text:
My PhD supervisor is doing nothing and is probably involved in academic misconduct. What should I do?
I am in the third year of my PhD and so far I have published one paper in top tier journal. I did all the work by myself. However after I finished everything, my supervisor told me that he would revise the paper and submit it. He put his before mine and added a bunch of people from another university. In the author contribution section, my name was removed from many sections until I was only responsible for experiments.
I learned about this only after the paper came back for revision. I asked him why he did it and he said it doesn't matter much because he mentioned that he, I and another professor contributed equally to this paper and I a first co-author. Also, during revision he gave around 10 extra references that I should add.
Eventually this paper got published and now I am working on another paper. Everything is super hard as I get zero feedback from him and he only wants to see a fully finished paper with a novel discovery, otherwise I should not bother him. He also gave my two of his bachelor students, and he literally told me to perform all of their experiments and make all the visuals for their dissertations. I can't even have a normal meeting with him, because he is always in a rush and trying to finish it as soon as possible.
I start thinking that maybe there is a part of racist behavior, as I am an international student and all the mentioned above only happened to me. My lab mates published some papers and the supervisor's name was always last (corresponding author). I talked to another young professor and told him about everything and he extremely disliked it. But he says that right now I can't do anything about it, because I am expected to graduate next year and my supervisor is a pretty big professor and I definitely shouldn't make him mad at me.
I don't even have time to talk to other people about this: I work with no weekends or holidays for at least 12h a day. What would you suggest? I really love research and for me it's not a problem to work overtime, however I feel like I am just being used.

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Which country are you from and which country is the professor/university from?

I will say, for anyone reading this that is just starting their PhD: this is why you should stand your ground from the first month. Tell your supervisor what you expect from them, limit yourself to reasonable hours, and refuse bullshit always. If you wait 3 years to stand up for yourself, it will be too late.

What revisions were made by your professor? You have the version you gave your professor and the version that was submitted. Are they substantially different?

It's hard to judge which is the best course of action in your particular situation. But I would offer three general pieces of advice:
Try to document as much as you can in writing. This includes email communication with your supervisor. Send him emails documenting your work and progress and asking for his input. If he asks you to prepare figures for students etc in person, send a follow-up email giving your summary of the meeting and offering him to clarify in case you misunderstood anything. Make sure to use both your university email addresses. If things get really bad this ensures you have evidence beyond your word vs his.
Find out whether your institution has a research integrity officer and if so, get their advice. I once had to navigate a tricky situation and found this helpful. Note that this can be confidential and does not necessarily amount to escalating the situation in a 'calling the science cops' way. In a first instance it can be more similar to getting a lawyers advice.
Take care of yourself. This is an extremely stressful situation and it sounds like you're exposed to it 24/7. Decide to regularly spend time on something else you love - go for a run, climb, swim, game of chess, whatever floats your boat and takes your mind off the situation for an hour. Make sure to keep contacts outside of the lab - and ideally academia. This helps to remember there's a whole world outside the small pond ruled by your PI.

@RazvanP If that's true, then I say go after the whole club. Expose them. Team up with other researchers on the web, and do the research your own way. Open source the whole project. Subvert. Protest. Upset the status quo. Make a difference in the world. Will it be scary? Probably, a little. But if everyone did this, think how much better off we would all be.

@RazvanP: In my experience, people within departments are often friendly enough that it’s a real concern, but if (as quite common) the university has some form of research integrity office/ombudsman/etc independent of individual departments, then that should be pretty trustworthy.

Sorry to have painful advice, but I suggest that you prioritize your own graduation over other concerns. I agree that the behavior is bad and seems to be unwarranted, but any action you take is likely to come back to wound yourself and not a person in a powerful position. The world isn't a perfect place and often enough not a very rational one.
There is some advantage, actually, to publishing with superstars, though they are different from first authorship. It is even possible that some of those others did, in fact, contribute but only through your advisor unknown to you. I don't think that is especially likely, but you won't be under this person's thumb for long if you take the long view and protect your own interests. If you do that, then you will have plenty of opportunities for first and sole author papers.
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

False authorship, degree forging for the students you like (attributing someone else's work to them), and discrimination against foreign students, are not "other concerns." Calling it perfectionism is beyond disgusting. Publicly supporting these behaviors while being a professor yourself is pure evil. I suggest your future advisees read this "advice" very carefully.

@yujaiyu I think this might be an extremely uncharitable reading of Buffy's answer, to the point of possibly misreading it entirely. For starters, I don't see any support for the professor's behavior in Buffy's answer, considering he says "I agree that the behavior is bad and seems to be unwarranted". The essence of Buffy's advice reads to me as  "tread VERY carefully when confronting a professor who dramatically outmatches you in resources, power, connections, and community esteem." One can argue whether or not this is good advice, and whether prioritizing one's own situation over pursuing...

...a more just outcome enables future misconduct. But I think it's going too far to say that any of Buffy's advice here is "pure evil", even if it's pragmatic in a way you find distasteful. Lastly, I don't think that the last sentence is saying that wanting the professor to face consequences is "perfectionism". My read is that it is saying that "in an ideal world, you could both graduate without obstacles and the professor would be held accountable for his actions, but a more realistic possibility is that you could damage your own career irreparably and the professor won't face any...

...consequences. It might be better for your own well-being to seek a 'good' outcome (i.e., graduating) and set this fight aside." Again, I'm not commenting on whether or not this is good advice, but I certainly don't read it as criticism of the OP or validation of the professor's actions, tacit or otherwise. Just my two cents.

@yujaiyu, you have seriously understood the intent of 'perfect'. I was writing of the effect for the OP. If you don't graduate, how do you win this game? No, I don't support the behavior, but the OP has more serious concerns.

@yujaiyu, the first rule of survival is to protect yourself.

Unfortunately, this is a pretty reasonable answer. I'd only add the suggestion of building a mentorship network beyond your advisor. In situations like this, either the advisor is someone that will not be a good mentor and should be avoided, or the student is missing some important context that is important for their professional development. I've heard horror stories from students that are completely the fault of terrible PhD advisors, and others that are completely misaligned expectations and lack of professional experience on part of the grad student. Mentorship networks help with both.

This is probably a pragmatic answer but it's unfortunate how normalized this behavior seems. I'm sure it's a big reason why the public has such little faith in science and institutions of higher learning, but I guess it's easier to blame fox news and twitter than to look in the mirror. (Not you personally or anything Buffy, I'm speaking in general)

OP: If you choose not to confront the matter though proper channels, and incur the abuse, then after graduating you should dump his name here publicly for all to see. Otherwise there is no justice and this behavior continues. Some people might think it unprofessional, but protecting an abuser's reputation is even worse, and it allows those who come after you to be harmed as well. But I think if there's someone you can talk to (integrity officer?), do that first.

@Mentalist "after graduating you should dump his name here publicly for all to see" Academia SE does not allow for accusations against specific individuals (and rightly so).

As much as I think this is a reasonable answer it is also the thing I straight up hate about research and one of the main reason that dissuaded me from pursuing a PHD. You are a student and forgot a reference? "Academic misconduct, plagiarism, you are the worst human being that ever existed and need to be expelled or see your career destroyed!" A professor straight up treats you like garbage, borderline steals your work and randomly includes authors in a paper as favors? "Well guess you need to bite the bullet, it may hinder your future to speak up and the world is not a perfect place anyway"

@AdamPřenosil I suppose you're right. I got a little reactionary in my comment because I felt so disgusted with the situation OP describes. But I would still say that taking steps toward justice is called for. What that looks like exactly, may require a more nuanced discussion.

@Buffy, "the first rule of survival is to protect yourself." That's right. However, we do not identify with the same side. You're protecting the abusive faculty member. I'm protecting the abused student. "The world's like that" kind of arguments aside. These are well understood to support the oppressors' positions.

@yujaiyu, I'm not protecting the advisor. You aren't protecting the student if you get them terminated. Yes, it is good to support the oppressed, but you need effective action to be able to do it.

Other two answers by @Buffy and @PBee provided useful but also contradictory advices. Therefore, I would like to add a few observations and suggestions.
"I did all the work by myself. However after I finished everything, my supervisor told me that he would revise the paper and submit it." Revision is also a part of the work. You cannot claim that you did all the work by yourself. Also, you have to be proactive and participate in the revisions.
"I learned about this only after the paper came back for revision." For the next paper, ask your supervisor to participate in writing the manuscript, offer your help. You have the right to see the manuscript before the submission. So again, make things happen, instead of waiting for them to happen to you.
"Everything is super hard as I get zero feedback from him and he only wants to see a fully finished paper with a novel discovery, otherwise I should not bother him." In your post, you do not describe how did you learn all the experimental tools in the lab. Someone must have taught you. Moreover, in many labs it is forbidden to work alone because of the safety reasons. Working alone is a serious violation of the safety protocols. Didn't you sigh the respective document?
" I can't even have a normal meeting with him, because he is always in a rush and trying to finish it as soon as possible." It helps sometimes to write an email with a list of points that you would like to discuss before the meeting.
"He also gave my two of his bachelor students, and he literally told me to perform all of their experiments and make all the visuals for their dissertations." Many PhD students are given some teaching duties. Maybe you are not doing exercises with students but instead doing labs with them. That is quite normal. Maybe students cannot formally do experiments in your lab because they are not given safety clearance and because they can break very expensive equipment. Therefore, you have to be present and help them. Instead, they acknowledge you in their bachelor theses, which, by the way, I never heard to be called dissertations. As for the "make all the visuals for their dissertations". If this means that you have to take a scan with an electronic microscope to which they have no safety clearance then you have to do that. Or you can make measurements in their presence and give them data points to plot.
"My lab mates published some papers and the supervisor's name was always last". This is typical. Your supervisor built the lab, applied for the funding and organised the research. Some argue that this does not warrant authorship. Maybe. Here, I would refer to the answer of @Buffy to "you prioritize your own graduation".
"I work with no weekends or holidays for at least 12h a day." It is completely Ok if you diversify your work. For instance, you do experiments 3 hours a day, document your experiments, arrange for the meetings, communicate with other scientists for another 3 hours, read papers for 3 hours, swim in a pool for 3 hours and plan your scientific activities for the next day.
Stay motivated and healthy no matter what, and avoid working on weekends.

No weekend gets extemely unhealty (especially if you direly need a free weekend, under the circumstances described) after a short while, so does working 10+ hours.

@Karl I do not support of working on weekends. This is very clear. But in big labs experiments are often running 24/7. We simply do not know the details. It can be a temporary necessity. Therefore, I did not address this point in my answer. On the other hand, in many labs it is forbidden to work alone and, therefore, working on weekends is not an option. Also, I strongly believe that scientific output only weakly correlates with the amount of working hours.

"My lab mates published some papers and the supervisor's name was always last" -- my understanding of what OP meant by this was an example of unfair treatment: OP's paper gets hijacked, but their lab mates' papers are treated normally.

@TheGuywithTheHat I see, you are right. I just re-read the OP question again and found "He put his before mine and added a bunch of people from another university." From the post, not possible to find the reason. But it is addressed in my answer a bit: one has to be proactive and do not only the drafting of the manuscript, but also engage in the subsequent revisions. From the post we do not know if it was a deliberate choice or the supervisor decision. I based my answer only on the facts presented in the post, without over-interpretation, one way or another.

Hi you've been offered some good advice by others and I won't retread that ground. I will say that your uni should have an academic integrity policy and specialised staff who advice on concerns and appeal/complaints avenues. At my institution (Australia) we have a such a policy and I am one of the academic integrity advisors. The number 1 issue I advise on is co-publishing. We're are very clear that only people who have made a direct contribution to a paper can be named. The order of author naming directly reflects the contribution of each author. Adding people as coauthors who didn't directly contribute or attributing first authorship to someone who didn't do the lion's share of the work is a beach of our policy and could be considered academic misconduct. My advice is to look for such a policy at your institution. Your institution should also offer an advisory service for students and, if like where I work, a specialist advisory service for international students. Find and tap into these. What I'm saying is you're not alone. You have rights. Your institution has a duty of care towards you. Oh one more thing, the academy is a stressful place as you're finding. You may not understand the pressures your supervisor is under. So, keep an open mind. Take care and I wish you all the best.

I totally support @PBee answer. Document everything! But someone has to say it: if you suspect academic misconduct, please report your suspicions. If your professor comes out as corrupt selling authorships or something like that, your name will be involved in the case and your career will be affected. Therefore: Document everything. Keep your version of the first manuscript. Keep all e-mails. You did what you could at your career stage. Your work has to be impeccably documented. That way there is no way they can blame you of misconduct in the future. There are already several cases where big professors are falling because of proven misconduct. Do not let this damage your future career or your name. And finish fast. Do you really need to have so many papers with that professor? or can you write a monograph thesis and be done with it. You already have one paper. Think about it.

If you have published 2 papers in top tier journals and have one more almost completed you have enough data to graduate this year. Focus on completing your lit review, if you haven't already, and make the 3 papers a chapter in your dissertation. Waiting to graduate next year is a waste of your time. Just finish now.


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Is it ethical to make money off your own lecture notes, lectures, or technical reports?
Recently, a non-tenured professor was fired by a small regional university. While several reasons were given, I find the main reasons questionable and want to check them against generally accepted norms:

The professor published his own lecture notes online, and at the bottom of each page, there was a "Buy me a coffee" link that allowed users to donate money directly to him. This link only appeared on the notes he made available through his professional website hosted on GitHub. He also had a version uploaded to the university's e-learning system, where students could download the PDF version without seeing the donation link.
The professor published YouTube videos in which he read his own lectures with some animations and illustrations. He monetized these videos and received profit.
The professor published several technical reports that summarized long and technical papers, as well as famous but complicated experiments, in a form that was understandable for students. These were also published on his professional site with the "Buy me a coffee" link.

Over the last few years, the professor made a small amount of money through these three sources. The university ruled that this broke the ethical code, even though there were no explicit clauses in the faculty handbook addressing these actions.
My question is: Regardless of the university's perspective, do any of these actions break the generally accepted ethical code?

Related question: Is it ethical to profit by having my students buy my textbook?

@NateEldredge, The professor in question did not sell any of these to his students. His students gets note and lectures without directly paying him. Presumedly, people outside his university donated.

I know the case is different.  I only said the question was related.

I wonder if any of his current (or future) students found the professional website and 'donated' money.

It's pretty SOP that a professor writes a (super-expensive) textbook and makes it (or even a specific fresh new edition that's near-indistinguishable from previous) obligatory for their course. THAT is unethical but normal.

@user3445853, agreed, but a simple solution is to return any royalty they earn (per copy) to students and let them know it is available. Professors don't set the price of those super expensive books and may consider them to be essential (new exercises, updated material, etc). And, most professors don't teach enough students that those royalties (maybe $5 per copy, and taxed) will make them wealthy. Only general sales to others can.

@mkennedy, The "Buy me a coffee" donations are unlikely to come from current students, as there is no significant increase during the semesters when he teaches those particular courses. Instead, there appears to be a constant stream of small donations, seemingly unrelated to his teaching assignments. As for "future" students, who can say.

In Germany the Professor would have to get permission for a side business, making this not an ethical but a contractual question.

@DonQuiKong I suspect that's true everywhere. Is this ethical? Almost certainly. But it may still be against the contract the guy signed with this "small regional college", and hence a fireable offence.

@user3445853 In my experience with professors who have done this, they generally make the text available for their own students, gratis.  For example, my phd advisor had a hidden directory of books on his university website for his students (books he has authored or coauthored).  Also, in my experience, the authors of these texts are not really trying to make a buck, and would prefer that their books were cheaper---but they don't set the prices.  There are exceptions, but as a general rule, no one is trying to get rich writing textbooks.

On a completely different note, there is also the possibility that the "ethical violation" was pretextual---it is possible that there is some other problem with the instructor which has not been made public (e.g. they've been sexually harassing undergraduates), and the side business provided a pretext for firing this instructor without potentially damaging the reputation of the institution.  One would have to be somewhat conspiracy-minded to buy into this exact set of circumstances, but it is very possible that the public record is not everything.

My view is that there was no ethical violation, absent contractual obligations made clear to the professor. There was no coercion of students to contribute, which would be a different matter.
There seems to be an active attempt, separating the sources, to avoid coercion and conflicts of interest, hence avoiding ethical issues.
Had the university claimed ownership of all IP through contract then it would be a different matter as well.
Professors write books and sell them. When bought by others than their own students there are no ethical issues. There are solutions here when the professor requires their own books, such as returning the value of any royalty to the student in exchange for the receipt. Then the professor, again, isn't coercing the student to their own benefit. The situation for other IP is the same as long as you haven't given up your rights.
Actually, the "cuppa coffee" sounds like a good idea.
Perhaps a lawyer should be consulted to find a way to avoid damage to one's reputation from being fired for "ethical violations" that aren't. Maybe not reinstatement, but an acceptable letter of recommendation from a dean, or such.

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@NuclearHoagie: I think the distinction is clear — imagine the professor has a side gig as a bartender or valet, it would be expected  to accept the tip. The tip isn’t being solicited in a context where the student has to go there, has to have the professor do something and there is or could be an undercurrent of “unless you want to fail this class”.  A tip for a prompt decision as to whether the class can be dropped is borderline extortion at best.  Contrast that with the YouTube monetization where the “tip” is anonymous and amounts to a fraction of a penny through watching an add…

This sounds petty and small-minded on the part of the university. As @Buffy pointed out, it’s common for professors to make small amounts of money from royalties on textbooks they’ve written. It's also less common, but also not terribly uncommon, for professors to make even large amounts of money (comparable to or exceeding their university salaries), from writing successful textbooks or from consulting gigs that often leverage the professor's reputation as an academic and benefit indirectly from the professor's ties to the university that employs him or her.
Considering these well-established norms in the US, it's hard to swallow the idea that a discreet "buy me a coffee" link posted alongside the professor's lecture notes, and similar small-scale educational initiatives with a monetization element (YouTube videos etc), constitute an ethical violation. The amounts of money these efforts yield are surely orders of magnitude smaller than the amounts of money many professors legitimately earn through textbook writing and other side enterprises that are tangential to their normal university work. And I see no real conflict of interest of any sort here. What is the university worried about? That the professor will be incentivized by all the coffee money donations to put in too much time into writing high quality lecture notes?
Seriously, this attitude seems very shortsighted. With these sorts of policies, the "small regional university" is virtually guaranteed to remain small and regional.

I’ve known one professor at a top university who was a millionaire from a successful book. Back when a million was real money.

The big factor is that students aren't pressured into paying. The fact that there is no donation link on the internal site, and it's only on the public-facing site where non-students can download it (and donation is optional even there) shows clearly that there is not even a hint of expectation from students to pay. As a contrast, I know of a case from a country with higher academic corruption, where a book report was mandatory for passing an exam, the book had to be personally ordered through the professor, and you'd fail the exam if you used a borrowed book instead of buying it.

@vsz agreed. A big reason for my assessment that this is not unethical behavior is that OP's description makes it seem like the professor has taken very sensible and thoughtful steps to avoid both the appearance of impropriety and actual impropriety.

I wonder if this was the actual reason the firing, or just a pretext.

It depends on how it was done, and we've been offered few of the relevant details.
There are scenarios that are covered by the description that clearly fall into the "don't do this" category, most of which would put the students in a situation where they feel like they need to purchase the prof's products (above and beyond a simple textbook).
So, if the "official" course material is pointing to a set of shadow course material that can generate a revenue trickle for the prof, yeah, I'd say that's not right.
Schools pay people to teach, and one's students should not be considered or treated like an advertising demographic.  All the material the students see should not have any shareware, volunteer-ware, fees that go to the prof appearing in them, as the students have already paid for the prof to be teaching them.
I have much fewer problems, if any, to the prof making the materials available to people who have not already paid to be taught -- though the university can certainly make the claim that they hold copyright if the material was developed as "work for hire", so this can get sticky.

though the university can certainly make the claim that they hold copyright if the material was developed as "work for hire":  I think that’s a pretty misleading statement. What you are saying applies also to the papers and books that academics write. And yet, in the US at least, it is generally accepted that professors hold the copyright on the material they create. Maybe universities could lay claim to it (that’s also debatable but I won’t get into the legal issues), but they don’t, and most have explicit policies stating that professors remain in control of their copyrighted material.

Also, while it’s true that students have paid to be taught, they have not paid for teaching materials, and again, there’s a norm in the US that students need to buy their own textbooks and that that’s not included with the tuition fee. Given that norm, it’s not clear to me that ethically it’s problematic to (for example) teach a course where you use your own textbook that students have to buy. And that’s not even what the professor in the question is doing - I do think the description in the question gives us enough information to determine that the behavior is not unethical.

@DanRomik -- I started an email conversation with my US University Counsel on just this issue, and they very clearly let me know that this university considers (or at least considered at the time) teaching materials to be works for hire.  I believe this is currently under review, but it's certainly where we were about 5 years ago.  Of course, this, like any other legal issue, can be contested in court should one have the resources to do so.

Further, this issue came up in the coursework I was taking on developing online coursework from our school of Education, and the expert on pedagogy who was teaching this course considers this a matter of contention

The actual quote from my email train with Counsel is "Hi Scott, if the work was produced by you as an employee (as faculty, researcher, staff, or doctoral student, etc.) as part of your University responsibilities and/or used substantial University resources to produce, then the work is considered Work for Hire under XX [name removed for a bit of privacy] policy. "

I never said it was wrong to require students to use your textbook.  Student do need to buy reading materials to support a course, and if the prof's textbook meets the need, fine.  What I'm saying is wrong is using your students as a captive audience to constantly advertise your revenue stream.  Of course, we have no way of knowing if this is or isn't the situation existing in this question, but it's certainly a possibility.

Okay, thanks for the clarification. Always interesting to hear how different institutions approach these sorts of issues.

@ScottSeidman  From AAUP "_it has been the prevailing academic practice to treat the faculty member as the copyright owner of works that are created independently and at the faculty member’s own initiative for traditional academic purposes. Examples include class notes and syllabi; books and articles; ... This practice has been followed for the most part, regardless of the physical medium in which these “traditional academic works” appear; that is, whether on paper or in audiovisual or electronic form."

@ScottSeidman, to clarify, students receive "clean" copies of the notes and technical reports that do not include donation links. YouTube videos are a different matter; students are not required to watch them and are not informed about their existence.

@timmy, yes, that's AAUP summary of "prevailing" policy, but if it were in place everywhere, they wouldn't need to use "prevailing".  The policy statement, which doesn't bind anyone, is at aaup.org/report/statement-copyright  -- but see the section on "Unilateral Institutional Policies".

@ScottSeidman,The section on "Unilateral Institutional Policies" is saying universities have no power to unilaterally declare all traditional academic work as Work for Hire: "The Copyright Act, however, explicitly requires that a transfer of copyright... If the faculty member is indeed the initial owner of copyright, then a unilateral institutional declaration cannot effect a transfer..." This section ends with the strongly worded overall assessment that "Such powers, so deeply inconsistent with fundamental principles of academic freedom, cannot rest with the institution."

Yes,@Timmy, that is the AAUP take on things -- not the universitys', or at least not every university (or the AAUP wouldn't need to make the statement, would they?).  I never said the "work for hire" policies were defensible, or right, but where they exist, they are real.  I think my description as "sticky" is accurate enough.

Like others, I see no problem with monetising lecture notes on your own website provided that students receive a non-monetised version.
Based on clarifications in the comments, I suspect the sticking point might be:

YouTube videos are a different matter; students are not required to watch them and are not informed about their existence.

Taking things that you have to produce anyway as part of your job, or at least are producing primarily for the benefit of the students, and monetising them on the side, is one thing. Creating extra material solely for the purpose of monetising it is quite different. If the professor was using work time (or even work equipment) to make these videos, that would be difficult to justify.

Buying books is anonymous. The professor does not see who buys his book.
Donating money could be perceived as bribery. I would never allow a student to pay for my coffee or buy me lunch. It would look unethical and feel plain wrong. The university might feel that the donation link is a similar case.
Personally, I would not ask for donations as a professor, as I would expect little income compared to much potential troubles.

Students had a dedicated download page: "He also had a version uploaded to the university's e-learning system, where students could download the PDF version without seeing the donation link." What the student does on the wide internet, should not be a matter of concern for the professor.

If the professor self-publishes the book and manages sales directly, they most likely will not be anonymous. Conversely, donating money through a ‘buy me a coffee’ link can be anonymous and/or aggregated data. In other words, there is no distinction of anonymity between the two scenarios: either can be anonymous or not.

Who is presumably bribing the professor? If a student wants to bribe their professor for good grades, they can do it whether or not they have a website distributing their material. And if the professor can be induced to falsify grades for the price of a cup of coffee, the university is obviously not paying them a reasonable wage.

This is wrong on two counts. There is no "bribery" involved as the students are specifically not asked to tip. A required textbook can be a problem if the professor doesn't deal somehow with the royalty issue, but that is not the case here. Read the original post. The "ask" is specifically directed at non-students and students are given all necessary materials. There is no coercion implied in the post.

Suppose a student finds the "tips" page and decides to contribute an outrageous amount, making their identity known. Then it is clearly a bribe but a professor can simply return it to the student with an admonishment. But that intent of soliciting bribes is nowhere in the original post.

@Buffy You are arguing wrong, because you are arguing reasonable and comparative. Comparativeness was clearly not involved when the professor was laid off because of his behavior.

"Buy me a coffee" is the name of the platform that facilitates authors (creators) to receive funding support from individual readers. The professor is not asking readers to literally buy him coffee. This can be better compared to a "pay-as-you-want" model for e-texts.

There’s no such thing as anonymous donations being bribery.

@Timmy It is less about the actual thing, but its potential perception as being questionable. I don't think it is an issue. Have you ever considered, other people with less knowledge regarding an online donation service might come to a different conclusion?

@usr1234567, That's a good point. Perhaps the university can state that while it doesn't break the ethical code, it creates enough confusion that some students may perceive it as an ethical violation, potentially harming the university's reputation. I still question if that's a sufficient reason to fire anyone. But that's an angle I didn't consider.

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How to deal with terrible research and poor mental health?
I'm a master student employed at a company as a co-op intern.  For the first half to two-thirds of the program I had really poor mental health and had extreme difficulty to focus on anything. I only recovered a little during the last third of the program (still worse than my usual state). I could only scrabble together a so-called research project in the final months just so I had something to show during meetings, which I'm already very unhappy with. Now, months later, I just realised that in my panicked state I forgot to do even some basic research on existing literature. This is both mortifying and makes me feel like I have wasted so much time.
The master program is ending soon and the plan is to stay at the company after graduation. Despite being unhappy with the work I've done, I don't think my graduation is directly at risk. My supervisors at the company and the university all expressed interest in continuing working on the project and maybe pursue some kind of publication.
My questions:

How to talk about the situation with them without appearing incompetent or using mental health as an excuse etc? I feel it's important to clean up the situation with my supervisors for the sake of planling future works.
How open should I be with my supervisors at the university vs. the company?
Since working on this project has been such a painful and futile experience, I find myself repulsed by the prospect of continuing working on it. But I don't have a good reason to abandon it. Is there any suggestion on how to make this less unpleasant?

Although I'm not necessarily pursuing anything in academia in the foreseeable future, I'd very much like to keep a good relationship with my academic supervisor.

I wonder whether on the side of the supervisor or the company there is actually any perception that something went wrong. Did they raise any issues with you, did you get any critical feedback? From reading your text it may well be (of course I can't know for sure) that you're overly critical with yourself but in fact compared to others even in the state in which you are you're doing an OK job? "Clean up the situation" - not sure how much there is to clean up.

If you had a broken leg, you would get medical help. If you have mental issues, get assistance. There is no shame in it. Maybe that assistance only requires you to have some quality time with somebody you trust who you can confide in. A glass of wine or coffee or herbal tea and a hand to hold can do wonders.  I hope things work out for you.

You are a masters student, it's really unusual to have independently conducted research that ticks all the boxes at that level. You probably see other people around you publishing, but know that they likely were very supported in that work. The reason they never seemed to slip up is likely heavy handed supervision. Don't compare yourself to those who effectively worked as another pair of hands for their supervisor, that's not the same thing at all. Both activities are valuable, and can teach different things.

I think you need to look at this project with fresh eyes. Pretend that someone else had done the work and you had to decide what to do next.

Does the research question still seem viable/interesting? Answering this may require doing the literature review that you should have done some time ago.

Do you trust any of your previous results?
a. If not, what would it take to make you trust them? Can you fix them up within a week or two?
b. If so, are the results promising?

Did you build tools that might be useful for future work? If they are not in a good state, what would it take to improve them?

Can you boil down your "story" to one sentence? "Up to now, I did ___; next I will focus on __"? Even if the previous work seems insignificant to you, it is still helpful (for you and for others) to factorize the project like this.

After you have objectively inventoried the situation, you will be in a better position to decide how to proceed (or whether you want to proceed).
As for talking to your supervisors, I would try to strike the right balance:

They will likely welcome technical discussion of the above points, including your recommendations and your level of interest in continued work.
If you like, you can acknowledge that you are not happy with your past performance and believe you will be able to do better in future. This is likely to be a welcome admission regardless of whether or not they have noticed a problem.
Give a candid assessment of what the project would need. You can avoid framing this as "I did a bad job and here's what it would take to fix it." Rather, frame it neutrally: "Currently, we have X but to do this properly, I would need to build Y."
If you would like to share your mental health concerns, you can, but be concise. Even if your boss or professor is understanding, you should avoid using them as a therapist. Rather, think about what they need to know in order to objectively accommodate and evaluate you.

How to talk about the situation with them without appearing incompetent or using mental health as an excuse?

You could consider getting a psychiatrist to write a formal letter about your condition/state. It has the legitimacy of a medical excuse, and the formality of the business world. It’s also concise. I would be surprised if they did not respond with understanding. The people you work with may have had the same experiences, unbeknownst to you.
Second, find someone in the organization you find understanding to talk with. Set an appointment for a private meeting, or find a moment to speak aside with them. I know someone who had an anxiety disorder related to phone calls. She explained it to her boss and they were more than willing to adapt her job to fit her needs.

I feel it's important to clean up the situation with my supervisors
for the sake of planling future works.

Consult with psychologists to establish a treatment plan. Include in your medical report that you are cooperating with doctors to address the problem.

How open should I be with my supervisors at the university vs. the company?

The type of organization isn’t important, it is the personality of who you work with and the work culture. Understanding professors/bosses will be understanding. Unempathetic ones will not be.

Since working on this project has been such a painful and futile experience, I find myself repulsed by the prospect of continuing working on it. But I don't have a good reason to abandon it.

If you find another job or preoccupation, that would be as good a reason as any to move to something different.

Is there any suggestion on how to make this less unpleasant?

Psychological treatment. Psychiatrists and psychotherapists can offer you different management strategies.
(From personal experience, going on 3 medications has helped me almost indescribably.)

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What to do during summer to earn income? (tenured faculty)
I am a tenured professor of mathematics (applied mathematics).
This year, unfortunately, I do not have enough funding for my own summer salary.
I can see there are plenty of visiting positions
for early career researchers.
But I haven't seen any summer positions for
older (in academic age) professors.
How can I find other summer opportunities
within academia with reasonable income?
Some clarifications:

At least in my corner of academia, salaries are relatively low; I do not think that parsing out my 9-month salary over 12 months would be reasonable. And tenured professors generally cannot get unemployment benefits
in the US.
I am talking about academic positions; other options like waiting tables are not of interest.
Teaching summer classes at my institution may be an option, but I don't really want to
as no course in my area of specialty will be offered in the summer.

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Spend the time solving your direct problem: write more grant proposals.

I personally think this is a practical suggestion. Writing grant proposal will not solve the immediate problem, but it will help to solve the financial situation in the future.

I don't think anybody here can answer this question, since we do not know what marketable skills you have. Teaching summer school is not so bad. However, if you have to starve because your nine-month salary is not sufficient, you might need to consider a career change. I hope for you that this is just hyperbole.

I am in a similar position in an institution that does not pay a reasonable salary, even to tenured professors. For 10+ years I've solved the issue by (1) teaching night classes during the semester, (2) teaching half summers, and (3) doing non-academic work during the second half of the summer.
This might sound like a lot of work, but it's less work and more enjoyable than it seems.
Students taking night classes and summer classes tend to be more motivated, and come from a different population. Instead of 18-year-olds rolling their eyes and looking at their phones, I get 25-30 year-olds wanting to learn. It's super refreshing to teach people who want to learn. These classes make up almost half of my income, so yes, almost a 100% salary increase for something I love doing.
Before I came to academia many decades ago, I worked in the trades. I use those skills to do contract work for half of the summer. It pays really well and the physical work clears my mind.
With the combination of the income sources I'm able to travel to conferences despite meager support from the university, buy books, computer equipment, finance my own field research, etc., and enjoy financial stability at home.
I've tried writing grants and have received many (small/med size), but after counting the hours spent writing, administering, and reporting, they have never been worth it for me. Same thing for summer fellowships, visiting appointments, etc.

You don't say what your area of specialization is, but consulting to industry or government is sometimes possible. But since this is last minute (relatively) you may not have time for that.  You also don't mention what kind of institution you are at, which can make a difference. One option might be to teach at another institution, which could be interesting and a change of pace.  Or teach a course in a new area, maybe even something like a freshman level, general education course which if you haven't done before can be an eye-opener.
You might want to look into what opportunities there are for at last some funding at your institution.  Since you usually have grants you many not be aware of this, but many programs would be so happy to have a math faculty member engage (especially if your department tends to be people who are not engaged on campus).
I'm not in math, but some ways I have been paid in the summer over many years as a faculty member.

Stipends for mentoring student researchers.
Payment to create a new course.
Payment to develop a proposal for a new program.
Consulting for other people's research projects.
Payment for designing and running our summer bridge program.
Running a faculty development program.
Participating in a faculty development program.
Payment to create an open educational resource to replace a costly text book.
Writing a commercial book.
Summer advising and summer chair.

But at a certain point, you have to decide how much chasing you want or need to do.  I also realized that family time, vacation and time to write at my own pace made it so that doing a ton of projects in the summer was not.

Start an educational YouTube channel. Though it'll need time to take off. I knew a faculty member (incidentally a mathematician) who was bartending for extra income and another one who was bartending once per week.
On a more serious suggestion, I'd ask around for opportunities in tech companies (paid summer internships) or labs that may not pay well, but can nevertheless add to your CV. Find something you always liked to do and try it. Also, you may use your network, colleagues, and students alike.
Edit:
After the question was modified, I believe that the only options remaining would resemble the options a Faculty member on Sabbatical has. They usually look for institutions to host them, for a semester or year. They usually do research and/or teaching there, as far as I know, but I'm a little outside my depth here.
If I were in your shoes, I would ask colleagues for research opportunities that might pay. Even if they don't pay well now, opportunities like that might help you expand your research agenda so that you may be able to find more grants in the future so that you won't run into these sorts of problems again (I would think of them as an investment). I'd also look for community colleges, liberal art colleges, and large state universities in my area (and nearby of course), and ask whether they offer summer teaching opportunities. Teaching a new class at your institution will expand your teaching arsenal so I would think about that too. In general, I would tap into my network of friends, colleagues, and acquaintances for help and ideas. I would also do some soul-searching to find out things I always wanted to do but didn't. Good luck!

I could be wrong, but paid summer internships tends to be designed for younger people. In my younger years, I have interned for tech companies. They hire fresh PhDs or even postdocs for Summer interns. I don't recall seeing a single tenured professor.

I agree, but I suggested that option because of my experience learning a new skill at an older age. In which case interning becomes a probable option again. Tech companies might even need your research expertise in applied mathematics in which case a research direction might open for you. Good luck in any case!

Making money from YouTube involves a lot of luck and a lot of uncertainty, and also requires a lot of time, over a long ideally-continuous period of time. So it's not a great option for a reliable income during summer. Educational channels also tend to be less popular, so it's harder to make money from them (although there's also less competition, so maybe those balance out).

I know it's a joke but just so people know, 99% of people who post videos on Youtube make almost no money from it.  Certainly over the course of one summer you aren't going to make any money.

There are several programs aimed at fostering international collaborations through short-term visiting positions which accept senior academics such as tenured professors.
Two examples are the Humboldt Research Fellowship for Germany and the Invitational fellowships for Japan, but there are many similar programs. These programs can be offered through nation-wide calls, but many smaller ones are offered by specific universities or research institutions. There are also smaller grants with similar purposes.
However, note that many of these fellowships have the objective of supporting longer-term collaborations (i.e., extending beyond the visiting period) with researchers in the host institution. Moreover, some of them can be very competitive due to the limited amount of positions, and the applications often have to be made well in advance of the visits.

In USA, college professor only get 9 month salary. So such temporary unemployment will be an annual occurrence.

Given that tenured connotes security, freedom, ought to connote 'top-notch' research, and those perks, one should

take the pain of infancy: temporal relative income at the early stage and
build up research
engage extensively
attract funding
obviously bringing all three into writing grants proposal

Would that put money into OP account this summer. Doesn't look like it.
Will it solve or assist with future occurrence, it would.
The freedom that comes with tenured grants the leeway for research and engagements that might bring lasting academic revenue for years to come.
Note that, some get visiting through their research visibility and collaboration/engagements.
Am I suggesting that it's a walk in the park? Nope. Some have it pretty tough.
PS: I'm also not suggesting the pathway of publish or perish.

"Given that tenured connotes 'top-notch' research" - not even close.

I use my math skills to earn money where it's easiest to earn money, and that's by trading on the stock market. This does require mastering some basic skills, it's quite easy to master for anyone with a decent math background. If you are creative with your math sills you can easily outperform most traders and get to decent profits. This has become a lot easier in recent years due to the large number of  of retail traders who are just gambling with 0DTE options.
A big advantage for earning an income this way is that where I live, there is no capital gains tax. This mean that my income is officially zero. I only pay tax over my possessions the effective tax over every dollar earned from trading on the stock market is then extremely low. This has prompted many successful traders to move to countries where they don't have a capital gains tax. For example, Dubai is popular place for traders to emigrate to,
Earning money by trading the stock market leaves me with enough time and money to pursue my scientific interests. I publish my research results in peer reviewed journals just like I did when I was working in academia. However, I'm publishing less frequently because the projects I work on are longer term projects. There is now no pressure on me to do anything I don't want to do to get to more publications per year.

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Is it ok to withdraw from a PhD when receiving another job offer?
I received admission to a Ph.D. offer in the US with an assistantship that would cover my tuition and living expenses for Fall 2021. At the same time, I received a 10 days consultancy contract with the WBG to be completed by the end of June 2021. This consultancy contract may be extended based on performance and needs. Now, I have always wanted to work for the WBG, but I am very confused whether I move on and accept the PhD offer while doing the 10 days, then withdraw from the Ph.D. if am offered a longer contract. Or, I just move on with the Ph.D. because contract extension is not really guaranteed. Bear in mind that I am an international student and I need to start the visa process to move to the US by fall. What can I do? Is it ok to withdraw from a Ph.D. after accepting the offer and before starting the classes?

oWhat is WBG? is it the financial exploitation arm of the US government or Western Bainoona Group?

Only start a PhD if you are really sure you want a PhD.

In the US, you can withdraw at any time, even after starting. If you  have signed a contract for some services, then you may have to deal with that, but most universities will let it go since those services can almost always be handled by other people.
People leave doctoral education for lots of reasons.
But I suggest you think long term about your career and whether a job is preferable to a doctorate.

Bear in mind that I am an international student and I need to start
the visa process to move to the US by fall. What can I do? Is it ok to
withdraw from a Ph.D. after accepting the offer and before starting
the classes?

That is the tricky part. Depending on circumstances, your visa may be linked to the PhD, it may even be a visa that prevent you from working. Too many unknowns to give you a specific answer.

Excellent point in general, but I suspect that the World Bank Group can manage the visa problem for someone it wants to hire. But yes, a visa for study is very different from one for work.


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Interview by fellow PhD students, not the professor himself
I just finished my first Ph.D. interview, but the one who interviewed me is a fellow student. Next week, another fellow student will also interview me. I am just really confused. Is this a sign that I get a rejection, because normally the professor will be the one to do the interview, not the PhD students? I can't shake the feeling that they use these interviews as practice on their sides. The professor did not even reply to me. He only replied one time and after that, his students contacted me, not him.
Is this bad?

We cannot predict if you will be selected.

I agree that it's weird; moreover, I'd say it's so weird that it's impossible to predict the outcome.

The one who interviewed me today just contacted me asking to share the slide I present today, I reply by asking what is the content of the next interview because I feel weird for giving them my slides, which is also my knowledge and myself. The whole thing is kind of weird to me until now.

She told me that the interview with the professor will be next week, but I am so worried that why they did this. Do they take me seriously or just for practicing other students' skills?

Is the interview for an experimental PhD, with a lot of work in the lab or in the field? Then this interviews style may mean exactly the contrary: your CV makes you a good fit, so the professor wants you as a person being evaluated by the people he/she trusts and the people you will spend n-thousands of hours with.
Additionally, it would be a quite convoluted way to reject you. The PhDs are not working for free, each hour not spent on science/paper/collecting data is a wasted hour.

Regarding slides: in some environment it is even common to deliver them in advance, so the in-person meeting is more proficient, and they provide a basis for the report of the meeting (not that I agree with this, but it is done).
You can always send a revised version of the slides, holding back some material/figures and leaving empty boxes (for example for figures you are not sure you have the rights, figures that proved wrong, etcetc)

@Lauren: "Do they take me seriously or just for practicing other students' skills?" Hmm, I'm under the impression that the main source of confusion here is that you perceive a contradiction where there actually is none: It is absolutely possible for a professor to take you completely seriously, to let the PhD student do the first interview for very good reasons and, at the same time, to also see it as a opportunity to practice the other student's skills. (It also seems unlikely that if the professor weren't taking you seriously, they would spent their own time on the second interview.)

The professor can be abroad. If s/he sitting in the office nearby, then the whole story is odd. I can only say that there is no way to infer a rejection a priori. And the good point is that, if even it is, you should not work with such a prof anyway. Also I upvoted Early Grey comment above.

The professor did not even reply to me it will be strange if a professor replies by email to a student actually.  So nothing is abnormal about not getting a reply back.  It seems 99% of professors do not reply to email. Not sure why that is.

@Nasser well that might be true but it is not normal giving the circumstances. The normal behaviour would be to put the applicant and whoever assist the supervisor in touch, even by email, and at least.

Is this a sign that I get a rejection, because normally the professor will be the one to do the interview, not the PhD students?

No. It is not logically possible for the professor to think you should be invited for an interview and yet decide to reject you at the same time, ahead of conducting an interview. A decision to reject someone can be made after the interview, or before deciding whether to interview the person, but not between those two events.
If he had you interviewed by his PhD students, that means this is the process he thinks will work best for his schedule and decision making needs.

OP states "I can't shake the feeling that they use these interviews as practice on their sides.". This would be a possible (unlikely?) explanation for being invited to an interview despite the decision to reject already having been made.

@Martin-ReinstateMonica I've at least had interviews (PhD, Postdoc level) where I spent only a presentation I gave with the prof and then had 1-1 talks only with their PhDs and sometimes Postdocs. Some profs trust the recommendation of their colleagues regarding factual knowledge/technical qualification (and perhaps what they can get from papers and presentations) and then mainly want you to be a good collaborator for their other PhD students.

That's not necessarily true. They could've interviewed someone else before OP and decided to hire the first person, hence putting less effort into interviewing OP.

@Elodin I suppose so, but in that case they should have (and most probably would have) cancelled the interview. This explanation, while theoretically possible, does not sound likely enough for OP to spend any time worrying about.

@Elodin's point could still be true if the rival candidate was interviewed a few minutes before the OP - perhaps the prof was so impressed that conversation overran.  But I don't actually believe that.  Whenever I've been involved in postgrad (and postdoc) recruitment, from both sides, interviews or similar but less formal meeting conducted by the prospective peers have been an important part of the process.  The only thing I see as a little odd is two separate interviews by existing students before anything with the prof.

Guys, actually I already got the interview with the prof on that very same day. I think he just wanted to let me talk to the Ph.D. student first then take it from that. Good that I talked to the professor. It was more like a chat, than an interview, but I'm still worried a bit for my last interview on Monday :))

No, I did not. I didn't really have time for that. It is only around 60 minutes interview and too much to discuss. Everything seems oke.... I hope.

I also think it is odd, but not necessarily a negative. Indeed, the professor might be giving their students some workplace experience in this. But they might also be wanting to introduce you to them and conversely.
My best guess is that the professor is very busy and wants all available inputs before interviewing you. It may also be that their small group is very collegial and take one another's ideas very seriously.
There is never a guarantee about how such things turn out, of course, but if you are accepted by this professor I'd guess that it would be a good place to be - but also that you'll be asked to interview others in the future.
Odd? Yes. A clear negative? No.

Also believe this is likely due to the Professor being busy / won't be bothered with doing interviews.

@einpoklum perhaps only interviewing a very short shortlist at the last stage, so they have to conduct 1-2 interviews despite several worthy applicants.

I don't work in academia - I work in the real world (in software development).  I have been a grad student twice in my life though (once, not that long ago)
Interviewing with peers is pretty common in industry (at least in the software business).  Your potential peers know and understand what you are expected to know and understand.  They also have a feel for what kind of person may succeed in the environment they work in.
By off-loading first (and perhaps subsequent) interviews to "peers", the professor gets to reduce the time he/she needs to spend interviewing folks.  It's not that uncommon (in my experience) to bring someone in and find out that the sterling CV upon which you based the interview invitation is riddled with overstatements (and, if you dig a bit, it's often with someone with a family member or a good friend in the field).
As @TaliesinMerlin points out, one of your goals when talking to potential peers is to find out as much as you can about the department, your potential PI, etc. - even campus social life and housing.  They see things from a student's perspective and are less likely to oversell the potential of the position.  You'll likely get more from them than you will from the PI.
Plan to be a little more humble when you are talking with potential peers than you will be with professors.  Selling yourself too hard can turn some folks off.
Consider this an opportunity.

I attended a graduate school where a PhD student conducted at least one formal interview, in addition to other interviews from faculty and opportunities to meet people more informally (lunches, dinners). The PhD student interview was a part of the overall decision of acceptance, because the PhD student could gauge several qualities about the applicant:

interest in service
collegiality with relative equals
fit between personal goals and program strengths
how interests align with the current cohorts
overall curiosity and interest in the program

Giving PhD students practice in interviewing was a secondary benefit; the interview was earnest, and applicants who didn't take it seriously risked rejection. They probably have their reasons for asking you to interview with PhD students. This is also true if you are ever a job candidate and they ask you to meet with students in the program. At the very least, they want to know how you interact with students.
Graduate schools are rarely transparent about their exact admissions process, but it's possible to find references to meeting with graduate students in materials online:

Grad school interviews—in which aspiring graduate students meet with prospective advisers, colleagues, and other students—are opportunities to connect, engage in scientific conversations, and get a hands-on feel for the graduate programs and broader communities. (June Gruber and Jay J. Van Bavel, "To ace your Ph.D. program interviews, prepare to answer--and ask-- these key questions." ScienceMag.org.)

A more in-depth interview. This interview is the real interview that might include multiple people, and might involve a trip to campus. You will meet with several people, either individually or as a group. You might even meet with other doctoral students. ("PhD Interviews: What Does an Interview Mean for a PhD Doctorate in Business?" r3ciprocity.)

PRO TIP #6: Talk to grad students! Grad students are going to be the most honest with you about what a program is really like. Faculty members will try to make it seem like their program is the best one in the world, but grad students will tell you the real deal. LISTEN TO THEM! ("PhD Admissions: Interviews!" A First-Gen's Guide to Grad School).

Thanks for your sharing. A very 'academic' style!

I would not think that this immediately implies a rejection. It is normal that a professors want that new PhD students get along with other PhD students. Hence, they might have some weight in the professor's decision. If it was already clear that you will be rejected, they wouldn't bother for a second interview.
I agree that it is a bit odd that the professor apparently does not do any interview on their own. But regarding the decision, I do not think that it has to be bad.

All I can think of is that only they want to practice interview skills for their fellow students and do not take me seriously....

She told me that the interview with the professor will be next week, but I am so worried that why they did this. Do they take me seriously or just for practicing other students' skills?

I've done a lot of hiring in industry and your resume and technical credentials get you the interview. In general, the interview process is more focused on cultural fit, are we a fit for you and are you a fit for us. This could be this office's way to measure the fit by having individual staff interviews with you. I would expect PhD students to be mature enough to inform staffing decisions.

As a former academic it was my experience academics are often:

lazy
overthinkers
extremely busy
none of the above

If they are lazy they will get students to do the work for them.
If they are overthinkers they might have read research that suggests PhD student interviews are better performed by PhD students.
If they are extremely busy sometimes they remember to delegate.
There is no one-size-fits-all answer to your question.
Additionally, while your interview is very important to you, chances are it is not to the academic.

It is certainly possible that the professor is not interviewing you because of his lack of interest in hiring you. It's also possible that this is his standard for interviewing potential students. Interviews are a time investment for the interviewer, and they are unlikely to interview candidates without a good reason to do so (usually that they might accept the candidate).
However, and I did not see this answer given, why would the format of the interview affect your preparation or effort for it? There's a good chance that this is a real interview, and if not, how would you know for sure?

In one of my interviews, I was interviewed simultaneously by the professor and one of his students. I think this was both to give the student some experience (perhaps they will be interviewing others by themselves later on- perhaps for more low-key positions like student interns), and also to allow me to ask questions about what it is like to be a PhD student there. Of course, I didn't really have freedom in what to ask here because the professor was present, but I could ask very generic things about the atmosphere in the department etc.
The PhD student was also a pretty cool guy, and I felt like he was trying to convince me to come. Ngl he was pretty good at selling the school- much better than the professor.

Can you please share that do you get accepted or not?

This is an opportunity, not a problem.
I'm admittedly not quite as familiar with the standard practice in academia, but I would like to point out that this appears to mirror a common practice in industry. In industry, initial interviews will typically be conducted by a recruiter or other human resources professional, not the hiring manager. They will then pass along candidates that they think might be suitable to the hiring manager.
Also, it's completely normal for potential coworkers (not just the hiring manager) to interview people. A good Manager will want to make sure that existing employees can work effectively with the candidate. This also allows you to see if you can work with the existing team - interviews are, after all, a two-way street.
I strongly suggest that you use this as an opportunity to learn more about what it's like to work for the professor, what the projects are like, and how well you could work with the other students. If you find the other students in the lab hard to work with, you'll find it hard to work in that lab regardless of how much you like the professor or the work.
Finally, it's good practice for interviews once you finish school and try to get a job in academia or industry.
Also:

I can't shake the feeling that they use these interviews as practice on their sides.

What's wrong with that? It's good experience for them, and it has a lot of other advantages too.

I can think of several possibilities that shouldn't necessarily discourage you to consider.
There could have been (or still could be) a problem with another student's interaction with the two students you'll interview with, and to put their minds at ease and help ensure there isn't a repeat the professor decided to get impressions from them directly.
Or one of these students is valuable but hard to get along with, and this is a check to see if you are comfortable with them or not.
Another possibility is that the professor knows or has acknowledged that they aren't particularly skilled or intuitive at identifying who will make a good or bad student, or who will or won't work out well in the research group, and so has decided (perhaps wisely) to get input from others.
Don't worry about it, as other answers point out it's an advantage for you to have the opportunity to interview current students. It's pretty normal for students to rely to some extent on each other both for research and in understanding/managing their professor :-) So your impression of them may factor in to your decision if you want to continue or not with the interview process or accept a potential offer.
One step at a time. "Never turn down a job that hasn't been offered to you yet!"


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Can a publisher make substantial edits and publish them without the author, editor, and designer's permission?
After spending nine months to create a catalog, I submitted the completed layout to the organization paying for the printing of the book under intense pressure to get done. I curated the exhibitions the catalog accompanies, commissioned all the essays (and wrote one), hired the photographer, coordinated the photo shoots, found a co-editor to assist with copy-editing, and did all the design and layout single-handedly and on-time. At no point did the organization offer significant assistance (the person who was supposed to work with me took 11 weeks of leave while I worked). I submitted the completed book three weeks ago and recently learned that after refusing to collaborate with me or assist in the creation of the book, edits are being made without my knowledge or approval. No one associated with the project that I'm aware of signed away copyright. Do we have any recourse?

Probably not appropriate for this website. I would think the answer depends on what kind of contract or other agreement you have with the publisher.

If you didn't sign away the copyright, I suspect that few publishers will be willing to actually publish anything.

I don't see any connection with academia.  Is this organization a university?

@TerryLoring Organizing a exhibition and the associated catalogue is an accepted form of publication in some fields of history/archeology.

Did the publisher hire an editor? That seems fine--they might have in-house style guides they need to follow. Have you asked them about the next steps after this round of review? Perhaps you will be able to look over the rest for final review?

The university also hired me to edit the book.

There is no style guide. Thanks to those who engaged with the issue. The catalog includes contributions from curators and art historians, but perhaps my clumsy phrasing prompted the dismissal of my question as not appropriate.

If you have copyright then you have rights. If they have copyright then they can make (most) changes as they like as long as they don't plagiarize.
Note that books, as opposed to scholarly papers, normally get filtered through a copy editor before publication. Typically they will ask authors to verify the results, but don't necessarily need to agree when there are objections provided they have copyright.
Copy editors have different levels of skill in the subject of the book. Some are very good. The copy editor probably has a style guide, different from yours, that they are required to adhere to. A book publisher also has some constraints, such as length and such as well as a desire for a consistent look throughout and even consistency with other works.
As a silly example, perhaps you love Oxford Commas and they might hate them. They are likely to prevail.
But if you hold copyright and don't have some other contract, you can withdraw the work if you don't like what is happening. Otherwise you need to work within the limits imposed.
So, first determine who, exactly holds copyright and whether any contracts have been signed. Then, if you can and want to withdraw the work, make sure you understand the consequences and have a plan for what to do afterwards.

Note, for another silly (perhaps) example, that George R. R. Martin probably doesn't prevail in all arguments with movie producers and directors working on Game of Thrones related material.


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Advice for online PhD interview presentation
I recently applied for an advertised PhD project and I've made it to the interview stage. For the interview I have been asked to prepare a 5-minute presentation explaining (1) why I am interested/attracted to the project and (2) what skills and attributes I will bring to the research/project. I will also not be allowed to use PowerPoint, to deliver the presentation. As far as I'm aware, it will be a freeform presentation. I knew that I would have to do some sort of presentation, but honestly I expected them to ask me to present about a recent research project of mine or about this PhD project. And the fact that I can't use PowerPoint threw me off a bit. I have emailed the primary supervisor asking if I would be allowed a presentation/notes off-screen to refer to, but he is yet to respond. Does anyone have any advice for doing a freeform PhD interview presentation?
I'm thinking of just preparing my presentation on PowerPoint so it makes it easier for me to practice. If I'm then allowed to have the presentation on my screen during the interview I'm already sorted. Here's the structure I have planned so far:
Slide 1: Introduce myself, my degree, what I'm currently doing, what do I want to do (For background, I currently research spider behaviour, but I've long been interested in climate change-related research. This PhD focuses on climate change but has components of invertebrate research that allow me to transition. I also feel like mentioning this in my introduction sets up the next section 'why are you interested' pretty well)
Slide 2: Why am I interested in a PhD, why am I interested in this specific project, what are my motivations, how this project aligns with my future goals
Slide 3: What skills will I bring, fieldwork relevant skills such as sampling techniques, research skills, communication skills (written, verbal and interpersonal), self-management skills (ability to work with minimal supervision), organisational and time-management skills
Slide 4: Summary, demonstrate my passion for the project, focus on why it aligns with my ambitions, not just my academic/career path, convey curiosity and determination
I'll use real-life examples for Slides 3 & 4 to evidence my skills and attributes. Aside from my initial question, does anyone think I should add or remove anything?

You have been asked to prepare a 5-minute presentation, without PowerPoint,, why do you insist on  preparing presentation on PowerPoint?

I should have worded that better. I have been asked to prepare a presentation, but I am expected to deliver it without using PowerPoint. So, I'm only using PP so I can plan and follow my presentation easier for practicing or, if allowed, to have off-screen for reference.

From what it sounds like, this is rather a short motivation talk than a "presentation". Talking about why you are interested in the project and what you bring to the table (in 5 minutes!) should not be something to lenghtyly prepare, but should come naturally. It is you and your strenghts and your interests that you are talking about, not something you're unfamiliar with. This feels like several degrees of overthinking and overpreparation.

Aw, that does sound a lot less daunting than a presentation. Thank you for that insight :)

I just wanted to say that with the pandemic many people are trying to move away from research talks at PhD interviews because a large swath of candidates will have had no oppotunity for lab/field work because of the pandemic disruption.

That's a good point!

I suggest that you are trying to do too much in such a short presentation. Your four points only give you a bit over a minute each. My guess is that what they are most interested in is getting a quick read on what it would be like to work with you on this project. You are likely to be better off being natural than being over prepared.
A few index cards with ideas you'd like to get across is plenty. There is no need for a backup PP presentation. Focus on the two listed questions. What is it about this project and how do you see yourself as a good fit. Expect to get a question or two, even an interruption.
You primarily want to seem like a good person to work with. Flexible, knowledgable, interested, interesting,,,

I think you're right. If they wanted me to go into more detail they would've asked for a 10min presentation. 5mins is really only enough time to, as you said, get a quick read on what it would be like to have me on the team. I already have a personal statement, cover letter, and PhD proposal. So really all I need to do is revise those, focus on the most relevant points that relate to the main questions, and just be myself. Thank you for this advice and perspective. It's helped a lot


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Part III of the Mathematical Tripos at Cambridge (Pure Maths) with scholarship, and US PhD applications
In some other questions, it has been noted that for certain programs at Cambridge, such as Part III of the Mathematical Tripos, one will not have had sufficient faculty contact to obtain strong recommendation letters. Additionally, no courses will show up on your transcripts until the end-of-year examinations (is what I have gathered from the answers to the above questions).
Thus, I imagine attending Part III may not significantly strengthen an application. Does attending Part III, such as on a Churchill Scholarship, carry significantly more weight to a graduate admissions committee?

I suspect that it is more about what you do in a program than what scholarships you got before it began. No direct experience, though.

See the following for how US doctoral applications work. Other answers for other places are there also. Note that a masters isn't needed for applicants.  https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/176909/75368


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PhD programs in Machine Learning: Is it mandatory to have publications at top venues prior to applying?
I am a recent MSc graduate of a program in Machine Learning and Data Science with a BSc in Economics, and currently looking for Ph.D. opportunities in machine learning. Given my BSc background and the fact that I was unlucky enough to enroll in the MSc during the lockdown, I didn't produce any publications in Machine Learning.
Many Ph.D. programs that I am interested in applying, not necessarily at top universities, require applicants to already have publications on "top" avenues. I think it is because of the competition around the world for doctoral studies, but I still cannot get my head around why in a program when you are supposed to learn how to do research you are expected to be a top published researcher already just to be considered.
Is it common that the PhD programs in Machine Learning require applicants to have publications at top venues? Is it mandatory to have publications prior to applying?

"Am I the only one who thinks this is absurd?" is not a question that works well on the Stackexchange format. We want questions that admit a definite answer, not discussion prompts. So I'm voting to close (but yes, this is absurd).

Yes this is crazy, but its driven by hyper-competition in this field at the top universities, if you go a bit down in the ranking, there is no such requirement.

Also can you provide some sample of these requirements, or links to the application requirements?

I will edit the post to save it from being closed. Probably it will no longer reflect what the OP wanted

Edit : I have to go. I hope someone will help me edit the rest, but I already changed the content of the post. It is no longer opinion-based. Also, the answer from Allure is still valid.

@Dr.Snoopy I have 2 examples from professors in Cambridge and Alberta that replied via email that they require publications in top journals for consideration. Note that the University websites, or the webpages of their labs, do NOT, in fact, mention that. I suspect the same applies to other professors in high-caliber universities, but I am not sure.

It's certainly not required to have published in top venues to be admitted to PhD programs. Check out for example the requirements at Stanford, one of the top programs around. There is no publication requirement. The only formal requirements are TOEFL, recommendation letters, a resume, etc. The listed requirements even say "Please be sure to include any publications here", implying that some applicants might not have any publications.
However, there are some 3000 applicants to Stanford per year, and some of them are going to have publications in top venues. All things equal should Stanford admit students who have publications in top venues or students who don't have the same publications? If you agree the answer is "the students who have publications" (it looks trivially like so to me) then publication requirements are going to be a de facto requirement even if it isn't a de jure requirement.
Ultimately, the point is that top programs want to admit students who are really good, and students who have publications in top venues are likely to be really good. It's a competitive world.

How could undergrad or MSc students, with barely any deep knowledge (I cannot fathom how someone would have mastered a field sufficiently within 2 or 3 years in a broad BSc curriculum), manage to get not one but several publications, especially in top journals or conferences? It seems crazy to me.

@ConstantinePhoenix amazing, right? But it's doable, see e.g. https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/189462/

@ConstantinePhoenix With proper supervision and motivation is it definitely possible, but should not be a requirement, note that its not the program that puts these requirements but some Professors to consider you.

3,000 applicants to a single program?

@AzorAhai-him- for Stanford, yes. https://cs.stanford.edu/admissions/phd/application-requirements "Admission to the Computer Science Department is very competitive. Each year approximately 3,000 applications are received for our graduate programs. It is recommended that all parts of the application be strong as many outstanding applications are received."


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Why do Chinese universities hold many more patents than other universities?
On the list of top 250 largest patent holders worldwide (2021), I see that Chinese universities hold many more patents than other universities, even normalizing by population size or student population size. Why? I am especially interested in the difference between China and the USA.
Universities ranked by number of active patent families* from the link above:

Rank
Name
# active patent families
Country

2
Chinese Academy of Sciences CAS
78,415
China

16
Tsinghua University
31,368
China

34
Zhejiang University ZJU
21,805
China

76
Zhejiang University of Technology ZJUT
11,053
China

109
Dalian University of Technology
7,932
China

112
National Research Council of Science and Technology
7,803
South Korea

119
Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics
7,373
China

124
China University of Mining and Technology CUMT
7,014
China

151
University of California
5,603
USA

157
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique CNRS
5,370
France

218
Capital Medical University
3,739
China

*An active patent family is:

a collection of global patent filings related to a single invention. For example, if a company invents a new technology and files related patent applications in 10 countries, that represents one patent family. Further we only count patent families that are active – which contain at least one current, granted patent. This is a patent that can be enforced and that has not expired.

How did you select the universities in your table?

@AzorAhai-him- I tried to extract all universities from the top 250. I may have missed a few ones.

I am confused by your response. There are not 250 universities in that table, nor are they all from China, suggesting it isn't a list of the highest-ranking Chinese universities.

@AzorAhai-him- I tried to extract all universities from the list of the top 250 largest patent holders worldwide. (Most of the 250 largest patent holders are companies.)

If you count public not-exactly-university research institutions as CNRS (#157) for the list, arguably the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft (#163) should also be included. Also on the list are #239 Zhejiang University of Science and Technology ZUST and #241 Zhejiang Ocean University ZJOU.

I don't have a source for this as it's from personal knowledge, but may Chinese institutes require people to apply for patents or to have published papers, so you tend to get a lot of people doing things that are simply small incremental changes on existing papers or patents. They're basically paper\patent farms because of this.

@FranckDernoncourt that approach to gathering your data could also lead to a TON of problems, if China has few but large patent-filing universites and the US has a lot of smaller actively patenting universities. By selecting only the 10 largest unis (by patents) such a centralization skews the data massively

@Hobbamok agreed. Answers are welcome to contradict claims present in the question.

@FranckDernoncourt yeah, but I'm just speculating and still too much in holiday mode for the serious research an answer would require, sry

I suspect there are two main reasons.

There are substantial subsidies for patent applications in China
Chinese patents are generally of lower quality; thus it takes less work to file them, and there is a lower bar on what to patent.

Patent Subsidies
It costs a lot of money to file a patent application in the US. Meanwhile, in China, currently, there are monetary subsidies from various levels of government for filing patents.
Lei and colleagues wrote about this issue in 2013:

Other observers, however, believe that the patent
boom is largely due to various patent subsidy policies implemented by local governments to meet and/or exceed the patenting targets specified by the government.³

They go on to note:

it’s likely that the increase in the number of applications is due to
patentees broke up their patents to get more applications (and thus more subsidies).

Patent Quality
The other issue is patent quality. In my personal experience with university patent offices in the US, the professionals that work there are very interested in if your invention is of significant enough quality and commercial value before filing for a patent--after all, it costs a lot of money.
Because of the subsidies, universities in China may be less interested in patent quality. The bar is lower, allowing more patent applications.
Hefa and Zhenxing wrote about this in 2014 :

Based on the analysis above, it is discovered that of all the four aspects of patent quality, China falls behind in quality for invention, document quality, and quality for commercialization... The lagging behind quality for commercialization shows the reality that Chinese patents are less commercially valuable. The average royalty and license fee is
significantly lower compared with developed countries.

In conclusion, there are subsidies from the Chinese government that incentivize more patent applications. Further, the quality of the resulting patents is lower.
The Chinese government seems to agree:

China plans to stop all patent subsidies by 2025 to help shift its intellectual property (IP) focus from quantity to quality.

Please consider an additional possible reason. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_intellectual_property_theft_by_China

@BillOnne I'm a bit confused by your comment. Are you suggesting Chinese universities are filing patents on stolen US intellectual property?

@Ian not sure about stolen, but they do patent translated documents and publish translated papers, and some people fluent in Mandarin have suggested that many of those are on the level of Google Translate quality (personal communication). But the key here is still, of course, perverse incentives - subsidies are given away without real supervision, because targets have to be met.

@Ian if you get money for every patent filed and google translate + not-yet-patented US ideas (maybe because of the higher bars there) are public, why not grab the free money

In the US, many patents owned by private companies are based on research conducted at public universities. If this happens to a lesser degree in China, that could have an impact as well.

@Ian Yes, this definitely happens. I know a professor with a US patent that was stolen/re-patented in China. (I'm fuzzy on the exact details and whether or not backdating was involved)

My two cents:

It is part of their performance metric.  In other words, having patents count toward their promotion or continuation of their employment.
Many academics own side businesses; there is a huge incentive to do so given their low salary.  Hence, many seek to commercialize their research outputs.

Aren't these two points  true in the USA as well?

No idea.  I'm not familiar with the system in the USA.  I am aware that universities such as MIT like patents because its a huge source of income for the uni, but probably not others.

Being a Chinese, I know these two points are true. No idea if they are the main reasons that Chinese universities hold many more patents than other universities.

I have no idea as well, but I somehow believe that there is a "patent" race in China, and the biggest opponent is US

The secondary answer was sort of disproven by the other answer, Chinese university patents generate far less royalty on average, which is what we would see if financial exploitation of the patents were a priority.


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Will translating a (high-level) philosophy book strengthen my PhD application?
I have applied last year to Columbia and UCB for a PhD in philosophy. I got accepted to Columbia's masters instead. I contacted those in the admissions committee and they said that my application was very impressive. This year, I am intending to translate a philosophy book from French to English in collaboration with a known French philosopher. In percentage, even if it's not realistic, how much you d estimate my chances for getting admitted can grow with this translation project?

This depends entirely on who decides, but my guess is a very small percentage. It is a language project, after all, not a philosophy project.

Well, it takes a lot of time to understand the work, it is a very challenging one

Perhaps, and I'm just guessing. Before you accept at Columbia (or anywhere) make sure you understand the financial aspect. Masters students seldom get funding. Doctoral students almost always do, though I'm not certain about philosophy.

@Buffy I didn't accept the offer. Either PhD with full funding, or I am out for somewhere else with funding.

I don't understand the premise of OP's question. You apply for a PhD but get accepted for a masters?

Yes, when I applied for PhD, they had an option if I wanted to apply for masters as well.

Translating a long academic text is a very arduous and thankless task. I’d suggest doing it only if you truly have the passion to do it for its own sake and for the satisfaction of knowing that you have done it, and not for some external reward.
Another way of saying this is that before starting, you should imagine that it will not help you get into a PhD program. If the knowledge that it will not help you still doesn’t make you want to not do it, then it’s a good idea to start.
Ironically, if you act out of a pure intrinsic motivation as I am suggesting, it very well might help you with the PhD application after all. The reason is that it will send an honest signal to the people in the program that you are the kind of person who is so passionate about philosophy that you are willing to invest a huge amount of time and effort on a project like this, with no promise of getting much in the way of an external reward. But it’s impossible to estimate the size of this effect. So I’d still recommend only doing it if the external reward isn’t the reason why you’re doing it. Good luck!