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Some of my students cheated. Should I give them the opportunity to turn themselves in?
So, this is an online test and some of my students have identical answers (including mistakes and typos!). My plan is to send an email to the class giving the cheaters a chance to come forward for a reduced penalty (scale down the grade based on the severity of the cheating). Otherwise, they will be reported to the university.
Is this an appropriate action? Any other/better suggestions?
Update: I reported the cheaters (~40% of the class). I believe it is the right thing to do given the reasons below in the answers. It is a bit disappointing though that many students have cheated (including who I believed were good students).

What is the thinking behind this scheme? Why not just report them?

Good question. Simply because this is the first offense (it is the first exam though), so I don't think jumping to reporting them is a good action. I may be wrong.

Usually the school will have its own policies of what to do in the case of a first offense, which are probably no less lenient than what you have in mind. Generally it’s better if that policy is applied uniformly instead of different instructors each starting to come up with their own ideas which will likely vary a lot between the different instructors, leading to inconsistency and unfairness. And if you don’t report them, they can cheat again in a different class and that instructor will also assume that this is their first offense, giving them a mild punishment, etc.

I think the question title is misleading. It somewhat suggests that it is already established that the students are cheating, and you're asking whether the punishment you have in mind is appropriate. However, the body of your question in fact means that you only suppose there is cheating going on, and you're asking if certain actions aimed at confirming cheating (giving them a chance to admit cheating) are appropriate. Don't get me wrong, it's a valid question, but it doesn't match the title.

@sleepy Correct solutions may be very similar for independent submitters, but if they contain the same errors and typos, that's a smoking gun indicating copying from each other or the same source.

I am in grad school and something similar happened in one of my courses last semester. Many students were copying on online tests. The professor (an old and wise person imo) just sent out an email saying that he had noticed it and would rather not report it, but he would have no choice if it did not stop right there. And in the next classroom session, he gave the somewhat cliched talk on how cheating amounts to nothing. But the combination of the email and the talk was pretty effective. As a student, I'd say give them another chance. But if it repeats, then disciplinary actions are warranted.

Then again, if the test carried a significant part of the grade, it might be unwise to let them get away with it even once as it might result in someone else who actually worked for it losing out on good grades/ranks.

What is your school's policy? Do you have the option of not reporting it if you do, in fact, know about it?

@CaptainEmacs again, you're trying to convince me that the students cheated. It might very well be true, but it misses my point.

@sleepy Ok, so you say that the cheating has not been established? That it needs to be established? That it is established but the question is ill posed? Which of these, or something entirely different?

How do you know it's their first offense?  Maybe some of them did this previously in other classes.

Cheating is the kind of thing that goes not once but twice, so every single case must be taken as seriously as you would with any other offenses.

Punishments for academic misconduct should be standardized across your university.  Check the university policy and follow it.  If you are still unsure, ask your academic dean.
Instructor discretion can lead to inadvertent or unconscious discrimination.

+1, although I think discrimination is not the main issue, but general consistency. Marking should ideally be Anonymous (hint, hint!) whenever possible, because discrimination does not begin at reporting misconduct.

...and an inability to track repeat offenders.

@CaptainEmacs I do not understand your comment.  Since it has a lot of votes, I am following up.  It seems to me that you are claiming discrimination is not as important as consistency, but I think discrimination is the same thing as inconsistency.

@AnonymousPhysicist: Discrimination is about student A being treated differently than student B by the same professor P. Inconsistency is about professor X handling cheating differently than professor Y. This is mainly about the latter.

@Heinzi If professor X has student A and professor Y has student B, those are the same thing.  And that's nearly always how it is at universities.  Imagine if the professor of African American Studies uses different rules to punish students than the professor of Chicano Studies.  Most discrimination is perpetrated by institutions, not individuals.

@AnonymousPhysicist Heinzi described it well. The question is about cheating. You ideally want to treat all cheaters in the same way. Consistency. Discrimination is when you treat people badly because of their origin/appearance/etc. If the uni has a consistent treatment of academic offenses, this will reduce discrimination by discretion of individual instructors (which is your example). In short, in this particular case, preventing discrimination is implied in having consistent treatment.

@AnonymousPhysicist For cases where the whole institution is discriminatory, your own example is not aptly chosen, anyway. Having standardized punishments across the university (with which I agree, BTW) will not solve discrimination in an institution where there are implicit biases against certain groups unless you introduce anonymous marking, after which discrimination can mainly (I will not say only) take place by active fraudulence by the staff. Summarizing: discrimination and consistency are different issues. Although in this case, consistency may help to reduce individual discrimination.

@AnonymousPhysicist: I see your point, and I think I also see a possible source of the confusion. Some people (including myself) interpret the word "discrimination" in a narrower context by default, unless prefixed by something like "structural", "institutional" or "indirect".

@CaptainEmacs I think your definition of discrimination is too narrow, but it's just semantics.

Being a professor is hard work and requires one to develop expertise and make thoughtful decisions about many different issues. Fortunately, modern universities have taken one area — the handling of student misconduct — out of the hands of individual professors and created a way to treat it in a uniform way across the entire university (typically through a dedicated unit with a name such as Office of Student Misconduct). This creates obvious efficiencies and frees up professors’ time to handle the work that they are actually expert in and that only they can do.
By coming up with your own policy to punish teaching students, you will be:

Wasting your own time and mental energy on making decisions that others have spent more time thinking about, have more contextual information about, and are more competent to handle.

Running the risk that your policy will differ from the university’s policy, creating a source of unfairness and inconsistency.

Depriving the university of a record about the cheating students that might inform decision-making in the (near certain) event that some of them might be caught cheating again in the future by other professors.

These are the disadvantages of your approach. As for advantages, the only one I can think of is that the university-wide office for handling student misconduct is in some campuses seen by some professors as either inept, incompetent, needlessly strict, or needlessly lenient, and this creates a temptation for those professors to handle misconduct matters themselves — a kind of “vigilante justice”. I don’t know if this is your situation. But, if you don’t have information to suggest that your university will not handle the referral in a satisfactory manner, this argument doesn’t apply.

The correct course of action is to follow the university procedure.

You do NOT want to stray from the university procedure as it would allow students to challenge any decision made in the case.  Moreover, it could also expose you to technical administrative actions should the university become aware you did not apply properly the institutional policy.
It is not clear that it is for you to decide if there is an academic misconduct.  Certainly here it’s the job of the Dean or assistant Dean to verify and assess such allegations.  You can accuse students of plagiarism, but you should not be the jury in the business.
It is not clear it is for you to decide the penalty.  It may be that the students have prior offenses that you cannot know of because of confidentiality.  If the allegations are upheld, someone else should hand the sentence (albeit here there is consultation between the Dean and the instructor).

This is NEVER a pleasant situation, so tread carefully, keep all correspondence, and let the process follow its course: this will ensure greater fairness for all involved, and will give confidence to all that such situations are dealt uniformly and not in an instructor-dependent manner.

"it would allow students to challenge any decision made in the case" And in other cases, because as soon as the procedure isn't followed for one case, now students have precedent to point to when questioning whether the procedure is being applied fairly in their case.

As the lead faculty member at my college for anti-online-cheating efforts, I think the OP's initial plan is too lenient, and secondarily too subjective.
OP's initial plan:

My plan is to send an email to the class giving the cheaters a chance
to come forward for a reduced penalty (scale down the grade based on
the severity of the cheating). Otherwise, they will be reported to the
university.

OP's motivation for this as per a comment:

... because this is the first offense (it is the first exam though),
so I don't think jumping to reporting them is a good action. I may be
wrong.

In line with other answers, I do think the OP should follow the standard institutional policy for academic integrity cases as soon as possible. In addition to the prior reasons, I would add this:
If these are university students, then it seems to me overwhelmingly likely that what's happened is a reflection of prior habits they've been following for... maybe 12+ years now? I'd say at this point it's naive to think this is truly "the first offense". What if these students are cheating at work in every single one of their college courses, and then pleading "first offense" or "didn't know" (very common, and should be disregarded as utterly unbelievable), and so are given this allowance continually throughout their program sequence?
My broad guess is that they've probably been given many "first offense" allowances over time, they've been either unpersuasive (or worse: evidence there is never any real penalty), and as a university instructor who cares about academic integrity (you've already spent the time to investigate this!), it's time to apply the putative penalty, so as to get the actual message across.
Moreover, as others have stated, the central Academic Integrity Officer is likely to maintain university-wide records, and decide or recommend increasing penalties for students who have had prior reports filed. (At my school, the available reports actually span 25 different campuses in our university system, in which transfers are common.) Having every instructor silo their own "first offense" process short-circuits that mechanism.
For these reasons, under the assumption that university students are expected to be previously aware of the rules (perhaps by reading syllabus information or other student materials, etc.), and also fairly long prior academic experience, I recommend assessing roughly the harshest penalty for cheating on tests possible. In my case, the default is a zero in any such case. I've found that assigning this as a "pending" null grade to the assignment makes students much more prompt about responding to cheating investigation inquiries (which otherwise go unreplied or "ghosted" in many cases). Perhaps more importantly, the OP's initial "scale down the grade based on the severity of the cheating" idea sounds vague and likely to result in bias or irregularities if they don't have a specific expected level of sanction decided in advance.
Also, I would generally avoid sending any course-wide messages out about the situation. That's because: (a) it's probably irrelevant, and possibly confusing, to the majority of students, (b) it fills the course mental space with negative chaff, and (c) it's probably a sign of instructor laziness, in that they couldn't bother to send a message to the specific students under investigation, which is the appropriate thing to do.

About the assumption of whether this is a "first offense": on the one hand, university students may find themselves under greater academic stress than they did in high school, so I'd be willing to believe that some of them had cheated for the first time. But the very first exam? I doubt they had time to build up that much stress.

I'm not going to pretend to know the "right" ethical and practical solution to your situation. I've never experienced this as an instructor before somehow. But the way I see it is that you have two options:

follow the ethics code exactly as written by the university; or
attempt to resolve the issue "internally" (i.e., keep it separate from the official disciplinary processes). this involves punishing the transgressors equally and befitting the severity of the misconduct (such as giving everyone involved a 0 on the exam), and then making it abundantly clear to the class, in a formal statement in front the entire student body, that cheating occurred in this specific way: if any student cheats again, they will face the possibility of an automatic failing grade for the class and possibly expulsion pursuant to the college code of conduct.

Obviously, the second one is trickier to do correctly, but more forgiving. So there's that trade-off. And in addition (this is going to sound disconcerting) it's probably safer for you to go with that possibility if you're tenured, in the event that something goes wrong with your internal solution (such as students claiming undue punishment, unfair or unequal treatment, or some kind of bias, even along racial lines or gender lines (I hate to bring these up, but accusations do happen, some of them true and some of them false)).
The key is to have incontrovertible proof that each person getting punished committed the "crime". And then punish them all identically. And finally explain exactly what happened to the entire class; the only thing that you need to omit is the names of the students who cheated.

As an aside, I want to tell a story of something that happened when I was a sophomore in Proofs, Induction, Set Theory, and Arithmetic class. A student posted a question from a homework assignment onto math.stackexchange.com – or maybe it was simply Stack Overflow or Stack Exchange at the time – and received answers. Viable answers. I was not aware of it. Several students copied the solution. It was a course / problem in which dozens of unique solutions could successfully evaluate in a sufficiently rigorous way. As such, it was obvious to the TAs and professor as to who copied the solution, at least to a certain approximation and confidence level.
The professor opened with a direct announcement the next lecture. He claimed he knew the full list of students who cheated (this may have been a little game theory and behavioral manipulation at work). His gambit was this, involving three possible outcomes:

the cheaters could reveal themselves immediately and apologize to the class for compromising the integrity of the course, and receive the least punishment
they could speak to the professor after class and receive a moderate punishment
they could do nothing and receive the worst punishment

I think they did the 2nd of those choices. But I can't be sure. All I know is that they didn't openly admit to the class. I don't even think he expected them to; it was partly a psychological game to get people to approach him afterwards.
I'm not saying this is the best way to handle your situation, but it was a memorable circumstance.

“Incontrovertible proof” is an almost impossible standard to meet and isn’t required even in criminal law to send someone to prison. The proof in this case needs to be reasonably convincing, that’s all (look up the term “preponderance of evidence”, that’s the standard most US campuses will apply to determine if someone guilty of cheating).

sorry, "beyond a reasonable doubt"

As I said, universities don’t apply this very high standard. Even civil courts require only “clear and convincing” proof for many (or all? IANAL) purposes, which is a lower bar than beyond a reasonable doubt.

It may be a good idea to confront them with your findings and ask for their explanation. There just might be a reasonable one (I can't think of one, but...).
You do not give them a way out, but follow school procedures.
If they willingly cheated, they know also fully well, they have to face consequences.
They may be dumb, but not THAT dumb, being allowed to  study at a uni.
You cannot cheat "a little", btw.

At many (most?) schools, faculty and students are expected to report all cases of suspected cheating they observe.  You're expected to report everything because it's not your job to decide the case.  That's the job of the academic conduct officer or perhaps an honor council.  Your job is only to report what you see. If you later become aware that your suspicion was completely unfounded, many (most?) schools will allow you to retract your report with an explanation.
If you're faculty and reporting a student for suspected cheating, I don't think it's necessary to notify them before you submit your report.  (Again, it's not your job to investigate or decide the case.)  But I think it's good practice to notify the student that you have reported them and to provide a copy of the evidence you submitted (but redacted of any other students' names or identifying information, e.g., if the evidence is two identical exams) along with a link to a university academic policy page (if there is one) explaining the process by which the student's case will be decided.

Good advice at some places, I'm sure -- but like anything, this varies by institution. At my (very large U.S.) university, the faculty member is in fact required to contact the student, investigate, and even determine academic penalty (but not disciplinary penalty) before submitting a report on the findings.

The key is that you're assuming this is a first offense. You don't know. Maybe they got caught cheating in every other on-line exam and they all get a verbal warning for a 1st offense, then again next semester. There should be a central academic dishonesty person who handles these things, and is good at it. They will know if it's a 1st offense.
Double-check you have a solid case (identical spelling errors is good), make notes, ask the students to come see you in a way that isn't too terrifying, figure out if everyone copied from Alice w/o her knowing, or whatever. Write it up with names and dates and the class name and what they said, and send it to the Academic Dishonesty person. Tell the students that for a 1st offense they will get yelled at, but nothing more. Mostly it gets written down (not on their diploma or anything like that, only for their time in college) so if it happens again they can't say "but I didn't know!" If they ask if it will show up for security clearance checks, it will, but it's no big deal. So as not to keep them in suspense, let them know it's your decision as far as grades go, decide ahead of time, and let them know if they confess (otherwise you have to wait. Most students eventually confess). Check their grades -- they may have been failing anyway, so it hardly matters. Let them know that if they retake the class with you, you won't take it personally (you're a busy person and don't have time to remember who did what last semester).
But don't believe me. See if you have an Academic Dishonesty person. They probably have a hand-out or something, or it's on the web page.

Re "identical spelling errors is good": The reverse can also be used - if it is too perfect (or the writing style is very different) for a particular student or group/type of students.

@PeterMortensen Not so much. Identical perfect answers might mean you're a great teacher, they studied together... . But there's no way to explain identical "noise" (funny spacing, upper/lower, identical typos) except as copying.

^ I think both points here can be correct, depending on type/length of answer. E.g.: For a short-answer or a few lines of algebra, matching answers can be fine. But a 3 paragraph essay, or 100 lines of computer code, that are identical between students is a clear sign of copying.

I'd recommend checking with the Academic Dishonesty Person if it is indeed true that a first offence only gets you a telling off, before telling students that is the case. You probably don't want cheaters to be able to tell themselves that professors are also out to trick them.

The "cheaters please come forward now" scenario would require a lot of trust in the current (and possibly the future!) misconduct policy... maybe too much. And some cheaters might come forward, while others might decide to keep quiet. How would one handle that?
And report what? You cannot prove beyond doubt who was copying and who was authoring answers. And the author might have been cooperating, but might also still be completely unaware of the problem. Therefore I'd suggest this:

a unique and correct solution is worth full marks.
any identical submission appearing N times is worth 1/N each.

This addresses both sides: the author (lesson: "don't provide knowingly or accidentally a solution to others, it will lower your marks"), and the cheaters (lesson: "a copied solution isn't worth much").
If someone is unhappy with your suggestion, offer to forward the problem to the place which usually handles academic misconduct at your university.

The “author” is just as guilty of cheating as the “copier”, and there is no need to treat them any differently from each other. See this discussion.

Your 1/N suggestion makes no sense. Grades are not a currency to be divvied up and and transferred between different people. The only logical grade to give someone known to have cheated on an assessment is 0.

@DanRomik ...might make no sense to you at first view, but that's something quite common in Academia :) I'd refute the claim the "author" simply must be guilty, unless you can prove he or she shared the answers voluntarily or by being grossly negligent. For example, even security flaws in the test software are not without precedence. If you want to call someone a cheater, and take action, you should better be able to prove it. - The "division" method might even persuade a honest "author" to come forward and escalate the process.

How would this work? Suppose one answer was identical on 25 different exams because, without cheating, it's the most obvious and correct short answer? Your plan would have them penalize their grade despite no wrongdoing. But if two students turned in identical, down to the typos, five paragraph essays, you'd just each give them half credit instead of reporting them for cheating?

@ZachLipton With correct answers it is difficult to prove that they were copied, as correctness enforces structure on the solution. But errors (unless they are errors due to possible misinterpretation of the question, or easy mistakes to make) and especially typos are a giveaway.

@jvb But if the author is not guilty, and cheating happened because of security flaws, then they don't deserve any punishment at all, neither 0 nor 1/N.

Exactly what @GoodDeeds said. It sounds like this answer assumes a kind of principle where if someone is known to have committed an offense with 50% probability, then they should get 50% of the punishment as someone proved to have committed the offense. There isn’t any justice system in the world that operates on this system, neither in academia nor elsewhere.

Sometimes I hear about this 1/N grading method, but I always thought it was a snide joke.

Another problem--you can't be sure the author is guilty.  What if their system was hacked?

@GoodDeeds exactly - if there actually is a honest "author" who hadn't been actively collaborating with the "cheaters", that student will be cooperative and come forward (and might even contribute useful technical information, e.g. log files). In comparison, I fear the "cheaters" do not have any incentive to cooperate (and will not come forward as requested).

@jvb Of course, but that seems independent of the 0 vs 1/N question. In fact, getting a 0 should be a stronger incentive for an innocent author to come forward.

As suggested by the answers here, you should report that ! wait, you report what ? first degree cheating ? what about 2nd degree cheating and 3rd degree cheating as well ? the recurrent mistake made by professors, is that they only catch the easy prey while omitting the most wicked cheaters.
Cheating has many ways, you could cheat by sitting and preparing the exam with your mate, you could do that in group as well (while many others prepare the exam alone (which is penalizing them)). Yes i consider that cheating in comparison with lonelisome students who do their hardest to prepare ALL by their own. Anyway you are only in doubt and that doesn't constitute a crime for the "cheaters".

So the most clueless cheaters get penalized. Sounds fair to me. In real world copying others is not an issue. If you cluelessly copy, then you lose.


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Can one publication contribute to two separate grants?
I have a set of collaborators I have worked and published with in the past who have received a new, rather large multi-year grant to continue some inquiry areas. I am not funded through that grant.
Is it possible/common for me to pursue my own funding from a different agency, with an eye toward joining forces with them to conduct the actual research? (This of course assumes I can write my individual grant in such a way that the activities and research questions overlap with their existing award.)
Essentially, is it ethical to "double count" a single publication as contributing toward grants awarded from separate agencies?

IMHO this can't have a generic answer as this would be mainly determined by the specific conditions imposed by the specific grant sources and their expectations; I've been involved in grant calls that had entirely opposite treatment of such situations.

I would ordinarily think about it the other way around: grants contribute to publications.
If a publication includes work supported by more than one grant, then it's not only acceptable but also necessary to acknowledge all of those sources of funding when publishing the paper.
Of course yes, when you submit some sort of progress report or go back at the end of your grant cycle and ask for more money, you'll report your productivity on that grant which may include work also supported by other grants, but at least in my world I think funders tend to view collaborative work and synergy between multiple grants as an overall positive.
I would expect funding agencies to each have their own approach to the concept of "overlap" at the time of submission and it may differ for different types of opportunities: graduate student and post-doctoral fellowships would be a category that almost certainly are expected to have overlap with other grants held by the mentoring PIs, for example.
You'll need to demonstrate in some way that funding your grant submission will make some contribution to the mission of the funding agency. "I want to be paid for this project that's already happening" is not likely to contribute to that mission. "My colleagues are collecting these data and I'd like to use these funds to pay staff to do X Y Z additional analyses with these data" might be, as would "we're already doing this experiment, but we want to collect these additional measurements that require an additional machine and personnel".
I would highly recommend consulting with grants staff at your institution, and possibly also with the "program officer" or similar role at the funding agency.

Essentially, is it ethical to "double count" a single publication as contributing toward grants awarded from separate agencies?

If the research being reported on in the publication actually benefited from the support of both grants, then yes, you should report to each of the funding agencies that the paper is one of the work products resulting from that grant, and list both grants in the acknowledgements or funding sources section of the paper.
It would be problematic to count the publication as having benefited from funding from a grant if there wasn't any actual support from the grant that was used during the research. Did the grant pay for the labor of a PhD student, some equipment, travel, etc, that could be associated with the research that was performed? If not, it would be a stretch to count it as being done under the support of the grant.
It would also be unethical (and most probably illegal) to draw support from both grants simultaneously to pay yourself or someone else a salary for the same period of work. That is, if Grant A is paying your summer salary for the entire month of July 2025, then naturally you can't draw a salary from Grant B for the same period, even if the grant has funding that allows that.
Other than these issues, you are free to pursue funding from any combination of sources, including for projects that have some overlap or synergy with each other. Grant applications usually include a form where you report what other funding support you are getting or have applied for (in NSF applications this will appear under the heading "Current and Pending Support"), so funding agencies are aware that researchers can enjoy more than one source of support, and are generally fine with it. However, keep in mind that if the overlap between your proposed research and already-funded research is significant, the funding agency may decide it is not interested in funding the same research that already enjoys adequate levels of support from a different agency.
To summarize, there is no ethical issue as long as you fulfill your respective obligations to each of the funding agencies, are truthful in reporting which grant or grants supported which research activities, and don't attempt to mislead funding agencies about the support you receive from other agencies.
I also agree with what @BryanKrause wrote in his answer. Especially this part:

I would highly recommend consulting with grants staff at your institution, and possibly also with the "program officer" or similar role at the funding agency.

I work in experimental physics, and our publications usually result from international collaborations and have long author lists. Every author acknowledges several grants, so the list of grants in the acknowledgements can be very long. This is perfectly OK. It can well be that every author is paid from a different grant, and the measurements were performed at an external facility that is also independently funded through some grants.

The answer by Bryan covers the main ground, but I'd like to highlight that at least in my country (Czechia), there were funding calls that required exclusive dedication to the funding agency (here AZV ČR). I.e. if you received the funding, at least one of the papers you produced had to acknowledge AZV ČR and no other source of funds.
Although this is AFAIK somewhat rare and was softened in the more recent calls (currently no dedication to other projects form the same agency is required, but funding from other agencies is OK). Still it is important to check the specifics of both the already awarded grant as well as the funding you are planning to pursue - the grant department at your institution should be able to help you with that.

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Could an inexperienced advisor hurt my career?
I have been offered a PhD position by an inexperienced professor in a great institution in Europe. Despite the fact that the institution is very strong in my area, since the position was offered by this particular professor, I would have to commit myself to working with him for my thesis. This professor is young, and relatively inexperienced, but I enjoy the things he works on, and we seem to get along well.
My question is, would having an inexperienced advisor hurt my growth as a scientist, or my career in general? Will I have the time during my PhD to also work on the side with other, more renowned professors in the department, or is one usually focused in a single research project?

This may vary quite a lot between european countries (e.g. in France you would have lots of other, more senior profs in your group, whereas in Germany the prof is the department). If you feel comfortable stating which country it is, you might get better answers.

@nengel: I am in Germany. No prof here is the department. The same thing is the case for any other department I collaborate with. I would propose the size of the department and number of (senior) professors depends a lot more on the field and how prominent and established that field is in your institution than on the location.

@skymningen: is department not "Fachgebiet" then? In any case, in my 3 years as a PhD student in Germany, I did not have any contact with any prof other than my own. My colleagues did have collaborations, but usually with profs from other countries that were in the same FP7 project.

@nengel Fachbereich is what we call it. A sub-department of computer science in my case. Which itself is a subsection of the "Fakultät". We call the "one prof subdivision" a group. Groups collaborate, definitely talk and we have shared "mini conferences" and other events. I am from Germany, I studied here and am about to finish my Ph.D. I also have friends at other German universities in other fields where a similar structure applies.

@skymningen: I wasn't aware of any formal structure in the middle between Fakultät and Fachgebiet.

@nengel That is because the computer science department used to be a Fakultät, but now we only have large ones. (Basically Medicine, Humanities, Math& Science and Languages I think.) These structures differ between universities and in our case are also subject to change. (At least one other German university introduced a similar change at a similar time.) This discussion is not relevant to the question anymore, so I would propose to end it. But really, I would say 99% of "Fachbereich" have way more than one prof in Germany.

@skymningen: Oh, interesting! Anyway, this is drifting a bit off-topic, but I definitely felt my time in a research lab in France was more "communal" than my time in Germany.

On what basis did you define this professor as inexperienced? Inexperience in what aspect? Supervision? Publications?

Are you concerned that your career will be hurt because your advisor isn't renowned yet, or because your advisor isn't competent yet?

My 2 centime.. your career is what you will make of it.  Having an inexperienced adviser may actually need you to be proactive towards your career rather than ride his/her coat-tails.  Either way, good luck and I hope you find plenty of success!

Easily. It does not take a lot of experience to hurt a cerreer.

Another advantage of younger supervisors: They might still remember what it was like being a student.

An inexperienced advisor can hurt your career by being relatively unknown. This means they may not have access to the same network and that their recommendation letters do not carry the same weight. Inexperience in supervision may, for example, lead to unrealistic expectations. Or an inexperienced advisor can be very good for your career, by quickly rising to fame with the awesome publications the two of you will write together and being fresh in everybody's memory when writing recommendation letters. They may spend plenty of time on working with you.
An experienced advisor can hurt your career by being never there. They may already have made their name, have extremely high expectations from PhD students, to the level of cause them to be overly stressed and quit. Or they may be very good for your career, as dedicated as can be to PhD students, prioritising them above most other duties, having realistic expectations from PhD students, and having great influence when writing recommendation letters.
Bottom line: an experienced advisor may be better for you than an inexperienced one, but that certainly does not have to be the case.  And keep in mind: a very good/famous scientist is not always a very good PhD advisor.

Whether experienced or inexperienced professors have higher expectations for their students is questionable. My limited experience so far indicates the opposite of what you are saying, plus I would expect a senior professor to have a better overview and be more realistic. Perhaps it can go either way, though.

@RichardHardy True.  It can go either way.  I've added those points.

An inexperienced advisor can hurt your career by being unknown. — At least in my field, it is essentially impossible to become a professor without being "known".

@JeffE In addition to what Nic Hartley says, not everywhere is it required to be a full professor to be an advisor.  For someone I know, her advisor is known nationally in the UK, but not very well known internationally.

@gerrit By “professor” I meant “tenure-track faculty (or equivalent)”, not “full professor”.

One indicator of what you can expect is his publication record prior to his professorship. This is not a perfect indicator, but it's a starting point from which to evaluate his potential impact on your career. If he has published regularly and in good journals, and if his co-authors/former supervisor is well-known it could mitigate the fact that he is just starting his career.
Another thing to consider is how established his lab is, physically speaking. Are you going to be able to actually do research right away, or will the first year of work be mostly heavy lifting and setting up equipment before you can start generating data? If the lab is not yet set up, it can be a big risk.
All that said, having an advisor who is going to be highly motivated to publish and who you get along with are both huge pluses. If you get along well and are one of his first students you can probably count on a lot of support.
There's no really clear answer to this unless you actually linked his research profile (which you probably shouldn't do). Certainly starting with a young professor comes with risk, but if he is clearly motivated and you get along that can mitigate a lot of it.

There is no way that I would say, "Inexperienced?  NO!  Forget him!"  But his experience is one factor -- among many -- that you should take into account.  You want someone who will assign you work that will not only be interesting but will look impressive to the people you will eventually be looking to hire with.  Also, you need someone who can advise you on how to navigate a job market that is often extremely competitive.  And, yes, you want someone with connections.  My own situation years ago was that I had an advisor who was actually quite well known, working in a European institution.  But he didn't know enough about the US job market, which I would eventually have to go back to, to help me out at all in the ways I suggested above.  I went back completely unprepared to find a job.
That being said, there are advantages to new guys -- energy, "young blood", inspiration, innovative ideas, etc.  So there are many things to take into account.  You just have to "sum up" everything and see whether the overall "total" is what you need.

I suspect that a young professor, on average, has a better grasp of what's to be considered as impressive at a particular point of time. A young professor is much likely to have done some impressive work recently; otherwises their chances on the job market would have been slim. Old professors have perspective, but many of them lost touch with their field decades ago.

This topic has been discussed several times on this site, you may want to search for previous answers.
There is no rule such as working with young or well-known professors is good or bad, it depends case by case. Since you enjoy the things he works on, and you get along well, there is nothing to worry, as you are in a great institution . With all due respect, I do not agree with the following answer of gerrit.

An inexperienced advisor can hurt your career by being unknown. This
  means s/he may not have access to the same network and that her/his
  recommendation letters do not carry the same weight.

Unknown researchers have no way to get into great institution. He either has strong publication record or strong network or both of them (very often).

Will I have the time during my PhD to also work on the side with
  other, more renowned professors in the department

This is often possible in most places I know, but I don't think this is a good idea. During PhD, you will be most productive and produce the strongest thesis when you focus on one project.

Well, yes, he could 'hurt your career', but so could a lot of things.
I have two advisors.  One is in late 70s, basically has seen it all, the other is in his late 30s, not tenured, and I'm his first PhD student.
There's advantages and disadvantages to both.  My passing or failing does not phase older supervisor.  He's pretty much hands off. "good luck, here's some money, hope you don't die".
My younger supervisor would bend over backwards to help you, but is obviously inexperienced.  "hey! let's do all the things, and let's do them tomorrow!"
If you're asking this sort of question, you've probably never been in a 'real world' situation, and could use a little more experience.

Most of this answer is for a PhD student.  Master's students usually can get through in a relative calm matter.
I am in the US and was in an Electrical Engineering program so that's what I know, other majors or other geographical areas may or may not be the same.
Where I went to grad-school a student had an advisor who didn't achieve tenure and was on the way to leaving.  This student was not retained.  There may have been a coincidence here, but it did seem to me an interesting set of facts.
On the other hand, some advisors who have been full-professors already overwork their students and ask hard questions at oral exams.
My advisor was much nicer to me than I realized at the time, but it takes years to realize this.
One professor told me that the advisor-grad-student relationship is always problematic.
In any event do the best you can.

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How much does the reputation of the undergrad institution matter in top 10 graduate schools in Mathematics?
I will be starting as a freshman in August 2018 in an undergrad institution. My school does not have the best reputation for mathematics in my country. Although it has a tie-up with another nearby graduate institution, which is the well known to top 10 US graduate program in Mathematics. Some Faculties from it teach courses at my institution. As from there, I do have hopes of getting good LOR's. Because of fewer facilities, many students in my undergrad pursue their honors thesis at a different location. Few of them pursued outside of my country under AMS fellows.
Ph.D. placements at my school include Dartmouth ,Northwestern, Paris, UIUC etc.
I do have the option of taking a gap year and target two other schools A & B.
School A has recently started its undergrad program. Although it is fairly reputed in my country and abroad.
Their placements include Chicago, Ohio State, Wisconsin etc.
School B has the best math undergrad program in my country. It has a stellar reputation in top 10 grad schools in the US and many students are pursuing PhDs in those schools.
I know Harvard or Princeton is beyond my reach, but do schools like Chicago or Berkeley care more about elite undergrad status. Should I take a gap year? Can stellar letters of recommendation and good honor's thesis outweigh undergrad reputation?

It's better to be a stellar undergraduate at a lesser known institution than a middle or bottom of the pack student at an "elite" institution. Admissions committees care far more about what the student has done than where the student comes from. The latter matters because the standards of a well known institution are also well known, and that contextual familiarity makes it easier to judge the merits of an applicant from such an institution. The main reason bigname places get more students into top graduate programs is that they admit more strong students as undergraduates.

@DanFox If you posted that as an answer, I would vote for it.

What on earth is a bottom ivy?

@astronat  I think in comparison of HYP,  Dartmouth and Cornell can be regarded as lower tier of ivy League for Mathematics.

Can you explain the gap year option? Are you thinking of deferring admission for a year and trying to apply to schools A&B in that time? Or attending A or B for a year in some unofficial way before starting your institution?

@cactus_pardner Sure. In my country admission to undergraduate schools usually occurs by entrance examinations. I do have the option of deferring admission for a year and applying for entrance examinations next year. If not I will be going to my current undergrad institution this year.

@astronat "Bottom Ivy" is a slightly silly way of putting it, but for graduate school in math, the Ivy League doesn't have the cachet that it does in many other fields.  Dartmouth especially would be ranked by pretty much anyone in the field below most of the well-known state flagships and most prestigious private programs (USNWR ranks Dartmouth 53rd, tied with North Carolina State, which sounds about right to me).

Unfortunately, this is not really a trade-off we are qualified to help you with.  There are just too many unquantifiable factors (we don't even know what country you are in!); I generally don't really recommend students putting off the rest of their lives for a year to try something like an entrance exam again.  Even if you can get in, it could be that going A and B will make a big difference, but you can't possibly know that (maybe Chicago had a really bad experience with the last student that came from A; you just can't control this stuff). Who can possibly guess what the general political situation for foreign graduate students in the US will be in a few years?
So my advice is to start at your current institution, and do the best work you can.  That's what you can control.

Was going to add my own answer, but it's so close to this one, I'll just comment.  As I mentioned answering one of your other 3 (!) questions asking pretty much the same thing as this one, I took a track similar to the one you're worried about and it worked out fine.  I would also say that had I decided on math by 19 at the institution I went to, I could have done that much better.  Being a top student at a less prestigious university can afford you MUCH greater access to professors and research, which can jumpstart your academic career much more than putting a top named school on your resume

If your school doesn't have a fine mathematics department, you should not limit your doctoral options. There are over 200 US universities offering the doctorate in mathematics. Focus on getting the best preparation you can and look at other schools. It's so hard to get into the best schools even with everything going for you. btw, I thought Harvard was beyond my reach. I was shocked when they admitted me despite my horrible undergrad and my graduate school grades, mostly A's but quite a few B's and even a B-.  Harvard considered my age (university at 15) and graduate course load (42 courses in 2-years) and paid me to be part of their genius program ... any 16-graduate courses I wanted to take at any Harvard school or MIT. I didn't think I was worthy. They saw past my grades because I told my story. Tell your story. (I spent 10-years as a Harvard interviewer. Tell your story as if your future depends on it. It does. Best of luck to you.)


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Article submitted and clearly referee cannot understand basic premise-What to do?
I have submitted a mathematical investment article to a new journal (maybe two years old), based on the suggestion of the editor-in-chief, whom I had sent it to earlier, and who claimed he liked our article very much. A version of the article had been sent to a number of individuals, one or two senior mathematicians who are very capable, and a number of these people had good suggestions and helped us find appropriate extensions. Basically, it has been read a good many times and many people seem to think it important and well-substantiated.
So, we formally submitted the article to this new journal, partly because we cited an article that appeared in the journal last year, and partly because we thought it appropriate given that our article was at the junction between mathematics (probability), theoretical statistics, and algorithmic investment.
The referee report came back and it was clear that he understood the importance of our goal, but it is also clear he had no idea about the underlying mathematics. It was accepted (rejected?) conditionally. Conditionally on redoing the entire paper  (i.e., even the report recommendation was wishy-washy).
Basically, he said that the basic premise of the paper was incorrect, and if we revised it, he would accept it. It was also clear, the referee was not capable of understanding the math in the paper or hadn't bothered to do so. The error in his review was so basic, that any grad student in math should know it--the sum of two (or any finite number of) Guassian random variables is a Gaussian random variable.
I have two basic solutions:

Write a nice letter to the referee, spelling out exactly why we have already addressed his concerns in the paper and that perhaps we could spell this out more explicitly, showing him how.
Submit to another journal, and write to this first journal's editor-in-chief, questioning the quality of his referees (who may be capable in terms of 'investments' but no in terms of 'mathematics'). Perhaps it was not a mathematical enough journal, anyway and is not the most appropriate for our submission. Then again, it could be that this new journal has growing pains.

My tendency is not just option 2, but to be somewhat more ballistic.
Edited question:
I am asking, given the combined experiences of academics in this forum, there must be creative means of dealing with this problem which are deemed to be more successful. I'm sure going balistic feels immediately rewarding but doesn't help one bit in achieving our goal of getting published quickly.
Is there a way to both educate without belittling someone who seems really lacking in basics in the topics we cover in our paper? Is there a subtle way to suggest that the referee may be ok for non-mathematical papers but not appropriate for any paper with more serious math?

Is a low quality referee report reason enough to question the journal’s worth and withdraw my submission?

The sum of finitely many independent Gaussian random variables is a Gaussian random variable. If they're not independent, it will generally not be Gaussian.

Possible duplicate of Referee says the proof is wrong, but it is not, what to do?

Daniel - https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/19948/what-is-the-distribution-of-the-sum-of-non-i-i-d-gaussian-variates

That is a special situation, @NickFiroozye. The dead-simple example is X standard normal and Y = -X. Also note this and this comment there.

Oops. Jointly normal.  Trivial then. Not correct forum though.

@NickFiroozye so Daniel found your mistaken assumption, now go and clear it up in the paper.

@DonQuiKong Lol. The paper was correct even if my comments in the forum were not. Think I have to explain things on a more basic level.

@NickFiroozye your paper might be correct, but it's not the reviewers job to look for arguments for the correctness. Did you accurately represent why your assumption holds in the paper or did you just assume everyone should know it does in this (special) case?

I understand how you feel, but what you propose in solution 2 does not sound productive. I try to see (after the initial phase of being dissapointed and annoyed) the reviewer as a potential reader of that journal who is gracious enough to spent more time on your article than most readers will. Apparently, my article wasn't clear enough at a point, and that is something that needs to be fixed. It is easy to think something is too basic it needs no explaining, but there are a great many such basic facts; many more than anyone can remember... I suggest you take the same approach.


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(How) Is it appropriate to thank the instructor after an excellent class?
I'm an Erasmus student and I've had pleasure to meet a really great teacher who taught me more than anyone before. I would like to show my appreciation and thank her, but I'm leaving a week before the end of the course - and the grades release.
I want to be polite, appreciative and show my respect not to be a "teacher's pet" (I'm an Erasmus, I don't care about the grades, just the learning experience).
Should I came to her after the class and simply thank or send and e-mail or I'll be just making a fool of myself?

Why not an email after the course finishes? You will be more free to speak your mind.

You won't be making a fool of yourself, we all appreciate a "thank you"...
You can choose to say in person, and your idea of "thank you for the learning experience" is good.
An email can also be fine, which you can send to arrive after the grades come out if that is a concern for you.
Do it, it will be fine. Or do both...
Edit, as Bob points out a handwritten note or card is also good.

Email is good.  An actual written note with a stamp on it is even better.  I've saved, and treasure, such a note from a student from long ago.

Thanking a prof in person is a tremendous thing to do. I recommend it highly. I also recommend returning later (years, perhaps) and thanking her again if possible.
However, if you want to do it by email, also copy the department head or dean on your mail.
I doubt that grades enter in to it in any case. If you are sincere, it will be recognized and appreciated.


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Quitting a PhD program after four years and applying elsewhere
I am a fourth year graduate student at a tier 1 research university in the US. I had lot of hiccups in getting started with my research. Our program is rotation bases where you rotate with your potential PIs for a semester (or more). I decided to rotate with Prof. A and continued it for another semester. However, in the summer of the year I was transitioning into my second year, I went to Prof. B to do my last rotation. Prof. B had a more concrete project that I worked on and I was super productive under him so I decided to join Prof. B's lab permanently. However, Prof. A was not happy about this since I had done two rotations with him.
In my third semester Prof. B decided to leave academia and moved to industry. I was given an option of quitting with a Masters or joining another PI. I chose to find a new PI. My research focus was in a particular area that only Prof. A and Prof. B studied. Our department is anyway too small with only 6 faculty who work on completely different areas. So, after being without a PI for almost a semester I decided to approach Prof. A to see if I could join his lab. He was not convinced initially. I had to provide detailed account of things I had worked on with Prof. B. In one of such early meetings, he told me "I don't have to do this. sufficient number of students have graduated from my lab and I have a tenure now.". But eventually, he decided to let me in his lab. Since we both didn't have a concrete project in mind, he suggested I write a review article on the project I had previously been working on. That did not go well. I wasted a semester studying that area in depth, but went in a tangential direction and couldn't finish the review. However, a new project came up through a collaborator and I was assigned to finish it. However, there were very limited questions that could be answered and my progress left him dissatisfied. I was told I could do 'cool things' with the data, without ever being told what these 'cool' things could be given the limited nature of data. In this process, I got another project to work on which I saw as being my main contribution to my field. However my PI has always found my methods to be 'too complicated'.
In this entire process, my realtions with my PI has always been deteriorating. I have been told "I am smarter than you", "I am not interested in your sloppy work", "Don't waste my time with your bullshit". My requests to talk about our method have lately been ignored.
I wanted to work in academia and I want to finish my PhD. However when I think about the relation I share with my PI has forced me to wonder if I even finish my PhD, his letter of recommendation will be a negative one, probably killing my career anyway. My post sounds toxic, but so has been my relation to my PI. I had to seek professional counselling a year back. With the relation we share currently, I don't let it affect my work. However, I am also not at peace with it in my mind.
Hence, I am considering quitting and applying elsewhere. However, I will need letters of recommendation from him to do that. How do I present my case? I have a decent GPA in undergrad/grad schools. In these four years, I was also able to enrol for a Masters in a related field in the same school.

With the equation we share currently -- How is "equation" defined here?

Sorry, but from how it sounds, I'd suggest to pull the plug. Quit with Master's, and then evaluate your further chances.

I wonder whether "equation" should be "relation" or "relationship"...

"I am smarter than you", "I am not interested in your sloppy work", "Don't waste my time with your bullshit" — Walk away.

Don't give up. I am an Assistant Professor now and my PhD supervisor straight out refused to give a recommendation for me in fear I would embarrass them.

"I am smarter than you", "I am not interested in your sloppy work"--Perhaps similar situation I dealt with during PhD studies. What I did, I started sharing my work with some leading professors whom I met in conferences and workshops. I published my work in journals where my PI have ever imagined. Irony is after publishing 2 article his attitude totally changed rather he start telling everyone as it were his supervisory skills that I published in good venue. I just kept silent completed PhD, got postdoc and within 5 months I got aP position. You can do the same..

Consult Professor B; he thinks highly of you, and can suggest someone for you to work with, who is not professor A. This may entail moving elsewhere.

Since you have shown to be able to do productive work already and, second, you are willing to move, i would say not all is lost. I would recommend to get informally in contact with possible advisors from other universities and have an informal talk first before you officially apply for a PhD there.
If possible try to go abroad and apply in a different country.
A professor who is working with your former advisor will most likely reject you to avoid bad blood, but there might be many others looking for a good student. A situation like yours is not that uncommon and professors will understand and decide based on their need for students :-)

Have you read this? A note on Ph.D. You have to be honest with yourself, first. Do you really like what you are doing?
If you go to another school, they should not know about your history! so, no worries to be labeled as quitter!
getting two masters and a PhD is better than 2 PhDs, so, ...
And course work also are transferable, maybe not all of them, but some will do for sure. This is not hard to figure out. Just read/ask the target university you want to go to!
Where are you? if you are in the US, are you American? Because if you are not American, getting PhD with current advisor, and not having good skills and papers and recommendation, makes your post graduate life like hell.
Time would not be your friend!
You are in bad situation, I am afraid you are the only one who has to decide and each decision has its consequences.
I will just ask some questions, then maybe that would help.
1- Do you like what you are doing?
2- Are you able to get a job if you stay with current advisor and your history? (number of publications, skills, etc.)
3- Do you think you can do another 3-4 years in another school?(just like this one you cannot predict who you are gonna work with, what project you are gonna work on, etc.) What if that one does not go well?
I think if you are American, just get the PhD. start with a low paying, low profile job, and build your way up. Experience is better than a degree!
Whatever you choose to do, has a cost. The cost you did not pay since the beginning of your journey.
P.S. yeah, Advisor A pushed his students hard, make their lives like hell, now he has tenure, he does not care, making lives of new students hell again, but in another way!

Get the PhD as quickly as possible, do whatever they say, and get out. Be nice and get your degree before they decide they are gatekeepers and you should be outside the gate. You will have a worse time with the regrets and a terminal masters. They will give bad recommendations and even the professors that like you will side against you to be team players. Reapplying is a joke and you will be viewed as a quitter with a complicated story. You would retake a bunch of classes at another school. Coursework will not transfer, trust me, and you will pay again. You will be marked as uncooperative. Be nice and do research they can publish in their area. Your dreams and interests can come later. Professors are not well respected outside their bubble because they lord it over young impressionable minds. They are not the world. They live in la la land. Do you ever want to get a real job and have a paycheck or just keep paying a school for classes you probably don't need? They hate you because you are smart and they can see you still think they are the center of the universe. They are mean and nasty because society doesn't really respect them. Once you get older, you will start to see professors as losers who lord it over children. Universties sell classes; it is a business. Minimize the damage and expenses but get that degree. Stop sharing anything personal about yourself, they will use it against you. Don't be a quitter and don't be naive. You should see how these guys are with their female students...what losers. Top tier losers.

The second half of this answer seems entirely counterproductive, while the first half seems to indicate an ignorance of how PhD programs work.

Uh, yes and no. Unlike JD and MD, admissions PhD are easier to get. Historically, this has been a non-issue, because attrition is so high (50%). However, there is now an oversupply of PhD's in most fields (English, History, Philosophy, etc). So...now there are 'gatekeepers' inside PhD programs.

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How to know when academia is not for you?
Edit
Thanks to all the people who read the question, I have devised a plan to hopefully solve my situation. But first, some stuff that I learn as a result of this post and talks that I have with other academics:

This situation can not be reduced as a dichotomy between being in academia or not since a similar situation can happen in the industry (although I still think that in academia there are some systemic issues that help this kind of stuff to happen)
None of the stuff is "Normal" or the product of my weakness but real issues (if someone finds this post in the future and is in a similar situation please know that this is not normal and that feeling bad about it is the only normal part of it)

My plan: Since I am in my third year I would try to finish the PhD. I would start by talking again with my supervisor and requesting a series of changes including a healthier workload and more access to conferences and international cooperation, hopefully, he will be too eager to finish the conversation, and after insisting a lot, he will accept.  I will try to set some clear and specific goals there so there is less chance of him changing his mind later. Additionally, I will start searching for opportunities outside his lab, both in academia and in the industry to make sure that I have plenty of options when I finish, my first step in that regard would be to try to expand my network and learn about the applications of my skills in the industry. My hope is that with the requested changes and the motivation from the new activities I would be able to finish the PhD and find good opportunities.
Thanks a lot, wish me luck!
Original post
I know this has been asked a thousand times before,  and I apologize for the long question, but none of the previous answers shed light on a specific issue that is eating my mind. What's part of a normal academic life and what's not? and how to know if you are just discouraged and when you should accept that academia is not for you.
Let me provide some context. I am a third-year Ph.D. student at a small University in Europe. I am originally from South America I accepted a PhD position here since the topic was of my interest and because I was afraid of not finding other opportunities. The first 2 years of the Ph.D. were not as I imagined but they were not bad either. However, I have been growing warier and warier of my supervisor and feel kind of anxious about working with him.
He is a very competent scientist with good experience and know-how, he handles some academic-related things with ease and I have learned a lot with him. From my side, I have tried to keep a friendly relationship with him and I work my ass off every time I am required to (although admittedly I do feel burnt out sometimes). However, I really have issues with some attitudes or past actions of his, and my motivation and happiness have dried out, for example:

He angrily demanded me to change my student picture in the system because I looked too much as a "drug dealer" (his actual words)

Telling that "we have more important things to worry about" when I asked for his help in securing, through project funding, a contract for me with health insurance, since such insurance is a requirement for my visa.

Constantly changing our agreements or his promises, for example, one of the reasons I decided to stay was because he promised extensive international cooperation, and well he does cooperate with international researchers across Europe but it's only him, he is the one traveling and meeting people and such. maybe this is something that is the product of my inexperience but does all international cooperation at the PhD level work like this?, I mean it's only the supervisor who has contact with the other researchers and then brings the work he agreed upon with them to us the students?

On the same note he really dislikes when I suggest going to international conferences, apparently, he is too afraid that other labs would steal his ideas and hence strongly opposes the idea of any of us going to an international conference. He does however approve to present work in much smaller conferences inside the country.

And finally, he is really discouraging. I understand that his role is to "steer the ship" if you must, and keep us focused on our objectives. And I acknowledge that the type of boundless curiosity that I show sometimes can be counterproductive for a project. But it feels he prefers me to do nothing than to have an idea and this discouragement feels rather aggressive sometimes. He is very protective of the data and publications of the lab and this makes it difficult for me to find papers to work on for my dissertation. So I use old forgotten data (with his permission) and make my own papers, however, there is always a great deal of resistance on his part, continuously saying that the idea is bad or that I am not qualified to carry it out.

What I have tried:

I tried speaking to him on several of these matters (many times), but he avoids the conversation as much as he can and capitulates fast to move on, frequently promising more papers or projects or cooperations in the future to convince me that things are good.

What options are out of the table:

No higher or regulatory body to intercede between us, no such thing exists in my university, and as far as I can tell, the culture of the relationship between supervisor-student in this country sees these things as normal, especially if you are from a third world country like I am. So would not help either.

In general, I notice certain aggressiveness and even racism coming from him, and it has become more and more difficult to ignore it. He is not an aggressive person per se, and a lot of the stuff he does I think comes from ignorance or inexperience (I am his first international student), In all fairness, I am grateful to him,  but I think he has a really bad style of leading and a wrong idea about how a leader projects strength. Additionally, I have started to long for a simpler life, no work on weekends, no late calls, a better salary, and being close to my family, from my experience, academia is not the right place to achieve that, and I am afraid that everything that comes after PhD is going to be the same.
In light of this I would like to ask the following questions:

Are these things normal, am I complaining too much?
If this is reason enough to stop the Ph.D., can someone share their experience about changing PhDs or quitting academia altogether? Can intellectual fulfillment can be found outside academia?
If the best option is to continue, how to deal with the anxiousness and frustration that these problems cause. At what point would it be better?

Thank you for all your insights.

This certainly isn't healthy but I'm not sure I'd frame this as a binary academia or not question. At least the first 3 points you rise I've observed outside academia.

You need a new supervisor.  Please edit the question to remove irrelevant background and have a clearer title.

A PhD can lead to quite nice careers beyond academia.

@DavidWaterworth I have not thought about that, but you are right my problems come from a complicated relationship with my boss, and I guess this kind of dynamic can happen outside academia as well, as long as there is such a strong hierarchy of power this kind of stuff can happen.

@Roland I think I can make it, I have already fulfilled the publication requirements and the others should be reasonably easy to complete, I reckon. I will try to speak with him again to try to make specific changes to reduce the anxiety of working with him and start looking for new opportunities. Also, thanks for letting me know that you consider the issues actually serious, I have been thinking for a long time if I was being too negative or weak for letting those things bring me down.

Are these things normal, am I complaining too much?

Well. Such characters may appear. If you cannot deal with her/him, change it! We are free countries in EU. No slavery is permited :-). So you may search and add second supervisor-consultant, you may change supervisor. Or change people with whom you deal. The supervisor have some head of department - so try to reach him/her.

If this is reason enough to stop the Ph.D., can someone share their experience about changing PhDs or quitting academia altogether? Can intellectual fulfillment can be found outside academia?

I personally added second supervisor and started to work in his team. But the reason to change was different.

If the best option is to continue, how to deal with the anxiousness and frustration that these problems cause. At what point would it be better?

Speak with other people. E.g. you mentioned regional conferences, do networking, speak about some your troubles during coffee breaks or whathever, make friends within department, ... Some universities also have standard ombudsman or some person who may help you just with listening or advising what to do next. Good luck!


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Is my timeline for starting a PHD in Fall 2023 in Europe a complete 'Pipe Dream'?
I am an EU citizen currently working in a field completely unrelated to academia. I have been interesting in returning to academia for a number of years now, and finally plan on applying for a PHD. My interested topic is counter-extremism and re-integration of combatants.
My plan is to start a PHD anytime between September 2023-December 2023.
Right now I have an idea of a topic - counter-extremism and re-integration of armed combatants -. but I first have to do my own literature review to identify gaps and knowledge.
I am also planning on doing 2 months of travelling between February 2023 - April 2023.
Right now my plan is this: To begin the literature review this week ,to quit my current job by 1st January, to finalise the literature review and research proposal by mid-end of January. Then to go travelling for 2 months..... then to return in April and go 'all in' with applications with the hope of securing a programme that begins in September - December.
My fear is that I am taking a risk by going travelling in February and March and significantly decreasing my chances of getting into a PHD by the fall, simply because April will be leaving it too late.
I know that PHD application's in Europe have much more random dates and deadlines than the U.S., but would appreciate any thoughts or guidance here. Thanks.

I think that step one would be to find a supervisor who could and would be willing to supervise you. With this time scale you could think about acquiring your own funding.

I agree with @Dirk, about the supervisor. You are probably spinning your wheels (wasting effort) unless you find a supervisor who will guide you and an institution that will accept you. You don't need to take all those steps to find a supervisor. Presumably you have a masters, which is probably required.

To add to the other comments, there really is a big difference in finding a PhD position in the sense of finding someone to supervise you (which is doable in the time frame) and finding a paid PhD position or stipend or other type of funding (which will be much more difficult). Would just a position (whithout funding) do?

Don't quit your job until you have a funded PhD offer in hand!

Thank you for the replies. Norway and Denmark are the countries I intend on applying, and my understanding is that PHD students are paid like full time employees.


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Applied Mathematics Master's Thesis Practicality
First a little background on me. I am a first semester masters student in applied mathematics who is on the wait list for a decision on admission to the PhD program. I have reached out to a specific professor in the department inquiring about doing a research project with him. First, he told me to wait until I receive my decision on the PhD program. I followed up with him about a potential research project over the summer after not receiving a decision for 4 months now and he suggested a masters thesis and to reach out to my advisor. It really does not seem like this professor is to keen about doing a research project with me (maybe I'm taking it too personally). Anyway, does it make sense for me to work on a masters thesis when I am set on trying to get into a PhD program? I also asked my advisor this question but he hasn't gotten back to me yet.
My goal is to be able to be admitted to the PhD program during my second or last semester of my masters so I can get potentially funding and a TA position for those semesters. What do you guys think?

Why not compete your masters and then do a PhD? If you want to be submitted in your last semester of a masters, why not just finish it and apply?

The point is that I want to get into the PhD program either in my last semester of my second to last semester (next semester) for the potential of funding and having 1-2 semesters of my masters paid for.


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Reasons for not releasing bottom-line answers to old exam questions?
By bottom-line answers, I literally mean the answers on the bottom line of a solution.
So if the question requires two pages of math with the final answer that x=5, all I'm interested in is the x=5 part.
In other words, I just want to know whether I've got the correct numerical answer. I'm not asking for a marking rubric or 'model answer', just a verification.

I completely appreciate the arguments against releasing worked solutions. Students can easily be robbed of learning if solutions are readily available to look at. "Oh yeah I'd have done that".
I don't think the arguments about re-using past questions quite apply here - a numerical answer isn't much help and numbers can be changed to screw people who memorise numerical answers.

Are there any other good reasons for not releasing bottom-line answers? It just seems strange to not be able to verify your own work.
EDIT re Dan Romik's comment: My issue here is just one of feedback. If you told me that I'd receive feedback from a lecturer or tutor (or in the real world, client or boss), I'd agree answers are moot. But the reality in university is that a lot of the learning is independent (some lecturers just say "no time" to any request), and answers are a useful feedback mechanism for students to independently spot and diagnose their own flaws.

Why should they? It doesn't take any work to give someone an old exam, but writing an answer key for it is extra work that an instructor may or may not choose to do.

As above, so compare with your fellow students and see if your answers are the same - if not, what did or did not they do...

One other point is why focus only on “old” exam questuons? Most courses have practise questions for each topic which can be worked through and those either have solutions published or one can get feedback on. Focusding on “old” exam questions may be a false lead as the course can change over time... Or, possibly some students are trying to “predict” the questions for the next exam?

One, it's extra work, as pointed out by @NoName.
Two, the answer may not be as helpful as you think. Just a month ago, I was grading a stats and probability exam and for one of the questions students who made two very common errors (out of 200 exams, about 40 students made those mistakes) in their work got the right answer, because the errors 'cancelled'. If bottom line answers to that exam were released for the students next year, those making those two mistakes would mistakenly think they knew the correct solution.

I’ll focus on one aspect of your argument, namely

It just seems strange to not be able to verify your own work.

No, it’s not strange. This is how real life works. Once you get out of school and into industry or any other kind of workplace, you will find yourself in a setting where “bottom line answers” to the “questions” you are assigned are never given. At that point, your mild obsession with wanting to cross-reference your “solution” against the “official” one will be counterproductive and will distract you from focusing on just completing the tasks you are working on.
Thus, one argument against releasing bottom line answers is that it helps you develop healthy problem-solving habits that are more applicable to real life situations rather than being tailored to the simulated problem-solving situations of a university course setting.

This is a great argument! Thanks for the perspective - I really appreciate it. My follow-up question would be: In the real world, verification / judgement of your work comes from your boss or client. In school, you largely self-assess when practicing for an exam. The only feedback loop from this practice is in knowing whether you're reasoning correctly or not. Realistically, isn't a bottom line answer the only mechanism here?

In other words, there is room (coursework, dissertation, projects, essays) for setting questions which have no set answers - you come up with the best solution. However, my concern is that the comparison here is not "student gets verification VS student gets learning experience". Rather, how it actually plays out is that students are more likely to not spot their own bad reasoning, because there's no feedback.

@TheveshTheva yes, I agree that feedback is very important for learning. Ideally you would submit homework and get detailed feedback on your solutions. Sorry if in practice that doesn’t always happen. And yes, a bottom line answer can be a mild form of feedback that may in some cases be better than no feedback at all, so that’s an argument in favor of giving such answers. But you asked for arguments against, and I gave one, which would perhaps be more compelling than the argument in favor in the eyes of some instructors. I don’t have an opinion about who’s right - it depends on the context.

absolutely! Which is why the first thing I said was how much I appreciated it :D I just thought I should argue against it to further my appreciation of the argument. // Yeah, in practice the feedback part is difficult unfortunately :/

In my experience, it can definitely put the focus on the wrong aspect of learning, and encourage bad revision habits, when it comes to exams. Such as trying to think backwards from the answer (because even if it's on a separate sheet... I don't know about you, I can't help but look at spoilers).
As I think you alluded to, the method and working part of an answer is generally the most important part - it encourages clear communication, logical steps and actually thinking about the problem. Particularly when you consider that - both in exams and in the real world - the eventual answer could be wildly different because of transcription errors, incorrect initial information, as examples. If you've gone through the right steps to find a solution, you're also in a better place to sanity-check the final solution.
Certainly I've found that chasing that final answer can be confusing and really takes the emphasis away from just trying to understand the reasoning behind the solution. I can understand why an instructor would choose not to release them for this, and the other reasons suggested.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


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Can Bachelor's Thesis include online forum entries as references?
I am currently writing my bachelors thesis at a german University of applied science. My topic is somewhat unusual as it focusses on the development of a tool for Minecraft-Servers.
I want to lay down the motivation of the company I'm working for and also have to give some technical details to explain why the tool I'm building makes any sense. This requires me to explain quite a bit about the technical details of the game and the problems it has.
I'm having a really hard time to find some classical papers or any scientific references related to the background of this. Most of my knowledge comes from years of experience in the field and is not something that I could track down to a single source. I cannot even remember where I learned most of the stuff I know about this, so I don't know how to properly add "proof" of my knowledge to my thesis.
Most of the information I can verify comes from forum threads like this one. They are really well written and include a lot of data. However I am not sure how well it is taken if I include some "random" game forum posts as references in my Thesis. Is this too unprofessional?

This is a question for your advisor. Only they can specify what is appropriate for you to include or not. Ask them.

If you cite anything from the web, include the date you last accessed it. Things change. Things disappear. Also see the wayback machine.

You can and should include these if it helped you.
It is not uncommon to see "Personal communication" as citations/references, which is even more vague. References is not only for providing original sources, but to give credit.
For example, databases and software used is sometimes also included in the references (or acknowledgements at the very least).


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10 minutes to present math research proposal in PhD interview
I am currently applying for a PhD position in mathematics and during the corresponding interview, I am supposed to give a short 10 minutes talk about my research proposal. In my particular case, my proposal basically aims at generalizing a (very) recently published result from a mathematician of the department I am applying to (who I would like to have as a supervisor). More precisely, my proposal aims at trying to prove the same statement by weakening the requirements, which, however, requires new tools from the beginning.
Since 10 minutes are rather short, I have the following question(s):
As far as I know, a talk given in a PhD interview should usually aim at explaining the things on a rather basic level, so that also non-experts of the field can follow the basic ideas (am I right?). So, since 10 minutes are rather short, I will have to explain some of the basics first. Afterwards, I should probably explain the recent work, since in the end my proposal aims at generalizing this paper. However, all of this is already quite dense, so I won't have to much time to explain my actual proposal, i.e. the steps I have planned to prove the stronger statement.

So, is it fine when most of the presentation is on more basic things,
aiming at explaining the basics, the current literature as well as the
paper on which my work will be based, or should I shorten this part
and work out more the steps I planned in order to achieve my objectives
(which is rather hard, as I only have a vague plan, since the precise steps will come when actually working on the project as a PhD student)?

EDIT: This question is not duplicate to PhD interview - short (!) presentation. My question is about a presentation for a proposal, whereas the linked question is about a presentation on an already completed research project. These are two totally different things. In the latter case one can obviously talk about obtained results, which is not possible when presenting a proposal.

Does this answer your question? PhD interview - short (!) presentation

Not really. The question there is about a 10 minutes presentation on a completed project. That is a totally different thing as presenting a proposal for a project you will do in the future (there are no results or so what I can present).

Will you have an opportunity, before the 10-minute presentation, to talk privately with the professor who you hope will be your supervisor? If so, you might use that opportunity to explain your idea, and then aim the 10-minute talk at the rest of the interviewers.

One would think it goes without saying, but I'm experiencing this way more often than not. Please, please practice your talk at least 2 times, to make sure everything is fluent and you do not exceed your time limit.

There is something strange about this since in a lot of areas of pure maths it is entirely unrealistic for a PhD applicant to have a viable research proposal at the time of application. Is it possible that the wording in the invitation to interview is a university-wide requirement and your interviewers in maths are not really expecting to hear a fully worked-out proposal during the interview? It would be wise to check this with your potential supervisor first.

At least in my area (algebraic number theory) I'd be quite suspicious of an applicant who claims to already know exactly what they're going to work on, since it would tend to suggest that they have an unrealistic estimation of their own present knowledge, and are underestimating the hill they'll have to climb to get to the research frontier.

Thank you very much for all your comments! @AndreasBlass I have already talked to my potential supervisor, he basically suggested the topic. However, he is NOT in the PhD admission committee.

@DavidLoeffler indeed, it is very strange. But the written application required a full research proposal, however, not a very long one (approx. 2 pages).

@infinitezero Yes, for sure, I will practice it several times ;-)

There are other ways to handle this, so treat this post as nothing more than something to consider. Note, however, that the person you most want to appeal to already has the background.
Consider starting with the original theorem and say that you see the possibility to generalize it by extending the work on the prerequisites. Then, having set the tone you can work backwards to the underlying theory.
In other words, invert the presentation, starting with the conclusion and working backwards from there. In fact this might actually work in a more general case.
Then, if the clock cuts you off you will have already stated the most important things, rather than the least. And, practice your presentation with a colleague so that you have a good sense of the time limitations and what you can do.

Yes, "work backward"... :)

And yes, practice.  Don't let the clock cut you off.

I think it's not possible to "explain the basics first", and fit it into 10 minutes. It is just not possible to explain anything non-trivial to "outsiders", in a few minutes.
I'd recommend stating precisely and very succinctly what you propose, without any background at all (after all, some people in the room will understand it...) ... promising to explain that background "as time allows". And, before "giving definitions" at all, succinctly state the "prior art". Then... oop, the time will be up.
Yes, that is frustrating, and may seem perverse, and, well, it kinda is perverse, but I think that what I described is the sanest reaction. Trying to "explain" is doomed, anyway, plus, you'll not get around to telling anything about your actual idea.
And, in any case, do not go overtime. Stop a few seconds early, just to show that you can! :)

Absolutely "Stop a few seconds early!"  One of my very favorite students of all time stuck a hand up and asked, "Dr. Brown, what time do you think this class is supposed to end?"  Oops.

Not sure if it is good for maths, but in other subjects you could describe first how important the field of work is. Like out of what the original research started, how many first tier papers are published. Then what the grand vision is: why is this interesting? Like if we could do that and that we can prove riemann hypothesis. Then you can zoom back in on the latest result and explain a little in which direction you aim to extend it.

I do not think this is a good idea in math. If I heard someone talk bring up how many papers in this field were published in some top-tier math journals, I'd feel like they are wasting my time even if it were far from what I know.  Indicate why the topic is interesting, sure, but not by where work is published.

@KCd are you in one of the lucky departments where funding does not depend on first tier publications?

It doesn't matter. It would sound strange to me for someone to name-drop journals in a presentation in order to explain why some area of math is worthwhile (sounds like an inferiority complex): "the study of Galois representations led to the solution of Fermat's Last Theorem" sounds normal, but "in the last 10 years there were X papers on Galois representations in Inventiones Mathematicae" does not. What can I say... mathematics has some habits that are different from other subjects, e.g., no special attention to the order of author names on a paper: alphabetical order is standard.


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Upload preprint on ArXiv AND ReseachGate?
Since I recently published my first ever paper, I was creating some accounts for various social networks and preprint servers. I have to say, I am a little bit confused by ReseachGate: If I have already uploaded a paper to arXiv and I also want it to be on ResearchGate, do I have to upload it separately on ReseachGate (I am not able to find any way to crosslink my arXiv paper on ResearchGate)?
And what if my preprint gets published later on? Is it then still "legal" that the paper is available for everyone on ResearchGate, or do I have to be careful in order not to run into any copyright problems?

You can check the Sherpa Romeo database to see if the publisher and/or journal accepts papers that have been posted online as a preprint/working paper.
Most publishers and journals do not consider preprints, working papers, or conference presentations as 'publications' but it ultimately differs from field to field (especially for fields where conferences are the mainstream ways to publish).
Regarding ResearchGate, arxiv (and its associated servers) papers are usually automatically detected and put on your profile by ResearchGate after a few days. If not, then you should be able to upload it onto ResearchGate manually as a preprint and include the arxiv doi in there, at which point other scholarly search engines (e.g., Google Scholar) will detect both.
Even after you get your published, your publisher/journal may be okay with you posting the author-accepted version of the paper on ResearchGate or Arxiv granted that you've also posted a link to the published, copyedited version. But again, check the Sherpa Romeo database to confirm.


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Past collaborator submitted paper with my name (and others) without notifying named co-authors
I worked briefly with Person A from a different university on a project in a competition. We were both PhD students. In this competition, our concept was based on combining mainly a system he developed before the competition and a device that I developed, also before the competition. Except for raising this combined concept, we didn’t do any actual testing or evaluation for this combined concept.
Since last year, I have also invited him to help analyze some data collected from a study of mine. I also invited two other researchers (Person B and Person C) from complementary backgrounds and who are more senior to help with the analysis. We have all agreed that all four of us will be co-authors for the final paper. We are coming to the final stage of our paper writing at this moment. Person A only knows Person B and Person C through my introduction in this case.
I have just received a notification email from a submission system that a paper was accepted to a conference. I entered the system to find the submitted version of the paper. It is a write-up of the concept of that competition. I would say 90% is based on Person A’s existing system. He has put me as a co-author. More strangely, he has also put Person B and Person C as co-authors. However, I doubt if Person B and Person C have ever heard of this project.
I found it very uncomfortable, as I am not comfortable to be associated with a concept and claim that haven’t been sufficiently evaluated. I know Person A cares greatly about the number of his publications. In fact, this is not the first time he did this. Last year, I came across a similar situation, and I successfully asked him to withdraw that paper (as that paper contains a large part of my work), which made him extremely upset. I hesitate this time, as the current paper of my study is very important for me and it has already been through several delays including serious illness of one co-author and COVID-19. I do not wish to upset him and negatively impact his work on the last stage of the current paper, which I have poured so much time and effort in. However, I felt it is unethical to include other people’s names without consent.
Note: This paper in question is mainly based on his system, which is a different discipline and it is beyond my capability to verify the system. However, where it combines the concept brought by my device, there is no evaluation at all, so it is an empty claim.
On the other hand, it could be that he includes me as a co-author as a courtesy though I feel I have only contributed conceptually.
I literaly don't know what to do.
Edit: I also realise that, if I accept that my name remain co-author, then as co-author, should I be responsible to inform Person B and Person C, or require Person A to remove their names?

I imagine if you contact Person A, and Person A contacts the journal to explain the "miscommunication" the conference still has time to remove the additional authors?