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How does calibrating syllabus based on the requirements of the industry happen?
Often the industry finds that students graduating from a particular department do not possess the skill-set required to perform well in their company. While research can at least afford to be outside of the interests of the industry, academic syllabus taught to students for their bachelor's or master's has to cater to the demands of the industry.

What steps are taken by a university to ensure that its students are employable and industry-fit?
Does this recalibration happen at all, and if yes, how often?
Not every requirement of the industry could be met in an academic syllabus. For example, programming languages cannot be taught in class simply because the industry needs them. What points should academicians keep in mind when addressing industry's expectations from a university?

...academic syllabus taught to students for their bachelor's or master's has to cater to the demands of the industry. — [citation needed]

@JeffE: I have heard that from recruiters of Cisco and Qualcomm.

I have also heard this claim from corporate recruiters; that doesn't make it true.

@JeffE: My Q2 aims at just this: does academia ever care about the industry's expectations? From what you say, is the answer a no?

@Bravo: care about expectations ≠ cater to demands

university is not an extended training program for cisco and qualcomm. The primary goal is to provide an atmosphere fpr higher learning and to let students grow, if they happen to also pick up applicable skills along the way, then props.

Specifically, for teaching computer science, information systems and software engineering you can refer to model curricula provided, e.g., by the ACM. An advantage of such curricula is that they result from a joint effort of the universities and companies. For instance, the Graduate curriculum for Sofware Engineering lists contributors from General Motors, IBM, Lockheed Martin, Ford, Nokia, Avaya and the Department of Defense: http://www.gswe2009.org/fileadmin/files/GSwE2009_Curriculum_Docs/GSwE2009_version_1.0.pdf
Of course, the ACM curricula are but a proposal and every univerity has to try and find the right balance between industrial and academic needs. However, comparing your curriculum with the ACM guidelines can reveal interesting patterns.


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What qualifies as a first generation college student?
I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this so I'm sorry if this is not.
I'm in a bit of a unique situation in that I am turning 17 this year and will soon be adopted. The person adopting me has a college education but from what I understand, the first generation college student is someone who's legal guardians have not gone to college but also exists to help those who enter college with a limited understanding of the jargon, traditions, and patterns of expected behavior.    My birth father left my mom and me when I was 3 and my mom never got a high school education in order to provide for her family and later me.  My question is then, do I qualify as a first generation college student because I believe I am everything it is except I will have a step father who has a college education.

Can you clarify? It sounds like you have one legal guardian who doesn't have a college education, but you will soon be officially adopted by your stepfather, who does. Is that correct?

I suggest you ask an institution that will need to make decisions based on whether you qualify for it or not and what advantage it gives if you do. This can vary widely be place and even by institution, I think.

This person who's adopting you - have they been a significant figure in your life for many years, or only relatively recently?

Following on Buffy, the real question is what individual schools or scholarships think one is. There seems to be much debate in educational/academic circles of what counts for what purposes.

I think you should decide for yourself if you qualify.  If you explain your situation, nobody's going to dispute what you decide.

I have been living with him for the past few years but even now I talk with him a few times a week at most and that's just saying good morning or good afternoon.

This is an extremely reasonable question, and the short answer is: what qualifies a student as almost any 'special box' in academic forms is a bureaucratic nightmare of conflicting interests, fuzzy or non-existent definitions, and what can in the end amount to guesswork - to the point that in the end the answer is that it depends on who's asking. There are apparently no less than three definitions provided used by the Department of Education. It's a mess.
Ultimately the only answer I can give is to check with the organization you are filling out forms with (University or otherwise) to clarify what they mean. It seems like common undergraduate admission apps use the definition of birth/biological parent having ever attained a college degree, but undergraduate admissions is generally off-topic here, so I'd still advise you to check with someone like an admission's officer or official program materials to see what their definition actually is. This is true for all future readers, as this technical definition may change in the future.
Note that for scholarship or diversity statement-related purposes, regardless of the technical definitions used, you are encouraged to mention your specific background in your own words, so you are not restricted to exactly what they mean by their terms.
I realize translating academese/legalese of this sort is a challenge generally, but this happens to be an area that is unusually difficult because there is no settled consensus and the definition of terms, and how they are used as decision factors, remains a hotly debated political topic (all the way to The Supreme Court, in fact).
Good luck in your educational journey!

Thank you! I'll make sure to check with my counselor as well as organizations I'm planning on filling out forms for what their definition of first generation college student is.

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Why do PhD students complain so much?
This question has two parts. First, a comparative question. Second, a broad  question about why PhD students get so stressed and complain so much.
Do PhD students complain more than people in other professions?
In my limited and biased experience, yes. More generally, there are so many websites about how hard life as a PhD student is. So many memes. These are clearly all composed by current or former PhD students. My cohort's facebook feeds read like journals written in prison. Party conversation demonstrates a general obsession with complaining about life in a PhD program. People often half-joke about how starting the PhD program was a horrible mistake.  PhD students have even been roasted on 30 Rock. And they're often weirdly nervous about trivial stuff. Yes, these are online comedy bits, but they are funny because they capture something true.
Many jobs are stressful and I believe that people in other fields handle their stress better or, at the very least, feel compelled to maintain that appearance. I started my PhD a bit later than average. Before doing so I worked in a few other fields, some of them more stressful than academia by reasonable standards (higher consequences of mistakes for oneself and/or for others, faster pace work environment, higher likelihood of being insulted/embarrassed by supervisors, what have you).
Why do PhD students complain so much?
I see a few reasons why PhD students have such a hard time.
Admittedly, there is a lot of work. But there are lots of jobs where you need to work very hard for long hours.
In many disciplines, there is no clear management structure where someone can tell you what to do when and when you are done. Of course, this can be stressful.
Because of the nature of theoretical innovation and research, one is never "done" with work. There is only a choice of when one is going to stop for the day or stop on a particular project (e.g., by submitting for publication).
Many PhD students have spent little time outside of school and academia. Most of their schooling until the PhD program was very structured with short-term goals. In a PhD and now they are responsible for defining their own projects.
PhD programs may attract uniquely stressful, driven people.
Maybe the idea of being a "student" fosters immature attitudes about the work environment, even though PhD students must deal with real adult workloads. People in many other lines of work have no illusions about their obligation to handle their workload.

Actually, each of your subquestions should be a separate question in its own right—although the first two are somewhat more opinion-oriented. The last would be particularly useful, though.

I mean, maybe I'm an exception, but grad school has been great for me.  Undergrad is what sucked in my case.  I get to do research I love doing (molecular dynamics simulations), workout, go to the pool, and hang out with friends all the time.  I wish I could stay in grad school for more than four years.

While I think the question is fine, you should do something about the title. It is more than a bit offensive and takes away the answer to your first question. (also, I think the answer to your first question is "no", so it does not even make a lot of sense).

@xLeitix I try to provide some evidence for the premise. In the end, our conclusions are based on personal experience (unless you have stats on complaining by profession). My friends who are in PhD programs complain much more (or at least more publicly) than my friends who aren't in PhD programs. PhD students have a structure (the PhD program) to complain about without specifically insulting their employer or supervisors. Possibly, people in many other types of jobs have less ability to complain in the abstract -- to complain would mean pointedly insulting their organization or boss.

And if someone is offended by the title, I hope they at least enjoy the links.

@James I agree! That's why I find the posted question so puzzling.

Presumably, you are aware of the fact that you quote comedy-pages as evidence for your claims in the first question…

And in a similar vein to Dirk's remark, I offer as a counterexample the huge success of Dilbert, which is pretty much a 25 year long complaint about working in the tech industry.

@Dirk The humor was included for your enjoyment. Also, part of the reason why the memes are funny is that they capture something true about the grad student psyche.

@jabberwocky Great questions - please split them into 3.

Its worth noting that the jobs that you held before entering academia probably paid you to do a lot of the stressful things you had to do...while in academia you often get paid very little (sometimes even nothing), and yet still have to do stressful things. Personally, my PhD track has gone very well.

I could give you some reasons why this happens, but you would think I'm complaining and would pay no attention, therefore it's self-imposed ignorance. In any case, just to point two things (IMHO!), it's not about stress, it's about frustration, and it's not about the workload, it's about the results and what is obtained from the work. The CV of an academic should contain a section for publications, shouldn't it? That makes everything different, if you don't see the difference (and probably don't want to see it) then all I can say is: lucky you!

@aeismail I want to split this question in a two or three questions according to the suggestions. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to do that/whether I should do it at this point.   According to kiamlaluno at http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/131195/how-to-suggest-a-question-should-be-split. "If there are already answers that reply to both parts of the question, nothing can be done. Editing the question would be wrong because it would invalidate the existing answers, which would seem to answer something not asked from the OP."

I think you can just ask the last question separately as a new question. It doesn't have much in the way of answers below.

A lot of people complain to draw attention to how busy they are or how hard they are working.

I think making $20,000 a year while doing a full time challenging job as well as full time course loads/research has something to do with it...

Do PhD students complain more than people in other professions?

I very much doubt it. See JeffE's summary. There are dozens of memes about complaining - law students, med students, engineering undergrads, administrative staff, IT people...seriously, just about every profession has its memes about how much their jobs are terrible.

Why do PhD students complain more than people in other professions?

They're not being paid very much, and for many of them, their friends - who had similar educational backgrounds - who didn't go to grad school are now making money, and the opportunity cost is pretty vivid.
The PhD is a problem that requires unbounded effort. Until the day you defend, there's always something you should be doing. At the same time, there's rarely something you need to be doing that day. Handing someone a years long, unstructured time management problem is going to cause some stress.
There's not necessarily a way out. For CS, Physics, Math etc. there may be escape hatches into industry, but for many STEM PhDs, and almost all humanities PhDs, there's really no net-benefit for your degree outside of academia. You've got an expensive (in opportunity cost and time), specialized set of knowledge that no one cares about. You can see this reflected in some surveys - Physics PhDs tend to be somewhat more happy than their Biology counterparts.

How can I handle this socially and professional?

You can try to avoid it, although do realize that "shared suffering" is a social bonding experience, and these people will be your colleagues. You will be missing some of that.

I certainly hope that this climate does not continue into faculty life

I have some bad news for you.

+1 Great points. Had not ever considered the "shared suffering" part. I split the question. Please consider putting the input about how to "handle it" here: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20476/social-etiquette-for-interacting-with-phd-peers-who-complain-a-lot

Each of these sentences deserves a +1 for itself (I wish that was possible!) This is actually a very well crafted answer. You don't get these everyday. Thanks :)

Do PhD students complain more than people in other professions?

No.
To quote Drew Carey:

Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? You know there's a support group for that. It's called everybody. They meet at the bar.

I really like JeffE's executive summaries. You should do more of those.

-1 for authoritative "No." without any link to data/study/survey.

Amusing quote from Drew Carey (and I even remember that quote), but this answer doesn't really address the question, in my opinion.

Nice thing about academia is that not everybody hates their job. Researchers can make a credible claim to be doing something they love, not just doing something to earn a living (because who in their right mind does research for the money?). It's just one reason why professors regularly come out at the top of job satisfaction rankings.

(one important comment - this all relates to PhD students in Europe, where you usually get an actual salary while doing your PhD. I have no experience about grad student life on a stipend, as in the US)

Do PhD students complain more than people in other professions?

No, I don't think so. Sure, PhD students complain about their job. So do all other professionals. I have been in software engineering for two years before my PhD, and people have certainly complained a lot there as well. My non-research friends just as often bitch about their jobs, bosses, work conditions, salary, etc. as my fellow researchers. Just a peek at workplace.SE already gives you a confirmation that being dissatisfied with your work conditions is not a thing specific to PhD students.

I believe that people in other fields handle their stress better or, at the very least, feel compelled to maintain that appearance.

I do not agree at all. I have seen so many people act unprofessionally inside and outside of academia (due to stress or personal issues), it is not even funny. Your perception is entirely opposite to mine.
My favorite story in relation to that is that of a very senior full professor storming out of a meeting with tears of anger in her eyes, because she felt than another professor in the meeting was not valuing her experience in a topic sufficiently). She has later excused herself and stated that she was going through a personally hard time. Unprofessional behaviour is not inherently a grad student thing.

My cohort's facebook feeds read like journals written in prison. Party conversation demonstrates a general obsession with complaining about life in a PhD program. People often half-joke about how starting the PhD program was a horrible mistake. PhD students have even been roasted on 30 Rock. And they're often weirdly nervous about trivial stuff.

Yes, the complaining PhD student is a meme by now. That does not mean it has to be true, although such memes tend to have a bit a self-fulfilling nature. The question is, when you look at the prison-like FB posts of your cohort, how many complaints are tongue-in-cheek, and how many are serious "this is all so f*cked up" statements. I should also add that looking at only your cohort may give you a false impression of generality, as you all attend the same school, maybe are even advised by the same professors. Basically, if something is "off" in your environment, it would explain why your cohort complains, but says very little about other universities (like the ones I have experience with).

"in Europe ... you usually get an actual salary while doing your PhD" -- this may no longer be true, depending on the field. Research institutes often seem to rely solely on stipends and university departments often have only a few of their doctorands employed for teaching, the rest on stipends. (It saves you money not to employ them. My experience/information is limited to Germany, though.)

In Sweden, you are not allowed to do a PhD not being employed. Anti-slavery law. The first year you get a grant, with partial benefits, and then you are fully employed by the institution.

+1 for the phrase "dissatisfaction" can also be very infectious

@Davidmh ok, this is going to be a long enumeration then, I guess. In Spain you may have funding from the ministry, a project or a few other sources, but if you don't then you can still be a student and do your PhD if you feel like that. The salary is around 15000€/year, at least in computer science.

+1 Great thoughts. The stuff at the end is great for the "how to handle it". After moderator suggestion I moved that part of the question to a new post. Considering moving your advice here

What's the difference between a "salary" and a "stipend" in this context? (From what I've seen as a US PhD student who spent a few months at a university in Europe, the difference is in name only.)

@ff524 This is a bit long for a comment, but my impression is that the difference is pretty significant. For starters, salaried PhD students around here usually don't even consider themselves students, more like entry-level professionals. This also includes that people often take comp time after working longer hours before deadlines, and generally people are rather resistant towards doing things that are not in their job profile. I think the mentality is actually quite different from what I see with students in the US.

@ff524I got my PhD while having a regular contract for 5 years. There are several formal differences. The PhD time counts as work time. The time counts for the pension, I hade to pay taxes, get insurance and generally (as xLeitix said) is not a feeling of being a student. Also, the salary is higher than the stipend, in Germany you get paid as "Angestellter im öffentlichen Dienst", and the payment rises every year or two.

Two factors that I think are the most relevant:

PhD student is one of the lowest salary/education ratio. The best students, with highest grades, doing the highest level coursework get fairly crappy salaries (when any). In Spain, where I am from, getting the best grant the Ministery offers barely allows you to rent a shared flat and eat cheap. Sweden, where I am now, is one of the best countries to be a PhD student regarding salary and conditions. One salary is enough to provide a living and housing for two people. Still, a first job for a STEM graduate usually means three times more salary.
Uncertainity. A junior in a company is assigned a clear task with a goal, where the manager, seniors, etc. are sure are achievable goals. In research, no one can know this. You don't really know what you are doing is even possible until you get it. Sure, you have advisors, but they can only guess what is going to be. In short: nobody really knows what they are doing.

Also I think there is a sense of unifying community. People that make land surveys and mapping (for example) may be subject to similar conditions, but they will feel no sense of familiarity with the perks of the life and work of a librarian. Grad students, no mater what is their field, have something in common, and thus a sociologist can very well relate to a mathematician as well as an slavic philology expert. So, a map maker can whine as much as a grad student, but they will not see the same echo.
Also, anyone who has gone to university knows a bunch of grad students. That is much more reach than aeronautic engineers, that are mostly related with other engineers. Grad students in a general term are much more common that many other particular professions.

"Uncertainity. A junior in a company is assigned a clear task with a goal, where the manager, seniors, etc. are sure are achievable goals." Having been a junior in a company, I highly doubt that this is always the case.

I think the uncertainty comment is a good point though; Publishing is fraught with uncertainty, and a very slow feedback loop. "Worse than industry" is going to be subjective, I don't think neuroses are a bad response to the bizarro world of publishing.

Maybe they are not achievable in time and budget, but they are possible, in some sense. Unless your manager is unreasonable, but even with the most reasonable professor, you never know.

@MatthewG. In the danger of repeating myself: I am unsure whether that is actually different "in the wild". Ever founded a startup, launched a new product from scratch,  and discovered after a year of coding that users don't like the premises (happened to a friend of mine)? The bizarro world of publishing does not seem that bad then.

@xLeitix True enough, though, I'd say that while there are areas of industry that have crazy things happen, it's perfectly possible to have a normal well-adjusted workplace in industry, whereas it seems like very few grad students are left un-puzzled by the world of publishing.

+1 very interesting perspective. First, the idea that research means that there cannot be a management structure with pre-defined goals is fascinating. Second, the "echo" effect of discourse (incl. complaints) within a "unifying community."

(As suggested by jabberwocky, I have moved the last part of my answer to https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/20482/13852).
While I don't think the question is worded constructively, this is a relevant and prominent issue in academic life. First, the question whether PhD students complain more than other professional groups is not really helpful, so I will ignore it (others have given enough counterexamples) and instead focus on the other part, namely "why do they complain?"
As has been noted, doing a PhD is a time of uncertainty and huge external and/or internal pressures, on a scale -- both in time and magnitude -- usually unprecedented for the student. Complaining about it is a coping mechanism (one of a range of possible mechanisms, whose efficacy will vary from person to person). It is also a valuable bonding activity. This is a crucial point, since your research as a PhD student is often so specialized that you can't profitably talk about it to anyone outside a small circle of fellow specialists. On the other hand, the external circumstances of doing a PhD (deadlines, interactions with your advisor or lack thereof, run-ins with the administration) will be instantly familiar to any graduate student, no matter what the field (witness the popularity of PhD Comics, which is not limited to mechanical engineering). Add to that the fact that many graduate students are pursuing their PhD away from home and thus their social circle mostly consists of fellow students, and it's not surprising that most interactions outside possibly a small circle of close personal friends are dominated by this topic. (In fact, complaining around your personal friends as you would among peers is the fastest way of losing them.)
Regarding your comment

My friends who are in PhD programs complain much more (or at least
  more publicly) than my friends who aren't in PhD programs.

They probably complain much more to you about their professional life, since you're a professional peer of the former but not of the latter.

+1 You offer the best advice on how to "handle it" but I removed that part of the question by moderator request. Please consider moving your answer to: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20476/social-etiquette-for-interacting-with-phd-peers-who-complain-a-lot

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At what point does working memory and IQ become a problem when trying to follow a lecture?
It may be one of the most uncomfortable questions one can ask themselves, but after being a math student for six years (currently in my first year as a PhD student), this question seems to become more and more important for me.
Namely, since I started studying mathematics at a university, I have had trouble following the lecture. It was just too much new and complex information thrown at me at once. I couldn't follow the lecturer, as I forgot what they said when they started a new sentence. That's why I am talking about working memory and possibly IQ: I can't hold multiple sentences at once in my head simultaneously, my line of thinking and understanding is very linear, it's step-by-step, but when I make the next step, I've forgotten about the previous one. I often sit in the lecture trying to process what's been said fifteen minutes ago.
I tried taking notes like a stenographer, writing down the literal words spoken by the lecturer. I tried visualizing what the lecturer said as subtitles appeared at the bottom of my visual field. Nothing helped, and I was confusing myself even more. Another method I've tried was to "note down what you don't immediately understand". Still, I did not know what I didn't understand because, as I said, there was too much new information at once.
So, to this day, lectures and seminars are utterly useless to me. The only way to learn and understand new information is if I have it in the text; it seems like I can't grasp new information by just listening. My peers can understand and learn new information by listening, so they enjoy extra lectures, seminars, and conferences.
Now, to the funny part: I can understand spoken lectures and seminars about the humanities, like philosophy. It's not a problem for me to listen to them like a podcast and understand everything perfectly. I don't know why it is like that. I don't know what makes humanities lectures easier to understand and follow compared to science lectures.
Anyway, what is your opinion on that topic? Why can't some people get anything out of a lecture? Is it because of their working memory? Aphantasia? IQ? And what should one do to improve it?

"I can't grasp new information by just listening" I'm a bit confused by this sentence. During a math lecture the lecturer will typically write a lot of things down rather than just speaking, so I'm wondering why you feel that you need to grasp information by just listening?

I don't want to write a repeat answer but I'll reinforce here that everybody learns differently, and that learning in one's own way is the most effective. Trying to learn by following someone else's stream or logic is hit-or-miss. You might stumble upon an occasional lecturer who thinks similarly to the way you do once in a while, but mostly not. Don't worry about there being anything "wrong" with you or any arbitrary metrics. Build your own unique world of understanding in your own way, and perhaps maximize the lecturer's utility by asking specific questions in and outside of lecture.

Don't worry about your IQ.  As you can see, many (include me) have difficulty following lectures at times. My advice would be, if possible, to not take notes, or make them less detailed. Math takes extreme focus and concentration - personally, if I am writing everything down, I am not able to think. But some courses require good notes - for example, if no book is used and if exercises are only written on the board.  If you have a classmate that takes highly detailed notes, ask if they might share. If the lecturer closely follows a text, or if notes are available online, no need to take notes.

Do you by any chance have ADHD? That sounds like what it could be (layman’s word total guess). I have some of the symptoms of ADHD though without a diagnosis and have trouble paying attention to a long speech if it’s really dry or I’m sleepy or I’m stressed. If it’s interesting I’m fine. Otherwise my mind can wander—I zone out thinking about other things and suddenly realize this person is talking and I have no idea what about. Anyway something to consider. If you’re good at math it’s almost certainly not IQ.

Although I'm in engineering, not in mathematics, I found I was able to follow lectures MUCH better whenever I read up on the material beforehand. I know it's hard to prioritize this if there's a lot of coursework. But if you can, find an hour to read what the lecture will be about before going to that lecture, it might help.

People absorb information in different ways. Like you, I'm much better with printed text than with the spoken word. In a lecture, I depend very strongly on the lecturer's visual aids. If those are poor, I might as well not be there.

Consider recording the lecture, so that you can re-watch later and pause/rewind as needed to make sure you understand each point before continuing?

Definitely go through the material that will be covered in the lecture. What are the definitions, what are they trying to capture, what are the big theorems, and what are a few toy examples? Generally speaking, lectures provide a broader perspective and context on the material, and illustrate the way an expert works with / thinks about the material. This will be much easier to follow if you are at least familiar with the building blocks they will use.

Also, a big difference between lectures in sciences and in humanities is that in sciences, especially mathematics, it is very clear what is true and how to determine whether something is true. As a consequence, results are very precise and quite some time is spent on making precise statements with precise proofs/deductions. On the other hand, many lectures in humanities are weaving a thread through a mix of facts and opinions to make a plausible story. They cannot be scrutinized to the same level, and you quickly reach the point where all you can do is sit back and nod "yes, sure".

Some aspects to consider:

Your working memory works better with terms and concepts that you are familiar with.
A slightly different perspective on this is that you can hold a limited number of things in your working memory (roughly eight), but unfamiliar concepts take up more memory, since you do not have mental shorthands available.
For a blatant example, your brain stores a (familiar) word as one item and not as the sequence of its letters or sounds.
Mathematics lectures are generally on the border of what anybody can digest.
Even for a decent lecture, being slightly less familiar with the concepts than expected, being slightly more prone to distractions (that fill slots in your working memory), or just having a slightly worse working memory can make the difference that you cannot follow the lecture at all anymore.
By contrast, you have a basic familiarity with most concepts in the humanities (on account of them handling human life), even when they are discussed in a more abstract or thorough way.
This may be why they are easier to process for you.
I am a physicist by training now working on biophysics.
Some more biological talks tend to be about a selection of molecules, genes, organisms, or similar, usually all with names that are not self-explanatory (some are literally random letters).
I have listened to talks that introduce all of these things in a way that I can perfectly understand (and is sufficient for the talk), yet when they start working with them, I find it more difficult to follow than people familiar with biology, because every time one of these names gets used, I need to put in some extra work to process and store it.
Therefore I find some of these talks very difficult to follow even though I could read the corresponding paper without major difficulties.

Mathematics is a strongly incremental field, with layers of layers of abstraction.
A crucial aspect of this is that for building upon some concept, it does not merely suffice to understand some definitions, theorems, and proofs, but you have to have a certain amount of familiarity, fluency, automatisation, or similar, so it does not use too much brain capacity.
An important strategy when learning mathematics is to realise this and spend time working with concepts, so you can build upon them.
For example, there is a crucial difference between understanding the definition of an open set and being so familiar with it that it does not hinder you to understand advanced topological stuff.
Most other fields are less incremental (but also much broader).
A humanities lecture will usually have less strong prerequisites and thus it may be easier to digest.
The challenges of such fields lie elsewhere.

People learn differently and also evaluate their learning differently.
Some people are better at pretending (to themselves and others) that they understood something they didn’t.
Some people are good at understanding something in broad strokes first and then go into the details.
Others work better with understanding all the details first.
I know quite a few excellent students who hardly benefitted from lectures and therefore rather studied with a book.

Obviously, I cannot diagnose you, but here are some suggestions:

Be aware of the above and see your difficulties in a more objective and less frustrating manner.

Try to prepare for lectures etc. by familiarising yourself with the core concepts, solving exercises, etc.

Try to understand lecture content in broad strokes at first and in detail later.

Accept that you prefer to learn with books.
As long as you can stay up to speed that way with reasonable effort, it is probably not an issue.

Accept that some lectures are just bad.

Consider that your peers are not as good at this as you (and they) think they are.
They may also need to work through their lecture notes, textbooks, etc. before they actually understand.

Mind that these are just suggestions and I can only guess what will work for you. So do not worry if you already tried some of them or they are not your thing.
You may also want to have a look at this answer of mine on Math Educators.

+1, especially for the first point that the difficulty of a lecture is hugely affected by your familiarity with the background. I remember in my first couple of years of grad school finding myself absolutely out of my depth in a lot of seminars — then looking back at the notes a couple of years later, much of the material was second nature. Even if on first exposure I can’t follow a lecture, I find it often does help build the familiarity which means that next time I read or hear about the material, I can understand it a bit better.

I would add that for PhD-level maths lectures (as well as many other lectures) there is often an expectation that students should spend an additional x hours studying the material per 1 hour of lecture time. Nobody expects students to actually understand the material at the speed the lecture throws it at them. They are supposed to work on the lecture notes afterwards and then understand it.

My opinion is that mathematics is inherently a written discipline, and that trying to talk about it is very close to a complete waste of time. So the issue of mathematics lectures is pretty orthogonal to IQ and working memory. And yet, so many people are such weak readers, lectures are the best we can do for many of them.
I'll also say that right near the end of my master's in mathematics, I realized that the best thing I could do is not take any notes in a lecture. So you might try a strategy of just intently listening/watching the lecture, and not doing anything else whatsoever. That is: don't distract focus by trying to take notes in parallel; give full attention to the speaker. Use the written book/article later as the primary source.
Fortunately, I'll observe that entering a PhD program, you're right at the threshold of when your primary work will be reading copious research articles on your own, and there won't be anyone around to talk you through them. So your skill set is marvelously well situated for the real mathematical work lying just ahead of you.

For me, ideally, any lecture is given twice.  The first time I don't take notes and just try to understand what is going on; the second time I take notes.  I do find lectures helpful; for me reading mathematics is just too hard to do too much of it.  (One of my collaborators jokes that he is illiterate, and that's why he has grad students.)

You're not the only one. I've often had this issue, though for me it's very dependent on the speaker and the presentation style.
I realise this advice won't necessarily apply, but the zoom era has been an absolute boon for me. If you can, always watch recorded lectures rather than live ones. Then you can pause to let your thoughts catch up whenever you need to, and you can even go back and repeat sentences until they sink in. As a bonus you can also increase the playback speed during the parts you already understand - just don't forget to slow it down again when it gets to the important part. The only real disadvantage is that you don't get to ask questions at the end, although of course you can always email the speaker if you want.
Another thing to keep in mind is that a lot of the time, if it's a seminar rather than part of a course you're taking, you're there to learn about the topic, rather than to learn the topic. By watching the seminar you get an idea of what the speaker is working on and what kinds of results they have, and based on that information you can decide whether to follow it up in more detail later. Even if you don't follow it up, you'll be aware of it if it ever becomes relevant to your work, and you'll know who to ask about it. For most seminars, unless the speaker is very accomplished or you're already quite familiar with the topic, this is all you can really hope to get. If you go into it with this as your goal then you'll take some pressure off yourself to follow all the details, and it will be easier to see the bigger picture.

"learn about the topic, rather than to learn the topic" +1 for this alone. A lot of lectures are doing a combination of things. They prime new connections and reinforce existing connections.

It's been mentioned in a comment,  but not an answer,  so I wanted to put it here.  What your describe sounds a lot like the experiences of someone with ADHD. Obviously we can't diagnose you here online, but what you describe would seem to me to be enough to try an talk to someone who can, to see if they have have any insights.
I have dyspraxia,  which has some features in common which ADHD. Namely poor working memory and problems with executive function (that is the ability to choose what one focuses on and when).
Another answer mentioned that the average working memory can hold 8 things.  Well, my forward recall digit span (the way working memory is measured in psychological profiling) is 5, my reverse digit recall is only 3! Your description of not being able to hold/ connect the beginning and end of the same sentence was very familiar to me. I don't really put much stock in the usefulness of IQ, but for what it's worth these difficulties mean that my verbal IQ is unaffected (or at least its still plenty enough for academia).
None the less,  with the right help and strategies I have been able to have a career in academia, with postdocs in prestigious places, and now a permanent faculty position at a well regarded University.

Some good answers already, but I'd like to raise two issues that I haven't seen mentioned:
First: Somehow, you got into a PhD program in math. So, somehow, you are working this out. People who really can't handle math flunk calculus 1 (or diff equations, or whatever).
Second: The contrast between mathematics and the humanities. There are, of course, many differences between these areas of learning, but two big ones are structure/formality and abstraction. I sometimes say that mathematics is the search for highly structured, highly abstract beauty. And, a long time ago, a professor of mine said that "in mathematics, they keep making things more abstract until almost no one can deal with it."  I am not one of those people who says that math is inherently harder than the humanities. but they are hard in very different ways and for very different people.
In many ways, I think math is closer to the arts than it is to the humanities.

It is common to meet people who do not know the answer to any question until they hear themselves say the answer: their internal mental communication just doesn't work as well as the channel out of their mouth, in through their ears.
Rarely, this is a noticeable effect of a mental insult such as a stroke: mostly it's just the way some people are. Even more common, some people don't know an answer until they have formed the words of the answer, and perhaps sub-vocalized (without having to actually listen to the answer).
IQ is a very blunt measure: nobody knows what it means, and it obviously means different things in different cases. The inability to answer IQ questions without using the very slow talk-listen channel would give someone a lower IQ value, just because that channel is so slow.  Sub-vocalization is also slow (not as slow): this was a subject of debate when monks learned reading: is reading fast, without subvocalization, really proper reading?
It is entirely normal for different people to prefer different communication channels, and to be more or less effective with each channel, and for "measured IQ" to be dependent on channel preference: no blind person would score any meaningful result on any of the IQ tests I have taken.
Regarding working memory, I'll just say that there are mental strategies to deal with restricted working memory, and sometimes the observed effect is not of memory depth but of strategy choice. People sometimes have trouble with working memory just because their memory depth is so good, they've never learned to break down the problem and deal with it piecewise.

(I guess maybe this is downvoted because it goes so much on tangents that it barely connects back to the question in any way that is too direct or telling. Maybe it is worth recofusing,  rewriting, or removing it to keep it simple).


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How to present ongoing dissertation research and get feedback on a one-on-one basis?
I am in the social sciences (political science) doing research largely based on fieldwork. Accordingly, my dissertation project has changed quite a bit in the four months since getting my prospectus approved and beginning fieldwork. My department is fairly open, with helpful faculty, and I want to reach out to many different professors to get feedback. I check in with my advisors every few weeks with a just brief email, which is sufficient for them because they understand the broader project.
How can I present ongoing evolving research to new people, especially faculty members? For instance, I could write a brief two-page memo summarizing my dissertation project and revise it on a monthly basis. The only drawback here is that this might require writing a new two-pager every month. From writing fellowship proposals, I know this actually takes a lot of work.
What techniques did you find effective for getting for advice from people outside your dissertation committee during your dissertation work?

Is soliciting advice of non-advisors common in social sciences?  In math, sometimes you discuss your research with people not your advisor, but (until the defense stage) this is usually only if they ask you or if you have specific questions for them.

People have a lot to read in academia as is. Sending out a document and asking for feedback is a strenuous exercise for all involved parties. You may want to take into consideration that some of your colleagues will also simply not want to willingly participate with their opinion.
Instead, a useful compromise is the use of a presentation. Prepare one whenever you see fit and advertise to your faculty by email what it is you're presenting, why you're presenting, and explain that you're specifically looking for feedback on 'X'; 'X' being the methodology applied, noticeable gaps in literature, etc.
In this manner, you practice your presentation skills, you take only 10 minutes or so of your colleagues' time, you strengthen relationships amongst your peers, and you're immediately available for questions. The benefits of this approach are many, and I think you'll be able to find even more than the ones I've just listed.
I hope that this was helpful to you.

Profs are busy and it is unlikely that they will give you one-on-one advice if they don't have any stakes in your project.
Therefore, you must offer something in return. I have not tried this myself, but it supposedly works (Gray 2010, p. 60-61): Volunteer to read and comment on a paper, now or in the future, from the person whose advice you are soliciting. Even very senior researchers need feedback, even from juniors. Why? Because problems of clarity and organization in a late draft are more obvious to non-experts, and because non-experts can more easily find overriding (but hidden) themes in an early draft. In your inquiry, address the following:

How their work has informed yours. Ask specific questions aimed at the intersections of their work and yours
Which sections and issues you need feedback on
Whether you want hints to additional reading and citations
Explain that you want just a "quick" read (not an editorial read)
Ask when you might expect to hear back from them
Promise acknowledgements

Moreover, to solicit comments on my PhD project from people besides my advisors I mostly relied on conferences and smaller workshops:

I applied for workshops and conferences outside my institution. Many workshops and conferences in political science, such as this one, cater specifically to PhD students.
We had a weekly colloquium at my PhD institution where I presented mostly every six months. This was a great opportunity to discuss halfway finished work like draft chapters.
Students from my PhD institutions invited external speakers to participate in a lecture series. Often the speakers were willing to hold a small workshop the following day (before flying home) where a handful of PhD students could discuss their work and ask for advice. If a lecture series with externals exists at your institutions, maybe you can suggest to add a workshop.
You might also be able to propose a thematic workshop (on particular methods or theories), depending on the demand at your institution and the available funding (if external guests are needed). It is best to determine the demand first, i.e. to ask around who would attend such a workshop, before proposing this to your superiors.
At my workplace, the younger researchers established a workshop with a particular "discussant" format. In each session (bi-weekly), someone presented and discussed the paper of another participant. It was expected that the papers not be too polished and do still have many loose ends so there could be a lively discussion how to proceed from the work. The informal atmosphere (coffee and rolls!) and the discussant model made this highly productive, although mostly junior faculty participated. Again, this is something that you could try to establish at your institution.

Admittedly, all these proposals rely on written contributions of probably more than a two-page memo. However, also your thesis needs to be more than two pages at some point. So why not start to write a draft chapter right away? If you want useful feedback, you have to provide tangible input. Depending on the venue, the contribution can be anywhere from tentative "think-piece" (5.) to almost final draft (1.). You mention that you are doing field-work right now. Why not polish your field-notes and elaborate how your preliminary findings form the field can inform your theory/research question and which new challenges you have encountered?
BTW: I would be interested in hearing form senior faculty if they have ever encountered an inquiry for advice from external PhD students and if they would respond positively if offered a reading in return.
__
Gray, Tara 2010: Publish and Flourish, Ashland: BookMasters.

One method that I've seen works fairly successfully is to use a session of a journal club to do a brief presentation.  It's not one-on-one, but it can really help to get a group engaged.  A time when journal clubs often work like this is right before a big meeting where people use the session to hone their presentations.
Some larger research groups may do this entirely internally, and have periodic brief presentations to each other.

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


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How to run an effective academic workshop/seminar series?
I’m a new faculty member setting up a new seminar series in my small-ish department. Visiting speakers will come and present some of their work. The audience will ask questions during the talk and during a post-talk Q&A.
I’d like the seminar to be a space for thoughtful critique and commentary, while being respectful and constructive. I’d hope that attendance is reasonably high and most people in the room are engaged. In the end I hope that the sessions provide useful feedback for the presenter, and are Intellectually engaging and informative for audience members.
The two big things I see that I can do to support these goals:

Get funding for some food to increase attendance.
Model good participation myself, arriving prepared and asking constructive thoughtful questions.

How have others effectively run a seminar series? I’m interested in others’ experiences and constructive advice.

Why "present a paper"? Why not favor work in progress, instead? What can you "offer" speakers - not money?

@Buffy I mean paper to include a working paper and research design, not just a published paper. I edited to clarify. Although to be clear, I'm not asking advice on how to attract speakers


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Making office hours meetings more efficient as a faculty member
When I was a PhD student, I would sign up for 15 minute slots with my advisor, power through the meeting and be out quickly. Sometimes they ran 5-10 minutes over but generally they were highly efficient. Now I'm a new jr faculty member with undergrads and PhD students. So far I rarely finish talking with a student in less than 45 minutes. How the heck can I make these meetings more efficient?

Perhaps mention your field, and how often you meet with your advisor.  I am in math, and my meetings with my advisor usually ran a full hour, one every couple of weeks.  A fifteen-minute slot seems really short from my prespective.

It sounds like you are combining two categories of office hours, namely those with graduate student advisees and those with undergrads taking a course you are teaching. There might be positive ways to make meetings with your graduate students more "efficient", but I feel somewhat strongly that attempts to do so with undergrads may have negative impacts on their learning and comfort. This is a matter of taste (and possibly field dependent), but in my field (math), it is already difficult to get students to attend office hours, and yet more difficult to get them to feel comfortable asking for..

...help. Attempts to make these meetings more (time?) efficient for you might give students the (unintended?) impression that you do not view helping them as a worthy use of your time. I'm not saying it's not worth trying to optimize meetings with your students, but I do think it's important to consider the message these efforts may send to people who are struggling, vulnerable, and looking for your help.

What is inefficient about these meetings? Time spent in a meeting alone is not really a measure of efficiency. If 45 minute meetings are very productive, then great! Don't cut down on time just for the sake of it. If you want more detailed advice, it would help to understand what takes up time in these meetings.

@AlexWertheim: I agree. A graduate student and undergrad meetings are/should be very different. As an undergrad, I didn't know what I didn't know, and I didn't necessarily know how to ask for what I needed help with. Often I'd take several minutes to simply formulate/talk around/explain what I needed to ask about. Also, if you want efficiency with undergrad students, why not block off an hour or two, and have multiple students at once. It was helpful for me as an undergrad to hear the questions of my peers, and those questions answers as well, which would at times spark new questions for me.

As a PhD student, I have 1 hour meetings with my PI every week (I have like 8 projects which I am on working on, because I love to juggle lots of things at the same time). Sometimes we schedule additional ones with other people if we are working together. I love having the time to hear what my PI thinks, bouncing ideas back-and-forth, making me think about a lot more things that I initially thought. I cannot imagine 15 mins being enough for that.

Some years ago, when I often had several PhD students at the same time (though at different stages of their projects), I would run a seminar meeting at least one day a week, and in the summertime five days a week, for perhaps two hours. This was aimed at addressing common issues my people would have.
It would also help them refine their own specific questions, for our weekly one-hour one-on-one meetings.
(I've found that in many cases there is an inescapable "human inefficiency" in PhD-student meetings, insofar as there is "life interfering with mathematics", and, in my opinion, it is important for an advisor to lend a sympathetic ear... before talking about the mostly-more-solvable problems of mathematics.)

Three principles I found useful:

Always have an agenda (including outcomes) beforehand. What does the student need help with? What needs to be decided for the project to move forward etc.?
Ask the student to submit something in writing before the meeting, even as short as a paragraph or bullet point list. Use this to define the agenda (and outcomes).
Stick to the agenda if possible. If new points come up that can't be resolved impromptu, schedule a new meeting and possibly ask for some preparation by the student beforehand (and of course do your own preparation).

15 minutes seems short though.

I wonder whether a lot of very short meetings is "more efficient" than fewer, longer, ones. You have to keep changing focus.
What a lot of us did was schedule office hours for (non doctoral) students and let them come during those slots. Some number of hours per week was required. I didn't plan on being "productive" in research during those hours. If only one or two show up you can let them fill the time. If a lot show up you can have a group discussion. I've had a group of five or so sitting at my feet in a general exchange. You probably have to reserve some of the time available for more personal issues (grades, health, ...) that can't be done as a group but those sorts of things can be short in any case.
This may not work for doctoral students, however, and you may need to use an individual plan. I'm surprised that you say that 10-15 minutes was ok for doctoral students. Somehow the scale seems wrong. And the scale is very different in any case. It actually feels like the advisor was micromanaging, though you don't say it was a large lab in which that might occur.
For someone who has a lot of doctoral students at the same time (never my bad luck) it might be worth organizing them so that they can collectively answer their own question. Perhaps the more senior students can mentor the newer ones. That isn't a bad thing in any case.

If the prof wants weekly 15-min 1:1 meetings, that's very likely a bad case of micromanagement. If the student initiates that, with one or two well prepared questions, it's probably far more efficient than (bi)monthly meetings that take half a day. To begin with, it's no problem to cancel such a meeting, or postpone for two days, if prof or student is sick/unprepared/on a spontaneous holiday/has a bad-hair-day etc.

On the other hand, daily standups are used quite frequently to check on people's statuses in the software world, the idea of a quick ~5 minute daily check-in to resolve any blockers would probably be helpful and not micromanagey.


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How to handle ethics review (IRB) when moving between institutions
Is it convention for a researcher who changes institutions to reapply for ethical review (IRB) on ongoing projects at a new institution, or keep working with the IRB files at the institution where the researcher originally applied, until the studies are ready to be closed?
For context, I just finished my PhD in a social science and I'm moving to a new institution for a postdoc. As a social scientist, my projects are either solo or with a few co-PIs, so any answer may be different from people in the sciences.
For clarity, IRB is the term for US universities' ethics review committees. From Wikipedia: "An institutional review board (IRB), also known as an independent ethics committee (IEC), ethical review board (ERB), or research ethics board (REB), is a type of committee that applies research ethics by reviewing the methods proposed for research to ensure that they are ethical." source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_review_board

Perhaps explain what an IRB is? It's not something I'm familiar with.

@Flyto "An institutional review board (IRB), also known as an independent ethics committee (IEC), ethical review board (ERB), or research ethics board (REB), is a type of committee that applies research ethics by reviewing the methods proposed for research to ensure that they are ethical."  source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_review_board

Thank you. Perhaps you could explain that in the question? That wiki page suggests that "IRB" is a US-only term.

@Flyto Thanks! Didn't know that. I updated the q

When you change institutions, you will need approval from your new institution's IRB to continue any human subjects research. From their perspective, the new institution is about to "start" working on your existing project so they will review them as normal projects using their normal process. Of course, the review process might be different since the project is in process, data may have already been collected, etc. That may change the process of making a determination and might even change the determination, but it doesn't change the need for a determination.
This might lead to an interruption in your ability to conduct your research. As a result, you should contact your new IRB about any ongoing research project as soon as possible.
Depending on the stage of the project, the IRB could say one of many things. For example:

If you are still interacting or intervening with human subjects, you may need to either (a) submit brand new protocols for review or (b) have your new IRB delegate review to your previous institutions IRB. Both are common although the latter only really makes sense if your previous institution's IRB is going to continue overseeing the work (for example, because your have collaborators there).
If the project is at a stage where there is no further interaction or intervention, when data has been collected, and if data stored in a form where individuals are not identifiable, the IRB might say that you do not additional review at all since the work, at this stage no longer qualifies as human subject research. In my opinion, it's always better to let the IRB make that determination.
If data has been collected but if data continues to be identifiable or if analysis otherwise puts subjects at risk, you might need to put in a special request to analyze previously collected data. This is often a separate kind of application that can be a bit shorter and easier. I've had to do this even for projects that had been considered exempt at my previous institution.

As always, you are subject the rules of institution that is employing you. You should always check with them. I think it's not abnormal, in these situations, to set up a meeting with someone from the IRB to talk through these sorts of situations and make a plan of action.
[ For context, I am also a social scientist working in the United States. ]

There may be laws here that I'm not familiar with, but note that one of the purposes of an IRB is to protect the institution itself, not just the subjects of a study. I would guess that you should talk to someone in the IRB structure at the new institution to get guidance here. If any resources of the new institution are involved, they will likely care.
I would also suspect that they will have incentive, if asked, to approve your work based on the old application's documentation.
But it is better to have at least asked, than to be surprised later if there is any difficulty. This is especially true if you no longer have any relationship with the old institution.

Yes, I had to reapply for IRB authorization at the new institution when I switched. If I remember correctly, the process was somewhat easier since the data was already collected and they mostly could treat it like secondary data.


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Can a university retract a degree for actions taken after the degree is awarded?
I was looking at this question on The Workplace, where in the asker was considering doing homework for students for a fee. My initial thought was that it's possible he went to the same university*, and if discovered they would attempt to revoke his degree. I considered that this would be analogous to failing and expelling a current student who was found to be breaking the academic honesty policy. I know that some universities have recently retracted honorary degrees awarded, but of course, the course work was never done to deserve these degrees. So my question is...
Is it possible for a university to retract a degree that had previously been awarded for a full course completion if the individual does something that would clearly harm the university/violate the ethics of the university?
*this is completely speculative, and the question is theoretical at best

I don't have any hard data, but I believe this is extremely unlikely (notwithstanding @StephenKolassa's fascinating answer) as such a revocation would be highly illogical and in my opinion unjust. A (normal, not honorary) degree is a physical piece of paper that represents the university's knowledge that the recipient has satisfied certain requirements and achieved certain goals. If these goals were attained honestly then the university cannot logically revoke the degree any more than it can revoke the knowledge that the degree is a proxy for.

While not strictly an example of degree revocation (the "misconduct" occurred after finishing degree requirements but before the degree was conferred, so withholding the degree is probably legal), the case of Chad Hardy is.. definitely worth reading.

Does this question assume that the degree is not retracted because something was found out after the degree, which would invalidate the degree itself? For example, the case is not that plagiarism or cheating during the completion of the degree was found out after the degree was awarded? If so, such retraction can cause a dangerous precedent, for example, a university holding a certain set of political beliefs retracting a degree because the degree holder said "something outrageous" later...

Public or private university? @ff524: BYU is a private religious university (98.5% LDS) which moreover expels any student who loses or changes their Mormon faith. This would be totally illegal at public universities in the US or other countries.

See http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-28/macquarie-university-fails-mymaster-students-cancels-degrees/6504012

@smci : That is still something which happens during the course, not after it.

@vsz: the Chad Hardy case was in fact someone who was excommunicated from the LDS Church after completing but before graduation.

Yes it is possible in the US. It happened not too long ago to a Ohio State University graduate.

I presume this concerns degrees that are not honorary. I would hope that an honorary degree would be revoked from an awardee whose subsequent conduct did not meet with the institution's standards.

It would depend on the jurisdiction. In the US, you have a property right to the degree that you earn and pay for (regardless of the ultimate source of funding -- the student has the responsibility to pay), and as long as you don't violate the conditions for obtaining the degree (various forms of dishonesty in admissions and satisfaction of the degree), improper actions after the fact don't license depriving a person of what they have earned. In Europe, the legal basis may be different. Whereas in much of Europe state law governs revocation, in the US revocation is governed by university rules.
In the case of Dutch psychologist Diederik Stapel, the thesis data had been destroyed so it was impossible to prove fraud in the thesis, and also impossible to disprove it (Stapel short-circuited the university's proceedings by returning his degree). It appears that there are, in The Netherlands and possibly other European nations, vows that you must take in order to receive the degree, to act honorably (defined locally). "Not committing fraud in the future" is a likely candidate for such a vow.

That's interesting, do you happen to have a reference for the U.S. legal situation you describe (property rights etc.)?

For instance from 813 F. 2d 88 - Crook III v. Baker, “The argument is that the grant of a degree vests in the grantee a valuable property right, and the grantor, here the Regents, can no more rescind the grant than one can, without court action, rescind the sale of land or gift of personalty,” “The district court concluded that Crook's master's degree constituted an important property interest…we assume these propositions, arguendo, and accept them as givens”. In a case in 1334 involving Cambridge, CJ Pratt stated that "a man shall not be deprived of his property without being heard".

Huh, that is... surprising. I'd always thought that in the US, the actual degree was an abstract idea, namely the fact that you successfully completed a set of requirements (subject to verification by the university registrar, if one cared to check), and that the actual piece of paper was just for show.

@DavidZ Abstract ideas can still be property.  See, for example, your bank balance.

@JeffE Or any intellectual property.

Yes. Although you will need to do something blatantly unethical.
For instance, my alma mater (the University of Konstanz, in Germany) revoked an alumnus' Ph.D. after this alumnus blatantly falsified data, although the Ph.D. thesis as such was not tainted.

Fascinating. According to the Wikipedia page you linked to, the revocation decision was challenged in court and was only confirmed after a prolonged legal battle involving state and federal courts. I'm wondering if there is perhaps more to the story than what you say -- perhaps the investigation into Schön's publication and data also led to some suspicions regarding the results of his Ph.D., and that was used as the basis for the revocation of his degree?

@DanRomik: I'm not aware of any evidence that Schön's Ph.D. was already tainted (and I would have expected anything like this to have surfaced during the court proceedings). My take is that his subsequent behavior rendered him "unworthy" of a Ph.D. in the eyes of the German higher education and judicial system. (And doing academic research myself, I fully agree.)

The university's press release about the revocation explicitly states: ‘Nicht in Zusammenhang mit Fälschungen während der Anfertigung seiner Doktorarbeit verliert Schön seinen Titel, sondern wegen seines späteren Fehlverhaltens.’ (‘Schön is not losing his title in connection with falsifications during the preparation of his doctoral work, but rather due to his later misconduct.’)

Well, seems like we have the same alma mater, However, this case in very specific for Germany, even for the state Baden-Württemberg, where this happened. It is simply stated by the law (§4 AkaGrG) that a PhD can be revoked  "wenn sich der Inhaber durch sein späteres Verhalten der Führung eines akademischen Grades unwürdig erwiesen hat." (if the owner proves himself dishonourable by his later behaviour to hold an academic degree). Note that this not apply to Bachelor/Master titles and not even to all German states!

In Germany, the supreme court decided that the revocation of a doctoral degree is possible if someone commited scientific misconduct (see https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/DE/2014/bvg14-085.html). Still, it depends first on the higher education legislation of the federal states (see for a list https://www.academics.de/wissenschaft/der_entzug_des_doktorgrades_46556.html) and second on local doctoral regulations.

@StephanKolassa And doing academic research myself, I fully agree. Well, in a sense I also agree. I wish we could claim that PhD holders are all honorable and honest people who dedicate their lives to the betterment of mankind. Sadly this is not true. Many PhDs pursue societally harmful careers in the service of evil corporations or regimes, e.g. Werner Heisenberg working for the Nazis and Robert Kehoe (who was an M.D.) defending the leaded gasoline industry. So I say we should leave honor to philosophers and let the PhD stand for what it actually represents, i.e. the ability to do research.

@StephanKolassa sorry, I misread your answer.

https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/pressemitteilungen/bvg14-085.html explains that the misconduct in question for revocation of the PhD degree must be functionally relevant scientific misconduct. While this was clearly the case with Schön's falsified data in scientific publications, it is IMHO less clear in the homework question or even the question on workplace that triggered this question.

In the vast majority of universities from the Spanish speaking world the degree is not revoked even when they learn, after the degree is granted, that the holder plagiarized in the thesis that was presented for that degree. This is sad because the lack of academic integrity by the universities that have been put on the spotlight affect the region as a whole.
For example in Guatemala, the University of San Carlos learned in 2014 from political magazine Contrapoder that then presidential candidate Manuel Baldizón plagiarized his PhD thesis. As a result the university assembled a council to decide on how to proceed. After deliberating for over 60 days, and without even looking at the evidence!, they decided that due to the lack of internal regulations there was nothing that they could do, therefore Baldizon’s PhD was upheld and valid.
Back in 2013 the University of Valencia, Spain came to the same conclusion. Except that they did not even form a council.
There are many other cases like this through Latin America. The latest high profile case is in Peru. Former presidential candidate César Acuña has been accused by the press for plagiarizing the thesis that granted him a PhD from the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain.
In the Dominican Republic current president Danilo Medina not only plagiarized the thesis the earned him his bachelor’s degree, he did not even complete the credits for the undergrad program.  This case came to light when he was still a candidate. He reached office. And the person that denounced him was fired from his administrative post at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo.
In Mexico, Boris Berenzon from the National Autonomous University was fired due to “inadequate academic practices”. Not only did he plagiarize both his Master’s and Doctorate’s thesis but also books and dissertations that he presented as his own in international forums. He was fired but his degrees, from that same university, have not been revoked.
One exception is from The Colegio the Mexico. They revoked the PhD degree from Rodrigo Núñez Arancibia after it was proven that the thesis he wrote to earn him that degree contained plagiarized material. And he was a fired from his post at the Michoacan University of San Nicolas Hidalgo.
While it took less than six months to find Núñez guilty of all chargers, it took more than 10 years to find that Mr. Berenzon’s academic practices were substandard. What is different in Núñez’s case from Berenzon’s? Why was the degree revoked from Núñez and not from Berenzon?  Their respective thesis were just one of many of their works that contained plagiarized material, they both stole the work of other authors for books and arbitrated articles that they signed as their own. What is different then?
Mexico is very sensitive to criticism from abroad, especially from the USA.  While those protesting Berenzon’s frauds included students and domestic authors, Núñez plagiarized material from North American authors. Professors Susan Schroeder from Tulane University; Stafford Poole from St. John's Seminary College; Sonya Lipsett-Rivera from Carleton University; John Chuchiack from Missouri  State University, and Martha Few from the University of Arizona, reported that in 2014 Nunez plagiarized in its entirely the book “Religion in New Spain”, a  book from University of New Mexico Press.  This prompted an immediate scrutiny of all of Núñez’s work, including his PhD Thesis.
It is unfortunate but turning a blind eye to thesis plagiarism by some universities in Latin America and Spain questions the integrity of all degrees coming from that region. If you read Spanish check www.plagios.info

The Phd degree of Jan Hendrik Schön was revoked after it came to light that he had falsified data after obtaining his Phd because of "dishonourable conduct". He tried to sue the university to give his PhD back but lost several cases up to the highest possible court. His PhD remains revoked.
This all happened in Germany. I am not sure if this is possible in other countries.

I was told, by a friend, whose Ph.D. is from an Austrian university, that Austrian doctorates can be revoked if used fraudulently. The example he gave is that if he writes a bad check and signs it "Dr. XYZ" then his degree could be revoked. But if he just signs "XYZ" then his degree is safe because it wasn't used in the fraud. (He added that, as a result, people would be suspicious if they know he has a doctorate and he signs a check with just "XYZ".)

In Germany, a PhD may be revoked in case of

a wilful act resulting in a prison sentence of one year or more, or
a deliberate/wilful offence abusing their scientific qualification.

These are quite "mild" conditions, presumably in place to discourage degree holders to engage in behaviour on the wrong side of the law.

Interesting. In cases where this actually happens, can the former degree holder complete a rehabilitation process and get their degree reinstated, or do they have to start from the beginning and produce a new dissertation?

@Araucaria-Nothereanymore. No, these are for all PhD degrees, in particular usual ones (where you wrote a proper thesis) and the "wilful act" can have occurred after obtaining your degree.

@Araucaria This does seem to exist, yes. I found this newspaper article where the crime (repeated bribery of a university professor) also involves a university, but the crime is not directly related to the PhD degree/thesis (which seems to have been obtained perfectly legitimately). This was one of the first articles I found, so I expect there to be more examples. (The prison sentence was 3.5 years.)

Just once extra piece of data is that Cambridge are in the process of retracting this guy's degree for a pedophile conviction according to the article. It's unrelated and they are not saying that he didn't deserve the degree just that they don't like him (nor do I but I always assumed after you got the degree you couldn't have it taken away).
I think this type of thing for thought crime may become far more common in the future.

Of course it is possible.  They granted the degree, they can revoke it in some form as well.  These are informal, unspoken social agreements.  There (likely) is no agreement that says otherwise.
In practice, however, this may be poor policy.  It would be better for the University to create a list of those who are in good standing, and suggest nothing more about those who are not -- for it was equally a failure of the University for granting the degree.


text:
Question on writing CV and personal statement for applying to PhD positions
I am a master's student in mathematics and I'm applying for a math PhD position in US or Europe.
During my time as a Master student, I worked on a paper with several co-authors, but the majority of the contributions were made almost entirely by me.
Is it proper to write something like "In the research for this paper, I independently completed almost all of the proof for the main result." in my CV and personal statement?
I'm afraid that this might make me seem lacking in humility, or that the professor might mistakenly think I’m not good at collaboration because I completed almost all of the work independently.
(My fear is not unfounded. In our country, the culture places great emphasis on personal humility and collectivism. I’m not sure if the academic culture in Europe or the United States holds the same view.)

Personally, I think it is a mistake for you to say such things. Not because it lacks humility (and collegiality), but because it can't be verified.
However, if someone else, such as a letter writer, preferably your PI says something like this it automatically has credence. Self praise is much less valuable than the praise of others, especially those who are in a position to know and judge. Ask one of your letter writers to give a sentence or two about this.

Thanks for your answer! I think my advisor will wirte this in the letter for me. I divided my "research experiencement" part in my CV in 3 parts, where one of these 3 parts is Personal Contribution, because my friend told me some professors/communicaty want  know how much contribution I do in the research. So if I write this in "Personal Contribution" part, do you think there will be some negative impression on my application? Thanks very much!


text:
Should an interdisciplinary researcher work twice as hard?
My Ph.D. research is related to both computer-science and economics. I collaborate with researchers in both these disciplines, and naturally submit papers to journals of both disciplines. Now, while looking for an academic job, I find out that departments count only the publications published in journals of their own discipline. This is true both in the acceptance decision and in the tenure decision. So, whether I go to CS or to economics department, in expectation, I have only half the number of counted publications of a one-discipline researcher. What can I do about it?

One option is to choose one of the two disciplines and only send papers to its journals. But, this means I will have a hard time collaborating with researchers from the other discipline, since they will probably want to publish in "their" journals.
Another option is to work twice as hard and publish twice as many papers.

Is this true that an two-disciplinary researcher should work twice as hard to attain the same career status as a one-discipline one?

"Is this true?" No. Otherwise there would be 0 interdisciplinary researchers.

For Germany (a highly conservative academic job market), I can confirm that departments tend to count publications in their own discipline only. However, as for "In other words, a two-discipline researcher has to work twice as hard": this might be a fallacy, since there are better strategies to deal with the situation. For example, you can choose one of the areas as your focus area and make sure to submit all your first-author papers to the journals in that area.

It's not a real question, is it? But if the situation is, as you describe, I see where the frustration comes from. Note that sometimes there are interdisciplinary positions where all papers in both areas should count, and having papers in one field only is a severe disadvantage.

That is not true for all of Germany, in my case the criterium was peer reviewed, not the discipline. What may lead to problems is when you combine disciplines whit very different publication cultures, e.g. articles versus books, or do conference papers count as articles.

I am in an undegraduate course but this is to quote my textbook "Interdisciplinary students bear a heavier responsibility than disciplinary students do in their research because interdisciplinarians have to establish adequacy in two or more disciplines."

I find out that departments count only the publications published in journals of their own discipline. This is true both in the acceptance decision and in the tenure decision.

While it's certainly possible that some departments would adopt a foolish policy of this sort, which is effectively tantamount to a decision not to have any interdisciplinary researchers, I think it's also possible that you are misunderstanding what the statement that "departments count only the publications published in journals of their own discipline" means. When interpreted in the right way, this statement may be a lot less troubling than you might think.
Specifically, the way promotion decisions typically work for researchers who have a joint appointment in two departments is that each of the departments does its own review of the researcher's work, and the input from both departments is then reviewed by a higher campus committee and taken into account to reach a final decision. Moreover, each of the departments doing the review knows full well that it has only partial "ownership" of the candidate's time. So, to take an example that I am familiar with, a researcher who has a 50% partial appointment in a math department and a 50% partial appointment in a biology department will have published some mixture of math papers, biology papers, and papers that are about both math and biology. Now, it is true that in its review, the math department will "count only the publications published in journals of its own discipline", in the sense that the math department doesn't have the expertise to evaluate work in disciplines other than math and will only be seriously looking at the math papers. But the math department also knows that the researcher only has a 50% appointment in math, so all its expectations regarding the amount of math research the researcher should have produced will be weighted accordingly. The biology department will apply similar reasoning. The end result would be that if the researcher is overall as productive as a typical single-discipline researcher, the promotion review will have a successful outcome. (In fact, because of the existence of papers that can be appreciated by both departments, there can even be some amount of double-counting that may lead each of the departments to conclude that you are producing more research than they were expecting you to produce -- this will probably be a weak effect, but note that it will work in your favor rather than against you!)
I would encourage you to ask at any department where you are considering applying for a job whether the above interpretation of the promotion process is a faithful description of their approach to evaluating the work of interdisciplinary researchers like yourself.
With that being said, I should add that from my observations I find it very true that interdisciplinary researchers have to work a little bit harder than everyone else. Being a member of two departments is a big headache: you have twice as many colleagues to get to know and to get along with; twice as many administrative processes to get used to, department-wide emails to receive and respond to, etc.; and, most importantly, when you come up for promotion you need to find a way to effectively communicate your research to two groups of people with very different backgrounds and research cultures. Perhaps there will indeed be times when you feel you need to work twice as hard as everyone else, but as a general rule saying that you need to work twice as hard all the time is a wild exaggeration -- as others have noted, this is both physically impossible and a highly illogical expectation, considering the fact that I strongly doubt you are paid twice as much as other researchers.
Finally, on the positive side, you should remember that working in two disciplines can often also be twice as much fun!

I collaborate with, and work on projects, involving human health, animal health, ecology, and the occasional bit of applied math.
Should I work four times as hard?
The simple answer is no. Because it's both impossible, and rather unlikely that you're even capable of that.
Instead, the answer is unfortunately that if you wish to be doing interdisciplinary research you should not be looking at those departments.
Because not all departments do this. Right now, my unit is hiring people working in health economics, and we've been very mindful to put their work in the appropriate context, including asking field experts what "counts" for them. We're doing similar things with other people we are hiring - for example, right now, we have representatives from at least three departments sitting on a committee for interdisciplinary hires.

An added point to build on to "don't look at these departments": if you are being interviewed by a department, and they say this, you should be very suspicious. How did they decide to interview you, if they think half your papers don't count? What does that tell you about their decision-making process?


text:
I put a paper on arXiv and now I want to send it to a double-blind journal. What can I do?
Several months ago, I wrote a working paper and put it on arXiv. Now, the paper has improved considerably, and I would like to submit it to the American Mathematical Monthly. Their author instructions clearly say "please refrain from putting your paper online until you have heard from the editor" (this is probably meant to keep the review process double-blind). I see in arXiv that I can withdraw the paper, but its title and my name will remain there, so it will still not be anonymous.
Is there a way to temporarily hide a paper from arXiv, until the review process is done?
EDIT: I asked the editors about it, and they reply was, essentially: it is preferred to not put the paper online before submission, but it does not disqualify it. However, the fact that the paper is online should be noted in the cover letter, and preferrably, the submitted paper should be given a different title so that it is not too easy to find it by Google.

Did you ask the editor?  Only their opinion matters.

My question is regarding the technical possibilities in the arXiv website. I would like to hide the paper, but all I see is 'withdraw' which is not exactly hiding.

You cannot remove things from ArXiv.  That is the point of it.

related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/50139/does-the-american-mathematical-monthly-allow-arxiv-posting

If you planned for it to be a paper in a good journal why post on arXiv so early - seems to be counter-intuitive.

Well, lesson learnt, only post on arXiv once you have decided to publish or not. Magic, your reply to my comment has just disappeared.

@SolarMike In mathematics it is extremely common to post to the arXiv before, or at the same time as, submitting to a journal. Posting to the arXiv is considered to be the best way to disseminate your work. Most math journals don't do double-blind reviewing; the American Math Monthly is an exception.

With double-blind reviewing becoming more common in (T)CS conferences, the issue of earlier arXiv submissions comes up there as well. However, the general impression I get there is that the communities do not want double-blind reviewing to discourage authors from submitting a preprint on ArXiv. Mathematicians and the AMS in particular could have a very different opinion here, but I think it's better to check whether previous arXiv submissions are a problem, i.e. ask the editor.

This may seem like a digression at first, but wait for it:
The main purpose of double-blind peer review should not be to prevent the reviewers learning the authors’ identity by all means.
This can be a welcome side effect, but often this is impractical not only due to preprints but also due to previous work, conferences, idiosyncrasies, etc.
If a malignant reviewer wants to break the double blindness, they often can.
Fortunately, many peer reviewers don’t want to do this:
They are completely fine with performing an unbiased review of a paper that is only based on its own merits – as they ideally should.
However, no matter how good our intentions, we are still prone to subconscious or at least implicit biases.
The main goal of double-blind peer review should be to help reviewers to eliminate (or at least reduce) those involuntary biases¹.
By contrast, with single-blind peer review, it is impossible for reviewers to be unbiased, as the names of the authors (and their affiliation) are inescapable.
In light of this, I suggest to submit your (anonymised) paper. In the submission note that you published a preprint already, but that this does not relevantly compromise the double-blindness of the peer review (as it is about allowing the reviewers to be unbiased, not about forcing them). Bonus points if you can point out other ways in which a malignant reviewer could have found your identity despite the preprint. Should the journal not be convinced and actually reject your paper because of this, they should arrive at this conclusion quickly and you waste not too much time.
On the other hand, even if you should somehow manage to unpublish your preprint from the Arxiv, search engines and similar would still connect your paper to your name for a while and thus a malignant reviewer could find out your identity anyway. Therefore, it does not matter for the double blindness at all; no matter what your stance on its purposes is.

¹ … or analogously to prevent authors from flashing their or their affiliation’s reputation at the reviewers without them having a chance to ignore them.

+1. I have reviewed a few blind papers which were/are already in arXiv. As a reviewer, it really didn't matter to me how famous/cited a paper was. I just read in an unbiased way the version I was holding in my hand.