text:
Is "cum laude with honors" meaningful or a tautology in the US?
In the following video, an expert witness is relating her academic background and, at one point she states that she graduated "cum laude with honours".  Having looked at various sources I can see that different countries give somewhat different emphases to these terms.

Skylar Richardson Trial Day 3 Dr Susan Brown - Forensic Pathologist
Part 2 & Dr Christa Latham
video

Question
As a US citizen, is the doctor:
(a) making a valid distinction between the two terms "cum laude"
and "with honours;"
(b) explaining/translating cum laude to the jury;
(c) making her qualification(s) sound grander than they are; or
(d) something else?
EDIT - See comment by @Dan Romik pointing out that (b) and (c) appear to be asking for mind-reading on the part of anyone who answers. I accept this criticism but won't change the question at this point.

This might be a function of which university she attended. It is certainly possible that both would be valid.

If she's from the US, she probably graduated with "honors"

@Dan Romik - That is a fair point. I've added something about that.

I think it's clear from the video that she is presenting them as two different things. I'd argue that the real issue is the use of "with", as it makes it sound like it's the honours belongs to the "cum laude" qualification rather than the degree. But happy to accept that it's understood to mean that both apply to the degree. If "cum laude and honours"  is not in common use then it might cause confusion and actually sound pretentious. :-)

There is no doubt in my mind the person in question earned two different distinctions, and used them correctly. Here are some examples at how they might be used throughout the US.

At my undergraduate institution, "Latin honors" (cum laude) were solely a function of your overall GPA. The minimum to earn each distinction was a percentile determined from the previous year's distribution. (so the 90th percentile in 2020 becomes the minimum for cum laude in 2021). At that school, it was by college, not department, e.g. College of Arts and Sciences or College of Engineering.

cum laude was the 90th percentile, or a GPA >= 3.79 (Arts and Sciences)
magna cum laude was the 97th percentile, or a GPA >= 3.89.
summa cum laude was the 99.5th percentile, or a GPA >= 3.97.

At my graduate institution, you have to complete an extra thesis to be eligible. At Aliden's, you had to be enrolled in the honors program to earn Latin Honors at all.

My undergrad had various "Honors." I graduated "cum laude with College Honors," it says so on my diploma. I was just about 0.01 GPA point shy of magna, sigh.

"with Honors" was a distinction earned by taking classwork in the Honors College, which you had to be admitted into.

"with Departmental Honors" was earned based on departmental requirements, often a thesis, where one wasn't required.

"with College Honors" was completing both college and departmental programs.

Finally, there is also "with (high) distinction," which is also often based on GPA.

Likely the person in your question completed some sort of honors curriculum or thesis (hard to tell what) as well as had a high GPA.

My diploma shows something similar though not precisely the same. It indicates I was a member of the "Honors Program" which had separate (additional) requirements - course and thesis. I was a mere Cum Laude, though.

This matches my undergraduate experience exactly; it seems to be a pretty common distinction in the US between honors programs/coursework and GPA-based honors.

Mine was actually the opposite, and the language was slightly different. Latin honors were through the University Honors Program and were based on GPA and thesis, while "with distinction" and "with high distinction" were through the college and based on GPA.

THANK YOU so much for clarifying this! I'm UK-based (Scotland) and it's slightly different terminology here. "Honours" is the extra coursework/year at university. Degree/honours classification (first, 2:1, 2:2, third for honours; merit or distinction for degree or course) is how well you did. Not relevant to the question but maybe helpful to someone as a comparison.

@Aliden Thanks for the examples, I tried to integrate them.

Matches usage at my school and both my kids' schools FWIW

Most important is for you to realize that none of this matters at all! Absolutely no one except your parents cares about distinctions like this once you're out of school (or while you're still there). Whoops!

I graduated “Magna cum laude with highest honors in mathematics.”  This meant that the department recommended me for summa on the basis of my math classes and senior thesis, but my general gpa wasn’t in the top 5%.


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Predatory conferences: attendance with abstract
There are many "international conferences" that seem predatory (with a high degree of certainty). They usually provide a space for you to talk about any general issue you consider worth mentioning. In short, it's pure punk. To some degree, this is really nice... For a relatively reasonable fee, you are able to speak about anything you wish. Yet, if they are regarded as predatory, you might risk leaving a mark on your research.
BUT, the thing is, what if you have to attend some of these conferences because of bureaucratic reasons? Reputable conferences you usually go to were cancelled for this year and your university requires you to attend at least 3 conferences a year, while no other reputable conferences remain.

If you need to attend such conference, is sending just an abstract harmless, in the context of future publication possibilities?
Do editors look at your abstract-publication (OR paper-publication) history in these conferences?
If you wish to publish an abstract only, shall you make it the least comprehensible as possible such that it seems as a really niche topic? Or go with the generally generalized idea such that you do not say anything new or concrete at all?

Further questions:

If you have to send a paper, is it better to send bullshit paper that is completely irrelevant to anything you do or is it better for you to still send just negligible part of your work (approx. 0.01 %) that does not pose threat to self-plagiatorizing oneself in future?

If you can speak foreign language that almost no one speaks (as I do), is it better to publish a paper in your language if such conference allows it, almost guaranteeing no serious publisher would be able to read it?

What do other attendees get from these conferences? Do you risk someone trying to steal your work? Or do you risk no one being interested in what you want to say?

If you have the money and you just want to say few things to some people (OR to look around the world), where is actually the problem?

Hi, please stick to a single question per post. Thanks.

If you have the money and you just want to say few things to some people (OR to look around the world), where is actually the problem?
Because no one attends these conference to listen other people, attendance is only to have something in their cv.
If you want to talk with people. it is cheaper to write the people asking if you can give a talk at their department. Or to go to "non-predatory conferences"

So I'll tackle your last question first since the answer is a bit philosophical.

If you have the money and you just want to say few things to some people (OR to look around the world), where is actually the problem?

This is an interesting read on the subject of "predatory" conferences.
They exist because researchers need to get x number of presentations per year and many can't (or won't) go to larger, more reputable conferences. I think they are undoubtedly harmful to science as a whole. They clog up the works and I think they take advantage of those not experienced enough to recognize them.
Practically (and I suspect you know this already), the issue with predatory conferences is that they are often just crappy, phoned-in, and expensive (for what they are). There is no quality control, no real attempt at putting together a useful lineup of speakers, spam-y marketing tactics, and a distinct lack of transparency and academic integrity. While you may be submitting decent work, others may not be. There are certainly those who would pay to take advantage of the non-existent standards (this is arguably a big reason they are so prolific). So really, these conferences are not so different from predatory journals.
This is all to say that I don't like these conferences and would not recommend anyone attend and give the companies that run them any money or legitimacy. By doing so, you condone their lack of academic integrity. There are enough predatory journals, publishers, and conferences out there already (and untold thousands of bad papers as a result), we need to crack down on them not encourage them.
In your case, I suppose you have to do what you have to do to keep your job safe. So all of the above is a bit of a moot point.
But that's just me on a soap box. To answer your main questions generally, I do not think that sending an abstract off to one will actually harm you personally. Unless a substantial portion of your CV is made up of presentations/publications in predatory (or otherwise very low quality) venues, I would imagine most would just pass right over the one or two less-than-stellar ones. On top of that, I would not expect an editor to dig through your entire publication history anyway, there is just not the time for that (and really, a manuscript should be judged on its' own merits).
That being said, I would not send complete BS (even if it would be accepted without question). I think there is an element of personal integrity to this, you shouldn't let the venue dictate your standards for the work. Plus, you never know when someone might pick an abstract/presentation/publication to randomly read into. The perfect thing for a conference like this is some old dusty project or idea that hasn't gone anywhere and isn't interesting enough send somewhere impressive but can still be written up nicely.
I can't speak to your questions about submitting to a conference in another language. I suspect that it would not make a difference (unless perhaps you can find a more reputable conference that is just less mainstream).
As for what others get by attending, well they get the same thing as you - an easy publication/presentation. I would imagine that attendees could be anybody ranging from students who didn't quite realize the conference was considered low-quality to established researchers who just need another presentation on their CV to check a box. I'm not sure what the chances of someone stealing your ideas are. I'd guess that it would be no more or less likely than if you presented anywhere else. I suppose one could argue that you might be more likely to encounter a researcher with weak ethical standards, but personally I don't think that is a fair assumption.

I would like to thank you for this advice. I went to 2 (almost) predatory conferences and decided to send serious work. It felt better as I was able to speak about something I am interested in, so I could speak confidently and de facto impromptu. I guess, the personal integrity is not as expensive as I have initially thought. It had also additional advantages such as being able to do thought experiments within the topic, searching for ways how to present the topic in an entertaining way such that I enthuse people who have no knowledge or interest in the topic. This seems as a dominant strategy

These conferences are made for people like you, who work at institutions which require some academic output, and define that output as publications or attendance to a conference to present your work. You provide the money, the conference organizers provide the certificate of attendance. That is the end of the interaction. You can submit anything, in any language, about any subject.
The stated purpose of your institution's policy is likely to have you produce research, however misguided their metrics might be. So by going to these conferences and not actually presenting research results, you are defrauding your institution. However, and following your comment, it is also true that many institutions put their researcher in an impossible position: you must publish something, attend conferences, advice students, etc., but then they provide zero support to achieve those means. So I guess that you must play the game as the game is laid out to you.
Then to answer your questions: can't you just write a BS abstract, talking about whatever you know and point to future areas of research? As a friend once told me, bullshit is to academia like dust is to a farmer. So why can't you write something in the jargon of your discipline, something that the bureaucrats at your institution won't understand, but that will also not disappoint a future editor (as per your question.)? I'd just do that.

I think there is a strong divide between printing own certificate and attending something. The thing is, how does publishing sole abstract defraud the institution as there are no publication points for abstract anyway? You got one thing wrong, though, as you say that It is safe to assume that the purpose of your institution's policy is to have you produce research, since the problem lies in a different spectrum: The purpose of attending these conferences is not to produce research but to literally burn money (as nothing must be left - that is the reason for 3 conferences a year).

The purpose of attending these conferences is not to produce research but to literally burn money You've got a point there.

To cheery.beach7701:  Yes, I know. The thing is, why is everyone (you and the comenter) so salty about that? I am stuck in this situation, most probably due to previous wrong life choices, but that does not change that I am stuck with that... I am trying to ask an honest question, if I am situated in shitstorm like this (I have a package of money that cannot be left unburnt), how to do it the most efficiently, such that the harm to myself and to the society is minimized.

I changed the answer. I think that you are right. One must make a living and choose battles. Bureaucracies are one tough beast.

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text:
Invitation to publish
A prestigious professor emailed me and requested that I submit work for publication with the renowned series that he edits.
He needs this work because it is a gap for something he is engaged with.
I am hesitant to submit since I have to produce a full set of results within a short period of time - which does not assure quality. They will, however, close his gap quite nicely, whatever state they are in.
He takes weeks to reply to emails, making the process somewhat frustrating.
I want to believe that I will have a shot at getting published with the series but at the same time am wondering how he will end up citing me, should my work remain unpublished.
How do I deal with this and not insult the guy?

Are you intending to say "no"?

Do you mean that he is an editor for a journal and invited you to submit a manuscript? Or is he asking for a contribution to something that he is working on himself?

Almost all invitations of this kind are spam, and the journals they invite you to publish in are not reputable.  If the journal charges the author a fee, you can be 100% sure this invitation is spam.  If you don't personally know the person who wrote the invitation, you can be 99.99% sure it's spam.

I am confused. This person seems to be asking for a favour, but then "takes weeks to respond"? I also don't understand the sentence "They will, however, close his gap quite nicely, whatever state they are in." - what gap? What will "they" (the journal?) do? All in all, I wonder what's in it for you - you can publish your results elsewhere, why do you concern yourself with an unresponsive series editor if it's bothering you?

How do you know that it's a reputable professor? Is the email clearly from a reputable professor? Or, hypothetical, could it be that someone claims he is?
Clarification: it's a scam.

What's your position ? PhD student ? Post doc ? Have you discussed this with anyone else at your institution ?

You need to clarify almost all of your sentences -- too much of this is unclear.

This summary sounds strange to me.
Given the limited information you provide, I would
advise you to write back saying (politely) something like "sorry, there isn't enough time before your deadline for me to do this job (properly)".
If you agree to the request and do a shoddy but adequate job your name will be on the shoddy work.

I like your answer because you side-step the predatory concern raised by other answers. If the OP is correct, this could be a legit offer but might still hurt the OP.

Since the prof seems to have confidence in you, I'd suggest you say "yes" and give it your best shot. You don't indicate that it would interfere with more important things. If you don't get something adequate for your values or his you can withdraw later (not submit).
If you want to say "no" then saying that you don't feel qualified to do sufficiently good work. That wouldn't be insulting.
But a flat "no", while not actually insulting would leave him disappointed, both in his project and in you. Decide if you can live with that and if your relationship is otherwise strong enough to withstand it. There is a chance of course that he won't let it go easily, but will apply some pressure.
And, of course, having a publication in a "renowned" series is a plus.

Just rethink: is it hesitation or procrastination? I think it's worth the effort to publish in a renowned series. It will be rewarding in the long term.
It's quite easy to underestimate our skills. You can see value in your work.
But a polite 'no' due to restricted timeframes, existing work commitments, or clashing timelines would not harm.

It sounds like a lot of details around this invitation are still up in the air, which would certainly push me away from accepting if the invitation were to me -- especially if the prof takes weeks to reply to emails.
If you'd like to say no, a simple "I'm flattered, but I don't have the time to do this right now" should be a benign sort of refusal.
If you really are interested, but you still feel funny about it, I suggest contacting other contributors to his series to ask about what their experiences were like.

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CDD postdoc contract in France for more than 6 years
I am an Indian citizen living in France. I did my PhD here, which lasted for 4.5 years. I was on a temporary contract (CDD type) for the PhD. After finishing the PhD, I was offered a postdoc position in France for another 4 years, again on a temporary CDD temporary contract. But due to a rule in France, I am not allowed to work on CDD contracts for more than 6 years.
I just wanted to ask if there is any way to circumvent this rule, and take the Postdoc position for 6 years. I read on some online forums that I can take a break between the PhD and postdoc contract for 4 months and then take the Postdoc position for 4 years. Is the same rule applicable for non-EU citizens also? Or am I supposed to take a break between the contracts for more than 4 months as a non EU citizen?

This seems more suited for Expatriates SE or Law SE.

Always worth asking if you can be employed on a CDI instead -- you never know!


text:
How can I make up for weak grades (PhD level courses in master transcript) while applying for Ph.D. in economics?
I want to apply for Ph.D. in Economics in HK, US or Europe, but I met a  problem.
MY UNDERGRADUATE

I am Chinese. My undergraduate was in Peking University majoring in Economics. Though it's one of the best two universities in China, my performance was just average (3.5/4.0, where 3.5 is about 50% among my peers).
I had several research assistant experiences, but they are basically dirty work, and the professors whom I worked for do not have strong foreign connections.
I also conduct some individual researches, but they seem to be very naïve when I looks back one years later.

MY MASTER

My master is now in Hong Kong. It's a two year program. I am now in the 2nd semester of yr 1. I planned to polish my background before applying for Ph.D., that's why I am pursuing this master degree.
Masters in my program can choose Ph.D. level courses, and I confidently did so, but unfortunately didn't achieve my goals. Due to inadaptation of the teaching speed, in the 1st semester, I got B in Ph.D. level Macroeconomics, B- in Ph.D. level Microeconomics , B- in Ph.D. level Econometrics. These are very bad signal when applying for Ph.D. in economics.
I didn't fully understand the knowledge during the 1st semester, but I reviewed it again in the winter vacation, it didn't seem to be very difficult then. I asked the academic office but  was told that I can't retake the same courses in year 2.
I am currently working hard on: ① achieving better grades; ② producing some course papers to use as writing sample; ③ seeking RA opportunities with professors in my department.

QUESTION

Are the deficiencies in my master's transcript irreparable? If not, what can I do?
(I have considered taking another 1-year master to get another transcript, but it will be expensive and time-consuming.)

Possible duplicate How are Ph.D. applications evaluated in the US, particularly for weak or borderline students? Am I likely to get into school X? if you apply grad schools in US.

Also somewhat related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/176908/how-does-the-admissions-process-work-for-ph-d-programs-in-country-x

It is probably a mistake for you to judge your own qualifications, especially if they seem weak to you (maybe always). It is others who will look at your application and decide whether you seem to be a good fit for a position. A GPA you judge to be low is also relevant to where you study. A 3.5 GPA might mean vastly different things in China and in the US, for example.
In the US, note that letters of recommendation are relatively important for doctoral study applications, perhaps much more so than other places. Committees are looking for evidence that a candidate is likely to succeed in a program and thereafter.
Assuming you have a problem and doing some additional masters degree is sub-optimal. You will find out where you stand by making application to a few (or many) places and then evaluate the result. And, don't apply to a set of very similar institutions only. Cast a broader net to help assure success.
Admissions committees are pretty good at evaluating these things as they do it often.


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How to: Change of research field after thesis
I'll soon have finished my PhD in mathematics in a not top ranked university, and as far as I see it, my thesis is not going to be especially impressive.
My goal after the defense is to either leave academia, or make a rather drastic change of fields (let's assume it's the latter).
The problem is I have no idea how to operate this change without restarting at the PhD level.
My advisor has essentially no acquaintances in the fields I'm interested in, and I tried sending a few emails to people working on those fields, but the reception was mostly cold.
A common advice (given around me and seen here) is to continue with a postdoc and try to change fields by transitioning step by step from my current fields to the ones I'm aiming for.
I see two problems with this advice:

If your track record is not exceptional to start with, simply getting a postdoc might be hard.
Such a neighbor-to-neighbor approach to transitioning might prove to take a lot of time, spent working on problems I'm not really interested in, for the non-guaranteed goal of eventually working in my desired field.

In summary, I'd like to ask for any advice on how to operate such a change.
Edit. More details:

My desired field is within maths; I'm interested by a relatively wide area rather than a specific problem.
My current work is not in some super specialized field: I have worked on different questions that don't require much background so far.
I have read this answer already, which is quite pessimistic but feels spot-on to me.
Nevertheless, I'd like to get some actionable advice, if possible.
One thing maybe deserving of clarification: I'm not especially interested in staying in academia long-term, so the "publish or perish" point of view only applies to me as far as getting to the very next step.
My goal with this change of field is essentially about having the opportunity to learn maths that I'm very curious about and would like to understand, rather than career-building, I think.
I have thought about starting with a new PhD (even applied to a program) but:

People don't seem to be very receptive to such an idea (“Why would you do a second PhD?”)
I'm not sure I have the energy to start such a process over again (it was quite taxing psychologically the first time, so a second might prove hard).

How big is this "change of field" you'd like to make?

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/81373/how-realistic-it-is-to-change-to-a-different-field-of-mathematics-after-phd/81385#81385

As @Buffy asks, how far a change of field do you contemplate. From math to not-math? Or something within math? From math to humanities? Makes a difference...

The change is indeed within math, but the field I'm aiming for is quite far away from what I'm doing now.

@AlexanderWoo thanks for the link. I have read this answer but I hoped for some practical answers to my question, not just an estimate of the difficulty of such a change.

While there are reasons to be pessimistic because of the general job market in academia and maybe elsewhere at the moment, I think you are being overly down on both yourself and your chances.
One advantage you have is that you aren't so overspecialized that only one or two positions in the world matches your interest. You have more options. No, you don't need another doctorate in mathematics. You already know what it takes to do research and you'd find another doctoral quest both frustrating and boring.
No, you don't need to change fields right now. Make it a long term goal if you like, and many folks do that as opportunities occur.
What you need to do is get into the game somehow so that you have a financial base from which to do research, whether it is similar to your thesis or not isn't really material. You have skills (mad skilz) that you can apply if you have any guidance at all, such as in a research seminar group.
Use whatever resources you have (advisor, other faculty, ...) to find a position with research responsibility. Forget the rest at the moment and focus on just that. It isn't easy at the moment, but if you can get that one job done then the rest can follow.
Moving to industry might make things harder, as you most likely then have job requirements that you must meet and have less opportunity to set your own goals. There are some fine positions available in large companies, but not all of them come with much freedom to explore as is more typical in academia. But already having some skill in a broad area is probably and advantage in looking for industry work. You can be flexible.
First build a base, then worry about the field.

Historical note: Many of us old folks, recently retired, also finished degrees in terrible job market times. After the US landed people on the moon, funding for math and science evaporated overnight when, up to that time, there had been a tremendous hiring push. There were literally no jobs. Many of us held on and got something from which to build a career. Maybe it wasn't the career we envisioned when we were students, but it was interesting, provided that we made it interesting. We had a life that we enjoyed, did some good work, and survived. It turned out to be not a downer, but a satisfying life.

Thanks for the advice/pep talk! Between your and Daniel Hatton's answer, it seems that continuing with a postdoc is the best strategy. I had sort of written that off, but your answers are convincing.


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Are the methods used in math-based teaching (including physics, engineering, etc.) substantially different from those used in other areas?
Background: There is currently a proposal for a new Math Teaching site that will be entering private beta once enough people sign up. One question that came up during its question is (basically): Is teaching math significantly different from teaching any other subject? Would it be better to broaden the scope to all education?
I had my own opinions, but I don't have enough experience teaching non-math classes to know. And now I am really curious about variation in teaching methods across disciplines.
Therefore, I have this question:

Is there any evidence (such as refereed sources) to show that teaching mathematics and related fields uses significantly different methods or skills than teaching other subjects?

Conversely,

Is there any evidence that teaching ability and/or techniques transfer across a wide variety of disciplines?

Look at the suggested questions. How many of them are easily transferable to another fields? (But I have some sort of feeling that all questions there would fit Math.SE or are general education questions or are not good SE questions at all.)

@PiotrMigdal A lot of them fit in with some of the MSE community, but many people don't like them on MathSE. It's like the difference between SO and User Experience.

When it comes to strictly educational questions, it may beneficial to start a broader site (in such topics usually getting critical mass of participants is highly non-trivial (speaking as an ex-mod of now-deceased site). And on broader "teaching/education" site there is no problem in asking questions specifically about math (even if the community is oriented about math and most of questions turn out in this way). But once the site is too specialized, it can dry quickly...

@EnergyNumbers: your recent edit drastically changed Brian's question by removing the motivation.  Moreover you've removed content referred to several times on this page.  Finally you describe in your edit this deleted content as "spamming".  That seems rather strange: the birth of a new SE site related to education seems awfully relevant to academia.SE. I rolled back the edit.  If you feel strongly that this cutting of Brian's question needs to be done, let's discuss it on the meta site first.

@CharlesMorisset: Actually the OP added the duplicate link in revision 2; Pete simply rolled back the post to that version.

I had been using the straight link instead of the 'referral' link because I found the second one more annoying. However, I've had 4 people ask me how to sign up once they reach the page. I realized the 'referral' link has instructions, so I added the second link prominently. But it does seem clear that this proposal needs no new advertising (in fact, it seems to be growing 1-2 orders of magnitude faster then other sites).

@CharlesMorisset This post was admittedly nothing more than spam (although it is a legitimate question I've had, I asked it with only advertising in mind). I wouldn't be put out at all if the severe editing was restored to preserve community standards.

This question appears to be off-topic because it is about advertising a site proposal on Area51.

At the University of Georgia we have a program (which is not identical to a "department", but is close enough so that the distinction has always eluded me) in Mathematics Education and thus we have undergraduate mathematics education majors and also mathematics education graduate students (both master's and PhD).
There are certainly close ties with both the mathematics department and other education disciplines -- e.g. the mathematics courses I teach have a substantial population of mathematics education majors -- but such undergraduate majors also take plenty of courses with the name "Math Education XYZW".  These courses are split into "content" and "pedagogy" courses.  This distinction was very hard for me to wrap my mind around (it literally took me a few years to do so, although obviously I was not working very consistently on it!): see for instance
this page, and please read carefully: the courses that they list as Content are actually in the math department (one or two of them are taken mostly by math education majors, but many of the others are also required courses for undergraduate math majors).  Rather the distinction between "content" and "pedagogy" -- which are the terms used by UGA students and faculty who talk to me about this -- is a distinction being made between two types of courses in the longish list of Professional Education courses.  Thus e.g. compare

EMAT 3800.
  Course Title:   Connections in Secondary Mathematics II
  Course  Description:    Exploration of secondary mathematics topics related to number and measurement with an explicit focus on reasoning that connects critical topics of secondary mathematics to one another and to problem situations. Sample topics include proportional reasoning, number theory, and probability.

and

EMAT 4800
  Course Title:   Teaching Secondary School Mathematics I
  Course Description: Introductory ideas about mathematics education, including current mathematics standards and policy documents, learning theories, and teaching strategies. Students will explore how secondary students think about and learn mathematics, examine how to select and modify tasks, use appropriate technology, and apply their learning in an accompanying field experience.

This seems to give rather strong evidence that the answer to the OP's first question is yes: Math Education is rapidly becoming distinct enough from Education in general to count as its own discipline.  (Obviously there remain many connections and commonalities between Math Education and other kinds of Education, just as virtually any academic field overlaps significantly with others.)  In particular, yes, math education students learn math-specific teaching methods.  This is indirect, though strong, evidence that there are differences between the teaching methods of various subjects.  But my other point is something that is not explicitly in the OP's question: more than just teaching methods, techniques or ability, there is actually additional content that math teachers learn and that other teachers (and students of mathematics who are not intending to teach!) do not.
Let me also introduce you to my colleague Sybilla Beckmann.  Beckmann (who was trained as an arithmetic geometer and holds a faculty position in the UGA mathematics department; her office is next door to mine) is truly* one of the very top American experts in the field of mathematical education of teachers.  (Beckmann is also largely responsible for my awareness and understanding of the issues presented above.  In fact I will contact her and ask her to look over this response to make sure I have gotten things right.) One of her initiatives over the last few years has been to promote the idea of an explicitly identified mathematics teaching community. In this regard, please see this article and this website.  Also, Beckmann writes on her webpage "Longer term, we plan for this project to include an electronic self-organizing journal."
tl;dr: Yes, this is definitely a thing.  It is a thing which has grown in recent years and is liable to continue to grow in the near future...and everyone seems to agree that we want/need it to grow.
*: So much so that I need not justify it here: just search the web for her and you'll see it right away.
Added: My colleague Sybilla Beckmann took time out of her busy workday [on Saturday!] to quickly look over what I wrote above.  She pronounced it "basically accurate" and went on to add the following:

Teaching methods in math are definitely different from other disciplines. Work of Lee Shulman and Deborah Ball on mathematical knowledge for teaching has been transformative for the field in that regard. Some sources to refer people to: the CBMS Mathematical Education of Teachers II on the CBMS website. It refers to various other sources. Math education is a separate discipline with a large body of research amassed over the last 30 - 40 years. It connects to other education research but is its own separate field. At UGA, the math ed program is within the department of mathematics and science education (it used to be a separate math ed department but was joined for administrative reasons some years ago).

I added links to the wikipedia articles on Shulman and Ball, and I recommend at least skimming these.  Shulman is responsible for the idea of pedagogical content knowledge, a concept which is rather slippery at first [or at least, it was to me] but really seems to lie at the heart of an answer to the OP's question: it is precisely the material that you need to know as a mathematics teacher that you do not learn in your mathematics courses and cannot learn in non-math specific education courses. To nail it down more specifically than this is beyond my expertise -- e.g. the above two course descriptions were intended to convey this distinction but looking back it seems even more complicated: none of EMAT 3800 would be appropriate material for aspiring teachers of most subjects other than mathematics, and some but not all of EMAT 3900 would.
The two linked wikipedia articles give entry points into the vast body of literature
on these matters; people who were interested enough to read this far are encouraged to delve into the literature itself.  And when you do, come back and tell me about it!  I am an academic mathematician and thus a mathematics educator, but I have no specific training in mathematics education.

By the way, I didn't comment on the second question because I feel more strongly about the first one and my answer was already long enough.  But sure: it would be even easier to point to commonalities in training of educators across different disciplines.  Graduate students in the UGA math department receive plenty of math-specific teaching training (thank goodness) but they also take more than one course in non-math specific teaching.

This is a great answer. By the way, is she interested in participating in the new site or in sharing it with others? Terence Tao was an important helper in creating Mathoverflow.

@Brian: I told her in passing about the new site a couple of weeks ago and wrote to her just now about this message.  We'll see...

@PeteL.Clark the site you link would seem to obviate the need for another math education SE site.

@Suresh: Well, just to be sure...There are currently no SE sites focusing on "math education": there are two SE sites focusing on math, which is really not the same thing (e.g. certain math education questions get closed as off-topic on math.SE; many/most of them do on MO).  There is a non-SE Q&A site which focuses on math education, yes.  Whether this means there is a need for a SE math education is site is -- totally honestly -- unclear to me.  I don't know the person who started the current proposal.  But I committed to the site and I will try to make up my mind by participating in it.

One final comment: at this point math.SE is a mathematics teaching site.  (Being a teaching site rather than a Q&A site is again a bit against the SE party line, and there is some tension there, but factually speaking it seems pretty clear that the site is being used mostly in this way: math students ask questions; math instructors answer them; people who are some of both do some of both.)  If anyone is worried that the distinction between a mathematics teaching site and a mathematics education site is fine enough to be asking for some trouble: yes, me too.

The new site was proposd by Jacquelyn Li. As far as I know, very few people involved in this proposal (including me up until now) are aware of this other site. I don't really think it would make a difference if they did; the fact they modeled it on Stackexchange shows they think it is a good model.

@Brian: I meant I don't know who Jacquelyn Li is (a high school math teacher, a professor, a student of some kind...): do you?  The main difference between the two sites so far seems to be the clientele.  A SE site will get more traffic, but whether it'll be "the right traffic" depends on how you define the community.  The MTC has too little activity right now -- that's the big drawback -- but the people who are there are nicely balanced between math educators, mathematicians, math graduate students and K-12 math teachers.  Would a SE site attract K-12 teachers?  I'm not sure.

I think I used one extra word. I should have said "obviate the need for A math education SE site". I wasn't implying there were already sites on SE serving the same purpose, but that since there was a site on the Web for this, the proposal didn't have as much merit. This is similar to how the machine learning site on SE didn't appear to survive the competition with metaoptimize.com

@Suresh: thanks for your response.  (That extra word does turn out to have a nuance of meaning, I think.)  With respect to your last comment, let me just say: sure.  That is a natural concern that I happen to share.  Let's see what happens...

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text:
How can I show local universities that I am someone they will want to hire in a few years?
I've split this question into a general question that I feel applies to many people and specific details for those who are interested.
General question:I have accepted a 2-year teaching/research position in my home state and would like to look for a job in the surrounding area at the end of the time.
My just-finished job search convinced me that having skills is not enough to get a job in mathematics; you have to show the universities that you are someone they want to hire.

Given two years to work with, what can I do to show local universities that I am someone they would like to hire?

My ideas so far include:

Attending and speaking at local seminars and conferences (for research-oriented schools)
Attending MAA meetings and giving talks on teaching (for teaching schools)
Working together with faculty at these universities on projects.

I'd especially like to hear from those who make hiring decisions on what would make them feel more comfortable hiring a candidate.
Non-essential, specific details
My postdoc is at BYU in Utah, and the schools I am interested in are all the 4-year schools in the area. University of Utah is most likely out of my league. I'm interested in UVU, Dixie State, SUU, USU, U of U (though that's a longshot), Weber State, Westminster College, and staying on at BYU. I'm also interested in nearby schools such as Reno, Colorado State, Northern Arizona University, Colorado School of Mines, ASU and U of A, University of Colorado, etc.
I'm finishing a postdoc at Temple in Philadelphia. I've done reasonably well in research (4 publications in well-known area-specific journals). My teaching record is excellent, with very good letters of recommendation, high student ratings, and a record of being given good classes to teach.
I am genuinely more interested in teaching than research, but I enjoy research enough that I am happy doing it for a good position. I have a research topic in a small new area (finite subdivision rules) that provides an essentially inexhaustible amount of new theorems but may attract less interest as it is off the beaten path.
I have friends at many of these schools, including UVU, SUU, Utah State, and Dixie State.

My students (at a large well-ranked R1) are having trouble finding a job anywhere in the world, given the current problems with the academic job market: too many PhDs at a time when universities are reducing the number of t-t faculty.
By limiting your search to one particular geographic area, you greatly handicap your ability to find a job. You must understand that in some departments, they will not have a job in your particular niche come up but once in 20 years when someone retires or leaves. Even given that you are looking at half a dozen schools, the odds that a job in your area will come up next year is -- there are some mathematicians here that can give you the odds.
That being said, the best you can hope for is to do what you are doing:

Research: Keep publishing as much as you can. Publish or perish.
Service: If there is a local/state/regional/national association of scholars in your discipline, join it and become very active. Show that you are the type of person willing to put in grunt service time and will create community. Organize a symposium that brings people in the area together.
Teaching: Come up with innovative courses that put you on the radar.

But you must also accept the very real possibility that your geographical limitation may very lead to no jobs or only adjunct positions in the coming years until the statistical anomaly of a job-in-your-research-area-in-your-geographical-area comes up.

At least at the moment, this is less insane in math than in many other disciplines.  Math departments tend still be hiring somewhat regularly and to be a lot more flexible about research areas than most departments.  You don't necessarily have to wait until someone in your niche leaves, though of course, you're right that success is far from guaranteed even if someone does everything right.

For 4 year institutions without MA/PhD programs, one idea is to develop undergraduate research projects loosely related to your past research. Even better, I suppose, if you can relate such projects to local concerns, such as fair division of resources in Utah (that may not literally make sense, but maybe you can think of something similar that does).

Depends on the type of university. If it's teaching oriented college, teaching experience will be very important. Otherwise, it's your research career potential. In other words, how likely are you going to get tenured in 5 to 6 years should you be hired.
If you are at a top university and aim for a faculty position at another top university, your advisor's connections coupled with a strong recommendation is the single most important factor.

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text:
How to answer an academic job interview question about how I will contribute to growth and sustainability of school / academic unit?
I am going to attend an academic job interview. In the email arranging the appointment, the university asked me to prepare a 10-minute presentation outlining how I will contribute to growth and sustainability of the department in the current higher education environment. How should I approach this?

What sort of university/college is this? Primarily research? Teaching?

And, is this your first faculty position or are you moe experienced?

I am more experienced. This is not my first faculty position.


text:
Reviewer left no comments. What should I do?
I received a major revision from IEEE Transactions, however one reviewer left no comments. Earlier this already happened to me and the reviewer had left the comments in “Comments to Editors” section. Should I contact the editors in this case and ask if there are some comments? Or should I ignore it as it is simply not my problem, but their mistake

How do you know there's a reviewer who left no comments? Is there a section in the review comments that goes "Reviewer 2: [nothing written here]"?

You should definitely contact the editor.  The reviewer may have forgotten to attach his/her comments.  If it is not a mistake, then in your response, just say 'No comments to address'.   If it's a mistake and you do not address the comments, then the missing comments will be used in the next round and thus delaying the review process.

You can certainly ask the editor to clarify if an error occurred. However, I would say this is not strictly necessary. An alternative would be to simply address the issue in your letter when you resubmit, something along the lines of:

We revised our manuscript taking into account all reviewer comments, except for reviewer 2, who left no comments.

You would probably then hear back from the editor if there were indeed reviewer comments you were unaware of. The worst case scenario would be to lose some time before publication, it is nothing that would be held against you in the decision to publish (or not). But of course, if you really cannot or do not want to afford that, ask.

Seems more expedient for everyone involved to just ask.

What's the point in revising a manuscript if you already know that there are comments that in all likelihood were forgotten to attach and that you know you are not addressing? It just gratuitously lengthens the process for everyone.

@WolfgangBangerth, sure, if comments were forgotten "in all likelihood". But I think there is also nothing wrong to start with the assumption that the editor made sure that you have all the relevant information available to revise your manuscript. To me, this is one of the many cases where it does not help to tell OP what they should do (as expressed in the question), but rather explain what alternatives there are, so that they can make up their mind themselves.

It takes a short question to the editor to rule out forgotten comments. It takes a multi-week, possibly multi-month detour to add a full round of back-and-forth with a reviewer.


text:
partial rejection?
I submitted a manuscript and the review was kind of mixed.
There are two reviewers, one said accept with minor revision, the other one did not say "reject this" but it seemed that he required major revision.
According to two editors they will accept my paper but it will be subject to how I revise.
So I revised the original manuscript and made a letter containing point by point answers, of course.
I inquired the status of the manuscript and just got an email saying that the revision was sent out for another round of review.
Is is normal? because the editors said they would accept mine but it would be subject to revision,  I thought the editors will be deciding whether they are going to accept or not without any further review.

It's normal. The reviewers need to check that you answered their points satisfactorily. If not, they will ask you to make more changes.

got it. Probably I misunderstood something. Thanks!


text:
How to handle students scrolling on social media during lectures?
Of course, they may be looking up something related to the lecture content, but I can usually spot that dead-eye TikTok coma a mile off.  I get distracted because I am genuinely upset that they’re wasting time, money and opportunity.
I initially thought I was just taking it too personally and that my ego was just taking a hammering, but it is much more about feeling sorry for them and their struggle with the addiction. Either way, it stops my flow as I find myself having to switch mindsets to tackle the situation, which then becomes a total distraction for the rest of the class.  I do remind students at the beginning of each lecture that social media is a distraction, and encourage all to give themselves a break from it during their lecture time, but some (especially if they have come late to the lecture!) are just too locked in the tractor-beam.
I consider my lectures as interesting, exciting, full of humour and carefully curated AV, but, with some students, I feel I’m losing the battle for their attention.  I’m keen to learn of strategies for coping with the aforementioned mindset switching, so any suggestions are welcome.
By the way, I can’t put a ban on phone use as the Uni has just issued an edict saying it’s ok for students to take notes on them.

Is this behaviour a distraction to other students, or only to you? Can you request or suggest the student to leave?

What sort of course is this? Elementary stuff? Critically important for graduation?

How long have you been teaching at this level? Are you a novice at it or an old geezer (like me)?

Are they distracting to others?  Do they get good grades?

they do not care about your lecture, why should you care about them? show some form of mutual respect: ignore them. Even if you consider your lectures interesting, in the current world attending a university is perceived as necessary, therefore there is a certain percentage listening to you because they have to.
Good luck and keep on doing an awesome job for the (hopefully not so) few interested!

At university level we are teaching adults (well in many legal jurisdictions over 18 years is considered fully adult) so when teaching we are in less of a position to attempt to correct a learners behaviour, than one might in say elementary school.
The students are thus responsible for their own behaviour. How a student's actions affects us as an individual is something we also should have some degree of control over. If something a student does only impact us then we need to consider what we can do to limit the impact. However, if something a student does affects several other learners in the class in a way that impairs their learning then the teacher will need to find a way to reduce that impact on the class learning.
How to reduce the impact on the class learning can be achieved in several ways depending on the nature of the action; in other words whether it is chronic and ongoing or acute and immediate. For something that is chronic and ongoing speaking to the individual student outside of class can often be an appropriate action as it does not disrupt the class more than the irritating behaviour. When something is more acute and impacts several students then halting the flow of teaching and commenting may be better.
Personally, I often find class peer "pressure" the most effective in many cases. I just stop speaking and stare at the offender (I "freeze"). Several students then "nudge" the offender who becomes to realise that others in the class had a negative reaction to what they were doing and both stop and also do not repeat.
I also find that directly giving students a list of things to do and not to do is counter productive at an adult level, as it implies you view them as perhaps not capable of adult behaviour. Mutual respect is something that works much better at encouraging learning in a university context. They need to know I like to teach them
this topic and can get back similar vibes back from them in some ephemeral way.

It is an unreasonable expectation that everyone in your audience will pay complete attention to you all the time. Have a look around at the audience at a conference, and you will see that even(?) professors will not always pay attention, despite having paid to be at the conference, considerations of professional courtesy, and an interest to actually learn something. You don't have nearly enough information to figure out what is going with a student during your lecture, and that is not where your focus should be anyway.
While giving a lecture, focus on those students paying attention. Anything else with make you feel bad (as you notice) and probably be detrimental to your teaching and the experience of the students that do pay attention, without actually accomplishing anything.
You are already working hard to make it easy to pay attention. Keep that up. If you notice excessive amounts of non-attention, try to figure out what is wrong - but a student or two looking at their smartphone is normal.
There might be students who genuinely need some help in paying attention to their lectures and not to TikTok. But that support is probably be handled better in some kind of mentoring meeting rather than public shaming or other ad-hoc interventions during a lecture. In particular, you will want to make sure to actually know what is going on with the student before jumping to conclusions. (Just to offer a scenario: a student is obsessively checking their messages during a lecture because a loved-one is in hospital in critical condition. You call them out for browsing on TikTok or whatever. Horrible experience for everyone.)

When I have guest lecturers on my course, I often sit at the back. It's a tiered lecture theatre and you can see what's on the students' laptop screens. For a minority, there is usually some social media going on. Even when the lecturer is brilliant.
I have not done this, but I like the idea of applying social pressure. Do a poll in your next class. Say you have noticed this happening and want their views -is it distracting to them and should you have a rule to ban it? If they vote yes, then that in itself should reduce it, particularly if you point out that the student behind you will usually know if you are being rude and breaking the new rule. And if they vote no, then that hopefully gives you some reassurance that they are not as bothered about it as you might think, allowing you to focus on the lecture without being distracted by the impact social media is having.

"If they vote yes" If they vote no, what are you going to do?

Not stress about it. If they aren't bothered, that's fine.

The problem is that the OP is genuinely upset that they’re wasting time, money and opportunity.

Then the results of a poll showing that the students themselves aren't bothered (if they vote no) should help put OPs mind at ease.

The lecturer, i.e. the OP, is bothered and the flow was stopped.

Then, if the students themselves are not bothered, the problem is with the psychology of the OP. And our offered solution should be "here are ways to stop worrying about this and to get on with the lecture". My proposed solution remains awesome.

You might edit that last comment into the answer to make it more complete.

There is no "the students" that either "are bothered" or "are not bothered". Some of the students will be bothered, and some of them won't. The question is whether some students are significantly bothered by this or not (and if so, what the appropriate response is), not whether the majority of students are. It is the instructor's duty to do their best to ensure that every student has a chance to follow the lecture without being unduly distracted by other students, irrespective of whether other students mind such distractions or not.

Not sure I agree that it's a given that some students are significantly bothered by this. I have been teaching for 20yrs. I have had complaints about me, about slides handouts, about other students talking, about the temperature, the color of my font... not once has anyone raised social media use though. Either way - it's the same answer - poll the students and use that as feedback to the class if there is an issue.


text:
When do I get the notification for the final acceptance?
Does the paper that was accepted by the editor and transferred to the reviewers not mean that the paper got the final acceptance? Or can the reviewers still reject the paper?

I think you have something backwards. It is editors who accept or reject. Reviewers only recommend.

Happy to answer below, but I would worry about your relation with your advisor or senior colleagues if you were unable to ask them about it before going to a collaborative website such as Stack Exchange. You will have many other surprises if you do not learn from an advisor or from your peers!

@Buffy Thanks a lot ..excuse me if there is an issue and the deadline is at the end of this month but I didn't get any response or change to be with a reviewer .. will I get the notification after the deadline because I mail the lead editor without any response

@Jérémy i'm asking here for more experience from who is editor or reviewer .. thanks for your advice

Sorry, I interpreted your use of "accepted" as "accepted for publication" which is usual. Apparently you meant "accepted for review" which is a less common interpretation. But editors initially (usually) only make a superficial determination and pass a "reasonable" paper to a set of reviewers (2-3). They can take weeks to months to complete the review before the editor needs to make a decision about publication.

SHORT ANSWER:
The decision of accepting or not a submission for publication does belong to the editor, but accepting the submission for evaluation is not the same as accepting it for publication!
LONGER EXPLANATION:
I guess that the process might be different for each publisher, or even for each journal, but my experience of the process is as follows:

Upon receiving a submission, the editor

verifies that its format follows the guidelines of the journal,
checks that its content is within the scope of the journal,
set-up a list of potential referees for the submission.
The submission can be rejected if any of those three criteria is not fulfilled. If all three are fulfilled, the submission is "accepted by the editor", but only in the sense that the evaluation process will be allowed to go on, at the cost of more people's time.

The referees are sent requests to evaluate the submission or to propose alternate reviewers if they are unable to review it. The process can be iterated various times, until a set of willing reviewers is found, or the editor gives up and "rejects" the submission for lack of willing referees.

Once willing referees have been found (ideally, two or three of them)  they are sent the submission (ideally, double blind so that to avoid biases), instructions (ideally, an evaluation form) and a deadline to send their evaluation in.

At the deadline, the editor teases the referees who did not send their review (it happens more often than you would think!) until receiving all the reviews, check them for inadequate comments, and forward them to the authors if judged adequate, along with a decision, typically a) refusal, b) conditional acceptance or c) acceptance.

The process can iterate various times with referees asking questions and requesting corrections and the authors answering or complying, until the editor accepts the submission or fails it (most often following the recommendations from the referees, but   not always: it is their decision to make!)

I hope it helps! (And anyone willing to correct or extend my description of the process should feel welcome to do so!)

thanks a lot for your answer but excuse me if there is an issue and the deadline is at the end of this month but I didn't get any response or change to be with a reviewer .. will I get the notification after the deadline because I mail the lead editor without any response

the last question please .. if the state changed to be under review that doesn't mean the editor found the reviewers, right?

Yes, you will get an answer from the editor AFTER the deadline for the referees to send their answers (and sometime quite a long time after: as I described above, sometimes the referees send their reports late). I would recommend NOT bothering the editor before one month after the deadline. I had once to recontact the editor every 6 months for several years in a row about the status of a given article (to have the editor answer that he was rejecting the submission since I was asking about it).

When the publisher's website indicates "Under Review", it DOES mean that the editor found some willing referees and sent them the article for review.


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PhD advisor select journal based on impact factor
I'm doing my PhD in chemistry. My advisor Prof X keeps submitting my first manuscript to journals with high impact factors. After a journal with IF = 15 rejected the work, X submitted it to one with IF = 14. Our work has been desk rejected four times so far.
I've told X that I want it in specialized (prestigious) journals which have low IFs. X ignored my opinion. Now the work is finally considered by the fifth journal with a fine IF, but not really the journal in my field I would love.
I have another two manuscripts in drafting. I believe having them in the specialized journals (with low IF) would benefit my CV most. What should I do, is there only some extreme options I can take?

Is the problem that you do not want to publish in these high impact factor journals, or is the problem that submitting to those journals is taking up your time?

Golden rule of doing PhD studies:
Don't argue with your supervisor*

They are much more likely to be right than you are, simply because they've been around much longer than you have.
They likely want the best for you. It's possible they want the best for themselves even more, but because students doing well also reflects well on the supervisor, your motives overlap.
If your relationship with your supervisor breaks down, you suffer a lot more than they do.
They could have other, non-obvious reasons for wanting to submit to high IF journals (such as needing it for their upcoming tenure review or funding application).

So if your supervisor selects journal based on impact factor, you submit your papers to those journals. Worst thing that can happen is your paper gets desk rejected, which is still not a terrible outcome because you can submit it elsewhere. The only practical consequence is that it takes a bit longer to publish, but if you've uploaded a preprint somewhere, actual publication in a journal isn't a big deal. Your results are already available, after all. Meanwhile, there is no benefit to publishing in a low-IF journal compared to a high-IF one.
If you really feel strongly about it you could try negotiating with your supervisor, something like "how about we send two manuscripts to high IF journals and one to low IF journals". But if your supervisor digs in his or her heels and insists you submit to high IF journals, see the bolded sentence above: don't argue with your supervisor.
*Unless they are doing something unethical.

Interesting rule.  Mine is the converse: you don’t get the degree until you can argue with your supervisor.  It all depends on the topic and the tone of course, but choosing a journal is something I would want my students to challenge.

I agree.  Do it your advisor's way.  After you graduate, you can try it your way.  After a while you may find you like it, or you may find it was not so good after all.

@ZeroTheHero right, but in the OP, I've told X that I want it in specialized (prestigious) journals which have low IFs. X ignored my opinion. -- they've already challenged it and the supervisor still says no.

@Allure yes the supervisor should probably have yielded to the student.

I agree with your suggestion but want to adapt it -  Golden rule of doing happy* PhD studies: Don't argue with your supervisor*   If there is mistreat or unethical behavior, any suggestion before I talk to department head?

@HanneA, one thing unclear to me is the reasoning you gave to your supervisor which is key. They are implicit in your question, too. I have been in this situation and open communication was what resolved the problem. You have to be very clear about what you want and why to convince someone with different views. You can also try bargaining: you select the journal for one manuscript, the supervisor for the others. For me, this worked, if your supervisor is less pliant, I would follow Allure's advice.

Blindly following impact factors is arguably unethical and/or incompetent behaviour.


text:
Is reading novels helpful for GRE Preparation?
I'm going to start preparing for GRE. I have great enthusiasm for reading novels rather than memorizing words. Will words learnt from novels be helpful for GRE vocabulary? Which novels/writers books should be read for GRE vocabulary?

No doubt you can encounter useful words in novels, but you will encounter them at a much slower rate than with targeted study.  If your goal is to learn GRE words quickly, a simple GRE study book would be more efficient.  At the least, you should take a practice GRE test and see how you do on the vocab sections.  If your vocab needs major improvement, reading novels is probably too slow to be of use for passing the GRE.
In the long term, I think reading novels and other texts is a better (and more fun) way of learning how to actually understand and use a wide range of vocabulary, but for the short-term goal of improving your GRE score it may not deliver as much benefit.

@alu you also have no guarantee that the novel writer is using the vocabulary correctly!

@mkennedy: on the flip side, materials from standardised texts often are too pedantic, using words in ways that doesn't actually reflect how people would actually use it in the real world.

In general - no.  The GRE is similar to the SAT2 (is that still around).  Studying for the GRE isn't fun, but the best way to do it is either to
1) purchase several study programs, books and set aside time each day to study them
OR
2) pay (usually a few grand) for a GRE prep class
Studying for the GRE was one of the low points of my life.  Just focus on getting into the school you want

For how long did you study for GRE totally?

It's worth considering semantics.
If in the sense that if you spend 5 hours every day reading novels, you will do better on the GRE than if you spent those 5 hours staring at a wall, then I suppose that is true.
But compared to actual methods of study, I don't think so. Hour for hour, just getting cracking with a deck of flashcards will improve your score much more. It is obviously hard to spend as much time on flashcards because it is boring - but even if you spend much less time than on reading, I would predict that the benefit to your score will still be higher with flashcards (and you can still read in all the time you aren't practicing with flashcards).
For learning words, the problems with the "reading novels" technique are:

There's a question of what novels you actually read - if all you read is Twilight and Harry Potter, I doubt it would help much.
Most of the words in a novel won't be new, so most of your time is not spent learning or practicing words. It is very inefficient.
There is no guarantee that the novels you read will focus on common GRE words.
In my opinion, GRE words tend to be deliberately obscure: Besides a core set of "basic" words, ETS includes many words which are hardly ever used and have probably went out of style, for the sake of having words that most people will be unlikely to know (unless they practice specifically for the GRE).
Unlike flashcards or similar methods, it is difficult to gauge your progress (eg. how many common GRE words you have learned) with novels.
It is easy to infer the meaning of a word in context (and also easy to end up with an incorrect belief about what a word means). GRE often gives words with absolutely no context, and probably sometimes in misleading context. Recalling the "official" definition of an isolated word, and having a feel for how its usually used in prose, are quite different skills - novels will train one, but the exam depends on the other.

For improving reading comprehension, books are possibly more helpful. Still, there is again a set of caveats:

Books are often long, while GRE tests comprehension of relatively short articles.
Books usually do not ask you explicit multiple-choice questions, where the incorrect choices are subtly different from the correct ones, and deliberately designed to be confusing.
It is hard to gauge your progress - for instance, how fast you are able to read a given GRE-level paragraph, what sort of questions are you able to answer correctly often, etc.

For training reading comprehension, there isn't as clear cut a method as "flashcards" (flashcards are very, very effective for memorizing words). However, I would argue that simply doing hundreds of practice questions over and over is a far more productive use of your time, if the primary goal is to have a high GRE score.
If you really wanted to read something, I would say it's better to read a high-brow "culture" magazine like the Atlantic or the New York Times. Even with books, it is probably much more effective to read collected essays rather than novels - since all you will ever have to read on the GRE will be essays. Although still, the crucial feedback element is missing - it's hard to tell if you've "really" understood an essay (in the way that the GRE wants you to) when there is no set of questions with correct answers.
The last bit you could ask about is the writing prompts. Here, "just reading" (although again I would suggest essays versus novels) would probably be more helpful, at least relative to the alternatives - unfortunately, it's hard to train GRE writing skills because one cannot mass produce question banks as with other sections. Moreover, what constitutes a good essay to GRE is arguably very different from more generally accepted criteria. Ultimately, the best option is to somehow obtain a personal essay coach who is familiar with the GRE grading rubric, and write dozens of practice essays for him to grade, rather than reading novels.

If you read a lot of adult fiction then you will have a broader base vocabulary of useful words. With that in mind this is more of a 'long game' strategy than a 'I'm taking the GRE in 6 months and need words!!!' strategy.
That being said if you want something a bit less onerous than flash cards and contextless memorization I would suggest looking for novels that specifically use GRE words. When I was studying for the GRE I found several short story collections and novels that focused on telling a story using the top 350 or 500 GRE words. They weren't great stories but learning the words in a context really helped me.
That being said I'm pretty sure you could just guess 'frustrated' or 'stubborn' for every word on the GRE and get rough 75% of them right. /s


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A Break after college , following your passion , going on the right path - the implications?
Okay, first off let me provide an overview of my educational past:
Just as any kid I went through school, and then high school with an integrated prep course for getting into a top notch college in my country. I should admit, I loved my subjects (physics, chemistry, math and biology). The faculty was great. I showed a lot of enthusiasm and my then teacher appreciated it.
However, naturally at that age I had many obstacles: Peer pressure, very few friends, was bullied, and I was pretty desperate to get into the social atmosphere (The cool group, the small talk, back stabs, etc.)
So, that bad habit stuck on to me (that is, always trying to pretend, so as to be accepted socially). And it has got in the way of my personal life, and behaviorally I feel like I'm really messed up in some way.
I got into the 7th best college in my country. I did not take a bridge year. I was pretty confident about getting into the Electronics and Communications branch, and I did.
I've learned a lot in college, met people with a varied persona, read a lot, and also learned that there can be a wide set of career paths one can choose nowadays.
I have varied interests that I'm good at: Art painting, murals, sketching, fashion design, stitching, singing, acting, impersonating famous scenes from movies, or people in real life (like some of my very comical faculties).
I'm now completing my 3rd year in college and I don't like it here, or at least in this branch. That said, I do like some subjects like DSP, Embedded system design, mechatronics, but I can't  imagine this as my long term career! Everybody around me is talking about and praising this industry: "Oh, the amazing technology", "This wonderful company", "the internship opportunities", etc. I'm so confused, I'm just slipping into something I don't like! And I have a burning desire to try my hand at something in the arts (acting, theatre, and fashion design).
I've hinted about my displeasure with the current state of things to my parents, but I have never told them anything about my "plan" for life.
My parents are overprotective of me. They feel the need to know everything about me. I am pretty open with them about most thing, but it gets annoying when I see my father's hidden dissatisfaction on my refusal to his suggestion about going to the US for MS or for MBA. In addition, when I spend my free time sketching, stitching, or graphic designing, an hour later, artfully, my parents would ask me something like: "Don't you have assignments to do", "don't you have exams in a week", or "how do your friends get 9 point grades?". Sometimes my college faculties say stuff like, "You're so good at this subject, why are your grades just mediocre?" When it comes to my career, it's up to me. I don't like anybody to push me into their version of "secure", "high-paying", but non-adventurous, and routine career.
All hell breaks loose in the house when there is a discussion about "what do you want to do in life?"
Honestly, my parents are not very happy at the thought of me going into the film industry or fashion, and I don't stand up for myself, afraid that I might fail if I go down that path, afraid in the end they were right and I would be the family example of a "ruined career" girl in the relative's gossips.
But this thing has been on my mind for too long, my grades are going up and down. I decided that I would write my GRE, go to the states, join some college. But in the meantime, experiment with my passion, and then when things are right, drop out. There would be no worry about satisfying the expectations of my parents there. I would be independent!
But then, what is the practicality of all this?
Would it be too late, keeping in mind the current state of cut-throat competition?
Would it affect my career, whatever it may be, if I take a gap year or a 6 month gap to travel alone and discover myself and my passions after college?
I've asked this question to a few people, even the college counselor, but everybody says that's a crazy idea!
What should I do ?

Do you have means to support yourself, and pay for travel, during the gap?

no, I depend on my parents money. I've started freelancing. But don't get enough time to be at it, with my hectic schedule.

Most people who are trying for theater or fashion careers need a "day job" that pays the rent and buys the food unless and until their preferred career takes off. For a lot of them, it is a minimum wage job. You can make it much better paid than that if you play your cards right.
I suggest concentrating on your studies until you have your degree. Look for a day job in your degree field, but in whatever city you can reach that has the best opportunities for the alternative careers you are interested in. Look for a part time film or fashion job that you can work evenings and/or weekends.
Take advantage of having a more highly paid day job to save as much money as you possibly can from the combined income. As your career advances, you may want to do things like moving to a different city without having a new day job already lined up. Having a year or so of minimal expenses in the bank would make that easier.

ok, but then I'd have to convince my parents about this turn in my career. How do I do it without them worrying too much about me going to a new country,new job,etc? they would even go as far as making a relative accompany me.Last week my dad was simply kidding about coming with me to do his PHd, and I shouted "NO.not in the same place as me,leave me alone !". He got hurt.How do I explain to them,my need for privacy and independence ,without hurting them?They are overprotective of me, but I'm willing to even be a cook,or something low profile, so long as I can live and experiment with my life.

You are being over-protective of your parents. They are going to worry about you, but once you are financially independent that does not give them any right to control your life. As in independent adult relative, you may choose to inform them of your plans, but there is no need to convince them of anything.

@PatriciaShanahan: Well, it is in her best interest to convince her parents that yes, she does understand the drawbacks of her choice and yes, she has thought about them at length.  Because even the most supportive understanding parents are going to feel a need to make sure those two things happen (parents who just "set the adult child free" without having a discussion about consequences are not enlightened, they are failures), and it would be foolish to break off a relationship with parents for no better reason than that they wanted to share from their experience.  +1 for great answer

Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough. Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best. Don't think about what you want to be, but what you want to do. Keep up some kind of a minimum with other things so that society doesn't stop you from doing anything at all.

Richard Feynman.

I have personally used and found the last part about "minimum required" very true.
It is natural for your parents to worry over you and desire a good life for you - one better than they lived. And it is also natural for you to worry about their worrying about you since you, like any other individual, aspire to live life on your own terms.
There can be a win-win solution like Patricia Shanahan suggested. And I would advise you to try it out. If you join a good university or even a company you might get a bit of chance around to experiment with stand up comedy like Diane Spencer(Check her out on YouTube!) does while having a "day job". This can be applied varyingly in other fields that you wish to explore once you find the right cultural scene at your place.
Now, regarding your fears about your parents trying to "control" you through a relative or some other such devices, you have to decide to draw a line and speak up for yourself and let them know what you like or don't like and what your dreams are. They might worry overtly for a day or two but it is better than "betraying" them later. Sit down and tell them that you wish to explore your other interests. If they oppose tooth and nail, do it anyways! Covertly, if required.
I had a bit of similar situation in my life  and I explained it as "If an eagle doesn't let the eaglets fly out of it's nest, they would never learn to fly. It is better that I disappoint you right now rather than blaming you for everything that goes wrong with my life just because I couldn't put my heart into what you advised for my career and life."
But I am an Indian inspired by a movie called 3 Idiots (especially the photographer guy), so the cultural disclaimers apply :)
PS: You should give this a read. "How to do what you love" by Paul Graham

I'm an Indian too !!

@That-Kickass-GirL I thought so but wasn't sure! :) Let me know if I can help/advise more. Checkout that essay at the end btw, it is very much relevant in today's India.


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What matters most for Grad school admissions ? Practical grades or Theory grades?
My college separates theory and practical grades. I have poor grades in theory like I scores around 60 ~ 80 in most of my theory grades. But except two practical exams in which I scored between 80 to 90 I got above 90 in every single practical exam. Even in my Engineering thesis and cumulative viva I scored above 90.
Applying to grad schools is a costly process so I am thinking if I should choose colleges based on my practical grades or theory grades. I can only apply to 5 ~ 6 colleges at max. Maybe less too.
Practical exams are given 2 credits and theory exams around 3 to 4. Engineering thesis was for 8 credits and cumulative viva 2 credits.
One of the reasons I scored poorly in theory grades was cause 5% of marks is awarded based on the candidates attendance and I had below 40% all throughout my undergrad study. But its not mentioned in the grade cards though.
Edit: I am a computer science student.

I am from India, country with insanely dense population and most liberal exit visa policy. Almost all of the Indian colleges I know separate practical and theory grades so I am sure this question could be helpful to many.

What sort of subjects is this about? A pratical/theory distinction doesn't always make sense, and the potential answers certainly could depend on the subject even more.

Computer science. Sorry I forgot about that.

I don't mean to discourage you, but please also take into account that marking for practicals is, in general, a lot more lenient as compared to theory. What is the lowest score that anyone got in these practical exams?

People fail the lab exams @New_new_newbie thats less than 40. Yes the labs are lenient but I guess like around 5 or 6 out of a class of 66 got 90+ in all labs.

They do !!! I grow respect for CS people!

@New_new_newbie To be frank, I was not expecting a good news man when I posted this question. I just wanted to know how bad my situation is with all my semester theory exams score following the trend, 3 papers 70 ~ 80 1 paper 80+ 2 papers 60 ~ 70. I guess my standing in class is around 20/66. I don't think even the 10 above me have a better grade in practicals. Its a engg degree right? shouldn't the admission committee place more stress on my practical skills then theoretical ones ?

You should perhaps clarify what subfield of computer science you intend to pursue, and whether it would be a masters or PhD.  Generally, I would expect that grad school in computer science, especially at the PhD level, would skew more towards theory.  Perhaps one of the computer scientists here will clarify, but I believe that practical skills such as programming are less of a focus at the graduate level, whereas theory is emphasized.

I may be suggesting the obvious but it will depend on your program and your level.
For a course based masters program with a practical bent I would imagine they would look upon your grades favourably. These tend to include some sort of practical capstone project required to earn the degree. If it's thesis based, it would tend to imply some theoretical work.
For a PhD, expect theory. Really, why else would they be PhDs?
Further, most of the applications I've seen (and submitted) tend to speak to a well rounded applicant profile. They want to know about the work you've done, volunteer experience, publications, and your academic history.
But perhaps most importantly in your situation, they tend to want some form of personal statement outlining why you both want and deserve to be in a program. This would be your opportunity to convince them; much like a cover letter.
I'm in the western world however, and cant speak to institutions beyond that sphere.


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How could one best go about research in Pure Mathematics, whilst holding a full/part-time job?
I am still working towards an undergraduate degree in Mathematics, however I don't believe it's possible to think about research too early. I'm thinking about going in the direction of Pure Mathematics - possibly in the area of Number Theory and Logic.
I have edited the above title, as I think it reflects more the question I was trying to ask.
I was really wondering if anyone firstly has an answer to my above question, and also if anyone could recommend good places online where one could follow current research activity in the area of Pure Mathematics. Number Theory, Logic, and Foundations of Mathematics particularly interest me.
Thanks in advance.

Why would you do this outside a university? You say you are pursuing an undergraduate degree. I recommend going about this within your university, and in particular by asking these questions to your professors.

I answered a similar question in a slightly different context once upon a time. Might be helpful to you, though, I'm from a CS background rather than Math so many grains of salt are involved.

Talk to your professors.   Really, they don't bite.

possible duplicate of Doing a masters degree level research without following a Master Course

Matthew G: thanks for pointing me in the direction of your excellent answer- I found it very helpful to read. The question posed there is very similar to mine, I admit. But you are referring to computer science- I would have thought there would be differences in approach in different subjects?

JeffE: If I had a professor to talk to then I would not be here. Unfortunately, due to being in a full-time job at the moment, pursuing research along the conventional route, may never be an option for me. So I'm having to think outside that box. (I would absolutely love to be doing research in a University if I could!)

@Seraphina: Can you clarify how you are "working towards an undergraduate degree in Mathematics", yet don't have a professor to talk to?

@Seraphina Even if you will not have a research position, it is still extremely valuable to collaborate with active researchers (e.g. knowledge of the field/problems + writing/publishing). Try to approach a faculty or individual scientists working on topics that you find interesting.

@Mark Meckes: you can see from Seraphina's profile that she is doing a degree by distance learning from the Open University (http://www.open.ac.uk/)

@Seraphina: Who teaches the classes you are taking?  Even distance learning courses have instructors.  To answer your question to Matthew: Some subfields of CS (like mine) are indistinguishable from mathematics.

Thanks for all your comments. @Mark Meckes: I have indeed been studying through the Open University. However, just to clarify- I am actually taking time out of the degree, so that I can go it alone, and see how that works out. This is partly to gain more fluency, and to further explore areas of maths that I'm interested in. The trouble with distance learning is that there is a lot of writing to get through, and I think that can detract from the maths. So I currently don't have a tutor. And teaching and advice from OU staff tends to be strictly tied to content in the module text books.

@JeffE: As I stated above, I have had tutors, but their teaching and advice has always been geared towards content in the module textbooks. I imagine the cross-overs between maths and CS would be in the area of logic? Interesting.

I have published a little work in number theory while working full time. There is no big secret, just read about the problems that are at a level you can solve, solve the problems and publish the results.
Publishing in a journal as an unaffiliated researcher is harder than for professional academics but not impossible. Learning TeX will help because many journals want LaTex submissions. Most background information is available online if you search for it. You can join polymath projects, use mathoverflow etc
There are some advantages of working outside the system. You dont have to go around pleasing the people who might offer positions and you can work on what you want rather than what a math department or funding agency wants. So enjoy it as a hobby while earning a proper salary.
Update: I will add a little more specific advice. If you were doing a doctorate in a university you would have a wise old supervisor who would make sure you are heading in the right direction. If you want to work outside academia there is a danger of getting on a track that has no hope of success. Do not fall into the trap of thinking you can tackle a well known unsolved problem directly. This is a mistake very frequently made by outsiders.
It is better to start on simpler problems that you can handle and use them to build up expertise even if they are not of much interest to others. One way to find such problems is to start from a well-known one but then generalise it in some novel way to a bigger class of problems. Then look for special cases that can be solved and then generalise your solutions to solve a wider class of cases.
Finally, use your skills as a programmer to find solutions of interesting problems and then look for patterns. When you find patterns, make conjectures from them that you may then be able to prove. Try solving the problems at https://projecteuler.net/ to perfect your algorithm skills

A substantial fraction of activity is visible on arXiv, the main page for which is at https://arxiv.org/
For example, the "number theory" listings are at https://arxiv.org/list/math.NT/recent
But, also, many mathematicians keep papers on their web-pages, so you can look backward in time effectively on these pages. And there are listings of many number-theorists' URLs at http://www.numbertheory.org/
That is, with the internet, it is possible to keep in touch with current and past activity to a great degree. Many journal articles are behind paywalls, unfortunately, but substantial information about such material is available by other means.
...and: https://mathoverflow.net/ is a Q-and-A for research-level mathematics and mathematicians, while https://math.stackexchange.com/ is for undergrad and beginning graduate-level mathematics. Old questions and answers are searchable in both cases. In the case of math stack exchange, some dubious or not-ideal answers propagate, so take things "with a grain of salt".
But if you can find any way to have more direct personal contact with mathematicians, things can be communicated that you won't see in formal writing...

For tracking arXiv I would recommend https://scirate.com/ (feed + votes + comments).

I currently have the opportunity to spend a lot of time (meaning: not even a part-time job) thinking of a wealth of problems.  This is great if I don't care about how I am going to handle my retirement (options: go homeless; die early; get adopted).  I can fuss with details, spend time on the Internet researching or messing around, and still get enough sleep, time with family, etc.
You can lead your life as you choose.  If you want to lead it best however, make sure that what you do is in line with your values.  If you can get satisfaction from e.g. spending an hour a day thinking and writing math, schedule that in.  If you absolutely want to integrate math into your current lifestyle, the major resource involved is time.  Make sure that resource is spent wisely.  (I've chosen to spend time away from math learning piano.  We'll
see in a decade or so how good a choice that was for me.)
Under the assumption that you have approximately ten hours a week to devote to mathematics,  I suggest building Internet and personal resources.  Involving yourself on online fora such as math.stackexchange and MathOverflow may help, if you don't clash too much with the culture.  Write up your observations in ways that might be understandable by others.  Engage with other people, and establish relationships (face-to-face or long distance) with the understood purpose of mutual mathematics enhancement.  If you can get a mentor, even better. Find out if you like to solve problems ("repair work"), build bodies of knowledge ("catherdral or bazaar builder"), or note interesting connections (synthesis).   If you can leverage your existing skills to the process, so much the better.  Get to know your research library.   If potential mentors have offered up their email, use it; don't be afraid to ask, and always respect the others' time.
Above all, manage your resources, primarily time, energy, and satisfaction level.  Hopefully nature will tell you which direction to follow, and a support group will tell you (what not to do) to get there.

Thanks so much for all your really invaluable answers. I would like to mark them all up, but I can't do that at the moment.

Really helpful advice! You just made my day!

I would like to commend your mindset! This is exactly what makes mathematics more fun is the ability to go out and do it on your own without having someone else forcing you. The only problem it can be very ambiguous where to start.
I would recommend finding a challenging book and reading through it. Good subjects are in any university catalog (Calculus, DiffEQ, Prob, Number Theory, Algebra, Topology, Real Analysis, etc). Wolfram provides great definitions. Overleaf is a great place to publish documents. Lastly do at least a problem a workday!