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Ethics of staying in PhD program with no intention of being an academic, and misleading my advisor about this
My field is extremely competitive for tenure track jobs that I:

will most likely be unable to land after graduation
don't even really desire anymore.

In comparison to my classmates, my research productivity is absolutely pitiful. It is stymied by an apathy for my subfield and academia in general that has developed over my 2 year tenure in the program.
Problem is, I can't get the industry jobs I want right now due to underdeveloped programming skills and inadequate networking. My best bet is to stick around and beef these up until I see an opportunity to leave.
If I drop out now with my master's, I will have to start out at square one and get entry level work that uses none of the skills I have developed (we're talking competition w/ HS grads).
However, I have already told my advisor about my doubts for a future in academia. They approved an academic leave request due to some issues in my personal life. At the end of my leave period, I have to tell my advisor that I wish to complete the program and stay in academia.
On one hand, my situation is not so different from any other PhD student forced to go alt-ac due to disinterest or poor performance, but on the other hand, I will have to mislead my advisor to return.
I only want to continue at this point for job prospects, and my advisor won't be inclined to take me back if I tell them this.
I am willing to pick up the pace with my research and get the PhD, so it won't be a complete waste for my advisor, but it will still be largely a waste of their resources.
A similar question by another PhD student can be found here - When is the right time to tell my advisor that I plan on leaving my PhD program?

I'm confused. Why can't you tell your advisor that you're not interested in academia, but are interested in finishing your PhD and getting a job that takes advantage of your PhD-level research skills? Why would this be a waste of your advisor's resources?

That's a good point. Thanks for your response. However, my advisor seems to be especially invested in making me a viable academic researcher because I am their first student and have used a lot of their startup funds. My field is also not typically industry-bound like, for example, engineering, so any reputation boost my advisor could hope to get from me is nil. [It's also why a transition to industry is going to be incredibly rough; only a tiny fraction of my PhD work will be applicable] I'm not sure if they will go for it.

A graduating PhD student is not a waste of an advisor's time or resources, no matter where they go afterward.  It's your PhD.  Your career goals matter more than your advisor's.

And note also that advisors usually already know that, eventually, some, possibly many, of their PhD students would not end up in academia anyway.

@SKOR2 Now all his efforts go to prepare you for an academic career, that means wasted time on his and your side. If you tell him, he may be able to help guide your career towards a career in industry. If you only tell him that it's never been an option after he spent all the time trying to guide you to an academic career, he'd have all reason to be somewhat angry about the wasted time and in particular, he cannot retroactively help you (and might not be inclined to go out of his way to help looking for a job / write a recommendation letter after you just wasted part of his support efforts).

The possible ethical dilemma would rather be if you really have no intention to finish, just to learn the goodies for yourself and get out of there. It is an interesting question what is most ethically correct: To make sure you become the best you can at the skills you can learn or to reach up to the formal requirements for graduation. It is surprisingly rarely that those two things seem to overlap. What is the goal of education? For students to fulfill the goals or for the goals to produce useful students?

You may actually be making your adviser: 1) a worse adviser for future students, 2) damaging his career progression, 3) using funding that may have been given to other potential students.

Do you have objective proof that continuing as crappy PhD will land you great job elsewhere? That sounds like wishful thinking to me, not a viable life business plan.

@Agent_L I'm honestly not really sure. All I know is that my programming and stats skills are not at the level of other students who have left the program for industry. Right now, I'm back in my hometown that has a really bad economy and little in the way of networking opportunities. I would either have to start at square one doing something completely different from any of my training or even go back to school. I would relocate to some cities in my state, but like I said, my skills aren't there yet to get the jobs that would make relocation worth it.

Questions of ethics are always murky. Let's try to untangle it a bit.

Staying in PhD program with no intention of being an academic.

There is no ethical dilemma in this. Really. I don't know where the notion came from that PhD studies should only develop future professors. It does not and cannot work like that, otherwise every professor could, on average, only supervise a single student his entire career, or professors would proliferate exponentially.

Misleading my advisor about this.

Misleading your advisor is quite obviously a problem. The question is why you need to mislead your advisor in the first place. As said above, it should be completely ok to work hard on your PhD and go to industry afterwards.

to stick around and beef these up until I see an opportunity to leave.

Ok, now we have a big problem. You are essentially intending to misuse your funding to not work on your research, but to ramp up your industry career. That's not ok and you probably know it. Contrary to your statement, this is also decidedly not the same as trying for an academic career and not making it. It's the same as getting a grant / stipend to do research and then using it for unrelated personal training.
Let me make this clear: you are paid (in salary or stipend) to do research, not to learn to program and build a network for industry job searching. Pretending to do the one and then doing the other is obviously unethical, even if you would not need to lie to your advisor about this. There may be some synergies (e.g., you build your network through research interactions with industry, or you learn to program because your research requires it), but doing things entirely unrelated to your research because you suspect they help you find a job is not ethical. It only gets worse if you need to lie about doing it.

I am willing to pick up the pace with my research and get the PhD.

Great! Do that instead. Do not misuse your time to train for an industry job, but finish your PhD. Conduct the best research you can. Collaborate and write papers. See if you can twist your research in a way that you learn more skills that will help in industry (not do things unrelated to research, but try to find synergies if possible). Train for a potential industry career on the side, outside of work.
Tell your advisor exactly this. You are not sure if you would want to stay in academia, but you will be writing the best dissertation that you possibly can. Don't get all emotional about it, or talk about apathy for your field. Don't make it your or your advisor's fault either - you just found over the long time of a PhD that academia, while interesting, is ultimately not for you. It happens to many (most?) students. Your advisor may be disappointed, but unless there is already a big conflict between the two of you, I cannot imagine him kicking you out over this.
I think the big misunderstanding here may be that you think your main contribution to your advisor's CV is you becoming a professor yourself, and otherwise you are worthless to him. Without knowing your university, your advisor's promotion case, or any other details, I am still willing to bet that this is not the case.
The main career benefit to your advisor lies in the research results you produce, and the papers you write. A secondary factor may be that you graduate, independently of what you do after. That is, in many universities, it is important for tenure and promotion cases that you have a certain number of students that graduated successfully. It always looks nice to be able to say that your students have been successful afterwards (for some definition of "success"), but I really think that the other two factors are much more important to your advisor. Just make clear that your decision to go to industry does not mean that you will try to do the weakest PhD that they let you graduate with (and mean it), and you should be fine.

The OP can both work to finish your PhD, and beef up the industry skills using  spare time.

I have to beef up both my stats and programming skills to either continue in the program or leave for industry.

otherwise every professor could, on average, only supervise a single student his entire career - I morally agree, but technically this wouldn't prevent faculty at research schools from supervising many PhDs as many faculty (at least in the US) never have any PhD students (e.g., most faculty at non-research schools).

@Kimball Yeah, ok - so it's like 2 or 3 PhD students per professor. I don't think this changes the sentiment of my remark. (also, I wonder if those people that look down on students going into industry after their PhD would call a position at a non-research institution a success)

As a PhD student, you don't have to want an academic career. It's not unethical to pursue a PhD with no intention of staying in academia afterward.
But lying about your plans and deliberately misleading is wrong and unfair to your advisor.
You wrote:

However, my advisor seems to be especially invested in making me a viable academic researcher because I am their first student and have used a lot of their startup funds. My field is also not typically industry-bound like, for example, engineering, so any reputation boost my advisor could hope to get from me is nil.

If your advisor is a new professor whose own career success really depends on graduating PhD students who go on to academic careers, letting them invest everything in you under false pretenses is obviously wrong and unethical.
It sounds like you don't really want to finish your PhD (I infer this from your "apathy for my subfield and academia in general"), and you think your advisor wouldn't want you to stick around for a few more years under the circumstances, either. On the other hand, finishing out the academic year - giving you time to look for a job, and giving your advisor time to find another PhD student in this application cycle, while you wrap up and publish your current work - sounds like a win-win. But you should tell your advisor right away, so that the two of you can make informed plans for the future.
I suggest you come up with a plan for preparing yourself for the job market during this academic year, then have that talk with your advisor, and make the most of your remaining time.
On the other hand, if you really do want to finish your PhD, tell your advisor that you're not interested in academia, but are interested in finishing your PhD and getting a job that takes advantage of your PhD-level research skills. (Many of the skills acquired by successful PhD students are fairly transferable.) Your advisor may be more willing to support you than you think - successfully graduating PhD students is important for new professors, even if the student isn't interested in academia in the end. But you need to let your advisor make that choice: lying to someone so that they will give you multiple years of research support just so that you can buy time to train yourself for an unrelated career, is wrong.

It wouldn't be a win-win for the reason that I literally have about zero chances of landing anything besides retail or secretarial work.

@SKOR2 after finishing out this academic year? It's only October. You mentioned wanting to do some networking and practicing programming skills - why can't you do that this year, then apply for jobs in April/May? How many additional years were you planning to take to prepare for the kinds of jobs you are interested in?

At least a year. And because I am on leave, I am not even in town at the university; I'm out of state, so networking using the school's resources is pretty much out of the question.

@SKOR2 I think you must realize that asking for multiple years of research support just so that you can buy time to train yourself for an unrelated career, is wrong. I suggest you come up with a plan for preparing yourself for the job market during this academic year, then have that talk with your advisor, and make the most of your remaining time.

@ff524 I assume both you and OP are in the same academic culture because you mention academic years and OP does not ask ‘what is that’ but note that for example in Europe a PhD project is typically not tied to any type of academic year or semester structure in the slightest. You start when you start (I started in January, mid-semester) and you finish when you finish (I defended in May, second month of the semester). Also, at least in Germany academic years are practically not referred to anywhere (semester is the defining unit).

@ff524 I think I actually misunderstood your answer. I might have enough time if I leave in May. I just can't leave right now after the fall semester (ending in December), but my advisor wants me to make a decision now, and funding is assigned on a per-semester basis, not on an annual one.

Or you could find another advisor for whom this is not a problem.

I am a PhD since many years now. I have been in and out of academia since 2005. I was just like you.
I think that you really should consider completing your PhD programme. The reason for this is that you cannot judge, yourself, whether your progress is going well or not. Some students start really slow, but get some insights or discoveries later that are really impressive. I know that "others" performed more than me during their first years, but in the long run there is another discussion. Science is a slow process, and we cannot tell beforehand if a graduate student will become a good or successful researcher. I was also shocked how different professors thought of us grad students. Some where really impressed with one student, while others were not at all impressed. As a more seasoned academic, there are many different qualities in researchers that are important. Students, however, rarely see this. Instead, they compare with each other. This is a huge mistake.
I remember one professor who was very encouraging to me, despite the fact that I have smaller productivity. He said, look at the others' publications. How are they different from each other? Usually, there is just one idea or question for an entire dissertation, and this idea was generated by their supervisors. Subsequently, the professor told me that I hade the mind, independence and pre-requisites to become a great researcher in the future. This changed my "envy" of my competitors' productivity.
Furthermore, don't look ahead and make guesses about your chances to land a job in the future. You cannot predict the future, and hence you shouldn't worry that much about it right now. You can do that when your thesis is about done. My job prospects are still very limited, but I have created a new job that didn't exist before.
Also, we are talking about your education here, not the resources of your department or supervisor.
I would advice you to do a game theory solution. I would keep grinding the halls of science, but apply for a job that you find really, really interesting from time to time. If you suddenly land a great job opportunity, your advisor will understand that you got an offer you cannot refuse. If that happens, drop out. If not, graduate and be really proud of your accomplishment.
Finally, this is advice I give to all grad students. A thesis should be done, not perfect.

It sounds like you did the PhD the right way - just one that can be really incompatible with the "publish or perish" culture. Unfortunately for me, I'm in league with the other students from your program. A large part of why I'm freaking out is that I don't know how to proceed with independent research, at least not in my subfield. It's not unreasonable in my subfield to be where I'm at because it's highly specialized/technical and has a steeper learning curve from undergrad compared to other subfields in my broader discipline, but I feel too locked in to pivot to them.

I will try to make this short. I was in your shoes 2 years ago. I was passionate about my field when I entered the program, but my interest had waned within 2 years into the program. It was impossible for me land a job in my research area because of security clearance issue as I was an international student, which was one of the reason why I lost interest, and I didn't consider myself smart enough to have successful career in academia. Let's say I was one of those average student and being average in academia is equivalent to be a failure.I told my PI that I am not interested pursuing my Phd and wanted to leave with my masters. He reduced my stipend for final semester and let me walk away.
Looks like you've drained yourself out mentally as I had once done to myself. I'd suggest that you should put your well-being first and foremost, have an exit strategy, don't think too much about being ethical (nobody knows about your struggle), get your shit together, and leave if you have to. Also, be prepared for the struggle of landing a job once you leave school.

Yeah, you did a good job picking up on the subtext. I am really at a very low point right now. Even with lost passion for the field, I would still have produced good work if I was at my best. I bet we are in similar research areas if you also think being average is akin to failure. The competition is incredibly fierce. Unless something magical happens in the next 2-3 years and I get my mojo back, academia is really not in the realm of possibilities. It's not quite as bad as some of the humanities folks have it, but it's still pretty intense.

As others have said, you have no obligation to pursue or want to pursue an academic career after your PhD. Frankly I think that your supervisor has been extremely unethical by attaching that condition to your continuing in the program. So if I were you I would not be worried in the slightest about concealing your post PhD plans from him/her. It is absolutely none of their business what you plan to do after your PhD. It sounds to me (based only on what you said) that your supervisor is only in it for his own benefit - he wants to be able to say on his CV that he supervised someone who has gone on to great things in academia and possibly wants to benefit from future collaboration with his student. That is what is unethical in this situation. He should be first and foremost concerned with helping you to complete if that is what you want to do - regardless of your post degree intentions.
Having said all that, my tentative suggestion is to make whatever decision is best for you. If that means continuing and trying to complete, then tell your supervisor what he wants to hear regarding your plans, work hard to complete and then when you complete, go and do whatever you want and ignore anything that you may have said to your supervisor. I guess that you may want some letters of reference from him, so if necessary put in a few token academic job applications so you get a reference and then you can apply for whatever you want at that point.
I say this as someone who has supervised 2 PhDs to completion and is currently supervising 2 more. I would never dream of imposing ridiculous
conditions on my students. It is hard enough to complete a PhD without having to deal with a selfish supervisor. Look after yourself in this situation first and foremost.


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Our instructor threw together freely available YouTube videos and Wikipedia articles instead of lectures. What should I do?
I'm currently attending university online (at a notable public institution, not a crappy school—I feel compelled to mention this because one typically expects quality from good institutions). Unfortunately, my instructor didn't put much effort into designing the course.
Essentially, though there are a few YouTube videos made by him and his colleagues, the rest of the course basically consists of:
1) The e-book that we read weekly
2) Other YouTube videos that he's linked
3) Wikipedia articles
I've already brought this to his attention in a professional manner (he didn't get upset), but things obviously won't change during this academic semester, as he's also busy teaching other courses. His reasoning is that in the digital age, since information is so freely available, his job is essentially to help guide us in finding the right information.
I disagree. What's frustrating is the fact that students are paying tuition to have an instructor tell them "Hey, here are some free videos literally anyone can find online, and some Wikipedia articles any competent student can read on their own. Go nuts." Because when you're paying tuition, the implication is that you're gaining special privilege and access to resources and knowledge that are otherwise unavailable to ordinary people/students. A student makes a choice when deciding what school he wishes to attend. In doing so, he gives up the opportunity to attend another school. If all schools just offered the same quality and degree of education, there wouldn't be any competition or a means of qualifying how good one school is compared to another.
I find it unprofessional of an instructor to do something like this. I don't want to strain my relationship with this instructor, but I also don't feel like I can let this go because the course is quite fundamental to the major I'm pursuing, and it's really upsetting that it's in this condition.

What should I do? Should I just let it pass and move on, or should I bring this to the attention of someone else? He also happens to be high up in the corresponding department, so there aren't many people above his status. I don't want to go over his head, but I feel like if I email him again about this, it'll seem like I'm just pestering him.

There is a certain logic in the idea that watching great video lectures is more useful than watching average live lectures. If the professor spends the time he would have spent lecturing on giving individual feedback, I'm not sure it's a bad thing. In the age of video lectures, it would make sense for the quality of a school to be determined by other factors than the quality of the lectures, such as the amount of individual feedback you receive.

You are gaining special privileges and access: access to an instructor who can answer your questions, help guide you through the material, and offer feedback on your work.

Also see: answers to How widespread is sharing of slides/assignments among educators? and Is it acceptable for paid online course to use quizzes and materials from elsewhere on the internet?

What are your goals here? Are you hoping to get a change in the course right now, or to change it in the future, or to maybe get a refund of your tuition? Are you wanting your professor to be disciplined in some way?

Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, textbook, or scientific journal, says Wikipedia. And following random Youtube videos, you might catch the idea that proofs that the earth is not flat may not be that convincing after all.

@HagenvonEitzen Which is why you're paying for the instructor to curate the materials--he didn't just pick them at random from a Google search. There's plenty of good information available for free, including on YouTube and Wikipedia.

What is your actual class time spent doing? If it's spent addressing your questions, challenging your understanding, and giving feedback, I'd say the course is doing what it should. If you're just left to watch videos, without helping shape this into learning, then you'd have something to complain about.

His actual involvement in the course is answering questions via email and helping us during office hours (which is essentially a 25-minute session only once a week). Aside from that, class time is, I kid you not, just spent reading the book (which itself is quite poorly written, and contains mistakes) and watching YouTube videos.

As long as it is affective, then your teacher is correct. However they should use the saved time/effort to improve there teaching in a different way.

How much are you actually paying for this course?  I can tell you that one hour of work for a professor costs the university about $200.  (This is including all the costs of the associated support staff and facilities.)  Keeping in mind that most of the work for this course (such as choosing videos and marking your work) is done behind the scenes, I would guess that, unless you are paying close to $10K, you're getting your money's worth.  Education is expensive.

@AlexanderWoo I don't agree with this. Students have a right to decent quality instruction regardless of what they're paying for it. Conversely, just because you're paying a lot of money for a degree at a fancy private school doesn't mean that you get to be a demanding "customer."

@ElizabethHenning: Students may have a "right" to decent quality education, but if there aren't enough resources to provide it, then it won't be provided.  As the saying goes, you can't squeeze blood out of a stone.

@AlexanderWoo To be fair, there isn't a lack of any resources aside from time. The instructor's overloaded with 3-4 courses, so I can sympathize with that, but it's reflective of a bigger trend at my university in which instructors are assigned multiple online courses (allowing the university to make more money by accepting more students) at the expense of course quality. This is a public land-grant college, so money is certainly not the problem.

@anon Money is very much a problem at many public land-grant colleges, for which the state government neither provides enough money nor allows tuition to be set at a high enough rate to actually provide a high quality education.

This old joke comes to mind... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2069275

Your comments giving details of the course instruction, such as how the class time is spent, are more important than what you stated in your main question post, and you should edit them in. As I said in a separate comment, the quality of the education is the crucial concern rather than the source of the teaching material.

When I was attending university classes, I paid per "credit-hour". Most classes were three credit hours and the credit hours reflected how many hours of lecture time the class had per week. A three credit hour class was either three one hour lectures or two 1.5 hour lectures every week. If I were paying for the class in question by the credit hour and I were being charged for more than .5 hours, I would be very upset. If you are paying the same rate for this class as you are for other classes and getting far less lecture time, I'd consider that an issue.

Is this a class with a traditional lecture schedule, and you're saying the instructor is cancelling all of the lectures?  If so, that is typically not permitted by university standards.

@Kimball No, that's not the case here.

Well, I don't know too much about online courses (nor am I a believer that they are a good substitute for a traditional course), but my impression is that you're paying a bit for some minimal interaction (typically less than a traditional course) but mostly for (1) a curriculum, and (2) certification that you completed a course to certain standards.

@Kimball As someone who took online courses full time in grades 10-12 (and now currently in college), and as someone who formerly attended regular school, I can confirm that online education is better (not in all areas, but in most) IF (and only if) you're willing to put in the self-studying effort and IF you're able to stay focused. One of the downsides, of course, is the lack of peer-to-peer interaction and face-to-face interaction with instructors.

"...his job is essentially to help guide us in finding the right information." One might argue that this is the actual task of all professors throughout history. As a friend of mine once said, you can't truly understand something until you've thought it yourself. Learning is not merely the act of regurgitating information. It is the process of thinking through the material and coming to agreement (or disagreement!) with it based on reasoning. "This is a public land-grant college, so money is certainly not the problem." Don't underestimate the cost of a large org or the power of waste. ;)

So, what's the problem? Do you feel that the material you're receiving is not quality? Or do you think that because it is "free", you are being cheated?

If you have a student society for your faculty or other related student academic groups (e.g. academic grievance center) they may be able to advise you on venues/process to complaint, but I would guess overall this probably is not worth your effort.

What formative and summative assessment activities are provided? That's what you're really paying for, compared to self study.

The traditional way of teaching would be to recommend book(s) by other author(s) and cover the topics covered in that book throughout the course. By this logic, students never really had 'access to resources and knowledge that are otherwise unavailable to ordinary people/students' since those books would be available in most book shops. This is a good thing since restricting knowledge behind money (high tuition fees) would limit the knowledge to those who are already rich.

"Because when you're paying tuition, the implication is that you're gaining special privilege and access to resources and knowledge that are otherwise unavailable to ordinary people/students."  Assuming that you're still in undergrad, I dunno what sort of privileged knowledge you might be after.  Could you explain?

@iheanyi Yes, I feel I am being cheated. Part of our tuition includes costs for the lectures themselves. At this particular university, the online classes have an extra associated cost for the "delivery" of the content in the online medium. So if I'm paying tuition, yes, I'm getting a wonderful instructor who is willing to help me, BUT, part of that money is supposed to give me access to quality lectures. Why do I have to pay money for my university to direct me to Wikipedia articles and YouTube videos that other people don't have to pay to access?

To clarify your position a bit - MIT, one of the world's top institutions, gives away its instruction materials for free via MIT OpenCourseware.  Because these are free and available to anyone, how do you feel about them?  Are you inclined to read them, because they're from a top-notch university?  Or do you feel like they're garbage because they're free?

@Nat No, I'd definitely read them if I had the time to do so. I've watched, for instance, Harvard's CS50 lectures, and they're excellent. These materials simply can't compare to the YouTube videos our instructor posts.

That's probably the point to focus the question on, then.  The thing's that the question sounds like you're upset about using free materials - though there's not much to respond to that, because there's simply nothing wrong with free.  But if the materials are objectively of a lower quality than what one might expect from a typical university lecture, then that'd be a different scenario.

By analogy, in non-online courses I routinely use freely available texts with open licensing.  (I have also created and disseminated such texts.)  I wouldn't use them if they weren't quality, but I see no need to pay a commercial publisher money (which my students may not have) for the same quality of material.  If the materials are good, since you are taking an ONLINE course, things seem fine.  If you do not have good access to the instructor or assignments are ill-structured because of the materials, that would be the real thing to complain about - and you certainly should, in that case.

Honestly I'd prefer to get a free youTube video than buy a professors $200 self-published book instead.

You are conflating two things. Quality lectures is not the same thing as "costly" lectures. Just because your lectures are free doesn't mean they're of inferior quality. I think you need to separate out the two. If you go to the school and accuse them of providing inferior quality lectures, but the lectures are actually of good quality, they'll just ignore you. If you instead are complaining about being forced to pay for something which is freely available, that can't be as easily dismissed.

I disagree with what you think the freely accessible information implies.  MIT has all of its course material free online, but people still go to MIT.  Taking classes is more about having someone you can bounce your ideas off of, and a degree is more about a credited establishment saying that you are qualified, than either are about the knowledge you got along the way.

Thank him, and then thank him again. He is doing a great thing: it enables working students to "follow" lessons and also makes it possibile for him to have way way more time for few-to-one meetings in his office to make sure everything is really clear for everybody. Good teacher.

"His reasoning is that in the digital age, since information is so freely available, his job is essentially to help guide us in finding the right information." Where exactly do you feel he is wrong?

You have a lecture by the professor himself, that you can rewind at will. You have direct access to a professor who answers any remaining questions, and apparently accepts criticism without getting upset at you. You don't have to pay hundreds of dollars for textbooks. The term for what you are doing may be "ingratitude".

It is funny how the OP understands that the main function of higher education in their country is gatekeeping (as in: the main point of the course materials is not their role in student learning, but that they are unavailable to the outsiders) but fails to make a final logical step and realize that what they are really paying for is getting through the gate.

As a student, you are paying for the tuition (teaching). Teaching is an activity designed to help you learn and acquire new skills.
Teaching materials (books, slides, video lectures) can be good, bad or ugly, but they are only a (smaller) part of the whole picture. They are not an activity. Arguably, they matter less.
What matters more, in my opinion, is the opportunity to obtain constructive feedback from your tutors. Not the grade for your submissions, but actual analysis of your work, explaining its strength and weaknesses and providing you with some ideas on how to improve and what to work on. Not a general piece of information, but something unique and produced specifically for you.
I have rarely seen online courses where students have enough personal attention and receive more than just a few lines of personal feedback. Honestly, the situation with many traditionally run courses is largely the same. Being massively oversubscribed and under-staffed, many Departments are not able to provide students with sensible feedback on their work. As a (pathetic) attempt to compensate, they sometimes claim that they provide exclusive teaching materials, which, however, tend often to not really be any better than standard textbooks.
My suggestion is: don't be obsessed with materials you are provided with, but look at whether you're receiving enough attention and personal guidance from your tutors. If you're not getting enough feedback - it is probably time to raise your concerns or maybe even look elsewhere.

Thanks, Dmitry. The instructor is actually very helpful during our one-on-one sessions (though unfortunately, he only holds them once a week for just 25 minutes). It's just I wish the course were in a better shape. I would've loved to have listened to, say, an hour-long lecture from him, someone with a PhD and years of experience in the field, than some self-proclaimed expert on YouTube.

RE: "some self-proclaimed expert on YouTube". I'm assuming that the instructor has reviewed the videos and found them to be accurate, helpful, and credible. You don't think you're getting your money's worth, but have you ever paused to consider how many crappy videos this instructor watched and endured just to find the good ones that would lead students in the right direction?

@anon - Since your professor is picking the YouTube videos, he is probably picking videos from someone who also has a PhD and years of experience in the field.  In fact, he probably thinks the videos are better than what he could do.

The YouTubers in question are not people with PhDs and years of experience. One of the YTers whose videos he's linked multiple times is an actual self-proclaimed "guru" in the field. Others are grad students and an assortment of other random people.

@anon OK, but are they useful, informative videos or not?

@ElizabethHenning Mostly? Yes. Though some of them do have mistakes that others have noted in the comments. Others are downright awful and, as such, have ridiculous dislike/like ratios.

Just because he has a PhD and years of experience does not mean his lectures would be good!  It's possible he has discovered from experience that he cannot teach effectively through lectures, and so chooses to direct that time to "one-on-one" sessions instead.

You got access to someone with a PhD and years of experience in the field's curated collection of videos.

@anon I have asked my students to watch specific YouTube videos. I don't know who made those videos, and I don't care - if I know the content is good, then why does it matter? Now, if you think some of the videos he is recommending are not useful because of their content (e.g. they have mistakes, the material is not presented clearly), tell the professor - tell him which videos were not useful, and why. This will help him improve the course for future students - he may want to replace those specific videos with better ones.

@anon: If you can prove that any of those videos have serious conceptual mistakes (not just accidental ones), then the problem is not the instructor using videos, but rather that the instructor is providing bad teaching. If you tell the professor but he does not care to tell the class about the errors, then you have a far BIGGER problem that in my opinion deserves to be highlighted to the department head.

@anon 25 minutes one on one time a week is more than most students get at a traditional university. I wish (some of) my professors had had that much one on one time with us, but it's impossible with hundreds of students in each class. Consider yourself lucky.

Tuition only relevant in places you actually pay any.

Because when you're paying tuition, the implication is that you're gaining special privilege and access to resources and knowledge that are otherwise unavailable to ordinary people/students.

Not really, and it certainly doesn't mean that the access you have to all resources is restricted. Lots of professors post their course materials on publicly accessible websites because they feel that they should be freely available.
If you feel that the quality of the course is subpar, then you have every right to complain higher up. But the course isn't subpar just because you're not getting something that other people aren't.

As a professor, I spend a large amount of time reviewing and choosing reading materials so that students can learn efficiently.  Then I spend time organizing the order in which students will study these materials, planning how I will interact with students in class to coordinate with readings, planning assignments to go with the readings, etc.  Time lecturing, leading discussions, answering questions, etc., are only a small part of teaching.  The rest is hidden from students.  (Grading and providing feedback on students' work takes up a lot of time, too.)  As it happens, most of the materials that I curate for students cost money.  I would probably spend more time choosing materials if I had to use only free materials.  There are good free materials for some purposes, but they vary more (it's the internet, you know, so there's a lot of junk along with the good stuff); with free materials you'd have to spend more time filtering out the bad ones or working around flaws.  Publishing houses and editors spend a lot of time curating good resources and helping authors to make them better, so there's a reason to expect less variation and higher quality in non-free teaching materials, on average.
So if the materials in your course are poor, that would be bad, but if they're not, but they're freely available, so what? That doesn't mean the instructors aren't helping you learn by choosing those materials and assigning them.  If the instructors aren't providing enough in addition to the selected materials, that's another issue, but that's not what the question was about, as I understand it.
(There are some comments on other questions that make similar points, but I felt this should be an answer.  It's actually something I feel strongly about.  Think about how long it would take you to learn something if you just had to poke through videos or web pages on your own, or had to spend a lot of time trying books in a library or buying them online, only to find that this one is too hard and that one's on a different subject and this other one is trivially easy, and that one over there is kind of OK, but doesn't really communicate the material in a way that's best for you, or this one has only two chapters or two minutes that are useful, ....  You could do it, maybe, but it would take a long time.  The point of good instructor is to make your learning more efficient than it would be if you had to do it on your own.)

Time lecturing might be only a small part of the amount of time spent teaching, but in any section with fewer than 40 or so students in it, it is arguably the most important part of teaching a class. So much research from so many perspectives agree that building a classroom community and connecting with students are highly important aspects of teaching and measurably lead to better outcomes. Don't underestimate the power and importance of an effective lecture or discussion section.

No argument from me, @ToddWilcox.  The interactive parts of teaching have to be coordinated with the non-interaction materials, of course, so the time spent on finding and preparing materials can be crucially important to interactive teaching time.

@ToddWilcox OP didn't state the class size. Totally agree with you for n<40, but these days I'd call that a seminar or even a large tutorial (as an undergrad tutorials had n<5, but where I'm teaching they are typically 25). A lecture is often several hundred, and when turnout is much less than 50% there is very little appeal in spending many hours preparing a good lecture. Time to teach different.

Most information is freely available in one form or another. Most of what you pay for in school is getting access to people and resources. The fact that the instructor has directed you to open resources shouldn't reflect poorly on their judgement as long as they really are high-quality resources.
Most credible institutions require their professors to provide a syllabus on the first day of classes, and then give you a 2-4 week grace period to drop courses. If you really don't feel like the course is worth your money, then don't pay for it.
Even if you took this class as a traditional (not-online) student, chances are that not a lot would change.

People and resources, and also structure. Don't underestimate structure.

You're mistaking the value of the medium vs the value of the lectures themselves.
You mentioned YouTube and Wikipedia, and have the mistaken idea that they're free.  Sure, they're free to access, but they're not random YouTube videos or random Wikipedia articles.  They are specifically tailored to the course and relevant.
You haven't raised issues with actual academic problems with the course.  Have you had a professor that do not know the subject they are teaching?  (Example:  A DBA was teaching a Java course) Have you had a professor that plagiarizes tests, and they contain material not covered in the course?  These are real problems.
YouTube and Wikipedia are free to access.  The discovery and organization of the material is not free.  Just because a photocopy costs 5 cents, it doesn't mean what is being photocopied is worth only 5 cent.  It could be a photocopy of an extremely valuable formula.
Bottom line.  Evaluate the worth of the content.  Don't get caught up with the medium of delivery.

Sounds nice but research shows that the medium matters. In-person lectures are much more effective than videos.

"Research has shown", eh? I can re-watch a video as often as I want to, to help me understand the material. For a lecture, I get one chance to take notes on what I hope are the important points while trying to pay attention at the same time to the overall structure of the content, and if I feel I missed things I then have to schedule and meet with the instructor (when/if possible) to get clarification. "Professor, can I leave the room? My brain is full." ( Gary Larson cartoon. )

I like videos because good ones have subtitles, and i can play them back at 1.5 speed.

@ToddWilcox The research I have seen is not nearly that conclusive. The effectiveness of live lecture vs video seems to vary depending on the specifics of the study (for example: whether or not students have a chance to re-watch the video) - see e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4.

@ToddWilcox (Also note that the OP is an online student.)

Perhaps the issue here is that the "lecture" time could be more productively used as a Q&A session.
You say :

The instructor is actually very helpful during our one-on-one sessions (though unfortunately, he only holds them once a week for just 25 minutes). It's just I wish the course were in a better shape. I would've loved to have listened to, say, an hour-long lecture from him, someone with a PhD and years of experience in the field, than some self-proclaimed expert on YouTube.

and :

His actual involvement in the course is answering questions via email and helping us during office hours (which is essentially a 25-minute session only once a week). Aside from that, class time is, I kid you not, just spent reading the book (which itself is quite poorly written, and contains mistakes) and watching YouTube videos.

Well this suggests the problem is not the instructor.
Lecture material often is poorly written (let's not kid ourselves) and mistakes are quite common in lectures, so a more "customized" lecture experience probably would not solve those issues.  And lecturers are not always very good at speaking, so a video may be better than many people get.
It's a simple fact that you are expected to learn more yourself than simply at lectures.  So I wonder if the correct approach is to get together with your classmates and discuss asking for the lecture to be replaced by a Q&A period, while students look at the video and read the notes ahead of time ?

Then university should have being clear that the information given is available trough YouTube and that the professor is there just to answer question. That would have given the student a way to know what they are paying for and if the money being paid was worth it or not. The whole point of paying for an education is that you get something is not freely available for free elsewhere.

The problem seems to be a disagreement between you and the lecturer over what your payment covers. I can't tell for sure on the information you give who is right, but if I had to make a call I would bet that they are right, since that seems more likely in general.
What you should do is get someone you trust who is far enough from the situation to be reasonably independent, and ask them to look at the material advertising the course that you could access before signing up. Is the lecturer's behaviour out of line with was advertised? If so, you would have an argument to take up with the administration (not the lecturer directly). If not, then you need to accept that you went in with the wrong expectations, and consider what you want to do about that (eg change course).

Yep, I get your point. Unfortunately, it seems the university doesn't have anything written regarding what is expected of online lecture materials, so I guess that defaults to "It's the instructor's choice." What a shame :/

Yes, what a shame that someone who is desperately busy has to try and deal with the someone expecting something highly time consuming of them that was never promised and will never get them any form of reward :p

This doesn't seem quite right to me.  Instructors usually have extremely wide latitude in how a course is constructed and how they deliver it.  This seems to be a dispute about quality rather than whether the material technically fulfills the requirements of a course (it almost certainly does).  Also, surely students have some recourse if course quality is bad enough.

@dan1111 The question is not about the quality of the material, it is about the nature of it.

@JessicaB as I understand it, the OP feels the course is of poor quality due to the nature of the material.  Even if the course contents technically meet the institution's requirements and technically don't disagree with what was advertised, a complaint about quality may still be justified.

@dan1111 I maintain that the question is about the nature of the material. In comments the OP talks about quality.

You are paying for an educational pedigree that states you're such and such breed of book smart.
An easy A is an easy A.
It is the age of information. For example, M.I.T. lectures are free to watch and learn from. The chance of being acknowledged for your proficient knowledge in a subject, aka a degree, is what you're spending your money on. A fair argument can be made if you had a hard professor who challenged your thinking but you failed the class. Did you waste your money?
Life rarely gives you a break. Do you really want to look a gift horse in the mouth?
If you are not liking the class then switch it, or bring it to the news for a fluff exposure piece, or go talk to your financial advisor for proper procedures. Then, yell at the Dean for the indignity, if you must.
How much is this course worth to you creditwise vs timewise vs moneywise? What is the impact of this course to you (pros and cons)?
Personally, I'd take the easy A. And if I needed some skill I could not learn from the class, I'd take the extra time I have to learn them on my own since it is an easy class.

This seems to me to be very bad advice. The point of university is not just to buy a certificate at the end. Having your thinking challenged is arguably the most important point.

@JessicaB still people pay good money mostly to avoid just that!

In other words universities have become obsolete with the new technologies. All that is needed is an online way of accreditation. Which begs the question if the money spend cannot be better spent elsewhere.

AFAIK, you pay for the piece of paper from the university that grants your degree. How you get there is sometimes with an awesome instructor and sometimes with an AWFUL one.
If I had considered that I was paying for the classes then sometimes I would have been happy but mostly I would have been rather displeased with that situation. There was one mandatory class for my degree that had about 5 people show up to an average class and the rest (80+ people) only came for exams because the instructor was just. that. bad.
Another time we had a quiz on some material that was taught, and after the quiz people were still discussing the material on the quiz was supposed to be worked out (no one knew!). Again, because the instructor was just that bad.
TL;DR: change your perspective. You pay for the paper the degree is printed on. Not for the classes themselves. They are simply necessary to get that very expensive piece of paper. Expect roughly a 60/40 of bad/good professors.
Also, bear in mind that most professors are not professors because they want to teach. The teach because it is required as a side effect of doing research at the university.

+1 though when I was told about this someone explained it as you're really paying for the opportunity to jump whatever hoops the course has in it's grading scheme (exams, assignments, projects, reports, whatever), which hopefully in the end will lead to that piece of paper called your degree.
60/40 bad/good professors seems generous, but I'm biased by my own experiences.

-1 while there is a certain amount of realism to this, moving in this direction is not good.  College is supposed to be about learning, not just getting a credential.  If this is just about getting an extremely expensive piece of paper, it's a colossal racket that no one should be happy with.  Wanting your classes to be a great learning experience is the right attitude.  Being dissatisfied with mediocre classes is the right attitude.  Yeah, mediocrity is too often the reality.  But that doesn't mean we should all just lie down and accept that reality.

@dan1111 "to learn" and "to get a paper" are two different goals. Ideally, these should be the same. In practice, the match is never perfect. How strong is the match, is out of the influence of the students, thus they can't be made responsible for it.

+1, because providing credentials is really a university's unique value proposition.

In other words, universities are obsolete and have just become accreditation institution. Something easily replaced, Wonder how long before someone convinces government that instead of financing many overpaid lecturers they should finance very few and pay them better. Meanwhile make the accreditation process automatic and have for pay tutors as 99% of the professors are not needed anymore.

The best (youtube) videos are often wastly superior to most lecturers (sic). The problem is that finding the right video is a nightmare, especially if you are not familliar with the subject. So if the videos picked for you are relevant and accurate, and you get personal feedback time, you are indeed getting world class service.
In fact I have been trying to get the university to consider moving lectures to this kind of format. With the change that video lectures are paired with hands on exercises, with course assistant present. The benefits are considerable, as you can now invest in the material in a different way and feedback becomes your primary focus. However mostly this means that the videos need to be scripted as if they were tv shows, which is harder to do. Bootstrapping this skill, and getting material done pays itself back in no time. And yes if all you teach is available on youtube fine, use that if license permits.
The days of talking head lectures are over. After all Internet was founded to make information flow faster, better and more efficiently. Yet, we are surprised when it does just that.

Which begs the question. Why pay for something that is already being given for free?

@rxantos Everything universities teach is freely available or available at the fraction of the cost in literature. The thing that really matters is feedback, the need to do all those things for one full degree and equipment. So not so much about what but how. You don't get that online. But yes i didn't pay anything for my masters degree, nor do most of the students i work with pay anything, so I am the wrong person to ask. University degrees as a general rule are free of charge where I am, so I am not really concerned with that.

How have the course materials being audited for quality?
Consider both your personal evaluation of the utility of the materials, and those of your peers, and then consider the formal process that exists, for the teaching establishment, regarding the auditing/setting of standards for educational materials on this course.
This will give some context as to whether expert opinion has gone into the material selection, if there is a process to validate this, is there a process of consensus on this, and some actual feedback on utility from those using the materials.
Furthermore, you could skim the materials used in similar courses, in other "respected" teaching establishments, and see if they match. Additionally, many materials have reviews and those can be helpful to examine. I have completed a lot of online courses (admittedly free Coursera ones) and Princeton,Harvard etc all use (and list) YouTube materials for their courses.
This, i think, will help position your feelings, with respect to the course, in terms of a broader quality argument.

This is one to check what the original marketing materials for the course promised, bearing in mind that they may be different to your interpretation of what appropriate teaching is.
Without that information, you're paying mainly for the materials you need to learn and the final accreditation that you're reached the academic standards necessary. And, you're probably paying a premium based on the pedigree of the university.
Now, in the UK where I work, there is no guarantee of a link between the name value of a university and the quality of its teaching. My experience is that less-known universities often have higher quality teaching. There are many reasons for this, but having less name value, they have to try harder. They are also likely to attract students below the top tier, so have to concentrate more on ensuring that the teaching materials are suitable for all levels of learners. And, the academics are likely to have a more teaching oriented career path, as opposed to one that concentrates on research.
Often, if you're working with a very well-known professor, they are also likely to be in great demand, and not working in a role where they're expected to concentrate on teaching. In some cases, you're lucky if you see that professor at all, as opposed to a load of grad students delivering classes.
Again, this will all depend what the original promises made were. I've written a lot of course marketing materials and if would be rate to promise contact with a particular professor, as this makes too many assumptions about how that professor's career will evolve (they may take another position, for instance).
Finally, there's nothing wrong with writing a course based on curating materials. It can be quite a job to find the best ones, organise them and write the links between them. It's not that different to academic practices of the past where a professor would issues assigned reading, in the form of academic papers or textbook chapters, to the class.
There are lots of online courses structured that way, both paid and free.
There is a danger if those materials change, as they are not owned by the course. For instance, YouTube videos can be taken down and Wikipedia pages edited by third parties. So long as the teaching team monitor that and have a backup plan in place, the general principle of course curation sounds acceptable to me.

Dont judge a book by its cover
You are judging the value the instructor can offer ONLY based on the source of the course videos.
Instead assess the value you can derive out of the course based on other factors also as described in other answers such as one-on-one time you get with the instructor, his credentials, value of the certificate you are offered on completion etc.
You also need to consider the value in terms of infrastructure made available for practice.
Given that its almost a week and you havent accepted any of the answers, I assume you are finding it difficult to let it pass and move on. If so, does it interfere with your learning process? It would be in your own best interest to talk to the instructor a second time about it.

It would help if the downvoter could post a comment on why he/she thinks this needs a downvote.

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text:
Which is more important for phd? university or supervisor?
If you ought to choose a Phd program in scientific/engineering field: a top 10 university without good supervisor and almost self-guiding or a top 200 with expert in the field?

See: What's More Important in Choosing a PhD Program - Advisor or Institution?

The works done during Ph.D. is more important than any of these two parameters.

Also see: I've been admitted to multiple PhD programs, how should I choose between them?

In a general sense, the University, as a prestigious university will host high-impact faculty. But, not always nor in all fields!

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text:
Applying twice for the same position
I applied for a tenure-track assistant professorship position in computer science (CS) in the US. The particular opening announcement was broad, non-specific to the subarea. In my application, I emphasized the subarea X. After applying, I inofficially found out that the CS department doesn't hire in the area X, but hires in a nearby area Y, for which I could also produce a different but still valid application. Technically, I cannot change my application documents any more or withdraw my application through the website of the hiring department. The best I could do is submit a new application using a new e-mail address. This might raise concerns on the side of the reviewing faculty, or, on the contrary, it might be considered pretty normal. Any advice on whether to submit a new application? Pro/contra arguments are welcome.

Did you try to contact HR? They have the ability to allow you to update/change your application files even after you have submitted them.

Email them again or email a senior HR personnel. I was in you position last cycle, it took them a day or two to get back to me. Once they did, I was allowed to resubmit my application. However, keep in mind if your application has been reviewed by the search committee, updating your application might not that helpful.

I do not really know for sure. I still did not hear back from the school (I applied last year hahaha). If you ganna do this process way before the deadline, cross your fingers and go for it :)

Technically, I cannot change my application documents any more or withdraw my application through the website of the hiring department.

Says who? Did you talk to a real live person about this? It's quite possible they can accept an "overwritten" re-application even if the public web interface, or what-not, doesn't support this.

The best I could do is submit a new application using a new e-mail address.

Not so. You can write a letter, explaining how you understand that the department's hiring focus is Y rather than X, while your earlier application emphasized X, and asking the application reviewers to consider an enclosed summary of your activities and plans regarding Y.

Actually, submitting again with a new email might possibly be interpreted as improper, even fraudulent. Instead, contact someone in the department that is hiring and ask for advice. Do it in person, if possible, and do it soon. Let them know that you can revise your application (offline, apparently), changing the focus. Be sure to let them know that believe that you are qualified outside the narrow scope you emphasized in your original application. They will judge, of course.
Depending on the scale of things, they may or may not be willing to let you do this, but being upfront and honest with them is better than trying to "game" a possibly flawed online application system.


text:
What is meant by “research visit”?
I am a Ph.D. student of computer science and just have started working on a research problem. Some fellow Ph.D. students have mentioned the term research visit. For a professor, these things make sense, but as a Ph.D. student I am not getting what it means. There are some precise questions related to this below:

What does research visit mean?
What is the significance of it in Ph.D.?
What is the typical duration of a research visit?

I fear that the definition is going to depend a lot on your institution and PhD program, especially if other PhD students are telling you about it.

You can be referring to two things, a visit to another institution (usually to give an invited talk) or you could mean a visiting student/researcher role:

Someone who visits a different institution for some prolonged period of time, usually to do research. You may even be able to register for classes.
It gives you the opportunity to work onsite with a different research group. You can think of it like an internship. Working onsite has a lot of benefits over working with a group remotely, such as direct access to lab equipment, data, participants, and your collaborators.
It can vary greatly, but I've seen it range from a summer to an entire year.

UC Berkeley has a page describing some benefits of visiting student researchers.

Thanks for the answer. Could you please expand (add more detail) to each of the points you have mentioned above.

@new_born There you go. Also added a reference.

To me, a research visit means just that: you go somewhere for some period of time to do research, usually because you want to work together with a specific person or group. It means the same for PhD students as it does for professors. As Austin Henley mentions in his answer, it is common that the visitor will also give a seminar or colloquium talk.
For a PhD students such a research visit can have a couple of benefits. First, it allows you to meet other people in your field and work with them, thus expanding your network. This is important later on, when you are trying to find a postdoc or faculty position. More importantly, it can be beneficial to your research. It can be a great opportunity to work closely with experts in your field, for example on parts of you thesis your advisor knows less about.
As for duration, there is a wide range. In my field, mathematics, I would say up to about one or two weeks is fairly typical, but longer visits are not uncommon. Of course, for long visits funding becomes an issue, and it is usually necessary to attract external funding. There are various programs to fund such visits, for example as part of an exchange program. Sometimes for a longer visit you can get an "official" position at the university as a visiting student. I think this is typically more of an administrative thing, so that you for example can make use of the library.
Finally, it could also mean having a "visiting researcher" or "visiting professor" position. This usually means a longer term position, for example 1-2 years. In my field such positions are either basically postdoc positions (i.e., non tenure-track positions), or for people that are on sabbatical that visit another university for an extended period of time. Typically such positions also include some teaching duties.

My answer is about visiting students, a prolonged position for students from other universities, not visiting professors. I added some more details and a reference.


text:
How to deal with abusive professor?
I am a fresh medical graduate. I worked with a professor who harassed me sexually. Unfortunately, I was afraid to talk and also a little bit confused because I was an international visiting student at that time. I did a great job in his lab before he did that. He wrote for me a great letter of recommendation at that time. After he started to be unprofessional, I decided to leave his lab.
Since then, I was surprised that he published the preliminary results of the research as conference abstracts without putting my name as a co-author. However, he stated that I am an author in the recommendation letter, formulated the primary draft and helped in the lab experiments, data collection, and statistical analysis as well. I sent him an email to ask him about the papers’ progress but he did not reply.
My question is: Now I want to apply for a research fellowship and I am going to use his letter of recommendation. But he wrote my last name as my father's name, not the family name that I usually use in my applications. I do not feel comfortable to send him an email. I do not know if it will be a problem if there is a difference between my last name in the application  and what he wrote. I also feel so bad when I found him published the papers in an international conference without mentioning my name and feel worse for not reporting him, deleting the message, and moving on to another lab.

As someone with 4 names (2 first, 2 last, no hyphens - thank the Portuguese tradition for that), I would say that people are in academia are fairly familiar with naming problems.  I don't think anyone will think that letter isn't about you. That's my "answer" for the easy question.

Which messages do you mean by "deleting the message" ?

What country or what part of the world?

I am sorry for your experience. Regarding the naming issue, I think that it is alright and no one will comment about it. You do not have to email that person again.
Regarding the publication, You should not be silent. It is an authorship dispute. If he published them in a peer-reviewed journal. Email the editor in chief all the documents, the LOR that indicate your role. You do not have to be silent if he stole your work. He is abuser and thief and that it should not be acceptable in academia. Stay safe and strong. You are not wrong. He is the jerk.

I agree with this answer. In addition, keep as proof any initial draft or email exchanges you had with him. As well as your own data and notes.

Sounds like he has behaved unprofessionally more than once. The sexual harassment needs taking to the top, as this should be seen as an abuse of his position. It may have happened with others, too, so authorities ought to be informed.
As far as the paper is concerned, he is falsely claiming it as his own work, so is being unprofessional here too. Again, go to the top, with proof. Also go to the people he has shown it to, and explain that maybe he has forgotten to include recognition of your involvement, again with proof. Again, this may not be the first time he has purloined other people's work.

This is a partial answer, intended to complement the other answers.  This answer is specific to the U.S.
If I understood you correctly, the abusive professor sent you an incriminating email message, which you deleted.  But I think all university email messages must be backed up somewhere.  So, if you wish to report the incident(s), I think you can still do so, even if you didn't retain a copy.
Even if I imagine a worst case scenario, in which the university IT department is unable to retrieve the incriminating message(s), I can still think of ways it might be productive to report what happened.  It might help prevent this individual from behaving this way with others.  It might be constructive for you personally, since after a traumatic experience, it can be helpful to take action. Also, since many universities' Title IX procedures are new enough that it can be constructive to put the university through its Title IX paces.  Finally, my wish for you is that by reading about your options, and perhaps deciding to file a complaint, you'll have more confidence as a woman doctor going forward, and in myriad ways (both explicit and subtle), will communicate this self-confidence to the women you encounter in your life -- medical students, pre-med students, colleagues, and patients.
Here is a resource that may be helpful: https://www.knowyourix.org.

"But I think all university email messages must be backed up somewhere": Generally, I very doubt so. Moreover, you seem to assume US, but the OP didn't specify a country.

I think all university email messages must be backed up somewhere — Keeping long-term email backups may be legally required at US public universities, to comply with laws like FOIA and the Open Meetings Act.  But that legal requirement may be limited only to administrators (dept chairs and above), not to arbitrary faculty or students.  Consult your lawyer.

I'm confused — where in the question is anything about deleted message? It says there was no response.

@JDługosz "[I] feel worse for not reporting him, deleting the message" - final sentence in the question.

The writing is not clear, but I take it that was a mail the OP sent (drafted but reconsidered and did not send) to report this when it happened.  What is clear is «but he did not reply» and «I do not feel comfortable to send him an email.»  so in any case, it's not an incriminating incoming message from the professor.

@JDługosz - Hard to tell.  I just reread it and I'm still not sure what was meant.


text:
Concerned about REU eligibility given new graduation plans
My school recently developed a 1-year, intensive Masters program in Mathematics following the typical undergraduate B.A. In an effort to get more experience with more advanced math, I've decided to participate in the program. However, I've been told several times that I should apply for and (if accepted) participate in a summer REU. Yet, in order to work on my Masters, I must officially graduate from undergrad, which (I think) renders me ineligible for many (if not all) REUs.
Without an REU, I am concerned how my overall profile for graduate school admissions will be negatively effected. I have some modest research experience and possibly will have a paper published with a professor (though that is TBD). Between the summer of my junior and senior year then, what can I do to stay productive in math? How can I continue to better myself as a candidate for graduate school? Am I correct in assuming that I am now completely ineligible for REUs?
Thank you for your time.

Some research experience for undergraduate (REU) programs are available to students who have recently graduated. Therefore, while programs are by no means as plentiful as for enrolled undergraduates, they are still out there, and you can avail yourself of the opportunity to participate in one of those programs.
However, the important point is that you show participation in research; the mechanism is usually of lesser importance. The REU just might be the most convenient way to do that in mathematics.

Most REU programs get NSF funding, and the NSF restrictions limit participation funds to people without undergraduate degrees.

@aeismail Thank you, that makes sense. If you're able to suggest any alternatives, that'd also be a great help. I'll have to start my research into such programs myself.

@Buzz: Programs sponsored by other agencies (ORAU, DOD, etc.) have different policies. But not being a mathematician, I can't suggest any specific alternatives.


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Should I inform my old supervisor of new insights that lead me to think his hypothesis must be adapted?
I wrote my undergraduate thesis on the topic my supervisor was then doing research into. He now has a paper on that topic under review, which I had read and commented on while working on my thesis.
I am now in a graduate programme on another university, and for some course I needed a small project to write a paper on. After consulting with my old supervisor, I took a research question that is relevant in the light of his work, but also readable separate from it, because the teacher supervising this new project has -of course- not read the paper under review.
While working on the project I found new data that leads me to question a minor section of the article under review. I (think I) can't expect my old supervisor to go into much discussion on the topic - after all, he is not supervising my current project.
I want to stay on good terms with him, first of all because I hold him in high esteem but also because his research group is a serious option for a PhD position later. But should I inform him of the things I found out? On the one hand, I suppose it would be appreciated - on the other hand, the article is already under review. Also, the work is never finished, so finding new insights is part of life and we have to accept that publications are never perfect.
I have seen Should I email old supervisor about my progress?, but this is a more delicate situation.

Definitely seems like something worth mentioning.  Regardless of whether this leads to any edits in the final version of the paper, presumably your old advisor cares about the question for its own sake and not just for publications and so would like to know if there's new information that pertains to your results.
Your old advisor will be in a good position to decide whether any changes need to be made, and if so whether it's fine to just wait until the reports come back for the minor changes.  Sometimes it's fine to have a paper that reflects your understanding at the time it was written.  Sometimes you can just add a small remark in the final version mentioning that new things have come to light.  Sometimes it might be that you should update the referee immediately.  It's hard to know without knowing more about the details of the situation, but usually it won't require pausing the review process.


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Do I need to go to grad school to make the largest potential impact on the field I’m interested in?
I have a dilemma of deciding between grad school and industry. My undergraduate major is actually unrelated to what I want to do yet useful for everything these days. I want to learn about the scope of the field, but I’m not sure if self study or graduate school is the best way to learn.
I’m also taking into account opportunity cost in terms of time and money. I will say that I’m so passionate about the field I’m interested in that I would take working in it over somewhere like Google or a hedge fund. As long as I can feed and house myself I’m fine I think. I also have the option to just start my own project in this field, but I wouldn’t do that until I learn about the field first.
My major is Computer science at Georgia Tech, and I want to apply data science to the problem of reversing the acidification of the ocean.  Thus I’m considering a masters in environment engineering and then a PhD in CSE.

We can't evaluate what is best for individual people based on their personal circumstances. If you can edit the question to make it something that will be more helpful, it might be on-topic.

I edited and generalized as best I could.

Besides your personal circumstances, this depends highly on what fields you're talking about. Surely there would be marked differences in your situation for the pairing of actuary science undergraduate and pure mathematics for your true interest, as compared to the pairing of computer engineering undergraduate and 19th century poetry for your true interest.

Updated with the fields I’m talking about and the reason I want to learn more about a certain topic.

@dirtysocks45 your question might well be reducible to: What advantages does a PhD offer, compared to self-study in the PhD's domain? That question seems to avoid some of the criticism.