text:
Location, life and applying for faculty positions
I am 5 years into my postdoc, which has been up and down but I now have a decent publication record. I like what I am doing, am ready to manage people and can't wait to get out of the lab and no longer be a postdoc. I have many ideas and not enough hands. But, it is becoming clear that to be "successful" one has to be willing to look absolutely everywhere for a faculty position. I am in New York City, I moved here for my postdoc from London, UK, and love it here. I have friends and a support system, a husband, a great apartment. Aside from that it is relatively convenient for flying to the UK to see my family - who have a lot of problems, which I am struggling to deal with. Although I think I might want to have a faculty position, I want to be here more - and I think I need this to feel happy. My family problems has taught me that life is too short to be miserable and do things that will make you unhappy.
My boss is going all out promoting me to her PI friends and telling them how great I am, asking around for positions and introducing me to people - which is incredibly supportive. But she keeps suggesting places I just can't see myself living in, and says I need to be open minded. The fact is that I simply do not want to.  What would you do? If I tell my boss this, I feel like I'll lose her support and need her on my side for the next step (which also I wouldn't mind being in industry). I am really confused and don't know how to have this conversation with my boss or if I should at all. Any ideas?

Superstars can pick where they are going to live. If you're really good or really lucky you might get a choice between a few positions. If you're less good or less lucky you may have an option: take it or leave it. And, of course, some folks are left out in the cold for a hiring season. Even if they could do the work.

This is a hard one. I actually ruled out academia early in my PhD because of this very reason. You are more invested in it with five years of postdoc under your belt... There are a lot of universities in the northeast though if you are willing to move just a little bit. i.e. it's probably just as easy to get to London from Boston as well.

Two questions for you: (1) would you rather your supervisor discovered how you feel directly, or indirectly (i.e. by analyzing your lukewarm follow-up of the leads she provides)?  (2) do you enjoy teaching (and do you have the potential to be good at it)?

For what it's worth, I did the opposite. I quit academics to move back to my family and live in a great city. Never been happier.

But, it is becoming clear that to be "successful" one has to be willing to look absolutely everywhere for a faculty position.

That's not true.  You can (or rather, some can) be successful on the academic job market even by being quite geographically restricted, and conversely just because you look absolutely everywhere for a faculty position does not guarantee you'll get one.  What is true, of course, is that, the broader your search, the higher your chances of getting a position somewhere.
You're right of course that if your constraint is "in New York City" then there are lotteries you can play with better chances of winning than that.  So I think the first thing to decide is how much you want to stay exactly where you are now.  If that is important to you, then I think you should search primarily for non-academic jobs, while still making sure to apply for every reasonable job in NYC (or in whatever radius of NYC works for you).
Also:

I like what I am doing, am ready to manage people and can't wait to get out of the lab and no longer be a postdoc.

Do I understand correctly that you are a postdoc in the laboratory sciences and as such have rarely set foot in a classroom in the last five years?  If so, that's a long time away from the teaching aspects of academia.  You didn't say that you couldn't wait to get back in the classroom; you said you can't wait to manage people.  This makes me think that the type of industry position in which you are managing a lab may actually be more suitable for you than academia.
While it is very valuable to be thinking about how you value various careers and locations, you should also realize that you don't really know what your choices will be until a very late stage.  So my basic advice to you is: keep all your options open.  Sure, you'd prefer to have an academic job in NYC, but as I said the chances of that are rather small.  Would you rather have an academic job in Boston or Philadelphia doing exactly the research you want or would you rather work in NYC doing roughly what the higher management tells you to?  In many cases, I think you can't know the answers to all these questions in advance.

My boss is going all out promoting me to her PI friends and telling them how great I am, asking around for positions and introducing me to people - which is incredibly supportive. But she keeps suggesting places I just can't see myself living in, and says I need to be open minded.

You have a great supervisor.  She's right in general terms: you probably do need to be open-minded, since you probably won't get exactly what you want.  She may not be right that you are willing to live in location X.  What I would suggest is that you, first, be sure to be gracious about all this help.  Second, you should be honest about the general situation: you have some constraints, and in particular you may or may not stay in academia at all.   However you can decide how specific you want to be about your constraints.  If your advisor likes the idea of placing you at University X and you have a good relationship with your advisor, in my opinion it's easy enough to apply for University X and sort it out later, unless you know in absolute terms that you would never take a job at University X.
Let me say finally that I have had experience trying to place geographically constrained postdocs on the tenure track job market.  When someone seems to truly want an academic job and makes too constrained a search, it makes me nervous.  So I have definitely been in a similar position to your advisor, urging people to apply to places that are not the best fit or their top choice.  I do think, that as someone who's watched the tenure track job market closely for over a decade, my instincts are more solid than someone who is going through the process for the first or second time.  And I would rather my postdoc have too many options than too few.  Much rather.  There is certainly no doubt that in the end the choice is being made by the postdoc and not by me.
Good luck!

Please don't take this the wrong way, Pete, but is there any chance the answer could be edited a little for length and focus?

@Yemon: Yes, I pared it down a bit.

Thank you all very much for your comments - certainly a lot of food for thought! I know no one can make this decision for me, but I'm grateful for all of the different opinions. After quite some time in academia, it is time to make that decision and it's a tough one! Appreciate the help!

Best wishes to you. This is definitely a hard decision. I chose career over my personal life and I've spent the last five years in a small city which, to be honest, I don't find all that appealing. I believe it was the right decision (I love my work), but I'd be lying if I said I was completely sure.
I certainly know of academics who made the opposite decision, and I think they feel analogously: they may have some regrets, but suspect that they made the right call.
Ultimately, no one can make this decision for you. You might also keep in mind that there is middle ground between only New York and "absolutely everywhere". There are at least a dozen American cities with direct flights to London, most of which are quite big and cosmopolitan, all of which have research universities, and several of which are not far from New York. So you might consider compromising somewhat while still ruling out places where you definitely don't want to live.
Then again, you might not. Good luck to you in any case.


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Expected value in probability
Independent trials, each of which is a success with probability P are performed until there are k consecutive successes. What is the mean number of necessary trials?

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Can someone be awarded the title of doctor without having been a doctoral student?
I'm just still a student, and the question doesn't concern me, but I'm really curious about the answer.
In class, during a break, our assistant was discussing with us (the students) the research that was being carried out in his department, his own research, the areas of study of him and his colleagues, ... and so on. At one point in the discussion, he mentioned a rather "large research project" (I don't know what that is) that a former student, let's call him John (being a Masters graduate), who was in the same class as our assistant, had been doing for several years as a personal project during his free time, in computer science. If I've understood correctly, he's still working on it. Our assistant then told us that "his project is worthy of a doctoral thesis". The class resumed after that.
I'm curious to know whether our assistant said this last sentence simply to underline a certain admiration or whether it is really possible for John (or anyone in a similar situation) to promote his personal work to obtain the title of doctorate or at least to pursue his personal project as a doctoral research project with an approved organisation. That is my question.
PS: I'm European, and so is John. I don't know if that makes any difference in different countries.

Related: Can you get a PhD based on work or life experience?

See Has anyone, based on great performance, ever been awarded a higher degree than the one they enrolled for?

Fun fact: in Italy people call themselves doctors as soon as they have a bachelor degree

@Pronte I will never forget what my Master's degree thesis advisor told me when I graduated: "Congratulation, if we were in Italy I would call you Doctor right now"

Prime example: Albert Einstein who submitted his thesis to the University of Zurich in 1905 without being a doctoral student there (he was working as a technical expert at the patent office at the time).

@Pronte, John Doe, is this true or is it a joke about universities and studies in Italy? If it's true, then why?

@Foxy it's true, it's just what you call someone who has a degree, they are "doctor in XXX". The reason probably being "doctor" comes from latin meaning "someone who can teach", i.e., an expert.   "Doctor" referring to someone with a PhD I'm guessing is a shortening of the PhD title itself (Doctor of Philosophy) so if you think about it the italian way makes somewhat more sense

@Pronte Ah, I understand better now, thank you!

I'm curious to know whether our assistant said this last sentence
simply to underline a certain admiration or whether it is really
possible for John (or anyone in a similar situation) to promote his
personal work to obtain the title of doctorate...

Others have noted that the answer to the question in the title is technically "yes".
However, in your specific case, the TA's statement is almost surely just an expression of admiration. I've heard that kind of statement before, and it's always been in a context where no prospect for a doctorate actually existed. Unless the TA said explicitly "he plans to submit it as a stapler thesis" or the like, assume the opposite.
Of course, feel free to ask the TA for clarification in this specific case.

That a "project is worthy of a doctoral thesis" does not mean it is equivalent of a thesis, let alone the entire process including things such as a doctoral defense.
Rather, it means the project would be suitable to write a thesis about it. Notably, this may still involve deeper research as the project currently entails - writing a doctoral thesis implies that questions and issues that come up are investigated.

The answer is "yes", see Wikipedia on honorary doctorate.

When I started at university many years ago, our very reputable maths professor told us someone had received an honorary maths degree for writing a maths book for children. Obviously no hard maths at all, but an excellent book that would get many kids into maths.

@gnasher729 If possible, could you please provide some details about this kids Math book like title, author, …

In the Netherlands it is yes too. The dissertation is judged by an expert committee and if judged sufficient leads to a PhD. I would not recommend it if you want to pursue an academic career as you get much less support and less networking opportunities. The approach is most common for junior researchers in an institute who are working in research already for whom it can open up a next career stage, or very senior experts who want to consolidate their learning such as my great uncle who started and finished his PhD after retiring

Indeed. The formal requirement for a PhD in the Netherlands is writing a thesis, a professor ("promotor") willing to host the defence, and a committee approving the thesis and defence. There is no course work requirements, and so it is not necessary to have ever enrolled at a university.

The legal requirement for obtaining a PhD is a completed Mac or special dispensation (based on lifetime experience, not given lightly) and the professor needs the right to host a defence ( is promovendi granted to full professor of research university automatically but can also be given to senior staff by the university board for individual experience). Some details to specify the comment by Chris

In Germany, typically no, but exceptionally typically yes ;-).
The reason is that universities want to keep loopholes open for exceptional people and situations. For example, in the regulations of the faculty for math and science of the Humboldt-Universität Berlin, the "normal rule" laid out in §3(1) is, as expected, that you need a masters degree. Or an equivalent degree from a foreign institution ($3(2)). But this requirement can be waived by the doctoral committee "if the candidate's qualification is ensured". The committee can require the candidate to take additional courses, but that is not mandatory. The next 14 year old math prodigy who never had a formal education is welcome to revolutionize the field while pursuing their PhD at the HU. The faculty will probably habilitate them shortly thereafter for the contents of their paper basket lest they continue their revolution elsewhere. It would be silly to make this impossible by regulations without loopholes.
For the rest of us, there is perfect deniability through §3(1) ;-).

In Norway such person could go for a "dr. philos" degree,
https://lovdata.no/dokument/SF/forskrift/2011-01-05-841 + Google translate:

The degree doctor philosophiae (dr.philos.) is an unsupervised
doctoral degree that can be awarded to people who have completed a
higher degree exam, i.e. a master's degree or equivalent. The research
work and doctoral dissertation have been carried out independently
without formal connection to the university.
A Dr. Philos. degree qualifies for research activities and other work
in society where great demands are placed on scientific insight,
working methods and analytical thinking in accordance with good
scientific practice and research ethical standards.
The Dr.philos. degree is awarded on the basis of:

scientific thesis
doctoral exam.

The doctoral examination consists of two trial lectures and a public
defense of the thesis, also called a defense. One trial lecture is on
a specified topic, while the other trial lecture is on a self-selected
topic.

Based on Wikipedia it may exist in Denmark too.

Some universities have a degree called "Doctor of Science", which is based on published papers, rather than a thesis. When I did my Masters, one of my supervisors, who did not have a PhD, was awarded a D.Sc., based on mathematical research (partial differential equations) that he had carried out while employed the government. The requirements for the D.Sc. specified that there had to be a substantial body of work built up over ten years.

I am going to provide a spectrum of answers, as parts of your question can be interpreted in very different ways.
First, in the title, you ask about getting a degree "without having been a doctoral student". But what exactly constitutes "being a doctoral student" here?

Is it about being enrolled as a doctoral student? In that case, the answer is very much yes, as some universities have no formal requirement to enrol at all while you work toward your doctoral degree. You may well be employed there as a research assistant by the department where you work on your doctoral research, but whether you also enrol as a student during that time may be unrelated, irrelevant to your department, and based on totally tangential criteria (e.g. whether you need the public transportation ticket that comes with enrolment).

Or does it mean having an (at least informal) agreement with a possible supervisor that you are working on research that is supposed to bring you a doctoral degree? That is indeed adviseable, though it is not totally inconceivable that you may be working on some research questions without any such clear goal, and only later on manage to assemble all of them under a common topic that happens to be of sufficient interest to a professor so they agree to supervise you on the "last few meters" until your defense.
This means, however, that you need to get much of the input on procedures and customs in research from elsewhere, preferrably by already being embedded in a group of researchers beforehand. For, even though you may already have the right ideas on what to investigate, it is this operational knowledge - what is a paper and how do you write one, how and where do you publish it, what should be included, etc. - that you (have to) pick up while working toward the doctoral degree. And this does not even touch upon having non-paywalled access to the relevant literature.
Thus, without being embedded in a research environment at all, the answer is rather no.

In the question body, you then ask "whether it is really possible for John (...) to promote his personal work to obtain the title of doctorate or at least to pursue his personal project as a doctoral research project with an approved organisation".
Here again, I'd say the answers is generally yes - ideally, your research project for the doctoral thesis (or projects, as there is often not just one singular "thing" to look at) should kind of be your personal project, in the sense that it is something you came up with and defined, possibly built yourself in part or in full. Again, you need to know what you are doing research-wise, so creating a project (and using it in a way that produces results relevant for research1) before having any exposure to a research environment and its conventions is not impossible, but very unlikely.

1: i.e. running user studies, doing software benchmarks, analyzing data sets, depending on whether the project is the research topic, or is a tool that allows you to gain new insights on the research topic.

I think the assistant was being supportive as I have received similar comments about my assessments from my supervisor(s) during my postgraduate studies. However, I think it is possible to be awarded a PhD without being a traditional student. Some universities allow potential applications to apply for a PHD by publication in which you need to demonstrate significant contribution to the field in the form of already published papers. Alternatively, you can apply to a pre-approved projects and be invited to interviews to work with the researchers. For example, one of my current potential supervisors told me about their upcoming project which has received funding from the British Council. Therefore, you could apply to work on their project and receive an annual stipend, and you would ultimately complete a doctorate at the end of the project. These types of PhDs are generally advertised on the website of funding providers and the associated university.

I would think your assistant was impressed by the quality/standard of the work - which could form a chapter of a PhD Thesis.
To convert a personal project into a full blown doctoral thesis might involve rigorous processes, involving substantial interest from a doctoral advisor. It's rarely the case. He could, however, publish his work and earn an honorary doctoral degree if the piece of work benefits society.

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How to write a review for an obviously bad article?
I have almost no expierence writing reviews and was recently asked (by an established publisher) to review. The review is completely free-form.
The article is just gibberish. I cant even understand a lot of the baldy machine-translated sentences and it is not even clear what the authors were researching. Is it a systematic review? Did they do some new research? I dont know.
Am i expected to provide feedback for all errors and suggestions on how to make this publishable, or can I just write a few sentences on the general state of the article?

Possible duplicate: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/195354/63475 Top scoring answer has suggestions for how to review a very bad paper; actually it looks like most of them do.

Thanks, somehow I missed that question.

No worries, I'll mark as duplicate so people searching that find yours first will have a link to follow.


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What's the difference of personal statement for funding and for admission?
I am applying for a Ph.D. position in the UK. However,after I submitted my admission application, I found that the funding application requires another personal statement. What's the difference? Could I just submit the same one? Or I could write one based on my admission personal statement?

What do the instructions say for each statement?

The admission one said a lot. Like you should write your motivation, your experience, your research plan, why this university. But requirements for the funding one is just 500 words.

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If you really don't have much project experience, how to list your project descriptions when applying for a Ph.D. position?
I am applying for one Ph.D. program of computer science(CS). I was required to handle the list of my project description which is up to three pages. However, I am only a fresh graduate student who has moved to the field for only less than two years. I was in the field of electronic engineering(EE). I can only recall three relatively large projects and several small course projects relevant to CS.
Should list those course projects? I just made some toy examples in those projects.
Should I explain my large projects as detailed as possible so I can stretch out my description to three pages? I saw, on the resume, people usually only use one or two sentences to describe what they did in a project.
Should I list my projects of EE? They are basically non-relevant to my current field but can prove my coding ability.

Have you contacted the department to ask for clarification of what kinds of "projects" they have in mind?

Good point !!! You reminded me. I should have asked them first and decide which projects I should list on my proposal.

I am in STEM but not CS, so this is general advice from my experience with graduate admissions in physics + chemistry. Disclaimer that this can vary for different institutions and different application reviews. An application review committee will often want to see:

Have you demonstrated success at the skills required for successful conduct of research in the graduate program?
Have you demonstrated mastery of the necessary undergraduate content?

Based on my STEM background, I would offer the following advice:
Thoroughly explain your background, but don't make it longer than necessary. They read many applications, don't make it longer just for the sake of being longer. It's obvious when this happens, and it reflects poorly on the application.
Emphasize the skills you've acquired and applied. You might consider briefly explaining the purpose/goals of the project, and then even have a separate section about the skills acquired/implemented in the project that would be most transferrable to your graduate student career.
List everything you've done. I shot myself in the foot assuming that every undergrad did the things I did, and not stating them explicitly. Perhaps your course project descriptions will be briefer, and perhaps the committee won't care, but it's unlikely it would negatively affect your application in comparison to not including them at all. Think of how you frame them: were there unique skills gained in those projects? Do they lend themselves to showing your capacity for growth, throughout your projects?
--
That all said, if you know and can get advice from someone in the specific department you're applying to, they will be able to give you advice tailored specifically for that program.

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Is it unethical to change the affiliation of a published chapter from my PhD thesis after candidature?
I completed my PhD research at the University, submitted my thesis draft for examination, and began working at a company co-founded by my PhD supervisor. Before completing my thesis examination, I submitted a portion of my thesis to a conference. Upon its acceptance, my supervisor, now my boss, advised me to list the company as the paper's affiliation, which I did. For more context, please refer to this previous question I posted several months ago:
Can I publish my thesis content with a new affiliation although the work was mostly done in the previous institution?
To provide an update: When discussing the final approval of my thesis with the dean of the university after getting my examination results, he noticed the changed affiliation in the published conference paper. He voiced his displeasure, stating that it was unethical, particularly since most of the research was conducted at the university. He even hinted that he could withhold my degree because of this change in affiliation. However, he mentioned that if I refrained from acknowledging the company in the thesis, he would grant approval. To avoid jeopardizing my degree, I complied with his request and received my degree. But this situation made me anxious about the possibility of not earning my degree.
This experience has prompted several questions. Upon reviewing the university's regulations, I discovered I possess full intellectual property rights to my thesis. Does this suggest that I can choose any affiliation I want for its chapters when publishing them?

Was it genuinely unethical to change the affiliation as my
supervisor suggested, considering that the majority of the research
happened at the university?

Does the dean possess the authority to withhold my degree based on
the changed affiliation, especially when the university's
regulations indicate that I have full intellectual property rights
over my thesis? I was not sure whether he was just angry and bluffing or if he was serious.

In the future, if I encounter a similar situation, should I follow the directives of my boss or supervisor? I followed his instructions because I didn't think it was a big deal. Had I known the dean would react this way, I might not have complied. But what's done is done.

I think the fact that legally you own your thesis work is irrelevant. Regardless of whether or not you broke a rule, you pissed off the dean.

I'm not sure I'd call it unethical exactly, but it is incorrect and misleading. You completed the work during your time at the university. It is not really appropriate to list only your affiliation with this new company. In most fields, listing multiple affiliations is totally normal - this is probably what you should have done in the first place (correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm reading the situation as you removed your university affiliation and replaced it with the company). The dean feels what you did was wrong. I don't disagree - the university has invested time and resources into the project (directly and indirectly) and wants credit.
My gut says that yes, an upper level administrator would be able to cause you problems.  I doubt even the dean of the university could unilaterally decide to not award a degree though (assuming you satisfied all requirements and haven't run afoul of some official rule). Obviously this would be dependant on many factors, including you universities specific policies. In any case, I don't think you were wrong to do as he instructed.
In the future, you should list your affiliations normally. If you are in situation where you have multiple affiliations, just list them all.

I don't think you handled the situation perfectly, but your dean's actions where not right either. Obviously as a student you are in a vulnerable position. He clearly leveraged that power differential to force you do what he wanted. It makes me wonder if he has some feud with your advisor and saw you as an easy target.

Thanks. I removed the university affiliation as the supervisor told me so. I consulted with him multiple times and got the same answer. I was indeed scared. But in the end, he let me get my degree. I guess the dean was just a little bit angry. But I truly didn't realize a new affiliation was a serious problem until the dean told me this was a big issue. At that time, it was too late for me to update the paper. This was a lesson, and I think I will remember it forever.


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Choosing Between Postdoc Offers: Prestigious Institution vs. Favorable Conditions?
I'm faced with a choice between two postdoc positions and would appreciate some advice:
Option A: Top 5 World University

Project: Aligned with my expertise and research interests.
Additional Opportunities: Involvement in teaching, which is vital for me.
Concerns: Limited knowledge about certain conditions and the institutional environment.

Option B: Current Institution (Top 50 World University)

Project: Complete freedom in research directions.
Additional Opportunities:

Special budget for data collection.
Assistance with grant writing and course teaching.
Leading a small team.
Visiting other institutions.

Concerns:

Potential future perceptions regarding my independence as a researcher.
Questions about the motivation behind this unexpectedly generous offer.

Additional Background

The academic stature seems equivalent between the professors from the two options although the university rankings are quite different.
Ultimate Career Goal: Acquiring a faculty position in my home country.
A junior advisor advocates for staying due to potential strategic connections from my current advisor in my home country.

Key Concerns and Questions

Could staying at my current institution taint future perceptions of my independence as a researcher?
Why might my current advisor be offering such a favorable deal unexpectedly? It seems he has not made any offers alike before. I asked the junior advisor, he told me because they think I am one of their best students. But still, it is kind of unexpected and could be just an oral deal.

I appreciate any advice or insights into making this decision. Thank you!

A: "Limited knowledge" - I think you should be able to find out about these things somehow. 1: Maybe, maybe not, but "leading a small team" at B might outweigh any tainted perceptions. Also relevant to 1 is your "Ultimate Career Goal" - if people in your country don't mind someone staying at the same institution for a long time, perhaps it is not an issue. 2: Why don't you ask the current advisor?

@toby544 thanks for the advice. For the Q1, I asked my advisor. He said he doesn't see it as a problem. But the issue is that when I asked another senior researcher at the same institution, she told me it is a rule of thumb to work at different institutions because you can have more connections. Then it is confusing for me... For Q2, you are right. I think I have to ask him directly next week. It is just I am a shy person. Striking deals is an area I'm still becoming accustomed to.

Q1. Yes. It is not a black and white issue. The thing that the other senior researcher told you is actually different from the point you put in Q1 (actual connections vs perceptions). There are other questions on this site about this - maybe even questions that are almost identical - so I recommend reading the answers to some of those.

Q2. I think you will be fine. This is not a hard negotiation, like "I want more money!" You are just wondering why he seems so generous towards you. At the same time, to make it easier, you could ask whether this is a certain and definite offer. But I recommend waiting as others on this site might have other suggestions.

I would never recommend taking a job for "strategic connections."  It is impossible to tell if they are worth anything.

Could staying at my current institution taint future perceptions of my independence as a researcher?

It will taint perceptions of your ability to find a job outside your current university.  It will taint perceptions of the breadth of your experience.  See https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/143759/13240 https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/154631/13240

Why might my current advisor be offering such a favorable deal unexpectedly? ... he told me because they think I am one of their best students.

In most cases, professors have little discretion in the job offers they can make to postdocs.  The offer must be approved by administrators and/or funding agencies.  Usually the job is offered to the best applicant and the offer contains whatever resources were previously approved.
Based solely on the information you provided and not the stuff you left out, I would recommend picking A.  You will probably learn more from relocating and it never hurts to take advantage of an elitist reputation.

I moved from tier 1 to tier 2 (regenerative medicine and tissue engineering). Sure, I can't boast about my affiliation and the students are less driven. But the environment is less hostile and the competition for grants is lower, especially because funding agencies have special pools of money for the institutions of our size. And I get to study the niche topic I am interest in.
The setup also gave me more stability for immigration purposes, so I managed to concurrently work outside of academia, which put a lot more money in my pocket.
As a foreigner, I would always choose stability over prestige.

I suggest you don't put too much emphasis on perceived "favorable conditions". If an institution makes you an offer they are also making a prediction of your success in that position. Moreover, they have a vested interest in helping you be a success.
But any institution in the top 50 worldwide is an excellent place. So, too much emphasis on the ranking difference is probably also a mistake.
Look at other factors that will affect your life for the next few years. I'd guess you can make either offer work toward your ultimate goals. It will be a lot of work and isn't an easy ride, but people seem to have faith in you.

If your goal is to land a faculty position in your home country then do what you think helps your career the most in that sense.
Where I am from, international experience at a top institute rates really high, almost a requirement, for getting a faculty position. I would only stay if I think I am on the verge of a major scientific breakthrough or have the possibility to spin out an interesting company. If not, then I would take the risk and move abroad to the more prestigious institute. It will also be good life experience.

It is a bad idea to do your postdoc at the same institution where you got your PhD.  Part of the idea of a postdoc is to expand your network and broaden your horizons.
That said, I think microenvironment is very important. If it isn't fun, it isn't worth doing.
Your postdoc should not be just a means to an end, but a chance to do some of your life's most creative and impactful work.


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Can the patent and paper have different authors (assume they include the same content)?
I am working for a company as an intern. Then I proposed some ideas and drafted a paper. In the meantime, I got some help from my university PhD friends so I list them as the co-authors. I planned to submit it to a conference. However, the company told me that they want to file a patent for this work first. And then they told me I should not submit the paper unless I exclude the ones who are not related to the company (i.e. my PhD friends). But actually, he contributes a lot to this research work. Obviously, I don't want to exclude him.
I am not sure. Why is it like that? Is this the company policy or the patent law? I thought paper and patent are different things.

Yes, you are deep into "lawyer" territory - don't take your coworkers or boss's suggestions on anything here as any sort of valid legal advice. If they think you all can proceed without lawyers involved they are extremely foolish.

I guess the only way now is to persuade my friend to give up the authorship. Maybe it is the cleanest way. Luckily he did not spend too much energy on it. Basically I have done 95% of the work. I will talk with him.

The law depends on your jurisdiction, but in the US: "Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. 116, "[w]hen an invention is made by two or more persons jointly, they shall apply for patent jointly and each make the required oath, except as otherwise provided in this title. Inventors may apply for a patent jointly even though (1) they did not physically work together or at the same time, (2) each did not make the same type or amount of contribution, or (3) each did not make a contribution to the subject matter of every claim of the patent.""

Looks like a mess. Check if you friend's help is in the commerically valueable part, or just in the scientific explanation.  In the former case, he has every right to also be in the patent, and proof for that claim in the form of your manuscript. Don't loose a friend on this!

Broadly, this depends on either long legal battles… or the wording of your contract of employment. Can you precis that part of the contract that deals with development projects, patents and the like?

@Karl he does not help me with the application. Basically, his math is good so he helped me to prove this application is theoretically grounded.

Ah, that is quite a mess you have made. The mistake was to bring in your friends to help on a company-owned project. I doubt that your manager at the company would have agreed to that, not least because of the IP involved. As part of your on-boarding you likely were informed that the company owned what you did for them as an intern.
However, the company are now making a mess of their own, since they need to face up to the fact that work was done by people at the university.
So, lots of lawyers will get involved, so tell them the truth of what happened and then let the lawyers do what they do...

@hidemyname " I guess the problem is that they didn’t know the rule as well" that is quite likely in my experience

Because previously other students also come to some companies. Their work resulted in publications. But this time the problem is that the company wants a patent. And we all don't realize that this is a different process this time.

Devil's advocate here.

I got some help from my university PhD friends so I list them as the
co-authors.

Did they help you, or did they contribute to the final product that you want to publish/patent?
If they helped you, the acknowledgments are enough for them and it is the easy escape from long legal discussion/consequences you will have (expect to loose PHD friends, though, because they almost surely helped you expecting to co-author a paper).
For the future readers: if you are an intern, keep the brilliant ideas you have while being intern somewhere for yourself, develop them only afterwards (i.e., do not disclose to your intern manager, just mention it broadly when/if discussing a contract renewal...).

Side note: this is a huge mess. Because OP is neither 100% cynical (OP would have kept the idea for themselves, good luck to the PhD friends legally demonstrating they contributed to the patent), nor 100% altruist (OP gave your PhD friends a good idea to develop, they did so, but you wanted a reward), and likely a bit "better knowing" (OP disclosing to the company they are developing a new product? very cumbersome, let's do everything under the table and get a big celebration/reward for submitting a patent in some months...)
In short, because OP is human.

I agree with you and the other answers that this is a mess.
However, I'd like to tackle the actual question:

Can the patent and paper have different authors (assume they include the same content)?

Yes. Being inventor is not the same as being author. The intellectual contributions needed for a scientific paper are not necessarily the same as the intellectual contributions of the invention. You may have inventors who did not contribute sufficiently to warrant co-authorship and you may have authors who did not contribute sufficiently to warrant co-inventorship.
Both authorship and inventorship can only be determined by closely examining the actual contributions of everyone involved.
Inventorship is about sufficient contributions to the solution as claimed in the patent.
Important differences include:

for a scientific paper identifying and describing the problem is an intellectual contribution, but for the invention only contributions to finding the solution count.
If someone comes up with a formulation of the problem that makes the solution obvious (which it wasn't before), I guess it would be a contribution to the solution. If it's more like "hey, we have a problem here", rather not.

for a scientific paper, devising experiments to characterize the performance of the invented device or process is a proper intellectual contribution (assuming it's not routine work), but it is not a contribution to that invention.

  Why is it like that? Is this the company policy or the patent law? I thought paper and patent are different things.

We obviously cannot say anything about a company policy we don't know. Plus legislations differ. So the following is about what I know about the related legal questions in germany.
However, it is quite possible that people contribute intellectually so as to properly become co-author to the paper without being co-inventors for the patent.
Example 1: I invents a new measurement device and does some basic experiments demonstrating that it works. I files the patent as sole inventor. For the paper, I teams up with a validation expert V who develops a rigorous experiment to measure the actually achieved performance of the new device, and this is published with co-authors I and V.
Example 2: imagine you are in the life sciences studying a particular biological phenomenon in a team: a biologist B who is expert on the biological question and the biology side of the experiments, a physicist P who is specialist for the measurement technique, and a statistician S who contributes expertise on experimental design and does the data analysis.
P invents an improvement to the measurement technique without substantial help from B or S.
=> P is inventor on the patent, the paper describing both the biological question and the invention is co-authored by B, P, and S.
Of course, there may be separate papers about the biological question and the invention, citing each other for the respective details. Then, P would be single author on the invention paper, and B and S would be co-authors of the biology paper (possibly P also, depending on how much intellectual contribution is left after the invention is "cut out")
And of course, B or S may have contributed substantially to the invention and would accordingly be inventors as well.
Now, as part of their new instrument development, P may have consulted engineer E whose work contributed to the invention. Then, P and E would be co-inventors for the patent, while E's contribution to the paper may only be sufficient for an acknowledgement.

I am working for a company as an intern

This puts a big question mark to who actually owns the IP here, so I'd advise you to get proper legal consulting also on this.
Over here, an internship is not necessarily an employment. In particular not if the internship is prescribed by your university curriculum for Bachelor or Master studies. In that case it would be quite likely that the IP you produced is owned by you and neither by the company nor the university, and there'd be particular legal restrictions about contracts for handing over that IP to the company or university (due to the power imbalance).
Another, entirely new level of mess would be added if you were both employee of the university and employee of the company since the legal defaults in employment contracts over here create a legal conflict - which however, is not yours but between university and company (and which is typically solved as part of cooperation contracts for joint projects)
(To add to the mess, the legal procedure on claiming an invention is somewhat different for companies vs. [public] universities.)

Whom to consult?

There are patent information centers (about 20 throughout Germany) who offer initial consulting for inventors. They are neutral as in being neither part of the university IP management (who may be party here), nor part of the company.

Chambers of commerce and (university) business incubators offer initial consulting for people who think about starting a business, and often also initial consulting for inventors.
At least the university incubator services are likely used to the very first crucial question of starting a spin-off based on some invention being whether the effort to legally disentangle the situation is worth while or whether the potential business is buried at this point;-)
If they are not able to answer your questions, they will at least be able to point you to someone who is.

The university IP office likely offers consulting as well, but they may be an interested party.
However, if you do not have any personal commercial interest in the patent, that is unlikely to negatively affect you.

Personal experience: I've invented something where the patent information center people said it's likely patentable, but the legal situation with my public research institute (even without company involvement) was so entangled that I decided it was not worth while to follow up the matter.
However, when people talk about inventions vanishing in drawers, I have a story to contribute now ;-)

Further advise
From what you write I think the best way for you is to treat this as an opportunity to learn, but not expect any additional outcomes.

Determine authorship the way it is always done.
Try to find out (via consulting above)

whether your friend should actually be co-inventor. If so, list them.
whether you have any obligations towards your university wrt. the invention.

It may be that the practical solution to this mess is to have only the paper but not the patent: for the company, while this means they cannot keep anyone else from using this solution, it already gives them the legal certainty that also noone else can file a patent on this (forbidding them to use the invention) in the future.

Your company has an interest in having its patent be valid. If they include work of others in the patent as indicated by authorship of the paper, the patent is less defensible. Since patent and paper are not identical, it might be possible, but the company lawyers will certainly want to avoid a problem.
An alternative possibility is to get your friends to sign over their portion of the patent to the company. Then they could actually be co-authors of the patent. You might want to elevate this to the company lawyers first.
Patent rights are to be taken very seriously. Usually, when it comes to a fight with another company, it ends with a compromise and mutual licensing, at least in the Computer industry. If you make a silly mistake like including other people on the author-list of a related paper, you weaken the negotiation platform. Litigation and preparation for litigation is very expensive.
Finally, you are an intern. Are you being paid reasonably well? Is the paper related to your work with the company?
Did others at the company contribute at all or a lot?
Do you have an advisor who can get you in contact with the university intellectual property lawyers? A lot will depend on the local laws.
To answer the question: Yes it is possible, but your company will be very unhappy. They might not own your work, though.

@hidemyname I'm not aware of anything in US patent law that lets you decide after the fact what part of the work is done by the company and what part is done by the university in order to keep the patent for just the company, and can't imagine that being allowed under any other patent system. I don't know why you think this is appropriate or possible. You need to consult with a lawyer, not make up your own legal theories.

@BryanKrause: decide as in find out is of course possible and the thing to do. Decide as in change history, not...

"get your friends to sign over their portion of the patent to the company." this may not be up to the friend to decide, since their IP production may be owned by the university. The same may or may not be true for OP (depending on legal status and legal defaults in OP's legislation)...


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Should I ask for a recommendation letter from a professor who I know from an industry training program?
I joined a company after graduation. And our company often offers funding for professors in academia. In exchange, these professors usually would attend our training programs to teach some lessons related to their fields.
Recently, I decided to apply for a Ph.D. position. Shall I ask for a recommendation letter from one of the professors who happen to be in the research field I want to do?

How well do they know you and who are your other referees?

My other referees are the professors I once worked with. I published one paper with one and worked as visiting student with another one. But the third referee is really difficult to get.

You mentioned in a comment that you already have two referees, one of whom you have published a paper with. I imagine this person will give you a very strong reference, and that the details of your other referees may not matter so much.
You also say that the professor you worked with is in the field you are interested in, which means they are well placed to talk about your ability and potential in that field, therefore using them as a third reference is a good idea.
You can find advice about emailing them to request a reference here.


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Is it worth it to accept this PhD scholarship?
I got a scholarship offer which requires me to work for a financial institution for three days (24 hours) a week. The scholarship is quite generous (50k AUD per year). Is it worth it to take it if I don't have to take the responsibility of TA and RA? I am just afraid it will influence my academic performance during my PhD life. After all, I take a PhD for making myself have a position in the academia world. If my publication record will be influenced by the three-day work, I'd rather not take this scholarship and turn to self-fund(I don't have any other scholarship). Can someone who has already experienced a PhD life help me estimate the pros and cons of this scholarship?

You should check the work load you'd have as a TA or RA. In my department, TA's (officially called graduate student instructors) are normally appointed for 20 hours per week, though their actual work load may be somewhat less than that. RA appointments are similar, but the duties are usually just to work on the student's dissertation research. Other departments may be quite different (in either direction), and that would surely affect the comparison with the job you've been offered.

Taking the scholarship will undoubtedly affect your academic performance. 24 hours a week is no joke, and is easily comparable to the amount of time you will spend on academic work. For obvious reasons if you give up 50% of the time you spend on your PhD, your work will suffer (or you will take longer to graduate).
However 50k AUD a year is a lot of money. It's so much money that if you converted to full-time work at the institution (earning 66% more salary because of the increased hours) you would be earning the average Australian salary. This may not sound spectacular to you, but don't forget that this comparison is vs. Australians as a whole, and you are probably quite young; many of the other people in this statistic have been working longer and so also earn more. Compared to your peer group you are likely to be extremely well paid.
Further, if you take the scholarship, you probably also have an easier time finding a non-academic job after graduating. You might even have one already prepared for you when you graduate, saving you the job search. See also my calculations in this similar question.
I would strongly incline towards taking the scholarship. I would even consider skipping the PhD entirely and immediately joining the workforce. The only exceptions would be if you are determined to become a professor and are not willing to consider a non-academic job after graduating, or if you detest working in finance.


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Is it okay to mention the potential advisor's name in my personal statement?
I have already established contact with my potential advisor. Would it be appropriate to mention his name in my personal statement? Would doing so be looked upon negatively by the admissions committee?

It's perfectly acceptable to mention a potential supervisor's name, especially if they already know who you are. Indeed, many places that I applied to specifically requested that I include the name of a potential supervisor, either in the personal statement or elsewhere on the application.
In doing so, the admissions committee can see whether you've done your homework on the research that goes on at their institution (for example, it's no good writing down the name of someone who works on observing supernovae to then say that you're interested in theoretical research on modified gravity models).

Assuming the advisor has agreed to supervise you, you should definitely mention their name.
The committee reviewing the application may not otherwise know this. They could reject you. Or they could assign the PhD to a different advisor than the person you were looking to work with.


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How to decide authorship order in this situation?
My master's supervisor and I are working on a research project. He offers me the research equipment and the basic ideas. He also writes the paper. I am in charge of coding and conducting all the experiments and analyzing the results. Sometimes I will discuss with him about my ideas but he is the one who decides to use them or not.
Should I be listed as the first author or not?

What did your master's supervisor say when you asked him this question?  (You DID ask him this question, didn't you?)

If you are performing most of the work responsible for conducting the research (designing and conducting experiments, handling the results, etc., just as you say) then you should be the first author. This makes it pretty easy to handle the problem if the only authors on the paper are you and your supervisor. If this is the case, and there is a debate about authorship, you may even elect to list yourselves as co-authors who made equal contributions, though you will still likely be the first author.
There's been a fair amount of published discussion about this subject, as with this 2007 paper by Tscharntke et al. in PLoS Biology.

A small remark regarding the experiments: OP said only conducting, not designing.


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Could I list the conference that I didn't attend in the PhD application system even I got my paper accepted?
I am applying for a Ph.D. position in a university. Their system required me to fill in the conferences I attended.
I published my paper on one conference although I didn't attend it personally for some reasons. My advisor went on my behalf. However, if I denied that I had attended that conference, the system doesn't even allow me to upload my paper. I think the paper is an important proof of my research ability.
What should I do? Should I just pretend I attended it. I don't even think they will really check about this thing.

Can you specify a list of publications, too? Then this is where your paper should go, and then you shouldn't claim double credit if you didn't attend the conference.

Doesn't the application include a CV?  Just include the publication on that.

In general, no. If they ask you to specify a list of attended conferences, then a conference that you didn't attend doesn't belong in your answer, even if your paper was accepted. Claiming that you attended the conference  would be incorrect and could lead to problems if someone found out.
Normally, you should be able to get credit for your accepted conference paper in another category, where you're asked for a list of your peer-reviewed articles.
However, the form could be designed in a way which neglects the existence of peer-reviewed conference papers. For example, you might be asked for a list for your journal articles only, because the form designers were unaware of fields in which journal articles are not the only kind of peer-reviewed publications. In this case, you should seek contact to the admission committee and ask how to proceed.

My reading here is that Conferences Attended and Papers Published are not the same thing.
You could attend a conference purely to watch the other presentations, to make contacts or to participate in workshops. You can also attend non-academic conferences, or conferences held within your university.
Based on the way this has been listed, I would not included the paper in this section. However, hopefully there will be the opportunity to submit your list of Publications elsewhere.


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Is it ok to add new details to the camera-ready version of the conference paper?
My conference paper got accepted. I was told I have an extra page for the camera-ready version. And my method is built upon an existing method. Now I realize that, in the existing method, there might be one key component that could tackle the proposed problem in my paper. Removing this component might not only influence the performance of the existing method but also my method. However, I skipped this detail in the previous version of the paper as I think this is not my main contribution and the space is limited. And also if I put the description of this component on the paper, I thought the reviewers might focus too much on this component instead of my own contributions. Should I add the description of this component into the new version given I now have enough space?

That is up to the conference program chair, I think. Ask.

Usually not, but as Buffy said, ask.  I don't know your field, either, so this may be specific to my own.  However, accepted papers are almost never modified after they are peer reviewed, since even a "minor" change will need to be reviewed again.  Think of what it might mean if a mathematical proof were accepted, then slightly modified but those modifications introduced an error.  Without thorough review an erroneous paper would be published.
In many conferences I've been to the answer to that has been to address it at the podium, not the paper.  Papers are written sometimes months before the conference, so it is accepted that more work will be done.  Use your talk to introduce those changes, and then turn the work into another article.


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Should I argue with the conference chairs in this situation？
I submitted a paper last month. And the result came out yesterday. Two reviewers gave me high scores while the other one said he saw part of my paper three months ago. In fact, three months ago, I drafted part of my paper and submitted it to a workshop because I want to own a paper which could help me apply for Ph.D. Now this reviewer gave me only 1 for originality. But the paper for a workshop should not be the "record of publication" according to the rules of conference. Should I argue with the chairs of the conference? This is a top conference in our field so I really want this paper published.

"In fact, three months ago, I drafted part of my paper and submitted it to a workshop" Was the paper published in the workshop?  If so, did you disclose this in your present submission?

If the workshop has published proceedings then, I am afraid, there is not much you can do.

Thanks, already gave up. But I am still doing the author response. Hope there will be a mircale tomorrow.

If you submitted a month ago and already got rejected, was the new venue truly a "conference" or another workshop?  And, as @Pete L. Clark said, was it published before or only submitted and rejected?
If published in a workshop (or accepted for publication), substantial portions can't be reused in another workshop.  Portions can be reused in a conference IMHO, but as @Pete said, you have to disclose and cite.  If not, it's self-plagiarism.
If the new venue is a workshop, then it can't be reused that much unless the earlier one was rejected.  In which case the reviewer shouldn't hold the earlier publication against you, unless they meant to say "I saw this before and it was rejected because it had flaws, and now I'm seeing it again".

I think mine is under the second situation.

I'm not really sure which you mean by the 2nd.  Published in a workshop, and want to reuse in a conference?  And if so, cited as appearing in the workshop, or else they have good grounds to reject even so.


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Is it polite to ask for your potential supervisors to help get the scholarship?
I am applying for a PhD at a new university. But my grade is a little off to the scholarship line. The student service told me that I may get a scholarship, but not for sure. Now I have found two potential supervisors now. I have been working with one for years but he doesn't have much power in the university. However, another one, who he is working for and will be my main supervisor, weight a lot in the faculty. I am not familiar with the latter. Just met him once through the Skype interview. Is it polite that I ask for their help? How should I ask for the help? I am in Australia, but an international student.

Everyone asks for scholarships. I can't imagine someone hurting their chances by asking politely. On the other hand if you repeatedly send the same email when you don't get a response you may make yourself look like a pest they wound't want around.

It might be a bit risky and it is impossible to know what the reaction would be. However, if you actually need the scholarship in order to be able to accept any bid, then it would be appropriate for the supervisors to be told that.
If they really, really, want to accept you then it would be to your advantage that they know that you have financial constraints. However, if they are a bit ambivalent toward your acceptance, then it might be easier for them to invite someone else.
But, since you know one of them, and think he would support you, you could ask him to make your needs known to the other, rather than doing it directly yourself.
And it does no-one any good for you to hide the fact of your need.

Thank you. I will discuss this with my supervisor. If I tell them that I have no financial constraints, but I still eagerly want a scholarship. Would that be a disadvantage for me?

I have only a little experience with Australian universities, but I doubt that the supervisor or your financial need is going to have much influence over whether you get a scholarship (as opposed to funding through a grant). Australian unis really want international students to pay themselves, although they do set aside a little money for international students with unusually strong research records and credentials.
To answer your question, there's nothing wrong with asking your potential supervisor, but they will probably not be able to do much to help.


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Searching more than 1 "exact phrases" in Google scholar
I am using Google Scholar as one of the databases for a SLR. When using the Advanced search, I am not able to search more than 1 "exact phrases" using the operator AND. Is there a way out?

Google Scholar is not a database.

In the box for "with the exact phrase" just type the phrases you want, in double quotes, with the word and in between. I just tried entering

"drug treatment" and "randomized control"

and it worked fine. You could add other limits. (see image).

Thanks a lot! It turns out that the phrases I was trying to search gave no results because they weren't present together in the title afterall!


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Google Scholar search strategy
Is there any way to search for specific keywords only in the Abstract in a Google Scholar search?
I am working on a systematic literature review, and trying to mine articles based on abstract search. I am aware of the title search, but not any regarding the abstract search. Any ideas?

I don't believe there is. In "advanced search" you can search the whole article or just the title, but not, AFAIK, the abstract.

For systematic reviews, I would avoid Google Scholar. It's useful for grey literature searches and getting quick answer when writing, but that's about it. The search algorithm is very opaque and it doesn't consistently respect search terms and operators. It really is a can of worms you don't want to open. On top of all that, there is no easy way to export results.
The best idea is to choose different databases that are more search-friendly.
And to directly answer your question, to the best of my knowledge, there is no way to directly search only abstracts.

Thanks a lot! Will keep that in mind.


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Bad First Undergraduate Semester
I am an undergraduate student who is majoring in physics and computer science (two majors) at Baylor University, but had a bad first semester while taking Elementary Chinese, Calculus I, General Physics I, and Introductory Chemistry I.
I withdrew from Calculus I, but received a B- in physics and a C in both Chinese and Chemistry. In the summer before beginning at the university, I took Calculus I twice at a junior college during 6-week courses, receiving an F the first time and a C the second, but began it again under recommendation from the math department until realizing that I lacked the time management skills necessary to complete all the courses successfully in the first semester. After receiving an A in every class after the first semester at the university, will these first grades harm my image in the eyes of graduate school admission boards or employers? I am seeking admission with universities such as MIT and the University of Chicago for graduate school, so I would like to know what is thought about this problem.

Also see How does the admissions process work for Ph.D. programs in the US, particularly for weak or borderline students? for things you can do to overcome some "imperfections" in your record.

Your least important grades are those earliest in your college career; if you have shown improvement, that improvement will be considered by most admissions committee members, especially if you show improvement in related courses at higher difficulty level (for example, based on your majors, I expect you have had many mathematics courses and physics courses since your problem courses in those areas).
However, you should know that if you are applying to top universities in your field, you will need a strong application overall - not only grades count, and admissions might be tight even for great applications.
Although I would not stress these issues in your initial application, you can use this experience to show growth when you interview for jobs or graduate positions. The classic "what is your worst quality as an employee/student" sort of question is a great opportunity for you to discuss your struggle when beginning college and especially to discuss how you were able to turn things around. Congratulations for not being discouraged - nice work.

What else would constitute a strong application to graduate schools and job positions? Amongst other things, would study abroad experience, undergraduate research, and student organizations be examples that could be added to a strong application?

Yes, all of those would be good examples; for graduate school, research experience (hopefully with a good recommendation from a supervising professor) is probably most important. Similar questions have been asked repeatedly on this site, check out the "related" section on the right. There may also be staff at your current institution that can assist in directing you. As a final note, and more of an opinion, if you are interested in graduate school, that should be your PRIMARY interest, especially for successfully applying and working in a top institution.


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Resit examinations
I am studying mechanical engineering and I missed my exam due to mitigating circumstances.
Therefore the uni allowed me to take the exam again in August but it is classed as a first attempt and not a retake.
The exam I retook today was difficult and I’m not sure if I passed it.
I go to the university of Liverpool in the uk.
If I have failed this module what do you think is most likely to happen ?

Did you ask your Course Leader and/or your Personal Tutor this question? What did they say?

We can't answer this question, because we don't know your personal circumstances, and we don't know Liverpool's policies for failed modules.

Why don't you just wait for the results?

The school will follow its policies. If you would have been offered a resit if you had taken the exam at the regular time, you will be offered a resit. Exactly when this resit will occur depends on the university and school. You may be able to take it during the next first sit exam period or you may have to wait for the next resit period. More problematic than when you would sit the exam, is if the module is a prerequisite for another module, you may have to delay your studies by a year.
Depending on your schools policies and the details of the mitigating circumstances, I almost always recommended that my students take the exam during the first sit period and then deal with the outcomes. This is because many schools allow students with mitigating circumstances to essentially have two first sits. If you do very poorly, but don't fail, you can talk to the examination board and get the grade thrown out. If you only do slightly poorly, you can ask for the mitigating circumstances to be considered if you degree classification is borderline.


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Can I directly start a French Masters 2 with a UK 4 year integrated masters?
I'm currently in my fourth and final year of my UK masters degree in Physics. The course is accredited as an MSci, equivalent to doing a 3 year Bsc followed by a 1 year Msc.
I'd like to apply to study nuclear engineering at Universite Paris-Saclay in France. The masters available there consists of a Masters 1 and a Masters 2, 2 successive years of study. I'm trying to find out if it's possible to start directly in the Masters 2, but it's difficult to figure out what exactly my MSci will be equivalent to. The course states it requires a Masters 1 or equivalent, but with no information on what it considers sufficient.
Under the bologna process, the UK masters is equivalent to the French (nominally), so in theory I'll already be above the required level.
Does anyone know of a student starting a French masters in the second year?

Given that you have a specific course and institution in mind, have you tried contacting them, explaining your situation, and asking them for more information? Getting the yay or nay from the administrators of the course you want to study would seem more useful to you than anecdotal evidence about students in similar (but not necessarily identical) situations.

Yes, your integrated masters from the UK counts as a "Masters Européen"in France.
Source: I directly began a PhD immediately after finishing my MPhys in the UK, at Paris-Saclay, last year. If I was able to do that, I have doubts (although it's possible) that you would have trouble doing a M2 here.
As others have said, and as the other answer said, you should contact the university / admissions team as a first contact, to verify this. During the admission process you'll have to send your transcripts, and so in the end, they'll decide this for themselves. If it's anything like my admissions process, you will also have to send your MPhys dissertation, because it proves that you have done M2-equivalent work and a project with a significant time commitment and research result.
However, I'd be very surprised if you had any problem.

As Ian_Fin commented, you should simply contact the person in charge. Search for the name (and possibly e-mail address) of the academic in charge, rather then administrative staff, faculty have the decision power. You usually also can make an application directly following any guidelines there.
There is no legal ground to prevent you to register, but you are not entitled either. I think your grade, motivation letter and possibly recommendations will be the most important parts. Try to add as much information as possible for grades, which are quite different in France (anything that makes clear what your grades mean to an outsider).


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How long, on average, is a good response to a written exam question?
I've always assumed that the "blue book" exam answer booklet should contain answers to midterm or finals questions that are about one or at most, two, paragraphs long. In other words, you cannot expect a student to write full fledged essays on every question formatted in the form of head-body-conclusion. Now I'm not so sure; maybe while it should not be nearly as long as an essay assignment, it should have the format of head-body-conclusion in the least?
As an aside, do professors make it clear on the exam paper instruction section how long the responses should be for "longer response" type questions, before the students ask how long they should be?

That really depends on the instructor. If we say one thing she/he/they another, then which opinion counts? So if it is not clear, just ask your instructor.

This question in the title is literally a case of "how long, on average, is a piece of string".

The average, though it exists, is meaningless in practice. It gives no guidance to either a professor or a student.
I can think of several independent axes on which there is variability including the individual professor, the field, the time allotted, the number of questions, the marking/grading criteria, and probably more.
In the extreme, an exam might have a single question allotted over three hours. At the other, twenty questions and an hour. (Maybe not the most extreme, actually). On another axis, an exam might have twenty questions with instructions to pick one to answer. Lots of possibilities, many not typical.
A professor should give some idea of the expectations, but not all do. If you are the professor, I suggest that you do that. If you are a student you could ask, prior to the exam, what might be expected.
Without guidance, if you are the student, try to capture the most important elements of the answer in the first paragraphs - sort of like the "newspaper style". Without guidance, try to say something useful about each question.

Taking the average would mean adding up a random sample of exam questions and then dividing. I suppose this could be done, but it would be similar to the guy who said that "On average, Switzerland is at sea level. Throw the mountains into the lakes and it all balances out."
I think it is perfectly reasonable to expect a student to write an essay that has head-body-conclusion, or some similar structure. But the professor should account for the amount of time and the number of questions.  One part of university level learning is, indeed, learning how to structure things this way, relatively quickly (and that is so across disciplines, I think).
But there is doubtless wide variation across disciplines and within disciplines. There are surely examples where anything less than a couple pages would be ridiculous. And other cases where writing more than one paragraph would be silly. And, while guidance from the professor would be nice (especially in intro level courses), part of what you should learn is how to tell what a reasonable length answer is.
(And some professors give guidance in terms of how much the answer is worth.)


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Paper under review in a reputed Math journal for 7 months
I have submitted a paper in a reputed math journal. It is under review for 7 months. 2 month ago I inquired and I was told that one reviewer has sent review and they are waiting for the other review.
Is it time common in Math journal

Yes, it's common, or at least not uncommon. It also depends on the length of your paper. For a 50 page manuscript, your story sounds fairly common and reasonable. For a 10 page paper, not so much.

@DanRomik: it is 20 page.


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How much assumption relaxation : journal review
Suppose a theorem in applied probability is true under the assumptions (A1), (A2) and (A3). Suppose,   (A1) is relaxed to (A1)' at the cost of strengthening (A2) and (A3) to (A2)' and (A3)' respectively. I got a review from a prestigious journal that "how much (amount)" is the relaxation from (A1) to (A1)' ? What is meant by that ? Is the reviewer saying that if the relaxation is huge amount compared to the strengthening of (A2) and (A3) then only your result useful.
Any help/suggestion will be useful.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is too narrow, and the only reasonable answer seems to be: "yes".

I think you're right. The most straightforward interpretation is that the reviewer wants to know how good the trade-off you have made is. Are you just shifting assumptions around, or have you made a fundamentally important relaxation of assumption A1 such that assumptions A2' and A3' are not much of a big deal.


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How should I reference this? Should I reference this?
I was having a problem (a mathematical one) in my research, and tried to find the solution. I had some ideas, but none of them solved my problem, I did some research but found nothing, tried to talk with my advisor too (mathematics is not his field), without success. I was stuck in this part. Therefore, I decided to reframe the problem and ask in Quora for help. Within 2 days I received some answers, one that I already have considered but did not helped me, and another that I had previously considered too, but extended.
I implemented the second answer using my problem constraints and needs and it worked, worked better than the state of art for this particular problem (using of course the rest of my job). Intrigued, I asked how the Quora guy (a mathematical professor) found the solution, he said that it was pure logical intuition and little bit of statistics. Later I searched if it was a published solution and found a similar, but not identical solution, buried inside a part of an algorithm in a published paper.
I told my advisor that I had found the solution, but did not mentioned Quora or the paper, he did not asked me either how I found the solution. Now I am considering to use this solution, found on Quora, as part of my research (With intent to be published), but how should do this? If I do not mention Quora could I be in risk of being accused of plagiarism? Should I point the name of the Quora professor in a "thank you footnote" or cite the Quora answer? Should I use as reference the published paper?
Note: I know that I should talk with my advisor about this, I will. But first I need some arguments on how to present the idea to him.
Any informed help would be appreciated.

Here are two links that say how should I quote someone on Quora, but I won't quote the answer, I will use a mathematical idea, that to my best knowledge is public domain: link 1 link 2

I would cite both the Quora answer and the published solution, indicating in the text just how they are connected to the solution in my paper.

As your implementation is based on the Quora solution, you obviously have to credit the author. Depending on how big a part of the entire thing this solution is, you might even consider offering the mathematician coauthorship for this.
If it suffices to acknowledge: As the Quora post is public, I would suggest to cite the post (and potentially do the thanks via footnote/acknowledgement section in addition). This ensures in particular that an interested reader can go and read the original post, which might be of interest in addition to your implementation.
Regarding the published paper: First, given that finding this solution was not trivial, I would suggest to cite it in your paper already only for the sake of others searching for these things. Moreover, you should give context for the solution you implemented, and the paper might belong to that context.


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NSF GRFP Field of Study different from department
Am I allowed to apply for NSF GRFP under Computer and Information Science and Engineering if I am in an applied math PhD program, but working with an advisor in the CS department?

From the administration guide (NSF 24-090): "Fellows must enroll in a graduate degree program consistent with the relevant field of study proposed in their application and undertake a course of study leading to a research-based master’s or doctoral degree."
Edit 2: Hopefully this addresses the critique in the comments.  As noted in the solicitation and administrative guide, the field on the application has to match the program the GRFP is studying.  As institutions vary considerably, one institution may have a degree program in Robotics, another may have one in Computer Science, but the time is spent studying robotics--that's what the research plan will show.  Either way, those degrees/programs roll up to CISE.
If the degree program you are pursuing is Applied Math, you cannot make the argument that you are in CISE--according to the Appendix, Applied Math belongs to Mathematical Sciences.  For example, if you are proposing that you are studying Artificial Intelligence despite pursuing a degree in Applied Math, how does it work?  Why are you not getting a degree in AI or Computer Science?  In this way, your subfield is Artificial Intelligence and not Applied Math, so why get a degree in Applied Math?
I work at an engineering school that does not have strict departments, so I understand how this path could happen, given the nature of collaborations between the fields.  However, the key is that the instructions say you "must enroll in a graduate degree program consistent with the relevant field of study".  So in this example, if your subfield is AI, they expect the degree program to also be focused on AI.  They would choose AI researchers to review your proposal.  If you choose Applied Math, the reviewers are from Applied Math.  It doesn't mean you can't have AI as a component in an Applied Math proposal, but the reviewers would be chosen differently.  If you felt that you could reasonably have AI as the subfield but have a degree in Applied Math, this would have to be explained and justified in your proposal.  I would also absolutely double-check with NSF prior to going this route.  Failure to do this properly could result in a return without review.
If you still have concerns, email NSF: info@nsfgrfp.org
Edited to add specific tie back to the solicitation:

Field of Study, Degree Programs, and Proposed Research

Fellowships are awarded for graduate study leading to research-based
Master's and doctoral degrees in science, technology, engineering or
mathematics (STEM) or in STEM education, in eligible Fields of Study
listed below:

Chemistry
Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering
Engineering
Geosciences
Life Sciences
Materials Research
Mathematical Sciences
Physics & Astronomy
Psychology
Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences
STEM Education and Learning Research

A complete list
of eligible Major Fields of Study and their subfields are listed in
the Appendix. If awarded, Fellows must enroll in a graduate degree
program consistent with the Major Field of Study proposed in their
application. A fellowship will not be awarded in a different Major
Field of Study from that indicated in the application.

Merit Review criteria in the solicitation:

Selection of a Major Field of Study determines the application
deadline, the broad disciplinary expertise of the reviewers, and the
discipline of the graduate degree program if awarded a Fellowship.
Applicants are advised to select the Major Field of Study in the GRFP
Application Module (see Fields of Study in Appendix) that is most
closely aligned with the proposed graduate program of study and
research plan. Applicants who select "Other" must provide additional
information describing their studies.

Appendix from the Solicitation:

X. Appendix NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION GRADUATE RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPS
Major Fields of Study
Note: Applications are reviewed based on the selection of a Major
Field of Study. As an example, CHEMISTRY is a Major Field of Study,
and Chemical Catalysis is a subfield under CHEMISTRY. A Fellowship can
be accepted only in the Major Field of Study indicated in the
application. Thus, an application that indicates CHEMISTRY as the
Major Field of Study can be accepted in any subfield in CHEMISTRY, but
cannot be accepted in CHEMICAL ENGINEERING, and ENGINEERING is a
different Major Field of Study.
Selection of a Major Field of Study determines the application
deadline, the broad disciplinary expertise of the reviewers who will
review the application, and the discipline of the graduate program if
the Fellowship is accepted. The subfield category designates specific
expertise of the reviewers. Applicants can select "Other" if their
specific subfield is not represented in the list of subfields under
the Major Field of Study. The "Other" subfield category should be
selected only if the proposed subfield is not covered by one of the
listed subfields, and should not be used to designate a subfield that
is more specific than the subfields listed.

You can see the Applied Math subfield is listed under Mathematical Sciences and not CISE.

COMPUTER AND INFORMATION SCIENCES & ENGINEERING

Accessibility
Algorithms and Theoretical Foundations
Artificial Intelligence
Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality, Graphics, and
Visualization
Bioinformatics and Bio-inspired Computing
Communication and Information Theory
Computationally Intensive Research
Computer Architecture
Computer Security and Privacy Computer Systems
Computer Vision
Cyber-Physical Systems and Embedded Systems
Cybersecurity
Data Science, Data Mining, Information Retrieval and Databases
Electronic Design Automation and Design of Micro and Nano Computing Systems
Fairness, Explainability, Accountability and Transparency in Analytics
Formal Methods, Verification, and Programming Languages
Human Computer Interaction
Information Sciences
Machine Learning
Natural Language Processing
Other (specify)
Parallel, Distributed, and Cloud Computing
Quantum Information Science
Robotics
Scientific Computing
Social Computing
Software Engineering
Wired and Wireless Networking

vs.

MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES

Algebra, Number Theory, and Combinatorics
Analysis
Applied Mathematics
Artificial Intelligence
Biostatistics
Computational and Data-enabled Science
Computational Mathematics
Computational Statistics
Computationally Intensive Research
Geometric Analysis
Logic or Foundations of Mathematics
Mathematical Biology
Other (specify)
Probability
Quantum Information
Science Statistics
Topology

Not sure that this quite answers the question as far as the OP's follow up would be "Is an applied math PhD program under supervision of a CS department advisor considered consistent with an application for a Computer and Information Science and Engineering GRFP?" which is pretty much what they already asked.

Having just gone through this with my student, I believe the intent by the NSF is to have students enroll in that degree program, so if they pick math, they need to be at a school with a math degree and enroll in that program. They also ask for subfield, but that's harder to check and enforce since that's driven by the research areas of faculty and students may not even start research in their first year anyway (NSF says students must be in the program of choice their first year).

@BryanKrause, as someone who administers payroll and appointments, including GRFPs, we have to use this guide as a starting point.  I don't find the instructions unclear.  There is an appendix in the solicitation with the fields and subfields.  The way the question is written, I can't tell if this person is meeting the required criteria.  What is the proposed field of study?  Applied Math?  That is listed in the appendix under "MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES" and not CISE, so in that case, the answer is no.  Applied Math PhD applies to "Mathematical Sciences".

@yourfriendlyresearchadmin What I imagine would be a helpful answer that is only possible from experience would be to address how the decision of what is "consistent" is made: does it primarily depend on the name/label of the program or degree? Or is it primarily based on the topic and framing of the research?

@yourfriendlyresearchadmin I would consider adding your comment (generalized) to the post, as it makes it more evident why it's so clear to you.

@BryanKrause, I may not be understanding what you mean by consistent.  I felt this was a rather black-and-white issue; can you tell me if my edit now addresses the part that may feel more "gray" to you?  I didn't mean to be unfriendly; it just feels very black and white on my side, so I didn't know what else could be addressed.

I think the edits are helpful; the possible confusion is that, although you say "applied math" is not listed, almost every field listed under CISE is an example of Applied Math, even though Applied Math is also in Mathematical Sciences. And most institutions are not going to have degrees in every one of these categories. If you are studying Computer Vision, you may very well be in an Applied Math degree program (also feasibly CS, even Psychology, etc).

So, the question is, if they read "Applied Math" do they also see "Ah, your Applied Math project is in Computer Vision so you would be eligible for either" or is it strictly "Applied Math is in this other list so that's where you belong".


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Resources to filter and/or rank research papers based on keywords?
I'm trying to make the case for funding at my college's directive board to take an important course in a research tool that requires us to pay for travel and lodging in another town. Even though it's not strictly necessary, I would like to attach a graph or infographic about how this tool has gained in popularity and citations in academia since its inception, but I'm having trouble finding a resource that allows me to create some sort of ranking of the word along research papers in the area.
I'm still a grad student and haven't used Google Scholar that much (I get my papers from Arxiv and other sources) so maybe there's some functionality that I'm missing.
Simply showing some sort of "this many papers have used the tool or cited related papers" or "this percent of papers use the keyword" would be enough.
(I phrased the question in a general sense so anyone with similar issue can find it, but the tool in this case is gem5, a processor simulation tool, and my area is computer architecture)

And, once again, go find your local, helpful research librarian and get introduced to their professional skills and the professional tools already available at your institution.

"Ask your local librarian" should probably be posted as an answer rather than a comment, but it's certainly not unfriendly to suggest a solution to the problem you post about.

I do find it quite pedantic. "And, once again" what is Jon repeating? It's the first time we speak. They are assuming I haven't gone to my librarian already. "Get introduced to they professional skills and ..." yes, I know what a librarian is and what they're good at.
Somehow Jon is assuming I haven't bothered talking to any of them or doing any search at all before posting.


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Do I ethically need to acknowledge a collegue's confidential work if I consider it obvious?
A colleague of mine that I worked with a number of years ago completed some work that he formally presented and discussed with me in a confidential setting. The work involved a new product design (this is in engineering research) that he had published on at that time (let's call this Product A). Product A is an advance over the well-known industry standard Product P.
He then took this a step further by taking his new Product A and combining it with another standard product (let's call this Product N), the combination of which could be used in a known application (let's call this Application G). He admittedly was the first to propose Product A and Product N for Application G. However, I consider it exceptionally well-known and obvious that Product P can be combined with Product N for use in Application G; this is discussed frequently in my field and there are many papers on this topic that I can cite. While he discussed combining Product A and Product N for Application G, he never bothered publishing this idea.
I worked independently to produce even better designs of the products, let's call these Av2 and Nv2. I designed these for use with Application G. Av2 and Nv2 bear passing similarity to A and N (since they serve the same purposes), but I consider this similarity irrelevant since my products are clearly superior.
I published a paper detailing Av2 and Nv2 combined for use in Application G. To my surprise, my former colleague emailed me wanting to know why I hadn't acknowledged his contributions - since he confidentially showed me his A and N for use in Application G and then never published it. I told him the obvious: everyone knows about combining P and N for application G; he had already published A as an advancement of P, so clearly, the combination of A and N for application G was in no way novel. Since my Av2 and Nv2 were objectively superior to his work, there is certainly no requirement that I would need to acknowledge his so-called "contributions".
He doesn't seem to accept my explanation, and keeps on trying to argue about ethics. Are there any sources that I can use to help him understand that I obviously have no need to acknowledge his conversations? Or perhaps some reference that will show that if the combination of Product P and Product N for use in Application G is well-known, that I am free to publish on product Av2 and Nv2 combined for Application G without needing to acknowledge the combination of A and N?
Thank you!

Did you cite the paper in which they "published A as an advancement of P"? Why did you publish "a paper detailing Av2 and Nv2 combined for use in Application G" when you consider "the combination of A and N for application G was in no way novel" and Av2 and Nv2 as just another step from A, P and N?

This line of argument does not make much sense: "I consider this similarity irrelevant since my products are clearly superior." "Since my Av2 and Nv2 were objectively superior to his work, there is certainly no requirement that I would need to acknowledge his so-called "contributions"." Whether you should acknowledge previous work has nothing to do with whether your work is "superior".

@MisterMiyagi yes, I did cite the paper in which my colleague "published A as an advancement of P". To clarify, Av2 and Nv2 are a huge step from A, P and N; i.e., I have increased their performance by a large margin.

What would you lose by acknowledging him?

@deee 6 Yes, exactly. It never hurts to cite or acknowledge others.

You are looking for objective criteria when you need to acknowledge someone's contributions, but you are missing a critical piece: You are dealing with people who have feelings, opinions, careers to build, reports to write in which they describe what they have accomplished, and so on. People are not always objective or rational, and in a sense that's what makes life wonderful too!
I'm a big believer in being generous in praise. If your colleague showed you their designs, it is not unreasonable for them to believe (and in fact, for others to think so too) that that might have at least inspired your designs. It does not take away anything from your accomplishment to acknowledge this inspiration in your paper, via a reference, or a statement in the acknowledgments of the paper. But it buys you good will and just good karma that you might need at other points in your career -- it's always good to have friends.
In other words, there are little things you can do in being nice to others and showing appreciation that cost you very little but may have a substantial positive impact on you in the future. Be that person who is generous, caring, and who people like working with; rather than one who is a stickler for rules and rigorous in delineating who exactly needs to and need not be acknowledged.

This doesn't exactly answer the question, but I will entertain the notion. If this were a broadly accepted proposition, wouldn't it be found in a code of ethics somewhere?

Codes of ethics describe how people are required to behave. What I'm describing is how people should behave given that we are all working with people, in collaborative environments in which human aspects matter just as much as technical ones.