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Does being a native speaker of a language and having experience in academia substitute for a Ph.D. in cultural studies?
I have a friend from Germany who was a foreign exchange student in the US for a couple of years. She has a master's degree in Political Science from a German university and several years of experience managing academic programs at a university in Frankfurt.
She would really like to work and live here, so I did some some searching and found an opening for an Assistant Professor of German at a local university. As you might imagine, one of the requirements is a Ph.D. However, I'm guessing that this assumes that the candidate is not a native speaker of the language.
Do you think an average university would consider her native speaker status a suitable substitute for a Ph.D. in a relevant field? The teaching responsibilities of the position involve teaching German. Would it be worth applying for similar positions at other universities, or will the absence of a Ph. D. be a deal-breaker regardless of the institution?

Would you consider "native English speaker status" an alternative for having studied English to the postgraduate level?

Certainly, provided that the person has a graduate level education and that their primary responsibility is teaching English.

Welcome to Academia.SE. Your above comment was truncated; please see our code of conduct so you can avoid issues in future.

As for the question: are you sure that the "primary responsibility" is teaching German language classes? I ask because I'm not sure how familiar you are with what professors do; typically "assistant professor" is a position that requires much more than just teaching intro-level courses. But things vary widely.

That's certainly the impression I get from reading the job description. It mentions nothing about research, for example.

Where is "here"? This entirely unclear to anyone except you.

On a different note, being a native speaker doesn't make you a good teacher without further study. After all, in your native language, you need to know next to nothing about grammar.

Quite right. By "here" I meant the US. I'm not convinced, though, that knowing the finer points of formal grammar in a language is a requirement for being able to teach it. If you have to consciously think about grammar when listening or speaking, then you will never become fluent. It has to become second nature from repeated exposure.

"If you have to consciously think about grammar when listening or speaking, then you will never become fluent." That's true, but it does not follow that you do not need to start by learning about the grammar of your target language. The teacher of English needs to be able to to explain why, say, the present perfect rather than the past simple is used in a certain expression, or in the case of German why the word order in a sentence is like this and not like that. Just shrugging your shoulders and saying "that's just how we say it" isn't going to cut it.

Professors do much more than just teach. Their job mostly consists of research, and a PhD is in fact a bare minimum requirement for a position as an assistant professor. It is expected that person has published significant work in their field, for instance.
If you get a PhD in a foreign language, you don't just spend the whole time learning how to speak the language really well. You're writing and researching constantly, and produce a thesis in your specialty that consists of substantive research. So no, being a native speaker is in absolutely no way a replacement for this necessary training, in the same way (as pointed out in the comments) being a native English speaker is not sufficient training for teaching literature.
There is a caveat, however, in that some universities might hire lecturers whose primary responsibility is to teach foreign language courses, and those might not have a PhD. My university (a top private school in the Northeast) does seem to employ several non-PhD holding lecturers for foreign languages (though a cursory glance suggests they do all seem to at least have an M.A. in literature for their respective languages, or a Master's in foreign language education). These positions would not be listed as "assistant professor" in the U.S., and may not exist at many institutions. Such a position might be a possibility for your friend depending on her background.

Northeast in which region?

Thank you! This is exactly the kind of answer I was looking for.

I suppose native proficiency in the language was not the only thing I was considering. I certainly wouldn't expect that an average German taken off of the street could serve as a German professor. But this is far from an average German taken off of the street.

You’re overthinking this. If an academic position description says that a PhD is required, then a PhD is, well, required. Your friend does not qualify, sorry.

Maybe that's how things work in academia, and ultimately that's all that matters, since this is an academic position. But that's not how things work outside of academia. Depending on how much the position relies upon "hard skills," the "requirements" can just be a wish list for the perfect candidate. But if the perfect candidate does not apply, then the employer has to settle for the best they can get.

@DanielArant absolutely. That’s why I wrote “academic position”.

What does an institution do if they just can't find someone with a relevant Ph. D? Do they just shrink the department?

@DanielArant I’m not aware of this ever happening — there is almost always an overwhelming excess of candidates who are qualified (in a formal sense at least) rather than a deficit of them. But if it did happen, the department would either keep looking and make do with fewer staff in the meantime (which is usually possible if undesirable), or relax the PhD requirement. The latter might mean having to re-advertise the position.

After a bit more research, I think what she should really be looking for, if she really wants to teach at the college level, is an adjunct faculty position.

@DanielArant: Unfortunately, those positions are not well paid and offer no job security.  It's a tough way to make a living.  Moreover, they are unlikely to sponsor the visa that she would need.


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Can I change the category of registered arXiv papers?
I'd like to change the category of registered arXiv papers as I classified it wrongly.
Is it possible?

This is of course possible for the people who run arXiv. I guess you tried to do it on your own and failed. The best way in my opinion is to send a message to arXiv and ask for help.
People there do read and answer messages. Technically your request should be easy for them, but it is probably very rare. In principal, there could be some rule explicitly forbidding category changes. But this rule would apply so infrequently that its existence is hard to justify.

You have to open an appeal in order to have your paper reclassified. Note that if the moderators approve your request, it won't be re-announced.

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Am I failed and being ignored?
I am currently applying for a doctoral student position (fall term 2022) in some university. The application procedure is somehow "manual". I submitted my documents to an appointed contact person and then the contact person will forward them to a potential professor. An interested professor then will submit a formal application to the admission committee which has the final words on whether the applicant is admitted or not. I've been informed that there is a professor who is willing to be my supervisor (I don't know who), so I assume my application is on the committee's table. It is now almost a year since my application was formally submitted and I still don't know if it's successful or failed. I have sent an inquiry to the contact person regarding the status of my application but my email is unanswered. I start to think that I have failed and only successful applicants are informed. Is it a common practice for a grad school to ignore unsuccessful applicants?

It is impossible to say. Only that university can answer.

I think this is an unusual enough process that we cannot say. I would recommend you check and see if there is a second person you can cc on your email communication. It is possible the contact from more than a year ago (if a staff person) changed jobs.

According to the website, it is the same person

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Are there grants available to pay for travel to my PhD program?
I have looked at this travel grant question but it talks about when the OP already was pursuing his PhD.
I am from India and have a different scenario as I have just received my PhD offer in Computer Science. Are there institutions that can fund my going there (even just the flight)? I do have good academic records as well as papers published.
I have searched on the internet and have found one from tata. But, Are you aware of any others that do provide support?

Will your phd be funded by the school? Have you checked with your department to see if they can cover some of your relocation expenses?

@anon I am in a similar situation now. Did you manage to get some funding? Also, the link to the Tata Grant is dead. Could you please share the active link?

I am not aware of any relocation only independent grants, but there are a number of other ways relocation expenses could be covered. There may be funding available via the University, Department, or PI. If you are being funded by an external grant relocation
expenses may be allowable (e.g., the NIH allows relocation costs).

If you have already been in contact with your future (potential) advisor, you might raise the issue with them.  They might have funding they can use, or (more likely) they might be able to pull strings with the department or university to provide travel funding.
However, I do not recommend raising this issue as your first contact with a potential advisor.

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Approach adviser to help publish a paper/Journal

This topic may seem very close to Unable to defend and graduate
  because of advisers fickle mentality.

I am a Masters thesis student, and been doing my research for nearly 3 years now. Which I assume is quite long for Masters. So why such a long time. Well my adviser ( caring and supportive ) doesn't stick to or follow/have a structure for the thesis. Its like wandering about and finally OK yeah lets do this. Sometimes I face problems midway because we dint plan the thesis properly before hand and foresee what issues we could or would have to tackle way down the thesis, in which case it can be called more structured. Adding to this he is never present when needed.
In-spite of all these, I have somehow reached the very final stages of my thesis and trying to get some good results. I would like to open up and talk to him frankly and still maintain a good rapport so that I can ask to help me publish a paper/journal.
Could someone please give me a template of how I should approach him politely and convey my situation and get the best of this.

Two approaches:

You could say, "I think it would be a good idea to convert my thesis work into a journal paper. What do you think?"
Write up a version of the to-be-journal submission, present it to your supervisor, and ask "Do you think we could submit this, after some revision, to a journal?"

In any case, it sounds like you need to start being the master of your own destiny, and rely less on your supervisor. It is your masters' thesis after all, and your research.

He listens to only what "he wants". Discussion with him is nearly impossible, and not to mention he doesn't even reply to emails. Forget meeting face to face. How can I deal with this kind of adviser.

Submit your thesis and get out of there – surely someone higher up will be sympathetic to your plight. Also, write the research up later as a paper and try to submit somewhere, keeping your supervisor in the loop, but not as a barrier to progress.

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What are the benefits of organizing a conference?
Organizing a conference is very difficult for a scientist, you have to have the right collaborators, to find the right venue, to spread the word, to advertise it, to send the call for papers, to receive the papers, to check them, to organize the lunchs and dinners, etc etc.
All these tasks are very time-consuming, and stressful, and they will steal precious time to your scientific research activity, and also to your family/friends time.
So, why do people decide to organize conferences?
What are the main benefits and advantages of running this complex and time-consuming activity?

Related: why do academics write peer reviews?

You mean organizing a conference from start, or being PC chair for an already established conference?

@Alexandros I mean organizing a conference edition of a conference series, for example CIBB

If everyone refused to organize conferences, we would have no conferences.
Yes, it's that obvious.  The same goes for editing journals, refereeing papers, and most other service activities.
The main result of a research conference is that it helps attendees do better research, to find and understand new ideas, and to disseminate their own research, etc.  By organizing the conference, you are the facilitator of all that.  Furthermore, you get to influence the direction of the conference -- what it will focus on, who the invited speakers will be, how it will be run, and so forth.
Additionally, I would argue that academics are paid to organize conferences in the same way that we are paid to referee papers.
Finally, there are fringe benefits to you personally, including the prestige mentioned by @user3209815 -- you can list it on your CV under service activities.  Frankly, this is not going to make or break your career, and you probably shouldn't be doing it early in your career, since (as you point out) it takes time away from things that may be more essential.

Arranging conferences is very hard work. You need to be prepared to organize a meeting place, be a "travel agent" for visitors seeking information on how to get there etc. and then make sure things runs smoothly during the meeting. Of course more individuals will be involved in arranging a meeting, how many depends on the size. So unless you are a despot and can order people to work for you, I would say that arranging a meeting is not for prestige and honour without being well-deserved through sweat and tears (I am assuming you want the guests to enjoy a productive and comfortable meeting atmosphere).
Arranging a meetings, from small workshops for tens of people to conferences for hundreds can be really rewarding. If you arrange for thousands you need to run things through a professional organizer, such as a conference centre. Even that can be rewarding but no less a lot of work. To be able to cope with the work load, which will likely start half a year to years before the meeting (depends on the size and format of the meeting), you need to have a good idea of what goals your meeting will have. For smaller meetings where all visitors are assembled for the entire meeting, you probably have a personal interest in the topics to be covered. In a larger meeting with many separate sessions, you and others in the organizing committee probably have invested interests in several different ones. In the end, successful meetings come from a deep interest from the organizers in having the meeting and its themes covered. At least in my field, I have never encountered anyone doing a conference just for glory and filling a CV. The benefits will definitely be there after a successful meeting but then, you have really deserved them.
So, in my experience, organising meetings is really rewarding, it is hard work, but pays of scientifically and socially if the organisation is done well and visitors return with a sense of value from the experience.

Just a comment: the work can definitely start more than 6-12 months before. Many venues will be reserved years in advance. Just as an example, the IIF usually discusses proposals three years in advance, by which time putative organizers have already had talks with the conference venue and local tourism bureaus, approached local bodies for sponsorship etc.

Yes, by yearS (plural) I was trying to indicate more than 12 month.

I'd say the main benefits are prestige and honor. To be able to organize a serious conference, you got to, as you pointed out, have a non-trivial amount of connections and be a respectable and accomplished member of the scientific community. At that point in ones life, some people may decide to use their status to promote their scientific community. In my experience, conferences are connected with the institution the leading scientist is from. So that also may be a significant amount of finances the institution will receive from organizing a conference on a regular basis. So, by contributing so much to the institution, the scientist will certainly hold a more favorable position among his colleagues and the institution itself. Besides, there might as well be a financial compensation for the scientist's efforts, which I (perhaps naively) think is a rare occurrence, since I know of only one such practice. Finally, many conferences are inclined to naming an award in honor of their founder, usually posthumously. Therefore, when/if the prestige of the conference rises, so does the importance of the award, and that is generally a nice way to be remembered and honored once you pass away.
So in a way, you organize a conference, because you can/want do demonstrate your ability to do so, i.e. proving the influential collaborators and accomplishments you acquired during your career. As awards you expect to be remembered and honored and to get satisfaction by the fact that you contributed significantly to your community.

It fills an acute need
Organizing a conference takes significant effort, but it also usually fills a need within a community.  New conferences generally arise when some subfield or a geographic community within a field has a critical mass of research that they want to exchange, but that is poorly served by the existing options.
If ten years ago the FooBar conference occasionally got papers like "FooBaz is a nice new thing" but now there are many FooBaz papers that get rejected with reason "The paper is okay but outside the scope of FooBar" then everyone in the FooBaz community would benefit from a specialized conference on FooBaz - and if it is a success, then it often gets repeated and turns into a [semi]yearly tradition.
If you want to make progress in an emerging field, you are motivated to invest personal effort in making the field a success, to advertise your research and the related research that's growing out of it. If it's an estabilished field, then often you form some organization that unites the relevant scientists and is able to get funding and administrative resources for the explicit purpose of advancing that field - which involves organizing conferences.
It's a shared effort
I've actually never seen a scientist organizing a conference. Usually it would get managed by some university, institute or other organization (though through active initiative of their scientists) - it would piggyback on their existing administrative capacity. Similarly, organizing the papers and organizing the event is usually split among separate people so that the workload is manageable.
Also, I've seen many conferences that get 'rotated' among the community. If a conference makes sense, then multiple research centres are interested, otherwise you can just make a local seminar. If organizing a conference requires your [institution] involvement only, say, every 6 years, then it's not so tedious to make it intractable.

One benefit that I haven't seen mentioned yet, and one of the major reasons I organised a conference:
Once you've organised one, for the next few years after that, you have a good way to defend yourself against substantial pressure from colleagues to organise the next conference, on the grounds of it not being your turn, because you did it recently.
How long your immunity lasts will depend on the size and frequency of the conferences you usually attend.

Very interesting... so, is it like going to the dentist? ;-)

No. Much worse. In my experience the conference organising involved more discomfort and over an extended period of months, as compared to a dentist's visit which may just be one hour.

Preamble
Having organized 3 different small-scale (~60 participants) events with international speakers on a variety of topics (one of which evolved into semi-annually workshop series), these are my personal rules of thumb for keeping it enjoyable (when done right it really is enjoyable!):
Separate the logistics from the contents
This is the hard part, and you are right to be dreadful about it. The solution: ask for help! For anything beyond 100 participants, you should consider hiring a professional conference organizer and forming a multi-person programm committee etc. For small-scale stuff, this is what I usally try to do.

Start on time: 6-12 months is a good range. Remember that academic speakers have teaching loads they need to navigate in their schedules.
Secure a budget from your manager (professer of your research group, or dean of your department)

it should cover speaker's travel reimbursements, catering and accomodation
optionally: speaker's gifts (bottle of wine, book etc.), after-conference dinner
for my events, $2K turned to be plenty (and there was no admission fee for participants!), and typically management won't think twice about it

find a good office manager / secretary to take care of the practicalities:

beforehand: managing the mailinglist of participants, travel arrangements of speakers
during the day: name badges, coffee during breaks, drinks afterwards, printing handouts

find support in the IT department for website related stuff:

announcements, registration, publication of presentations
live feed video is a whole different ball game (I have no experience with it, best left to the pros)

find at least one colleague willing to share the burden with you:

this really helps to cover each other's workload peaks (teaching, papers etc.)

In my experience, asking people for help with such events is usually enthusiastically supplied. Especially office managers relish at the chance to break their daily routine and they will work wonders to get things done. Make sure to properly and publicly praise them at the closing of the event (e.g. give them flowers / small gift in front of the audience. Also invite them to the after-conference dinner).
Concentrate on the contents
The logistics out of the way (okay, you will need to periodically monitor people for their progress and potential hiccups, but that's no big deal), you can concentrate on what you do best: content!

Find your niche: which unique gap in the world of conferences (both geographically and topic-wise) does your event fill?
Define your audience: which people should attend and with what knowledge would you like them to return afterwards?
Find good speakers

they should be familiar with -but not necessarily known to- the niche/audience that you are targetting (this depends a bit on your goal: getting the state-of-the-art from a world expert is different from getting an interesting and intellectually stimulating view on a topic from a relative outsider)
you should have witnessed them present at least once (either on video or live)
you would like to pick their brains afterwards (which is why after-conference dinners for speakers/organizers are so great: you get priviliged access to experts in the field, and they are usually in a great mood over a good meal / glass of wine)
this is really the main benefit: close interaction with experts. If you are professionally competent and nice to talk to, they will form a good opinion of you and this might give you career opportunities (speaking invitations, job offers based on word-of-mouth etc.)

Find a good conference chair:

should be knowledgeable of the nice/audience
should be firm but not a dominant personality so as to get a focussed but also lively discussion between audience and speakers
you should have witnessed this person perform in that role at least once
if you yourself fit the bill on all three accounts above, just put yourself into that role. It will give you great exposure to an audience and will be a rewarding experience. But don't force yourself into it for the exposure alone (e.g. because you are too shy or too dominant to facilitate discussions).

Mingle with the audience: apart from the speakers, talking to people in the audience is also very rewarding.

Obviously you will have to check up some of the logistics but with good support there is usually enough time to talk to a few people during the coffee breaks or at the drinks afterwards.
Even if you have no other role at the event, the fact that you are the organizer will register in people's minds and they will associate you to the topic of the day and this can lead to interesting future career opportunities (mostly small, like speaking invitations).

The worst two things that ever happened to me were:

a disappointing speaker (great-looking resume, nice phone interview before, but I had never watched that person speak and it was terrible, so now that's on the checklist)
a last-minute cancellation by a speaker (you cannot really plan against it because no-one would like to be a reserve-speaker, luckily the speaker enlisted a co-author as a substitute and that turned out to be a good experience)

Your answer is a little off topic but very interesting indeed :-)

@DavideChicco.it I guess my main message is that you have to plan the benefits, it won't fall into your lap. But if you plan it right, the rewards are huge!

authors: Марија Живановић


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In universities, what are the advantages of having a second department affiliation?
Browsing the internet, I found many professors, researchers and scientists that, in addition to their main affiliation to their main department, have also a second affiliation to another department of their university (for example, Russ Altman at Stanford).
Why so many scientists decide to have a second department affiliation?
What are the main advantages and benefits?

Sometimes, a second affiliation has real administrative meaning, for example if a professor's teaching duties are divided between two departments.  In other cases, a professor's duties are in just one department, and the second affiliation is either just an honorary matter (saying that the second department regards him as respectable in their field also) or possibly (depending on university rules) enables the professor to officially supervise dissertations in the second department.

There are joint appointments (split FTEs) and courtesy appointments (0 FTE lines).

Joint appointments are when two departments equally (or not) contribute some of their dedicated faculty lines to a position. For example, Physics gives 0.5 FTE (half of a faculty slot) and Chemistry gives 0.5 FTE and they bring in a person who gains the title of "Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Physics." Normally this person would have duties in both departments.
There are also courtesy appointments, also called 0 FTE appointments. If the above person was brought in 100% by Chemistry (1.0 FTE) but for various reasons wanted to occasionally teach a cross-listed course in physics, serve as a chair on a couple of doctoral committees, or other sundry reasons,  the Physics department could decide to add this person to their affiliate faculty list. It would not cost them any lines (which is why it is 0 FTE) and would solve some administrative requirements.

Note that some university programs are entirely consisted of 0 FTE positions and have no faculty lines of their own. Women's Studies is a good example of a program that on many campuses is entirely 0 FTE driven.

In the case of the example given by the OP, the person is "Professor of Bioengineering, Genetics, and Medicine (and Computer Science, by courtesy)." This would seem to indicate that he has three 0.33 FTE lines (or 0.5 FTE, 0.25 FTE, 0.25 FTE; etc. etc.) and one 0 FTE courtesy appointment.

What does FTE mean?

Full Time Equivalent == a way of counting faculty lines. One full-time professor is 1.0 FTE.


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To what degree does earning a pure math PhD in dynamical systems limit my career options outside of academia
I am a 2nd year math PhD student. If one specializes in pure math (say dynamical systems with no particular real-world application in mind), how difficult can it be to transition into industry after the PhD? What are measures one can take to make this a smooth transition? I am not particularly interested in applied math at the moment, but I'm not too optimistic about the future of the pure mathematician (unless he/she solves some Millennium Prize Problem!!). I would like to think that I have the option of switching from academia to industry if I had to. I am haunted by words of one of my undergrad math professors: "No one should major in pure math. You major in applied math and you continue to study pure math if you're interested in it."
I have a M.A. in math, and my thesis was concerned with estimating the fractal dimension of sets arising in dynamical systems. My ideal profession with a PhD in math would be to teach and to do research. My research need not be limited to pure math.

Dynamical Systems have a lot of real-world applications.  Do pay attention to real-world applications -- even if you don't spend any time analyzing them, those applications are quite helpful when it comes time to prove that your work is important.

Related: What are the potential pitfalls of having a PhD? (Also related: many of the questions in the sidebar)

BTW the reference chapter (yeah, it's that long) of Haddad's book contains a lot of practical applications, beyond the many already used in the text -- even if your work has no known direct practical applications, at least you can demonstrate that you're contributing to an area with many.

Related: Are there any research careers except professorship for a person holding PhD in pure mathematics?

If you think there's nothing for pure mathematicians to do except solve Millennium Problems, you have a huge misconception about where pure mathematics fits into the world. You absolutely must address that before taking your PhD plans any further because you can't possibly make an informed choice about your future, otherwise. Also, I think the advice that haunts you is really, really terrible advice.

@DavidRicherby I didn't imply that was all they had to do. It was an exaggeration, and I meant that's what one had to do to guarantee a position in pure math in academia.

@TheSubstitute OK, but it's an exaggeration that's so far from the mark that it conveys no information. The number of pure mathematics faculty in the world is multiple thousands; the number of pure mathematics faculty who have solved a Millennium problem is exactly zero.

@David: The number is exactly....ah, faculty.  Well done.

A lot of PhDs in theoretical mathematics end up "in industry" of one part or another.  Many times this is not by choice, which is sad, but it also means the learning curve is not too steep.  There is a reputation, reasonably well-deserved, that a PhD in mathematics teaches you how to think and solve problems in a rather fundamental and robust way, and that all other skills can be overlaid on top of that.  Certainly I've seen PhDs in "purely theoretical" mathematics with no programming skills, actuarial or statistical knowledge, etc. be hired by industry.  In fact many of these people get on-the-job training in the first year of their job...while they are getting well paid.
Well, but the job market is pretty tight all around these days, as perhaps you've heard.  If being totally clueless outside of theoretical mathematics can land you an industrial job, being less than totally clueless will be even better. I advise PhD students that as soon as they have real thought of a non-academic post-PhD career they should explore this in a positive way, including mentioning it to their advisor so that aspects of their program of study can be adjusted. For instance, in my PhD program you need to take two exams in foreign languages, but one of these can be replaced by a computer project.  Although I think the computer requirement would serve many would-be academics better as well, if you think you may go into industry, then reading in a third language is obviously not going to be as marketable as computer skills.
While you're in a PhD program in mathematics, talk to the students and faculty who have connections and experience in industry.  (Realize that your thesis advisor may not be such a person.  For instance I have zero industrial experience. I do not pretend to give advice in this area -- well, not specific advice, anyway! -- but I try to find other people who can.)  Don't be shy or embarrassed about this.  It's your life and you get to do what you want to do.
My feeling is that solidifying basic industrially applicable skills -- e.g. programming and even lower-level tech-savviness like spreadsheets, learning how to share and transfer files, etc. -- and supplementing with coursework and other training (e.g. taking actuarial exams; taking one solid course in statistics or financial mathematics) is a better bet and easier to do in your spare time than trying to change your thesis topic to something more applied.  As above, my feeling is that most industrial jobs don't care what you did your thesis on, and having done it on something rarefied and inapplicable is actually fine with them as long as you have, or can make them confident that you can learn, the skills you will need on the job.  But again, talk to people other than the academic lifers like me!

Its reassuring to know that even PhD graduates still get some training on the job.

This question is likely to be closed in the end because it depends to a great extent on the exact details of your personal situation, and there simply isn't enough information available to us to know how things might work out for you.
You're certainly smart to be planning for the possibility of transitioning out of academia into a career in industry. The current academic job market can be extremely difficult for new PhD's and it's impossible to accurately predict whether the market will improve or get worse by the time you complete your PhD.  Your own marketability in the academic job market will also depend on how successful in research you are as graduate student and post-doc.  Finally, getting a tenure track job is to some extent a matter of dumb luck- many well qualified applicants fail to find a tenure track position while similarly qualified applicants do succeed.  It's unreasonable to believe that this is all the result of a meritocracy.
What really matters in finding work in industry are your skills and experiences.  There's certainly some value in having completed a PhD in mathematics, but when it comes time to interview for a job in industry, the most relevant sections of your resume are going to describe skills that you have (e.g. computer skills, communication skills, ability to collaborate with others, and ability to solve problems creatively) and relevant experiences that demonstrate what you have done.
As you go through your PhD you should take time to develop those skills that would be useful in both academia and industry and you should consider carefully whether you want to take time to develop skills that would be of more value in industry even if doing so might take time away from developing your academic career.
Here are some options to consider:

Switching to a more applied area of mathematics.
Earning an additional certificate or master's degree in a more applied area such as high performance computing, data science, or software engineering.
Taking time off to work in an industrial internship.

Ultimately, it's your life, and you'll have to decide what's most important to you.  It would be foolish to simply give up on the career that you've dreamed of, but it would be equally foolish to not have backup plans.

You need to make a decision as to what the alternate career will be. This will depend a lot on your own aptitudes and interests.
Certainly, there are many roles that can make good use of a mathematician: both in terms of how they think and what they can actually do.
I would think that many of the latter involve being able to perform mathematical computations of some kind. In other words, programming.
So if you haven't already, consider making an effort to learn some computer science, software engineering and programming skills.
Note that these are not the same. Mathematicians who refuse to learn the difference are often terrible programmers. Those who do learn it are often great engineers.
Doing this:

May tell you that its not for you; better to know sooner than later
Can be very useful whether or not you continue as an academic mathematician
You may find you really enjoy it, and become the focus of a career


text:
What do people usually wear to conferences?
I'm going to my first conference in about a month, where I will be presenting a poster.
How do people usually dress for conferences? Do I need to dress more smartly than usual? Is formal dress (e.g. a suit) normal? Or does no-one really care?
I'm a PhD student, if that makes any difference, and both my university and the conference are in the UK. It's a biology conference.

It depends a lot on the event (some gatherings are more formal than others) and on your status (win a Nobel prize, and you can wear anything you damn well want), but in general, you're not really expected to wear anything fancier to an academic conference than you would for a normal day at work or in class.
In practice, most people do tend to dress up a little bit, just to look their best, but still, even if you just wear your normal clean everyday clothes, you're not going to embarrass yourself (any more than you usually do, at least). As the other answers note, "smart casual" is the usual style here.
Nothing says you can't wear a suit if you want to; I see people do that all the time in conferences. Then again, some of those people also wear a suit to work every day, so...
Still, if you're in doubt, why not ask your advisor (or someone else in your group who's been to similar events before)? That's part of their job: to teach you the basics of academic work, which certainly includes presenting your work at a conference.

I will absolutely ask my supervisor, and the other people in the lab, but I don't think it hurts to gather wider opinions.

I believe when receiving the Nobel Price there is a strong dress requirement to wear a tuxedo as man and fine dress as woman. You're meeting the King nonetheless.

In academia, the dress code is much more relaxed than in business settings, but there are exceptions in certain fields. But overall, people care less about what you wear, and more about what you have to say. (And I must, I quite like it.)
The dress code in most academic events (conferences included) is often called “academic casual”, and is not very strict. If you want to be sure to avoid any gaffe, just stay away from the short pants and T-shirts (overly casual), as well as full suits and ties (overdressed). So, long pants (may want to avoid blue jeans), a shirt (or other top with collar), possibly a decent sweater.

Regarding women's attire, in addition to the choices above, pantsuits are fine, dresses and skirts (not short enough as to be provocative!) are also okay, but again do not overdress.

Regarding various fields: I have noticed that researchers at physics conferences are usually more casual than chemists and chemical engineers. Others will surely comment about their own field(s)…
One exception I am aware of: law conferences usually follow a more business dress code, rather than casual.

In some fields this would qualify as formal.

@DanielE.Shub for example in Earth Sciences many people where their zip-off pants and hiking boots to the conference.

@PaulHiemstra I don't have any other shoes than hiking shoes or hiking sandals ;-) (at least not for job-related stuff)

It depends on who you are, who your audience is, and what you're presenting.
If your talk is very, very academic, then your best going with business casual.  I have never seen a speaker wear a suit and tie.
Christian Renaud's dress at this Siggraph 2009 seems exemplary:

He's got:

A light colored shirt with a collar
Likely dark colored pants

If you're a woman, women's business casual is usually very similar.

This is Mimi Harris at Siggraph 2009, talking about Web3D.
Sometimes you will see people wearing T-Shirts at academic conferences.  This seems to be ok for developers who spend all their time developing software, and are showcasing what they have recently developed.

This is Johannes Behr talking at Siggraph 2008.  I kind of believe developers dress this way to kind of implicitly give the impression that "Hey, I was just developing and I popped in to give you this talk. After, I'm going straight back to my desk."  A T-Shirt says "this is a casual talk. Relax. I'm showing you some cool stuff."

This is clearly field-dependent. I suppose mathematics and computer science are somewhat more casual than other fields. For example, suit and tie is not unusual for some of the senior professors in chemistry and chemical engineering, especially at the bigger conferences. It's also a usual attire for researchers from the big companies…

@F'x: It is field dependent, but the nature of the dependence may not always be obvious. In my experience from conferences on mathematical biology, the mathematicians seem to be a bit more formal on average than the biologists, although people from both fields do span the full gamut from suit and tie to shorts and T-shirt. The type of casual dress also varies somewhat between fields: a stereotypical mathematician might wear a plaid cotton shirt and corduroy pants (and glasses), while a biologist might be more likely to go for "field casual", such as blue jeans and a wool sweater.

And in software, Hawaiian shirts are reserved for the greats.

The important thing is to wear something you are comfortable with. If a suit/tie/dress really makes you uncomfortable or self conscious, don't wear it regardless of what other people are wearing. If you are comfortable wearing anything, I would error on the side of too formal. It tends to be easier to make an outfit less formal than more formal and while I have never heard comments about how someone dresses at a conference, I have heard negative comments about how a candidate dresses at a job interview (always that the dress was too informal). I find that a good starting point is to look at what people wear when they are teaching.

For women and men, I would err on the conservative side for conferences - but this does not mean you should throw out your own, personal style. My first conference, I felt awkward and uncomfortable because I had decided to wear pants and a blazer instead of one of my usual dresses. I though the pants made me look more professional - but they fit poorly and made me feel insecure.
Here are some tips from my department: http://ucfhistory.wordpress.com/2014/07/07/what-to-wear-to-your-first-conference-10-tips-for-grad-students/

In my experience the dress code at academic conferences is really casual. I would just wear what you would normally wear to work, possibly avoiding shorts when giving a presentation (although I have seen plenty of people presenting in shorts). You could also wear a suit, although I think you would be one of the few that does. If you do want to make your clothes a bit more formal for your presentation, I would wear only the jacket of the suit combined with nice shoes, with for example jeans and no tie.

What are 'normal pants' ?

@PaulHiemstra Your answer covers males. What about females? I once saw a female graduate student crying in the hotel lobby after her advisor scold her about the length of her skirt.

@scaaahu For females I would mostly avoid anything that's too revealing, since that is the tendency for some styles of womens' clothing. If you're doing a presentation and/or want to be more formal, a blouse and a long skirt or pants would work. T-shirt and shorts should be fine for attending talks, doing poster sessions, etc.

@Jake I agree, wearing revealing clothes will distract people from your presentation, and make you look less professional. Again, I think that dressing as you would at your ordinary place of work is a good rule of thumb.

@scaaahu The dress codes for female academics could best be summarized as "A goddamned minefield."

Note: I'm female.
The conferences I've gone to weren't overly dressy. I've gone to a few chemistry conferences, a multi-disciplinary conference, and one for writing. I wore black slacks a nice top and I fit in pretty well.
However: I wanted to make a great impression and wore really nice shoes. They weren't crazy shoes, but there was a LOT of walking (and thus a lot of blisters.) Make sure your shoes are comfortable not just for standing in, but for walking.
Next time, I'll still dress nice, but I'll wear much more comfortable shoes.

I googled this topic because I was in a similar situation. Generally speaking, my solution to the problem is:
Find pictures of previous conferences and see what people are wearing.
Maybe it is an annual conference or summer school, or maybe you know a similar conference, chances are that someone was walking around with a camera, taking photos for posterity.
Apart from that, things hugely vary by field. In my field, for example, the old folks show up in dress pants or jeans and with a dress shirt, long or short sleeve. The younger ones have relaxed expectations. Sadly, we don't have Nobel prize winners who don't care about their appearance.

This is profoundly field dependent, and even within what could be considered the same field, may vary based on individuals and the slant of the conference. For example, in conferences I regularly attend:

At a computational conference, half the attendees were wearing the conference t-shirt. I felt perfectly comfortable presenting in jeans and an untucked button-up shirt.
At a public health conference, "someone wearing a navy blazer" is almost 100% predictive of that person being a clinician. Wearing a sport coat with no tie is "dressed up".
At medical conferences on the other hand, the same attire is "dressing down" a bit, and visually separating myself as "not a clinician".
At homeland security conferences, nearly everyone is in a shirt and tie with a blue or black blazer, besides the academics.
At all of these, the military types are in whatever uniform they're mandated to wear by their service.

I could credibly be giving the same talk at each of these. There's also differences by rank ('Big names' in my field are often dressed considerably down - at one point pink parachute pants) and other aspects like gender (women are, in my experience, more harshly judged for 'missing the mark' in either direction).


text:
Can I use images showing up in Google search for my presentation slides without violating any copyright?
I am teaching a freshman science course for the first time and I am doing also outreach activities in high schools. To be able to attract the young generation to science one has to connect the concepts with everyday applications.
So I build my power point slides using pictures from the textbooks which we officially use. Unfortunately when one does a Google search on any subject by images, one gets much more appealing and fascinating pictures. Some of these pictures are even related to simple applications which are explained in popular science sites on very recent discoveries. The problem is that I cannot use those pictures from Google sites in my slides because they are copyrighted.
What should I do then? Should I stick to the boring-looking textbook pics to avoid copyright problems, or bring life to my course by using images Google shows up (but then I might go to the jail!)?
Is there something that says one can use images shown by Google for educational purposes with no copyright issues?

+1 I have been in touch with computer science for many years and I'm still afraid of using external graphics/copyright thing. I just feel its complicated.. hope we find a good answer for your question..

This doesn't answer your question, since it asks about Google but I always look at the Wikimedia Commons first for images.  The selection and quality is pretty good and they are all freely usable.

I'm disturbed that you're referring to these as "Google Images"; they're not. They images owned by a whole variety of different people and websites that Google has found for you; you have no more intrinsic right to them than you to do an image you found in a book or the text you find in a library book.

You can use images showing up in Google Search if and only if the license allows for it.  Therefore, you might be interested in Advanced Google Image Search, where you can search by copyright status. More information about the Usage rights search can be found here.
For example, here are freely useable images searching for "Mars".  Notice how many of them are from NASA or the Wikimedia Foundation.
And here is an example searching for "IBM".
Note: See the important remark by @jb. in the comment below
 —
 you should verify with the original source (1) that the picture really is free to use, and (2) under what conditions
Good luck and enjoy!

You might also try to use flickr.com, where you can search for images with various versions of Creative Commons and check those licences.

Yes. I assume Google Image Search includes all of those as well.

Using google filter doesn't mean that you can freely use images you found, you'll have to manually confirm that you have rights to use each image you found.
From Usage right search help page:
Before reusing content that you've found, you should verify that its license is legitimate and check the exact terms of reuse stated in the license. For example, most licenses require that you give credit to the image creator when reusing an image. Google has no way of knowing whether the license is legitimate, so we aren't making any representation that the content is actually or lawfully licensed.

I don't think this answer the question "Can I use images showing up in Google search for my presentation slides without violating any copyright?" but rather "how can I find any alternative creative commons images?"

@GM It shows how you can use Google Image Search to find for images you can use in presentation slides.

@gerrit exactly that the question it answer!  "how can you use Google Image Search to find for images you can use in presentation slides?"

@TommiBrander I've added such a line.

Find an interesting image.
Check for licensing conditions. If license has generous terms (like Creative Commons license) allowing free reuse of the image, or reuse under conditions that you meet (like attribution or absence of modifications), use the image.
If you think your use is covered by fair use: use the image.
Otherwise, contact the copyright holder for explicit permission to reuse.
If it is not clear who is copyright holder, it is orphaned work. In some European jurisdictions it can be used (but not in the US).

Educate yourself with this nice website: http://www.teachingcopyright.org
This document for teachers is a good resource too: http://www.umuc.edu/library/libhow/copyright.cfm

It must be noted: many people follow the algorithm below

Find image
Screw it! Just use image
Realize that nobody came to put you in jail

It does not mean it is right, but they are not going to jail. And if their use is not to make money they probably will not meet issues at all.

The latter link seems to be USA-specific. Mentioning this would improve the answer.

Is there something that says one can use Google images for educational purposes with no copyright issues?

Nope, there is no such principle in general, although it depends on the particular country.  In the U.S. the closest concept is fair use, which covers some cases.  Unfortunately, there's no simple way to tell when it applies.  For example, it's not true that all educational uses are automatically fair use.
I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that if you reproduce a figure from a paper so you can criticize it, then that's certainly fair use, but if you decide to illustrate your cryptographic protocol using Bart and Lisa Simpson, then that's likely not.  Of course many cases fall in between these extremes.
In practice, though, you are unlikely to get in any trouble for using copyrighted images in slides for an academic presentation.  People do it all the time, and I've never heard of any legal action.  Posting the slides online is a little riskier, but even that is sometimes done.  [Don't interpret this as legal advice, of course: it's still illegal if it's not covered by fair use.]
If you want to be careful, you can choose to use only public domain images or those available under a suitable Creative Commons license allowing re-use.  The web page http://search.creativecommons.org/ can help you find such images.
Note that Creative Commons licenses typically require attribution, and that's a good practice in general.  If you use any images you don't create, I'd recommend a little note giving credit off to the side somewhere.  After all, it's good to model high ethical standards for our students.

Yeah one has to cite the reference of course, but in case one would have a slide which contains 6 images taken from different places it is a problem. Eventually the slides will be full of links to many sites, and some links are too long, this would be so distracting I think.

Yeah, it can be tricky.  You could just have a line at the bottom of the slide in very small type saying "Images from A, B, C, D, E, F." and not giving full links.

It depends on the country. In Germany the copyright law has a paragraph which explicitly allows using small works or small parts of a work for teaching purposes.

@Silvado: Good point, I'll edit to clarify.  Incidentally, the German law (http://dejure.org/gesetze/UrhG/52a.html) allows only uses that are "necessary to the respective purpose" ("zu dem jeweiligen Zweck geboten"), so it's not 100% clear to me what it covers, and it does not include anyone but the actual students (for example, you cannot post the slides online).  Still, it's great that German law has formalized this.  I wish they would do that in the U.S.

@NewScienceFaculty If links are long or distracting, you can provide them aggregated in last slide (like references in papers). I've seen it quite often.

I completely agree with the line "it's good to model high ethical standards for our students", however a lot of the rest causes me to wince.

In case the search engine does not matter to you, you could also search in Flickr instead of using Google. The advanced search on Flickr has an option to search for pictures with the Creative Commons licence only, which is a good start.
However, check the individual licence terms. E.g. some pictures require that the photographer is mentioned.

There is no such thing as "the Creative Commons license". CC publishes several very different licences.

Explicitly answering the question would improve this answer.

I'm not a lawyer, but I think that your use of the image is a non-profit commercial use, it might be considered as fair use, so you will be fine. From Nolo, The 'Fair Use' Rule: When Use of Copyrighted Material is Acceptable:

When Is a Use a "Fair Use"?
There are five basic rules to keep in mind when deciding whether or not a particular use of an author's work is a fair use:
Rule 1: Are You Creating Something New or Just Copying?
The purpose and character of your intended use of the material involved is the single most important factor in determining whether a use is a fair use. The question to ask here is whether you are merely copying someone else's work verbatim or instead using it to help create something new.
Rule 2: Are Your Competing With the Source You're Copying From?
Without consent, you ordinarily cannot use another person's protected expression in a way that impairs (or even potentially impairs) the market for his or her work.
For example, say Nick, a golf pro, writes a book on how to play golf. He copies several brilliant paragraphs on putting from a book by Lee Trevino, one of the greatest putters in golf history. Because Nick intends his book to compete with and hopefully supplant Trevino's, this use is not a fair use.
Rule 3: Giving the Author Credit Doesn't Let You Off the Hook
Some people mistakenly believe that they can use any material as long as they properly give the author credit. Not true. Giving credit and fair use are completely separate concepts. Either you have the right to use another author's material under the fair use rule or you don't. The fact that you attribute the material to the other author doesn't change that.
Rule 4: The More You Take, the Less Fair Your Use Is Likely to Be
The more material you take, the less likely it is that your use will be a fair use. As a general rule, never: quote more than a few successive paragraphs from a book or article, take more than one chart or diagram, include an illustration or other artwork in a book or newsletter without the artist's permission, or quote more than one or two lines from a poem.
Contrary to what many people believe, there is no absolute word limit on fair use. For example, copying 200 words from a work of 300 words wouldn't be fair use. However, copying 2000 words from a work of 500,000 words might be fair. It all depends on the circumstances.
To preserve the free flow of information, authors have more leeway in using material from factual works (scholarly, technical, and scientific works) than to works of fancy such as novels, poems, and plays.
Rule 5: The Quality of the Material Used Is as Important as the Quantity
The more important the material is to the original work, the less likely your use of it will be considered a fair use.
  In one famous case, The Nation magazine obtained a copy of Gerald Ford's memoirs before their publication. In the magazine's article about the memoirs, only 300 words from Ford's 200,000-word manuscript were quoted verbatim. The Supreme Court ruled that this was not a fair use because the material quoted (dealing with the Nixon pardon) was the "heart of the book ... the most interesting and moving parts of the entire manuscript," and that pre-publication disclosure of this material would cut into value or sales of the book.
In determining whether your intended use of another author's protected work constitutes a fair use the golden rule: Take from someone else only what you wouldn't mind someone taking from you.

As you can see, this answer might violate the rule 4 and 5. Wish me luck.

The answer would be improved by an explicit answer to the question and by mentioning that fair use is specific to certain countries, maybe only USA.

A copyright is still limited in some very important ways, such as Fair Use. This is a legal doctrine which allows even copyrighted material to be used by others for purposes of "criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.", see this link (or archived version of original link).
Since it sounds like you would be using the images for nonprofit educational purposes, as long as you cite the course it is not infringing on anyone's rights.

The answer would be improved by an explicit answer to the question and by mentioning that fair use is specific to certain countries, maybe only USA.

It depends on the image
Your question is not well posed, and also most of the answers that you get are actually answering other questions. Google searches images all around the web so you have to check if the website where the image is stored has some permissive licence or guidelines regarding the sharing and reuse of the image. Filtering by licences using Google Images could be an option but actually, the way this search works is to check if the pages have a link to an explicit license. So sometimes the authors used images without consent and put the text of the website under creative licences and you think that also the images are under creative licence.  In other cases, the website might have a dedicated page for permission to reuse that Google could not find automatically. So Google filters are not always infallible.
If the image has a restrictive copyright
If the image has a restrictive, it means you did not find a permissive licence. All content in the web is copyrighted if a permissive licence is not released. However, even for copyrighted images, there is sometimes the option of 'fair use' in U.S. and in Europe, you may have a look to Copyright Directive Article .5.3 which list exceptions that the European state might integrate into their law:

illustration for teaching or scientific research, provided the source,
  including the author's name, is acknowledged,

So eventually you have to check the legislation of the country where you present the talk.
A specific question has already been posted for talks:
What is the legal status of using copyrighted images in academic/conference talks?

@TommiBrander thanks I integrated the answer.

We publish an industry magazine (very colourful and attractive piece!) and we use all our images from ThinkStock.
This is not a free site but once you have subscribed to it (for a year or a month), you can download the number of images in your package.
There is no copyright restrictions and you can manipulate the images in any way you like.
Check this too: MorgueFile Its free.
And StockExpert

2000 € per year is probably more than a teacher can afford, and I think most departments would not see it as a justified expense.

Explicitly answering the question would improve this answer.

There are plenty of innovative services out there that offer you legal content for low or no cost. Most of them even offer their own PowerPoint add-ins so that you can get your pictures without even going to Google and having to worry about copyright. Shutterstock, Pickit and Pexels are such services and while the first one costs a little amount per picture, the other two are free alternatives with great content. Discovering those has greatly reduced my copyright headaches when I present and I've even made some of my own photos available for usage. Recommended!

Explicitly answering the question would improve this answer. Also, are you affiliated with any of the websites?


text:
What to fill in "Company/Occupation" form for seminars while not being affiliated yet?
Oftentimes it happens that you want to attend a conference/seminar while in the middle of job switch or search. In that case, you don't have an affiliation (university or company) yet.
In that case, what is acceptable to fill in the "Company/Occupation" form that is often mandatory for registering? The option of leaving it blank seems inappropriate to me. Is there any unwritten rule on what to write (future employer, past employer, blank, last academic degree)?

Why the downvotes?

There are a few possibilities. For some, "independent researcher" is appropriate. But you can also say "currently unaffiliated" instead, rather than leaving it blank. That would be fine for a short term hiatus between jobs.
Or something like "Unaffiliated, since July 2020" or whenever to emphasize that it is short term. (Short in "covid-time, anyway).

This is insightful info. Could also someone put their title (PhD, MSc, ...). In my personal case I am an abilitated engineer with MSc, don't know if "MSc Graduate in X" would be acceptable

Generally your highest degree and field should be part of any application. There are few exceptions. MSc, Engr. or something similar.


text:
Why are there so many PhD positions and so few PostDoc positions?
I don't have hard numbers (if you know a good source, please do share), but it is quite apparent that there are many more Ph.D. student positions advertised than PostDoc positions, at least in my field (engineering/CS, Europe). My feeling would be that many labs I know have a ratio of maybe 5-10 Ph.D. students to 1 PostDoc. Why is that the case?
Specifically, why do professors or funding organizations prefer hiring a Ph.D. student to hiring a PostDoc? I know that the latter are a little bit more expensive in terms of salary*, but they will generally also be much more productive. (I'm just comparing myself now at the end of my Ph.D. with myself at the beginning of it.) If I were a professor now, had enough money at hand and could choose freely how to spend it, I'd aim for a much lower ratio, maybe 2 Ph.D. students to 1 PostDoc. Why don't people do that? Are there funding constraints (if yes, for which reason)? Aren't there enough qualified applicants (I would doubt this)?
In the larger scheme of things, hiring more senior researchers and less Ph.D. students would also contribute to solving the much lamented (at least in Germany) problem that there is a lack of viable scientific career paths short of becoming a professor.
One final comment: in an earlier question of mine, someone replied that universities have a teaching obligation, thus effectively obliging them to hire Ph.D. students instead of PostDocs. However, in my country (Germany) and field, Ph.D. students are not really seen as students; they are essentially fully paid staff researchers. (They also do not visit any lecture courses.) I do not believe that supervising a Ph.D. student is seen as "fulfilling the university's teaching obligations", although I might be wrong about that.
EDIT: Since the question of ethics and "do people actually want to stay in academia" came up a few times, here are a few articles about the detrimental effects of job scarcity at the postdoc level:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03235-y
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0250662
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01548-0
https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2008/08/science-careers-poll-results-realistic-readership

*This will likely vary by region. In another answer, someone claimed that PostDocs are twice as expensive as Ph.D. students. In my institution, however, the pay gap is much lower. Maybe around one fifth or fourth?

Assume time as a PhD is 6 years, as a post-doc 3 years. One would expect a 1:3 ratio of post-doc to student. But wait, this presumes all PhDs go on to a post-doc. If only half do, then you are at a 1:6 ratio. Perhaps step back and ask why any given professor has more than one PhD student...

Also, not all post-docs are at universities. Both industry and national labs have post-doc positions (less now than formerly when IBM Research and Bell Labs were in their prime, but Microsoft, Google, etc. have more now than 40 years ago - particularly for Google).

You might be interested: Why do departments fund PhD students instead of postdocs?

Many Ph.D. graduates go on to non-academic careers, for which no postdocs are required.

I've been in places where post-docs outnumbered PhD students 5-to-1, the reason being that the time to be a PhD student is limited but the time to be a postdoc is not.

Somewhat related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/107699/is-there-any-valid-reason-why-we-should-not-reduce-the-number-of-phd-offers

@Roland Can you give a concrete example where "funding agencies encourage, sometimes require, hiring of PhD students"? I have now heard this a few times, but I cannot find anything on the subject, e.g., by the DFG. E.g., here it simply says "if special research qualifications (doctorate), experience and independence (at least three years of work experience) are necessary to meet the project’s objectives, funding in this [post-doc] category may be requested," which does not sound particularly hard to argue for.

Even though Ph.D. students are also paid for the work they do, they're still students, in the sense that they're doing it all to earn a degree. Isn't "giving people the training necessary for a particular degree" what universities are for, even in Germany?

@TooTea Universities (in Germany) are, I believe in roughly equal parts, "for" both education and research. It's not that one of them is the priority and the other the byproduct. I can only speak for myself, but I personally have not done the work I did during my PhD for earning a degree; I did it because I wanted to do research and considered the topic interesting and important. The only reason I am interested in the degree at all is because it unfortunately still is a necessary requirement for doing academic research in the long term.

JonCuster, Roland - answers should not be written in the comments; please consider converting your comments into proper answers.

A few reasons from a European perspective:

Graduated PhD students are a success metric: Institutions and departments might be evaluated based on their number of graduated PhD students. Likewise, when a professor goes up for a tenure evaluation or applies for a job somewhere else, they typically need to show a track record of successful supervision of PhD students. Successful post-doc supervision doesn't nearly count as much.
Better success chances for post-docs: Successful supervision of PhD students is also a success metrics when post-docs apply for faculty jobs. A research group with a rather high postdoc-to-PhD ratio will give less opportunity for each post-doc to gain the necessary supervision experiences.
Ethical reasons: A situation in which every PhD candidate can get a post-doc, but most post-docs have no chance for a professorship might be considered ethically dubious. A post-doc is a temporary position with the goal of strengthening the post-doc's research profile towards a successful application for faculty jobs. Since there are much more people interested in a PhD than there are available professor positions, there has to be a point where "the funnel is narrowed", as to avoid that too many hopeless candidates are stuck in the post-doc stage without any realistic job prospects.

Can I ask what does "A research group with a rather high postdoc-to-PhD ratio will give less opportunity for each post-doc to gain the necessary supervision experiences."  mean? What "supervision" here then? Thanks a heap

I think the last reason you give might be the most important reason. The number of PhD students quite high (and steadily increasing, at least in Germany), yet the number of professor positions is quite low, especially because there is not a lot of turnover, as most professor are appointed "for life" that is until they retire.

@NoviceMindset At least in my field, it's very common that post-docs co-supervise PhD students. I would go as far as saying that a complete lack of co-supervision opportunities means to set up the post-doc for failure, because it will be hard to build a comparable research track record to other post-docs who have those opportunities.

@Sursula I wish I could share your optimism that these ethical concerns are indeed the most important reason. For some they certainly are, but not necessarily for everyone.

@lighthousekeeper It makes sense now, thanks a heap!

Interesting; I wasn't aware that PhD supervision is such an important success metric! Do you have concrete examples where this is considered, e.g., in evaluation guidelines?

Concerning the last point: well, if there were more post-doc positions and less PhD positions, then being a permanent post-doc (i.e., a permanent staff researcher) might become a viable career option - which, sadly, it isn't really right now. A system like the current one where you essentially must become a professor to be a permanent researcher (with a few exceptions) is not the only viable option, or is it?

@jhin It's often internal documents, for example, my own tenure evaluation criteria and a criteria catalog for internal promotions for associate and full professor. I have also seen the number of graduated PhD students been brought up in hiring committee discussions.

@jhin I would agree, but what have you have in mind here would lead to a rethinking of the concept "postdoc" and move further away from the original question.

@lighthousekeeper True, and I do not want to steer the discussion too far in that direction. I only brought it up because you mention "ethical reasons" in your answer, and I'm questioning whether the current way of doing things really is "the ethical thing to do".

Graduate students are being educated for a broad range of careers, mostly outside academia. There is, after all, a large demand for PhDs in many fields of industry and in government. Universities heed this outside demand by educating many of them.
Postdocs are being educated primarily for academic careers. There is a much smaller demand for them, and so universities hire fewer of them because they would otherwise end up with lots of well-trained postdocs who cannot find jobs for which they have been educated.

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

It's not an academic reason, it's because the labor supply is saturated pushing up qualifications people are chasing.

This is the best answer

I don't know, is there really any evidence that people are pursuing PhDs specifically to improve their non-academic job qualifications? It's a really, really narrow slice of jobs that a PhD actually advantages you for, so this argument depends on a lot of PhD-seekers being quite confused. In my experience, PhD students almost all intend to be academics initially.

I can speak anecdotally, in ML the FAANG companies basically want to hire PhD graduates even though what they are doing doesn't require it, there's just such a massive number of people graduating in the field at this point that they can set arbitrarily high expectations. The people in my research group are 3/4 international students who hope to get a sponsorship into the US after graduation from these companies. None of them are planning on being professors.

@KevinArlin It very much depends on the field. For some STEM positions having a PhD is actually the norm. Whether incoming students are aware of this is another question.

Hierarchy is everywhere, whether you like it or not:

there are more secondary school graduates than college graduates;
there are more Masters graduates than PhD graduates;
there are more Post-docs than Professors.

My question was not about personal preferences, but about understanding the incentives that lead to the current system. More to the point: I totally understand that Nprof > Npostdoc > Nphd > Nmaster will always be true, but this says nothing about the magnitude of the size differences between the different Ns. (As I wrote in the question, my personal best guess would have been around 2-3:1, whereas in practice it often seems to be 5-10:1.)

@jhin you're way overthinking this.  Not every person wants to go to the next level; it's as simple as that.  (And even some that want to step up see that their job prospects would be limited, of they really need to Get A Job, etc.)

Unfortunately, things do not appear to be as simple as that, considering that there are evidently many people who would like to stay in academia but are forced to drop out. See, e.g., any of these articles.

I am removing some unkind comments; let us remember our code of conduct. That said: I do encourage you to edit your answer to add more detail; in its current form, I think one might be able (correctly) flag it as "not an answer" since you are only restating the premise of the question (that this hierarchy exists). Even just editing your comment above into the text of the answer would make it more answer-like.

In my alma mater, there are less post-docs than tenured researchers.

I would argue that the role of a postdoc is often different from that of a graduate student. I would categorize many such reasons as "managerial".
For instance:

Post-docs may be expected to serve as a "back-up" or secondary advisor (sometimes in addition to employing full-time lab managers), particularly in large groups, where some post-docs may take on significant supervisory duties. Having too too many post-docs may result in conflict (too many cooks do spoil the broth).

Some professors I have known have displayed distinct signs of "ageism", that is, a preference for younger applicants (purposely or not, this is often encoded in requirements that PhDs be granted only a few years before applying for the postdoc). The experience that seems so admirable can also lead to friction and confrontation under the wrong circumstances.

Incoming students are malleable and often more patient than more experienced individuals. They are more willing to follow orders blindly and take on risky projects, in part because they are blank slates, also because they have more time to find and develop a successful project. Ph.D. projects are often supposed to be very high risk (at least historically, although this may be declining). Part of the strategy of discovery is to try something so wild nobody else has bothered to test it before.

Postdocs may be highly specialized to either complement or enhance (through teaching) the skills of graduate students. They may be hired for a specific role (rather say than to chase whatever new lead strikes the advisors fancy). There is a natural flow of information here consistent with the educational role of the institution.


text:
Can I update my MSc thesis after submission
Due to events beyond my control I couldn't finish the writing as planned. Most of the thesis were rather ready and not to bad (if I might say) but I didn't finish all chapters well, there are some logical gaps and moreover some of the rather central diagrams were not clear at all. In normal circumstances this could be fixed in a few days, but in this case there were no way to do it.
I couldn't postpone to submit the MSc thesis (due to maximum time allowed) so I just quickly wrapped it up (removing comments in text and tried to cover some logic steps in sloppy sentences etc).
Now, the thesis are to be archived and moreover, some colleagues from other universities want to read it. It's a rather big interest, but I'm embarrassed about the missing parts and even some typos. Would it be immoral to correct the errors and fix the missing parts to create a better, more readable study, if I clearly state that it is an updated version? Could I call it a report based on my thesis or something like that?
What would be the best way to deal with it? I'd love to produce a well written document at the end, but shouldn't hide the problems of the original, submitted thesis. I have no intention of hiding the original thesis, but the results would be much clearer with n update.

Is this a PhD thesis? Or a MSc thesis?

Sorry, updated.

Are you proposing to amend your thesis and ask the various libraries to register the amended work as opposed to your original submission? If so, I doubt that would the libraries would go for this.

My answer below assumes that you have attempted to get an extension for your work based on this tragic event that occurred to you. Did you?

My country has very strict time limits and extension is practically  impossible  and moreover application for extension must be submitted long before the deadline. My first choice would have been to ask for a few weeks extension.

There is nothing immoral about correcting mistakes in your earlier work. Passing off your amended version as that which you submitted to your institution would be rather questionable, though.
I do not think that any library would replace your original submission with an amended version unless that amended version was created through an official process at your institution. I don't think that such an amendment process is available in most cases for an MSc thesis.
So your problem of trying to drive readers towards your updated, amended and corrected work, remains.
Perhaps one solution would be to correct your original work and have a version of this available online, with some appropriate title which indicates it is an updated version of your earlier work, as you suggest. I suggest that you make it very clear where your corrections were made in your updated version -- going so far as to quote the original work and indicate what you changed and why.
You can then point your colleagues towards this updated work.
You original work will remain on record, and any failings in it will be reflected in the grade you receive for it.


text:
Is it a good idea to mention previous rejection and subsequent improvement in motivation letter?
I am applying to a Master's degree in Finland. Last year I applied to the same programme and unfortunately I was not accepted.
While I am writing my motivation letter I wonder if it would be a good idea to mention that I was not accepted last year but now I have improved as a professional during last year, so I can tell that I am a better prospect now.

Applying for a degree means what in this context? Are you already a student and wanted to get the degree conferred? That should be possible whenever you fulfill the requirements. Or do you want to apply for admission and/or a scholarship at one or multiple universities? (EDIT: Ok, this seems to be answered in the tags. Please update the post to clarify).

@DCTLib I assumed applying for admissions, because you don't really "apply" for conferral of a degree, and because of the mention of a motivation letter.

Related question: mentioning rejected publications in SOP

@ff524 - Actually at some combinations of department and university, you need to - this makes sense if you can take extra courses and then only use some for your actual degree. For example, you can study for bachelor and master at the same time and then need to decide for some courses for which degree they should be used. Formally, this is an "application for a degree" and it may be rejected if the numbers don't add up (or it becomes obvious that you try to trick the department by performing "double-dipping" for some courses)

@ff524 Good point - I didn't exclude the possibility that "motivation letter" meant "cover letter", which may make sense in some cases (e.g., after having been caught with trying to double-dip some courses). The ambiguity of the phrase "Applying for a degree" led me to some doubt about whether this question being one on admissions to a course of study is really the only possible interpretation.

I'm sorry if my first post looked a bit confusing, I am applying to a master's degree programme.

If you think you might know the reason for rejection and over the course of last year you have managed to resolve the issue then IMO it is worth mentioning. On the other hand if you added so much prestige to your profile during the time then it's worth stating that you had applied last year and also state your qualifications and skills earned since then.