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Is it a good idea to self-fund a postdoc for a year?
I am a Ph.D. student in mathematics, and I'm supposed to finish this year. I've been looking for a position next year (not so much in the USA, but mainly in Germany and the UK). While I haven't exhausted all my options, I do feel that maybe it would be a good idea to have a backup plan.
Since I can afford it, I was thinking about taking myself somewhere "productive" and living there off my savings for a year, whilst working with the research group in that university to produce new results. In the meantime, to continue to apply to positions and hope for the best.
My advisor said that this is not a very good idea, but at the same time mentioned one or two people from our field who had done something like that (albeit in the 1970s or 1980s).
How bad of an idea is this? And what sort of strategy I should be considering if I want to move forward with a plan like that?
The alternative, of course, is to go out to the industry for a year or two until I find a position. But leaving and coming back seems like an even worse idea to me.
(I have money for a year in a reasonable place, maybe two if I also work a bit during that time. I also don't have an American, Canadian, British or European citizenship; although my passport is versatile enough that I can move around.)
Clarification. While the question is somewhat general, my field is mathematics. I don't think that not having an affiliation will cause me to be inaccessible to my current network of peers. I have seen several people who did not have an affiliation with any mathematical establishment, but nevertheless continued to collaborate with professors, students and all in all conduct interesting research.
As far as my personal case goes, I also don't think there are others from my field of research who got the positions "and might feel nervous if I'm around". More than implausible, it sounds unlikely.

Is there a specific research group that has indicated to you that you would be welcome working with them at their university while you are self funding? Will they give you an office? An official institutional affiliation/title that you can put on your CV/webpage? If there isn't such a group, consider the possibility that your idea is purely hypothetical at this point, as it is not at all obvious to me whether many research groups would be inclined to want to spend their time and professional credibility working with someone they have not selected to offer a funded postdoc position to.

@Dan: There are several options. Nothing I discussed with people, but for the most part, the lack of position comes from lack of money, rather than the lack of willingness.

"I have seen several people who did not have an affiliation with any mathematical establishment, but nevertheless continued to collaborate with professors, students and all in all conduct interesting research."  Me too; in fact, I have published math papers with two such people.  However, neither of them now has an academic job.  By the way, I have been involved in the hiring of mathematical personnel dozens of times and looked at thousands of applications.  I cannot remember ever giving consideration to someone without a current academic affiliation.

@Pete: Now that is far more relevant. Were you hiring for postdoc positions or tenure track, though? Because in today's market, I don't know that many people how only take one postdocship before tenure track.

@Inkblot: Both.

Since you are in mathematics, I think you should consider that publication process as well as writing process is very slow for you, and you will have essentially zero to show (in terms of documented results in your CV) if someone asks you what you did do last year. That may bites back for any job application.

@Greg: Isn't this essentially true for any one-year postdocship? And if we include "submitted" or even "in preparation" papers, what's the difference is going to be?

My guess is you were right to take @Greg's comment to mean "the publication process as well as writing process is very slow, and one will likely have zero new work to show."  I think the "slow for you" part, which seems like an unjustifiably personal criticism, is an accident probably due to the international nature of this site and an imperfect command of English, judging from Greg's profile description ("Someone who suppose to know chemistry"). // Nothing like raising the stakes to help a person be productive!

@PeteL.Clark - Are you saying that someone first sifts through the pile and tosses all the currently unaffiliated applicants?  Or that coincidentally, none of the currently unaffiliated candidates met the minimum qualifications?  Or that no one currently unaffiliated applied?  If it's the first possibility, that would be a good point to add to your answer.

@aparente: In my department there is no one person who culls the list (there is no longer a physical "pile" or anything to "toss"): rather it is up to individual faculty members to express support for some of the hundreds of applicants.  It is these applicants that get consideration.  I have never seen a candidate without a current academic affiliation get such consideration.  We do get unaffiliated applicants.  At the moment I cannot recall an applicant who was otherwise highly qualified but lacked academic affiliation -- my point is that this is very rare.

@PeteL.Clark Thanks. I made an addition to my answer thanks to this point. / I do think the information you've shared in these comments is helpful and would strengthen your answer. / Approximately how many applications survive that first round? / Your description of the first step of your hiring process is fascinating.  It is completely different from the hiring process I've seen (in K-12 education), where there can be upwards of 100 applications for a principalship, and the first step is a culling round, eliminating those candidates who don't have a certain set of agreed-upon characteristics.

@aparente: To answer your question: it is not a fixed percentage but truly depends on how many candidates are of significant interest to the faculty.  (Unlike, say, a principalship, we are not required to fill a tenure-track line in a given academic year, although we would like to.  If we feel that we have exhausted all suitable candidates, we don't try to hire an unsuitable candidate.)  For a tenure track line we usually get around 300 applications, and maybe 15-30 will get considered.  We're not looking for people to cut, we're looking for people to interview, maybe 3-5 per line.

(And in case you're wondering, we do claim to read all the applications.)

@PeteL.Clark - I guess at least I have had some confusion between postdoc hiring processes and tenure track faculty hiring processes.  My picture of Ink blot's situation is that the tentative plan is to reapply for postdocs next year, after some hopefully productive treading of water in between, featuring preferably a change of scene.  I just realized your descriptions of your hiring processes maybe weren't specific to postdoc hiring.  Can you clarify how postdoc hiring processes (in your experience) compare to what you described?

@aparente: For postdoc hiring the numbers are a bit different, and only a subset of the faculty with certain research interests may participate in a given decision, but otherwise it's broadly similar.  The sentiment about unaffiliated candidates is the same.  In some ways math postdocs are more competitive than tenure track jobs -- at any rate, there are fewer of them.

@Inkblot It is true for any post-docs, but there is a difference when a supervisor can write a recommendation letter about your results, boast about you in his/her professional network and say they will be published soon. When you are alone, you are the one who has to say this in a cover letter, which may be a much weaker way of convincing people.

@aparente001 Why do people assume mean, personal statements everywhere?  "for you" as a mathematician (as opposed to other subjects, where you can go through referring process much faster), "for you" as an independent researcher, who look for and start a new direction of research him/herself, instead of joining a group's already established line of research and produce something fast based on those established tracks.

@Greg - Don't worry, I didn't assume anything mean (=nasty -- is that what you meant?).  Also, I figured out you weren't intending to talk about OP individually (even though that's what your sentence meant, objectively).  I know what it's like to try to function in a language I don't know inside and out.

I can offer a related example more recent than the 80s:  In 2015/16 I spent a bit over a year as an 'independent researcher', and am now a post-doc again, with a 3-year research grant coming up.  I did it very differently to what you are proposing, though.  I travelled a lot and spent not much more than a month in total at universities.  Also, I already had 4.5 years' postdoc experience, which makes my situation quite different to yours.  I had already been collaborating with people in different countries, had plenty of projects going on and no need of a mentor.

@Inkblot: No problem.  I used to worry about ending up with a 'gap' in my CV, mostly due to the sorts of things people are saying here, but it turned out to be one of the best years of my life so far and I've been able to continue being a mathematician, so I no longer fear that happening again.  If you do it, I would advise you to make some use of not being tied to a specific place, while you have the chance.

@Tara: Thanks! I will keep that in mind. I should probably say that despite being "fresh out of grad school", I have plenty of projects to work on, and I am quite independent (my work has nothing to do with my advisor's work). So your story at least semi-applies to my case.

The job market is extremely competitive, and not having had an official position will not help your CV. This is not the 70s or 80s. Academia is a very different place to what it was then. You should be aware that there is a high chance you won't be able to continue in academia, whatever you do with the next year. Would you be comfortable with running down your savings and then finding you have to change course anyway? If you want to do so, I would strongly advise talking to some tenure-track and newly-tenured professors (or equivalent) about what it is really like. I know some people now are deciding that academia in its current state isn't worth the effort.
For a strategy if you do decide to self-fund:
You need your CV to show the benefit of your extra year. However, applying for maths positions, you don't actually have an extra year, because of the length of the application cycle. To some extent that will help you - you'll roughly still be applying as a new PhD. But you should be looking to have a longer list of good papers. Since getting anything published in that timeframe is basically impossible, I would suggest getting work up on the arXiv, and finding a well-respected researcher in your field as a referee, who feels able to say that they think the paper is of the standard of X journal (or words to that effect). I don't think that's massively easy though.
In addition, I would suggest getting at least one more 'thing' on your CV beyond its current state: organising a conference, writing a grant application, or some solid teaching experience.
The relative merits of going into industry instead will depend on what your field is. For pure mathematics is unlikely you'd be able to move back from industry to academia. In statistics or some applied maths, you can still be seen as a credible researcher on the basis of work in industry. The difficulty is being able to demonstrate your personal contribution to the results. Also, many potential positions will want someone who can teach as well as do research. Demonstrating that would be difficult, but I think not impossible (eg. by supporting colleagues or by tutoring as a part-time job).

I have a very solid teaching experience (I was the instructor of a course), I already organized (as a chair of the committee) a conference, and my list of paper is not short, and the next semester it will get a couple more entries to it. I know what it's like to be a professor, and I know that this is more or less the only thing that I want to do with myself. As for finding a reputable researcher to "endorse" the unpublished work, I think that I can actually manage to find a couple of people. But thanks for the answer, it is helpful!

It may be then that you are in a good position to get jobs next time round, even without having a paid position. I would agree with Jason's advice to find some sort of position, even if it's just a title. Another thing that would be good to have on your CV is supervision of project students, but that would likely be tricky without a proper job.

Thanks. Supervising is a bit difficult, since it doesn't really happen around here. Only faculty supervise grad level degrees. So that means incorporating this into a relocation, which seems even harder without a paid position. But sure, that's a good idea. Thanks!

In theory, this is not a terrible idea, since you could get yourself to anywhere you wanted, which might allow you to add the name of a prestigious institution on your CV.
But I'm concerned, because you would not have an official mentor. The thing about being a postdoc is that someone cares about you enough to get you one of the very limited positions within the university, so someone is very interested in advancing your career, and working with you. By showing up to an institution by yourself, you would be given minimal support from the institution (you might get an office if you're lucky, but it's also possible that people will think that you're a crazy and shun you; I've seen both cases happen), and no one is obligated to work with you, which might mean that there was no point to moving there in the first place.
So I would follow your suggested course of action only if there's someone who feels strongly about having you around (although this will be hard to distinguish from someone just being polite!) I actually think it might be better to try to aim for some of the teaching postdocs at good universities in the US (some are still accepting applications), because at least you're there on an official capacity, and you'll likely be treated better than just showing up to a place on your own dime.

"aim for some of the teaching postdocs at good universities in the US" - unfortunately, OP has been trying to get hired, and so far has not landed anything.  Competition is keen.  This answer sounds a little bit like "Let them eat cake."

@aparente001 actually, many mathematicians look only for research postdocs, and it is almost always possible to get hired as a lecturer last minute, if you're not being too picky. Different disciplines operate differently, I'm afraid.

Well, of course I am not going to just randomly show up in places looking to get a semi-official and unpaid office space. As far as teaching positions, I would be very happy to teach in my own field (which often has intro-level courses), and less happy to teach calculus or linear algebra to economics or engineering. I know the latter is probably inevitable at some point, but postponing it for now seems like a good idea. This is one of the reasons I am reluctant to go to the USA and happier with a European choice.

@inkblot yes, just make sure that you have someone very interested in working with you (and also note that while the "lack of money" is often a legitimate reason why someone is not hired as a postdoc, it could also be a very convenient excuse not to hire someone, so you definitely want to make that distinction. One way to do that is to go to a place where you were shortlisted.)

@Inkblot - Going where you were shortlisted could be a good fit, but do visit first to feel it out.  Sometimes tension occurs with the person who beat you out for the position, who may feel threatened by your presence.  I've seen this happen.

"Not taking a job because of potential conflict seems silly, and math postdocs are very independent, so they don't even have to cross paths if they don't want to (also, likely they're not even in the same area because of how postdoc hiring works)." I didn't say "don't take a job because of potential conflict." First, there is no paid job. Second, this type of tension can be detected and avoided by visiting, as I suggested. With this small warning, I think your idea of considering one of the shortlist places is good and should be added to the answer.

In my view, you need to explain why you would rather move somewhere else for a single year than stay at your current institution.  As others have said, the way the academic job market works, you would have to apply for jobs within a couple of months of your arrival, so there is essentially no time for the intellectual benefits of your visit to positively influence your application.  However, your lack of formal institutional affiliation at the time of applying could be a real negative.  Perhaps you could arrange to visit some other institution for a couple of months while still keeping an employment at your home institution.  That would look much better.
Also -- it seems to me that it is way too early to know that you don't have a job for next year.  In the US alone there are hundreds of academic jobs that won't have been posted yet.  These are temporary positions heavy in teaching and light in financial recompense -- but they are academic jobs, and I know people who have taken such jobs and thereby "stayed academically alive" because of them.  I suspect that you are not looking nearly widely enough.  It also sounds like you are in one of those unnamed countries that seem to be so popular among questions on this site.  Well, you didn't name it so we don't know where you are, but indeed if you want to stay in academia you may have to move around.  To my mind, applying for postdocs in the UK but not the US looks rather eccentric.

Oh, I didn't say that I know that I don't have a job. I am still applying places, and there are other venues to obtain a position for next year. But I like having backup plans from B to F. As for UK and not US, I did apply to the US, but this is more of a constraint from the field of research which is somewhat more active in Europe (or rather, more "densely active" in Europe), and the few places which might have been hiring in the US didn't want to take another postdoc from the field for next year.

As for justifying the move, well, let's just call it "personal needs". I could really use a change of venue. And while I'd be very happy to return later in my career (and I was asked to do a good job with my research, so I could return), I really feel that it would do me good to move away right now.

Pete, are you saying that OP should give a reason here, for the purposes of answering the question, or that OP should justify the move when applying for work next year?

@aparente: I intended the former, but indeed the OP should have in mind that potential hirers will have similar questions.

What you are describing is generally not a good idea, nor should you really call it a post-doc.
First, purely in terms of semantics, I wouldn't refer to what you are proposing as a post-doc so much as a gap year since your CV will not reflect a institutional affiliation. Remember that at the end of the day the intent of the post-doc is for you receive additional mentorship and training beyond your doctoral studies. In short, if your doctoral studies were considered to be an apprenticeship, then your post-doc is the beginning of your journeyman years.
Second, in terms of the academic career pipeline, this can put you at risk compared to your peers. Besides the remuneration that you should receive as a post-doc, you also have the advantage of having increased access to peers and an official affiliation. While you might be quite capable of completing the necessary work for the publications on your own, there is a difference between having a built-in support and peer network and needing to network to build your own.
If you are able to find a research group that is interested in working with you, I would work with them to see if there are any grants or other sources of funding with them you can acquire. Otherwise you are effectively proving them with additional labor at your own expense.

Frankly, it sounds from the several answers that I received here as if I will be ignored and shunned by others in my field just because I don't have an affiliation. I highly doubt that.

@Inkblot: You asked a bunch of disinterested internet academics "Is it a good idea to self-fund a postdoc for a year?" Most of them have responded with concern that a gap in academic affiliation could work against you in the current extremely competitive job market.  You respond that you highly doubt that.   But also your own PhD advisor advised you against this.  You can of course think and do whatever you want, but I begin to wonder why you asked for advice at all.

@Pete: I asked because I was trying to understand why this is a bad idea. I agree that the lack of academic affiliation is a problem in general for the future. But I don't know if it will be an actual problem. I recall one of your stories about how you walked to some university and got a "guest office". But certainly not having an affiliation is not the same as "not having access to my peers" or even "decreased access".

I got a guest office over the summer.  The fact that I had just received my PhD at one institution and had a postdoc lined up at another was surely relevant: when I spoke in their seminar, they listed both of these affiliations.

@Inkblot It's one thing if you are self-funding a PhD since you are being taught skills that are difficult to develop without teaching and mentor-ship. However, my biggest concern is that you are proposing to work with a research group effectively as a volunteer while you live off your own savings. Typically if a research group wants your services they will figure out a way to get you a remuneration, even if it is meager. The fact that they haven't would imply to me that they don't need your services, but aren't going to turn down a volunteer that is willing to help out for free.

If you had said you wanted to take a year off to prepare a monograph my answer would be different since the nature of the situation is also different.

Certainly, more publications would be feathers in your cap.
Trailing spouses do this with reasonable frequency (more often women than men but that's neither here nor there).  It is not too hard to get an office at a department you have affinity with, even without a spouse connection.
You might be able to apply for some grant money yourself.  I have seen some independent researchers do this.
It might be helpful, before deciding, to see what group you might visit, and test out the relationship a bit, ahead of time.
Also, you could shadow a couple of people in industry, as a career exploration project.
These two things can help you decide what feels right.
Have you asked your advisor why s/he doesn't think it's a very good idea?

Edit:
Some further thoughts (some gleaned from or inspired by others' contributions here, but included here because I think they're important).  If you go ahead with your idea of working on your research projects in another department next year without pay:

get a title of some sort from the hosting department, such as "visiting scientist" (this would solve the problem of lack of affiliation)
go with your current advisor's blessing (meaning, you would need to get your advisor on board with this before you go; I think step one toward this goal is to ask your advisor why s/he said it's not a good idea, and what s/he thinks you should do instead)
find a secondary math-related endeavor to pursue while you are there, either paid or volunteer, for example, some sort of math-related community outreach (this would make you a more attractive job candidate in the US at least, and could help you justify the move to future hiring committees)
make sure you'll have at least one mentor in the hosting institution, and some co-workers to interact with

"more often women than men but that's neither here nor there" as you say it's neither here nor there, yet very sexist. Why not remove the remark altogether?

@Sana - Let's give women the credit for paving the way with this!

Well, I did visit a few places, and I do have some working relationship with people.

@Inkblot - sounds like a great start; perhaps further testing of these relationships over the next few months will help you with your decision making process.  You are approaching an exciting juncture.

These further thoughts look good to me.  In particular the first is very good advice: for many potential hirers (in mathematics), having no academic affiliation raises red flags, whereas having some academic affiliation doesn't.


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How can a teacher give effective feedback to students?
I wish to know, in general, how can professors provide feedback to students which the students will actually listen to and will use to improve themselves? I think to some extent there is a variability on what type of feedback people are receptive too, so there should be some sort of way which covers a large number of cases.
Effective in sense they actually make a positive difference when students are tested in some way on their comprehension of the subject.

I think you need to be more specific.  In particular, I think you need to say exactly what is meant by "improve."  There is a whole field of research called "education" which studies how professors can help students improve for various kinds of improvement.

Also, I suspect "feedback" is not the solution if students are not improving; something needs to be done proactively.

The following works if the scale is reasonable, though it is harder in very large classes unless you have a lot of help.
The main idea is to permit resubmission of already graded work for a grade improvement (though not full marks) if the work is actually improved.
The mechanism is to write comments directly on student papers along with a point total up to the maximum for that assignment. In this example, a paper is worth 100 and the student first gets 80 along with comments on why it is lacking.
The student is then permitted to resubmit an improved version for some fraction of the lost points, but not all. So, 95 might be possible in a resubmission, but not 100.
To make this easy (easier?) for the grader, all work is submitted in a folder and all prior work is also included with resubmissions. So, the grader can easily see what was lacking previously and can judge the changes. I also required (usually computer programs) that the changes to the original be highlighted with a marking pen (highlighter).
I used the above extensively and it helped students get over misconceptions. It also avoided needing to have office consultations and totally avoided grading complaints. I never saw a downside and processing a folder was very quick. But my scale was reasonable, usually less than 30 students.
I actually permitted more than one resubmission and a few students (not many) needed and benefitted from it. However, since the rework takes time away from current work, I'd occasionally (very) have to tell a student "one more chance" so that they could spend more time on the current tasks.
Another key idea is that the commenter should give minimal "hints" that permit (require) the student to do some actual work to improve the paper. Don't tell them how to fix it, but point out what the problem is an/or why it is a problem. In office hour visits the same should be true. For that, you can ask them why they made certain decisions and point out the (negative) consequences of poor decisions. Let them work out the solution so that it is a learning experience for them, not just following your instructions.
To do this in a larger group would require, I think, well trained TAs and regular meetings with them to set guidelines. The same person probably needs to handle the resubmissions for any given student for it to be scalable, though I never had to explore that.

My sense is that effectiveness of this derives from the fact that students have to actually engage with your feedback to win a few points. This is reinforcing. Some students need more reinforcement than others do.

This was in high school, but the best English/writing teacher I had did just this, and pretty much all of my classmates improved greatly in their writing skills during the course of her classes.

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What are some tips for studying a degree in a foreign language?
I am planning to do my Bachelors in Germany. The subject I wish to do is Math. Most probably, I will be taking a course in German. I wish to ask, what are some tips to make life easier when studying a subject in a foreign language other than the obvious "be good at the foreign language"?
Edit: People! You need a B2/C1 on CEFR for undergraduate in a German course in Germany. The schools won't take you in unless you have that.

Practice, practice, practice?

Do you have any familiarity with the German language?

I'd guess that relations with professors are much more formal than in India.

@JonCuster, wait, what? I thought that was how you got to Carnegie Hall.

@Buffy Isn't that location, location, location? Or was that clicking your ruby slippers together 3 times?

@Buffy: "I'd guess that relations with professors are much more formal than in India." Hmm, wait - from my experience as a German mathematician and from what I've been told about academia and education in India, I'd expect precisely the contrary to be the case (I don't have first-hand experience in India, though).

@cag51 learning for a year. Almost an intermediate level according to cefr

I am sorry but I disagree with the first half of padovapadova's answer. Knowing the language before you start is an advantage, but it is not impossible to pick up the language in your first term and not fail the courses (the disadvantage is that you will have lower grades, especially if the teachers are not supportive).
As for tips:

Unless you speak the language at an advanced level (C1-C2), you will have a disadvantage, so prepare for it. Do not get frustrated when you cannot fully express your thoughts (OK, this is impossible, you will be frustrated but try not to remain frustrated with yourself). Prepare typical responses for (exam) questions. Prepare for misunderstandings.

Avoid your own language, except for contact with family and close friends, and spend time with people who speak your target language. Ask them to speak that language to you (and not English or another shared language).

Make yourself home in your target culture: Read children's books, watch movies you already know from target culture, small news items, etc.

Local support people: try to join a study group of local students, find a buddy/mentor for incoming foreign students, both to practice the language and to lear about university culture and expectations.

Talk to your teachers: discuss your (potential) issues with you teachers, if there is extra help, more time for exams, etc. If there is a programme director, also talk to them.

Have fun and a positive attitude. Performing well in a foreign language and culture is tough but doable. And your chances are better if you are enjoying your university experience.

(For the record, I got my degrees in four different languages, sometimes I knew the language in advance, sometimes I was dropped in deep waters. It is much harder than learning in one's mother tongue but certainly not impossible. If learning math in German is what you want, I am sure you will be able to do it if you persevere. Good luck!)

Some specific tips:
Many Germans (especially the younger ones) are quite proficient in English and are eager to use their English knowledge, so it can sometimes be hard for people coming to Germany trying to learn German (friends that came from abroad told me so themselves), as almost everyone will try to speak with you in English. So try to keep your fellow students from trying to speak English with you (as it probably will happen).
Some people trying to learn the language have good experience with a so called language tandem partner, a native German speaker that wants to improve their knowledge of your language. The way this works is that you regularly meet and when it's their turn to help you, you will only converse in German, and they will tell you what you can improve on and point out mistakes. The next time you swap and converse only in your language and you help them. You can find a tandem partner buy putting up a note on the universities' black board (digital or IRL).
Try to find a specialized dictionary catered to academics / mathematicians, as the German you will have learned in a regular course will probably lack specific vocabulary that you will need during your studies. Some universities will also offer German courses for international students (that might be more focused on "academic" vocabulary).

I would suggest that you make yourself familiar with the formalities and culture of German universities. The structure is very different when compared to American colleges.
If the bachelor is taught in German (which is the case for most bachelors) you simply have to learn and improve your German. It might be necessary to get an appropriate certificate of either B2 or C1 to get admission at all.
However most masters are at least partially taught in English.

I do know about all of those. I am asking about actual course

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text:
What are support measures offered by German universities to international students which are often met with low demand?

There is a wide range of support services for international students at German higher
education institutions, especially in the introductory phase of studies, but also over
the course of the study programmes. However, these are often only used by a relatively
small proportion of international students, and their willingness to participate decreases
over time. Consideration should therefore be given to how international students can
be motivated more effectively to make greater use of the existing support services or
how their benefits can be better explained to them. This applies especially to language
courses, not only at the beginning of the study program, but throughout the entire course of study. This could, for example, prevent international students from failing to
write their final thesis due to language problems
Source DAAD study

Could someone mention examples of these wide range of support services? I am someone interested in studying in Germany, and till date I have not heard of any support services as such till date.


text:
What is the value of examinations (as compared with homework/term papers) under the honour system?
This question is asked in a university context where one assumes that the honour system works. (It is obvious that one needs more elaborate "sit-in" examination systems if students try to game the system and do not complete the assigned tasks themselves.)
What is the value that "sit-in" examinations add to that of evaluating homework and/or term papers?
The latter appear to be more reflective of the kind of situation where the student will apply what is learned in the classroom, which is to formulate an answer (on their own) to the query with access to various resources such as books, the internet and discussions with others. Moreover, h/w and term papers can (and usually do) have deadlines too!
Hence, why are examinations conducted at all in such a context? Perhaps, in some cases, examinations are treated just like homework with additional weight?
Update: To clarify the notion of "examinations" as contrasted with the other forms, what is particularly questionable about examinations is the issue of limitations on time and access to source materials. There are few "real life" tasks that one needs to train for where such limitations are critical.

Do you have in mind driver education or functional analysis?  As it stands, this is way to broad to answer.

@TerryLoring Thanks for the query. Clarified.

Are you asking about take-home tests?

@AzorAhai-him- Take home examinations are essentially homework/term papers by a different name. The question is about "sit in" examinations.

It is? I'm confused then.

@kapil Take home exams are not the same as homework/term papers. Take home exams administered by an institution with a functional honor system can have limitations on time and external materials, e.g. "the exam will be 3 hours, closed-book, take-home." Homework and term papers usually allow research and looking at books and notes.

@shoover The time limitation would then bother me. There are very few real life tasks that need such strict time limitations. Similarly, not being allowed to consult material is also problematic. Such "take-home" examinations would also be questionable, therefore.

@Kapil I'm just giving you my personal experience at a university with an honor system that functions that way. The take-home exams were treated the same as in-person exams with the major difference that students had the freedom to choose when and where to take them. This freedom extended to semester final exams as well.

Exam situations have the added safety of other students watching each other, whereas homework has only the one student alone responsible for their own honesty. Security relies on redundancy.


text:
Potential PhD applicant contacts me, mentions someone I know, can I contact such colleague?
A potential PhD applicant has contacted me for an informal chat about a PhD project I am offering. The candidate mentions he wrote an MSc dissertation under the supervision of Prof. X. I happen to know Prof. X, and I was wondering if I can contact my colleague and ask for an informal reference on the potential applicant before suggesting moving forward with the application?
Are there any ethical impediments for doing so?

What country? .

@AzorAhai-him- Does this affect the ethical implications?

@user151413 Well, certainly. Ethics aren't culture-neutral, especially for something as minor as contacting a professor about a professional recommendation (I'd almost object to including "ethics" in this question at all).

@Azor Yes, I think in my subconcious my comment was really more driven by the contrast of the minority (minor-ness?) of the issue (which makes it in principle cultural-specific) and the use of "ethics". (I did also upvote it, for what it's worth.)

Yes
Chances are the potential PhD applicant expects you to contact them. That's why they're mentioning them! In fact it's possible Professor X recommended the student contact you.
Besides, even in the (in my opinion very unlikely) event that the student doesn't want you to contact their MSc supervisor immediately, they should know that you will need to contact their MSc supervisor eventually. After all, recommendation letters are a staple of PhD applications, and the thesis advisor is an obvious letter-writer.

But the student has not submitted a recommendation letter. The OP can ask for a recommendation letter from the student, and if what you're speculating about the intent of the student is actually true, the student will probably ask their master's supervisor to write the letter.
I think in any case, the OP should ask the student or give them a chance to bring it up, if they want their master's supervisor to be contacted regarding this.
And if the master's supervisor had in fact recommended the position to the student, the student can mention that, given the chance or if asked about that.

This is a facile but dangerous suggestion. "Chances are" is no basis on which to act. The ethical fault would be with the advisor who would respond, of course, but you have no business asking for something improper. The student has rights and you don't want to stomp on them. You are saying "all is fine because maybe  something something something." No. No. Please. I realize it is what you may want to hear, but it is wrong.

This is a US centric answer. It sounds like the professor's name was only mentioned in passing. It might be different if the potential student said that the professor actually asked you to make contact. But even then it is a bit dicey.
It would be improper for that professor to talk to you without the student's permission for the usual reasons of privacy. If you contact them "out of band" you would put them in an uncomfortable position and if they don't recognize the conflict then it might be worse.
You could, instead, ask the student to ask that professor to contact you. Or you could ask the student for permission to contact the professor and then communicate that permission to the professor. Respect the student's privacy rights.
If not the US then the same ethical rules apply, I hope, though they might be supported by law or not.

Don't reach out before the interview.
In regular workplace interactions, such a reference is usually performed when the applicant has given consent to such an inquiry with a previous employer. Now this is not the exact same situation, but I would have a chat with the student before asking their supervisor, and ask the student whether they are okay with that.
This way, you will have an unbiased view of the student. You do not know the relationship that the student had with their former supervisor, but this way a negative (or positive!) opinion will not influence your first impression of the student. If the student is not okay with this request, by the way, this might also already give you some information.

I'm a student, and have never been on the other side of this story, but II have a hard time understanding the down votes to this answer.
Perhaps I'd say even after the interview, it might not be ok to contact the supervisor (see Buffy's answer), but still I don't understand the downvotes. Can someone please explain?!


text:
Can I apply for a master's degree in Germany after repeating my second year in bachelor?
I failed my fourth semester in applied mathematics bachelor degree because of depression. So I'll be obtaining my bachelor diploma in 4 years instead of 3 years.
Would I be able to apply for a master's degree in data science in Germany still ?
N.B : I'm currently studying in French and I recently passed the Toefl test and scored 95/120.
I'm not an EU citizen.

Are you an EU citizen?

In general in Germany, the only requirement to enroll in a Masters program at a public university is a finished Bachelor. In most cases no-one cares how you got your Bachelors degree and how long that took.
HOWEVER: popular studies have an NC (numerus clausus), that changes every year depending on the popularity. The NC is the limiting grade with which you are able to be admitted. The more people apply for a certain program, the higher the NC. For the NC, only the overall grade of your Bachelor degree counts, not how much time you took to obtain that grade.
There are nevertheless quite a lot of programs that don't have an NC, meaning there are in general not more applicants than spots. This means that basically anybody who fulfills the basic requirements (in case of a Masters program: finished Bachelor in relevant subject, visa requirements, language requirements, ...) will get a spot in that program. I bet there are quite a lote of math masters (and related subjects) without NC. So even if your Bachelor grade is not the best, you might be able to find a spot.
The comments of SirHawrk about the language issues are important, though - although many Germans speak English, a lot of university life (and administration) is taking place in German.

The NC is exactly what I'm worried about. Whether they take into consideration the length of the program and how long did it take for actually getting the bachelor.

"he only requirement to enroll in a Masters program at a public university is a finished Bachelor" - Doesn't this also depend on what your master was in?

@simolaarmani They do not. Also I just looked up a random Data Science University and the NC is 4.0 (The lowest grade which still allows to graduate). So I wouldn't worry about that

@simolaarmani The only thing that matters for NC is the grade.

I think this answer may not apply to non-EU citizens.

@mmeent I have looked at a couple of university homepages and they basically all say the same thing: for studies with NC, there is often a percentage of total spots reserved for international students. They have their own NC. Still, the only thing that really matters is the grade, not the duration to obtain that grade. For areas without NC, international students (just as national students) can simply immatriculate IF they meet basic criteria like visa, bachelor, etc.

From an academical standpoint: Yes. Many people in germany take longer than 3 years to complete their Bachelors Degree. Me being one of them.
It is also up to the specific universities if they accept you but most will not care that it took you longer.
What might be a bigger hinderance is your (presumably) lack of german skill. Many classes in Germany are taught in german. While you can complete most exams in english or german you won't be given a lot of english learning material during the semester.

I have been told that as long as the master's degree that I am applying for is taught in English, not  having a German language certificate won't cause a problem.

@simo that's for the course requirements. If you actually plan to live in Germany you should be at least conversational (B2 or higher), because even if the courses are offered in English pretty much nothing else in Germany will be

Thank you I appreciate it, that was really helpful.

@Cubic That really depends where in Germany you end up. Except for legal documents, of course.

@user151413 I'd beg to differ. Even Students often only speak english moderately well. It is a sad truth.

@SirHawrk Given that in many places in natural sciences, master courses are in english, it can't be all that catastrophic. And I certainly know lots of people who did a PhD or postdoc in Germany without ever being close to B2 proficiency in German.


text:
Applying for a Master thesis/project in the UK when from another UK University or from abroad
In many countries (such as France, Spain, ...), (science) master thesis is a research project of a couple of months spent in the lab/field under the supervision of an academics, at the end of the year of the Master study. The thesis manuscript is submitted to the Master to validate the course at the end of the project. The project can be done in any research laboratory, especially in a different university (or different country) you are registered in. Usually, labs publish their master project proposals independently of the Master courses and students can apply to. It is like a mini-PhD.
In the UK (and probably other countries?), it seems that the Master project should be done in a lab from the same University where registered.
My questions are:

is it possible to do a Master thesis project in a UK lab if one is registered in a Master which University is outside the UK or is different than the Master's University?

Or from the point of view of a UK academic, is it possible to supervise a project of a student who is enrolled in a Master outside its own Uni or outside the UK?

Thanks

My Master's dissertation was informally supervised by a professor from a different university (both the university I was attending and his are in the UK), so it's certainly possible. But I think things like this are arranged completely on a case-by-case basis; in my case, I got in touch with my supervisor by email to ask about a project after confirming with the dissertation coordinator at my own uni that it would be fine to do so.

Thanks @astronat

@astronat Did you have to pay extra fees to the University where you was to carry out your thesis?

Yes, this does happen occasionally. I know that the PI I share lab space with had a Dutch masters student in his lab for 6 months a few years ago for a very successful project.
Some things to bear in mind:

What's in it for the UK supervisor? They won't get paid. Their university won't give them workload credit for doing it. So you want to make it worth their while, most obviously by being able to do research they want doing (with their help obviously). I frequently get requests for masters students to come to the lab to do things I have no interest in.
I don't know what the tuition fee/immigration situation is like currently for overseas visiting students. Once upon a time this would have been simple, especially for EU students, but I don't know if that is still the case.


text:
Potential Internet blackout in Russia: could academics in Russia submit a manuscript to an international journal by postmail?
Researchers in Russia may face a blackout on the internet and may only surf on national websites (ref). Then they could not submit any paper to non-Russian journals anymore.
I was wondering whether some journals have thought about this and organized something to help them. In particular, would it be possible for them to submit a manuscript via post mail?
For the papers submitted before a potential black-out, do the journals plan to correspond with authors by post mail?

A few journals I glanced at still list a physical address for the editorial office, so it seems likely they could override their current on-line submission. If emails are not being rejected back to them, they may not (yet) recognize the issues with contacting authors. Again, calling or mailing to the editors would be suggested.

I do not see anything in this article suggesting Russians cannot continue to submit manuscripts by email.

If you have a phone and a modem, you can access the internet.

Thanks all for your comments. I've modified the initial question to make it as a POTENTIAL blackout as there no proof that it has been the case so far since the beginning of the war, as many of you have written.

The NY Times paper is behind paywall so I could not read it. However, I maintain contact with friends and relatives in Russia and as of 26 Apr 2022 there are no issues with email, general web browsing or videoconferencing.

Researchers in Russia face a blackout on the internet

There is no ongoing internet blackout, although the Russian government attempted several partial or complete blackouts in the last years during important events, such as elections. At the moment the Russian government is mostly concerned about blocking political speech and news on the Russian invasion into Ukraine. Many international news-making websites are blocked, and some social networks are blocked too — e.g. Twitter was blocked in Russia for a few past days, but today it seems to be working again, though no official announcement was made as to why.

Then they cannot submit any paper to non-Russian journals anymore.

Academic journals and their web submission portals are not blocked in Russia. Whoever told you that Russian researchers are blocked from submitting to non-Russian journals is not telling the truth. Having said that, Russian academics may face the following difficulties:

Some Russian banks are blocked from using the SWIFT bank transfer system due to sanctions. International bank cards such as Visa or MasterCard are also restricted. If a Russian academic wants or needs to pay article processing or publication fees for their paper to be published, it may prove to be difficult.
The Russian government is notoriously unpredictable at the moment and the laws/regulations change almost on a daily basis. In the last years a few Russian academics were imprisoned on a charge of "sharing state secrets" for sharing previously published information (academic papers and preprints) with their colleagues abroad. This "witch-hunt" is likely to continue, as the Russian government moves further towards punitive reaction and self-isolation.

Point number 1 is a big one. Russian institutions are not known for their bureaucratic flexibility, and if their standard operating procedures for making this type of international payment are not working due to the sanctions, they may be entirely unable (through either legal constraints or bureaucratic immovability) to perform the payment.

Thanks for your great response @dmitry-savostyanov. Note that I've modified the initial question to make it now as a POTENTIAL blackout as there no proof that it has been the case so far since the beginning of the war. So your response may need some updates to fit with the edited question now.

@Noil Thank you, but I think I'd pass on updating my answer. If your revised question is sufficiently different, you probably should write it as a new question. If it remains mostly the same, my answer mostly stands. I am happy to put in an effort to write a clear and accurate answer that hopefully helps you and others. But please do not expect me to "maintain" my answer and ensure it fits your modified question after every update.

Disregarding the premise of the question, most journals in the disciplines I am familiar with do not consider any submissions that do not pass through their submission system.  Accepting submissions through some other process will cost some money, so it's not likely to happen.

This may be true in “normal” circumstances but I’ll bet they’d be willing to consider exceptions.

There are many professors still alive in the west who grew up before the www and have a secretary print out their emails before reading. They still get their papers published. ;)

@Karl Most professors I know have a student submit papers for them.  One has a secretary do it.  Most of them do not have secretaries.


text:
I reviewed a paper that was rejected, and the authors have posted the paper online without corrections. Do I intervene?
I wrote a thorough review that included many suggestions for improving the methodology, and criticisms of their analysis. Initially, the main problem with the paper was that the authors only reported significance tests (something like p-values) without reporting effect sizes. Since they provided their data, I calculated the effect sizes and found that they were tiny, and "significance" was only achieved through some dodgy methodological choices (artificially inflating the sample size). The second reviewer brought up some of the same concerns and the paper was rejected.
I was concerned about writing such a negative review, because I know it can hurt. But I did my best to write in a positive tone, and to make as many suggestions as criticisms.
I now see the paper has been posted as a pre-print, without any changes. If I were to see it posted in a journal, I would honestly say that it should be retracted because the conclusions are not supported by the data.
What do I do in this situation? I consider my options to be:

Contact the authors and ask for a discussion. Perhaps some of my criticisms were wrong, and the authors did not have a chance to write a rebuttal since the paper was rejected.
Wait for the paper to be published, and contact the editor.
Post my review to the pre-print as a response.
Forget about it, because life's short and who cares.

Update:
Thanks for the enlightening discussion. I'll stick with 4 for now, since I don't know what the fate of the article will be (will it get published? will it be updated?). While nobody seems to suggest 1, I have a morbid curiosity about what kind of response I would get. This could always be followed up by 2 or 3. If I'm luck I'll have better things to do.

https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/135326/journal-published-a-paper-ignoring-my-objections-as-a-referee Related, might be duplicate.

Thanks, this is related. However there are enough differences between the questions that I would not say it's a duplicate. In my case the paper was rejected by the editor based on the reviews, and has now been posted as a preprint. Also, I'm considering a wider range of options as a response, including communicating with the authors.

It is well possible that the next review process will request revisions from the authors before publication, and that the paper will be substantially improved when finally published in a journal. I'm just writing this because your question makes me wonder whether you are aware of that possibility. The community is normally aware that there is no quality control for preprints, so such issues in a preprint that is not otherwise published will arguably not do that much harm.

I'm not sure what's the norm in your field, but in my field anyone is free to post anything as a pre-print, in general, right? Even this includes unreviewed work. Maybe they wanted to post that pre-print before, but was held because it's still under review and the journal/conference doesn't allow posting a pre-print, so after it's done, they posted it as a pre-print, with the intent to update it with a revision later, etc. This is why general advice is to not cite pre-print, because it might be unreviewed, or incorrect, etc.

At this point I think pre-print servers are just misleadingly named. I know many colleagues who consider the pre-print version final, because it can be updated even after publication. On the other hand, one can upload pretty much anything there. So if someone wants to upload something questionable to a pre-print server, they'll be in good company out there on the internet. No reason to lose much sleep over.

A referee only makes suggestions for changes, the authors may or may not act upon these suggestions.

@user253751: A pre-print is not final w.r.t. the format, the exact scope, the phrasing, etc. It's final w.r.t. the claims having to be supported by the data.

Think about how much of your own time you are willing to put into this. Assuming your conclusion about the effect sizes was correct, and the paper was methodologically dubious, I don't see what #1 would accomplish, since they have already gone ahead and published the preprint despite your reservations.
I have noticed that often people put up preprints (yes, even for somewhat incomplete, if not entirely dubious studies) to unofficially, but publicly, lay claim to a certain research problem — so they can later say, ours is the first result demonstrating effect X.
I can't claim to know their intention, but I would suggest skipping #3, give them the opportunity to revise and resubmit. Perhaps if you still feel strongly about it (if and) when it is published, you could go ahead with #2. Otherwise, there is always #4.
Just my two cents.

Contact the editor to tell them what, exactly??  If the reference it to the journal that turned them down, they rejected the paper, and have no dog in this fight, at this point. If the reference is to the editor of the published paper, it's gone through their review process.  What action would the new editor take?  There's really no point to 2.

Scott, suppose that the authors really have no intention of making any changes to their work -- for whatever reason. The authors could try to publish someplace with a shoddy review process or the next reviewer entirely overlooks the issue OP found. In this event, while I am not specifically encouraging OP to take up arms and write to the editor of the journal with their concerns, I do think it would be nice if sometimes people did that. Notice that I say "Perhaps if you still feel strongly about it [...]". What the editor decides to do about this is a different matter.

Again, this assumes that (a) OP has the time and capacity to do any of this; (b) they are confident about their analysis concerning the effect sizes; and (c) the authors of the study did not make revisions to their work.

You have fulfilled your obligation as a reviewer ... but the authors whose work you reviewed are under no obligation either to agree with you, or to take any notice of your opinion. Indeed, it's always possible that, unknown to you, they received a very positive review from someone else!
Sure, if the topic interests you, and you want to post some kind of response, go ahead, but remember ... there are probably many more interesting things for you to spend your time on, including many more interesting things with which you have some disagreement and where your engagement will enrich your life. (As you remarked, life's short)

I agree that the authors do not have to agree with me, and I am probably wrong on at least some points, however the other reviewer raised similar concerns and the paper was rejected. I can't imagine a competent reviewer failing to raise similar points (e.g. not reporting effect size). I genuinely think the work has such severe flaws that it should not be published anywhere in its current form.

That said, I do have more interesting things to work on...

1 and 3 are not options since they violate reviewer anonymity. You could ask the editor you reviewed for to contact them on their behalf, but I doubt they will want to get involved.
I would not worry too much for the moment. Consider the alternative scenario that they posted their preprint before receiving your review, and have not yet updated it. (Indeed, editorial workflows being what they are, can you be sure that isn't what happened?) Clearly there would be no reason to be concerned in that case. Is the actual sequence of events so different? After all, the effect so far is the same.
It is quite possible that they haven't had time to deal with the comments yet, but needed a preprint to be available immediately for whatever reason - claiming priority, one of the authors is applying for a job, etc.

The reviewer is free to forfeit their anonymity. Or they can just contact them without mentioning the review (sure they will have their suspicions given the similar remarks).

@Kvothe no they are not. E.g. Elsevier's reviewer guidelines explicitly say "Please do not contact the author directly." Nothing special about that publisher, just the first one I looked at.

@EspeciallyLime: It doesn't seem clear at all in which sense those "reviewer guidelines" can be considered binding (or what "binding" even means here). It seems more reasonable to argue with the culture of individual fields rather than with a publisher's generic reviewer guideline (which is somehow supposed to "fit" all fields and which most reviewer probably never read). From experience I can for instance say that many mathematicians disagree with your claim that must keep anonymity after the peer review process.

A clarification: the preprint was posted several months after the review. My guess is that they have either given up on getting it published, or else it is about to be published in a journal. Time will tell.

Also, I would think the reviewer guidelines are not necessarily binding after a paper has been rejected. It's not an NDA, right? And if not, I don't see Elsevier coming after me for this.

@JochenGlueck I don't think "mathematicians" is the right population here. Would math journal editors think it is acceptable for a reviewer to break anonymity? I suspect that the people who think it's ok to reveal themselves never bother to ask permission (and wouldn't get it if they did).

@EspeciallyLime: Editors of math journals are not different from other mathematicians; they share the same academic socialization. I heard an editor-in-chief of a well-respected math journal say the sentence "The referee is of course not obliged to stay anonymous". On another occassion the handling editor of a paper that I had reviewed asked me (not the other way round) for permission to reveal my identity to the authors, since the authors wanted to acknowledge me for the solution of a problem in their paper that I had included in the report.

@EspeciallyLime: Apart from that, as I indicated in my previous comment, it's not clear what "permission" does actually mean in this context and on which grounds the reviewer would be obliged to ask for permission. Is it a legal category? Or ethical? Social?

@EspeciallyLime, good to know. Another reason never to review for an Elsevier Journal. I would never knowingly agree to such strict terms (in my opinion one would have to be crazy to agree to such a strong restriction on my free speech for basically nothing in return). To make it clear this is not at all uniform here is an example of a journal that not only enables but actively encourages referees to sign their report: https://scipost.org/FAQ.

There are sites for public reviews, like https://pubpeer.com. You can post your reviews there.

Thanks for this info.

Post a comment. Posting of comments is explicitly supported on some pre-print servers, for instance on bioRxiv.
I think you are free to comment on the public pre-print just as anyone else would be. If you'd like to maintain plausible deniability that you were the reviewer, you could rewrite your review in different language and maybe focus only on one fatal flaw. The authors may still suspect you were the reviewer, but they would not know for sure.
You could also write a formal comment on the pre-print as a paper of your own and submit it to the pre-print server. These have been common in traditional journals for many years. For example, this ACS journal allows for "Comment" manuscripts that are "technical contributions that provide new information or an alternative perspective regarding a prior publication in the journal". I see no reason why this cannot be done for pre-prints as well, although it might require a significant investment of time on your part.

I've done this with other papers, but not possible for this one unfortunately. Otherwise good suggestion.


text:
As a TA, I had sex with someone who turned out to be one of my students, what do I do?
I'm a grad student and TA.
I was playing pool on campus and met some people who happened to be in a frat. We played together and they invited me to their frat party. Long story short, I got really drunk and ended up having sex with someone. I didn't realize that they were in my class until the morning (I have a lot of students).
What do I do? How do I make this right? I'm sure this is bad, but just how bad?

Which country are you in?

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

It is legitimate to play pool with people, get drunk with people and have drunken sex with people without inspecting their bio. Same goes for sex without being drunk. So, that's neither bad nor wrong. I would say the same is true even if you know a person is one of dozens of students you TA, and not someone you mentor personally where things are more complicated. You just need to avoid grading her work, on the one hand, and act to avoid being disciplined/accused of abuse of power, due to systemic biases or possible malicious complaints, on the other hand - as others have explained in detail.

Note: I'm a department chair at a US university. The following represents my thoughts about your question assuming you are in the US. I will stick to comments pertaining to university policy. I am not a lawyer and am unqualified to offer any legal advice of any sort.

What do I do? How do I make this right? I'm sure this is bad, but just how bad?

This is awkward, but if indeed you are telling the truth and you didn't realize the person you had sex with was your student at the time it happened, and assuming it was consensual and both of you are of legal age, I don't think it's that bad, if you now proceed to handle the situation correctly and with maturity.
The important thing (and I mean really, really, really important) is that you must immediately act to remove yourself from any position of authority over the student to avoid ending up in hot water over what is certain to be (if you fail to act as I am suggesting) a pretty bad violation of university policy, and potentially even legal trouble. That means speaking to the instructor for the class, telling them honestly exactly what happened (yeah awkward I know), and asking for their guidance about what needs to be done. (It's a good idea for that request to be documented in writing/email.) The department chair will likely need to become informed of the situation as well. My guess is they will either have to remove you from your role as TA for the class, or arrange for the student to switch to another TA if that is a practical option, and find ways to ensure you are not involved in grading or other assessments related to the student in question.
If the instructor and chair are sensible people, I don't expect that there will be any disciplinary action or other formal repercussions to what happened, although you should certainly expect some unpleasant discussions, possibly having to be interviewed by campus officials who handle sexual harassment and discrimination, receiving unpleasantly-worded memos counseling you about university sexual harassment policies, and similar headaches. It's also quite possible that the incident will cause the instructor for the course and/or the department chair (hopefully no one else in your department will need to learn about what happened) to form negative opinions about you. As I said, if they are reasonable and professional people they will keep those opinions to themselves and move on.
Finally, if the people who handle the incident  are not reasonable people, well, all sorts of things may happen, so you'd better make sure you protect yourself against unfair treatment by not committing any missteps that could end up making your situation worse. Such missteps may include trying to keep the incident secret from your department; telling about it but lying about some details (out of embarrassment or because you think those details make you look bad) or omitting important details; or any other immature/unethical/foolish behavior. Ultimately, as I said, you have a reasonable case to argue that you essentially didn't do anything (at least not knowingly, and not so far) that violates any university policies, so if you handle this with maturity chances are you should be fine.

"If the instructor and chair are sensible people, I don't expect that there will be any disciplinary action " <- Why would there be disciplinary action?

@einpoklum I said there won't be, so indeed I don't see why there would be disciplinary action, other than because of someone in authority having some misguided beliefs about what constitutes actionable behavior.

Assuming you are in the United States, you are currently in an extremely vulnerable situation from a legal and academic perspective.
If I were you, I would immediately report yourself to your professor -- and then to the university Title IX office. I would ask to be reassigned out of grading or having any other academic contact with that student.
The reason you should report yourself immediately is if the student for vindictive reasons files a sexual harassment suit accusing you of offering to have sex with them in exchange for a good grade, you have very little protection. You did in fact have sex (and I assume you'd admit that), but it's harder to prove that you didn't offer anything for that sex. That makes a defense difficult to impossible.
Furthermore, even if the student doesn't report you, they can now blackmail you.
By reporting yourself and taking yourself out of any academic relationship with the student is pretty much the only way you can assure that there was no promise or offer of any exchange in lieu of sex -- and there is no possibility in the future.
However, you'd still be in violation of most campus codes of conduct and likely face some reprimand. Fortunately, just plain consensual sex between instructors (including TAs) and students is viewed much more leniently than exchange of favors for sex.
The moral of the story is not to place yourself in any situation where this type of thing might potentially happen.

but it's harder to prove that you didn't offer anything for that sex. – The presumption of innocence is really dead in the US in these matters, isn’t it?

It might be worth adding some guidance on 'don't place yourself in any situation where this type of thing might happen'. Playing pool around campus for the fun of playing pool I would not see as a problem. Getting drunk at a frat party I would definitely see as the other side of the line.

@Wrzlprmft The Office for Civil Rights has issued a guidance letter about sexual violence on campuses receiving federal funds.  Their fact sheet about the guidance says that it was issued "to remind schools of their responsibilities to take immediate and effective steps to respond to sexual violence in accordance with the requirements of Title IX. In the context of the letter, sexual violence means physical sexual acts perpetrated against a person’s will or where a person is incapable of giving consent."  The guidance letter says, "Sexual violence, as that term is used in this letter, ...

... refers to physical sexual acts perpetrated against a person’s will or where a person is incapable of giving consent due to the victim’s use of drugs or alcohol."  If either of the parties was too drunk to provide consent, then legally, in the U.S., the sexual acts may be presumed to have been non-consensual.  We are now beyond "no means no."  We are now in an era where "too drunk to know what the heck is going on" doesn't mean "yes," and, thus, means "no."  Note, this might end up providing considerable protection to OP's TA status (regardless of OP's gender). See...

... Fact Sheet; Guidance Letter

Others have already outlined the appropriate steps to take -- mainly to come clean to those who make the assignments between TAs and students. I'll just focus my answer on why this is the right thing to do. In reality, if the professor who runs your class or the department head are reasonable people, you are not likely to suffer much from this -- these things happen, and reasonable people can find reasonable solutions without making too much of a fuss about it.
So let me tell you how I would handle this if I were in charge and you came to me to tell me the story:
First, I'd tell you that you did the right thing. And that that is because there are two things that could happen that would reflect poorly on you, the department, and the university: (i) the student in question could blackmail you and threaten to tell everyone if you didn't give him good grades; (ii) the student may in fact be good and deserve all of the good grades, but others who know will claim that you played favorites with him and that he got better grades than he deserves. We call these situations conflicts of interest: you are -- or equally bad, you may -- have a conflict between your job duties of being an impartial grader and teacher, and your interest in protecting your reputation in a situation of blackmail. What is necessary in this situation is that, with speed, we remove you from your role as someone who assigns grades to the student so that neither of these situations can happen.
Second, I'd tell you that I don't actually need to know any of the details. It happened. Let's move on and find solutions. I don't need to know where it happened, when it happened, what exactly happened, if anyone else knows, whether you used protection (though I'd quietly hope that you did), etc. You had sex. Students do. Let's just assume that everyone knows by now -- whether or not that's the case is immaterial, I'm just going to plan for the worst case.
Third, let's resolve the conflict of interest. For this, you would need to be removed from your position where you grade or instruct the student in question. The quiet way would be to move the student to another section of the class. The less quiet way would be to move you from the section you teach right now to another one. Practicalities may dictate which way is feasible, but one or the other needs to happen.
I would end by repeating that I appreciate your coming to me and coming clean. We all know that students have a life, and these things happen. It is incumbent on all of us to deal with it with reason.

Good answer, but I'm skeptical about I don't actually need to know any of the details. You and the dept. chair most certainly need to know at least some of the details, particularly that the sex was consensual, whether the student was upset the next day, the student's name, and possibly other details that will help you address the problem in the optimal way and minimize the risk of fallout from the incident. So, as embarrassing and awkward as it may be, I'm afraid someone (you, or the chair, or some university official) will need to discuss what happened with OP in a fair amount of detail.

@DanRomik Consent here is a tricky issue (at least from a legal perspective), especially with alcohol involved.  Going by the OP's statement, the OP was so impaired that they lacked awareness of what was happening and had to piece things together after waking up.  This could be taken as evidence that the OP was legally incapable of providing consent.  But then the fact that the OP is in a position of power relative to the student complicates things even further....IANAL, but one might suggest the OP make not specific claims to consent until advised to so as not to hamstring a defense.

@DanRomik -- no, I don't need to know this. Consent is a criminal question, and as a faculty, I would probably have to report the issue to the appropriate place in the university; as a human, I would also do well to ask the TA whether she wants to talk to a counselor and if so make the connection. But for the purposes of the conflict of interest, I do not need to know any of that -- I will have to assume the worst case that the student will blackmail and that other students will assume favoritism. Everything that goes beyond this is not important for me to address the situation in a clear way.

I'm also going to note that it is absolutely none of my business to pry into the personal details of a TA. Whether or not she regrets the incident in hindsight, whether it was consensual, whether alcohol was involved, etc, all have no impact on how I need to resolve the issue. I certainly have no business traumatizing the TA by asking all sorts of personal pieces of the story.

Ok, I see where you're coming from. To clarify, when I said "you" need to know, I meant (someone at) the university needs to know. Probably you, the professor directly in charge of the TA, don't necessarily need to participate in debriefing the TA to learn such details (and I totally understand you preferring not to be involved). But I stand by my assertion that someone at the university (e.g. the department chair and/or a Title IX officer) will need to have them in order for the university to devise the best strategy to minimize legal risks and maximize assistance to all involved parties.

@zibadawatimmy Agreed, consent would be challenging to prove, given OP's state of inebriation.  Wolfgang, are you sure you're up to speed on what is currently required on US campuses currently?  See my OCR links above if you want to double-check.

Consent or not is none of my business. These are criminal law questions, and as such I will probably call up the title IX officer to tell them about it -- even though the question as posted gives no indication that anything illegal may have happened. But I want to stress again that whether or not anything illegal happened has nothing to do with (i) how I need to deal with the situation to clear up the conflict of interest, and (ii) it really is none of my business to inquire about. I'm not a law enforcement officer, nor a trainer counselor. Asking more than I need can only make things worse.

You could either go see a department administrator and tell him or her the basic outline.  Or you could wait and see.
Personally, if I were you I would do the preemptive thing.
This weekend, you can be reading up on university policy, code of conduct, graduate employee handbook, employment contract, etc.  This can help you decide; and it will also help you understand the technical discussions that may ensue.
If you are a member of a union, ask for a union representative to go with you to any meetings.
At the same time, if you are not already working with a medical or mental health provider about healthy use of alcohol, I'd suggest getting started on that as well, so you can avoid destructive and self-destructive behaviors in future.
Edit:
I forgot to answer your last question.  How bad is this?  It is impossible to say at this point; however, nothing is gained by panicking.  I don't want to offer false reassurance.  I think you must realize that statistically speaking the chances of something bad coming from this are fairly low.  If you think there is no police car in sight when you make the illegal U-turn, the chances that you will get in trouble are statistically low.  But you might be observed by a police officer and you might get a warning or a ticket; if you already have a lot of points, your license could be suspended.  In this case, the possible negative repercussions are: an accusation of sexual harassment, possible pregnancy, possible decision to abort a pregnancy, possible decision to carry a baby to term and place it in adoption or raise it, possible spread of HIV or other sexually transmitted disease, possible jeopardy to your TAship, possibility of being unable to continue in the program due to financial repercussions of the loss of the TAship.  I don't want to alarm you, but if you want to know how bad this might be, those are the possible negative consequences of what happened.

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Is this a valid reason to choose a specific sub-field?
My local university has announced the need for local experts in a specific sub-field within Electrical Engineering (EE), which is why they are offering the opportunity to sponsor student(s) in said sub-field on their master's and PhD studies and providing future job in the university.
I would like to know If I should mention that in my SOP as the reason why I would like to peruse my degree in that particular subject, or should I avoid it at all and simply go with the more generic approach of having interest in it ( which is true considering it is still a sub-field within EE but not necessary the major reason of my choice).
My only worry is that the honesty of my reasons would deter admission referees from taking my application seriously.

(Comment instead of an answer since I have no experience on admissions comittees.)  To my ear, if you give the impression that this is the main reason for your interest, that sounds a bit bad.  But if you say that this was one of the sub-fields you were interested in anyway, and the need for local experts was an extra postive factor on top of that — that sounds fine.

If you are legitimately interested in the sub-field, then you should be using your SoP to make the case for why you are most qualified for one of the spots in the program; anything else is fluff.

If your honesty would lessen your chances of admission, then you're not a good fit for the program. Do not lie in your application.

Presumably the reason they're doing this is to attract some/more/better applicants.  So I imagine they expect this to be a reason people will apply.

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will failing an exam in undergrad affect the persons chances of getting into a good phd program
let's say someone failed in a major subject in their end semester examination in their undergrad. that person had to retake the exam. will this affect the person's chance of getting into a good Ph.D. program.

a failed semester exam that i had to retake

So, more of a setback. Perhaps you should edit, and provide that detail as well. And, did you need to repeat the course, or just retake an exam but passed the course?  It is unclear as it is.

And registering for the site will make some interactions easier.

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

just retake the exam and passed the course

No single thing, especially something like that, would have much of any effect. In fact, it is  unlikely that anyone would know about it unless you tell them. If you pass the course it is all that really matters for later, though it contributes to your GPA.
If you have "squared it" with your professor, all the better. Nearly everyone stumbles and many take a fall before finding success. Put it behind you.


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Help Me Evaluate A Conference
I am now trying to get my article published before the end of the year. My advisor suggests me to submit my full paper to ICISE-IE 2022, a international conference on information technology and education. All past conference articles(full) are said to be published by IEEE and can be found on IEEE Xplore or EI Compendex. I want to know if it is worthy to give it a try.
The past conference information can be found in the following websites:
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/conhome/9418649/proceeding
http://www.icise2020.org/
http://www.allconfs.org/meeting/index_en.asp?id=9937
http://www.bjboku.com/index.php/cms/item-view-id-1379.shtml
https://10times.com/e1zp-g1x9-k3x5

Your advisor already suggested this conference. Did you ask them why? If not, why not? If yes, why don't you listen to their advice?

@Nobody They give me such advice according to my subject. One of my co-author think this conference is a spam, which is what I am worrying about.

Typically, you can filter out suspicious conferences at a glance by looking at the chair, keynote speakers and past history. The latter is also the most important: if you skim through titles/abstracts of the conference archives, that gives you a pretty decent idea relatively fast.
A quick look at the provided info tells me that is a fairly domestic conference at best, possibly preying on people confusing it with the regular ICISE, which is a much larger event. They also play a good ol' trick of "just invite a few colleagues from the neighboring countries and call it international".
So, going through this checklist:

It is by no means large, so if you intend to present your results big time, do not bother
The chair and keynote speakers are almost exclusively Chinese - it is possible not fitting in (e.g. by not speaking Mandarin) would be a hindrance for networking
The 2020 event at least is incredibly short: there is just one day of presentations and another of "Academic investigation activities", whatever that means
I am not nearly an expert in your field, but the website of the company behind it looks bit shady. In particular, seeing phrases such as "Some of the members have an H-index between 10 and 30 and all of them have good reputations in this field" (1) or "After strict review, accepted papers are published by Conference Publishing Services and submitted to IEEE Xplore, EI Compendex, Scopus, Inspec, DOAJ, and CPCI (Web of Science) after publication." (2) is very alarming.

1: In other words: "This conference is very legitimate, promise!". No one could possibly know prominent authors in their respective fields without conferences telling them about how good they are!
2: "Strict review" immediately raises ALL the red flags. Being peppered with metric-related words like that is also not what I would expect a reputable conference to do, but maybe it is field-specific or a cultural/translation issue. Or maybe they are just trying really hard to take off as a new venue - why not?
Going with a gut feeling, that would be a pass - or, rather, discussing it with the advisor in more detail. Usually there is a pretty good and concise answer to "why yes?"

Thank you!!!! This information is very valuable. Wish everything the best of you!


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Formatting APA Style Headings for HTML in Online Publications
I do not see any questions here about how to convert APA (or MLA, Chicago, Turabian, etc.) style into HTML (edit: styled with CSS) for online publication. Since HTML is perhaps the most accessible format for assistive technologies, I'm puzzled. As a professional who helped faculty create and teach online courses, I have experience with both website design and academia. One problem I've wrestled with has been APA run-in headings (level 4 primarily). I finally submitted the problem to Stack Overflow, and a CSS (cascading stylesheet) guru wrote a brilliant solution. My primary question is this: has anyone here encountered this problem? I'm also wondering, is the crossover between academia and online technology insufficient to know this is a problem? Is anyone here aware of issues in converting academic writing into accessible web-based material? Has anyone asked a webmaster to convert a paper into a web document and been told it was too difficult?

No, have not encountered this problem: some publishers do aim for an online presentation of materials using regular web pages indeed, but then they have a freedom to pick a convenient citation style and whatnot. And if you are not a publisher, the "normal" way to disseminate the research results in academia is a publication list on a personal page and PDF files. So in a nutshell, there is not enough interest to the specific problem you are posing here indeed.

Thanks! I recall a similar preference when working with faculty who were creating online courses. We encouraged faculty to convert as much material as possible into a true online format for accessibility, but in some courses that task was just too overwhelming.

APA and other conventional scientific writing style guides are not well-suited for online publications.
The most elaborate way of displaying scholarly articles for online viewing is probably the one used by Research Ideas & Outcomes at Pensoft Publishers.
Here is an example of a recent paper, including a machine-readable XML-version of the paper.
Browsing through the XML, you will see how standardized it is and how many metadata it embeds -- here is a screenshot of one part of the <article-meta>-tag (containing information about the submission history, license, abstract, keywords, figure counts etc.):

Such a metadata-rich formatting allows them to track statistics such as which Figures were viewed or downloaded most often - - again an example from the paper above:

EDIT: Just found out about DocMaps, this might be relevant here too: https://docmaps.knowledgefutures.org/

Yes, XML seems to be a superior format if the publication uses XML. Are academic publications not published enough on HTML websites for this to be an issue? That would explain why HTML formatting and APA style don't seem to intersect.

I should have clarified in my comment above that while XML may be superior to HTML for screen readers, it does not style the appearance of content on a webpage. That has to be done with CSS — the same method used for HTML. So the issue of how to style run-in headings also applies to XML websites.


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Changing MSc supervisor late in the game
I am considering asking another professor to be my thesis advisor. My situation differs from that of other question-askers in that:

I am in a position where I have done enough research to write my thesis and be done in a couple of months.
My relationship with my current advisor, while rough at times, in generally good.

So why do I want to switch?
I feel that my research topic is a dead end. This wouldn't really bother me too much except that my particular topic turns out to be interesting to very few people (the number one complaint by reviewers). The result is that despite achieving good results, we have been having trouble publishing at the general and more influential conferences.
When I began my project I thought it was interesting, but no longer think this, partially because of reviewer feed-back, but more because of my expanding knowledge of the field.
additional context: I also feel that the work is quite trivial in that what I did to achieve good results is what anyone in the hotter subfields would do. The reason that it wasn't done before is that the method wasn't known/understood by my advisor (or tried by others in the relatively small community).
On the other hand, I have worked on another project in one of my classes that is not only more interesting to me, but is part of a much 'hotter' subfield.
I guess I am concerned with attaching my name to a thesis that few people will care about when I can potentially work on something else with much more interest. Not only that, but the latter project is in the area where I would like to do a PhD.
I don't mind that switching would add upwards of a year to my program. Rather, I am hesitant to make this move for the following reasons:
I don't want to do something that will harm my current advisor. I also don't want to piss this person off as they are my main reference for the past two years of work. Is switching likely to have either of these effects?
The professor I would like to switch to is very new and I don't want to put him in a position that might cause him to come into conflict with my current advisor. How likely is this?
Any advice on the above questions would be great. I just don't have the experience to know if my concerns are valid.

What are your next steps? When will you be applying for PhD programs? What are you planning to do in the meantime? Might it be possible for you to complete your thesis as planned, and then start work on another project with everyone involved's blessing? Your general field and location also would be helpful to know, as that likely impacts your flexibility.

Thanks for your comment Bryan. I plan on working/interning for a year and then applying for PhD programs for the Fall 2021 intake. I have thought about finishing my thesis and then seeing if the other prof would hire me on as a research assistant to work on the other project with him. My general field is AI and location is Canada if that helps!

Based on a comment indicating OP plans to apply for PhD programs that start in Fall 2021 (that is, 1.5 years from now, with applications likely due around Fall 2020):
What I would suggest for someone in my own field is the idea you mention in a comment rather the one in the original post:

I plan on working/interning for a year and then applying for PhD programs for the Fall 2021 intake. I have thought about finishing my thesis and then seeing if the other prof would hire me on as a research assistant to work on the other project with him. My general field is AI and location is Canada if that helps!

I'd start conversations with that other professor about work over the next year as soon as possible. If they don't have funding there may be other labs that fit you, as well, either at your own institution or someplace nearby. Start looking and applying for those positions now, while you wrap up the work you are doing.
It will be better for you to have a completed project plus some work towards a new direction than to switch directions at this point: you're too close to being finished. You'll have the most options available at that point. It really doesn't matter what your thesis is about, but the sum total of work you've done at the point you're applying for grad schools. You'll have a start on the work by the time you are applying, and if you are interviewing in the spring you'll have more work done that you can talk about.

Thanks to you and @Buffy for your answers. It is incredibly valuable for me to recieve this kind of insight!

Switching now seems like a poor choice. You can finish in a bit, you say. And then you can change areas. Your old professor is happy with you. You have a success under your belt. The world is open to you.
Anyone can change at any time. There is no real reason to waste your past work.
You can then take up, somehow, in the new area, perhaps with the other professor. Or, maybe even apply for a doctoral program that will support you in the new area.
Being in an area with only a few people is fairly common in some fields (mathematics, say). It is a tradeoff. There is less competition, for example, though you have to look harder for collaborators.
Don't think that finishing in the current track will lock you in to that forever. You have valuable experience that you can exploit in a lot of ways.
And even if you do switch, abandoning old work, don't make a habit of it. Throughout your career other opportunities will sometimes seem pretty bright. If you chase every one you won't ever accomplish much. Finish what you start unless the situation is so bad as to have negative impacts on your life. That doesn't seem to be what you say here.

Thanks Buffy. I added additional context in my original post. Does this change your answer at all?

Not very much. "heat index" of fields changes, sometimes rapidly. You can still get in to the other field. You might pick up a fairly easy publication by finishing what you have. But it is the time factor that worries me. You don't know the future, so putting a marker on the board now is worth a small bit of time. And a happy supervisor is a big asset.

It is also pretty common to look back on what you have done in the past and consider its worth less than it really is. That is a sign of growth, not of inadequacy. There may be some of that going on here. The work seems easy in retrospect since you've already done it.

In addition to my own answer, I'd second Buffy in the comments here: don't get too bogged down in the "hotness" or rigor of your field. You're very early in your career yet, at this point you're mostly picking up the skills of how to do research, you still have lots of time to test different ideas about what you want to study moving forward.