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Should I leave my current PhD if I don't like the research problems my advisor suggests?
Warning: Extremely long post. Not really even the full story but one must stop somewhere.
My problem is the following:
I am a pure mathematics PhD student in (a remote part of) Europe and am part of a Doctoral Programme, which means that financially I am in a good position (relative to other grad students anyway). This is the same university in which I completed my undergraduate education. I was chosen together with a handful of other applicants from a pool of over hundred candidates (all natural scientists, not just mathematicians). I'm on my first year.
During my stay I have struggled to find a suitable problem (In fact I have overheard graduate students leave work early in my university because the feel that they didn't have much to work on). Basically my supervisor suggested some problems, I didn't like them, I tried desperately to invent my own problems to fill the void and to find something in the intersection of my interests and my supervisor's interests (and expertise). I realize now that with many of those problems neither I or my supervisor could really judge whether the problem was good or not (or whether it was known or not). During the summer the possibility that this arrangement is nonsensical started to dawn on me and I started to wonder if I should just consider moving to another university in another country to do a PhD.
My interests have sharpened and shifted somewhat during my stay as I got a better understanding of the current state of the field. On a couple of occasions I tried to tell him about my interests. Quite recently my supervisor told me that I need to start working on something and offered some problems that I didn't care about. Inspired by some advice of Sir Michael Atiyah ("Advice to a young mathematician") and AMS blog post "Tips for New Grad Students" I brought up the possibility of changing supervisor/university/country. He was certainly not relieved, and was concerned about the reputation of his research group, among other things.
I have discussed my concerns with doctoral programme coordinator and the person in charge of the PhD studies in our faculty. I am considered extremely fortunate to be part of the doctoral programme and losing a student would be unfortunate for the faculty. Changing supervisors or universities is something that doesn't generally happen here.
To an outsider the differences between my interests and my supervisor's would probably appear like splitting hairs. Indeed this is the position of my supervisor. The topics are likely to be outside of his expertise. He has offered to study together some of the subjects that I am interested in and to later study abroad with a more knowledgeable professor (the supervisor does have connections). He claims he will eventually find suitable problems if we study the topic together. Basically I envy students who get to study in a big active university or get to work with a guru who dispenses expertise and problems matching students' interests. I would be glad if I was offered even a low hanging fruit problem if it at least would teach me something in a modern and interesting field. It seems backwards to me that to learn a field together with the supervisor, instead of learning the stuff from the supervisor.
Our relationship has suffered as a result of this debacle. I think he is frustrated about my doubts.
So should I:
Go seek the frontier where the actions seems to be (I believe the things that interest me are being actively studied):
Pro: Potentially more efficient and stimulating PhD experience.
Pro: Potentially more prestigious university and/or supervisor.
Con: Changing universities is risky, the fact that I got funding in one  university doesn't mean I will get it elsewhere, etc.
Stay where I am and try to make it work:
Pro: Safe in the short term.
Con: Uncertain if I will get suitable problems and sufficient knowledge to tackle such problems and continue a career in research.
Con: I have learned that people doing their undergraduate and graduate studies in the same university do less well.
Con: The track record of the supervisor to get PhDs to good places is not great.

"It seems backwards to me that to learn a field together with the supervisor, instead of learning the stuff from the supervisor." - Nope. That is exactly how it's supposed to work.

In that case I must be have been seriously mistaken. Is it not the case however that to pose a problem one ought to have good grounding in that field? At the very least to reduce the risk of doing work that has already been done.

He was certainly not relieved, and was concerned about the reputation of his research group, among other things — So what? Always remember that this is your PhD, not your advisor's or your department's. Your first priority should be your own success, not your advisor's or your department's.

it not the case however that to pose a problem one ought to have good grounding in that field? — Absolutely not!  Anyone can ask questions.  On the other hand, if you want any hope of solving a problem, or even determining whether the problem open, you probably need a good grounding in the field.  On the gripping hand, trying to solve an unfamiliar problem, whether it's actually open or not, is excellent motivation for grounding yourself in a field.

"neither I or my supervisor could really judge whether the problem was good or not" - that is really important to understand.

First of all I agree with @Pete L. Clack's answer. Changing supervisors is not the end of the world, it happens all the time and it is your right to do so. But the question you should ask yourself is why should you change?
I assume that your supervisor is an expert on the "great" math area you want to focus on, otherwise you would not have chosen him. By that assumption, expecting your supervisor to spoon-feed you a specific problem that you will like 100% and all you have to do is just solve it and get a PHD is an unrealistic goal in any PHD program. Supervisors suggest possible problems or usually specific scientific areas to focus on, close to their expertise. Then the problem is gradually refined as time goes by, as the student works intensively on the suggested area. This is a gradual process that does not happen magically overtime. In that sense, you cannot simply dismiss ideas (ideas are hard to come by) without sufficient knowledge of the research area ("could not really judge whether the problem was good or not") for some vague idea on what you want to do, without actually be able to judge if the problem you are suggesting has any merit or not. Choosing a problem is something that needs research maturity which frankly you do not have. At least in your first year of a PHD, you should trust others (your supervisor) to "show" you the way. You should at least start by his suggestions, do the required research literature search, get a firm grasp on the problems he is suggesting and not just "brush them off", because "you do not like them".
Note that your supervisor also seems like a nice guy, who is willing to study more on a area he is not familiar with, to help you. Not many professors a) admit their lack of knowledge on a subject b) go this far to help an inexperienced student like you. And believe me, this is an important quality for any supervisor. Also, lack of knowledge on a tiny area now, does not mean that when he actually does his "homework", he will not be able to guide you towards the new area. Professors and researchers change directions and progressively expand to areas less familiar to them when they "run out" of problems on their main expertise and this also something that happens quite a lot.
So, I suggest caution. Your funding is good, your supervisor seems nice, your university / department is reputable. Do not blow them all away for a mislead ambition on what problem you consider important or not. You can always walk away but you do not need to do it now, before you examine your options carefully.

This x1000. "I envy students who get to study in a big active university or get to work with a guru who dispenses expertise and problems matching students' interests." - this is a completely unrealistic picture of PhD research.

It might be that I'm unrealistic, and it is certainly reasonable that a supervisor would prefer to supervise research close to their expertise. The way I got study with him is that I studied under him during my undergraduate years and made a Master's thesis for him. In our research plan we deliberately left things a bit open, but now I realize that it might have been better if we would have been more specific about what kind of research we should pursue. If I had to choose a supervisor again I would base my topic closer on the supervisor's recent publications and supervised theses.

On the suggested problems: It is true that I do not necessarily have the maturity to judge good research problems. When I said "I don't like them" I suppose what I meant by that is that the I didn't feel a great sense of "aim" in the general research program. I would do routine problems if I felt that I would learn useful tools in the process.

I don't really know your situation, so this is just a first impression but: slow down.  Take a breath.  You're describing frustrations with things not working out...but you're still in your first year of the PhD program.  Where I come from, students find advisors and problems much more gradually than this.  If you were given problems "quite recently", then how do you know you don't care about them?  If you don't care about the problems suggested to you because you have your own problems that you want to work on: find out if your own problems are viable, and if so find out who can help you with them.  But if you don't have anything else you're dying to work on, I'm tempted to say: spend at least a month or two working on every problem your advisor gives you before you decide it's not for you.  Why be so picky?
However, if you feel sure that you are not interested in anything your advisor is doing, then...sure, go study with someone else. The "reputation of the research group" is not really a sensible thing to be worrying about at this stage.  Look, I went to (what is, along with a few others) the top PhD program in mathematics in the US.  Nevertheless in the five years that I was there I watched students: (i) drop out of graduate school entirely, (ii) switch to a math PhD program in a different university and/or country, (iii) switch to a different department at my university, (iv) switch fields and/or advisors within my math PhD program.  I never heard a peep about any of this damaging the reputation of the department or the university.  People change programs all the time.  Someone who is telling you otherwise may not be looking out for your best interests...
Added: Maybe my answer is US-centric.  Other questions and answers on this site have suggested that European academia may be less flexible on these matters.  If so: maybe consider going to school in the US.  In every US PhD program in mathematics I know about, you apply to the program as a whole rather than to any research group or to officially work under any one faculty member.  Then you have a period of 1-3 years to find your footing, pass some general qualifying exams and decide who you want to work with and then more time to decide what you want to do for your thesis.  The whole process can take longer than in Europe, but in your case it sounds like you would find it more pleasant than your current situation.

Maybe I was a bit unclear. I have been a PhD student for 9 months (started January). Problems have been suggested the whole time. Only recently the supervisor told me that I am his responsibility and if I don't have any work done at the end of the year that would be bad. He was very sceptical of some of my own problems.

@PeteLClark Yes, there are a lot of differences in PhD programs between US and Europe (as there are within Europe). For instance, in Italy PhD programs have a fixed duration of three years; moreover, the topic is chosen by the advisor at the beginning of the period and it's not so easy to change it. Changing the advisor is even more complicated, although it can happen. Interaction between advisors and students, however, seems more close here than in US.

As for slowing down, I would like to be careful and considerate and take my time to figure out how to proceed. In contrast my supervisor seemed to me more impatient: he suggested that the students who are more certain about wanting to part of the doctoral programme may deserve it more than I do. I think he expects fast decisions (others in the university in the know want us to take our time to figure things out).

@LostSoul: I was guessing that you started in January, yes.  (Otherwise you would have started in the fall semester, and your question wouldn't make much sense.)
"As for slowing down, I would like to be careful and considerate and take my time to figure out how to proceed".  Sounds great.  About your advisor: I am wary of criticizing people secondhand, but given only the picture you are painting, it doesn't sound like you are the best match.  If he's pushing you in a direction that you don't want to go, then...don't go.  Europe consists of "free countries" just like the US. :)

@Massimo: Thanks, that squares with other information I've heard.  It may indeed not be possible for the OP to continue in his program with a different problem and/or advisor.  But what I'm saying is: he certainly can leave if he wants to, and if his departure actually makes the entire research group crumble, that's an unfortunate infrastructural issue that is no longer his problem.  A worldwide blackball is probably not going to ensue.

On the Us & Europe difference: It would be possible to change the specific topic, supervisor and/or research group within the university and still be part of the doctoral program (I think). But to me it seems that the alternatives are to stick with this one or leave altogether. Changing the specific topic would not be that big of a deal (in fact our research plan was open enough to contain it).

The most important thing is to have great communication with your supervisor.   More than just "we talk respectfully to each other" - you need to feel backed up and supported and understood by your supervisor.    You need rapport.
If you don't have this, even at the beginning when everything is easy, then you are on a trip for disaster later as things get harder.
Reading between the lines, my sense is that this important rapport is not there.
If it seems hard to change now, wait till 2 years down the track when you discover just how poorly understood you are by your supervisor.
However, before you decide if this means you should change supervisor, you need to assess where the gap is.  Maybe you need to change you?
Some of your statements are a little worrying.

It seems backwards to me that to learn a field together with the
  supervisor, instead of learning the stuff from the supervisor.

What is is that you think you will be learning?  In your PhD you are learning how to do research.   It is an apprenticeship, not a life work.   It's your first, not your last.
You will be learning from your supervisor how to do research.  Together with your supervisor, you will be learning about some small new element in a field of interest, in the process.

He has offered to study together some of the subjects that I am
  interested in and to later study abroad with a more knowledgeable
  professor (the supervisor does have connections).

On the face of it, this is a generous offer.  Can you look back at it and see if this generous person might actually be a good partner ... or whether in fact he's making this offer only to try to save face from losing you?
This is the crux of it, in a way.   If you can appraise the difference, you will be able to make the right decision.

Basically I envy students who get to study in a big active university
  or get to work with a guru who dispenses expertise and problems
  matching students' interests.

This would be a bad reason to change.   The grass is always greener on the other side - you have no idea what debarcles all those folk are dealing with!
Priority #1: establish whether you can have rapport with your supervisor, take it from there.

For what it is worth....
y experience also supports the idea that professors and programs are more flexible in the U.S.  After working in academia with a Master's degree in the U.S. and now working on a PhD in Switzerland, I have experienced and heard about how much less flexible the professors in Europe are (mind you, there are exceptions on both sides of the Atlantic).

Another thing, when you find a job, it is not always exactly what you wanted to do. It is difficult to find a job where you are happy all the time. I imagine as a post doc, you get to work with problems that you are not super excited about. Is it realistic to find a job where you are super happy and everything is fine? I doubt that? Life will always be like this; you will work with things you are not really interested in.

+1 for good explanation and caparison.

"Life will always be like this; you will work with things you are not really interested in." To my mind the whole point of an academic career is that you get to work with things that you are really interested in.  (The trouble is that when you are starting out, it may take some time to find your interests.) Most postdocs in mathematics I know work only on problems they are super excited about.  Are your experiences different?


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Poster - should I send the file to all my collaborators?
I'm a PhD student and I prepared a poster for a conference. Do you think I should send the poster file to all the co-authors? The list is quite long so I mailed the draft only to a few of them.

Yes. Everybody who is listed as an author should see and be able to contribute to the poster. You wouldn't want to be listed as an author of a work that you have never seen either, right?

To add to this: If some collaborators trusts you or just do not care, they only need to ignore the mail (if it has a proper subject), which only takes a few seconds.

Completely agree with xLeitix's answer:

Everybody who is listed as an author should see and be able to contribute to the poster.

Also, if it is a big file (assuming your poster is heavy on graphics) perhaps it is best to upload it to dropbox or a similar service and then send the link to all the authors. Depending on their (and your) digital fluency, the team can refine the document right from dropbox without having to send email back and forth.

On the other hand, having a huge number of people working on something like a poster does not sound like a good idea to me – even with the best version-control system. Let alone the fact that if the OP was considering not even showing the poster to the collaborators, it is likely that they do not want to edit it.

Also, this should be a comment (which you cannot make, I know).

I am a bit confused with "This" - are you referring to my comment on the use of dropbox? if so I did agree with xLeitix i.e. people should share. I just wanted to add how? If you are referring to @Wrzlprmft's comment I 100% agree with you.

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Should I publish this?
In the year 2000, someone probed the 3 dimensional quantum dots using a new condition which is important in semi conductor physics. But they basically solved the Schrodinger equation for ground state and discussed the consequences.
I have extended their work for general case , i.e, one can calculate "higher" state energy using those calculations. Also, I have pictured how the wave function looks like at higher states.
But I think that I have done just Math & some computations.

My query is : Is this result publishable owing to the fact that I am a Junior year student and I did this work without any adviser.

It is impossible to know if this is worth publishing without reviewing the whole work and being an expert on the field. The best you can do is to find an advisor. You don't need one, but without, you are likely to hit many walls.

Welcome to Academia.SE. Your question seeks specific guide which is not probable to be generalized to others in Academia. If your question is about independently publishing your work, I encourage you to visit the questions listed under the independent-researcher tag.

As it is mentioned in the comments, we have no access to your paper to determine whether it is a perfect paper to be published or the content is of value to be published. Also, reviewing papers are off-topic to this website.
But, if you are looking for answers regarding [you are] a Junior year student and I did this work without any adviser; my answer will be YES.
There is no obligation for anybody to send his paper for a journal to be peer-reviewed or even to publish his research. The content of the paper is more important than the education level of their writers.
However, I would recommend you to show your research paper to a faculty member. He will review your paper scientifically besides to the review he will do on the academic writing of your paper.
Also, if you want to apply for a masters or PhD program or even if you are seeking for a job; you will need recommendation letters from the faculty members (and showing your paper to a professor is one way to show that you are eligible to get one). The professor whom you will show your paper to may be so glad to write one for his smart student who has worked upon Schrödinger's equation.

Just to clarify, "you will need recommendation letters from the faculty members" if you apply to a master's or doctoral programme, or (probably) if you apply for a job. You don't need a recommendation letter to submit or publish a journal article. But it's good to be thinking about this now, and talking to faculty about the work you've done on Schrödinger's equation will help you stand out from the crowd.

+1 for "recommend you to show your research paper to a faculty member". An academic paper is a different class of beast from any kind writing you've done up to now. So even if you're a great writer, you'll almost certainly need help with your first paper. And if your results are publishable the faculty member can help you figure out the best place to submit them.

@mhwombat I edited to bring your later point to the answer.

@mhwombat The other point may be he needs support from a faculty member to respond to the letters and reviews he receives from the editor of the journal he has submitted his paper. Answering to such emails is not easy indeed.

Thanks a lot for the responses. And by the way, I have not worked upon the Schrodinger Equation. I have used it along with a new condition (relatively) in semi conductor physics to bring out generalized results , the specific ones were already probed.

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What are the requirements for admissions to a masters degree in computer science in Canada for an international student?
I am a double major in Physics and Computer Science from an underdeveloped country. I would like to apply for a masters in computer science in Canada. What requirements do you think I should fulfill?
Currently, I have a CGPA of 4.0 (and I have only four additional semesters to go), although that CGPA is likely to go down by a small margin over time.

As a sample, here are pages listing the requirements for McGill, Carleton, and Waterloo.

And to balance the regional bias in Mangara's comment, here are the pages of some Western Canadian universities: UBC, SFU, and University of Alberta. :)

You should check the minimum requirements of the program you are aiming to apply.
But, generally speaking; you may need some proof of language skills (depending on whether your language of study in your BS was English or you are native English speaking, you may not need this document) and official report of your grades and GPA.
Some universities may need a statement of purpose and depending on the entry requirements, you may have to sit an entrance exam or an oral interview via internet. Some universities may require a report of GRE score which you should prepare for separately.
Also you need to find a way to pay your tuition fees and living costs. If you are not self-funding, it is a good idea to check the scholarships which you are eligible for (some of these scholarships are reported on the website of the departments and universities).


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How do some Ws on transcripts affect PhD admissions in mathematics?
I am a senior who is graduating in December with a Bachelor's Degree in Pure math. I would really love to apply to the PhD program. However, I have been really depressed because even though I have a good GPA (3.85), and I have gotten mostly A's in all of my math classes (I have taken math classes up to Topology, measure theory, and Algebra), I feel like this is not good enough since I have 8 W's [withdrawals--no grade given] on my transcript. The horrible part is that 6 of these W's are on math courses. All those W's occurred during my first year at my university. The second year up to now I haven't gotten any W's.
My question is: How horrible (by the Committee who selects candidates for the program) is a W seen on a transcript? Is there anything I can do about it?
I feel like I have a big hole on my transcript, and it has been chasing me throughout my undergrad years even though I managed to hide myself from this monster and continued to take a lot of math courses, earning A's (and two B's) in all of them.

Have you applied some universities? How was their responses?

I haven't applied yet. Im going to apply very soon. I am about to take the GRE general and subject test. Afterwards, I will apply.

A question that needs to be asked is Why do you have Ws? If you choose not to answer this question (i.e. if it is related to family or psych issues that we have no obligation to know about) then "Are you willing to explain said issues to a committee?

@EnthusiasticStudent a W is not a low grade - it indicates withdrawing from a course, and no grade is assigned for the course

What the heck is a W?

@Bakuriu It's a grade that's given in lieu of a standard letter grade indicating that you have withdrawn from the course without earning a grade. It is to indicate that you paid for and attended the course, but did not finish.

@Compass That's a really strange thing. I assume is a US thing, since I've never heard of such a thing before. In EU (or at least in Italy) that would simply mean that you failed the course and, as such, it wouldn't get listed into your university's curriculum. If the course was required you wouldn't be able to take the degree until you manage to pass the exam. This question should be tagged united-states since it's meaningless for other countries.

Your situation doesn't sound so bad to me at all.
First of all, though perhaps I shouldn't, I will admit that many graduate admissions personnel do not thoroughly scour the transcripts.  They look at the GPA and they look at the courses taken.  Often this information is given separately on the application, so a look at the actual transcript may only be required if there is something missing there.  So there's a tip for you: if you are asked for separate information about courses taken, definitely be sure to list it.  (If on the other hand you are asked to list the courses taken together with the grades you got, it seems to me that you are ethically obligated to list the W's.)
More than this though, W's occupy a sort of nether region in academic grading.  In my university we have WP (withdrew passing) and WF (withdrew failing).  Only the latter affects your grade, and my understanding is that WP is not meant to be a stigmatic mark at all.  (In fact undergraduate students are limited to 4 WP's over the course of their careers.)  Unless the registrar puts an asterisk next to your 3.85 GPA and says warning: there were some W's! then in at least one very official sense the W's are not being counted.
More good news: all of the W's are in your first year.  That is exactly the sort of localized difficulty followed by dramatic improvement that admissions committees are looking for.
I think it would be a good idea to use your personal statement to briefly address the W's.  I'm thinking of one or two sentences which acknowledge that they exist, say a few vague words of excuse (e.g. "time to adjust to a new academic environment", "personal difficulties long since resolved"; nothing too specific or gory), and especially: point out how nicely you've moved on.  If you feel like you can use the W's as part of a larger depiction of a crescendo of academic accomplishment, you might try that, but that's a more "advanced technique", so to speak.
I think it is quite likely that the average effect this will have on your application is little or none.  Honestly, to me you sound significantly more guilty / apprehensive about a minor issue long since resolved than you need to be.  I forgive you!  Please don't hesitate to apply to all the PhD programs you're interested in. (If you like algebra/number theory/geometry/topology, please consider UGA.)

The only real concern I have which I don't think you've covered for the OP is that there are 8 Ws in the first year. At a 5cour/semester, that's a possible black hole. If it were 8 spread out compared to 8 all thrown in together could be noticed entirely different.

Logically speaking in a US setting, the only way a person can have more than 4-5 W's is by special circumstances explicitly authorized/excused by the university (medical/bereavement withdrawal, etc), so going over that amount isn't so much evidence of something terrible as evidence of a special, limited circumstances that has already been vetted/considered and approved by the institution a person was attending at the time. If this wasn't so, they would have simply been given an F/0.0 on their transcript. This further supports the idea that a committee/faculty should give it little weight.

In my experience, W grades work a bit differently at every university.  The OP may not be on a semester system; or perhaps signing up for "too many courses" was part of the problem. I agree that in my own university's academic system what the OP describes is (I think!) not possible.  But apparently he did it without any lasting effects on his academic standing.  Anyway, since it was all during his freshman year, I honestly am not so terribly curious about it.

At my University you could just go to as many lectures (not seminars or labs) as you like and just decide to not sign up for the finals. I always thought it sad that these courses didn't show up on my record. After all, I learned a lot and I passed the homework part. So I'd say embrace the Ws. If it fits your situation, you could say that you learned a lot but had to withdraw from finals for personal or scheduling reasons.

Well, I'm personally a current Ph.D student who was in exactly this situation....I had a ton of withdraws for psychiatric/medical reasons on my transcript,  but I had my life and my psyche straightened out by the time I was ready for grad school.   My advice is to be open and honest in your communication with the schools in question, let them know the reasons for the withdraws and that you have your headspace settled now.
There's a long tradition of mental health issues and mathematicians,  there's a lot of us out there.

The first thing is to talk to the professors who would write recommendations for you.  Firstly, those professors know a lot more about what happens in graduate admissions than you can guess.  Secondly, recommendations are usually more highly weighted (and more closely read) than grades, so if they give you good recommendations that will out-weigh odd things on your transcript (especially if they were in freshman year).

Good point in your transcripts is your GPA. However, you have some withdrawing courses which may/may not affect your admission chances. Here are my general suggestions:

For a PhD admission, you will need two or three letters of recommendation. You can ask the professor who knows you and is writing the letter for you to explain why you had such problem. I think it will be better if the professor who is writing for you be the lecturer of the course you withdrew. He can explain the instances on it. (For instance, some other people in the same class also withdrew the course, the exams and assessment was really tough, etc.)
You can improve your chances and your problems with your transcripts by having a better GRE score report; so try to have higher scores on your GRE to improve your chances in your admissions.

And a final advice; this is your transcripts. You may not be able to change it. Don't be afraid of it and apply for the programs you like. Don't prejudge and let the admissions committee decide whether you are eligible for their program or not. May be the other applicants may not have better resumes than you and you be admitted in a good program, who knows? You will not miss anything.

While these are perfectly reasonable general suggestions, they don't answer the question of how admissions committees see Ws.

@ff524 The OP asked What would you recommend me to do? before you delete it in the 5th revision on the question. So it perfectly answers parts of the OP's original version of the question.

Your advice on "what to do" doesn't specifically address the OP's situation with the Ws, either (as Pete's does); it's just general advice on admissions for students who don't have a perfect record.


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Consequences for foreign students of being dropped from a class?
Say a student from another country is in the US on a student visa, and is enrolled in my community college class. I'm required to drop students who aren't participating in the class, and I have a policy in my syllabus that lays out criteria for dropping people (e.g., not showing up to the first class, or not showing up to class for a certain amount of time). If I do this, and it causes the student to go below a full load, what are the consequences for the student? Is it true that they might be deported within a matter of weeks? Does it matter if it's before or after census? If the student stays enrolled, but doesn't pass the class, are the consequences the same?

My wife, who has some experience in these matters, says the following:

If the student is dropped from the class, making them no longer a full-time student, then they may lose visa status and be required to leave the country within days.
If the student fails, however, then it is up to the college whether to kick them out or not: so far as immigration is concerned, what matters is whether they are a full-time student, not how well they are doing.

Another possible option, which may or may not be possible in your institution, would be to try to arrange a late transfer into another "class" like an independent study, which would have no transcript value but would preserve full-time status.

Wow, days?? I find it very surprising that there is such efficient cooperation between various schools and the federal bureaucracy.

Actually, their cooperation is often very inefficient, which is even worse.  The student might not even find out that they were required to leave the country until they have already been declared in violation of their visa and have a hard time ever being allowed to return.

@BenCrowell I have no choice but giving upvotes to both the question and the answer. This Q&A is extremely important to both the. professors and international students in the U.S.


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How to get the best of the last half of a PhD?
I'm a PhD student in Physics with one year and a half to go. My project is at the border between physics and computer science (I am developing a new method to analyse materials). I'm fascinated by computer science and I would prefer not to work in a research center, which seems to be the natural prosecution of what I'm doing. I did research in a number of different field (biophysics, x-rays, neutrons, algorithms), finding out I'm not super talented, but I learn fast and I have some intellectual stamina. I also have some experience as a reporter/journalist.
I like doing research, even if sometimes I find the academic environment a bit boring and alienating. I don't have much working experience outside academia, but I don't exclude the possibility of a non-academic job. I started studying machine learning books to expand my computer skills and employability.
Is there anything you suggest to do to maximize my possibility to land a nice postdoc (ideally in physics/computer science, which should be a way to keep open the possibility to work in the industry, and ideally in the US) or a job as a data scientist?

With regard to:

I did research in a number of different field (...) finding out I'm not super talented, but I learn fast and I have some intellectual stamina.

I will try to focus on "talent" and "stamina", two self-evaluation criteria you mention which have not been directly addressed in the comments so far. You set up a contrast between stamina (which I interpret as a combination of curiosity and persistence) and talent (which I interpret as the ability to do more original/creative work with less apparent difficulty). You also mention several specific disciplinary sub-fields of research: xrays, etc.
I wonder if your perception of your "talent" might be more a consequence of the switching you have done between different areas of research, rather than your innate capacity for original research in one or more of these fields.
Research in learning and expertise development suggests that it takes about 10 years of concentrated work in a particular discipline (whether it is chess, car racing, or an academic field) to develop expertise. Once developed, such expertise may be mistaken for talent by a less-trained eye. Your words suggest a judgment formed by comparing yourself to others. If these others happened to be more experienced in a given area of research, then the difference in "time on task" may partly account for your perception of lesser capacity for original research in some ways.
A couple points seem worth making:

You probably do want to eventually identify, develop, and apply your talent in some field. Whether it is CS or Physics or something else, it has to be something you should be willing to apply yourself to for an extended period of time.
As you decide on your post-PhD path, consider the disciplinary area that you think could hold your intellectually engaged for a while. If your interest in research is such that CS is a means to answering questions in other fields, then CS is a means rather than an end for you. This will take you down one particular career trajectory. However, if your interest is in questions in CS proper, this might imply a different trajectory (e.g. a research scientist/programmer in a physics lab, vs. a research scientist in a research center that focuses on computational questions like algorithms, etc (sorry, CS is not my area).
Finally, saying that you "like doing research" is a starting point for some deeper reflection. Think about HOW you like to do "research" - stated differently, what are the characteristics of a research project that make it exciting and fulfilling to you. A big part of this has to do with the level of "agency" you are comfortable with. Some people find satisfaction in carefully nurturing their own research agendas. They do this by working in a very specific niche for a very long time, spearheading (as a PI) their own grants and building partnerships and communities around a specific theory and/or methodology. Others are less comfortable leading, and prefer following -- rather than agonize over what grant to apply for, they are happy supporting on-going work, where the decisions about the direction of inquiry have mostly been made for them. While both kinds of people may (justifiably) consider themselves "researchers," the differences in approach can lead to very different career trajectories in terms of the role one is shooting for and the kind of institution (size, mission, etc.) that is compatible with each of these roles/goals.

Good luck!

Postdocs are typically useful for two types of things:

They build experience as a (semi)independent researcher that is now typically required before you can be considered for a faculty post
They are a chance to broaden or shift focus of your research

For example, I know somebody working in robotics whose thesis worked was entirely in simulation due to grad school circumstances, and used the "focus shift" opportunity of a postdoc to get into hardware.  So a postdoc is worth considering if you feel that your current work is too narrow to be noticed by the type of organizations you might like to join.
As for where to go next: if you aren't absolutely driven to try to do a faculty job, don't try for it.  There is a huge world of non-traditional scientific opportunities out there, which are often hard to be aware of from inside traditional academia.  Some things to consider, with a lot of strange ecological niches that you can't even be aware of until you start talking to people in them.  Do note, however, that if you aren't a US citizen or permanent resident, then many of these opportunities may be harder for you get due to visa issues.
For pursuing all of these questions, however, the big thing you need to start doing is networking.  Get to know more professors in your department than your advisor, especially any ones who have had non-traditional career paths.  Go to conferences and meet people.  Look for events in your field that are also attended by non-academic researchers (this will likely be more in computer science or material science than physics), and look for the more informal and discussion-oriented attached events like Ph.D. symposia and workshops.  If your advisor can help you get introductions, that's the best help you can possibly get, but since you're interested in a non-standard path they might not be able to.
As you meet people, be honest about your situation.  There are always a lot of people trolling for good possible hires for non-faculty positions, both in academia and out of it, and there's a word of mouth network. If you've got good core computer science skills and don't come off as needy or desperate, there are a lot more possible matches out there than you might imagine.

Regarding your point being about non-US citizen: would you say, then, that staying in academia is an easier option for non-citizen to stay and work in the US? At least it seems like any faculty job is guaranteed a work visa and highly probably green card down the line.

There is no single or simple answer.  It depends on your country of origin, visa status, and field of work.  The training option in an F-1 visa can be a very useful bridge into either academia or industry. If you shift to an H-1B, it's important to be very careful about status because being unemployed for even a single day can mean you have to return to your country of origin and reapply from scratch.  Some organizations (academia or industry) are responsible; others are careless, or use it as a threat to exploit their workers.  Be careful and talk to others with visas anywhere you consider.

This is maybe a long shot, but are you aware of communities (online perhaps) where this information is shared? It's hard to learn about it when your colleagues is mostly American going for academic jobs.

Unfortunately, I don't have any good link for you---I've learned most of this conversations with friends and colleagues who have discovered things the hard way and from my own challenges related to hiring non-US citizens.  If you are at a large university, however, there is probably an International Students Office or International Student Organization who can help you get connected.  Similarly, there may be a formal or informal expatriates network from your country: pretty much every large US city has such, as do a surprising number of college towns.

From what I can tell from your question, the industry seems a logical choice. For the remaining time, I'd advise you to look into branches that might interest you and then focus your development on skills required there. There is a plethora of various opportunities for your type of background, whether in the research sector or in engineering.
That being said, if you don't plan to stay in academia, doing a post-doc seems not to be the best investment. People usually do a post-doc in order to improve their chances for a professorship (or as a kind of placeholder until they get one).


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When should one start looking for a postdoc?
I'm doing my PhD in physics (experimental physics/materials science with a lot of programming) with more than one year to go. I'm not 100% sure if I want to stay in academia, but if so I would like to do multidisciplinary research, working mainly on the computational part. I changed research field multiple times and I'm not too scared to do that again.
When do you think I should start to look for a postdoc?

Would you clarify what you mean by "more than one year to go"? How close is your thesis to be finished? Does your university have a rule saying you must stay there for a certain period of time?

@scaaahu yes my university is pretty strict regarding the  PhD deadline. Most students finish within 3 years and a few months.

The other question asks when you should start applying.  You should start looking about three years ago.


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Why do some journals prefer MS Word?
Some journals (specifically on biology or chemistry) accept only MS Word files as manuscripts, while many journals on mathematics or physics prefer LaTeX.
Even Science prefers MS Word.
Why do they insist on proprietary MS Word, instead of accepting PDF + plain text?
I don't think they typeset papers on MS Word.

I don't think it's 100% accurate to call Word a proprietary format. The format is publicly documented well enough so that non-MS developers have been able to make their own implementations, including open-source implementations such as the one in LibreOffice.

@BenCrowell But only Microsoft can decide what the format looks like and, every time you open a nontrivial Word file in LibreOffice it says, "Hey, I couldn't quite get this right but I did the best I could!"  That's a proprietary format.

I once asked an editor if they would accept a LaTeX submission.  They said no, and the reason was nobody had ever asked before.  This was a mediocre STEM journal.

@DavidRicherby: That's why I put in the qualifying phrase that it was not "100% accurate." every time you open a nontrivial Word file in LibreOffice This is not my experience, at least not within the last few years. I don't own a copy of Word, and I almost never have a problem opening Word documents from work. I still find it a nuisance that people use it as a file interchange format, but it basically works for me almost all the time. Of course MS is evil, and there is a long history of their silly shenanigans trying to embrace and extend by using Word, etc.

I don't have a lot of trouble with Word documents in OpenOffice (aside from the pagination changing which I assume is down to fonts and I could fix if I wanted to take the trouble), but Bloody-Power-Swearword-Point is a whole 'nother matter. It's format is also disclosed, but it just doesn't play well with others. In any case all the MS Office formats are reputed to be nightmares full of old kludges kept around for back-compatibility reasons until there is rarely an obviously right way to do anything.

I feel sorry for those journals

I just read this at the Science web site: "Our routine for converting LaTeX files to Word format relies on a DOS-based utility that converts to HTML as an intermediate format." Link Simply awful! I wonder if this has to do with the fast turnaround of Science (less time for copyediting), combined with the fact that most of their authors are latex-illiterate.

PDF is badly suited as a format for representing content in a form that might need further modification, since it is a representation of how the document is to be rendered, and adding a line to a paragraph will have ramifications for the layout of other content that are hard to make automatically in this format.  It is awkward even to mark up PDF indicating where changes are meant to be made with PDF.  Generally speaking, journals throw away most of the layout decisions of authors when they typeset content.  Word or Latex are far more suitable formats during the editing process.

I cannot answer for all journals but can provide insights into a few. One issue concerns the authors rather than the journals themselves. If a community has little need for equations then the need for LaTeX is also perceived as small. Hence a journal would not implement something that they think has no use.
In my own field of Earth Science, the usage of LaTeX varies between sub-disciplines. In Glaciology, being a quantitative subfield, a majority use LaTeX while in other more descriptive subfields no-one uses LaTeX. It is easy to see that this is also reflected in what formats the journals accept. Since the editors of the journals usually come from the sub-disciplines their journals cover, the editors are used to using the same authoring tools as others which further cements the existing structure.
On top of that the individual publisher may add capacity to journals. Elsevier, for example, has a LaTeX-class that can be used for their journals, while Wiley, for example, do not. This can help journals take the step to also include LaTeX contributions even though editors may not be users themselves.

I don't understand. The editors just have to read the document. Presumably they know how to open a PDF or PS file? The people who then do the the galley proofs for the journals do need to be able to work with LaTeX, but I would be surprised if that's an issue for the publisher.

I'm not sure how this answers the question. It addresses why some journals accept MS Word files, but not why they prefer the format.

@SashoNikolov The division of labour between editors and publishers is not always divided as you think. Editors are the contact for the author visavi the journal. If there is a problem with submitted files it will be the editors, not the publishers who will deal with the problems. So, it would be difficult for someone who knows nothing about LaTeX to handle such articles in some systems.

@E.P. The dividing line is between LaTeX and other word-processor files. Many journals accept rtf-files which do not have to be authored by Word. Word is dominant in many disciplines so when, really, any word-processor file that is compatible with Word would be fine, the journal will likely ask for Word-format files. So in essence the preference is a format compatible with Word, hence not LaTeX.

In my experience editors did not handle tex files ever. After acceptance I am usually in contact with a copyeditor who works with me on getting the final proofs. But I suppose some journals might involve the editor in this. I wonder why they would do that. It could be a budget issue, but I am sure Science has ample funding.

Formulae are only a minor (IMHO) part of why LaTeX is used. The major part is separating the visuals (the formatting) from the actual content of the paper, so that the authors don't have to bother with typesetting their papers exactly the way journals want it, and the journals don't have to bother with fixing the authors' crappy typesetting.

The main divide that I notice in preferred input format is between journals that routinely reformat your paper and those that do not.

Journals wanting Word generally ask the author just just send a pile of text and figures, which they will stitch together to look precisely how they want it to look, with special fancy styling, etc.
Journals that want LaTeX generally ask the author to send a PDF file looking almost exactly as it will for publication, plus the LaTeX so they can recompile with the right page and issue information.

The first is essentially a leftover from the days before computer formatting, when a journal would be getting a bundle of paper, which would need to be typeset by hand in any case.  These days it is most likely to be preserved in either high-end journals that can afford a significant paid staff or else in subfields that simply haven't made the cultural transition.  Word is then a "lowest common denominator" that, unfortunately, the world has generally settled on for styled documents (though some places will also accept non-proprietary formats: for example, PLoS ONE also accepts rtf)
LaTeX lets a journal run much more leanly, since it places more burden on the authors.  When something goes wrong with LaTeX, however, it's likely to go much more problematically wrong because it's possible for authors to include some awfully fancy programming in LaTeX (I know a person who wrote a piece of database management software entirely in TeX). To handle that, you need a much more programming-savvy journal staff, or else a large and well-maintained automated backend like IEEE's PDF eXpress to help you detect and manage the problems that come with freedom.

But if the arrangement is entirely done by the Journal, why Word rather than plain text?

Because plain text can't express any formatting at all.  You can't do italics or bold or footnotes or equations, etc.  The formatting that is within authorial discretion definitely needs to be supported somehow.

Ok, good point. And why Word rather than pdf?

Why not PDF?  Because you can't necessarily copy text cleanly from PDF.  Consider, for example, that most scanners will happily produce PDF that looks like text but is just a pure image.  They need something you can copy text from, and Word is an easy default.

Another example for "why not PDF" is that if you render your PDF from LaTeX, you'll get some hyphenation which is rather difficult to de-hyphenate accurately should the text need to be re-flowed. With Word, that's not an issue at all.

An interesting question to me is "Why Word rather than something else entirely?"  One could imagine a format sort of like Markdown that would allow authors to express simple formatting but also be far easier to process than Word.  (You can do a lot of crazy stuff with Word.)  One would think this would make things much easier on publishers and no harder on authors.

In short: network effects.  As an early mover in user-friendly word processing software, Microsoft managed to get extremely broad-based adoption of its Office products throughout industry and government (and to a lesser extent academia) in the 1990s, at the same time that electronic communication was taking off.  Without any significant competitors, Word was likely to be adopted as a de facto standard, and once that happens, it's hard to incentivize organizations to invest in switching.

I have doubts about this answer. It's much easier to do major re-formatting given the LaTeX source code, and the vast majority of LaTeX papers use standard packages and common macros. In my journal submissions, while I was asked for a PDF for the reviewing process, after acceptance I was asked for the LaTeX files, and the copyeditors would do some non-trivial style changes.

@Sasho Nikolov What field are you in?  In my experience, many experimental biologists treat LaTeX as a form of evil and frightening witchcraft on par with such nightmarish horrors as Matlab, HTML, and C++.  But then again, how comfortable are you with accurately dissecting the gastrocnemius of a mouse?

Theoretical computer science, I have gone through the process for math journals as well. I know many people in biological sciences and I agree with your observation. (You could add above-high-school-level math to this list. And I would pay money to not dissect a mouse. Or behead it and crack its skull, which was one friend's summer job.) But why would a journal care, are really the biologists preparing the final proofs? Or are biologists uncomfortable with reading a nicely formatted PDF file?

@SashoNikolov The biologists have to be able to prepare their own manuscripts for submission, too...

They do, but neither the question, nor  your answer, is about this. If the question were "why do people in field A prefer Word" I would understand. The question is "why do some journals prefer Word", and I am not sure I agree with your explanation that it has to do with re-formatting (which I think is done by copyeditors and IMO is in fact easier with LaTeX).

@SashoNikolov How are you proposing that a manuscript arrive at a copy-editor in LaTeX if the authors don't use LaTeX?  Somebody would have to convert into LaTeX, and if a journal has a Word workflow in place, it's not going to be simple for them to switch.

What is this workflow? It's just editors and reviewers reading a paper. Why do they care in what format they read it. Up until the copyediting stage there is no difference what format the paper is in, as long as an editor knows how to open it and read it. If somehow there are authors who can produce LaTeX, why would a journal stop them? Are you saying copyeditors are incapable of working with two different formats?

It is much easier to find copy-editors with Word skills than Latex skills.  I am aware of two journals that used to accept submissions written in Latex that switched to Word-only because they could not find editors with the skills needed for Latex, and of another that is considering this switch.
There is a big problem with Latex as an authoring format, which is that it is a sophisticated and not terribly readable programming language, one that encourages people to hack up idiosyncratic macros for use in their articles.  If you have 10 papers to be edited into an issue of a journal, life is much harder if each of the papers defines its own macros to do roughly similar things in incompatible ways, with possible and hard to deal with namespace collisions.  This also means that the skills needed for editing in Latex are higher than those needed for editing articles written in Word.
That said, journals that can handle this problem gain freedom from vendors in their publishing operations.  It is no accident that Latex is more popular with smaller publishers than with the giant publishers.

This doesn't really need to be true any more, given the emergence of a number of WYSIWYG LaTeX editors.

@jakebeal - Graphical support for Latex does not make the task of editing someone else's Latex any easier.  Graphical UIs for Latex are easily flummoxed by typical user-supplied macros.  Lyx has the best support for various conference styles, but chokes on many Latex files; see http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/2966/175

My point is that you can now use latex effectively without ever having to learn a difficult language or be encouraged to create nasty macros. A WYSIWYG editor greatly reduces the incentives for both, as has been seen with HTML editors.

@jakebeal Sure: it's easier to get into Latex than ever before.  But that is not why many journals in highly numerate fields don't accept Latex submissions.

@krnk - Minimalist formats are great when you don't need advanced content: they force separation of content from presentation and they give complete freedom of choice of publication format: Pandoc allows publication to Word's docx, Latex, Context, several e-Book formats and MathML formats.  But often authors need more sophisticated representation of content than truly portable formats can provide.

Similar to jakebeal, Peter Jansson, and this https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1046940 website.  I would propose the reason for format is usually  based on the end goal, which determines why someone prefers a format.  Some journal or conference that uses professional graphic designers or wants the comfort/freedom of an easily formatted manuscript may want to use inDesign (one of the standards for making book layouts).
Even if inDesign is not the end point, it could just be easier to layout a microsoft template, or could just be easier because the typesetter for a journal is accustom to those options.


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How to make leaving a PhD program seem like a positive thing on a resume
I have a feeling this question has been posted before, but I wanted to ask as my situation is slightly different. I've recently decided to leave my PhD program in the social sciences in order to look for work. I've basically come to the conclusion after completing 3 full years, courses, and fieldwork that I don't want to be an academic but would rather put my skills to use with NGOs, non-profits, or the public sector. In many ways, the last hurdle of the PhD (i.e. writing the dissertation) seemed more like a barrier to what I wanted to do, rather than something that would bring me closer to it. I left because I wanted to go in a new direction, not because I wasn't sure that I was capable of finishing.
Anyways, my main concern right now is how to present this discrepancy on my resume. As I've been a TA and doing research projects since getting my MA, I've decided to list my years as a TA, and the rest under the position of "Researcher." I figure that the situation is a little too complex to really explain in a resume or cover letter, and that most employers will be able to read between the lines that I was probably in a PhD program. I've basically been marketing myself on my resumes/cover letters as a "researcher" with lots of research projects under my belt, without specifically stating under the "education" section that I have a partially finished PhD. My motivation behind the "researcher" title is that during my graduate studies I designed, proposed and carried out individual research on a number of projects.
I guess I should qualify this by mentioning that my PhD studies were in the social sciences, and there seems to be a bit more leeway in terms of describing what we do. All of my dissertation research was funded by a fellowship, and all of my various other research projects (where I wasn't principal investigator) were the result of competitions funded by grants. I have always designed my own research projects, which is why I didn't think it was a bad idea to go with "researcher", and my references could verify that.
It looks like this title would be a little confusing given the circumstances, so I think I'm going to use "Graduate Student Researcher", "PhD Researcher" or something similar in the future. I guess this seems like it gives a more accurate representation of what kinds of things I was doing.
I figure that the 4 years of MA/PhD work on research projects gives me (and any other former graduate student) skills that are valid to most employers. I just want to be able to address this discrepancy honestly and enthusiastically in an interview, rather than clumsily addressing it in a cover letter/resume. What do you guys think? Is this the right strategy to take?

So, you left or not? Is it officially over (administration wise)? What is "a partially finished PhD"? Are you planning to go back? If not, it is not "a partially finished PhD" but an unfinished PHD. And what exactly do you mean by research projects? During your PHD, you were funded by external research projects (EU or NSF funds) or you only mean internal tasks you have performed during your PHD? Have you got any publications to show for those projects?

Since this is about seeking non-academic jobs, you may get better answers over at Workplace.SE.

Doing original research and writing a dissertation about it isn't "the last hurdle" of doing a PhD: it's the whole point.

I object that I just spent 20 min writing an answer then this got wrongly closed-as-duplicate by ff524. There's a world of a difference to quitting after 18 months vs 4 years, which is suspiciously ABD territory. Anyway I had to post this answer over at: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/16552/is-it-possible-to-make-leaving-a-phd-look-good-on-a-cv-resume/30295#30295

@smci For what it's worth, I marked as duplicate per request of the OP. That is, the user who asked this question raised a flag saying that it is already answered by the linked question (which they didn't see when asking it in the first place).

@ff524: oh well, the answer is somewhat different... I give up.

I think it is a really bad idea to list your time as a grad student as "Researcher".
As a general rule, it's usually considered unwise to make up stuff on a resume, and this includes job titles.  I think the only title that really fits your status is "PhD Student" or "PhD Candidate" (or, if you want to focus on the job, "Teaching Assistant" or "Graduate Research Assistant" or the like - whatever was on your pay stub).
The title of "Researcher" would normally be attached to a full-time (non-student!) staff position, generally someone who works on a research project led by a faculty member.   Although the duties may be somewhat similar, the hiring process and level of responsibility could be rather different, so it is really a misrepresentation for you to claim this title.
Suppose a prospective employer calls your university, checking references, and asks "Was Unsure a Researcher at your institution during the following dates?"  The university is going to answer "No, he/she was a grad student" (or even worse, maybe just "No").  Then the employer tosses your application in the trash because your resume is inaccurate (or as they might say, "falsified").  And if they don't check and you get the job anyway, but they find out later, they could easily consider your application was fraudulent - that gets you fired for sure, and is possibly career ending.
If you think employers are going to figure out anyway that you were in a PhD program, why not just go ahead and put "PhD Candidate" on the resume?

I fully agree with this answer. However, I should mention that in Europe (at least in Germany) PhD students often seem to carry the official job title "Researcher" or "PhD Researcher". If "Researcher" was Unsure's official job title (which I assume it was not), it would of course be ok to list it as such in the CV.

I also agree with this answer and also have to add as @xLeitix that here in Finland PhD candidates are not students, but staff. That said, when someone says "I'm a researcher" I would immediately assume that they have been hired to do research, and not as part of a (postgraduate) degree program.

In Germany, I'd expect to see "Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter" (research assistant) on the CV. Just "PhD candidate" will make it sound like the applicant was a full time student and not employed by the university.

@Sumyrda: I agree, and I'd like to add that while "research assistant" is the usual translation, the literal meaning of the German term is more along the lines of "scientific employee" or "research employee".

@O.R.Mapper: The official DFG title for such position (to be used in DFG-sponsored projects) is "Doctoral Researcher".  This title shall underline the fact that (in Germany) PhD candidates are not considered to be students, but scientific staff.

I disagree with the comments above. None of 'Doktorand', 'Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter' in German or 'doctorant' in French translate to 'researcher'. Although it is true that PhD candidates are typically employees of their institution, they are also students. I wouldn't call myself a 'researcher' when I was in grad school (in Switzerland).

@CapeCode: "Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter" literally means "research employee". I.e. an employee who does research. In other words, a "researcher", right? Moreover, in Germany, only some of those PhD candidates are also (usually voluntarily, it is not required to get the PhD degree!) students, and they are only students "on paper" (i.e. they get student discounts), but not "in status" (e.g. they don't attend classes, they don't have exams, they are not addressed when an announcement begins "dear students" etc.).

I am (now unpaid and finally finishing) PhD student and at the same time employed several years as a researcher in Central Europe. Not really every student has such an appointment. I think saying just a student when in fact I was employed would also be not telling the truth.

@CapeCode before starting my PhD, I was employed for a few months as a researcher ("Project assistant") in the same group. So you can be a researcher pre-PhD.

@O.R.Mapper If you get students discounts and services, you're a student. 'Researcher' in English typically refers to post-PhD positions.

@CapeCode: And if you do not get any students discounts and services, while being a PhD candidate and employed to do research, you are a ... what?

@O.R.Mapper Getting discounts or not has nothing to do with it. As far as I know (though your comment seems to imply this is not the case in Germany), universities are the only institutes that can offer PhDs, so to get a PhD you need to be a student in a university. Whether you are also being paid by that university is irrelevant, you can't graduate with a diploma unless you're a student. In any case, being a student doesn't preclude you from being anything else, you can be a student and a researcher or a student and a barman or whatever else you like. You're still a student.

@terdon: It is indeed only universities that can offer PhDs in Germany (at least that's the general case). However, you do not need to be a student to get a PhD. It is simply not a formal requirement for PhD candidates to enrol as students, and those who do often do so exclusively for some benefits such as student discounts (e.g. for public transportation). The tasks and responsibilities of PhD candidates who have enrolled as students are exactly the same as those of any other un-enrolled research employee, both those aiming for a PhD and those who do not want one. Hence "students on paper".

If I understand your question correctly, you've decided to look for a position where a PhD is not a requirement. In that case, there really is no reason to try to hide or "spin" the fact that you were a PhD student. The world is full of people who left a PhD program for one reason or another. The fact that you were in a PhD programme, even if you decided not to complete it, will probably be a "plus" on your resume, or at least not a negative.
I suggest you briefly explain your situation in a cover letter/email. Rather than focussing on why you left the PhD, phrase it in terms of what you decided to do instead. For example, "I've decided to leave my PhD because I want to put my skills to use as soon as possible with NGOs, non-profits, or the public sector".

I've heard people saying it's actually a negative (since you didn't finish what you started), so I'm not so sure it's correct to say it's not a negative.

@Mehrdad Dropping out towards the end of PhD because it is hard and the student does not expect to succeed is one thing. Dropping out because of a positive wish to do something different, articulated in a cover letter, is a different matter.

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава


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If I get an HND then a BSc, can I then go and specialise in any area for my Masters?
I am currently in an apprenticeship for Software Development; however, I want to change my future career after doing a job as a Software Developer.
I would like to know if I would be able to go and do a MSc in Astronautics if I get a HND in Engineering and the do the top-up course for the Bachelor's Degree. I didn't get the best GSCEs although I do have my 5 C's and did not do any A-levels. Would this still be possible?
For anybody wondering, I live in the UK.

As long as you have an engineering BSc (with grades that are not just all barely passing) in hand when you apply for the austronautics/aeronautics/aerospace engineering MSc, there isn't anything standing in your way in principle. I would say that you should definitely go for it! However, you should also keep in mind that it will involve a significant amount of math and physics - so be prepared.

@StrangeLoop I am well aware of the physics and maths of the course and will absolutely apply every single part of me to pass. Thank you for the advice, I appreciate it!

For the non-UKians: HND = Higher National Diploma. Roughly equivalent to completing the 2nd year of a UK Bachelor's degree.

Yes, there are several routes to get to your speciality Masters. Once you've got your Bachelor's degree, very few people will care much about the route you took to get it, whether it was an HND, foundation course, A-levels at night school, whatever.

Awesome. I was worried I would still need the appropriate A-levels or GCSEs for the course. Thanks for the answer


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How can I fix or do after I made many big mistakes with my professor?
I am a new student in a college, the other company in my class is so quiet! (very rare questions and answers), and I am not very good at English (my professor is English).
I said negative comments about things that I disagree with such as "I don't think that because..", "I think it changed, this is old statistics..". I corrected his speech: "Sir, is it weather or climate?". I laughed and spoke in my language in the class so he thought that we are talking about him,
I actually feel shy when I speak in my language to my friends but it's difficult sometimes to change to English. I really feel like he is saying to himself "rude girl!"
In addition, I ask some ridiculous questions and talked too much, I just noticed how stupid I was. But the worst thing I did is when I suggested (by email) to come the class earlier because we are late, He thought that I am not interested  and I want to finish earlier. He spoke to me in front of class but I did not understand what he was talking about ( his voice was low and angry), At home I understood so I sent an email of explanation but I Still feel bad. I am really nervous and confused, what should I do? I feel like I want to leave the class.

If you think relationships are very damaged, you could consider sending him an email, and offering to have a face to face meeting. Show that you have realised you were stupid, and that it will not happen again.

The existing answers are great but I would add a few things. As a note I teach classes were ALL my students are non-native English speakers but I am a native English speaker.
If you find the prof's statistics are out of date, then email him with what you believe the current data is. Making everyone in class think less of the prof is unlikely to motivate the students to put in the work to learn.
Don't pick apart the grammar or vocabulary usage unless it is important to his point. For example, if he says "the weather is heating up over the decades because of pollution" then the fact that he should use "climate" is not really critical. You are not there to teach him English and even native speakers make mistakes and sometimes those mistakes are on purpose. I regularly use incorrect vocabulary because I believe my students would not know the proper word in English. If it matters, I will focus on the word. If it does not matter, then keep everyone focused on the point.
As far as what he is thinking when you are saying in a language other than the language of the classroom AND you are challenging him at every turn, then yes, he is likely thinking you are saying something bad about him.
You need to be polite. Asking questions is fine (actually it is great) but if you are asking every minute you are slowing down the class which makes it harder for the prof to keep his timing. Remember that he has a job to do and you should want him to do his job well. So, find a way to support him and not harm his efforts.
I suspect he is a professional (otherwise you would be talking about what he did to make you suffer) so just change your behavior. If you want to apologize, then do so. However, even if you do not but if you DO change your behavior, I am sure he will appreciate your enthusiasm in the classroom. Just keep it under control. Keep participating, in a reasonable way, and you may yet become his favorite.

Did I misunderstand or did you intend to put would not in the antepenultimate sentence of the third paragraph?

@cardinal Thanks for the spot. I've fixed it. By the way "antepenultimate" is definitely one of those words my students would NOT know.

Don't make the language as an excuse to your behaviour. Being respectful to your professor has nothing to do with the language proficiency. If you can't learn in English then quit your English-speaking school. Most of us are not English native speakers and yet we study at English schools.

What should I do to fix the problem?

1) Change your behaviour. There is no need to give your opinion about everything the professor says. At the same time, I bet you are very welcome to ask questions related to the material and the professor will be happy to answer them.
2) Tell the professor that you have changed and you regret what you did. I believe you got a very nice professor ( I know some professors who will make your day miserable if you act like this in their class). Take the class seriously or at least do not be the class trouble maker.

It's simple: don't act childish in future lectures. If you are talking/giggling/whatever instead of following the lecture you are a nuisance to the professor but also to other students that try to pay attention.
Disagreeing with the professor is not necessarily bad, though comments like 'this is old statistics' are not constructive. It's better to ask questions that can help you (and your classmates) understand the material better than to remain quiet and learn nothing. Just make sure you are polite when doing so and don't openly challenge your teacher's knowledge.

Totally Agree for focusing on the constructive questions and opinions.

Totally disagree.  If you've already been noted as a combative jerk by the professor, the best thing you can do is shut up and try and disappear into the background.  Next time sign up for 2-3 identical classes and drop the ones with professors you don't like before drop day.


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Should I say congratulations to my professor? What is the best way for this?
Few days ago I found on a website that my professor's student won the "Golden Kingfisher Prize" for her presentation under his supervision in his previous university 2 years ago .. Do you think it is good to talk about it? And what is the best way for this ?.

We really need a meta-question. "what is the best way to talk to a professor?" Answer: "Directly, exactly as if they were human."

I don't understand all the questions on Academia.SE, asking whether and how to have perfectly normal conversations.

Unless it comes up in conversation, it would seem pretty odd to me if someone congratulated me on something I achieved two years ago. For recent achievements, "I heard you won the XX prize. Congratulations!".

@LightnessRacesinOrbit Many of these questions stem from the notion that professors are some kind of metaphysical entities, they're not just people that you can interact with as a mere mortal.

Professors are people too, hence any acknowledgement of achievements and, as in this case, their part in an achievement is always a nice thing to do.
It would probably not be a good idea to make too much of a big deal of it - but an email or a chat of congratulations to your professor is a polite acknowledgement and appreciation of a significant achievement.
Most of all, know that you are working with an academic that has, in some way, facilitated a student earning a great award.  Just keep that in mind in all your future interactions with the Professor.

If I were you, I would approach them privately (this dismisses all possible concerns the Professor could reasonably have of brown-nosing/self-interest). The caveat is that you need to enter the conversation gracefully - I don't assume you would be congratulating the Professor out of anything but your own kindness and gratitude to said Professor, but a rekindling of communication after a number of years always sets up a warning flag among the weary.
If you had a strong relationship with the Professor, I'd recommend simply talking to them about it - asking what they learned from the experience, what advice they would give to you in areas relevant to this field, how they learned to adapt to the learning styles of others, etc. Put more simply, make it clear that you're interested and still eager for their insight on things, but make sure you personalize it to them - after all, it was their achievement.