text:
What are the pros and cons of giving students assignments to write Wikipedia articles?
The Wikimedia Foundation initiated an education program at U.S. universities that in 2010 encouraged government, law, and public policy students from 33 classes at 22 programs to contribute to Wikipedia (https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education). Surveying 463 students in the public policy program revealed that they were motivated to work on Wikipedia articles that could reach a larger audience and could impact the society more than traditional class paper. In addition, classroom characteristics, and level of class engagement were strong motives to engage students to contribute in the future. You can find more information about this research at:

Roth, A. Student contributions to wikipedia. Tech. rep., Wikimedia Foundation, 2011.
  Lampe, Cliff, et al. "Classroom Wikipedia participation effects on future intentions to contribute." Proceedings of the ACM 2012 conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. ACM, 2012.

In addition, the following paper shows that researchers in collaboration with the Association for Psychological Science (APS) involved 640 students from 36 courses in editing scientific articles on Wikipedia. As a result, students improved the content of over 800 articles and both students and faculty endorsed the benefits of the writing experience that would be read by a large number of people.

Farzan, Rosta, and Robert E. Kraut. "Wikipedia classroom experiment: bidirectional benefits of students' engagement in online production communities." Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2013.

Before relying on these studies and defining Wikipedia based assignments for my students, I want to consult with you about pros and cons of this idea.
For which types of courses does it work and for which it doesn't?
For which types of assignments does it work and for which it doesn't?
Will it improve students' motivation to learn?
How can one define a rubric for this type of assignment?
More importantly, I was thinking asking students to contribute to Wikipedia for credit, might mitigate the altruistic nature of contribution to the public good.
Is there any study investigating the behavior of these student accounts on Wikipedia after the end of the semester? Does in absence of the personal incentive, the contribution decrease?

I have on several occasions given students assignments (in math classes I was teaching) to contribute to Wikipedia, either for bonus credit or in lieu of a traditional final paper. Both I and the students were very happy with the results and with the fact that our efforts (which included fairly substantial involvement on my part, see below) resulted in the creation of a valuable resource for the community. I am therefore inclined to view this idea very positively.
That being said, in my experience this type of project would definitely not be suitable for all students and in all circumstances, so one should consider carefully (as you are indeed doing by asking the question) the various implications and factors involved.

For which types of courses does it work and for which it doesn't?

The idea is suitable for advanced classes where you cover topics that are not currently well-covered on Wikipedia. E.g., something like a calculus class is a bad idea, but a graduate class on differentiable manifolds would almost certainly involve several topics that Wikipedia needs help with.

For which types of assignments does it work and for which it doesn't?

The first rule should be "do no harm". What I mean is that some students do not have the writing skills to make a positive contribution to Wikipedia with a reasonable effort of the sort that a course assignment should involve, and we certainly don't want them making negative contributions. Thus, my philosophy is that a Wikipedia assignment should be elective - i.e. either being for extra credit or being an option the student can choose instead of a traditional paper/essay.
Another reason for this rule is that some students would feel self-conscious about writing material for public consumption, and I think it's wrong to force them to do it, even if the contribution is anonymous. Finally, submission to Wikipedia requires agreeing to its Creative Commons license which means giving up certain rights to your creative work. For legal and ethical reasons I think it's untenable to make this a grade requirement unless specifically agreed to by the student who prefers this over alternative assignments.

Will it improve students' motivation to learn?

I've definitely seen students who became very enthusiastic about the writing project and after creating a page on a new topic continued to expand it, which ended with them adding quite a bit more material than was the minimum I required. I'd also like to hope (but don't know if it's the case) that some of them might have caught the Wikipedia bug and continued contributing "for free" later.
On the other hand, some students were clearly just doing it for the grade and didn't do any more than the minimum, so I guess for them there wasn't any improvement to their motivation.

How can one define a rubric for this type of assignment?

Good question. I was using my own subjective judgment to assign grades. Those were small graduate classes and in practice almost everyone got an A or A-, so that wasn't too much of an issue, but for a larger-scale project one might have to give this question some more careful thought.

Let me add a few thoughts about things you didn't ask about. A key thing to keep in mind is that writing for Wikipedia is very different than writing other kinds of content, both technically, stylistically and philosophically (in particular the collaborative aspects). Good Wikipedia content has to be extremely neutral, unopinionated, well-referenced, and written in clear and error-free language. Frankly, in my experience very few students would be capable of producing by themselves a draft for a new Wikipedia article that would not be either outright deleted or heavily modified (possibly to the point of becoming unrecognizable) very soon afterwards by other Wikipedia users/editors -- needless to say that would be quite bad for motivation... For this reason, in the projects I assigned I ended up taking on a fairly substantial role of reviewing and helping polish up the original article drafts before they were officially submitted. This was done in a sandbox page. It was practical for me to help out in this way, first of all because I was happy to do it, and second of all because only a small number of students were involved (4-5 in each of the courses I tried this at). At the same time, there is an obvious problem of scalability here, and I would be very reluctant to attempt such a project in a large class. The bottom line is be prepared to put in quite a bit of work yourself if you want the project to be a success.
A final thought (sorry for the long answer) to consider is that it would be wise for you as the instructor to propose to the students a list of possible contributions they can make (in the form of either new articles or new sections in existing articles). Some students can also come up with their own ideas for what to write about, but I feel that most would prefer being offered a list to choose from. Good luck!
Edit: as @Thunderforge helpfully pointed out in the comments, Wikipedia has a dedicated page with guidelines to students and instructors for Wikipedia-editing course assignments.

When I was a student I always wondered why this behaviour was not so widespread in universities. Thanks a lot for this answer!

From my experience of dealing with these from both sides, I really, really recommend the last point - having recommended topics and having checked they're suitable is key to making this work well. A lot of projects fail badly at the first hurdle by picking a topic without thinking about whether it's covered well enough already, or indeed whether it's appropriate for WP in the first place...

To check if some topics you are about to offer to your students are suitable for Wikipedia, please take a look at WP:Notability.

In your opinion, would it help to have some students review the work of other students on the sandbox page? Say, each student writes their own article, then two or three students are assigned to provide feedback? It seems like that would help them practice peer review. Not sure if that would help or hinder your own workload though.

@Thunderforge I suppose it might help, but it's hard to say how much exactly. The key sentence that cannot be stressed enough is the one I highlighted: "writing for Wikipedia is very different than writing other kinds of content." I didn't elaborate on this, but R.M.'s answer and the excellent blog article linked to in that answer add many relevant details about the possible pitfalls that face any new Wikipedia user (not just students). The bottom line is I think there needs to be an experienced person familiar with Wikipedia conventions and culture who would be ready to assist the students.

It may be helpful to add a link to Wikipedia's own guidelines on student assignments.

@Thunderforge thanks, that's a fantastic resource. I've edited my answer to include the link.

The festering elephant corpse in the room is Wikipedia internal politics.
While you can go for quite a while reading and contributing to Wikipedia without running up against it, attempting to contribute to seemingly arbitrary topics can quickly embroil you in the seedy underbelly of Wikipedia, if you're not careful.
While there are certain articles where conflict is expected (e.g. articles on religion, politics, and controversial or popular public figures), you can run into pushback even on obscure academic topics. Often this takes the form of a some established editor self-appointing themselves as a "guardian" of certain pages or topics, and then maintaining things exactly the way they want by exploiting Wikipedia rules, their position as an established editor, or even just their ability to sink more time into it than anyone else.
For example, an academic might feel that the current level of use of a rival academic's technique doesn't rise to the required level of notability for mention in a Wikipedia article, and adding such a mention gives that technique "undue weight". Therefore any contributions mentioning the technique will be reverted/deleted. - While there are certainly ways to contest such an assessment, doing so would likely require you to become intimately familiar with the nuances of Wikipedia policy and would probably require a substantial investment of time in order to pursue the issue. (On Wikipedia it seems that the people who prevail are often the people who can spend the most time on things, rather than those who have the best arguments.)  This is particularly true on obscure topics, where few people will care enough to join the conversation, and it will just be your student versus the established editor with an axe to grind.
The article linked to by z_dood in the question's comments is one such example, but you can find others as well.

My main point is that while it's probably safe to have an assignment to propose a contribution, it's probably a bad idea to require that your students contribute. That is, to have actually have your students' contributions be accepted to Wikipedia. It's unlikely that the standards you have for acceptable work in your class will match Wikipedia's standard. Having part of the rubric (or even bonus points) for acceptance by Wikipedia means that the students who - through no fault of their own - blunder into one of those Wikipedia political minefields will either not get the points, or will spend a substantial chunk of time on Wikipedia politics rather than on academic content creation.
You probably should collect their contributions independent of Wikipedia, and submission to the site should be an optional, ungraded step they can take if they want. That way you still get the motivation of possibly contributing to Wikipedia, but avoid some of the downsides of running up against Wikipedia internal politics.

For which types of courses does it work and for which it doesn't?

I think it probably works best for seminar-type courses that will be exploring (potentially) less well-trodden topics.  For example, there is probably little that a student could add to the wiki article on Shakespeare, Carbon, the Rwandan Genocide, or the Pythagoream Theorem.  On the other hand, there is probably quite a bit that could be added to the articles on the multitude of animal or plant species, or of lesser known authors or historical events.

For which types of assignments does it work and for which it doesn't?

I think it basically would be the assignment.  You have to take into consideration that Wikipedia is not a place for original research.  Thus, while in a traditional paper a student needs to argue their points, making their own judgments as to the validity/bias of a given source, that is not generally considered acceptable Wikipedia writing.  As such, it could almost be seen more as a literature review or history of criticism, which is more of the first step of a paper.  If you have students do papers in stages, then after compiling a bibliography and what not, it might be opportune to then have them compile their research into an straight-forward presentation for Wikipedia.

Will it improve students' motivation to learn?

That will depend on the student and how the assignment is doled out.  If you tell a student "write on any topic you want", it probably will, but realistically, you're probably not going to give them that wide of a berth unless, say you're doing a translation class and you really don't care the base material much.  If a student has no interest in your course's material to begin with, I doubt adding a Wikipedia-writing component will do much at all for them.

How can one define a rubric for this type of assignment?

I would begin with the background research and bibliography as a major component, the quality and readability of the prose produced as the other major one.  A small, but not insignificant part would revolve around conforming to Wikipedia's standards for writing/editing.
Also, consider not just contributing to Wikipedia but to other similar projects.  For example, a friend of mine has had her translation class working on the excellent Encyclopedia of Alabama, although they still haven't posted any of the translations just yet.

Adding to the excellent other answers by expanding on what I wrote in my comment earlier:
You should definitively supervise such contributions. Please be aware of that. While providing your students the possibility (even if elective) to get credit for their contributions is IMO a good idea, there'll probably always be students who think of such a possibility as an easy path (even if it isn't) to pass your class.
This may result in some students producing qualitatively low content. That, in turn, is doing harm to Wikipedia.
Furthermore, if the amount of "trash" generated by your students gets too much, Wikipedia will notice and (probably) take action against you and your students.  (In the past, Stack Exchange has completely blocked access to students from one University as a reaction to bad contributions from them, so this can happen.)  You don't want your institution being blocked from Wikipedia.

No, there is (to my knowledge) no evidence whatsoever that this is what happened in April 2016.  There is no evidence that they were assigned to do this as a coursework.  No, I don't believe SE ever "warned the institution" (whatever that would mean).  I wholeheartedly agree with the recommendation to supervise your students.  However, your next-to-last paragraph is not supported by the facts.

@D.W. Hm. I knew it was too vague / suggestive but couldn't formulate it more appropriately (non-native speaker here). Please feel free to edit in order to remove / clarify sections that could be taken as "fact" or accusation. My intend was to show that there has been an incident on SE that could've been the result of what OP is planing. Further, I wanted to somehow mention that according to hearsay SE once actually warned (= "asked them to make their students stop") an institution. (That a complete block happend is a fact, as seen in the link).

OK, I've edited your answer to pare it down to statements that I believe are supported by the facts.


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What should I do if my professor is selectively favouring natives for TA positions?
I'm a third year graduate student pursuing a PhD in Europe. My field of work is computational chemistry (mostly involving developing software packages). In addition to that I have a masters in Physics. My professor instructs courses like computational physics and statistical mechanics.
Moreover, these courses are conventional taught in their native European language (I have acquired A1 certification for the same), but the fact that TAs should know the language is not enforced (I have friends who are non-speakers TAing much more interactive courses). Even after repeated requests for 2 semesters, I was let down by one excuse after another.
First time it was the fact that I didn't know the language (which I have subsequently learnt (acquired A1) and proved to him the fact that it's not enforced). Second time, there was no excuse what so ever, a simple "your time would be better spend in other side projects". And the irony is that I need to know the native language to teach python programming which a computer programming language written in english.
How to approach this?

A1 in any language, is not enough to effectively communicate in that language, let alone teach. I wouldn’t be comfortable teaching in a language until I’d have reached at least C1.

@TimRias I would've been okay with the fact that I couldn't teach effectively with an A1 certification, if the language requirement was enforced. Which is not the case. Moreover, its a graduate level course where every student is required to submit a TOEFL score to get in. So I'm kind of perplexed :)

Yet you represent your A1 level of knowledge as some sort of significant factor.

@TimRias Since TA ing at my university involves grading assigments written in the native language and doesnt involve any TA to student interaction. It does give me an edge over someone who doesnt know the language at all. :). Atleast i could read, understand and use chatgpt to fully decipher it.

@TheDoctor The course is a python programming course (a programming language that is english-like). Moreover I personally know TAs who come from the same country as I'm from (who could not even give a remotely proper response when conversing in the language) who teach more interactive experimental chemistry courses (which are supposed to be taught in this native language). To read and grade assignments (which is what i would be doing for the course) an A1 level would suffice. Hence the second response I got from my professor was never about my language skills. :)

If your professor wants the course taught in the native language, then that's a perfectly reasonable thing to want. Native students should not be forced to take the course in a foreign language when the syllabus says that it is in the native language. What other professors do is irrelevant.

My Arabic knowledge at the moment is A1 or A2 and I definitely would not be able to teach students in Arabic, I would not understand a lot of the questions being asked.  I could just about ask for the correct platform number to catch a train to Riyadh.

"...I didn't know the language (which I have subsequently learnt (acquired A1)..." Acquiring A1 is not 'knowing the language'. It is the absolute bare minimum to get through brief routine interactions, such as placing an order in a restaurant or asking for directions. Acquire C1 if you want to use the language in any professional capacity towards clients/students.

Also, what evidence do you have that your professor is favouring natives in particular? Just because you are non-native does not mean that is the professor's reason for not hiring you.

Just because rules are broken does not mean that everyone is willing to break the rules.

It's the professor's job to select the best candidates for the TA positions.  reading and grading assignments is never easy.  You need to be able to understand nuance of the answer and give the students relevant feedback.  This means being able to write clearly in the language of instruction.  Even if the task is a programming task, there are other bits of text that will accompany the submission (even if only comments in the code), which will be in the native language.
A1 is nowhere near the level needed for this task.
When I was a postdoc, I was assigned some grading for a course where students could answer in their native language or English.  At the time I was around B1-B2 in their native language.  I was only given the students who answered in English, as my language skills were not deemed good enough to do this task in their native language.  However, some students would answer question 1 in English (and get assigned to me) and then continue to answer later questions in their native language.  Even with automatic translation tools, I needed quite a bit of help/support from native speaking colleagues to be able to complete my task.
It is definitely not discrimination for the professor to select people who speak the native language well, just as it wouldn't be discrimination for them to select people who know python over those who only know C (even if have done a few weeks of datacamp, or equivalent, in python).  They need to select the best people from the candidates available.
Keep working on your language skills and in a few years, you'll be good enough to be useful in this (and other) tasks. I'm now B2-C1 in the native language where I work, and I'm sent to represent the department in meetings that are conducted in this language, I'm given long reports written in the language to read and comment on and now I can do these tasks without much support from my native speaking colleagues.  Learning a language to a high level takes time, but is worth the effort.

It is not clear what type of class you want to TA. If it is Python, teaching programming is difficult and involves explaining things in terms they can understand. Good language skills are then necessary, independent of the facts that Python uses English language key-words.
Whether the native language is necessary to teach certain classes is a judgment call. Your professor might have higher expectations on the quality of TAing or the students in the classes that you refer to are expected to be already ready to communicate in English only. It might also be the case that there are other reasons why your professor does not think that you are a good TA and uses your lack of language skills as an excuse. Maybe your English is not good enough. For instance, often, TA-ships are given out to the most needy students and you might not fall into this category. Finally, it is possible that the professor has your best interest in mind, as some students can loose themselves in teaching.
There is of course the possibilities that the professor's behavior results from unethical discrimination, but from what you write, it is impossible to tell.
You should approach this situation by eliciting more and better feed-back. Instead of asking whether you can TA ask your professor what you need to do to be able to TA. If you have another person that can mentor you, ask that person for feed-back. Finally, you might find one or two of your colleagues that you trust sufficiently to give you good feed-back.
Keep in mind that being offered an TA-ship is not a right. Only if you are discriminated against because of such things as religion, ethnicity, or nationality (other than citizen / resident) are you suffering from an injustice.

+1 I'd suggest a small edit to the last paragraph, though: maybe "ethnicity" would be a better notion than "nationality" here since it seems rather unclear how to distinguish between nationality and citizenship (and as you mention in parenthesis, discrimination based on citizenship is of course legal and very common in many cases).

It may not be just a judgment call. Bachelor (but not master) students on our program have the right to be taught in the language their program is accredited in. And that is the native language, not English. Optional parallels in English for those interested in that are certainly possible, though. There is also an option for a program accredited in English, but it is likely to not be for free and would charge some tution.

+1 to thinking about other reasons! I was an experienced TA in undergrad (PUI so we TA'd as undergrads), had the highest grades in class, and the was in the lab of the professor. So I was miffed when my friend said she had been asked to TA the next semester. I realized it was because I had been 1-3 min late to class on a couple of occasions (I am not a morning person) and she was always early. The class was going to be at a different time so my timeliness wouldn't be an issue later in the day, but the prof didn't know that and it's a bad look to have your TA slinking in. TAs reflect on profs.

source: Stack Exchange

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

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава

sort: votes


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How is the “quality scale” defined in the journal Frontiers in Oncology?
After submitting my manuscript to Frontiers in Oncology, I recently received feedback. The comments were overall minor, but I am concerned about the quality assessment provided at the end:

QUALITY ASSESSMENT:
    Rigor: 2
    Quality of the writing: 2
    Overall quality of the content: 2
    Interest to a general audience: 2

I am curious about the scoring scale used by Frontiers in Oncology for peer review. Does anyone know how this scale is defined or what these scores indicate about my manuscript?

Perhaps rating 1 is "outstanding", so 2 is "not bad at all" ??  I wonder how far down the scale goes.

I have a paper published in Frontiers in Oncology. Each reviewer provided a Quality Assessment like this:

They use a 5-level scale which is ordered from  1 (lowest) to  5 (highest) quality, inferred based on my paper positive comments and outcome. I checked the available guidelines for Frontiers' reviewers, but they do not mention this scale. I also couldn't find anything about these scales on their website.

I was also just looking, and found a similar (physics) paper that I also would have suggested 5 is the good end of the scale.

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


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Can sharing code on GitHub enhance career opportunities post-PhD?
I am a third year PhD student. If I do projects and upload in a github profile; will it help in my academic career or job hunting after my phd?
I am asking this because if it does increase the worth of our CV. Then its another form of academic currency that I can work on during my free time that can help me in future.
Thank you.

The short answer is yes: sharing your code benefits the community and enhances your CV for both academia and industry.
However, Git is a version control tool that allows you to develop code and collaborate efficiently. It is not meant to be used only to upload your code when it's finished. When I applied for jobs outside academia interviewers often viewed my GitHub profile and asked questions about my projects. They were interested in whether I could effectively use this tool to develop code collaboratively. If I had only uploaded code there, they would have noticed it because of the commit frequency.
Therefore, I encourage you to really learn how to integrate version control on your research - it is good for science and for your career prospects.

Thabk you so much.

@Robin my pleasure. If I answered your question effectively, please consider accepting this answer as best answer. :)


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Where to start with grant proposal writing
I finished my Ph.D. in Robotics in a French institution and I am moving to Switzerland for my PostDoc.
For my new position, I am supposed to write a lot of grant proposals. I participated in writing grant proposals in the past (not many) already. I would like to know if someone of you knows a good place where to learn how to do it. I am wondering if there are books you suggest, links, or whatever comes to your mind.
For now I found these books:

The Craft Of Research
Grant Writing For Dummies
The Only Grant-Writing Book You'll Ever Need: Top Grant Writers and Grant Givers Share Their Secrets

I love learning and improving myself, I love reading, therefore any suggestion is well accepted.
Thanks in advance.

This is not a person-specific question. The OP can discuss that with his supervisor (or may have already done that), but he is now asking for advice from Academia.se community. Many others will benefit from good answers.

To avoid treating it as a shopping question, I'm providing other advice beyond reading. You'll see that reading can only get you so far.
I'm in the US so some of these scattered thoughts may not apply, but I wish the other some would be helpful to you.
Find a senior collaborator: As a start you may want to consider being a co-investigator with someone who is more senior. Most of the time, you should be able to find one in your department. Some may also use their previous PhD mentor as a start, which is good but do make it a point to diversify your pool of collaborators.
The senior collaborators can help you navigate the system, give comments to your work, and even share examples with you. They provide a lot more than what one can learn from books.
Gather information, make them handy: Ideas ebb and flow, establish a habit to regularly browse journal articles, have an idea taking mechanism at hand (phone, computer, notebook, etc.) Keep adding, revisiting, and thinking. You have also acquired some books, keep them around the desk so that when you want to write, you don't have to get up to look for stuff.
Build internal network: Make an effort to attend research seminars in your institute, build connections with some peers who are going through the same stage as you do. They can be from the same department, or other departments that compliment what you do.
Build external network: In the first 2-3 years this may not be as crucial, but be mindful to allocate some time and resource to connect with people outside your institute. Join some professional committees and contribute as an author or help with the committee; attend conference and present; go to new-collaborator mingling sessions.
Be familiar with institutional support: Meet with your department head and other related deans to learn about what supports are there. For instance, do you have a grant support office? Can someone draft the budget for you? Can someone provide the list of the university infrastructure which is sometimes required by grant proposal? What is the due time to hand in all your final draft? How much overhead would your institute take? Any lab space and hard/software support? etc.
Be familiar with granting agencies: Through your conversations, collect information on the granting agencies. There may be governmental or paid sites that collect and collate grant proposal requests that you can search, or be e-mailed to you based on your specified keywords. Once you have identified a request for proposal, read the document very carefully to make sure you can craft your proposal appropriately. If they have a grant manager, feel free to connect with them if you have any specific questions.
A bigger picture is also important here: for instance, how many grant cycles are there? How particular or peculiar their application processes are? How much overhead would they allow? Is there any mechanism such as STEM or new investigator privilege/advantage you can capitalize on?
Schedule fixed writing time: That's pretty much what it says. Grant writing usually got crowded out by other administrative and academic work. Schedule ahead and safeguard the time.
Have the right mind set, don't be shy: If you have gathered a group of peers, consider forming a writing group and circulate drafts for each other to comment on. If grant review came back and you want to talk about how to address the critiques, circulate that as well. The core thought to cultivate early is that your work is not you. Sometimes you may get scathing review and sometimes you may get good reviews from everyone but one person just hated it. Having a group of peers provides a channel to decompress and get feedbacks.
Participate in ad hoc grant review: As a new investigator this may not be an immediate opportunity, but if you're invited to be an ad hoc reviewer of grant proposals, consider it. It requires tons of time and work, but it allows you to get an idea on how reviews happen, and what are the topography out there. Immensely useful.
Revise, reuse, recycle: Keep this a running mill. And in the same time, keep a paper writing mill. Look for win-win in between teaching, proposal writing, paper writing, and learning. For instance, direct some students to write and submit a paper on a topic you work on; use journal article to refine an idea or compile and release preliminary work (you'll need that in the proposal); proposal got rejected by perhaps being too premature? Use the background section to write an editorial; proposal got rejected again because you're too junior and the work is too ambitious? Break it into some smaller seed grants, career training grants, or student mentoring grants. Be creative and relentless.
Draft a 1- and a 5-year plan: Now that you have more clues. Draft a 1- and 5-year plan. Be wild and have fun. Think about what you want to see done in future. Keep re-visiting and revising the plans.
Document your mood and productivity: Later you'll realize that you enjoy some parts of this process, but not some others. Having a mood/productivity evaluation would be very useful. Once you have accumulated enough data, you can start to see where you shine (e.g. you are great at conceptualizing, but very stressed when writing the statistical analyses; you love the literature review, but hated the process of looking for them.) With that, you can better identify collaborators who compliment you.
Get your hands dirty: There are a lot to do, but these can be done in a long run, go prepared but don't spend too much time to over-prepare. At a certain point (when you may still mentally think "I'm not quite ready yet.") jump in and start.

very good post thank you , would you mind sharing a "1 and 5 year plan" template, would be interested to see what one can plan long term


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MS incoming student: How to convince my department to give me financial support?
I am an international student. I have received a MS admit (Fall 2021) from X University (USA) in Y department (STEM). My initial application to this university was for PhD, but I got a reject for PhD and they offered MS (thesis) instead.
The fees of X University are very costly for me. X University also has a no TA/RA policy for MS students.
The Graduate School of the university told me that there might be some small financial support possible from the department. Thus, I emailed the department explaining my situation. Their initial response was negative, but the Director of Master's program in my department has agreed to a brief call.
I need some guidance on how to convince the department/Director of Master's program to provide me with some financial support, any amount will help.

If you are accepted: Do you have a professor/advisor/committee chair?  It is possible that they can help you find funding for you based on a specific research project.  And they will likely be more willing to help.

is it possible to apply to this university without any of their funding or scholarship or assistantship/fellowship, but you get the funding somewhere else? like idk student loan or some government scholarship

It's almost certainly not possible. The grad school sent you to the department because funding isn't the grad school's job. They don't really know if the department has funds or not. The department's initial response was negative probably because they don't have funds for you. I can only guess at why they've agreed to take a call anyways, but it's probably just because you've been persistent and either a) they are having a hard time saying simply "no", because it's culturally uncomfortable to say, or b) they think you'll take the "no" answer better over a call or stop bothering them.
There are no secret words; there aren't typically funds for MS students and your rejection for PhD was likely because they've offered the available funding slots to candidates they liked better for the PhD program; you're left as someone they maybe would be okay taking as a PhD student given unlimited funds, but they don't have unlimited funds, so they've offered the MS instead.
A more cynical viewpoint is that they don't really want you at all, but are willing to take any student who is willing to pay the high undiscounted fees that are typically charged to international students.
If you'd like to be a PhD student in the US, you are probably better off applying as a PhD student at other universities.

Maybe a bit overly negative and I wouldn't take the cynical  view myself, but there is good advice here for the OP. It won't happen. Look elsewhere.

I think this answer is accurate, based on my experience. The issue about taking students to get the tuition is perhaps not accurate, since the department probably would not get that money directly... but higher administration might pressure a department to both have more students and to collect more tuition. My R1 U.S. math dept has pointedly resisted admitting non-funded students (MS or PhD) in various epochs, but external pressures corrupt that ideal.

Yeah, it's a sentiment I've mostly just seen expressed here (and coupled with the "no TA/RA" policy - clearly they do not see a model where masters students are funded as something feasible). Might happen at the undergraduate level more often. I think grad schools are usually up against capacity limits for their courses and aren't going to increase them just to take money. I just think it's a mistake to see a masters admission as "almost in for a PhD!" and think it means anything as far as having a path to move to a PhD later.

"A more cynical viewpoint is that they don't really want you at all, but are willing to take any student who is willing to pay the high undiscounted fees that are typically charged to international students." That's not cynical at all - it's basically a core part of the business model of many Australian universities, which is why they started complaining so loudly when the Australian government shut down our borders over Covid concerns.

@nick012000 I think there is a fair amount of gap between "our budget relies on fees from international students" and "admit students just for their cash". One could still be selective in choosing to admit only international students who are likely to perform well and are among the best applicants (rather than all those willing to pay) yet have those students carry the budget for domestic applicants.

If you apply for a PhD and are offered a full-fee masters, this means the department has already decided it does not want to provide financial support.  In the USA, departments that offer STEM PhDs only offer full-fee masters degrees for the purpose of collecting tuition money from people who cannot get in to their PhD programs.
Unfortunately, it is very likely impossible to get financial support from this university.  I suggest you try applying elsewhere.

There are several most common sources of support that a department can give to their grad students:

Fellowships.

Block grant money.

GSR (graduate student research support).

TA-ships.

Realistically speaking, the best that a student in your situation can hope for is a TA-ship. While the department  is not going promise you a TA-ship now, come Fall, it is quite likely that they will find themselves short on TAs for scheduled classes. (How does this happen? For instance, some grad students cannot come because of a variety of problems, say, cannot get a visa, or some faculty get grants and they need to hire GSRs who are scheduled to work as TAs....) In this situation, the department will be eager to hire even grad students from other departments or, even some advanced undergraduate students. Thus, during your conversation, make sure that the department knows that you are willing and eager to work as a TA, that you have some qualification for this (tell them which, for instance, maybe you worked as a grader or you provided mentoring to other undergraduate students). Ask them to put your name on the wait-list (if they have such) for a TA-ship in the Fall semester/quarter. Assuming that this works in Fall, make sure you do a good job, so they might be inclined to offer you a TA-ship in a similar situation in the following semester/quarter.

Edit. Of course, it is quite possible that the department routinely admits substantially more PhD students than they can support (I know some departments that do so; my own department, in contrast, is rather conservative in its graduate admissions process) and, understandably, prioritizes these over MS students when distributing extra available TA-ships. In this situation, there are always Phd students in need of TA-ships and MS students never get these. However, the right thing to do is to find out the exact situation. You loose nothing by asking questions.

"X University also has a no TA/RA policy for MS students" - from OP.

@BryanKrause The question is what does this exactly mean. Does this means "under no circumstances we will hire them"? I would be very surprised if any department were to tie their hands like this. Mist likely, this means that they do not offer TAships to MS students as a part of guaranteed financial support. If they are short of TAs and have the choice of not having a TA support in a class and hiring an MS student, almost surely they will hire an MS student.

@MoisheKohan "I would be very surprised if any department were to tie their hands like this." There could be union agreements or the like at work tying their hands for them.

@nick012000: I find it very unlikely that a union would differentiate between PhD and MS or even undergraduate students regarding allowing university employment. (University labs routinely employ undergraduate students. They would be simply unable to function if there was a union agreement not allowing them to do so.) The right thing to do for OP is to find out exactly what the situation is while taking to a departmental representative.


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Changing fields after PhD, master's or post-doc?
I am not far away from finishing a PhD in molecular toxicology. However, with time I have gotten more and more interested in topics such as renewable energy, environmental/climate science and engineering. My education so far is not completely alien to environmental science, but my background heavily oriented towards molecular biology so I lack basic knowledge about things relating to renewables, climate systems and field work. Another big factor is that non-academic jobs in my current field do not interest me at all.
What would be the best route for me if I wanted to move towards these fields? Get a new master's or try to land post-docs incrementally closer to where I want to be?

Best of luck! Most of us find hitting the reset button, to one degree or another, necessary. That’s not to say the outcome will be what you anticipate. I can’t concur with the previous comment. I find a PhD a sort of preparation for the real education of one’s life.

Yes- look for groups that are doing toxicology work with the EPA as a first step into a more environmental zone. Then proceed from there to an even more environmental focused project.

Toxicology is extremely important to renewable energy.  You might look into positions studying solar cell disposal/recycling.  Perhaps some catalysis or battery projects would suit you, too.

I don't expect this to be the best answer (I am not from these fields), however what I'd do in your place would be researching websites of environmental science departments and research groups in order to find some topics/projects for which your qualification up to now makes some sense or adds some relevant competence. There even may be postdoc positions, however maybe you can ask for some project or internship work. Maybe also there are some biologically oriented temporary teaching jobs in such departments, which could enable you to get into the community.
In the meantime try to read and learn, and try to get into contact with people. I can't guarantee it of course but sometimes opportunities open up when looking for them in a determined way. And surely try to make use of your already achieved qualifications, try to connect things somehow.

There are people who get a masters degree in other fields after getting a similar (or higher) degree in another. However, I don't think you are in a field so far away that this is necessary. I think you can leverage your knowledge of chemistry to work for you in these other fields that you mention. So perhaps your "incremental" stepping towards that is the way that I would go, but don't shoot for too small a change, if it isn't what you want. You (likely) have the skills to learn complicated things very quickly, so you can probably make bigger leaps than you give yourself credit for. My advice is to apply for the jobs you want - the jobs (e.g. postdocs, etc.) you are passionate about - and see what happens. Of course you need to be reasonable with qualifications, etc. (so that you aren't wasting your own and others' time), but I think often people are looking for particular skills over particular domain knowledge, but perhaps this is just my field...


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Is my approach to discouraging whiners from taking my class acceptable?
I am writing a syllabus for a Calculus for Business class. When I taught the last year, I had some very weak but vocal students whine that the tests were tough (despite other students doing fine), the practice exam was not similar to the actual exam (actually it was, but weak students don't know the material well enough to realize that, and are looking for basically identical exams) and more.
Once one student started whining, more and more students started complaining about things being too difficult. I am very nice, gentle, agreeable person and I was easily bullied. The whining became more vocal throughout. At the end of the semester during an exam I was giving, the whiny student said out loud "no one can do this exam" and disrupted everyone taking the exam.
I have been teaching college for six years and that had never happened.  This time I want to tell them in my syllabus that if they find it too difficult, get out of my class.
Here's an excerpt from the draft of my planned syllabus:

Course objectives, goals, policies, etc:

The main goal is to help you learn how to teach yourself math. I will not be able to teach you all the math you need to know, either for this course or for the rest of your life. You will have to teach yourself some of the material by reading the textbook. If you can't learn by reading a textbook, please withdraw.

Whining will not be tolerated. If my course is too demanding, please withdraw.

The goal is for you to do mathematics, not just to "know it". The more math problems you do by yourself, the better. Math eventually becomes fun when you do things yourself.

The purpose of lectures is to help you keep pace with the material, and show some of what you need to learn. (And to address math questions you had). The purpose of lectures is not mainly to teach you the material, although there will of course be some of that.

Students who I suspect have cheated, whine about how difficult the course is, or are disruptive during class may get slightly more difficult exams than other students. If you have a problem with this policy, please withdraw from this class.

My question is, "is this okay?" Point 5 especially - of giving different exams to different students. I do this to deter cheating, but the exams are not substantively different - the same problems, just different numbers. But I'm saying in item 5 that I reserve the right to give significantly different exams to students.
UPDATE 1: dear everyone, thank you for the tremendous feedback. Basically, all responses were critical of my approach, and I accept/agree with them. To summarize, first off, and most obviously #5 will be deleted.
secondly, items #1, 2, 3, 4 will also be deleted. Specifically, I wont use the words whining and I won't suggest withdraw either on the syllabus or on the first day of class. Instead, verbally in class I'll try to saying things like math is not a spectator sport, I believe in active learning, and to help you, I will follow the textbook closely. I also won't say I expect them to teach themselves. (A few topics I will leave for them to read out of the textbook, but that is reasonable and there is no point in bringing that to their attention on the first day).
In addition, I'll also have to figure out how to be more assertive and maintain high standards etc. without coming off as combative, arrogant, etc.
Thanks again for all the input, it is very much appreciated.
UPDATE 2: Patricia Shanahan’s answer (even though I didn’t select it as the accepted answer) really solved the underlying problem I was having with the course, and it was my fault/problem: My expectations were too high for the type of students I have (someone I think I gave a B to last semester studied hard and could do a bunch of the calculus but couldn’t do 1/2 - 1 without a calculator), and that was getting everyone involved frustrated, students and myself. I went into the first day of class (just two days ago) having Patricia’s answer in mind, and I think the session went well and I am optimistic the semester will go well. I also had my typical friendly tone and was all smiles. I believe I came across as welcoming (students felt comfortable asking me math questions) but also firm (I spoke loudly and authoratatively).  Students were well behaved and stayed on task. (And to reiterate update 1, I did not include any of the items 1-5 on the syllabus nor did I say them in class). I came out of the class feeling happy and optimistic about how it will go. We’ll see.

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

FWIW, I had a couple professors that actually showed the test score statistics. (Average, high, and median) if I remember correctly) and went over some of the questions with low scores to explain and/or throw them out if it was thought to be misleading or unfair. I really liked that as a student and I would also expect it to also give potential complainers the context to know that they simply scored worse than others.

Keep in mind that the weak students you are worried about will not read the syllabus or pay much attention to your exposition of it. What will work better is to explain why the exercises and exams you set are the way they are and why they are not identical to those from past years etc. Take a constructive approach. Explain your goals and intentions.

As an outsider I read your entire post and frankly I would think just from your tone (cockiness?) you are a rude person and that no one would want to be in your class.  This may wreck your entire career.  Just sayin...

This is a trick question. Students don't read the syllabus.

I would recommend you practice patience. You don't have to adjust how difficult the test is. Just get used to ignoring the whiners!

Are these all troll accounts?  He sounds like a nasty person?  He's rude?  By what metric?  Students whose job it literally is to take the material seriously, and not whine like toddlers, are essentially throwing temper tantrums because this guy dares to hold them accountable for their end of the deal.  The bold assumptions made too, about what the appropriate difficulty of the class should be because it has business in the title, are baseless and idiotic.

@fearofmusic Really? It's the students' job? They're paying for college, not the other way around (I assume this is in the US since OP calls it "college"). It's the teacher's job to teach... I'm confused what OP actually plans to do when "teaching" this course.

@only_pro I realize that it may seem paradoxical, but yes, it is their job in that it is explicitly expected of them to do the work given to them by the professor.  The OP can not do the learning for them, he can not make them more prepared than the students who put in more effort.  He can't make them grow up and take responsibility for how hard they work toward the most positive outcome, not can he be expected to take into account reasons the students have for why the class should be tailored to them specifically. Why have a grading scale if everyone thinks they should get a good grade?

@fearofmusic: It's fine to disagree, but I think when you call people "trolls" because they disagree with you, you're skating close to the line of "unkind".  See https://academia.stackexchange.com/conduct

@NateEldredge fair enough. but in defense of fearofmusic, he/she was responding to a most definitely unkind comment that I guess has since been deleted.

@usr0192: The comment you refer to has most likely been moved to chat.

Remind the students often during the lectures what they CAN do, not what they should not do. A quick reminder about "Please come to my office hours if you are having difficulty" and then be prepared to help potentially whiny students. As the course progresses, you can add more detail with a sincere plea that "Some of your exam results indicate a need to resolve misunderstandings... Please come to office hours, go to tutor station, etc."  Not everyone who needs help will go, but this can reduce public whining by publicly placing responsibility on the student. If they never come, it's on them.

You certainly wouldn't get me taking this course as described. No matter whether the onus is on the student or the teacher, this description is extraordinarily hostile and (as covered by others) some of the practical measures you have described are inappropriate.

"Math is fun" - I am a mathematician and feel the same way - however, this is not the case for all people. Business people who take this class might never see it the same way and see math as something they need, not something which is fun.

@op: If you don't like teaching, why did you choose this career? I feel sorry for all your students!

@whoisit the responsibilities of the position are teaching, service, and research. I got into it as I love math i.e. the research part but am terrible at it so I'm at a regional teaching-focused institution. Love teaching when students are willing to work hard to learn the material. I have since learned to just bite my tongue basically ... many students are just trying to survive life and just want to get a degree in hopes of some job, and I can now - years since the post - appreciate where they are coming from; I have been and am a lot more privileged than them

Frankly, the whole thing seems like a terrible idea - a guaranteed way to sabotage your rapport with your students and ensure complaints on your evaluations.  If you're trying to get tenure, this seems like a good way to make sure you don't get it.
I suspect that the "if you don't like it, withdraw" clauses won't have the desired effect of weeding out all the problem students.  Rather, they'll weed out everyone except those who have no choice but to take the class (required for their major, can't wait another semester, other sections don't fit their schedule).  Neither you nor the remaining desperate students are going to be happy to be stuck with each other.
But I'll comment on #5 specifically.   I believe this is unethical, and probably contravenes your university's disciplinary rules.  While obviously there is wide variation in how cheating cases are handled, I would say that a common principle is that the student has "due process" rights.  You can't unilaterally impose a punishment (and I would say that a more difficult exam is certainly a punishment)  based solely on your suspicions.  The student has a right to see the evidence against them, defend themselves, and appeal to a higher authority.

Ok, thanks for the response and specifically pointing out the problems with #5.  I will remove it.

I give warnings about how hard the course is ahead of time and repeat them from time to time (BTW, it isn't really). They do not dare to whine (at least not to me ;-)

@usr0192 I'd go so far to say #5 is illegal.

Even if due process was followed, increasing the difficulty someone's coursework as a punishment is unethical. If two students have equal proficiency and effort, is it really fair that one of them has a lower grade because of unrelated behavior?

I think it's also worth noting that #5 opens up the professor to lots of liability as well. With an "arbitrary" difficulty scale, students could claim they were treated unfairly, even if they received normal exams. It would be easy for a student to say that @usr0192 "gave me a hard test because they don't like me." Or worse: that they got a "harder" test because of their race, religion, or gender. If a student brought an unprovable claim like that to the university, it would have to devolve into politics and judgement calls. It's possible OP could get punished for something they didn't do.

Do you know how laws work?  Do you understand that life isn't fair, and part of the point of college is to learn how to internalize that?  If it's a private institution, it's not illegal, and either way, it's not unethical either.  It's not like anyone is going to be penalized randomly and without some action of their own.  Just behave and don't do anything that raises any blatant red flags and you're cool, let the whiners take their lumps, which they went out of their way to earn. Amazing.

I couldn't stop laughing reading #5.  You completely contradict yourself by stating how math is fun, but then threaten to use it as a form of punishment.

I see a basic disconnect between the course title "Calculus for Business" and the stated objective "The main goal is to help you learn how to teach yourself math. I will not be able to teach you all the math you need to know, either for this course or for the rest of your life. You will have to teach yourself some of the material by reading the textbook. If you can't learn by reading a textbook, please withdraw."
I would expect a course called "Calculus for Business" to be suitable for business administration and similar students who need to learn some calculus for finance and statistics, and as part of their general education. They are outside their comfort zone, trying to learn a subject for which some of them are not especially talented, and that many of them do not enjoy. Some of your students may need both a lecture and another explanation in a textbook to get a concept. This is likely to be the last, and most advanced, mathematics course they ever take.
On the other hand, the goal would be suitable for a course targeting second or third year mathematics majors who have a lot more mathematics to learn and already have significant exposure to college level mathematics textbooks.
The fact that you cannot teach, in your lectures, all the material you expect them to learn is another indication that you are asking a bit too much for the population and the length of the course.
An inappropriate goal for the student population could be the root cause of a lot of friction.
I suggest consulting with your department to make sure your objectives and the demands you are putting on the students match the department's objectives for the course and the target student population. You may need either a different course title to make the nature of the course clear, or a revised syllabus.

This is tremendously useful! I see that I need to be a bit more gentle/patient with these students. It will make  a happier experience- including myself. Thank you!!

You likely identified the underlying issue. I was very sympathetic with the OP before I read your post, and still am, in a way, but your putting his or her course in context is an important step towards reconciling the two positions (of the lecturer and the students).

This is the best answer because it gets at the root cause of the problem ... I misalignment of the OPs and the students'/departments' objectives

I see several issues with your syllabus draft that are worth thinking about some more.

Course objectives, goals, policies, etc:
1) The main goal is to help you learn how to teach yourself math. I will not be able to teach you all the math you need to know, either for this course or for the rest of your life. You will have to teach yourself some of the material by reading the textbook. If you can't learn by reading a textbook, please withdraw.

Your “main goal” is very commendable, but it is hopelessly unattainable within the scope of a calculus class. The skill of being able to teach oneself math from a textbook takes several years to master, and I would not assume a student has it (or is capable of acquiring it) until they are at an advanced stage in a math graduate program. So the last sentence is effectively telling 99% of your students they need to withdraw from the class.

2) Whining will not be tolerated. If my course is too demanding, please withdraw.

I second the advice in @mathochist’s answer not to use the word “whine” or any of its derivatives. Moreover, I would wonder why you even think it makes sense to have the sentiment that whining should “not be tolerated”? Your job includes dealing with students who will sometimes struggle with your class and may give voice to their unhappiness; this is simply human nature. So, tolerating “whining” is in your job description.
Instead of putting draconian restrictions on your students about what they may or may not say, perhaps you can work on your own attitude, and give some thought to how to teach in a way that leads students to be happy instead of feeling like whining, or, if they do whine, how to deal with that effectively or even turn their whining into a teachable moment with some positive benefit? Just a thought.

3) The goal is for you to do mathematics, not just to``know'' it. The more math problems you do by yourself, the better. Math eventually becomes fun when you do things yourself.

There is a wonderful rule in writing and communication called “show, don’t tell”. You will never convince anyone that math is fun by saying things like “math is fun!” Instead, you have to show them that math is fun. So, while the sentiment you are expressing here is very valid and laudable, this paragraph serves no useful purpose other than to clutter up your syllabus. I suggest removing it.

4) The purpose of lectures is to help you keep pace with the material, and show some of what you need to learn. (And to address math questions you had). The purpose of lectures is not mainly to teach you the material, although there will of course be some of that.

I also don’t understand what purpose this paragraph serves. I suggest keeping you thoughts about what the purpose of lectures is to yourself. Lectures are a standard part of university life and everyone has their own idea about what they’re good for and how useful they are (with some students considering them very important, others less so). Do you really think any one of the small number of students who bother to read this part of your syllabus will change their behavior in any way, or stop and say to themselves “wow, I never thought of it that way! This has completely transformed the way I think about lectures”? I don’t think that’s very likely...

5) Students who I suspect have cheated, whine about how difficult the course is, or are disruptive during class may get slightly more difficult exams than other students. If you have a problem with this policy, please withdraw from this class.

This is just awful, for reasons explained well in the other answers.

To summarize, it sounds like you have noble ideas about teaching math, but at the end of the day, you are teaching calculus, not philosophy. I would reserve the syllabus for listing the actual topics you plan to cover and other practical matters like a grading policy etc (you’d be lucky if most students even read those parts), and leave the philosophical discussions to those few minutes here and there during lecture if/when it makes sense or you are in a particularly philosophical mood. And please try to be more tolerant of students’ venting about their struggles in your class.

I would not necessarily get rid of 4, considering you know, you just said :  "everyone has their own idea about what they’re good for and how useful they are (with some students considering them very important, others less so)".   A lot of my classes that had a text book often had professors not using it at all to the point where there A: was no reading that corresponded with the lecture and B: the professor disagreed with the text in the first place.   If you mean for lectures to be supplementary, then you are certainly serving your students by explicitly stating that.

Text like this in the syllabus will not change anyone's approach to the class. I repeat: Text like this in the syllabus will not change anyone's approach to the class. Hence, for brevity (if nothing else), it should all be struck out.
What will change some people's approach is how points and grades are awarded. So that should be presented clearly in the syllabus, and enforced rigorously. I highly recommend not "scaling" grades in any way.
The other thing that will change some people's approach is how you personally carry yourself in class with confidence and decisiveness. Clearly, you need to work on this. I recommend a very forceful "no" to the first person in the class that asks for some waiver or modification to the rules in the syllabus (almost regardless of whether it is reasonable or not; this sets the tone for later requests). People need to see that you have the capacity to say "no". Practice in front of a mirror. Personally, I attended a self-defense class for a few years after I started teaching, and it helped me be aware and manage my emotions greatly in class. I would recommend that as well, time permitting.
The long added text seems to signal that you cannot say this in a face-to-face interaction with students, and therefore sends exactly the opposite signal from what you wish. Again, I recommend (like others) that the whole passage be deleted.

You need to check what accommodations might be mandatory... In which case I suggest answering "Yes, certainly--please get a Form (XYZ) from (student services) and complete it, then we will be able to arrange for that accommodation."

@user3067860: My recommendation assumes that the request is actually the instructor's responsibility to decide. IME, students do not ask about student-service accommodations; they simply show up with documentation informing the instructor of such (which is good).

Your #5) policy defeats the purpose of your class.
The purpose of a class is to teach knowledge and skill to a certain level.
The purpose of the exam is to test whether the students acquired that level.
Your punishment would require students who are suspected cheater or are disruptive to need to have a higher level to pass the class and that is wrong. Either you have the level or not.
Suspected cheaters should be investigated and disruptive people should be dealt with.
Don't throw the integrity of your grading out of the window.

Remove "is stupid because it" and the whole answer becomes excellent :) We can agree the policy is ill-advised but to my ear the word "stupid" carries some judgment on the author of the policy as well.

@6005 ok, done.

As mentioned in my comment, stating math is fun and then then threatening students with it is a laughable contradiction.

A cheating policy that basically says "for cases of suspected cheating, the process outlined in the university's discipline code will be followed" or something else conveying that sentiment is sufficient. Your institution may have a "standard" text for such purposes.
The overall tone of your excerpt is very negative. You should be framing it along the lines of your comment that "math becomes fun when you can do it yourself." It doesn't need to be aggressively cheerful, either. But the tone should be one where you try to motivate rather than discourage your students.

Imho, a cheating policy that basically says "for cases of suspected cheating, the process outlined in the university's discipline code will be followed" is superfluous.

@Sumyrda it may seem superfluous but can be necessary to ensure the instructor has room to act.

@Sumyrda No, it really isn't superfluous.  Many instructors at my university handle suspected cheating cases "off the books", despite clear official procedures, and students know this. Including this text signals to the students that they should expect the instructor to strictly follow the rules.

There's a low barrier for verbal complaints. Depending on your priorities, an alternative policy that may be worth considering is requiring that complaints be written out clearly with an explanation for why the student felt it was a fair complaint. This may have the effect of also deterring legitimate complaints and may still damage your rapport with students.
Additionally, I would recommend against using variations of the word "whine" in the syllabus or while talking to students. Whether you view it as whining or not, a student who is already having problems in the course would not appreciate being told something so dismissive.

Good point about avoid using the word whine. Thanks

Students come into college with all sorts of expectations. Some expect courses to be easy. Some expect to be given a break if they complain enough. I don't think you can really change this. You can put on slippers, or you can try to sweep the world...
Regarding your initial example
One or two whiny students are hardly a reason to radically alter a whole course. It's easier to get the one student to stop whining. You say, however:

I am very nice, gentle, agreeable person and I was easily bullied.

I think this is a problem you really need to address. It is part of your job, as instructor, to be firm and provide a source of authority in the classroom. The students depend on this for their learning, they expect it from you (though they may not realize it). Learning from an instructor who cannot control his classroom is very difficult even for an enthusiastic student.
I suggest seeking out resources from your institution about controlling the classroom, or at least just overall assertiveness. You are supposed to be in charge - you have every advantage (official authority, power to grade, knowledge, experience, age) in your favor. If you ask a student to stop whining, they should stop whining. There are many ways of effecting this, ranging from very nice to strict, but you must have at least some way that works. There should not be issues of students continuing the whining after you told them not to - that's called a dysfunctional classroom. There is certainly something very wrong if you feel bullied by a student and it affects your pedagogical decisions.
Regarding your syllabus
The sense of your syllabus sounds reasonable enough, except for point #5. The style is a bit improper, in my humble opinion. Language like "Whining will not be tolerated." doesn't really belong in a modern classroom, and you risk being perceived as self-important, hostile or ridiculous by some students. Putting it so bluntly in writing also gives them ammo to complain to your superiors.
#5 seems unreasonable to me. Students tend to dislike being graded on subjective criteria (one man's whining is another man's insightful critique...). It can work if the students trust and respect you sufficiently, but given the difficulties you've had controlling your class, I doubt that this will be the case. Also, at the end of the day whining is communication, and it doesn't make sense to punish your class for communicating. You want good communication so you can keep an eye on how they are doing and teach accordingly.
At the bare minimum, I would trim it down to simply:

Students who are disruptive or behave in an unacceptable manner will be asked to leave. I may deduct points from their grade.

You can then verbally say they are being disruptive when they whine, this way at least the focus is shifted on preventing disruption rather than an obsession with "whining". And they are already aware they can drop the class if they don't like it, there is no need to say it (and it can intimidate or discourage some, even if they are not disruptive or whiny). If you really want to, you can arrange things so that they get results from the first exam or graded quiz/homework before the withdrawal or add/drop period ends, so they can see for themselves they're not going to do well, and drop. If they are required to take the course, they'll still be back the next semester, but at least they'll come into it with more accurate expectations (and they might even try to prepare a bit beforehand!).
But even better would be to flip this and do something like tie 5-10% of their grade to "good behavior". Start everyone at the highest "behavior grade" and threaten to take off points for bad behavior. Even if the points you take off are trivial, students will probably comply since they usually exaggerate the importance of grades. Weak students will also feel less hopeless, since now they can get some points by just not making trouble, which is (presumably) easier than studying. Alternatively you can call this an "attendance" score (might not work if you want your students to be able to skip the lectures), and then threaten to dock someone's attendance point for the day if they refuse to stop whining when you ask them to.
General remarks
I think it's worth examining your own aims here. If there are really many students who complain about struggling, and then go on to actually struggle and get low grades, clearly the learning process is not happening. Remember, you are not St. Peter at the pearly gates, separating the wheat from the chaff. You are the foremost representative of the institution, whose task is to take students who don't know, and teach them. Indeed, the aptitude and motivation of the student is also important, but remember that all these students are pre-selected: They have been deemed to have sufficient aptitude and motivation by the admission committee. If they are not learning, it is potentially a possibility that perhaps you could be doing a better job. Indeed, the students get to excuse their failings with immaturity and inexperience. You, less so.
If there are business students that find the math too hard, perhaps the course can be redesigned to be effective for them. Maybe it would help to put less emphasis on technical aspects such as theorems and more on applications and problem solving (especially exercises dealing with a more hands-on situation in a business context). I'm assuming a "Calculus for Business" class is supposed to be less technical and abstract and more geared for what a business major would likely do. "Stamping out" the "whining weak students" isn't really a perfect solution - ideally you want to find a compromise where everyone is happy, including the weak student. The one exception to this I can see is that if you want to teach "Calculus for Math Enthusiasts who appreciate the intricacies of theory" and the university needs you to teach "Calculus for Business", you're somewhat out of luck there.

There are already great answers about the specific points 1 to 5.
I'll answer about the general tone of your draft: since I started teaching at university (but this would be true anywhere I think), I noticed the importance of having a positive attitude with students.
By this, I mean, when you start a course with new students, you have to be positive a priori and open-minded to them (except when you have the evidence of someone being in violation with your rules, but even in this case, a positive and professional attitude helps to solve the problem).
Students feel when the lecturer has a benevolent attitude, and then usually everything is going well.
On the other hand, if I was a student and read your draft, these words:

"If you can't ..., please withdraw."
"whining"
"will not be tolerated"
"not just to "know it"
"I suspect"
"have cheated"
"disruptive"
"problem"

would make me feel:

that the lecturer probably doesn't really like his job/what he's doing, because most terms are negative; he mainly see problems instead of focusing on the interesting part of his job
that the lecturer isn't very professional (come on, everybody has problems at work and that's the role of a worker to solve them in an intelligent manner, and not whine about it – in fact you don't want students whining in your course, but you're whining about potential problems that might arise in your course with your draft syllabus, even before the course has started!)
that the lecturer has an a priori bad feeling about me (as a student)

That will obviously discourage even good students to choose your course.

One suggestion, I think you should focus your practice exam on exactly the topics you will be testing students over. That or you make very clear that the practice exam is meant to give an example of the style of the test and not necessarily the course material it covers.
I think you set yourself up for student anger when your practice/study materials do not align well with your exam. This does not mean that the problems should be exact with just the numbers changed, but if you give a practice exam with a question over the chain rule but then don't have that in your exam, you can expect student frustration.
That said, I feel you are setting yourself for unhappy students with a syllabus that comes out so confrontational. The "if you dont like it, leave" attitude rarely works. Most students do not have that leeway due to scheduling or requisites.
Fair, Firm, and Focused (and maybe Funny). That's my mantra.

The biggest thing you can do to cut down on whining:
Make it absolutely crystal clear what prerequisite knowledge and skill levels are expected of students.
Some example warnings:

You should have a firm knowledge of the concepts covered in MATH 117
You must be comfortable doing basic trigonometry before taking this class.
Class instruction will be geared towards students who are proficient in algebra and trigonometry. If you are weak in those areas you may find that you need extensive extra work to catch up.

A class in "Calculus for Business" will not be attracting students who are studying math for the joy of it.  It will attract students who are looking for the easiest way to meet a degree requirement; for many of them this will be the last class they need to pass for this degree and they will happily never open a math book again.
Teach to the class you have, not the class you want.
(Source of much inspiration: a FORTRAN programming class long ago that had a prerequisite of another programming class but  which attracted a large cohort of students who had never written anything longer than 10 lines of code.)

(5) is problematic:

You can't give harder exams to students on any reason.
You can't punish students on suspections.

The others are acceptable.
The questions is, are they useful? In my opinion, obviously yes.
You seem to give some basic math course for some business students; these are typically young guys in white ironed t-shirts, thinking the whole world is before them.
I think your real lession what you give them, is that having a business bsc is not a guarantee to have infinite money in the rest of your life. They need also hard work and mind for that. And yes, they need exactly this lession.
However, it might be dangerous, for example if the students can choose between you course and others, or they have the option to choose a different teacher, they will likely do that.
A student wants

his degree on any cost, their this motivation overwrites all in them.
Their secondary motivation is to minimize the work for that.
All other, including curiousity, getting real knowledge, are coming only after that.

Your points seem trying to catalize (3). Good luck!

While this does directly not answer your question, I believe it will help you help your students the most. Rather, you should not discourage 'whiners' from taking your course, but instead help them help themselves.
Discussion-done-right
One of the best math classes I ever took (Stochastic Modeling / Probability) had a practice of doing in-class discussion of the homework problems.
Friday:

"are there any questions about the homework?"

The professor would then directly answer and explain any questions we had with the homework assignment and we would turn them in for points. I believe occasionally students would be allowed to answer the question for the class.
This had a few great benefits

there was always a personal benefit in doing as much of the assignment as possible and showing up to class
everyone could and would freely help each other and discuss the assignment outside of class
there was little excuse for doing poorly on the homework while it still let the strong students shine
students with questions always had them answered well and thoroughly

Additional notes
There were only 5-15 questions per assignment, though with calculus you may expect more. Consider providing a large list of recommended problems, but only requiring a specific subset of them. (5 easy, 3 medium, 2 hard)
There was not enough time in the class period to ask and answer every question, and one would look foolish doing so. There was also a benefit to the students to discuss which questions were the most difficult or unclear and ask about those.
This professor allowed any paper material to be used on the exam, including the book and all notes from the course. The two calculus courses I took (years earlier) allowed the book to be used during the exam. Personally, I have tremendous difficulty with magic formulas and prefer diagrams and written use, and this practice was extremely beneficial to me.
This professor also authored their own text and I suspect incorporated our questions into successive versions.
Closing
In my experience, students who are not interested in learning will find a way not to do so. Students who are interested in learning will get about 90% by themselves from a good book on the subject, but need an expert for the missing 10% (which is of course a different segment for each student and hard to predict).
You may find other students have similar problems and would benefit from these approaches and others.

I know you have already accepted an answer, but it seems that there is one key issue that you missed: You should be nice in teaching but uncompromising about cheating.
There should be a clear statement of the rules on your exam. Whether or not the rules are stated somewhere in the university rules, you should state them explicitly on the front page, something like:

During the exam, you are not allowed to talk or communicate via any means.
If you need to speak to the examiner, stay in your seat and raise your hand to alert the examiner.
If you break any of the rules, or attempt to cause any disruption, you will be given a zero.

Make sure they are told to read the rules in the few minutes before the exam itself. And then you have to be prepared to actually enforce the rules! This means that it would be a good idea to have a small test halfway through the semester where you do exactly the same, to prepare the students for a firm stance on rules. At least, even if they get a zero for the small test it would not affect their grade too severely (because we're kind of course).
Why do I emphasize this? It is because it allows you to effectively and cleanly deal with disrupting an exam, simply because it is covered clearly under the rules, and the students have simply no excuse.


text:
Prospective supervisor's team has projects in many not so related areas, is this a good lab to join?
I did an internship with a professor at the university, which I enjoyed and I was offered an opportunity to do a PhD with her. However, I'm having some doubts because it seems her team are working on a few projects which are not so related. The field is biomedical engineering, and the team currently has projects that are quite disparate, for example:

Modeling and designing scaffolds for tissue culture
Biomarker identification for certain cancer through transcriptomics data
Machine learning on medical imaging

It does seem interesting that I may get the opportunity to explore and work on many different and interesting problems. But at the same time, I feel that she and the team that she is leading doesn't have a clear research focus or hasn't build up strong expertise in any one area.
Firstly, is what I've described common? Secondly, if anyone have experiences working with supervisors that are similar, do you think it's good to do a PhD in this type of lab, or would a supervisor that is more 'specialized' be better?

There is too little information for a good answer. It depends on you and how much freedom you'd like to have in your studies. But there is nothing inherently wrong with such a lab. Lots of ideas floating about, perhaps.

It's fairly common for research areas to grow as a career progresses:
http://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=2031
Doesn't seem like a problem to me, but if your interest is narrow to a particular area the lab works on, make sure your discussion of funding and projects in the lab are focused on that area. Don't pretend you would work on any of them if you wouldn't, and be explicit in asking whether you'll have funding available during your whole PhD to work on that project.
It's possible, too, that you'll find the lab is not really actively doing all those things but may have more of a "consulting" role on a side aspect of one of the projects, with a different lab taking the lead. I'd avoid this sort of project as a PhD student because it puts your work too far into the hands of an additional advisor: work with the person who is most central to the work if it's a collaborative project.


text:
How should I reply if the potential supervisor ask me whether I contacted other potential supervisor?
I received a response from potential supervisor, in her response , she said ' I would, in principle be happy for you to apply to the university'. then she asked me whether I contacted with Professor xx (another potential supervisor), she said 'so I think your project will fit really well in their department! You are of course welcome to apply to more than one department, so keep me updated on what you decide to go ahead with.' How should I reply? Thank you!

Well, what do you want to do? This isn't a puzzle or test with a secret answer.

It reads like a 'suggestion' more than a serious 'question'. Did you contact the other potential supervisor? Do you think they'd be a good/better fit? I'd just do what she said -- consider your options and get back to her on what you decide to do.

With the truth: you either contacted the other potential supervisor or did not. In the latter case, you can still contact potential supervisor B.
It is completely understandable you want to find the best project/supervisor/university/etc. for yourself (I mean 'best' in the sense that it fits you best). As long as you are open and honest about it, you should be fine.

I already gave thumbs up ao Aolon's answer. Just wanted to emphasize.
A PhD supervisor will be a big part of your life for several years. And hopefully it will be a life-long relationship with many positive interactions. If you stay in academe it is very likely you will want to keep a good relationship with your supervisor. It is a good thing to be as open and honest with them as possible.
At least with respect to the subject of your academic work. You may or may not want to be telling them about your personal life. That's a very different subject.
If being honest on such a point causes them to reject you, you probably did not want to work with them anyway.


text:
Are there changes in the process and culture around grants, funding and publishing with changes in countries or institutions?
Currently, as a graduate student in the social sciences, my supervisor has given me a short list of federal institutions that give out the majority of grants to all levels of academia, they share similar proposal formats, and they're only mildly competitive. There are a few other bodies, usually nonprofits with extra rules or with a target minority in mind, but that is all. This system is quite simple, easy, and predictable.
My question is, if I end up moving out in the future, for a postdoc or professorship, probably to the US, do the expectations change? Could it get more complicated? How much will I have to adapt?

I'm currently in Canada, in case that piece of information is needed.

Prediction is hard. Especially about the future. (Various sources)

First time I ever hear SSHRC scholarships described as  “mildly competitive” or are you thinking of other agencies?  Indeed, as far as I know the Canadian system has limited funding in the social sciences (at least compared with the natural sciences).  Or maybe your expectations as to the monetary value of the scholarship are very low…

My supervisor told me SShrc is easy to get on the second attempt, I don't know though

The US generally funds a smaller percentage of grants but for more money.

I have never reviewed SSHRC grants but I would not count that chick before it hatched.

The culture around grants and funding varies significantly from country to country. For example, in Belgium the majority of public resource funding is dispersed through research councils internal to universities. In Denmark, a significant part of research funding comes from private charities connected to major companies (e.g. Carlsberg). In the US, the funding mostly comes from a larger number of smaller grants each paying for maybe a student, or some summer salary. In the EU, there is more of a focus on massive 5-year grants that will pay for a small army.
When applying to a position in new country, it is often important to be aware of these differences and sculpt your application around these differences.

Thing change. Usually it is fairly gradual, with occasional big bumps (like COVID or War in Europe).
For the gradual changes you will adapt as your career progresses.
For the big and abrupt changes, you will be in the same situation as everyone else.
But, no one can really predict what will occur over, say, a 40 year career. Yes, things will change. How? Well, that is much harder to even contemplate.
As a citizen, however, you can also work toward positive changes. Education at the moment would benefit from increased funding at all levels and in every place.

I was thinking more about geographic changes, as in, is my described situation similar to others in the US and other places?

Some places have structures similar the US. Much of the EU, for example. But if you need to move around and need funding, look and analyze before you jump. I have no ideas about, say, Peru or Moldova.


text:
Exploring dissimilar research topics
I'm currently a graduate student, but I plan on my future career being in research and academia. I like many different related topics and I like being interdisciplinary in my topics, and I see myself changing topics and doing my research broadly. However, professors usually stick to one topic for a very long time (either their entire lives or some absurd length like eight years) and milk every subtopic within it. I cannot see myself doing that willingly, but I also hear that staying within one topic allows you to essentially "master" it, thus getting you a better reputation, which feeds into a positive cycle of more publications, conference invites, security, etc. How true is that? Could I switch between topics and expect to be fine?

Eight years is not an "absurd amount of time" to work on a single topic by any measure: one-year research projects are typically exploratory in nature, one could expect to knock off some low-hanging fruit but that is about it. For most projects, three to five years is a more typical research cycle, and committing this much is to be expected. Eight years is just a couple of projects done in a single field.
Now, there are options for making more frequent changes. The easiest one is assuming an instrumentalist role, mastering a set of techniques and doing projects from varying fields. It requires a lot of commitment to said set of techniques, but you can get to work on a wide variety of research. Say, if you run a lab with an advanced microscope, material scientists and biologists of all kinds might want to enter a collaboration. If you run a ML lab, you get an even wider variety of projects.
Be aware, however, that with this approach you would be limited to a certain role; you might make suggestions regarding the experiment design and refine your technique, but not much more than that.
And for theoretical research, one still has to draw from being a sufficiently good specialist in a number of fields to be able to be a generalist at all. Research questions often defy classification - the notion of a field in research is no more than a useful tool, and nothing prevents anyone from applying e.g. differential geometry in number theory. The reason we stick to these fields is that a lot of effort is otherwise spent on learning the basics: from experience, it typically takes no less than an year to just get up to speed and start generating ideas people have already published a few years ago as opposed to decades ago.
The romanticized idea of polymath geniuses who just go about and solve a bunch of open problems in all the different fields is almost entirely unrealistic. In older times, a select few could even afford to do science; now we have many bright minds working in every field imaginable. Unlike industry, academia does not care much about whether you are the best baker in town: if someone across the world has strictly better results, yours are irrelevant. To be a successful generalist in science, you still have to be good at something.

Thank you for your reply, but do you think the idea of learning the basics still applies in social sciences and humanities as those are all interrelated and do not have the distinct prior knowledge need of, say, physics and biology, as they are mostly interrelated. Going off of this, my goal is not to be a polymath, but because I have a genuine interest in doing research I find it hard to limit myself to one field, and see myself wanting to study psychology (my specialization, which in itself is further divided) but also study poli sci, cultural studies, linguistics, and education.

I see. Unfortunately, I do not know much about humanities, but I believe most of the answer should still apply: you may bring your tools and expertise from psychology and use them in poli sci or cultural studies. Day-to-day work in this case could probably be described as "using psychology in the context of ...", the change of the field is a bit superficial then, and I cover it in the "often defy classification" section. But if you would need a complete retooling, it then becomes unreasonable to expect external funding, thus most researchers do not do that.


text:
Funding on research collaborations
I am currently a graduate student, and I have an idea for research that connects to something I worked on during my undergraduate studies. Given that my supervisor agrees, I want to know how funding would work on this type of collaboration (it's international). How exactly does the application process work (if any) and how does the funding and work then get divided?
P.S. I've searched the related questions on here and they all seem to be about building connections, which is not my issue.

There may be local/national options that apply, but in general, there isn't any automatic funding that comes with collaboration. It needs to be worked out and it might even require applying for a grant for funds.
Normally, however, collaborators in many fields bring their own funding. In a science that requires expensive equipment, that may be available to one or both or not at all, requiring searching for the funds. In something like math, where both parties are already employed, there is no funding necessary, just the willingness to spend the time and effort. Social sciences might be different if funds are needed for studies. Look for grant funding agencies as needed.
In your case, a student collaborating with a professor, it might be a bit different. The professor may already have some funding that isn't tightly tied to an existing project and might be able to supply you with some funding.
One of the first tasks in a collaboration might actually be finding the funds to let it continue. Perhaps finding some funding agency and making application. How that works depends on the agency. The professor would most likely need to be the PI for most sorts of funding.
You also need to work out between you what tasks you each need to do. Nothing can be assumed in general there either. It might even be necessary to talk about authorship order in some fields at the start of a joint work.