text:
What to do with letter of recommendation if you left program unhappily?
I was forced to leave a STEM program after a fight over whether I could apply the NSF sponsored summer abroad fellowship. I was given a letter of resignation and 2 month of notice. The situation was not good before the fight anyway. I left after those 2 months. The MS is not from a prestigious program albeit a good undergraduate school.
I was not thinking about grad school. But I graduated 2 years ago for a MS, and haven't found employment using my BS. I was tempted to apply again, if only for better employment perspectives.
My question is: if I apply to a PhD again, I have to ask my previous adviser for a letter of recommendation which I have no faith will be good. Even if he writes one, I worry that the wording would be cautious. I want to bypass this, if possible, but how? If it can't be bypassed, what can I do ?
The program I left was a PhD. So perspective programs would possibly ask for it.

I'm confused - why do you need a letter of recommendation from that one specific person? Most applications I'm familiar with don't dictate who you get letters of recommendation from - there is just a preference for those who can speak to your abilities and character. And what is the meaning of STEM program - did you leave a graduate program, or some sort of summer internship? You graduated, so I assume you didn't have to leave your department. It's unclear to me why you have to ask that one person for a letter, rather than asking 3 entirely different people.

Because my previous program is a PhD other programs would like you to talk about why leaving the program ... etc            I was forced to leave as adviser refused to pay stipend and resigned as a adviser

My understanding is that you finished your BS 2 years ago, took a year off, entered a PhD program this year but just left due to some dispute about wanting to spend a summer abroad, correct?  (Or maybe you left the PhD program last year?)
Anyway, you should not ask someone to write you a letter of recommendation unless you think they can write you a good one.  If you think your erstwhile advisor thinks well of you and will be supportive, then it makes sense to ask him.  If not, then you should probably stick to letters from your undergrad professors.
If you apply to one PhD program after having left another, the admissions committee will naturally wonder why you left and if you would have reason to be successful this time around.  Just hearing that you left because of a fight is a big red flag, particularly if it was from a reputable department, so it would be best if you can suitably address this in your application.  You should convince first yourself, then your letter writers, that this is unlikely to be an issue at another department.  Then your letter writers can try to convince the admissions committees on your behalf.


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Will my chances of obtaining a student visa in Canada be reduced if I mention I applied for permanent residency?
I have been accepted into one of the top 10 engineering universities in Canada. I am starting to fill in the forms for a student visa, but my permanent residency application is still in the pipeline. If I mention this in the form, will my chance of getting a student visa be reduced?
The same form also requires me to mention only one post-secondary degree. Can I mention my bachelor degree instead of Master's? My current program offers me a Master's degree but in completely different field, which is my actual motivation to join the course in Canada.

Does "PR" here mean "permanent residency"?

@TomChurch Yeah, PR Visa

They probably will know about it whether you mention it or not. It is never a good idea to be dishonest on a visa application.

They will certainly automatically connect your two applications, and whoever reviews your student application will see that you have a PR application. There is no point in concealing it.

I just did the PR process, canada is VERY organized in this aspect. In fact, they already know that he applied for both. But they also understand your situation. Where exactly is your PR? EE? ITA? On the diplom question, you are overthinking it a bit, IMHO. You got accepted by the university, that's more important. Personally, I'd put the higher, regardless of the field.

@FábioDias Thanks for your input. My application is still in EE

The real question here is whether you are required to mention your permanent residency on your student visa application. If it is not required, I would refrain from mentioning this issue both in the application and during the interview as temporary residentship (e.g student visa) expects you to plan on returning after the agreed upon period. However, If you are required to provide such information in the form or are asked about in the interview, I would STRONGLY encourage you to provide the honest answer. Being dishonest in your application or interview can easily lead to your Visa being rejected. Bear in mind that your residency application is an officially submitted document and can easily be recovered if the Visa administration office seeks to look for it.

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Will I have to pay VAT or other taxes when paying an article processing charge from India?
Recently my manuscript has been accepted in Nature Scientific Reports, an open access journal.
They charge £1,110 to the UK and other countries.
Will additional tax be added when transferring the article processing charge to the journal's account? And if so, how much?

VAT is a local tax, and its amount depends in this case on the Indian law, not the UK's.

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How to convince a Doctoral Committee to accept me as a PhD student when I already have a PhD in a similar field?
I have completed my Ph.D dissertation in Pure Mathematics this year  from a relatively lesser known University.
I have been through these questions like Considering a second PhD, this time in statistics. Will any professors be interested in working with me? and Is doing two PhDs a good path?.
However I am interested in pursuing a PhD again in another branch of Mathematics  from a graduate school which is a very well known University.
The University where I want to apply  does not have any age limit for pursuing a PhD.
I want to shift from my current research field to another field as I have become interested in it recently.
I also believe that getting a PhD from top-tier institution will increase my chances for getting a tenure track position.
My questions are:

How do I convince the interview committee that I want to complete another PhD in mathematics/Theoretical computer science as I am genuinely interested.

Also I enjoy remaining a student as long as I can. I enjoy taking courses and writing papers.
Will that be also a valid reason to tell the interview committee.

My advisor feels that my chances of getting another PhD in Maths/TCS are slim since I already have a PhD and the interview committee would consider this as a waste of time and resource to hire me as PhD student again.

The problem is I don't like the fact that I will no longer be a grad student anymore.
I like this whole concept of doing research and getting paid(though meagerly but it still suits me).
If someone could help me with my queries, I will be grateful.

The University where I want to apply does not have any age limit for pursuing a PhD. --- Are there such universities? I suppose there are, given Academia varies more than you think it does – The Movie, but I suspect this is so unusual that you might want to include a country tag.

If you like doing research and barely getting paid, have you considered doing a postdoc? You can use that to transition fields too.

I agree with your advisor that most people would consider that the purpose of the doctorate is to teach you how to be a researcher and another degree isn't going to give you anything you don't already have. And giving the opportunity to another student is a positive good in the eyes of many, possibly most.
Moreover, if your goal is to do research and get paid for it there are better ways to achieve it. You should put your efforts into those instead.
But, to answer your question, about the only way I can think of to achieve this goal is to find someone who has a project and a very specific need for assistance that only you can fill. Possible? Sure. Likely? Not so much. And you would be better off doing a post-doc with them in any case. The pay would be better. You would have an opportunity to learn. Etc.
There is nothing stopping you from learning even outside a formal program. It takes a slightly different kind of discipline, but no more or less than that of a degree program. You can also build a circle of collaborators to help you find interesting ideas that commonly come up in class/seminar situations. You should probably explore that option in any case.

I do want a postdoc, but I hardly know anyone and my advisor has said he does not know anyone too, so I dont know what should I do now

You should start networking to procure a postdoc. There are lots of virtual talks happening. Start attending them and connect with the speakers afterwards if you have something smart to say to them.

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I got mad at my advisor?
Without going into the details, I got a little irritated and frustrated with my advisor today.
I've been feeling myself slowly losing respect for her as a manager, but have remained professional and friendly. Her micromanagement and unpredictability have had some negative impacts on my project. We had to work closely together today on something under what I would say is a high pressure situation. She really didn't lead very well.
I just snapped a few times and was pretty irritated. I wasn't full on mad, but since I'm normally the opposite of confrontational (I've never even gotten mad at a coworker before), it definitely is something that would stand out.
She's been really nice after this, and complimenting me on small things, but I'm not sure how to go forward. Should I just pretend like nothing happened? There's been some long-term frustration that led up to this, but it still feels wrong to have lost my temper with my advisor.
Is it common/rare for grad students to show anger towards their supervisor, and how negatively do you judge them for it?

It depends a lot on the culture. When I was a student, some twenty years ago, I certainly had some pretty harsh discussions with my advisor, from both a technical point of view and a management one. Nowadays, it seems that the relationships between professors and students should be much smoother, which, sometimes, might not be necessarily a good thing.

Students:  Faculty are trained in their academic discipline.  Usually they have no training in management.  Do not expect them to be good managers.  Faculty:  Get training in management if you are going to manage a research group.

@AnonymousPhysicist Hmm I hear this argument a lot. At first it makes sense. But then again, do new manager outside of academia get "pre-management training"? I don't think so... It's just that there, professionalism is expected and the rule. People would never get away with some of the things done in academia. And even if PIs don't go through formal training in management, I would hope that years as a grad student and post-doc would offer experience as a leader.

Short term -- if you're feeling remorseful, or if you would like to be polite, there's nothing wrong with apologizing for being snippy, or for snapping at her, or whatever it is you did.  When you're ready to start thinking about what you might want to do differently, you may want to consider some alternatives, such as: switch advisors, be more assertive, organize things in such a way as to have less pressure, resolve to walk away when things get to be too much, let her know that you will do that if need be. Maybe you'll think of a few more actions to add to the list of possibilities.

@ConfusedStudent007 In the business world, people spend 4 years (or more if they have a masters) studying management before they get their  degree!  But that doesn't mean they always act professionally.

@confusedstudent007 yes! Managers outside academia are often trained as such! It's something that some parts of academia are just waking up to - my uni offers management and leadership courses to MCRs.

I can't offer useful advice, because I don't know you, or your advisor, or your relationship. It may be that you can politely explain how certain behaviour affects you, and suggest something that would help you work better together. Or, that might be a bad idea. I'm not sure that this is answerable as a general question... Ah, but on rereading I realise that "what should I do" is not actually the question. Fair enough

She's been really nice after this, and complimenting me on small things, but I'm not sure how to go forward.

It shows that she realized you have been stressed out, and she is willing to be helpful to make you feel better as a new student. Do not think too much. Work well. Respect her and be nice to her (really mean that. not pretend).
As time passes, the event will be forgotten and forgiven (if needed). Since you are fairly new, you will eventually get to know her more. At that time, you will be in a better position to see what went wrong and what made you lose your cool.
Also offer to proactively fix the situation. Apologies by word mean nothing. Show it in action.

Are you fairly advanced in your program?  It's common for these kinds of conflicts to arise as students become more and more independent. I got into it with my advisor too, when I was ABD. We met afterwards and he assured me it was normal for 'children' to rebel against their 'parents' when coming of academic age.
Still, you may have been out of line. There's a clear power structure. I would apologize to the person that signs off on your dissertation.

I'm fairly new actually. I think what you say makes sense, but also makes me think a lot of things that are happening aren't really normal...


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How can teaching assistants deal with grade disputes?
From the answers to this question, it is clear that TAs in the US are usually responsible for grading students' work.
In my country, most of the TAs face the following challenges:

Students confront TAs and attempt to negotiate for extra marks in order to pass, or to improve a grade;

Students confront TAs and attempt to negotiate for extra marks by using a friend's answers as evidence to support their case;

Students inquire about the subtle methods used in grading: the amount of marks awarded for each step, the reason for a decrease of even 0.5 marks, or they ask to see the solution manual, etc.,

And then these conflicts evolve into personal enmities, which may eventually cause the TA serious consequences (a heated confrontation, loss of students' respect, etc.).
The issue is worst if the assignment's answers are quantitative or mathematical. There is no solution manual and sometimes no way to guarantee consistent and fair marking over a great number of student assignments (even for a single particular question).
So I want to know how TAs in the US—or in other countries—avoid these complications. What are the key techniques?
Note: Some say it's a minor issue. No. It is a major issue and often arises with TAs in my country, where the professor is not involved in the distribution or evaluation of grades.

Please comment before downvote, I can update the question if I know the issue.

I've been poking around but can't find the earlier, similar question. I remember that someone said they would do a full regrade if requested, but wouldn't guarantee that the grade would be better.

@mkennedy Probably https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/9014/68109 , but this is not exactly a duplicate since this asks what a TA can do, not the professor.

@GoodDeeds Thank you, that's it! Perhaps it can give the OP some ideas.

In the United States, the professor responsible for the course should take responsibility for resolving disputes (but not requests for corrections and clarifications).  There is an expectation that they will be heavily involved in grading, even if the bulk of it is done by teaching assistants.
In some cases, the professor may choose not to involve themselves in grading at all, and leave it up to teaching assistants to resolve disputes.  I do not agree with this practice, but if you are stuck with it, you can handle disputes by:

Using a rubric to grade.
Resolving all disputes using the rubric.
Refusing to compare the work of different students.  In the USA, comparing students' papers runs a risk of violating privacy laws.

Ultimately a portion of students will never agree with you about how you grade (they want to learn something different from what you are expected to teach) and this simply must be tolerated.

Hm I think this answer maybe unintentionally implies that any disputes should go straight to the professor. While I agree the instructor of record has the duty to handle belligerent students, students should ask the TA first. IME, if you just asked the prof why a TA graded something the way they did, they would say "ask the TA." I'm not sure the expectation the prof is "heavily involved" is universal. Perhaps for the big assignments

@AzorAhai--hehim A prof a graded for worked as you describe. He distributes the work to be graded per question per TA. Then, he would resolve all disputes, building a reputation of never giving in. He released the answers (with I think even the grading scheme). As a student there was nothing to gain, except in case of real errors.

@Bernhard I'm not quite sure what you're saying, but of course, not all classes work that way. What I am trying to say - if a student were to read this answer - is that going straight to the professor is not the universally correct choice for every class. In most of my undergraduate classes, I would have been told to talk to the TA first ...

In some sense, handling small grading errors is the TA's job. Otherwise, I would call them a "grader," which some departments use.

@AzorAhai--hehim Student should go where they are instructed to go. But in my case that was the professor. I was just posing it as a example from the other side. Also, yes, I think in that case we were more graders than TAs.

Good answer, upvoted. Regarding your last sentence though, “some students will never agree with you about how you grade” not because “they want to learn something different” but because they care only about the grade and not so much about learning. This is probably the more common scenario.

@AzorAhai--hehim What you describe is not a dispute.  I edited.

Works for me ..

Tell students that, "a TA's grades are final and non-negotiable," and that, "any disputes should follow the usual channels." Or, ideally, have your boss (the prof or whoever) or their boss (whoever runs, or has control over, the department) tell them.

I'm not sure I agree with this. Sometimes student complaints are reasonable and deserve to be taken seriously.

@academic That's why dispute channels exist. Regardless, they most likely shouldn't be handled by TAs, they should be handled by faculty.

One way to resolve this for the instructor to specify that assignment marks will not be reviewed unless there is an obvious error by the marker or a mechanical error in entering or adding the mark, and that all reviews will be done by the instructor once at the end of the term.
The effects of this are:

that students typically stop fighting for fractional marks that have practically 0 impact on the final grade at the end of the term, and
that students do not negotiate with the TA.

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Does rushing work in a PhD happen by nature (of the degree) or is it applied (by supervisor)?
A research paper may take several months to understand for a beginner, based on its complexity. Although a student is good with the required background in that broad domain, she has to understand several other research papers in backward chain, which takes a lot of time.
So, I feel that PhD is not a degree which has an inherent property of rushing.
If it is true, then why do most of the supervisors do rush their students instead of leaving them for sufficient amount of time? Is it a phenomenon in developing countries only or is it a global phenomenon?
Note: Rushing in the question refers to the phenomenon of asking student to perform a task (including publishing, comprehension) given insufficient amount of time, which may cause tension, panic or sense of urgency in students.

What exactly do you mean with "rushing" in this context?

@lighthousekeeper Asking for communication to journals, novel algorithms etc.,

@lighthousekeeper PhD is a degree of 5 years in my country. But supervisors generally ask for research contribution in first 2 years.

A research contribution in the first 2 years seems reasonable, most students I know would not see this as insufficient time. Regarding the issue with reading a backward chain of papers, I can recommend the following question: How to read papers without falling into a rabbit hole?

@Roland It is because of the reason that the techniques used for solving a problem can be from various domains that the student is unaware of.

@Roland Yeah, Course work can be completed in first two years at worse. First year at the best.

All students should "rush" themselves because it is in their financial and career interests.  Supervisors asking for more than can be achieved is not particular to academia.

@Roland if a "research paper may take several months to understand", the candidate is simply not qualified for a PhD project: I suppose there's a spectrum of understanding, from a basic grasp to mastering the material.

@lighthousekeeper, depends a lot on the field/technique. If you're (say) training monkeys or studying development, data might not even start coming in for a year or two.

A research paper may take several months to understand for a beginner, based on its complexity. Although a student is good with the required background in that broad domain, she has to understand several other research papers in backward chain, which takes a lot of time.
So, I feel that PhD is not a degree which has an inherent property of rushness.

You have it backwards. The fact that reading, understanding, and producing research takes a lot of time is precisely why a PhD is often stressful. You have a finite amount of time to do a lot of something that's inherently time-consuming. That means you have to hurry / crunch on occasion, otherwise you aren't getting done what's required in the timeframe of your PhD.

why do most of the supervisors do rush their students instead of leaving them for sufficient amount of time?

I'm not sure if "most supervisors" do this, but if you feel you aren't getting enough time for your tasks it may boil down to one or multiple of the following:

You are going too deep (e.g., when reading previous research), and your supervisor is trying to nudge you to progress in your own work instead. Alternatively, if you are working on your own research, it may mean you are going too deep on one task and the supervisor thinks this has been done well enough and you should move on now.
Your supervisor has extrapolated that with your current speed of progress you will not finish your PhD in time (especially in countries with hard time limits this can threaten your PhD entirely).
Your supervisor is trying to establish a sense of urgency. Especially early on, a hard deadline five years from now can seem like nothing is even close to high-urgency, which for some people can translate into a lack of motivation to get stuff done right now. Having your supervisor ride your behind is a time-tested way to resolve this dilemma.
Your supervisor is unreasonable and is trying to squeeze too much out of you. Of course, what's "too much" depends on many factors, including legal requirements, standards of the institution, supervisor, and student.
[The worst case] Your supervisor values numbers over quality and is pushing you towards sloppy work.

And all of this is pretty much replicated in any organization that wants concrete results at some point.

Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities, we didn't have to produce anything! You've never been out of college! You don't know what it's like out there! I've WORKED in the private sector. They expect results.

@davidbak Can't tell if you are being ironic or not, but I can assure you that most universities also expect results from their PhD students.

@xLeitix - (have you never seen Ghostbusters?)


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Is it acceptable to ask a potential supervisor about my suitability for a PhD with them?
Is it considered acceptable, in general, to ask the potential PhD supervisor whether one's profile is considered good/suitable for a proposed PhD (sciences) topic?
Countries: USA, Spain, Switzerland, France

This question seems to be missing details, most notably asking WHO? Your country of study would be another important detail.

@StellaBiderman I've updated the question. Thank you

Why not?
Ideally, write them a short intro letter introducing yourself and telling them something about your background and interests and whether it would be worthwhile applying. Worst case, you don't hear back. Second worst, they tell you thanks, but it's not relevant. Third worst, they are interested, but have no funding.
Make sure you check their website for their interests and research and ideally identify one or more papers which resonate with your intended direction and introduction. Some applicants manage to hit just upon something that the supervisor may just be interested in doing but never found someone to cover.


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What's expected in a UK postgrad letter of recommendation
Note: This is specific to the UK. My experience of recruitment more generally is that it varies a lot internationally.
I've been asked to write a letter of recommendation for an undergrad applying for further study.  I'm happy to do it, and want to pitch it at the right level for a good student who's well suited to .  I'm more familiar with writing references for job applicants (students moving on from academia), and I'm not sure if the same tone is appropriate.  Most of the advice I can find online (and there are plenty of related questions here) is tailored to the American system, where such letters (i) seem to carry more weight, and (ii) seem only to be helpful if they describe the candidate as the most amazing student the referee has ever met.
In this case I'll be using an online form, so the format isn't really an issue, just the content


text:
Week before Master's thesis deadline, found publication that explores same concept with slightly different results
My Master's thesis is due in a week and I am currently writing up all of my results. To my horror, I have just found a paper that seems to explore virtually the same concept as I do, although they appear to generate results that differ slightly from my own. How should I treat this? In my defense, the other paper has only been cited four times according to semantic scholar, but I can't simply ignore its existence despite not having used it to write my own paper.
Edit: this is a master's thesis and my current plan is to add it to the related literature section and mention how and why the two models generate some different results.

Is this thesis for an master's degree or a PhD?

master's thesis. just edited.

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/73009/can-someone-else-publish-a-paper-based-on-independently-achieving-a-result-that

If this is science, then please note that replication is good.  Talk to your advisor.   Anything random people on the internet say is irrelevant opinion not adequately customized to your situation.

You will need to speak to your advisor about this matter, but if the paper is relevant to your research (and it certainly sounds like it is) then you are correct in your view that it should be incorporated into your thesis.  If one week is insufficient to do this, I recommend you seek an extension for submission from your supervisory panel.  It should not be too difficult to secure an extension in this circumstance, and it is likely that your panel will want you to do the extra work to incorporate this work into your thesis.  The golden rule of all research work is to make it as useful as possible for the reader.  Adding reference and discussion to this other paper sounds like it will certainly improve your work and give relevant information to the reader about the state of the field.
Finally, in regard to the "horror" you are experiencing, it might aid you to learn that several highly aclaimed researchers have had similar ---but far more horrifying--- experiences of this kind.  The most famous case I am aware of is Gottlob Frege, an eminent German philosopher and logician, who wrote his Magnus Opus on logic and arithmetic, only to be informed by Bertrand Russell that one of the core axioms on which the entire theory was based was inconsistent (and therefore the entire theory was invalidated).  It is instructive to read the history of this matter (see e.g., here), and it is a fascinating story in the history of mathematics and academic publishing.  Russell later remarked on the immense integrity of Frege in dealing with the disappointment of finding out that his life's work was wrong:

As I think about acts of integrity and grace, I realise that there is nothing in my knowledge to compare with Frege’s dedication to truth.  His entire life’s work was on the verge of completion, much of his work had been ignored to the benefit of men infinitely less capable, his second volume was about to be published, and upon finding that his fundamental assumption was in error, he responded with intellectual pleasure clearly submerging any feelings of personal disappointment.  It was almost superhuman and a telling indication of that of which men are capable if their dedication is to creative work and knowledge instead of cruder efforts to dominate and be known.  (Quoted in van Heijenoort (1967), 127) (Quote taken from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, History of Russell's Paradox)

It's not very plausible that it would take more than a week to handle this.

It really depends on what issues the other paper raises.  If the other paper shows some flaw in the analysis method used in the present paper then this could lead to a longer period of redrafting/correction.  In any case, the advisor can address this.

This is up to your advisor and any committee that is involved in accepting the thesis and or the completion of your degree.
"Only four citations" doesn't sound like a good thing, however. If I were on your committee I would wonder whether this is parallel work, and hence fine, or if you should have seen this paper a while ago and adapted to it.
It is a serious issue that may have a good outcome for you or not. Speak to your advisor.
My reaction, in the worst case, other than deceit, would be to send you back to the drawing board to see what extension you might make to give your work a bit more heft. In the best case, parallel work is common and should be accepted for graduation purposes, even if not for publication.

When you say that "only four citations" doesn't sound like a good thing, you mean that it indicates the idea is not great, correct?

No, not at all. I mean that it has been out there for a while if it has been seen and used by several others. Perhaps you should have seen it (much?) earlier.

As you are a newcomer to research, I can't condemn you too much, but you have to keep up with the literature even after you start a project, all the way through to the end. Especially true in any "hot topic" area with a lot of parallel work.

While I agree with the general sentiment, parallel work happens a lot. There are many separate communities, and many ideas pop up roughly at the same time when the time is mature. OP can not be by default blamed.

@CaptainEmacs, nor do I think the OP can be blamed by "default". But due diligence is still required. If the four citations all pop up in a month from different communities then there should be no issue. If they occur over two years, however...

Forget. In the sense that it won't have consequences on your defense. The master thesis is something that you got assigned to and the supervisor is responsible of. Treat it as a big exam. At least this is what would be in all places I know.

@Buffy I am quite tolerant concerning rediscoveries given today's paper flood. A paper appeared a decade later which had lot of similarities to a rarely cited paper of mine which even appeared in the same outlet. I do not expect people to keep track of everything that's around. It should just be clear that it is a rediscovery rather than a "forgotten" inspiration, if you get the drift.

This seems excessively pessimistic.


text:
Does your final-year GPA matter once you apply for graduate school during your undergradate study?
I am a final-year undergraduate student studying Anthropology. And I am willing to apply for graduate school. And I am curious whether one's final-year GPA matters. Because once you apply and receive an offer, you will not have received your grades for the courses you took in your final year.
If it does not matter once you receive an offer, then what about schools that require a minimum GPA in their applications? As an example, if I receive an offer from a graduate program that requires at least a 3.7 GPA, but my GPA drops below that number once I graduate, would that be a problem?
Thanks a lot!

Does this answer your question? Conditional Offer?

Note that the answer to the linked duplicate question is quite US specific -- what country are you concerned about @Huzo?

@astronat I am considering North America or UK. I don't know if the answer would be different for UK universities

In general, slacking off at the end is not a good plan, particularly since you (likely, should) be taking higher level courses applicable to your current degree and your future graduate program. Keep up the hard work and finish strong.

The linked duplicate question answers your query regarding applications in the US. This answer will address the UK situation.
In the UK, if you haven't graduated and got your final mark yet, your offer of a PhD place and funding will almost certainly be conditional on you finishing your degree with a certain grade. They may specify a certain GPA you need to graduate with, or the equivalent UK degree classification. Since the UK system is less finely graded than in the US, the latter scenario gives you more flexibility.
For example, they may state that you must achieve equivalent to a 2:1 (pronounced "two-one", aka upper second class) degree. In the UK this means an average of between 60% and 69%. Let's say your GPA is currently 3.5, which might correspond to 68%*, a high 2:1. However, in your final semester it drops to 3.3, which might now correspond to 64%, a middling 2:1. In this imaginary scenario, your drop in GPA didn't correspond to a drop in UK classification, so you would still meet the offer.
However, if they give you an offer in terms of your GPA (perhaps less likely), asking for you to graduate with a 3.5 and you drop to 3.3, then you have missed the terms of your offer and your place and funding will likely be rescinded.
Related to Jon Custer's comment, it's also important to note that in the UK the average grade tends to be weighted towards the final year, and first year grades almost never count towards the final classification. So doing poorly in your final year certainly looks bad from a UK perspective, as the final year courses are arguably the most important and have the biggest effect on your overall classification. While that may not be true for your own degree, the unconscious bias may still be in the minds of a UK admissions committee.

*Note that I have no idea how GPA would really be converted to a UK classification; likely the university you are applying to will have their own method of conversion that would definitely be worth asking about before you apply.

I think this is a good answer that can be applied to basically any country and school for your grad school. Basically every offer will have come with some terms that you will have to have satisfied, including your final marks/grades/passing transcript. Those will determine your situation. Don't slack off just because you got and accepted an offer! Check your offer letter for the terms or pointers to them.


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Plagiarism between a Physical Review Letters paper and a previous arXiv preprint
I am a PhD student and today, a PRL paper has been published in which a part of its main section reports the same results as our arXiv preprint, that was submitted also to PRL (and to arXiv) at the end of 2019. They submitted their work after ours; however, our paper is still under review since the referees asked us for experiments to validate the theory and numerics. Furthermore, his work does not include experiments, is also mostly numerics and theory, and their analysis is not as exhaustive and detailed as ours. There are sentences in their work and even the plots that are pretty similar and some of them almost identical, and they even use the same name for a characteristic quantity that was used for the first time in our preprint. The thing is that they have only cited our preprint at the end of the paper as "Note added", not in the main section or even in the supplementary material where they also use almost identical sentences. I am 100% sure that they were aware of our preprint since day one since they read it in ResearchGate. It seems they wanted to include this result in their PRL at any cost, hoping that nothing happens since it is not a clear case of plagiarism and they succinctly added the note at the end of the Letter to cover their backs. Moreover, they did not publish any arXiv preprint of his work.
PRL is supposed to publish "new physics" and its standards are really high, so I cannot understand how PRL has permitted this publication.
I feel that this is a really bad practice, and I am strongly disappointed and sad, not just for my work, which in my eyes is a complete injustice, but for science. Indeed, the group that publishes this work used to be a big name in the field, so I feel that we cannot do much to solve this. My PhD advisor thinks that probably the only thing we can accomplish is an erratum from this group in PRL.
What do you think is the best way to proceed? Do you think it is possible that PRL retracts the work?

How did PRL respond?

What happened later, please?

Seems like the Princeton PRL incident. A Princeton group was likely plagiarized.

(too long for a comment)
I would contact the authors of the suspected plagiarism and demand an explanation in the politest possible way. Try not to imply that you're certain your paper was plagiarized, but ask instead if, by citing your paper, whether or not they are aware that your conclusions are so similar. I would also add that you have sent the paper to the same journal, which being a PRL should be rather obvious due to the length limitations.
If you are sure their submission date to PRL comes after you submitted your pre-print to ArXiv, and that they were also aware of it, then you have proof that you were the first to make those results public. I believe if the authors do not respond well to your email you have good chances of contacting the PRL editorial board and, using your pre-print as proof, claim that you were plagiarized.
The best case scenario is to be able to solve your problems with the authors of the other paper, but to be honest I'm not sure most human beings would respond well to this situation. Maybe you'll have to get in touch with the board. If I were you, I would definitely not leave things as be, and would insist until the matter was solved (even if legal measures are needed).

Contacting the other authors is pointless.

It is good etiquette before contacting the editorial board. I'm a polite person.

Let me rephrase that:  Demanding an explanation is pointless if you have already decided that plagiarism took place.  You can offer them the opportunity to retract the paper before you make a complaint to the editors. That might be polite.

Yep. It's included in the answer. This is the best case scenario. A polite communication with the authors leads, in the best case scenario, to a solution that doesn't involve the editorial board. It needs to be polite, otherwise it will be taken as an accusation. If one wants to accuse, jump to contacting the board. If one wants to at least attempt a more peaceful solution, contact the authors. This is pretty much my answer.

You should change your answer to actually say that because it doesn't now.  There is no "solution" which does not involve the editorial board.  The authors cannot retract or publish errata without editorial approval.

Attempting to contact the authors before contacting the editors gives them the chance of dealing with the problem themselves. It is less harmful for them to talk with the editors in their own words than to allow someone, with undoubtable proof, to do so behind their backs. If they're smart enough, they'll contact the board themselves if there is truth behind the plagiarism accusation, politely brought to their attention by the offended. I believe this is all included in the answer, yes, in between the lines... And now brightly exposed in these comments.

Thank you for all your comments and suggestions. Yesterday we wonder if contacting the senior researcher was a good a idea, but we have references from colleagues that have dealt with him, and its not a good idea. Maybe is a good option just to have a proof that we have been polite. But as I said in the comment below, I think what we are going to do is to complete a good revision, polish and improve our paper, and write a letter to the editors explaining what has happened with facts. Let's see what they decide. Thank you so much again!

When there is clear-cut copying as you describe, you can contact the journal editor and show them what was copied.  The journal should investigate and retract the paper.
What is most important to you is that you complete the revisions and get your paper resubmitted.  The other paper has no effect on the acceptance of your paper because it was submitted later.

Thank you for comment and suggestion. This is actually what we are going to do. So let's see what the editors decide. Thank you again!


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If I drop out, can I restart my Master's degree in the future?
I was enrolled in a prestigious school in central Europe, studying an MSc in computer science.
I have decided to drop out because it seriously felt like my bachelor background was weak, and I had to cover too much ground. Also, my study technique was poor.
Will it be possible to go back to graduate school if I want to again in future?

I cannot imagine any reason for "no".

Yes, it's possible.
The only thing you will need to consider is how to explain why you dropped out on future applications. A department or university will need to be convinced that you won't simply drop out again soon after starting the course. Before reapplying, you should think carefully about how to demonstrate that you've solved the problems that caused you to drop out before, perhaps by self-studying or taking online courses so that you are better prepared.

Possibly
but it sounds like you haven't officially "dropped out" yet, so there is another better option if you'd like to return
Take A Leave Of Absence
Most universities offer students the ability to take a semester to a year off and return without reapplying.  It's usually referred to as a Leave of Absence.  You'll have to talk with someone in the administrative office of your university, and possibly someone in your department.
It's more common than you think.  Some students do it to deal with medical issues, but many do it for the reason you're considering dropping out.  Getting a degree can be overwhelming sometimes, and if you're struggling early on, sometimes a break can help you re-group and catch up.
Universities understand that sometimes a student can get overwhelmed, before dropping out, see what other options there may be to give you time to catch up and improve your study skills.

You can probably go back, but...
How will dropping out improve things? It sounds like a poor approach unless you have some positive options to make your situation better. How will dropping out improve your study skills, say. It won't improve your already finished undergraduate degree.
People do leave and return. That isn't a huge problem most places. But when you want to return, people will ask you about your suitability and the probability of your success.
Let me suggest you think about whether staying and working on study habits and work process isn't a better path for you than leaving.
Of course, you may have other reasons that you don't state here that make leaving for a while a better plan. But if you go, have a plan, not just a hope, for your return if that is your intention.


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PhD application interviews on same day for different programs
I'm not sure if anyone has experienced this type of issue or has advice, but I've noticed that many of the doctoral programs I'm applying to conduct interviews at the exact same time. I'm applying to about 11 programs, and 10 of them have 2-3 day trips between Feb 1st and Feb 15th.
Granted, I will not get in everywhere, but I think there's a likely chance at least 2 or 3 interviews will overlap between schools.
Is this a common issue? How do I approach a program that I get into (and am interested in attending) without saying "yeah sorry I'm interviewing for a different school on that date?" I would imagine that this would tick off the program and possibly leave me hopeless for that program even though I made it far enough to get an interview. Are programs flexible at all to students who can't make their 1-time a priori determined interview trip?

It's common. Departments aren't naive enough to think that they are the only place you've applied to. If you email them in good time and explain that you have another interview, I'm sure they will happily arrange alternatives. This could be a visit at a different, mutually convenient time, or perhaps a Skype interview.  Just phrase your email a bit more professionally than "yeah sorry I'm interviewing elsewhere" (but I'm sure you know this).
I would sincerely hope that no university is petty enough to put a black mark next to your name simply due to a clash of schedules -- but if they did, you don't want to work in such an environment anyway.

Thank you for the response! Great points and good to hear. I agree though, if I were to be black-marketed because of this scenario, it's probably good I don't even interview there.


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Number of recommendation letters?
If a department places no limit to the number of recommendation letters, how many are appropriate?
Are 5 OK? Are 7 too many?
Of course this depends on how strong the letters are - but let's assume that all of them are equally strong.

When asked for a specific number, 2-3 is common. Therefore, I would go with 2-3. Choose the strong ones among the 5-7 you could get (if I get you right). But this is just an opinion, therefore not an answer.

Did you look for similar posts on this site? Your question is similar to this one https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/76601/is-having-five-letters-of-recommendation-for-stem-phd-programs-math-specifical

What country are the universities to which you are applying in?

@astronat US universities

Go with three strong LORs like everyone else and call it good.  No one needs five and seven is ridiculous.


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Is it possible to get a PhD position with only a Bachelor's degree?
I have done a Bachelor's (4 years) and my GPA is quite low. But I have research experiences (more than 3 years) and few publications in some good journals. I want to do a Ph.D. in biology or a related field. Is it possible to get a position (e.g. in the USA or Europe) when research experience is the only strong point? Or should I go for a Master's first?

What about just finding an advisor and stapling those good papers of yours to a cumulative thesis?

It may be more helpful for you to mention which countries you are considering, so you can get more specific answers about how likely it is to be accepted to a PhD only with a Bachelor's degree.

@DimP: ...and a low GPA...

@OlegLobachev I think it's a bit disingenuous to refer to a ~5 year long PhD process as "just stapling those papers to a thesis".

@StackTracer: The key question is if OP wants to obtain a PhD as fast as possible or to acquire the grad student experience. Judging from the question, OP already has a few journal publications. If those papers have a common idea/research direction beihind them, they are stapl'ble into a staple thesis. If those assumptions are correct, OP already has those papers. No more than a few papers are needed for a thesis material. Writing an introduction is not much work. The details will be told by an advisor, if OP finds some. In total, this sounds like a fast track to a defence, just what I said.

In the UK a PhD (or DPhil) typically starts after a 4-year undergrad program: so yes, it's normal to do a PhD right after your undergrad.
At a top-level research institution in the USA (at least in the sciences, and biology is what you said you want to pursue) a Masters is something that you would normally only get if you dropped out of a PhD program: so yes it's normal to do a PhD right after your undergrad.
In Canada, for some reason the majority of the people think they have to do a Masters before a PhD, but there is no university in Canada that requires a Masters to do a PhD in biology. In fact NSERC funding for your PhD will last only 3 years if you have a Masters, and 4 years if you do not: so yes, there is a way for you to start your PhD right after your undergrad.
People have mentioned that it's normal in Denmark and Australia too.
Some European universities (for example some, but not all, universities in Germany) you might require a Masters.
Now for some advice:

But I have research experiences (more than 3 years) and few
publications in some good journals. I want to do a Ph.D. in biology or
a related field. ... should I
go for a Master's first?

You have more publication experience than some people have after their first post-doctoral position. A "few publications in some good journals" is what PhD students aim towards for graduation.
Masters programs can take 1 to 3 years (longer if your experiments don't work out). Why not instead do a 3-year PhD program in UK or most of Europe, or a 4-year "direct" PhD program in USA or Canada, and get Doctor beside your name for the rest of your life?
If you're going to do research for the next 6 years, would you rather:

Earn a Masters salary (e.g. ~$25,000/year in Canada) for 2 years, then a PhD salary (e.g. ~$35,000/year in Canada) for 4 years, or
Earn a PhD salary (e.g. ~$35,000/year in Canada) for 3-4 years, then a post-doc salary (e.g. $40,000-$70,000/year in Canada) for the remaining 2-3 years?

These days, it is getting harder and harder to get a stable job while our bodies are still in their prime condition for raising a family (or doing whatever else we enjoy). There still are PhDs getting permanent or tenure-track jobs in their 20s, but it's becoming common for people to reach 40 by the time this happens, because there's more humans to compete with than any time in our history. Do you really want to delay your life by 2-3 years by getting a  Masters, when your goal is to get a PHD?
I am of course not listing the advantages of doing a Masters rather than a PhD, since you said you want to do a PhD eventually, and you seem to be a very strong candidate for a PhD position, so with no other information, I am certainly happy to encourage you to go straight to a PhD position. If you do want to know the reasons why one would choose a Masters rather than a PhD, the reasons do exist, but to explain them might double the size of this answer, and I would only do it if there was some reason why you were still considering a Masters even though you now know that it's not abnormal to go straight to a PhD: perhaps in that case you could describe what you want and the reasons for it, in a separate question).

The University of Ottawa requires a MSc to be admitted for a doctorate in biology https://catalogue.uottawa.ca/en/graduate/doctorate-philosophy-biology/#Admissiontext. . McMaster also requires a MSc for admission to PhD program in biology https://gs.mcmaster.ca/program/biology/ Are you sure no university in Canada requires a MSc to do a PhD?

@Cell the McMaster URL you provided does not say what you say it does. The UOttawa site does say that a Masters is required for PhD, but if you scroll further down it says that there's a "fast-track PhD program" in which you don't have to finish the Masters to move into the PhD program. Based on the information we have available, OP has enough publications that they could find a supervisor willing to take them as a PhD student, except formally they have to apply to the Masters program and then "transfer" to the PhD program after a year, if they're in good standing. Direct PhD can be like that.

"UK ... typically starts after a 4-year undergrad program" -- but doesn't that 4-year undergrad program typically award you a Masters, not a Bachelor's? If so, you just need to check whether or not a 4-year US Bachelor's degree is valid in place of the local 4-year undergrad MSc, which frequently will be more specialised than a typical US 4-year undergrad program. My 4-year MMath degree was all mathematics courses, all the time, as you'd expect in the UK. No minor subject, no Spanish 101, as you might get in a US undergrad degree ;-)

@SteveJessop You're right about everything, except I started a DPhil at Oxford directly after my 4-year undergrad in Canada.

Perfect. It's basically either they accept the application or they don't, and if they did for you it sounds like it's allowed...

If you open the dropdown tab for biology (PhD) it says "required credentials MSc" how does that not say what I say it does? Also fast tracking is not exactly the same as applying to PhD because it's conditional; there's no guarantee that you will transfer to PhD depending on the university. At uOttawa you need the grades, a successful committee meeting, an acceptable proposal, and exceptional work done during your first year in the MSc. All of this must be done because you cannot apply to PhD directly from BSc unlike other places.

@Cell My apologies! You are correct that it says that. I genuinely looked for it but couldn't find it, and I got a bit disappointed when I discovered that the link you provided needed at least 1 more button to click to get any information, and the comment didn't say so. Anyway, the situation is probably the same as UOttawa. I worked at McMaster's Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology (different from Biology but similar enough) for long enough. As for the rest of your comment: All direct PhD programs I know, require the student to pass a "transfer of status", otherwise they get a Masters

It's certainly possible -- in fact, in the USA it's more common to start a PhD directly after a Bachelor's than after a Master's. In Europe, having a Master's first is a more typical requirement, but I have known some people to start PhDs straight after their Bachelor's (in physics, in the UK). Having significant research experience and published papers will certainly help your application a lot.
Why not apply for PhD and Master's positions at the same time? That way, you may get accepted to a PhD, in which case great, if not then you will likely have the Master's to fall back on.

And some programs allow you to be considered for both (with preference for PhD) in the same application.

In Germany, I think you need a masters to apply for a doctoral position. In general, anyway, if not universal.

@Buffy: that's true for those who did their Bachelor/Master in Germany - but for foreign students there may be exceptions decided on a case-to-case basis. I had a colleague who came with a BSc from Southeast Asia to do a PhD in Germany. She had to take some exams to show that she's up to the requirements. (The same may happen if you apply for a PhD in a field that is totally unrelated to your MSc).

I thought this was more true outside the USA. On this site if a PhD student talks about taking classes they're normally studying in the USA. In Australia you go straight from a 4 year bachelor's to a PhD.

@Buffy: In Germany, my university cooperated with a British university to get a PhD with a Bachelor... It's not that it's not possible in Germany, but only "real" universities may grant them, and I studied at a "Hochschule", which is translated to university in English as well, but is more practice-oriented. Therefore, "real" university professors are being overrun by students wanting a PhD in Germany. So the very first challenge here is not to PhD, but to find a German "doctor father", which is made even harder if it's only a Bachelor's degree. You really have to have a name to get there.

@Buffy: I think there was a question (can't find it right now) where AnonymousPhysicist wrote you don't need a Master's degree in most European countries and gave France and Germany as examples (which also surprised me).

I'm starting a PhD program in January. I won't have technically finished my Bachelor's at that point as due to some scheduling issues I'll still have one module left.
If you get the grades and can persuade the supervisor you'll be a good fit for the role, anything is possible.
I'm in the UK.

In Denmark, at least at the University of Copenhagen, they have a 3+5 and 4+4 PhD programs:

In the 3+5 system, you start on an integrated Masters and PhD process straight after graduating with your Bachelors.

It exists at the Aarhus University as well, see section "I'm doing/have a Bachelor's degree". The other Danish universities may have something similar, you can google.

I have done exactly that, I had a Bachelor from Switzerland and did a PhD in the UK. I think it is more common in the US than in Europe. In Europe you might be more successful in getting a PhD position in a field where your research experience is relevant. I ended up with a PhD position in a group I had previously collaborated with. They had to invest a lot less time into my training and I got a PhD out of it, so it worked out for everyone.

Why not? In Australia, only Bachelor is officially required for PhD. There is no such thing as a master degree requirement in the country.

Some programs that don't accept people without a master's degree into their PhD program have a "bypass" mechanism where you can essentially decide after completing the first part of your program that you want to treat your completed work as the first part of your PhD program rather than completing the requirements for the Master's degree. (For example, here's the description from the University of Alberta nursing programme.) You usually need to have performed up to some standard and have the agreement of your supervisor, but the requirements are generally not onerous.  (This web page says this is a Canadian thing; it existed at my previous institution (a top research university in the US) when I was there 15 years ago, but seems to have disappeared since then.)

authors: Bob Jarvis - Слава Україні


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What does an industry recruiter want to know my Ph.D. GPA for?
What are the potential motives for an industry recruiter to want to know your PhD GPA?
Does this imply the position is more of an office drone position than a pure research position?

I'm voting to close as off-topic. The question is about the reasoning of somebody outside academia and, frankly, we can't read their mind. If you want to know why somebody did something, ask them.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

Wouldn't [workplace.se] be a more natural home for this question?

The most likely motive is your recruiter believes PhD GPAs are as relevant as undergrad GPAs.  My guess is this recruiter has a plethora of office jobs and doesn't usually work with academics.
It is perfectly acceptable to tell the recruiter you're not interested in working with them

Agreed. Asking a Ba GPA makes some sense (maybe asking even if the candidate was a working-student and the like...) but asking for a PhD GPA is IMHO downright hilarious and does not speak good about the company culture. I wonder if the recruiter wanted to see also all the publications of the candidate and took time to read them....

*believes not believe's

And why exactly is the undergrad GPA relevant when he already finished a PhD? A person can do bad at bachelor but good in master and PhD.

In general it is difficult to tell whether a PhD student is a good researcher or not right after finishing his/her degree. Good results could come from a helping advisor, a lucky topic, or good office mates. Bad results could come from bad luck, lousy preparations of the topic before the student toke over, and so on.
GPA is at least somewhat objective.
By the way, industry research most often turns out to be much different from academic research. This might be good or not, but be warned.

@NajibIdrissi And how good a researcher the student is might be completely different when they are doing the type of research a company wants (primarily intrinsically motivated as a grad student versus primarily extrinsically motivated as an employee, for example). I agree with pretty much everyone else here that PhD GPA is a bit silly as a measure, but it's really hard to objectively evaluate people for industry work without industry references.

While this may sound ridiculous, some employers do care about the GPA obtained during the PhD. I know that one of the contractors I worked for had an explicit requirement for undergrad and grad degrees, and hiring managers who wanted to make an offer to individuals with lower GPAs had to go through extra hoops to get it approved.

I'm curious: how do you get a GPA for a PhD? Is this for coursework components done during the PhD?

Yes—for the PhD coursework (and the thesis grade, if it’s not pass/fail).

Further curiosity: how would such an organization deal with a PhD (say, from a UK university) that does not come with any form of GPA at all?

@E.P., probably in the same way that they'd deal with a BA or BSc from a UK university, which also came without GPA until recently. (I think the Bologna process has resulted in some kind of GPA-like number now existing).

To add some more detail to @sevenseven's answer, remember that for most companies the recruiter is not an employee of that company. To answer your first question, the only motive they have is filling the position. GPA is a common thing to blindly ask on a laundry-list of questions they will ask anyone.
So, the employer likely does not care about your GPA; while it may be communicated in some way to the hiring manager, it's not going to be anywhere close to being a deciding factor. In my experience, hiring managers know that recruiters ask for this kind of extraneous info and are typically professional enough to know how to wade through all of it to get to the core question - "can this candidate do this job?"
If the job is interesting to you, continue through the process and provide them the GPA. In general, if you have (or are working towards) a PhD and interested in research type positions where there's a slightly higher chance they would care about your GPA, I'm assuming you have a pretty good one anyways.

Potential motives: giving them an easy way to weight one applicant over another.
Implications to the type of job: none.
Understand that many, many (, many, many) recruiters have no idea how to evaluate someone for a job, even though it is arguable that it is THEIR job to know how. So they try to find ways to do it that are objective and that can at least be argued to be relevant. Your GPA is arguably (though I wouldn't argue it) an indication of how well you performed in graduate school, therefore it is an easy way to distinguish candidate A from candidate B.
The hiring manager may or may not care, and may or may not even know the question is being asked. Unfortunately, arguing (as a candidate or potential candidate) that it is not relevant is not likely to be taken well, however right you may be.

As with all things, I've met great PhDs and lousy PhDs.  Not all degrees are equal, even when awarded from the same institution.  An engineering company I once worked for often used me to evaluate PhDs, because they needed people who actually understood the field and not simply someone who knew how to write papers. Those who knew more than I about my subject were usually amazing people who were great to work with. Those who didn't were usually arrogant bozos who thought their degree awarded them some kind of magical privilege. I can easily understand why an employer would ask for a GPA: trust.

The fallacy here is that the belief that the GPA indicates the quality of the person, or even the degree. I maintain it is used because it is easy to compare GPAs and difficult to compare people, and they use the one because they don't know how to do the other. I have no idea how the answer to the question helps 'trust' either way, unless you mean catching someone lying about the number.

I apologize, comments are limited in length.  You and I are in agreement.  If they simply used GPAs my previous employer wouldn't have used me.  But, when no better solution is available - they use anything they can.

There's a joke about a drunk looking for a quarter that he dropped halfway up the block. He's searching under the streetlight, however, because there's more light. That's what the recruiter is doing -- it's much easier to compare people on bogus things that sound ok than actually do his job. He would do it on height and weight (and skin color and sex) if he could get away with it -- those things are easier too, they just don't sound as good. I say that, if they know no better solution, they should either find one or get out of the business.


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Intellectual theft by a colleague, how to respond?
A recent exciting but unpublished discovery of mine was scooped by a colleague. I am a PhD student and I shared the discovery with the colleague a year ago. The colleague is a professor who came from the research group I work in. I found out about the scoop through my adviser who attended the colleague's talk about the discovery; the colleague's group did similar research that led them to the same discovery after we talked.
Obviously my adviser and I were surprised, upset, and angry. Initially after my adviser confronted the colleague about this the colleague was argumentative but eventually saw the light and became apologetic. The colleague offered to retract the paper that was accepted for publication but not published until we've published our findings (it's taken so long to publish for good reasons). However, the colleague is still pushy about trying to get at least something from their research out, but it is our judgement that any of their results would scoop my discovery.
Although I haven't talked with the colleague since this happened (my adviser has been mediating), I get the impression that the colleague did this intentionally with the hopes that it would go unnoticed by us.
So my question is this: what should I do to ensure this colleague receives their comeuppance i.e., does this deserve some sort of punitive action on my part? I haven't asked my adviser yet and any suggestions I receive here will certainly be discussed with my adviser.

Shameful.  They absolutely should retract the paper imho.

Happened to me by another PhD student and my advisor wasn't as supportive as yours. This is such a painful experience, I almost gave up on my PhD as it was the result of 1-year work. You have the right to your discovery, and they should retract, However, in a realistic scenario I would say your best bet is to negotiate a deal.

It happens more often than people like to admit. Good luck!

"What should I do to ensure this colleague receives their comeuppance?" Take the moral high ground.  Keep a clear image of what it means to do the right thing.  Let this person stew in his own bad karma.

@aparente001 I know where you're coming from but there are different ideas for what the right thing is. One path is for me to just let it go and hope karma works itself out; on another path I could make sure this person knows that they've really done wrong by alerting their boss. Certain misdeeds require punishment in order to hopefully prevent them from happening again. Both of these are good options, and neither is fundamentally better than the other as far as I can see. This confusion is why I asked the question. Regardless, I will just let my adviser take care of it. Thank you for sharing.

You will not prevent misdeeds from happening ever again even at the limited scale of one lab. It may be morally right to "go to war" but it is not wise when the diplomatic solution is acceptable - and here I would argue the diplomatic offer is what you would get under a complete victory.

It sounds like your adviser is already on the case -- let her handle it. She may know the colleague better, may know better how to handle such situations, and is in a position where she may not care about consequences any more if she calls out the colleague about the issue (because she already is a professor). You, on the other hand, do not have this luxury and consequently would be better off letting someone else handle this as long as you think that it is handled in a way that goes in the right direction.
So, rather than being involved yourself, let her handle that and keep you updated as to what is happening.

In addition to this, the deal negotiated by the advisor (publishing first) looks excellent to me considering the circumstances (other paper already in press, other party clearly unethical). I would not break off negotiations just to satisfy a need for revenge or justice.

Document everything and expose the thief. It will stop them and anybody else who can see what public exposure does to people who are deceitful and unjust. When you protect them or fail to nip it in the bud, they will only find a smarter, less conspicuous way to screw you over, again. It was what they intended to begin with. They are fighting without scruples, you need to defend and protect yourself without apology or fear. When someone tries this with you, they do not respect you.


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Advice on finding good research questions
I'm a relatively newly-minted PhD (in math, algebraic geometry specifically, if that matters) approaching the end of their first year in a TT position at a smaller teaching-focused state school.
Like many people that I know, my thesis question was suggested to me by my advisor. As a result I didn't get much experience or guidance on how to go about developing a research program and finding good questions to tackle. Further, since I (for better or worse) skipped the postdoc phase of an academic's life, I feel as though I missed some sorely needed scholarly-development.
My current position requires a very modest amount of research for tenure, and so I find myself in a predicament where I need to produce publishable research, but I am having an enormous amount of trouble finding questions that I can actually tackle in the small amount of research time available. I know that the standard advice is to start with follow up questions to one's thesis, but my thesis resolves a handful of remaining cases of a question in my subfield, so there is very little to nothing left to extend or follow up on. Recently I felt as if I had a good question, but some recent digging on my part has me doubting that the project will turn out anything at all. While I accept that this is part of the research process, I really can't afford to spend 6+ months working on something to have it not pan out, since I already have so little time to devote to research to start with.
My question and hope is that some of you would be willing to share your process of finding a question that eventually turns into a publication.

TT = tenure track? And I'm assuming US based?

Yes on both counts.

As you have discovered, such things are very difficult to do alone.
I suggest that you work to develop a circle of collaborators over time. Find a way to have regular conversations within your circle throwing around ideas. In a large department, that can often be with other local faculty, but it probably means going outside the local institution.
Attend conferences as often as you can and talk to people. Then keep talking to them.
Your doctoral institution may have some people who will be happy to talk to you, assuming a large department. Your advisor might be willing to introduce you to their own circle.
If you have funds for it, or can get them, arrange for people in your field to come visit and talk to students. Use the opportunity to talk to them about "stuff" that might develop. Or, get invited to talk elsewhere, paid or not, and start those conversations with people there.
And, keep notes. Lots of notes. Keep them in a form that you can easily review them. I like notecards for such things as they are easy to carry, sort, revise, discard. But keep at least a notebook of ideas that occur to you or that come up in conversations.

"and talk to people. Then keep talking to them." Exactly. And try to think of their questions (but don't be shy and ask them to explain everything you don't know or don't understand in the communication. Just politely listening to "I would like to know if sprathendic shmarks foliate over shmarkendic sprats" with smart face and trying to google the definitions afterwards will get you nowhere) :-)

@fedja, hmmm sprathendic shmarks foliate over shmarkendic sprats. See my 1983 paper.

It comes down to being curious and asking lots of questions.  Some examples:

Is there a relationship between X and Y?  If so, do they share the same properties? If not, then which properties are equivalent and vice-versa.
Has anybody answered a research question you have in mind?
Is this property known, true/false?  Why is this true/false?
Why is this problem hard?
...

Sooner or later you will find a question that has no answer.   You then have to find out whether it is a significant question. If yes, then set forth a plan to answer it.  Otherwise, move on.  There are some questions that are not within your reach.  In that case, you may want to find a low hanging 'fruit'.  If you are this stage or research direction, you tend to find many open questions.
Many researchers have a pre-set of questions in mind; equivalently, they have a 'taste' for certain type of research questions.
Some researchers have a 'hammer' in mind, and their goal is to look for 'nails'.
I'm sure there are many other strategies.


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Will an off-topic Masters hurt my chances of a PhD place?
I have just completed the third year of an integrated master's degree (a three-year undergraduate degree plus an additional year of study at a master's degree level, with the final degree being an MPhys) in Astrophysics at a UK university. This summer I have to decide the topic of my final year dissertation, which counts for 50% of my final year.
I am almost certain I would like to continue in research and hence I am also starting to look for PhD places. I am very interested in cosmology, but with no idea of a specific area I want to go into and so I had thought of doing something in the field for my Master's dissertation, to get an idea of what it would be like to perform cosmology research.
However, the university I am at does not have a research group in this area and no facilities or expertise either. I have approached a potential supervisor (the lecturer who taught my one cosmology module, who is a plasma physicist), but he has told me that it is entirely up to me to decide on a topic/ question, which I am wary of doing due to my complete inexperience and lack of knowledge.
So, my question is this: if I decide to do my Master's dissertation on a different topic (eg solar physics), will I be at a disadvantage when applying for cosmology PhDs?

I am almost certainly staying in the UK

Don't ask us.
Contact your favourite three prospective universities for your cosmology PhD. Better still, contact your favourite three supervisors for your cosmology PhD. Ask them:

What Master's dissertation topic will prepare me best for my intended cosmology studies?
What Master's dissertation topic will make me most likely to be successful when applying to study a cosmology PhD?

(The first question is much more interesting than the second).
You will find enthusiasm for engaging with your question and your situation, because you are expressing specific interest in their field and because you are not asking them to decide anything about your application – since you have not applied. Quite a lot of people in senior levels in cosmology are interested in cosmology and are glad to find interest in cosmology in other people.

Martin's answer is good, but I'd like to share my experience anyway, which is that the topic of your thesis is less important than the quality of your work.
That is to say, publications, good recommendations, good marks, and awards/accolades are much more valued than the specific topic that you worked on. People don't expect miracles from your master's thesis, rather they want to know whether you have the necessary knowledge/skills to embark on a PhD.
Yes, a thesis topic which aligns perfectly with your interests is ideal, and it may be a minor disadvantage if you can't work on such a topic, but ultimately it's not up to you what topics are available to you, and people in academia recognise this.

Off-topic: Nice alias!

In addition to the above, it depends very much on your funding (we are discussing the UK system here). If you will be self-funded, the supervisor will primarily look at your ability to finish (complete), and second to how open you are to work in an area the supervisor(s) is/are comfortable with. The limit here is how many students the supervisor can practically supervise with sufficient attention to each student.
If however you seek to have some scholarship you will likely be working on a previously specified project with certain targets in mind. You will be competing against more students (it's paid, there is more interest; direction can be helpful; there are less places available). In these cases it depends on the project and supervisor. Sometimes there just is a certain piece of work that must be completed. In other cases, some serendipity is possible and may lead to great research outcomes.
Even in the funded case the quality of your work, and especially thinking is the most important. Where a masters requires some independent, reflective, insightful thought, a PhD requires it absolutely. Working from that perspective, as a supervisor (not in physics though) I would expect you to have considered what would/could be the best solution. That you would not be able to do the project of your first choice would not really be held against you (unless it was for lack of exploring ways to do so anyway), but you should have good reasons for the second choice. Those reasons could be that you want to be broad and love that topic as well, or because it is closely aligned.


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Should I include the names of my Master's and PhD supervisors in my CV?
Next month I will be graduating from university in the UK with a Master's degree in Astrophysics and in October I will be starting my PhD at a different UK university.
I have seen some academic CVs that list the PhD supervisors that person had, alongside the usual information such as the institution and start/ finish date.
I suppose the advantage of including your supervisor's name on your CV is so that a person reading it can get an idea of the kind of work you're doing (if you don't have any publications of your own yet and if they know what your supervisor's research interests are) and how you fit into their network via the supervisor.
As someone with currently a very short academic CV, is it ok for me to include the names of my Master's and PhD supervisors? What are the advantages and disadvantages of doing so?
Note that I know who my future PhD supervisor is.

The only reason I can think against including your supervisors' names on your CV is if some of them have bad reputation. But even if that is so, it may be beneficial to still include their names, as to get in front of the issue.

Best possible way would be a link to your thesis, don't you think?

@HorstGrünbusch that's a great idea, I'm going to do that now.

In short, yes..

Additionally, your supervisors might have written you letters of recommendation for grad school (or could in the future for other grant applications). Thus, mentioning your former supervisors is a form of acknowledgement and transparency for other researchers or research institutions.  I totally agree with the former comments that in 90 %, it won't harm you.  In case you are completely unsure, you could ask your former supervisors whether they are okay with it (but I would be surprised if there is an academic scholar who says no)

Unless your Supervisor(s) are well known in the field, it would not help much to add them. Since every PhD has supervisors, it won't add any more value to the CV.
Also, if your Supervisor(s) enjoy any degree of clout, authority, cult status, following, awards & recognition like Fields/Nobel/etc, it would add a lot of value to your CV.
It would, however, be a good practice to add their names to a separate 'References' list at the end of your CV with contact information. Supervisors are great go-to sources for information on a scholar's work ethic, performance record, 360-degree assessment, etc and providing transparent references instead of 'references will be provided on request' can send a signal that you have nothing to hide.
All the above are very subjective, however.

I include them on the CV, because you never know who they might know that might give you leverage.  I've definitely contacted folks I wanted to work with on research, and then found out that they are personal friends with my advisor.  I would never have known that if not for including my advisor's name on my CV.


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Is it necessary to send a "thank you" email to reseach commitee after on-campus interview?
I have made a campus interview. I want to send a "thank you" email to research committee. Is it make sense to do ?

Do you mean the committee responsible for reviewing applications and arranging interviews?  That's usually called the "search committee", not "research".

I've seen this done multiple time. It's not a game-changer, in my opinion, but is not rude either, so, in doubt, you can just go ahead and do it. As Noah writes, keep it short, though, and don't expect an answer.

I've carried out interviews in the library world as well as in the humanities, and I would say that at least in our context (Canada), a quick thank you note is appreciated. You should send these notes to everybody with whom you had a meaningful interaction - i.e. not random faculty in your job talk, but anybody you had a one-on-one interview conversation or a meal with.
Alternatively, you could send an e-mail to the search committee chair. In my experience, they will forward this e-mail to the rest of the committee.
The lack of a thank-you note isn't a deal-breaker, of course, and your committee will hopefully be aware that this is one of those culturally-specific things that not all people know they should do. But at least in Canada, you should send thank you notes.

Does this apply for phone interviews with a group especially if you had no prior communication?

For a phone interview I would just thank the chair of the committee, but perhaps ask them to convey your thanks to the committee for a thoughtful and enjoyable discussion (or something along those lines).

In my experience this is somewhat uncommon, but not unheard of.  When a candidate did thank everyone they met with it made a positive impression on me and at least some other faculty I talked to.  So if you'd like to send such a note I'd say go ahead and do so, but you should not feel obligated.  I'd suggest you keep the note very short though and not say anything weird.


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What does Level 7 of the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) - RNCP 34262 Level 7 certified mean?
I am looking to get a more formal education in data engineering. I found the following "masters degree" at Data Science TechInsitute. The content does look great, also the fact that the 6month internship can be at the company that I already work for (which makes funding the whole thing considerably easier).
I am trying to understand what that degree really is though. Is this a "proper" master's degree? Compared to one from a "university"? Compared to an online 1yr program in the US (for example this one)? My main concern is that employers outside of France would not recognize it.
On the website it says:

Level 7 of the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) - RNCP 34262 Level 7 certified

which seems to relate to this classification of the EU. But does that mean the master's degree would be recognized as such in, e.g., Germany?

I cannot really answer the question but I googled a bit about this institution. Fwiw they appear to deliver legitimate diplomas (fr) recognized by the French Ministry of Education. However they started too recently to have built a reputation, and in third-level education reputation is probably more important than legal status. Also very clearly it's a commercial institution, this is quite unusual in France and it certainly explains the very high tuition fees compared to regular universities in France.

I understand in Europe there is the "bologna system" system in place. I wonder where it would rank here?

In the Bologna License-Master-Doctorate (LMD) framework they seem to deliver a valid Master degree, which should normally be recognized everywhere in the countries which are part of the system. For example in the link I gave above it's mentioned that somebody with their Master could apply for a PhD.


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How to cite a method that I describe in my paper since it is not standard in my field
In one of my PhD papers I am using a statistical model that is not known in my field, and many readers (including my PhD supervisors) will not be familiar with it. I therefore dedicate a subsubsection of the paper to describing the method. Essentially I restate the mathematics of the original paper and describe how certain variables and parameters ought to be interpreted for the research question under consideration.
In light of recent PhD thesis plagiarism scandals in Germany, I try to be extra careful to make sure the audience understands that I am not claiming any original authorship over the method or even the presentation of the mathematics (which by nature of similar) in my own paper, but merely include because it will be difficult to understand my work otherwise.
How would you recommend going about this?

This subsubsection will be 2-3 pages in a paper of roughly 20 pages (excluding all tables and references)
Not describing the method accurately and simply referencing the original paper and ask the reader to look it up themselves, seem like a less appealing solution right now.

I suspect you're overthinking this. I would just write something like:

II. Related Work
A. Statistical Model
Our work uses a statistical model from X et al [44]. As this model is of fundamental importance in our work, we will present a thorough summary of their work in this subsection.
...
B. Something Else.

Since the statistical model mightn't be related work (I suspect it isn't), I'd opt for: II. Related work and III. Background: Statistical model.

You could put this statistic background into an appendix of the paper instead of the main body. Give it proper credit and then nobody should get the mistaken impression that you claim this to be your own work.


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Should I cite a concept I have already cited earlier?
I am writing a proposal for my PhD and it is majorly based on numerical modelling. I have cited the original model that I will be using earlier, and I think it is very clear throughout the proposal which model I am talking about. Should I still cite it again when I mention it later even though I think the running theme throughout is of the specific model I want to use? For example here:

The experimental data thus acquired will then be used to construct the deformation history for the fractured rock, which will then be used to parametrise the numerical models.

I cite the models a few sections earlier, but the models are discussed throughout the whole text.

This is hard to answer precisely without seeing your entire document.  In general, I'd say if it is very obvious what you are talking about, then you do not need to cite again.  The problem is that what is "obvious" to one person is not obvious to another.  Especially it can be hard for you to know if it is obvious or not because you are too close to it.  One suggest is to have a friend or other graduate student read the whole paper, and then ask them for an opinion.  Or, just err on the side of slightly more citations.

That is exactly what I am worried about, that I might be feeling it is obvious, but it might not be the case for others who read the proposal. I think getting a friend to read it is a good idea. I might still just cite the sources just to be sure, but the only problem is that I need to use APA citation style, and that has just been increasing the size of my paper too much, and I am very close to the maximum page count.

If the full citation is taking too much room, one option is to give the full citation the first time, and then give it a "nickname".  E.g. first time say "in this proposal we will use the model of Smith, Jones, Burns & White, Some Journal, 1987, hereafter referred to as the Smith model".  Then later instead of giving the full citation, you just say "Smith model".  This works best if the author Smith is at least somewhat well known in the field.

That makes sense, thank you very much. The author is relatively well known in the field so I should be fine. The model is developed fully in three papers, so it takes up a huge amount of space every time I cite it, which I feel is also very irritating to read