text:
letterhead required for recommendation emails sent electronically?
I am applying to graduate schools in North America. Most of these institutes require at least three electronic letter of recommendations to be sent during the process.
I have already submitted my application to two universities, with the LORs submitted electronically using official email IDs of my professors (including one who primarily works at another university, and was an adjunct professor to me). But all of my professors submitted these without letterheads.
I have checked the Graduate Admission FAQs of most of these university and letterhead is stressed only for hard copies sent directly to the institute (i.e. there is no mention of a requirement for electronic LOR). How relevant is it for letterheads to be attached to the electronic LORs too?
Should I email every institute I am applying to, to clarify this requirement, or just let my professors know that submitting them as is, is fine? It may be worth knowing I am an international student.

For hardcopy letters of recommendation, requiring letterhead gives a (rather weak) defense against forgery. For online letters of recommendation, one can check that the requests were sent to the official email addresses of the recommenders, which is a much better defense against forgery. (Although I suspect these are actually checked in practice only if something raises somebody's suspicions.)

The best defense is telephoning the author of the reference - so much more information becomes clear... Of course this requires effort...

@SolarMike true, but with how many applications are submitted it's probably not viable.

I would not worry.  It's traditional to use letterhead for electronic recommendation letters, but it's not really essential.  The admissions committee is very unlikely to care whether letterhead is used, and it should not have any effect on their decision.  In the unlikely event that they have questions about the letter's authenticity, they would contact the writer directly (e.g. by looking up their contact info on the university's web site).
If they haven't sent the letters yet, you could let them know that letterhead is customary and suggest that they use it if convenient.  If the letters have already been sent, then I'd just ignore it.  It's not worth the trouble of resubmitting.

Thanks for the response. Yes - my concern is authenticity only because my college is not really well known (though obviously there is a website and everything, and I provided the office phone numbers of my referees). I have informed them about using letterhead for future letters - thanks.


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How to explain a recent bad semester to graduate school admissions?
I am an international student with a 3.7 US equivalated GPA. I applied to a grad school program in the US fresh out of undergrad and was accepted.
I was a part-time student at that grad school. During the next semester, I took up some courses at a local community college instead of the grad courses (physics 1, chem 2, o-chem 2, o-chem lab). I ended up having situational depression and got help really late in the semester. I was only able to withdraw from one course early in the semester, and failed two courses, and got a B in one.
I am currently re-thinking the grad program I applied to at first and want to apply to another one. However, this program is more prestigious. While my undergrad GPA  and experience are good enough for the school, I am worried about how my recent bad semester at the local cc will be interpreted to the admissions office.
BTW: These courses that I bombed are not pre-requisites for the program I am applying to.
Should I discuss this bad semester in my personal statement? Are my chances of acceptance really low because they are recent grades?

It is important to say what you are going to do differently in the future to make that bad semester an exception.

These are good points- i did not drop out, just took the courses I wanted to but my mental health got in the way .. :/

I think you should be open about your mental health issues in your personal statement but phrase it in an optimistic way. Try conveying that you are getting better and motivated to improve over your recent bad performance.

If you explain as eloquently as you have here what happened, I cannot imagine a semester hurting you.
What impresses admission officers is when they see people who have a passion about themselves, and express
intellectual curiosity, but at the same time, are willing to be vulnerable.
If you explain what happened on your statement of purpose, just as you have here, that will go along way with admissions.
My answer is that one semester of subpar grades will not hurt you.

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Alternative to PhD?
As a bachelors student in mathematics, I took various courses in Algebra, Analysis, Number Theory, Geometry and Topology. I am pretty much interested in every field and I don't want to specialize in a single field--I like the research part.
Since my bachelors duration is 3 years, I'll have to do a masters.
I want to learn different fields in mathematics throughout my life and I want to earn a living by doing that and not working in Industry. But why would anyone pay me just so I can learn?
Also I discussed the possibility of M.Phil with one of my professors but he said M.Phil is not worth it and time will teach me the focus required to research.
Is there anything else I can do which matches with what I want?

You can do a PhD immediately after a three year undergraduate degree. But, given your desire not to specialize, an MSc is probably a better route.

@user2768 No, this is not true generally (maybe in the US?). In Germany (and, by Bologna, in the whole "Europe Higher Education Area" as well)  you generally need to do a MSc before being able to do a PhD. Look up "three-cycle system ehea".

@Dirk, I'm not claiming that it is possible everywhere, I'm merely claiming it is possible.

"I don't want to specialize in a single field but I like research part." / "would anyone pay me just so I can learn" Beware: research is not the same as studying/learning. In fact it is quite different and requires a different approach to be successful. At this stage in your education you very likely do not yet see this. The experience of a PhD is about showing you the world of research.

"Since my bachelors duration is 3 years, I'll have to do a masters." Not in the UK... - But in the rest of the world yes. It may be worth adding the country.

@Dirk In the UK you can start a PhD immediately after a BSc. In the best case, you can do a 3 year BSc (or if you have the funds, merge some courses to obtain it sooner) and then obtain a PhD in three years (or with university permission, sooner again). - However often you will find that PhDs will overrun (for various reasons ...) - but must be submitted before 4 years are over (otherwise the person has failed).

I want to learn different fields in mathematics throughout my life and I want to earn by doing that and not working in Industry. But definitely why would anyone pay me just so I can learn?

Nobody is paying you to just learn anything. This is not how either industry or academia works. Even in the purest/most abstract of fields, academia is about doing new things with what you've learned (also called research).
What is true is that you can both specialize and still keep learning new fields. Actually, that's what most people do: digging deep into one topic, but picking up knowledge from different fields on their way to tackle the harder problems.
I propose that you should give research a try. It is very different from studying and maybe you'll like it - and maybe you'll like it even more than studying!
It can be very exciting when you learn something that nobody had learned before, but on the other hand it can be very frustrating when you try to find something out and nothing is working… (it's a little bit like working on problem sets that you posed yourself and nobody knows the answer to…).

Excellent description of what research is like.

I don't want to specialize
  why would anyone pay me just so I can learn?

They will not.  In Academia, you need to specialise.  However, if you successfully specialise and obtain a rare tenured position with few teaching duties, then you can spend a portion of your time learning whatever you want.  You could despecialise.  But you can expect your colleagues to look down on your choices.
It's easier to earn a lot of money outside academia, retire early, and then do what ever you want.

"promise to work for an EU State or to continue in academia for at least six years after your studies, otherwise you need to pay back" So they get paid in advance for their work.  They are not paid to study.

@NajibIdrissi You said that if you do not do the promised work, you must pay the money back.  That means you were paid in advance for the work.  You were not paid for studying.  The contract might say otherwise, but that's what it means.

"if I were unemployed I would not have to pay back anything." Well, @NajibIdrissi, that is totally different from what you said before.  Think about it this way:  If they thought you were not going to do any work, would they be giving you the pay?

"I (wrongly) thought that you would take my word for it" Please do not take it personally.  I'm a scientist and I don't believe anything until there is evidence.  Now watch me post a new answer contradicting my old one.

I'd like to focus on the "specialisation" issue, as the "being payed for learning stuff" seems to be answered by others.

If you want a career in academia, you need a PhD. (The only alternative is being a genius of the niveau of Ramanujan, but most such people also get their PhD the one or other way.)
PhD is supposed to be the most "focused" part of your research. People are belied to get more "broad" in the later career.
As someone (I forgot who) said: the most harm done to mathematics was to separate it into pure and applied parts. So, whatever you do, you'd be able to relate and build bridged to the other parts of the science. It's hard, admittedly, but even more resultful because of that.
Everybody is different, but for me the actual fun and "depth" just began three years into a university mathematics course. Undergraduate studies typically more skim over the surface.

I'd love to hear more about your fourth bullet point.

Agree, like it or not, a PhD is the credential that opens doors to long term academic opportunities.

Buffy: To put it short, I became aware of computer algebra from its scientific side.

Now I'm even more intrigued. Do you mean the way computers handle numeric data or something else? Using fixed length fields to estimate or bound infinite things.

I mean symbolic computation. You handle numbers not as floating-point approximations, can represent algebraic extensions, and do cool stuff, of course. Such as Gröbner bases.

A three-year undergraduate degree allows you to learn the basics. Try delving deeper; read every chapter of some recommended texts. You might find you have a passion for deeper knowledge. Try to hone that passion during a master's degree: Conduct coursework in a field that you're particularly passionate about. Perhaps you'll find a specialism and perhaps you'll pursue that specialisation during a PhD...

If you are eligible for a United States Pell Grant (based on your question I guess you are not), then you can be paid by the US government to study.  However, this is a bad idea.  You have to enroll in a very cheap school, and the money left over will not pay enough to survive.  The eligibility rules are very limiting.  There is no obligation to specialize or to work in industry.

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Guide not signing the thesis but institute insisting on getting it signed
My M.Sc. Thesis which serves a partial requirement for my honors degree has a page where the guide has to sign to approve that the work I did under him is original and it is with his permission that I am submitting it to my institute.
Now, my guide after 4 months of research and the production of the thesis is refusing to provide a digital signature on the thesis and when proposed with the option of the thesis to be couriered to him, rejected it on the grounds of it being not possible for him to do.
I reported this to my mentor and department head at the institute and they are adamant on getting the signature on the thesis as well as the copy of the thesis even though on the institute's demand I got the approvement from the guide through a mail where I copied the mail to the department addresses of the mentors and the department head.
My dilemma is that my department, now, when  I am trying to submit the physical copy of thesis is asking me to get it signed by the guide and my guide works at an institution that is 3000 kms away from where I am currently. I think it's highly unfeasible for me to depart on a 3 day journey to get a signature on a thesis which is legitimately approved by guide already, which I pointed out to the institute already.
My question to you all here:
Is there any thing that I can say/write to my department which would convince them to accept the thesis without the signature?
Thanks.

Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking.

Why is the courier option unacceptable? Cost or something else?

@Buffy I gave him the option of covering the cost myself. He didn't clarify why he is not able to receive/send courier but just that he won't do it.

@Community Please see if it is clear with the edit.

Do you have email correspondence with your guide where they say they cannot do this? Do they give a reason why they cannot use a digital signature? Also are you 3000 km away from the institution, or is your advisor?

Yes I have email correspondence. They didn't give a reason per se for why they can't provide the digital signature. Both, institute and I are 3000 kms away from the guide.

I think you need an intermediary with the guide, preferably the head of the department. If the head sends the thesis to them with return postage guaranteed then it will be hard for them to refuse. At a minimum the head can extract a real reason for their reluctance.
But just explaining the dilemma to the head might be enough to get some sort of accommodation, though the signature might be an absolute requirement. This might be something that requires a face to face meeting with the head. And you may even need an intermediary (another professor) to reach the head.
Don't, however, send your only copy through the mail. Too many things can go wrong.

Makes sense, I can persuade the head to talk to the guide.

+1 for "Don't send your only copy."  That bit me in the days of typewriters.  These days it is much easier to make multiple copies.


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Near the end of a 5 years Physics degree that I don't like, what are the best options?
A bit of a background.
I'm a physics student and at the end of September I will finish my Thesis and get my 5 years degree (1 and a half year late). I have done my graduate studies with a specialization in Theoretical Physics. Even though I've gotten through my degree with the best possible grades (that's the year and half) I've realized too late that physics it's not what I want to do and, of course, this has brought me to study just to pass test and not to understand physics making me very bad even at things that I should know (It is apparent to any physicist who talks to me for more than 5 minutes, like the supervisor of my thesis).
Knowing now myself I would have loved (and probably I would have been much better) taking an engineering degree.
So now I feel without any option left, having acquired 0 marketable skills. Should I go into a PhD hoping to find something more engineering-like that I could like and could lead me to have a job in the field after it? And even if I find it I'm not really sure I could take that position given my lack of understanding of even the basics of physics (imagining myself having to take teaching duties on things I barely understand is laughable).  The other option is to stop here and try to find an admittedly enjoyable coding job (that's the most technical job one can get with just a Physics degree) but it would still require me months of studying to have a chance in a interview. As a last thing, I'm 26 years old and not having any financial income it's quite a burden so this add to the list before.
Honestly, I feel like choosing a physics degree ruined my life and I don't know what to do.
EDIT:
To be more clear, I don't want to be a Physicist in the sense that learning for the sake of it it's not something that I want to do, so research is a nono. If I find a job as a, say, software engineer I would not mind expanding my knowledge to which I would see a practical application to.
What are my options (I don't mind to move around the Europe) at finding a job using my physics degree. Possibly a coding job (as I said, it's quite enjoyable).
Or, could pursue a PhD be a good choice to get more insight in some field of engineering (It's the only way that I see to acquire marketable skill), so that for when it's over I could use these skills to work in the field?
For example, all the people that I know that completed 5 years degree in either computer science or electronic engineering got a job (in their field) in less than 2 month from their degree.

Difficult as this looks now, your life is probably not ruined at age 26.
It's hard to offer advice given the limited amount of information you provide (or could provide).
Perhaps there's a coding job that might use some of the physics you know (even though you don't love it or think much of it).

If you want to be a "coder" then you don't need any additional degrees. A PhD in any field would be a waste of time and effort for that.

For a hopefully inspiring example, look at the career path of this scientist: https://www.technologyreview.com/2009/06/23/212353/rescuing-the-everglades/ He used his physics degrees for something else and has quite a successful career.

I think your question might be: "How do I find a job outside academia?" in which case you are asking in the wrong place.

Either you can get some job in a startup (not recommended: very risky), or you will have to re-qualify.  You can do literally anything next, but your degree will have little value beyond demonstrating that you stuck out a challenging degree and completed.  You are smart, but have no directly applicable skills.  Common exit options include actuary, patent attorney, school teacher, but, as I said, you can do anything: retrain as a doctor, become a world leader (see e.g. Angela Merkel), do a masters in journalism, data-science, retrain as an accountant, or lawyer.

Many students with a degree in physics, even theoretical physics, end up in interesting jobs never doing physics. I myself have a PhD in theoretical physics, but built my career in commercial roles in industry. You need to realise that completing a degree in physics gives you much more than an understanding of physics; it gives you a way to look at problems, analyse them and find solutions. These are invaluable skills in a variety of jobs.
So don't worry about it, just find something you like to do. You are still young and can afford to make several more mistakes.

+1.  The physics degree gives a toolkit - conceptual and practical tools - valuable well beyond the narrow field of physics.

+1. I'm also in the position of having gotten a PhD in theoretical physics and have found a career in industry. And, I can say the same of many of my former physics colleagues.

I think you already have those skills before you study Physics.  I can't honestly say that any of the advanced mathematics or general relativity I studied has much use in the real world.  Neither does the thermodynamics, particle physics, Maxwell's laws.  I can't even remember when I last used Pythogoras' theorem, and we did that for GCSE.  Physics knowledge is redundant: Engineering is more useful for technical roles.  Unless you want to become an academic, Physics is a poor choice of degree in the modern world (Imperial MSci. here).  Retrain: google unemployed ivy league physics graduates.

Surprisingly common complaint. At least even if you graduate late, you did well grade-wise. Most people didn't.
In my opinion, it's good to be somewhat realistic about the local job market. Type in "physics" on job search websites, and see if anyone in your city or country is actually explicitly looking for a physics graduates. People always say finance or software industries recruit a lot of physics graduates. I don't think that's generally true, and highly dependent on many factors. But if you can afford it, give a coding bootcamp a try.
There's obviously the option to do a masters or phd in engineering. A lot of engineering programs are willing to admit physics majors. But it's still the same physics, something that you don't particularly enjoy. And it may not even have a great job market either, depending on your location.
Other than that, I think you're aware about the possibility of becoming a teacher, or a tutor of some kind. And if your native language is English, there's always the option to teach English in Asia or other countries. Or even online.
There are less traditional jobs such as youtubers or streamers. I don't know what it takes to make a living income with them.
But first things first, I suggest you talk with your parents/relatives and friends. And ask if they can set you up with a job or an interview. Good old nepotism networking. I don't think you're alone in this situation, especially among your cohorts. Ask what their plan is. A lot of people don't do a job related to their degree.

Thanks for the answer. The job market where I live it's basically absent (let's say that south italy it's not a tech powerhouse) but I had plan to move to another country, so I basically have the whole Europe. The problem here (I'll edit my question) it's to at least make use of the years that I've spent on physics and possibly doing something that I like (like coding, which I enjoy).

Since you wrote "Possibly a coding job (as I said, it's quite enjoyable)", I suppose that you love coding jobs. You are only 26 years old, and you still have plenty of time to pursue your dream career that you enjoy the most.
Therefore, I would suggest that you try one of these options:

Apply for a job as a programmer in the private sector
Some companies may hire programmers with STEM backgrounds and do not
necessarily require applicants to have lots of programming experiences.

Study to get a MS degree in CS or in Engineering
It won't be too difficult as you already get a MS degree in physics and know how to study STEM subjects. With a MS degree in CS, you will be on the right track for the super high-demand jobs in the CS job markets such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning,...
You may need to take some CS undergraduate courses to get up to the
speed before joining the CS program. But, it will not be difficult at all.

Get a certification from a coding bootcamp
I can't promise this is the best option. But, some times, a coding bootcamp
can be a fast track and give you really practical coding experiences such as building
websites, etc...

The best jobs in ML need a relevant PhD ... and you have a bit of a lottery there because whether or not your area is 'hot' when you finish your PhD depends on factors that are likely to be out of your control.  An MS in ML from a good university will basically get you an entry level role in data-science, but you will be unlikely to be designing the algorithms themselves: you will be a data analyst/software engineer.  For that job you don't really need an MS in statistics/CS anyway as you can self-study from a Physics degree.  ML is generally much easier than Physics and less advanced Maths.

The other option is to stop here and try to find an admittedly enjoyable coding job

About 40% of American physics bachelors degree holders do just that.  This is a perfectly fine solution.

but it would still require me months of studying to have a chance in a
interview.

Well, maybe.  Currently, some companies hire coders with zero experience.

It's a poor solution: you don't need a degree to become a computer programmer.  And software engineering is an increasingly competitive degree, at the bottom of the corporate hierarchy.  You have done one of the most challenging degrees that includes advanced mathematics, you don't want to be working with C-grade students in the back-office sweat-shop!  Retrain into a career that has some structure, that you find enjoyable, and that appeals to your interests.  Maybe that is programming, but actuarial/law/statistics/economics are probably better choices that you might prefer.

@Carl I actually found a job as a programmer, paid relatively well, that I like very much. All the other things that you listed are maybe more profitable, but I despise each one of them.  The advice that you gave of "retraining" is for rich people who can allow more year of no income.

Congratulations!  I'm not sure about 'rich' people: many people now borrow to continue their studies, and I know of several examples.  University is no longer 'free', after all.  Some retraining schemes (e.g. accountancy, actuarial studies) are also paid.  But I'm glad that you have managed to find something that you are happy with.  Many Physicists do fall into programming, although it does not require a degree.


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Do extracurricular activities matter for a person in academia?
The only thing I can think of is scholarship application. But how much do scholarship committees look at extracurricular activities? Do they look for the positions that you held?
Frankly I'm very weak at extracurricular activities and don't know what to do.

Could you be a little more specific about "person in academia"? This question feels different to me for e.g. an undergraduate hoping to go to grad school than it does for a tenure-track professor.

Well maybe for both kinds of people? I do want to be a professor but I know it's very hard.

Please don't feel that you have to run right out and join a club and run for president or treasurer.  But you know, it might not be a bad idea for you to think a little bit about how you might collaborate with some like-minded people to pursue a hobby, or make the world a slightly better place.  You could start by looking over the list of clubs at your university.  You'll be amazed at the tremendous variety that is available.  Note that you need not be an extrovert to be part of a club.  There are clubs where introverts can be comfortable -- although you might not find one on the first try.

In academia, the most crucial aspect of your application are your qualifications.
However, extracurricular activities can give your job application a personal note, and make you stand out from the crowd of applicants with similar qualifications. Stating your hobbies (e.g. hiking, or playing the guitar at a decent skill level) will give the person who screens the applications a bit of an image of you as a person, instead of just ticking off the requirements.
Especially for scholarship applications this can be helpful, since many organisations don't only look at qualifications, but also at the person that they will support over the next years.

I think this would depend on your meaning of "extracurricular".  In terms of having photography as a hobby, I am not sure how that would help.  However, for faculty, extracurricular activities that benefit the university have been well discussed on academia SE, for example, serving as a reviewer on a journal.  Other activities that could be seen as beneficial is volunteering for a first robotics at the local school (if the university if public, that may be more important for secondary education), or organizing a TEDx event.
In general, I would view the reason anyone would care about extracurricular activities is for students; how does it make the student more diverse, more capable, more knowledgable, easier to work with, etc.  And for faculty; how does it make the faculty represent the university better, improve student or research connections, make their own research more interesting, etc.

The answer to this question depends on the country you live in. In most European countries extracurriculars carry little weight. If there are several applicants who are very close together in terms of academic merits, people active in welfare are preferred, as such behaviour is usually correlated with general social skills. I have no personal experience in the US, but it is "common knowledge" that extracurriculars are more important there, especially in early stages of your career.

It depends on the type of position you are aiming for, and the type of  extra-curricular activities.
If you have served on committees in the past, it is reasonable to form a belief that it is in your nature to be a person who can readily be persuaded to serve on committees in the future, relieving others of the need to do so.
Given the tendency of documents listing such activities to be read by those presently serving on some committee, such a belief may engender sympathy (or other, less noble emotions).
Athletic activities may suggest a dangerous ability to run away too fast.

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text:
How to review a letter to the editor?
Background: In some disciplines, a primary means of disseminating scientific results is publishing papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Often, the article is only available after peer-review and acceptance. If other researchers are unhappy with this already published paper, if they find errors, mistakes, problems with an analysis or interpretation, etc., the official way to address this is to write a so-called "letter to the editor" or "expression of concern." This is a short explanation of concerns that writers of that letter have about the paper. This letter will then be published, in the same journal, alongside the author's response. These letters are also peer-reviewed to filter out cranks, unjustified criticisms, or simple misunderstandings.
I think I already know how to review a paper, but how to review a letter to the editor that is raising concerns about a paper?

Should I just say if I agree or disagree with the points made?
Am I supposed to review the whole paper again, or just the letter?
Can you suggest adding other issues I have with the paper to the
letter, or am I supposed to just stick to the point?
Any other tips or things to consider?

Ask the editor? I do not want to ask the editor what they want, for the same reason why I don't want to ask an editor what they want when every time I review a paper. These letters are common in many fields, and there is nothing special about this peer-review. Therefore, I expect there are general guidelines about how to approach this.

Is the letter about a paper of yours or a third party?

You should ask the editor (or whoever asked you to 'review' this) what they are looking for.

@Buffy it's not my paper

@avid i am sure there are some general recommendations that could be applied here

I'm confused. Who sent this letter complaining about the paper? Has the paper been published? I think you need to say more. How did the letter come to your attention?

This sounds like one of those "academia varies more than you think situations." https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4471/academia-varies-more-than-you-think-it-does-the-movie I thought everybody would know immediately what I am talking about when mentioning the letter to the editor and how the system works. I elaborated my question.

As a reviewer, you are providing feedback to the editor. If you're unsure what is expected of you, ask the editor! They are the ones who know what they are looking for, and give you feedback on their expectations.

Here I am asking potentially many editors who might want to contribute to build a library of detailed answers to every question about academia :)

Giving that the paper was already evaluated as novel and suitable for the journal everithing should be in scope. So the task is reduced to check for the motivation and robustness of the comment.
Is there a misunderstanding of the paper content and conclusion?
If not, does the comment fix major mistakes in the data acquisition, their correctness and/or discussion? Or is just the commenter having a fetish for minor points / seeking attention?
If there are not major issues and/or the arguments of the comment are somewhat incremental to the paper, then they would be better communicate in a standard article, giving the appropriate discussion and reference.
In short, the referee should assess if the comment

is crucial - and not only beneficial - for the understanding of the already published paper

or

prevents the dissemination of a major experimental mistake or a wrong model/interpretation of the data.


text:
How much should university ranking matter while choosing a place for graduate studies?
How much should I weigh in on the ranking of a university (provided by various academic ranking websites) while choosing a university for graduate studies? The universities that I am considering have equally strong faculty profiles in the areas of my interest. So in order to take the final decision, should I factor in this 'so-called' measure of academic repute in the form of rankings?
Though the phrasing of the question apparently makes it akin to how university ranking affects post-Ph.D. prospects, the detailing in my question reveals that I am not really looking for that answer. My question is that if I have been accepted at several places (outside the top 5) all having similar faculty profiles, should I use 'rank' as a deciding factor?

+1 + voting to close: Second part of your question makes your post eligible to be closed as "too broad" and "primarily opinion-based" question. Please edit your question to fit on this site. P.S: I really like the first part of your post, so I up-voted it.

Agree with @EnthusiasticStudent. It seems to me the second part of your question is another question. Would you please split this question into two separate questions?

I have edited the question, retaining only the first part that conforms with the title of the question. Thanks for pointing it out. Looking forward to more answers.

I don't see how your question is different from the marked duplicate. Surely "should I use rank to decide" is equivalent to asking "how will university rank affect me"? Why do you think the answers to the marked duplicate not address your situation?

This is a very good and tricky question to answer. In my field, ranking doesn't really matter unless the school is one of the top 5.
If this is the case in your field too, then you would use ranking to help you make a decision if everything else is very similar (in my field, advisor's reputation and research topic is way important). I imagine that highly ranked schools have very reputable faculty too, but in a PhD, the specificity of a topic plays a higher rule. Not all too five schools have resources/faculty to study/test topic X. For instance, in civil engineering, UC Berkley is one of the prestigious school and always have a  1-5 ranking at any given year. It very famous for earthquake engineering, however if you would like to study something like structural fire engineering (keep in mind both earthquake and structural  fire eng. are sub fields of civil engineering), you are better off going to a school ranked way below Berkley (or even to a Canadian/European  school)!
As for the faculty, I'm not sure if some departments have more "young" faculty as oppose to older faculty. I have worked with both and can assure you that it is highly dependent on the faculty member persona. Age of a faculty doesn't or shouldn't be a very important criterion. If you are thinking in the line of being active, have unique ideas and stuff like that and you are worried that being with an older faculty member would mean that you will be working with an old school arrogant guy who you will meet once a month and publish minimum number of papers, then fear not!
You will be surprised of how many young professors who get their PhD and think that they know everything. Also, you will be equally surprised of how many well established professors who think anything new (for instance, FE simulation) is a type of a gaming platform.
The key is to choose an active faculty with high reputation and who is easy to work with. Do your research and ask graduate students. They should have better insight and can provide with behind the scene information.
One more thing, good professors will always be on top of their research, aware of the up-to-date technology and current research regardless of their age. It is true that well established faculty might have better connection and funding. This is due to how long they have been around and their natural progression. It is also true that younger professors might have a better grasp at newer technologies. But keep in mind that those young professors that might have graduated in the last few years most likely had an "older" advisor.

Thank you for such a detailed response. I removed the second part of the question based on several inputs, but nonetheless I would like to thank you for discussing about that aspect as well. And, I was talking about schools that are just outside the top 5 but not too far way down any list, say within the top 30.

You are most welcome! I'm glad My answer was useful. I'm sure will hear other useful answers soon.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
Do journals allow me to modify contents of a paper?
Suppose I sent a research paper to a well reputed journal. I try to prove a novel theorem in my paper using some lemmas. What if the reviewers find that the theorem is correct but some part of the proof or few lemmas I wrote in the paper are erroneous or not up to the mark? I mean cases where the error is not significant, but exist because I am a beginner to the field.
My question is will they ask me for a correction and wait till I send it to them or will they identify where I went wrong and help me in publishing? Will they simply reject the paper because the proof is amateur ?

They won't wait for you. The reviewers will read what you send and make comments back to the editor. See the answers for more. If you find errors you can notify the editor, but it might slow down the review process. Normally it is good to inform them.

If the reviewers feel that the paper generally has merit, but is in need of certain reasonable corrections or revisions, they will often write a list of specific changes or improvements that are needed, and recommend acceptance subject to those revisions.  This is what people mean when they talk about getting a "minor revisions" or "major revisions" decision on their paper.
Another possibility is "revise and resubmit", where the reviewers aren't convinced whether the paper has merit, or if the errors are fixable, but they explain their concerns and are willing to take another look if you're able to fix the paper to address them.
If they doubt that the paper can be salvaged, or if they don't think the results are interesting enough even if they were corrected, or the paper is generally not up to an appropriate level of rigor and clarity, it'll be rejected.  In this case they may not give you very detailed feedback.  After all, their goal is to help get good papers published, and if they don't think your paper is ever going to get there, why should they spend time on it?
Generally, it isn't the reviewer's job to help you write a good paper, and you can't use the peer review process as a substitute for your own learning.


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PhD student working as a substitute teacher | interview tips
Our university is looking for a substitute teacher in Computer Science and I have an interview for the job this week.
My academic profile is making me a little bit nervous and makes me think that I might not be suitable for the job: I have a License degree in Mathematics and a Master Degree in Computer Security. Now, I'm a 2nd year Phd student in Computer Security and AI.
Keep in mind, I am really really used to reading and learning new domains, and diving in the details of each subject, and I am planning to defend my profile using this argument.
So my question is: What are the skills that a Phd student should have to work as a substitute teacher? Knowing that this Phd Student's skill set is a little bit narrow and the potential SA will teach in more general areas.
PS: I am pretty aware that Computer Security is present pretty much in every field of Computer Science (Networking, Web, Programming, etc.). And I am planning to use that to as an argument to nail the interview :).
Bests,

A good question! I would hope that more teachers would care so much as you do.
I understand you will teach undergraduates, I hope my interpretation is correct.
You should first find out what the officially requirements are to teach. This will vary from university to university (the universities I know, for example, didn't care at all - they take every (math) PhD student for every (math) course as long as they speak the local language). No proof of educational or subject-related background was required (just like for the teachers in Harry Potter). Since you are substituting someone, maybe you could ask them? If not, ask at the interview.
Some tips from me:
- think about comparable courses you liked. What did your instructors do?

are there teaching superstars in your field? Maybe with lecture videos online? Watch them and learn!
ask friends which were avarage (academically speaking) about good courses. Many professors/teachers were always great in university and cannot efficiently teach average students. On this very website, I often have the impression that the only thing which matters is to make good courses for the best students. In my opinion, educating the average well is at least as important.
Treat every (reasonable) question seriously (especially from freshwomen and freshmen). At least in math, you have to acquire a certain way of thinking which most fresh-students don't have and all instructors have. This often leads to questions from students where it's hard for instructors to understand what the problem is. (For example, to prove that a statement A doesn't hold for a set S, one gives a counterexample - an element s from S which doesn't satisfy A. While this is the most logical thing for instructors, many students do not understand why giving a counterexample is enough.) Some instructors then say things like "This is trivial" which does not help.
maybe there is a book about teaching in your subject? If possible, read it.
read about your subjects and its connection to the real world. if you follow a boring-written book which has a no motivations and does not explain why things are important (many recensions of such books unfortunately say that they are didactiacclly well written), provide these. Even of you don't find real-world-life examples important, many students will. Provide them.

You're right, I will teach undergraduates. I really love what I do, that's why I try to give it my 100%.  thanks to your answers, I can see things a little bit clearer now. Thank you for your practical tips. I wish you all the best.

@U.User: Thank your for your kind words! While sometimes discouraged here, a serious "thank you" is worth to me much more than reputation points or the green checkmark:) I wish you good luck.and hope that you get the position:)

The fact that they knew your degree is in computer security and still scheduled an interview with you for a position teaching computer science is a pretty clear sign that they believe you know about computer science in a more general way. I don't think you need to spend too much effort to prove that.
Yet, knowing stuff does not imply we can teach. So, I think you should spend some time to prepare for the pedagogical side of your profile. Start thinking about:

A teaching philosophy. What do you see a good learning process should be? How would you achieve it?
Be familiar with the school's academic program and the syllabus of the course you'll be teaching.
Have a general understanding on how to revise a syllabus, setting learning objectives, stating the aspects that you'll be examining, and how you'd examine them.
Recall some previous experience of you working as an instructor, TA, or tutor.
The feature that you can read and learn new domain and dive into details is very helpful, do prepare a short answer on talking how you'd teach something you're not a specialist of. And more importantly, be able to tweak them into "how you can make students learn things that you're not a specialist of."

I feel that you've already established the school personnel as someone who's going to challenge your legitimacy, so that you'll have to "defend" and "nail with an argument." Try to stay calm, go in as a potential academic colleague, and have a discussion rather than a debate.

You're absolutely right, I will stay calm. It's just I am excited about this because it is a new experience for me and as I said, I love new challenges. Thank you for the solid advises!!


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How to react to unfair criticism to my published study?
Background
Few years ago, I have published an article on a peer-reviewed internationally recognized journal. My study went through an extremely sound (blind) peer-review, which allowed me to improve many aspects of the final manuscript. The article has been cited a sizable number of times since then.
Problem
I came across an article by a colleague, published in an edited book, in which the author express criticism about some aspects of my study. I am always open to criticism and suggestions when they are constructive, sound, and polite. What I have found particularly upsetting is that, in an attempt to bring to the forefront what s(he) thinks are flaws in my published study, the colleague has actually shown his/her plain misunderstanding of many of the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of my work.
Question
I am wondering what could be a viable option in front of the above-described situation.
Shall I do nothing, leaving the scholarly community to judge who is right, or should I try to publish somewhere a polite but firm reply to what I consider an unfair criticism?
If the latter is the case, should I write to the Editor of the journal on which I published my article to ask him/her if the journal would accept a sort of reply "in defence" of my earlier publication?

I'm pretty sure you should just ignore it altogether, in public and in private. Your work stands on its own and you can't control other's reaction. You don't put yourself in a good light by complaining. Actually, the best response of all is to build upon your earlier work.

If it were in the same journal you could suggest to the editors to publish your response. Debates of this sort are liked in some fields, provided the topic is of general interest. But since the critical remarks were in an edited book, I would just chalk it off. Few people are going to read it. Moreover: even harsh criticism is better than being ignored.

@henning Few people are going to read it. — I'm curious why you think this.  If Google can find it, people will read it.

@JeffE few people compared to a "peer-reviewed internationally recognized journal".

Your suggestions actually reflect my same feeling about the issue; on the one hand, I would lean toward explicitly addressing the points raised by the colleague. I do feel that (s)he has missed many points of my work as well as of its underpinnings. On the other hand, I also find myself not willing to start a "virtual" fight. Besides: I agree with @henning that criticism is better than going unnoticed; but what bother me is when criticisms are mainly based on a plain misunderstanding not only of my work but also of some aspects of the theory on which my work is grounded.

@henning I know what you mean.  I just don't know why you think so.

@JeffE this may be field-dependent, but in political science, book chapters are much less frequently cited (and therefore presumably read) than journal articles. Graduate students are even discouraged from 'burying' their papers in edited books. There are few exceptions for very reputed publishers (Oxbridge UP etc).

I have two reasons for not ignoring something like this:
(1) Research does not progress in isolation. Results are reinforced when others reproduce them and validate findings. Similarly, if someone has taken the effort to point out shortcomings/flaws (irrespective of how correct they are in their judgement), the original author(s) should take the time to examine and respond. Its your responsibility to defend something that you stand for, or else accept that you were wrong. To not to do smacks either of arrogance (the 'I don't need to explain myself to everyone'/'Its not worth my time' arguments) or lack of confidence in the work ('let's not muddy the waters further, let things settle down quietly by themself').
(2) All readers in the future will potentially see two conflicting opinions on the same topic, and will be forced to examine both opinions and make their own judgements. Verification is indeed essential but one shouldn't be forced to reinvent the wheel. If you are certain that you have been misunderstood, you can save readers' time and effort by providing your clarification. You would be doing the community a service. A more harsh way of looking at this is, if you don't care enough about justifying your work to the community, probably you shouldn't have published it in the first place.
Having said this, you must ensure that:
(1) You are 100% sure of your position.
(2) You provide a justification, not a counter, especially one directed to individuals. 'John [xx] has evidently misunderstood the foundations of XYZ and proceeds to draw incorrect conclusions' - is the latter. 'The conclusions of John [xx] are based on assumption xyz, which we here demonstrate to be untenable' - is an example of the former.
Since it's an edited chapter, redressal in form of an 'authors note' may be difficult. Nevertheless, if the editor is convinced of your position and attests to it, you can communicate the same to the objecting authors and prevent them from misinterpreting further.
EDIT: There appears to be a belief that contesting criticism can cause some sort of damage to the original author. This is most likely a pervasive myth without basis, as this article in Scientific Reports suggests.  Papers with these criticisms and rebuttals do, in fact, get more citations than the uncontested papers in the same journal.
To clarify, I am not an author or in any way affiliated to the linked article.

@DSVA - I'm afraid I disagree with you. If the second article passed peer-review, it is reasonable to assume that some readers will also accept its arguments in their present form. So others may not know for sure what is right and wrong. Several readers will focus on particular parts of the work and may gloss over this controversial area because it is not of central importance to them.

@DSVA - I do agree. Starting a feud is a bad idea. Nevertheless, the point can be put forward in a polite, dispassionate way, in the tone that scientific articles are generally meant to have.

I agree with some comments: do nothing.
If that one reader misunderstood the theorethical and methodological underpinnings of the work, maybe other readers did, too.  So in future publications, take care to better explain the theorethical and methodological underpinnings.

I agree with you about doing nothing. However, as I happened to say in a comment above, what bothers me the most is the subversion of the theorethical underpinnings. Even assuming that I wasn't all that clear in explaining them (which I do not think), this does not mean that the colleague can allow him/herself to ignore or even misunderstand them. I think that if one wants to criticize another one's work, cannot do that grounding his/her criticism on a flawed basis. That's all.

Wait until you have more feedback and then write a Replies To Critics article.


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Can a postdoctoral fellow serve as a PhD committee advisor?
Can a postdoctoral fellow, who holds a PhD in the relevant field, serve on a PhD student's dissertation committee? This might vary by field, but I'm curious whether there is any general trend on whether being a committee member depends on holding a PhD or holding a faculty position.

Which country are you asking about?

@astronat USA, I added that. Thanks for asking for clarification

In Brazil, I did, top CS university.

I certainly have seen postdocs on PhD committees, although not that common. I have even see people in industry on PhD committees.

The main concerns for bringing in people to sit on a dissertation committee are satisfying the institutional regulations for committees (X members from outside the department, Y members from inside who aren't the advisor, Z members from outside the college) as well as bringing in possible expertise and exposure to additional ideas and approaches that may help the thesis candidate.
Normally a postdoctoral fellow will not count toward any of the composition requirements—one must be a faculty member or hold a similar position somewhere else (e.g., government research or industry). However, if one were to have a unique set of skills that someone thought it was essential to ask you to act as an additional member of the committee—this would typically be at another institution—there might be room and incentive to make something happen.

From the other answers, it seems clear this varies greatly.  I imagine it varies greatly by committee chair (preference) as well.
At my institution, post docs may serve as Technical Consultants with no departmental approval required.
They may also serve on committees, but this requires a vote from the department faculty to grant graduate faculty status.  If granted, the post doc could then serve on committees or even co-chair a committee with a faculty member.

In the U.S., at many universities, in addition to being "on the faculty", one cannot advise PhD students or serve on the relevant committees without further vetting. At my current place, this is called "being a member of The Graduate Faculty". Peoples' credentials have to be submitted to some campus-wide entity for scrutiny.
... and it is rare (in mathematics, at my university) that post-docs go through that process, which takes several months, in any case.

My university, which is in Australia, does not have dissertation committees.  It has supervisors.  Each student gets at least two supervisors.  A new postdoc can hold up to 25% of responsibility for supervising up to three students.  The rules are the same for temporary or permanent employees.  Academics can earn additional supervisory responsibility with experience and training.  These supervisors do not evaluate the students' theses.  That is done by external experts.
This system is quite unusual, in my opinion.  As the other answers say, at most institutions, postdocs cannot be on PhD committees.

It varies not only by country but by institution. Heck, probably by college or department within an institution.
In the case of my department, the answer is "No."

This varies by country. I've known it to happen in UK, for example. In other places it would be forbidden, I assume. However, it is very unlikely that such a person would be the lead supervisor, at least on paper. But as a committee member it just depends on local custom and any applicable laws or regulations.
As for a general trend, I doubt that it is very common anywhere, nor likely to become so.
In an extreme case, a post doc might be, in fact, the main advisor due to specialized knowledge not held by other faculty. But a regular faculty member would almost certainly be the advisor of record and the main signatory on the dissertation. This might actually be seen as advantageous in some places to help the post doc get experience with the process. But the actual responsibility would remain, as I said, with a regular member. I'd be surprised to learn of any exception.

I did it multiple times as a committee member, but in the Netherlands some time ago.


text:
Can I have only six chapters in my Phd thesis?
I'm considering having six chapters in my PhD thesis:

General Introduction (including literature review)
General Methods
Study 1 (as a published paper)
Study 2 (as a published paper)
Study 3 (as a published paper)
General Discussion
Appendix

and each chapter should have its own references list at the end.

As always, you should ask your advisor - they're the one who will be evaluating it.

This is entirely up to your advisor and committee. No one here has anything for you but an opinion. And the opinion will be worthless if it disagrees with your advisor.

Yes.

That's between you and your advisor. I've seen dissertations with four short chapters and I've seen them with seven long chapters.

Up to the country, too. Perhaps tag it more selectively.

tl;dr:  Yes, but...
In general, the dissertation can be organized as needed to convey the information in the best way possible for the reader. Your structure is common in many fields. Proactive communication with your advisor and rest of committee should provide the definitive answer for you individually.
As noted in the comments, if your dissertation includes 3 published papers, it is common to wrap this with a broad intro & conclusion. Inclusion of additional material beyond that may be discretionary.
An obvious caveat is that committee must be on board, though this usually amounts to the chair (or co-chairs) being on board with your organization. As typical for things like this, the answer individually depends on your specific research, your writing ability, your committee, and your departmental or institutional policies.
While you could look at previous dissertations (related & recent) from your department, note that this isn't an authoritative perspective for what yours has to look like.
As for References, I have seen dissertations with References at the end of each chapter, and others with one large Reference section for the entire document. I personally prefer the former, but this is largely up to you and your advisor.

Even less if you can. Legendary mathematician John Nash and  Nobel prize in 'Economic Sciences' (Nash's equilibrium anyone?) PHD thesis had 26 pages and whole 2 citations.
Contrary to what many teachers imply, a thesis is supposed to have only the info it needs. No hundreds of useless references added only to enlarge it or the unneeded history of theoretical frames and terms.
You should check the school's rules for thesis, they normally say what exactly they request. (I also suggest Humberto echo's book 'how to write a thesis', its the shortest, most tot he real point book about writing a thesis I've find. Avoid any 'research methodology' book because in those the authors sin of being unable to get to the damn point, be precise, and be concrete.)  . Also check other thesis written at your school to see their index and learn what is expected of the contents.
In any case, what you normally need to write for a thesis is:

Presentation page, dedicatories, legal stuff, localization data
Index of contents
Introduction
CHAPTER 1- Literature review/theoretical frame divided by  1.1 variable 1, 1.2 variable 2, 1.3 historical junk of prior researches (I say junk because you cant just mention it happened, you need to explain it and why its important for your research and it will just add pages that have nothing to do with your actual results or research)
CHAPTER 2- VARIABLE 1 (Your dependent variable)
CHAPTER 3- VARIABLE 2 (your independent variable)
CHAPTER 4- METHODS
CHAPTER 5- Results and conclusions
Annex/extras
Bibliography/references

Depending on your thesis, CHAPTER 2 & 3 can be mixed and your variables be  instead subheadings like 2.1 and 2.2
Personally, I would suggest to find a titulation/graduation method different than a thesis if its possible.

As to the last sentence, I am pretty sure there is no way to obtain a (reputable) PhD other than by writing a thesis.  It's basically the definition of the PhD degree.

@Nate Eldredge. By respectable I assume you mean government and internationally approved and certified. In this regards many universities around the world in the last years have requirements for a title (Masters and Doctorate level) have been opened to other options to publishing articles, Work experience/research with a dissertation/exam on it, publishing book/chapters or a science book, Posdoctorals, etc.

Well, I wouldn't in general accept governments as arbiters of what makes a "reputable" degree, but rather the international academic community.  But I would be interested in seeing specifically a recognized PhD program that doesn't require a thesis or major written work of comparable magnitude.  (I'm well aware that there are masters programs, or even doctoral programs other than PhD, that don't.)

I also know about "stapler theses" where the requirement is a set of published articles, and I still consider that a thesis.

@Nate Eldredge I would NOT accept a non government registered and recognized program as even valid because then you have for-profit schools with definitely non reputable programs, meanwhile the government certificate is out on international standards to make sure program is internationally valid. I have never heard of 'stapler theses', however I've seen the requirements on  top 200 universities world wide and in many countries a traditional thesis is just one of the title options.


text:
What should I do if wrongfully approved a manuscript while references were incorrect?
I submitted a manuscript to a Springer journal four days ago. After the system built PDF of the manuscript from the latex and image files, I checked the images but due to my tiredness, I forgot to check references of the manuscript. Unfortunately, I approved the submission upon request of the system. After that I checked and discovered the manuscript reference numbers are substituted with question marks and their system didn't correctly recognize my references from the Latex file.
I emailed the Springer contact information which is available in the menu of their system, but even though I emailed two times requesting for help with this manuscript, they didn't respond.
The state of the paper in the system is "pending editor assignment."
What should I do?

Email to Editor-in-Chief of the journal and ask what to do?
Wait and see what will happen? Unfortunately, I am in a hurry to have an answer from a journal because of my university administrative issues. One of the reasons I submitted to this particular journal is its fast average submission to first decision among JCR journals in my field.

Your pressing need to have a paper published is not the publisher’s problem, neither is getting them to rush to send you back your paper - you should wait for their standard process.

@SolarMike, Thank you. Yes, I know and they didn't know I am in a rush. But You know. Do you know how much their standard process takes time?

Email the journal. This is something the publisher should be able to easily solve, since it's simply returning the paper to the author. Worst case scenario, the publisher can return a 'revise' decision and let you fix the problem.
It sounds like you've already done this and didn't receive a response for four days. This isn't particularly long - for example, perhaps the desk editor is on short-term leave and Springer didn't assign someone to cover. I would wait a bit. If you're in a rush you can also email the editor-in-chief; however, you write that the status is "pending editor assignment", which could mean that the editor-in-chief has not seen the paper yet.

So, in summary, your suggestion is to wait? for how many days given my rush before email to editor-in-chief?

@user85361 I'd wait up to one week before emailing the editor-in-chief. However chances are the publisher will solve this a lot faster than the EiC, simply because they have more spare time (+ this is the kind of thing they're paid to solve). Is there anyone else at all you can contact? If the journal lists other employees of the publisher, I'd email them first.

Thank you for your answer. I am in a hurry so I guess I must email to EIC in one or two days. Because this journal average response time is near 3 weeks. I cannot waste one week just for this silly mistake of mine.


text:
Are GRE scores useful in making some graduate admissions decisions?
Background: There is some recent research indicating that, among students admitted to the Ph.D. program, their GRE scores are not very useful for predicting success in the Ph.D. program.  This appears to provide a cautionary note against relying on GRE scores in Ph.D. admissions.
Predictors of Student Productivity in Biomedical Graduate School Applications. Joshua D. Hall, Anna B. O’Connell, Jeanette G. Cook. PLOS One, Jan 11, 2017.
The Limitations of the GRE in Predicting Success in Biomedical Graduate School.   Liane Moneta-Koehler, Abigail M. Brown, Kimberly A. Petrie, Brent J. Evans, Roger Chalkley.  PLOS One, Jan 11, 2017.
However, this was limited to studying a population of students who had already been admitted to the Ph.D. program, so they are presumably all above a certain bar.
My question: Is there any evidence about whether GRE scores are useful as an initial filter for Ph.D. admissions?  For instance, if an applicant's GRE scores are significantly below the norm, does this contain useful information?  For instance, see this answer to GRE: how important is it to get it in time?, where mention is made of using GRE as a low-bar filter to prune the non-serious applications.  If there is evidence about whether this is effective or not, it would be useful to know, to guide the design of the Ph.D. admissions process.

Related question (not dupe): The GRE: Why does this still exist?

ETS has quite a bit in defense of the predictive value.  Of course, take it with a grain of salt.  Still, I think you will find less issues with range restriction in their studies (or studies they cite).
https://www.ets.org/gre/research/validity_evidence_predicting_grad_success
https://news.ets.org/stories/gre-test-validity-putting-it-in-perspective/
https://www.ets.org/Media/Research/pdf/GREB-75-08R.pdf


text:
What are benefits of author's personal copy of article and how I can order it?
I have some publications in Elsevier and Springer journals. After publication, I received an author's personal copy of one of my articles. I don't know how they sent it to me because I don't remember ever had requesting a personal copy. After that I did not receive any personal copy for any of my published articles. Lately, I had a conversation with my supervisor and he asked me to provide him the author's personal copies of my published papers as I was the communicating author. He told me that the author's personal copy is mandatory for official use.
I could not understand that. How could the author's personal copy be anyway different from original copy for the purpose of official use?

@Roland: We do have the subscription, but my supervisor is skeptical and he says that the author's copy is watermarked with the word "Author's Personal copy".

Assuming your "author's personal copy" is an electronic file, then I would guess that it's simply a procedure the publisher has: after your paper is published, they send you a copy of it. They do this so that even if you don't have a subscription to the journal, you still have a copy of your paper. It's not different in any meaningful way from the "official" version you can download off the journal's website.
If you want an author's personal copy from publishers that didn't send them to you, write to the journal (or whoever sent you the proofs during production). My guess is that they're likely to provide you one for free, although different publishers may have different policies.
If you want the physical copy of the paper, then you'll have to order it. Again, write to the journal. The desk editor of the journal will know how to procure them.


text:
Where can I ask for academic advisement specific to my situation (low gpa, grad school, etc)?
I'd pay for personal, not snarky, but honest feedback. I don't really want to post all the specifics online- I would like to keep it confidential.
Is there a place online that you could recommend where I can keep this info private? Or a person, who I can pay for advice like this? I know others have asked abot low gpa + grad-school, however one story does not fit all. I am asking for a person to talk to about my situation and is knowledgeable of the graduate admissions process.

The best academic advisory comes directly from staff at your institution.

I believe my advisers sugar-coat too much instead of telling me what I need to know.

There are professional academic coaches such as Karen Kelsky (http://theprofessorisin.com)

The admissions, placement, and/or graduate departments of your previous institution(s) have a vested interest in your success, actually, and usually provide such advice. If there is no formal process, which it sounds like you'd want to avoid, find a trustworthy professor. Tell them what you need. Ask them not to sugar coat it.
Failing that, a knowledgeable and honest friend makes a great councilor.
The admissions and chosen departments of your ultimate dream program also have a vested interest in telling you what you need to do to get in, but they are focused keeping out bad candidates; They are more likely to err on the side of "shoo", so if you suspect a smokey skirt from your home faculty, talk to someone where you are heading.


text:
Is it ok to give your Old Assignments to others?
My friend wants an old assignment which I have done few semesters ago. I want to know whether it's ok to give the assignment to him and whether it's going to be a problem for me in the future. (I have already done that subject, but still following the degree) Please let me know.

If this is really a legal question (e.g. about the law in your jurisdiction) then we can't help you.  That is beyond the scope of this site.  We could help address whether it is ethical though.

I want to know whether  that will be a problem for Uni.

There is no single right answer here. The answer depends from university to university, and even from faculty member to faculty member. For example, one professor in my department believes everything should be sharable, while another believes that it's wrong to share old materials.
So you'll need to see what the policy of the instructor teaching your friend's class is.

If an instructor returns an assignment to a student. The instructor cannot possible expect the student to hide the results. This is one reason why many instructors do not allow students to keep a mid-term or final exam.
As long as your friend does not try to submit the work as his own this should not be a problem. This is assuming of course that there is no policy at your institution about this matter.

"As long as your friend does not try to submit the work as his own..." and there, of course, is the rub.


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Supervisor taking first authorship after student has left university
(I am posting this for advice regarding somebody else’s problem, but for simplicity, let me pretend it's me. To clarify misunderstandings in the comments: I am asking on behalf of my partner and can supply any additional detail as needed; I am fully informed.)
I have conducted a research near the start of my PhD studies, which I have since quit. This was collaborative work with another PhD student (who has also left since then) and my/our supervisor.  We had an agreement regarding the authorship of the paper: I, as the person having done most of the work, would have been first, followed by my classmate, and finally our supervisor.
Some time has passed since then, I have quit the programme, so did my classmate, but we have only got around to publishing the paper now.
Today, I received an email from my supervisor that since both of us students have left the faculty and are not planning on continuing our studies there, he proposes a change to the authorship of the article, making himself the first author, as (I paraphrase) even though I have done most of the work, it would have not been possible without his financial and infrastructural support. There is some truth in this argument, but as I said, authorship was already established.
I do not think it is fair to alter the order of authors merely because we are no longer affiliated with the institution; we were at the time of writing and the relevant research work.
The paper is already finished and is just waiting to be submitted.  I am willing to take part in creating a second revision if requested by the journal upon review (and have made this clear to my supervisor).

Naturally, I have begun negotiating with my supervisor (and the 3rd author) in the matter, but I would like to ask: if my supervisor refuses to give up the place of the first author (I must add that I believe he in fact did very little work), what are my options to resolve the situation?

UPDATE To clarify further confusion in the comment section: the paper in question is a complete, finished manuscript, ready for submission.  The reason this whole thing is happening now (several months after we have finished working on it) is that it has already been submitted to another journal previously and was eventually rejected.  This is a resubmission to another journal.
There has been no change to the contents of the paper.  The supervisor has done no additonal work (such as ‘picking it up as a draft and completing it’).  He had very little input in the entire process.
I believe he wishes to change the author ordering because we no longer ‘need’ publications (having quit the academic career at least for the time being), whereas he does.  It would not be the first time he claims other people’s work as his own, but this is not relevant for this post.

UPDATE 2 Unfortunately (and unsurprisingly to me) it does not seem that our (former) is cooperative in the question.  Upon reaching out, he offered to alter the name order, moving me up to the place of second author, but still keeping himself as first, if and only if I agree to handle the entire submission process.  In addition, he has brought up omitting me as an author altogether??  That said, I do not wish to abuse SE for a blog sharing my experience with this problem.  I will continue attempting to reach an agreement with my supervisor (and the 3rd author) and potentially escalate the problem to my uni’s ethics office or similar if there is no way to handle this locally.  I plan to include update the post with a final conclusion to let future readers possibly facing such a problem see how it can be resolved.

Are you personally still working to get the paper published, or have you stopped working on it?

What state of "publishing" is the paper now? Submitted?

Recommend this be edited to remove the "pretend it's first-person" aspect. That makes it hard to translate what the real issue is, how much information the OP can actually clarify, etc.

The paper has been finished and it only needs to be submitted to the journal.

@DanielR.Collins I am able to answer any further questions / clarification requests as if I was the author in question. I am their significant other :-) I just wanted to avoid the extra redirection in the question text and the answers/comments.

I would respectfully like to ask downvoters to justify their response. I believe (and please correct me if I am wrong) voting is meant to filter low-quality questions or those that are not in scope for SE (such as completely opinion-based ones). I think I formulated the problem and question adequately. I don’t think the fact I am posting regarding my partner’s problem makes this question any worse as if it were my own situation.

@bp99 I disagree, however well-intentioned, we ask questions be practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face, and my past experience with questions asked by third parties here is that they are not very good quality. People tend to misrepresent details and end up getting the wrong answer as a result. It's common that people are responding to a partner's complaints by trying to find a solution when their partner just needs someone to vent to and knows they are responsible for figuring it out themselves.

@BryanKrause While I maintain my opinion that this question is answerable even though I am as you described a third party in this situation, you have a good point; thank you for explaining. I am likewise in academia at the moment as a PhD student and I could very well be the person facing this problem; glad I’m not. Anyway, I suppose the topic of this post is not in the scope covered by this SE community.

@bp99 No one has voted to close, so I don't think people are seeing the post as not in scope, but I do think there are details, some of which were asked for in comments, that are necessary to give a clear enough picture of the situation for a good answer. Please also edit the answers to those clarifying questions into the post itself rather than just responding in a comment.

Are the authors continuing in research?

I have edited my post accordingly. @AzorAhai-him- what do you mean exactly? The research behind this particular paper has been done. My supervisor may do further research based on our results as he wishes. I have left the academic community since then, but I still think I should be credited for the work I have already done – or at least that no-one else should be credited for my work.

"Some time has passed since then, I have quit the programme, so did my classmate, but we have only got around to publishing the paper now." What does this mean exactly... Does it mean that you three continued working after you finished the PHD, and you finally finish the paper as it was originally planned? Or  did the supervisor decided to pick the draft and work it into a publishable version by himself?

@bp99 I mean if you are continuing to be an active member of research, there is more argument to be made to maintain your position and for the supervisor to enable that. However, if you are done with research and the professor has continued to work on it, and will submit it and handle all that, change author order makes more sense.

My point is that it's not "you're not affiliated anymore."

Ah, I understand the confusion. Please see my updated post. I am sorry I forgot to include clearly that this is a finished manuscript, ready for submission. (Sorry I am unsure about the precise terminology to use here.) The supervisor has done no work by himself since we have quit. I also omitted the important detail that the paper has been submitted to another journal as soon as it was finished, but was eventually rejected. What we are talking about now is resubmitting to another journal. There is no change in the paper.

Am I right that at this point the supervisor has just made a proposal, you could just say "no", and the supervisor may then well say, "OK, fair enough"? There is no dispute yet, or is there?

@ChristianHennig there have been developments since, I will update the post in a moment.

None of this makes sense. If the paper was finished years ago, why wasn’t it submitted then? And if it wasn’t finished then how is it finished now if “the supervisor has done no work himself since we have quit.” Did the paper finish itself by magic? Agree with @BryanKrause, that this is why third party questions don’t work.

@NoahSnyder This makes sense and seems reasonable to me. I have heard of grads in situations similar to this. Since the start of the pandemic, reviews are taking a long time in many fields and journals. bp99 says the paper was "eventually rejected," meaning the whole process took some time; it could easily be 12+ mo since it was finished. I think it's inappropriate to take an accusatory tone (e.g. "by magic?") and say that it makes no sense. I've seen first party questions that have taken at least as much clarification by way of updates. It's not always obvious to the asker what's not obvious.

@NoahSnyder to add to what Stan Rhodes said: I never said ‘years’. We originally submitted the paper in October 2022. I have quit my PhD studies shortly after, before we knew whether it would be accepted. It is now February 2023 and we still wanted to attempt to publish the work (in a different journal), despite the fact that we are no longer at the university.

If the work has all been done, and the first author will continue to take responsibility for the paper throughout the submission process (which may include multiple rounds of revisions, some with new analyses or even new experiments), there is no reason for the authorship order to be altered.
If the original first author is not willing to participate in all these steps, there will eventually develop some gray area where even if that person did most of the original work, they can't really be responsible for the sum total of the paper anymore. In that case, it may be more sensible to have someone else take the first author position. It would not be fair, though, for that author to be somehow prevented from participating. Also, if I were advising the supervisor rather than the student in this case, I'd strongly encourage them to let the student keep first authorship. It's just not good business sense to be a jerk.
Ultimately, if there is an authorship dispute the primary recourse is to oppose publication of the paper. Assuming everything in the publishing process works how it's supposed to work, papers can only be published when every author agrees with publication, including authorship order. At that point, it's basically between the parties to decide whether their place in the authorship order is worth not having a paper published at all.
(as a side note: present affiliation doesn't really matter at all; I'd expect your affiliation to be listed as the place you did the work originally, possibly with an added affiliation for your current location if still in academia, otherwise probably nothing else Affiliation on a paper written mostly in previous position Changing affiliation on publication )

Thank you. ‘Assuming everything in the publishing process works how it's supposed to work, papers can only be published when every author agrees with publication, including authorship order’: this, albeit obvious, is a key answer element IMO. I have no experience in journal paper submission and did not know whether the consent of each author is required (at least normally).

@bp99 Yeah, the way consent is measured varies; for some journals, the author submitting just attests that everyone agrees. For others, they may enter email addresses for other authors and the journal contacts all the authors at the time of submission - they may ask for authors to positively agree with the submission, or only ask for contact if there is a problem. Of course, if someone is left off entirely or their contact information entered incorrectly, there's no way for the journal to know they are missing.

From the information given, I see no reason that would justify a change of authorship from your original agreement for you to be the first author.  The fact that the paper was previously submitted with you as first author, and the supervisor has not made any additional contribution since then, is strong reason to keep the original authorship order.  The provision of finance and infrastructure are generally considered to be relatively minor contributions to a paper in their own right, and would not usually warrant first authorship in a case where another person does the bulk of the substantive work on the paper.  You might also be interested to note that some journals are moving towards a system where particular contributions of authors are specified (see e.g., the credit system at Elsevier), though authorship order is still important in many fields.
Regarding the process to solve this disagreement, the first step (which you are already taking) is to discuss the matter with your former supervisor and see if he will agree to retain the original authorship agreement.  If there is still an impasse then you should propose to have the matter adjudicated by an independent academic or the ethics office of the university, with each of the authors agreeing to be bound by the decision.  In this case the matter could be reviewed and considered by an academic who is independent from you and your supervisor, taking account of all relevant circumstances and contributions.  If your supervisor does not agree to this then you could refer the matter to the Department and/or ethics office unilaterally and seek an adjudication on the matter.


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How to best cite a series of equations?
This question kind of sits at the intersection of academia, math and latex stackexchange.
In my (mathematics) master's thesis, I am trying to cite a series of equtions like this (this may be a bit exaggerated):
"This means that
equation, (1)

where (may be more text here)
another equation (2)

and (may be more text here)
even more equations, (3)

so that (may be more text here)
final equation (4)"

This especially happens in "basics" sections.
All equations appear in a work, let's say [1].
Normally, when citing an equation, you would do
"This means that [1]
equation (1)"

if it is a single equation. But this is a series of equations with short text in-between. Do I have to make clear that each part is from [1] by adding the citation before each equation?

Give a label to each equation block (\label{eq:whatever}) so that each is assigned a reference number. Then at the beginning of this chunk of background info, something like

In [1] <author(s)> observed the following relations, collected here <verbatim/essentially verbatim/omit if you're actually making a minor reformulation and indicate that> in \Cref{label1,label2,...}. Summarizing his/her/their development of these equations, first note:...

if you're using CleverRef. If not, use \ref in whatever way you like to refer to the equations in your document.
If you prefer, you could also cite each equation referring to the numbering scheme of the original article. For attribution reasons, what's important is that you make clear that the authors of [1] came up with these equations, and that you are summarizing their development of them in your own words. If your short text blurbs are verbatim quotes, you should indicate that with quotation marks.
My experience is that mathematicians are not super picky about paraphrasing of interstitial wording between technical statements, but you should still include quotation marks and correct attribution for verbatim quotes.