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Should I disclose invisible disabilities to my supervisors during my PhD?
Long story short, I'm halfway through my PhD and have recently started receiving help for invisible disabilities from the university, although I have not disclosed the details of these disabilities to my supervisors. My supervisors know that I receive university support for 'medical issues' but they do not know specifically what these are.
A recent discussion with my supervisors lead to them saying they cannot support my request for accommodations or advocate on my behalf without knowing exactly what 'medical issues' I have. I have no problem disclosing specific situations I sruggle with (e.g. that I can be distracted easily, that I often misunderstand people etc), but do not want to put a label on the actual diagnoses as it does not describe how these disabilities affect me specifically and there can be a lot of misunderstanding around these diagnoses.
So my question is, do you think it is fair for me to not disclose my exact disabilities to my supervisors but request their support for accommodating my 'medical issues' and impairments?
As an aside, as per university policy I am not required to disclose to anyone except our disabilities branch (which I have done), through which we can request accommodations, support, and advocacy without needing to disclose to other university staff (lecturers, professors, supervisors) our disabilities (for example, someone who is visually impaired can request audio recordings on medical grounds without being obligated to tell the lecturer the reason for the request i.e. being visually impaired).

If the disability may influence your performance as a student then you of course have the formal right but will it be fair to the advisor if problems arise? There is probably no right or wrong here, mostly an assessment of what working relationship you wish to have.

What country are you in?  In the US context, your disabilities office would normally require medical documentation of your disability and then determine what kinds of accommodations were needed.  Have you done that?

Seconding @BrianBorchers comment - if in the US, it is not up to your advisor to determine accommodations - those are determined by the appropriate university people. The advisor's only role is to implement what is recommended.

@BrianBorchers The first sentence of the post asserts that the relevant university officials are aware and that the OP is receiving accommodations.

Related regarding hidden disabilities and postdoc.

@StellaBiderman in the US context, the faculty member shouldn't be negotiating with the student to determine the accommodations.  The point of my comment is that in the US, the student shouldn't be asking the advisor for anything- the advisor should be providing what the disabilities office determined was required.

Hmmm. I seem to have missed the first sentence of the second paragraph (where they assert the professor is needling them) on my first reading.

I feel like "accommodations" is a bit unclear in the context of graduate work. It's not like in undergraduate, where accommodations might mean more time in testing environments, a particular position within the classroom, etc. Graduate mentors might need more information to actually be helpful that the disabilities office frankly may be unqualified to actually help with.

I'll add that A recent discussion with my supervisors lead to them saying they cannot support my request for accommodations or advocate on my behalf without knowing exactly what 'medical issues' I have doesn't fully describe the situation - this could be the supervisor saying "tell us or else!" - very very bad, and the direction it seems some of you have taken this post, or it could mean "we don't really know how to help..." which demands a completely different response.

In the US context, the advisor should never be involved in "supporting my requestion for accommodations."

I would like to chime in - even in other countries, supervisors have nothing to do with student accommodation. I know that I really resent if administration pesters me with the work that is not my business, and this including accommodating students based on their special needs. I would need more detail, especially the definition of "accomodation".

Agreed: What type of "accommodations" are being requested? You don't need to go into full detail about your medical issues, but for clarification, is this in regards to deadline extensions? Inability to complete work at certain times of day or in certain places?

@IconDaemon: Hmm, I'm not convinced by your edit. "Invisible disabilities" is a pretty common idiomatic term for a fairly specific category of thing.

I’ve never heard the phrase used in the US in that manner.  If you’re in another country, please edit your question or add a comment to clarify.

@IconDaemon - I've heard it going back as far as 30 years ago.  It may go back even farther.  For example, a hearing impairment is a hidden disability.

@Philipp - I hope you'll undelete your answer.  It's not an unreasonable approach in general, for those who choose it.  (My personal opinion about whether to use that approach is that it depends, for me, on the situation.)

Hidden is a different word than invisible, which the word you used. End scene.

I have no problem disclosing specific situations I sruggle with (e.g. that I can be distracted easily, that I often misunderstand people etc), but do not want to put a label on the actual diagnoses as it does not describe how these disabilities affect me specifically and there can be a lot of misunderstanding around these diagnoses.

This is key. It sounds like you are fine with going into detail on your symptoms (and therefore your need for accommodations), but you're not comfortable disclosing the exact diagnosis. Given that your advisor is not your medical professional, they don't need to know the diagnosis.
So, if there is a need to, you can tell them your issues, but don't tell them the diagnosis. Be polite, firm, and center the conversation on your genuine need for accommodations.

"You've asked me about my medical issues and my need for accommodations. I'm not always comfortable discussing this, but it's important for you to know that the main symptoms cause me to be easily distracted, occasionally misunderstand people, X, Y, Z..."

If your advisor presses you for the "name" of the medical condition, you can say

"The precise diagnosis isn't really relevant - what's important here is I have genuine medical issues that need accommodations. Thank you for helping me do my best work."

The last sentence here reframes the conversation to the advisor's role of helping you to achieve success, rather than on their morbid curiosity about your specific diagnosis.

In my country, and I am pretty sure in any other EU country, exact diagnosis is never disclosed to employer, if you are sent to medical examination (e.g. if it is mandatory examination at the start of the job). The official letter only states whether you are fit for the job, and the needed accomodations (e.g. needs to sit straight because of back problems, needs good chair, needs to use glasses during work,etc)

"The precise diagnosis isn't really relevant" might be true, but hopefully there's a better wording for a supervisor.

I think it's perfectly fair. You're under no legal or moral obligation to discuss your medical condition with someone else - and as has been noted, if this is in the US, your supervisor isn't even the person who should be deciding those accommodations in many cases.
If you get to the point that you believe you can trust your supervisor with that information and it's something you wish to discuss then you can disclose it and it might be helpful to do so, but that's a decision that should be left entirely to you.

I would be suspicious whenever someone is trying to extract information with a crowbar, as appears to be the case here.
I have no doubt that when you feel comfortable disclosing more information about your hidden disability to a particular trusted professor, you will do so.
That is, in fact, the line I would use with anyone who pressures you for greater disclosure.
The other course of action I would suggest at this point is that you have a conversation with someone you trust at your office for students with disabilities, to let them know what's happening.  (What should happen next is that that office should remind your department that if they have any questions about how to accommodate your disability, their office is available to assist.)
It takes time to build trust.  Trust can't be forced.
Edit: Your symptoms do not need to be disclosed either.  Bottom line, if the questions feel intrusive, the disabilities office can help you reinforce respectful boundaries.

Although I agree both that disclosure should be at the comfort of the OP and that there could be reason for suspicion, I think it's hard to judge at a distance. It may be that the supervisor(s) feel like they don't have helpful enough information from the disability office and they might feel like they are more capable of helping if they understand more what the process is. That is, it is still possible that they are misguided in insisting on more information rather than malicious. I think disability offices are designed for undergrads, whereas a PhD is more personal between student and mentor

Typically a student would share quite a bit with a mentor, but this can't be forced.  I don't want to attribute machiavellian intentions to the supervisor(s).  It doesn't really matter what the supervisors' story is, although I'd imagine they feel frustrated and the root cause is probably lack of experience in this area.  Still, the university has structures in place, and if they are helpful for undergrads I see no reason why they can't be helpful for grad students as well. @BryanKrause

Yeah, completely agree that it can't be forced and needs to be at the discretion of the student. I just don't have a lot of confidence that university structures designed for undergraduates will work well at the graduate level. The accommodations that are typically provided to undergraduates to help with coursework may simply not be relevant at a graduate level where research predominates. Accommodations for certain issues are a lot more straightforward than others as well (i.e., a sensory deficit versus attention difficulties).

@BryanKrause - I agree that the best way to accommodate is through disclosure and teamwork.  How to get from Point A to Point B is the question.  I don't think that pushing OP to disclose faster than feels comfortable will get them to Point B any quicker; in fact, it's generally counter-productive to approach someone with a disability with a crowbar in hand.  So, for now, using the intermediary would appear to be the most effective way for OP to receive the accommodations guaranteed by the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.

I am someone with both obvious and non-obvious disabilities.  There is a great deal of cultural debate and misunderstanding around my specific non-obvious disability. It did not become clear that I had it until late in my adult life.
I should add here that I have (finally) received a specific medical assessment and diagnosis (which can be very hard to get for non-obvious disabilities) , which has helped me to accept my issues and weaknesses, and have more confidence in my strengths.
My advice is to OWN IT. You are the expert in your non-obvious disability. You know how you differ from most other people who claim to have that issue.  I would arrange an appointment with your advisor.  Inform them in advance that it will be about a personal issue so that they are in the right frame of mind.
You may also wish to discuss this in advance with your university disability support unity / office for student with disabilities - they are hugely experienced and can guide you in what to ask for. They will support you in the case of an adverse response. You could also ask for a role-play of the appointment if you are nervous.
At the start of the appointment, after saying hello etc, say something like:

I would like to inform you that I have been formally diagnosed with syndrome XYZ.
I'm still learning about its impact on me and how to cope with it.
You may have heard about other people with syndrome XYZ, who have behaviour issues 123.
That does not apply to me. My diagnosis says I am different in ways ABC.
However, there are some issues that I do struggle with, for example 456.
This comes up in specific situations 789.
Could I suggest some solutions to these situations and discuss with you how feasible they are?

At the end, request a followup appointment on this specific issue, in maybe 1 month, or 3 months, to see what changes are needed, what worked, what didn't work.  Keep a diary of what you have tried, and how well it worked. Remember, this is a journey. Your needs and wishes will change over time, and that is normal.
A huge number of people in academica have mental health issues, ADHD, bipolar, ADD, Autism, etc etc,  - some studies say 1 in 3 of all academics have mental health disorders - so all this may already be well known to your advisor.
It may help to prepare a one page sheet listing the specific situations / issues you struggle with and the solutions.  Be prepared that this sheet will be seen by others, left on desktop in open class etc, so don't put anything private on it.
Consider bringing this sheet to all workgroups and sharing with your close workmates - it will help the group as a whole to perform better, and also help you.

As other commentators have pointed out, you are under no obligation to disclose disabilities to your supervisors.  It also sounds like there are already processes in place for the disabilities branch to request specific accommodations.  Presumably you are interested in receiving accommodations that cannot effectively progress through that channel.
It is certainly perfectly okay to give only partial disclosure of your disabilities if that is what you want to do.  However, it is important to have some awareness of the predicament of supervisors that are trying to help with limited information.  Bear in mind that their capacity to accommodate your needs will be determined --at least in part-- by the information they actually have.  If the only information they have is a list of symptoms, without any medical diagnosis or purported causes/treatments, this may limit their capacity to determine what the symptoms of your disability actually entail and what accommodations are appropriate.

Accommodating your needs: Having a list of symptoms/situations where you struggle gives them enough knowledge to know that you need help in a particular area, but it probably does not give them the capacity to determine appropriate assistance.  Your symptoms include a tendency to distraction, and difficulty understanding people, but these are also general difficulties that occur in all PhD students.  Without more information it might not be easy for them to differentiate difficulties caused by your disability versus difficulties caused by in innate difficultly of a PhD candidature.
Understanding explanations of graduate-level academic work is difficult for most people in any case.  So with this in mind, what exactly does "difficulty understanding people" entail in your case?  You will probably need to explain this to them in more detail.  Can they just explain things multiple times to fix the problem, or is there some more specific problem with a particular remedy?  Without knowing the underlying medical condition, it is extremely difficult to judge what that description of your symptoms even means, let alone what accommodations would help.
Advocating on your behalf: Certainly your supervisors cannot advocate on your behalf in relation to your disability without any confirmation of its nature.  Presumably the disabilities branch is set up for that purpose, and they are able to make recommendations based on more details knowledge.

If your preference is to give only partial disclosure of your issues, please bear these points in mind.  You might want to start by trying to describe your symptoms with sufficient detail to differentiate them from the ordinary difficulties faced by other PhD candidates.  Check with your supervisors to see if they understand your difficulties well enough to help, notwithstanding incomplete disclosure.  If they don't, you may need to consider giving more specific information until they are in a position where they are able to identify specific assistance that would be appropriate.

When I was at university (in the UK) as a lecturer we adopted the following scheme: We made students aware that if they have any disabilities they wish us to consider (dyslexia, mental health, physical disabilities,...) that affected their studies, they should let the university office know. The office (after confirming the disability) then let the students home school aware. The needs (for example special arrangements for course work, exams) were then relayed with the minimum of information to the schools disability officer (this was a lecturer who had no background knowledge of any particular disability and was a pure admin role) who passed the information on to the staff taking the modules the students were enrolled on.
Your supervisor will presumably be told of any special circumstances you require that he can be of assistance with.
It isn't obvious is this approach is adopted country-wide, though all institutions have to comply the Disability Discrimination Act.

If this is in the UK, it would be great if you could make that explicit in your answer.  I've been hoping for some time to see more information posted here about disability accommodation in countries other than the US.

@aparente001 Amended to show a UK university

Maybe it will be easier to answer to this question instead of yours: Why should I avoid to tell my supervisor ? are you afraid of his reaction ? or how he is going to judge you ?
If you have no answer to this question, if you are not afraid of something else, so tell him, I think that it will be easier for your cooperation
In general, as a PhD student, I have the feeling that we too often fear from our supervisor and we have such like a father/son relationship where we are strongly afraid from a too severe father. But it is important to remember that it is not the case, also your supervisor is human so he can understand your problem, explaining it can help in general.
So, in my opinion I think that you should do it

This is very risky, and OP did already note that they don't want to do it because people misunderstand the diagnosis a lot. (That's a very good reason. I certainly wouldn't want to mention e.g. schizophrenia either, because most people think either "screaming axe murderer" or get it confused with multiple personality disorder. That's not going to be helpful at all when your real problem is that you didn't catch the last sentence because you thought someone else was saying something behind you.)

"Why should I avoid to tell my supervisor ?" OP gave a reason. "also your supervisor is human so he can understand your problem" He is human, so he can misunderstand it as well. And some people are immune to explanations. Also note OP specifically said that he himself can "easily misunderstand people", so a discussion could be misleading.


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Pursuing a PhD in quantum computing
I'm looking for a PhD in Quantun Computing, but I don't know how or where can I achieve that. Currently I'm in Chile finishing my Bs. degree in physics. I also want to know if there is any recommendation/data about south american being accepted at universities abroad.
I asked in my university if they can help me, but thet say that they are not capable of helping me in this situation. My grades are very good, translating into a gpa of >=3.7
I really want to achieve this, but I really don't know how to start this path.

If you're considering Europe as destination, then be aware that a master's degree is often required for a PhD (outside UK). Getting into a master's program is not so hard (but you should look for stipends), and it will certainly make it easier to get a PhD position afterwards (luckily there is also plenty of funding in QC right now).

And I agree with Anja below, there are a lot of South and Latin Americans in QC. Many of them do their PhD (and possibly master before) abroad. https://quantiki.org/ is a good source for PhD openings, and they also have a list of quantum groups worldwide. The latter is probably a bit outdated by now.

To add to Markus Heinrich's comment - a master's degree is definitely required for getting a PhD in the UK in quantum computing (at least, if your undergrad degree was 3/4 years only). If you can (especially if you can get your current university to pay for it), it might be worth it to attend a conference related to the specific subfield you are interested in, to do some networking. For example, QPL is being held in Buenos Aires this year.

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Is it bad to get 40% on TurnitIn?
I submitted my Anthropology paper about abortion in the United States to my teacher, and I saw the Turnitin report being 40%. Needless to say, I almost got a heart attack (figuratively, but it felt like an extreme jumpscare).
I looked at my Turnitin report to see how I got 40% and saw that it consisted of my entire bibliography, common words (for example, Republican and abortion), and the quotes I cited.
Would my teacher be suspicious of me plagiarizing even though I didn't? I made sure to cite all my sources (in-text and bibliography), and I even checked Grammarly's anti-plagiarism checker. Plus I made sure they were all in MLA as my professor requested.
40% feels like a very high score. How do I explain to my professor that it was mainly my bibliography? Should I just be upfront with it? (And I'm wondering how did all of my citations ended up being flagged in turnitin).
Edit: My professor let me know that it was mainly my citations and told me there was nothing to worry about, but that was still definitely a scare.

I wouldn't say anything, your professor should be smart enough to realize that quotes and references aren't plagiarism.

What is your motivation to check your own paper?

@user111388 could you clarify what you mean?

@strawberrycow: As I understand it, you checked your own paper if there was plagiarism, right? Wouldn't you know if you plagiarised? Or did someone else contribute to the paper?

@user111388 I just double checked to make sure I submitted my paper and then I saw that a 40% on my turn it in report

Ah, so this turnitin report comes automatically when you submit a paper? Then it makes sense. I thought you yourself put it into some tool to.check if you plagiarised. Sorry.

40% is very high for body text, but that should exclude references and quotes for the obvious reasons you mention.
There are options in TurnItIn for excluding the bibliography and quotes from the score, but depending on how your system is set up that may need to be done by your professor.
I'd say double check that you haven't overlooked this option somewhere, and that your bibliography and quotes are clearly marked as such. If they are, and you can't turn off the scoring in those sections, then I wouldn't worry too much - your professor will probably be seeing this with every single submission.

Phew thanks a lot! I thought that a high turnitin score would ALWAYS be bad.

Just like a high turnitin score does not always equal plagiarism, a low turnitin score does not always prove the lack of plagiarism. I had a student paper a few years back that presented the arguments in their own words, but had lifted every single image and figure from a published paper (without attribution). Turnitin score was 4%, as turnitin did not check images.

As mentioned in another answer, a high turnitin score by itself should never be a strict rule, but only prompt the assessor to look in more detail to determine if it's real plagiarism or not. I've heard stories about some people who do have a strict "more than X% similarity is a penalty" rule, but that's not really good practice.

@strawberrycow Turnitin works by looking for the same pattern of words/characters in your paper as in their database of papers. When you say "I'm wondering how did all of my citations ended up being flagged in turnitin", a citation would be flagged by turnitin if someone else in the world has ever cited that work in some other paper they wrote. Unless you're using a software setting like Stephen mentions to exclude the bibliography, I'd find it a lot more worrying if no citations were flagged than if all were.

@BryanKrause: makes me want to use unicode aliasing.

I lack experience with Turnitin, but had to use a similar system for my dissertation, per university rules.  They gave very explicit instructions on how to set the options for that system, to avoid excessively high match rates.  Ideally, if you need to use this for a class, the professor would give you appropriate guidelines.  (Or they would be set by the department, the college, etc.)

@BryanKrause Oh I submitted my assignment through brightspace, which allowed me to view my turnitin report afterwards. It's a pretty neat option to omit the bibliography for the turnitin report though, I never knew that

Including the references, which it always did when I marked student work, anything under about 15% correlated with being marked down for insufficient referencing (similar projects were run every year, and there's only so much decent literature to cite). 20%+ just meant a flag for checking and 30%+ was perfectly possible from citations and standard phrases (some numbers supporting @BryanKrause's point on citations)

If the citations don't turn up in turnitin (without being excluded) then that normally indicates that said sources don't actually exist (ie made up by chatgpt).

A TurnitIn similarity score should only be used to decide whether or not it is worthwhile to look at the entire report. So as long as your teacher isn't incompetent, they might be mildly suspicious of your submission for the minute it takes them to read the actual report, and then see that there isn't an issue here.
What constitutes a high similarity score will depend on the area. For example, in non-theoretical computer science there typically wouldn't be any quotes or other identical parts in the text itself, which leads to low similarity scores. In theoretical computer science, similarity can be higher due to definition and theorem statements being identical. In both areas, 40% sounds like a lot to me, but I don't know about anthropology.
Ending with a side remark: I don't think there is any point in running similarity checks on ones own writing. You've written it, you know what is going on.

Sometimes students are encouraged to run their own work through checkers.  When thresholds are used as more than grounds for investigation it's likely to be a good idea as common or even standard ways of stating things can contribute a lot and lead to false impressions that it was actually copied

40% for me would be a reason to check the Turnitin report, which of course shows how they arrive at 40%. In your case I'd then see that there is no problem (assuming that there isn't;-). I'm well aware that large percentages can occur for no serious reason, and I'd assume that everyone who works with this in such cases will look at the report to find it out. So I don't think the 40% alone will get you into trouble. They may raise suspicion but the report should show that you're fine.

If the words of others are in quotations and properly cited and the ideas of others, when paraphrased, are properly cited, it's not plagiarism.  Your professors know that.
However, a "cut-and-paste" paper made largely of quotations with little original work may earn a low grade for that reason.

It doesn't look like either you or your professor are mistaken on this point, but it bears repeating: TurnItIn and related software are not plagiarism checkers, and 40% is not the amount of plagiarism. They are similarity checkers, and 40% is the amount of similarity. Similarity and plagiarism are quite different; a piece of text can be highly similar to another without plagiarising from it, and likewise a piece of text can be plagiarised without having similar wording to the source it plagiarises from. Ideally everybody who uses TurnItIn should know this, but I've met some teachers who don't.
That said, plagiarism is not the only reason to be concerned about similarity. If your paper's similarity score is 40% due to the bibliography and quotes, but not plagiarism, then either:

Your bibliography is almost as long as your actual paper, which isn't necessarily a problem depending on the kind of paper, but it could suggest that some of your sources are redundant, or that some are not as relevant as others you could have chosen. For example, perhaps to support some claim you cited five sources which all agree, where one or two authoritative sources would have been enough. Or perhaps you made several related claims and cited different sources for each, where one or two more directly-relevant or comprehensive sources would have been enough to cover multiple claims. It's not necessarily a problem to use more sources than necessary, or some broader sources with less direct relevance to your paper, but it is a problem if you missed the more authoritative or relevant sources.
Or, a high proportion of your paper is verbatim quotes from cited sources. This probably means you are using quotes where it would be better to give your own summary, or you are using long quotes where shorter ones would be sufficient. (Either way, you still need to cite the source you're summarising or quoting from.) Quotation is appropriate where the exact words used by somebody else are necessary for the point you're making, or where the same meaning couldn't be conveyed in other words. However, using your own words means you can also make connections or comparisons between what multiple sources have said. Also, keep in mind that particularly in an educational setting, the real goal of writing a paper is to demonstrate your learning of the subject; giving your own summary of something shows your own knowledge, whereas giving quotes without enough of your own writing only shows that you know what other people have said.

Neither of these would be academic misconduct, but they are aspects of the quality of your work. Personally I've seen papers with scores around 40% which clearly weren't trying to pass off the similar work as the student's own; but I don't think I've seen any good papers like that. On the other hand, this will vary by subject, so it's possible there are no problems with your paper's quality.

Your professor can turn off having Turnitin check the bibliography in the similarity report. It will save them time looking into it and you clutching your chest.
I turn it off for my students because the first two assignments they write in my course are on the same topic and it skews the report.
If I see a 40%, it wasn't because of citations or the bibliography.

I hope you at least look at what is actually identified and not just assume that 40% means it's not just citations and bibliography. OP described where their 40% came from - would you call that plagiarism?

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Having a relationship with one my students as TA?
I'm a teaching assistant and the semester is almost over. I might be a TA next semester too. I like one of my students, but I think it's not professional to tell her. Is it wrong to ask her out, or should I not do it because it's a professional situation?

Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3142/are-relationships-allowed-between-students-and-faculty

You are just a TA, not an official faculty member. I think it is fine. Why don't you just quit your TA? It might release your burden.

Just a comment: If you don't have had any contact with her except in this class, I'd say it is not professional (and might be creepy). (I can't read from the question if this is the case or not). Your location might also matter.

@Sursula: The question where you wrote "Does this answer your question?" looks very different to me - here, the OP is "in power", in the other question, the questioner is the one where the love interest has power over them.

In addition to the other comments, even if there is nothing creepy a priori about how you know each other (i.e. outside of the TAing), such a constellation is always extra charged and can be a lot of trouble for you (but also for her! - as people may think she got preferred treatment because of your interest). It might be wise to apply a "cooling period" after TAing before considering further pursuit. Intuitively, I would say, 6 months min.

Who did choose this duplicate? It is not a duplicate (see my comment to @Sursula)

@user111388 It seems like I picked the wrong duplicate, you are right, I do believe this one fits the bill, though: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/86952/is-it-ethical-to-have-a-relationship-with-a-student-after-my-supervision-of-him

Absolutely do not do this.  You may not realise it but you are in a position of power over the student.  The student might reasonably worry that turning you down could impact them academically, or make it difficult for them to continue in your class.

Precise standards vary by culture and by university. Regarding the latter, do check whether your university has a published policy on romantic entaglements between staff and students, and if so, read it. Even if it doesn't cover you as a TA, it might help you get a better understanding of the general attitudes.
What is clear to me is that you cannot ask your student while you are still involved with teaching her. If you are TAing again next term, you would need to make sure that she's not in your group at a minimum, or better that you are not TAing for any course she is taking. She would need to know this when it comes to reacting, to avoid the risk that she fears retaliation if she turns you down. If you are involved in the broader context of this student, it may be the right thing to do to inform the person in charge you have a conflict of interest here.
For faculty many would consider it inappropriate to ask an undergraduate student out at all, whether or not there is any connection teaching-wise. I think TAs are generally sufficiently junior that no blanket inappropriateness applies.
A final issue to consider is how you would ask her out. If you have her contact details only via your role as TA, I would consider it inappropriate to use them for personal purposes. Likewise, any event you are attending in role as (former) TA is out. So this only seems possible if your social spheres intersect somehow.


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Filling in a form before going out of town
One has a tenure track position. Before leaving out of town for a conference or a seminar talk one has to fill in a form a month in advance (at least in some departments) even if one does not apply for any financial support, and there is no problem with teaching.
Question. What are the goals of this procedure?
I am mostly asking about the US, but other answers are also welcome.

In Germany this is about the insurance- Loosely speaking: If you are "on duty", some insurances of your employer apply. If you are on a business trip but the employer was not informed, you are not on duty and hence, their insurance will not apply.

@Wrzlprmft: Mostly the US.  But other answers are also of interest.

@Dirk - That looks like an answer.

Employers generally like to keep track of their employees' whereabouts, both for practical reasons related to things like insurance (as mentioned in the comments) and to prevent abuse in the form of employees using work time for completely personal travel.
Now, in the specific context of your question, it's true that academic faculty enjoy an almost unparalleled freedom to travel whenever and wherever they like during times when they don't have specific duties like teaching. Most faculty are responsible and ethical people who wouldn't abuse this freedom, but in a large department or institution invariably there will be some who aren't. The form that you are describing is a minimal form of oversight that lets the department know when faculty are traveling and for what reasons, and signals to the faculty that they should act responsibly and that ultimately their travel during workdays is subject to scrutiny by their employers. Maybe it is a bit annoying and intrusive, but if you compare this level of scrutiny to what workers in basically all other industries are subject to, I think you will find that academics are incredibly fortunate, and that having to fill a form isn't really a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

The only thing that appears out of order to me is the 1 month advance, which seems a bit too much. I hope there are workarounds for the case "I just found out there is this seminar in a close-by city in 2 days and I want to attend".

@FedericoPoloni well I'd be surprised if there isn't a whole lot more flexibility about the amount of advance notice than the official policy would suggest. OP should ask their department chair about the local customs at the department. For example at my dept one needs to fill a travel request 7 days in advance for leaves of 7 days or shorter, or three weeks in advance for longer ones (since those requests need to be approved by the dean). This rule is quite frequently ignored though, and somehow the world keeps turning...

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Asking to reattempt research after having a hard time initially
Last summer I asked a professor if I can try my hand at doing research under him in his field of interest. As I was an undergrad student (I still am) taking taking summer courses and working (I wasn't getting paid for the research) at the time and lacked a lot of skills/creativity to help in with what he was doing, I feel like I was not very successful in being very helpful with putting together a proper research report.
This being said, nearly whole year has passed since then, with no plans this summer for courses, I have an idea I want to do original research that could be helpful to his field (I didn't find anything written on the matter, so I'm not 100% sure if it's a good one, but I sincerely think it should be tried if it hasn't to verify its validity for his field) and I in turn gain from his guidance, and possibly get a paid position with him.
Is it possible for me to get back to doing research with him after having a rough time last year? If so, how should I ask for it? Should I simply write an email asking if its possible for me to try doing research with him again or compose a formal research proposal and give email it to him to demonstrate interest in the field? The risk in turn of that would be that I would waste my time writing a proposal that would never be read or  rejected where my efforts should be elsewhere.

What specifically went badly last time? You've explained why it didn't go well, but not what happened.

@ff524 edited 2char

What does "not very successful in being very helpful with putting together a proper research report" mean, though? He sent you many emails asking for your input and you didn't reply? Something else?

Lots of undergraduates are disappointed in their research productivity. It turns out research is really hard, that's why graduate schools strongly advise undergraduates to get research experience and specifically select students who have research experience - not just because they have learned some skills, but because they've learned a bit about what research is all about. Are you the only one disappointed by your output? Is your advisor also disappointed? You may very well be within their expectations yet not within your own.

Consider the game theory. What's the status quo now? I'm assuming awkward. If you ask him and he says no, then things remain awkward, nothing lost. If you ask and he says yes, that could really help you. So, I would ask him.
I do not recommend put effort into a "research proposal" -- better to just talk to him. I'd start by sending an e-mail saying that you have enjoyed working with him, regretted being oversubscribed last summer, have no such time commitments this summer, would like to spend 40 hrs/week doing research with him, and ask for a meeting to discuss an idea you have.
Having had students like you before, my guess is that his answer will come down to whether there are other students who want to work with him. If competition for research spots is tight, he will likely give the chance to someone else. If not, he is likely to give you another try; as others have said, undergraduate research is more about teaching than about getting help (except for manual labor type "research").

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Is it okay to mention what a different chair is working on?
I'm a university student and am looking for a master's thesis topic. I also have a job at a company and this company is cooperating with a chair / staff of a chair (i.e. people working for a teaching professor) from a different faculty but the same university to help them with a paper. The paper now is almost ready to be published and I have an idea for a master's thesis where that paper could help. When I'm discussing my idea with my advisor, is it okay to mention that I know that a paper about that topic is coming out soon and that I already read it several times while looking over it?

is cooperating with a chair from a different faculty --- Could you clarify what "chair" means in your context? This or this or this etc. (presumably not this).

@DaveLRenfro I added a clarifying remark.

"Chair", for the meanings I know of, refers to a single object or a single person, but you appear to identify "chair" with a group of people (e.g. "people working for a professor"). Thus, it is still not clear to me what your meaning of "chair" is --- is it another word for a professor (perhaps a professor having some kind of special designation) or it is another word for the group of people (presumably also including the professor) who work under the supervision of a professor? I think you just mean a professor (i.e. a single non-student, non-staff member of the university).

is cooperating with a chair (i.e. people working for a professor) from a different faculty but the same university --- My guess for a rewrite: "is cooperating with a supervisor from a different faculty group but at the same university".

@DaveLRenfro This seems to be a language problem. I'm German and in Germany, the word "Lehrstuhl" ("lehr" = teaching; "stuhl" = chair) technically describes a professor that teaches at a university. However, it is more commonly used to refer to all of the professor's scientific staff (so not the secretary), all of the lectures, and all of the things that professor's scientific staff do professionally. The professor is then viewed more like the "owner" of a Lehrstuhl. No professor is personally working on that paper (only his staff) and most thesis advisors are not professors but staff.

Thanks, I learned something new to me. I know that "professor", "faculty member", etc. can have different meanings than in the U.S., but I assumed "chair" still referred to a single person; I just didn't know what type of person (which I thought might marginally be useful to know, but I wasn't sure; maybe it is not important to know for the question). But then the edit to the question seemed to identify "chair" with a group of people. So I guess here "chair" means something vaguely like "department" (perhaps more like "research group"), but a bit more localized.

By "reviewing it" do you mean "reviewing it for publication" in an academic journal? Or just advising as a subject matter expect by way of the company you work for?

@TylerH I reviewed it and they used that term but it was not like a review for publication in a journal. I will change that term because it is clearly confusing. I found security problems with the proposals they made, for example.


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What happens if a paper with same topic gets published while writing undergraduate thesis?
What happens when a topic for a Bachelor's thesis is submitted and while the student writes their thesis, a paper discussing the exact same topic is published by researchers of a different university?
This is merely a scenario. I'm not in this situation. But I feel like it concerns me a lot as I would be, had I written my theses 3 years earlier, as I received an email today informing me that the topic I proposed to a chair would be a good topic but has already been looked into by 5 researchers at a French university and the French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation somewhat short of 3 years ago. The topic of their paper exactly matches what I planned to write about, so I think this happening is plausible. However, I can't seem to find information online about how it would be handled.
In such a scenario, is the student allowed to finish their thesis? How would the publication of the paper impact the requirements concerning the thesis?
Had this happened to me (with the topic I proposed), I would've suddenly have access to everything I wanted to find.
Should the field or location matter: I'm a computer science student in Germany.

In all situations I have been aware of, the student was allowed to finish their thesis (even for dissertations!). That said, it might hurt their chances at getting journal papers out of their thesis -- though, if handled carefully, not by much. (The parallel discovery should be cited, with a polite but clear indication of the fact that the author's research was done independently. Of course, things become better if the papers are different in methods.)

Related: What happens if someone publishes a paper on your current PhD thesis topic

As far as I know, in Germany, Bachelor's theses do not necessarily have to be "research", so novelty is not mandatory to graduate. Reproducing existing research would be fine, as long as it is noted and no plagiarism occurs (and the effort is commensurate: there will probably be implementation decisions to be made, etc.).
I have seen several bachelor theses on subjects such as "implementing PCIe communication" "writing a linux device driver" "build a softcore processor for the open-license parts of the ARMv4 instruction set" which have no novelty or research value but significant engineering effort. If the B.Sc. student has no ambitions for an academic career, this type of thing is perfectly appropriate and in line with their future professional work.

"If the B.Sc. student has no ambitions for an academic career" - I would actually even drop that restriction. The point of research aspects before starting doing actual research during a PhD candidacy is to become familiar with research methodologies. Whether you do that to produce novel, important results, or by reproducing existing research is largely irrelevant in that respect. Accordingly, BSc/MSc theses typically are not required to produce publication-worthy novel results, but to feature a certain degree of research orientation, e.g. by presenting everything in a structured write-up, ...

... by juxtaposing and justifying the developed (conceptually non-novel) solution with what is found in the literature, by evaluating the solution the same way a novel technique would be evaluated, and so on. Research-wise, the goal is to show that the student has the methodological skills to perform research, not that they have some good luck and happen to find an interesting novel concept just at the right time during the few months while they are writing their final thesis, in a topic that is more or less imposed by their task and that they may have no prior knowledge about.

I agree! The last line was only meant for the examples I gave that had no research components whatsoever (although the last one does have some room for the things you mention). It is to say there's a good reason why a larger superset of things that are mandatory for research are not B.Sc requirements. Novelty in particular is probably the least important of those research things!

It's true that some Bachelor's theses in CS in Germany are just implementation. However, a lot of them aren't. They are a kind of "Figure this out." tasks or "We got this going so far. Can find a way to improve this aspect of it?" tasks. Then the student has to come up with a solution to the problem, sometimes with no implementation whatsoever. The topic I initially wanted would've had implementation in addition to both of the kinds of tasks mentioned above, but the topic I'm probably going to write about now is purely theoretical. Would publication of a solution constitute a problem?

Not by the regulations, but depending on the topic it might make it harder to grade for you if the student becomes aware of it. You could think about how you would grade the thesis if you had given the hypothetical paper to the student as part of the assignment/review of the state of the art.


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Options for research opportunity
BACKGROUND
I am working as a faculty member in the CS department of engineering university of a South Asian country for the last couple of years. I have done my masters from another  Asian country. My main activities are teaching only. I do like teaching but I like doing research projects more. Unfortunately, here, I do not get enough time to work on projects due to already teaching responsibilities and secondly, there is no research group or such environment in my department that works in the same field as I want to do.. i.e. Data Science, Applied Machine Learning. Also, here, there aren't any positions for researchers explicitly. In short, I do not have a research environment and collaborators around.
Nevertheless, I want to advance my research career and get involved in a good research project long-term or short-term. In my opinion, I have the following options:

PhD
Research stay
Research internship

PROBLEM
I have been applying for Ph.D. positions abroad (and still have been), mainly Europe but I'm quite open to NZ/Aus, Canada/US. However, until now I have not been able to secure any. For research internships and research stays, 1) its really hard to find because many groups don't mention 2) I have contacted to some and they said they do not have the funding or open positions.
Well, the time is ticking and after not getting positive enough response over time, I contacted some and asked if I can come on self-funding. But, since I am from the EU, and for Visa, the universities need at least official funding source and not some personal funds and for countries like Germany, they require me to fixed deposit funds for the entire 2 years before they give me a visa.
I do not find enough time to work on a decent project and publish papers myself while doing a full-time job of teaching. With every day passing, I am not getting younger.
MY QUESTION
So, what other options could I look into to get an opportunity to work on a research project? and strengthen my profile so that I could get a fully funded Ph.D. position or a position of a researcher.I do not have an official funding source. nor too much funding to pay tuition fees of the institute but have enough that I can survive in another country or even work part-time.
I am not a really dumb guy. I really want to do some quality research having some real impact. It is just that I do not have such a top-quality research profile that is required to get funded positions or researcher jobs (at least that's why my experience of getting rejections).
Thanks in advance.

Unfortunately, you will need to make time or reorganise your teaching somehow. Also, consider making your teaching and pedagogy the focus of your research. Your teaching would be a good platform to examine and investigate educational approach and innovation in your field. Unfortunately, without evidence of research that is relevant to potential employers, you are going to be left further and further behind.

Thanks for your answer. You are only one who answer unlike other 48 people. Neverthless, what you said, is what I am already doing. I came here for help and suggestion. Guess, I won't get any here as well.

Are you doing research in your pedagogy and publishing? It does not sound like you are publishing at the moment. Also are you able to create time now so you can do the research projects that you want to do? You will need to take steps to change your circumstances. If you don't have enough time then I don't think any answers here can help you create time as you are in a full time teaching position. You need to develop expertise. You need expertise to be competitive in order to do "quality research with some real impact".


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alignment in recommendation letter in hardcopy
I have taken letter of recommendation from my referee with signature on letter head but the email and phone are not aligned with the rest of the document. Would the Australian university consider it ambigous and will contact my referee for it? I am applying for a highly competetive scholarship in australia. Can this appear as forgery case?
The below text will tell you how it looks on LOR and there  is change in left side alignment.
                    Dr. XYZ

Email:                             phone: 22
I want to recommend...                 are

It's going to be fine.  It is not at all unusual for information that's printed on a letterhead to be restated in slightly different format in an email signature.

Nobody cares about minor formatting inconsistencies in a letter of recommendation.  There is no worldwide standardization of formatting and writers write in all sorts of idiosyncratic ways.  Moreover, since the readers will be reading lots of these in quick succession, it is unlikely they will even notice.
If by some remote chance they do happen to notice, and if by some even more remote chance they think it indicates potential forgery (and I see no reason why they should), then they will simply contact your referee and your referee will confirm that the letter is genuine, and everything will be fine.  This isn't something you need to worry about.  It certainly isn't worth spending any time or effort trying to correct the formatting, nor is it worth asking the referee to fix it.

You only need to worry about it if, indeed, you forged the letter and the odd alignment is a result of the forgery!

I am only worried because my referee is very busy, and doesn't reply to emails, until I go myself and contact him that an email is needed to be sent from his email address. The university may not inform me that they are going to contact my referee. And what would be the consequences of silence from my referee in such a case?

@anonymous090: I would hope that the letter recipients would make a concerted effort to contact the letter writer (more than a single email) before assuming the letter is fake and treating the application negatively.  I would also hope that a non-automated email saying something like "Possibly fake letter of recommendation sent in your name" would get your referee's attention, no matter how busy he is.  If he really didn't respond at all, I'm not sure what would happen - I doubt this situation is common enough for there to be a standard protocol for it.


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Is it ethical to have a relationship with a student after my supervision of him is complete?
I am supervising a bachelor thesis and find the respective student attractive. Would it be ethical/acceptable to get into a relationship with the student after the thesis is completed?

Suggestion: edit the title to better reflect the temporal relationship here.  Is it ethical to have a relationship with a student after completing a role as the student's supervisor?  (And the answer is, I'm not sure.  But the answer to the question as stated is hell no.)

The anticipation of the relationship would already most likely cause trouble.

@paulgarrett, true.  I assume the student would have no knowledge of this intent, but you're right, even thinking it may be a possible outcome sounds bad.  Is it ok "sometime later"?  There is probably some appropriate cooling-off period; years later, who cares, hours later, looks fishy.

@FredDouglis, yes, I think it's best to put the whole thing out-of-mind "for now", at least. Quite hard to "make it be ok", and many ways to have it go wrong.

@paulgarrett Telling not to try is obviously the easy way. Do you think there is a kind of solution?

Unless you are extremely scrupulous, there can easily be many bad side effects, among colleagues, in the relationship, with friends, and so on. If you imagine that this may be "the love of your life", then, commensurately,  you'd not want to tarnish the relationship and others' perceptions of it (whether they are right or wrong...). "Squeaky clean" is the U.S. English phrase. Involves waiting and doing nothing in your case, I think. May not deliver the hoped-for outcome. But/and bad compromises leave lasting stigmas... Hard to find a simple, immediate solution, unfortunately. Behave honorably.

Why should there be a problem if you make sure to fully grade the thesis before making a pass at him or her? Of course you might never get a chance afterwards. That is a chance you have to take.

Your university likely has specific policies regarding this.  If you're a TA, then a TA handbook, at least in the US in my experience, will always mention their policies on relationships with undergrads/students.  There should be similar policies, if not similar handbooks, for professors etc.
Have you looked for them?

@FredDouglis - Like that?

Yes, it clarifies what you were asking.  On the whole I tend to agree with the others who say it's a bad idea ... just not as bad as if it were contemporaneous as the original title suggested.

It is neither ethical nor safe to get into any kind of relationship with a current student.  Depending on your institution, it may be prohibited conduct.  Brown's rule: "You can lust after girls, or you can lust after boys, but you can never lust after students."
Even former students aren't safe.  Some years ago a graduate whose senior project I had supervised showed up in my office and announced that she had come to take me to dinner.  We began seeing each other, and then she decided to return to our institution for a master's degree.  That resulted in a self-initiated, but very uncomfortable, meeting with dean and VPAA.

That discomfort is just part of academic life. // I had to look up VPAA: Vice Provost for Academic Administration. // I wonder why you didn't say, "She decided to return to our institution for a master's degree"?  She was an alum -- it was her institution too, I think.... // I hope the dean and vice provost told you that she could do a master's there, and you could continue teaching there, as long as you didn't have any supervisory responsibilities over her work. // Actually, I think your answer would be strengthened by rephrasing this part: "even former students aren't safe."

@aparente001  Yes, she was able to take her master's at our institution under exactly the conditions you mention.  I've edited my answer to reflect your remarks; thanks!

The ethical, and safe, thing to do -- now, actually -- would be to look for another faculty member to pass this thesis supervision responsibility to, because your objectivity has been, or could be seen to be, compromised by your feelings.
I was given some very good advice once by a senior professor: when contemplating a particular action, imagine what it would look like if described in a newspaper headline.

"Emcor Involved in Romantic Relationship with Student S/He Was Providing Direct Thesis Supervision to"

Doesn't look so good.  Compare:

"Emcor Hands Off Thesis Supervision to Colleague before Embarking on Romantic Relationship with Student"

Better, no?
This doesn't mean you can't read a draft of the thesis, or that you can't be a sounding board for the work.  It just means that you shouldn't be the thesis supervisor.
That's how I see it.  However, if you are in any doubt, do check with a department administrator.

It is not ethical nor acceptable for you to do. After the supervision is technically over you still have power over the student, such as through reference letters.

Although I am certainly not advocating in favor of such a relationship, I think the specific difficulties you mention are likely to be surmountable.  First, this is an undergraduate student, so they may not continue in academia at all. If they do, then in many cases the grad school letters are written before the student actually graduates.  Finally, the OP could (and certainly should!) agree not to write any letters for the student.  For an undergrad, this could perhaps be detrimental to the academic career, but it would not be catastrophic.

You don't, because you obviously do not write reference letters for your partner.


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How to address my multiple undergrad transfers in graduate admissions?
I'm kind of embarrassed to talk about this, but I've attended quite a large number of schools throughout my undergraduate career. 6 schools, in fact. Most of these schools I attended for 12 or fewer credits- I was dealing with an undiagnosed chronic physical illness, which I've now totally overcome, but which was disabling at the time.
I didn't know what I was dealing with then so I kept trying to push through school and having to withdraw from classes/schools and re-enroll somewhere else. I'm doing much better now, have brought my total GPA up to 3.52 (with a strong upward trend), and have a 4.0 GPA in my major (psychology). I'm studying hard for the GRE's and I trust that my recommenders will be able to provide strong recommendations for me. I know that my GPA could be better, but what I'm mostly worried about is the large amount of transfers on my transcript.
How should I deal with this? Should I mention in my personal statement that I was dealing with chronic illness and have overcome it? I'm worried that admissions committees will think I'm oversharing, but I feel that something as weird as 6 undergraduate institutions requires an explanation. I'm hoping this won't disqualify me from PhD programs, since I really love research in psychology and would do anything to pursue it further.
From comment: One of the schools was just somewhere I took a single course at while in high school. I left two of the schools because I lost the merit aid I needed to afford attendance due to withdrawing, and one because it was an online school and I was unhappy with the quality of the education I was getting there. I then went back to my local community college and started over, and transferred to my state university from there. I have research experience, and am planning on getting some more after undergrad. I'm hoping I can overcome this but I'm really scared.

Saying "I was dealing with chronic illness and have now overcome it" isn't oversharing; it's a simple statement of fact.

Water under the bridge.  I don't see a need to explain.  Clearly, once you found the right fit, things went well.  Graduate programs want to feel there's a high likelihood you'll be successful in their program.  Some early dabbling and flitting around doesn't raise a red flag in that regard, given your solid track record once you settled down somewhere. Admissions committees are pretty forgiving of things that happened in the beginning. What you could do is ask a comm. college recommender to include something like, "Steph had tried a couple of other programs before s/he came to us, but in our

...department found a perfect fit and was an asset to the department.

On first appearance, this does seem like a significant negative of your application. I have a couple suggestions for you.
One, make sure you follow the graduate school's instructions on submitting previous school's transcripts. Some graduate applications may ask for only the receiving degree transcripts.  If some of the previous five schools' credits did not transfer and were not related to your degree, you might not have to mention those at all. Be careful though, as not including them when you are supposed to is considered a misrepresentation of yourself, and could invalidate your application (and even potentially your later graduation). On the other-hand, you may be asked to provide each and every full transcript from each of your previous schools.
If you do need to include the transcripts from each of the six schools (or they do all appear as transferred credits), I would highly recommend you include an explanation in your application.  Their biggest concerns will be if this number of school changes indicates an inability to commit, the tendency to give up rather than work hard to learn something difficult, and/or the presence of a serious level of indecision about your direction.  These are all serious issues for the successful completion of a PhD, in which you can expect long and difficult work on the same subject. You do not need to give much detail about your medical issues, but be sure that your explanation sufficiently explains the information given to them. For example, repeated withdrawals and restarts or a longer completion time makes clear sense in the context of a recurring medical problem, but why six schools and not one or two? Medical withdrawals and restarts at the same school would seem like a more reasonable option, which could lead them to doubt your justification.
Emphasizing your continued upwards gpa trend and your commitment to the area of psychology over the years will also help combat some of these concerns. Any out of class research will help you enormously as well as it shows you are willing to spend additional time on the subject, have the potential to succeed at PhD level research in general, and have experience to know you enjoy and are willing to commit to psychology research specifically.

Thanks for answering. One of the schools was just somewhere I took a single course at while in high school. I left two of the schools because I lost the merit aid I needed to afford attendance due to withdrawing, and one because it was an online school and I was unhappy with the quality of the education I was getting there. I then went back to my local community college and started over, and transferred to my state university from there. I have research experience, and am planning on getting some more after undergrad. I'm hoping I can overcome this but I'm really scared.

One quick followup question: If I don't get in anywhere, do you think it would be beneficial to go for a MA, to show that I can commit to coursework in psychology? I was planning on looking for a research position and applying again once I get some more research experience, but since the issue is with my school record, do you think additional schooling would be more helpful?

You've done the hardest part already to get to this point - look at what you've already overcome!  And, since it sounds like the school changes were at the start, it will be even easier for an admissions committee to accept.  You've identified this issue as a potential weakness, and now you can successfully address it in a few sentences to a paragraph in your SOP.  As with your writing components of your application in general, make sure you have someone with experience look over it to be sure you hit the right notes (a writing service at your university or perhaps one of your professor recs).

As for potential back-up plans, additional coursework would likely provide no benefit.  Your idea of getting more research experience would be the way to go as any PhD application committee is ultimately trying to judge you on your ability or potential ability to successfully perform novel, independent research. Apart from the rough start, you have the standard community college -> state university, with great grades in your major and decent grades outside it.  This already shows your ability to learn in the class setting (and commitment, with the appropriate short explanation).

When describing the reason for your less traditional background, you are right to avoid "inappropriate personal disclosure", but as you've written it now is pretty good. You want most of your application to be strictly positive, so keep it short, simple, and clear.
For example, you might talk about how you came to realize that this field is right for you. You can note that when you were younger you struggled with an undiagnosed chronic medical issue, and that you attended multiple schools in trying to find a way to succeed in spite of the limitations you experienced. You were finally able to obtain successful treatment in year XXXX, and you successfully returned to Your Institution. Then continue telling your success story of all the great work you did and why you are such a great prospect, and you don't really need to return to belabor the point.
Are there some people who will balk at having the nontraditional background you have? Sure - but there are plenty of people who respect struggle, persistence, and finding a way to overcome hardship. If your record is clearly much better after the point you name, then people reviewing your application can clearly see that, "well, they had issues before, but the problem must be solved because they've done great since then". You aren't the only one, and all the rest of the advice for grad school applies to you just fine otherwise.
I believe the key is that you need positive factors that are more recent and outshine the negative of having issues in your earlier undergrad experiences, and you show consistent positives which help to establish that clearly the issues you had before must not be an ongoing concern because you are doing well.
From personal experience, I found that having backup plans was one of the best ways to fight the fear of getting rejected from everywhere, even as you apply broadly to a number of programs to give yourself the best chance of finding the right combination of factors to get that "right fit". But it can be helpful to plan in advance what you'll do if the first round of grad school apps don't go your way, as the unknown is the scariest part. With your history of persistence in the face of adversity, remember that you've seen first hand that there is more than one way to succeed - even if it means you might not have the most direct path, there are always alternatives. Of 1000 possible paths, you only need to find one that works for you.


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Should I remind my potential PhD advisor to know his feedback regarding my solutions to a problem set given by him?
About a month ago, I emailed a potential PhD advisor in the field of theoretical physics expressing my interest in a PhD position he had advertised. He replied back by saying that he normally gives a problem set for PhD applicants to solve within 2 days. A week later, while sending me the questions, he added that he wanted to understand how reliable I am with calculations. The problem set included questions of increasing difficulty. I solved the problem set in the specified deadline and sent back the solutions but he hasn't replied since then.
Should I send him a reminder email to know the status of my application process?

Yes, absolutely. If it's been more than a week, it's definitely appropriate to send a polite reminder. He probably gets a lot of e-mails and may have just missed yours.
In general, I've found it's best to follow up after a week if there's any chance that the other person missed or forgot about the e-mail. If he's aware that he still needs to respond, no harm done. If he's not aware, then it's a good thing you're letting him know.


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Correct acknowledgment for a figure's digital rendering
If I draw a figure freehand, and then ask somebody else to render it digitally, and integrate the resulting product in a publication, what is the correct way of acknowledging this person's work?
Should I mention their name

As a co-author,
In the acknowledgments,
In the caption of the figure ("Digital rendering by Doe, J.")
Something else?

About 1. : why? If you go down that way, I guess you have to have as a co-author Mohammed ibn-Musa al-Khowarizmi, because he provided a good rendering of the idea of zero you have in mind :)

Either 2 or 3 (or both) is proper. They haven't likely contributed to the intellectual content of the paper so 1 would not be required or advised. You did that when you drew the figure. Similarly reviewers and copy editors don't become authors.
If they put a lot of work into it, then both 2 and 3 would probably be best. And, for an acknowledgement, make sure you point to the figure if you don't also use a caption.


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advantages and disadvantages of white-box testing of students assignments?
This is a fork of my question homework-testing-method-for-schools but i'm taking it in another direction.
I was asking about a homework testing method that'll encourage students to write better code and reduce the TA's proofreading task to a minimum.
I was thinking of using unit testing, (or anything else you can think of), in order to turn students in the right direction (design wise), and hopefully giving them good thinking and coding habits (we're talking first programming course in collage).
so my new question is:

If you think there's something wrong and not educational about unit testing    students code please explain why do you think so..
If you think this is a good (or just an o.k) idea please tell me if you have any ideas of how to design the tests.

thank you for your answers.

Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20578/use-of-automated-assessment-of-programming-assignments/20823#20823

It is not an answer to your question. I am just wanting to say I am glad to see people pushing the idea of testing code. I get far too many recent grads who think that if it compiles and runs and handles the single case they have been coding to, then it is ready to ship.  I'm a nuclear safety guy. It's not even remotely ready at that point.

A lot of what I said as an answer to this question is probably also applicable here, so I will not repeat it.

If you think there's something wrong and not educational about unit testing students code please explain why do you think so..

I don't think there is anything particularly wrong about unit testing student code, but it will likely not do away with manual grading or direct lab sessions entirely. All things considered, the way how TAs traditionally check programming assignments (build, run, check behavior against assignment description) is pretty close to what a unit testing framework does anyway.

If you think this is a good (or just an o.k) idea please tell me if you have any ideas of how to design the tests.

The major challenge I see is that you want your tests not only to serve as a framework to check whether students implemented the right functionality, but also to check whether they did it in the right way. I think unit tests and generally automated grading will not be able to help you here, aside from limited hard-coded rule checking.
A lot of the problem is already encoded in your use of terminology. You say you want "unit tests that do white box testing". This isn't really feasible, IMHO. Unit tests test interfaces. So, to cut it short, I do not think that unit tests will help you in this regard.

As a tester  I would suggest giving a couple lessons on testing itself, its techniques and TEST DESIGN. The latter is useful to write proper set of tests. Anyway, teaching them good habits of writing tests for their code is a huge plus.
As an advanced task for one of the latest your lessons I would suggest you to switch the roles with your students: tell them you are going to write a class with given interface and defined behaviour, and their task then would be to write unit tests that would 1. cover the described behavior and 2. find some bugs (probably, left in the code by your intention). That would teach them writing test based on the desired behavior, not the implementation.

I have been involved with two classes that used automated testing in different ways, and in both cases is was an excellent idea that was generally well received by students.
One was a class on compilers, which naturally encouraged the use of regression-testing because most assignments were to write a piece of software with specific functionality.  In this class, every assignment had two sets of detailed regression tests: one was provided with the assignment to be used during development.  The other was kept secret and revealed only when the assignment was returned.  Grades were a mixture of the two sets of results: the first batch was "easy points" that everybody was expected to get, the second set was the real differentiator demonstrating that a student's solution was sufficiently general and deep.
The other class was a large (300+ student) artificial intelligence class, where automated testing of homework was introduced in order to lighten the grading load and allow the TAs to spend time on small-group tutorials instead.  In this class, all of the homework was done through the automated system, including both coding and non-coding questions (e.g., numerical calculations, multiple choice), and students could submit their answers, check if they were correct, and resubmit again and again until their got it correct.  As such, homework was viewed as "required practice" and everybody was expected to eventually get all of the questions correct, though we didn't care when.  The grades for the class then came almost entirely from quizzes, exams, and projects, with the homework percentage used as a multiplier on the total (well, technically it was multiplication of a complex formula that essentially amounted to: "If you blatantly ignore the homework, we'll drop you a letter grade").
So in sum: automated testing can be an excellent solution and I think more classes should adopt it.  It requires a bit more up-front investment, but can pay off both in terms of time and in terms of pedagogical value. How exactly you design it and integrate it depends on the goals, as illustrated by these two examples, and I'm sure there are many more.


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What should be included as part of a comment paper?
I intend to submit a comment paper. In the base paper the "basic assumption" made for justifying the result is wrong. I intend to cite some reference books which support my argument about incorrectness of basic assumption.
My question is whether I should just list the facts with proper citation OR also justify that by some experimentation? I have an alternative justification which could explain the results. Should I perform experiments and prove correctness of justification that I propose?

should [I] just list the facts with proper citation OR also justify that by some experimentation?

You should give some intuition behind facts. You needn't justify established facts with experimentation, but doing so may provide useful knowledge. If facts aren't established/accepted, then experimentation should be provided.

I have an alternative justification which could explain the results. Should I perform experiments and prove correctness of justification that I propose?

For a comment paper, you surely need only provide facts that show the "basic assumption" made for justifying the result is wrong.
For a research paper, you could provide an alternative justification which could explain the results, along with experiments that prove correctness of justification that [you] propose.


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How to Ask a Top Professor to Co-Author a Paper with Me?
I am currently working on a research project that I believe has significant potential. I have identified a top professor in my field whose expertise aligns perfectly with my research topic. I would like to ask this professor to co-author a paper with me, but I am unsure how to approach this request professionally and effectively.
Are there any tips on things to do and not to do? Anything I should be considering?
I plan to send an email with my abstract, see if the professor is interested. Then I will discuss roles with him and wait for him to finish revising my paper.

Your question is unclear: Do you already have complete results but want the professor to contribute to writing a paper based on these results, or you need help completing a research project (which could eventually result in a paper), or you simply want to put professor's name on the paper that you are writing? The latter would be a "gift-authorship"  and, thus, inappropriate.

What do you want from this professor? If you want them to work in your project with you, that's quite unlikely to happen. If you want to work with them, find something that they are interested in, and show that you can contribute to the things they care about. For example, if they raised a question in some of their paper, and you research project has a (partial) answer to the question, approach them showing your work. This has higher chances of resulting in a collaboration than a mere "would you like to join my cool project?", which will probably be ignored or maybe even negatively received.

@MoisheKohan I generally want them to take a look at my new perspective that I have provided in my manuscript. Its a rather innovative one, so it may very well be wrong. I want an expert in the field to have a look at it before I submit the paper.

It sounds like what you need is some feedback rather than a co-author. So, the real question you should ask yourself is "how do I get meaningful feedback on my manuscript"? You seem to be assuming that the answer to that question is "by offering them co-authorship" but it really isn't, or rather it needn't be. Regardless of whether you offer anyone co-authorship or not, the main difficulty for you will be getting the professor to read the manuscript in detail in the first place. It's not clear at all that offering co-authorship will increase your chances in this respect.

I think this entire approach is all wrong and it just smells of trying to glean some type of celebrity by affiliation (for lack of better words). If you have a good idea, submit it, it will go to peer review and you will get your answer. If you require further assurance prior to that point, reach out to others in your area for their opinion. Ask a colleague, etc... you don't have to engage and associate with a "top professor" or offer them authorship in order to test the waters with your idea. Have some courage in your own work.

Adding onto what Adam said: if that's what you want them to do, that's not worth a coauthorship, but you should give them a sentence in the acknowledgements if they agree to help. (Note: do not read that as "try bribe them with an acknowledgement".)

A cold email has a low probability of success and a high probability of winding up in the trash unread. You can try it, but don't expect much unless you are already known to that professor or have a reputation that they are aware of through your previous work.
There are two strategies, however, with a higher likelihood of success.
If you are a student or independent researcher, you can ask a professor to introduce you and mention your common interests. A mail from a colleague, even when not known to them, is likely to be read.
Alternatively, but more expensive, is to find a way to meet them, perhaps at a conference. You can then express your interest in working together.
And, starting the conversation with "would you be interested in co-authoring a paper" also seems to be premature.

If your paper is related to a recent paper published by that professor (e.g. extends the results or solves an open problem from that paper), I would suggest to write an email saying "I have read your interesting paper X, and have found a way to extend it [add more details]. I attach the draft for your interest. Any comments would be welcome". This will not necessarily lead to co-authorship, but you may get some feedback on your paper, which is always a good thing.


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My Professor changed my multiple choice answers. What should I do?
My prof changed some of my multiple choice answers on a test to give me a better grade. I noticed because I remember putting different answers for the questions and the way they were circled was not like how I write. I would have passed the test anyway, so I am not sure why they would have done this. I feel guilty because I want my grades to be based on my own merits. But this test was not a case where the prof raises a student mark because they deserved it based on effort. They deliberately changed my incorrect answers to give me a better mark on a test that I already did okay on. What should I do if anything?

I would check the facts - that the professor indeed changed your answers - because the situation sounds incredible enough that it's hard to believe. A possible explanation, for example, could be that the professor confused your answer script with another student's answer script.

I don't think so, they gave us back the tests and the answer booklet was mine

Still sounds incredible - reminds me of a movie I once watched where the protagonist's boyfriend sneaks into the professor's room to change her answers so she'll pass instead of fail. I'd suggest mentioning to the professor that the answers on the script aren't the ones you marked, the security might have been compromised.

Why do you think they would do it? Can you imagine a motive?

No, I am not sure why, especially because I would have still done fine on the test, just not great.

Really, that does not make sense then. Unless there is something you suspect is intentionally going on (antagonistic or in your favour), I would really subscribe to the idea that there was some mistake here. One more thing to consider is: Does the prof have bad failure rates?

I don't think they have bad failure rates, but they are known for giving students unfair final course marks (better or worse) for no real ryhme or reason, maybe because the student shows up to class more often. But to me this is on another level if true.

Is there some reason that they would want you to think you "owe" them something for a favor given. Lots of nasty scenarios come to mind.

Is there any chance there is something wrong with those questions? Could there have been an announcement that the Prof felt that the questions were unanswerable based on their teaching and thus gave everyone marks for them? Seems a stretch, but I am just trying to find an explanation here. Have you discussed this with any of your fellow students?

This is really tough to approach. On the one hand, it’s incredibly hard to prove this (also since there’s no clear incentive for the professor to do this). On the other hand, you stand to lose a lot if you’re wrong.
That said, paraphrasing Hanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.
Your professor might have mixed up something, or accidentally erased your answers (and then wanted to err on your side). You can simply approach them and nicely ask about question 17, that you distinctly remember putting another answer, but you could be wrong etc.


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How much do European PhDs care about GPA?
I have an undergrad degree in field A and have a lot of skills that led to me doing research in field B (not a lot of crossover traditionally, but the lab skills are similar and the experiments I run in field B are improved by the lab techniques I have from A).
I am now a fulltime research assistant at a top 10 university and have done interesting work including introducing methods from A to our work in B and proposing experiments grounded in understanding the science of B.
I want to do a PhD, but the trouble is I have an undergrad gpa of ~2.0, and my degree is in field A. (I also did several years of undergrad research in A, including some pretty advanced work, in a top 20 department.) I will have glowing recommendation letters from some top names in B because of my research work.
I want to do a PhD and a lot of people have suggested Europe because they're shorter. Do they care as much about gpa as American PhD programs? If so, I think it might not be worth applying because of GPA.

There are a number of relevant differences between North American and European PhD programs. First, it is key to note that practices differ greatly from country to country. The following answer will focus on general trends across Europe, but be aware that there will be exceptions.
One big difference is that in Europe you generally would not be applying to a PhD program, but for a specific position with a specified group/professor. As such there are typically less requirements set by a graduate school (such as a minimum GPA) to deal with. Since there is typically only one position to fill, the hiring tends to be more risk averse, and things like recommendation letters become more important than pure grades. People will still however look at the grades and a 2.0 GPA will certainly raise some eyebrows.
Another difference (also mentioned in other answers) is that in continental Europe, it is typically expected that PhD applicants have already obtained a Master's degree. It is very unlikely you will be hired without a Master's. The only exception to this (I know of), is the UK where it is more common to start a PhD directly after the Bachelor (and PhD's have a short nominal length of three years to boot.)

It isn't common anywhere I have been in the UK (Oxbridge, and another Russell Group Uni) to start a PhD after Bachelors. We flat out wouldn't accept someone in my subject area at my current Uni who didn't have a masters and they would be unlikely to be eligible for research council funding without one (the council would make them do a 1+3). Master's is a must.

I suggest making the last paragraph the first, with suitable edits.

Discipline specific - I did my (life sciences) PhD at Cambridge without a masters, a postdoc in Oxford in a group where none of the PhD students had masters and now run a group of my own at a different RG uni were none of my students have masters degrees.

This will be UK specific and life sciences specific.
The fact that you will generally be applying to an individual rather than a program in the UK means that you have the chance to appeal directly to the supervisor in question. We (just about) understand what a GPA is, and so your poor GPA will be noted, but it is unlikely absolutely rule you out. The fact that you have worked for several years as a RA and have done well at that will argue in your favor, particularly if you have publications.
The TLDR is your GPA will hinder you, but its probably still worth applying in the UK. One problem will be funding, as most PhD funding in the UK is restricted to EU citizens only (soon to be UK citizens only).

European PhDs are shorter? From what I heard, here (in Germany), you take about 3 years if you can get governmental funding and work on your thesis full time. If you need to do lab/project work to fund your PhD, you are looking at something like 5-6 years.
On top of that you get at least two years to do your Masters, as here it is Bachelors --> Masters --> PhD, you usually can't do a PhD with only your undergrad (no matter the grades).
I can't speak for all European countries (although I saw similar systems in at least a few), but I would strongly suggest to research how PhDs work in your country of choice a little more.


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How to reach theoretical computer science researchers in China and India? Any equivalent of the DMANET mailing list?
An effective way of making researchers in Europe in the field of theoretical computer science aware of open positions, such as PhD positions, Postdoc positions, assistant professor positions, and so on, is to send an announcement to the DMANET mailing list. In addition, this list is often seen by researchers in many other non-European countries.
After posting a job announcement at DMANET, I have received applications from all over the world, but to my surprise, none from  China or India. I wonder if DMANET is as popular in China and in India as it is in Europe, and some other countries among TCS researchers.
So the question is: what are the Chinese and Indian equivalents of the DMANET mailing list? Or if such lists do not exist, what is the most effective way of reaching researchers in TCS in these countries?
Note: I'm really only interested in effective ways of reaching researchers in theoretical computer science.


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Can strong research experience and recommendations offset low GPA for Master's application in Germany?
I am currently a 4th year Chemistry undergraduate student in the US. I will be applying to Master's programs in Germany (and probably some other EU countries). Due to many health and family related issues, my GPA has been severely affected. By the time I apply, I will most likely have a GPA of about 3.2 out of 4.0, which is around 2.2 in German grading system. In addition, a lot of my specific grades are a bit inconsistent (e.g. I did really bad in Organic Chemistry I but exceptionally well in Organic Chemistry II). My advisors tell me that generally it is good to have some rising trend, and this inconsistency is not helping.
However, the (probably) stronger parts of my application include:

Very extensive undergraduate research experience (presenting in best conference of my field, will have at least one journal publication by the time I receive my Bachelor's degree)
My university is ranked top 10 in the US, both overall and also for my research area (geochemistry/mineralogy)
My research supervisor is a leading figure in his field, who is a great mentor and is willing to write me a strong recommendation. My other professors also know me well and I am confident I will get good letters from them as well
Not sure if relevant, but I also have a summer job experience in industry as an analytical chemist intern, and a semester of Teaching Assistant (TA) appointment for a computational biology class

Will these suffice despite having the low GPA? I am worried that even if I am offered admission, I may not qualify for scholarships or Hiwi jobs to cover my living expenses.
Please note that I am applying only to English programs, and my German proficiency is currently at A2, but it is unlikely I will be able to practice enough to get to C1. For Master's programs, I am applying to mostly computational chemistry, geochemistry/mineralogy, and physical chemistry programs (in decreasing order of preference).

The application system in Germany is much different than in the US. Most masters (and bachelors) applications in Germany are solely decided by the grade of the applicants. The research and work experience is in most cases irrelevant (and no documents proving them need to be handed in). Even if you would send in those documents without being asked for them, chances are very, very high that they will be ignored and noone will look at them. The whole system is in most cases rather bureaucratic.
They also do not care where you have obtained your grades or if your supervisor is famous, as long as the university you obtained your degree at is recognized as being sufficiently equivalent to the German education system (there are online sites to check that, but US schools should generally be ok).
And as a side note: a 2.2 is not condsidered a LOW grade. Many people (especially in engineering and science) have lower grades in their BAs and do get into a masters program just fine. I don't think you have to worry too much as long as you are flexible enough and not fixed on a few specific unis in popular cities (and even there it is not unlikely that you get in).