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How to present my work experience in a PhD interview?
I am going to attend my 2nd round PhD interview. There are two parts. One is about a 20-minute long presentation focusing on my work experience, motivation and anything which can prove I am able to fit this position. Another part is about a 40-minute long group discussion. So I was wondering how to prepare for this presentation. Should I present my past project in detail, like providing the graphs? May I talk about something about my interest, my hobby? Any tips and suggestions? Thanks in advance.

The first part:
If this is going to happen in front of the interview panels only (not with other applicants), then it is better to prepare for a detailed discussion. A detailed discussion includes a powerpoint presentation of your work, what would you do in future, etc. Also, you must expect some direct questions like "Why this is good for our organisation?" type questions. This part seems more like a personal discussion.
The second part:
If this is with other applicants, then there is no point being too specific and detailed about your PhD works. It is good enough to know the general knowledge of this field and some degree of the thesis that you have proposed in your PhD. You should be able to actively communicate and agree/disagree with others, very intellectually.
Good luck!

Hi, thanks for your answer. I do not know who will attend this interview. Maybe it will include the PI, group members and headers of this project. I am sure no other candidate will attend it. I have finished three projects but they are not close to this position. So should I present my previous work in much detail?

@DongxuZheng This "So should I present my previous work in much detail" has been answered in the answer given.

@DongxuZheng You should only a general idea, not too much in a specialised way. Good luck!


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How do I motivate my PhD students to attend seminars
I lead a research group of ten PhD students in the field of cancer research. We are doing pretty well and we are the top group at our institute in terms of publications, service and general motivation. I have high but certainly not unrealistic expectations to my students, I closely supervise them and I am trying to guide them towards  becoming complete and well-equipped scientists.
Although they are generally doing really well, I noticed that frequently my students don't attend the departmental lunchtime seminars, although I made it clear that I expect them to be there. This is true for both, those talks that are not associated with our research topic and those that are. I mentioned this several times in the past where I highlighted that even if the topic isn't insightful they can learn about how it was presented and how good questions were asked, etc. Our Institute had issues with attendance in the past and I also noticed this a few years ago when I was organizing it, I am therefore quite annoyed about this.
Last week, some of the students left at about half time of the talk of a foreign visitor and it was apparently so distracting that even my colleagues pointed this out to me. I am possible fine if one of them would have left (and I made it clear that I want them to let me know if this happens), and I could have simply told the speaker in advance.
I am not really sure how I should handle the situation. I thought of make them attend for every single seminar in the future and of cutting support for conferences and other goodies.
I am attending every time, I ask questions, I praise students that also ask and I talk about these presentations in the group meetings to show them how much they are worth and contribute to our general institute culture. Any suggestions on how I could generate a more stimulating environment?

Useful suggestions in the comments, but most if not all are addressed in answers, so comments have been moved to chat; please do not continue the discussion here. Before posting a comment below this one, please review the purposes of comments. Comments that do not request clarification or suggest improvements usually belong as an answer, on [meta], or in [chat]. Comments continuing discussion may be removed.

As noted in the comments, you should try and find out why the students don't want to attend. However, the answer will almost certainly be some flavour of "coming to seminars doesn't feel like a good use of my time", perhaps mixed in with a bit of "oops, I meant to come but I forgot" and a bit of "well nobody else goes so why should I?".
What can/should you do? Some suggestions:

Think about why you expect your students to attend. What do you want them to get out of the experience? Is the current setup actually effective in delivering those goals? How does the seminar time slot fit in with students' other obligations?

Take advantage of gentle social pressure. Can you engineer a situation where attending the seminar becomes the 'natural' thing to do? E.g., you could lead the students on a trip to get take-out coffee just prior to the seminar, so that 'the herd' arrives at the door to the seminar room without ever having had to think about it.

Make sure that the students can't forget that the seminar is happening - send a reminder email an hour or so before it starts.

Help students understand the seminar. Use some time in your group meetings to talk about the upcoming seminar - what's it about? Why is the topic interesting/important? What's the history of work in this area? How does it fit in with things your students are doing? And debrief from the previous seminar - what were the main points? Was anything particularly interesting? What was good/bad about the speaker's delivery?

Encourage your students to interact with speakers. Bring them to lunch/dinner with the speaker; or book a slot where the speaker will spend an hour in the grad student office hearing about what they're all doing.

Ensure that the seminar programme is as relevant and interesting as possible: make sure you always suggest lots of good speakers! And involve your students in this: who do they want to meet? Who gave a good talk at the last conference they went to? Help the students feel invested in the seminar programme.

Free food.

Make sure your expectations are clear, but realistic. It isn't healthy or productive to have students attending against their will: you want them to be at the seminar because they've chosen to be, not because they fear the consequences of non-attendance. Also, recognise that life happens. People will inevitably miss the odd seminar; that's ok, and they shouldn't be expected to justify themselves.

I'd move "Free food" to #1.

If you add in some free booze and food, they will all come I guarantee.

@AzorAhai-him- I would leave Free Foot at #7.  I would also add it above #1.  And possibly insert it between #3 and #4, and just after #5.

There is also another commonly picked option - force them to go. Where I did my postdoc attendance of a certain number of department colloquia was a graduation requirement for PhD students. Where I am now our seminar series is part of a graduate "course" and students get credits for attending. Not saying that these are necessarily elegant or subtle ways to make people attend, but they do work.

You have some good answers and comments already, but I'd like to take a step back and look at the question.
You say your students and your group are doing well in all sorts of ways. Good.
House of God is a wonderful book about medical school and residency. In it, the residents learn the "four laws of medicine":

If what you are doing is working, keep doing it.
If what you are doing isn't working, stop doing it.
If you don't know what to do, do nothing. and
Never call a surgeon.

In your case, I'd look closely at #1. What you are doing is working. Why mess with it?
I'd also take a look at just how realistic your expectations are. Clearly, the students do not think it is realistic to ask them to attend a lot of seminars in addition to all the other work they have to do (and grad students generally are quite busy).
A break in the day is not really a luxury. Breaks are necessary for recharging, both physically (food) and emotionally (just sitting or talking to friends, spouses, kids etc. ) or doing mundane tasks. Idle time is good.
Now, if you look at the situation and conclude that attending the seminars really is important, then eliminate something else from their schedules. If you can't do this then you are saying that the seminars are the least important academic thing in their days, and they are simply agreeing with you.

Thank you! It's probably better to adjust my expectations than to create a bad atmosphere.

Also, the timing issues extend beyond having a break: for certain kinds of experimental work that need blocks of uninterrupted time, mid-day events are particularly tricky. A lunch seminar probably blocks off 1145-1330h or so (a hour + questions + travel time). If an experiment takes four hours, the morning is shot and the afternoon is very tight if you want to leave at 5.

@Matt Thank you for mentioning "uninterrupted time". This applies not only to experimental work but also to everything else that requires the brain. Our pseudo-multitasking world seems to have entirely forgotton about the costs of context switches.

@HenrikSchumacher: knowing both wet lab (chemistry) and brain work I'm very aware of the cost of switching focus. But at least for me it costs in the order of magnitude of maybe 5 - 15 min compared to experiments that may enforce/require a particular schedule over 5+ hours. As bad as it is to say, programming productivity, there still isn't an equivalent to Ctrl-Z in many cases in the wet lab...

Leaving a talk en masse is definitely not good behavior, it is distracting and impolite, and you should address it in a group meeting as a matter of professional etiquette.
Making your students attend talks in which your students are not interested is a different topic that others have already addressed. Rereading your question it seems that students in general are not attending the seminar and you are an exception among the faculty in pressuring your students to attend, which of course makes your stance more difficult. It also seems to me that you are already doing what you can do.

There are two separate issues here:

Students leaving a seminar early. If I had this problem, I would meet with all my students as a group and explain to them how impolite and disruptive such behavior is and let them know not to do so in the future if they want to continue working with me. (Ok, with some caveats about feeling sick during the seminar, needing a bathroom break, and other exceptional situations.) The thing is, in my experience, most students are simply clueless regarding what is appropriate and what is inappropriate in academic setting.

Students skipping your seminar. Let me assume that you already determined that the students should be attending most of the time. If I were you, I would decide on the cut-off, which percentage of seminars students should be attending and pass the attendance list around during each seminar. During the meeting with all my students I would let them know about the percentage, explain why it is beneficial for them to attend and other reasons for the attendance requirement. As in (1), I would let them know that if they want to work with me, they have to follow my attendance policy.

Also, now it is too late, but in the future, I suggest doing two things before the semester/quarter starts:
(a) Announcing your attendance policy.
(b) Discussing days/times of the seminars making sure that the students (as well as postdocs, you, other faculty...) can attend on regular basis.
On a personal note: I run my reading seminars with students so that they get a course credit for taking such a seminar. The grade they get at the end of the semester/quarter is based on attendance and giving seminar talks.  And, in the past, I gave failing grade to some of the students who did not attend enough of the meetings.

Good answer (+1) but OP has already informed the candidates of attendance expectation; this seems to me like it meets the requirements of "announcement".

@Ben: an expectation is not the same as a requirement, especially if a specific cut-off is given.

@MoisheKohen: If I tell my PhD students that I expect them to do their data analysis with care and competence, I do not then require a formal policy (or to have expicitly said that this is a "requirement") to give them adverse feedback and ratings in their candidature if they fail to do so.  You seem to be labouring under idea that every performance expectation must be in a formal written policy or mandatory requirement.

@Ben I think the main thing is to make it clear to people that it's an expectation you care about. I'm sure we're all familiar with policies that are different de facto versus de jure (you probably know of several in dealing with Administration). Just saying it's an expectation doesn't matter much if you don't demonstrate (in some fashion) that it's important. e.g. If you say you want care and competence, but then make no comment when shown sloppy data analysis (while simultaneously criticizing speed of results), they'll pick up what you really care about.

Agreed, but it appears to me that OP has done that here.

Don't.  Don't try to force your students to attend.  Your students are adults and they can make their own decisions.  They are voting with their feet, signalling that they don't see attending the seminar as the best possible use of their time.  Maybe they are right, maybe they are wrong, but that is their decision to make.  I think you should support them and applaud them for taking care of themselves and prioritizing where to spend their energy.  They might be making a mistake, but we all need to make our own mistakes and learn from them.
It's worth remembering your relationship to them: you are their advisor.  It is their PhD.  They will get out of their PhD program what they put into it.  They are in charge of their progress, and are responsible for the results.  As an advisor, you can give them advice.  But it's not your place to force them to attend seminars.  It's ultimately their decision about whether to follow your advice, or not to.
I suggest you think about how best to serve them.  What will best help them in their career?  How can you best serve their needs?  That might be creating opportunities, offering teaching and feedback, giving helpful advice, helping them make connections, etc.  If you start from the premise that your goal is to get them to attend the seminars, that risks leading you down an unhealthy path; whereas if you start from the goal of serving them, I think it sets you up for a better perspective.
You believe that they will be better off if they attend the seminar.  I suggest that you spend a little time reflecting on how and why it will benefit them.  Also, make sure to take into account the opportunity cost: there are other things they could be doing with that time, and why is this more valuable than the other valuable things they could be doing?  For instance, if they want to go into academia, maybe hearing a few job talks from faculty candidates in other areas is helpful, because it will help them prepare to give their own job talk, and help them empathize with an audience who is not an expert in the subject of the talk?  Maybe there is a particular speaker who is doing work that is essential for everyone in your area to be familiar with?  If you think you can make a solid case that it's better for them to attend the seminar, then talk to them, share with them your advice and your reasons (once), and let them make their choice accordingly, and respect their choice.  Don't try to penalize them if they have a different perspective.
I also suggest that you think more about attraction and less about coercion.  In other words, if you think it'd be good to have more students attending a seminar, think about how you can make it more valuable and attractive to attend.  Can you make it more inspiring or more useful in some way?  Perhaps you might consider having the students organize and lead the seminar, so they can choose topics and format that will make sense to them?  Maybe it'd be more valuable if your students were the speakers, speaking about their own work or some paper they enjoyed reading, rather than inviting in outsiders?  Maybe not all speakers who are attending are exciting to everyone to everyone in the group -- if so, that would be normal.  In many universities, there are lots of opportunities to attend talks; maybe your students feel they have enough of that and don't need more.  Is there something that they would value and they do need?  Or perhaps a difference pace (e.g., every other week rather than every week) would fit people better?  Finally, there is a chance it might help if you participate, you provide high-quality food, and you "set a tone" in positive atmosphere and supportive culture -- you may already be doing all of that.

+1 for spelling out that PhD students are adults and fully qualified in their profession and thus should be assumed to take care of their career themselves.

As hinted-at in other comments and answers, although you could attempt to coerce/command them to attend, that will lead to trouble.
And, we do have to admit, lots of "general departmental seminars" (I'm in math...), even "colloquia" (supposedly of broad interest) are crap. So it's not irrational to just skip them! To attempt to compel people to do something that they (possibly reasonably) perceive as a waste of time mostly discredits the person attempting to compel.
Oh-so-true, "kids" (oh, and many older people, too) do not understand what might be in their best interests. This is not a passing problem/fact, but, rather, apparently a "feature" of human nature. So, then, how to persuade people to "do what's good for them"? ... when they do, in fact, have limited time and energy and attention... ?
(Yes, I've observed the "sign-up sheet at seminars" feature in some other departments here in my university, and this was not correlated with attention of students to the speakers. Nor were the speakers particularly interesting. "If you're gonna basically read your slides, just send them to me, and I can read through them in a few minutes... Don't have to be a particular place, at a particular time, etc.)
(Yes, I do also know that far too many students have been negatively conditioned by prior educational situations, so that everything is viewed as adversarial... )
Operational conclusion: if the seminars are actually not good, don't require your students' attendance. Or, perhaps, invite critiques from your students, both of presentation-technique and content (and irrelevance to their own work?). Give them a chance to express their disaffection?!? :)
(Note: the Powerpoint (and Beamer) stunt of delaying visibility of lower bullet points on the page is really just irritating... :) Yes, I know it's standard. :)

I'm missing one point in the answers so far, which is cultural* - I'm answering from and mostly for germany.
The connotation of lunch-seminar is very strongly that it is a voluntary opportunity, so the setup of those seminars communicates rather the opposite of its compulsory nature.

TLDR
I expect lunch seminar to mean

everyone bringing their lunch
or maybe some little food provided - but I would certainly not expect a proper meal being provided.
Unless students know that if they are hungry and don't have food to bring, they need to take their lunch break first, you may have a very compelling reason for a) students leaving or b) not attending since they go to the canteen instead
and everyone munching during the talk.
This is something that for a normal (non-lunch) seminar I'd consider about as impolite as getting up and leaving right in the middle of a talk from the middle of the audience. Maybe some students think if one is customary, neither can the other be wrong.

A break is by definition time where the student/employee can decide themselves what to do, and while the employer/supervisor may offer opportunities (canteen, gym, place to sit outdoors, ... or also a seminar) they cannot prescribe anything. Not even healthy food - even though they may restrict the food offered by the canteen to healthy choices. Much less seminar attendance.
So if there's a compulsory lunchtime seminar, make sure it is clearly communicated that they are expected to take their break before or after, and the seminar is work-time.
As a side note: if you seriously want people to engage with the talk and think and discuss, I guess scheduling a seminar so that people arrive hungry (or heavily digesting) is not the most sensible option.
As opposed to having a seminar about some relevant but "light" topic scheduled with the coffee after lunch (say, a librarian giving up to date hints on faster getting the paper you need).

*the Hydrazin spelling of OP's name suggests maybe Central or Northern European context.

This, 100%. I'd also implore people to consider that for diabetic students/colleagues, messing around with meal schedules can be very unpleasant.

@coffee_into_plots: it also messes around with people's privacy who have to take medication - which is often tied to meals, (before, with, after) and diabetics may need to take measurements as well, etc. All these are things that IMHO any one who wishes so may do in public. But the default must be that people can do this privately and without more hassle than strictly necessary.

What does your students schedule look like?
It could be as simple as them valuing having a meal over a seminar they might not have any interest in.
I distinctly remember in my second last year of undergrad, we had seminars during lunch ever week on Thursday. The attendance was consistently 5-9 people out of 30 because prior to the seminar was 4 hours of lectures followed by 4 hours of practical's after lunch. So naturally nobody wanted to spend the entire day hungry, especially with graded practical's after lunch.

There are sticks and carrots. A carrot-flavored stick is to put a seminar course on the syllabus, worth some number of credit hours that reflects the stick-carrot balance. They obtain the credit hours by attending a certain number of the seminars (their choice), signing an attendance sheet and staying until the end. They can get extra credit for asking good questions.
They also get credit by reviewing a certain number of the seminars that they attend (say three) Their review may focus on the technical content of the presentation, its general scientific interest or its relation to their coursework or their research project, or on the techniques of vocal delivery, slide design, pace and timing, or anything at all sensible.
You might be giving lunch to your speaker, and you might make one or two places available to students who volunteer. Weak students will not come just for the food because they will be nervous about embarrassing themselves. Strong students will relish the experience.

These are PhD students and OP is their advisor, so there probably is no "syllabus" and no "points."

@cag51: True, but there is performance feedback from the supervisor at relevant review points in the candidature.

And then there's the stick -- while the group as a whole is doing well, there is always some sort of unpopular chore distributed by a fair rotation.  Factor in seminar participation into the algorithm...

It is time for negative performance feedback and a warning that this may affect milestone assessments in the candidature
This is not an especially difficult problem to solve, and your problem appears to come from your false premise that you need to convince your students to do the required work for their program.  You do not.  As with any other professional position (e.g., a professional job in the workforce), you inform the person of the relevant work requirements for the position, explain the goal and purpose of those requirements, provide them with assistance and guidance to meet those requirements, and then observe their compliance with these requirements and give them adverse performance feedback/rating if they fail to perform their duties properly (absent some good reason for that failure).  In the latter case this often leads to some kind of performance-improvement-plan to give the person a chance to uplift their work performance.
In the present case you have already informed your students that attendance at seminars is an expected part of their candidature.  You have also explained the goal of this activity and the value it adds to their own learning and the culture of the department.  You have also given them reminders, etc., in relation to this requirement of their candidature.  At this point, it would be reasonable for you to sit down with the main offenders and inform them that they are not meeting the requirements of their candidature and so you will be giving them negative performance feedback on that aspect of their candidature at their next review.  You should also make them aware that this could lead to a lower overall assessment of their performance at the review and explain what (if any) impact this might have on the decisions of the assessment panel in relation to their candidature (though you want to avoid speculating too much here).  If the student is performing poorly overall (taking account of the totality of their activities), this might include a warning that you plan to recommend discontinuation of the candidature at the next milestone review.
Hopefully it goes without saying that all of this should be augmented with ongoing attention to whether it remains reasonable to expect attendance at seminars, whether this activity adds value to the students and the department, whether there is good cause for non-attendance, the impact of competing priorities, etc.  If there is some good reason for non-attendance for one of your students then you may wish to remove the attendance requirement, or vary it somehow, or provide some other support.  Nevertheless, as a superisor you have both the right and duty to ensure that your students meet the performance expectations of their candidature, and to give them adverse feedback, etc., if they are not meeting requirements.

Thanks for your opinion, Ben!
I totally agree that it's better to set clear boundaries instead of me holding a grudge towards someone. I will talk to everyone but for now I won't escalate the situation. Anyway, it's good to hear that I am not overreacting in case I need to handle this more seriously in the future.

"Anyway, it's good to hear that I am not overreacting" >
The posted answer is a wild overreaction, and depending on the school/department, might actually violate departmental guidelines and policies. Most departments have some sort of written rules and/or guidelines about what is required of their Ph.D. students for PRECISELY this kind of situation. A lot of faculty and admins are going to be unhappy with you when your students come to them asking why they are being threatened with loss of candidature over not attending a seminar series that no one else seems to be required to attend.

If it is really that important, you can petition the program/department to include with the required Ph.D. courses a 1 credit seminar every year - this is what our program did with our departmental seminars.

We had one course where we were required to attend seminars, because we were required to critique them as homework assignments.  The course was, in effect, "How to be a graduate student" and it was clear that there was full departmental support behind that requirement.  It was also only one semester.  (It was actually pretty useful, but having to attend a bunch of seminars all X semesters would not have been X times as useful.)

Having a supervisor give negative performance feedback on work is not equivalent to cancellation of candidature, but of course, it does flow into the decision of the panel on whether to continue/discontinue candidature.  The typical process in candidature rules is that there are milestone reviews with a faculty panel and these take account of reports/feedback from the supervisor.  Supervisors have every right to put forward negative feedback, and indeed, they have a duty to do so if a candidate is underperforming on an element of their candidature.

@Ben Where we're disagreeing here is having "attend seminars that no other graduate students in the program are required to attend" as reasonably being an element of their candidature.

@WhatTheDuck: That doesn't seem like an unreasonable element of candidature to me, and in any case, the supervisor is best placed to assess this; he evidently has set this as an expectation for his students.

@Ben This supervisor's students are required to give up a lunch break every week (potentially for multiple years) to attend a seminar series that is so unimportant to the rest of the department that no other students are required to show up, let alone show up on their own. That seems like a pretty unreasonable element of their candidature to me.

I think this answer is quite effect in highlighting that OP almost certainly does not want to take this as seriously as one in principle could, though I don't know for sure--at least it highlights how highly unusual such behavior would be.

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Will having a mediocre undergrad GPA ruin my chance getting into a PhD program
I transferred from a four-year university into one of the UCs last year majoring in biological sciences. Unfortunately, my UC gpa is not as high as I wanted it to be. I used to have a 3.9 but can only get a 3.4 in UC. I am planning on applying for a biomedical PhD program this year as I am graduating next year but I am very worried about my gpa ruining my chance of getting in as PhD programs are highly competitive. I did okay on my major courses but I do have 2 B- in organic chemistry A and B, which I am really concerning about right now. With this kind of grade, will I stand a chance in the PhD application?

Mediocre grades don't help, of course, but a doctoral admissions committee will look at much more than your GPA. Many things are considered, especially the things people say about you in your letters of recommendation. Your statement of purpose, which is often required, can also be a big factor. You need to show that you are both highly qualified and a good candidate for success in the program.
So, yes, you have a chance, but the competition will also be fierce. If you want to continue in organic chemistry, or something that depends heavily on it, then you need to explain those grades, but, depending on the field you choose it might be a relatively small factor. But your record will be judged by humans, not an automaton, so many things can affect what happens.

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Rebuttal limited to one page
I recently submitted to a machine learning conference, and got 3 weak accepts. One concern was, that the work may be of limited interest. Therefore I went ahead and collected more example in the literature that were related, and found a bunch of them (most very recently, so I couldnt have included them in the original submission). However, if I want to include all of them, it takes more than half of my one page limit, and I don't have enough space left to address the rest.
How strict are these limits if it is only references that are over the one page limit?
Alternatively some of the other criticism is just typos. I could try to address them by just generally saying something like: 'Thank you for pointing out the typos, we have fixed all of them', without naming them separately. Would you recommend that, or could that be too brief for a reviewer (not acknowledging his work enough?)

If you have 3 weak accepts, in most venues that means you are generally in so long as you don't shoot yourself in the foot somehow. So don't get too carried away in over-promising!

The only time I'd mention typos individually is if I had been specifically told to do so. Otherwise, I'd just say that the typos have been fixed (and I'd double-check to be sure they really have all been fixed).

You don't need to say much about simple things like typos. As for the other, if you go over the one page limit make sure than everything essential is on the first page. Even that is a bit risky if someone is a page limit fanatic. The best route is to say what you can in one page, mentioning only important things.
But if you think of it as a "response" rather than a "rebuttal" you won't get into an argumentative mode which won't serve you well.


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Cite only by DOI in rebuttal
I have to write a rebuttal for a machine learning conference in which I included a lot of new references (to prove broad interest). The rebuttal has a page limit of one, and my reference list is too long for that. Is it ok to cite the paper by only using the DOI in the rebuttal, if I cite the works in full in the actual submission in the final version?

Yes, that's fine.  Contrary to Wolfgang's answer, the DOI is the easiest way for a reviewer to find your reference.  They can simply use the DOI resolver.  The advantage of DOIs is that they always find the document in one step.  Traditional citations do not necessarily do that.

Make it easy for your reviewers to get what you are saying. Just a DOI is really hard for a reviewer because they have to walk to the computer, look up the DOI, and all that.
If you don't want to provide the full reference, just say "see Schneider et al., cited in the paper". That way, there is an easy place to go to to find the full title and reference.

The papers are new references though (mostly because they were published after I submitted my paper), so I can not do that, unfortunately.

Rebuttal systems are web-based systems, so when a reviewer consults the rebuttal, they have a web browser running and are only one copy-paste away from the referenced publication. See Anonymous Physicist's answer.

I don't understand -- why can't you cite these new papers? They may have been published after your paper was submitted, but since you're in the process of revision, I see no reason why you can't add new citations. Indeed, I would think that you should: After all, that would be useful for your readers!


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Small bugs during review in software tool paper
I am reviewing a software library tool at the moment.
During the review, I found some minor bugs while running their examples. However, it seems like nobody else has these bugs (at least I cant find them on the Github issue page). Otherwise, the library seems to be great. Should I recommend an accept pointing to these bugs or post the issues on Github (which could technically reveal my identity though, which would be against the blind review process).

You should submit the bugs with your review, not through Github.

If those bugs and bug-fixes are critical to your review, you should submit it with it and don't make a pull request from your official GitHub account. You still have an option of creating a one-time account and point to those issues/submit pull request fixing them in GitHub – that will not reveal your identity.
If your review does not really need those bugs to be mentioned (they are tangent to the subject of the review and don't influence the evaluation much), you can omit them from the review and post them officially through GitHub. That still has some possibility of identity reveal if the bugs are very special, and there are very few (say, 2) reviewers that participate in the peer-review process.


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Do i really need a masters degree for data science / machine learning ? Applied Maths background
I am a senior student in a 5-year integrated Masters degree in Applied Mathematics and i have selected a specialization in Mathematics for Computer Science(Data structures,Algorithms and Complexity,Graph Theory etc.). I have a good understanding of Statistics, Probabilites etc. and decent knowledge of Python,R,Java,SQL,PHP. Last year i had a class of "Data Analysis using R" and i loved it so i was thinking of following a career in data science and machine learning and therefore doing an Msc in this field.
Unfortunately i don't have good grades and therefore it is pretty hard to make it for a Master's degree in a good university,also i don't think i could make it for this year applications so that means i will have to wait another year until i can apply again.
So i was wondering if i realy need a masters degree for a junior level job in this field, since i think i am half way there with my background, or if i could make it by studying on my own for some months(or a mooc) about ML,Big Data etc ?

The course you are in already provides a master's degree, if I understand correctly. Are you asking about the job market value of taking a second master's after this one? Are you contemplating switching careers? Or are you asking if you can drop out and still get a job?

I am asking if i can get a job without an extra degree , just with the the degree i am currently on (yes my degree counts as Master) and with some extra skills i could learn on my own before i start applying for jobs

Jobs advertised in ML/DS range from "you will actually just be writing SQL queries, but that's a kind of ML, right?" (for which you need only a roughly related bachelor's or equivalent 1-2 years job experience) to "a PhD in the field plus 10 years business experience, not counting academic experience, and experience with 12 completely different sub-fields minimum for this entry-level but decently paid position". There is no set terminology or job titles in these areas, its a mess, so you'll need to get a lot more specific in what kind of thing you want before deciding on another degree.

I work as a data scientist. We hire many people with a bachelor's degree in computer science, statistics, applied math, etc. Having a master's degree is better. If you have a master's degree in applied math, most data science jobs will be happy to look at you.
Be warned of course that there are various levels of 'data science' positions out there. Some of our junior employees literally just sit and query data bases for us all day. Or they are responsible to create nice looking images in Tableau. (Which has very little to do with "real" data science). I personally would find it to be mind numbing work. But it pays the bills for them, so it is what it is. To get onto the teams that do real research, we often require a graduate degree and some formalized abilities in machine learning.
Compile a portfolio of your strongest projects.
Being able to demonstrate some projects in ML you have worked on can go a long way. The more examples of independent projects in ML and data science that you have done, the better. Projects that demonstrate an understanding of what is going on beneath the surface are the best. (Anyone with basic R skills can run a RandomForest analysis. Being able to explain how you changed your parameters to optimize your model is another story).
I will comment on your grades here. For junior positions, grades honestly do not matter for the most part. All we would care about is if you can do the work. For higher positions, someone with a mediocre GPA is not going to be looked at as strongly. Most of us excelled in school. Much of our work requires study and applied learning. Applicants with mediocre GPAs usually do not have the specific study aptitudes we want. If your GPA is lower than about a 3.7, and you want to work into senior positions, be prepared to really demonstrate your value with a strong project portfolio.
One piece of advice on applying for junior level positions. Data science positions tend to fall into two categories: data analyst and data researcher. There is not a lot of fluidity between the two tracks. People who start out as analysts tend to get stuck there long term. If you want to get into machine learning and big data, avoid applying to data analyst jobs.
One other thing I will say: Avoid paying for a data science "boot camp" or the like. At least at my place of employment, we tend to place very little weight onto such things. I see applicants who have a BA in Classical Greek (very interesting subject, but very little job market) who have gone to a coding boot camp and expect that we will bring them in as a ML researcher or something. It does not work like that.

What you need is really up to those who are hiring. But knowledge and competence is probably more valued than specific degrees.
But, since you have some time before you can enter a masters degree program you have a chance to test the waters by applying for some positions and see how people react to you and your qualifications.
That experience may give you the best guidance about how to prepare for your future.

If I can add anything, it would be that usually there are university fairs which enable you to talk to employers about potential positions. You could try to attend one of these, and ask around if your education would be sufficient for the position that you'd like.

I would try to get in contact with actual data scientists at companies you are looking at. Be warned that sometimes the recruiters at job fairs have next to no knowledge about what their data science teams are actually looking for.


text:
Postdoc in China: what are the possible difficulties and disadvantages?
According to the research paper, where the comparison of postdocs in China and US was done, there are several global cons of Chinese postdoctoral positions, like low salary and lack of permanent jobs. But, what are the other unofficial problems I could face if I go to China?
First, I really recommend everyone who is interested in postdocs to read this article - Postdocs in Science: A Comparison between China and the United States (November 2015) (link to pdf).
After it, I turned my search vector to China and found the position in good academic institution. I have my own subjective reason to go there and the pros are clear for me. However, I worried about any hidden specifics of Chinese science. For instance, my position is only for European researcher and it was opened at the institution’s web page during last 2 years. If Chinese postdoc is still not very attractive for foreigners, why so (except money)?
Moreover, China has very old traditions and they probably influence  scientific ethics and standards.
This will be my first postdoc, therefore, could you please share with me your experience and knowledge regarding unpleasant specifics of Chinese science.
*Possible topics:

collaborations and attending conferences (local and abroad);
grants and project I can apply for (local and foreign);
duties and demands (help from colleagues or PhD student);
tangible and intangible benefits and attitude to scientists (see Laowai).

Some questions have been already discussed here:

What is the average postdoctoral salary in
China?
Is it possible to study in China without knowing
Chinese?

PS: I also will be very greateful if you mention the possible solution for a problem (maybe add some point to my contract).

Postdoc positions are never permanent. By definition. Thus, your claim that this is a "con" for Chinese postdocs is a bit weird.

Also what is your longer term goal? are you looking for a position in China? Are you yourself Chinese (by ethnicity or nationality)? What is the other option you are considering?

Dilworth, I (and the authors of the article) ment the further permanent position after postdoc.

First of all, the language problem depends on which city are you planning to join. And secondly, before joining to any institutions, you can ask all these to your supervisor. Your assigned duties are already fixed before, and yes you must complete some task for example some papers for getting the full salary.

@Dilworth, I (and the authors of the article) ment the further permanent position, after postdoc.

@virmaior I'm from Europe and I'm going to go to exact position (waiting for contract now). My research area is under developing in China, so I'm thinking to build a good relationships or even a career there.

I'd thinking networking would be the main problem. You may be 'cut off' from the field in your home continent and your new contacts would be Chinese. That's ok if you want to remain there, but it could be a (not insurmountable) hurdle otherwise.

@Artem, I see. But what matters when writing anything, is what is in fact written, and not what has been "meant" in principle. So I suggest to revise accordingly.

this is not a hight level social status You might have a bit misunderstanding. In Chinese culture, scholars always have high social status. However, in most cases, people cannot tell if you are in China for business or for doing research. Once you are known to be doing research there, you will receive a lot respects.

The answer to this question depends highly on which field you're in. I'm doing a postdoc in China but I doubt that I would have much of use to tell you if you're not in a field that operates similar to my own.

Thank's a lot for all your comments. I'm going to hold a postdoc in experimental physics and now I hope to be a "scientific Laowai", that sounds better.) Thank you @scaaahu!

@Artem Hm, well, I'm in theoretical physics. Somewhat close, I would think. Though I'm not really sure what you're asking. Could you clarify your question?

It’s difficult to be more clear with my question, because I don’t know what problems could be with China postdoc (I've never been there). If there will be no answers, the conclusion will be that there are no big differences comparing with other countries.

@DavidZ Ok I will give you example of my particular case:
After I sent my docs to the foreign department, they just sent me the paper version of the contract by regular mail without agreement with me any points. When I asked for digital version by e-mail, I got no answer. Now I’m still waiting for the contract.
I understand that it’s my subjective worries, but did you heard in general about situations when Chinese colleagues was dishonest, cunning or something else?

This question would be worth reading, about difficulties in receiving promised pay.

I'm doing a postdoc in computer science at Nankai University, Tianjin, China.  You've asked about the negatives, but I first want to point out that I love living in China (my friends talk about how they should visit China one day; I live here!).  It's not perfect, but it's not nearly as bad as made out on Western media.  And I feel physically safer here than I do in any other country.
Some items that might be of concern:

Culture shock.  Have you been to China before?  Because wow!  It's a shock when you're new.  I recommend visiting (e.g. for 3 months) before taking up a job here.  Things you'll need to get used to:  chopsticks, squat toilets, pollution, crowds, haggling, real Chinese food, the great firewall (e.g. Facebook, Google, Dropbox are blocked), crossing the road, finding clothes that fit, fighting over the bill, people pushing in front of you, traffic.  A lot of the time, you won't really know what's going on because it was explained to you in Chinglish.  At other times, things won't make sense because they're just done differently in China.
Low salary (by international standards--well paid by Chinese standards).  But the university should cover accommodation (so no bills to pay), and cost of living is next to negligible (as long as you eat the local food; Western food incurs Western prices).
Language barrier.  Even if your colleagues all speak English, you will need to do things like buying food, taking taxis, etc., which will require some level of Chinese (unless you want to disturb your colleagues repeatedly).  You might end up misunderstanding important things (e.g. your salary level) because it was explained to you in broken English.  Also, how good are you at pronouncing Chinese names (your future co-authors names)?
Medical care.  Forget having privacy; expect to explain your medical conditions in front of maybe 5 other patients.  Oh, and probably one of your work colleagues will need to translate for you, and help you buy medicines.  (It helps if you know someone who's a doctor.)
Loneliness.  All of your friends will probably be through work.  They will go off and spend time with their family and friends, or go back to their accommodation, and you'll be left alone.  You'll be a kind of outsider, and people might be too shy to invite you to events, even though you are lonely.  (From my perspective, this is the worst aspect of living in China.)
Proofreading papers.  You're probably going to get asked to proofread/polish a whole bunch of papers.
Administration.  In order to get a work permit, there's a lot of forms to fill in.  You'll need a "foreign experts certificate", a "work certificate", and there's a medical check and an interview.  Many forms will be in Chinese (and your colleagues will likely need to fill these in for you).
Grants:  There's also special grants for foreigners: Research Fellowship for International Young Scientists (which I'm on currently), and the 1000 Talents Program.
No fixed address.  When people ask me for my address, it's hard to explain to them I don't actually have one.  (E.g. I'll stay in some random hotel for the next few weeks, then I travel to some country, and will stay in some other random hotel.)  I essentially live out of a suitcase.
Hard work.  People in China seem to work much longer hours than in Western countries.  (E.g. I'm in the office virtually every day, including weekends, from morning to night.)
Team work.  China is the country of people power.  Everyone in our lab helps out everyone else, and we end up with papers with many authors.
LGBT?  Don't be too obvious about it and virtually nobody will care.
Religious?  For my postdoc, a government official told me that it's okay to have and practice a religion, but not to preach religion.  (Easy for me; I'm not religious.)
Vegetarian?  It's tricky completely avoiding meat; it's easiest to just accept that you'll occasionally end up with meat.  (You'll probably need to get used to tofu and spicy food, if you're not already.)
Woman?  Expect groups of men (typically construction workers and gardeners) to stare at you, making you very uncomfortable.  Also, some Chinese men will think of you as "exotic".  (Oh, and I can't find anywhere to get my eyebrows tinted.)
Man?  You'll probably be requested to drink (lots) at celebrations, dinner meetings, and so on.
Bathrooms are disgusting.  Knock before opening the stall door (if there is a door)---it most likely doesn't lock and if you open it without knocking, you might interrupt someone (and you need to say "you ren" = "has person" if someone knocks on your door).  You'll need to get used to squat toilets and carrying around your own toilet paper.
People are less uptight about things.  E.g. people will compare skin colors; males will have pictures of sexy women on their computer; movie and software piracy is not a big deal (even on the lab computers).  Things that are not really appropriate in Western countries.
Other things: Random people will take photos with you (or of you).  Fresh milk is difficult to find.  Coffee is poor quality and expensive.  It's hard to get decent wine.  Don't drink the tap water.

The things you ask about (but I don't have a general answer):

Collaborations.  It's a bit embarrassing having to ask for letters of invitation from colleagues.  Other than that, it's been real easy for me to travel.
Conferences.  It's easiest for me to go to conferences as the professors are too busy, and I don't need a visa for most places.  I travel a lot.
Duties.  They're trying to make me associate professor here; which will require teaching a course.  I have no idea how I'm going to do that.
Attitude to scientists.  Held in high esteem, although you might be mistaken for a foreign student if you're young looking.  The public won't be able to understand what a "postdoc" is, though (it's easier to say "teacher").

wow! If I were to make a decision, I would be more in dilemma after reading this answer. Not that this is a bad answer, it is not. Just that there are about exactly 50% pros and 50% cons!

Presumably the no fixed address is your individual situation, yes?  Aren't most postdocs "settled down" at a fixed institution?

I don't know what the typical situation is.  There are some regulations that you need to stay in foreigner approved accommodation (at least, until the paperwork is done, then you can move elsewhere).  The longest-term accommodation I've been in is a monthly rental (not foreigner approved).  I check out whenever I travel (to save money), so I suppose a postdoc who's not going to travel much could have a more stable living situation.

@RebeccaJ.Stones thank you very much. I was prepared to such things and I've decided to accept this position. Now I have my contract with 12-pages body, and there is one question: did you have the times of vocation leave and working week mentioned in your employment contract? My contract only have: "Employee shall fulfil the tasks assigned to him with hight standards within the prescribed timeframe." Maybe it's even better. Is Chinese people strict to documents or it's just a formality? Is it possible to bargain at this point?

Good luck!  To be honest, I haven't read my contract.  I just write papers and noone gets grumpy with me.  I haven't taken any formal leave (and don't feel a need to--it's not like I'd stop working anyway). I go back to Australia (my birth country) around once or twice per year, but I continue working while I'm there.

@RebeccaJ.Stones Is the fellowship tax-free?

@user1659936 Nope. (I've finished my postdoc now and am a teacher (associate professor) here now).

@RebeccaJ.Stones May I ask how much is the fellowship approximately? I saw in this website (http://www.dragon-star.eu/call/china-nsfc-fellowship-for-international-young-scientists/) that it is 28,000 EUR per year which is quite attractive. Is it true?

wonderful answer, very relatable

I know this question is dated thus likely the OP Artem has finished his/her Postdoc contract long ago. But I will leave some comments as well, as a westerner (from a 3rd world country, engaged to a foreigner) finishing a 2-year-old postdoc contract in South of China.
Rebecca's answer above is quite complete and fills most of the points, however some aspects may change depending on the local institution traditions and the candidate's background. This is why I emphasised the where I am in China and the fact that I come from a western 3rd world country, along with marital status.
Pros: China has great food, fantastic scenery, rich and deep culture and knowledge. Thus life in China will be anything but bland. Still nowadays a foreigner attracts considerable attention and interest, thus there will always be someone willing to help and get friendly. Academics are very respected in Asia, thus a postdoc should expect cordiality and polite treatment essentially everywhere. Criminality is almost zeroed, especially against foreigners. Stealing is rare, and people are relaxed about taking care of their belongings. In spite of officially a dictatorship there is a lot of individual freedom in China, as long as one is no activist. Likely the greatest positive aspect for a postdoc, getting a job in China is currently quite easy for anyone willing to embrace the culture, particularly open-minded foreign PhDs.
Cons: Local culture is not open nor flexible, meaning you are expected to accept local ways all times and gradually conform to or adopt the Chinese way of life. This tends to overwhelm foreigners so that most end up living in an expat bubble and eventually leave. As mentioned, salaries are usually lower and quite often there is a catch behind salary discounts. Communication is a major issue not only because of language barrier but actually mainly because most people in Mainland China imply statements and suggest contexts instead of uttering their minds directly. Assertiveness is often perceived as arrogance and blunt statements can easily offend. Because of their unique and inbred culture, Chinese nationals get easily offended (people say they are "glass-hearted") and in the counterpart cannot understand/accept what could offend a foreigner. There is a strict hierarchy in almost any form of communication which is hard to abide to as a foreigner with a democratic mindset. Scamming and lying are quite common and culturally acceptable depending on the context (meaning quite often others will not have you complaining about it). Face and clan cultures are not easy for just everyone to swallow. Local work culture pressures on posing all times, thus locals will pretend to work literally everyday from early morning into the night, and will post hardworking-related status updates on social media... even if they do not really work much. The internet feels like Truman's Show and workarounds are unstable, troublesome, and expensive.
I will quickly summarise what makes me very happy in China and what drives me nuts.
I feel in heaven while eating and shopping as prices are low, variety skyrockets, and quality is overall quite good. I feel physically safe at all times as long as I am wary of where I thread. Finding solitude isn't hard and I can have a mind of my own. Nature is still here and looks beautiful. The written characters are gorgeous, the language doesn't sound too bad, in every corner there is something new to learn. My friends are reliable and always willing to help, and I want to keep them forever. The concept of social peace is central to Chinese society, thus conflicts and uncomfortable situations are avoided whenever possible. I feel growing quickly as a person and culturally. Clearly the country is developing at unrecorded speed through adopting strategies which are unknown to most foreign governments.
I get desperate and think of running to the airport every time I find myself unable to send/read an email or paper, or the Skype call won't work. I bought a local LeNovo computer which turned out to be a nightmare because of language/system/connection settings which refuse to be changed plus a patchwork of hardware issues still surfacing. In the lab most of the time I feel frustrated and baseline angry because I cannot easily make myself understood in too many different areas (requests, reasoning, questions, acts, etc), resulting in my generally avoiding communication. [Trivial examples. There is no equipment maintenance, nor routine of cleaning and organisation; nobody cares. Details which are usually not important: statistics; concentrations; temperature & humidity conditions; precision; light:dark regularity; brands; purity; reproducibility; authorship criteria. Nobody is responsible nor knows about anything unless when given an order.] I have had payment conflicts from the day of my arrival, and of such complexity that would feel a monograph -- at the end I hope leaving in a civilised manner with at least 80% of the agreed salary. I am never comfortable, be at home or at work, as rooms are generally cluttered and dirty (all shared) with some degree of structural damage and pests are a constant nuisance. (Mosquitoes, cockroaches, sometimes a rat.) Authorships are locally exchanged like handshakes, and my adamant refusal to join in the club has generated tension also from day one. I must add that advisors/supervisors see themselves as emperor thus expect being covered in flattery and papers from just sporadically sitting at their desks/thrones. The university administration has provided null help for any official procedure, including translations and health/police certifications (they didn't know what should be done or where), and they will not have me asking them questions about unstable salary pay. Finally, I mentioned my friends are gold, yet jewels are indeed rare: almost everyone approaching me is openly seeking language favor, authorships or marriage, and that might get delicate when involving some expectation of a hierarchy.
I believe some of the mentioned aspects are highly dependent on circumstances, as follows: I believe US citizens (normally given top VIP treatment in China) and Europeans would have no issues with salary pay nor quality of accommodation; Western provinces or regions near Mongolia are regarded as not so safe; faculty administration is said to be more professional in the most highly developed centres such in Beijing, Nanjing, Hangzhou; there is a strong stigma against anyone who does any drugs excepting alcohol; aggressive/impolite types may find it harder to make friends and adapt; someone willing to marry a Chinese partner will culturally and socially adapt much more smoothly.
Sorry if too long. I hope my description enables someone to decide whether China is what they are searching for. I would have greatly appreciated reading about these points before coming -- I would have not decided otherwise but would have taken many specific precautions.

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


text:
Should I be worried that I don't have ideas of questions to ask during seminars?
I'm a PhD student in Physics and I'm very worried about something. I have participated in two conferences in the last year. The first one was in a field related to the one I'm studying and the second exactly related to the field I'm studying.
In these two conferences something got me very worried. I've watched the seminars and during the seminars I didn't have any idea of questions to ask. On the other hand I saw people raising all sorts of interesting questions that led to all sorts of interesting discussions.
This got me extremely worried because (1) I think that asking the right questions is the most important thing in order to do a good research and (2) asking questions and starting discussions seems like the way collaborations get started and certainly having people to collaborate with is very important.
After going through this in the first conference, in the second I've watched the lectures trying hard to find things to ask, but I only got ideas of some things that I felt could be so stupid that people could look at me as someone who isn't really good at the subject.
Now the main worry I have is: having ideas of questions to ask during seminars like that is something that comes with experience (and therefore all this is just reflecting the fact that I'm inexperienced) or is it some sort of ability that either we have or we don't? This is being quite alarming to me, because I fear that this might tell that perhaps I just have no ability to do research, which would be terrible to me since I really do want to follow this career.
Finally, a disclaimer. I know some people might say "talk to your advisor about this", but I really never had conversations about the process of doing research with him. In fact the way he works is more like "calculate this, then we talk about the calculation" and he really does not have much patience to talk about much else, so that I don't really feel comfortable bringing this up.

Does this answer your question? How to ask dumb questions

Do you go to these talks looking for questions or just to absorb what the speakers present? My normal practice was just the latter, actually.

How far are you into your PhD and did you already publish?

@Buffy I go to absorb what the speakers present, but after comparing with the way a few others behave I got worried if this could be a bad sign. As the title of question is, I'm asking whether it is OK to go there, absorb what they said and not have anything to ask during the talk, or if to be good at research you must necessarily be able to perceive immediately tons of things that could be asked of what is being presented.

I think it is fine. It is especially fine not to be distracted from your own work. But it is useful to take a few notes at such talks if something springs to mind, even if it isn't a question.

Well, you asked this question which has now been viewed 2000 times. I found this more helpful than any "question but more of a comment" in a conference.

@Aegon Not worth an answer since you already have a good answer by Ian, but in my experience a lot of the questions come from a small subset of the audience, mostly senior members. I have heard that you should always have a question for every talk you attend (and try for that myself), but that doesn't mean it needs to be particularly insightful. But by coming up with a question it forces you to try to interpret what the speaker said and get a deeper understanding. Maybe you'll find something that you could search for, or if you are chatting to the speaker afterwards you can ask them privately.

Maybe you actually have no questions.  Maybe you already have a clear direction you're pursuing (you don't specify).  This phenomenon sometimes happens when you're pursuing a new course.

A conference sessions might have 50 people in it (at least in the conferences I go to), and yet there will only be 3 or 4 questions on each talk, even if five people have questions for every 1 that has the guts to put their hand up and ask it that most people don't have questions for most talks. You might also notice that its the same people that ask questions about every talk.
I wouldn't worry about it, especially if you are just a PhD student. One thing I would say is that questions should be asked from a position of ignorance - that is you ask a question because you genuinely don't know the answer and want to. Not because you think you can trip the speaker up, or make yourself look clever, so questions that you think will make you look dumb might be the best questions.

Ian's answer is already good, as is the link to "How to ask stupid questions". But I wanted to touch on the last paragraph of your question:

Finally, a disclaimer. I know some people might say "talk to your advisor about this", but I really never had conversations about the process of doing research with him. In fact the way he works is more like "calculate this, then we talk about the calculation" and he really does not have much patience to talk about much else, so that I don't really feel comfortable bringing this up.

This is something you should seek a solution for. It doesn't have to come from your supervisor. One of the most inspiring courses I took was titled "Better Science for Computer Scientists" and it was filled with a mix of Master and PhD students, and led by a veteran professor. Much of the course was really a view at what really happens behind the scenes - how to people behave at conferences, what do they do in breaks during conferences, what really goes on at the editing desk of a journal and so forth. The key was that academics are people, there is much more of a human and social dimension to academia than you might imagine seeing it from a distance as an undergrad student.
One of the things the professor pointed out is that a lot of academics like being magicians: pulling complicated results out of a hat and making it seem like that's easy. We all like other people to think that we're amazingly smart. But magicians' tricks take a lot of practice that you don't see.
What I encourage you to do is talk more with people you're not answerable to. It's a bit easier to have an honest talk about how things really work with someone that isn't also deciding on your thesis. So have conversations with your peer PhD students, and talk with faculty members that you think are nice people. If you're finding this difficult, then that's definitely a warning sign that there may be some impostor syndrome at work; "I don't dare ask such things because I'll be found out!" indeed.

Sounds like a great course! Is there a website for it? Or notes? Is it this one: https://studiegids.universiteitleiden.nl/courses/105159/better-science-for-computer-scientists

I am the opposite. I always have many questions and try to limit myself to one or at most two.
If you truly never have questions about a seminar, it can mean a number of things:

You believe the speaker is infallible and therefore you believe everything they say unquestioningly.

You find the seminar easy or obvious. You really don't need to ask anything.

You are scared of looking stupid. You can bet that half the audience are wanting to know the answer to this question and they are all unwilling to ask first. Very often I have asked a question and a number of people have turned to me and nodded approvingly or said, "Yes, I was wondering that".

You are shy. This was something that I had to overcome. Things get easier the more you do them. The first question is the hardest.

Note: I was twice offered a job at one seminar, by a scientist who had a big team and lots of funding. He did this in front of the audience! I asked what seemed to me to be a seemingly obvious question. He was impressed that what had seemed obvious to me was actually very rarely spotted by those in the field. (It wasn't even my speciality - I was attending out of interest). I didn't accept the job because I was involved in other things.
Conclusion
If you literally never have a question at any seminar then either you are a genius and you have understood everything, or the subject matter is very basic. If you understand everything then you can ask, e.g. "Why did you choose to do it that way - couldn't you have done it this way instead?" or "That was fascinating, thank you for such a clear explanation, what is your next step going to be?" If you really are fascinated by the subject, you can even drop a hint that you would be interested on researching the same subject and say what part of it - it might even pay off with a studentship or a collaboration.
Finally, don't try to 'think of questions', that is completely pointless and will come across as insincere and annoying.  Ask about what you don't understand or think could have been done better or where the research will lead.

P.S. If you agree with this answer completely, then please upvote it and accept. If you disagree then please ask me a question about the part(s) you disagree with. It is much more tactful to ask than simply tell someone they are wrong. If there is a point I made that you are not sure will work, ask me a question, e.g. Has it actually worked for me in real life - can I justify my answer?  Stack Exchange is all about asking questions and you have just asked a very good question, i.e. "Should I be worried that I don't have ideas of questions to ask during seminars?"!  Practise asking questions on Stack Exchange.

It seems that you're only considering questions that you would ask when you don't understand a part of the talk (e.g. "where does that term come from?" or "Why is that inequality true?"), I think OP was referring more to deeper questions about the results (e.g. "Does this imply that..." or "Have you thought about relating this to..."), which are the questions that usually spark interesting discussions. The former are much easier to ask.

@user2723984 - Maybe I should have made a long comment, asking which if any of the 4 points was true for the OP and if none, what did they believe was the problem. It would be useful to know.

This is all true, but don't think it helps OP.  I am also a "non-questioning" person, and usually find myself either in situation (3) - this is not my field and if something looks weird to me, they probably have a good reason, or (2) - this is my field and I understand why they did it that way.

@juod - "this is not my field"  This is where many of my questions come from. Very often a new perspective from a different discipline is of great value. "this is my field" - In that case I might enquire what ther plans are for continuing the research. If I am more expert in some part of the field, I could gently suggest an improvement such as "Have you considered ...?"

@user2723984 - but one of my suggestions for a question was, "what is your next step going to be?" - That is not an inequality type question. I would ask about an inequality if  I could see that it was wrong. E.g. It took mathematicians a while to notice that you can't generalise unique factorisation from reals to imaginary numbers. If you spotted something like that during a seminar it would make a big difference to everyone's understanding.

Great answer! Thanks.

Some of the other answers here are good, particularly the point that as a PhD student you are still relatively junior and no one really expects students to ask questions in conferences, or even departmental seminars. I think the key message is not to beat yourself up about this.
Like yourself I generally do not come up with questions during talks - essentially I tend to think about things slower and (hopefully!) in more depth. I find I will sometimes come up with good questions hours or even days later after a little more thought. If I am sufficiently interested I will email the speaker with them and on more than one occasion collaborations have been born out of that email. Additionally, social anxiety means I am reluctant to raise my hand even when I do have a good question to ask.
Is being able to quickly come up with and ask questions a useful skill? Absolutely, aside from anything else it will help get you known in your field, which has clear benefits for career progression. Additionally as a skill it tends to correlate with being able to quickly gain a reasonable understanding of a paper, another useful ability.
However, is it a requirement for forging an academic career? No. There are many other ways to demonstrate your abilities and other abilities besides being able to quickly digest talks.
Returning to anecdote, despite essentially never raising my hand in conferences or seminars I landed a series of decent to good postdoc jobs before eventually getting a permanent position at a top-tier university (also in physics) - so it doesn't have to be a barrier (though insert caveat about survivorship bias).

I agree with Anon21: this issue has probably to do with the way you reason, i.e. "absorbing" the content at talks and drawing  conclusions later, vs. reacting immediately. I experience the same. There might be some reinforcement to the process by some extent of impostor syndrome, which is absolutely normal at PhD stage (and later, too). At the same time, I do see that people who "work" either way look more brilliant at conferences. Again, I agree with the advice you've been given: talk to your peers in different settings, in which you feel more comfortable. Reactivity at talks, anyway, partly improves with experience.

Don't worry too much about it. I still have issues coming up with good questions, especially without thinking that I'm asking a stupid question.
One thing to latch on to is if the presenter is looking at a temperature or pressure series is to ask "Why did you choose those temperatures/pressures?"

The OPs question was not "Which question should I ask".  Of course there are always pointless questions.


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Supervisor wants ownership of an Overleaf project I created
A student approached me with some ideas he had been working on in computer science and asked if I could study the result and then write it up into article format as he dislikes writing and that it would never get written if I did not do it.
As a result I am a co-author along with the student and his supervisor.  I wrote the article up using an Overleaf project and then invited both the student and supervisor to join the project on Overleaf.  It seems like the student did not tell the supervisor about this choice he had made, as I spoke to his supervisor and he seemed a bit surprised.  He said ''that's cool'', but he can be very hard to read, saying one thing and meaning something very different.
The student's supervisor has now messaged me being asked to be made owner of the Overleaf project.  Is there any possibility of trickery going on here.  Could he be trying to substantially change the writing of the document and then remove me as a co-author?  I appreciate that I did not contribute ideas but I did put a lot of effort into writing.  The student explicitly asked me for help with writing and said I could be a co-author as it would not get written otherwise without my intervention.
Overleaf warns me that this action cannot be un-done and that the new owner could remove my access to the project.  Is it possible that he is trying anything devious as he thinks I should not be a co-author?  I am wondering if the supervisor feels that he should have been asked about this first and as a result thinks that I should not be a co-author on the paper.

We can't predict the actions and intent of another. Sorry. It could be benign. It could be terrible. You need to judge. Perhaps the three of you need to come to some agreement that works for all.

What is your relationship with the student??

We work in the same lab on some of the same projects and are on good terms.

Beyond writing, what is your intellectual contribution to this project?

I only contributed to the writing, I did not contribute new ideas: I just wrote the paper up.  So I may just have to transfer ownership  and accept what happens, I think I should have asked the supervisor on his opinion of this before writing it up.  It didn't take long to write, so would not be a huge loss.

You certainly don't own the content of the project. You may not even have a claim on authorship itself if you didn't contribute ideas. You are, in effect a ghost writer.

"Is there any possibility of trickery going on here?" -- how can any random person on the internet know, if you can't?

@Buffy I have checked the manuscript again and I realised that I did actually contribute something to the mathematical interpretation of their results.  I think I didn't realise as I thought it was obvious, but it seemed like they didn't know this until I wrote it down.

Unfortunately, Scott and Buffy are right: you might be considered only a write-up help. I suggest ask for a 3-way meeting where the facts are put on the table to clarify what your status is: co-author? At the minimum, acknowledgement, although it sounds a bit low-balling your contribution to readability. I think you need to negotiate. If you do not get co-authorship, this is a take-away lesson to clarify your authorship status earlier on. If you do not get even an acknowledgement, express your disappointment, and just detach yourself and concentrate on your other stuff.

If you, as you added, indeed have a contribution, you should get co-authorship, no question. Not first author, not last author, but co-authorship.

In practice, it would very hard to write up an academic article without making some sort of intellectual contribution. The process of writing up ideas usually plays a crucial role in refining the ideas and making their formulation more precise, highlighting any short-coming or pitfalls.

Ownership of the Overleaf project doesn't actually mean much. It wouldn't take more than 2 minutes for the supervisor to create a fresh Overleaf project, and copy over the existing content from the current one anyway. Conversely, you can make a local copy of everything yourself before signing it over, and you'd be in a pretty similar situation when it comes to fighting for authorship.

I would not be surprised if he immediately deletes the project to destroy any proof of your contribution when you transfer ownership. He won't enter into any dialogue then regarding the project.  In the future you might get some sort of narration of the situation from him that his student never promised you anything and you were just a write up assistant like an LLM.
I would personally tell him an error has occurred when attempting to switch the ownership of the project. I would warmly tell the supervisor that he may send changes to you that he needs to make to the document and you will update the document for him and you are happy to continue contributing to the project, paper etc.
You will avoid stepping into open confrontation and you retain proof of your publishing of the document first.  From there he will be forced to show his hand to you and justify his requests.
By doing this you will force him to rewrite the entire paper himself if he wishes to exclude your name as coauthor of the paper.
If the student made an honest mistake and from the supervisors perspective you can't or do not deserve to be a co-author , you should then accept you are not a co-author if he rewrites the paper from scratch.
However I suspect it will be difficult without major similarities occurring (You got there first before he did, his loss your gain) or too much effort for the supervisor to rewrite the paper without including what you contributed. It will be too risky to include anything you did while this proof exists.
It will be safer and less effort for them to include your name as long as you retain ownership of the original project on overleaf. So you have all this leverage on them. Don't be a nice guy or a fool, don't help them screw you over. This project is proof of your contribution , if you do not hand it over he will respect you more I think and be cautious of the consequences of removing you as co-author.

I don't think this answer is helpful at all. It engages in speculation about supervisor's intentions and the paragraph suggesting to lie about some error that occured makes no sense, as you do not need ownership of the project to make changes. Apart from that, this is not how a collaboration should work among scientist that OP makes changes on the document on behalf of others.

OP asked us explicitly to speculate on the the intentions of the supervisor. He presented evidence for us to make our judgement. If the supervisor asks for ownership and if ownership is not required to make changes it is reasonable to assume one of the possibilities is that he wishes to delete the project. I pointed out possibilities that were likely to not be considered previously by OP instead of iterating over the obvious ones you and others would probably think of.


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How to inform PhD advisor about your decision to write papers independently?
I'm a physics PhD candidate focusing on quantum information theory. My advisor seems to expect me to be extremely independent. He never suggested what problem to work on, and rarely comments about how to approach the problems I chose to work on. As somebody who likes to solve research problems independently, I began seeing this as a positive trait. Consequently, I independently decided which topics to explore, which methods to use, and eventually decided, what problems to solve for my dissertation. In each stage of this process, my advisor's input was like that of a peer reviewer; He assess my work for their quality, significance and correctness. If something isn't right in my work, he says it isn't right but never suggests nor gives hints about how to fix it.
From what I've heard from other PhD students, PhD advisors work with their student either like a mentor, or like a collaborator. In the former case they tend to help the student think in each step of the research process, and in the latter case they work with the student as equals, solving a common research problem. My advisor doesn't seem to belong to either category. In light of this, I have two concerns/questions:

In the above-described circumstance, is it ethical to write research papers independently, without including my advisor as a co-author? (When I began working with him, he made me sign a student-advisor relationship agreement document, in which the requirement to have him as a co-author in every student publication is a condition. Although I signed the document, I now realize that that condition doesn't make sense at least in my situation).
If so, how do I bring this subject with him without ruining my inter-personal relationship with him?

Are you expecting your advisor to cover page charges?

No. Besides, I'm supported as a TA, as opposed to having a research assistantship.

Are you asking about co-authorship?

(1) acting as a peer reviewer does constitute active involvement (2) have you communicated that you want more/different involvement? When your advisor said something was wrong, did you follow up with further inquiry or go off on your own to change it? (3) have you begun working on a paper together, i.e. an actual product rather than just looking at your results? their input may change and become more significant when there is a tangible product rather than discussions as you work along (4) are you using any resources provided by your advisor?

@R1NaNO, (2) No. I have not communicated about my expectations. In the past, when I followed up my inquiries, I never got any response in that regard, even though he replied to my other emails. So I've learned to become more self reliant. (3) Yes, two papers are under construction. I'm doing all the writing, but I receive feedback from my advisor on pedagogical aspects. (4) I have used some of the papers he asked me to review/ consult.

Is it possible to do this research without his financial support for such things as lab equipment, pay for technical assistants, or other research funding? This is possible in pure math, but not in some lab sciences. Physics can be either. Which is it? That necessity of funding support is the main reason that PIs are usually included in authorship, however the work is done.

@Gliese667  I do not mean has he provided you papers. Has he provided you any resources (computer, software, etc)? Also remember that in the US in most physics departments you don't get a TA for being a freelance student, you get one because you are signed up for research hours under an advisor, and the department is supplementing your salary by having you TA (typically up to a maximum of 20 hours/week). Because you are not paid out of a grant just means you are not beholden to deliverables of a grant, but you are still a group member working under the research enterprise of that advisor.

Btw, having you sign a document obliging you to list them (your advisor) as a co-author on any paper you write is not only bizarre, but surely unethical... hopefully unenforceable. I'd think this is a weird, venal, and untrustworthy person.

How to inform PhD advisor about your decision to write papers independently?

You don't. You discuss the topic with them. Having the attitude of "the decision is made and I'm just informing you" is likely to alienate your advisor, even if they would otherwise agree with your proposal.

He assess my work for their quality, significance and correctness. If something isn't right in my work, he says it isn't right but never suggests nor gives hints about how to fix it

Seems like this could go either way. I understand your point that your advisor is exceptionally hands-off, and they are not paying you, so why do they deserve authorship. But having access to a magic oracle that tells you your work's "quality, significance, and correctness" is an advantage that you should not underestimate. And your advisor may be doing more that is not visible to you.

When I began working with him, he made me sign a student-advisor relationship agreement document, in which the requirement to have him as a co-author in every student publication is a condition. Although I signed the document, I now realize that that condition doesn't make sense

All the more reason to tread lightly here. If single-authored papers are the norm in your field, a reasonable advisor would likely agree to let you publish on your own if you discuss it with them as equals. But if you high-handedly "inform" your advisor that you're backing out of a written agreement and refusing them authorship....well, that could end poorly.

I like this distinction you make between supervisors acting as either a mentor or collaborator. It is much more of a descriptive dichotomy than the "hands on" vs "hands off" characterization.
In terms of writing independently, that is usually fine. If it is your own academic career, then you will be writing a lot independently or with collaborators outside your primarily research lab anyway. However, it depends on the nature of the work and how actively involved a supervisor is. If conceptualization alone can be traced to your supervisor, then that is grounds for discussion. Any work you could imagine they could claim to have some role on, it is worth discussing. However, if you are writing entirely on your own without any guidance from the supervisor, this is pretty reasonable ground to publish or write independently.
Keep in mind it is useful nonetheless to speak with them. They probably will have important input to include that you might not notice and it might enhance the work to get the opinion ot a senior researcher.

This is very field specific, and also very specific to the culture of the department, advisor, research group etc. It sounds like the OP already signed a mentorship agreement to work under that advisor, where what you state is clearly not the modus operandi.

Probably even more supervisory style and lab culture specific. Departments can rarely monitor the output of a single student's research activities. It helps to know if your colleagues in the lab are all asking your supervisor for manuscript preperation, then it is probably not a good idea to be the only one writing independently.

As long as you don't have a PhD degree, you should seek your advisor's approval of your papers before submission, even if you think you can write them independently. If they are well written and the supervisor sees that he/she can improve them only marginally (which is very rarely the case), the supervisor would normally say that he doesn't need to be on the author list, but this decision is not very straightforward and may depend on many other factors. It cannot be just your decision to write papers independently, especially if you rely on the advisor's resources (funding, lab space, established collaborations, samples, etc.). If your supervisor tells you that you should show more independence, it could simply mean that you are not independent enough yet to perform research without being micromanaged all the time.


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How can I get Masters of Science (Mathematics) with Bachelor of Philosophy? I need the Masters to attain Ph.D in Mathematics
I am a philosophy student with the aim to get Doctor of Philosophy in Mathematics. I pursued philosophy in the first place, because it's core courses offered in our school from my understanding was foundational to the world from critical thinking to having a good life. I see philosophy has a lot of opportunities I can proceed to law, theology, divinity, education and many more. But so far Mathematics has been my interest because I have this interesting original research paper I want to publish someday and it tackles about God and Mathematics. This is also one of the reasons I started studying Philosophy.

Where do you wish to study? Which country or countries? And, what math courses have you taken?

Sharing details here about your paper would probably be a mistake.

@Buffy
I am from Philippines. I am currently a philosophy student. I am planning to study in UP Diliman someday.

But so far Mathematics has been my interest because ... it tackles about God and Mathematics - There is no known branch of mathematics which "tackles about god"

Did you check out the requirements for the masters (in mathematics) program you want to get admitted to? Does it require a bachelors in mathematics (or another STEM subject)?

Is this paper with an academic supervisor, or by yourself? Have you done the work rigorously, or do you just "know it will work" and will "fill in the detail later"? The claim to mix god and mathematics screams crackpot to me. People have tried to prove/disprove god in the past, but often run into issues with the assumptions they used. While the logic may be fine, the axioms they assume are not and you end up with "garbage in, garbage out".

I don't entirely understand what the question is asking. If you want a masters in mathematics, the first step is largely to apply. Getting the prereqs for a master's may require you to go back and do some undergrad classes.

Good luck. Take some time to plan a few ways you’ll earn a living.

@NAMcMahon, there might be some sub fields of philosophy that would ask and consider questions about god's place in math.

@Buffy, there could be, but for the field not to be crackpottery the practitioners would have to have a deep understanding of mathematics (and likely other STEM fields). This is something that's fairly safe to assume an undergraduate student of philosophy doesn't have. If they are doing it by themselves it likely falls under crackpot. If they have a supervisor who is directing the research it is less likely, but still could be the supervisor wanting to do something outside their field of expertise and using a student project as an excuse. And christianity is quite dominate in Philippines.

If OP wishes to become an academic, it would be better that they understand any concerns early to avoid them engaging in a sunk cost fallacy and turning themselves into a true crackpot rather than an overeager student. I could imaging focusing themselves on only this as impacting their chances when applying for masters/PhDs, or when looking for supervisors. And if they are doing their own research its particularly risky since they lack training in mathematics and actual academic research practices.

Since you want to study at UP Diliman, a high quality research institution, it should be easy enough for you to visit the campus (one of several) and ask your questions there.
My fear, however, is that you don't have sufficient background in math to enter a masters program. Even in the US, where a philosophy undergraduate degree is much broader than just philosophy, you would be missing many important math courses. This may not be true for you, of course, but the math department at UP Diliman could guide you best.
You are correct that philosophy as a major part of a broad undergraduate education is a good basis for many things, but math (and a few others) require a special way of thinking that isn't typically part of a philosophy degree other than a formal course in logic. I used to joke (not a joke) that the history and philosophy majors would eventually wind up being the bosses of the geeks.
You need specific information that the university's math department can provide.


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Do German universities allow work as a Research Assistant in an another foreign country?
Let say I am enrolled as a master student at X university in Germany. At the same time I am working as an RA at Y university in Japan. Is it allowed by German law?

I will have enrollment in both universities. Is it okay to have studentship in more than one university?

Whether it is OK or not is a question for the two universities. Particularly if both are paying you a stipend/salary. But, Covid has resulted in a number of interesting work arrangements.

I am not getting paid by any university.

Then it is mainly a question of the two universities being OK with it.

You are working as an RA but not being paid? Why do you want to attend two universities simultaneously?

Well, I got the RA position last December. I had plans to do a masters there as well. So the masters funding would have come from the RA grant. But now I want to change plan, I want to study MSc in Germany which will start from this October. But my prof at Japan wants to finish the project. It will take appx another year and I can work online. That's the problem now.

"Your prof in Japan wants to finish the project" and that's why you are going to work for free during your master? Just say "no" to your prof in Japan and find a position that can fund you in Germany. You have to concentrate on your career, not on the professor's career.

This is a very important point indeed. The reason why I want to do it for free because I think I have lots of learning scopes from the project as well. But yeah. this is a very good point that I will consider. Thank you.

You can do pretty much whatever you want while you are enrolled as a master's student at a German university - unless they pay you some kind of stipend.

This. It should be noted that students studying on a visa are subject to certain employment rules, which preclude working for more than a certain number of hours per week, and may be even stricter regarding work for non-EU entities. It's just not the role of the university to enforce this.

That's not entirely correct. For instance, if you work for more than 20 hours per week on a job, this does matter because there is a difference between "full-time students" and "part-time students" in Germany. I'm not sure to what extent this applies to unpaid internships and the like, but one should definitely check with the university (and also with one's health ensurance, by the way).

@JochenGlueck Fair point. But are you obliged to be a part-time student if you work >20h? Or is this rather an offer towards people who only study part-time, with less stringent requirements (per time)? (Conversely, can I enrol as a part-time student if I do not work on the side?) [BTW, is this a general thing? Usually university laws are state dependent. What is the right (German) search term for this?]

Absolutely. That said, expect little to no tolerance from the German university if your two "jobs" collide - that is, you likely won't get deadline extensions or relief from participating in mandatory classroom activities if you have to do something in parallel for your course in Japan.

@user151413: I'm not completely sure about the details; the issue was mentioned in universities in two different federal states where I worked. It might be related to public health insurance (since full-time students often get certain special conditions), and it might also be related to the public pension scheme in Germany (I don't know, though, how much those points make it a federal issue rather than a state issue). One could certainly find out those things, but the easiest (and savest) course of action probably is to just ask the university administration.