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Applying for grad school without undergraduate background
Is it possible to apply for a graduate program in theoretical physics without having a bachelor's degree in physics or mathematics?
I'm completely self-taught. I'm half way through Jackson electrodynamics and Peskin QFT. These books are taught to students at a graduate level, let's say that I can pass the GRE exam and graduate level examinations. Is it possible that this would substitute for an undergraduate degree?

Have you asked that question to your prospective graduate program?

Yes , I have sent an e-mail to ICTP (international centre for theoretical physics) and didn't get a reply yet .

Do you have an undergraduate degree in some other field?

Yes,I'm in my final year of a medical degree.

on a different note, should you not be considering a second bachelor's program in Theoretical Physics? That should be a cakewalk for you, except that it takes time. Alternately, you should seriously think about interdisciplinary programs linking your present UG preparation with your graduate aspirations.

I don't think it's feasible to apply for an undergraduate degree . Even though it could be a cakewalk ,I would have to spend four years of my life not doing significant work besides that my budget is tight and I would be in my thirties the time I begin to contribute to the field . Concerning interdisciplinary program , I seriously think about it , but I want it to be in field that's heavy in condensed matter physics (What I have in mind is nanophysics , Carbon nanotubes, quantum optics etc. that can be applied to the study of living systems )However,I'm mostly interested in particle physics

I would definitely not entertain the idea of bothering to get a 2nd undergraduate degree.  Lateral movement is pretty common, and you've already paid the undergrad dues.  See my answer.

I agree with the other answers — admitting a student without formal academic background is very risky.
As a first step, I suggest contacting graduate programs asking if they allow non-degree students to take their classes.  If so, taking classes as a non-degree student will let you build up a formal academic background and strong recommendation letters in your chosen field, making your case for admission much stronger.  And if you're admitted to the PhD program at the same university, you may be able to use the classes you've already taken toward your degree.
Taking classes will also give you a sanity check on your self-assessment.  From personal experience, it can be really hard to spot gaps in the knowledge you build from self-study, simply because you don't know enough to ask the right questions.
But once you get your foot in the door, do not just take classes; do whatever you can to get involved in research!
One significant downside to non-degree classes is that you'll almost certainly have to pay for them out of your own pocket.

I agree with this advice. I was in a similar situation and some formal background is necessary. I am switching from CS to ecology and had to take biology and chemistry classes that I never took during my college career.

+1, this was the route I used to go from self-study at the HS level to admission in a bachelor's program. Writing the GRE (or SAT) for your subject in conjunction with this can make a very strong case.

...but I think I'm well aware of my areas of weakness and strength.

I don't dispute that at all. But you'd be in the minority. Most students coming into grad school think that they can handle any material, and once they're in a class, find themselves completely swamped.
The admissions committee's point of view is this:

Will this person be at sea in their breadth requirements because we have no idea whether they have the right background ?
Will they be a drag on instructors in their classes, and in general bring their cohort down (it can be dispiriting to have many students in a batch struggling to make it through the program: conversely, it's great when a batch has a number of bright spots who can pull the others up)
Should this person be chosen as opposed to someone else who has a more well-defined profile ?

If you can address the third point clearly ("why should you pick me") and the first ("I really do know my stuff"), then that will go a long way towards alleviating their concerns. For example, if you can point to independent research projects that would demonstrate your command of the material, that would be even more valuable than course credits.

Great answer! I'm going to put some effort on independent research because that's what I ultimately want to do although It would be extremely difficult without the help of a good advisor who can guide me through theoretical physics literature!

I've watched some recorded lectures at graduate level online . I think that the pace is very good. The lecturers usually explain things in more a elementary way than the textbooks that are required for the class.

Is it possible? Yes. Is it likely? Maybe not.
A lot will depend on your undergraduate program. If you've done something "related," such as mathematics or physical chemistry or some engineering disciplines, then it will be easier to convince an admissions committee that you have the requisite background. Otherwise, it will be up to you, in your letter statement of purpose, as well as your letter-writers in their letters, to make the case why you should be admitted to a rogram in physics when you don't have a background in the subject (or anything close to it).
This is a big risk for a department, and especially if the department you're applying to is small and therefore needs to be more selective in who they admit. Anything you can do to show that you won't be a risk for them will help your application.

But I have a background that I have acquired by self-study (although I haven't had any math/physics courses at university).Why does undergraduate credits would be of so much importance for my case if I have more than the minimum required background in physics and math?

@self-learner because credits are an important part of the way your knowledge is assessed in the existing academic framework

@F'x: Or more accurately, it's hard to assess achievement based on self-study. I've interviewed a few candidates for open positions in my group, and some of them were almost delusional in over-assessing their qualifications and their suitability for the position in question. You simply can't afford to hire the wrong person, so having the "pedigree" and demonstrable achievement is important.

Thanks , but I think I'm well aware of my areas of weakness and strength . It seems that I should spend a considerable amount of effort trying to persuade the graduate program to accept me though.

@self-learner I would rather spend time considering what specific knowledge they would be looking for, and ensuring that you are up to par (for this purpose defined by "could earn an A or B in a final exam given on that topic") in those areas.

The issue is you need some sort of documentary evidence of your knowledge in those fields. Otherwise, anybody could try to make the case "I've studied so and so on my own." I've done self-study courses in high school--but at the end of the day, I had the standardized exams that I could take that demonstrated what I learned. Based on those exams, I was allowed to opt out of the introductory coursework in those fields. Without the exams, my word would not have been accepted. Maybe the schools have a placement exam or something similar you can take. Otherwise, you're probably out of luck.

Is it possible to apply for a graduate program in theoretical physics
  without having a bachelor's degree in physics or mathematics?

Yes, I believe it is.

let's say that I can pass the GRE exam and graduate level
  examinations. Is it possible that this would substitute for an
  undergraduate degree?

First, depends what you mean by "pass" the GRE.  I'd hope that you had very high scores (90th+ percentile) on at least the Quant. and Analytical parts of it, but hopefully all three.
Also, I'd edit your question to be clear that you do have an undergraduate degree already; just not one in physics.
My guess would be that if you find the right program they would be willing to really consider your application favorably if you could provide something like the following list of goodies:

Very high GRE scores
A glowing letter of recommendation from a physicist or some "hard" science prof speaking to your abilities to do heavy duty physics.
A pristine statement of purpose that goes into specific details about your research interests within theoretical physics and your program of self-study.  Here you'd really want to emphasize your aptness for that particularly graduate program in physics, based on your interests that match well with what (at least one of) their researchers do.
Some research experience, if you can get some.
A very strong academic transcript with a significant amount of hard science and math courses and mostly As (or the equivalent) in those subjects.

If you can't provide most of a list like this, one might reasonably question why you would want to go on to graduate school in this field.

Depending on the field and department you are thinking of applying to, one piece of evidence that you have independently acquired a strong background in the proposed field of study can be a strong score on the GRE Subject Test in that field.
In computer science, a number of graduate programmes I've looked at recommend this for applicants that don't have a CS degree. For instance, cf. UC San Diego's PhD admissions FAQ: http://www-cse.ucsd.edu/node/195 under "Should I take the Computer Science GRE Subject Exam?"
I do not know for sure to what degree this would apply in Physics.

The answer to your question regarding the GRE is "it will help". You have not specified if it is for a PhD or Master's. However what will count the most is your research experience if you are going for a PhD. If you want to apply to a Master than it will be definitely easier to get accepted with high GRE scores.
Sometimes students with different backgrounds are actually well seen by the department, especially if it is a interdisciplinary one. However you have to substantially prove how you will be able to apply your knowledge into your new field and how this makes you competitive. Students with a different background might provide insights and different perspectives on how to approach research topics.


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Business cards for graduate students
It's come up in our lab that we should probably have business cards for when we attend conferences, however, we've been given very little guidance for what is appropriate for a graduate student.
Some questions that have come up:

Should we be trying to standardize the cards to look like the official university's cards? (e.g., with the university logo, etc)?
Related to the first question, should we be going for standardized or for something that will make us stand out?
Should we be putting our current status on the card?  It seems like if we haven't hit ABD yet then it might be counterproductive because then we'd have to buy new ones each time we made progress.
Should we be adding our research interests directly on the card?  What about advisor?
Any other information (other than contact/website) that we should be including or tips on this?

What is "ABD" ?

My advice (not specific to academia, hence not an answer per se): clear, minimalistic, stylish. Also: one-sided, because it's very useful to be able to write extra information on the back: either your cell phone (if not already on it), or a subtle reminder of why you left them your card “XYZ analysis technique”, …  The information you need is: name, title, position, affiliation (and logo!), email, website, maybe cell phone. Nothing more.

...bit off topic, but I would use LinkedIn as a means to connect and communicate. I've not seen many people in academia that have business cards, but that could be just me.

@gerrit, "All but dissertation", a US-specific acronym, from what I know.

What's a "business card"?  I don't think I've seen the object that used to go by that name in 20 years.

@JeffE: Like so much, it's CS (and math?) versus the rest of the world. . . .

@JeffE And I hand out at least 10 per conference, and get about twice as many back.

@Fomite - How do you manage to get twice as many back?  Is it because you don't take enough of your own with you when you travel, and you run out?

@aparente001 Several conferences I go to have a fairly strong industry presence where I take them as useful reminders to look up a particular product/company/etc. but where the reps there are not the people I'd talk to.

I would standardize them and simply put the most relevant information on them. My (dated) business card looks like this:

Now I think it has a little bit more information than needed; fax is almost certainly not needed, but there might be circumstances where it's handy to have the mailing address. But important are:

University + department
Academic homepage
E-mail address
Perhaps phone number
The fact that you're a PhD student.

I wouldn't add too much information on them. Business cards are for core info, nothing more; they might get crowded otherwise.
My own business card is outdated: a university reform means I'm no longer at the Department of Space Science, but at the Department of Computer Science, Electrical and Space Engineering, Division of Space Technology. But I don't care, because the e-mail address is still correct, and the new department/division wouldn't even fit on a business card ;)

Strange that you are Dr Holl and a PhD student. Studying for another doctorate, are you?

Actually, this one contains an error, will upload a new one shortly

Perhaps that's one additional piece of advice: avoid errors in business card.

Fax number, really? (In fact, even the phone number seems a reach to me, unless it's a cell phone number. The snail mail address, too… have often does someone need to send you postal mail?)

@Fx Don't ask me why, but it's the standard for anyone related to the university where I'm at (note that in Sweden, PhD students are often employed by the university of their studies)

@gerrit if I listened to my university, I'd also list the fax number, phone number of lab manager, international emergency contact information, instructions of use, list of ingredients, choking hazard warning, …  My point is: don't.

@Fx It's the university printing and the university paying, so I don't think I get to choose what to put on it — although I didn't bother to try, because I think it's not too cluttered as it is now.

Regarding the snail-mail address, I'm at a different campus than the main university, and we tend to be invisible, so we like to make clear that we are actually 350 km away from the main place. Not sure if it's very clear, but alas.

I extended the business card thing with QRS-code of Orcid here http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/86752/9009

You should check with your University's communications/pr department before printing up anything that reflects the institution's trademarked materials but I think it sounds like a pretty good idea.  You just want to make sure that you don't step into any legal quagmires. Anytime that you produce collateral that associates you to an organization you can get into dangerous territory.  For example- if you hand out your Awesome U. business cards at a pro/anti whatever rally, then you associating that activity with the institution.  Obviously, they have reason to control such materials.
This sounds especially for nice for full time students that are attending conferences and the like.
Alternatively you could have personal business cards that say what ever you want and just say "Grad Student".  I'd check first but that seems like a reasonable compromise.

Everywhere I have worked so far, there have been standard templates from the University for how their business cards should look, so I've simply used those, ordered through the University press.
My titles have been:
Project Assistant (during my undergrad)
Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter / Research Assistant (during my PhD studies)
Postdoctoral Scholar
Scientific Officer
Postdoc
and everything else has been dictated by the University graphical manual and policies.

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Write a computer science thesis in native language or English?
I'm a computer science student, currently at the Bachelor level. I'm also not a native English speaker. My native language is Dutch. This year, I have to write a thesis.
I've always been told at my university that whilst being a Bachelor-student all courses, assignments, etc should be available to us in Dutch, but we've had lectures in English before after an agreement with the professor.
Personally, I find it easier to write in my mother tongue (naturally), but maybe it's worth to go the extra mile and write my thesis in English. Also, all the research I've done so far, has been in English. So it's not really a problem for me.

Question:
Should a (computer science) thesis be written in English or in the writer's native language? What are possible pros/cons? Can it pay off to go the extra mile?

The answer will depend at least in part on what you want to do next. To take two extremes, if you want to get an industry job in the Netherlands post-graduation, the language your undergrad thesis is written in will make zero difference. If you want to apply to grad school in another country, however...

@fkraiem Very good remark, I hadn't considered that! I actually would like to get in an exchange program in my Master/graduate.

It might be worth writing it in Dutch first, since that's easiest, and then translating it to English later on/as you have time.

The majority of CS publications in the ACM digital library and IEEE Xplore that I've seen are in English. Almost all formal documentation for programming languages, libraries, frameworks, etc. are also written in English and I have not seen very many that were translated (e.g. Java (the language documentation) is not translated officially in French). So, at least in the field of computer science, the language of choice is English for formal publications. Plus, practicing another language is always a good idea :)

Have you actually been told by your supervisor that you're free to choose? If not, I think you should first ask them. For instance, while there was no general rule at the institute I did my BSc at, my supervisor specifically requested a German thesis (and other supervisors specifically asked for English theses).

As was suggested in the comments, if you want to share your thesis with researchers in other countries, it is better to write it in English than in other languages.
However, I will go further than that and say that in the 21st century, English is the lingua franca of communication in most technical fields. If you want to participate in the wider technical community in a meaningful way, developing your ability to express yourself in English, both orally and in written form, is essential. Therefore, you should avail yourself of opportunities to work in English whenever practical.
It is still important to be able to communicate in your local language, but this is becoming less of an issue as time goes on: for many people, they do scientific work in English, even if their everyday workplace conversations are in another language!

I would not go as far as to call English the technical linguage franca. But as someone who works in IT I do write documentation in English for my coworkers. This despite both my coworkers and myself being native Dutch speakers.

@Hennes You wouldn't? I can't think of any top CS conference that's not held in English (I'm sure there are small ones that aren't, but nothing of importance), I can't think of any paper of the last two decades that made big breakthroughs that was translated, all technical documentation is foremost in English (well you get computer translated) and so on. Personally at least in Germany/Austria for CS I'd go so far as to say the telltale sign of an average or substandard thesis is that it's written in German (I'm sure there are exceptions, but as a rule of thumb it seems spot on).

Note: This is purely my experience in CS - as far as I can tell in other disciplines (law comes to mind, but also math) there's a fair amount of work being done in the native tongue.

English is the technical lingua franca. If you don't think it is, you probably don't know the definition of lingua franca: "a language systematically used to make communication possible between persons not sharing a native language" ... you're using it for that purpose right now.

If your english isn't very good and it would be a considerable hardship to write it entirely in English then there is a third option:
Write the thesis in your native language but write an extended abstract in English.
By extended abstract, I mean a more detailed summation of your key findings than is usually provided in the short (250-500 word) abstract that prepends dissertations.
Quality is better than quantity. I would prefer having a short 3-page well-written English summation that has been meticulously written and proofread than 300 pages of poorly written English.

+1: for a bachelor's thesis, this seems the best solution in terms of effort and results. For a master/PhD, I'd recommend English instead (at least in my field).

If the question here reflects the O.P.'s ability to write in English, this might not apply. Even so, this is good advice for anyone in this situation.

Pros of writing in English

You can share your work with non-Dutch-speaking people. Especially important for graduate school applications, since after that unless you did something really brilliant nobody will care much about your undergrad work.
It gives you some experience in English-writing, which it seems you need (since you are still somewhat uncomfortable with it). There is no denying that, like it or not, you will probably need to express yourself in English a lot in whatever your future career is. You want to do it well, beause working in English with people who are bad at it is a real pain.

Pros of writing in Dutch

Avoids having your point obscured by English mistakes, though based on this question it doesn't seem you would do more English mistakes than can be found in the average paper.
Less effort, but I would argue that the fact that it is less effort to write in Dutch is an argument for writing in English. It's something you want to fix.
You may (the question does not make this clear) simply prefer Dutch. Even though I am equally comfortable writing in English or in my native French, I still vastly prefer French, simply because I think it's a nicer language. (Yes, I may be biased.)

All in all, at this point I agree with aeismail that you should probably write in English. However, due to the point immediately above, I think his answer ceases to apply if and when you have attained a satisfactory level in English expression. Then, you shouldn't feel any need or obligation to use English "whenever practical", just because mostly everyone else does it. In fact, I think I do the opposite: I use French whenever practical, and only use another language when French doesn't work.

Regarding less effort, I always find easier to write about research in English than in my mother tongue, because that is the vehicular language. In fact, most of the technical terms just sound weird in Spanish.

Yes, the "less effort" part was specifically for OP's situation, since he said he finds it "easier" to write in Dutch.

I would add to the Pro English column "Writing in English would demonstrate your technical English skills, which are important to many businesses and institutions"

Since you're talking about Computer Science: absolutely write your thesis in English.
Academia
If you want to stay in Academia, then you'll have to start writing English research texts anyway - so you might as well get started now.
Industry
Let's be honest - chances are fairly high that computer scientists end up in industry either after graduation or some years down the line. The de facto language for all technical documents will be English.
Also chances are high that in an IT career you'll have to...

work with colleagues from abroad
work with remote teams in near-shoring / off-shoring locations
cooperate on open-source projects
communicate on online Q&A sites, message boards, forums, bug trackers,
read obscure manuals
...

--> All of this will happen in English.

Even if you are planning to continue to do a PhD in your field, very few people will want to read a Bachelor's thesis. If you find something interesting during your work on your Bachelor's thesis, write a separate, smaller paper in English and share that.
I wrote my BA in English - against my professor's recommendation - because I was hoping it would be worth sharing with a wider audience; but I understand now that too much of the substance of a Bachelor's is just footwork to prove that you have what it takes to complete the formal requirements of a thesis.
I should perhaps add that I actually found it easier to write in English because so much of the terminology in the field is ad-hoc and/or awkward in my native language. I don't have a problem writing in my own language otherwise, but I felt constrained by having to look up the correct terminology where I had learned all of it in English anyway. (Most of the lectures were in one of the local languages here, but all the literature was American.)

I wrote my bachelor thesis in English, and was able to publish two papers from it. I certainly benefitted immensely from writing the entire thing in English to begin with.

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Should I ask for a recommendation letter even if I have not applied for any programs yet
I emailed some tutors from several years ago to ask for a meeting (as described in this question). I am happy to tell you that I have received another reply from my former school teacher. She had a trip to Japan for weeks and had not read any emails. She agreed to meet me at my former school.
I want to further my study and I want to seek more information from her.
I know that she is very busy, so should I make use of this opportunity to ask her to write to any recommendation letter for me even if I have not applied for any programms at a university?

What degree are you applying to ? Is She a professor or what? I do not know what you did few days ago. Please make your question self-explanatory.

Definitely, you should tell her that you would like to further your training. And since your former tutor know you well, she is one of the capable person to write this letter.
Meanwhile, she doesn't have to write it now and then - if you manifest the possibility of asking her in a near future for such a letter and she agree, this will still stand in a year or so.
It is hard to write a good and relevant letter in advance without knowing on which desk it will land on - so better make precision when you know more details, such as the institution, concentration, which possible supervisor, with hyperlinks to relevant pages in case she want more context.

I'm not quite sure what you're asking. What "more information" do you need?
I think it is unlikely that any professor or teacher will write a recommendation letter for you in the absence of an application deadline. Otherwise, she might be wasting her time (e.g., you never end up applying or decide that a letter from another professor would be better). Since you say that "she is very busy," I would be careful about asking her to write a letter if you aren't applying anywhere right now.
The only situation where I would even consider asking about a recommendation letter in the absence of a plan to apply soon would be if you think her memory of you will substantially wane between now and when you apply. If that's the case, maybe reconnecting with her will help jog her memory. On the other hand, many professors will ask for a CV or draft statement of purpose before writing a letter, which can also serve the same purpose.

Take the opportunity to ask if they would be willing to write a reference for you at a later time (when you email them the details), giving an indication of when you expect to be doing applications.
(As I have said elsewhere, if your referee is busy (or even if not), try to allow your referee to write their letter and send it to as many places as needed in one sitting, rather than spacing out requests and so taking up more time.)


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Is it more acceptable to list interview talks on CV if they're also part of a seminar series?
Consider someone invited on a job interview (in the sciences) at a university or a national lab or something of that sort with a regular seminar series. As part of the interview, the person is asked to give a talk as part of the seminar series.
Is that appropriate for inclusion on the CV as an invited talk?
I saw one related question to this but it was different enough that it didn't really answer my question:
Do presentations given during interviews count as invited talks?
However, the thread really just has a couple answers with equal support for opposite positions. The difference here is the distinction that the talk is given as part of an interview but also is part of a regular seminar series. I was wondering if this changed people's feelings on the matter at all.
It seems to me that any other person would list that as an invited talk. It also just seems to get grayed a bit by the fact that it is technically being used as part of a job interview.

I think there are two points of view in regards to talks related to a job search. The first is everything associated with the search should be lumped together, and if listed on your CV, it would be under something like "positions interviewed for". On my full CV, which I use for keeping track of my activities, I group positions interviewed for into off-campus and on-campus. The other approach is to separate out the "public" aspects of the job search and list them separately (e.g., under research seminars and guest teaching). I take the later approach since an issue with the former approach is that sometimes after giving a research seminar (or potentially guest teaching), you might be asked to apply for a job, which of course then blurs the lines.
In general, prior to making a campus visit, I ask for information about the audience of at the different activities (e.g., teaching demo, research talk about past research, and chalk talk about future research). The response about an activity is usually something along the lines of "it will just be the search committee" or "it is open to everyone and their might be a couple of interested undergraduates in the audience." From that I can usually decide if it is a public or private activity. Once I decide an activity is "public", I think it is not only entirely appropriate to list it the same as any other talk on your CV, but that leaving it off is misleading. I would consider it the same as if I found out someone was leaving "questionable" publications off of their CV.

I don't mention job interviews at all on my vita, and I don't see many of them on other mathematicians' vitas, so this may be something that varies from field to field. From my perspective, you either accept a job (so it appears under "employment") or you don't mention the interview (although you still mention any public seminar that might have been part of the interview). This is somewhat analogous to not mentioning on your vita which journals rejected a paper.

@OswaldVeblen in most situations I would not circulate a CV that shows positions I have interviewed. I use my full CV, which I do not generally circulate, to keep track of all my activities including jobs applied for, interviews, and unsuccessful paper and grant submissions.

That makes sense. I have essentially the same idea of public and private activities as what you describe.

Is that appropriate for inclusion on the CV as an invited talk?

Yes.
If someone invited you to give a talk, then it's an invited talk.  It is perfectly appropriate to list it on your CV as such.

There is no need to overthink this.  Every job talk I've ever given or attended was described either as a seminar (say, a geometry seminar) or a colloquium.  List it on your cv like that.  There are many job talks on
my cv (see my webpage), but they are indistinguishable from the rest.

I had at least one job talk that was called a "Special Lecture."

Here is a possible rule of thumb: if they list your talk on the web page for the seminar series (in the list of talks given that semester), then you should not feel bad at all about listing it on your own C.V.
Personally, I would view any talk that you are invited to give that is "open the public in the way a normal talk is" to be an invited talk. But I do divide my talks into conference talks and seminars on my vita.

In my department, whether or not all talks are listed on the website seminar list depends entirely on who happens to be responsible for posting to the website that semester.


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How much leeway will i have in suggesting a co-adviser or committee member when i am funded by a professor?
I have completed master's thesis with an advisor in Industrial Engineering and I am pursuing PhD with another professor in same department. My PhD involves statistics heavily and I am not at all good with statistics. In fact I have C in two mandatory statistics courses I took in the masters program.
Usually this lab works with a Chinese statistics professor. I find it very difficult to understand her. I find her to be very knowledgeable but are just not good at explaining things. Would it be acceptable if I asked my advisor to bring my master's advisor on board the PhD committee so that she can help me with the statistics material? He taught entry level statistics courses in masters program and helped me substantially with the statistics material of my master's thesis.
Will I have any leeway to do something like this especially when he is funding me for PhD, and what will be the best way to bring this up?

Would it be acceptable if I asked my advisor to bring my master's advisor on board the PhD committee so that she can help me with the statistics material?

You can definitely ask your advisor. Describe why you think this professor would be helpful on your committee, then see what your advisor has to say.

Will I have any leeway to do something like this especially when he is funding me for PhD

Getting funding from someone doesn't mean they get to dictate everything about your PhD career without any input from you. It's your PhD and ultimately your responsibility to make sure you succeed.
In fact, depending on your department rules, the decision as to who goes on your committee may very well be yours, not your advisor's. Of course, you should consult with your advisor on something like this, because part of his job is to help you make these decisions.
But you should understand that this is your research career regardless of who funds it. And even if your advisor is a great scientist and advisor and you respect his advice, you should always feel that you have "leeway" to make suggestions.

and what will be the best way to bring this up?

Just set up a meeting with your advisor and say "I wanted to talk about my PhD committee. Here is why I think Professor X would be a valuable person to have on my committee..."
Note: I'm not commenting on whether or not your MS advisor is actually a valuable person to have on your committee - just that it's always OK to make a suggestion like this.

Around here the thesis committee is supposed to be designated by a graduate committee, in practice it usually results from agreement among the parties. So you'd have to ask locally how it really works.


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How to ask professor to let me audit lectures at university I am not enrolled in?
There is a professor in the city I am currently living in who does some interesting work. I would like to sit in on his lectures, but I do not know how to ask him.
What is the best way for me to ask him to attend or audit his lectures or seminar? I don't want to come across as rude or imposing myself on him, esp. when its about seminars which are maybe not so big.
Also, relatedly: I am not sure if I would be able to attend every single lecture because I will have a lot of work to do the upcoming weeks. So I am not sure how to best ask with this in mind. If he says yes and I am not coming to one of the lectures -although I would love to- will it maybe look very bad?

What's your location? In Germany e.g. there is the possibility to enroll as a guest auditor. This will likely cost a fee but I'm unsure if it's the decision of the professor to let you be there or the university's. You didn't specify if the course itself has only limited seats and requires registration.

well I am not entirely sure about capacities. I am in the UK. So in Germany you would just get enroll as a guest and the professor would not really have a say?

At least not in my field. Our classes are so big they wouldn't know who is there. That's why I asked how small the courses are going to be. If the seats are limited and require registration I'm sure you can only enroll if students who need the credit for the points have a seat and the professor consents.

I have sat in classes in Scotland without even needing to ask. Things may be different in England.

@ChrisDoyle: In Germany, when talking about just wanting to see a lecture once or twice, you wouldn't even normally enroll in any way, but simply take a seat in the class.

If someone not associated with my university wants to sit in on one of my classes, I have no objection to that.  It would be nice if the person asked first, but my answer would be yes unless the manner of asking convinced me that he or she would be a problem in the classroom.  So far (my first 46 years on the faculty) I have never said no to such a request.
This presupposes that the student just wants to learn the material and doesn't need any sort of official record of having been in my class.  For an official record, you'd have to go via the university administration.
It's also relevant that I'm in mathematics, where I don't have to worry about things like having enough space and supplies in a lab for an extra student.

If it's not too inconvenient, I would suggest asking in person.  Send an email first to set up an appointment to drop by to discuss the possibility of attending his class.  Then at the meeting you can easily explain your interest and situation.  An in-person meeting will make it easier for the professor to get a sense of how appropriate it would be for you to attend the course.
As Ben indicates, universities generally want auditors to pay, and different departments may have different policies about auditing, but many professors don't mind someone "learning for free."

I would find having to set up a meeting in person just to be asked this much more inconvenient than receiving the question directly on the email.

@Davidmh I think it depends on the person and class.  Yes, many faculty would be okay with just an email.  However, we've gotten some weird people wanting to take classes, and they can potentially throw off the dynamic, especially for small classes where there is a fair amount of student interaction.  So if a random person off the street wants to take a class, I want to know something about them first.

If the professor has anything to say in the decision, he may want to meet first; but if he can't (because lectures are always public, already full, or following some university regulation), having to meet in person is just an annoyance. So, offering to meet is good, but I'd rather be explicit about attending classes on the first email.

@Davidmh Fair enough.


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MS student in CS meeting advisor for the first time in person (USA). What should I wear? (male)
I am meeting him in his office on campus.  I am a master's student in computer science.  I figured that suit and tie would be too formal as it isn't really an interview since I already have the position.  If I were just regularly attending grad classes, I may wear T-shirt, shorts and flipflops (during the summer/fall) and jeans, polo, light jacket, sneakers during the cooler months.  Should I wear khakis, dress shoes, and a nice button down shirt?  Ties?  Yes or no?   I want to make a good first impression but not have it look like I'm trying too hard.
In addition, he invited a few other grad students to his house for a cookout next weekend.  What should I wear to that?  I'm guessing more on the casual side but should I go in shorts/t-shirt or jeans/polo?

@What part of the country?

Atlanta, Georgia, USA

I've edited the title to make clearer the discipline, level, and country.

Check that professor through his personal webpage, Facebook etc. See what sort of dressing sense he has and try to wear similar or near to his style of outfits.

I've never even visited any universities in that part of the country, but I think your comfortable shorts/T-shirt should be perfect for a cookout in any part of the country.  For the first impression, make sure you choose something comfortable.  I think dress shoes would probably be overkill.  However, a short-sleeved button shirt (i.e. tailored shirt with a collar) would be a nice touch.  Do you have some sort of sports shoes?  That would be a happy medium between dress shoes and flip flops.  If not, I'd go with the dress shoes.
If you ask what food to take to the cookout, I'll chime in on that one too.

Whatever you want to wear should be fine within reason. To be honest it wouldn't even occur to me to worry about such things. But if you are worried, just wear a clean shirt (doesn't matter what kind, as long as it's clean and has no holes), any pair of pants (shorts might be slightly informal), and a clean pair of closed-toe shoes. Ties are overdoing it and it will more likely make you look like a douche :)
As a side note, personally I don't care at all what my students wear as long as they're wearing something, but when they don't shower and it's noticeable, that can really put a damper on the first impression thing.
Once you meet your advisor in person, you should more or less have a good idea of what to wear for the cookout (judging by how much of a fancypants he is), but I'd just take the same suggestion as above, unless it's really hot, in which case shorts should be OK (but I'd stick to wearing socks in case you're invited to his house and you have to walk around barefeet).


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How important is to maintain an online/digital presence for a graduate student?
I am a graduate student in the physical sciences working towards my Ph.D and planning to finish in less than two years from now. In this age, where data mining/collection/analysis and then selling/using it for profit has become ubiquitous and quite easy because of the internet and the ever increasing plethora of electronic devices, I have become a little paranoid and worked quite hard over the past decade to keep myself anonymous and to stop anyone from piecing info about me as much as possible. I do regularly google myself and see what I can learn about myself.
So the thing is, I don't have a webpage of any kind. No blogs! Certainly no social sites. No professional/connection profiles like on LinkedIn. Even the university provided webpage/space is unused and I try to control where my university email is published. Only the people who know me and have met me face to face (personally and professionally like at a conference) have my info to get in touch with me. It would be quite difficult for someone who I don't know to get in touch with me even if it is research related. A potential employer will have a very hard time trying to find anything about me on the internet.
So my question is how detrimental is this behavior to my professional future? Just how bad is it really, assuming it is bad? Do I really need it? Will this hurt my chances in the future when I try to get a postdoc or a job in the industry? I haven't published anything yet but I will very soon and then I expect to have at least another paper before I graduate. Furthermore, I really don't know what will I be doing after graduation. I might do a postdoc at a lab but then after that I don't plan on staying in academia. I might just stay at a lab or go to the industry working for a R&D somewhere. I am also toying with the idea of just starting my own small business. It could be something completely unrelated to my degree like a bakery or a bookstore.
But let's stay that even if I decide to stay in the field like working at a national lab and publishing regularly, can this be done without a public online presence?
BTW, I am in the USA and I don't plan on ever moving out of the States so the postdoc/lab stuff will be here in the States if I decide to do it.

I just typed "scaaahu" into Google. It turned up 8,170 results. I can assure you that having online presence is easy while absence from online is much harder to maintain. In these days, it'll just take weeks to see your name everywhere after you decide to have online presence.

Look at answers to this question. While not a precise duplicate, I guess, you have here a good overlap with that question.

I think this question is very similar(if not a duplicate) to Is web presence important for researchers?

What do you get when you search your real name, currently?

Voted to close as duplicate.

Yes, it hurts your chances. It does not make you unemployable, far from it (I have recruited post-docs without web presence): when you apply for a position, your application file will include all the information that should be necessary for the hiring committee to decide, so they do not strictly need to see your webpage. As long as you appear on the departmental or group-level web listing of researchers… (otherwise it just looks weird)
However, look at the bigger picture: you're trying to make yourself a name in academia, so why do something that prevents it to some extent? There are good reasons for people to look up your webpage:

They saw you name, and wondered who you are, where you are, what you do.
They want to see what you have recently published, and find it easier to have it grouped on your web page that through a citation database (where your name may not be unique)
They know you, and thought about you for an open (or soon-to-be-open) position, and they want to check out if you have moved, if you recently accepted a position, etc.

So, there are two things that are absolutely needed:

People need to find that minimum amount of information about you when they search your name, and possibly some research-related keywords. A personal webpage, even a terse one, may be better for that than your departmental web page.
Your list of publications

As for myself, I maintained a webpage composed of exactly 1 HTML file, including:

my name
status (“PhD student at South Laponia U.”)
research keywords, link to my publication list (ResearcherID)
link to my CV (so I lied, I have a second file on that website: my CV in PDF format)
email address
link to my departmental website.

That's it. (It used to host my Master's thesis, but it is now hosted on an open archive, with a link from my publications list.) No picture of me or my pets, no blog/tumblr/twitter, no social websites.

This is a great answer, and covers the bases.  I would reiterate that it helps to have your professional information online so it is easily accessible by someone who meets you or wants to look you up based on authorship of a paper.  F'x's minimal example is as basic as it needs to be.  Incidentally, I have a cousin who is a scientist at a national lab, and he has virtually no web presence and has done very well.  He got his job before being online was even possible, though, and things have changed.


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Is it ethical to apply to a scholarship sponsored by my employer?
I am a masters student in Computer Science. I also work for a software development company which happens to sponsor a scholarship that I want to apply to.
I was concerned about the ethical aspect of applying to this scholarship, I contacted the communications department via e-mail and asked if it is illegal and/or unethical to apply. Response said that company employees can apply, which means, I can apply. The answer did not state anything about the second part of my question - would it be unethical?
I also know that the CEO of my company will be the head of sponsorship committee.
Should I just ignore this weird circumstance and write my motivation letter as if there was no connection between my employer and the scholarship? Or should I not even apply?
Edit: My initial question had 2 parts so I split it into separate questions. The other question, How would applying for a scholarship sponsored by employer affect my employer's perception of me?, is posted on Workplace.SE. It is a different question and I expect an answer from a different angle to it.

This seems to be less about academia and more about internal politics in your company.  I would take this to Workplace.SE.

This question appears to be off-topic because it is about workplace issues.

@NateEldredge But is it? Would it be on-topic here if the scholarship would be for covering tuition?

@NateEldredge I've removed the part about recognition in the workplace, making an impression on CEO, etc; now it's entirely about the ethical implications of applying for the scholarship.

@ff524 Well thought! I think I will take the other part of my initial question and post it on Workplace.SE. One situation, two separate questions, each one fitting on a separate SE site. Would you agree?

Yes, I think the question of "How would applying for a scholarship sponsored by employer affect my employer's perception of me?" would probably be appropriate on Workplace.

I think part of the question you just posted on Workplace (the part regarding ethics) duplicates this post, and should be removed from the Workplace post. You should also disclose on Workplace (like you did here) that you asked a related question on Academia.

"I contacted the communications department via e-mail and asked if it is illegal and/or unethical to apply. Response said that company employees can apply, which means, I can apply."

I think that answers the ethics about it as well. As long as you are open about the fact that you are a company employee, there is no scope for you to violate any ethics. Any possible violation (which I don't think there are any) would be in the company's hands.
Think about this - why is the company offering a scholarship? They probably want the recipient to graduate and then work for the company. Thus by attracting top students to apply for an attractive scholarship, they gain a highly skilled and motivated employee. Sure, the fact that you already work for them might give you an advantage in the application process. But this is a private company giving out privately earned funding. They should be able to pay whomever they choose, for whatever reason.
In the end, there is really little difference between this, and an internal hire.

It wouldn't be unethical or surprising if, on receipt of the company's scholarship you were offered a work placement with them. For that reason, I don't think you should be concerned about applying through the normal means as if you were any other applicant.
What would make this unethical, would be to turn up for work and:

Morning CEO! How's the wife and kids? I just got back from my holiday in Scotland, and I thought you might enjoy this whiskey.
Oh -- by the way, I heard about the scholarship you're offering, I'm really interested in applying for that, so I just thought I'd drop off my application. I'll leave it over here with the whiskey.

In short, if you just apply through the normal process, I do not think anyone can complain of any wrong-doing. I'm sure there's at least one stage to get your application through before anyone even realises you work there.

Companies funding their employee's studies is common and I believe not considered unethical. If you worry about whether employees will be given preferential treatment over non-employees, I'd say it's the scholarship committee's problem, not yours.

They are not funding my studies. My studies are funded by the government because of my study results. The scholarship sponsored by my company is of different kind - kind of like, reward, recognition for the best IT/CS student in the faculty. I can't put it in words that well. Another thing, this scholarship lasts for a year, not for full duration of my studies.

"They are not funding my studies." They will if you get the scholarship. ;) Only partially, but that doesn't really matter.


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How to adopt flipped classroom strategies without student complaints?
I have been adopting flipped classroom strategies (in upper-level chemistry classes ~20-30 students), but I often get feedback from students that they want me to "just go back to regular lectures" and that they perceive the flipped classes as more work.
I think the results are positive for student learning in my classes, although I haven't done formal assessments. I also personally appreciate the change of pace and style. Previously students might have felt that I wasn't giving enough concrete examples and this definitely solves the issue, as well as making me more responsive to a particular class's needs.
I am wondering about strategies to overcome student apprehension about active learning styles.

With a large class, I doubt that there is any action a faculty member can take, including changing the font on a handout, that will not engender at least a few student complaints.

Compared with what they're used to (lectures that they can sleep through plus rote homework assignments that are easy to cheat on), a flipped version of your course may well entail more work on their part.

I think I read an article once (maybe by Daniel Dennet) asserting a finding that students always prefer classroom strategies which lead to less learning (i.e., work).

Not about flipped classrooms per se, but about the irrationality of (some) student responses: I've often had students complain (=object) that I repeated certain things so many times that they couldn't avoid remembering them... :)

Could you tell us which topics you are teaching and what you mean exactly by "flipped classroom"? Without further information it's hard to tell, but your students may have a point. For example, in my years as a math student I had two kinds of flipped lectures: those in which students presented and discussed their solutions to some homework problems, and those where students gave lectures/presentations on some of the course's material. While I enjoyed both kinds, I feel I have learned much from the former, but previous little from the latter.

Students are all different. They have different intelligence levels, different interests, different learning styles. It is not possible to choose an approach that works best for everyone; this makes educator's job hard.

@A.P. - a "flipped classroom" usually refers to a strategy where something like a lecture is recorded for students to view outside of class time, while class time is devoted to activities that look more like traditional homework with students working individually or (more commonly) in small groups (though the problems will usually be more challenging ones that require hints from other students and the professor).  This is not something that usually works with more than about 20-30 students per instructor (counting assistant instructors as instructors).

@Akavall - As you say, there is no approach that works best for everyone. There is considerable evidence in science education that using active learning strategies (and there are many) provide significant benefits.

@AlexanderWoo - Yes, that's exactly what I'm doing, including pre-lecture polls or quizzes and solicitations of student pre-lecture questions to help target student needs more effectively (e.g., what's most confusing to this group).

Here are some ideas from Linda Kober, author of a publication by the National Research Council's Board on Science Education, Reaching Students: What Research Says About Effective Instruction in Undergraduate Science and Engineering. This comes from Chapter 6, "Overcoming Challenges", in the section "Helping Students Embrace New Ways of Learning and Teaching":

Make clear from the first day why these teaching strategies are effective, and be explicit about how they benefit students, and what
  is expected of students.
Show students evidence of how research-based strategies will help them learn and prepare for their future life.
Use a variety of interesting learning activities.
Encourage word-of-mouth among upper-level students who have already taken the course.
Listen to students’ concerns and make changes to address legitimate ones.
Make sure that grading and other policies are fair [e.g., group work].

For details you can get a free PDF download here (note blue button in top right).

As a student who has experienced a flipped learning method and especially one which was done horribly, I'll throw my two cents in. The way the flipped classroom was executed at my school was to have the students read an interactive textbook online before classes (this course was finance 1) and come to class to do some practice problems. The strategy that my professor used, whatever that was, failed horribly. There was petition at the end of the semester to remove the format signed by over 1000 661 students and the idea was pretty much scraped for the second semester.
The following points are ones that I feel are important to having this work successfully.

Classroom size
Lecture material
Difficulty of quizzes and tests related to the amount of lecture material
Make it worth their money

Firstly, it is incredibly important that you are present at all times especially if the classroom size is big. The students are hoping to come to your lecture to learn from you and to learn from your experiences in the subject. Therefore, being there and always lending a hand is very important. Furthermore, if the size of the classroom is too big then consider getting many  TAs. The consequence of not always being present or not being helpful usually means that students stop coming to class because they feel it is not worth their time. I believe the classroom attendance steadily dropped to less than 15 - 20 people per class out of 100+ students across all sections.
Secondly, if you don't want students to object to this teaching style then make sure the teaching material provided to students is sufficient to study from. If the course is technical then a couple of handouts will not be enough. Students need a concept to be explained a number of times in numerous ways using multiple examples. This is how they will study for quizzes, tests and exams. Furthermore, embed your personal experiences and neat tricks/tips into handouts. If you are going to ask students to learn from just Khan Academy videos or something similar then I can guarantee that students will hate it.
A follow up point to this is the difficulty of the quizzes, tests and exams. If you don't want your students to grovel over the course then make sure your quizzes, tests and exams are representative of the material that you have handed out. One of the main reasons a petition was signed at our school was because of the results. Whether the fault was with the teaching style or the students, that is difficult to say. However, most if not all of the students blamed the teaching method. At the end of the day, most students care about their grades and they will blame the most recent change which in our case was the change in teaching style.
Lastly, make it worth their money (time). It is important that you explain to students either via hardcore stats or some other method that this is worth the money they have paid for the course. In our case, most students felt that the professor was being simply lazy by not teaching and felt they were losing their money.
I hope this was helpful! Good luck!
EDIT:
@JessicaB suggested that I didn't say explicitly where the professor went wrong so I would like to elaborate here.

The professor did not provide adequate learning materials. Finance 1 is heavily quantitative and therefore, most students require lots of examples and in-depth reasoning as to why things work. The strictly online textbook the professor used was not thorough enough to explain some of the problems students were having. Furthermore, the practice problems were not at all indicative of the midterm which was given. To draw an analogy, picture learning only how to solve equations of the form ax+b and then being on the midterm to solve equations of the form ax^2 + bx + c.
The professor made no effort to provide students assistance even in class (which is the entire point to the flipped classroom concept). The professor usually had one TA which he would, literally, point to whenever we had a question. He made no effort to help students and would simply stand in front of the class. This pretty much made most people believe (and no evidence to the contrary was seen) that he was lazy.
He did not have office hours. If the student was not comfortable asking questions during class then tough luck. He refused to answer questions via email or during office hours.

Hopefully that is explicit enough on top of the points already provided before.

Great comment; very useful to get feedback from a student who's seen what to avoid.

Why do you dislake Khan Academy videos? and why do you think students hate it?

@SSimon There are some questions concerning Khan Academy on Math SE. For example, this and that and others.

I'm sorry to hear your experience - I think pretty much any teaching style can be used with poor results for the students. Absolutely students should feel they are getting a good experience, and being available to students is a key part of it. In principal, the flipped classroom and other techniques should allow the students to ask more specific questions.

@SSimon I love Khan Academy! I think the main concern I have with it is its usage in university classrooms for actual lectures. Personally, when I come to class I want to hear what my expert professor says and not Sal, who is very experienced no doubt but doesn't have a Phd in the specific field. I think they are a great supplement but shouldn't be the lectures themselves.

@GeoffHutchison I definitely agree! Honestly, the entire class (myself included) was very excited for the new learning style. However, its poor execution is what lead to its downfall.

I can't work out from this answer what actually went wrong, other than the students being lazy. Saying 'this is how students study for the exams' doesn't achieve much, because what students choose to do is not the right measure of what should be done.

@JessicaB I agree with your last point i.e. what students choose to do is not what should be done. However, the earlier point is not fair. I don't think more than 1000 students were being lazy. It's fairly clear, from my perspective anyway, that the professor really messed up. The material that he handed out was not adequate to learn from and furthermore, the quizzes and tests which were given were far beyond anything any of the students had seen before either through examples or past quizzes.

I have made a correction to the post. I was mistaken about the amount of students that signed the petition. The number is around 660.

@JeelShah You still haven't told me what the professor did to 'mess up'. It may well be that they did - whether through laziness on their own part or for other reasons - but you have just asserted that it was bad, as far as I can see.

@JessicaB I have made an edit explaining where the professor went wrong. Also, the 4 points I made earlier are what the professor did not do as well. Hopefully, that is more clear enough. I also want to make it clear that I am not ranting nor am I upset about the mark I received etc. I want to make sure that professors who are going to try this teaching style, one that I am in favor of if done correctly, don't mess up. Because at the end of the day, the students suffer the most.

Contrary example: one of my professors loved this approach. He gave us lectures and videos etc. and we discussed the lectures and work in class. This meant that most of what we needed to do outside class was read at our own pace... (For me this translated to far less time investment to learn better. I still remember the bulk of that course, some 15 yrs later.) Therefore, I agree that it's critical to support the outside lectures with the class time. That seems utterly obvious, to me.

@scaaahu but that is concerning Math, I dont think OP is aware that being math student and having math classes ( algebra, calculus, etc) is completely different

they perceive the flipped classes as more work.
It might actually be more work.  Rather than passively sit in class and listen to lectures, and then fill out some papers as homework, they need to actively engage in learning material at home, and then actively accomplish a goal in class.  Also, skipping out a night doesn't just result in missing a homework assignment isn't just some lost points from homework.  It means that they will have an unpleasant experience in a classroom as they accomplish nothing that they want to desire, and they get a bad grade.  It will feel like a double-whammy, so they feel extra obligated to do the homework so that they are prepared.
However, the point of the flipped class style wasn't necessarily to reduce work.  If they spend more time on the material, and get hands-on experience, they may actually be learning more.  And that, after all, is the real goal, isn't it?

Indeed, the real goal is for students to learn more effectively.

I thought "more work" for the students was the mechanism by which flipped learning, etc. work.

I have taught a flipped graduate engineering class for two semesters. The average number of students is usually about 30. Based on my own informal questionnaire as well as the official end-of-semester student evaluations, I can say that not all but a significant majority of the students liked the flipped class.
If you flip your class, three things are important:

Make sure you explain to your students what a flipped class is and why you flipped your class.
Make clear to your students what your expectations are.
Make sure that the student workload does not increase compared to a conventional class. That means that all the work they are expected to do prior to coming to a flipped class must be compensated by reduced or no work after a flipped class.

What I did was post slides well before each week's lectures and explain to them that I expect them to have studied the material before coming to class and that I would not go over the material in class. I would spend the first 5 minutes answering focused, but not general, questions. (By general questions, I mean questions that clearly indicated that the student did not study the material.) The rest of the lecture was spent on me working through examples on the blackboard and/or by the students in groups and me checking up on them.

I think #3 might be the key - student perception that work done before the class is offset later. (The workload might be higher or lower, but the perception it remains about the same is critical.)

I have taught a course on computability and complexity theory in our undergraduate programme in computer science several times since 1991. In 2013 I decided to stop lecturing and to "flip" the course with podcasts instead of lectures. I co-authored a paper in 2014 about my experiences with this new strategy.
Many students appreciated the flipped structure but a few reacted negatively for various reasons. One should never expect to not get such reactions from students; some students will probably never be satisfied. The real concern lies elsewhere: that by replacing lectures with podcasts, you spend less time with the students. The importance of the flipped classroom is that you can devote your time together with students to active learning. It is tempting to devote a lot of effort to creating polished presentations that are to replace lectures but the real challenge is that of thinking about how to encourage active learning.
Overall, it is extremely important that students feel that they do not lose anything in this format – or rather, they should feel that this is a better way of learning. Therefore you will always have to explain why you have structured your teaching activities the way you have and how these activities are meant to help each student achieve the learning goals of the course.

Do you mind  I ask if you have preprint of your paper (I bumped to the pay wall when I went to the link you provided) somewhere?

You can find it at https://www.dropbox.com/s/ntzira8b9hxi3py/icwl67-paper.pdf?dl=0

As a student who is currently enrolled in two flipped classrooms, here's my input.
Your students may require extra motivation to complete the flipped classroom work, whether that motivation comes from tests or quizzes is up to you. Flipped classrooms are much more difficult in the sciences due to the fact that many examples may be needed and there may be exceptions to some rules (like the exceptions to the octet rule, which I was never taught),but with enough class time to do shortened lectures it should be fine.
Some students just passively absorb information while others have to work for it, and from experience, those who passively learn have the hardest time adjusting.
Good luck!


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Leniency in journals' paper structure "guidelines" (required sections and divisions)
I have observed in the "author guidelines" of journals, that results and discussion may be requested as

distinct "results" and "discussion" sections,
or as combined "results & discussions".

In particular, more qualitative observation based topics tend to prefer the latter, while direct quantitative measures that may be the dominant tool in the field may be the impetuses of choosing distinct sections.
Has anyone had any experience with journals and just how rigid they may be when it comes to the hierarchical distinction/formatting of results and discussion sections?
My thoughts are that a journal may be more willing to separate the sections than to combine. But I am trying to gauge whether it will even be worth approaching the journal to inquire whether they would consider a manuscript with a combined "Results & Discussion" sections.

Which field? I've never found an author guideline specifying section titles.

@MassimoOrtolano I am working on a paper that is to provide a translational product to a surgical/clinical audience from a non-medical field. Here is a snippet from a possible target journal that I believe is rather explicit in it's request:  The text of a Research Article should be organized as follows: Title page, Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgments, References, Tables, and Figure legends.

I hate it when a journal decides to stretch you on a Procrustean bed of arbitrary structure, since many research projects simply do not fit on such.  Some really want you to fit their arbitrary structure, while others will bend, and it's not really possible to know which is which and how much flexibility you've for unless you talk to an editor.
That said, I've often found that with a little bit of mental gymnastics in how you approach "results and discussion" you can generally make things work.  Consider, for example, this decently-cited paper of mine, which didn't really fit the "intro - results - discussion - methods" format desired by the journal, since it was about a (fairly complex) method.  Well, if you think of the method as being the result, then we essentially shove the whole paper as we wanted to structure it into the "results & discussion" section, with our preferred structure as subsections.  The "methods" section then contains all of the boring details about protocols for the validation tests that we ran.
Bottom line: often a journal really means it about its structure requirements, but that actually constrains you less than you might think.

Thanks, I don't have access to the article from home, I will check it out from work tomorrow. Indeed I will also have an interesting challenge of choosing what belongs in either a methods or results section, but more perplexing, is the difficult way of describing images in a completely non quantitative way without turning to much into the discussion itself.

So, I received some suggestions from some colleagues who had some useful information that ultimately resolved my problem.  So for posterity, here's how my conundrum was resolved.

Look through the current issue (and work your way back) to determine
  the prevalence of the the scenario your seeking to resolve.
  Then follow up with the journal if your proof feels weak or insufficient.

In my case I found 3 examples spread out over 10 years.  Not a strong positive, but it at least has been approved in the past.  This may imply, however, that this was an exception granted special permission.  Since there's no way to figure this out, I decided that I wouldn't face the same level of reluctance from the editors if I contacted them with a question about what they would accept.  In fact, despite my expectation that they would be irritated having to address this question, they were kind and enthusiastic.
Guess with so many journals these days the competition between some is tight and they want your business.


text:
Is there an equivalent of the journals Science or Nature for engineering?
The journals Science and Nature seem like they are basically the flagship journals for most of the hard sciences, such as biology, physics, or chemistry.  Is there an equivalent high-caliber journal for general engineering?  For example, if somebody discovers a new algorithm that revolutionizes robotics (and is so profound that it might be of interest to mechanical engineers or computer engineers as well), is there an appropriate outlet for such a thing?

My immediate response to your question is: "I don't think so." As a counterexample, I get a lot of spam emails from garbage conferences and journals that seem to blend all types of engineering, without any apparent rhyme or reason.

My immediate response to your question is "God, I hope not."

While Nature and Science have high impact factors and are widely read, I would not call them "flagship" journals. That said, while your list of "hard sciences" are on topic at Nature and Science, so are soft sciences, medicine, and engineering. What make journals like Nature and Science so widely read, is that nearly everything is on topic and within their scope if it is "important" enough.

Science and Nature both claim to be universal in their scope, such that any field, including engineering, can have its top research published in them.
If you do a quick search in their archives, you will in fact find high-profile research from all sorts of engineering fields.  I think that Nature does tend to have less breadth and more biology focus.  Science, however, is quite broad.  For example, here are a few of the top articles that popped up when I searched for "engineering" in Science's archives:

Robotics in Remote and Hostile Environments
Environmental Engineering: Energy Value of Replacing Waste Disposal with Resource Recovery
Searching for a Better Thermal Battery

So the equivalent for Science and Nature in engineering is Science (and possibly Nature).  Whether that should be the case is a different question entirely, upon which there is ongoing debate.

you will in fact find high-profile research — This statement is arguably vacuous; research published in Science and Nature is "high-profile" because it's published in Science and Nature.  Top research in the fields I'm most familiar with is definitely not published in the tabloids.

For your example, perhaps they'd publish through a robotics journal, or an algorithms journal, or a control theory journal. If it is so profound that it could influence various fields, it would trickle from the individual focus of the project towards other fields over time. Individual specific fields do have their own "flagship journals", e.g. "Experiments in Fluids" for fluid mechanics. Perhaps you could use journal rankings across fields but there's no unilateral engineering journals I'm aware of, which I have ever read. I mean, Nature and Science do publish engineering-related research, there isn't a hard dividing line between science and engineering at that level.

I think the last sentence is the correct answer.

In the US, each branch of engineering has it's respective institute/organization. For instance:

Electrical: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers - IEEE
Mechanical: American Society of Mechanical Engineers - ASME

These are the ones I'm familiar with - there are others for other branches: civil, materials, computer, chemical, biomedical, nuclear, etc. Of course, the lines often get blurred between the branches.
Each of these publish a number of journals. As an electrical engineer, I recognize the clout of IEEE when looking at papers, reviewing someone's publications, etc.

The question is about journals, not societies.

@AnonymousPhysicist IEEE has a number of high-ranking journals associated with it, so the answer is partially useful. Partially, because not all IEEE journals are of high standing, but it's a relevant pointer which permits OP to pursue further.

I don't know of an IEEE journal that has comparable standards and prestige than Nature or Science.

I don't know of any EEs who give a flip about Nature or Science ...

@MadJack Those that are closer to applied physics (e.g., photonics) or material science (e.g., semiconductors) do care a lot. You'll see plenty of EE professors publishing in those journals in good departments.

I have seen a lot of engineering papers in "Nature Communications". Especially when backed up with heavy experimental results. Here are some examples of Fluid Mechanics and Micro-Robotics:
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v2/n4/full/ncomms1289.html
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/140128/ncomms4124/full/ncomms4124.html
Of course, your topic needs to be a real breakthrough.

The Science journal seems to also put out journals for individual disciplines, but only for some fields. For example, Robotics (http://www.sciencemag.org/journals/robotics) and Immunology (http://immunology.sciencemag.org/), amongst others. I believe that these have similar levels of prestige to the top journals in those fields, although perhaps not as much as Science itself.


text:
Tactful way to discuss an error in a published paper
I am currently working on my masters thesis in mathematical biology. The work I am doing extends previous work by introducing new biological findings that are relatively recent.
Initially the plan was to take the models in an early paper in the field, reproduce the results, and apply my extensions. But, after a fair bit of work I discovered an error in a model which was bad enough that I couldn't continue to use it as a basis for further work.
This paper is significant in the field (lots of citations, good journal, respected author etc, etc). The error I spotted does have a significant effect on some parts of the analysis. But, to be perfectly honest it's not exactly a world shaking discovery - the original purpose of the paper was to convince researchers in this field that certain mechanisms were plausible and shouldn't be over looked and it certainly did that.
Now, because I found this error, the path of my thesis has taken quite a turn. I've had to propose my own model, perform a similar analysis as the paper, and then apply my extension. In other words I've had to redo a non-negligible amount of the authors work in order to do my intended work.
Discussing the error is important for motivating the extra work I've done. How can I do this tactfully? What is fair to say, and what should I avoid saying? What kind of language should I use? Should I avoid mentioning it altogether?

Please can you edit into the question, your supervisor's answer to these questions when you asked them, as well as details on why that was insufficient?

@EnergyNumbers While I agree that OP should ask their advisor, this isn't just a student-to-advisor question.  Researchers can find themselves in this situation at any point in their career, possibly even before their advisors.

It matters what kind of mistake you are talking about. Is it a straight-out mathematical error in a proof or derivation? A coding error? A statistical mistake?A silly modeling assumption?
You can finesse the silly modeling assumption issue by simply pointing out the difference in assumptions and how it leads to a difference in results. Not so easy to finesse the issue of an outright mistake.
But in any case, I personally think the way to proceed is always to openly contact the authors in question and discuss with them first. I've done this several times and have always been glad I did.

The mistake is a modelling assumption. They propose several models (only analysing two in depth) - in the first model they correctly assume a certain quantity is conserved, in the next model (one that they analyse) they modify the first model by adding in an extra term that means the quantity is definitely not conserved. The result is that a whole new equation needs to be adding in to account for this. I'm not sure this is finesse-able

@EnergyNumbers I've had a discussion about this with my supervisor, not one in depth, but that's on the cards as I get closer to a final write up. The main reason for posing this question is because there didn't seem to be an equivalent question already on this site - I thought I would pose it here for posterity

Use neutral and respectful language, but don't beat about the bush. If the model is wrong, say so. And remember to attack the idea, not the person.
Perhaps say something like:
"This work determined that the while the assumption that [quantity] is conserved is correct in the simpler case of model 1, this does not appear to be correct for the more complex case presented in model 2. This was established by [details of work that lead you to this conclusion]. It was instead found that the quantity is determined by [formula]. Model 2 therefore needs to be amended to [something]."
(I'm not sure if I've quite met all the requirements I've listed, but hopefully it'll give you something to go on.)

When describing papers in general, when your results conflict with the one in another paper. You may do the following.

State the positive outcomes of the paper (that is not in contradiction)
State the matter that contradicts with your belief and how so.
Show how your results defend your belief.

Note that your aim is to defend your theory and not to attack the previously stated one.

Also, one can also position his theory not as correction of an error, but an extension of the original one, discussion for cases that were not throughout investigated before etc.  There is nothing rude about pointing out that other model assumptions may work better in certain scenarios.

I would add an advice to the reader: When there is "I like that ..., but I think that ...", do not even listen the first part, it's irrelevant. /sarcasm


text:
How to handle student plagiarism appropriately?
I am nearing the end of teaching a course for first year students with a fellow student.
We assigned a paper and 2 students have submitted almost identical papers. The policy is that if a student is caught they get a 0 and possible legal action on a case-by-case basis governed by department heads.
I know that one of these students is a 4.0 students and it seems odd that she would either share or copy her paper from another student. I'll refer to her as student A. Student B's paper is about a 90% copy and normally cases where this happened it's evident that the students are friends and socialize during classes. I have never seen Student A and B talk to one another and I find it hard to believe student A would plagiarize off of another student.
I do not want to have to fail both students if only 1 copied off the other without the other's knowledge. How can I appropriately handle the situation without seeming like there is a favoritism towards student A? Student B has been on the lower end of the class grade wise but is still a passing student.

Or maybe the person got a 4.0 because she has a huge network of friends to help her cheat. I actually used to know such people who would basically abuse their "popularity" to get the smart people to help. Fortunately I think they got caught eventually.

You have no proof of who did what. I personally believe someone stole something from someone else. I'd say you should demand a simultaneous meeting with both of them after you've objectively determined the incredible odd's against such similarities. At the very least, you will be enlightening both as to what the other may have done. You could tell them you're informing other professors to be on the lookout.

Usually, the way to handle this is to ask both students to come in at the same time. And then in separate rooms, ask them to articulate one of the key points of the essay. It's usually simple to determine who wrote the paper and understood the ideas and who merely copied the text.
However, the key issue doesn't seem to be just whether B copied from A, but whether:

A allowed B to copy the material willingly (perhaps for remuneration)
A allowed it to be copied by B accidentally or through neglect (e.g., A left a draft on a public computer); or,
B copied it by malicious action  (B hacked into A's computer).

(There is a fourth possibility: that both B and A used source C and both are plagiarists.)
It would be unfair to punish just B and let A go without proving A's innocence or culpability.
That all being said, untangling this is non-trivial and at this point, I'd declare it above my pay grade and send it up the chain of command to the university committee responsible for student ethics and misconduct (via the instructor on record if you're a teaching assistant).

You go to whoever in your department is responsible for this kind of thing, explain the situation to them and do as they advise. This is a serious matter and you need to be acting in accordance with your department and university's policies, not on the well-meant advice of strangers on the internet.

Speaking as a student lab instructor who recently handled a similar situation, this is the general decision-making process I go through, with concrete examples from the incident with which I was involved.

Determine if any school policy constrains your actions.  For example, in my case it is required that even suspected cases be turned over to the academic misconduct people.  This centralised mechanism allows the school to accurately track students who offend in multiple courses, and it offers additional disciplinary options that aren't available to the instructor (e.g. the incident may be noted on all transcripts the student requests).
If the above step doesn't prevent you from doing so, document the facts of the offence.  This may require you to do additional research (e.g. checking the assignment against an online plagiarism detection service), depending on the particulars of the assignment.  In my case, the papers were submitted electronically, and I was able to prove that Student A had turned his in barely prior to the posted deadline, but Student B had turned his in several hours late.
Should the evidence be insufficient to determine who has what level of culpability, it may be necessary to interview the students.  This is tricky, because an instructor doesn't have the same powers as the police.  For example, depending on jurisdiction, you likely cannot force them to show you their inboxes, or restrict them from communicating with one another before you interview them.  I strongly recommend taking steps to protect yourself against the possibility that the student will accuse you of extortion (i.e. they claim you said "I won't report this if you give me money/favours/etc.").  You may be allowed, depending on privacy laws, to inform an authority in your department, or to record the conversation.  In my case, I informed the professor who taught the associated lectures, and he conducted the interview via email, so neither of us was never alone with the student and there was a written record of the discussion.
Use your findings to determine what likely happened.  Do your best, just like you would when marking the assignment normally, to keep the students' identities at arm's length.  That is, don't presume that since Student B is a poorer student, Student A did the work and he copied it.  In my case, I concluded that there was no evidence of collaboration before the deadline, and that Student A was likely under the impression that he was free to discuss it with Student B (discussion after an assignment being commonplace and tolerated here, even to the point of emailing work to another student), but Student B misrepresented the work as his own.  Student B did not contest this in his email response.
If there is an office to handle these things at your school, present them with your evidence and, if appropriate, a recommendation.  If not, determine what consequences to impose.  In borderline cases, it may be appropriate to issue a warning; in clear-cut cases, it can vary quite a bit depending on both the severity of the offence and the local academic culture, from taking a zero on the assignment to failing the course to expulsion.  In my case, the assignment was heavily weighted and a zero on it caused Student B to fail the course.

In general, the first priority is to play by the rules of your school and the laws of your jurisdiction.

So you're a student and not faculty?  That can be tough to deal with because you lack authority, both in the faculty's and the students' eyes.  I'd advise you to get advice from some faculty member in the department.  It'll help to involve them early if it ends up going to some sort of hearing.
One tactic in this situation is to send an email out to the class advising them that you caught people cheating off each other on this assignment.  If they turn themselves into you you'll go easy on them.  Sometimes it works and you'll have an easier time of it with this route.

I have thought about talking to a faculty member because like you said, I lack authority. My issue is that I believe (90% sure) that student A is not at fault. I don't have a bias towards student A but I don't want to see someone having possible legal action taken against them for something they did. I have sent out an email (less than 12 hours ago) stating that I fear someone may have copied someone else paper and that I can only help them if they identify themselves.

You should definitely talk to whatever faculty member acts as your boss with regards to this teaching job and get their advice on what to do.

This email sounds like a bad idea to me. You should not (either implicitly or explicitly) pressure a possibly innocent student into "confessing" with the offer of a more lenient sentence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plea_bargaining_in_the_United_States#Controversy

@o.m. while we do not do it over email, that is essentially how our policy works: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20841/is-it-ethical-acceptable-to-give-a-lighter-penalty-to-students-who-admit-to-chea/20851#20851

Doing it consistently by policy is one thing, but for the most junior possible teacher (a student) to propose a plea-bargain on their own authority, when they have little or no discretion as to punishment since it's up to the department head, would I think be unwise. Don't make an offer you can't stick to!

@Memj, believing that student A is not at fault is having a bias towards them

Without talking to both students, you can't be sure of anything.  The first step in a plagiarism case is to talk with the student.  How would Student B have obtained Student A's paper before the paper was due, without her cooperation?  I think the best strategy is to talk with both students, get whatever information you can, give the department chair your best estimate of the situation and let him or her handle it.

No, when you're an extremely junior member of the department (a student teaching a course), the first step is to talk to the senior person in the department who is responsible for student conduct.

It's not clear whether the poster is the teacher-of-record. If she records grades in the course, she's responsible for the students, and from her comment "normally cases where this happened" suggests to me that this is not her first time teaching the course.  Of course she can talk about the situation to a more senior faculty member, or a faculty member or dean designated to deal with plagiarism (a function I fulfilled at my college), but I still would recommend that the teacher -- and she is the teacher, it seems to me -- talk with her students before passing them on to a higher authority.

Discussing the matter with a senior colleague is in no way "passing [the students] on to a higher authority."

Agreed.  No problem at all with having a conversation with a faculty member/department chair before speaking with the students.

But big problem talking to the students before finding out what you're supposed to be doing! Your answer claims that the first step is to talk to the students: this is simply incorrect.

I think we interpret the OP's post a little differently.  It seems to me that she knows what the policy is and what she should do (she should fail both students) and it's not her first time dealing with the issue.  Her dilemma is that she doesn't believe Student A would cheat, so she doesn't want to fail her.  The only way she can get a sense of that is by talking to both students.  You're assuming she doesn't know what to do at all, so yes, in that case, she should talk to her supervisor.  I don't think we're disagreeing.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

You seem to believe that A is innocent and you seem afraid that the university rules will punish her anyway.
Do you have faith in the fairness of university rules and their fair application? If so, talk to your professor. If not, ask yourself if you're at the right university ...

Some universities have codes of conduct to prevent fishing of students who are suspected of cheating. Talk to the Head of Department or a senior professor. Do not do anything else.

First you need to identify if the work is acceptable, such as is it referenced correctly.
Second, see if you can show signs of collusion or  plagiarism based on the universities definition.
Third you can ask the student to defend the work by agreeing to an oral exam, there is a technical term for this but I can't remember.

You should talk with the people responsible for the plagiarism policy at your university and ask how to handle the case instead of asking for advice on the internet. It is very important to follow the rules. For example, at some university where I previously was, there was a rule that a professor should meet with each student A and B separately. If this rule was not followed, then the case of plagiarism may be dropped.

An advice I have to is check if Student A uploaded her document to a shared resource of some sort. For example, if the university has a shared network drive for students, it's entirely possible student B accessed this somehow. Just ask how she stored the document and take steps in that direction.
While a undergrad at college I noticed lecturers and students alike tend to not protect their digital usage. I known a teacher who uploaded all the homework solution to a website and simply unlinked them. Basically you had to change the url from homework_solution_1.html to homework_solution_2.html and you'd see the solution well in advance.
Also at my previous job, I noticed this co-worker seemed to have similar and/or exact code as someone else well in advanced. I finally figured out that this co-worker would wait until someone uploaded their code for the day then start picking it out. This co-worker was grossly incompetent otherwise and even after bringing it up to the management they kept this person on.
So digital protection is a must anywhere.