text:
How can anyone assess their own Phd application prior to actually applying to determine its weaknesses and figure out what to do next?
How can an undergraduate student self-assess his/her PhD application prior to actually applying for PhD programs?
As prospective PhD students, we can generally compare ourselves to other students at our own school using our grades. We may also apply to internships or awards and, by acceptance rates of such programs, we may begin to understand how "good" we are as a possible Phd student candidate. In addition, we might try discussing our potential application with a professor, but even though we might be really good, the professor might be too busy or otherwise not give great feedback. In such a case, how can one self-assess himself/herself on how good is his s/he perceived as a prospective Phd student, determine his/her weaknesses, and figure out what to do next ?

Apply and find out. We can't guess for you. You may find this Q & A helpful : https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/68487/72855

@SolarMike Thanks for the comment, but I never asked whether you could or not; I just asked how can I determine this, what are things that I can look for; I'm just looking for a guideline.

@SolarMike By the way, the linked question is also asked by me.

We don't have the guidelines for each and every institution that you may possibly think of applying to...

Perhaps re-reading the answers would help you....

I could see this being transformed into a very useful canonical question with some tweaks to take out personal details...

@Dawn Well, let me try; feel free to edit.

Certainly one thing you should do would be to show your application to one or more of your undergraduate teachers and have them recommend changes.

Adding a bounty because I think this could be a useful canonical question.

I've tried to improve the language into more standard English - let me know if this doesn't comport to your original meaning.

Since students are admitted to such programs by people, and not by algorithms, you probably can't do it with any assurance. But note that the number of programs you target is very small and the number of potential applicants is very large. Thus, the competition is fierce. So, it doesn't depend on just you, but on the perceived quality of the others you compete with.
As Solar Mike suggests, the only way to know is to apply.
But one good way to get a fairly valid assessment without applying is to put together the materials needed for an application and ask one or two of your current professors to give you feedback on it. Do they see any missing parts? Can they suggest better ways to present yourself to a committee of their peers? ...
Some students with perfect GPAs get rejected from some programs because there just isn't room for everyone or they have other things in their record that makes them less of a "sure bet" for the committee.
On the other hand, there are plenty of other schools, not in your "top" category at which you can get a fine education and a firm foundation for a great academic career. Some schools have "niche" programs in certain sub fields that may be better suited to you and provide a better education that the top ten you suggest. You might also have a clearer path to completion at such schools.

Thanks for the answer Buffy; as I've stated also in my question, I have intention to go to that top-tier universities. As you've mentioned, some univerties have much better than those top-tier ones in some subfield, which is the case in my situation.

For what it's worth, I've always had trouble getting my supervisors to read my stuff as though they were on a review committee or as a journal reviewer. Maybe I've just been working with people who were too much of a cheerleader though.

Look at how similar students from your school have done in previous years.  Is it common for students in your major with similar classes and GPA to go on to PhD? If so, where do they typically go?

The problem with this question is that it assumes that (1) there is a well-defined totally ordered way to rank applicants and (2) the first n applicants in this ranking are the ones who get offers. Thresholds for GPA, GREs (if applicable), coursework, and research experience only indicate whether your application is going to be seriously considered. Anyone asking this question probably already knows where they stand for any particular applicant pool, or they can easily find out by consulting with the program. The program doesn't want to waste time on non-competitive applications either.
Beyond that, whether you actually get an offer depends on whether the people making the decisions want what you have. And there's no way to predict that in advance.

Well, if I were to apply to a program in my country, yes, more or less I know where I am, but no I'm going to apply to PhD program in US, or in Europe, which I have almost no idea which pool I'm in;

Note that, I'm asking a precise way of measuring; I mean of course the acceptance criteria differ from program to program, but, for example, I have no idea whether I would seriously be considered for, Harvard Physics, or any even to a university having a seriors Physics PhD program.

@onurcanbektas Then ask them what the median GPA etc is for their entering classes. Some of this information might even turn up with a Google search. Did you look?

Yes I did indeed, but do you really think GPA has that much of importance for a PhdD application  ?

Also, you shouldn't think every applicant as, for example, a graduate of physics applying to a PhD in Physics in a field where s/he did some prior research; my situation way too complex than that, so I somehow need to assess myself so that I can "close the gaps"; of course I'm not talking about whether I will be accepted or not, just whether I'm a plausible applicant or not, and/or doing what would increase my chances more etc.

@onurcanbektas If your situation is really too complex for you to determine whether you are competitive using the standard metrics, then it's certainly too complex for anyone but the admissions committee to assess.

Major GPA matters in American schools, but it varies by field. I don't know enough about admissions elsewhere.

Visit some programs and talk to the students.  Figure out how strong they are versus how strong you are.


text:
I feel like I'm pursuing academia only because I want to avoid industry - how would I know I if I'm doing so?
I've posted a few questions regarding research and I'm trying to make my progress on a project more fruitful, and while the answers/comments have been quite helpful, it still doesn't seem like I am really enjoying the process - I have a hard time in following through with the advice and getting myself to work, and it seems like I'm asking questions trying to treat symptoms but not the root cause.
For me, it seems like I want a career in academia or something research-based because I don't really want to end up in industry (more specifically, I don't want to end up as a software engineer). But at the same time, I also don't feel I have enough interest and knowledge in my current project to push myself forward.
I've done a small (software) internship for a startup, did some "research" which was closer to software work where I helped visualize some data into a website, and now have an internship for a larger tech company this summer. I found the tasks I had in my previous experiences to be not very interesting or stimulating, so industry did not seem to appeal to me (though maybe things will change this summer). However, when I speak to professors during office hours, or family members with graduate degrees, and talk to them about their work it resonates more with me. So I've definitely found more interest in academia, or so it seems.
The problem is that it seems like my interest stops there - I like talking about academia/research work but am less motivated to put in the work in my classes and research. In the case of academics, I can warm up to a book about a topic I'm learning about over time provided there isn't much time pressure, but research is a different beast. I find that I keep putting my research on the back burner, and once I got my position, getting started on anything is hard, to say the least.
This conflict is why I'm feeling that I might be gaslighting myself by accident.
At this point, I feel like I'm the stereotypical parent in YouTube skits where they say that the kid needs to grow up to be a "doctor, lawyer, engineer, or failure", except I'm doing this to myself. Is there any way that could help me determine if I am truly wanting a career in academia or if I've just convinced myself that I do?

For context, my previous questions dealt with external factors that do seem to be making it harder. Having to deal with extraneous tasks and other commitments makes being able to find joy in learning hard (and finding time to work on research far harder), and a lack of supervision and deadline in my research project means I can let the inertia keeping me from work fester. I don't have access to a time machine or some way to tweak personal parameters so I wouldn't know how things would be if those roadblocks were removed, but it doesn't seem like those are the root cause - if I had more passion, then I feel like I could find a way around them.
I'm really not sure where I'm going with this question, so if it's against the rules or off-topic in some way, feel free to close this, but if not, advice would be greatly appreciated.

Comments have been moved to chat; please do not continue the discussion here. Before posting a comment below this one, please review the purposes of comments. Comments that do not request clarification or suggest improvements usually belong as an answer, on [meta], or in [chat]. Comments continuing discussion may be removed.

@Trunk it is tagged as undergrad

For me it looks like you should do something to find out more about yourself. This could be something like meditation, learn more about self awareness, counselling.
You are asking a question that ultimately only you yourself can answer. You need to take responsibility for yourself and decide whether this is where you want to go, and if not, where else. There are techniques to improve your awareness for yourself, your feelings, and what drives you, and I suggest you try to find out about them.

I agree, but what and when? As a student I have a multiple jobs and research on top of a full courseload, and summer I will be interning and previewing course content, and well, the cycle continues for another few years - I'm starved for time for introspection. I can probably implement something small like daily meditation (which I picked up over spring break) and adding a few questions when talking to my family members, who have been in both industry and academia. (1/2)

Beyond that, I'm not sure what to do besides maybe take a gap semester/year and work - otherwise, there are too many urgent distractions/responsibilities keeping me from finding time to find out more about myself. I often feel like I should have figured out my "direction" or at least some foundational knowledge in what I wanted to study prior to entering undergrad, and now having to figure things along as I go is very difficult.

I'd like to add that internal considerations are important, but there is also missing information. When you become a full-time researcher, do the mentioned problems become more difficult or easier with experience? Does OP's experience in a company coincide with other peoples experiences or not? Etc.

A gap year sound ideal if you can afford it. Even if you just do some fairly mindless work and hopefully travel a bit (or combine the two, the important bit is to leave your familiar environment). Sometimes it's hard to see the forest for the trees. I'm a lot older than you (I'm 51), but I'm still convinced that I would not be where I am now if I hadn't taken a year out after school. Boredom can provide a great focus for the mind ;-) If you can afford therapy/counselling that can be helpful too, but it's hard work.

@Revise Unfortunately I can't comment on your time management. I can only say that many people were able to make space for such things when they felt they really needed to (sometimes consciously deciding against taking on certain tasks that normally they would've felt they have to do, and some of the people before would've thought that it is really impossible, but if really necessary, they find a way to do it), but of course I don't know your exact situation, so I can't tell you how.

i would add that "take responsibility for yourself and decide" doesn't mean that you can't change decision later. But asking random people on the internet to decide is usually a bad idea

You're presumably in your 20s.
You have many, many potential career years left.
This isn't a choice you have to make now and absolutely stick to. You can go get a job in industry, and if it doesn't work out return to acadaemia. You could also do the opposite, stick it out in acadaemia and if that doesn't work out go explore industry.
At this point in your life, there's not a huge amount of detriment or risk there as it's not like you'd be moving from a senior position in one to a junior position in the other: both would likely be junior.
This cost will go up as you progress, so I'd suggest experimenting sooner rather than later to see what actually works for you.

It is true that experimenting sooner definitely does less damage than later. But depending on the field it can already be really difficult to go back to academia even after a one year absence let alone a few years. PhD positions are highly competitive and you will simply not have as strong a CV having not worked in the field (you will also have forgotten many of the required skills). Still you are right, returning to academia after leaving it after your PhD is even more difficult so it is better to do it before your PhD than after.

@Kvothe - I don't know if that's necessarily a hard and fast rule. You can also gain a hell of a lot of useful skills in industry, depending on the exact route you go down, that would be an absolute asset in a post-doc. You can also potentially speak to your old supervisor and if you decide you want to come back and maybe collaborate on some things to get your skills refreshed alongside your job while you're applying for postdoc positions

For context, I am currently also standing before the decision whether to stay in academia or leave. Which is why I am contemplating similar points.
A way I like to think about job decisions is in terms of two factors.

The abstract image of the job: Maybe you find this kind of work important. Or its a role you would like to see yourself in (e.g. the prestige of being a professor). Or you just like the end-result, (e.g. you value knowledge and would be proud to write a standard textbook at some point).
The day-to-day reality of the job: In short, you might enjoy the daily tasks of the job. They come easy to you and you feel you are doing it well.

A job that fits well should have a good mix of these factors (imho).
To me, it seems that research scores high on 1. for you, but not so high on 2. And your internal conflict comes from a conflict of these two points.
This is, I think, not uncommon, because everyone hears something about the findings of research, but only few actually produce these findings.
To me, it is very hard to work independently on projects that take a long time to be completed. Its hard to achieve such a high level of quality (as it is required in research) by myself. But that is okay. In the end these decisions are up to personal preference.

I think I resonate with what you say - I really look up to my professors and researchers I find while looking at papers, and in the case of my professors, I respect that they have passion. I asked my math professor a question during office hours, and not only did he answer my question but also mentioned other questions that arise from the original question and provided recommendations for visualizing the outcome. I respect such passion and desire to learn in work and hope that I can also reflect that wherever I end up. (1/?)

Whereas from what I heard about industry (internship group chats, talking to the people I worked with in previous experience, listening to my parents - managers in tech - hold meetings and discuss their work), it really doesn't seem like many people in industry have the same feelings but are more results-oriented. My mom has often mentioned how she is frustrated with how many people work for promotions and there are plenty of people who provide as much use as an unused RAID 1 disk - just extra redundancy. (2/?)

Hence I sometimes mention to others that I don't really want to end up as yet another engineer.
As for day-to-day, I really don't have enough experience to evaluate for myself. I know for me so far research has been hard to focus on and work on, and the same for industry tasks, and I don't know if those are due to external factors I mentioned above or truly because I don't enjoy the tasks/do them well. For me, it is as you mentioned - I prefer academia because of the abstract image, but I have limited experience (and most experiences have not been positive), so I feel lost.

Yes, it is a very difficult question, and I think one that strongly depends on the company/research area or institute. So there might not be one right choice here. I can't say much about industry yet. But to me it seems that research needs a very strong internal interest and drive, and it will always be necessary to find a way past roadblocks like the ones you mentioned and things get "even harder" after a PhD. At the same time, I heard that you have more freedom to follow your interests and collaborators on eye-to-eye level to help you along the way.

Regarding industry (despite my lack of experience), I think it is sometimes viewed unfairly from inside of academia. You can just as well be "yet another mathematician working on some niche problem" as you can be "just another engineer just for redundancy". But equally, I am sure there can be engaging company departments where you can have a lot of freedom, responsibility and work with interesting people. But as in research, it might take time, effort and luck to get there. I think you are already making a good decision by doing internships in companies that interest you to help you decide.

There's already plenty of general "academia vs. industry" advice answers on this site, not to mention the internet in general, so I won't go into that too much. I'll try to be as specific as possible to the question.
The way you've phrased things strikes me as more poetic or dramatic than practical. You are creating an artistically pleasing description of your pathos, but you are not effectively moving towards settling the question of which type of career you should do.
To answer something like that, one wouldn't start by asking emotionally loaded questions like "am I only doing X to avoid Y". You would start with a simple "should I do X or Y?" This would lead you to the helpful "what appeals to me about X? about Y?". You would then balance this against the obvious "I have already been doing X, but what would be the cost of trying Y?".
Since you speak of talking to professors during office hours, rather than outside of them, you are surely a student and not faculty. You can easily spend a year or three working in the industry and see if you really like it better. It would be minimally disruptive to your aspirations in either career. Having done both, I can tell you the industry is less complicated than academia, you can definitely get a good idea after 1-3 years. This would be the most direct way to settle your issue.
While it's not hard to switch from academia to industry, it is still non-trivial. For one, you will have to learn how to interview well. Another, you will have to get used to people who don't have anywhere near the technical knowledge you do, don't want to learn, and just want you to "summarize it" or "explain like I'm 5". Both of these things can be learned fairly quickly, you should look for the relevant resources (too many to list here).
The obverse, switching from industry to academia, can be harder but is not as difficult as people make it out to be. Especially for a student it is not a big deal. You can also be proactive and discuss it with your advisor, and perhaps he might be able to help arrange a "soft landing" for you if/when you do return - like hiring you as a postdoc so you can freshen up your academic CV.
I'll also note that it's important to distinguish between consuming the fruits of a labor and doing the labor itself. Not every foodie's calling is to be a cook. Libraries are free, you can read and talk about the latest research no matter what job you do. This should not be the basis of your decision. Rather, to decide if you'd be happy in academic research, you should look at the key activities of the academic researcher and how they relate to you. I would say these are things like writing papers, writing grants, coming up with novel research projects and so on.
And lastly, don't base your opinion of the industry on one boring internship you had. Internships are often boring. Remember that job interviews go both ways - you should absolutely be asking what sort of work you would be expected to do, and if they fail to convince you that it will be interesting, you can absolutely decline the job. Of course, this assumes that you are employable enough that you can choose from multiple job opportunities, but if you are not, it is probably unwise to be in the industry to begin with (this, keeping in mind my previous point about learning to interview well).

you didn't write where you live or your age, but I guess you are between 20 and 25.
First of all, in my opinion, you should better understand what you want from your life and since it looks like you struggle to achieve it by yourself, a psychotherapist would really help a lot.
Then you need to speed-up your choices.
Consider that you will hardly find the dream job, so for sure there will be something you will not like in your daily routine. we don't live in a fantasy world. So if you decide to leave academia, the sooner the better, because industry it's a completely different world, and the more you push it away, the worst will be.
A lot of people working in academia will downvote me, but I tried both, and academia is like kindergarden if compared with industry. You have deadlines yes, but nobody will fire you, you have plenty of time to develop projects, not a lot of pressure, etc..
So going to the industry will be a big jump, but also rewarding.
You just need to decide fast, because it's very unlikely that someone will want to hire a 30 years old software engineer with ZERO experience in the industry. Unless you want to start from very low in the hierarchy. It depends a lot on the country you work in, but I think it could be true in many cases.
I hope I didn't sound too harsh, you just need a bit of help and you will find your way without any issue.

I had a similar internal conflict while working on my PhD. After my PhD and my first post-doc, I thought I hated research so much that I tried teaching at a small school. After a few semesters of teaching, I even got into one of those boot camps that connect you with industry jobs. And somehow I felt that it wasn't for me (industry I mean). I ended up accepting a research position in something slightly irrelevant to my PhD and somehow things took off for me (a bit).
So I think a small change in direction might help. Whatever it is you do, it might help finding topics or areas of research, related to what you know, and work on them. Something you find cool or interesting. Try them for a little bit and see.
Another thing I realized, after getting my current research job, is that despite feeling uncomfortable with research at times, I was always willing to do the work, i.e., I never really gave up on it completely.

your question is very interesting actually.
I will give you my view on this based on my experience. I am a 2nd year PhD student at the university in Central Europe. I finished my master degree in 2017 and graduated in 2018. But decided to apply for PhD programme in 2021.
For the last 5-6 years i have also been working in the same office (industry). Of course because of my involvment in academic area my agreement needed to be changed. Actually I do not know any PhD student who do not work in an industry overall. It is because of economical factors and small scholarships that we get from university and government. Everyone of my PhD friends work somewhere ( either in the industry or in other schools as assistants or wherever).
My point is that I did not want to be only an academic. Theory and experiments ( academia) are not taken 'seriously' in my field. That is why I still pursue my daily job. I can not think of myself only as a theorist but also an active do-er and creator.
For me the 'practice' is pretty important as well as cooperation with workmates at the office. I know after finishing my PhD i would continue working in my industry but also I would like to work in academia part time.
For me you should not leave academia but maybe try to be more open for your industry. It would be good to work part time in your professional field or get some internship.
Sometimes it gets difficult when you focus only on 'one thing'. You need to have perspectives from other people - not only theorists and researchers.
I do not know how old you are but basing your career on academia and research is not enough in my opinion. What if in 2-3 years you would definitely leave academia and you will have no working experience? I think in 21 century  people need to be very flexible.
I know that PhD process is difficult and it takes so much time to think and do experiments... But you can not get stuck in 'one thing' as I said before.
For your general career I would suggest to get an internship or a part time  job in your industry. You will need to decide then or pursue both ( in my opinion its the best option).
I hope it works. I cross fingers for you :)

Is there other non-academic work you would enjoy?  Just as an English major doesn't have to become an author and could work for a software company, you could apply for work at a company that does something you're interested in besides software.
And if you decide that what you're doing now is better than anything else you could think of, then it makes sense to keep doing it.

From your description it looks like you are just starting your career. At this point it is normal to feel overwhelmed by difficult tasks, big projects and so on. Even so, when it seems you are left with less guidance than usual as described in one of your previous questions.
My suggestion would be to wait and see. Do the internship, continue with your studies and choose. After some time, if you don't like your choice, you can always reassess and make a move in the direction you then perceive as more likeable.

This is an important question that I wish more people thought about before attempting an academic career. Try approaching it with this question:
Suppose you wake up this morning, check your email and see an urgent message about something that went badly wrong yesterday. The problem is serious and fixing it is going to take a long time. Do you dread going to work?
An academic example of such a problem could be that you published a proof of X, and then someone found what looks at first glance like a critical error in your proof.
If you dread to going to work, you might want to do something else. Otherwise, you're good.

I do not find this a compelling test of whether academia is right for someone. I do not think the statement describes accurately the experience of being in academia versus industry.

I fail to understand this as well. All jobs have downsides and tasks we rather not deal with. The answer to your question with any job is "no".

This is a form of “what kind of problems do you enjoy solving” career advice…. Except you have replaced a problem with an embarrassing quasi-crisis.

@user71659 you might be in the wrong job, then (c.f. the quoted string theorists' response to https://www.quantamagazine.org/dark-energy-may-be-incompatible-with-string-theory-20180809/)

I really like academia, so far, and it's where I want to be. But according to your description I don't? I think the way we deal with failure is not related with personal interest on academia. Yeah, you gotta learn how to deal with failure in academia, but I disagree with this being the core feature

Ok, maybe let's change this a bit and emphasize negativity.

@Allure It's wrong to think that all fields in academia deal with some grand challenge theory that you seek to prove over decades, when in fact it's only applicable to a small slice. People don't write proofs in the English department or have some grand theory in geography. My friend in grad school's PhD was to develop an algorithm that made engines idle better, and it was wildly successful: its been shipped in millions of the sponsor's cars, used to this day. It was 2 years start to finish.

Realizing that you made an embarrassing and/or stupid error in your work is not comparable to a new result which suggests large swathes of accepted theory may be wrong. The first is unpleasant the second can be fascinating. A new result that makes me rethink everything I thought I knew about my field is good news. It is intellectually stimulating and exciting and although it may be hard to deal with, it is also the way that science advances. Someone pointing out an error I made in my work is a completely different situation.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
How to obtain funding for independent research after graduating from undergrad?
I just graduated with BS from undergrad and am employed as a research associate staff by a research team at the university.
I would like to ask for suggestions about how to obtain research funding for my independent project. Most of the funding opportunities are only available for registered students. I am not a U.S. citizen eligible for national grants.
I am working in the field of social science and human-robot interaction and have 2-3 advisors from undergrad research and courses who encourage me to carry on my undergraduate projects and are willing to provide advising. However, they did not specifically offer me guidance of how to resolve the need for funding. It seems like I need to take the initiative to present this research opportunity to them.

Do you mean research independent of the research job you have?

Why not go to grad school?

I'll make three suggestions, but these are a bit difficult to obtain.
First, if you intend to return to the country of which you are a citizen, then you might explore funding from there, since your skills would eventually benefit them. This is actually available in some places.
Second, you might be able to obtain funding indirectly. Suppose you can convince one of your professors to apply for a grant that will fund your research and permit him/her to support you under the grant, even though you are not a citizen. If you don't need personal support, but only research support, this would be much easier, of course. But you would probably have to do the actual grant writing so that your advisor(s) can submit it with little effort on their own. This, in itself, can be a valuable skill, though obtained with a bit of pain.
Third, you might explore private funding from some interested corporation. These have no real limitations, though the money might be relatively small. But if you have skills that the company might find valuable, perhaps you could work with them, without pay, but obtain a grant for research. I've done this sort of thing, but was in a different (more advanced) situation. In my case the grant didn't support me directly, but paid for such things as travel and equipment. But there might be legal issues that you would need to resolve through the university if you were directly supported.

I am working in the field of social science and human-robot interaction and have 2-3 advisors from undergrad research and courses who encourage me to carry on my undergraduate projects and are willing to provide advising.

Why won't the advisers help? Promising advising without working to provide an environment that facilitates the work seems more exploitative or inconsiderate than helpful, although perhaps there is more to the story.

I would like to ask for suggestions about how to obtain research funding for my independent project

It depends on the scope of your project. Is returning to school as a graduate student under these advisers an option? Will one (usually small) foundation grant be enough?
I would not ghost write a grant. Unless the adviser were very ethical, with no conflicts of interest, there is the possibility that your contributions would not yield anything (denied grant, or approved grant under someone else's name).

I assume this is not US-based?  There are no a priori restrictions on foreign nationals being Principal Investigators on federal grants in the United States.  You actually have other administrative roadblocks to consider as well.  There isn't really such a thing as an "independent researcher" unless you are working out of your house, in which case, your odds of getting funding drop precipitously.  Awards are made to institutions, not researchers.  So the National Science Foundation (NSF) does not give money to your advisers per se.   They are simply the technical contact for the project.  They do not have the rights to the project that many imagine.
Every university will have a policy on who can receive funding.  This is typically called "PI rights", and should be published online in some capacity.  Here's an example from Columbia University.  On this page, they specifically state appointment types that allow for PI rights.  If you are not in one of these appointments, you do not have the authority to seek funding.  Universities typically have "exceptions", which involve filing paperwork.  You typically need a PI who will sponsor you.  Columbia explains their policy on this on this page as well.
The idea here is that you are not in a position that is typically entitled to facility and administrative (F&A or "overhead") benefits, such as having a research administrator assigned to you.  The school then has to make that resource available to you at some cost.  You also would not fit into the typical mentoring circles that most PIs have access to, where they receive mentoring on technical aspects such as project management.  A research administrator can't tell you how to fill out your progress report, only that it is due.  Without a dedicated PI mentor, the university would be loathe to approve PI rights.
There are other concerns too:

What does your budget look like?  Are you going to need help procuring items? Someone to process reimbursements?  Are you going to hire people?
Is your appointment going to last the full length of the grant?  Are you guaranteeing your entire salary?  If not, does the university need to commit to the remainder of your salary for many future FY's?  If so, who is that guarantee--the PI or a department budget?
What happens if you leave the university?  They don't have to let you take the money.  They may take over your project and reappoint a new PI.
What facilities do you need?  Do you need a desk or access to specialized resources?

I will say that in the 8 years that I have submitted proposals, only once have I seen a postdoc get PI rights approved for a specific project.  It took over a month to be approved by the dean's office, and it was because there was enthusiastic support from tenured faculty.  I cannot fathom that anyone without a PhD could get approved for PI rights.  It's not that there is always an explicit requirement, but there is a question of what category of researcher would be capable of being a PI and managing a scientific project but also does not have a PhD.  Even if such a person existed, if their research and work was so compelling, a PI would surely vouch for them and enthusiastically mentor them.  If not, they aren't worth the risk to the institution.
Being a PI is rough.  It's really hard to learn how to procure and manage a grant even when you have access to the best resources.  You need to work on getting the support from your advisers (and they turn your idea into a grant, but they are the PIs and you could be named specifically in the grant instead of employing generic personnel) or return to a formal path to PhD if you are interested in doing this type of work and having your name as the PI.
Regardless of your academic interests, at the end of the day, your institution has rules in place in order to protect it from individuals who may be unable to fulfill their commitments.  Your current academic appointment suggests that you cannot continue this work unsupervised, so you need to remedy that first.

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


text:
Is it self-plagiarism if I upload a paper in error, delete it, and then upload a modified version again somewhere else?
Last week, I did a paper, and posted it on my school's online blackboard.  Not even five minutes later, I realized I had misread the directions and took it down.  Some of my points were still relevant, so I used them exactly as i had written them before.  Is this self-plagiarism?

It's not self-plagiarism. Self-plagiarism involves trying to get double credit for the same work -- mostly in academic publishing, where the same author publishes old ideas as new ideas (without citing). In your case, you accidentally uploaded the paper somewhere and then deleted it -- this does not even come close to meeting the bar for "claiming a publication."
There is a possible concern that you might be wrongly accused of cheating -- either because your professor saw you post the work to blackboard and assumed you were trying to share it with someone else, or because blackboard automatically indexed the paper when you uploaded it, and will now flag it as a duplicate when you submit it. You didn't do anything wrong, so you should be fine - but if you are concerned, you could send a brief e-mail to the professor explaining what happened.

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

Simple answer, no. What you did is neither self-plagiarism nor any violation of any norm that I know of. Your acts seem honorable, in fact. Being "quick on the trigger" may not always be wise, but it isn't a violation per se.
There are two reasons that we avoid plagiarism. The first is that we don't ethically claim the work of others as our own. The second, just as important, is that for scientific discourse to proceed, people need to be able to examine not just individual 'facts', but the entire context in which those facts occurred. Self plagiarism doesn't involve the first of these, but does still involve the second.
If a person simply copies things from one of their own published works into another, rather than citing their own earlier work, this "completing the context" fails as someone finds one of your papers and sees only the context (including other citations) that are presented there. The other paper is lost to them and forms a break in the chain of evidence that good science requires.
However, since you removed the one version of your paper from view, and quickly enough that it wasn't cited, you are free to just modify it in any way you like and publish the results in any way that you can. Your removed version was nothing more than a "draft" of what you later produced.
Academic grading of assignments is a completely separate issue from self-plagiarism, though professors will frown on you if you do it. But that isn't why it is a concept and that concept will be with you throughout your life, not just in school. Even submitting the same work for two different assignments isn't really self-plagiarism, though it is academic misconduct.
I think there are two basic reasons that authors sometimes self-plagiarize. The first is that they were never taught that it is wrong and never considered the scientific consequences (loss of context) in doing so. This is changing as people become more aware. The second reason, however, is just academic laziness. It is easy, today, to simply copy from one document and paste into another. Probably easier for some people than to remember and then find the correct citation in their earlier paper. If you see plagiarism as only not taking credit for the work of others, you will be misled.


text:
In medical research, what is the relative value of confirming old work vs. new discoveries?
I am an MS student in medical immunology. I am looking for my research proposal, and would like to get a nice publication (i.e., publish in a journal with a high impact factor). Given this, is it better to do something totally new, or is there value in repeating old work?
I ask because my supervisor is busy and gives me considerable freedom. I have the idea of experimenting with the role of some gene in an autoimmune disease but no one has done that work before. Is it good to pursue this? When I write it up, how will I do citations?

Welcome to Academia.SE. I edited your title and consolidated the question to make it a bit clearer - please feel free to make further changes as needed. I suggest you add what stage of the career you are -- do you have a PhD/MD? Do you have an advisor, and if so, are they offering guidance? The question seems a bit strange -- obviously there is value in both, probably more in novel research, but this is a decision that has to be made in the context of your resources, knowledge, and interests.

@cag51 I just started my successive MS - PhD program. Now I am  MS level student. I have a mentor but she has busy schedule. She assured me about resources. I try to experiment the role of some gene in an autoimmune disease but no one has done that work before. Is it good to pursue it? When I will write my manuscript how I will do citation?

OK, have updated your question with these points.

Note, I have a physical/computer sciences background; things may be different in life sciences.

I have the idea of experimenting with the role of some gene in an autoimmune disease but no one has done that work before. Is it good to pursue this?

Yes! Doing novel things will get more attention than revisiting old things (though both have value).
My concern here would be whether you, as a lone, beginning student, have the background and resources to do something completely novel. Normally, one's first study is done under the close supervision of a mentor. I'm a little surprised your supervisor is "turning you loose" like this.

When I write it up, how will I do citations?

Presumably parts of the methods you used have been used before (perhaps for other diseases), and someone has studied this disease before. So, you should cite any past work, even if it's not a direct hit to what you're doing.
But, this is sort of what I meant above -- it's good to have a mentor to help walk you through this process for the first time (or first several times) -- getting novel, publishable results with no supervision and little experience seems like a very tall order.

She is supervising me sometimes looking my experiments also. I was not able to understand full concept of citation now I got it. Thank you.

From a research standpoint, if you repeat old work and get the same result, then you haven't advanced the state of knowledge and so probably won't be able to publish anything more than a note.
One exception would be confirming an older result but with a completely different methodology. Then it is the new methodology that is the "new and exciting" part that might merit publication.
But, especially in the medical field, if you repeat old work and show that the original work was wrong, or even dangerous, then you have something worth publishing and can become famous (or infamous if you are wrong). But I think that as a student, you should undertake such work only if you have a strong suspicion and some evidence that the original is in error. Otherwise you won't gain much from just following other's footsteps.
So, in general, it is probably better to work on untrod ground, on something new, as hard as that can be. The fact that your advisor gives you a lot of freedom is good, but only provided that they also give you guidance on your ideas and also provide some worthwhile ideas for you to follow.
I'm not sure what you mean by your question on citations, but it is typical to do a "literature survey" before you start on a new research direction to make sure you know what is known about the topic. If things are already known (likely), you will cite them if you build on them in any way.


text:
Can I ask a non-academic for an academic letter of recommendation?
A scholarship based on existing mental health problems and conviction to finishing/doing well in school and it requests 2 reference letters and doesn't specify from whom. I'm only a second year in my undergrad, and all of my classes are too big for a connection with a professor. There is no one academic to write me one.
My mom suggested this one family friend who is a nurse and who has known me for 14 years. Is this a good idea? Any ideas who could write the second one?

Could you check the program materials to see if they give some advice on what sort of reference letter is needed, or perhaps there is some material intended for letter-writers that instructs them what should be covered/addressed? With some tips for that we could maybe give more useful advice. If this were a letter for graduate school admission in the US this would be relatively easy to answer - but in the case of such a scholarship its really totally up to the issuing organization what they would like to see.

Unfortunately not, there is no information provided. It is the Sarah Gaulin scholarship if that helps at all?
Really, I think it is supposed to showcase our ongoing struggle with mental health issues and our perseverance in academics

The purpose of such letters is to get some assurance from "trusted" commentators who can attest to the likelihood of your success in the program. While for most academic letters, professors and teachers are best, in this case it may be different. I can't suggest who would be best, but keep the two elements in mind:
People who can be immediately trusted to give an honest assessment, and people who can judge your likelihood of success.

My mom suggested this one family friend who is a nurse and who has known me for 14 years. Is this a good idea?

Does this nurse know anything about your professional/academic life? Has she "seen you in action"? Is she familiar with your mental health struggles and commitment to finishing school? If so, it's maybe okay for now. If this is just a friend of your moms who happens to be a nurse and knows little about you, then this is a bad idea.
In general, letters of recommendation should be commenting on how you stack up next to your peers, and should be written by someone who has seen many many students and can judge how you rank next to them. Though for this particular scholarship you mention, I agree it doesn't say at all whether this is the case or whether they want someone who can comment on your "personal narrative", including your mental health.

Any ideas who could write the second one?

Consider your professors or TAs. Just send them a three-sentence e-mail, or drop by their office hours. You'd be surprised how accommodating some professors will be, if you make it clear that you appreciate the favor and don't expect anything more than a brief letter saying that you took their class and got an decent grade. Since you're in the middle of college, even a nice letter from a TA might be sufficient for one of your letters. And of course, start working now so you don't have this problem when it's time for graduate school admissions or job recommendations!


text:
What negative consequences could there be from dating a former student (as a young academic)?
Here's the situation: She was an undergrad, I was a grad TA. At that point, our interactions were totally professional and limited to the classroom.  However, she and I both since graduated and left the college/city where we got our degree.  I now am at another university working as a postdoc and she is working outside of academia.  We ran into one another and started spending time with one another.  Our relationship has been platonic, but I get the sense that it could go further, which I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to. I can't imagine that there would be legal problems with pursuing a romantic relationship, but would there be ethical or professional concerns (as an early career academic)?

Speaking as a by-product of one such encounter, it can turn out alright. ;-)

My bachelor's advisor (CS) dated a maths student (so 40 yrs old vs 25 or so) and they got married 1 year before I started my thesis, they had a baby right during my thesis (... you could guess with what consequences as an advisor for me). AFAIK no professor or other student found this too troubling.

Please take all discussion about HNQ to [meta]. The comments section on random forum questions is not the place for that discussion.

You may find it bizarre, but at British universities professors are commonly allowed to date students at the same university as long as they are not in the same department. I personally find this extraordinary but it is true.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigitte_Macron The employer of her husband seems to be fine with it.

There are professional/ethical rules at many universities relating to dating between students and staff, but these do not extend to imposing a permanent moratorium on dating between people who have previously attended that institution.  Essentially you are asking if there are any professional or ethical issues in dating another adult who has no connection whatsoever to your current employer.  I cannot see any issue.

This is nearly almost true, unless he is a member of a professional body that forbids this kind of thing (e.g., he was studying to become a health professional of some kind).

@Behacad I know of no health professional body that would forbid a sexual relationship with a former student. State medical boards prohibit sexual relationships with patients.

Just as a never-say-never anecdote, I know of a case of a teacher being fired for dating a former student well after that student had graduated—but this was at my Catholic high school, and rumor had it that the principal had some personal problem with the teacher in question and had been looking for an excuse to fire her as it was. This scandal didn’t reflect well on the school or its administration, but that didn’t save her job (nor did it cost the principal his), so... it can happen. Very different situation in many details though, obviously. (+1 nevertheless)

I think this is especially true in your situation, where there is (or should be) no question that the relationship might have been going on during the original situation, but instead only started after you had both left the institution where that was. Frankly, between a TA and an undergrad, I would think it ok as long as some months passed between the end of the class and the beginning of the more involved relationship, though I can understand why some people might want to be cautious about that.

Also consider the time elapsed.  Undergrad and TA vs Post-Doc and career.  If the original school found out about it, anyone looking at it would just say "Oh, that's nice." and wouldn't think twice about it.  If your current school found out about it, they would say exactly what this answer says, which is "It has nothing to do with us".

All the relevant ethical guidelines I have ever heard of relate to romantic relationships with someone who is currently your student, professor, boss or subordinate.  None of them would apply here.  Nor do I think that the circumstances would lead anyone to think that there was a relationship while she was your student, particularly given the lapse in time.
I see no problem.

I have two colleagues who have since married ex-students. This happened several years after graduation and they are, well 3 out of 4, all working at the same institution...
No issues, even the employer is fine.
But the employer is VERY clear about non-appropriate contact / behavior with current students...

Regarding the last sentence, it’s worth nothing that this is the case for professors/lecturers, and even then it still depends on the country. Some institutes may additionally have rules for the interaction between TAs and students but others don’t.

Let's forget specific rules and regulations for a moment and think about why dating students is forbidden. There are two main reasons:

The possibility/likelihood/perception that you will give preferential treatment to your partner over other students (e.g., higher grades, better access to facilities, etc.), even if this is done subconsciously.
The possibility that you are abusing your position of power over the student to coerce them into dating you.

Clearly neither of these applies to an ex-student. Doubly so given it was a few years ago. Triply so when you're now at a different institution and the student isn't even in academia any more: you're no longer in a position to grant favour and you no longer have power that you could abuse.  The institution you first met at is no longer in a position to tell you what you can do, and the institution you're at has no reason to care about your relationship with somebody outside that institution.
If they were a recently ex-student, it's possible that people would think something had been going on while you were their TA but, at this level of removal, that doesn't seem like a credible allegation.

This answer covers an important detail, but I come to another conclusion: You should evaluate Point 2 - in some cases former students can still perceive a former teacher as an authority and dating could be abusing this perceived authority. - So in essence you should evaluate your behavior - are you acting like peers, or like mentor and student towards each other? - If the latter, you should try to change the nature of your relationship before becoming romantically involved

If she is outside of the Academia now, no one on the Earth can say anything. The whole ethical problematic of the romantic relations is rooting in that it may cause distrust in your impartiality, if you are grading her work. It is because it is not enough to be impartial, you should also seem impartial.
If such a relation happens, the most typical reaction of the community (and the co-workers) is, that they totally ignore it. It is not their business and they follow it. Furthermore, everybody wants to keep a distance from any hot topic, and it is hot.
It would be even likely so, if she would be inside the academia, but in a different institute or department. If she would be your co-worker or student, then you should likely follow some regulations, for example you wouldn't be allowed to grade she in any sense (you should ask a co-worker to do this instead you).

It's not just the impartiality aspect - there's also the question about whether there would be an implicitly coercive aspect to the relationship given that the instructor's in a position of power over the student. In either case, given that he's not in a position of power over her now, that presumably wouldn't apply either.

It depends when the relationship was initiated. If it was strictly professional when you were a TA and then this new friendship/potential romantic relationship was formed after it should be fine. It would be a different story if you were for example flirting or messaging when you were a TA as that would be viewed as the romantic relationship starting to develop when you were in a position of power and you could definitely get in trouble for that.

I see no problem with it, as long as your employer is fine, which I don't see why they wouldn't be. You're working in an entirely different city than where you worked/graduated, and now work for a different college that she's not affiliated with at all. I see no issue with that whatsoever.
If you want weird/moral/ethical dilemmas, try this on for size: my wife (happily married 7 years and counting) used to be my little sister's babysitter/chauffeur. She's 6 years older than me and lived down the street when we were younger.
Cue my parent's divorce, and getting us 3 kids to school was a challenge due to now only one parent, no one being old enough to drive, the buses not coming near us, etc. I was a freshman, and the high school was close enough to walk to, but the middle and elementary schools were further away, so my little sisters needed a babysitter/chauffeur
My mom hired the girl down the street (future wife) to drive my sisters to and through it all, we started hanging out as friends. Junior year came, and the weird talk about feelings came, etc, etc, etc. Because of this, she chose to quit taking care of my sisters for moral/ethical reasons (she wasn't fired; my parents didn't even know).
I graduated in June, proposed in November, and we were married by May of the next year. Still going strong, though we weirded out my family a bit at first ;)

I didn't know elementary and middle schools HAD junior years...

@DSVA Depends a lot on culture. For instance, in China a lot of employers (locally called "leaders") routinely intrude into personal matters of everyone under them. The perception of privacy can be different.

@Daniel The whole concept of "junior year" means nothing at all (or worse, something different to what you intended) to the 95% of people who live outside the US. It would probably help to use less region-specific terminology.


text:
I put my Bachelor thesis (the text of it) on GitHub, and my mentor asked me to delete it. However, my repository has been forked. What now?
I put my Bachelor thesis on GitHub (both the text and the code itself). Today, my mentor found it via Googling (?) and contacted me about it. He said that he is afraid that DABAR (the Croatian repository of Bachelor theses and Master theses) might make a lawsuit against us because of that. So, he thinks that it would be best to delete the text of my Bachelor thesis from GitHub.
Are my mentor's fears realistic? How likely am I to actually get into a legal trouble because of that? Is that actually illegal, considering that my repository is under the MIT licence? As far as I understand it, it might be illegal if I chose the GPL licence or no licence at all, but it's not illegal if it is under the MIT licence.
Update: At the insistence of my mentor, I did some history rewriting on GitHub and contacted the owner of the forked repo asking him to do the same thing.

Is your thesis on GitHub, or a software project that is part of your thesis? Your previous post made it seem like the latter.

What is your license/agreement with DABAR? I can't imagine there is any risk of a thesis repository making some claim of ownership of content submitted to them, but it will all depend on what sort of agreement you make when you submit there.

@BryanKrause It's both my thesis and the software project, in a single repository. My thesis is essentially a documentation of my project. I have no idea which licence I have with DABAR.

I would start there, then (finding out what license you have with DABAR). I suspect there is no problem at all, but that's how you'll find out. In any case, there is nothing you can do about a version of your software you've already licensed to other people, you can't revoke an MIT license. It doesn't matter how you've licensed your own software to other people (MIT, GPL, whatever), as long as none of them came with a promise of exclusivity: you own the stuff, so you can license it how you want.

What you can't do is selectively enforce how different people use your project. So, if you were to license it under both GPL and MIT, if someone is using it under MIT you have to let them use it under MIT, you can't expect them to follow GPL. Similarly, you can license to DABAR under completely different terms that do not comply with MIT or GPL or whatever, unless you've also made some promise to DABAR that you will not release to someone else under other terms (again, this seems extraordinarily unlikely, but I can't say without knowing what you signed).

This is not really answerable without your legal agreements with DABAR, we cannot guess why your mentor has fears of a lawsuit.

Interesting question. I removed the second question -- the answer to the first question will probably make this clear, and we discourage multiple questions per post. Also, please don't provide the names of third parties; we do not need/want to know who forked your repo.

I'd be really curious to hear a clear explanation from your mentor of what exactly they thought the problem was and what specifically a lawsuit would be about, in terms that would suggest some actual familiarity with the law...

@BryanKrause The issue might be that "OP's software" is not actually theirs. I know exactly nothing about Croatian law, but I know several other EU countries where copyright for anything produced as an employee is automatically owned by the employer, and some cases where this sort of relationship applies to students as well. For all we know, the copyright to OP's thesis could be owned by the university under Croatian law, and OP would then be infringing by distributing it without the copyright owner's consent.

@TooTea That wouldn't have any relation to a thesis repository, though.

@BryanKrause From what I could find, each Croatian university runs its own instance of the repository in question, so perhaps that also generally involves enforcing copyright on works owned by the university. But yes, I'm wildly speculating here, it would really be great if OP could clarify the details. Presumably, OP had a reason to believe they own the copyright when they decided to distribute their work.

Are my mentor's fears realistic?

No.
I do not know how to provide legal advice.  I can say that lawsuits happen when someone has a reason to sue; your question does not describe any reason.
Usually the reason for a copyright infringement lawsuit is money.  It would be a very rare bachelor thesis that is connected to substantial money.  Normal people/organizations do not sue just because they love owning a copyright.

It depends on your jurisdiction and who holds the rights to your thesis. Is that you, you and the university, you and your mentor, or the university alone (all options exist). The repository has an arrangement with university, but you have one with the university too.
However as said there should not be a reason for it to go to a lawsuit.


text:
Can I become a professor in a subject I did badly in?
I am a third year math undergraduate student. I am in Europe (Serbia) but would like to do a postgraduate degree in the USA. My freshman year went poorly, but after that I started to do a lot better. But, in my first year I took a real analysis class and scored a C. In the meantime, I revisited all my first year classes, did a lot of math and greatly improved.
Now, real analysis is one of my favourite math areas and I would like to teach it one day at university. But, my question is, are my chances very low (or nonexistent) because I screwed up a class in which I want to become a professor? I know generally getting a job is academia is pretty hard but am I in a really bad spot compared to others, considering what I want to do in future?

In the US and I suppose other places, it is possible to overcome early difficulties, even failures, and still succeed. But it requires evidence of change and advancement, which you may already be showing.
For US doctoral applications you want good letters of recommendation from people who can honestly predict your success. With that and a better record in the recent years you have a good chance. The competition is difficult, of course, but an early low grade isn't disqualifying.

First of all, you don't become a professor of real analysis; you become a professor of mathematics and then you may or may not teach real analysis.  In any department I've ever been affiliated with, there are no additional qualifications a faculty member needs to show in order to teach a certain course.  If others have more expertise and/or have taught the course before, they may get priority; otherwise someone needs to teach the course, and they trust you to know what you're getting into.
I didn't remember this until I started answering this question, but: actually the worst grade I ever got in a university level math course was a graduate course in real analysis that I took as an undergraduate.  They let me take the next analysis course in the graduate sequence anyway.  I went on to do a PhD in algebraic number theory, but over the years my interest in analytic topics has increased (also the interest of algebraic number theorists in general in analytic topics has increased), and this semester I am teaching undergraduate real analysis for the second time. At this rate it is reasonably likely that one day I will teach a version of the graduate real analysis course that I struggled with in my student years.
I also remember reading many years ago an abstract algebra text (I believe it was the one by Joseph Gallian) that included brief biographies of certain twentieth century algebraists.  It mentioned Michael Aschbacher.  Quoting (now not from memory):

"In his senior year, Aschbacher
took abstract algebra but showed little interest in the course. Accordingly, he received a
grade of C."

He grew up to be one of the greatest group theorists who ever lived and probably the person who contributed the most to the classification of finite simple groups.  People get better at things as they learn more.  Just because you don't understand a deep mathematical concept at the age of (say) 19 doesn't mean that you never will.
If you are asking about your prospects for graduate admission, then I have clear advice for you: keep taking mathematics courses and try to do better in your more advanced and more recent coursework.  If you do better in a higher level real analysis course than you did in a lower level real analysis course, then people are going to think that you learned real analysis.

The sentence "First of all, you don't become a professor of real analysis; you become a professor of mathematics" is correct in the context of, say, US, UK and Canada. Things are a bit different in Eastern Europe (and even in Germany). This remark does not affect the main point you are making.

This happens routinely. I'm teaching the math course I received the lowest grade of my student career, albeit 13 years ago, this semester.

While your answer is good and correct, let me add that "famous person X received a bad grade" in biographies often means "X did badly with respect to extremly high standards" (eg in a very competitive uni) or "X had original thoughts, but the teacher only cared about rote learning" and is not comparable to the bad grade of an avarage person;) it makes a good biographic story, I think. (I haven't researched Thompson 's biography, could be that he really did show little interest in comparision to the avarage math student, not "avarage extraordinary uni math student"

@user111388: The problem with quoting from memory is that one's memory is often not completely accurate.  I went back to look up the quote, and it was said about Aschbacher, not Thompson -- i.e., about a different world leader in finite group theory.  Your point about what wondering what a C grade at a certain school at a certain time -- in this case, at Caltech in the 1960's -- really means is still a good one.

Summary: Definetely, you can.
I come from a relatively progressive country and studied in the 2010's (and went before to high school). Despite of that, I had some teachers and professors who explicitly stated that they do not only grade your subject results, but also 'play God' ('only God can earn an A in my course', 'women will not pass my course' (and even worse sexist statements!), 'you study to become a teacher, so you must be stupid and cannot get an A even if you are perfect', "I don't like your face, you lose a point" (and much more).
While such teachers and professors become, luckily, more and more rare, there are likely many with implicit biases. And everybody I know knows some of such teachers.
And then there is even more the 'problem' that one might have had a bad day on exam day, one class was unreasonably difficult etc.
My point is: People are aware that a single grade does not tell you much about a person's capabilities in a subject. When I look at grades, I look at the collection of all grades - this gives more information about whether you are a good student or not. And real analysis is not so special - I'd say that any student who is good enough to do research in math can also do research in real analysis, if they are interested in it.
And when it really comes to you becoming a professor, people look at your research in real analysis. Your grade is irrelevant.

Where is JeffE when you need him?
Jeff Erickson was an instructor of mine at the University of Illinois. He mentioned his GPA was around 2.5 and (Bs and Cs) and his computer-science focused GPA was similar. (It is part of his homepage - https://jeffe.cs.illinois.edu/).
Needless to say, it may be difficult if there are automated or near-automated GPA thresholds, but all things equal, I would expect a student with a bad class grade (especially a single grade) but good research-type work (perhaps published but more likely evidenced by letters of recommendation) to perform better than a student with a high grade and no research experience. This is doubly so if the class was early in the progression, and the student did well on classes that built on that material. Math may be different (my research area is human-computer interaction) but I would expect that to still hold true.
Furthermore, many (all?) US-based PhD programs have a personal statement as part of an application. Among other things, you can detail more about what you learned and how you improved as a mathematician through that first year and how you're better today. I would expect that to assuage worries about that particularly low grade if they do come up.


text:
What can be done about a disruptive classmate?
There is a classmate who repeatedly interrupts the flow of lectures in various ways. We assume he has learning difficulties of some kind due to how he acts and because he has an assistant with him in most lectures.
Generally, it will be things such as asking an excessive number of questions. Often, in the middle of going through something, he will interrupt and ask the lecturer to repeat something said or written half a page ago–or will interrupt to try and jump in with the answer to the problem we are working through as a class. Or a question on a semi-unrelated topic, or on a different method of solving the problem will be asked.
The issue with these questions is they will be blurted out in the middle of an explanation, breaking the flow, and are extremely common, taking valuable time away from the lecture.
Additionally, he will often tell the lecturer to stop or go back a page so he can take a photo of the screen with his phone–and will often take up to 4 minutes before the lecture can go ahead.
Our lectures are recorded and posted on the student's area of the university website within a day, and previous years lectures are also available–with both the written and spoken information.
Overall, I would say these disruptions take up around 15 minutes of each 50 minute lecture.
It is probably useful to note here that I myself have learning difficulties–which means these are incredibly distracting and disruptive to me personally, more so than my classmates–although in conversations I have gathered that several others are also feeling this is impacting negatively on their education.

The constraints of having learning difficulties are nowadays often handled by specialised units in the university. In case of - as in yours - contradictory requirements, you probably should discuss this with them first, and then, with their advice, with your lecturer (or even better, if they could give guidelines to the lecturer how to handle such obviously conflicting needs). Have you talked to them?

I have spoken to other staff members briefly- but not my lecturer. I will do that next, thank you!

Might this student also have learning difficulties to which this was the agreed upon response?

I would be interested in answers to this question when learning disabilities aren't a factor. I've had very capable classmates in graduate courses act as though they're being lectured 1-1 and interrupt the professor with questions at a very dense rate, or try to go off on tangents related to their own research.

You would handle this the same way you would handle anything in class that impacts your ability to learn.  You contact the instructor, and suggest that there is something disruptive going on.

+1, yes. This isn't something a student can handle directly. Work through the professor or a dedicated office.

+1 as this is a good solution regardless of disability status. I have personally experienced such disruptions far more frequently from able students.

And you think the instructor is unaware of this? :-(  ... -1.

@einpoklum -- the instructor may or may not be aware the degree to which students find the issue to be disruptive, or how many students find the situation unacceptable.  Having student complaints in hand might also empower the instructor, opening more tools.  Regardless, the point stands, however, that there is very little action that the student can take that does not route through the instructor, and that absent a report from the OP that the instructor has been contacted about this, this is the FIRST appropriate action.

@ScottSeidman: "may or may not", "might" - give an answer which address the possibility that it may not and it won't.

@einpoklum -- I did.  The answer given is the appropriate response for both cases.

I've unfortunately been on the other end of this as a lecturer in a very similar situation. In that case, I had a perception that it might be creating problems for the other students, but couldn't really do much about it since no students actively said it was an issue. If they had, I could have likely then sat down with the disabilities service coordinators and hashed something out. A few students finally did come forward at the end of the semester but by then there was only a short amount of time left in the semester so there wasn't enough time to deal with it. In that context, you should talk to both the instructor and the service coordinator (or equivalent) especially since you have needs yourself. And make sure to do it sooner rather than later.

Just out of curiosity, is there a reason you couldn't pre-emptively talk with disability services before students came forth and commented about it?

@user76284 ,  There are a lot of concerns about instructors discriminating against students with disabilities or interfering with their accommodations (and some of those concerns are definitely valid), so going to talk to them without some sort of evidence that students actually had an issue would likely not have gone over well. This was partially a judgment call based on the school and the fact that I didn't have much job security at the position in question. At a previous positions, I had interacted a lot with the disabilities office people, and would have had less qualms bringing it up.

I don't know your exact situation but there is no way I would allow one student to derail approximately 30% of the lecture for any reason.  That clearly impacts every other student.

@Kimball My situation wasn't as extreme as that in the OP.

@Kimball Until a student comes forward, it's difficult to quantify the level of perceived disruption.

@JeffreyJWeimer In OP's situation, it's another student making that assumption. They are not privy to what Disability Services has to say.

@JeffreyJWeimer, In OP's situation, there are limits to what they can get from Disabilities Services (FERPA, ADA are relevant and their may be state laws). In my case, I did have documentation from the relevant office listing a a lot of accomodations.  As to the idea that the proper approach for an instructor is to immediately contact the relevant office, if one didn't have docs already, then actively contacting them is often frowned upon. If one does have docs already (as I did), the fact is that not all disabilities services respond positively to contact. We don't live in an ideal word.

@TRG The OP's opening statement says "WE assume ..." That assumption cannot stand as such for the instructor. Certainly the students are not privy to anything with regard to whether the student is or is not acting with a disability. There, we agree.

@JeffreyJWeimer re: "until the student registers an official disability waiver" in the US, the ADA applies, whether or not a person has registered with disability services. The only requirement is that a person has a qualifying impairment, a record of an impairment, or is regarded as having such an impairment. The bureaucracy around how to register as disabled is not part of the law.

@JeffreyJWeimer" I know of no office that has a mission to "frown upon" being contacted. If that happens, the office should be reported all the way up the Provost for being irresponsible. We live in a non-ideal world, and we have either to step up when demanded or cower in our own misery. I recommend the former."
We do live in a non-ideal world, and we also have a limited amount of time and resources. Not every battle can be fought, and so one must pick and choose what one will or will not fight about. Any other response is quick way to exhaust all resources.

@JoshuaZ Not every battle can be fought ... The battle is at least to report the case. The absence of documentation is often grounds for administration to believe that we do live in an ideal world.

I am going to amend my comments (remove some of them). For some extremely odd reason, I was focused on the question as though an instructor was asking. It is another student who is asking. The recommendation to talk with the instructor is the best.

As a classmate and a student I would strongly suggest you try connect and talk to your colleague. I am often amazed by the amount of issues people have which were completely left untreated with the directly concerned person. How would you feel if all of a sudden you are getting called out by some high authority because of something you did over and over again, but never though to be a problem? It may sound harsh at first, but people with a minimal level of maturity know that is better to respond well to a peer criticism than to an authority's warning.
That being said, such conversation should be conducted with care, patience and an open mind. You may find out he has reasons to behave as he does, and you may choose yourself to tolerate it. Truth be told, you'll likely just conclude that you fulfilled my "professional courtesy" recommendation.
Then you should talk to some authority, in a regular school this could be the Principal or vice-Principal, your university could have some teaching supervisor. Ideally this should be some one with authority over the teachers and with some responsibility level over the quality of the course you are taking.
I'll suggest you rehearse that conversation in front of a mirror. It will help scrapping argument parts which would sound like whining, and also avoids sounding emotional during the explanation. You should make it clear that some measures have already been taken, that the problems are recurring, and even if up to some point his situation may be understandable, it is poor practice to allow one student's behavior to severely penalize other students quality of learning. Be open-minded again, since in this case the authority may have better information on why the student behaves as described, and may not be ethically allowed to share it with you. You do not need the authority to commit to solve the issue, you need to make sure that a person with the proper tools to address the issue has knowledge of it. Try as well to give hint and suggestions on how this person could look into the issue and observe it first-hand.
That being said, and depending on the tools available, actions might only be taken by the authority if the complaint comes from some independent source. So try to influence other people into complaining to said authority as well. The point is, if any kind of measure that may be understood as a punishment would need to be taken, no authority figure should do it over a single person's word alone. You would be lucky enough if this authority conducted any investigation to sanity-check your complaint, hence why I suggested giving hint on how to do so.
Then wait, and try to be satisfied with any sign of improvement, these things may improve gradually rather than abruptly.

I totally understand where you are coming from how it would be nice to go to the student and have a small chat with them. However, this is very sensitive especially if they are disabled. It could be seen as students ganging up / targeting them and you may end up front page news after this person goes home and tells their parents that a student told them to stop asking so many questions. A teacher is trained to handle this situation, the liability falls on the school to mediate these things and they have the training to do so.

I would advise not going over your lecturer straight to a higher authority as suggested here, the first port of call for a issue with a lecture should be the lecturer handling the lecture. Only if they ignore the issue without explanation do you then go to higher  authorities. Another note is I am not sure that punishment is needed for anyone involved here or should be suggested or expected.

@J.Doe raises valid points. I should clarify that going to a higher authority might still be preferable if you have several different  lecturers, and many shared classes with the said student. Someone who oversees it all is best suited to deal with issues whose actors change often. Also, I never suggested that any punishment should be applied, but rather that some actions that may be taken, might be understood as punishment, and if that were the case, they should not be justified by a single person's word.

I'm usually in favor of dealing with problems directly, but in this case I don't see it. If the student has a learning disability, going to the instructor will allow them to loop in the appropriate offices -- indeed, they may have info that OP doesn't. If the student does not have a learning disability, then they are (most likely) just a jerk, and engaging directly is likely to be stressful and unproductive.

I've Been in a similar situation when I was in college. We had a student that clearly had autistic traits and blurted out just as you describe and often interrupting as you described. Every answer he provided or shouted out in class referred to a Star Trek episode (which he would even quote the episode title and number) or he would talk about BBQ food. It was fairly hard to concentrate and it was clearly annoying most of the students.
Myself and a few others approached the teacher about this but he said there was not much he could do since the student was not technically under learning disabilities. The teacher then went on to inform us that he was the son of a local politician who did not want to officially list his son as handicap out of fear of his political career. So there was little the teacher could do to find accommodations without it being made official.
I would definitely recommend talking to the teacher though. That is absolutely the right path. Talking to the student in this situation will likely get no where as they probably don't understand how their actions are distracting. If the teacher is unable to help, I would then go talk to the dean's office about any accommodations that could be made. It's possible, though unlikely that you may be able to get a transfer to a different class/time slot or the Dean may be capable of working a solution with the student that the teacher may not have the ability to do.
Either way, definitely talk to the teacher!

We have a saying here: Don't throw out the baby with the bath water. I don't want to minimize the problem here and do accept that the student is, perhaps unknowingly, going beyond acceptable bounds, but students in general, who ask a lot of questions can be an asset to a course.
I was one of those students, in fact, but didn't just blurt out questions or behave in a disruptive manner. But I did have my hand up quite a lot of the time. When I was a kid, my mother though I was a pain in the butt because I asked so many questions: Why ... Why ...
But when I was a graduate student, my fellow students thought I was a lot smarter than I really am because I asked so many questions in graduate level math classes (Measure Theory, Topology, ...). In fact, those other students were often too reticent to actually ask the questions that they, like myself, needed answering. I found later, when teaching, that very few students are willing to interrupt you when you make a mistake, or ask a question when you have made an unwarranted assumption. The students that are willing can actually be an asset, provided that the flow isn't unnecessarily interrupted - unlike the description given by the OP.
But occasionally the flow needs to be interrupted because the instructor has taken a wrong turn or made an invalid leap - or just one that the students don't have the level of knowledge to follow.
The required balance here is normally manageable if class sizes are reasonable. But when they reach a hundred it is pretty disruptive to ask questions or do much of anything at the moment. Hopefully in those cases students can learn to record and save their questions and issues for a smaller "recitation" section. I strongly disfavor such large classes because in these sorts of situations it is all too possible for a student with a serious question to not have it answered at all. Maybe worse is when that individual student gets and answer and other students don't, when all needed the extra information. That can be managed, I've found, but it takes attention to process to assure that bringing everyone up to speed actually happens.

Related (to your third paragraph):  https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/83628/asking-questions-in-class-how-can-i-exit-a-qa-when-i-havent-really-understo/83636#83636

I don't understand what you're trying to address here. That OP should move to a smaller class? Apparently this is a situation that more than OP finds annoying so it doesn't seem to fit with your experience about someone helping other students by asking, either.

@pipe, no, I'm only warning against "solutions" that forbid all interruptions. As I said a couple of places, the situation described is abnormal, but not all solutions are appropriate. Read it for what it is, not for a specific solution to the question asked.

This is more of a personal opinion on a tangetial subject, rather than an answer to OP's question. OP did not hint that the distruptive person asks questions that others might have as well. It seems that he mostly asks things that others are not interested (anymore).

@Buffy Who suggested any kind of "'solution' that forbids all interruptions"? That seems like a straw man, to me.

I feel that this answer is useful as an anecdote and adds an extra aspect; students who are unafraid to participate verbally should not be discouraged but it offers no practical solution to the OP's problem.

If the person posting an answer says it's not intended to be an answer and instructs commenters to not read it as an answer, maybe it shouldn't be an answer?

@Meelah, a fair opinion, of course. However, I have known people who would propose "just everyone shut up" as a solution to the problem. I wrote this only for perspective. I recognize it as an outlier,  certainly.


text:
Are there lists of academics fired for controversial personal lives?
This previous post explores possibilities of academics not getting hired or getting fired because of their personal lives. Answers and comments there focus on the US legal concept of Protected Classes. Bill Barth's comment mentions the legality of firing academics for having blue hair or loving basketball, but I would imagine such cases are extremely rare, if extant at all.
I believe that terminations of academics due to their personal lives are of some concern to (say) unions of academics, and I wonder if they compiled lists of such terminations. Obviously, widely publicized dismissal cases often involve political or religious affiliations, but they are not what I am interested in (they are probably illegal dismissals, anyway). I would also like to exclude cases where the academics engage in illegal activities as well.  (What does count, then? I cannot think of good examples, but running a legal but arguably exploitative real estate business comes to mind.)
Do such lists exist? (I could not find such a list on the Web site of AAUP.)

What kind of examples are you looking for? You're eliminating illegal acts by the fired person and religion - I would assume by extension this eliminates any other illegal firings as well i.e., firing someone for some protect reason. What's left? In at will states, without some other contract or explicit protection from the law, anyone can be fired for anything - or nothing at all. It doesn't matter if someone was fired because they slept with the dean's wife or because they exclusively wear cargo shorts outside of work. It's not like this info is made public.

@sErISaNo: Tenured faculty usually do have such a contract, so some sort of good cause is required, usually with the possibility of an internal appeal.

Yes that's exactly my point. Those who are protected in some way can't be fired for an arbitrary reason. I imagine that the threat of lawsuits does actually prevent this from happening all too frequently (or at least openly). So who does that leave for the OP to be interested in and under what circumstances?

@NateEldredge, about tenure faculty having a contract... I do not think I've ever had one, myself. Dunno... Yes, I've pushed for unionization now and then, yes, to have a (binding!?!) contract, but those drives did not succeed...

I don't think such lists exist, and even if they did - I don't think they'd be very useful/informative. If my college wanted to fire me for having blue hair, they may know that it looks bad to officially say that, and would just state some other vanilla reason like "no longer fits the needs of the college" or some other meaningless language. To my knowledge, employers aren't obligated to tell you why you were fired, and would certainly not risk telling you that in writing so as not to expose themselves to lawsuits.

Is being an unpaid spy for a foreign government a controversial personal life?

I am not sure this question should be open; seems a bit like "shopping" for examples or lists. But it's an interesting question, so I personally will leave it alone.

An adjunct professor of statistics at Purdue was fired for being a slumlord.
Or at least, "is no longer working" at Purdue.

it seems to me a gigantic cover-up for something related to this: https://www.thecipherbrief.com/column_article/china-focuses-espionage-on-u-s-colleges-and-universities
Sure, the professor may have been a slumlord giving a wonderful opportunity for a sting operation: I am not 100% sure that the tenants were actually real student ...

This is not a list, but a single instance, so I don't think it answers the question.


text:
Discrimination against theists by atheists in academia
Several times I read or heard about the claim that there is a discrimination against theists in academia by atheists. For example the german newspaper ZEIT Campus ONLINE cites an anthropologist Robert J. Priest:

Für Akademiker ist es ganz einfach, sich zu diskreditieren. Sie müssen nur sagen, dass sie religiös sind
For academics it's easy to discredit oneself. You just have to say you are religious.

(Source; translation by myself, I could not find the original citation)
I searched for surveys about that claim but could not find much, except creationists arguing against evolution theory.
So my question:
Are there surveys about discrimination of theist people by atheists in academia?

EDIT
I deletet the follow-up question "Is there discrimination against theists by atheists in academia?" because it is too opinion based and is probably answered within the survey(s) I am searching for.

Please at least specify a country/region

Certainly there is discrimination by some (x) against some (y). But I don't think it is widespread, nor is it determinative. But some would interpret complaints about misrepresentations of scientific knowledge as discrimination. Climate-change denial comes to mind.

Discrimination is one thing (very hard to prove); I think your quote raises a separate issue entirely - a stereotype that religious people aren't as smart as atheists. That is, there might not be overt discrimination, but religious academics might have to work harder to gain credibility. I think a lot of theists (particularly in STEM) are "closeted" a bit due to this. But not sure how we would measure either of these phenomena, so not sure your question is answerable (and this site doesn't really do open-ended discussions).

Country/region does seem like a good qualifier for this, as @AzorAhai suggested.  The issue's that this is likely very different for parts of academia in highly religious areas, e.g. Iran, vs. highly secular areas, e.g. China.

@Brasol I think if you were to ask whether there is scientific evidence for discrimination (or systemic discrimination) against theists, you might have something that can be answered without taking recourse to opinions.

This question specifies the whole world, but that would also make the answer pretty trivially "no", since there's bound to be universities (say in/from the Vatican) where being Theist would be considered the norm.

Question (a) is certainly on-topic and not opinion-based, and I believe (b) could be addressed in an objective fashion as well.  I have voted to reopen.

I do think a lot of this is anecdotal, but that doesn't mean it isn't "a thing".  Certainly I know of many religious folk who would downplay this vital aspect of their lives in interviews/conversation with colleagues more than should strictly be necessary for a given job title in academia - especially until they have tenure. Whether one could come up with data is another thing.

Probably related: https://heterodoxacademy.org

Edited it so that only the questions for surveys about possible discrimination is asked, as the deleted follow-up question "Is there discirmination against theists by atheists in academia?" was rightfully claimed as too opinion based.

Basically this is just a reference request.

I wouldn't trust such a survey. It's too popular nowadays to victimise oneself and to accuse others of doing the same.

It might make a difference if you talk about King Saud University Riyadh, Catholic University Louvain, Trinity College Dublin, Hebrew University Jerusalem, or the MIT.

Addressing the question in the context of the Unites States, it appears that it's questionable that any discrimination, and that if there is any such discrimination, it is a) not particularly strong, and b) highly entangled with other factors, such as conservative religious social and cultural activism.
It is an undisputed fact that in the United States there is a higher percentage of non-believers in academia than in society at large.  The key and unresolved question is whether this is a result of self-selection (e.g., non-belief being correlated with interest in scholarly investigation as a career and belief being correlated with disinterest) or whether there is also some component of discrimination.  One can find serious and respectable scholarly work both arguing that there is significant bias and that there is no significant bias.
Even articles strongly advocating that bias exists, however, find that if any such exists it is not particularly strong (else it would not be so equivocal to study) and that it appears to be measurable only with respect to religious people who are a) strongly culturally conservative, and b) activists with respect to politically polarizing positions (e.g., opposition abortion, gay marriage), and also c) at very particular stages of career (entry to graduate school, possibly at tenure promotion).
In short: even amongst those studying and debating the question, it appears that even if any systematic bias exists in US academia, the vast majority of theists are not significantly affected.

Religion is a deeply personal topic that should be left out of scientific debate. If religion were to come up as a citation or reference in a scientific paper I doubt that it would be published. However I have never heard of someone being discriminated against academically solely due to their personal beliefs provided it doesn't taint the objectivity of their work. It would be unethical to discriminate against someone due to their theistic beliefs alone.
I have witnessed light hearted chiding directed at people who are open about their religious affiliations but their work and research were still highly respected in their fields.

Sorry, but the question is specifically about surveys.