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Can I reasonably move universities every few years for professional work?
My real love is scientific computing, but I'm generally interested in nearly every academic field — through undergrad I've had research computing positions in social psychology, electrical engineering, volcanology, and pharmaceutical sciences. Now I've graduated, and I'm at a different university doing data analysis in cognitive science. I like it, but I have a long list of places I'd like to live and fields I'd like to learn more about, and my "career plan" is to move every 3–4 years and work at a different university in a different field, always doing scientific computing/data science though. I'm not too concerned about getting a huge list of academic accolades or getting a PhD right now; I'd rather just be doing interesting work.
I've mentioned this to several professors and graduate students who have asked about my plans, and they always react as if I've said I want to run off and join the circus. Is there some truth to how they react? Am I hurting my career this way?
I'd like to clarify that I just want to be doing data analysis. It seems like nearly every lab needs people to do this, so I don't see how I'm a funding leech.

This thing is called a postdoc. It will mostly hurt your wallet and personal life.

As a data scientist myself, I have found it rather difficult to be a journeyman data scientist in academia. Yes, people need their data analysed; no, they do not want to pay for your full salary, benefits, and office space. Nor are they necessarily going to hire an outsider to analyse their data. They can get their postdocs/grad students to do it.
I have met repeated resistance to being taken onto projects as an outside data analyst. Certain STEM disciplines are especially bad with this. Because I have a PhD, I can find full time positions that allow me to be housed in a department, teach classes in that department, and then take on outside projects as I find them. These outside projects are never enough in and of themselves to provide enough work for me to retain my job. The fact that I can do independent research and teach classes is what allows me to do what I do.
I just think being a journeyman data analyst in academia can be a rather tough life, and you may not have much freedom to actually decide what type of subjects you are exploring. In my experience, you may rank below even the master's students and will possibly be paid subsistence level pay.

Sorry, I guess I don't understand what you are saying.

Nor do I. The OP maybe has an undergraduate or postgraduate degree, but no PhD. A PhD position will last several years, postdocs will be shorter, so the OP's plan seems reasonable. I don't understand @Vladhagen's post. (Although, it has just trebled in length... I'll re-read)

No, still don't get it: Every single university hires someone with a bachelor's degree (well, maybe a master's degree) to do "interesting work," that's a PhD.

@user2768 Unless the OP gets a PhD, I am rather hesitant to believe that many universities are going to let the OP just come in and do research that's interesting. The OP expressly says he/she is not looking to pursue a PhD. In essence the OP is saying "Please fund me, but I do not want to pursue a PhD."

@Vladhagen I'm not saying that I want to do independent research. I'd like to help with other people's research by doing data analysis.

@Vladhagen This last point in response to PascLeRasc is much more insightful and useful than your original post. I'd suggest framing in that vein in the answer.

@Vladhagen I'm explicitly commenting on the fact that PhD students are hired with bachelor degrees, that's my point. Regarding "OP expressly says he/she is not looking to pursue a PhD," actually they say "not too concerned about...getting a PhD right now," which is rather different.

(Your answer is now completely different to when I read it originally.)

I think the other answers have mis-understood the OP's goal. He explicitly says that he wants to be a scientific programmer assisting other folks' research programs, not pursuing his own. Such positions do exist at every major research university. How common they are varies by subfield. In my experience physics departments generally leave all the programming to their students and post-docs, while life sciences department will hire quite a few software developers and data analysts, just as they hire a lot of wet-lab technicians. There is a lot of computational work to be done these days that requires fairly mature engineering skills, but is not novel research. Having your chemistry Ph.D. student set up a secure and robust web application is probably not a good use of their time.
To respond to the OPs question: what you want is not impossible, but you'll have to be lucky to pull it off. While there are scientific programmer positions at every major research university, there are not a lot of them compared to the non-academic world, and they generally don't pay nearly as well. I think PIs find hiring for these positions difficult and time-consuming, so they prefer folks looking for long term positions. Sometimes, one of the functions of these positions is to provide some overlap in institutional memory. Bit rot sets in rapidly each time a student graduates. If you aren't even going to stick around as long as your average Ph.D. student, your utility to the PI is diminished.
On the other hand, many of the grants that fund these positions are time limited. Projects that only last two to three years seem to be pretty common. That would seem to match pretty well with your goals. Unfortunately, at least in large departments, there seems to be a small cadre of programmers that get shuffled around projects as funding comes and goes. You'll be competing with those folks, and as they have a known local track record, it puts you at a disadvantage. For the same reason, constantly switching fields, would also put you at a disadvantage. Software skills are highly portable, but there is always some domain knowledge that's crucial as well.
I think your chances of success will be better if you stick to one field, say the life sciences. It will also help if, early on, you can find work on a high profile project, with a prominent PI.

As an add-on to the domain knowledge issue, you will probably want to earn more money as you advance in your career, but people might not want to give you more money if you don't have commensurate experience in that field. You don't want to just take a string of entry-level positions forever.

I'm pretty sure that the funny looks are because people are making the assumption, probably warranted, that you will be fairly shallow in the work you do. Normally academic research is narrow and deep, so this plan seems too unlike what they expect. Some fields take a long time to learn and even more time to be able to deal effectively at the frontier of knowledge. Someone who wants to do a lot of relatively simple (in their view) things has less value, by far, then another who is a well known expert in a specialized field.
Along with this worry is that you wouldn't be a lot of help in leading students to a research (narrow, deep) career as you are a sort of "dabbler" in things.
I don't criticize your plan. Being a polymath (even a shallow one) can be a rewarding life. But deep and narrow is what is more valued in academia.
At non-research institutions (primarily small undergraduate colleges) you might find a better reception. But even there, not having a doctorate is usually a deal-breaker.

I plan for my work to be narrow and deep, though. It's simply data science/statistical analysis - it just happens to be in several different fields.

Until you demonstrate that you can do that, people will be skeptical. The best way is via a PhD (or similar degree). Your claim that you can do it (have done it) is not enough.

Core Facilities
One opportunity you may consider is seeking employment in some kind of core facility. At least in the United States, research intensive universities often have centralized organizations available to assist research from any discipline needing their services.
Often these are organized around specific equipment (such as specialized genomic sequencing) or other resources (such as animal care). However, I have definitely seen examples that are dedicated to providing computing services, including programming and statistical analysis.
Being employed at a research core facility would likely offer you the opportunity to focus on the tasks that you love, without needing to develop your own research agenda or teaching. However, the pool for these jobs is significantly smaller.
An example of such an organization is the University of Kansas's Center for Research Methods and Data Analysis.
Non-Academic Positions
A second opportunity could be leaving academia. I've made a career as a data analyst and I've switched industries reliably every 3-5 years. Currently I work in a university analyzing their research and grant performance data, but I've also worked in both private firms and other governmental agencies. Outside of academia it is far more common to see people leave for greener pastures on a regular basis.

To offer a different perspective: the behavior you're describing would be very welcomed by most companies. At most places that are hiring data scientists, 3-4 years of tenure is more than they get from many/most people they hire. Intellectual curiosity like you're describing can easily be seen as a good thing in interviews.
There's certainly no shortage of companies with data in all kinds of different domains who are desperate to hire experienced and interested data scientists to analyze and make sense of their data. Heck, even staying within the same company, you could pretty easily switch the field you're working in. My last job, I analyzed fraud data, mapping data, weather data, product recommendation data, server log data, all kinds of location data, food data, and marketing data, all in under two years.
Many companies publish their results publicly. Some do this through peer-reviewed journal articles, but many more publish through blogs and conference talks. So if you're looking to advance the state of public knowledge in a given field, I think you can do that at a company- in fact, most would be pretty excited to hear that you want to help them get publicity by making findings public.

Have you considered working on the supercomputing side? My university frequently makes hires in that area, and not only in engineering — some are for positions that assist faculty with supercomputing facilities, and the like. These facilities are usually funded centrally from the university, and/or with large external grants, and so can hire a lot more freely than departments or units with one-off data analysis needs.

My current job is actually somewhat similar to what you are looking for. (A software developer / analyst that assists various research groups on a short term, 6-18 month, basis.)
It is entirely possible to do this sort of work long term, but there are at least in my experience several things that you will want to keep in mind. (To simplify, I will refer to the group or groups you would potentially be interacting with as 'the clients').

One of the core values that you will be able to provide the clients is a bridge between them and their universities greater IT sector. This means that you will not only likely be the one doing analytical / development work, but also interfacing with people that are setting up and maintaining the infrastructure, are in security and governance, etc. For this reason, you will be far better off finding a large university that does a wide variety of research, rather than moving universities constantly.
The pay for such positions, in comparison to their workload is far below that of industry. (In my area, about 50-60% of what similar work would make in industry). Working at a university does have a variety of other benefits, but if pay is an issue for you, you may want to look elsewhere.
Even with having a lower pay than industry, developers and analysts are expensive. (Expect roughly after benefits that you are going to cost your employer twice your salary.) If you are going to want to have a position working solely on client problems, and not general IT/university systems, your likely going to need to be funded mostly/exclusively by the client's grants. While this seems reasonable on the surface, depending on the university's culture and environment there are several caveats:

Your mainly going to be working on medium sized projects. (Multi million, decade long projects tend to have their own full time, long term staff members. These are common if fields like physics.) Smaller short term projects (<100K) are not likely to have the money to support a separate analyst, and even less likely to have that money put aside for IT/Analyst work.
While I understand you are wanting to just do the analytics, expect to be doing a lot of software development. In general most of their analytics are going to be done by PhD students. (Far cheaper, and learning how to analyze and conduct research is why they are there.) However, depending on the field, they may be far less likely to be capable/interested in doing development work.
I mentioned this briefly before, but depending on your university's culture, researchers might not even be thinking about including funding for a position like yours in their grants. You will likely need to be very proactive to find funding for yourself.
You are going to likely be working directly with clients, This can be both a positive and a negative. (The benefits and woes of this have been more than adequately described elsewhere, but I would definitely make sure to read up on it before finalizing any plans.)

If you have any questions about this type of system, I would be happy to try and answer them.


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Have there ever been any "Lebron James" of academia?
For those who aren't familiar, Lebron was so talented and sought-after in high school that he was able to skip playing NCAA basketball and went right on to the NBA at the age of 19. Have there ever been any academic researchers who showed so much promise at one stage (in undergrad or grad school maybe) that they were offered funding to set up their own research institution, or a high-ranking position they'd typically be unqualified for?
This is just a curiosity of mine and not a reflection on my career plans.

Yale only realized that Lars Onsager didn't have a PhD after hiring him as a postdoctoral fellow.

Louis de Broglie in "his 1924 thesis Recherches sur la théorie des quanta (Research on the Theory of the Quanta) introduced his theory of electron waves. This included the wave–particle duality theory of matter. (...) The wave-like behaviour of matter was first experimentally demonstrated in 1927." The Nobel Prize in Physics 1929 was awarded to Prince Louis-Victor Pierre Raymond de Broglie "for his discovery of the wave nature of electrons." A Nobel prize for a PhD thesis :)

Rudolph Mossbauer comes to mind as well with a Nobel prize for his PhD work.

Anecdotal, but I know someone who was offered (and accepted) a postdoc at Cambridge while still in the 2nd year of his PhD.

Realistically LeBron skipped one or two years ahead. You seem to be talking about skipping a decade (or two) ahead.

Erik Demaine was 20 years old when he got his PhD and joined the faculty at MIT.

TL;DR: Yes, there are some very gifted persons who made an academic career very early. (I don't think we need more individual examples.)

To the best of my knowledge, Hugh Woodin was appointed a Professor at Caltech in 1983 and was awarded his Ph.D. (from Berkeley) in 1984.

This question is clearly opinion based and, as the answers shows, everyone has their own favourite example. It should've been closed long ago.

Stephen Wolfram self-published a physics book at age 12 and then 3 more by the age of 14 (a lot of people do this, but you can look at the PDFs by clicking on the links here and I think you'll find that these could compete in quality to the works of many adults at the time).
That same link will tell you that he did not finish high school, or undergrad, but received a PhD at age 20 from Caltech. On the recommendation of Richard Feynman and Gerald Freund, he joined Caltech's faculty at age 21.

Have there ever been any academic researchers who showed so much
  promise at one stage (in undergrad or grad school maybe) that they
  were offered funding to set up their own research institution, or a
  high-ranking position they'd typically be unqualified for?

To qualify into the PhD program at Caltech, one typically needs at least an undergrad degree, and Stephen Wolfram did not have one. As user StrongBad points out, entering a PhD program at Caltech is far more exceptional than entering the NBA straight from high school, when you look at the percentage of people that have done either. Entering the faculty at a university like Caltech at age 21 and only 1 year after finishing the PhD, was also probably less common percentage-wise, than entering the NBA straight from high school.
You ask about "setting up their own research institution", at first I was going to tell you that including this in your question was a bit extreme, but after reading more about Wolfram I found out that he set up the Center for Complex Systems Research (CCSR).
However LeBron James stayed in the NBA for a fairly long career and has continued to be (arguably) the best player in the NBA. Wolfram "academic career" was short relative to most other academics, because he shifted to doing other things such as:
(1) making software for academics
(2) making educational resources and doing outreach
(3) managing businesses that help academics
He did continue to do academic work and published a book with academically original content, but it wasn't received as well as the mid- to late-career achievements of LeBron James. His success in (1), (2), and (3) though can definitely be compared to the mid- to late career achievements of LeBron James.

I am not sure what aspect of LeBron James you are referring to. He was drafted straight out of high school. This is impressive, but there have been 45 others who did that. Something like 15% of NBA first round picks are one and done picks, so realistically he was a year or two ahead. He won his first MVP award at 24, but there have been 14 players under 25 to do that. Again, maybe he is a year or two ahead of his competition.
In academia, it the US a typical progression is 4 years undergrad, 5 years PhD, 2 years postdoc, 6 years pre-tenure. At any one of those stages a gifted and motivated person could skip a year (sometimes two). Being a year or two ahead is relatively easy.
What you seem to be asking about is skipping 5-10 years. This is much harder, but sometimes happens.

The Survey of Earned Doctorates shows that only a minority get a PhD in 5 years.  Postdoctoral periods vary greatly.

@AnonymousPhysicist ... In the U.S., time for Ph.D. varies greatly with the field.  Humanities typically much longer than sciences.

@GEdgar But the survey says the median is more than five years in almost every field.  Most people who do finish in five years are several years ahead of the median.

Harvey Friedman doesn't have a high school, undergraduate, or master's degree. Just a Ph.D. in Math.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Friedman

Interestingly, less than 24 hours ago I wrote a short Mathematics Stack Exchange answer that featured Friedman.

How do you know "Harvey Friedman doesn't have a high school, undergraduate, or master's degree" ? I cannot find that on the page

Here's a link to the relevant part of his personal webpage: http://u.osu.edu/friedman.8/foundational-adventures/degrees-employment-students-contact/

The page says he doesn't hold certificates -- maybe he just means he lost them?

The analogy is a bit weak for a few reasons. I realize Lebron also followed through on early promise, but at least in something like math (my field), it doesn't have to be a case of "promise", because it can be clear that someone is brilliant: they have results to back it up. Also there is no special big league that offers tons of money or that you need to get into while you are still young; being in grad school is comfortable place to do research and learn things.
A recent example that comes to mind is John Pardon. While still an undergraduate he published multiple papers including one in the Annals of Mathematics. This is one of the top few journals in math and is basically unheard of these days for an undergrad to publish there. But he still took a normal amount of time as a grad student at Stanford, it's just he became a full professor at Princeton the year after graduating...

There are certainly many people who have entered academia who were child prodigies, who have taken an unusually rapid route into senior academic positions.  A quintessential example is the Hungarian physicist, mathematician and computer scientist John von Neumann.  Von Neumann was a child prodigy who learned differential and integral calculus when he was eight-years-old.  By the age of nineteen he had published two important mathematical papers.
Von Neumann's father insisted that he go through the regular schooling grades for his age, but he also had private tutoring to supplement this.  After his schooling, he enrolled directly in a PhD candidature in mathematics concurrently with programs in chemical engineering, the latter due to pressure from his father to pursue a profession with good financial prospects.  He did them both concurrently, and after receiving his PhD in mathematics he became the youngest person ever elected privatdozent at the University of Berlin.  Even before this he had published several mathematics papers at a level of original contribution that would exceed the contributions of most modern tenured professors.
If you haven't had a chance to read about the extraordinary genius of this guy then you are in for a real treat.  He makes the basketball skill of Lebron James look pretty ordinary by comparison.  Other brilliant physicists and mathematicians who knew him, including Nobel laureates, regarded Von Neumann to be someone of super-human genius who could basically run rings around them.  He had a photographic memory, and could recite verbatim books he had read years ago, including translating them to English in the process, reportedly without any diminution in speed.  To entertain his friends he memorised pages of phone directories and then recited the contents of randomly chosen pages.  There is a famous story about him doing a mathematical problem called the "fly puzzle" where he is reputed to have performed a difficult mathematical operation almost instantaneously in his head.  The physicist Hans Bette referred to him as being of a superior "species", an "evolution beyond man".  Some consider him to have been the smartest person of the twentieth century, if not one of the smartest people ever to exist.

For those interested about these von Neumann stories, see The legend of John von Neumann by Paul R. Halmos (1973). Regarding the "fly puzzle", this gives a description of it, and a lot of references to it (up to 2006) are given here.

In computational chemistry/physics:
Peter Wolynes became a professor at Harvard at age 23.
Henry Schaefer III became a professor at Berkeley at age 25.
These appointments were at that time more rare (percentage-wise) than entering the NBA out of high school. Both of them went on to be world-leaders in their fields, but I think Klaus Schulten's h-index of 152 is far above anyone else's in the field of Peter Wolynes (computational biochemical physics) and the 165 h-index of Donald Truhlar (also a professor from age 25) is far above anyone else's in the field of Henry Schaefer III (quantum chemistry). Don Truhlar's i-10 index of 1167 is maybe the highest in the world if divided by the number of co-authors (since in fields like medicine and particle physics, papers can have far more authors, meaning each one of them has usually put in far less work).
I therefore claim that Don Truhlar is the LeBron James of computational chemistry/physics.
All these metrics need to be taken with a grain of salt, but knowing the field quite well, I'm comfortable with making this claim.

Gerald Bull, famous for his work on long-range artillery, obtained his PhD age 23.  The rumour (which I cannot source) is that, at the time, he was the youngest PhD from the University of Toronto.  A recognized genius of ballistics he would be (in)famous for his work on various super-guns.
John Moffat eventually got a position at the University of Toronto.  He was awarded a PhD from Cambridge without ever obtaining an undergraduate degree; prior to his work in relativity he was a painter in Paris. His personal correspondence with Einstein may have worked in his favour.

Freeman Dyson never got his Ph.D.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson
Really though, I think skipping the undergrad and moving directly into Ph.D. or direct research work would be more impressive and more direct to Lebron. (Don't have a good example.)  But the reason I say this is Ph.D. students are often already productive working researchers.  (So not completing or even skipping entirely the graduate degree is not as impressive.)

A couple more:
M. King Hubbert was hired to teach advanced classes and actually founded a program (!) in geophysics at Columbia.  He worked there for several years, not having finished his Ph.D. from Chicago, yet.  See the biography by Mason Inman.
Also Jaime Escalante (the teacher in Stand and Deliver) was hired to teach at three schools in Columbia while he was still a student in teachers college.  The Jay Matthews biography has the details.

In recent times, I don't think so. Even truly, remarkably, unfathomably gifted people still finish high school, undergraduate, PhD etc. The difference is that they tend to breeze through these steps extremely quickly, and while collecting many accolades along the way.
A good example I can think of is Peter Scholze, a mathematician from Germany who was made a full professor at age 24 in 2012.

A couple of world-class mathematicians had a similar career.
To name those who were not named by previous answers:

Hardy won a nation-wide math programme (which he later helped to abolish) after two years in college, it essentially granted him a faculty position after some shuffling.
Gelfand bypassed both high school and university and went straight to postgraduate studies at 19.
Wiener got his BA at 14.

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How to deal with bad department chair?
As students we have the right to choose our semester subjects (for the new semester beginning in 2019)
So we went send an email to the department chair indicating what subject we would like to take.
We received days later the notification about the courses to be open and my course was not there.
I went to talk to him and his justification in summary was this "He did not read my email and now it is too late to propose the course and he already did his plans".
But that's not true at all and I can prove it.
So he clearly has another reasons on why to not open the course for me.
So I think I have 2 options about how to deal with this:

To go and talk about this with the Academic Vice President.
To do nothing and to take one of the courses that are going to be open the new semester.

If I do 1. ' I'd win ' for sure and the course would be open thought the department chair would not be happy at all.. so I'd possible get into trouble with him because I know he is a vengeful person and I might not be the only one possible affected but my sister as well (she is a freshman) in the same institution.
If if do 2. I'll be an unhappy student the whole semester, studying something that I don't like at all but there won't be problems with
 department chair.
Could someone tell me what should I do?
What would be the best to do in this situation?

When I said vengeful person I meant that he could choose the most 'agressive' professor to teach me in a summer course for instance or that he could deny to sign a recommendation paper or to make my academic life a little bit more difficult

I don't understand the situation in your department - do you mean you are guaranteed the right to choose your subject by official policy? Is this written in a student handbook or similar document? Does that document describe the official procedure for choosing the subject (including deadlines, etc.)?

@ff524 Yes, there is a student regulations book where there are our rights, obligation, rules, etc. No, it does not describe the official procedure for choosing the subject. You can go directly to his office too or send an email.

Well, your chair's answer is not helpful at all and if he really did not read the mail, it is quite unprofessional. Nonetheless, things may happen (and they happen to me, too, sometimes - but I would prefer to apologize instead of beeing rude).
When it is too late (which might be the case), there is nearly no chance in adding additional courses because of a usually very complex interaction of time budget of each professor, other obligations, minimum course attendance policies, administrative deadlines for setting up information systems, room bookings, etc.
Maybe there are requirements regarding minimum sutdent attendance (e.g. we are not allowed to teach courses with less then three people (unless we do it in our spare time)).
To make a long story short: There may be very good reasons for the answer, but I agree, the answer is rude and bad style. But because of this I would suggest to make the best out of the situation and accept the courses as they are.
Maybe my answer would be different if you could provide more information about the ruels under which you are usually allowed to choose your subjects.

This question looks a little bit opinion based, so it may actually be forbidden to ask it here, but I try my best..
I would advise you to really think again about your assumption "'I'd win' for sure". I don't know your situation, but I cannot believe it's so sure due to many reasons:

Often, if it is too late, new courses can not be added even if there was some mistake before. This is due to many reasons: room booking systems, maximal amount of hours professors want/are allowed to teach, administrative reasons, reasons related to budget etc.
Why should a new course be added if only you want to take it? If others want to take it too, why did it not have been added?
The statement "I'll be an unhappy student" comes across a whining even if it's true and is probably not convincing.
This chair seems to have a lot of influence and, if you are correct, acts in bad spirit against you. How do you know she/he will not continue to tell their version of the story to the Vice President? Normally, the voice of a student will not be heard in academia.
The whole issue sounds to irrelevant for a Vice President to take on.

From your story, I do understand that you are in a small college (this chair knows you so well that they even act against you) and the chair would be willing to act against you and your sister. From this viewpoint, I would advise you against doing something.
Sadly, in my experience, professors often get away with bad behaviour and students are often not considered. (This may be different in other places.)
Try to get happy with the other courses and study your subject on your own. Good luck!

Well you're right that he knows me well, he had taught me before in past courses. You advise me to not to do nothing about it. Wouldn't this led him to do whatever he wants in the future against me? I mean, not respecting my rights as student

My impression of the case is that you will probably not win (maybe this is also because I don't have the bit picture - can tell us why you are so sure?) and that it is not so important (even if it feels that way). If in the future, he does something different against you, you could again evaluate how severe it is and if you would "win". It could also be that leaving this one be makes him forget his spite against you in the future.

In any case, document everything (including your proofs that he is lying) just in case you nees it at some point.

I feel sure that I'd win because the Vice President is an honest person who follows the rules and with my proof he would realize about the unfair actions by the department chair.

Hm, I do not think that being honest is enough -- especially if the chair goes out of his way to be bad against you. Could you be more concrete about your proof? (Only if you want to, of course)

hmm I don't think it's a good idea to say it. Believe me there won't be problems there with my proof

I understand. For all you know, I could be the evil chair;) however, I stand by my answer -- in my opinion, the best you can get, even with proof, is "sorry, a mistake was made.  Next semester, the issue will be handled with more care."

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Shooting For a Star Supervisor VS Mediocre Supervisor and Consequences For Your Academic Life Career
I have asked this question before, but it seems easier said than done. I think this question is really important for prospective students for making a sound decision for their career life. Academia, in general, is very competitive. My question is: If your goal to be recognized in your research field, should you shoot a star researcher in your field and wait maybe a couple of years to join his/her lab, or working with a mediocre supervisor and in that case, I have to build a reputation on my own, however, I don't know whether it possible.
Definitely, we cannot make a sweeping generalization, but some stars in the field are really bully and this based on true starts( happened to me and others posts here) and they can write pretty bad letters.
Should a prospective student wait to shoot a star lab/supervisor or just manage to finish and then build his/her reputation by attending conferences, organizing workshops.
EDIT
I have been shortlisted as top candidates at a very prestigious institute in Europe, however, the junior supervisor selected me is really negative person based on a couple of discussions and ignoring multiple emails, I cannot imagine myself to be his student.
On the other hand, another supervisor is quite old, not so much involved in research, but he offered to deposit a grant for next year. He is really very nice person, his former student was able to finish, but he told me you will learn on your own.
I don't have many options cause I am running out financially and has no many options, maybe I am not a lucky person.

As it stands, your question is OT, since only you can really answer it. Can you make the question less about you and more generic?

I did, hope it is fine.

Students shouldn't shoot any supervisor, star or otherwise... can you clarify what you mean?

It's not a dichotomy: A supervisor can be a non-star without being mediocre.

@astronat, how the student shouldn't shoot any supervisor, you must consider with whom you are growing to commit to making your career grows properly. Being with a poor supervisor whether in personal or professional is deteriorating your career, and that was my previous case, so I want to make this time good decision hopefully.

"shoot for" = "try for"

@Monika do you perhaps mean "choosing a star supervisor", or "shooting for a star supervisor"? Presumably, as astronaut notes, you don't mean shooting them (as in firing a gun). If anything, that would make it difficult to join their lab later...

It feels to me that you are describing a false dichotomy. You will in fact need a supervisor who is both competent and with whom you are able to have at least a professional relationship. However, I don't really believe that your supervisor needs to be a "shooting star" - a regular, competent, research-active professor should do just fine.
Surely not all competent academics in your field are jerks / bullies? If they indeed are, I worry that your expectations are in some dimension unreasonable.

I am sorry for not be a good writer, I cannot deliver my message properly.


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Does it make sense to publish papers/ theses online?
I've left academia for business some time ago. However, it occurred to me that I could publish some of my old final papers/ theses online as online books.
I have all the copyrights.
The theses are good and I could probably publish the most recent ones in "traditional" publishing houses, but with my new job, I don't really have time for several rounds of corrections and re-writing of old papers.
These are papers with implications for the practice and on topics "general public" may find interesting. What I mean in this post is, obviously, not "scientific publishing" online, but non-fiction publications directed at general public.
My goal is to earn a bit with the texts. I don't really need a list of publications for my current career, although it's never a bad thing to have some publications I guess, so if the publishing "channel" is not completely ridiculous it's even better.
Have you had any experience with self-publishing online? Does it make sense? Or is it useless work?
Edit I don't see much point in discussing whether the papers are interesting/ valuable/ up-to-date or not and I'm a bit surprised that this topic has been raised at all. (Because I would expect a bit more scepticism concerning making assumptions on details not mentioned in the initial post from academics). Instead, I would find it interesting to hear from someone who actually has had some experience with self-publishing their work/ academic work online. That's the point of my post.

What field is this?  Many options for dissemination are specific to certain fields.  This would also help give a sense of whether there is any chance of earning money with your writings.  If there isn't, would you still be interested in having them publicly available for free?

@NateEldredge: The field can be described in general terms as "Business and Social Sciences".

I have a hard time imagining much of a commercial market for outdated research from a non-renowned individual without marketing support and when the individual doesn't have time to polish and correct what they have.

I think that "earning a bit with the texts" is probably unrealistic. If you want to do it for philanthropic reasons, sure, it makes them visible. But the problem with monetizing them is (a) how will people find you and (b) they probably don't want to pay anything if they do.  Self publishing (for money) works, provided that everyone who would want the work already probably knows how to find you.

Given the edit of non-fiction publications directed at general public, can you explain what this has to do with academia?

@StrongBad, the obvious thing probably: these are academic papers. Academic papers, which non-scientists can find interesting and which have consequences for the business practice. Not sure what's so strange about it. Plenty of academic studies in economics and related fields are used by the industry or are written for the industry.

My goal is to earn a bit with the texts

My understanding of book publishing is that making money is really hard, and even harder if you do not have the backing of an established publisher. Established publishers often have contracts with university libraries that guarantee them a minimum number of sales. They generally like authors who will then teach off the book which gives them some more sales. When the author convinces colleagues at other schools to teach with the book also, profits can be made. You do not seem to have that type of network, so I doubt you will make any money.
The hit rate of established publishers to actually turn a profit is pretty low. With their network and approach, their costs are generally covered such that a couple of successful books is all they need. This means they scoop up anything that even remotely has a chance of being profitable.

You are right, but your comments refer to typical scientific publishing. I wrote papers on topics many people outside academia find interesting.

@BigMadAndy I think it applies to the humanities also. If you are asking about non-academic books for non-academic audiences, this is probably not the place to ask.

I am one of five authors of a textbook in the computer sciences, now obsolescent and out of print.  My share of the royalties over the life of the book did not reach four figures.

If your aim is to make money, you'll need to put effort into it. You can't just put your papers online and charge people money to read it - nobody will buy. You need to format it, make a book cover, get it indexed by e.g. the British Library, advertise it, etc. This isn't trivial and is a large part of why people engage publishers to publish books. It should be said though that even though the publisher will handle most of these things, there will still be things you need to do as an author. You can't just hand the manuscript to the publisher and collect the royalties; you must be prepared to invest some time.
If you're still interested in doing this, then I'd suggest contacting a publisher. You'll need to fill out a publication proposal form, where you give details about what your book is about, your qualifications, the intended market, why your book is relevant, and so on. If the publisher approves your proposal then you're gold, and they'll tell you what you need to do.
Finally: even if the publisher agrees to publish your book, unless you are famous, the chances of it selling more than ~1000 copies is very low. This is the case even though your target is the general public. As an order of magnitude, you might get ~10% of net sales receipts as royalties. It's up to you to decide if it's worth it.

I had an experience with Glasstree: a company that describes itself as a publisher but that is little more than a printer. I used it for getting good quality copies of a text of 120 pages (in A4 format) at a cost of 7 dollars. That price was the minimum allowed and the money went to Glasstree, but I could have chosen a higher price and pocketed the difference. The text is for sale to the public, but I was the only one to buy it as far as I know. (I gave away the copies to students and colleagues.)
You may try to use Glasstree as a publisher and earn some money, but you would have to do the advertising work that real publishers do, and that Glasstree doesn't. I wonder whether that could work.


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Unintentional Plagiarism in my Masters Thesis
About four months ago I graduated from a reputable university and received great feedback from the committee who judged my masters defense as well as my thesis. Prior to my defense, I was asked to prepare my paper — not my thesis — within 5 weeks of graduating. There were a few problems regarding the quality and quantity of the data and figuring out the appropriate analysis took considerable time. During this period I wrote and rewrote all the sections that are essential to a paper, keeping in mind that these exact sections would form my thesis as well. A colleague also edited my introduction, at times embellishing my sentences that went beyond what the cited authors stated. The time crunch resulted in lower quality work.
Once the paper was “approved” I was given the green light to work on my thesis, at just two weeks prior to graduating. All I had to do was copy and paste my paper into my thesis document, but I wanted to improve my literature review and make sure all the sections flowed well. In the end, even my thesis document did not turn out to be at the quality I hoped for. It was well received, but I believe that it is highly unlikely my supervisor even looked at my thesis, much less even read the first few pages.
I just re-read my thesis and upon scrutinizing it I have found that I have unintentionally plagiarized from other authors in different areas, including the literature review, methods and materials, and one line in the introduction, all which was likely due to negligence and carelessness (can I call it that given the time I had?) of finishing on time. I didn’t outright copy, but sentence structure and wording are strikingly similar.
My friends (many who are in academia), family, and therapist (psychologist) have all advised that I use this as a learning experience for the future, as the university nor my supervisor would be willing to give me a second chance as such rarely is offered for something of this magnitude.
At this point I’m looking for any sound advice... What do I do? How do I move past this? I worry about my future :(

What is your question in a few sentences?

@user102204 From what I can tell, it seems like you submitted a thesis that was (inadvertantly) plagiarized and you are wondering what to do now that it has come to light?

And is the paper itself (not the thesis) free of plagiarism?

I assume you mean getting the paper published. Yes?

While I don't know the policies of your university, nor anything about your advisor, I would suggest that you explore any possible option of submitting a corrected version of the thesis. Explain to your advisor what happened. Be very clear and honest about it. Perhaps they can make an accommodation. The paper, on which it is based can, perhaps, be used to show proper intent.
If you can't substitute a newer version, you will need to create and try to submit an addendum giving proper credit wherever needed.
I doubt that the paper is in any danger of being rejected, since the citations are correct there.
While many might consider this a serious breach, rather than panic and carelessness, I doubt that it would be career ending. Intent matters a lot in such things.

First off, not having actually seen the thesis, we have no way of objectively knowing what actually was plagiarized.  From what I can deduce, it essentially sounds like your thesis is of mediocre quality and you wrote a literature review that borrows heavily in terms of sentence structure and word choice from other papers/publications. Is this even plagiarism? Maybe it is. And maybe it isn't. Writing a literature review that uses some of the same sentence structure and words as other works is perhaps poor writing, but may not even be plagiarism in the first place.
Has the university brought this to your attention? Have you spoken with your adviser about any of this? Ask your adviser what he/she would like you to do. I honestly doubt that they will strip you entirely of your degree and blacklist you for all eternity. That is not how academia works. If you fixed these plagiarism issues in the paper that is being submitted, this shows that your intent is to correct inadvertent plagiarism. Many universities would allow for this. You seem to have nothing to hide. I would be upfront and ask your adviser for an opportunity to correct the plagiarism. He/she likely will actually provide a path for you to correct the work. I would seek to do such for my students.
Overall, calm down. This is not the end of the world or your career. Seek to fix the inadvertent plagiarism and move on without worrying yourself (literally?) to death.

This strikes me a bit like scrupulosity.
First, did you cite the authors whose sentence structure and wording you borrowed?

If so, then I seriously doubt there is an issue. There are only so many ways to rehash the same information; see this question for example.
If you did not cite them, then it does seem more likely that there is an issue. Still, consider getting an "unbiased opinion" from a trusted academic before taking any action.

If, after this steps, you're still really convinced that you did something wrong, then I think you should approach your advisor and explain your concerns.

If your advisor agrees with your concerns, I expect he will help you submit a revision (and I seriously doubt he will try to revoke your degree).
If your advisor says "it's fine, don't worry about it", then things can get a little tricky:

As I said, it's difficult to judge ourselves -- you should consider the possibility that your advisor is correct. After all, your advisor knows your work and the conventions of your field better than anyone.
But it's also possible your advisor is just being lazy, in which case you may need to insist on submitting a revision, escalating if necessary.


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Should a graduate student accept random offer to be a reviewer for IEEE Transactions paper?
I have been asked by a well-established professor to review a regular paper submitted to IEEE Transactions, however, I am concerned as in the email, he titled me "Dr. Monkia" although I am still being a graduate student. Of course, I am interested in the paper's topic, but I don't consider myself an expert. He asked if I couldn't review, I can ask a qualified colleague to do so, or let him know immediately.
I had been asked many times to review for predatory conferences or journals, of course, I declined. As far as I know, IEEE transactions are reputed, however, this sounds a little bit weird.
The question: as a graduate student should I accept to review or decline in that case (given the fact I know the topic)?

I'd reject it just because of my experience with IEEE in the past.  But you might be interested in looking at  https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/90986/1622 and https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/16825/1622

Here's a more sinister view: graduate students tend to be 'easy' reviewers given their inexperienced with the process and area.  An editor may intentionally send you the paper so that his/her friend's paper goes through more easily.  However, this could backfire because some graduate students think this recognition gives them the power to reject a paper if they find any faults, which could be minor and fixable.

Full steam ahead! A) It is good for your own research to get exposure to recent somewhat related contributions of others, and reviewing is a good way of doing just that. B) It is a sign that the (associate) editor has noticed your work. Reviewing may become taxing, if that manuscript was written too hastily (or happens to use methods you are unfamiliar with). If it becomes too much of a chore, talk with the editor (or your advisor). The editor will appreciate that you get in touch with them as opposed to letting the manuscript collect dust on your desk.

@Joe IEEE has hundreds of different journals and conferences. So I don't see how you could have a general experience with "IEEE" - only one particular conference or some such, no?

@Voo : it was their paper submission system.  Every way I had to generate a PDF they wouldn't accept (wrong PDF version, claimed I had bookmarks when I didn't, etc), until I ran out of times I was allowed to do it, and I had to use their system.  I had used LibreOffice w/ their MS Word template, but somehow it screwed up the font on my tables).  But I didn't realize that that wasn't the submission system.  So I didn't get it submitted in time.  As I had no paper, I tried changing registration from full to one-day ... but they wanted to charge me twice.

@Voo : so yes, I have a gripe against IEEE in general, and will NEVER go to any of their conferences or publish in their journals.  And I realized that my final attempt to generate the PDF screwed up a character in the PDF, but I just gave up on the whole thing, and posted it to Zenodo : http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16950

@Joe You're making my point: There's not a single paper submission system for all IEEE conferences, so your experience with one such system doesn't tell you anything about the others. That said I'm in CS where everybody simply uses LaTeX (for good reason as the anecdote once again demonstrates) so no idea if LibreOffice would be problematic there as well.

@Voo : Maybe that's their problem -- find a system that actually works, and support it, rather than have every group come up with their own half-assed system.  I'll stick with publishing in PLOS One Computer & Info. Science.

It is probably a good thing to do, just for the experience. It will also get you on the good side of the professor.
However, make sure, in accepting, that the professor and others know that you haven't finished your degree yet. That might cause them to withdraw the invitation, of course, but it should be made clear.

Of course, I will let him know, however, I don't know how they selected me in that case, is that randomly?

Reviewers aren't selected at random.  It's possible that you were selected based on some paper you've written or presentation that you have given.  One common strategy used by many editors is to ask the authors of papers that are cited in the submitted paper to review it.

It is also possible that your advisor or someone else you know recommended you to referee the paper. This is how I became a referee for most of the journals I have worked for.

Chances are the editor noticed you authored a paper on a similar topic and is inviting you based on that.
There's no harm doing this. You might feel you're not qualified, but you're being invited, therefore the editor thinks you're qualified. You shouldn't worry about writing a bad review either - full professors can write crappy reviews also, and if you read the paper in detail chances are you're already going to write a better-than-average review! If you're still concerned, you can always talk to your supervisor.

I am highly interested, as this is the first time to receive from IEEE Transaction. Do you think I should inform them that I didn't finish my degree?

You can if you want, but there's no need to.

The fact that they addressed you as "Dr." doesn't mean anything.  In situations like a reviewer invitation, where the editor is sending an email to someone they don't know well, it's common that they will address the email with some generic title like "Dr." or "Professor" even though the title may not actually apply to the recipient.  It's just too much trouble for them to look up each person's qualifications and tailor the message accordingly.  So I wouldn't consider that by itself to be cause for concern.
The fact that you haven't finished your degree is not a factor, in and of itself, and I don't feel it's necessary to inform the editor of this.
However, like any other reviewer, you need to make an honest judgment as to whether you have the necessary expertise to review the paper.  Keep in mind that as a reviewer, the research community is counting on you to decide if this paper belongs in the scientific record in this journal.  Some questions to ask:

Have you published in this area yourself?
Are you familiar with other work in this area, so that you would likely know if there are significant related papers that the authors have not cited?
Do you have a good sense of what most researchers in this field know, so that you can judge whether the article contains enough background information (or too much)?
Have you read enough papers in this field to have a clear sense of what makes a paper good or bad?  What sorts of results does the community find interesting?  What are common errors?  What level of detail is expected?  Which parts of the paper will need the most careful attention, and which are uncontroversial?
Have you read enough papers from this particular journal or conference to have a sense of the "quality" that they demand, or that their readers expect?  Even if the paper is technically accurate and well-written, would you be able to judge if their results are significant enough to be worthy of publication in this particular journal / conference?

The average grad student is less likely to be able to answer "yes" to these, but you know your own background best.  If you are not sure, you may wish to consult with your advisor or some other experienced research mentor.
It's true, as some other answerers mentioned, that the editor evidently thinks that you have the necessary expertise, probably based on your previous publication record or recommendations from other reviewers.  But you still have to make the decision yourself, as you know yourself better than anyone else does.  I don't mean to reinforce impostor syndrome here, but you can't say "the editor thinks I am qualified, therefore I am."  I have certainly received papers to review where I knew I didn't know enough to do a good job, even if the editor thought I did.  The editor is relying on you to evaluate your own qualifications, and to decline if you don't feel you can do the job properly.

Typically the invitations are automated e-mails. If this is the first time to register for the specific Transactions, then it is quite possible that the AE added the contact details and selected Dr from the drop-down menu when registering the information. There is a very basic box that you can enter new reviewer information (If this was a personalised e-mail, then that is a different story).
You can also accept and change your details to Mr. / Mrs if Dr. is not correct.

If you think you can do a decent job, do it.  Even if you aren't a super expert, if you are a careful reader and thinker and willing to exert the effort, you may do a decent review.  Sure, there is some possibility you may be too easy or strict (more likely the latter) but even in that case, realize editors get varying quality of reviews all the time.
Bottom line:  graduate students are in many instances THE working researchers in science.  I wouldn't be intimidated with doing a review, writing a paper, etc.  Sure, you are not a PI, but that is more about grants, budgets, hiring people, legal position, etc.  But a review?  Just rock it out.

The way often editors pick reviewers is by looking at the cited references in the paper and calling on an author to review. The editor would probably go with the corresponding author, but if the author declines to review, the editor may go down the list of coauthors, some of whom might be graduate students. The "Dr" in the invitation is part of the form letter. It assumes that the reviewer has a PhD, which is why, as others have suggested, you should contact the editor and explain the situation. Chances are the editor will apologize and withdraw the invitation.

I am not convinced this is a good thing to accept to do. The frequency of inexperienced /  incompetent / overworked reviewers is too high already as it is in academia at this point. In worst case unsuitable reviewers can make other quite capable students drop out because they lose faith in peer review process of articles.
I've seen it happen.

And wouldn't having competent graduate students review papers reduce the number of overworked reviewers? If the OP doesn't think he's competent to review this paper, of course, he should immediately decline. But it seems like he thinks he is, and I suspect he is a much better judge of that than you are. He is quite possibly much better than the next reviewer the editor will send this paper to.

@PeterShor I don't think there is anything I can help you with on this issue of yours, but I can at least wish you a Merry Christmas!

Also, Monika is a germanoslavic female given name and not male.

Consult your advisor
Regardless of the specifics of your message - an offer to review a paper which you have not previously discussed and arranged with its originator is something to consider carefully. Perhaps the best person to give advice is not random academics on this site, but someone who knows your field, (likely) knows the person involved, knows the journal etc.
Of course - don't tell your advisor any details which should be kept confidential, like an author name, title of the paper etc.
In this specific case, consider rejecting.

he titled me "Dr. Monkia" although I am still being a graduate student.

Indeed, this is a warning light. It means the sender doesn't know who you are, but more significantly, did not bother to check whether your background is appropriate to write the review. If they had bother, they'd have figured out you're not a PhD yet.

He asked if I couldn't review, I can ask a qualified colleague to do so, or let him know immediately.

Did he now? That's cute. "Can you do my work for me? If you can't, won't you be so kind as to find some other sucker to do it and arrange for it to be done?"
This does not sound like something a serious editor would say. If I had no other information, I would probably reject merely because of this sentence.

Of course, I am interested in the paper's topic, but I don't consider myself an expert.

So, this is not a good enough reason to reject review requests. On every specific subjects of a paper, only a handful of people in the world are experts (well, depending on the discipline I guess; it's like that a lot in Computer Science); and often none of them is available to review the paper. So people with related expertise have to do it. This also has some positive aspects, such as assessing applicability and relevance beyond the clique of those few people.
Bottom line: Unless your advisor, or people very familiar with that Professor or journal say otherwise, I'd be hesitant to accept.


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"Undeserved" patent attribution
I work with professor from my college and it seems like we are close to invention, so he said me to collaborate with his old friend and patent it. All amount of work was divided between us unequally. Idea belongs to my professor and he did some minor measurement, I've done about 90% of work, including writing text of patent itself, while his friend has no idea about the thing or process and simply gives obvious advices, such as "search for other similar patents and use them as reference" and "you should be comfortable with these topics" (Oh, thank you very much, I never would have guessed without your advice).
Just out of interest, I've searched for all professor's patents and found out one weird thing: each patent has four names (his, his friend's, his student's, who did all the work, and his daughter's). I can't say something bad about her because I don't even know her. The reason is: she has never even been at this college, studying many miles away and having nothing in common with all these researches. I know some of his students, and they definitely have never worked with her.
I feel disappointed and kind of cheated: it's pretty hard for me to know that his friend will share with me this invention, and even harder to know that I will have another "co-author" which I don't even know. His friend, at least, read the text of patent; I doubt that she knows about this research, by the way. I can't refuse now, because all work is done and, besides, I can't change supervisor during this year, at least. I feel like if I would try to protect myself in this situation, he would simply tell that she did some amount of work (and definitely he would be mad at me). What can I do now?

My impression is that if there are at least two people on a patent, it isn't going to matter much if there are more than  2 for any CV purposes. This could vary depending on your specific area. So as distasteful as this may feel, it isn't likely to have a large impact. Are you concerned about the longer-term potential monetary issues?

Why are supervisors so helpful and altruistic?

While it doesn't seem fair when others are involved, I can imagine that a sole researcher would include his non-participating children as patent holders on any application, just to protect their future interests when he/she passes on. Not a patent lawyer, though, so I don't know the real implication.

Authorship fraud on patents is a much more serious business than on academic publications and can carry some significant legal implications. See here for a (US-related) example. In particular the patent will be legally invalid if the inventors are not reported correctly, making it economically worthless. Thus the professor is not only cheating the patent office, he is potentially cheating you out of a financially valuable asset.

Are you sure you want to be discussing this kind of fraud from an account associated with your real name?

@DanRomik, it seems unlikely that a person who was listed would challenge the validity of a patent. Also, no one here, including the OP, actually knows whether the absent daughter was a participant or not. Certainly she might interact with her father out of sight or knowledge of the rest of the participants. She might even be the "idea factory" for this work. The link  you gave says the "participation" needn't be very significant. Maybe more than "Gee, dad, that is so cool".  But even if you had some indication of no participation whatever, it would be hard to challenge. The PI says "yes".

@Buffy no one would need to challenge the patent to make it worthless. Simply, any third party who wants to use the invention and is aware that one of the named inventors did not actually participate can proceed with freely using it without paying royalties to the inventors, knowing that if it ever came to a lawsuit they could establish easily that the patent is invalid. So the patent may be worthless right from the get-go, except as resume-padding.

@DanRomik. I think not so easily established, actually. Proving a negative is pretty hard in general.

This is one of those situations that has an obvious, but unsatisfactory, solution. The supervisor has power over you and can wield it to your disadvantage. I suggest that you just let it ride without complaint. I know it isn't fair, but, as a student you have little recourse or power to change things.
Know that if you let it go you will get a good, if not perfect, outcome, and that you won't always be "under the thumb" of your supervisor. But having your name on a patent is a positive thing, no matter the rest.
But he can make if very unpleasant for you if you object. As other questions here suggest this is unfortunately a moderately common issue.
Treat it as a learning experience and if you make a career in Academia, don't do this sort of thing. And if you wind up with some "power" there, work to assure it doesn't happen in the future, but you have little power now.


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Are PhDs in Engineering worth it for working in the labour market?
I am a undergraduate electrical engineering student in Canada. Programming courses aren't offered in our EE degree. So, to overcome this lack, I learned to program in Java, C++ and in Python by my own. I also learned to use Git and to do bash scripting, with a colleague of mine who wants to work as a developer.
By learning by my own, I discovered that I liked microcontroller programming and programming in general. I maybe want to pursue a professional career in electronic engineering, in computer engineering or in software engineering, but I know that I will not be qualified enough compared to someone with a CS degree.
Hence, I started looking at doing a Master's degree in Computer Engineering or in Electronics Engineering, after I'm graduated from my B. Eng. I found some informations about course-based master's degree that could help me get on the labour market, so I can get accredited as a P.Eng. with professional work experience.
But, my parents, who both work at a university (my mom is a professor), want me to become a university professor. For this purpose, they push me to do a PhD, and therefore a thesis-based master's degree.
So, I wanted to know if PhDs in Engineering are worth it for working in the labour market. If yes, could I simply work as an electronics or computer engineer, with a PhD ?

What "labour market"? Shovelling cow manure or designing a power station?

I think there's a background question here that's strictly on-topic: What are good reasons to pursue a PhD? Making your parents happy is not one of them.

This heavily depends on your local circumstances. Nobody can answer this for you - you must find out for yourself.
Go to your local jobs portal (Google for one if you don't know what they are) and search for jobs requiring a degree in engineering. Then repeat the search for jobs requiring a Masters in engineering, and jobs requiring a PhD in engineering. Which jobs do you find the most attractive? How much is their estimated pay? How much would that premium be worth over the course of your estimated working life? How much time & money would have to put to acquire that premium?
Once you have the answers to these questions, you can move on to the big one: is it worth it?


text:
What is a numerical value in admission application context?
I am applying to few universities (Master's degree) and one of them which is University of Helsinki is asking for numerical value included in computer science studies from my degree. Exact question:

Please state the total amount of computer science studies included in your degree (numerical value, credits/study hours etc.)

My current degree is from Lithuania. I am confused about numerical value. Could somebody elaborate on this matter? In addition, any suggestions what else should I mention to answer this question fully?

What country is that university in?  This is probably some terminology specific to that country's education system.  Also, what country is your current degree from?

Can you post the exact wording of the question? As is, it's difficult to figure out what specifically you are asking about.

@NateEldredge I've updated the details.

My understanding is that they want to know how much of the total workload of your degree was dedicated to the topic of computer science. You're relatively free to choose in which way to quantify this workload (e.g. total number of hours of the courses on computer science), but since you're in Europe, my suggestion is to use ECTS: you may be able to get the amount of ECTS credits for each course directly from your university student's guide.

To add clarity to this answer, by "numerical value, credits/study hours etc" they mean that any of those measures are appropriate, they are not requesting everything on that list plus more.


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Is it moral to propose work that's already partly done?
Academia involves a lot of proposals and approvals and it can save effort to combine them. A grant including work that's already been started is easier to satisfy. The applications I receive for independent study describe work that students have already started on. My grandfather used to tell me about submitting the same paper in several courses in his student days.
To generalize between these cases, failing to clarify the amount of work already done is a common tactic among researchers. What moral principles guide such actions? Are some specific techniques kosher and others off limits?

One of those things is not like the others. "Submitting the same paper in several courses" falls afoul of OBu's "don't sell the same piece of work twice" rule. The others are just saying that you can include your prior work that you did not already get credit for.

Let me make two points. The first is that in order to write a research proposal you have to understand the area well enough to describe it. This implies that you have already explored it and have done some work to get it ready for submission. Even after you submit, you aren't likely to just forget about the problem until you get funding. The alternative would be just saying random things in research proposals. So, there is no alternative, in my view, to making proposals on partially done work.
The second point is at the other extreme. I've heard that some very successful researchers, though the stories may be apocryphal, work like this. Do research problem A. After you are nearly done, write a grant request for problem A and if it is funded, write the report but use the funds to do problem B, that wasn't mentioned in the grant request. If B is successful, write a grant for it (B) so that you have funding for problem C, etc.
You might question the ethics of this, but the realities are that the funders get what they funded, and the researchers get the funds they need to do research that the funders (and society) like. If you think about doing it any other way, what you wind up with is a lower success rate for funded research (hence less funds for students, etc) and lower reputations all around. That is because there is no guarantee that your initial thoughts on a research topic will bear fruit. So you try to solve more problems than you can reach conclusion on. Lower "success" doesn't serve anyone very well and turns research into a sort of jungle - eat or be eaten - situation.
But, I'll also note that if you apply for a grant for a piece of work and tell the funders that it is nearly done, you won't get funded. That should be pretty obvious, I think. On the other hand, if you ask for funding for a wild idea you just had, you won't get funded (unless you are already a superstar). So there is a tension here. So maybe there is a sort of "sweet spot" in which it all fits. But certainly the work is partly done before funding is contemplated by either the researchers or funders.
Even if the real situation isn't quite as extreme as this, a researcher funded for A and working on A would be foolish to completely ignore problem B if it occurred along the way. S/he would be wise to follow the threads for at least a while to see what potential there might be. People, including researchers, aren't machines that work on only one thing at a time to the (mental) exclusion of all else.
The reality is somewhere in between these extremes, though both extremes exist, I'm pretty sure.

though the stories may be apocryphal — The stories are not apocryphal.

The answer might depend on the field, but (at leat to me) one borderline is that you can not sell the same piece of work twice.
E.g. you can not apply for a grant whilst you have more or less the same work packages in an other grant application (or running grant). The same holds true for students work: You can d osubsequent work steps in one larger area, but you must clearly distinguish which part of the work has been done for which course / part of the exam.

This is the best answer. This distinguishes the timing of the work from the novelty of the work. The amount of research progress you have made privately but not reported is ill-defined and unenforceable. You are not expected to give out your work product for free just because much of it was generated when you weren't "on the clock". When you report it (to the public or the sponsor), that's the point at which you both (1) get credit as a deliverable on the funding you attribute it to and (2) establish it as part of the baseline that the value of any future work is judged in the context of.

And related to this is whether it's ethical to "slow walk" your research, using two years of funding for a result that you generated (or could have generated) in one year. The limits to that are ultimately based on competition with other research; the natural consequence is being scooped, or having your sponsor dissatisfied with your productivity over time compared to other researchers.


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How does the government shutdown in the United States affect research projects at universities and national labs?
Has federally funded research at universities and work done at the national labs in the United States been halted due to the government shutdown?
If so, what typically happens then?
Do researchers just stay at home and not show up to work? Or do they show up, and do something similar to what you would see at a labor strike, e.g. megaphones, demonstrations, make demands?

How does the US government shutdown affect academics?

@ff524 It seems to me that this newer question has a few more complete answers than the old one: I'd be inclined to vote to close the older question as duplicate of the newer one. What do you think?

@MassimoOrtolano Naturally, the older question focused on the 2013 shutdown, and the answers will change somewhat depending on the shutdown as it will affect different departments or agencies. Instead of closing it as a duplicate, it might be more useful to edit both questions to note which shutdowns they're concerned with.

@Anyon I'm not an expert of US politics, but I doubt that, from an academic point of view, there are enough differences among the shutdowns to warrant different answers.

@MassimoOrtolano I suppose the difference is one of degree. The answer would've been essentially the same for university researchers, but 2013 was a larger shutdown. Unlike the current shutdown, NIH, DOD, and DOE were all affected, and the nuclear National Labs were just days away from being shut.

Has federally funded research at universities and work done at the national labs in the United States been halted due to the government shutdown?

The current shutdown affects federal employees - and even then, not all government departments or agencies are affected. In particular, the Department of Energy, which funds the DOE National Labs, already had an approved spending bill, so DOE is unaffected for now. The NIH and Department of Defense, which fund their own institutes and labs, are in the same situation. However, many other institutions, including NIST, NASA labs, and the Smithsonian have had to cease a lot of their work. Some activities are considered mission critical, and can continue, but that's getting into the specifics. See e.g. this Washington Post article.
University researchers are not directly affected, since they are not federal employees*. Even public universities in the US tend to be on the state level. However, there can be a large indirect effect since e.g. NSF, a large funding agency, has shut down. If this shutdown is anything like the 2013 one, this will not only delay grant applications, but also grant decisions, causing a lot of uncertainty, hiring delays, and lost research productivity.
*The military academies might be an exception, but since the Department of Defense had its spending bill approved they probably wouldn't be affected anyway.

Do researchers just stay at home and not show up to work? Or do they show up, and do something similar to what you would see at a labor strike, e.g. megaphones, demonstrations, make demands?

Generally the former - at least at the largest of the affected places security would (rather sensibly) be considered a mission critical operation, and security would be instructed to stop people from going to work. There tends to be some protests, e.g. at the White House during the shutdowns, but I doubt these are dominated by researchers. There are many, many others affected - some 800 000 government employees in total, many who'd be hit harder than your average federally employed researcher.

The NIH, which funds an awful lot of research in the medical and biological sciences in the US, is similarly unaffected (this time).

@BryanKrause However, existing work already funded by the NSF need not be affected since the money has already been disbursed.

@aeismail I think that's clear from the answer as it stands; I just wanted to point out NIH is among the departments already funded, because although OP called out DOE specifically the NIH (as well as DoD) probably affects more researchers.

@BryanKrause Good point about NIH. I've added a note about it.

This is somewhat inaccurate since university researchers can be (in my case are) affected if they are dependent upon data that is hosted on servers managed by agencies without funding. If you have a local copy you are fine, but some data was due around the time of the shutdown and everyone is in a holding pattern right now.

The answer of Massimo Ortolano is correct as it applies to federal government run (owned) labs. But the situation for Universities is different. These are not federal government owned or run in any sense. Federal government employees are not allowed to work during a shutdown unless they are required to work (being "emergency employees"). But faculty members aren't federal government employees, so they may continue to work as usual. State government is largely disjoint from federal and state employees work for the states, not the federal government.
Universities get grants from the government to carry on some research. The funding for those grants may already be "in hand" in the university. If not, checks won't be written so the flow of funds will stop until the "crisis" ends. This latter might cause some disruption, but in many places the university will just carry on. University professors and researchers will continue to get paid as usual. Money to support laboratories may be problematic if it goes on too long, but that is unlikely.
Note that the US federal government fulfills its contracts. To do otherwise would be so disruptive that the US would fall immediately to "developing nations" or even "pariah" status. The main issue will be timing of payments.
However, if a project requires the presence of or contact with federal government employees, they won't be available and it would be illegal for them to participate in most cases (unless it is required...)

Note that the major DOE labs, like Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, etc. are not government run nor are they staffed with government employees either. They're run by consortiums of universities and/or government contractors. It really depends on the specific method of funding between them and the Federal government.

"But the situation for Universities is different. These are not government owned or run in any sense." I think you mean 'federal,' not 'government' here. Most U.S. universities are indeed wholly owned and operated by the government, but it happens to be the state government of the state in which the university is located, not the federal government. The university employees are typically considered state employees. The state governments have their own budgets and function completely independently of the federal government. They are not shut down.

Also, most portions of the U.S. federal government actually aren't shut down in this instance (only 5 or 6 departments are presently unfunded, as I recall,) so even many federal employees would still be available to work on projects. DoD and DoE, for example, are currently funded.

@reirab. Thanks. Clarified. The largest unfunded department is Homeland Security which is huge.

@Buffy Is Homeland Security really the largest unfunded department with respect to research, though? NSF and the USDA seem more important: https://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/s3fs-public/Agencies%253B.jpg

Hmm, @BryanKrause, I don't know about largest in terms of research. Just largest. After 9/11 it was created as an amalgam of several other agencies, largely as an attack on federal worker unions.

"However, if a project requires the presence of or contact with government employees" Another place where "federal" should be inserted before "government".

Don't forget data sets! A lot of data is hosted on government servers and not everyone has the ability to have local copies, to say nothing that was scheduled for release at the time of the shutdown.

I currently work in research administration in an R1 university in the United States.
Most researchers should be largely unaffected by the government shutdown, unless it runs for a long time. There are two ways that researchers are being inconvenienced:

Federal agencies are not granting new awards. This is stressful for researchers waiting to find out whether they are being awarded any funds. In the end it probably won't change the total amount of funding anyone receives, but it will delay when those funds become available.
We often request information from administrators of federal programs regarding on-going research. Those people are currently unavailable to answer our questions. For example, grants typically have restrictions on what can and can't be purchased. If a researcher wants to purchase something and we aren't clear on whether it is allowed or not under the grant's terms, then some aspect of the research may be delayed until the federal agent can answer our questions.

I'm not in the US, but I have friends and colleagues who work for a major national institute in the US.
They shut down the experiments and stay at home, temporarily unpaid: in fact, they wouldn't be even allowed to enter the premises. They don't do demonstrations.

If so, what typically happens then?
Do researchers just stay at home and not show up to work? Or do they
  show up, and do something similar to what you would see at a labor
  strike, e.g. megaphones, demonstrations, make demands?

At NASA Ames, there are many contractors who hold professorships at other universities, e.g. CMU, UC Santa Cruz etc, their official employers.
I got to know about government shutdown in 2013 or 2014 when a collaborator told me they had to do the telecon from home. Many of their colleagues just went on a vacation, it was just like an unpaid leave, but this collaborator still had many meetings, many paper deadlines, so they just had to work like a normal day, but from home.
Even worse, the Ames Child Care Center, located in the NASA campus, is also somehow related to the federal government and was also shut down. So that collaborator had to take care of their child during that period.
It was not an easy time for them.


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How many papers does a mathematician publish (on average) in a year?
I wondered about the number of papers published by mathematicians because I heard that they publish less than other academics or scientist.
It would be nice if you could distinguish between the number of papers published by PhDs, Postdocs or Professors.

There is no general answer, but you can have a look at this answer of mine to a similar (closed) question. Note that the variablility apply also to subfields of mathematics.

@MassimoOrtolano Thank you. Have a nice year.

This sounds like a research question and I doubt anyone has bothered to do the research. The distribution is likely very far from a normal distribution, but, like I said, research. Note that some of the best mathematicians may publish very little if they work on the very hardest problems. You don't contribute much if you publish a lot of dreck. Other mathematicians may let their students publish the best stuff, whether as co-authors or not.

Both postdocs and professors are subsets of PhDs.

@AzorAhai When used to refer to people, "Ph.D." seems to be ambiguous. I'd ordinarily use it to mean a person who holds a Ph.D. degree, and in that sense your comment is almost correct. ("Almost" because a few people have become professors without a Ph.D.) But I've seen people (especially on this site) use it to mean a person enrolled in a Ph.D. program, and I conjecture that this is what's meant in the question.

@AndreasBlass I have never heard someone use "[a] PhD" to mean someone in a program, rather than one with a PhD, but I accept that might be the usage somewhere.

This varies on a lot of things (e.g., by field and what kind of institution someone is at), however, there have been various studies.  For instance Figure VII (p70) of this study (which seems a bit strange to me) graphs the annual number of papers per mathematician and their most recent data (2005-2008) appears to put the average just under 0.7 for "high-exposure mathematicians" and 0.2 for "low-exposure mathematicians."
That said, things vary a lot by area and what one considers as "research active."  I would guess that it rather pure, theoretical areas (which I am most familiar with), among people I consider professors research active 1-2 papers/year is pretty typical.  For postdocs I imagine the average is < 1/year (including those who are not "research successful") and for US PhD students < 0.2/year (most PhD students probably don't have anything published by the time they graduate, though they may have 1-2 preprints).

0.7? This is almost certainly obsolete and/or misinterpreted.

@darijgrinberg Yes, of course things need to be interpreted appropriated.   I didn't check their methors or what they mean by "high-exposure" but I do remember that the average number of total publications per author in something like a 20- or 30-year window using the MathematicalReviews database was around 1.75.  I'm sure the numbers would be quite different if one restricted to facutly currently employed at R1 universities or the like.


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The professor takes me only if I continue up to finishing PhD. What should I do?
Education in my home country is very expensive and getting scholarship for postgraduate studies is not possible because I have a poor BSc (low GPA, no papers, etc). So I decided to study my Master degree in a country with much cheaper tuition fees, so that I can make up for my academic record and getting an admission for PhD with scholarship in my home country. Unfortunately 'the custom' in the new country is like that the professors (would-be supervisors) are those who give the admission and they strongly prefer to take students who will stay for PhD as well. But I want to come back after finishing my Master degree especially for being with my family.
To avoid consequences and also ethical reasons telling the truth that I won't continue to PhD is a must. A friend of mine suggested this website. I would highly appreciate for any advice for the most suitable ways of approaching and opening up the issue with the would-be supervisor?

I would highly appreciate for any advice for the most suitable ways of
  approaching and opening up the issue with the would-be supervisor?

When you apply for a PhD, you will need letters of reference. Among them, the one from the supervisor is the most important. If you lie to your supervisor, it may be extremely difficult to get a PhD wherever you apply.
If you don't plan to pursuing a PhD after your Master, tell the potential supervisor exactly that. If he doesn't agree, move on until you find the one that agrees.

+1 especially for the 2nd paragraph, and I'll add that if you doing a PhD / student not doing a PhD is a bright line for both OP & the professor, it's better to be clear about this from the beginning to avoid conflict later.

I would never recommend lying to a potential supervisor. It seems like a career killer. If it were me, I'd make a personal appeal to the person, explaining the situation just as you have done here. I think that a positive outcome is more likely in mathematics than in some scientific fields for which labs need to be established.
The family issue is an important one that people can relate to.
However, things change. Perhaps when you start you will decide to stay on for the doctorate. Perhaps your family can reunite in the new place. Lots of things can change with time. So you don't need to say that you will definitely leave after the MS, but only that you have strong ties that may make it necessary to return home after a couple of years. Remote work on a doctorate isn't out of the question in math, of course.


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Difficulties with behaviour of other PhD students in group
I'm in my first year of a PhD at a top UK university. I am part of a cohort of students, most of whom have come straight from an undergraduate degree and never had any "real-world" experience. I am half a decade older than them due to getting some life experience and working in teaching for a few years before realising where my academic interests lie and deciding to give it another go.
I have realised that some of the students on my cohort are, to put it politely, not the sorts of people I would actively choose to work with. They may be very able STEM students with excellent academic credentials, but they have tendencies which are getting on my nerves and making them less pleasant to be around. These include:

Giving correct albeit unhelpful advice - for example, one of my fellow students emphatically smacked a couple of equations she wrote on the board during a group project, and proceded to have a go at me for not working through them myself, rather than politely explaining how she got them
Intellectual arrogance - for example, one student goes around, stands behind other students' computers and offers them assistance with their work regardless of whether they asked for it or not, almost as though trying to create an impression of omnipotence and undermining the merits of others
Resistance towards work of a different format to what students have been accustomed to in the past - for example, writing reports as opposed to doing problem sheets, which may not require a complete understanding of the concepts but are more akin to what an industrial role might expect
Self-opinionated behaviour from some students and attempts to attack my own opinions because they do not line up with their own.
Defeatist and entitled attitude - one student who has done poorly in his assignments takes a negative attitude towards work, constantly complains about it and tries to convince others why the work is a waste of time and why there is little to be gained from it.

I can't help but feel a bit despirited at these traits others are expressing, considering how I am rusty on some things having taken a gap from academia and yet asking some questions seems to lead to unnecessarily hostile responses. It is also despiriting to realise how much of a maturity gap there is between me and the other students, and (unlike in my previous job) I am not in a position of authority to reprimand them for their behaviour or place them on any sort of misconduct procedure.
How can I explain to these other students that their behaviour is having a negative impact on me, and how can I improve my working relationship with them?

In my experience it is not uncommon for people in your situation to not "gel" perfectly with the rest of their cohort. You are used to an industrial way of working, which is, or at least should be, quite professional and focused on a common goal (e.g., shipping some product). You are also used to fairly clear management structures, as indicated by your usage of "reprimand" and "misconduct procedure". Academia typically does not work like that. As user2768 aptly observes, a PhD study is an individual project - you are not all together shipping some common product, but you are all working on your individual research (or, in the worst case, you are directly competing for papers, grants, and future positions). That does not mean that you can't or shouldn't be friends with the people in your cohort, but it certainly gives the interactions a different dynamic.
I have found the following to be a good mental model for working in a research lab: envision yourself as a one-person (or two-person, you and your supervisor) early-stage start-up company working in an incubator or shared office space with other start-ups in a similar position. Sure, you want to have a nice relationship with these other "start-ups", and often it will help to collaborate on this and that, but ultimately you don't need to work with any of them. If you feel it is more productive to do things on your own, do so - and, conversely, don't feel that they are obligated to help you with anything specific you need.
As for how to deal with the specific behaviors you mention: essentially, my tip for all of them is to tell the respective students (more or less friendly, depending on your personality and whether you would like to build up or retain a friendly personal relationship) to bugger off and annoy somebody else. You don't need to listen to them giving you unwanted feedback, you don't need to convince them of your opinions, and they don't need to explain how they arrived at a specific solution. If a specific student annoys you or is categorically unhelpful, stop interacting with them.
With all that said, I feel there is also a good chance that parts of the conflict are also related to your own mindset. I think it would help you to stop seeing yourself as mature and them as immature and in need of correction. While I am (based on your descriptions) convinced that some of your colleagues are indeed not the nicest of people, you won't be able to change them. It is more productive for you to take a hard look at your own behaviors, and whether you are potentially not as adapted to being back at university as you would like. Maybe letting go of a notion of superiority and maturity, and making some corrections in how you deal with your colleaguesm will also help normalize your relationships.
Edit:
Some specific advise on dealing with defeatist people. Yes, those are a problem. Avoid very negative students at all costs. Nothing kills your motivation to do challenging research quicker than a friend who talks about nothing else than how pointless their research, your research, and a PhD in general is. Make very clear that you are not interested in that kind of conversation, and if they persist stop interacting with them.

"a PhD study is an individual project": yes and no; it depends a lot on the field. In my field, with such individualistic behaviour you'd be doomed to fail (or being kicked out from the group).

"Is you is, or is you ain't..." (in this case) a member of a group. ("Cohort" is too vague: we are all members of all sorts of cohorts.) Do you have to work with these people as part of your research or not?
I too am a PhD student at a top UK university, having returned to academic life after a full non-academic career. I am approximately three times the age of my fellow PhD students, so they inevitably strike me as being rather young, and no doubt they regard me as being ancient almost beyond belief.
But anyone with experience of working in an organisation knows that you just have to do your best to get along with your colleagues, let them see things about you that they can respect, and respect them, because they will have qualities that you lack.
Now, if your research does not require you to work closely with others, as mine does not, then you can control how often you engage with them and on what terms. I know that some PhDs are done very much as part of a group project. If that is   your position then it is not much different from any group activity: it is your job to make the best out of the situation.

We work as a cohort of 11 students. For the first year we do group activities and attend classes, and people help each other. After April however, we will all be doing our own things research-wise.

There is good in everybody. If you have to work with these colleagues then you rbest approach is to focus on their good points.