and has responsibilities that don't include OP. We can agree he's rude and disagree as to the degree. I think if you have such an issue with professors, you might find a different website. They come up here a lot.

@AzorAhai-him- I do not have absolutely no issues with professors. I left academia years ago and some of my closest friends are still there and are .. professors :) The kind of full professors nominated by the president (of the country). Absolutely normal people because why would they not be? I do have a problem with people who think that others should come to them with reverence (some jobs carry this idea by default) when they are just like everyone else. In a normal situation, in the street, you would never accept such behaviour, so why make an exception for these fragile egos?

I'm not asking people to revere professors, and I believe others here are not too. In my opinion OP should have phrased their request better, independent of the receiving part being a professor, postdoc, phd student, master student, whatever. I'm not going to reply to this thread anymore. À bientôt!

@TheDoctor none of their request should have triggered the disrespectful answer. He should have given everything in one go but otherwise it was very good. The answer was the one of someone who is full of himself and I apparently have a lower tolerance for such people

@AzorAhai-him- I never claimed any of those things you are stating I am not sure I understand. I did not say that you stated anything, my quote was from the Professor's reply. And thanks for the "L2" explanation, I did not know this expression.


text:
Negotiating tenure track position after major career grant
I have been pushing hard for several years to get an academic job, with little success. The best job I could get was a non-tenure track group leader position, with very questionable promotion criteria.
Recently, to my own surprise, I managed to win an ERC Starting grant. I am also shortlisted for another grant of equal magnitude. Lucky me, my university has a policy to offer tenure-track positions for ERC grantees.
However, I am somewhat bothered by the fact that the department recently hired a tenure track professor with similar profile to mine, that is to say before the ERC, who received a substantial starting package. Meanwhile they expect me to pay my salary from the grant that I brought in and no starting package.
While I am happy that I will be promoted and it was my dream, I also feel I have done a lot to gain this major grant, so I would like them to match the conditions of the other candidate.
Has anyone had similar experience with this? What could be a good way to proceed?

Generally a start-up package is a negotiation move to attract someone to come to you and not go elsewhere. Will you leave and go somewhere else if you aren't given a matching package?

That’s difficult to say. I am thankful to the department who supported me with the ERC grant. Because of this supportive culture, I’d like to stay. But I’m worried that if I don’t get the offer I want, I will be too bitter to stay. So yes, I will probably try to leave in that case.

Based on your response to Bryan, I think you’ve correctly identified that this comes down to personal priorities.

My personal experience is that an effective negotiation strategy is to have an offer in hand from another institution. Such a hypothetical institution should be substantially more happy to hire you now that you have a grant, as Buffy notes (assuming it can be taken with you).

To add on to @Ian, in the US, an actual offer in hand often allows the department to dip into a different pool of funds, in particular, the money set aside to recruit new hires.

Thanks, everyone. It seems I need to hit the job market again and get the best offer I can.

If they truly have a policy to make such offers then there is little to do other than inform them. But if it is less formal than that you might start to look elsewhere. If they have just hired someone with similar qualifications then you are probably in a poor position except in a large department.
ERC grants seem to be transferrable between institutions so you would be in a good position in the job market.
Make your case to the decision makers and then choose a path based on what they decide. Hopefully they will continue to support you. Good luck.


text:
Is school work in the public domain?
I am working on a project for school and would like to know if it would be in the public domain.

If your country is a signatory to the Berne Convention, then you automatically own the copyright to anything you write, from the moment you write it (unless you're being paid to write it, and then it's Complicated). So unless you release it into the public domain, it isn't in the public domain.

@The4379 to go with JeffE's answer, here's a list of all the countries who signed the Berne Convention.

@JeffE write that as an answer?

What if school policy states that students waive all copyrights for school projects?

@thisismynamenow Can you point to an example of such a policy?

@JeffE I absolutely can't. I have no idea if that has ever been the policy of any school anywhere, or whether I should be outraged at the thought of it happening or not or whether such a policy is in contradiction to the Berne Convention or not.

@Jeffe Southern Polytechnic State University, in Georgia, USA, had such a policy.  It is my understanding that the policy survived the merger of SPSU into Kennesaw State University.  The policy applied only to work done by students in response to an assignment by a professor.

There are close votes.  I'd like to see this one stay open.  The IP policy on assigned work is of general concern in academia.  I hope The4379 will edit the question to be more like, "Who owns work assigned by an instructor but done by a student."  (I didn't edit it because it's a Big Change.)

@JeffE I have never seen such a policy, but my old department required us to keep copies of the work, allow other students to use and expand on the work, and faculty to use the work to develop educational tools. We never ask for a copyright waiver/transfer.

If your country is a signatory to the Berne Convention, then you automatically own the copyright to anything you write, from the moment you write it, with some exceptions:

If you're being paid to write it, the work may qualify as "work for hire", in which case the copyright may be owned by whoever is paying you.  Ask a lawyer (but not your employer's lawyer).
Some universities (for example, MIT) claim ownership of "Intellectual Property" developed using university resources (for example, the campus wifi network).  Whether this claim applies to schoolwork is unclear.  Ask a lawyer (but not the university's lawyer).

In any case, unless you (and/or your employer and/or the university, if they claim ownership) release it into the public domain, it isn't in the public domain.

The MIT policy (United States) is here:http://web.mit.edu/policies/13/13.1.html  It's a little dense, but I think I could stretch it to cover assigned work developed for a grade.

I should note that this "side discussion" is about whether the student or the school owns schoolwork done by students.  In either case, such work is not in the public domain.  If the school claims ownership, it might be hard for the student to release such work, either directly into the public domain or under a Creative Commons license.

I don't know a university that has good written policies on school work. In the US, it is likely that you own the copyright on the work. I think the assumption is that by handing in the work you are essentially agreeing to a copyright transfer agreement with the professor/department/university. The extent of the transfer must allow copying and distributing the work because the professor reasonably needs to be able to give it to a grader and make a copy to keep for the school records. It might need to be passed through a 3rd party plagiarism detection app. It might be eventually bundled with other students work as examples of past answers (and possibly sold for a profit). There may also be a tacit agreement that you will not distribute your work without the departments consent (i.e., not post your solutions online or hand it in for another class). As I said, I doubt any of this is written and most might be covered by fair use.

I think the correct assumption is not that the student is transferring copyright, but that they are providing their work under a license that allows grading, archiving, and plagiarism detection. I would consider bundling and selling a student's work without the student's explicit written permission to be grossly unethical. (Of course, that doesn't mean it's illegal.)

@JeffE I agree a license might be more reasonable. My point was that something potentially happens when you turn the work in. I also agree bundling work would be unethical.

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Why didn't more people graduate with a college degree when it was "affordable"?
Adjusting for inflation, (without too much controversy, I expect), it is evident that college was more affordable in the past.  See for example, this chart of Tuition and Fees and Room and Board over Time, 1975-76 to 2015-16.
And yet, in the United States in 1980, roughly only 15% of the population had a college degree. It seems to me to be a very economical choice to attend.  Are there reasons for the low graduation rate?

My first stab at it is that the cost to the student, and the academic requirements for acceptance, are about inversely proportional.

Have you looked into whether people needed a college degree to get the jobs they wanted? Nowadays a college degree is required for many jobs that didn't used to need it

Tuition fee increases because of cheap subsidized credit. It's thus not necessarily a limiting factor.

It is the other way round: fees are increasing because demand is increasing.

This is not a forum! It's a Q&A site. The point of opening a post here isn't to create discussion, as in a forum, but to get an answer, hence the question should be as clear and complete as possible. If you don't keep this in might you'll find that a lot of your questions gets closed as unclear/too broad/off topic.

@Bakuriu: This is a forum (check a dictionary for the meaning of that word, if you're in doubt).  What it is not, is a discussion forum.

@Bakuriu And it seems the question is pretty clear, though maybe a bit broad in scope. Anyway, no reason to shout.

@BenVoigt: I'm not sure. My first reaction was the same as yours, but I checked http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/forum to be sure, and it seems that "forum" really does imply "discussion". (Still, I'm not sure Bakuriu's comment was presented in the most helpful way. There's no reason to treat the word "forum" as anathema.)

Vote to close as the question is too broad. If the question changes to a reference request, i.e. were there studies for this issue, I would be more than willing to retract the close vote or cast a re-open vote. Plus, I think this is more of a cultural issue. From where I am from (Taiwan), in 1970's, everyone wanted to go to college if they could. Parents would sell anything to pay the tuition for their kids.

I did not know there was such interest in this question!

There are many factors!

In the past there was much less demand for highly educated people, as there were many more jobs that were mostly manual labour. Technology is largely to blame for this, as computers and machines take over what we had to do with our heads and hands.
People were more likely to work in one job for their whole life, so there was less incentive to get a more general education.
Apprenticeships were more common, so you'd learn on the job rather than study at university.
It was easier in the past to "work your way up the company" – you'd start as a front-line grunt, and have a good chance of becoming a manager later on.
Children with poorly educated parents are much less likely to go to university. Starting off 100 years ago when almost everyone was poorly educated, it's actually taken remarkably few generations to get where we are now.

Great answer. The first four bullets can be summarized by saying that the costs of college were lower, but the rewards of going to college were also lower (maybe more so).

High school educations were arguably better as well and marked a level of academic achievement they no longer do.

@virmaior shakes cane. Well, school education has definitely changed, but (in absence of any first-hand experience) I'm not sure if I'd prefer the "old" system. With computer usage quickly becoming very widespread, I do worry that the most recent generations are losing the ability to do such things as simple arithmetic. But that's a bit off-topic...

Yeah, I didn't comment at all on what's better overall for a society. Just that one of the apples in this apples to oranges is a shift in the value (both in the perception of society and in the content) of the degrees south of the university.

I would disagree with the first bullet point, certainly there is a higher demand for those with degrees, however, there is a huge shortage of people with manual labour skills. Many people argue that it was a large-scale PR campaign for a college education. Mike Rowe has a few great interviews talking about this topic.

@Tyzoid true, I might agree that there is an over-emphasis on getting a university education, and there are indeed shortages of skilled labour in many parts of the world. But the overall % of jobs that require manual labour of some kind – as in hard, physical work – has nevertheless decreased.

A much lower unemployment is also a factor.

Even though the cost of tuition was lower, the opportunity cost of going to college was higher in the past.  Going to college means you do not have time to work, so you in effect give up the pay from working by going to college.  While, nowadays, one struggles to find a near-minimum wage job making $20K/yr without a college degree, it used to be possible (for men) to get a factory job paying the current equivalent of $40K/yr without a college degree.  Hence, in effect, college is actually cheaper now.

That last point is at least somewhat dependent on (1) the choice of college (private vs. public) and (2) the choice of major (some actually hurt your earnings potential).

The vast majority of college attendees are at non-selective public institutions; when looking at statistics about the entire college-going population, non-profit privates are only a drop in the bucket.  2) People only go into majors that hurt their earnings potential because those majors pay off in non-economic ways.

Both very good points!!

If the price of a good has doubled (at least) relative to wages, "cheaper" is not the word that would ordinarily be used to describe change in the price of the good. You're talking about "opportunity cost", which is not synonymous with "cost". Cheap college is a better option than expensive college. They formerly had an option that was better for them than cheap college. That option is gone. Now their best option is to pay massively inflated prices for what used to be their second-best option. That's not an improvement for them, it's a disaster.

...still, this is the correct answer: Colleges can charge surreal prices because better opportunities for ordinary young people are now extremely rare. It's like having a monopoly on a life-saving drug: The sky's the limit. Squeeze them dry.

From a UK perspective, it's a matter of market forces.
Originally (pre-1900), universities were mostly funded by fee-paying students.  Costs were high, but only students from rich families could afford to attend.  Places were limited mainly by the number of rich people.  Ability was not necessarily a pre-requisite.  There were a large number of institutions which funded people without money but with significant skills, but they were a definite minority.
Then the government started funding universities - especially after WWI, there was a strong feeling that everyone (all men anyway; women at universities is a separate issue!) should be given equal opportunities to advance themselves, and universities changed to being mostly funded by government (with some extra from the private sector).  Cost to students was zero, but government funding was limited.  Every student takes money to teach, so the number of places was limited to what the university could afford.  As a result, university places were selective, and only the most able could attend. (Some universities still allowed rich kids to buy their way in, but they were a minority.)
In the 1990s, this changed again.  For various political reasons (which I won't go into), government grants for living whilst studying were removed, universities received funding based on the number of students regardless of the value of the courses to the student or the country as a whole, and universities were allowed to charge tuition fees.  Now every student was a cash cow, so the incentive was for universities to admit anyone, of any ability, and milk them to the maximum.  The majority of students receive no benefit from their courses compared to the experience they would have gained from three years of work, and are tens of thousands of pounds in debt.
And that's where we are today.

"The majority of students receive no benefit from their courses compared to the experience they would have gained from three years of work"   How very true, shame there is not more workplace based training.

Is that really the majority? Are there really that many "Football Media Studies" degree courses being taken up? A quick google gives Business Management, Law, Sociology, Art and Design, IT, Psychology, Education, Nursing, Bioscience, History as the most popular courses in the UK (whatever most popular means). None of these are Mickey Mouse. (Though of course as an Engineer I have my doubts about Sociology and Psychology.) Interesting that nurses are now expected to have degrees.

@RedSonja: There is a widespread sentiment among software engineers that those who get turned out by "IT studies" (Computer Science, mostly) are pretty useless for the actual job unless either a) having a history of actually programming as a hobby or b) undergoing extensive tutoring on-the-job. As for business management, I'll hold my tongue... and I can't judge on the other subjects. But formal qualification <> competence... (After checking your profile I realize you're from the same trade, and probably know the type: draws a neuronal network in no time but have never touched a debugger...)

@RedSonja It's necessary to differentiate between courses which are intellectually rigorous and courses which provide a benefit to the student's career.  I have no objection to students studying these courses at their own expense, but there seems to be little thought about whether the students get £50k worth of benefit.  I'm particularly aware of Music Technology, where hundreds of students annually compete for low-double-digit numbers of roles (most of which go to graduates of two or three highly-selective courses).

@RedSonja point out a very clear example: Nurses used to have a diploma (from a teaching hospital) and now have a degree.  In many other fields something similar has happened. I'm familiar with this in engineering, but in many business field as well, people can't progress without degrees in roles that wouldn't hav been expected to require a degree a few decades ago.

@DevSolar, from a physics perspective that applies to programming (and by that I mean scientist code that would cause a real programmer to throw up), but also to electronics -- you can only teach so much, some things can only be learnt by trying.

In the UK at least, part of the answer is that the relationship goes the other way. University is more expensive now because the costs used to be covered by the government, but as the number of students has risen the proportion paid by the government has dropped.

One important reason was the influx of women into higher education (and the professions). Today, more women than men graduate from college, fifty years ago, perhaps half as many women did. So while the percentage of college-attending men and women both rose over this time, it did so much more for women.

Its because feeding the family was more important back then, than getting a college a degree. Just like Maslow's hierarchy.. Food, Shelter and clothing was more important than education. So people's priority was getting any source of income whatsoever with or without college education, whichever occurs first.

This could reasonably have been a factor, say, pre-welfare state. The OP explicitly looks at 1975, by which time food, shelter and clothing was not an issue in the US any more.

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Academic Job Mobility in the European Context
In the United States it is not uncommon to apply to academic jobs all over the country. Personally, I do not know a single person who limited his or her search to just one state (i.e. Massachusetts). That being said, the language of instruction and the key aspects of academic culture remain the same coast to coast.
In comparison, what is the situation like in Europe, particularly Scandinavia and Switzerland?
For example, given that the population of Denmark is comparable in size to that of Massachusetts, how does this affect the academic job market? Is it standard practice for PhDs & lecturers/postdocs located in Denmark to search for their first career placement across Europe [and beyond]? Or do they search for employment primarily on the national academic job market? How do the national differences in language/academic culture fit into this equation?
Background: I’m considering PhD/Academic Career in Europe. Ideally, I would like to learn the local language and assimilate as much as possible during the PhD. Given this long-term effort, I would prefer to continue on in the same country following graduation.
I’m especially interested in hearing from those with experience in the social sciences and humanities (working or studying in Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, or Switzerland/Austria). However, please consider contributing even if you do not fit this particular set of criteria. My own experience is in Cult/Soc Anthropology (USA).

"given that the population of Denmark is comparable in size to that of Massachusetts, how does this affect the academic job market" - as implied by the answers so far, the effect of the comparable populations may be weaker than the effect of various other, not so comparable factors (language, legal and administrative frameworks, etc.).

From the perspective of the Netherlands and the social sciences I can say that international mobility is certainly common, but staying in your own country is even more common. I would say a small majority does indeed limit it's search to the Netherlands.
This has consequences for the job market. Since the Netherlands is a small country the (sub-(sub-))discipline typically consist of a small number of people who will regularly meet. So if a position is open, then most candidates are known to the people who are hiring. So networks are important, and you typically get introduced to those networks by your advisor during your PhD. So doing a PhD in the Netherlands would set you up well for a subsequent career in the Netherlands. It is certainly possible to enter the Dutch market later and it happens regularly, but it is easier if you started as a PhD student in the Netherlands.
An important part of the reason for limiting yourself to your own country is probably the language barrier. You may be able to do a Postdoc with just English. However, when your job includes teaching, then you will eventually be expected to teach in the local language. Similarly, if your job requires you to participate in the self-government of the university, you will be disadvantages if you don't speak the local language. Moreover, your social live will be much easier when you speak the local language. Many languages in Europe are fairly similar, e.g. Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian, or Dutch and German, or Spanish and Italian. However, it is still a non-trivial investment to become sufficiently fluent to teach or negotiate in the other language.
I am now living and working in Germany, and my impression is that mobility is less common here than in the Netherlands.

Exactly, learning to teach and negotiate in a new language is a non-trivial investment. This is exactly why I would prefer to stick to a given country after graduating; and why selecting the right country to do a PhD in is such a big deal for me.


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How to prepare for grad school? [with 1 year to spare]
I plan to enter graduate school (MA+PhD) in September 2018, which means I have something of a ‘gap year situation’ ahead of me [not in a strict sense, as I’ve been working for a number of years now]. I want to use this unstructured time ahead the best way I can.
If you were in my position, how would you spend these spare 12 months before grad school officially begins and the clock starts ticking? How would you prepare for what’s ahead, what would you focus on?
It goes without saying that I have already given these questions a lot of careful consideration, but I’m very curious to learn how others would approach this topic; especially, current PhD candidates, postdocs, and lecturers/professors. Knowing what you now know, if you could go back, how would you spend a spare year like that?
Some background:

My field is social/cultural anthropology.
My ultimate goal (grad school and beyond) is to prepare a CV and a research portfolio, which will aid me in launching an academic career in Europe.
I have a BA in anthropology and an unrelated MA,
I currently freelance (unrelated field); I have plenty of spare time, and can arrange my schedule in whatever way I see fit.
I live in a mid-size European city (not a capital); can’t move anywhere this year, but can likely do some limited traveling.
There’s a small anthropology department here, but I’m not affiliated with it, and never was. My degree is from the US.
I can speak the local language fairly well.
The grad school (next year) will be in a different county, and learning the new language will be one of my key objectives this year. The language of instruction will be English, however.

Note: Not sure if I made this clear, but I’m not looking for suggestions such as “travel for fun,” or “get a new hobby.” I want to use these 12 months in the most productive way possible.
In response to feedback from comments: I would like the advice focused on: setting myself up to do outstanding work in grad school and beyond (postdocs, etc). I am not concerned with the "getting into grad school" part here.

To ensure you get the most helpful advice, you might want to specify if you want to prepare to get into competitive programs, or if you mainly want to prepare so you can do a good job in your program itself.

@BrianHall - thanks for the feedback. I would like the advice focused on: setting myself up to do outstanding work in grad school and beyond (postdocs, etc). I am not concerned with getting into grad school. Thank you again for pointing this out!

Your PhD courses usually dwell on foundational articles. Buy/borrow a "reader book" that has all (or many) of these articles in one place.
Get a part-time job in a field associated with one of the subject groups that you would study/focus on. If you are interested in the geography of farmers, see if you can work as one. Keep it part-time.
Get in touch with the local anthro- group.
More meta: by whichever means, find out where the field is and where it is going. This may highlight some new skills that you need to work on minimally. For instance, social science now has a robust quantitative component. Anyone who ignores that is playing with fire.
Don't add more shit to this list.

In support of items 1 and 4, if there is even a small anthropology department, the local college library probably has at least basic anthropology material. See if you can get access to at least go to the library and read, if not borrow books.

Right. And leaving books in the library may be more convenient than borrowing them. For this "short" period, you don't want to get bogged down with a lot of books at home (unless for a special reason).