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How to have a fulfilling social life as an academic
I will be a postdoc in the coming academic year. While I have not decided on where I will be in September, it seems likely that I will be a research postdoc at a decent research university.
An aspect of a life as a postdoc that I had never considered before is the following: what is your social life outside of academia like as a postdoc?
As a PhD student, I had a very tight group of friends; we were friends from day 1 in graduate school, and that friendship continued throughout. Our friendship strengthened by going through many difficult classes together, staying up all night finishing homework, and studying for quals together, not to mention talking about how much it blows to be a PhD student, and worrying about the job market.
I feel that I will not have this privilege as a postdoc. We are all there to do our jobs (i.e. research), and I do not see building the same kind of camaraderie amongst the newly-hired postdocs, for these reasons:

there are no excuses to spend a ton of time with one another (no homework, no quals to study for, etc.)
we will likely have different research areas, and possibly have nothing in common to talk about in terms of academics.
there are way fewer postdocs than there are graduate students. I would be lucky to have maybe three or four other postdocs hired with me by my department. Maybe we would get along, maybe we would not. I do not have the luxury of choosing the people that I like anymore.
at least some postdocs must have family. I have found that married people are less likely to yearn for a close friendship. This narrows down the possibilities for friends even more (not that I would discriminate against married people, but they often dissociate themselves from, say, a late-night out of fun).

I would love to hear from the people who hold (or held) research postdoc positions from PhD granting institutions. I feel that teaching postdocs would give different answers, as you would meet more often to discuss teaching.

I'm not sure this is answerable, beyond a bunch of opinions. FWIW, I don't think it's different to any other workplace (and thus completely different to being a student).

@EnergyNumbers Well, I guess I see your point, although I think that you usually have more coworkers in a workplace, not to mention that there is much less collaboration involved as a postdoc (at least in my field). Are you a postdoc?

I've had "postdoc" roles, but I don't have a doctorate, so strictly speaking, I can't have been a postdoc.

I think this is a great question. I am not aware of any other industries that use 1-3 year temporary positions as frequently as academia and post docs require you to build networks. As for the opinion based nature of the question, I don't see it being any different from other questions on AC.SE. Can the close. Others expand on what needs to be changed?

You gave the answer in your question. Marry and have children, then you will not worry about this anymore. In that aspect I cannot help at all, but other people seem to be able to do that without too much effort or hassle.

Do make sure not to discriminate against married people. It can be easy not to bother so much with having other friends if you're married, but I think it's much better for married people to have some friends besides their spouse.

@TaraB Of course I wouldn't discriminate; but you must see that married people and unmarried people have different lifestyles -- it's much harder to become very good friends with married people than with unmarried people, in my experience.

I don't think that there is necessarily a huge difference in lifestyle between married and unmarried people of the usual age for a postdoc, at least in countries I've lived in.  Having children is usually what makes a really big difference.

@TaraB Good point. Everyone that I know are married with children, so they are usually not up for a night out or even an evening out.

@user14449: Ah yes, that's quite another thing.  So probably you really mean 'people with children' when you say 'married people'.  I've been married for five years without children, so I guess my perspective is a bit different.

The special thing for you coming out of (what seems) a pretty demanding grad school time is that being a postdoc is not so special at all. In most ways, being a postdoc is not unlike any other time-demanding job. You come to work in the morning, spend most of your day there, and, in the evening (whenever that is, time-wise), you will more often than not go back to your home and stay there to relax a bit. You bond with your co-workers, but usually more in an "acquaintance" than in a "friends-for-life" way.
Anyway, it seems to me that you are thinking that you can only hang out with people on your academic "level". This has never been my personal experience at all. In all my work places, grad students often hang out privately with the postdocs that they work with, and many of the younger faculty staff often join in for ad-hoc parties as well. I guess it is all a question of how you want to appear towards your junior work mates. There are people that see fit to construct an image of aloofness towards their students, and others like to mingle. Nothing wrong with either, of course, as long as your work relationship stays reasonably professional.

+1 for pointing out that one needn't only socialise with people on the same academic 'level'.

My limited experience of postdoc life is that there can be plenty of camaraderie; it just depends. I certainly hung out with the other postdocs, got invited to their homes, met their families, at least to a limited extent. So, yes, there is some bonding
In some ways it is not that different from grad student life. While a postdoc is more like a regular job, and I think everyone likes the fact that you are not as dirt poor as a grad student, you also spend time commiserating with each other about the crappiness of the job and worrying about the job market. Depending on who you are working for, you may also spend time complaining about the boss (or bosses). Since postdocs on average last a shorter time, one is liable to see people come and go even more frequently than in grad school, which does make it more difficult to have longer term friendships.
Having said all this, it is probably a good idea to find other people besides those you work with to hang out with. This is true of any job, of course. One suggestion - go dancing!

+1 for finding friends outside work.  I'm a postdoc, and the friends I spend the most time with at the moment are from dancing (swing).

Hi Tara. Yes, I had in mind swing dancing too. Specifically, West Coast Swing, the best thing since sliced bread.

No, that would be blues. =] The swing we have here is mainly lindy hop and a bit of charleston. But this is probably getting too chatty.

Great answers here. Looks like all the answers are US-based (from what little I know about US academia)... so let me add how it looks like from a perspective of a European research lab.
Note that I say research lab because the association to the Uni is really very loose, mostly meaning rarely who is attending classes at the uni. It is a fairly big lab, and very transitional (not many people stay long). It comprises people that are:

PhD students (some of whom have a class or two to TA) staying for 3-4 years
Master interns (staying for 4-6 months) and PhD exchanges (staying up to at most a year)
postdocs (staying for a year, to at most two)
engineers (staying for anywhere between 6 months and 2 years)
permanent positions (researchers + professors)

None of us have classes together, there is many areas of computer science in the lab so most of us don't even share deadlines. As I mentioned, it's a transition place where a lot of people come and go very fast. Still the social life is quite fine. We meet on smoke breaks, coffee breaks, through officemates, through friends, ex uni buddies, cause somebody hears the accent of his nationality... I have a pretty active social life, at any point the group of friends I go out with is between 5 and 10 people. Some postdocs, some PhD students (both in their last years and just starting), an odd Master student on an internship, some engineers. Some people have teams that are much more involved, so they have team-nights-out, and I've heard of young supervisors inviting their students to social dinners.
One of the hardest parts for me is the fast pace of change: the group of people I went out a year ago has hardly anybody in common with right now. It doesn't mean that there weren't some nice friendships, but it's so easy to lose contact. Still, I also feel that I made some friends-for-life as well. A lot of different ways also exist for meeting people outside of work, such as dancing, language classes, evenings organized in town for foreign "students"...

I think you're making some unfounded assumptions in your question.

what is your social life outside of academia like as a postdoc?

When you ask this question, you then immediately turned back to academia. Your social life as a postdoc is, in many ways, whatever you want it to be. For example, a great deal of my social life outside of academia was a local group devoted to my hobby.
To address a few other points you make:

There may be fewer postdocs, but there is no reason your social life is restricted to this "tier". As I mentioned above, most of my social life was with non-academics, or at least non-academics in my particular lab/institute. I made friends with some of the faculty. With a few of the graduate students. With the research staff. There is no clubhouse with "Postdocs Only!" written in Sharpie that you need to rely on.
"There are no excuses to spend a ton of time with one another" - You're assuming this is true, but it's not necessarily true. I will say that, in my own personal experience, the most intensive time I spent in contact with other researchers was indeed during my postdoc, and there were some friendships formed "in the trenches".
"possibly have nothing in common to talk about in terms of academics." There is the commonality of being an academic. Insane PIs. Funding lines being universally horrible. Anxiety about finding a job afterward. Reviewer #2's asinine comments...
"I do not have the luxury of choosing the people that I like anymore." Yes, you do. It's called making friends. They just don't have to be postdocs.

Literally the most social I have ever been in my life was as a postdoc.


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Do hiring committees strategize?
This question is for those of you who have been on the hiring committee.
I am wondering if the following scenario could happen.
Applicant X applies to University Y; University Y looks at applicant X's profile, and says "applicant X has very strong records. There is no way University Y is the best applicant X can do; hence we will not offer Applicant X a position (postdoctoral, or TT)"
This seems worrying, because:

perhaps applicant X is just so mediocre, that he falls through the crack; University Y turns him down, but universities slightly better than University Y might think that applicant X is not up to their standards.
what if applicant X actually really wanted to go to University Y for personal reasons? Of course, maybe applicant X was hoping for something slightly better than University Y, so maybe he did not contact the department (in case he decides not to go to University Y).
even from the university's perspective, this is fairly complicated: University Y could take a chance and hope that applicant X will accept their offer, but perhaps it is more advantageous to extend the offer to the applicant next on the list instead of applicant X. There is no way of knowing which is the better choice, though.

In particular, if such scenario happens, and if I want to prevent the first point, what do I need to do? I am wary of contacting the departments, because should the department be excited about me, and should someone push for my being hired in the hiring committee meeting, then I would feel obligated (to some degree) to accept that offer (even if a better offer comes along), since that someone has advocated on my behalf, on my request.

Not on a hiring committee personally, but it seems you are maybe overthinking it a bit. Those things may happen on occassion, but they are out of your control anyway, so no need to worry about it.

Yes, this absolutely happens, both for faculty hiring and for PhD admission. Departments can also suffer from Impostor Syndrome. But as @xLeitix says, this is largely out of your control, so worrying is pointless.

To be honest, in my surroundings, departments are usually more struck by delusions of grandeur than impostor syndrome. Hence, my impression is that faculties are more likely to assume that a reasonable candidate for them is 'too weak' than that a good candidate is 'too strong'.

The American Economics Association has a centralized signaling mechanism to solve the problem of applicants telling every university x that they have special reasons to want a job at x. You can only signal through the mechanism, and it limits you to sending signals to 2 universities. Of course, this is only helpful if you are on the economics job market. It might be useful to try and replicate in other fields though! http://www.aeaweb.org/joe/signal/

This happens all the time and everywhere.  Strategic decisions about who to interview or make offers to are based not just on perceived quality or market value, but also broader considerations of fit.  It's an unavoidable part of the job market, and I'm not convinced it's even a bad thing overall, since it makes the job market work much more smoothly and efficiently.
This is a tough issue to resolve as an applicant.  There are several reasons why it can be ineffective just to tell the department that you really want to go there:

They may not believe you.  They may suspect you of deliberately exaggerating your likelihood of accepting just in order to get an offer, perhaps so you can use it to help negotiate a better offer elsewhere.  (The academic job market is exactly the sort of high stress, high stakes environment that brings out some people's worst sides.)  Even if they're convinced you're completely honest, they may feel you'll change your mind once you learn more about your other options, or that if you come you'll end up feeling like you made a mistake and they'll have a bitter, resentful colleague who wants to leave.  An applicant who suffers from imposter syndrome may say "Wow, I'd be thrilled to get an offer from University X, which is the best job I can imagine getting" but might not remain as thrilled after getting offers from A, B, and C as well.
Many reasons you could give may be viewed as kind of insulting.  If you explain that you really like the city or want to live near relatives, then it can come across like you are saying "Sure, your department would otherwise be beneath me, but I'm willing to put up with you for non-academic reasons."  The department might be willing to hire you even if they think you feel superior, but they won't be happy about it.  In order for this to work, you have to be very careful about tone.  Two-body problems are widely accepted as an understandable reason, and of course academic reasons can be highly effective, but anything else has the potential for giving a bad impression if you aren't careful.

So announcing your preferences may not always work.  Still, it's really your only option, so it's not worth worrying too much about how it might fail.  To put things more positively:

Try to emphasize aspects of the department that excite you, and not just side benefits such as location.
It's often more effective if you or a mentor convey this information through personal contacts, rather than just talking with the search committee chair.  In particular, hearing from someone senior can add credibility: there have been a number of times I've reassured a department that a student genuinely wanted to work there (and wasn't just confused or suffering from imposter syndrome).
If you already have an ostensibly more impressive offer and can say "I would very likely turn down my offer from University A in favor of a compelling offer from you," it carries a lot of weight.  At the very least, it eliminates the fear that you don't understand your options.  (But say this only if you are quite sure!  If there's even a small chance you would choose A after all, then you should make it clear that you have not made a final decision and might change your mind.  It's unethical to try to manipulate anyone.)

This is extremely helpful. One more question: suppose that you communicate to someone that you know that you would like to go to a particular school early on in the application process, and receive a bunch of competing offers afterwards (some schools better than the original school I was considering). If that person has advocated on my behalf, how much of an obligation do I owe to that person in accepting the first university's offer?

The above question is worded a bit strangely, before anyone points it out. To clarify, I do not have a bunch of competing offers, and I also have not communicated such things to anyone, but I am trying to decide if it is worth contacting people.

It depends on the situation.  If you tell them you would very likely accept an offer, and they stake their own credibility on this during the committee meetings, then you owe them an apology if you don't accept it.  (Don't make such statements lightly.)  On the other hand, as long as you are honest and are careful not to make commitments, you don't need to worry much about this.  For example, if you say University X is "among your top choices" (and if it genuinely is), then nobody can legitimately object if you end up choosing another of your top choices.  So I wouldn't worry too much.

then you owe them an apology if you don't accept it — ...as well as the next several people who legitimately want to work and that department but appear "too good".  The biggest reason departments make these strategic decisions is being burned by trusting applicants who said they wanted an offer and then turned the offer down for some place better.

Many reasons you could give may be viewed as kind of insulting. Maybe I just have thicker skin than some other people, but I certainly wouldn't be insulted by the reasons you give.  My experience with colleagues is that most would be thrilled to get someone who could have a much more prestigious position but wants to be in the area for family reasons or because they like the area.  (Family reasons are especially good, since they are harder to lie about).  I think you could discuss this in a condescending unpleasant way, but the topic isn't intrinsically unpleasant.

@BenWebster: You're right, it's not intrinsically insulting, and I think most people wouldn't be insulted, but some are touchy and insecure.  I've seen a few cases in which what seemed to me to be no-brainer hires were disrupted by someone getting worked up over very minor things they viewed as evidence of condescension.  I'm not sure whether they honestly interpreted them that way or were motivated by larger fears about what the hire might mean for them.  Either way, I'd be inclined to phrase these things pretty carefully, to minimize the chances of an uncharitable or unfair interpretation.

In particular, if such scenario happens, and if I want to prevent the first point, what do I need to do?

Don't be mediocre.

I am wary of contacting the departments, because should the department be excited about me, and should someone push for my being hired in the hiring committee meeting, then I would feel obligated (to some degree) to accept that offer (even if a better offer comes along), since that someone has advocated on my behalf, on my request.

Good!  You should feel obligated.
The most important thing to maintain in this situation is honesty.  It's perfectly fine to keep your precise preferences confidential, but DO. NOT. LIE.  Do not approach faculty to say that you are interested in their department unless you are genuinely interested in their department.  Do not ask them to believe you would accept their offer over an offer from MIT or Harvard unless you would actually accept their offer over an offer from MIT or Harvard.  Do not tell thirty different departments that you would consider their offer first.  Expect that the faculty you contact will also contact your advisor and/or other references and ask for a frank assessment of your priorities.  Expect faculty to be distrustful, because they have been burned many times in the past.
Job applications are supposedly confidential, but stories of dishonest behavior do get around, and they follow their perpetrators for years.
On the other hand, being interested in a job is not the same as committing to accepting an offer.  If you are genuinely interested, then it is definitely a good idea to communicate your interest to your colleagues in the target department.  (Note: not "contact the department", but "contact your colleagues".)  Corner your colleagues at conferences and ask intelligent questions about their department, just as you would in an interview.  If you can do so on your own (or your advisor's) dime, offer to visit and give a talk at a research seminar.  Don't just say you're interested; act interested.
But do not lie.

Ha! "Do not be mediocre" -- ouch! I suppose the fact that you feel so strongly about this topic is a very helpful flag not to commit without meaning it. In the course of searching for my grad school admissions and also for some postdoc positions, I have gotten responses to the effect of "thank you for being honest". Now it makes sense why they would say such things!

I think the scenario, as you described it, is unlikely to occur.
If a hiring committee felt a candidate could get a job at a more prestigious institution, then I think the candidate would simply be asked up front: "It seems like you could get hired at a more prestigious institution – why are you applying here?" Then, the candidate would have a chance to provide an explanation.
If the explanation seemed satisfactory (such as, "I've always wanted to live in this city," or, "My brother and my nephews live in a nearby town, and I was tired of getting on an airplane every time I wanted to visit," for example) then the committee would probably be glad for a chance to hire someone with strong qualifications.
The one time where this may count against the candidate, though, is if the committee suspects this job is being used as a mere "stepping stone," and the committee is hoping to hire someone who will stay for more than a few years. So, if the answer to the question is, "I eventually want to apply to an Ivy League school, but I felt like a few years here might bolster my chances," then I could imagine a committee choosing another qualified candidate with plans to remain on faculty for a longer time.
So, I'd be careful of what you said, and how you worded it, but I'd also advise you to be honest and up front about your motives and intentions.

On the other hand, professors are apes. We do apey things.

@JeffE - Yes, faculty can be very petty at times. As much as I idealized this answer, it's not hard for me to imagine a few folks trying to "tank" an applicant simply because they feel threatened by that person's accomplishments. But getting unfair treatment at a place like that is probably a blessing in disguise.

Hiring committees often try and make an offer to a candidates they think will not only  accept the job, but stay long term. You also need to remember that for tenure track academic positions, the undergraduate ranking of a university really has little to do with the desirability of the position. It has some affect on the quality of students, but desirability is really about the start up package, teaching load, and benefits (both financial and personal). Ideally your teaching and research statements and cover letter would explain what it is about the department that makes you interested in them.

voted down for the following reasons:

I never mentioned undergraduate ranking
what kind of desirability are you talking about?
Actually, many people use "universal" teaching and research statements, and cover letters rarely ever get read.

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Is it possible to be admitted to a Master's program after not completing Bachelor's degree due to academic dishonesty?
Is it possible to get admission to a master's program in economics without finishing up your undergrad?
I have completed 105 credits so far for my BA Honours in economics and math degree, and still need 15 credits to graduate (120 required for graduation). However, a case of academic dishonesty could lead to my suspension from my current university. I know that I made a mistake at such a crucial time in my undergrad, but I can only learn from it.
The problem also I'm having is that some universities will not even consider my application as result of academic dishonesty. Apart from this my application is quite strong in terms of doing well in economics courses, strong letter of recommendations, and GRE score..
I have already published an economics paper in an undergraduate journal and feel as if there isn't anything to learn about economics from my university.
I can study economics independently and work to get "food on the table" and have some real-world experience under my belt before embarking on a journey as an intellectual.

I am afraid you must get bachelor degree in order to get into graduate school with your past record, unless you want to get in a diploma mill graduate school.

@ Well, I already applied to some master's programs in economics and what if I get offers now? Are they going to actually check that I finished my undergrad? Is there a possibility of me going to summer school for the university I do my master's to make up for it?

I don't know how did you apply. Let's say you get into a graduate school, what are you going to say when somebody asks you where did you graduate from?

@scaaahu Well, I applied on-line before I get suspended. If I do get an offer then I will email them and tell the truth. There's no point of deceiving anyone regarding this matter.

I think the info you provided in the comments are useful for people to answer your question.

@scaaahu The issue here is that I don't really know that the uni will suspend me or not, but I think they will.

I don't think there's much room for optimism. Offers of graduate admission are generally preconditioned on actually completing the previous degree. Moreover, having your previous degree candidacy terminated on account of academic dishonesty will make you "radioactive"; very few graduate schools are going to want to bring in someone who got suspended for plagiarism or cheating. (Given that the entire research enterprise hinges on being able to trust reported results, why would a school want to take a chance on someone who has already clearly violated those principles?)
[More generally, however: I do know of an economics professor whose PhD is in fact his only degree; however, the circumstances behind that are so unusual that they're unlikely to be replicated any time soon. (Basically, he followed a professor from Germany to the US while he was still an undergraduate in the days when the Diplom system was in full force.)]

I think the best I can do is to take the time-off to work and then transfer my credits to another university.

It might be easier to apply for readmission to your old university after a year or two.  Suspensions are rarely permanent.  Talk to your faculty advisors about this possibility NOW.

@Jeff I don't think it's a good idea to apply for readmission to my old university because of the social stigma attached with AD. It would be really awkward for me to attend the university especially since it's a small place and everyone knows each other by name.

It's still worth asking.

Simply put, there is a small chance you could get into an MA program without a BA, and there is a small chance you could get into an MA program with the stigma of academic dishonesty on your record, but there is virtually no chance of getting into an MA program when you have no BA because of academic dishonesty.
I would recommend you do what you can to make amends and get the BA.  If you can say that you were suspended due to academic dishonesty but turned over a new leaf, persevered and finished the degree, then you have somewhere to start from.  But if schools get the impression that you were kicked out for cheating and never bothered to go back and fix that, it will be a huge red flag that will make it nearly impossible for you to be accepted in good faith.  (You could still get accepted by lying or hiding your past, but you admirably mentioned in the comments that that's not what you want to do.)

Doesn't "suspended" essentially mean that you're banned from taking courses, in other words were kicked out?

@rocinante: It depends on the nature of the suspension, but as JeffE noted in a comment on another answer, suspensions are often temporary and some sort of "make-up" plan can be worked out.

@rocinante: where I am from, we say Suspended meaning banned from taking units for (usually) 1 semester, and Expelled, meaning kicked out banned from reenrolling in course

As others have said, no. What credibility do you think you have for your other good grades when you admit you cheated? It's entirely possible that you cheated other times as well and were simply more clever about it.
Moreover, most low-tier universities don't suspend students for cheating if it's the first offence. You get a zero in the course and move on to take it again or take another comparable course. The fact that suspension is on the table likely means that you cheated before.

My best advice would be to take a time off and go back to complete your undergrad. Even if this is going to cost you time and money, it will pay off at the end. You might want to also consider a transfer into another institution who is willing to accept you in, with the credits you've already earned in your current institution. I personally don't know any "accredited institution of higher education" who doesn't require a Bachelor degree,especially in these days of higher and tougher competition. Furthermore, most graduates institution will ask a Bachelor, GRE, etc.... as part of the routine application process.

I don't think this is really worth an answer but I have low reps and I can't comment yet.
Theoretically -- if you get an offer now, some schools (I did my PhD at a top-tier institution in the US) will not bother to check that you have a bachelor's degree; mine certainly didn't. You might even get away with it, if no one bothers to check your bachelor's degree (admittedly not very important if you become a full-fledged academic).
Realistically -- what you are asking is quite impossible, especially because you have committed an act of academic dishonesty. If someone finds out (and chances are good that they will find out, since academics like to chat and gossip at conferences), you could have your admission offer revoked, or even your degree revoked.
Besides, your situation is somewhat unrelated to your question. Most institutions will ask for transcripts from ALL universities that you have attended, whether you received a degree from them or not.

Like I said above in one of the answers: I will wait for a year and then finish my undergrad and then start applying. Not trying to 'game the system' but I don't think anyone can find it out through conferences because I'm well liked by my econ profs and the AD issue was on a math course. These things are supposed to be confidential. I have applied to some master's programs with my Fall results, do u think they will ask me abt my winter results as well? Do they also want to look at the bachelor's degree certificate? My record is quite strong in my major subject.

I'm well liked by my econ profs and the AD issue was on a math course — Yes, these things are supposed to be confidential, but word gets around anyway.  One of your econ profs might wonder why you vanished, and ask your previous semester instructors.

Do they also want to look at the bachelor's degree certificate? — Most likely, yes.

@JeffE I see that you are a professor. Does your institution actually check for a bachelor's degree certificate? Mine certainly didn't. When a classmate of mine asked about this to the department chair, he just shrugged and said that it really wasn't that important to them.

I believe mine does, yes.

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Should each chapter in an extensive paper start with an overview of the chapter's contents?
I'm working on a extensive paper for my study. It's about some computational stuff, has 5 chapters and will be - all in all - roughly 60 pages long. Reading some papers and theses I noticed, that often people start each chapter with some kind of an overview, describing what's going to happen next. Though on the one hand, I find this helpful sometimes, on the other hand it pulls me out off the flow of the actual work. In some papers, it seems even that certain things, which are going to come up are announced repeatedly and I feel a bit over-informed of the papers structure.
Therefore I'd like to know: Should each chapter start with such an overview and - if yes -, when and to what extent?

For a 60 pages long paper and 5 chapters, I think it will be useful for the readers to bridge the chapters with five overviews. Keep them short. Thing is, it will only happen five times in 60 pages. Those readers with fair reading skills will just jump the first lines of each chapter.

The last time I wrote a long paper with a multistep argument, I endowed each section (there were 15 or 16 of those and the total article length was 87 pages in the 12pt font) with the "objective statement" (In this section we show that there exists a partition of the set $E$ into "cells" with the following properties ..., etc.). Moreover, I italicized these objectives. The reasons I did it were
a) some of the sections were devoted to things that are known to experts but hardly to the "general audience", so which sections to read and which to skip would heavily depend on the reader's general background
b) If you read the italic font alone, you can see the general flow of the proof without computations or technical details. You may then concentrate on "most suspicious" or "least known" places first.
I had mixed feelings about doing so too, but it looks like the readers have liked it so far. In general, the main question you should ask yourself is whether what you do will facilitate the reading. Everything else (paper economy, stylistic beauty, etc.) is secondary. If you expect 20-50 people to read what you wrote and if you can spare each of them mere 20 minutes (the minimal time needed to verify the ubiquitous phrase "direct computations yield"), you advance the general human progress by 7-14 hours already.
Note that what I did was different from the "Chapter" approach because I put only one complete logical step into each section. Also it was not about the Lemma/Sublemma/... division, which more often than not reflects the technical convenience rather than the logical structure. Some sections contained several lemmata needed to carry out the corresponding logical step and some lemmas were done in two steps.
The last thing I want to say is that, when reading, most people, including myself, prefer a repetition to an omission, and being over-informed to being under-informed, so few people, if any, will criticize you for being too clear or too slow.

There is no single right answer for this. A short chapter may not need a paragraph outlining the structure and content, while some chapters may have a quite complicated structure. Use the structure of the chapter to help you decide. The more sections and subsections, and the more you try to do in a chapter, the more useful an introduction should be.
If you include such a description, it should provide the user with the key information they should be looking for as they read. What level of description that should be is up to you to decide; there is no universal standard.

My approach is that it is almost always useful to have some form of overview, even for extremely short papers. However, this overview can range from one or more paragraphs to a single sentence.
For example, in a short paper each paragraph usually presents one or more results. I would try then to start each paragraph with a short overview sentence regarding what the sub-question is, then present the results, and sometimes conclude with a summary sentence.
Also, note that an overview does not necessarily have to interrupt the flow of a paper. In many cases, if the paper is constructed such that it follows a single narrative, it is possible for the overview to establish a conceptual connection between sections. In its simplest form this would be "Given that we found X and Y, we now asked whether Z".

authors: Музаффар Шакаров


text:
How to balance academic reputation of PhD supervisor and teaching experience
When I read general recommendations on how to choose a PhD programme/advisor, it seems that many academics agree that one of the most important factors is the reputation of the advisor.
Next year, I may have the opportunity to undertake a PhD under the supervision of a "superstar" faculty who is considered an authority in his field. However, the professor in question recently moved to a university where the official language of instruction is one that I don't speak (though I would be allowed to write my thesis in english), and thus I would most likely not be able to gain teaching experience during this time.
Now, most job offers for postdoctoral or tenure-track professor positions that I see advertised online require a teaching statement and that one of the letters of recommendation address the teaching ability of the candidate.
In light of this, my question is the following: Is teaching experience for entry level academic jobs so important that it is always better to have a fair amount of it while completing a PhD no matter how well-reputed your potential supervisor could be?

Can there be other ways of getting teaching experience? For instance, you could learn the local language and then, teach.

It would be nice to know details: what languages do you speak about and what countries do you speak about. Does the prof's new school have any international bachelor/master programs in English? If so, you can teach there, these are usually not quite popular to teach so you should be able to sneak in these.

I'd advise caution: completing a PhD with no teaching experience is risky, as you're putting all your eggs in the "research" basket.
As other answers mentioned, there certainly are jobs that don't necessarily require teaching experience.  These are likely to be jobs in places where research is paramount; probably the top-tier research universities.  There is massive competition for these jobs; the number of such jobs in such a year is at best a few percent of the number of new PhDs.  Only the most successful researchers will have a chance at getting them, and if you don't turn out to be one of them (or discover you just don't enjoy research that much), you'll be out of luck in this arena.
At most of the remaining institutions, teaching is more important and experience will be valued, and you'll be in competition with candidates who have substantial experience.  So if you don't have any, you may be out of luck here too.
(I don't share MHH's confidence that alternative teaching activities such as high school outreach will be viewed as similarly valuable by a search committee.  Community college teaching might, but it also involves a higher level of responsibility and time commitment.)
That would leave only the bottom of the barrel of academic jobs: those who don't care too much about research accomplishments or teaching experience, and just need a warm body with a PhD.  These won't be nice jobs: they'll have high teaching loads, low pay, and limited instructional support; and even so there's intense competition for them.
The remaining option would be to leave academia for industry.
So in summary, if you aren't able to gain meaningful teaching experience, you'll be committing yourself to aiming for the most difficult jobs to get, without much of a fallback plan (within academia) if that doesn't work out.
(Disclaimer: My experience is limited to the US, and mostly in mathematics.  Things may be different elsewhere.)

Go where you can do the best research, and don't worry about teaching experience. I had no teaching experience whatsoever when I was hired as an assistant professor.
This could depend on your field: in my field (theoretical high-energy physics), postdoc applications almost never ask for a teaching statement, and postdocs don't teach. Junior faculty jobs do require a teaching statement, but my impression is that it's one of the less important elements of the application.

But what if the OP's field does require a teaching statement and teaching experience? For instance, I know that my department would not consider hiring a tenure track assistant professor with no teaching experience.

Could you include at least some information about your location, please? At least Europe/US could be useful.

@Shion you can get that experience in a postdoc though

Do it! If you are worrying about the teaching experience you can always spend a summer at at an outreach program teaching motivated high school students, underserved community members, ect. That kind of teaching experience can lead to a very strong teaching statement even with no college teaching experience. But anyways, you should focus on your research, while faculty positions generally do require some proof that you aren't an awful teacher, postdocs for the most part do not. Often a postdoc is a person's first time teaching.

I'm not sure how things are in the country the asker is considering going to or in the country you're in but in the UK, for example, PhD students don't get the summer off. Spending a whole summer doing something that isn't your research might not be an option.

I was referring to the summer before the OP enters grad school. Usually you don't start grad school until the fall.

Mathematics in many language is the same, it's not that hard to learn if the language is reasonably close to what you know (French, Italian, Spanish, German are close to English). In any case, learning how to speak Foreigner is always a good thing.
So applies for research universities applications. If you are interested in teaching for liberal arts colleges, they really want a US teaching experience. Other countries typically have much better prepared students entering university, so your experience would be less interesting for them, because you would know how to teach more advanced students than the ones they have.


text:
Is it appropriate as a referee to contact an author after the editor rejected the manuscript?
This is related to this question, but it is more a special case of it.
I reviewed a manuscript, which was submitted to a reputable traditional journal. The journal has a single-blind review system. I liked the manuscript a lot, as it was closely related to my research interests. However, the authors did not do a great job in reporting the manuscript, and I provided a long review with several suggestions for improving the report.
I suggested major revisions, but the editor rejected the paper. That is ok for me; it is the editor's responsibility to take such decisions. What is important is that the process is now closed.
By re-reading my review together with the other two referee's reviews, I came up with a couple other suggestions that I truly believe would benefit to the manuscript. Would it be a bad practice to contact the authors now that the paper is no longer under review? I do not mind unveiling my identity, and I would do that only because I want to advance the research in the paper. That is, I just want to help them.

Can you just ask the editor to forward your suggestions?

@Yuichiro Fujiwara, I could (have to check if the submission allows it after editorial decision). However,  I would like to let  the authors contact me back if they wish to open a discussion on this.

Then I think the best course of action is to explain your situation to the editor and ask if it's ok or not. It's the editor who knows the correct answer, not a random stranger on the internet.

Did you check if the authors have submitted this work on a preprint website, like arXiv ?

@V.Rossetto: Yes, I was going to ask the same question.  If so, you can simply contact them: "I read your preprint and thought it was interesting.  I had the following suggestions..."

@V.Rossetto unfortunately, they have not.

It sounds like a good thing to do, since the reviewing process for this journal is over. I would certainly appreciate it if I where the author of that article (passed the frustration that generally follows article rejection).
It's almost certain that it will be submitted somewhere else, so your (free) inputs will benefit the authors and the community.
This is valid, of course, only if you are not reviewer again in the next submission, you should definitely decline if it happens.

I wouldn't even say it is necessarily wrong to contact the authors during the review process.  Single-blind review is intended to protect the reviewer, so if you are willing to forego that, I think you're free to do so.  I have several colleagues who sign their referee reports.

@DavidKetcheson You want to be careful about not annoying the editor, who might reasonably believe that they've seen all the interactions between the referee and the author.  In that way, contacting the authors is different from signing your report.

@NoahSnyder Good point.

One important consideration is whether the paper is publicly available (for example, being circulated on the web as a preprint).  If it is, then it's perfectly reasonable to get in touch with the authors and offer suggestions.  You don't need to address the question of how you heard about the paper if you don't want to.  If you do want to reveal yourself as a reviewer, I think it's fine, but I've run across people who disagree about this.
It's much trickier if the existence of the paper is itself confidential.  If for some reason I submitted a paper without circulating it publicly, and then after rejection a referee contacted me privately with detailed suggestions for improvement, I would feel uncomfortable.  It would look a little too much like an attempt to become involved in the research or writing, and I would wonder whether the referee might take offense if I just said "thanks for the suggestions" and didn't engage in further discussion or collaboration.
If you have confidential knowledge about a paper, then you must not even appear to be using it for your own benefit.  For example, you can't ask to start a collaboration or try to find out more about this research.
If there's no public preprint, then it's safest to make contact through the editor, and at the very least you should ask the editor about what you intend to do (the editor may well object, and in any case you need to avoid seeming secretive about it).  Even if the editor approves, you should be careful, since innocent actions may be misinterpreted.

Thank you for providing this answer. The feelings you assume an author would have are somehow opposite to those suggested by @Jigg. If I contact them, I would make clear that I am not asking to become an author of the paper. +1

@dgraziotin I agree that it is probably a good idea to clarify that you have no ambitions to be co-author or to be acknowledged in any way.

I'd second the caution about potential misinterpretation of "former" referee's expression of interest. Several ways for things to go wrong, and if I were the journal's editor I'd tend to discourage such contacts. Instead, contacts plausibly based on publicly-visible documents have much less potential conflict-of-interest or misunderstanding ...

Even if it's available, the author will figure things out from the points made

Once a paper has been either accepted or rejected and is, so to speak, through the system, there is nothing that should prevent contact between author and reviewer. One problem is that it is sometimes difficult as a reviewer to know if a paper has been rejected since such decisions are not declared openly and are known only to the journal and the author(s). It is the non-appearance of the finished product that signals rejection. This is true even if you provided a suggestion for rejection since you do not know what the second (or more) reviewer suggested and how the editors decided.
This means you should probably go through the editor therefore you contact the author to make sure you do not complicate the processing of a paper that might still be under consideration within the journal. Contacting the editor and explaining your intent will clear all such potential "hazards".

I received the editorial decision through the submission system. I am sure that it was rejected (it is clearly written). Should I still contact the editor and inform him/her, as a way to show respect for the editorial system?

It is a judgement call. If the paper was definitely rejected you do not need to; if you are uncertain, go though the editor.

To the down-voter: Without a comment on the reason for the down vote it is difficult to understand where my answer should be improved. As is stated in help: "voting down a post signals [the opposite]: that the post contains wrong information, is poorly researched, or fails to communicate information"

@PeterJansson I hate silent down-voters. Have a +1 for your answer and comment as compensation ;-)

Maybe you should ask yourself the question: "do I want to exchange or collaborate with these guys ?" When I read things such as (I'm quoting you)

it was closely related to my research interests
I came out with a couple other suggestions
I care for the research in the topic to advance
I would like to let the authors contact me back

I get the feeling that you might well answer "yes", it really sounds like a good prospect for them and for you. In that case, you really should create a contact.
Revealing yourself as the referee X of their freshly rejected paper is however a bit hazardous, because you don't know how they have felt the reviewing process. They might believe that you, referee X, also sent privately words to the editor suggesting rejection. You won't be able to know that until the authors know you and trust you, this is why it seems more reasonable to remain, at least for a while, under cover. If after some time exchanging with them you feel confident enough that there is no resentment, you may reveal yourself, but I would suggest not to do it.
The question is therefore not solved at all: how to contact them? An idea: Read through their website, homepages, previous publications and look for keywords that you would use for a google search. Enter them in google and try to obtain some of these web pages or articles among the first google results. Then write an email starting by a short introduction of yourself and explaining (very) briefly how you found their names and stating that you are interesting in exchanging with them. Use some keywords as hooks, show enthusiasm and suggest some ideas, but do it in such a way, they don't figure out that you very much more about them. That will be an acrobatic e-mail!


text:
Are there usually interviews for postdoc positions?
I applied for postdoc positions and I received a few interview offers. I thought not many institution have interview process for postdoc positions and they give offer only based on application material. Do I have false information?

How much is "not many" and how many do you have interviews with? Is the first number really smaller than the second number?

I know someone who was employed as a post-doc like this: E-mail forwarded by PhD supervisor: Is anyone hungry for a post-doc in [location]? Candidate's reply: Yes, I am.  Response from future post-doc host: Great, when can you start?.

My impression is that a postdoc in the US (and maybe Canada?) is quite a different thing from a postdoc in Europe (and probably many other countries).  This difference is reflected in a lot of the answers below, and so it might help to focus the question on your particular country of interest (which looks, from the question, like it is probably the US).

Assuming that you're a mathematician (seeing as how your question migrated from math.SE), I believe that you get interview if you applied for:

European institutions
tenure-track level positions at liberal arts colleges
lower-level research universities who want to gauge the applicant's interest (was the applicant applying to this position as a safety, or is he/she genuinely interested?)
(only sometimes true) positions where research and teaching are equally valued, or where teaching is valued more highly
(only sometimes true) if a particular researcher is hiring postdocs out of his/her own grant

why only European institutions? is US different?

I personally would never employ anyone (even grad students) without an interview, and at least in Germany and and my field (CS), I'd say that most professors do interviews for post-docs since this is really a trust-relationship. On the other hand, the German system differs a bit from the US-sytem (our post-doc positions can often be compared to an assistand professor in the US).

Honestly, I think it depends on the situation.  Being on the market myself (math) and also applying for postdocs, I was under the impression that there would not be many interviews.  However, I did get two post-doc interviews, so far.
My take is that this depends on the situation.  Many times if they are departmental postdocs, there wouldn't be an interview (or so I gathered).  However, if you are applying for a postdoc that is tied to a specific PI, then there would be an interview.
Finally, the climate may be changing in such a way where departments are conducting more interviews now.

I guess it depends on the search committee in math major. I know one case that one institute sends out offer without interview this year but it interviewed the applicants last year.

are you sure if there is any search committee for postdoc?

At least for the two places I contacted the answer is yes. They will figure out the shortlist and then vote for the final offer.

Good to know. Maybe it is the case in particular area. Because in major cases, postdoc is a position by the project's PI.

Edited. I am in math major. For other departments the cases could be different.

I'm in the social sciences and most department postdocs search committees seem to interview before their final selection. I had a few Skype/phone interviews for positions I was shortlisted for.
There are other postdoc fellowships, like national competitions by grant making foundations, which make decisions without interviews though. One I was a finalist for, only asked for a full 10 page proposal and a budget narrative for the final round.
Like the other person said, I think this should really depend on the field, country, and type of postdoc.


text:
As a beginning graduate student, can you do without conferences in theoretical CS?
I'm beginning my graduate study in theoretical computer science soon, and I've been admitted to two graduate schools in Northeastern Asia.
One of those makes it a rule to grant compensation for travel to conferences to graduate students who finished their master's thesis.  However, for beginning graduate students, they said they cannot be sure if they can fully afford their travel costs for conferences.
The graduate school requires the students little coursework and all I will do there will be do actual research.  As you may know, conferences are important in computer science and reputable conferences are usually held far removed from us in Northeast Asia.
Can I do with journals and preprint servers, and possibly without reputable conferences, in the field of theoretical computer science, as a beginning graduate student?
(By the way, the cons of the other school are that the professor supervises too many students and that he hasn't been nice to me.)

what happens if you have a paper accepted ?

@Suresh They say they fund beginning graduate students on exceptional circumstances, so if the conference is top-class, the department might fund me.  In addition, if my future advisor succeeds in obtaining a grant he can afford my travel expenses.

Whatever you do, don't study under a professor who you don't get on with.  That's likely to be a terrible experience.

Conferences are very important in CS. Journals are also important, but they tend to accept more mature work, and therefore might be especially hard to publish into as a beginning graduate student (which, in your terms, seems to refer to someone who hasn't finished his/her master thesis yet). Nothing is impossible, of course, but you have to be careful not to end up with no publications after 4 years, just because you were aiming too high. In addition, some journals are very slow to respond, so you might spend half a year or even more waiting for a decision. In the mean time, you cannot send this work anywhere else.
You should ask students there how the official policy is, it might just be that they don't want to fund you a trip to a small workshop in Hawaii, but the question could be different if you were to get a paper at POPL. You should also consider that there are good conferences coming to Asia, and many conferences offer financial support to students (including reducing the registration fee, sometimes even helping with transport/accommodation). Finally, if you're writing your paper with someone else, such as your advisor, this person might be able to travel to the conference and present the paper (which would be a shame for you not to attend, but it still counts as a publication in your CV).
EDIT Some clarification: technically speaking, the only important thing is to produce good research, and to write good paper. What you plan to do after your PhD also matters, but if you'd like to stay in Academia, you will need at some point to get a job, and you will be judged on your papers (on other aspects too, but papers are very important). Now, to answer your question: yes, you could get a job with only journal publications, as long as they are good. Is that the best strategy? Probably not. Conferences are very important because they allow you to meet other people, to be exposed to state-of-the-art research, to confront your ideas with the community, to get published within a relatively short time period, to receive more frequent feedback, to construct your research project in a more incremental way (present your idea at some workshop, work on a good conference paper, present the extended version to a journal).
If I can give you one example, I've presented some of my work at a workshop with no proceedings (so it didn't count as a publication), and I met there someone who accepted to be one of my external PhD examiners.

"but the question could be different if you were to get a paper at POPL." Sure, but for POPL et al the same is true as for journals - building your career plan on publishing at POPL as a master student seems a bit ... unreliable. The important question is: do they fund trips to non-bogus conferences that the OP can reasonably expect to be accepted in? (for instance, B-ranked conferences)

If I could be accepted in, say, POPL, I could convince the department to offer financial aid, but for B-rank conferences, financial support by the department is not expected.  However, as Charles pointed out, I might still write paper with someone else or utilize aids by conferences.

@xLeitix: Yep, I just wanted to point out that it was unlikely there is a strict "no-conference-funding" policy, and that if a conference was really good for the sub-field of the OP, than perhaps a case could be made.

@CharlesMorisset I'd like to make some points clearer: do you mean if you do publish in journals, you can more or less do without conference papers?  And will presenting at such a small workshop that my dept won't fund me help me in my career?

@Pteromys: edited the answer to bring clarification.

In CS, conferences and journals serve different purposes: conferences are great for networking and exchange of ideas, and the important ones are having low acceptance rates so publishing there is worthy, but still, many (most?) are not listed in citation indexes and often people are just checking there for "real publications" (aka journal publications).
Edit due to many comments:
Just to clarify this: I did not say that it is GOOD to judge someone based on journal papers, I just said some people do! I personally had to learn this the hard way since I had many good conference publications which were not regarded as "publications" in some contexts.
Edit end
So if you do write journal publications, you made an important step towards a successful PhD (I know several advisoors who want to have x journal publications (x in {1..3} as pre-requisite), but you are missing the interaction and exchange of ideas. Especially in the first half of your thesis, this would be very valuable.
But maybe the people at grad school were just honest: Usually there are not enough travel funds to let everyone travel to every conference - one has to build a strategy on who visits which conference and how often. It's just a matter of resources since an international conference visit costs about 2.500€ and most funding schemes would not allow for more than one international conference per year.
I would recommend asking a grad student who is already there, how this is handled in practice.

"still, many (most?) are not listed in citation indexes and often people are just checking there for "real publications" (aka journal publications).". I could not disagree more strongly with this, in the field the OP mentions (theoretical computer science). But asking students who are already there is a good idea.

+1 to @Suresh - especially in CS, conferences and journals arguably serve the same purpose, which is to publish. The exchange of ideas thing happens, but it never appeared to me as the main driver for people.

+1, @Pteromys, avoid grad schools and jobs where citations/whatever indexes are primary way of judging you. Citations indexes are so last century - they do not have clear policies on what is in, what is out, they CANNOT be used for research evaluation - see, for instance http://pacs.unica.it/pacs/documenti/Informatics-Europe-Research_evaluation_draft.pdf

just to clarify this: I did not say that it is GOOD to judge someone based on journal papers, I just said some people do! I personally had to learn this the hard way since I had many good conference publications which were not regarded as "publications" in some contexts. (Edited post to clarify this)

authors: Александр Сёмин


text:
How will a "local" master's in CSE look when I apply for a Graduate funding in the USA?
Please refer to this previous question of mine:

As someone with low grades how can I prepare myself to study MSc in CS in USA?
Would it be a good idea to quit my job to prepare for the GRE and TOEFL?

I live in Bangladesh. With a background in IT, I am doing a job in a bank. I am 32. Honestly speaking I am done with my job. With an ambition to do a PhD from a USA/Canadian/German university, I have understood that my current job is actually going to get me nowhere.
Some answerers of the previous questions pointed out the importance of having a job in the related discipline, proving research capability, involving in research activity, being a part of a research group and so on.
After considering all these points, I am actually strongly planning to quit my job and get enrolled in a "Masters with thesis" program in CSE in a local university. My previous degree was in Information Technology which is, I guess, considered a professional discipline. So, I am going for a CSE degree. As far as I know, Information Technology degree is not considered a fundamental discipline.
My plan is this: (1) I shall complete a masters degree in CSE with a thesis, (2) write and publish one/two research articles and finally (3) complete GRE+TOEFL, if required.
And one more thing, I want to secure a funding either in the form of Assistant, Teaching Assistant(TA), Research Assistant, Research Fellow or anything else.
Please tell me about my prospect as a Masters-by-thesis candidate along with a funding after completing this series of actions.
Is the risk of quitting the job worth taken?

This question could be a bit clearer: In contrast to your previous question, you are now wondering about how a local Masters in CSE is going to look when it comes time to apply for your PhD?

I agree with Matthew G. Your question is about the local master's thesis. It has nothing to do with quitting your job at this point. So you might as well drop that part out of the question. That's just confusing the issue further.

@MatthewG. ---- Yes.

PhD positions in universities are limited and given to outstanding students who have a potential for research. If your aim is to pursue your PhD in USA/Germany/Canada etc., I'd highly suggest applying for a Master's in those countries UNLESS your local university is well-known, with good professors and coursework. Your application will be evaluated on:

Your GPA & Test scores
Reputation of university you're graduating from (Master's, undergrad) // And as Daisetsu says, the researchers you work with
Research aptitude
Reputation of the journals you're published in
Your statement of purpose
Letters of recommendation
Previous work experience

Also ask yourself, "Why a PhD?" What is your career trajectory and will a PhD help you? What about an MBA? How many years can you invest in this?
To be honest, no one here can tell you your chances of getting into a University for a PhD apart from the admissions committee itself. Spend some more time reading up the requirements of the colleges you're keen on and then arrive at a well informed decision.
Best of luck!

Just an additional note, journals have impact scores which can help you determine their reputation at a glance.  I would like to add that it's not always the university, but in my experience the PI you work with. I've met terrible researchers in well known schools, and incredibly influential people in less well known schools.

Do getting into MS-by-research or PhD have any age restrictions formally or informally?

You're going to need to prove to admissions that you are better than the other candidates.  Why should you be picked over all the other applicants who also have completed a masters degree and published a paper or two?
The people I know who have been accepted to PhD programs have a passion for their field which drives them to do something extraordinary.  Go ahead and get a masters, publish some papers, but make sure you have something to prove that you're worth a universities investment in your education.

"but make sure you have something to prove that you're worth a universities investment in your education." ---- how can I prove that?

There's no single answer to that question.  Imagine you worked at the university admissions office.  If you saw 100 applications, and everyone had a masters and a few articles, how do you pick who gets to be admitted?  They want to pick someone who can succeed in the program and do good research for the university.  Maybe do additional work outside research, get involved in professional groups, propose your own research, anything to make them think you can will complete your degree, and be of use.

I can't comment yet, so I decided to post another answer in case you end up missing the edit.
Officially, there are no age limits when it comes to pursuing any degree. However, the main purpose of a degree is to enhance skills or gain experience in a different area. This requires a lot of commitment- both personally and in terms of time and money. That's why most people finish their studies early on. The more you're out of the habit of studying, the harder it is to keep up with the class too. It's also difficult to support your studies when you have a family to take care of. Note: I'm not saying it's impossible, just that it requires a lot of planning.
With regards to MS by research/ PhD- again, the universities look at your fit for the program. If you have 10 years of working in marketing or accounts they might not consider you to be the best fit for a CS program.
Again, ask yourself- "Why?" Make a list of courses that align with your previous education, your current job and your intended career. Then look at the universities that offer it and what their requirements are. That will give you a better idea. If a PhD is what you want, go to a research center in your area and ask if there are any openings for RAs or start thinking about your Master's.


text:
Asking for Recommendation Letters for Multiple Grad School Applications
I would like to apply for many math PhD programs in order to maximize my chance of success.
My main question is how should I ask for recommendation letters. In particular, should I ask for a generic letter (in the sense that it's addressed to "the admission committee") to use for all my applications? Or should I ask for multiple letters from the same person for every university I want to apply to (presumably the letters have the same content, except maybe in who it is addressed to)?
Also, most PhD application deadlines are in December. But I finished undergrad at the end of last year. Should I ask for these letters now so as to not increase the time between when the professors know me and when they write the letter (this may mean I'm sending a letter dated February in November), or should I ask closer to the deadline around November this year?

How many is "many," exactly?

I'm going to give an answer based on my experience in the US, so it may not be applicable in other countries but:

Whether your recommenders use a generic letter is not a decision you get to make. You tell them where to send the letter, but at least in the US, you do not get to see it, and all you know about it's content is what they tell you.  I would let them use their judgement about how to personalize it, though if there is something you think would particularly important at one school vs. another, it's a good idea to mention this to them.
Similarly, when they write the letter is not something you have control over.  In all grad school applications I've seen, the application is electronic and the recommender directly submits via a link that's generated when you fill out your application.  They'll know when the deadline is, and will probably be annoyed if you try to insist that they write their letter months before the deadline.  If you're applying to a place that still uses paper, submitting the application months before the deadline when your paper application isn't there is just asking for trouble.

What does make sense is to write your recommenders now, and say "I wanted to let you know that I'll be applying for graduate school in November, and I was hoping you would be willing to write me a recommendation.  I wanted to let you know relatively early since I know that by fall it will have been a while since I graduated." Don't hesitate to remind them about interactions you've had, or about anything you think would look good in the letter.  Professors often have to write many such letters, and if you put your good qualities at their fingertips, they're more likely to end up in the letter.
EDIT: Looking this over, I think I could have been a little more concise.  Providing your recommenders with info is a very good idea; that's why I suggest that you do email them now.  They can write a better letter if they know what you plan to do and if you remind/tell them about your accomplishments, etc. But when you ask someone for a recommendation, you can't really micromanage.  You need to say where the letter needs to go and when the deadline is, but there's not much else you have control over.  It is unfortunate that memories fade (though they'll fade less if you give a reminder of your existence now), but that's how it goes.  That's just the price you pay if you don't apply to a Ph.D. right as you finish your degree.

I like the idea of asking now, while you are still fresh in the minds of your professors.
If you already know where you'll be applying, and the number of schools is relatively low (say, three or less), then there's no harm in asking for three letters. Once you get much more than that, though, it might be better to ask for a generic letter from each professor. I know I wouldn't want to write six different versions of essentially the same letter.
I would think that admissions committees are used to seeing fairly generic letters. So long as the content speaks well of you, I don't think it'll be counted against you if the letter is generic. (If that assumption is wrong, though, hopefully some folks will chime in here and let us know.)

I disagree with this answer as the best approach is likely the one mentioned in the most upvoted answer: leave it to them to choose how much to personalize each letter, unless you have a particular piece of information that you would like to go to a particular school, in which case you should inform them directly. I think 3 is too low a number (at least in the US, where most people I know applied to between 10 and 15 schools), and it's reasonable to ask that advisors do more, given plenty of advanced notice.

Get a generic letter starting with "To Whom it May Concern", and send copies of that with your applications.
I think in many universities, you need to apply early. So you may start applying and see if the university accepts those recommendation letters, because as told by Ben Webster, some universities may send the professor an electronic letter with a link or it may be a pre-formatted form of recommendation letter, which should be filled by the professor.
But even if you apply a few months later, professors will not forget you and give you the recommendation letter in the way it is required.

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


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When is it acceptable to ask a graduate program about their admissions decision?
I've recently applied for PhD programs in mathematics. I received an offer not long ago, and in light of this offer, there are only a few schools that I would consider an offer from. From past years results (and this year's), I expect to get results from two of them in the coming week, but another of them usually only sends out their final decisions three or so weeks from now (though they do, and have, sent decisions already to some applicants). I would like to make a decision fairly soon, and knowing about the status of my application at this final school would indeed make a difference in any decisions I make. When is it acceptable to ask them about the status of my application? Should I simply wait until they send me the result, or is it OK to ask earlier?
In more generality, so that this question might be useful to somebody that's not me: in general, when is it acceptable to ask schools about their admissions decision if they've not notified you yet?

If there's a specific reason, such as a deadline at another school, that it would be helpful to know your status, then I think its very reasonable to send a message to the graduate director at a program you're considering.  Asking just because you're curious is generally discouraged, but if you have new information, then its reasonable to ask for an update.

I would say that in general it is OK to ask if you haven't heard from the program in a long time or if you, say, see decisions being posted on The Grad Cafe. Sure, you don't want to be e-mailing them every week, but a short e-mail to the graduate department (not necessarily the graduate director, but the person listed under who to contact for graduate admissions) shouldn't hurt and they shouldn't be offended or annoyed by it. If they are getting swamped by such e-mails, it is not hard for them to just ignore them and not reply. If they only get a couple, however, they might actually give you a better estimate of the timeline.
Personally, I also consider answering e-mails asking such questions to be a part of the job description of whoever is the contact person for graduate admissions. Yes, the graduate director should not deal with such questions, but that is why I also think the graduate director shouldn't be listed as the contact person.
To sum it up, I only think it's "inappropriate" to constantly bugger them, but not to send a polite e-mail asking about your status.

I only think it's "inappropriate" to constantly bugger them: Er... yes, I would have to agree.

@NateEldredge, haha, touché. I meant it more in the other way - http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/bugger, but I guess "bug them" would be a better term to use :)


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Is there any unwritten rule against hiring already unemployed PhDs?
I have seen several articles in internet about a general bias against hiring long term unemployed people in non-necessarily academic jobs, see for example here and here. I was wondering if there is such an unwritten rule in academia as well?
I am sure someone might say it is not the case and according to the rules X and Y, it is considered a discrimination and it is forbidden by law and so on. I am not asking what the written laws say. I would like to know if there is such a bias in hiring committees or not? And if there is such a thing how can a long term unemployed academic do to overcome this obstacle?

The first article you link says "College graduates did not suffer from this stigma, however.", but that doesn't really answer your question.

I don't think there is an unwritten rule, precisely, but I think once you are not employed in academia (even if you have a job somewhere else), your chances of getting a position in academia decrease extremely rapidly.  Competition for positions is so massive, and there are so many well qualified applicants that I think someone who is not currently in an academic or research position is unlikely to be taken seriously.  Not to mention that you typically aren't doing the kind of research and networking you need to get a position if you are unemployed (not always, but often).  I think some fields where it's very hard to get work are a bit more forgiving (though, of course there there is even more competition), but this is part of what keeps people in adjunct positions, since it is a way of staying "in the game."

I am not asking about other factors related to employment. Assume that two candidates have equal credentials for a specific position. If one of them has a gap in his academic employment, does this make his application dramatically less attractive?

@VahidShirbisheh Probably, but it depends on the person who's making the decision. It's also hard to say what "equal credentials" means.  In practice, having an academic job is itself a credential.

@VahidShirbisheh As far as I can judge, in mathematics that depends on the research record. Unemployed now but actively publishing and well-known = minor disadvantage. Unemployed and no paper within last 3 years = kiss of death. In any case, losing your job at 55+ puts you into much worse position than being unemployed for a couple of years at 35- (have seen both situations with my friends), so the general rule seems to be "rejoice and fight your way through if you are young and give up hopes for a permanent job if you aren't" (there are some exceptions, of course)

In any case (academic or not), you always have to account for any hole on your CV. The main idea here is that someone always loses skills when he doesn't have any activity.
However, holes in CV can have many different root causes (disease, looking for a job in a country struck by the economic crisis, humanitarian work, taking care of children at home...). It is usually best to either write it down explicitly (disease for example) or to turn it into some positive, meaningful experience (humanitarian work, etc.). For example, someone who took care of children at home can have learned some organization skills, done some scientific blogging or contributed to some scientific tool on spare time.
This will not always be accepted by a recruiter, but it's better than holes in the CV that just raise suspicion about one's commitment.

I am not really sure about your argument that "someone always loses skills when he doesn't have any activity". Because I know hundreds of employed academics with absolute no growth in their academic works in recent years and on the other hand I know lots of people outside academia with every day growth in their knowledge and experience. For example I know a guy who has only one publication and he has recently become an associate professor in a Canadian college!

As a recruiter, you always try to detect the NEET-like people (NEET stands for Not in Education, Employment or Training). This does not mean that the applicant has to be active in the particular field of application: hopefully, open-minded recruiters will also consider out-of-field activities such as raising kids, fighting malaria or whatever. When presenting your CV, you need to be able to tell a story, and holes break this story.  Getting a professor position is not necessarily linked to publishing: think of positions in a company, being active in committees...

@sansuiso I have never seen a hiring committee make an offer based on service/admin, hiring is predominately about teaching and research (with a little service and personality thrown in).

Can't you just fill up any hole by writing "CEO in X"? Then you only need to explain that the idea wasn't that  great or that something failed in your master plan for world domination. Most of the small companies fail before becoming big anyway, there should be no suspicion in that. On a side note, I don't think people should be punished for mistakes in their past as long as any debt they may have fallen into is settled.

@Trylks: Who said anything about mistake and punishment?

@VahidShirbisheh mistake≈gap, punishment≈obstacle.

I've taken part in quite a bit of recruiting committees (academic and industrial, and for internships and permanent positions as well). I can really guarantee you that one of the first things we checked was the temporal consistency of the candidate experience. If you have any hole, you must be ready to accept a lot of questions about them. Yes, you can say you were CEO of X that failed. But keep in mind that it must be true, it's so easy to check...

A friend walked to Mongolia (from France) and it doesn't seem to have harmed his academic career prospectives much.


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How do I know if I'm good enough to be a math professor?
I would like to apply for graduate school to become a mathematics professor.
However, given that the opportunity cost of grad school is high and that I already have a stable, good paying job, I would like to know whether I have the talent and ability to be a math professor before I start. This is obviously a very difficult question to answer, but I'll explain my situation.
I believe I have above-average math talent, although I wouldn't consider myself a genius and I've had people in my classes smarter than me. However, I've gotten high marks in nearly all math courses and I've written a honors thesis which has also received very high marks. I've also worked as a research assistant. Basically, I think I've done pretty well and perform competently in all the mathematical challenges that has come my way so far.
But being a math professor requires original ideas and lots of publishing. I haven't had any significant original ideas, but it's probably true that most people at my level of education also haven't (correct me if I'm wrong here). My main concern is how do I know if I would be able to generate enough original ideas to keep publishing and maintain a successful academic career? Unlike working in mathematical modeling in the private sector, where one cannot really get "stuck" in the same way, it seems like a risk to be a professor since it's really hard to guarantee that you'll always be able to produce new research.
Do any mathematicians working in academia have any comments about how one knows if they'll be able to continually generate new ideas to produce publishable research?

I don't think anyone knows, we just hope we can.

"It's really hard to guarantee that you'll always be able to produce new research." The more serious risk is that you won't get a job. Be warned that there are more capable Ph.D. graduates than faculty positions to fill.

Finding a job at a top faculty is not a requirement for me. I'd be completely OK with a job at a low-mid tier research university. But, yes, I'm aware it is a major difficulty.

Mathematics isn't something you are gifted with; it's a practiced skill. The reason you have above-average talent is because you do your homework, and most students do not (in my observation). Want to be better? Do more math.

I wish I knew with 100% accuracy if I was good enough to do something before I went and did it, it would have made my research CV so much stronger and I would have wasted so much less time!

@JonathanLandrum There is no shortage of hardworking postdocs who never get tenure. While "X isn't something you are gifted with" is a great motivational mantra (and sometimes work very well for everyman's skills) it might be deadly dangerous for advice on life-long commitments (people do have different predispositions).

It mixes to questions: on estimating one's chance to become a math professor and on continually generating new research ideas. Could you focus on one of these (you can ask 2 questions in different threads).

@JonathanLandrum Mathematics (like writing, painting, guitar, basketball, ballet, origami, and duck calling) isn't only something you're gifted with; it's also a practiced skill. And doing it professionally requires not only innate skill and continuous practice and relentless optimism in the face of failure, but lots and lots of luck.

But being a math professor requires original ideas and lots of publishing. Not true. This is required for a math professor at a four-year research university.

Being a productive and inventive researcher often times takes more than new ideas, math skills (be they gift or acquiered), such as being able to write, manage teaching load, knowing when to continue and when to stop working on an unsolved(-able) problem and probably some luck as @JeffE says. So its even harder to predict. ;)

You may enjoy this read: http://dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2014/01/23/william-shockley-on-what-makes-a-person-write-a-lot-of-papers-and-the-superstar-researcher-system/

Relevant previous question: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/11765/ive-somehow-convinced-everyone-that-im-actually-good-at-this-how-to-effect

Do any mathematicians working in academia have any comments about how one knows if they'll be able to continually generate new ideas to produce publishable research?

I can remember freaking out about this as I was writing my first paper.  It was the only publishable work I had ever done, and I remember thinking to myself "What if this is the only idea I have in me?  Or what if, instead of getting easier, generating ideas gets even harder as I have to scrounge around in deeper recesses of my brain?"
Fortunately, generating ideas turns out not to be as intimidating as it sounds.  In practice, it's very rare to sit down in a chair and say "I shall now think deep thoughts."  Instead, any depth comes as a spin-off from much more mundane activities.  You read papers, you idly wonder about things, you come up with questions you care about, you figure out how to investigate them, you grapple with technical obstacles, you study things you hadn't realized you needed to know, you chat with colleagues and ask them questions, you work with collaborators, etc.  Each of these activities is pretty natural, and they all feed into each other in a complicated web.  At any stage you may come up with or run across new ideas, but they are generated organically rather than being something you have to worry about explicitly.
You can expect that a strong graduate program will bring you to the point where you can do this reliably.  Of course some people will be faster or more prolific, some will have more striking or creative ideas, some will work on more important questions, etc.  You can still improve many of these factors through practice and mentoring, but at that point the question is a little different.  Not whether you can do research, but rather how to reach your full potential as a researcher.
So I'd recommend not worrying about this too much.  Doing research is a skill that most undergraduates don't have but that graduate schools can teach.  Once you get up to speed, generating ideas doesn't end up being a bottleneck.  [In fact, you'll end up having more ideas than you have time or energy to investigate yourself.  This lets you suggest some to students to help them get started with research, without worrying that you are giving away a limited resource you need for your own research.]

However, given that the opportunity cost of grad school is high and that I already have a stable, good paying job, I would like to know whether I have the talent and ability to be a math professor before I start.

Doing good research is necessary but not sufficient for getting a job in a research university.  It's difficult to assess talent and predict career success, but one way to get a crude approximation is by looking at what happened to past students in your position.  When you are admitted to graduate school, you can look up former students of advisors you are considering and see what happened to them.  For example, you can find lists of students using the Mathematics Genealogy Project, and then you can search for them on the web.  This is certainly not perfect: some advisors don't have many students yet, job markets change over time, some former students are just not representative of your situation (if a potential advisor used to be at a less prestigious school, then placement records from that school are not so relevant), etc., and of course there's always random variance.  However, it will give you a crude picture.  If the advisors you are considering have had many students who got jobs you would like, then maybe you will too.  If very few of them got jobs you would find acceptable, then you are taking a much bigger risk.

+1 for In fact, you'll end up having more ideas than you have time or energy to investigate yourself.  This will happen sooner than you think.

I was in the same situation as you.
By good fortune, I lived in a city with an excellent mathematics department. I chose a graduate course that looked interesting and asked the professor if I could sit in on his course. He kindly agreed, and I did so -- including all the homework and a term project. He was impressed, wrote me a rec letter for grad school, and I had the good fortune to succeed -- I am now working as a math professor. So it's possible!
I would definitely advise the same to you if practical.
Also, I recommend that you ask this question to whoever will be writing your rec letters, as they are familiar with what it takes to succeed in mathematics graduate school. (If they are not, then you probably don't want to get letters from them.) If they believe you are strong enough to get accepted to, and succeed in, top programs, then that's a very good sign.
You might consider hedging your bets by only applying to top (say, top 25) graduate programs. You can also get an excellent graduate education at second-tier schools -- indeed, I am a professor at such a school -- but you face longer odds if you graduate from such a school, and if you don't mind the prospect of being admitted nowhere, then being very selective is one way of partially mitigating your long-term risk.
Finally, you might investigate what it is like to work at a not very prestigious institution, such as a regional branch campus of a state university. Would you prefer such a job to your current one? The answer to that question should inform how much of a risk you are willing to take.
Good luck to you!

Thanks for your response. It's seems like sound advice. However, it would be good to get your thoughts on working as an academic, as opposed to getting a job as an academic. Do you feel you can always competently write new papers? Do you occasionally get anxiety about not being able to solve problems, develop new ideas, write papers, etc?

There is ALWAYS anxiety. See the number of questions on this site alone relating to the imposter syndrome.

One aspect of the question is whether you are willing to move. Even targeting "only" low-mid tier research universities, there are many more good applicants than positions, and if you want to end up in particular area then the risk not to find a job is very high. So, to get higher odds you should be ready to get a PhD somewhere, do a couple post-docs at different places, and then (hopefully) be hired in yet another place.
Concerning your fear with the long-term ability to do math research, I would say that if you manage to find such a job, then you most certainly have what it takes. Sure, some of us loose their way, but it is usually because of particular events and possibly the way they handled it. In all cases I know, at the time of their tenure no one could see a difference between them and ultimately more successful colleagues.


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Postdoctoral fellowship -- what is it about?
Assume you are just about to finish your PhD and you are facing the decision of whether to go for a postdoc position or for an assistant professorship. Which one should you choose?
Let's ignore the salary for the sake of this question. Then which of the two is better? What about the benefit of short-time employment and getting to work with lots of different people (in case of postdoc) vs. being stuck at one place for several years (assistant professor). Is it beneficial to work with different groups or is it irrelevant?
Does a career involving several postdoc positions look like the individual could not get other (''better'') employment (even if they deliberately chose one over the other)?
Will a postdoc position give you more time for research because you don't have to teach or have to teach less?
Is it generally better to seek professorship rather than postdoctoral fellowship?

I think It's like red wine vs white wine.. What is it about? Not this site, for sure.

From a purely academic point of view, it is no contest: postdoc all the way.

Disagree: postdocs need to spend a nontrivial amount of time networking and looking for the next job.

This really depends on the field. In my social science field  in the US, it is fairly common to see young ABDs being hired for their not yet proven "potential", over people with extensive postdoc and research experiences (who are often seen as damaged commodities for having a stale PhD and not yet having landed a TT position). You need to figure out what a postdoc/TT position means in your field and what the baseline criterion for landing each of those are, and what people's typical career trajectories look like.

In 2006 my wife and I had to choose between several options, including tenure-track positions and postdocs.  If we had taken the latter, we would have been on the job market again in 2008-09, which would have been terrible timing.

The typical perspective for U.S. people in this situation is to try to balance the following three items:

The desire for a permanent, tenure-track job, and its associated stability.
The desire to do as much research as possible in one's life.
The desire to not starve to death.

Generally those just completing their PhD's are not eligible for tenure-track jobs that have a large research component, because their track record is insufficient.  Therefore it is common to take a postdoc (or two, or five) to bolster the research record.  This has the immediate effect of meeting the second and third goals, and has the potential to open up more research-oriented tenure-track jobs.  However too many postdocs and it becomes more difficult to get tenure-track jobs (and further postdocs).  The implication is indeed as you suggest, that these positions have been taken because the individual could not get a suitable tenure-track job.
Very few people consider "assistant professor" negatively because of being "stuck at one place for several years"; the only reason to turn down such a position is because it may be a bad fit, as compared to the sort of place one wants to be.

Vadim makes some valid points. The one I would amplify on is how good a fit the school with the assistant professorship is as far as your career goals are concerned. You've got to be careful. When I started out, I thought I could go to a small school, build up a research record, and move on to a research university. It didn't happen. I started out at a small school near a research university. My school had an atmosphere that totally discouraged research (I wish I had known that). Teaching three courses a semester wasn't that bad, but keeping fifteen hours of office hours a week was. Throw in committee work, etc., and there wasn't a lot of time to do much research. The school I'm at now has a base teaching load of four courses a semester, and expectation for advising, committees, and so on. They claim to support research, indeed it is a significant component for advancement, but the general climate works against any serious work. What output I have managed, not nearly as much as I wanted, has been a struggle. That being said, I have certainly managed to satisfy Vadim's goals 1 and 3. As far as goal 2, let's just say that I'll need something to do when I retire, assuming I can remember anything.
So, again, be careful. Personally, if you have the ability I would opt for a postdoc or two. But be realistic about what you want your career to look like ten, fifteen, or twenty years down the road. Then, do what you think gives you the best chance to get there.