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How should I write a "Personal History Statement" - does a lack of "challenges" mean I cannot contribute to diversity?
I am hesitating whether to apply to some of the "University of California" universities. The problem is, many of them ask for a "personal history statement":

Describe how your background, accomplishments, and life experiences led to your decision to pursue the graduate degree for which you are applying. Include any educational, personal, cultural, economic, or social experiences, challenges or opportunities relevant to your academic journey. In addition, please describe any aspects of your personal background, accomplishments, or achievements that will allow the department to evaluate your contributions to the University's diversity mission. Contributions to diversity and equal opportunity can take a variety of forms, such as efforts to advance equitable access to education, public service, that addresses the need of a diverse population, or research that explores inequalities.
  Your department may have special prompts and directions for the Personal History Statement; be sure to check the requirements.

(Note that the Personal History Statement is not the Statement of Purpose; it is a separate statement that is required in addition to the Statement of Purpose. See e.g. these application instructions. )
Honestly, as an Asian male international student, I really have nothing to say about this. I have a very happy family, so I really don't have "challenges". I honestly just want to study math because probably that's the only reason why someone would want to get a PhD in math.
I've been struggling with this for days but still have absolutely no idea how to write this. I mean, I live a happy life. My parents are divorced but I was not particularly "challenged" per se. Does that mean I cannot contribute to the diversity? I don't even know what they are looking for. Should I market myself being overcoming huge difficulties (even though I did not face huge difficulties)? Or should I pretend that I am really under-represented? :/

First of all, did you: "Your department may have special prompts and directions for the Personal History Statement; be sure to check the requirements"? Also, from what country are you?

@dimpol China :(

While many institutions have woven talk about supporting diversity into their admissions and hiring processes, don't be confused - the vast, vast majority of institutions are not restricting their processes to the point that they simply will not admit/hire people at all who seem like a member of their current majority groups (none that I know of have gone so far). Note that especially at UC colleges, with 40-50% of their undergraduates being of Asian decent, colleges state they want to be "more diverse" - not stop admitting Asian people entirely. More competitive, probably - but not declined.

Related: What should go in a diversity statement if I believe I have had no relevant experiences?

"I don't mentor students, I don't volunteer neither, I am not eligible for scholarships since I'm not US citizen." As an international student, this is to be expected. Don't let that deter you. That being said, your English seems to be pretty good for a Chinese international student. Does that mean you grew up in the US for a part of your life, or that you grew up in a place like Singapore or Hong Kong?

@3x89g2 so did you end up applying to Berkley?

"My challenge is to find the right words for your question." ;-)

The previous answer was great, but since it didn't assuage your doubts, I'll try a different approach.
I will rewrite the instructions for you, removing the parts you're having trouble with.

Describe how your accomplishments led to your decision to pursue the graduate degree for which you are applying. Include any educational opportunities relevant to your academic journey. Your department may have special prompts and directions for the Personal History Statement; be sure to check the requirements.

Sample response: I always felt that my math teacher and I were on the same wavelength.  I always loved going to math class, and my math assignments were always my favorite part of doing homework.  I had a wonderful opportunity in 9th grade when I was invited to participate in _________.  It was an honor to represent my school, and participating in the event, with scores of other math geeks, was thrilling.
You have my permission to stop there.
Now, if you decide to make a stab at addressing the diversity question, consider this: what is the demographic make-up of the state of California, and how did that come to be?  (I will let you find the answer to those questions, as homework.)  Has there been a historical gender imbalance in your field?  Is there anything about you that would make you an effective graduate student instructor, mentor or outreach specialist, enabling you to effectively support the success of underrepresented groups in your field?  Perhaps you have had experience communicating with someone with a different dialect.  Perhaps you had more patience with this than some of your fellow students.  Perhaps you have been lucky enough to be educated in a system where women were not underrepresented in your field, and this experience left you with a firm belief in the role of women in your field. (These are just examples to give you an idea.)

The dreaded personal statement!
Put yourself in the shoes of the people reviewing your application. They will have a large pile (50-100+) of applications. They will be tired. They'll probably do some skimming. This is your audience. Your goal is to attract their attention.
You can attract attention in your statement with simple and clear organization, and by bolding the major points that you want to make. Think of the statement more like a sales pitch. Make the argument simple. Then bold the main points. This will help the reviewers literally "see" your application.
Also, think of the questions that a reviewer will have. They will be reading your application looking for the answers to these questions:

Can this person write well?
What research/scholarship skills do they have?
Why does this person want to come to this university?
Does this person want to work with me? Do they mention my name?

Your statement should be an argument that answers these kinds of questions.
Tips for organization:
Come up with a simple story-structure for your statement. For example:

Section 1: Very brief intro. Hi, I'm Misakov... Here are my general interests, let me tell you why I'm an excellent choice for your program.
Section 2: Previous training/experience.  In this section, write a short paragraph for each experience, highlighting the relevant skills you learned in each. Also, having some parallel structure across the paragraphs will help the readers find the info they are looking for. For example, each section could tell the same story: I worked with X person, we worked on Y conceptual issue and found Z result. I learned A, B and C skills.
Section 3: Here's why your program is a good fit.

Why this program? I'm interested in this program because...
People I would like to work with: Mention some specific faculty that you would like to work with. You don't need to say more than a couple sentences about each person. (This may be unnecessary in Math, I come from a different field)

Now for some specific comments:

I want to point out that when they say challenges, they don't mean they want to hear about your parents divorce. They mean that time you couldn't find software to do X for you, so you wrote an app that could.
Do not pretend anything (I'm going to assume that comment was made out of desperation and not with any real intent to do something so unnecessary and unethical)!  Your story is enough.  You are an international Asian student.  Mention this. It need not be dramatic, but yes that is considered an increase in diversity.
Other things they are looking for/other things that can relate to you increasing diversity:
Do you mentor or tutor students?  Do you do any volunteer work?  What efforts have you made to disseminate research findings to the broader public?  Have you received any scholarships or awards that demonstrate your commitment to Z?  Are you in a math club of some kind and do you go to grade schools once a year to get young children excited about math?
Increasing diversity is not just about you.  It's about the people and community you support as well.

Bottom Line:  Despite its name, the personal statement is not personal. It's professional.
Hope this helps! Good luck.

I don't mentor students, I don't volunteer neither, I am not eligible for scholarships since I'm not US citizen. I think I probably shouldn't apply to UC schools, but thanks for your answer anyway :(

As the hackneyed saying goes, you miss all the shots you don't take.  They make their prompt broad because any of those things could help you make your pitch, not because all of those things are necessary for admittance. If attending a phd program at a UC school is what you want, then you should apply! Keep in mind, professors do not expect applicants to have already had all of the relevant experiences involved in earning a higher degree. Indeed, then you would have no need to attend. Instead they want to see that you have the aptitude and a genuine interest in doing the work.

Note that the "Personal History Statement" is a separate document from the "Statement of Purpose".  See e.g. these application instructions. A lot of what's described in this answer seems more appropriate for the "Statement of Purpose" part of the application.

Writing exactly these myself at the moment, I can just emphasize that they have to be different, as @ff524 correctly states. I think they expect more something like: "Why did you start in your domain, did you maybe already start a child, how did it shape you, a memorable situation in the past, a deep anchored passion, anything that leads to you as you are today, with the endeavor to study X.

@ff524 and Michael, you're correct.  That was an oversight on my part.  In my field, cognitive neuroscience, applications typically ask for one statement which is meant to cover all of those things.  In any case, I'm a newb; is it better to delete answer or leave with comments serving as a caveat?

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How to tell if a journal was in SCI or SCIE at a particular date
My institution cares a lot if an article was published on a SCI/SCIE indexed journal. I need to find a way to determine, for instance, American Journal of Surgery was indexed in SCI/SCIE on August 2009 (I need to find such information for dozens of cases). How would you advise I go about this?
Web of science tells me if the journal is indexed in SCI/SCIE now, but I need to find out if it was indexed at a particular date.

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Does it make sense to get a PhD if I have a Candidate of Sciences degree from a post-soviet country
Candidate of Sciences degree is awarded in some post-soviet countries for completing a 3-5 year research program, which has similar scientific requirements as a PhD. Here is a wikipedia article about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candidate_of_Sciences
Does it make sense to go after a PhD in a European or American university after obtaining a Candidate of Sciences degree? Would a university consider enrolling a Candidate of Sciences in a PhD program? Would it be possible to apply for scholarship for it? Would an age make any difference?
Also, if I am switching fields and do not intend to work in the field, in which I did my Candidate of Sciences thesis, would it make sense to get a PhD in the field I plan to work in?
I spent some time trying to find an opportunity to get a PhD on top of my Candidate of Sciences degree, but had no success and gave up. I have plenty of job opportunities as a Candidate of Sciences, but I wonder if I will have more and better jobs available to me if I get a PhD from a western university as well.
I am leaning towards a conclusion that having good publications is much more important than getting a shinier degree. If this is the case, then doing a PhD would only make sense if it resulted in some good research results. But then isn't it better to look for post-doc positions that are solely focused on producing good research results and publications?
Edit: Some specific information about my situation.
My Candidate of Sciences thesis and publications are in agricultural economics. The field in which I would like to apply for either PhD or post-doc is behavioral economics. Behavioral economics has a fair share of psychology and decision sciences in it and its research methods differ so I still have quite a bit of books to read.
I do not have publications in highly ranked journals. I have two publications in agricultural economics: one in AGRIS on-line Papers in Economics and Informatics and the other one in Studies in Agricultural Economics. I also have a forthcoming publication in behavioral economics in The International Journal of Economic Behavior. These journals are not high ranked at all, but they do appear in some rankings.
I am the only author in all of my publications in ranked journals.
My English is good.
I'm about to hit 30.

I wonder if it's possible to be employed as a postdoc, but to come up with a sandwich thesis at the end of your postdoc and graduate with a PhD? It would be tricky to explain to future employers, but it might make future life easier if the university is required by law or policy to appoint only PhD holders as professors (I seem to remember a previous question on this, but I cannot find it).

What kind of job are you looking for? Academic or in industry? In your home country or in the western world?

@xLeitix I am planning an academic career but I may switch to industry if a good opportunity comes up, definitely in the western world.

Interesting question (+1). I would suggest you first to figure out whether your Candidate of Sciences degree will be formally evaluated as a Ph.D. in countries that you're targeting. If not and you want to join a teaching faculty, then, I am afraid, getting a Ph.D. would be a necessary step. Otherwise, you should be fine.

6 years have passed since I asked this question. I am so glad I didn't do it.

Does it make sense to go after a PhD...

To whom?

For someone who has published a couple of papers in Science or Nature as the first author during their aspirantura period, the answer is no — they should apply directly for a permanent post or a prestigious named Fellowship, and develop their research.
For someone who has published several papers in top international journals, and at least one without their supervisor, the answer is probably no again — they should go for a postdoc or research fellow route.
For someone who did not publish much (or did not publish in international journals), who may struggle with English a bit, and/or not quite on top of the methods and hot topics in their research area, the answer may be yes. Having a PhD from a well-known university definitely improves the position on a competitive academic job market. More importantly, it can provide you with a set of soft skills (networking, presentations, etc) which many post-Soviet institutions are not very strong at sometimes.

Thank you for the insight! Yet, it seems to me I am on the borderline. I added some specific information about my situation in the question. Given that information, what would be your advise?

I do not really know how the things are in Economy. You seem to be on the borderline. You could apply for several postdocs first, and then go for a PhD. But make sure your first position provides you with opportunities to grow and develop yourself.

Try to publish in good journals alone. If it goes through smoothly, then you do not need PhD.

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Should I formally enroll in courses related to my PhD?
I have a background in IT/Communications Eng. I also had study gaps. However, I have extensive knowledge and proficiency in computer programming and algorithms. I am doing a 4-years interdisciplinary Ph.D. I am working on protein modeling and simulation.
In my research, it is essential to have concepts in protein-geometry, molecular dynamic simulation, and structural bioinformatics. However, I never formally enrolled in those courses. I studied them myself, and that was enough for me. The advantage of self-study was that I never had to worry about my grades, attendance, and so on, which was a productive way for me.
Should I formally enroll in those courses? Would there be any adverse consequence If I don't? I.e., would someone in the future think that "This guy completed the Ph.D. but didn't have any formal education on proteins, etc.? that guy is from biology/chemistry/etc. So it is wise for us to choose that guy for a PostDoc position...!"

@Buffy, Are you required to take comprehensive/qualifying exams? --- what do you mean? Plz rephrase.

In the US, one first takes courses, then a set of exams covering the major field. Only then are you a "candidate" for the doctorate, though your research might have started already. It is a major hurdle in many fields. In math it is 3 or 4 exams, including one or more oral exams possibly. It is really a US concern only, I'll guess. The courses are there mostly to prepare for the exams and the exams are there to assure you have broad knowledge of your field. Then the dissertation verifies depth in some aspect. Breadth + depth.

@Buffy, In the US, one first takes courses, then a set of exams covering the major field. The courses are there mostly to prepare for the exams, and the exams are there to ensure you have a broad knowledge of your field. --- I have to take some courses as part of my Ph.D. However, the courses are selected by me, not a Ph.D. curriculum. There is no defined curriculum for my interdisciplinary Ph.D.

Yes, UK and Europe in general is quite different.

What does your advisor think?

@BryanKrause, What does your advisor think? --- That is an excellent question. He prescribed me a minimum number of courses to work on and finish my Ph.D. project.

@user366312 Have you asked him the question you asked here?

@BryanKrause, No.

Why not? Seems good to get advice from an advisor.

Not necessarily EU related, but one possible consideration is whether these courses could be relevant to some kind of formal qualification later.  At my US institution, for our accreditation there is a rule that in order for someone to teach courses in discipline X, if it is not the field of their graduate degree, then they must have taken 6 graduate courses in X as shown on their transcript.  So conceivably, enrolling in such courses might affect whether you can teach biology or bioinformatics courses someday.  You'd want to look into rules for your part of the world.

@NateEldredge, You can post your comment as an answer, and I will accept that. This is very important information.

This question is very dependent on your specific university- what do your head of studies, program coordinator(s), doctoral student representatives and/or more advanced students in your program think? Enrolling formally can result in a lot more non-science workload and wreck your GPA, or it could kill two birds with one stone by teaching you new techniques and fulfilling your credit requirement. But this is not something strangers on the internet can tell you.

"there is a rule that in order for someone to teach courses in discipline X, if it is not the field of their graduate degree, then they must have taken 6 graduate courses in X as shown on their transcript." You already have PhD in statistical mechanic, why do you have the recent question for the barriers when you want to teach statistical mechanic? What exactly is your most recent question about ???

Also, please see the last paragraph of the answer below: "So, if you can go to those classes for free and you have the time, it wouldn't hurt." If you really feel there is some kind of barrier, take a couple of classes while you're still a PhD student. (Based on this question, you're a PhD student, aren't you?) Please don't spend so much time on this matter, concentrate on your research. Your worry is un-necessary.

@Nobody, You already have PhD in statistical mechanic --- No, I don't. I am a Ph.D. student.

@Nobody, If you really feel there is some kind of barrier, take a couple of classes while you're still a Ph.D. student. --- I prefer not to do that because it is an unnecessary burden of anxiety regarding my grades.

@Nobody, Please don't spend so much time on this matter, concentrate on your research. Your worry is unnecessary. --- I am surveying. Coz, I am older than most Ph.D. students, I have a family, and I need a job as soon as I finish my Ph.D. I have less time to settle than other Ph.D. degree-holders.

I don't think you need to worry that much.

You're doing a PhD in a field and, when you are done, you are an expert in your field (if you feel like one or not) with publications showing your expertise. Publications are important if you apply for a PostDoc or another job.
Nobody (academia nor industry) will ask what modules/classes you took at the beginning of your PhD. They will see that you did the PhD and your expertise based on your publications.

I did my PhD in robotics, and we had psychologists and chemists doing robotics research too. I have friends who are computer scientists who did systems biology research (computer models, protein folding, ...). They didn't struggle to find post-docs or jobs afterward in their field.
So, I believe you don't need to worry it.
Having said that, being able to prove that you studied something (a certificate or a grade from a Uni) can only help. If you want to feel more confident when applying for jobs, do some modules/classes. But I don't think it is needed.
Another benefit of doing classes is that you won't miss something. Often, people skip parts of a subject as it seems too academic or irrelevant when they self-study; however, this is the knowledge that is often useful to have.
For instance, in computer science, algorithm analysis (big O or theta notation) is often skipped by people who study themselves, but in practice, it is quite useful. Similar things might exist in your domain. So, if you can go to those classes for free and you have the time, it wouldn't hurt.


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Is it usual and/or healthy for Ph.D. students to do part-time jobs outside academia?
One of my cousins is doing a Ph.D. in anthropology at Georgia State University. He is living with his wife and two kids. Clearly, his Ph.D. stipend is insufficient, so he works in a gas station and pizza shop.
On the other hand, I am doing a Ph.D. at a leading university in Poland in Computer Science. I am not doing any such part-time job because that distracts me from my research tasks and my aim in my life. I have been looking for a white-collar job related to computer programming, etc but haven't been able to find one. Why the employers don't like my CV is unclear. My family doesn't live with me as I can't afford it. So, my wife is furious and is threatening to leave me.
Is it usual and/or healthy for Ph.D. students to do part-time jobs outside academia?

You and your cousin and any other grad student must figure out how to live. There's no one size fits all.

Who is Crealy? .

@AzorAhai-him-, Typo.

PLEASE can answerers list their approximate background (country, field, rough time range) when citing their own experience?  Academia varies more than you think it does — another answer saying “No, this is not normal” adds no value (and as a blanket statement, is simply wrong), but an answer saying “In STEM fields in the Nordics, this is currently very unusual…” is informative and useful.

In the UK getting a part-time job outside academia whilst doing a Mathematics PhD is very unusual and the only student I know who does this is struggling to find time for his research.  Obviously doing a bit of marking or working as a teaching assistant at the University is a different thing: this is normal and almost all PhD students have done it.

If the PhD is threatening your marriage, you may want to consider whether you should leave your PhD program. It's your call which is more important to you.

This is exactly why I think getting marries while still studying is an extremely foolish venture. I rejected marriage because i wanted to study in peace. If you are in a good University, don't leave your PhD.

My two cents: for most people, having a comfortable family live with a decent career would make them much happier than a prestigeous job as a professor without the family ... and there is even far from guarantee to achieve this no matter how much you sacrifice. A good PhD is a nice to have in live, but as a family man is is to be balanced with other responsibilities and priorities of everyone involved.

@Yasir everyone's situation is different; however in many places like Europe, a PhD is not so much seen as a degree as much as a temporary job that people do for a few years after completing their Master's. For many, it won't be to the benefit of their future career anyway, and people get a PhD mostly as a personal achievement like they run a marathon. I can see why some people could have other priorities in life along with finishing it

@Wouter i just think his wife is being unreasonable. He's working hard to provide them with a future and she's putting him under additional pressure instead of supporting him. he shouldn't derail his career due to an unsupportive spouse. That's the point i am making.

It is neither usual nor helpful.
Most PhD students already work far more hours than is helpful to either their progress or their well-being. Wearing yourself down before you even reach your workplace is never beneficial.
Academic side-jobs, e.g. as teaching assistants, lecturers, or demonstrators, etc. are, at least, beneficial to your main work, and usually both flexible and arranged around your primary occupation. It is unfortunate that most countries massively abuse PhD students as cheap research labour and pay them a fraction of what they should be paid or, worse, pay them a stipend instead of treating them as employees with rights and pensions, but that's not something an individual student can address.
Unfortunately, the individual parts of your question regarding your personal relationships are not something that StackExchange can or should address. How that influences your choices is up to you.

I don't know what country you're from, but it's pretty normal in the UK...

@ScottishTapWater: That does not reflect my experience at all. Few PhD students worked outside of academia, and those that did struggled as a result.

"not helpful" for which goal? If you need the money then you need the money... It might be actively bad for you progress, but if the alternative is "not enough money --> no PhD" then it is helpful...

@JackAidley - How long ago was this?

@ScottishTapWater I submitted at the end of 2016.

@JackAidley - Yeah, so things have gotten a lot worse since then in terms of the ration of stipend to cost-of-living

@ScottishTapWater my UK experience over the last 10-15 years is that a fair few PhD students did a little bit, but none worked long hours.  But this is in a subject area with quite a lot of teaching opportunities (physics), and those that worked had no time for hobbies or indeed anything much other than their 2 jobs.

@ChrisH - I'd class teaching opportunities as a second job, most (if not all) universities pay you for it and it's generally a pretty decent hourly rate. If you've got those chances, that's definitely preferable to a retail job

@ScottishTapWater when I did my PhD, and from what I've seen as a postdoc, it's paid (and better than bar work etc.), but it's also almost compulsory, and written into the expectations on postgrads and their supervisors.  So it's (borderline) part of the first job, and that's how I thought of it. It's definitely the best option for the vast majority of postgrads.  But on the other hand it's usually term-time-only, and pretty limited hours.  Mine I think was about 90 hours per year.  If invigilating is available, that's a good way to extend the season.

@ScottishTapWater: The question was specifically about jobs outside academia, I would expect PhD students to do work as demonstrators, teaching assistants, etc.

@JackAidley - So it does, I missed that

I'm in the UK, I only know one PhD student who does part-time work and he is struggling.  I don't mean teaching, invigilating, or marking: I mean an actual job outside academia which has nothing to do with your university.  The question was specifically about jobs outside academia, all PhD students have done work as a teaching assistant at some point.

@Tom - Of those I know doing PhDs right now, about half have outside work. Admittedly, it's not a huge sample size but still it's enough to confidently say it's normal.

"not" in the first line should be "nor", I don't have enough rep to have an edit less than 6 characters

Good answer but factually incorrect assumption about "cheap research labour". PhD students are so behind in their ability to do meaningful research in the first couple of years, that it's absurd to call them "research labour". They are interns who mostly don't contribute much (though this is field dependent).

As a supervisor, I don't like the idea of students taking jobs outside of academia. I don't know of any supervisor who is ok with the idea, either. But it is also true that the interests of supervisors and graduate students are not always aligned. Yes, as a supervisor it's to my advantage that students put 100% of their work-hour efforts towards research. But it's also true that most grad student stipends are not enough to make a living wage. And in any hierarchy of needs, eating and paying rent is above pleasing your supervisor.
Having said that, two points:

Graduate students waste So. Much. Time. that I'm sure they could each take two part-time jobs and still get the same amount of lab work done. This is mainly because most are young and still have not learned how to prioritize their time. But the point remains true.
Among graduate students without second jobs, most I dare say, have hobbies outside of academia that take the time equivalent to a part-time job. I am surprised how academic supervisors frown on students taking unrelated part-time jobs, but matter-of-factly accept hobbies that are socially acceptable within academia, e.g. ultramarathoners, musicians, etc. This is not an argument against having hobbies, but rather an argument that we should let graduate students have second jobs until we pay them a living wage.

As a supervisor, I also have to remind myself that during my PhD studies I had like 5 part time jobs, all inside academia but unrelated to research. So I can't point fingers (and don't.) And in the US and UK, most graduate students have in fact second jobs which are tangentially related to research: it's called TAing. Universities call it training, but it's just an excuse for not paying living wages for people doing most of the teaching.
Is it common? People who can afford it don't have second jobs, and people who cannot afford it, well, they do.
This is just an opinion, but if I were in your shoes I'd sharpen that CV and get a job. There's no upside to coming home to a furious partner.

STEM stipends are one thing, social sciences are quite another. The anthropology stipend may really not be enough to live on as a single person, much less with a family.

But graduate students waste So. Much. Time. that I'm sure they could each take two part-time jobs and still get the same amount of lab work done. --- Can a human being work like a machine? E.g., I have clinical depression and ADHD.

It's just a general observation and hyperbole to make a point. But overwork, self-directed exploitation, burnout and depression are real and also very common. You've got to take care of yourself to be effective at work. And nobody should be forced to work like a machine.

@Jon. I agree, and that's why I wrote that if you can't afford it on your stipend, you get a job. Supervisors' and students' wants don't always align, but one must eat.

@cheery.beach7701 - well, both must eat...

I meant one as in oneself, not as in "only one of two", in the sense of man muss essen/hay que comer. Apologies

@cheery.beach7701 - understood. The issue of non-STEM stipends not being enough goes back a long long ways. Nothing new. And these days the pay of temporary or non-tenure faculty is making it hard for them to eat as well.

Downvoted for the tacky comment on grad students' behavior. Not to mention that you are pointing fingers while claiming not to.

I'm probably not in a position to comment, but I would wager the reason supervisors frown on part-time jobs while accept hobbies is because they don't want their students to burn out. Down time and leisure can be just as important as work time, and I'm sure most supervisors want to make sure that their students aren't working 24/7 from the day they start their graduate program to the day they earn their PhD. Time management means not screwing around when you could be getting work done, but it also means leaving enough room in your daily schedule to take a few well-earned breaks.

@Abion47 It really depends on the job. There's a famous essay by SJ Gould about how Nabokov's work as a novelist actually complemented rather than hindered his work as an entomologist, even though the two jobs never intersected.

@cheery.beach7701 I imagine that part-time jobs that can more accurately be described as "paid hobbies" would be perfectly fine as well.

"Graduate students waste So. Much. Time. that I'm sure they could each take two part-time jobs and still get the same amount of lab work done. This is mainly because most are young and still have not learned how to prioritize their time."  A good mentor would teach a PhD student to prioritize.  A good supervisor would prioritize for their staff.

It's much more common to hold jobs outside your field if you're a social sciences or arts major. There's simply not that many "part time anthropologist wanted" job ads laying around. Is that ideal for advancing ones skills? Probably not. But certainly healthier than going hungry. Also, the difference of student dept in USA vs EU can push one towards side hustles and might be playing a role in your example.
On a sidenote - there's a lovely stack called the Workplace where I see people sharing great tips on looking for jobs, how to improve CVs, how to showcase your skills if you don't have industry experience. Maybe you'll find some help with the issues you've faced with your CV.

It's perfectly normal.
Whether it should be or not is a completely different matter however. At the end of the day, a lot of universities are in expensive cities and PhD stipends in a lot of countries simply aren't enough to have a decent standard of living in such locations.
This is doubly true if you're supporting a family.
Heck, enough PhDs have full time jobs and do their PhDs part-time (myself included), which is (in the UK at least) roughly equivalent to having a 20 hour a week job and a full time PhD.

Some advice if you do go down this route though:

Be very wary of burnout. You need to be constantly introspective and on the watch for it because it will sneak up on you and it can be catastrophic. At the first sign of burnout you need to take a rest or make adjustments to head it off.

Be up-front with your supervisor about it. They can help support you with this and try to manage your workload around your job if necessary. They may even be able to find some extra funding for you if you're really lucky.

If you can, get a part-time job teaching undergrads or running labs. This work often pays better than your typical retail job, and it makes a huge difference to your time if you just need to nip downstairs to teach a couple of hours' lab, than walk home, get changed, walk to work, etc.

Good luck!

The question specifically referred to jobs outside academia.  Almost all PhD students have done some work as a teaching assistant here and there, this is completely different to going to look for a job in retail alongside the PhD.

@Tom - My answer holds even in that context. My advice is that if you can make enough money without resorting to a university based job then do, but even that's not enough for a lot of PhDs in a lot of cities these days. Of those people I know doing PhDs right now, about half have other work.

It depends on the contract. Despite my PhD stipend not offering a living wage, there was a clause in the PhD contract that students not work any outside jobs due to the fact that pursuing the PhD was supposed to be their full-time job. Many students went around this, or else they would not have been able to afford rent.

This is interesting. What country?

The United States.

I had a clause of not being aloud to work more than 5 hours outside my Phd while studying in the UK.

@Rob 5 hours per day, per week, per month, or 5 hours total for the duration of your PhD?

5 hours Per week

@Rob - What was the funding arrangement for your PhD because I think clauses on this vastly vary depending on whether you're funded by a grant, your uni, or yourself

Also, the problem of not being allowed to have a second job is much bigger for international students.

You should definitely try to unionize as junior research workers. (The links are to some unions in a few universities, there are more of course.) This is not easy, but in the long run very important for Ph.D. candidate researchers to be employed for a proper salary, with relevant benefits and health care, rather than receiving a vaguely-defined, few-or-no-rights-attached stipend.

To counter some sweeping generalizations in the other answers: in some places/fields it is not uncommon and can be unproblematic or even slightly beneficial.
I did my PhD in computer science in Czech Republic. Since the stipend was quite low and we had no big grant, there was a tacit agreement in my group that PhD students actually work ~3 days a week on PhD and use the rest to get a part time job. I've seen similar setups in other CS groups I've interacted with, as well as some in different fields.
On the other hand, when there was grant money, PhD students were usually supposed to work full time on PhD - but then also got an OK-ish (but not great) wage beside the stipend.
I personally benefited from the part time work as it forced me to improve my software engineering skills and those allow me to work more efficiently in my current research area (biostats/bioinformatics). It also gave me the confidence that academia is not my only option in life, lowering stress around funding/job prospects etc. While I had some hard weeks during my PhD around various deadlines, I am quite sure I worked < 40hrs a week on average and still got a good (though not excellent) publication record at the end and finished my PhD on time (4 years as is the local default).
With that said, being expected to work full time on PhD and have another job on top of that sounds terrible. Also note that there is relatively good evidence that people generally do not get more work done when regularly spending more time at work beyond ~40hrs a week - although it may feel like you are achieving more. The exact optimal number of working hours definitely differs across industries and people, but is generally not very high (famously Henry Ford's experiments indicated that 40hrs was optimal for assembly line workers in his plants - presumably this work is less intellectually taxing than PhD). If you work too much, then after an initial boost from working longer, there is always a point when you get tired and end up achieving less per-week than previously, despite spending more time working. So if you have a second job and manage to fulfill your PhD obligations at the same time, it is likely that should you be allowed to spend less time physically at the lab/uni you could achieve very similar results (by virtue of being more focused and making less mistakes/wasting less time) but with much less stress.
Hope you find a good solution for you and your family.

There is no clear definite answer to your question as every solution to your problem has different pros and cons, so let's look deeper into possible options

get job now

culture wise it can be unacceptable for academia people to have an outside job, but you're a free human being, so it is totally up to you to decide, what you do with your spare time as long as you don't break your academia contract;
you are likely to extremely overload yourself and burn out pretty soon, which is the main point to consider in this scenario. If you believe, you can cope with all the load and live a happy life, take this opportunity.

find better compensated PhD program

it will require big effort and probably relocation to get into PhD that can actually provide you with living wage, but in the end bread on the table is way more important than studies;
this scenario requires you to invest a decent amount of time and likely money now, but if it is achievable and you'll be happy with the new PhD as much as your current one, this is a great way to go.

drop out now and return with enough money

if you cannot realistically sustain a living with PhD + job at the same time, which is the case for the majority of people, it can be necessary to accumulate decent amount of money in advance and go into PhD afterwards;
you will sacrifice some time in this case as you will do PhD later, but you will not need to sacrifice your happiness if you can find a job that you will be happy with for a year or couple of years;
also, you will have way more time to actually spend with your family during this course.

Academia life isn't really good for everybody and it is clearly not suitable for you in the current state of things. So any decision you take at this point is a good one as long as it will make you well-fed and happy.

The only thing I would add to this answer from my personal history of working at 4 part time jobs during PhD is the following: Do not take jobs that pay by the hour, I had taken these contracts exactly for your reasons. I thought if I take contracts that take too much of my time, I wouldn't be able to focus on my career, etc.
It was a bad call.
Instead of taking 4 part time jobs, I should have taken 1 part time job that pays by month/week which covers everything. In Parisian conditions that would correspond to working at a cafe or restaurant.
4 part time jobs weren't really good for my career as it meant that I was working almost everyday on something even if it is for 2-3 hours a day. It also kept me away from most of the networking opportunities.
In the end I finished my PhD, but moved on to private sector. I assume however, if you have already a PhD stipend, you can take some time for searching for the perfect part time job. I would suggest to be on the look out for jobs with night shifts, such as being a watchman for some factory or better some company building at night or being a receptionist in a hotel at night etc.

I would expect that openings for part-time salaried work are pretty rare. In the US, it would be basically unheard of for a waiter to make a salary rather than an hourly wage.

TL:DR: It is common in the Czech Republic in some fields. It may or may not be healthy, try and see.
A PhD student of Econometrics in Prague here (so at least partially relatable). I work full time and from my experience, working at least part time outside academia is the absolute standard here, since the common stipends are about the 1/4 of the average wage in the city and below 1/2 of our rent. Although, they probably often continue at the job they started during their (under)grad. However:

I would be surprised, if there are no grants for "proper" PhD students, who actually do their PhD as a full-time research career. At least in the Czech Republic, there are country wide grants, which offer enough to "make a living". I would certainly recommend to apply for those.

It may or may not be healthy. Some kinds of blue collar job might be healthy even in the literal sense, since we tend to neglect any form of physical activity. However, when it comes to the issues related to working too much and experience too much stress... that is a tough one. It will depend on the individual, but it definitely can get pretty daunting at times. However, I cannot imagine it being worse than the stress from not living with your family and facing a break up. Also, when I started to work more, I surprisingly found out, that I did not really have that much less useful free time. It seems like it forced me to waste the time less and/or use tools that increases productivity. There is also something to be said about the benefit of having a job that is complementary to your research and teaching.

I also find quite odd, that "employers don't like your CV". It obviously differs across countries, but I cannot imagine that no employer would take a CS PhD student (majoring in CS, I assume) as their junior programmer. I guess I would recommend to invest a bit of time to polish the CV, but you surely know more abut the situation than me.

Universities should be responsible for paying PhD students a living wage.  They should not need an additional job.
If the university is not paying you a living wage, you should not be a PhD student there.  You also should not work for anyone else who does not pay a living wage.

They pay a fixed amount of monthly stipend which is not enough only for me let alone my family .

Sorry, but this basically means that the OP should not do a PhD in their country until the system changes completely, which is useless advice. Downvoted. Yes, in the US you should not do a PhD which does not pay a living wage, but this does not apply to the OP's situation. (Also, PhD students are not employees, so this is not a case of "working for someone else".)

@AdamPřenosil In the US PhD students typically are employees of the university. They do teaching assistant/teaching work. They grade homework/quizzes/tests, proctor exams, and sometimes teach entire classes. The universities rely on graduate student labor. PhD students fill out work forms, receive work documents, and list the university as their employer. When I did my PhD we went on strike, which was supported by the faculty in the department. They are employees, just like faculty are employees.

@Anonymous_Physicist Which programs pay a living wage to PhD students? This is quite rare in the U.S. and many other countries I'm familiar with.

The status of grad students as employees is not uniform across the world, or even within the US. It's a good reason to unionize. For example, most universities do not issue W2s for grad student stipends.

@cgb5436 I understand that this is often the case in the US, which is one of the reasons why the advice in this answer might simply not applicable to the OP's context. (Indeed, if Poland works anything like the neighboring Czechia, then it isn't applicable.) To be more explicit, I should have said: PhD students are not employees simply by virtue of being PhD students.

This is wonderfully idealist, and in better countries it happens, but I don't think students who live outside of those countries should reject the idea of a PhD out of hand.

@AdamPřenosil It seems we have different beliefs about the value of getting a PhD.  "Don't get a PhD" is often excellent advice and nearly all people follow it.

@Parever NSF GRFP is a living wage in cheaper parts of the USA.  That's just one example.

@AnonymousPhysicist Sure. But "don't get a PhD unless the programme pays you a living wage" is a very different piece of advice in a context where good enough PhD applicants can get into programmes which pay a living wage (in particular, not being able to get into such a programme indicates something) and in a context where this is not true. Unless the OP's university is an exception in this matter in Poland (in which case I would agree with your advice), you are effectively saying that no-one should do a PhD in Poland. That seems like pretty extreme advice.

"Should" isn't the same as "do"

@AdamPřenosil I do not know what pay is like at Polish universities, but I don't see why one shouldn't get a PhD outside Poland if it's not good pay. Most PhDs are obtained outside Poland.  The huge number of people who move to get a PhD shouldn't consider "leave Poland" to be extreme.  Also, not getting a PhD is the most popular option.

@Anonymous Physicist No-one is saying that you shouldn't get a PhD outside Poland or that for a lot of people leaving Poland to get their PhD abroad is a good choice. What I was contesting was your absolute, unqualified claim that no-one should get a PhD in Poland if Polish universities don't pay a living wage, including people who for whatever reason (of which there are many, e.g. family) don't want to leave Poland. This claim seems to have disappeared from you latest comment and was substituted by claims that no-one here is disputing.

@AdamPřenosil I did not bring up anything about Poland.  My answer applies to all employers globally.

@AnonymousPhysicist The implication "if Polish universities do not pay a living wage, then you should not do your Ph.D. at a Polish university" is an immediate corollary of your claim that "if the university is not paying you a living wage, you should not be a PhD student there". Saying that you only stated the universal generalization over all universities and did not explicitly state the particular case of this claim for Polish universities seems like a very strange objection to me.

@AdamPřenosil I just want to be clear I am not criticizing and particular country.  You are not going to convince me that "people should work for less than a living wage" is "extreme advice."

@AnonymousPhysicst I understand that you aren't and I am not insinuating otherwise. "People should only do a Ph.D. if it pays a living wage" doesn't sound like extreme advice, but my point is that it is extreme advice (as advise phrased in absolutist terms tends to be), because it implies that if in a certain country such as Poland universities do not pay a living wage to Ph.D. students, then no-one should do a Ph.D. in that country. My last word on the matter is that imo you have not addressed this corollary of your absolutist, unqualified claim at all in this discussion.

@AdamPřenosil I do not know for sure if there are any countries where no PhD students are paid a living wage (excepting countries with zero PhD students).  Therefore I have no comment the blacklisting of entire countries.  National boundaries just are not relevant to my answer.


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Can a graduate of Harvard Extension School apply for a PhD position at any other university in the USA?
My brother is a social science graduate. He wants to have a masters degree in CS and then wants to do a PhD in CS.
Can a graduate of Harvard Extension School apply for a PhD position at any other university in the USA, or is that degree only for getting jobs?

In the US, one can change fields between undergraduate and graduate school. So, earning a CS masters from Harvard Extension is possible. And, as the masters is recognized as a valid degree, it is then possible to apply for doctoral programs in CS as well.
In fact, it is possible to apply for doctoral programs in CS in the US without any masters at all and switching from social science to CS is possible, though not an easy or obvious "admit". It would depend on how much computing background was learned in the bachelors and how much "catchup" work there is in the graduate (doctoral) program.
If the social science degree is from a US university it is probably more possible, since such a degree is broad based. In some other countries an undergraduate degree is more focused making it less likely that much of any CS was included. But all of that is for the admissions committee to decide.
But you can apply, in any case.

Note for completeness that many universities offer evening and part-time masters programs that are valid and recognized, not just Harvard. The programs won't always by described as "Extension" though.


text:
What happens when a supervisor doesn't want to supervise a PhD student?
Suppose a PhD recruitment committee selected and assigned a PhD student to a certain supervisor. However, for some reason, the supervisor doesn't want to supervise this particular student. He wants an alternative student.
What does this supervisor do, then?
What if this is about prejudice but the supervisor won't say that?

Which of the many people here are you?

@Buffy, None of them.

This depends upon the university. In the US, I've always seen that PhD advisors need to accept a student. Can you provide more details about the location, such as type of school?

If this is an actual problem you are personally facing, please ask about your actual problem, not a hypothetical situation, and make the question about solving your actual problem, not "what happens". See also https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask and https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/66377/what-is-the-xy-problem - if this isn't about an actual problem you face, don't ask here please.

Some background. If a student enters a US doctoral program with only a bachelors they may be assigned an "advisor" who isn't intended to be their dissertation advisor, but only a guide through the coursework and exams. The student chooses and makes an agreement with the dissertation advisor later after they settle on a topic. If a student is dissatisfied with their initial advisor then they may have an opportunity to switch.
On the other side, faculty are expected to do this sort of thing and may be assigned students to "guide". There might be valid reasons for a professor to wish a certain student without taking on another, such as a particular background of the student. Very senior professors might be able to avoid such duties altogether, but not with a particularly favorable view from the department chair.
However, if a student is being discriminated against for some reason, then there are two issues. The first is that the professor is a problem and the university needs to find a way to deal with that problem. There have been some well known instances of very racist and sexist but very prominent math professors in this country. Some are tolerated because of their perceived excellent scholarship, but the university has a duty to provide a path for the student.
The second issue in such a situation is that such a "guide" would be destructive for the student discriminated against, so it is actually to their benefit that the professor won't "accept" them, provided someone else will.
Universities are full of humanity, good and bad. The university itself has both an interest and a duty to see that fairness rules, but not that a particular faculty member matches up with a particular student, especially in cases where the student might suffer. The student needs and deserves a supportive guide.

Both potential supervisor and the members of the recruitment committee are people. They can talk and listen. Having a conversation is almost always a good idea to solving problems!

What if this is about prejudice but the supervisor won't say that?

@user366312 I don't know what other solution there can be. Someone has to communicate with someone else. If nobody says anything, then the situation cannot be resolved. In what other way do you think this could possibly be sorted out, regardless of the reason?

First of all, I have never heard of the cases when PhD students have been assigned to supervisors by some committee without asking the supervisors whether they are willing/able to take the job first. The agreement (for general mentoring or for thesis writing) between the student and the supervisor is almost always voluntary on both sides (almost because there are several standard situations when somebody may be officially in charge of new student orientation, etc., but even then I have never seen anybody accepting this position against his/her will).
Second, there are plenty of reasons the student or the supervisor may feel like they may be a bad match for each other and, believe it or not, if one of them feels so, that often means that it is, indeed, so and matching them by force will lead to nothing but a disaster.
Third, you can never tell the true reason why a professor agrees or disagrees to accept a PhD student (an outright rejection may be chosen for more honest and honorable reason than an acceptance by the way: the latter may just come from wanting some extra points for the coming promotion, the grant application, etc. without any genuine interest in the student and may be "biased" in the same way, like "It will help me to have a minority student on my record, so..."). So don't try to guess what the truth might be. It may be anything in both cases and you'll never have a chance to find it out, much less to prove it. On the good side, I should say that if the agreement is made voluntarily (for whatever reason and with whatever initial motivation), most professors would commit to it and try to help the student all the way through.
Finally, there is little point in discussing a situation that neither has arisen, nor is likely to arise.
Just my two cents :-)


text:
What sets two PhDs apart in the academia?
I see that hundreds of students are doing PhDs at my PhD school.
What will ultimately set those PhDs apart in the academia?

The number of papers they published as the 1st authors?
The impact factor counts of their papers as nth author where n=1,2,3...?
anything else?

NOTE: Lets, for the sake of argument, assume that quality of the papers is sufficiently high but not ground-breaking.

The answers may be quite country and/or field-specific. Some countries are still obsessed with the quantity of papers and their impact factors.
In others, the main goal of a PhD is to prepare the researcher for future work in both academia and industry. How this can be quantified is a harder question.

Yes, question closed because depending on individual factors ... like race, gender, family wealth.

There are a lot of factors and many of them can't be measured simply.
Luck: They got hired at "just the right moment in just the right place"
Drive: Some people give up "life" for constant striving in research or whatever led to their success.
People: The managed to join or put together a productive circle of collaborators.
Personality: Others were happy to boost them and there was mutual admiration.
Luck again: They just happened into a hot area at the moment and made the most of it.
Luck again: They publish a paper that just happens to be seminal for the understanding of some important subfield, perhaps newly important.
Sharing: They weren't selfish about things, talked to a lot of people and shared a lot of ideas.
Speaking: They got heavily involved in conferences as speakers and eventually as committee.
Since you mention CS, I could probably name names for most of these aspects. Some designed languages that became important. Some designed various techniques, say in algorithmics or software engineering.

Just adding to the existing answer, these days it is a very important skill to be good at winning funding, grant applications and the like. Apart from the track record of past work, this requires knowing a field well, having good and realistic ideas for research, a good knowledge or assessment of what kind of thing works for what application, and the talent to present them in the way that is required to convince the funders (and maybe good qualified help by experienced people).
Also, to stress one of @Buffy's points, networking helps big time. By which I don't mean being nice to people at cocktail parties, but rather presenting your work and communicating with people who do related stuff in a qualified manner, regarding collaborations or just to make yourself known; somebody at some point may be aware of opportunities and can tell you if they know you and have an idea what you are about. This includes research visits or longer stays abroad and the like.

The obvious response is
Gender and race
The fact that it is not the first thing coming up from academians is a clear indicator how this is a poorly understood issue.
See the evident living example of (ex-)Prof. Christopher Jackson or the statistics coming from Germany, where the 35% of completed PhD identifying as women
are matched by a ~20% of people identifying as women have the Professor title.


text:
What is the relationship between graduate coursework and research?
I feel like after graduate students pass their qualifying exams, they still have a lot of learning to do before they're knowledgeable enough in a specific area to understand and work on the open questions in that area. But how do they get there? Do they just take advanced courses in the area of interest, or are they expected to read up on their research area outside of coursework? If the second, should they be doing this while they're still taking classes, or do they start doing this after they're done with their coursework?

Yes, you're right, "starting research" prior to an adequate basic education can result in huge wastes of time. But it also makes little sense to "wait a few years" until all the required coursework is done. And, yes, even then, one is not over-educated.
Seriously, I think (and recommend to my students) that they maintain several different threads. The two main ones are attention to standard core material and more advanced courses, while also trying to skip forward to read about current events. The trickier third thread is trying to back-fill from current events to "standard material", as needed.
Almost any choice of "single thread" seems misguided.

It depends. My PhD supervisor got me involved from Day 1 in research projects in his lab. He was down on programs where things were much more serial (do the required classes, pass the qual, do a proposal, do the research, defend). His students all had some research tasks from the beginning. If the student was unprepared for the task, there were papers to read or book suggestions, etc. This worked really well for me, though it may have resulted in me being somewhat under-prepared for the quals the first time I took them! I eventually passed and graduated.
Some advisors and programs take a different approach. They really want the student to concentrate on nothing but getting through courses and the quals until they pass the quals. Then it's the proposal (if they require one). How one gets the knowledge to get from proposal to defense is up to the student and the advisor to work out. I didn't complete my coursework requirement until late in my program, so I used courses to close knowledge gaps where a relevant course was available. Where it wasn't, I worked through books and papers that I could find that helped.

While I totally agree with the other answers, I would like to point out that there is a third variety out there in the market as well, over and above the two major approaches to coursework already pointed out. At least to me, this appears to be a more evolved approach, but of course, neither one is flawless and universally applicable (i.e. a lot depends on individual cases).
The idea is - first figure out how much do you need to get started with proper research-level work. This would be difficult for the student to work out on his/her own, and definitely requires inputs from the adviser. Once this part has been marked out, this should be approached at full throttle, i.e. no actual research till this part is behind you. After this is done, and in parallel with the actual research work thus started, keep on expanding your sphere of knowledge. A good idea is devote a stipulated number of hours everyday, forcibly detaching yourself from the actual problem, and just reading around the part you people decided on as minimum. The more you know, the better prepared you will be for your research, but it is not sensible to wait indefinitely for the same to happen, especially since there are (typically) progress metrics also involved (or something like an end-semester presentation of the work done in that semester, etc.).
IMO, the advantage of this strategy is - you are not deferring research work unnecessarily, and also, not just hitting on a research-level problem without being in any position to do so. And with time, the situation certainly gets better and better.

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


text:
Difference between publishing textbooks and publishing research for acquiring tenure
I've noticed that a few of my professors have written their own textbooks, but they only did so after they had already published many research articles and presumably become tenured at my university. For this reason, I'm wondering (in general), does writing textbooks contribute to acquiring tenure at a university, or are textbooks just considered the "icing on the cake" of the professor's published research?

I have spoken with a few people who have written textbooks. The universal advice they have given is never write a textbook until after you have received tenure.
In general, you get very little or no credit for writing a textbook, as it doesn't really help in any of the major "checkboxes" for tenure—research, teaching, and service. In addition, the time that you spend working on the textbook can generally be put to better use in writing grant proposals or working on peer-reviewed manuscripts.
I know from personal experience, when I was a graduate student, that there was an assistant professor in my department who spent all of his time working on a textbook. He let his research languish, and ended up with a textbook but no promotion to associate professor.

Writing a top quality textbook will eat up enormous amounts of time that could have been invested into research. Unless you are at a school with zero research expectations for tenure (do these still exist?), taking on a textbook project pre-tenure would amount to career suicide. If a textbook counts at all toward tenure, it is a very high discount rate compared to original research. Also, even a very successful book takes years to get established as such. By the time anyone realizes you've written the classic text (should you manage to do so), the tenure decision will be far in the past.

A textbook would almost certainly be viewed positively for tenure. However, people don't usually write textbooks before they have tenure, for at least the following two reasons:

It is a huge undertaking. You have to expect it to take a year or more to get it all right and finished, during which you will likely not have time to publish much else. There may also be another 1-2 year delay before the book is actually accepted and in print (i.e., it may not happen in time for the tenure evaluation). From the perspective of a tenure committee, a single (possibly unpublished) textbook rarely outweighs the smaller number of publications you will be able to show. For this reason, older colleagues will almost certainly discourage untenured professors from writing textbooks.
Writing a good textbook benefits hugely from many years of teaching experience, and in particular teaching the class for which the book is intended many times. Untenured professors rarely have the kind of experience that makes it worthwhile writing a book that actually shows their thoughts on how teaching this course works best.

Your reasons are correct, but your top-level conclusion—that a textbook is positively viewed—is wrong.

Then our departments consider things differently. Having sat through quite a number of tenure deliberations, I'm quite certain that it would count positively in my department.


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Is it very difficult for international applicants to get a Visiting Assistant Professor position in the US?
I am a mathematics postdoc working outside the US and this year I am preparing for applications for positions (mainly in the US). I should also add that I am not a US citizen.
Sometime ago I have seen in the comments to a question here somebody said that tenure track positions are unlikely (though not impossible) to be offered for people working outside USA. I can understand this, since a tenure track position is meant to end in tenure, I mean, I have the impression that universities hire someone with the intention/hope that he/she will be granted tenure eventually.
I am hoping to secure a 2-3 years visiting position in mathematics so that I can introduce myself to the academia in the US, and then maybe apply for tenure track positions. But the question is, whether the same thing is true for these positions. That is, is it hard to get even a visiting position for someone working outside the US?
Also, I have a good command of English and a high TOEFL score. Do you think I should add this to my application package (e.g. mention it in the cover letter, or attach a copy of the test result, or have it sent to the universities etc.) to counter the fact that I am not a native speaker of English?

Note that, instead of looking for a visiting position, you might consider doing a second postdoc in the US.  These tend to involve more research and less teaching, and are more likely to continue for 2-3 years.

Thank you for your comment. I guess I have misinterpreted the visiting positions. I used to see  visiting positions as a way to enter the US academia from outside. I will focus more on postdoc positions now.

I'll mention a few important issues here:

There are relatively few visiting positions in mathematics with a certain term of more than one year.  Rather, most of these positions have a term of one year, and may be continued for another year or two if the need for the visiting position continues.  Visiting positions like this are typically created to fill the hole left by a faculty member on sabbatical leave or as a temporary replacement for a faculty member who has resigned, retired, or is too ill to work.  Generally, the plan is to get a tenure track faculty member hired during the one year term of the visiting position.  There are certainly some circumstances in which a visiting position is setup to last more than one year, but these are very desirable positions and the competition for them is intense.  Thus your chances of finding a visiting position with a term of more than one year are limited.
In order to work in the United States in a visiting position, you will need to have an appropriate visa and the types of visa that are appropriate here (most likely a J1 visa for a temporary position, but perhaps an H-1B visa) require employer sponsorship.  Your potential employer must pay fees to apply for such a visa and typically will need to retain a lawyer to assist in the process.  This can cost thousands of dollars.  Furthermore, there's a substantial risk that the visa might not be granted or might be delayed.  Because of these issues many academic departments are hesitant to hire applicants who must be sponsored for a visa.  In my experience, many universities and academic departments will undertake to sponsor newly hired tenure track faculty but don't want to do this for a visiting position.
Most visiting positions in the US are focused primarily on teaching.  The hiring committee will be concerned if you have not had experience teaching in the United States, because there are substantial and important cultural differences between the US system and higher education in other parts of the world.  The hiring committee will also be concerned if English is not your native language.
There will almost certainly be many (tens if not hundreds) of well qualified US citizens and permanent residents with appropriate teaching experience in the US who will apply for the position.

If you have a strong record of research and would otherwise be qualified for a tenure track position, then you might have a better chance of getting hired into a tenure track position than into a visiting position.


text:
Is it rude to request a read receipt when emailing the professor?
Today I suddenly found that my email server requests a read receipt every time when I send emails. Since I am recently exchanging messages with a potential Phd supervisor, I wonder if this will make him feel that I am rude and annoying? I have already turned this feature off!

Maybe a datapoint of interest here: Did you ever receive a read receipt back from him?

Maybe this isn't an academia question as much as just a simple netiquette questions.

Unless you have reason to suspect that emails are not being delivered successfully, email receipts are pretty much useless. Here's why:

Not all email clients support read receipts - Mail on OS X doesn't, for one prominent example. If some of the previous emails you sent requested a receipt, and it wasn't returned, obviously either the prof's email client doesn't support it or he didn't bother clicking that button.
Unless the receipt is returned, you can never be sure if the email was read or not.
Unless the email is replied to immediately - which is unlikely if the reply will take some effort - it can easily be forgotten about. Receiving an email receipt is no guarantee that you'll get a reply.

If you have no response to an email after a reasonable period of time ("reasonable" can vary between 3 days and a month or more, depending on what is required), just send a quick reminder email.

“Not all email clients support read receipts” – I haven’t even heard of the existence of those up to today.

@Wrzlprmft its used in industry a lot. Time-critical stuff such as emergency technical support to ensure that the issue has been received. That being said, I usually don't send them in favor of writing an actual email confirming it, because a sending a read receipt doesn't actually guarantee you read the entire thing either.

Gmail ignores them too, and it is one of the major providers of mail to universities.

@Compass IMO, anything critical should be responded to with an automatic email reply (or administered via an online ticketing system that doesn't rely on email). Doing so provides an equivalent guarantee of receipt, that does not depend on both parties using software that actually supported receipts.

@Moriarty I agree, but some places don't have the infrastructure or workflow to require that. University Help Desks, for example, need it for sure, and most have the canned "Got your message, put in queue." A smaller company that gets maybe three tech support emails a week, not so much.

I do not think that this is rude. If it even mildly irritated him he might have mentioned it to you at some point. Even if he didn't, he still corresponds with you so it probably didn't bother him that much. Regardless, if you disabled the feature, he should not be getting  those any more.

Unfortunatly, this is highly subjective. I think everybody could clearly understand the benefits of a read receipt this is why all modern messaging platforms (Whatsapp, Telegram etc. etc.) implement this feature automatically. I could not estimate how many times I encountered the dilemma of "should I send the email again" because sometimes it happens to lose the email even though this is not in the spam folder. For me, this communication issue should be solved somehow and I would not consider rude a person trying to solve it with the means that he has. In my personal opinion, I would not consider it a bad practice unfortunately many people prefer to lose or not answer emails rather than face the writer with a clear answer. I think that a messaging platform should be a way better tool to use in the future for communications between persons.


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Contacting professors about research: if they don't respond to my emails, how long should I wait to follow up?
I am starting a MS in CS program this summer. My department is small and my particular concentration is both narrow and new. Currently only 3 professors at the school are listed as having research interests in my area of interest.
I have contacted 2 of them. One is tenured and one is an assistant professor.
I know that the tenured professor has lots of published work in the field already and would probably be the better recommender come PhD application time.
I'm not eligible for assistantships yet until I finish some prerequisites I lacked from my undergrad. But I want to get in and prove what a good little research assistant I can be as soon as I can so I can beat out the other assistantship applicants when the time comes.
My question is: If they don't respond to my emails, how long should I wait to follow up with them as not to be annoying? Should I just wait until classes start and go talk to them then? I'll be taking a class from the assistant professor this summer in a subject outside my research interest. What's the best approach to get people collaborate with me?
(Sorry this sounds like lots of questions in one, but I only have a year and a half to become the best PhD applicant ever and I want to make sure I do it right!)

How long have you waited for a reply? Anything less than two weeks might be a bit optimistic, especially if you're as of yet unknown to them.

It hasn't been 2 weeks yet. I guess I'm trying to gauge how long I should expect to wait so that I don't get too antsy.

I agree with badroit's answer. I would also like to add the following:
I don't know what was in your original email, so this may not apply.
However, if your email requires some thought or effort on the part of the professor to respond to, then it will sit in his inbox until he has a chance to sit down and compose a proper response. Since you are an unknown student and he is very busy, this is low on his list of priorities and he may never get to it.
On the other hand, if you politely follow up a week or two later with an email in which you ask to meet:

Dear Professor Y,
I am going to be a student in your department next semester.
I have been reading about your paper on Y and I am very interested in talking to you about it; do you think we could schedule a time to meet next week?

This email is easy and quick to respond to ("Yes, how about Tuesday at 10?"), so you may be more likely to get a response.
(I know this doesn't make sense, since the professor would still have to expend time and effort to meet with you. But spending a half hour on a meeting on some future date seems much less of a burden than spending ten minutes right now to send an email to an unknown student.)

Excellent idea.  I received a response from the tenured professor this morning (surprisingly quick since i emailed him several days after the Asst. Prof) and he asked me several leading questions about my interests and which classes I would be taking in the first few terms I am there and he said he'd love to talk to me about research ideas once I arrive for summer term.  Yay.  I just have to make sure I stay in touch now.

Whats the best approach to get people to let me help them?

Impress them. Demonstrate that you genuinely can help them.
The problem you face is that professors are busy. Though professors need students, any decent professor that "takes on" students (be it in an advisory, mentorship or official supervisory role) knows that it's a commitment. In as much as working with a good student can be rewarding and productive, working with a bad student can be a huge time-sink and personally draining.
And good professors often get lots of offers of "help".
So you need to demonstrate that you'll be one of the good ones. You need to surprise them, show your motivation, your interest, your enthusiasm, your skills, your ideas.
Just a couple of thoughts:

Read a difficult paper authored by the professor in the area. Approach them to tell them you found the paper interesting and to talk about the finer details of it. Try to challenge them about weaknesses of the paper (<- depending on their character). This demonstrates your ability to read papers independently, as well as your knowledge of the area, your ability to think critically and your enthusiasm for the subject.
Try putting together a list of elevator-style ideas for research topics in the area. Tell the professor that you are interested in doing research, why you want to do research, and try pitching some ideas to them. Try flesh out an idea or two with them: ask them questions.

Like any sort of work relationship, if you meet with them face-to-face, it's also important that you come across as someone easy-going who would be pleasant to work with.

My question is: If they don't respond to my emails within some time frame when is it no longer annoying to follow up?

Approach them in person. Emails from strange students don't last long in the harsh environs of the INBOXes of senior professors.

I do plan to approach him in person once I am actually on campus.  But that will not be until June when summer classes begin.  I was hoping to at least get my name out there ins ome sort of positive way before I arrive so that once I strike up a conversation in person I can be like "Hi, I'm CSGal.  We spoke about your paper on Thing-The-Paper-Was-On. It gave me a few ideas that I'd love to discuss with you sometime."  I did get a friendly reply from one of the professors this morning and he asked me some leading questions about my interests and which classes I would be taking this summer.

I did several internships when I was an undergrad. Here is my advice
1) Meet the professors in person.
2) Look out side of your department, the best internship I did was for NASA. CS degree is highly sought after in other colleges.
3) Talk to and buddy up with other students that are in an intern position. They will make good references and will tell you when there is a spot open.
4) Be prepared to take the first one or two for no pay. My first two were for credit.
5) Talk to all the Professors, Some of them will take you on more to do some quick task they don't want to do.
6) Don't be afraid of a few no's. It's not personal, it just they may not have the time to train you.
My internships are what set me apart for my first job, and they really will help out.

I'm very interested in the part you said about your NASA internship.  My target school for PhD is Caltech because of the JPL.  Do you have any advice about how to make myself standout for JPL internships during my MS studies?

I would start with space grant, Its not easy to get into, but I was able to get into it. We had 20 or so slots, and I was the only CS major to get in. I found out about Space Grant from SEDS (http://seds.org/) which has a strong presents in many Universities. Even if there not in your University, you can still join some of the national events, witch there is a few social nights that will help you get to know people and get your name out there.

Thanks @jdahern. the SEDS site appears to be down ATM but I'll keep my eyes peeled.

Also, it appears my school doesn't have a SEDS chapter.  But now I'm thinking it couldn't hurt my cause if I were to found one.

@CSGal Yeah, start up a new chapter! SEDS really helped me. Our chapter was set up before I got there, so I dont know anything about how to do it. But I do know our founders did get jobs at JPL, NASA, and LPL. So if thats your end game, your on the right track.


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Humorous or famous dictum as motto for a scientific text - is it appropriate?
Every once in a while I stumble upon a scientific book or article with a «motto», that is, a brief aphorism or short humorous stanza at the beginning, usually separated by its layout from the body of the text. In a book, this can also be in front of each chapter.
But is it generally considered appropriate for scientific texts or rather not advisable? In particular, does it come across as pretentious (aphorism) or frivolous (humor)? Clearly, I am unsure how to evaluate it.

It's called an epigraph. One of the nicesiest I've ever seen is in Hamming's book The art of probability: the epigraph on the chapter about the law of large numbers is a Keynes' quote: in the long run we are all dead...

@ff524 true, i haven't found this because the keyword "epigraph" didn't come to my mind. i have voted to close my question.

In a thesis the appropriateness depends on the style guide of the university in question.  This should be posted somewhere (probably on the university library or graduate school website).  When I wrote my dissertation, such a thing was allowed.  I did not use one, but I knew people who did.
For an article published in a journal, it would depend on their style standards.  You should be able to ask an editor if it is allowed.


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How do I know that a research project that my professor gave me to do is actually novel research?
I come across such research on a regular basis; those look pretty extraordinary during presentations; however, when the same research is presented to an industry expert, that research doesn't look like a research project anymore. That looks like a novice trying to crawl through.
Last Monday, I attended a seminar on machine learning and AI.
A PhD student of bioinformatics presented a talk on how he obtained DNA sequences by systematically applying a series of ML algorithms. He will most probably publish this project in a peer-reviewed journal.
Afterwards, I talked to a professional ML/AI expert to discuss the presentation and the project, and he told me that that could have been done more efficiently in a different way. Then he described the whole procedure.
So, the question becomes: how do I know that a research project that my professor gave me to do is actually novel research?

Unless the student claimed efficiency as the goal of their approach, I don’t see how the statement of the industry professional invalidates it as research. Can you clarify your doubts?

@MisterMiyagi, My doubt is exactly what I have already written: my doubt is my PhD supervisor lacks project design experience.

Well, that is not what the question says, but even if we roll with it: Why do you doubt them? Some random industry person at some random conference said something random about some random student - so now you doubt your professor why exactly? Sure this can probably be answered in the most general way - based on just "I have doubts" - but then all but the last sentence of your question is moot. If all those information somehow relates to your doubts, it would be useful to clarify how.

It's also worth pointing out a PhD student is - a student. The way I structure PhD projects is to have a relatively straightforward task/project in the first year that helps develop research skills, etc. The results may be relatively small/incremental/trivial (but still relevant for the PhD), but it is the skill development that is important (inc. presenting at conferences). The more  significant (harder) research can be done once those skills have been sufficiently developed.

This question confuses the concepts "publishable", "novel", "useful" and seems to treat them as interchangeable when they are not. This all seems like a very roundabout way to express doubts in your research mentor, which you have done many times on this site. If this is how you feel, I think you should quit, you're likely wasting your advisor's time and your own.

How do you know? By knowing the literature well enough to know how your work might fit in, trying some things, and revectoring if progress is not made. That is, you learn how to do research.

First, I think you may be confusing "publishable" with "valuable."
Publishable research is relatively easy to define, at least in the abstract-- it's a unique contribution to human knowledge.
Valuable is a whole different thing, and it varies a lot from individual to individual, group to group, etc.  It's trite, but people value things differently from one another.  I am acutely aware of this because I got a PhD while working part time in industry, and I regularly experienced a sort of intellectual whiplash between evaluating things as working engineer, or as a novice academic researcher.
Second, I think you are over-weighting one individual's opinion.
I remember clearly standing in a poster session presenting a negative result.  It wasn't a bad experience except for one moment when someone walked up, looked my poster over, asked a perfunctory question, and walked away saying, "Looks like your hypothesis was wrong, then."  Like I didn't already know that.  But it was still a contribution to human knowledge because a lot of experts thought it would work.  I didn't let that one guy shut me down.
In your case, do you know that your industry expert could do it better?  Does he claim to have done it, or is he just speculating (even if it expert speculation)?  And regardless, you stipulate that he gave a different approach-- this means that more than likely, the presentation's approach was still novel.  Novel methods are still advances of human knowledge.
Third, you have some responsibility to guide your own dissertation.
It's not unreasonable to want to do the kind of research you're yearning for, by the way.  But this is your (probably) one and only trip through the PhD process.  You have a significant responsibility to make the most of that trip for yourself.
A good thing to do here, would be to discuss the sort of research you want to do with your advisor.  Maybe they're the right fit for you, maybe they're not.  More likely, they fit some aspects but not others... but they probably know people.  They may be able to suggest collaborations, either at your institute, another institute, or in industry, that will get you the kind of experience you want.  You may be able to tailor your committee to get more of the advice you want.
There are options, here.  Assuming your advisor is an idiot until that's been conclusively demonstrated is not a good one.
Fourth, you are novices trying to crawl through
There's not much of a body, here.  But you are novice researchers.  That's what a PhD student is.
Don't be so hard on yourself.  Or, in this case, your advisor.

You know if a research question is novel by doing literature research. You just start reading what others have done in this area. Finding the "research gap" is a standard part of doing research.
Don't think of that as an adversarial process: research is done by humans with usually quite severe restrictions imposed by their budget, ethics, and just the way the world works (e.g. the fact that we still cannot time travel is a severe limitation for historical research). So research is more a collaborative project where different (groups of) researchers try different imperfect ways of answering the same question. No single group will answer the question, but body of research of all the groups together can (though there is no guarantee). So a productive approach would be: "What can I add to this joint project?" rather than "What did they do wrong?".

'Novel research' is what you will deliver by the end of your PhD (question tagged phd). What is given is a research topic and possibly a proposal for how to try to study the topic -- i.e. a pointer towards research that may be novel. Of course there is no threshold to test whether or not something is novel.


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How to convert an engineering project into a PhD research title?
I am curious and also want to clear my understanding about the nature of research which students undertake in a PhD program.
Take this product as an example.

What is the difference between the research behind the development of this product, and a PhD research which is able to earn a degree?
Does a 4-5 years' PhD research degree program allow developing a product like this?
Does the student need to mask his product development as a PhD thesis by selecting a cryptic title which sounds "wise", or would he be allowed to use a plain title like "A desktop sweater knitter"?

What is the difference between the research behind the development of this product, and a PhD research which is able to earn a degree?

Products are typically developed from known results (including existing research), whereas research (during a PhD) produces new results.

Does a 4-5 years' PhD research degree program allow developing a product like this?

Not typically: Research is time consuming and there typically isn't time to develop products.

Does the student need to mask his product development as a PhD thesis by selecting a cryptic title which sounds "wise", or would he be allowed to use a plain title like "A desktop sweater knitter"?

I think you're (discretely) trying to ask: How can I develop a product during my PhD? Don't do that. If you do, the IP will (most) likely be owned by your university, not you. You'll need a less common approach: Work for a company (possibly your own) and enrol with a university under non-standard terms which ensure the company retains (all or most) IP rights.

"Products are typically developed from known results (including existing research), whereas research (during a PhD) produces new results." --- kindly, elaborate.

I don't really understand what you want elaboration on. Nevertheless: Just look at a product, e.g., a pencil, there's nothing new there (it is just graphite wrapped in wood). By comparison, look at a research paper, it is by definition novel. Of course, I'm oversimplifying and generalising, but that's the core idea.


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What do people do after doing a Ph.D. in ESL/TESOL/TEFL?
A lot of universities are providing Ph.D. in English language teaching:
 1. York University, UK
 2. University of Cyprus, Cyprus
 3. NYU, USA
 4. University of British Columbia, Canada
 5. ... ... ...
What do people do after doing a Ph.D. in ESL/TESOL/TEFL?
Does language teaching actually require Ph.D.?

Many people with PhDs do some mix of teaching their subject to bachelor's and master's degree students and research into their subject. Any particular  reason to think ESL PhD.s would be different?

Teach education students, most likely.
For those who complete a PhD and manage to find a position in academia afterwards, they'd most likely be teaching students who are studying in their general area. For someone who has a PhD in ESL education, they'd most likely be teaching education students, who are studying to become primary and secondary school teachers. They'd also likely continue their research in the area of education as well, investigating things like teaching methods or the use of technology in education.