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How should I feel about a professor using an entire online course for his own course?
I'm taking a machine learning class at a school in South Korea. I've heard some good and bad things about this professor in particular, but I didn't really know until I actually took his course.
I've noticed that my instructor is literally following the exact course of the well-known online machine learning course taught by Coursera co-founder Andrew Ng. The print-outs he uses in class are also taken from the online course, and the examples and jokes he uses are also the same to the T. There are other print-outs he takes from Youtube which I happened to find which he seems reluctant to address when I asked him about it.
Perhaps I am thinking/acting out of my place, but I just don't think that it's appropriate, and maybe I feel a bit cheated because many students (including myself) have to work several jobs to come up with tuition money, and it doesn't feel good that I'm paying a large amount of money for a potentially free online course.
How should I feel about this? Is this more commonplace than I feel?

EDIT
I haven't mentioned the quality of education I'm getting through the course.
The quality is low, which is what led to my initial frustration. I honestly couldn't care less what material instructors are using as long as they cite the source and are able to use it to everyone's benefit. This instructor is not only not citing the sources, but is reluctant to tell me where he got them when asked about it.
Regarding the class itself, I've found myself in situations where asking the instructor of this particular class a question is often either not answered in a clear manner or is answered with "Just email the TA's," which has led me to seek answers either online or elsewhere.
Perhaps this is my prejudice, but when I ask a professor from an internationally accredited institute of higher education a question on machine learning, I am hoping to get a detailed explanation on the mathematical or conceptual reasons to how certain algorithms were formed or how we can prove they are sound. Not just an answer that goes along the lines of "Hmm well when I was working on this project this algorithm worked best, and you can find the proof online."

You haven't said anything about the quality of the instruction you are getting. If it is high, then what is the issue? If it is low then you have something to complain about.

@Buffy thanks for pointing that out. I'll edit it into my question.

Do you really only want to know how to feel about it or do you want to know whether and what you should do about this?

I think the quesiton is twofold: 1.) What to do about the plagiarism? See this and this and 2.) What to do about a lecturer who seems to not understand the subject he is teaching?

@problemofficer Both would be accurate. I'm genuinely curious as to whether this happens more often than I think because this is a first time for me. If there's something I can do about it I'm willing to take that action.

Can you provide a location? Afaik from things that I read and from own experience this seems to be more prevalent in eastern countries and less in the west.

Well my good sir, your experience serves you well. I'm currently attending a university in South Korea. I have noticed that universities in Western countries tend to take plagiarism a bit more seriously than Eastern ones.

I will then also extrapolate, that you are an exchange student of some kind? I "dare" not writing an answer, because I am not that familiar with asian culture, but my guess would be that you will have to suck it up and just learn from own sources. Japan, China and South Korea afaik all have a saying analogous to "Well, thats how it is, we just have to live with it", thus being more OK not changing anyhting that bothers them and accepting hardship. Secondly, be careful with accusations, especcially in public, so that nobody "looses face". Google it in case you are unfamiliar with this. HTH.

To me this smells of "Our professor teaching ML theory [left / isn't available / retired]. You use ML, right? That's what I thought! You should teach it next semester, which starts in a couple of weeks. Never mind that you're an application guy, and not a theorist. I'm sure you can handle it.". The instructor might be in over their head, but without much of a choice - especially in a "don't make your boss lose face" culture. Unfortunately, it's the students that tend to get the worst of it.

Have you searched on here, there was a similar question the other day, that Q & A may help...

@problemofficer, oh the westerners who think they know everything about Asia :) The OP should look into whether there's a way to deal with it within his/her university - confidentially and without risking his/her grades. It depends on the institute, but the last years plagiarism in South Korea can mean a_lot of trouble.

How should I feel about a professor using an entire online course for his own course? -- You should probably feel like you could learn the material on your own.

As opposed to lifting the class wholesale from a textbook, the way overworked faculty have done for hundreds of years?  (Yes, @problemofficer, even in the West.)

@Helen: Don't appreciate the condecending and patronizing tone. And I never said I knew everything about Asia, so keep your strawman.

@problemofficer, "and from own experience this seems to be more prevalent in eastern countries and less in the west", yes, I see nothing wrong with this, but if believing that I like my strawmen helps you feel better, then please by all means do. (It was not condescending and patronizing, it was direct disagreement with a pinch of humour.)

Copying an entire course from Coursera is definitely not commonplace. Some parts of ML courses are fairly 'standard' (there are only so many ways one could define linear regression), but lifting material without proper credit can range from annoying, unethical to outright plagiarism. It's fine to take some examples and use them (with proper credit), but it's generally expected that an instructor adds some value of their own.
I don't know how you should feel about this. Sounds like you already are feeling pretty annoyed (I would!). I can answer what you can do about this.
The minimum I would do is report this in the student course evaluations. Write a detailed report of everything that went wrong. If you school's administration cares in the least about their teaching, this will get someone's attention.
The best thing you can do is rally the entire class. If it's just you - well, you're just an angry student who's not getting the material and is trying to squeeze a good grade. If a significant number of complaints come in (even 10 students is a good amount), that's going to get people's attention. Does your university have a student union? An ombudsman? If you go through them this will also get people's attention.
You can also try to (discreetly) reach out to the person in charge (professor in charge of curriculum, the department head etc.). I would not confront the lecturer directly if I were you, unless you don't mind getting a bad grade. It is very unlikely that this instructor will be removed from the class, and if they find out you reported them they may be very biased against you: reporting paints a target on your back (this is another reason to have more people complain, the instructor can't fail all of them and get away with it!).
The likeliest outcomes here are that the professor will not be teaching this class in the future, and that's about it. Alternatively, they'll be required to stop this bad practice in future iterations of the class (say, if your department is understaffed). I don't foresee them facing disciplinary action, unless this is not the first time that this has happened.
Good luck!

I don't think rallying people is a decent way for addressing something you find to be an issue. It's better suited for use by politicians or when all else has failed, which is not implied to be the case here as far as I can tell.

To be "outright plagiarism" requires the offender to publish the work in some sense. The professor gains nothing, not even school credit, for using someone else's slides.


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When submitting a paper, should I match the keywords to MeSH terms?
I understand the importance MeSH  had in the past when google scholar (and similar tools) did not exist.
However, with all the websites that enhance your searches, like Mendeley, Academia.edu, and Google is there any reason to stick to MeSH terms? Or should I use keywords at my will?
For example, suppose I want to submit a paper that discusses some theoretical elements of structural equation model (a group of statistical methods), however there is no MeSH term that quite represents that. The closest one, would be "linear models". In this case, should I use a created keyword like "structural equation model", or sould I stick to "linear models" wich is more general, but is listed by pubmed.com?

I know what the MeSH terms are — I don't.

source: Stack Exchange

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I ghosted my previous supervisor for 15 days. How to improve my situation?
TL;DR: I ghosted (i.e. suddenly ceased communication with no explanation) my previous supervisor for 2 weeks when I had to do some minor final job regarding to my already finished thesis work due to my stress level. He now probably thinks I am unreliable and ghosted him forever. I actually want to finish the work and fulfil my promises, but have no access to the computer I worked on anymore. How could I improve my situation and reply to my professor to save what remains of the seemingly burning bridge?

I did my Master's thesis as an Erasmus student, started during my exchange term, and finished it the next term when I was at home. My fields is physics, and the thesis work involved the development of an experiment setup automation software. During the second term I was developing this remotely over Team Viewer. Most of the work was done during my exchange, and the work later only involved smaller bug fixes/improvements.
My supervisor was happy with my work. In fact, he offered me a PhD position, which I was considering until a better opportunity came along.
Due to the COVID events in the 2nd term (first half of 2020), and because I started my first full-time work in the middle of May, I had some serious deadline problems with my Erasmus paperwork and the thesis itself. I must admit my responsibility here - I got in a loop of the Devil due to bad time management and mental health.
In any case, I ended up submitting my thesis last-minute, with a few modifications - only improvements, not changes of result - still left. We made a discussion with this professor that I would still make these changes, and also do a bunch of small modifications (doable in 1-2h) on the program to make it a final version. He was positive, and he actually still offered me a possible collaboration in the future.
But then, I made what I feel is a serious mistake. Just after this discussion and the successful defense of my thesis, I had to start working on-site instead of home office as before. This greatly increased my workload - as a first-time worker, this was a new thing gor me - and I also  had some personal issues which skyrocketed my stress level. As a consequence, I caved in.
I effectively ghosted my previous supervisor for the past 15 days.
About a week ago he asked me in a Skype messagge if I finished the modifications. The first time I read it I actually got myself to  finished 80% of them, but there is still one thing left (doable in 20 min), and I also didn't make the changes on my thesis work. I ended up with the stupid decision of not answering. Then about 3 days later a follow-up message came, asking the same thing. I didn't reply.
I have no good reasons, even for myself, why not. I felt panick as I thought of the work, was in almost constant fight-or-flight mode during the past two weeks due to my stress levels, and I have a very bad and hard to fight psychological trait of completely hiding (ignoring, denying it's existence) from problems causing high stress. (I know this is horrible, and I do work on it, but that doesn't matter regarding the result.) Anyway, I messed up, and would like to save my relationship as much as possible.
This weekend I finally got my butt together and made me face the problem. I wanted to fix the remaining problem and my thesis work, so I can write a positive, albeit very apologetic answer - Only to find out that my TeamViewer access was revoked. We discussed in the past that when I finish, TeamViewer will be removed to reduce risk factors, but I was not notified of this. My guess is my professor (rightfully) thought I ghosted him for good, and will not fulfill my promises. I would guess from the circumstances and the lack of notification that he is not the happiest.
I would like to address this and salvage my relationship as much as possible, but I'm at a loss on how to proceed. I have to face that I did make serious mistakes and came down as lazy and unreliable, even though I had my reasons/problems.
How could I respond to the professor, and what actions should I take?

Have you sent this profesdor any communication? If not, then the first step is to do so, apologising and outlining your progress.

What do you mean by "ghosted"?  To me, it means you were doing a person's job for them and letting them take the credit, e.g. "ghost writer", which doesn't seem to fit the post at all.

@jamesqf "ghosting" is slang for disappearing on someone with no explanation. It's mostly used when you're communicating with someone for romantic reasons and then one person decides not to respond anymore because they're not interested instead of stating as much, but it can be used in other situations like this as well.

I had no idea what it meant either. It seems the same as “ignored” unless I’m mistaken.

You seem like you ghosted him for 2 months, not 2 weeks. Keep calm! It's not the end of your life.

@Shalop it's a specific kind of ignoring, but yeah, you can replace "ghosted" with "suddenly went from communicating to completely ignoring without explanation".

@Cris I'm more worried about that he already revoke my access without discussing, and that I already had the incident related to my thesis and exchange paperwork. I feel like my position is severely weakened considering all of this. But I agree it's easy to over-dramatize such situations, and I can't know until I take up communication again - which I will do today already.

@Kat You're right with the intended meaning. I didn't know I use the word in unfitting context (definetly not romantic lol), if there's a better fitting synonym I'd gladly change to that.

Do you have a lot of experiences like this? I sure have, and it's anxiety related. If this has disrupted your work or life in the past, or it continues in the future, you should definitely speak with a doctor about anxiety. It was something that disrupted my life for years without me realizing I needed help, don't let it do the same.

One of the supervisors for my MSc thesis would not communicate with me for multiple weeks at a time, communication with her every 15 days would have been nice.

I would be very surprised to find any of my access revoked without explanation after what you describe which is, frankly, rather uneventful on a scale of what happens in the minutiae of many a career without any damage. The most likely explanation for anything is usually the most mundane and boring one, sure not the most dramatic. This goes from both ends. If I did happen, I might be tempted to be sensitive about it for a moment (we're human) but then resolve to see it as most likely not a symptom of anything untoward and just ask what happened there, ...

... and likely find I assumed right and it would be swiftly restored as a matter of course.

If I'm understanding correctly, I think the situation is not as bad as you say:

Your supervisor last reached out to you about 4 days ago
You have significant progress to report
You have no "real" obligation to do this work (i.e., he's not paying you or otherwise in a position to demand daily updates)

So, I would just send a brief message, perhaps even over Skype:

Sorry for lack of communication, I've had a few things come up here. RE the remaining changes: I completed about 80% of them. I just need to do the remaining 20% and then update the text of my thesis. I plan to do this within the next [week], will let you know when it's done.

Agree! It might also be worth mentioning that the OP needs TV access reinstating if they are to complete that section of the work.

Yes, OP should tailor the message as appropriate, while keeping it concise. For example, substituting technical details about the completed work rather than just saying "80% done."

In my experience, TeamViewer will randomly, erroneously fail to authenticate if left alone for a while, requiring physical access to fix. So, it may be that the TV access wasn't even revoked intentionally.

Or possibly it was deliberate, but happened because someone (the supervisor or someone else) mistakenly assumed that if there's no communication that means the last 20 minutes of work had been done, or else didn't need to be done, so the thing is finished. The trouble with not communicating is, the range of possible stuff that could be going on that you don't know about rapidly increases!

@imalett That happened to me a few times too, but now the PC (which is critical for the laser system to work) was listed as offline, which is either because TeamViewer does not run on it, or  the laboratory is exploded/burned/demolished/occupied by aliens.

@Neinstein how was COVID-related activities handled at your institution? Perhaps it's just due to the lack of on-premise staff. Anyway, 14 days is not that long assuming there was no prior commitment to reply sooner. Just don't delay the response further.

This is no big deal at all.
Most academics are used to having way more things going on at the same time than they can handle. If there is nothing time-critical going on, then a pause in communications for two weeks isn't particularly unusual.
As you are currently not employed/supervisor by your former supervisor, they don't have a particular right on your time. You are engaging in voluntary collaboration to bring the project further, and "I'll get it done once I can find some time" is a perfectly acceptable schedule there. You do not mention any nearby deadlines for work outputs, so you aren't really causing harm.
A simple Dear Prof X, for the last weeks work was rather hectic, but I've finally found the time to do most of the things we talked about. I noticed that my TeamViewer access was disabled - if I could get a back for a while longer, I could complete Y. should suffice.

One of the supervisors of my MSc thesis would cease communication with me for many weeks at a time due to being busy with other things, I wish she had communicated with me every two weeks to be honest.

It may not be a big deal, but I wouldn't say it's something OP should make a habit of.  Responding to professional communications in a timely manner is generally expected.  Ignoring communication, and subsequent follow ups, makes for a very poor image.  OP can certainly salvage this situation, but they need to also learn from this mistake and to not repeat it.

Ask someone who can do it to reinstate your access.
Tell your professor that you didn't communicate because you were experiencing extreme stress.  This should not be a big deal as many people are having similar experiences right now.
Make those modifications the professor requested.
Get advice from a mental health professional (not someone on the internet) about appropriate ways to deal with stress in the future.

I doubt that you need to give a personal reason/excuse. "Sorry that this is late. Things have been hectic. I have something new to report."

@Buffy "Things have been hectic" is a personal excuse. I do agree that going into detail is unneeded, and perhaps inappropriate.

From absorbing the length and intensity of your post, I sincerely feel like you have rather been obsessing over a situation, or, a part of your brain or emotions has been giving you just that.
Fully agreeing with what has already been, I think, very aptly said, I can't see any burned (or even in the least bit troubled) bridges here. Being asked about your progress after a short communication gap of one week, and then again three days later (and that's a mere four days ago), by a person you are on good terms with, does not seem to make for a burned bridge at all, not even for a trace of a deterioration of contact or interest. You may want to reevaluate that part of your view of the situation.
To me, the facts you have mentioned suggests simply carrying on with what you have begun, much more so as you only have to put in a very small effort to complete and return the next part of your progress. It seems to me a rather comfortable situation unless you are utterly kept from reasonably doing it for some more time, which would give you the right (and could be expected for you) to just say so.
About what led to your being, slightly, behind what you obviously expected from yourself - everyone in their right mind would know and consider (and expect), even without knowing what's really going on, that where there is change in a person's situation, things may go chaotic for a short while and there's no problem in that. Much more so during these times of Covid and not-yet-post Covid, where it is hard to take even anything going perfectly normally for granted. But even in the most boring of normal times and situations, if I don't hear for a week or two from someone who is not right now in charge of very urgently saving my own world, I just assume they are being kept busy by things they have to see about and they are just reasonably handling whatever priorities the situation suggests. And even taking a break in between, and that not just to maintain their own ability to keep up a reasonable pace but also for their own enjoyment. And that would be perfectly ok with me (and so it should) - specifically when it doesn't positively break things, as in inducing missed other person's deadlines or something becoming unsalvageable, it sure doesn't break or even slightly chill a relationship.
It could be that you are oversensitive about what will, or might, chill a relationship. This is generally not at all what will do so.
You may want to casually let your old supervisor know about the changes in the way your daily work is organized right now - but very plainly just like you told us in your post (had to change into working at the office, things got set on a demanding schedule). That would be so you know they know what things are like right now - and assume rightly they will understand. I'd like to emphasize here that I can't see any need in the least to be apologetic about this. Rather to the contrary - I feel that being apologetic here would more likely be putting on your supervisor a (smallish) burden of wondering why you are being apologetic at all, as small delays (if this is to be considered a delay) just happen in the course of events.
What you describe is nothing out of the ordinary, it is a perfectly acceptable way things go and are reasonably handled (by you, in this case). Your work circumstances changed, in part unexpectedly, you adapted to that and it took a mere days for you to go with it (I'll say 14 days still counts as days here unless someone were doing it all the time out of sloppiness for no reason, which is obviously not what you are doing). There's nothing incommensurate in that, save that it would seem slightly (I do say I mean just slightly) off for you not to be seeing that (but even this can happen).
tldr: Relax, give a short casual information about your current overall situation and a reasonably brief (or reasonably comprehensive, no fretting) statement on the state of where you are in your work with your supervisor, and ask about the Teamviewer facility that may need fixing (it could have failed for a number of meaningless reasons, connection temporarily down, aux admin moved machine, etc.). And do allow yourself a day or so to relax once a week, I guess you should consider that a thing you would rather not afford not to do.
Edited to add: The most likely explanation for anything in daily life is usually the most mundane and boring one, and surely not the most dramatic or one that calls for dramatic action or worry. (The events -or non-events- you describe have been happening in what you do, which perfectly makes them daily life.) This goes from both ends, for most people, and I have found that it is usually very safe to assume (until proven wrong, which is rather rare) that a person I am in contact with will be one of most people in that quarter. All the more so if I know them to be reasonable. Corollary: Anything mildly inconvenient, such as having to wait for an answer for a number of days or having to have broken access to a system fixed, is usually not a symptom of anything untoward beyond the most unexciting explanation (and not a loss or breach of trust or anything). (This last point already made above.)

The most likely explanation for anything in daily life is usually the most mundane and boring one This is a pragmatic yet beautiful take on Occam's razor!

The other answers are great, but I want to add one thing.
You're not the only person the supervisor communicates with. Especially professors are dealing each day with a lot of people and it is more common that your professor does not answer you than the other way.
Of course the professor is in another position, but your advantage in your position is, that the professor may not have noticed it or weighted it important yet, but just had more time for his other tasks (and students).
Maybe he notices when you communicate again, but probably he will not make a big deal out of it and assume personal reasons or other reasons that are none of his business.

My guess is my professor (rightfully) thought I ghosted him forever and will not fulfill my promises, I would guess from the circumstances and the lack of notification that he is not the happiest with it.

Assuming that they are not a fresh Professor, they have seen students coping with various levels of stress. Two weeks are (under normal circumstances) not a time which I would consider very critical in most academic contexts (and yes, in 5 years in university I have seen 3 students in the chair where I worked vanishing for a longer period of time). Obviously if an official deadline (application at the students office for exam etc.) was missed, they may not be able to help you, but I have often seen a relaxed attitude of the faculty responsible or deans in allowing exceptions.

Treat this like a job, if you did such a horrible thing.
Know that if you exceeded expected limits, you could get fired.  What the acceptable limits are will depend on the employer.  In the case of a school, the equivalent might be considered getting kicked out of the school, or flunking the class.
Admit to any wrongdoing that is clear.  Do not elaborate if not asked for.  To do so can be to needlessly prolong a conversation that is about a negative topic, with no benefit.  Apologize as appropriate, and then determine how soon it makes sense to just leave the situation as is, without further explanation (unless asked for).
Then do your best from that point on, knowing that any infraction which is not forgotten may actively harm you in the relevant people's eyes, or might not (if they are more forgiving) but be more likely to harm you if there is any recurrence.
If the organization decides to keep you, be grateful.
In basic summary, you can't change the past, so simply focus on building the most positive present and future possible.  That's really all you can do.
Do feel guilty, committed to work extra hard to make up, etc., to the extent that it is helpful, such as helping you to learn a lesson.  Do expect to work extra hard until some sign of forgiveness, or at least "let's move on and interact nicely" is shown by your superior.  And then, move on, focus on the positive.

This is a completely inappropriate attitude.

this is some next level anarcho-capitalist ideology: treat everything like a job, and be ashamed when you don't meet your employer's expectations

This is probably in the top 10 worst answers on this site. Is it a joke?

This is not how supervisor-student relationships in Academia work. And it's not how employment relationships in the private sector work either.

@henning: I guess if you don't read the question it sort of makes sense ;-) If I disappeared for 15 days from my full-time job with no notice and no explanation, I'd have some questions to answer when I turned up again. In that sense this answer describes how a job might work. But this isn't a full-time job, it's a small amount of work to finally nail down a massive project (the thesis) which actually has already been submitted and successfully defended albeit in sub-optimal form.

this reads like having gotten a little too caught up in the train of thought of the OP's, rather than first taking a step back and considering the facts given on the situation?

@Kai take that and flip it around. There's nothing special about a "job" that makes it different from any other category of human interaction.

@hobbs yes there is, in a job you sell your labor to your employer to produce something, and your employer profits from that interaction. Your employer has power over you to fire you, threatening your livelihood and basic life stability, and the poorer you are the more precipitous your life circumstances will be, which magnifies that power. That is very different than most human interactions where people come together as equals.

It's a strange feeling to see this answer getting downvoted this much, as this was my imagination on what will follow, with hope for better. But I understand the points of opposers and that gives me hope.

There are 100% plenty of academics that will respond with the same hard line that TOOGAM's answer accommodates. The upvote stands for "this answer is useful." The downvote stands for "this answer is not useful." ..some people seem to have forgotten this simple distinction. This line in this answer, alone, is good advice: Admit to any wrongdoing that is clear. Do not elaborate if not asked for. To do so can be to needlessly prolong a conversation that is about a negative topic, with no benefit. This answer isn't that bad, frankly, it just needs some of the judicial tone edited out of it.

So many downvotes are simply declarations that TOOGAM's culture is not acceptable to the mainstream audience. A subjective question was asked and an honest response was given. Many Americans are easy going. That isn't the case of everyone everywhere. I think this answer adds valuable diversity to the available answers.

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Does anyone related to scientific publishing have experience using EOI's as the identifier for the articles in a journal?
I'm part of the editorial committee of a small open access ecology journal that is slowly growing Currently, our journal doesn't have the means to pay for the doi service, but we found this service which offers a different identifier, the EOI. We asked for additional information and some of the claims the state are:
"You will be eligible to get EOI for any number of papers for your publication."
"You need to pay one-time membership charges USD $100..."
"No charges per EOI."
"For DOI you need to pay USD $2 per DOI, which cost really high for journals and membership charges ranges from USD $300 to USD $100000."
"Both these objects serve the same purpose, but in EOI we provide more flexibility & tools will be provided periodically for submission, no charges for errors (will be corrected by Citefactor staff)"
They also list a sample of journals that use their service, which are not necessarily highly recognized, but then it would be also our case.
Is there any other alternative around to have a proper unique identifier for our articles?

I'm Ed Pentz, Executive Director of Crossref. I don't know anything about EOI so can't comment on it. I did want to correct the information you've been provided. Crossref charges annual membership fees from US$275 to US$50,000 but many smaller members join via a Sponsoring Organization and pay much less - please contact a sponsor if there is one in your country. We charge US$1 per current journal article and US$0.15 for older content. Fees for preprints, books and grants are different - full information on membership and fees is available. We have over 13,000 members in 139 countries so are very inclusive. It's not just about the identifier - registering content with Crossref means it's discoverable along with over 114 million other content items. Feel free to email member@crossref.org with any questions.

Beware! This is a "predatory PID" (PID = persistent identifier). It is a dishonest institute that mirrors the more-serious, community-owned infrastructure of the DOI (digital object identifier).
While DOIs offer open metadata etc., there seems to be not a single EOI yet which resolves properly and that offers openly accessible metadata.
Thus, similar to "fake impact factors", the EOI creates a "parallel" (meta-)scientific infrastructure, probably with the goal to monetize it.
This is corroborated by the fact that the person(s) or organization behind the EOI are the same as the ones behind the "CiteFactor" (https://www.citefactor.org), which is yet another predatory variant of the Impact Factor.

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How much overlap with my research topic does a potential PhD supervisor need?
As a history student, my research proposal is about a comparative research of xx in country A and B. Does the potential supervisor need to be interested in both A and B? Or either of them is fine?

You could contact the potential supervisor and discuss it with them. As a supervisor I tend to have a fairly clear idea of what I can supervise and what I can't.

This answer is more general than the humanities.
An advisor needs both an interest in your research and an ability to guide you when necessary.
Lack of the first is too likely to lead to delays and disruptions.
If a potential advisor is sufficiently knowledgeable about the common research methodologies in your specific field, then they probably have the necessary background to guide you. They don't need knowledge of the specifics. In fact, since you are doing research, which involves the unknown, you can't expect too much knowledge in any case.
In your particular case, I can envision situations in which a good advisor had little knowledge or interest or background in either A or B. But they need to know about how to attack such problems and how to judge the reliability of answers. It is up to you to apply those methods to the specific research questions.
You don't even need a co-advisor, I think. It is up to you to make the specific application to the case at hand. An exception might be if the two places differ culturally and you seek advice about how to approach those cultures if you need to gather data that might be influenced by those factors. Then, you might need someone to give you warnings about things you should avoid. But that can be a short term relationship rather than a co-advisor.

In some fields, the advisor also needs to be able to provide sufficient funding for the student and/or the research. But that is a very different issue.


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Would universities in US consider undergraduate applications that are incomplete if they are from countries with serious issues like politics
I am a self taught developer, well... almost ready to publish my first android app.
I haven't been able to go to college since graduated from high school in 2020 because of political reasons. Covid first, then politics, next civil war. worst you could imagine. There isn't much opportunities around in my country. So I must leave my country to find a place to thrive. I choose that place to be United States. I know I can't just go right away. I consider studying abroad as a way to escape my country.
Besides I wish to be able to understand mathematical aspects of computer science. I am not content with just being a developer. So I really want to study abroad. I can't do it here in my country, Myanmar. Things are not going well here. What could you advise with application and more?

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

There are several thousand colleges and universities in the U.S., most of which have their own unique specific policies. Maybe someone here can give you some general ideas, but I suspect this is something you'll need to contact the colleges/universities you are interested in applying to.

In what sense would your application be "incomplete"?  If you have graduated from high school then you already meet the principal minimum requirement for undergraduate admission.  Of course, like any other applicant, your application would need to convince the admissions staff that you are well-prepared to succeed at that specific institution, that it's a good fit for your interests and goals, and so forth.

Also keep in mind that higher education in the United States is extremely expensive compared to many other places.  Domestic students can be eligible for discounts and scholarships, but for international students they are much more limited.  Tuition for international students is easily USD 15K-20K per year even at the cheapest institutions, and can be 50K-60K at more prestigious places.  That's not including costs for housing, food, or any other living expenses.


text:
In a small dissertation text of 3 or 4 pages, is it possible to divide the text into sections and/or subchapters?
I'm going to do a public contest whose proof is a dissertation text. To better organize ideas and present them clearly, I intend to divide them into a few sections. However, if they reject the text for having divisions, what academic and bibliographical basis can I use to justify this method? Is there any basis for this?

Can you ask them first if that is OK?

The document that regulates the public examination only informs that it is a dissertation text. And getting in touch is not an easy task. The question above is precisely to file an appeal if the text is not accepted.

Do they describe "appeals" as an option? If they won't answer questions, it seems unlikely they will consider appeals.

There is a target date for appels only.

You can certainly divide a short report into sections; if you need an "academic and bibliographical basis" for defending your choice, any bibliographic database will provide you with a vast choice of papers that fit your description (length <=4 pages, divided in sections).
As for the risk of having your work rejected: it is impossible to provide a complete answer without more context, but I believe it's quite unlikely a work will be rejected in a contest for a minor issue such as improper section division and ordering (unless the contest rules explicitly say otherwise).


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Is it okay to ask for Application fee waivers for course based Masters programs?
Is it okay to ask for Application fee waivers for masters programs?
If yes, how should one approach? I will applying as an international student.

Yes, it is ok to ask (for just about anything). But explain why you are asking and the nature of your need.
The likelihood of a positive answer may be very low, though.

Great answer Buffy. The only thing I would add is be polite

M.S. degrees in the US are (with possible exceptions) a commercial proposal. The university makes money from the fees and you get (usually quite marketable) skills. Application fees cover the costs of evaluating applications and also ensure that the people who apply are serious about coming to the university if accepted.
Many departments have relatively little to do with the evaluation itself which is often delegated to some staff member.  So, a request to waive admission fees can end up with some faculty member who cannot do much or with a staff member who has no power to waive admissions.
You can - very politely - ask for a waiver, but you can only hope for a positive answer if you have a very good reason why you cannot pay the admission fee and if you can convince people that you would come if accepted. You would still need to spend money on all the tests that are asked from you, so the request might not make a lot of sense.


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How true is the stereotype that PhD graduates are overqualified?
I am a Masters student, and I think this is the only place in the whole internet that do not hold stereotyped negative attitude towards PhD recipients. From time to time,however, these sort of quotes scare me:

Having a Ph.D can close some doors for you. The general attitude and stereotypes about Ph.D holders are that they're uber academics/nerds who can't really function in the real world--this is an especially pertinent attitude to pay attention to in technical fields like engineering and science. So it closes some doors. You've also got less jobs to choose from, since you're vastly overqualified for many and you probably won't be able to find any good entry level positions because people will just assume you'll get bored and leave as soon as you find something better, so there is a cost to having everyone think you're a genius. Quora

Well I study for fun and advancing my knowledge -- and the last thing I want is these sort of stereotypes. I know if I pursue for a PhD I will have little to no experience about working for a corporation, so how worried should I be? Can I have the same level of experience compared to my peer who might have chosen industry instead of pursuing PhD?

see also http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/44931/is-it-true-that-a-full-ph-d-is-a-disadvantage-for-technical-positions-in-the-pr/44986#44986

I want to have a tangible value of my time if I do go for PhD, and I believe I am not  being irrational. I have heard stories where a student went for PhD in Germany, spent 7 years, couldn't please his supervisors, ultimately failed to secure his degree. I have ample respect for education, but I always need to think whether I am in the right place doing the right thing.

You're not irrational, but to be honest, once we are talking getting "tangible value for your time", doing a PhD seems like a murky prospect at the best of times.

how about asking this question on http://workplace.stackexchange.com/ ? Maybe they have negative attitude towards Phd, which is an important information in itself. Point being do not ask fellow Phd holders or professor if a Phd is harmful to being employed, ask the people who decide to hire you :-)

What kind of value are you talking here? Is "financial advantage" the only kind of value you are taking into consideration?

@Ant It looks like it has already been asked, although I'm sure the attitudes will depend on the discipline and country.

First things first - this question is very region- and field-specific, as cultural norms and views of academia differ a lot in different places. Further, this will naturally also be highly employer-specific, as not every recruiter or employer has the same sort of requirements, views and prejudices. Everybody who tells you that there is a hard and fast rule is lying.
That being said, there are a few observations that I think are pretty general w.r.t. the PhD job market:

Nobody hires you or pays you more just because you have a degree. It's a pretty common misconception that having an advanced degree somehow magically entitles you to higher pay even if you do the same job in the same quality than somebody without a degree. This is particularly pronounced in computer science, where there are a bunch of excellent programmers / software devs out there without degree. Don't expect to make more than them just because you got your training in an university rather than through participation in open source projects.
At least in central Europe, no smart person does not hire you just because you have an advanced degree. I am confident to say that in Switzerland, the sentiment expressed in your quote is entirely wrong. A PhD certainly does not close any doors. There are a lot of jobs where it will be useless, but I have not yet seen cases where it was actively bad for the applicant to hold a PhD.
There are a bunch of jobs out there where holding a PhD is in fact very good for you, even outside academia and research. Here in Switzerland and IT, consulting is one of those fields. Consultants with PhD look smarter on paper, and hence their time is easier to "sell" for horrendous amounts of money to customers. It is pretty well-established that in this case just holding a PhD will in fact give you better starting salary and better career opportunities in many companies.
Generally speaking, as a PhD holder, you will have less experience than somebody who worked in the industry for 5 years. Contrary, you should (at least hopefully) have a higher level of formal knowledge and understanding of underlying principles. What you need is either (a) a job that requires the latter rather than the former (various "evangelist" or innovation jobs come to mind), or (b) and employer that has a time horizon large enough to allow you to get experience and who has problems complex enough that they need somebody with deep fundamental knowledge. This is the reason that big tech companies such as Google, IBM, or MS, often also pretty aggressively recruit IT and math PhDs, rather than going for cheaper and more experienced professional software devs.

"but I have not yet seen cases where it was actively bad for the applicant to hold a PhD." - Just to be fair I do know of people who were unable to find a job and got told multiple times that they overqualified (two who only finished their master, one who also had a PhD). The core issue is that a company might be unable to allow further career growth for its employees and thus somebody who is overqualified is likely to leave, which comes with a big financial overhead, so it's better to hire somebody who is likely to truly enjoy doing the job than somebody who will get bored within a year.

Your third bullet directly contradicts your first.

@BenVoigt It does not. If your PhD makes you easier to "sell" as a consultant, you do bring something to the table that a non-degree holder does not.

@DavidMulder Maybe, though I have never seen that in Central Europe. Possibly because people that do a PhD with the full intent to go to industry afterwards are the norm here rather than an exception, so recruiters are quite used to applicants with PhDs.

@xLeitix: And that something is a degree... which your first bullet point said was not, by itself, of value.  Of course the skills and experience you'd gained during the research have value as well.... but people can have those skills without a PhD diploma.  As you pointed out in your third paragraph, posession of the degree does, by itself, increase value in some circumstances.

@BenVoigt We are arguing semantics here. The point of the first bullet is that you can't expect to do a degree and magically make more money. The point of the third is that there are jobs were the degree itself helps you.

@xLeitix: I'm pretty sure I understand what you're saying, which is that in some cases having a degree makes no difference financially, while in other cases, yes "you can expect to do a degree and make more money, but only because the degree translates to more money for the employer"... but that's because the employer is landing the contract in large part because you have the degree...  So, it is situational, but in some circumstances the exact opposite of what you said in bullet #1 is true (from the perspective of the consulting company and also the degreed consultant)

"they need somebody with deep fundamental knowledge" - I wanted to add that this deep knowledge in a specific topic. So not a deep fundamental knowledge in computer science in general, because a master student has almost the same deep general knowledge.

Its country specific, but im pretty sure there are countries that have minimum wage set by the degree that it held, it applies to masters but not sure if its phd as well.  someone would have to check that

@user1938107 I have never heard something like this. You mean like "if a person has any master's degree, you need to pay him at least X" no matter if you hire him for cleaning or for research? That sounds implausible (and super-unhelpful for the people involved).

http://www.thailandredcat.com/the-minimum-wages-for-thai-people/ , some link mentioning it.  I had learned about it when i traveled there.  I also heard (either now or previously) finland had some similar type rule

I'm pretty sure your first bullet point is wrong; I know that some people e.g. get a Master's degree on their way to a Ph.D. because it gives them a higher salary at a job simply because they have the degree, even though they would get the Ph.D. either way.

You wrote "Nobody hires you or pays you more just because you have a degree" and then "It is pretty well-established that in this case just holding a PhD will in fact give you better starting salary". You absolutely contradicted yourself.

At many (I would say most) colleges in North America there is a salary grid which is typically part of CBA. In that grid, a PhD always earns more than a non-PhD, so yes one gets paid more for just a degree. But the college still runs on a budget, so if for a lab/teaching position a masters is enough, they will most likely disregard many PhD's just because they have to be paid more....

Although the accepted answer starts with a disclaimer, it ends up painting a rosy picture.  That's certainly not my experience in the US job market, as someone who studied a very pure field of mathematics and then sought jobs in finance.  There are indeed some hardships faced by PhDs that can make it harder for the reasons exactly stated in the Quora snippet.  The reasons are somewhat valid in that a PhD program isn't really about training you to accomplish things in the quickest way possible, which in the Real World is often what is desired.
However, having a PhD will open doors too, generally by companies/managers who have enough experience with academics to know the pros and cons.  It's a mixed bag, like a lot of things.
I think the warning for the number of jobs being limited is true.  There are many jobs where they will immediately assume you applied accidentally and throw out your resume.  On the other hand, same is true for having a Master's too for some jobs.
Believe it or not, the hiring managers dismissing your application may actually know more than you.  You may be desperate and really, really want that job doing glorified paperwork, but that hiring manager has dealt with someone just like you before, who left shortly after getting a much more interesting job.
As a word of final encouragement, things aren't as bad as they seem, but often they seem worse to PhD graduates, who lack the training and experience to seek jobs in industry.  I think the most important thing for any PhD wanting to go into industry is, have a plan as soon as possible, at least a few years before you graduate.  It doesn't take much in the early stages of your grad school to take steps that will end up moving you a lot closer toward that industry job.  One that comes to mind is summer internships.

This is the best answer.

This doesn't make sense. Finance people love phds. It's quite important for becoming a quant.

I'm just going to address this part of your question since I have direct experience with it:

You've also got less jobs to choose from, since you're vastly overqualified for many and you probably won't be able to find any good entry level positions because people will just assume you'll get bored and leave as soon as you find something better

It depends how in demand you are.
I think there are three sorts of jobs you can get after your degree. The first type are jobs where you directly use your degree. In this case, your degree is an asset: you would be unlikely to get the job without it and you have a strong advantage against another candidate who doesn't have your degree.
In the second case, your degree is either neutral, a bonus, or a small minus compared to someone with equivalent experience. The specifics will depend on the actual job description, the actual experience of your hypothetical counterpart, and the specifics of your degree and field.
The third case are jobs for which you are vastly overqualified. Let's say you have a PhD in chemistry and you're applying for a job as a lab assistant, or you have a master's in English and you're applying for a job as a shop assistant. These are the jobs where someone is likely to believe you are going to leave as soon as you get the opportunity.
I have a couple of friends with PhDs who struggled to get work in the recession, and were turned down for Type 3 jobs (in the UK) because they were overqualified. The irony is that yes they would have preferred something better if they had been able to get it, but in reality they wouldn't have had anything better to leave for, so they were not in fact the flight risk that the potential employers thought they were.
So type three jobs may turn you down. But if you're in demand enough, you won't need to apply for type three jobs, so it won't matter. It really depends on your field.

you probably won't be able to find any good entry level positions because people will just assume you'll get bored and leave as soon as you find something better

I feel like this is a non-argument, if only because people without a PhD are also likely to leave a low-level industry job if they get a better offer elsewhere.

I know if I pursue for a PhD I will have little to no experience about working for a corporation, so how worried should I be.

Not a lot, I would say. Again, the same applies: people without a  PhD also start out without any experience about working for a corporation (with the exception of older students who go back to school after several years of Real World work).

Can I have the same level of experience compared to my peer who might have chosen industry instead of pursuing PhD.

This is probably field-dependent, but I can't see why not. The best answer I can give without knowing what field you are planning to do your PhD in is that, while you might end up having a different type of experience than your un-PhD-ed peer, it doesn't have to be less experience. Keep in mind  that, in order to get a PhD, you need an ability to think outside the box and come up with ideas that solve problems in interesting ways. Sometimes, employers value this ability more than n years of experience doing standard white collar work.

Your answers to the first two parts are all very sound and logical, but it doesn't mean anything if the people hiring don't believe them. The problem is not that you are more likely to leave, but that people will assume you are more likely to leave; whether you actually are or not is neither here nor there.

About the first point, I think the argument is that PhD's are more likely to get a better job than someone without a PhD. This seems to make sense...

First, let us distinguish two situations; jobs opportunities, which directly related to your field of research and prefer a PhD, and jobs which not. My understanding you are asking about the later ones, therefore stories that there are industries where PhDs are preferred do not answer your question.
Off course, it is really depend on countries/continents, but I have seen so far about two main types of situations where you PhD can be a negative:

Let's assume you are looking for a research job in an industry closely related to your research topic. Nice. Sure, you have good chances. However you should be careful about overspecialisation. Academic research topics (ie topics of your PhD) may or may not be useful in industry. When an industry guy looks for a researcher with PhD, generally he is looking for someone with very specific skill set, not just some smart guy. If a chemical company is looking for someone, they do not just look for a Chemist. So you can end up in a situation where you may be well employable, but there are only a handful of companies in the whole country who have position for you.
The other problem in one word: agism.
Most company are looking for young people with experience. And you will be an old person without experience. If your PhD takes a few of years, maybe have a post-doc, a maternity leave, etc you easily find yourself to be rather old for the position. Bigger companies, who wants to keep you as a researcher maybe ok with that but most company sees you as a potential manager later in your career.

Just what is the safest bet if I want to do PhD and enter in to an average ~  I know I am not idiot, I need to look for opportunities, but how ugly can things get in your perspective - I am open to failure, no problem.

If you want to get a job, any job, and academia is not your exclusive choice on long term, then go for a MSc (only opinion). If your main goal is to have a PhD in medieval Latvic folk dances, do that, just be aware people will no automatically hire you based on you have a PhD, ergo you must be smart. The rest is in between. I think you are in CS: in that case your safe choice is to go for job experience (internship, volunteering, side job-side business). It is pretty easy in CS compared to other fields.

@Greg: The "medieval Latvic folk dances" gave me a good laugh, thanks.

That attitude may be common, but it is definitely not everywhere. In my former group, one of the PhD students went on to industry after graduating, and the hiring committee was very impressed by the fact he had a research record.
All in all, how desirable you are in industry depends on what kind of research you do, and what skills you pick up along the way. My colleague went on from applying statistics to Biotechnology data, to customer behaviour data. Other people can directly apply their research into industry (say, Intel may be interested in incorporating your cutting edge compiler technology into ICC). Lastly, there are people that don't do anything remotely useful or applicable outside the academic world (say, string theory), but their research may show their capabilities and versatility, and private companies are willing to pay hefty salaries in their research branches. Of course, there is another group of PhD holders that have not found a good or fitting industry job.

I'm not sure if I'm qualified to answer this question since I'm only an undergrad right now (starting phD soon), but I'm going to try since I have some experience with it having worked in industry for the past few years in an (bit higher than) entry-level position. From what I've seen, yes unfortunately these stereotypes are correct. To the point that I have been told by multiple managers/directors at work to not pursue graduate school since I will only make myself overqualified like every other phD out there if I can't find a job at the end of it. People in academia will tell you that this doesn't have to be the case, but I wouldn't count on it. Of course there are exceptions to the rule and I also know people who were successful in obtaining employment after their phD, but the fact remains that the vast majority of phDs without other types of work experience will not have much luck in having people simply hand them a job because of their degree. Keep in mind though that I'm in biology, so this might be different if you are in say computer sciences, in which case I'm sure the situation is a lot more different.
Having said that, there is a solution to this problem, which is to make yourself into more than just the average phD graduate, which is actually not that difficult to do. For instance, most people with a phD go from their bachelor's degree to a masters to a phD, having done nothing but school for a  really really long time. If you want to find a job outside academia, don't do this... The reason a lot of people don't want to hire phD's in my field is because they think phDs are overqualified in the knowledge area, but way under-qualified in experiences. For instance, people will ask why if you wanted to go into industry, did you choose to do a phD that is not a requirement of the job you are seeking. This then shows poor planning skills and judgement. What employers what to see are people who are PROACTIVE, no matter if they have a bachelor's or phD. So turn yourself into that person. Pick up experiences through your degree to make yourself stand out from the 10 other phDs applying for the job, this is why I kept a job through my undergrad, so that at least I'll have a back-up plan. If your grad school work is way too heavy for that, at the very least NETWORK with people in industry, if you are even considering a job outside academia. This is one of the only ways to get around people who view your phD as a negative. If they already know you as a person before you seek a job from them, or if you are introduced by someone they know, you being overqualified will seem less like a problem since they want to help you. Employers are not evil, they want to help people, just give them a reason to. This also leads back to the point of being proactive though, since networking requires years of work before you get a job at the end of it. It is a crucial skill if you wish to be successful outside of academia. So in summary, yes unfortunately the stereotypes are normally correct if you are a typical phD graduate. However, it's not hard to escape that stereotype if you plan ahead and work hard to set yourself apart from the "competition".

If you are short on time you can skip to the summary.
The very first thing you need to do is ask yourself, why do I want a PhD. The goal of a PhD is to enhance the scientific body of knowledge in their field, by doing research.  All throughout the PhD process your focus will be on understanding what others have done and what tiny little problem can you work on, that will bring some type of enlightenment to your field.  So for example, my PhD is in Computer Science (CS). I spent the first few years in course work but my final 2 years I took 0 courses and spend all of my time reading scientific papers trying to understand my chosen field and how I might contribute.  Ultimately, my dissertation research explored the question of what affect does a multimodal interface have on the ability of an operator to control multiple robots.  Thus, my contribution to the field of Human Robot Interaction was on understanding the cons/benefits to adding speech and other modalities to operator user interfaces.
I say this to say that you need to understand the goal of a PhD so that you can understand future career opportunities.  A PhD should be trying to push the scientific boundaries by looking for unanswered problems or applying research to address problems, e.g. Psychologist, Public Policy.  Now there are plenty of people who get a PhD but have no wish to do research or apply research in novel ways.  This to me does not make much sense because the purpose of a PhD is to do research, thus the reason every PhD has a dissertation.
Finally, to your question of opportunities.  A PhD will close opportunities and at the same time open new ones.  Your goal, if you so choose to get a PhD, is not to look for a leg-up on entry level positions (if this is your goal than stop at a Master’s degree). Your goal is to secure a position that allows you to do/apply research.  So using my field of CS as an example.  I interviewed at a number of locations e.g. Microsoft, Dow, a research lab at Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and a number of other places.  In some of these places they were more interested in my ability to program (they thought a PhD meant I would be a great programmer) and in others they were interested in my ability to do research (find unsolved problems and solve them).  Without a PhD I would not have been interviewed for research positions at locations such as the Naval Research Lab, Microsoft, Lockheed Martin, NASA. However, I was not a good fit for Dow, Boeing and others because they wanted software development and not research.
Finally, as for pay.  You can get paid a lot for doing research.  My starting salary, as a PhD, working in an Industry lab doing research was 6 figures. The Taulbee survey gives the salary for research faculty and in CS the current average starting salary for junior faculty at public universities is around 95k for 9 months or 127k for 12 months. This is for CS and other Engineering disciplines. Similarly, a master’s degree and similar years of experience could put you in the same range so don’t let salary be your deciding factor.
SUMMARY: A PhD will close doors, but to careers that are not of interest if your goal is to do research.  A PhD will open new opportunities to companies interested who do research e.g. Oil companies, Tech Companies, Government Research Labs, Defense Industry etc. Ultimately you need to decide what your goals are - if it is to learn or master a craft than stop at a Master’s and learn on your own; If however, you like to explore the unknown, are unafraid of failure, don’t mind occasionally being ridiculed by your peers, all for the sake of generating knowledge than PhD may be for you.
Here are some links on why get a PhD (or why not). Many of these links point toward becoming a professor since that is often a place where you can do research, however it is not the only place.
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/education/jlemke/guidephd.htm
http://shouldigetaphd.com/

IMHO there is no such thing as "overqualification". There are only incompetent people managers who cannot figure out what to do with talented individuals or how to put their skills to work.
I hope that the (popularly memetic) picture below illustrates the issue.

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


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Ph.D. Topic Problem- Changing Topics/Labs

Even though title itself seems quite similar to other questions asked here, my question is a bit different from other similar questions. I know it's a bit long, but I do appreciate anyone who has a read through it.
I am a Ph.D. student in UK and it has been 5 months since I started. My topic was something completely new (to me) so as one might guess, I've spent these 5 months reviewing the literature and covering what I didn't know. Problems started right here.
I am working at a Research Institute that has expertise on something totally different than my Ph.D. (let's name it field A, and name my Ph.D. field B). Simply, A and B have nothing in common (except both are engineering topics, but sub-fields are different). As a result, this laboratory doesn't have the required equipment or facilities that I need for my Ph.D. most importantly, there is not a single person around me in the lab who has a single bit of knowledge about my topic, thus no practical help or chances of hands on experience. Speaking of the good parts; I am getting a proper work experience (since this research institute has industrial focus), my scholarship is a substantial amount and my supervisor (even though he is sort of clueless about my topic, he is a huge figure in field A) is quite impressed with my progress.
But, as always, I have an alternative. There is another lab in my university which has expertise on field B (my Ph.D.). In this lab, there are people who have expertise in field B and of course, director of the lab is a powerful figure in field B. I know it sounds good so far, but here are the cons of this alternative: Lab director  can't give any sort of guarantees regarding a scholarship (which means I have to pay tuition fees as well, good old UK) and  wants me to work in a new project(a new field, field C). This field C, again completely different from A and B, is a newer topic compared to B and there are lots of research going on in this field. Field B is sort of an established field, I am just trying to squeeze whatever's left out it.
So on one side, I have a good working experience, Ph.D. in field B, an impressed supervisor, yet no practical help about field B or collaboration whatsoever. On the other side, I have a group of people who have expertise in field B and C, yet no money. I personally don't have any problems about changing my Ph.D. from B to C, the only disadvantage will be losing 6 months of work and naturally, getting 6 months of extension in the end. On the plus side, I already have a paper waiting to be published (in field A though, not in my Ph.D. topic field B). Therefore, these 6 months won't be "that" lost.
So, both sides are waiting to hear from me as soon as possible. I have to make a decision by this Friday. Last thing that should be mentioned is my current lab is located in city 1, whereas the other one is located in city 2. I hate city 1 (current city), whereas I am in love with city 2.
Financially, I am promised by the other professor that depending on my performance, I can get funding. I do know I can't trust this, though I believe I can cover my expenses throughout my Ph.D. including tuition fees. So, money is not a big problem right now.
If I go to the other lab, field C will be my Ph.D. as well as my work, hence shielding me from dividing into two as I do right now for field A and B.
My question is simple, what would you do if you were me? I have exhausted my friends and my family about this issue and I need a fresh pair of eyes and neurons to help me out.  I do appreciate any questions and comments.

I havne't read the question in full, but I have to say that you should try to reformulate the question title as it is extremely vague, it is not very clear (from the title) what you are asking about

Reading the tone of your question, it sounds like you've already made up your mind.  I suggest flipping a coin; while it's in the air, which side do you hope lands up?

@JeffE Addendum - I actually do the coin toss; but I see which side it lands on, and if I do not like it - I know the response :-)

I would move to another lab if I were you. The reason is, I want to do my PhD and the research in the field I like. Otherwise, why would I do it?
After reading your question a few times, my impression is that you like field B the most, field C the next, field A the last. Please correct me if I am wrong.
If you stay in your current lab, everything will be the same as the past 5 months. You have the money alright. What else do you have? You don't have experts in B around you. You don't have equipments/facilities to do research in B. It looks like there is no way to finish PhD in B in that lab.
On the other hand, you'll have experts in B to talk to you and equipments available if you move to the other lab. There is a good chance for you to finish the PhD in B if you have a choice to do B.
Field B is probably a dead end, you are trying to squeeze something out of it. What if you find nothing after 2 years of squeezing with or without help from other experts in B? What are you going to do? Do you want to do A? I would not if I were you because I don't like A. But, you can choose to do C if you move.
I think the lab director says he can't give any sort of guarantees regarding a scholarship because he wants you to do C. The scholarship is the incentive. If you don't have problem changing from B to C, I think you will get some sort of financial help after you move there (no guarantee, of course). If my interpretation of your question is correct, C is acceptable to you, at least it's better than A.
This is what I would do if I were you, I would ask the other lab if there is some chance  to get some financial help if I move there. If the answer is not 100% negative, I would move. (I must be able to get some food to eat while I am doing research.)
If the answer is an absolute no, I would stay and look for other opportunities to move later on.

Whichever makes you a happier person. Life is short and not worth spending 5 years in a condition you don't like. If you have the money, go for it. If not, here is my longer answer.
The work experience you are getting in field A should not be a priority because you are there to do research, to contribute to science. Work experience in that field should be just a tool so that you can earn money and live properly. The excellency of people in field A are also irrelevant, as your research is in field B.
But, life does not always present us the best options. If you cannot get a scholarship when you switch to field B, then I would definitely stay at where you are now. You say you can cover expenses, but if you don't get a scholarship, how much will you lose in 5 years? That's a big number and imo not worth it (unless you have a million in some account)
I would stay there and from time to time, consult professors that work in field B. After some time, as you dig deeper, you will know more than those guys anyway.
It really depends on your budget I guess. I am not rich so I don't like the idea of Ph.D. level scientists' paying for it.


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Authorship: PI has put themself first and others alphabetical. Is this reasonable?
I’m looking for some thoughts on authorship ordering (social sciences).
As a post-doc I was tasked with writing a research report. I have drafted the full original report manuscript. The report content draws on analysis that myself, other researchers and PI have carried out during the project.
Without any discussion, the PI has put their name as first/lead author and then the rest of the authors in alphabetical order.
I’ve not heard of this approach before, with PI being lead author and others alphabetical. I’m aware of either contribution based ordering, and alphabetical ordering, but not this, let’s say, ‘hybrid’ approach.
In this order, I am positioned low down the list.
I want to get some thoughts on this, before having a potentially difficult discussion with the PI. Is ‘PI then alphabetical’ a valid/reasonable approach?

Just to give you some data, I have seen "PI then alphabetical" a number of times, in one instance involving myself (not as PI). I think it's OK as general approach in cases where the lead is clear and it'd be hard to "rank" the contributions of the others.

I'm chemistry, not social sciences, so our rankings are in order of contribution, except that the supervisor is last (i.e., the best places to be are first or last). That being said, if you are concerned about this, you could ask about including a CRediT statement? It would remove ambiguity. Just say that it's to make it clear what part everyone had to play in the work. Although I'm not sure if that would be conventional for a research institute-published report.

Please don't remove context from this post.

Does this answer your question? Are there any publications that explain the origin of conventions of authorship order by field?

While I don't know the customs in your field, in some it would be reasonable for the PI to be listed first, especially if they were involved in starting and/or leading the study. Or maybe just in providing funding. If everyone else is in alphabetical order then your specific placement isn't relevant. You are just an "S" rather than a "B" with nothing implied about participation.
And, in large collaborations, it is somewhat common for the PI to be listed either first or last. Customs differ. Readers in the field understand this, more or less.
An acknowledgements section of the paper could detail specifics of contribution if that is desirable.
In some fields (math) authorship is generally alphabetical and people are assumed to be "equal" participants.
Having put fingers to keys doesn't make you first author. I've been in collaborations where one of us did the actual writing but two others were actual leaders of the group and, so, listed first. It was just that the "writer" was a better writer than the rest of us. But he took  no lead part in the work.
I advise not starting what are ultimately inconsequential battles with peers, and especially colleagues. The external world will care very little overall.

+1 "I advise not starting what are ultimately inconsequential battles with peers"

Being in the math community and reading that somewhere else an author might be first in the line only because they provided funding sounds so.. so.. unfair.
People might say that it is a convention so everybody take that into the account already, but there is still symbolic value behind and heartbreaking belittling of a scientist who might have done an enormous intellectual work.
The best would be just to include the people with minimal intellectual contribution i.e. sources of grants and fruitfull conversations in the acknowledgement section

The PI probably tries to take the credit for all the work.
If you haven't done any preregistration that specifies exactly your contributions in the work then it is a lost cause to start any battle.
Better is to start looking for a new PI and consider informing others so they don't get in your position in the future.


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Should I ask my students to contribute in preparation of the manuscripts?
As a part of my PhD. I supervise master and bachelor thesis. Even though, I get extremely smart students I find that they are having troubles in writing up their research as articles. Often I end up writing it for them. What is the best way to motivate the students to make their own first draft?

I worry more about demotivating them once they read the version with "feedback" and "minor changes"

When I did my masters, I had this problem. My old supervisor ended up rewriting a paper from scratch. He never really gave me any feedback except that my writing of the paper was not good and there is no way it will be accepted. I now understand that this approach was a waste of his time and a waste of a learning experience for me.
Now I am working with a different supervisor and when I write a paper, I get a lot of comments and feedback and we end up doing 4-5 rounds or review. I think the initial draft is usually not good. But after all these rounds of review, I end up writing a "good" paper myself.
Maybe your students need to realize that they have a problem that THEY need to address. You writing the papers on their behalf does not solve this problem. Initially, push them to write a draft regardless of quality. Then do rigorous review afterward. With time, their writing will definitely improve

They are going to be expected to have a level of writing skill upon graduation. If they don't have that, it can reflect poorly on your lab. It also harms them in the long run.
You said that they have difficulty with writing up their research and want to know how to motivate them.
I would point out that these are two different things. Difficulty writing a quality manuscript is understandable; professional writing is a skill which must be developed. In that case, I would patiently go through rounds of revision and be very strict in your reviewing (because other people will be). Then go over with them everything you marked and explain why you chose to change it. Be honest, but constructive. Don't say "this was stupid," say "I see what you were trying to say here, but what you say implies X, and we want to avoid that. If instead we say it this way, we avoid that implication entirely."
If the problem is not that they lack the skill but instead lack the desire to learn how to write professionally, then this is a different problem entirely. If this is the case, I would sit down with them and bluntly tell them that you aren't going to waste any more of your time on them until they make an effort, and that if they aren't willing to put in the work necessary to become a professional in your field, maybe they should be seeking elsewhere for their development.

@DSVA I see what you are saying, and I have perhaps expressed myself poorly. I don't mean that I would expect a perfect manuscript to be prepared from scratch. However, there are many bad writing habits that are generally picked up from a lifetime of writing for humanities or from TAs/professors who just don't care. Taking the time to teach the student not to make these common mistakes (writing in the first person, using slang, improper citation style, turning the manuscript into a personal story, etc.) will give them more skill and confidence, and will give you a better draft to work from.


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Can you work in physics research with a data science degree?
I just finished my first year studying physics but honestly I didn't like it at all. I started studying a day before every exam and skipped almost every class. However, I love physics, I read books at home, watch documentaries and research on my own. I think it is the most beautiful field of human knowledge, but I hate the way it is teached at university and I really prefer experimental physics over theoretical physics.
I'm also very interested on AI and data analysis, so I'm thinking of switching careers to data science.
Would it be possible to work in physics research with a degree on data science? (With physics reasearch I mean doing data analysis of experiments and observations in a research group, for example to map galaxies, to classify particle crashes from a particle accelerator, etc.)
I think studying data science may be the best option for me because with the marks I have on physics I won't be able to do research. But I think I will be able to excel at data science, I'm studying every day on my own and taking online course after online course.
So what do you think? I don't want to continue with the physics degree, but I don't want to “say goodbye” to physics forever. Any advice is appreciated.

What is it that you hate about the way physics is taught at uni? The format (lectures and exercise groups)? The theoretical methodology (and all the maths you have to learn)? Something else?

If you dislike first year general physics so much then you probably won't like "experimental" physics either. Reading/watching physics =/= doing physics. In general physics, most of what you do is physics problems. Guess what you'll be doing in physics research? Physics problems! I heavily suggest you revisit your work ethic before deciding you dislike a class. First, attend the actual class. Second, don't study a day before an exam for anything. Third, do not underestimate physics. It takes a long duration of time and perseverance before you can understand fully.

Whether possible or not, you seem to be planning ahead too far, which is likely lead to failure and disappointment. Studying is a highly formative phase and when you graduate, you will have far better insights into your preferences, skills, … The probability that going into physics remains your unchallenged Plan A is very low. Instead select a field of study where the topic itself motivates you to study, so you can get a degree, acquire skills, etc. in the first place. After that, new career perspectives will likely emerge without further ado.

Tbh it sounds like you enjoy the idea of doing physics more than you enjoy actually doing physics. What good is it that you "love physics" in theory when in practice you "didn't like [studying physics at university] at all"?

"I started studying a day before every exam and skipped almost every class." I know that feeling all too well. Don't stay there, you are not interested in physics, and that's a good thing to know just a year into your studies, as opposed to 5 years in. Of all the people I know who love physics, they like it regardless of how absurdly bland the lesson is delivered.

Just to warn you that learning about physics from popular science books has almost nothing to do with actual physics research, they couldn't be more different.  It's like studying a painting in a museum compared to the process of creating the painting.

@Tom: I'm tempted to say it's like playing Operation -- something I remember doing back in the mid 1960s -- as compared to working as an operating room doctor, but I suppose this comparison is actually somewhat of an overkill (pun intended).

Why not try looking through the citations at the bottom of this funded NSF project and see if these types of things appeal to you. I would agree though that it sounds like you don't like academia more than anything. Academia is in some ways rather repetitive and involves a lot of boring work. I am an academic in my mind, but I don't want to spend my time as a professional academic. Thus, I work in academia as staff.  Figure this out before you spend money on more degrees.
NSF-funded AI Institute on Physics:  https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2020295&HistoricalAwards=false

To add on to Passer By's comment, from your description, you are more interested in science communication than physics. Actual physics is not something you can learn by watching documentaries, but making those documentaries is something science communicators would do (and they would aim at a more general audience, not research-level physicists).

The way physics is taught is, for the most part, the way physics is done. If you are not enjoying your physics courses at university, you will not enjoy doing research in physics.

It's much easier to teach a physicist the subset of data science which they need to know in order to do data analysis for an experiment than it is to teach a data scientist (without a physics background) the physics necessary to stop them from making obvious (to a physicist) mistakes.

I think most university students feel like you - I certainly did - but what you have to realise is that ALL advanced study consists of a lot of hard, tedious work with things you can't for your life understand - until you have worked through the details and suddenly it seems rather simple. Computer science is going to be the same: lots of apparently meaningless theory and hard work - those are your 'letters and numbers', that you need for when you begin to do real work.

This isn't just for university students, its also for once you have your PhD and are doing research. One of the lessons i remember during my PhD was one of my supervisors taking me aside and going through my thousands of lines of code line by line testing it was doing what we thought it was doing over the course of several hours. I've done that recently to understand mathematical tools I use for physics, as well as understanding machine learning theory a few years after having finished my PhD.

However, I love physics, I read books at home, watch documentaries and
research on my own.

Engaging with popular books and documentaries on physics can be exciting and inspiring, but it's almost completely unlike actually performing scientific research. Actually doing the research involves a lot of inescapable drudgery: obsessively going over complex chains of mathematical reasoning, debugging huge and perhaps obscurely written computer programs, hours spent aligning components on an optics table, etc. All stuff that has to be done, but may not provide the easy thrill that comes from reading about 'big ideas'.
A friend studying geology went on two research cruises in the south Pacific in their first two years of graduate school. Exciting! Exotic ports! Big picture conversations about geology in the mess! The next three years were spent in a sub-basement, looking through a microscope, picking out little bits of volcanic glass from crushed rock samples using tiny watercolor paintbrushes. Nature's secrets are frequently hidden behind curtains of unbearable tedium. I don't intend to be discouraging, but you can't just blow off the hard, boring bits of a subject.

Would it be possible to work in physics research with a degree on data
science?

Maybe? It wouldn't be an easy path unless you turn out to be an absolute star in data science. Most physics laboratories just use their grad students and post-docs do all the programming and data science work. As @anyon mentions in a comment, some of the very biggest centers like CERN and NASA do hire data science specialists. However, counting on that means narrowing your choices to a very few employers and geographic locations, and they still might expect you to have a significant formal background in physics or astronomy. It's my experience that the life sciences labs are bigger employers of data science and software staff than physics labs.
For the moment at least, data science does provide a lot of opportunities. If you find you like data science work, it might be a good choice. With some luck and flexibility you might eventually be able to land a spot in a physics research team. Just be aware that you are aiming at a tiny niche, and be prepared to pivot in other directions.

Based on my experience, I think you hit the nail on the head with "they still might expect you to have a significant formal background in physics or astronomy".

If you don't understand the physics, best case you're a coding monkey, not really doing anything or analysing anything (since you don't know what it means). That's assuming they don't just get one of their PhD students to do it in order to improve their programming skills/diversify their background.

My close friend, a professor at a highly respected university, is in charge of a physics lab doing nano- and biotechnologies.  Having a wealth of experimental results to process, he is now seeking to hire a postdoc or a highly advanced PhD student proficient in big data. However, the professor has firmly stated that a candidate should have taken the intermediate-level courses in physics back in their undergraduate years. It doesn't matter for this professor if a candidate has a BS degree in physics or chemistry or engineering -- but (s)he absolutely must be educated in physics at the intermediate college level, at least.
This story is, of course, just one datapoint -- but, trust me, a representative one.

I'm looking for a career that will combine my physics degrees with my newly acquired passion for data science and web development. Would it be possible to share more info about this position?

@cconsta1 Please drop me an e-mail. You will find my address on my webpage, which is available at my profile here.

Yes (with reservations)
I would refer you primarily to this great answer on the topic of the "research computing" career path
https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/178616/173832
Many national labs and universities have dedicated groups of programmers that play a critical role in scientific research. This is more like being a techinician/lab worker than a post-doc. You write code for researchers, or help them improve their existing codebases and workflow.
This is becoming an increasingly common and recognized career path, see e.g. the The United States Research Software Engineer Association
Source: I work as a data scientist/scientific programmer in a small earth science research group

think the link to the answer may be broken?

thanks @ACarter! Fixed

No
I've spent around 12 years in university studying/working in physics and if you didn't study it, there's no way you'll ever work in it professionally. It is an insanely hard subject. Physics requires advanced mathematical skills and builds strongly on top of its own concepts, like Maths. You will have no success for example in electrodynamics, if you didn't already study classical mechanics for basic concepts like Lagrangians and Hamiltonians, let alone all the math required for doing calculus on vector fields, green functions, etc.
Frontline physics is HARD, for the very sole reason that if it were easy, it would have been done already. For example, data science would come in very handy in particle accelerators where you need to correlate datapoints quickly. But to get a basic understanding of relativistic scattering physics reallistically takes a masters degree in physics (5 years studying) and that's the "easy" textbook examples. If you already knew you'd want to focus on that, it could probably be done in 3, if you gave it all.
Physics is a really competetive field, with lots of PhD students and less post doc let alone permanent positions. Not to take away from data science, but at the end of the day, it's math, and physicists are good at applied math. I don't see any reason why a PI would choose a non-physicist over a physicist.


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My manuscript suddenly went from "Awaiting Final Decision" back to "Awaiting Reviewer Scores" ... what do you think happened there?
Does it happen that the editor asks the reviewers to re-review a paper? For about 10 days or so it has been "awaiting final decision" after a few months of under review and then awaiting reviewers scores.
Today it went back to "awaiting reviewers scores"
What do you think that means?

You have to ask the editor. It might mean nothing at all.

This is like reading tea leaves.   Why do you care?  Just submit and wait for an actual email/feedback from the publisher.  I never check the status of my papers.

There are a number of possibilities. For example, the editor or the editor's assistant might have reset the number of referees needed, maybe to correct an initial error, or just incidentally by playing around with a different setting. It could be that the reviews were contradictory or that a review was not acceptable and needed to be replaced. It could have been a software glitch.
It could have been a change in associate editor.
Waiting for the result of a submission can be trying as much can depend on the acceptance or non-acceptance of a paper, for instance, if it is a condition for a degree. While the editing software tries to help by giving you information about the current state of your manuscript, it is often best for yourself to avoid checking it. The system is opaque and you can do nothing about the outcome. Use this information only if a decision is overdue. At least that what I learned to do myself in order to avoid fretting.
You could of course ask the editor, but I do not see what good can come out of it. The editor might not know because their view of the processing software is different and the editor is usually not the only one having access to it.


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What can I do when my supervisor holds me back from publishing my master's thesis?
I just finished my master's thesis in spring and wanted to apply for an award for this master's thesis by the end of this month. However, my supervisor and professor held me back from doing so because they are afraid that journal reviewers will potentially be reluctant to accept a paper when my master's thesis was quite close to the publication in progress. In case I win the award, my thesis will not be openly published, but might be made available to people requesting it. However, a three-page summary of the method and results will be published; but also only in case I win the award.
My supervisor will use parts of my data but is currently analyzing them independently.
Honestly, I am quite frustrated with this outcome since I know that legally, the thesis is my own intellectual property, and that now, "just out of solidarity with my supervisor's work", I am not able to take the chance to spread the word about the great results of my thesis!
Is this ethical academic practice; what would you suggest me to do?

Sorry, but I don't understand the sentence about "reluctant to publish...". What is "close to the publication in progress"?

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

@Buffy I understand that the supervisor fears that having the master's thesis published may lead to journals rejecting a paper based on the thesis on the grounds that the results are already published.