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How often should I review my notes?
Many years ago I was studying with the Open University. During that time I bought a revision aid. The basic principle was that you wrote out all you knew about a topic immediately after learning it. The note pages were marked so that they could be referenced against a sort of calendar. The idea was that you read through your notes something like the next day, again a week later and again something like 4 weeks later.
I recall that the thinking was that the frequency set coincided with the way your brain moves stuff from short- to long-term memory.
I'm just about to start studying again and I wondered if anyone might know what the frequency for reviewing one's notes might have been.

Are you asking about what is a good revision frequency from a scientific perspective? Or are you asking about what revision history was used in the particular software that you used to use? If its about software, I imagine it would be important to know what the software was called.

I'm really asking about what a good revision frequency might be. As I said, I'm about to start studying again and would like to give myself the best chance of making a decent fist of it.

Although this question is about Academia and learning, Your question seems opinion-based to me. Learning habits differs from one to another. Some people learn fast, some other need more frequent revisions. There is no solid advice here.

Are you looking for an answer based on personal experience, or research with supporting citation? If you're mainly interested in the latter, you should [edit] the question to say so, and also add the [tag:reference-request] tag.

@ff524, I'm looking for an answer based on personal experience. As I've said, I'm about to start studying again and am looking for a as much of a leg up as possible.

There are several algorithms for scheduled repetition of information on flash cards. It's possible that the software you liked uses one of these. This Wikipedia article on spaced repetiton discusses Pimsleur's graduated-interval recall and Leitner system, among others. This isn't the easiest topic to search for, but the Wikipedia article calls it "spaced repetition", and includes a list of alternative names. That should help you do further research.


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Should I challenge my professor who thinks he's always right?
One of my professors has been in the IT development fields for over 40 years. He thinks he is up-to-date with all the latest research and technology. But I believe he's not.
The problem is - he hates when a student (like me) dares to point out his mistakes or flaws in reasoning. Or when a student suggests a better (modern) solution to a problem.
How to deal with such a situation - should I keep challenging him or keep quiet until the end of semester? I don't want to lose grades (he's been known to give lower grades to students who asked him too many questions he wasn't able to properly answer).

Perhaps your professor is not against you pointing out his mistakes, but is against you pointing out his mistakes in public.  He might take it as a sign of disrespect.  You might want to communicate with him in private so that he doesn't lose face.  (Although I personally have no problem with students pointing out my mistakes in public; in fact, I encourage them to do so.)

Usually I don't care about examples, but this question would be far more interesting with examples. As a matter of fact, I have hear about something similar wrt a boss being wrong and the employee telling the story is who was actually wrong...

What is the whole point, when you know you are at the losing end ?

Don't challenge the person -- that is confrontational, and generally will not lead to a productive outcome. If you believe there is a more "modern"/better alternative, then you could just ask about it in a way that lets him do his job -- instruct with what he knows. But be careful, you might just get tasked with "Please research a qualitative comparison of the two solutions, and come prepared to present to the class at the next meeting".

A lot of professors are annoyed by different perspectives not because they don't appreciate them in general but that they have an agenda to get through in class. You might find if you talk to him outside of class, he is different because he is not on the clock.

The type you represent is one I hate most during a class. And I guess I'm not the only one. (As others said, you could always try to talk with him after the class is over. If he does not care or just not open to your opinion, leave him be.)

Two factors that have not yet been addressed by any of the answers to this question: (1) A professor may give 'glib' answers that are technically not 'correct' from an in-depth perspective, because they intentionally want to keep things simple for undergraduates. (2) The best time to challenge the views of an individual professor is when you yourself are a professor and your challenge is i)rigorous; ii)well substantiated; and iii)unambiguous. There is a hierarchy within academia that pretty much guarantees that your views will carry little to no credibility until you complete your credentials.

@shwetaG: never argue with a professor — This is one of the few times I wish I could down-vote comments; like many other professors, I actually prefer students to tell me when I screw up.

@JeffE: It's not a problem for a student to question a professor. However, it is a problem if a discussion becomes a heated argument or a fight.

Show a bit of humility in your approach and consider the possibility and perhaps probability that he or she is right in the light of longer experience in the field.  By all means ask why and explain your reasoning, but do it tactfully.

You're asking for advice on how to handle a situation without stating what your goal is. Is your goal to change the professor's behaviour? Convince him you're right? Graduate on time? Don't make us guess what your goal is; if you want advice on how to achieve a goal, state the goal.

When I was still in school, and I found mistakes in assignments/tests/exams, I would do it with the mistake in place, then do it again with the correction but as a separate answer (box it or something). Also I tend to ignore minor mistakes profs make during class, but if they do make bigger ones, I wouldn't go "Sir you're wrong..." I would try to make it look like I'm asking a question and he will figure it out... If it's a matter of opinion (which seems to be the case for you), the prof is always right :P

I can share an experience from college. I went to a school of natural resources. My environmental issues class teacher thought I/we were crazy when I pointed out we should use hemp fibers to make paper and other material. I pointed out that his own teachings said to be open to new ideas. This was back in the early 90's. That same semester Job Strobel, a tobacco farmer in Southern Ontario, was granted one of the first licenses to grow hemp for fiber. We plastered my teachers door with the news article. He apologized for calling us crazy next class. :) Depends on how you approach it i suppose.

It depends. When I was undergrad, I greatly appreciated the professors that could admit when they were wrong (since everyone, sooner or later, is). "Is that 2+2 really 5?" would suffice for them. But I also had one prof that I used to argue with mercilessly, because he was utterly unqualified for the subject, and spreading a bunch of factual misinformation. Example interaction: "That theorem seems wrong. If you substitute 0 for that x, you're getting 1=2." - "The theorem must be correct, the book says so." I had background in the subject, and considered it a duty to other students who did not.

Then again, it was not in US, I had a considerable reputation with the other faculty, and he knew he could not take revenge upon my grades without risking to expose his own deficiency as a professor. In general, though, a competent professor can always fail you legitimately (by posing a question he knows you can't answer), so being confrontational is not usually a good idea. He was not a competent professor, and I couldn't work up any degree of respect for him, so confrontation it was. After a while, the class thanked me, recognising that they were learning more from me than from him.

In my experience, grade paranoia is usually misplaced. As long as you remain civil and are right, there is no issue. But then, that's in CS in Germany; I've been told that student-professor dynamics are entirely different in other fields and even worse in other cultures (e.g. India).

I love it how almost everybody here, and especially @JeffE, think that because they have the right attitude and a well-functioning environment, it's the same for everybody. Some of us come from countries with not-best educational system. We can't get out (cost, family values, cost), and we have to finish because that's the best there is and the only thing we can do to help our future. I saw an old, outdated professor getting all the funding over younger, eager, good professors, just because the the old important people with money still remembered the old professor from old times.

@penelope: There's always a way to deal with these situations. If you're afraid of a direct challenge, phrase it as a question. "Why is it X? Can't we do Y instead?" or so on.

@penelope I can tell you that it's like there EVERYWHERE. Except for geniuses, who would still need some luck finding a good mentor to bring him/her up, seniority plays a big role. Recent generations (including mine) have been brought up to think that being right is the most important thing, I would like to disagree (so does this guy: http://www.ted.com/talks/ric_elias.html). Regarding your example of older prof getting funding, maybe younger people should consider building their own network of friends in order to surpass their predecessors? Yes the old prof had to work to make connections too

@Populus And building new connections would be grand if there would actually exist a wide-spread practice of funding from external (e.g. non-government) sources. It would work if the funding committees were  not made of same, inert people as years ago, who still remember a name from years ago. If the uni was not pressed to state an old name or risk their finances. Mind you, he's getting by nicely these last few years, but with very "modern" and unconventional funding schemes. I'm not saying he'll not make a name for himself in time, but it will take a (very) long time due to system inertia.

Not enough points to answer, but after years of questioning profs I developed a technique: "So, it seems to me like we could use x for this. Would that functionally be the same? Could it be better? Would it be worse?"
From that, there are four basic answers he can give: "Yes", "No", "I'll get back to you on that", or "This is not relevant." If you feel he does not give a sufficient answer when saying "No," discuss it with him in private.
As far as grades are concerned, you are in college. You can appeal always appeal to a higher power if you think you are being mistreated.

One more thing: always ask your question from the position that you are wrong, you just don't know why yet. This will save you a lot of pain when you are wrong, and it forces you to keep an open mind. If you start with the assumption you are right, it is far harder to understand the explanation as to why your way might not be best.

I can tell you from personal experience it's probably best not to argue. I had an almost identical issue my senior year in college. I was given advice by my grandmother in that she said, "he (the professor / head of IT) is so tenure in his ways and beliefs, you are not going to change him, so don't bother." This is probably true in your case as well. There are always forums like this one to 'debate'; doing so with a professor may not have a favorable outcome.

@penelope while I agree with you that there are some real problems wih cliques in academia I find your initial comment needlessly confrontational (in particular, your digs about age and 'family values'). I should also point out that shwetaG is the one who made a blanket statement which contradicts the statements of a significant number of people (see for example here: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/14291/how-should-students-react-to-inaccuracies-in-professors-teaching-without-causin/14292#14292).

It seems to me that both of you are assuming that because you have the wrong attitude and/or a poorly functioning environment everybody else must as well. The evidence rather suggests that professors who accept students who question them are not uncommon (of course, I accept that such folks are probably over represented on this site). Some anecdata: I have found such (excellent) teachers IRL both as a student in India and in the US.

You are probably suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect. It's okay, many students suffer from it.

When teaching a subject matter that involves critical thinking and logical reasoning, a good teacher can lead her students to a problem, explain it and equip them with all necessary facts and logical tools to solve the problem themselves.  Consider this when talking about these issues with your instructor.

Short answer: Probably not.
As you pointed out, you may lose out on grades by challenging this professor. A larger problem, in my opinion, is when you (the student) approach the class with an attitude of discovering the professor's many mistakes. With this attitude, you also lose out on the opportunity to learn from his expertise. While this particular professor may not be as modern as you would like, it does not mean you cannot learn from him!
Keep quiet until the end of the semester, except when you have a valid question. And don't  approach intending to prove him wrong; approach intending to find out how you can learn from what he knows.  Ask questions because you want to learn, not because you want to prove the professor wrong. If you believe you know a better solution, it might be appropriate to ask "Would this solution also work? If not, why not?" Ask, don't tell. Your professor is human too, and most of us have a hard time always responding graciously to a smarty-pants student who thinks they know more than we do!

I guess you're right; it's not worth trying to prove your point because no matter what (I should assume) a professor wants me to succeed.

The professor probably doesn't give a damn about your grades.  They're your grades and he has other students that, if you start messing up their grades, will be a different story.  If you think he's wrong then there's no need to wait but "Ask, don't tell" is a good policy to follow up after the lecture/lesson (an email with references to books or good sources and ask why he disagrees with that source.)

It worth 100 upvotes. Great.

Furthermore, assume you are right. Then what's the big deal? Just sit there and be right.

@JonathanLandrum: The big deal is, all the other students are learning wrong. In some situations, "Sit there and be right" is safe, but selfish and unethical choice. (I wrote a specific example of this in the question comments.)

@JonathanLandrum that defeats the purpose of education.

@Amadan I think those occasions are few. I mean, if the instructor is writing "2 + 2 = apple" on the board, by all means, interject. But it could just be a case of the student not actually understanding the subject fully. Or it could be the instructor wants to teach it this way first, and then show the "correct" way next. I can think of numerous examples of this in Chemistry, where students are first taught about double bonds, for example, and later taught that there is really no such thing as a double bond.

@user13107 see my previous comment.

@JonathanLandrum you raise an interesting point about teaching the wrong way first.

+1 @Amadan same reason I point out mistakes in material.

@JonathanLandrum I had the opportunity to be seated on third-world schools and unfortunately lot of what is taught are SIMPLY wrong, perhaps partly due to brain drain -> therefore lack of good professors :(

Have you ever seen a skit on The Chapelle Show called, "When keeping it real goes wrong"?
Trust me when I tell you that every class in every semester has a student that thinks he or she knows it all.
It can be hard to stand in front of a class and have all the answers. Sometimes when I've stood up there and say something, I've felt rushed to give an answer so I don't look stupid, and it just came out all wrong so I looked (or felt) even more stupid. Then I just walk around for two days realizing how stupid I am.
Even the best professors can be wrong, but the better ones will at least correct themselves in the next class or send out an email explaining something further.
The best way to handle the professor isn't necessarily to try and show them up in class, but to either go to office hours and ask for clarification. If you still think they are wrong, explain where you found the answer and show them.
If its worth the time to engage them at all, then that can be best way to do it. If they don't respond well in that situation, then its not worth your time and you should just keep quiet and focus on your grade.
Believe me, as an undergraduate I've battled many worthless TAs only to have the head of their department say that they have to back up the TA because that's just how its done.
When I got to graduate school, it was a different ballgame and I really put a professor through the ringer with the department when she tried to give me a bad grade because she was incompetent. But when I did that, I slowly went up the chain, documented every conversation and interaction, highlighted the syllabus, noted changes she made mid-semester to the syllabus, and then made a formal complaint. In turn, the professor was reprimanded by both the head of faculty and head of graduate studies, and my grade was fixed. But that was a serious slog to get through.

Never challenge a lecturer. Ask. If it's something that isn't directly related to PRECISELY the point they're currently teaching, ask during office hours rather than in front of the whole class.
Praise in public, criticize in private -- and criticize by asking "would this have been another answer, and if so why is the one you showed us better", rather than by acccusing.
Quoting Dean Inge: "There are two kinds of fool. One says 'This is old, and therefore good.' The other says 'This is new, and therefore better.'" Before demonstrating yourself to be the latter type, politely make sure you understand what was actually being taught and why. You may have completely missed the point he was making.
(Note that this is just as true when working with a boss, or even when you're the boss. Start with a discussion rather than assuming one or the other side is inherently true and that there must be a winner or loser. In the end, the boss does have the final say, because they have to consider more than just the technical merits of that one point, but you're a lot more likely to have a pleasant and productive experience if you try to work with people rather than against them.)
One more thought: "who thinks he's always right" is more of a comment about your attitude than about that of the instructor. Of COURSE he thinks what he's teaching is correct, or he wouldn't be teaching it. That doesn't mean he can't be wrong, but it does mean you need to respectfully justify your objection if you want it (and yourself) to be taken seriously. And unless the error is a simple typo/"thinko", that's likely to take more time than should be sliced out of most lectures. Talk to him afterward. He can always announce a correction at the next lecture if you convince him that one is needed. And if you can't convince him, ask yourself why not rather than assuming he's just being an ass.

IF it's an outright mistake, certainly. But that isn't how the question was phrased. And even then, it should be phrased as a question, because the odds are at least as great that the error is the student's rather than the instructors. Hopefully more so, if the instructor is at all competent.

When facts clash, I assume one of the following is true: a) I am wrong, let me learn why; b) The other is wrong, let me confirm that; c) There is a misunderstanding, let's clarify. It is not about winning or losing; it is about detecting which of these is true, and what insight one can achieve in cases a and c (or learning what one can safely ignore, in case b).

Right. But "challenge" is the wrong word for any of those. Challenge is explicitly confrontational, especially given the characterization of the professor stated at the beginning. I say again: Don't challenge. ASK. It accomplishes all the same (legitimate) goals without pitching an emotional grenade into the conversation. And unless you think he has MISSPOKEN, and the accurate statement is life-and-health critical, take it offline rather than disrupting the whole classroom and the whole flow of his presentation. Grant him the dignity of letting him (appear to) correct himself, if needed.

I agree with "don't challenge, ask" thing. About disruption, I'll often factor in the size of the class - I'd have no compunction in speaking in a class of 10, but I'd only react to big things in class of 200. However, "dignity"... screw dignity. Nobody is infallible, and people who try to appear infallible instantly lose my respect. I'm fully with @BenCrowell: letting falsehoods and errors slide is a bigger obstacle to education than a quick "Shouldn't that be a 4? - Oh, right you are!".

"Shouldn't that be a 4" -- Certainly; if it's a typo, it should be corrected immediately. "Shouldn't you use an entirely different approach" -- take arguments over the content of the class offline UNLESS it is very specifically being run in seminar/socratic mode -- in which case the instructor will generally have said right up front that he welcomes questions even if they diverge from the lesson plan. If you have to ask the question, you know the answer.

@keshlam: Okay, a non-typo example (~1990, high school): "Output peripherals include card punchers, printers, plotters... Monitors? I guess, but that's a passing fad. They're useless, you have to copy everything by hand before it disappears. That won't last long before people realise how stupid it is to pay all that money just to have to use their pen again. Don't bother with monitors in the test." (much more relevant to OP's question, I suppose, than the maths example)

One can always find exceptions; there are bad instructors out there. However, those few individuals are incurable, and interrupting the class to argue with them is more likely to prevent anyone learning what they can teach than to improve overall learning. If you can't work with the teacher rather than against them, drop the class and tell the department head why, and let them try to find a better instructor. Don't try to take over teaching the class; that isn't your role or your responsibility or something you can actually do effectively from a student's seat.

... He's entitled to his stupid opinion, the whole class already knows it's a stupid opinion, and from the student's point of view all that's immediately important is that that his opinion will not be on the test.

Let me put it like this, he is the teacher and you are the student. Ask yourself if the things he is wrong about, are really worth mentioning. If not, then it is probably best you keep quiet, and don't compromise your grades. There are always going to be people like him. If you keep trying to challenge him, you may very well become a 'right' fighter yourself, like him.

...and as a student, it is your job to challenge every aspect of the material presented, rather than taking your professor's word for everything.

In class is not necessarily the right time or place to challenge the professor, though. This is especially true if doing so will confuse other students further.

@RobVolgman Sometimes this is the case, but I find it is more often the case that the professor getting it wrong is confusing. People are left trying to work out how something works when it doesn't.

It depends on whether this teacher is dangerously wrong or not.
If his teaching the wrong things to everyone then he needs to be challenged. Challenging him in class won't help. Talk to him in his comfort zone and find out what you can. If he is genuinely a bad teacher, you need to find your campus support network and work out how to escalate the problem.
But in this case it sounds like he is a good teacher, trying to get through a lesson as others have said, but not necessarily completely up-to-date or good at putting down smart-arses.
In this case, learn what you can, he might have old ideas that are really great! When you can teach his class, critique it.

This depends a lot on the country and university specifics. However during my studies once happened for me to observe students replacing professor they deemed it is not competent enough for the particular course.
The student group should apply to university management asking to replace the teacher as not good enough. Of course, such application must list multiple factual errors in presented material, uncovered topics that you consider important for the subject, examples of undelivered information that you think would be highly relevant to the given lecture and the like. Significant number of students should apply so it would be difficult just to represent this as a personal conflict.
If the teaching person is not a head of laboratory / department but instead is under supervision of another competent professor, you may also talk to his supervisor. Some universities concentrate on research so deeply that teaching may be delegated to somebody more junior and less experienced.
If you cannot find enough arguments or supporters for this procedure, the professor is actually competent ...

Consider the situation as something like you're going to paint an abstract image - you're free to sketch whatever you can imagine but there has to be a meaning or purpose for what you're doing. The point is this: your professor is probably unaware of what you consider as "flaw" in dealing with his students, as such, serving as his "shadow" could make him realize such thing. But if he is aware, then the problem is not to think about the ways to harmoniously deal with him; rather, you should adjust with the kind of classroom atmosphere that he wants.
It's indeed "abstract" because no one else really knows the best way to have the kind of learning environment or teacher that you want other than you...

It's his job to instill to his students he knows everything so they will listen and follow him. All you would be doing is damaging what he is trying to build with his students.
It won't go well for you, nor offer you anything positive in the course and most likely harm your grades.  If you know more then most, then instead of using it to attack your teacher, do something that will equally give you what I believe you do want from the teacher -- "His respect, & knowing you are very knowledgeable" -- by offering assistance to other students who do need help.
This way you get to show your intelligence in the field, your teacher will love the help in class with most teachers already being spread thin, and he will most likely shine on your grades better. Even if "YOU" do make a mistake, because of the effort at assisting others, he may overlook it when grading.

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Is it best to avoid all interactions with disreputable or predatory conferences?
Potentially predatory publishers and journals (as listed on Beall’s list here) are springing up more and more often, but they do not always stick to journals and publishing articles. Some host conferences, workshops, or other events with reputable chairs and directors.
If the publishing agency behind a conference is fishy or believed to be predatory, but the conference it hosts is chaired by reputable names, is it still best to avoid the conference?
Has anyone had experience going to a conference or workshop like this?

Re: conference it hosts is chaired by reputable names : note that one of Beall's possible criteria for listing a publisher as predatory is "includes scholars on an editorial board without their
knowledge or permission" (or, includes scholars on conference committee without same). Do these "reputable names" mention this conference on their own web pages? Are you sure they know they are listed as chairs?

I have emailed one of the chairs asking a question about the conference, so I am waiting for a reply. I've done a bit of googling and it doesn't seem like there are any references to the conference on either chair's professional website. It is definitely not looking bright!

Update: I have emailed both chairs now, still awaiting a reply.

There's a rather vivid write-up from an attendee of an OMICS conference at: http://scholarlyoa.com/2013/09/12/conference-attendee-to-omics-i-want-out/#more-2225. Obviously, this experience might not be repeated at other conferences, but it gives an idea of how things might go.

Very interesting write-up: thank you for that.
Update: No response from either chair...

Publishing in predatory journals looks bad on your resume.  It suggests that your work was not good enough to publish in a respected journal/conference, and, frankly, you're better off not publishing the work.

Why would you spend your time and money to attend one when there is no shortage of good, legitimate conferences?  Your time is valuable.  Stay away from anything that you even suspect might not be first-rate.

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How can I get sufficient guidance from an advisor who's always travelling?
How can I get the most out of my advisor's knowledge if s/he's always travelling and out of office?
We communicate by email, but I find it uncomfortable as I am new to the field I am working in and sometimes questions/answers are not very clear.

Skype / Hangout? You can share the screen which is useful to show doodles live.

@Zenon Thanks, I am aware of these technologies. I understand my question is both wide and narrow enough but I meant strategies more than technology especially that his time is limited as he is both a research and works at a company and is always attending conferences. So it is more about strategies to make the most of his time and knowledge.

Not a good answer, but: work hard to use email more effectively. One of its virtues is that it allows asynchronicity, so your advisor's hectic schedule need not be such an obstacle. But your own careful, well-thought-out questions, and follow-ups for clarification, become more important. I realize sometimes it's the very vagueness of an issue that is the problem, but/and one can/must work to capture sufficient specifics to communicate in useful language ... rather than "uh, well, I'm confused, ..."

Find other students, postdocs, or faculty who can help you.

Some possibilities:

Consistently-scheduled discussion-by-video (Skype, Google Hangout, whatever). Treat these as you would any meeting: send a good agenda in advance.
Collaborative workspaces, e.g. a Google doc where you and your advisor can leave comments to get issues resolved
A bug tracker, even if that's an idiom both you and your advisor understand
Someone else deputized to triage and help you over simpler problems, so that your advisor knows that whatever reaches them is important and/or troublesome

The goals here are to ensure that you get what you need as conveniently as possible for your advisor and as quickly as possible for you.

I had some success via sharing a git repository with the LaTeX source to the thesis-in-progress, with a branch in which I added commits for my suggestions to be cherry picked or not by the advisee). Students recorded daily (or so) progress reports in a wiki, which I looked over from time to time.
In a time previous to git, we interacted via email (I printed out a copy, and sent a detailed email with suggestions).
The above requires more or less independent work by the student, and is hard on discussing alternative courses of action, or techniques to apply, brainstorming, whatever. So this works best when the thesis work is nearly done.
Note that someone who is permanently on the move probably has their hands full with both the job to be done at the current location (if you the superstar invited for a week, they'll fill your agenda to the brim to make the most of the visit, and invite you to all sort of social activities "so you don't get bored" and to show off with the visiting dignitary), handling domestic issues far from home, and assorted travel-related activities. I.e., they will have precious little time available to guide advisees, and thus will probably make terrible advisors.


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How can I obtain the necessary quantitative knowledge for admission to a masters in business analytics?
I intend to pursue a masters in business analytics in the United States. However, since this is a highly quantitative program, I doubt I will stand a chance to be admitted given that my undergraduate degree is in accountancy.
What are the options available for me to obtain the requisite quantitative knowledge? I think the Quantitative Studies for Finance program offered by Columbia University would be suitable but it is quite pricey.
Are there similar programs in other universities or alternative modes of study that can give me sufficient quantitative background to apply for grad school?

I don't think a Quantitative Finance program would be ideal preparation, given your undergraduate degree in Accounting.  It's overkill, meaning you'd spend a lot of time (and money) to learn things that you won't need or apply to Business Analytics and NC State.
Instead, you could assemble the necessary knowledge and skills though a series of undergraduate courses, and even some on-line MOOC courses.  The basics: single and multivariate calculus, linear algebra, probability and statistics (based on calculus), a basic programming course (one of Python, Java, etc.), a mathematical programming course (MatLab, Mathematica, R, or Python + NumPy + SciKit).  To this base you could optionally add one of the following: Data Science MOOC, a Decision Science MOOC, a Business Process Management or Total Quality Management MOOC, or even a Data Visualization MOOC.  These MOOC courses will give you some knowledge of how the basic knowledge is applied to business analytic problems.

I did think of going the MOOC route. But the NC State and other university require courses taken for credit. So, that rules out MOOC courses, doesn't it?

@inez Not necessarily.  You have all the credits you need from your undergraduate degree.  Everything I am suggesting could be taken for non-credit, or credit -- what ever is available.  What you can show through your application is that you got additional training to bolster your quantitative skills. These should also reflect in a higher Math GRE score, too. (Not that Math GRE covers any of these topics.)

It really depends what kind of analytics masters program you're looking at.
For quantitative finance, you'll need a solid background of probability theory. It'll also be essential that you know the basics: i.e., calculus (single and multivariable), linear algebra and a decent amount of measure theory.
Good luck!

thanks for your feedback. I would like to do a masters in business analytics like the one offered by North Carolina State's Institute for Advanced Analytics. What kind of programs can I enrol myself in to gain the necessary college credits?


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Is it ok to start looking for other postdoc positions?
I'm currently doing the first year of my postdoc. My contract is coming up for renewal in a few months and my PI has asked what my plans are for next year. I told him that I was hoping to stay in his lab for at least another year, but he's told me he can't yet guarantee my contract will be renewed.
I've heard from other people in the lab that my PI normally holds off from confirming that he'll renew your contract until the last minute, where he'll then try to add some extra clauses in the contract that demand the postdoc to complete certain projects or papers by a certain date.
I'm relatively confident that my PI is intending to renew my contract, as he's pushing me to write some grants that would start next year.
But as he can't promise anything yet, is it ok for me to start looking for other postdoc positions in case he doesn't renew my contract? If so, should I let him know that I'm looking for other roles?
Thanks!

The PI sounds awful.

IMO, it is ALWAYS ok to look for other positions; you aren't liable with anything except what is written on your contract. Unless your contract is renewed, I would consider a to-be-a-jobless person

Actually, it sounds like it is essential for you to to look for alternatives. It is improper for the PI to hold you in jeopardy and he should be more clear.
But your career is at risk if you just "hope for the best". You also need to "plan for the worst". It is more than OK.
Whether you let him know or not is a matter of your judgement of his personality. But it might be fine to say (a) I'd love to stay, but (b) I recognize it may not be possible and need a backup.

A postdoc is a transitory position. Looking for your next job and career step is not just okay, it's essentially what those positions are for.

+1. I specifically ask the potential candidates about their long term plans during the interview. Having a good plan (even outside the lab) is a definite plus. So no need to be shy about it.

You need to plan ahead for the sake of your own career, as well as your financial and mental well-being. There may be certain cases where a PI genuinely can't let you know until the last minute whether they can renew your contract, such as if they are waiting for the outcome of a grant. It seems that this is not the case here however.
You could try politely speaking to or emailing the PI setting a reasonable deadline after which you will apply for other positions. E.g.:
"My contract is ending in December. I really hope that it will be possible to extend my contract here, but appreciate that you cannot commit to an extension at the moment. If it does become possible for me to stay, please let me know by the end of September, after which I will start submitting applications for new positions."
However if I were you, I would consider whether I want to work for a manipulative PI. If they want you to work on a particular project or paper, they should be upfront about it.

These days one should start sooner rather than later. September sounds late to get a position lined up by early December (early because of the holidays that likely would slow down getting everything signed sealed and delivered).

I would recommend having an honest conversation with your PI ASAP, making it clear that:
(1) You'd be happy to stay and continue and expand your research with them;
(2) If the contract extension cannot be guaranteed, in the current uncertain funding and political climate you need to start looking for alternatives ASAP;
(3) This would drain some of your time and attention from the current research, which you would not like but, well, these things do use up your mental energy;
(4) If they cannot guarantee extension, you'd appreciate their advice on which other PIs might have funding available and would be good to contact, or which funding opportunities to pursue;
(5) Because it's important to both of you that by the end of your postdoc you have a first-author publication, if they cannot guarantee extension, you need to discuss which of your current projects to focus on. Also, whether you could take some aspect of your current research as your own to develop independently in the future.
Basically, make it clear that you need to know the contract situation and plan accordingly --- and that it is also in the PI's best interest to let you know early.
Best wishes from a new PI who's had his former postdoc positions extended repeatedly, and who is being very clear to his current lab members about their contract situation!

Yes, you should look for another job. In any contract negotiation, you should always consider your "best alternative to negotiated agreement" (sometimes referred to as a BATNA). If your advisor comes to you with a new employment contract and you have a choice between staying on or being unemployed, you will probably sign.
If, on the other hand, you have two offers, you can choose which one you like best. A second offer also gives you the confidence to negotiate better terms, avoiding unpleasant projects, for example.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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Should I finish my undergrad in 3 years (this year) or 4 years? Which option is better for graduate school application?
Chemistry major, I can graduate this year with a high GPA (3.95+, with 2-3 graduate-level class) decent research (2 year+, started in freshmen year) and likely 2 publications (one first author, one second author, both on journals with IF around 6).
My biggest concern is the recommendation letter. Having one less year is really hard for getting recommendation letters. I stayed in my school for my freshmen summer research. Also this year because of covid. So I may end up with only one strong recommendation letter from my research advisor.
Does the fact that I can graduate in 3 years outshine the recommendation letters problem?
Or It's best for me to just take another year for getting more publication and get a summer research position so I'll get a recommendation letter from professors in other university?

Hard to understand that you can't get good letters with that GPA, etc.

Nobody cares how long it took you to graduate from your BS.c, so whatever you decide to do, make sure that it will make you will have a bigger bag by the time you graduate.

@Buffy I worry about letters from professors who only taught me in the class are not as good as professors that I did research with. Also the letters are limited in only one university (I had no interns in other universities).

If this is for US study, don't put extreme importance on anyone item. Build a complete picture of your likely future success. And, it might be a mistake to "waste" a year just for something ephemeral. There might be other reasons to do another year, of course.

There is no benefit to graduating in less time except getting a year ahead. No one will be impressed by a 3 year graduation.
It's more important that you show proficiency in courses related to your intended area of study, and obtain research experience.
If someone's option was to graduate a year early or do a research project, I think the answer is obvious: stay and research. You have some research experience already, so your decision seems mostly between applying right away for grad school or gathering more experience for awhile and then graduating. The choice is entirely yours, there is no "best" answer.

The reason that I want to graduate in 3 year is I want to start my graduate program as soon as possible. I spent a ton of time in the lab and I definitively love workin in lab. I think I'll let the admission committee to decide wether I'm proficient enough. Since I can always switch back to 4 years maybe I'll decide after the application result next year.

@Nitrogen Seems reasonable - like I said, that's your trade-off to consider.

Another thing to consider is how covid is effecting applications, whether it will be harder to start with covid going on or after (since there may also be a flood of students/postdocs at this time as well, or a change in the amount of funding avaliable). I do know covid's placed hiring freezes in some US universities. But someone more knowledgeable than me should be answering this aspect.

Outside the US 3 year bachelors are normal (so I was initially confused by why finishing in 3 years kept being brought up). If you do another year (having completed the chemistry component) you could look taking courses in other fields. More advanced knowledge of maths/physics/biology could place you in a more unique position and might give some insight in future research/position your for a particular research field. Worst case they become weird courses you did in undergrad that you surprise your lab with your breadth of knowledge. Edit: specifically programs in EU, UK, Australia, Canada


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Mentioning times cited, F1000 citations in CV?
I am applying for a faculty position and want to highlight the quality of my publications.
Are any of the following appropriate in an academic CV:

citation rate (citations/year)
F1000 Recommendations
separating a 'monograph' from other 'articles'?

If so, how should I do it?
For example, should I just put the information parenthetically at the end of the reference, like:

Author (Year) Title, journal, vol, (> 10000 citations; 2 F1000 recommendations)

note: this question Should I put my h-index on my CV? is similar, and some of the ideas from that question apply here. However, it is not a strict duplicate because the h-index addressed there is a single metric for evaluating a candidate; my question relates to publication-level metrics, and which are useful to provide within the reference list of a CV.

I've never heard of F1000. If I haven't heard of it, others may not either, so they will find it odd if you cite it.

I do not know how recruitment people will interpret this but If you have to include it; maybe h-index is useful?

Closely related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/17990/19607

@Kimball I would go as far as calling this a duplicate.

@CameronWilliams: I would hope no-one takes the citation number indicated by Google Scholar overly seriously, given that it is highly distorted - it includes "citations" found in bachelor theses and the like, if the university's digital library catalogue happens to be indexed.

it includes "citations" found in bachelor theses and the like — So what?

@O.R.Mapper: I actually find such citations just as useful as ones in journals. I shows real impact.

@WolfgangBangerth: So, all I have to do to lift a paper from 0 citations to 5 citations is offer 5 Bachelor theses that are somehow related to said paper, if only by a single sentence?

@O.R.Mapper: Yes. But if your paper has only 5 citations, it's not particularly good anyway. If, on the other hand, your paper lists 100, 200, 300 citations on google scholar, then it is clear to me that you cannot have achieved that number by simply offering lots of Bachelor theses.

@WolfgangBangerth: The ratio of peer-reviewed papers compared to student theses among those citations should be checked in such cases, and it is of course very possible the high citation count points to a truly notable work. My concern is that student theses such as Bachelor theses, irrespective of whether the cited author offered/supervised them themselves or not, lack almost all of the "natural restrictions" that normally limit how many peer-reviewed works contain citations for a given paper. It just doesn't seem right to add up and compare numbers that are subject to very different factors.

@O.R.Mapper: I guess we may simply have to agree to disagree here. I see the distinction, but I think real impact implies impact across the board. If a math paper is so abstract that it is simply never relevant to Bachelor theses, then it isn't relevant to anything outside the innermost core of academia either. To me, this seems like a problem.

@WolfgangBangerth F1000, or the Faculty of 1000, is largely specific to life science, and I believe it is quite well known. This is a forum of experts that recommend papers of interest in their respective fields and score them. I think many people would consider such a recommendation positively.

@WolfgangBangerth enough to merit mention in a CV?

Conventions may vary somewhat from field to field, but I'll answer with respect to the fields covered by F1000, where people tend to be more interested in citation metrics than in many other areas.
First of all, I wouldn't include F1000 recommendations. I don't think that people take F1000 all that seriously and listing this information smacks of trying too hard.  Under most circumstances, I'd suggest that one not include the citation counts either. As discussed in a recent question, the CV is not the place to do a sales job. If your citation metrics are strong, it is indeed good to bring this to the attention of the hiring committee, but you should do so in your cover letter and/or research statement rather than on your CV. Better yet, have one of your letter writers present this information. You could even get them to report the F1000 figures if that is really important to you. Nor would I list an h index on a CV, no matter how good it is. You could mention it in a cover letter, but again it is something that looks much better coming from one of your recommendation letters.
All of that said, if you really have a paper with >10,000 citations as in your example, this is so exceptional that it would merit a note alongside that paper on the CV. Even then, I wouldn't list citation counts for all papers but just for this one. Even a paper >1000 might merit mention on a CV if you are early career, but I wouldn't list anything in the low hundreds on the CV.
I'll conclude by noting that there is a nice economics paper by Harbaugh and To, entitled "False Modesty: When Disclosing Good News Looks Bad", that deals with almost exactly this situation. From their abstract:

Is it always wise to disclose good news? We find that the worst sender with good news has the most incentive to disclose it, so reporting good news can paradoxically make the sender look bad. If the good news is attainable by sufficiently mediocre types, or if the sender is already expected to be of a relatively high type, withholding good news is an equilibrium. Since the sender has a legitimate fear of looking too anxious to reveal good news, having a third party disclose the news, or mandating that the sender disclose the news, can help the sender...

+1 For the last paragraph. Recently, I commented on a question http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/42679/546 saying the OP has too much ego by stating he is a student at the most prestigious university in somewhere. That comment got expectedly high up-ticks. Now I know why.

It's quite common and very helpful to provide a link to your author profile in services like Google Scholar, Web of Science, MathSciNet, etc.  This makes it possible for someone who wants to look up your publications to find them without confusion with other publications by authors with the same or similar names.  They can also look up citation counts and other bibliometric statistics.  I've seen these included on many of the CV's that I've reviewed recently.
Citation counts and statistics like the H-index change rapidly, and including them might come across as overly boastful in a CV.  I haven't ever seen these on any CV that I've read.
Books and monographs should generally be placed in a separate section of your CV apart from the peer reviewed journal articles.  It's also appropriate to have a section for conference proceedings papers and other lesser forms of publication.


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Pedagogical reasons for time-limited exams
Reading the various questions about open-book and closed-book examinations got me wondering:

Is there any sound pedagogical reason for a time-limited examination (closed  or open) at the undergraduate/advanced UG level ?

I understand that there are many good logistical reasons, including:

classroom management in a big group
a desire to prevent cheating

and at (say) the elementary school level, I understand that timed tests (say of multiplication tables) create a certain level of felicity with manipulating numbers that helps with more complex tasks later on.
But at the UG/advanced UG level, it seems to me that deep understanding is usually more important.
Note: This question on the unreasonableness of the prescribed time limits is related, but not exactly the same (i.e it takes as given the existence of time limits and merely questions the actual time span set)

Yes, but even in music performance, it's not speed that you're testing. If the music calls for speed, then yes, but if you're playing an adagio  ?

@Suresh I think you mean facility, not felicity. Unless you think multiplication tests make the students happy about times tables (which would be somewhat contrary to my experience).

Or better: Automaticity.

Is there any sound pedagogical reason for a time-limited examination (closed or open) at the undergraduate/advanced UG level ?

For many subjects, yes. For others, no.
I had an exam for a subject in school called "technical graphics". It involved drawing parabolas and projections and so forth on a big sheet of A3 paper with pencils and protractors and compasses. It was widely-regarded to be a subject of skill more than knowledge: the exam was timed and you had to accurately and quickly and carefully draw up four or five questions. A small inaccuracy becomes compounded through the rest of the drawing. Given unlimited time and some basic knowledge, nearly anyone could ace the exam since acquiring the necessary knowledge was easy; but acquiring the skill to do the timed exam was hard. And it was the skill we practised in class. Was this skill useful? Was it a learning outcome to draw quickly? I would say yes, of course; if I were to become a draughtsman (leaving aside CAD et al. for the purposes of the analogy), learning to draw quickly and accurately would be important to my livelihood. And it was the tightly-timed test that put emphasis on this learning outcome.
Likewise if I were doing a cookery lesson, cooking quickly would be important. If I were doing a programming lesson, programming quickly would not be as important, but it would still be important. And so we get into the usual varying shades of grey.
Generalising, we can define different types of learning based on the two main types of memory targeted: procedural memory (residing below the level of conscious awareness) and declarative memory (facts and/or knowledge that can be consciously recalled or inferred from other such facts/knowledge). Some subjects – like technical graphics or cookery or programming – put a strong focus on development of procedural memory alongside declarative memory. Other subjects – like biology or history – emphasise declarative memory far far more than procedural memory.
As such, I would say that the importance of a time-limited exam for a subject is correlated with the emphasis on procedural learning for that subject. A teacher may then wish to consider whether or not procedural learning is important for their subject or not.

This is a very nice answer. And yes, the key is to figure out whether that kind of learning is important: I suspect that for some topics, it's not, even though time-limited exams are used.

Absolutely! I think time-limited exams are extremely overused.

Another obvious area where time counts is emergency medicine - one can't simply let a patient bleed to death while working hard to remember how to apply a bandage.

Oooo. What an intriguing question.
My "answer" is that there is no pedagogical reason, merely practical ones. This is based on the attached study (1) that shows the difficulty with assuming only learning disabled students benefit from more time for exams. Apparently the "time doesn't matter" idea is called the Maximum Potential Thesis.
I certainly am guilty of writing questions that push student time limits to the max... essentially creating a reading exam in addition to a biology one. Student recall of vocabulary and definitions should be quick. But my main learning goal is thoughtful, connected thinking rather than fast thinking.

Zuriff, G. E. (2000). Extra examination time for students with learning disabilities: An examination of the maximum potential thesis. Applied Measurement in Education, 13(1), 99-117.

Seems like you design tests to work agaisnt your main learning goal.

One example of "a reading exam in addition to..." is the WorkKeys tests that are sometimes used by workforce development centers. At first glance, they only seem to test basic reading and math skills, but they are strictly timed and are intended to simulate decision-making in the workplace. If you have an impatient customer waiting for you to dispense gasoline into his '10 liter' tank, you don't have until next Thursday to figure out how many Imperial gallons will fit in it - he will find another gas station.

I design exams to be finished in around an hour and a half (one class block here at UTFSM), but allot three hours (two blocks). To give students some leeway in arriving late (bad bus connection?), and to give time to check their work or correct mistakes. The exam should not (or rarely) be a rush.

Open book exams
A particular reason for time limits is the open book exam. Such an exam without any time limits would allow the student to simply study all the relevant topics on the spot, and be useless for evaluation; however, an open book exam with an appropriate time limit will separate students based on their knowledge and obtained skill, while allowing the benefits of open-book exams for subjects where people aren't expected to memorize everything but use reference material as needed, and in those disciplines where you should teach students a habit to always doublecheck and verify in case of doubt, instead of guessing, e.g. medicine.
In essence, the time limit is a tool to check if you need to look up 5% of issues or 95%.

This is correct. A properly designed open book exam tests higher-order mastery and broad knowledge over rote memorization of individual factoids. If you are competent to practice medicine, you can occasionally look up dosing recommendations when you haven't prescribed something in a while. Most doctors I know don't actually memorize everything. If you don't have a broad medical knowledge, you may not know where to look for dosing recommendations, and probably don't have the necessary background knowledge to know how to use them or when they are or are not applicable to the present case.

If you ask me, the "evaluation" doesn't interest me (too much, see later). I'm interested in them learning. If it is during the exam, so be it (I fondly remember some courses in which I learned a lot during exams... by design). On the other hand, it is my responsibility to certify that who passed the course did learn what they were supposed to learn. A fine line to walk.

I am not sure if in the field of Pedagogy there is any study on the topic, but in the field i studied (Electronic Engineering), doing things fast is very important. Not only you need to be able to understand a topic, but you need to be able to solve problems in a restricted time period, as is the case in the real life profession. When you are working on a project and you need to design something, or are presented with a problem in a system, the engineer in this case needs to be able to identify and solve the problem in the shortest time possible. It is basic competition, "The fast drives out the slow, even if the fast is wrong".

I don't see why. I've heard this rationale, but it never made sense to me. If you're being asked to produce an answer in one hour, then no one is simultaneously expecting that answer to be the best one possible.

Of course is not going to be the best one possible, but the student should try to to the best they can with the limited time that they have.

I'd be interested in hearing of actual work scenarios where the exam conditions are replicated.

@Suresh, I'd be interested in hearing of actual work scenarios where unlimited-time exam conditions are replicated. I think I might like to apply!

@badroit indeed :). But at the risk of taking your comment seriously, the purpose of teaching is to help students learn material. "recreating real-life scenarios" is a side issue. So the arguments are not symmetric: it's perfectly fine to have unlimited-time exams IF that creates a better learning experience, but justifying a time-limited exam in terms of "real-world"  scenarios is what requires justification.

@Suresh, the purpose of undergraduate education is not the same as basic education (k-12 in US). It is not simply to help students to learn the material but also to prepare them for future jobs. If you are studying computer science, then you are going to be a programmer. This job requires certain level of performance. You can't spend unlimited time on any given assignment at work.

The discussion reminds me of a documentary I saw about Andrew Wiles where he worked in secret for seven years to prove Fermat's Last Theorem. That got me thinking about what I would work on if given seven years no-questions-asked ... it might even be something useful, who knows. @Suresh, yep, my comment was intended only as a counterpoint. But besides proving Fermat's Last Theorem and the likes, I do struggle to think of work scenarios that are free from short-scale time constraints.

Btw, let's be clear that "unlimited time" is a strawman. We're really talking about a 1hr exam vs (say) a 1-week takehome.

Wait, no one is questioning a 1-week takehome exam, but we go back to the same: You have only one week , a limited amount of time. The teacher can't just say, so this is the project for this semester, handle it in whenever you can.

"The teacher can't just say, so this is the project for this semester, handle it in whenever you can."
Umm... Isn't that basically the idea of a term paper or term project? I'd say those are pretty standard, at least judging from both my graduate and undergraduate experiences.

As an engineer, I would rather disagree with this answer. I would much rather hire an engineer who takes somewhat longer to think his designs through and then verify that they're correct than one that just tries to whip something out quickly. Sure, time to finish is not unlimited, but I've never encountered a real-world scenario that even remotely resembled a time-limited exam in my engineering career. Exams that are designed to put 'time pressure' on students are testing a skill that is irrelevant in most fields rather than actually determining whether students understand the material.

@reirab, you are probably right, although in software development, the standard practice seems to be that the project manager comes and says: "This just came in, customer want this and that feature. Please do it for tomorrow, no testing we release directly to the customer. If you are a good programmer, then you'll do it right and ther's no need to test right?" And so you have a limited time to think the best way to do what they are asking. I could be a little biased btw.

@bone, Yeah, that does happen sometimes, but that's bad management. It's specifically one of the reasons that I look for employers where the management are actually engineers, not some guy with just an MBA trying to manage an engineering department.

@Suresh, most education should prepare/evaluate for later "real world performance". And very rarely isn't time an issue in the "real world". And also very rarely required to solve every problem without considering external sources (from the textbook through standard reference texts up to latest research reports).

It is often the case that a problem can be solved in multiple ways, some of which involve more "brute force" and some of which involve deeper understanding of the material.  The "brute force" approaches are often also much slower than the approaches involving deeper understanding.
Time limits are then one tool that can help to distinguish the depth of understanding that a student has for the material, by making it difficult to accomplish with "brute force" methods in the allotted time.
I had personal experience with this myself as a teaching assistant for the introductory artificial intelligence class at MIT. Many of the things that we taught in that class and the questions that we used to test for them had this property.  Students who understood the material well typically finished tests with lots of time to spare and left early, while the ones who were struggling to rediscover the material during the exam came to complain to us afterward about the lack of time --- not the most pleasant thing for any involved, but one that we found no good way to address in the time that I was a TA for that class.


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Is it common that marker TA make the marking scheme instead of the professor?
I had a course in which the instructor let the markers make the midterm marking scheme and had students ask the TAs to resolve any marking issues instead of talking to him, though the instructor provided sample answers. As far as I know, many TAs are inexperienced and I think leaving the job of making marking scheme to TAs may be too much for them. IMO, making marking scheme should be the instructor's duty. I don't know if it is common in university.

This might vary by country, but in the US, if the graders are undergraduates--which shouldn't be the case for midterms--then I would say that it's unusual to allow them to decide on the grading scheme. If the graders are grad students, it's quite common. At many schools even first-year grad students are the instructor of record for a course.

My daughter's a TA in math at a university in the US. She just got done grading a pile of exams. Don't know if she had to decide on the grading scale or not.

I graded plenty of midterms as an undergraduate TA.  I didn't set the grading scheme, though.

The schools I have experience with have policies against undergraduates making signficant grading decisions--such as for exams--about other undergraduates.

When I was an undergrad, back in the '90s, my department would hire undergrads to grade the exams for the big gen-ed course in our field. We worked in small groups marking a single problem on all the papers, and the group set the criteria for the grading—but we had to get it that scheme approved before we could use it.

From my personal experience, both as a student and TA I would say that this is quite common in the US, particularly in large, lower level courses. Many professors find such courses boring to teach and will hand off as much as they can to the TAs. For some courses, the TAs may even give regular lectures.
As a TA, it's not all bad though. They often write portions of or all of the exams, which allows them to make sure students have a firm understanding of the most important material. They also likely have a better grasp of where students are struggling and will focus on those areas during recitations or review sessions. Students tend to feel more comfortable approaching them, assuming they're doing their job appropriately.
Regardless, if you truly feel like the TA is marking unfairly and isn't doing an appropriate job explaining their grading scheme when you ask them about it, you should take it up with the course instructor - particularly if others students are voicing concerns over the same issues.

Actually, I am the marker. I just feel that some students' questions are not up to TAs to resolve but my instructor insisted that TAs MUST meet with students to resolve any marking issues. I just disagree with my instructor's regrading policy somehow.

Well, you should speak with your instructor with as explicit concerns as possible. Ultimately, it's probably going to be your call though, so all you can do is try to be as fair as possible and learn from the experience, particularly if you have several students with similar concerns. Many institutions will provide TA training for grading as well - you might check to see if your institution has a workshop or something. Rather surprised it wasn't covered in your training though.

The positive attitude to being offered responsibility for something is to take it, not to run away from it. You can't avoid it for ever, so start taking it right now!

@JaredAndrews Actually, I didn't get training before being a TA. That is also the reason why I think the instructor let me decide too much.

@Rapidturtle: I suspect you will get much better results not by telling the instructor “We are not trained for this, you should be doing it!” but instead by telling them “We are not trained for this, please can you help us do it?”  The latter option shows that you are enthusiastic and willing to work and learn, so is more likely to be received positively by the instructor; and assuming they do help, it gives you valuable experience and training on a new skill.  If they don’t respond positively to that request for help, then you are on more solid grounds to voice your concerns externally.

As someone not from the US (I'm a PhD student in Hong Kong) - yes, here too. TAs are only graduate students, however. Before we were allowed to take on TA work, we had to take a "Certificate in Teaching and Learning" course where it was explicitly shown to us how to create a good grading rubric and grade fairly, among other things.
Don't think that everything the instructor does will automatically be better. TAs have more time to spend on the course, usually. In my case the professor is so busy that practically all his sample answers, when he does have time to make them himself rather than leaving it to me, contain multiple errors! (Of course I also make plenty of mistakes, but they usually become apparent while grading and get fixed before the students see them.)

In my experience (two large state universities in the US) this is unusual.  My experience was that the TA or TAs graded the midterms and finals, but the professor reviewed the exams before the grades were officially recorded and before the exams were returned to the students.
Now, about the grading scheme.  For exams, the professor gave the TA(s) the grading scheme, which had been built into the exam during the design phase.  For homework:

For a large course with multiple TAs, the more experienced TA(s) would set up the grading scheme, and the less experienced TA(s) would ask a more experienced TA for guidance when unsure.
For a smaller course with just one TA, the instructor often provided guidance.  If not, the TA could set up a grading scheme, and if in doubt, could check with the instructor.

Tip: If I were in your shoes, I would request an assignment, for next semester, to a large course, where you'd be part of a TA team, and would learn by doing, alongside at least one more experienced TA.

authors: Bob Jarvis - Слава Україні


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How do I know that I have truly lost interest in research and should drop out of a top CS PhD program?
I am a second-year CS PhD pre-candidate in a top PhD program. During my first year, I published a first-author paper at the best conference in my area, which I know is a big accomplishment. My advisor is famous in his area and also very caring and supportive, and my labmates are great too.
The thing is my second project didn't go very well, which caused us to change the entire story right before the deadline. I worked more than 70 hours per week and gave all I could, but there was not enough time to get everything we need in a good shape, and my advisor was frustrated with the progress and pointed out problems that I hadn't seen everywhere. I continued to work, but found myself too frustrated and suddenly lost all interest in research, stopped caring about papers, did as best I could to avoid talking to anyone, and want to leave this place and never come back. I know most PhDs somehow have this feeling, but I notice that this time it's quite serious:

Forcing myself to work resulted in a breakdown every night with the feeling that all I did was nonsense and meaningless.
My first paper has now become a joke, laughing at me that I could never publish with my own efforts.
I have no intention to participate in lab communication and truly don't want to talk to anyone. I can't even bear to hear others typing due to the feeling that I am the only one who doesn't make progress.

How can I know if I truly have lost my interest in research (and should drop my Ph.D.), or if this is something that I can overcome? After all,  if this is the best I can do, why not go somewhere else and use my skills to actually contribute rather than wasting everybody's time? I am so tired of receiving new tasks at 4 am or 11 pm due the next day. I would highly appreciate your advice!

Imagine your future life away from research and the academic context. Does that bring you joy or sadness?

Counseling can help a lot with things like this.  Maybe it would help to look into that before doing anything irreversible.  Also, there may be a possibility to take a leave of absence, so that you can go back if you change your mind in a year or so.

" receiving new tasks at 4am or 11pm due the next day." Is this the norm in top phd programmes?

@MarkoKarbevski In mine (which is a top program), I would have been fortunate to get that much advance notice. Usually it was "Hey, this report was due 3 weeks ago and now they are mad, I need it in a couple hours" -- and that was the first we (students) had been told about it.

@tpg2114 And I hope that your answer was: "Then you should've told me 6 weeks ago. Now you're welcome to do it yourself"

@MarkoKarbevski Not in my experience, except maybe very rarely in front of a deadline, but then you should yourself already know that work needs to be done and it's not the expectation that you start working at 4am on something. Also, if you miss a deadline there is (nearly) always another one waiting, even if it doesn't feel like it before you failed it (because for many the deadlines are the main motivator, so they have to 'be real').

This seems more an issue of burnout than of interest or disinterest in research. Get professional help! Psychologist etc. and/or talk to the respective university counselor if there are any.

@MassimoOrtolano: While I concur with the sentiment, as a student who has an advisor similiar to OP's (or at least so it seems from my reading of the post), that's rather unhelpful advice and frankly aounds like a great way to earn a 1-way ticket out of the department.

For what it's worth, the way you feel is very common at this stage in a PhD. Talk to fellow students, and seek counseling. Take a vacation if possible.

@tpg2114: What makes you think it is a "top program", when (if your comment is typical) it seems to be run by people who are either unable to manage, or sadists who enjoy abusing those under them.

Highly applicable to your situation: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/2219/31917

You just need a break, a sufficiently long one. If you felt the same afterwards, then don't waste your time anymore.

Wow forcing yourself to work to breakdowns every night. You will make a really staunch defender of the way things work once we let you in. :)

When you have to ask this question. You have truly lost interest

@tonysdg If you cannot tell your advisor "No." or "OK, but I will need more time." to unreasonable requests you should want to get out of there. That is not a top program, but a toxic program.

I will stop just short of saying that you clearly have depression, but these thoughts sound like the type of extreme statements one thinks when they are depressed. (E.g. your first paper is not laughing at you, it is somewhere between an inanimate object and abstract concept. Also the isolation and loss of interest are classic depression)Unfortunately, if your brain is working against you, it won't matter whether you quit or not, because you will still be depressed. Talk to a doctor and try to get a prescription so you can have the opportunity of seeing things with a non-depressed perspective.

To be honest, this pretty much exactly sounds like my last workplace in industry before joining academic forces. I'd say it's not research but your environment that frustrates you. A change is needed, indeed. But maybe you can save (or recover) your passion for your field in the process.

I was putting the finishing touches on an answer when this got closed :/ the tl;dr is that I've been there (dropped out of a top CS PhD program), but I knew what my alternative was and actively chose it, rather than going along with the depression voice of "just give up already, you're not good enough". Highly agree with recommendations for counseling - they will help you evaluate your situation more clearly. It gets better!

If available, I would immediately seek out the university counseling services (as mentioned in a comment by @Nate Eldredge ) The things you are mentioning could be symptoms of depression. Or, you may just need some strategies for coping with failure. Often people with your accomplishments haven't experienced much failure in their lives!
Taking advantage of the (usually low-cost or free, if you are in the U.S.) counselling services at the university will help you sort out which of these things it is. Your counselor can also help you come up with strategies to make well-reasoned life decisions for yourself (or with your committee). Regardless, don't make any rash decisions.
In the U.S., it is very common for PhD students to deal with these issues and to seek out counseling. An informal straw poll in my PhD cohort revealed that 90% of us had done so, and approximately 60% were on anti-anxiety medication or continued treatment regimes at any given time. The older students even began to organize a yearly workshop to talk about stress and how to get the help you need!
An update: This 2018 study finds that graduate students are 6x more likely to experience depression and anxiety, compared to the general population.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/03/06/new-study-says-graduate-students-mental-health-crisis

A word of caution: having counseling services is maybe standard in the US universities, but it might not be commonplace everywhere, and it might not be generally common for PhD students to seek out counseling. The OP doesn't specify their country (though we can guess that they are probably from the US). See also this discussion.

Good point! Specified US in revision. I Saw "top CS program" and good grasp of English, and my mind said US. But obviously that is not a certainty, I apologize.

No need to apologize, it's a great answer ;-) Coming from another culture, I find the results of your poll astonishingly high. When I was a student, no one of us seek counseling (actually at that time, about 20 years ago, there was no local counselling service), but we surely supported each other. Among my PhD students, I daresay that no one has ever seek counselling either.

I have put some thought into it and I realized that my cohort was a bit of an outlier. Among the students in general I think the percentages may have been closer to 60-70% and 40%. International students were definitely less inclined to seek out counseling services, but also felt the stress. One of the international students actually led/organized the pro-counseling workshop for the department. I think her attitude was "This is an American thing, but it is really helpful and we should not be wary of it!"

60%!! There is something profoundly wrong with this system!

@MassimoOrtolano: your difference in experience may well be a matter of age as well as the culture you come from.  Increase in the availability and usage of mental health services has been a big trend over the last couple of decades — at least in the US and much of NW Europe, and I guess many other places too though I haven’t seen it myself.

@PLL You're right. For instance my university setup the counseling service probably around 10 years ago. I'll search if we have any public statistics on how many PhD students access the service.

@Strawberry the problem is part drug legislation part culture.

Some amount of burnout is very normal, especially just after working really hard for something that didn't pan out the way you hoped it would. The timeline isn't totally clear from your question, but if this just happened, give yourself some time to relax and cool down! Take a few days off from research: go for a hike, cook a good meal, whatever. Then, when you're ready, ease yourself back into it: maybe talk to your advisor about putting this frustrating project aside for a bit and trying something else out.
If, after a while, you still feel this whole thing sucks and you don't want to do it anymore, then it's worth thinking more about that. Especially if you think the high levels of stress and/or feeling bad about things are more persistent, definitely look into meeting with counseling services if they're available at your university or elsewhere. Or you might eventually end up deciding that you're better off dropping out of the program: many people do that, and for many of them it's the right decision. But now, in the aftermath of an unluckily bad experience, isn't the time to make that decision.

I can't even bear to hear others typing due to the feeling that I am the only one who doesn't make progress.

If you can't talk to a counselor right away, it also sounds like you could do some reading up on impostor syndrome. It affects all of us, especially those like me who really aren't good enough to be in academia, but more so at times when things happen to suck.

I am so tired of receiving new tasks at 4am or 11pm due the next day.

If this is your advisor constantly giving you research tasks to do immediately, this is something you should talk to them about. In a CS setting, this kind of request is only at all reasonable if it's very infrequent. Most things should be predictable farther in advance, or not be so urgent.

"do some reading up on impostor syndrome. It affects all of us, especially those like me who really aren't good enough to be in academia"....Ah the irony.

@SH7890 Yes...though of course that doesn't mean there's not some truth to it too.

You are right about it being common for Ph.D. students to wonder if it's worthwhile continuing. Every single doctoral student I've talked with has had the same thought at one point or another.  I completed a doctorate myself and was in that place several times...especially after submitting my research project as a conference abstract in the spring, trying unsuccessfully all summer to get it to work, and at the point I was going to get in touch with the conference organizer to tell him that I was not going to be able to attend I had the key breakthrough. Sometimes I wonder if I would have had that breakthrough if it weren't for the pressure and urgency and sleepless nights and frustrating days.
"Bad planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part." I have worked in IT for 30 years and the only time that getting tasks at 11 pm or 4 am due the next day is even remotely acceptable is for a production problem.  Are you getting those tasks as part of a research assistantship?  If that's the case, you have to ask yourself if it's the job or the program, and if the former if there are other options.  I was never paid for research and worked my way through teaching recitation classes and later lecturing. It might be time for a talk with your advisor to clarify expectations, as well as with your committee and department secretary (or other graduate student liaison that helps you to navigate the process) to get advice and keep you focused on what I would assume is your goal--finishing the degree.

Get an appointment with your thesis committee (advisors) or PhD support office (if there is one) stat. These things can happen, but you need to address them with counselors immediately, before they get out of hand.
Whatever you do, don't make a rush decision. Good luck!

Your expectations were set based on the great success of your first paper, and now you're frustrated that you've put so much more work into a second paper but it failed in comparison.
This is a life lesson - not in your career path, but in workload management. You burnt out and exhausted yourself. Had the 2nd paper turned out brilliant, you probably would have gotten away with it, because the feeling of accomplishment would validate all the extra effort. But it didn't turn out so well - you are feeling the stress collapse inward now that it isn't bolstered by your high expectations.
There are two very helpful things you should do. First, take a vacation and get away from work for at least a week, preferably two weeks. Second, you should set your next project up to be something small, easily manageable, and something you enjoy. You need to learn workload management, and that will prevent 80% of the burnout you currently feel. Very few people can sustain a real 50+ hour workweek in an intellectual field. Most (notably doctors) have a lot of mentally de-tuned time, which allows them to manage long hours better. The supposed 'executive' 60-hour workweek includes meals, exercise, travel, and sometimes even family time in that 60 hours. The Americans’ Use of Time Project has estimated that people who claim to work 55-59 hours per week actually work about 42-47 hours (http://fortune.com/2012/10/16/how-hard-do-executives-really-work-today/).
You won't hit a home run every time you're at bat, so don't set yourself up to always be at bat with all the bases loaded. Give yourself some time to recharge, and bat some easy singles against the warm-up pitcher.

First: stop working 70 hour weeks
I find it sad how little attention academia pays to the huge amount of research into productivity[1]. Working absurdly long hours does not make you more productive but does kill your creativity, ramp up your stress levels, and sooner or later makes you burnt out
Second: take time off
You have holiday entitlement as a PhD student, use it now. If you're in Europe you'll likely get a sensible amount and can take a couple of weeks off. If you're in the US, you're probably restricted to a smaller amount but you still have entitlement you should be using. In your state, a break is necessary.
Third: learn to say no to completely unreasonable requests

I am so tired of receiving new tasks at 4 am or 11 pm due the next
  day.

Any task received outside of normal working hours should be considered unreasonable. Reject them. Any task received without reasonable time to do it is unreasonable. Stop accepting them. Write back - in work hours - with what you consider a reasonable timescale in which you can achieve it, taking into account your other work.
Fourth: seek support from the University
Your university will have student support and counselling service available to you; find out what they are and use them.

A PhD is a long and hard process, and research is - by its very nature - a hard slog, with variable success and, sometimes long, periods of failure. If you knew how to do it already, it wouldn't be research. It is normal, therefore, for PhD students to have periods of doubt during their PhD programme. Before deciding whether you wish to leave, take the time to get yourself into a clearer mental state so you consider it properly.

[1] For an enjoyable introduction read The Mythical Man Month and Peopleware. Actually, if you're in CS read them anyway.

Aside from the very good advice of getting counseling and balancing your work and life(!) a popular saying comes to mind: When you fall off a horse, you've got to get back on.
Probably you need some well deserved rest first, but IMO the best way to get rid of the sour taste of your previous experience is to venture into a new project. This will allow you to rediscover why you're doing what you do and help you keep your mind off your previous disappointment (this will require effort!). A variation of this idea is that if you eventually decide to quit, try to do it with a good taste in mouth.
If there's something I've learned during my PhD is that personal growth is as, if not more, important as the actual technical aspects of it. In this case you're dealing with a major disappointment. However, it's within you to make this a valuable lesson and demonstrate to yourself that you can overcome this and other obstacles that might (and will certainly) come in your life.

A few points in addition to other useful answers:

The negative experience you've had is not with research in general, but with a combination of a certain project, a certain advisor, and the settings of being infinitely overworked and pressured for a certain period of time. So you've been depressed and demotivated by that not by "research" in general. And while you should certainly avoid being in that situation again, don't confuse the specific with the general.
Also, even if you decide you've had with your current project; or with your advisor; or with your university; or with your sub-discipline of CS - that does not mean you should necessarily quit.
Note that the fact you've not exhausted all options does not mean that you absolutely have to stay. If you don't find a setting in which you're satisfied to work (after some emotional recovery and some attempt at reconfiguration); or if it becomes clear to you there's something else you want to be doing - it's perfectly justifiable to quit and go elsewhere, even if some people frown upon it.
You did not say anything about why you're doing research in the first place. That's enormously important in my opinion. I'm against being in a Ph.D. program just looking to get ahead. Do you not have something concrete that interests you? That you want to discover or get to the bottom of? Your Ph.D. research should be about doing that. And that should be your key motivation - not chalking up merit points for publications or conferences etc.
When I was feeling down due to my research not going well, I found my teaching work to be rather consoling and satisfying. I'm not sure what it's like for you, but if you haven't tried that, consider it.

"[I] found myself too frustrated and suddenly lost all interest in research, stopped caring about papers, did as best I could to avoid talking to anyone, and want to leave this place and never come back."
This sounds exactly like a psychological reaction - avoidance of people, and seeking ways to not think of the upsetting thing. I would say absolutely, seek counselling help, and view these as appropriate and mature steps to take,  because this is something that could also be playing out in other times and places, causing you distress.
I can't say if you have actually lost interest, but I don't think so. I think it has hit you hard and the reaction against that perceived lapse might be misinterpreted as lack of interest.
It's a very common reaction to avoid that which we feel we have done wrongly, and this sounds much more like that reaction. Also to feel that taking the pressure off is acknowledgement of a kind of failure - it isnt.
The good new is that when that aspect is looked into, many people feel renewed vigour and energy on resuming.

Speaking as a person who reached burnout and left, to the islands no less. I truly believe in retrospect, the greatest life lesson would have been to push the doctorate thru. I did change course in life and my degrees are not directly relevant to my current path, yet they will always have tremendous value. You did succeed in the first year of the program, this is not your first week, you have significant time (and success) invested. Get this doctorate, you don't necessarily need this doctorate or any other to eventually succeed in whatever career path you choose, but this doctorate and all its prestige and benefits will be there for your life. The great lesson you are going to learn here is not about subject matter, it is about your inner self. Can you push thru after major disappoint, learn from failure, regain composure and conquer seemingly insurmountable pressure, or will you run, give up by saying you lost interest? Either path you choose will define you for life, your inner self, and only you will be experiencing the consequences every single day thereafter.

Speaking as a person who reached burnout and instead of leaving, tried to "push through". Next thing I knew I was in hospital for a week. Then I left for good and never once have I missed the "prestige and benefits" of the doctorate I didn't get.
Burnout is a serious issue. Working 70-hour weeks is detrimental to your health even before burnout (which is just round the corner anyway if you do it continually). You're picking between your health and "this doctorate and its prestige and benefits".

Note I'm not saying you need to leave for good. Maybe coming back after a break is going to work for you. But I'm pretty sure you need to stop killing yourself with 70-hour weeks, and think it likely that you need weeks or months off.

Just get your PhD and leave afterwards. Most published research is irrelevant anyway. The science community has a serious problem with their "accomplishment" metric: h-index / number of papers etc. They do not allow for failure or dead tracks which, however, are quite natural if you are doing real research at the brink of current knowledge.

"Just"? That's not a "just". That's incredibly difficult, emotionally, in such a situation. You don't "just" get PhDs.