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Why do major international universities still have courses in languages other than English?
As an example ETH Zurich, which is arguably one of the best universities in Europe, still educates Bachelor's students in German:

Please note: the Bachelor’s degree programmes begin in German. In the second and third years of the programmes, some of the courses may take place in English.

This doesn't make sense to me as it's obvious that the vast majority of technical literature and textbooks are published in English. And pretty much every major scientific journal only accepts works in the English language. This also decreases the amount of competition between the applicants as German speakers hold an advantage over others (not to say native English speakers don't hold the same advantage back at home, but English is by far more common).
So why didn't every single major university switch to English already?
EDIT: I am mainly referring to programs in the STEM field, such as engineering

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Obvious?  Maybe to people who don't read other languages.  I applaud anyone resisting the spread of English.

@WGroleau I read two other languages and studied in university in a language that I learned at the age of 17

Then you ought to know better.

@WGroleau Using my experience as a student in a foreign language environment I believe switching to English is benefecial. However the arguments here are convincing enough for why it's not a good idea (yet).

This question amounts to "all high-quality series are nowadays in English and on Netflix, why do local stations still produce series in languages other than English and broadcast them offline" ;)

@non-numeric_argument wrong comparison (watching TV vs. working in a technical field) but in a way it's true - local TV content is usually horrible and nobody except the locals ever wants to watch it.

There are some excellent answers out there, but let's add this:
Not all undergraduate programs lead to graduate studies. In fact, most undergraduates go on to work. We can speculate that the work environment will be in the language of the country. Actually, there's even a place where this is the law. In Québec (Canada), most companies are required to have French as the working language.
Also, how are we to keep the connection between public and science if scientists cannot explain their work in the language of the public?

Minor nitpick: "In Québec (Canada), most companies are required to have French has [sic] the working language." -> No, they are required to provide service in French, and internal documentation in French (but they are not restricted to only French). Technically this means an office could be staffed entirely with non French speakers, it just has to have infrastructure in place such that a a French only speaker, in theory, could find their way around. https://www.educaloi.qc.ca/en/capsules/language-laws-and-doing-business-quebec

For companies over 50 employees, an official evaluation is done and a "frenchifying" program will take place if French is not the main language everywhere. http://www.spl.gouv.qc.ca/languefrancaise/politiquelinguistique/faq/languedutravail/

@Emilie are there similar requirements in other Canadian states such as B.C./Vancouver (for English)?

@JonathanReez I don't think so, since Québec is the only province with French as the only official langage. New Brunswick is bilingual. As English doesn't need much protection, I doubt it.

@JonathanReez maybe for someone who doesn't know the cultural nor historical context. It's a question of preserving a native langage among a country with a majority of English speaking person. This is a highly complex question, maybe better developped by a more knowledgeable person on another stack

"Not all undergraduate programs lead to graduate studies. In fact, most undergraduate go on to work" any source for this claim? While this seems quite obviously true for US Americans, I don't think this applies to European universities all that much. In Germany for example over 70% of all bachelor students continue with a master. In Switzerland according to a quick google search that quota is at 88%. Those are all newspaper articles that don't quote their sources well, so I wouldn't put too much trust in them, but they do coincide with my experience though.

That said at least master (but also bachelor) courses in technical areas are generally held in English in my experience in German speaking countries. The ETH being no exception to this rule - at least CS is taught all in English. Here's a list of the teaching language for different master programs if anyone's interested.

@Voo Good point, this is indeed a strong claim. It does apply to Canada too, from my experience Do you need a bachelor to be a high school teacher in Germany? Or a master?

@Emilie "European universities" is a bit strong on my part too. Most of my experience is from the German speaking countries, although my understanding of the french system is that it's similar there. A friend in the UK was teaching with just a bachelor's degree though, so there's that.

Honestly I'm not entirely sure about the exact legal requirements wrt high school teachers. All the high school teachers I know made their degrees before the introduction of the bologna system, but they all have the equivalent of a master. This might have changed or just be customary and it could be possible to teach with just a bachelor, but I'd say it'd be at least very, very rare.

@Voo in Switzerland, and probably Germany too, the Master degree is the one that counts. A Master's student is just finishing the normal college education, not really being a "graduate" student.

ETH and all other universities in Switzerland are funded by the government and offer college education for minimal tuition. While foreign students are welcome to attend, the primary purpose (at least at the undergraduate level) is to provide education to the locals. Nonetheless, that doesn't seem to be a limiting factor, especially at the graduate/research level since ETH has been recently ranked one of the most international institutions by Times Higher Education.
There is a wealth of excellent textbooks in German, and many fields still have original research published in German.
Also, the majority of students don't pursue academic or research careers and thus might very well spend their entire career speaking almost only German.
Plus there are practical considerations too: asking non-natively English speakers to teach in English is most certainly going to decrease the average teaching quality. Now if it's to give lectures to a class that is almost entirely German speaking, it borderlines the absurd.
The question seems to be more: why would some universities switch their teaching language to English?

"There is a wealth of excellent textbooks in German" - while this is in fact valid for German, it's a lot less true for the Dutch/Danish/Swedish languages

@JonathanReez I studied Applied Physics in The Netherlands and some of our (undergraduate) textbooks were in German.

@Jonathan That's because much more people speak German (or, e.g., French) than Dutch or Swedish.

@AlexeyB. well, yes, but Swedish universities still have undergrad programs in the Swedish language

@JonathanReez Keep in mind you don't need a "wealth" of excellent textbooks, you just need one decent one per class. Also, depending on your teaching style you might not actually need the one. (As evidenced by the number of students who complain about paying out the nose for textbooks but never actually using them.)

@R.M. I studied CS in Czech and the Algebra course only had 2 or 3 books to choose from on the topic, all of them of lesser quality than the best English books out there. Obviously I could just use the English books myself, but then I'd still have to constantly translate the technical words from Czech into English, as that's what the professor would want to see on the exam. The problem would be avoided altogether if everyone just studied in English in the first place.

Just to add. In the Netherlands bachelor courses are often given in Dutch but use English textbooks. Most Dutch undergraduates can read English well and there are a lot of good English textbooks but the professor still explains everything in Dutch, which helps with understanding as its always easier to express yourself, and to understand your mother language. :)

" and many fields still have original research published in German." Not in the STEM field.

@JonathanReez "while this is in fact valid for German, it's a lot less true for the Dutch/Danish/Swedish languages" How do you know? Do you read those languages sufficiently well to assess the quality of textbooks written in them?

@fkraiem no, but I know the quality of materials in Czech. While there are numerous books on most undergrad subjects, they're usually worse than the best English books (since, well, the competition is a lot higher in the anglosphere). I can't imagine the tiny Swedish market having comparable education materials.

STEM is not a single field, it's the collection of dozens under one name because of their greater interrelationships with each other. paul garrett has already pointed out that (some) mathematics journals accept English, German, French works; I have had to get help translating some relevant research in Korean, Spanish, Russian; there are also a number of chemistry and physics and engineering journals in all of these languages which Google and Wikipedia happily point out. @DSVA so your comment is simply not true.

addendum: I am currently struggling with this. I did do a PhD in an English speaking country as a native German and returned to Germany afterwards. I learned a lot about all sorts of technical parts of laser machinery, optics and so forth. I have no clue how they are called here. I am learning the German word as I come across each "gap". It will take me years to freely express the technical details in my mouther tongue instead of english. That does not feel right.

@JonathanReez The problem would also be avoided if everyone just studied in Czech in the first place. Or Latin. Or whatever Indian or Chinese language you'd prefer. What's your point? :)

@Nij there is no serious non-english journal in chemistry, except for russia and china doing their own thing. Basically everyone else is publishing in english. And while there are some journals in other fields in these languages, are these top-tier journals? Do you take them serious in todays world? Are top researchers publishing there?

And if you don't like taking courses in German at ETHZ, you can go to EPFL and take them in French.  There is - as I learned when I was there - a big gap between being able to read and even write decently in a language, and being able to speak it or understand it when spoken.

@DSVA what about Angewandte Chemie? Articles are published in english in the international edition, but primaraly in german.

@Julian that's not true. The international edition is the main journal, every article in german in Angewandte Chemie is also available in english. Usually they are written in english and then translated into german (usually grad students do this and get paid for it)

@JonathanReeze Try to suggest to the students that they should buy the commercial English textbooks for 70 or 100 $ when the Czech equivalent is published by the uni and is available in the library for free or can be bought several times cheaper. They won't be glad I think. And our "Matematika pro fyziky" was quite good IMHO, especially the exercises. Zahradnik's and Motl's Linear algebra is quite special, but gives insight even years after finishing the course.

+1 for mentioning excellent textbooks written in German (and of course other languages, even at research level, such as French, Russian, Japanese, etc.).

@VladimirF there are plenty of cheaper English textbooks out there - it's not like students in the UK all pay $100 for each book. "Quite good" and "best in the world" are two different things. Professors could even reuse materials from MIT's and Stanford's open learning programs and save time on making their own curriculum.

Still I remember several student's to have problems with the English exam in the second or third year. If they had to start learning in English, they would have had no chance to succeed. And best in the world is relative. It must be a good fit for the syllabus chosen by the lecturer and to his pedagogical style.

While original research is dominated by English, good textbooks are available in most languages. Needless to say, having learning material in your native language helps a lot, even if you master English.
The level of English required to read technical literature is much lower than the level required to express yourself freely and understand fast-paced speech. Having all courses in English would eliminate students which are good at their discipline but mediocre in foreign languages.

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My master thesis adviser, a native German, once said to me on the issue of having courses held in English, that foreign students do not come to Germany, or as in my case Austria, to listen to bad English.

This is quite a discussion currently in the Netherlands, where many -if not most- of the bachelor and master studies switched to English. However, a disadvantage of following education in your non-native language, is that it's harder to understand all subtleties. Another aspect is that in many fields (medicine, psychology) communication skills are also important, and it's weird to practise those skills in another language (one you're probably hardly going to use in the job).

+1 for the last sentence, in particular  it's weird to practise those skills in another language (one you're probably hardly going to use in the job).

It is a strange move. You are basically excluding those weak at languages from attending university altogether.

@WeckarE. Hah! When I was an undergrad at Cambridge (UK), it was still a requirement for all applicants for every degree course to have passed an exam in Latin! Oxford used to have a similar requirement as well.

@WeckarE. They also exclude plenty of people who haven't studied math properly, which is a mandatory subject just like English

It's not only for the students that certain subtleties are hard to understand; most professors who think they teach in English actually teach in IBE (International Broken English).

@JonathanReez Surely those who study subjects such as theatre or art don't require math? But they would require English...

@WeckarE. I'm referring to STEM universities, of course. IMO math is a lot harder to grasp than English.

@JonathanReez It wasn't clear you were referring to STEM. I don't think it appeared in your question either, nor did it in this answer.

@WeckarE. I will edit the post, although it's too late by now

@alephzero So you passed those exams. Now consider how well you'd have done at your degree if all your Cambridge lectures had been in Latin. I got the top grades at GCSE [the exams British school children take aged 16] in both French and German; I'd have had great difficulties if my undergraduate lectures had been given in either of those languages.

@ChristopheStrobbe: That makes perfect sense; International Broken English is also what the students will encounter later at conferences and in journals. And TBH the previous lingua franca was International Broken Latin. plus ça change

@JonathanReez What is a "STEM university"?

@JonathanReez How do you "grasp" English?

@alephzero There's a difference between demanding taking an exam in a subject (which can usually be done by studying hard enough without being very good at it), and demanding that you use it constantly even if you suck at it and it has nothing to do with what you're studying.

Here are some arguments based on my experience why teaching in English-only could be detrimental for students, especially at bachelor level.
Quite often, it's not only the language that's used, but also the culture from which the language is coming and the point of view of such culture. This sometimes leads to the not-invented-here mentality. For example, many English-language books talk about Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem, completely ignoring people who actually published first. Such actions could lead students to develop a skewed world-view which could have detrimental results in the long run. This might also be very touchy issue if the local society has had significant number of researchers who are unknown in English-speaking circles.
Furthermore, English language is not suitable to discuss some topics. A good example would be word "ground" and electrical engineering. There are countless threads on EE.SE due to the confusion this word causes. After a while, engineer will learn to pick up enough context to figure out which ground is being discussed, but this can still be a bit problematic. In my language, on the other hand, there is no such confusion, because we have a separate word for each "aspect" of English ground, completely avoiding the "ground" confusion and the huge amount of energy needed to solve it.
Another example would be AC and DC. In my language, we have a word for unidirectional current, another for current whose direction changes. Then, we have another set of terms for constant current, for current which has one dominant frequency and another set of terms for more complicated waveforms.
Yet another reason could be backwards compatibility, especially for languages which have highly developed technical vocabulary. It's quite likely that a new engineer would need to interact with a bit older co-workers and not knowing their technical cant can make things needlessly complicated, especially when there are no direct translations between English concepts and local concepts. In cases where old technical documentation written by dead authors needs to be read, issues are even greater.

And they forget Kotelnikov ;-) As a curiosity, a couple of years ago I asked a question, now closed, about differences in terminology that can cause confusion in a multilingual environment: http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/36887/20058

You raised some important points here.

About backward compatibility I'd like to bring an example: to civil engineers is more important to understand local building codes (in local language) than advanced research in the field (often in English).

There are pros and cons for using a native language. The reason why not English is that there is more cons than pros.
They simply do not care enough (cons>pros) about you and your problems with their native language, to change the way the things are. If the university is not commercially making profit off foreigners, it could be that they do not even want you there. You can find many good pros in the answers, but here is probably the greatest pro:

People think the best in their native language

Bachelors are still learning to think, so it makes it natural to teach them by the language of their thinking. They often study old stuff that has been translated a long ago to their native language. In industry they might still use that same language, because their internal things will never be communicated with foreigners. Writing stuff in English is considered extra effort, and without a reason it will not be done.
Fun BTW: In a non-German nation we use German teaching material because it is sometimes superior.

"People think in their native language" Can you back this up with a source? From personal experience, I find this not to be true, is the thing.

@WeckarE.I added the best to the claim. It is possible to think in other languages for some people.

Well, I'll just have to take your word for that. My native language isn't English, yet I always think in English by default. I actually need to use concious effort to think in my native language.

@WeckarE. It is a hard subject but it actually that we are most rational in a foreign language: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/reasoning-is-sharper-in-a-foreign-language/

The idea that you think in any language is, itself, highly dubious.

Some languages are faster than others at technical and mathematical reasonings. everyone i know thinks faster and better natively(Catalan) than in english or other languages.

@JackAidley What do you mean by thinking? The process of how people come to conclusion and make decisions is influenced by the language they are using. As an additional example to my previous link, the concept of future me in a language changes behaviour: https://www.ted.com/talks/keith_chen_could_your_language_affect_your_ability_to_save_money You could assume that this is due to some kind of a feedback loop between thinking and interpretation different from thinking, but in a non-psychological/philosophical context I would dare to say that people think in a language.

@JackAidley - What language do you dream in?  What language comes spontaneously when you are woken from a deep sleep?  That is probably your dominant language.  (cont.)

@WeckarE. - (cont.)  However, there are situations in which more than one language can be dominant.  Right now, for me, living in the U.S., English has taken a dominant position, EXCEPT if I try to talk about chemistry, which I learned in Spanish, and EXCEPT if I am addressing my children, whom I speak to in Spanish.  It feels unnatural to me to talk to them in English or German -- if I were to do so without someone else in the room, it would feel as though I were talking to an imaginary, mono-lingual audience.  (Yet, speaking to them in my limited German is sometimes FUN!)

@Jack Aidley If you learn a foreign language and start reading in it, there usually comes a point where you find yourself thinking in it. That might not be the totality of your thinking, and depending on your definition of thinking there might be a lot of it that isn't done in any language at all, but there is certainly some amount of thinking (or internal monologue) done in language. - For what it's worth (and that may really not be much), Chomsky seems to believe that language evolved mainly for internal monologue, not for communication. -

Comments are not for extended discussion so I'm not going to get into a debate on the relationship between language and thought here.

@JackAidley If you state that the idea of thinking in any language is highly dubious, then some may wish you to clarify why it is so dubious?

"The concept of future me in a language changes behaviour." Does it? I thought that the strong Sapir-Worf hypothesis had been pretty thoroughly debunked.

@TRiG it changes behaviour, so weak Sapir-Whorf hypothesis holds, but it does not determine it, as strong Sapir-Whorf hypothesis suggests.

@user364460: From the perspective of a linguist, the stuff that Chan claims  about the effect of futurity on economic behaviour is ridiculously naive. It's interesting to note, though, that it appears to appeal enough to laypeople to grant him a TED talk and a paper in an economy journal.

Two important factors are
Convenience. The materials used for teaching are usually not scientific literature, but custom course material prepared by the lecturers. Usually, the academics at the respective university have a lot of such material available in their home language. Translating everything to English is a resource-intensive task without an immediate reward. Tasks of this kind usually have a low rank on the priority list, since academics are very busy people.
Lack of incentives for change. The fact that ETH is one of the best universities in Europe, without giving their courses in English, means that they obviously can get  away with it.

There are even incentives for it to stay that way.

On the long term, using only English at universities will make it a lot more difficult to be able to communicate about the subject in the native language to lay people or to high school students. The native language will not have developed its own words to denote key concepts as the subject matter evolves over the years. So, a few decades down the line, you would have to explain things in English or using awkward half English sentences, making a technical subject even harder to understand.
Journalist won't bother to write about new developments for native language news reports, and it won't be on the high school curriculum. Beginning students will have less knowledge about the subject matter compared to students in English speaking nations. This effect already exists to some degree, we should not make it worse than it already is.

A lot of great answers, wanted to add culture as a reason by an example of a very extreme example of native speakers / English speakers.
Icelandic is spoken by around 350.000 people and also has perhaps the greatest English proficiency as non-native speakers in the world (Denmark is best according to English Proficiency Index but to me Icelanders would be higher if they were a part of the index).
Icelandic universities teach Computer Science in Icelandic. Very common English computer terminology has Icelandic equivalents fx. to save = að vista created by a committee but regular usage often involves slang fx. to save = að seiva. A few Icelandic words have been welcomed by the public.
Even though common usage goes to phrases the industry likes to provide Icelandic oriented software. Coding is primarily done in English but User Interfaces are often provided in Icelandic. One can often see a discussion in Icelandic Programmers Facebook Groups about what people consider a good translation. These are some of the most active conversations.

Wouldn't it make sense for Iceland's universities to teach everything in English, except for a course on GUI translation in Icelandic? Also, are there books on subjects such as Algorithms in Icelandic?

@Jon I don't think so. I just don't see a huge influx of international students happening in Iceland very soon. On the other hand, it is interesting that little Iceland is still big enough to have Icelandic-speaking CS professors. I could envision a transition to English instruction if the university was understaffed and forced to hire from abroad. Guessing that Thor is from Iceland, I suppose he could offer a more complete explanation.

There actually is quite an influx of international students now (in comparison with Icelandic students). I am not so familiar with the history of CS education in Iceland, I believe we did not have these materials in Icelandic but it was later translated. Not heard of problems staffing the universities.

I studied engineering in France (I'm French by the way) and the vast majority of the students in my university found jobs in France... Where people mostly speak French.
So mastering your subject in your native language is not only more practical, as already said in other answers, it's also often necessary.
Of course, mastering English is required when you do science or engineering, but it doesn't have to be the only language you know.
It's not a question of lack of openness or fear of change, I consider it's enriching being able to speak and think in several languages.
Most native English speakers only know English and I believe it's a limitation, not an asset.
Dutch speak at least two languages, Swiss could speak even more (French, German and Italian are the three spoken languages in Switzerland).
Science is also about meeting and exchanging with people from many places, speaking more languages helps interactions with the rest of the scientific community.
In my workplace, most people speak French and English. Those who speak more languages have less difficulties to adapt to new contexts.
If all renown universities would only teach in English, I think it would also create a uniform way of thinking, and science is also about thinking differently than others.

"I think it would also create a uniform way of thinking" - so why are British universities so productive? Most people there only speak English...

What do you mean by productive? I didn't say that people that speak only one language could not be good in their field. It's just that knowing more languages is a good thing, especially in science where the communities are international. And a lot of foreigners study in English universities.

But... English universities only teach in English. Therefore if French universities switched to English as well, shouldn't their productivity remain the same or increase? After all, most of their students would now be fluent bilingual speakers.

You have a point :)

@JonathanReez: Again?  Why don't English universities switch to French?  Then we'd have even more bilingual people than the other way 'round.

@WGroleau for the same reason why StackExchange is in English...

@JonathanReez "Most people [in British universities] only speak English." Maybe at the undergraduate level. As soon as you go to academic and research staff and postgrads, you find a lot of people from outside the UK. My office of five contains a Greek postdoc and PhD students from China and Germany. Of the fourteen faculty in our broader research group, I think ten are fluent in languages other than English.

Building on some previous answers, e.g. AndrejaKo:
When you learn something in your dominant language, it is more likely you will own it, i.e. make it your own.

I have noticed situations in the U.S. where children of immigrant parents speak to their parents in a limited version of English, receiving responses in their home language; or speak to their parents in a limited version of their home language (not having received any formal instruction or read any literature in their home language).  This can stunt their intellectual and cultural growth.  (The solution: bilingual education.)

I am currently doing my Masters at ETH, and my answer will cover why the ETH Bachelors is in German and will hopefully apply to other universities as well.
ETH is not very selective in selecting swiss students for its Bachelors degrees. In fact, since it is a federally funded Institution, it is obliged to admit any Swiss student who has passed (cf. Admission and Education section of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETH_Zurich). They have an extremely hard exam at the end of the first year which students have to pass to continue with their studies. Usually, 50% of the students taking this exam fail and eventually drop out of ETH.
So, you are looking at a majority swiss (mostly from the german part of Switzerland) classroom. It only makes sense to have the medium of instruction as the one which most of the class is familiar with. In fact, EPFL, in the French part of Switzerland has most of its Bachelors courses in French (http://langues.epfl.ch/languages-requirements).
Since the Bachelors programmes at these universities are aimed at improving the education standards of the populace and to have a skilled work-force, they are in the local languages.
When it comes to Masters courses, which are geared towards research and have an international classroom, the language of instruction is almost exclusively English.
PS. There are plenty of high-quality technical books in German. Widely used books like CLRS are translated to German and they have their own books such as the ones from Duden (http://www.duden.de/) which parallel the quality of their English counterparts.

But don't most Bachelors students in Switzerland proceed to do a Masters degree?

I don't think that's true. Unlike US Masters, which are basically cash cows, swiss masters are pretty intense and are geared towards preparing students for a PhD. So, not all bachelor students go onto do a Masters

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава


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How to deal with uninterested students during an optional exercise session?
Last week I taught my first exercise session. I am a PhD student so the kind of classes that I will teach are exercise sessions about what the Professor explained in the theory class. They essentially have to work problems and I have to explain and help them with their approach in solving them.
Students of the same year are divided into small groups. I had about 25 students and from what I noticed: 17 were working hard, 7 were working more slowly with less interest and 1 was watching videos with his smartphone.
I tried to get his attention in a kind way several times (by going to him and telling something like "I know that videos are funnier than this theoretical stuff but if you want to practice for the exam you should do also exercises") but even if he stopped and started to read the exercises then he always restarted watching videos.
Since I will not assign grades and this kind of class is not mandatory, his participation will change nothing in his final grade.
So at a certain point I just wanted to ask him why is he attending.  There are many seats outside the class where he could sit and watch videos, but I just stopped to get his attention and I left him watching videos. I made this decision because he was watching videos/surfing the web without audio and without annoying the other students.
What is the best way to deal with these situations?

Anecdotally, in my last tutorial there used to always be a student in the room before we started, working on programming assignments. He was not part of my tutorial group, he sat in the last row, never made any noise and just stayed there when everyone else left. In the first session I did not know who was who yet and thought he might be one of my students. In the second I decided to ask him to leave if he did anything annoying. He never did, so he stayed.  The classrooms are heated in winter, the floors are not. I  could not bring myself to send him in the cold when he made himself invisible.

Also anecdotally, I sometimes had to take a class that was very similar to a class I'd already taken or that I otherwise already understood. I would often attend them just in case something new came up, but I'd do homework for other classes while they were covering material I already knew.  So it could be they are goofing off because they don't need to practice the material for whatever reason, and it has nothing to do with you.

Are you afraid of any disadvantages you might get if the lazy students fails their exams?

Cellphone and headphones sounds a lot better than a guy some 10/12 years ago that would sit at my lectures and open a full size newspaper and read it.

As long as he is not disrupting anybody else then let him watch his phone ,Let him fail his exam with an Elephant mark ,You may see him next year at macdonalds when you drive through .Think about how old he will be when he has payed off his student loan .

17 working hard, 7 working with less interest and 1 watching videos <-- that's not bad actually, I remember 2-3 working hard, 15 watching videos and 2 absent. :) How to deal? Give them an option not to show up if they don't really want to. Work with those who want to work.

@Autistic Ironically the person who got the highest marks in my college BTEC course worked for McDonalds during the course. To every stereotype there are exceptions.

Also anecdotally, I know a guy who was in love with a girl and for a while, he was trying to attend all of her classes just to have a chance to watch her more. The story has a sad ending though

@Autistic Boy, that escalated quickly

Do you prefer more or less authoritarian style?
More authoritarian: "If you come to my class, I assume you wish to be taught by me and respect my time. In other words, you are to work on your assignments. If you do wish to watch videos or to Facebook, that is fine, but please do not do that in my class - it is disrespectful to me and in fact also to your fellow students who come here to learn. Feel free to leave to watch, and to come back when you are done and wish to return to the exercises."
More liberal: "It is everyone's own responsibility to learn and I will help you to understand the material and how to master it. If you do not wish to engage in it, that is your free decision, but you need to be aware that this is your own responsibility to engage with the material in order to benefit from it [and pass the exam]." - say it once at the beginning, and then perhaps one more time in the middle of the semester. That's it.
Modify as required, this is just a coarse line of action, YMMV.

This is a good answer, so I won't write my own, I will just add to it. To me it sounds like the one student on the smartphone is the real cause of concern. This should not be tolerated in university any more than it should in a secondary school. In my uni, my tutor told everyone at the start of the session[s] that smartphone use would not be tolerated. It tended to work. I would take more of a hardline stance with it [or authoritarian] by also put it in writing on the class notes/lecture series. That way people can't say they weren't warned if/when they get thrown out.

I will only add that this works best if you set that tone from the very beginning. Changing policy halfway through the course makes it harder. This comment won't help you now, but maybe next semester.

@MaartenBuis good point! Sometimes, you can turn it around, but it is indeed much harder halfway through.

Without saying it's easy, I have turned a few things around mid-semester. E.g., I would tell students to shut off phones for a test and they wouldn't; then for a later test I asked "Is everyone's phone off?" "YES" "Good, because 5% now comes off any test for a person whose phone rings," and all of a sudden there was a scramble as everyone pulled out the phones to shut them off for real.

+1 for liberal approach. This is university - give the students sufficient resources, make help available, and then let them succeed or fail according to their desires and abilities. Also, OP explicitly stated that the student is not disturbing the other students, so it won't be taking away from others.

@Jeutnarg However it is indirectly taking away from other students if it keeps taking the OP's attention away from groups who are working.

The liberal style works if there's only one or two students in that situation. However, IME there's a critical-mass point where the overall environment telegraphs "students aren't supposed to work or pay attention here", and everyone else tunes out, too (peer pressure, etc.). And once you reach that point, it's nigh-impossible to turn around.

You certainly seem to be engaged in your lecture, which is good. The thing is, though, that the distribution of student types you describe is very normal. The way lecturers handle unattentive students will differ culturally. At least here in Germany, as a student you are expected to be self-independent. If you do not pay attention, nobody will fight for your attention, as long as you do not disturb the lesson.
In this special case, you have two options:

Continue trying to reach him and give him extra attention.
Ignore him and let him decide for himself how much he wants to engage.

What is important for you is, that you do not take such behaviour personally. Sometimes people just come to university out of habit and then they'll surf on their phones or whatever. It is their responsibility to study for their exams, not yours to force-feed them knowledge.

Actually there has to be a study somewhere that even when you are not actively listening you are still learning more from passively listening than from staying away. As long as your student is not distracting other students it should be okay. If you want, you can try asking him questions once or twice but if absolutely no good comes from it I tend to stop that after some sessions. In not mandatory sessions, those people also tend to either not turn up at some point or start listening.

@skymningen: I think that watching a video on one subject and trying to listen to a totally different audio subject counts as "multitasking", and all the research paints that as disastrously useless.

about the idea that this student's inattention isnt a problem if it doesn't disrupt other students, I would argue that it does because the students are doing group work. The group this student is in loses one of their peer resources (research shows group work problems should be challenging enough that they require all members to participate; a part of positive interdependence). Even if the group could continue without this student, it affects group morale and other students' willingness to commit to undistracted work.

The answers by Captain Emacs and ian_itor are good. I want to add that you should ask your coordinator/managing professor about this, because the scope of what's acceptable on your part will vary by culture and institution.
Perhaps some professors will say, "Just tell them to leave." Other institutions may highly encourage or require proof of regular attendance for funding or legal purposes, and therefore culturally prohibit telling students not to come to class in any event.
When my father was at any Ivy professional school in the 1960's, one professor could reputedly grab a distracted student without warning by the shirt collar, physically throw him out of the room, and lock the door on him. Surely that's not allowed anywhere anymore.

It's allowed at West Point, but I add that once you're out the door the consequences are far more ... uncomfortable.

It's helpful if you mention which two answers you find helpful.  "Prior" can be confusing, as more votes come in.

Let him watch videos
You are at the university, all are adults. It is not mandatory to attend, it does not disturb your lecture. Why should you even bother?
Your goal is to support the students if they want it and to help those who are interested and can follow the speed of the course. All the other have to look for themselves and should not drain you capacity.
If he misses the lecture, it is his fault. Leave him the freedom to do that as long as he does not distract or disturb with his behavior (you or other students). Then you would have to intervene.
Probably, and I've had fellow students which it really was the case for them, he is just bored because he thought already through the exercise. Probably he is to lazy and won't pass or has a lot of work to do at home. Doesn't matter in the end.

Furthermore, please take in account that the time you use to go after students watching videos is time you are not using with the students working hard, therefore making your class worse for them.

It might be a linguistic oversight, but the last paragraph is self-contradictory.

Invite the students to the blackboard
It is unclear how the class is structured in your university. Do the students work on their own, sometimes asking you for personal help? Do they discuss the problems as a group?
Occasionally asking the student to solve a part of the problem at the blackboard in front of the class will make him follow the class discussions better. If the student is working on his own only, he might be tempted not to admit his mistakes in solutions, or only solve an easier part of the problem and call it a day.
It is important to frame this not as a punishment for those who are distracted during the class, but as a learning tool that you provide. It gives instant feedback to the student, and a very detailed one. Ideally, you should invite students randomly or, at least, aim to invite them equally often.
As a side note, 1 distracted student out of 25 is a very good ratio.

Students are supposed to work alone or in small groups and ask for personal help. If the question is relevant for all I answer their question to the whiteboard.

In a sense, inviting a student to the whiteboard gives him more of a... personal involvement.

You have 17 students that are interested and engaged in the course. It means that you are doing good job in keeping them interested. Focus on them, spend your time with them and help them!
Being given that your exercise sessions are neither mandatory nor graded, I don't think you are expected to motivate the least motivate person out of 25. It's not high school anymore, even if he has reasons or difficulties being concentrated, you should leave it up to him if he refuses your suggestions to work.
By the way, weren't the some third of uninteresteds among students when you were a student? Weren't there someone coming (and even paying) completely uselessly?
I got a story
In Latvia it is common (and even mandatory) that the professors hold consultations. I think it's somewhat similar to office time in English...?
Anyways, it's usually a time scheduled every week when students can come to ask what they didn't understand. No one ever comes except before the exam or before tests if the course is a tough one.
In one such course tens of students decided to attend the consultation before a test. Before tests there are not only the students that want to ask something but also those who just want to listen to what others will ask and what the answers will be. And there was aso that guy.
Mr. that came few minutes early (as he always did in lectures), he sat in the second row, you might even assume that he is diligent. He opened his laptop (it's common - many students use the computers for notes, viewing lecture materials, preparing questions etc.). As the consultation started, he started playing some silly flash games on his computer (as he always did in lectures). He did it until the very end, then he closed the computer and went away as others did.
Even the lectures were not required to attend. The consultation was not near mandatory - it was intended only for those having questions and usefulness there. To this day I haven't understood why he came there late in the evening and spent all that time commuting to play flash games. He was living in the campus so there was no parental control or pressure.
I assume that he just felt that as a student he should attend but seemingly didn't understand what he has to do when attending a lecture or consultation. By the way, he didn't pass the course.

Since we're trading stories. I was that guy in some of my courses and got A's in all my major courses. I showed up to class to soak up info on things I didn't know about and I'm positive that I picked up valuable things while I was there. I still spent a large chunk of time on Reddit.

I am also often that guy. I work and don't have time to study full time. Because of this, I sometime don't take the lectures in the normal order. Often, I know a lot already. I still go to the lectures, because there is sometime something I don't know. I do other stuff on my laptop, but if I hear something unfamiliar, I can tune in. And just another anecdote: A few weeks ago, there was a question hour at the last lecture timeslot before the exam. About ~25 of more than 120 people taking the course where there. Nobody actually had a question. All just wanted to hear the other questions...

@MiniRagnarok I can't put it into words, but there is a noticable difference between those A students on laptops and those failing students on laptops. There is a lot of students doing work or random stuff during lectures, but some of them has the aura of learning immunity around them and they make you ask "why is that person who always fails tests coming here to play games?"

@Josef I have seen that "nobody got a question" thing a lot, I've struggled with that as a lecturer when I try to make the question hour somehow useful for the attendees. Let's see if this makes a question :) http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/84571/none-of-25-students-at-question-session-before-exam-has-a-question-what-should

While I agree with the existing good answers, the impact upon the tone of the class has yet to be addressed.
By not challenging this behaviour and not being seen to encourage focus, you implicitly communicate your values and expectations to the class. By allowing/tolerating mild disruption and inattentiveness you are setting the tone that this will be tolerated in future classes and by ignoring it you will be signalling to other students that you do not care if they focus or not.
My advice is to consider what it is that you need and want from the class and your students, make these expectations explicit, communicate the rationale for it (including the impact upon other students), then be consistent with it. The difficulty here will then be in having the self-belief, the confidence, and the respect to enforce it - particularly as a new PhD student.

At the beginning of your next class, announce:

Phones and laptops will not be needed in this class.  If you must use your phone briefly during class, I will ask you to step out into the hall to do so.

Neutral voice.
If anyone comes in late, you can say it again, after the person has sat down and gotten comfortable, but right before the phone comes out of the pocket; or you can give him or her a handout with the same information.

-1 because there is a moment in life, when people are not kids anymore. Somethings are their own responsibility and restricting the use of the smartphone does not really fit to the other requirements and behavior at a university.

@Mayou36 - some universities have a policy that restricts the use of laptops and smart phones to the last two rows of a large classroom. // Aside from concern for the surfing student, the phone use is distracting to, and disrespectful of, the instructor.

the OP did not write anything about that it is distracting or disrespectful. Actually, he even pointed out that he does not distract other students. If it IS distracting, of course, it's another thing. But he did not ask how to stop him from watching videos but what to do. And that's a different point.

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Choosing the right journal for your papers - the top journals or the one that you are a frequent guest reviewer?
We usually start writing a paper with a target journal in mind. One of my supervisors always encourages me to target the 1 or 2 top journals in our field (operations management), while I myself prefer to submit to a journal that I frequently review manuscripts for which has a much lower impact factor. If published in the former, the paper will be considered more valuable; while in the latter, I suppose, the manuscript might be easier to get accepted.
What would you advise?

Do your supervisors have a track record in the top journals?  If so, then I would seek their advice once you've completed the write-up.  They should give you some indication whether it is a waste of time.

How many publications do you already have in your prefered journal(s)?

Advising which journals are suitable for your work (until you have enough experience to do it yourself) is part of what "being an advisor / supervisor" means.

If published in the former, the paper will be considered more valuable; while in the latter, I suppose, the manuscript might be easier to get accepted.

Fundamentally, I think your role as a "frequent guest reviewer" is fairly irrelevant to the question. If this is a real, non-spam journal, whether you reviewed for them in the past or not should not have a bearing on your chance of acceptance.
However, similar to every other researcher for every paper, you need to find the best trade-off between "competitive and high-impact" versus "less competitive, potentially lower impact" venues. In my experience, PhD students have a tendency to steer towards lower-impact venues to increase the chance of acceptance, while professors often advise for higher-risk venues. What is optimal for you is really not something that can be answered in a vacuum. However, you should think about the incentives of all involved persons to make an informed decision:

It is my impression that the reluctance of some PhD students to submit to top venues is grounded mostly in an overproportional fear of rejection and the associated delay - when you just started a few years ago, having to wait many more months or even years for your work to be officially published may appear prohibitively risky.
Conversely, as a professor, submitting primarily to the top venues can be the only smart move, as professors often are measured primarily or solely based on their best and most prestigious work (while, as a PhD student, just having reasonable papers alone may be seen as good enough, especially if you are not keen on staying in academia).
Similarly, you should evaluate for yourself why you are writing this paper. Will you be on the academic job market after your PhD? Then go for the most prestigious venue that you have any hope of getting into. Have you decided to move to industry? In that case, the career value of this high-impact publication may be smaller, and you need to seriously ponder whether you would not prefer a "safer bet" personally. Do you mainly want to tell the community and the world about your work? Then submit to wherever you think your paper will find most interested readers - this may or may not be the better journal.

xLeitix - thank you for your advice. Very much appreciated!

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How should I deal with students copying down the problem incorrectly?
I give quizzes in my recitation classes. I write down the problems on the board. My handwriting is okay but not great and most students can read what I'm writing but because of chalk marks, bad writing, bad vision or whatever some students copy down the problem incorrectly. Mostly the changes are trivial (I wrote a 2 and they wrote 12, but the computations are the same). Sometimes the way they copy down the problem significantly changes the problem.
I don't want to penalize the student for misreading. But I don't want to be unfair if the problem is harder or easier for that student.
How should I grade these problems?
EDIT: I have 80 students. I give 21 quizzes in a semester. That is 1680 quizzes in a semester. Maybe 1 or 2 of those are miscopied to the point of being different problems. I am not going to change how I give quizzes for such a tiny irrelevant fraction of quizzes.

Have you considered projecting the quizzes or giving them handouts?

@MassimoOrtolano Yes, of course. There are reasons why those are not possibilities.

Just out of curiosity, what are these reasons?

@FuzzyLeapfrog And then proceed to argue with me about giving handouts?

Nope, @mmmmmmm.

@FuzzyLeapfrog The department said not to give out handouts because of paper/ink usage. Projecting doesn't help, students still copy things down incorrectly. But this is not relevant to the question. The question is GIVEN that students copied down a problem incorrectly in a way that significantly changed it, how should I grade it?

I assume that the department has no guidelines for this. If so, I'd suggest to grade the solutions based on how well the student performed and how strong the wrong copy changed the difficulty of the problem. I once received the full score even so I made a small mistake by copying the initial problem which did not change the difficulty very much. A fellow student made a mistake in another course that made the problem unsolvable. He still received a few points for trying his best. If there are following problems based upon the solution of the first problem, it gets way mire tricky.

Side note: We had paper copies of the problems. So handouts don't solve this issue.

@FuzzyLeapfrog What do you mean by "We had paper copies"? How does that relate to OP's question?

A paper copy of the exercise/problem = handout. OP mentioned that he shall not use handouts because of paper/ink usage. An answer states that he should use electronic handouts instead. I wanted to highlight that even handouts (no matter if electronic or paper) wouldn't necessarily solve the problem. @CaptainEmacs.

How much would it cost you out-of-pocket to go to a copy shop and make your own handouts?

@aparente001 greater than $0 and greater than 0 seconds of my time, which is more time and money than I'm willing to put in

You could have one of your students re-copy the problem to another section of the blackboard.

@aparente001 In one semester of teaching, I give 1500-2000 quizzes. There is maybe one or two of those quizzes where someone copied down a problem incorrectly. I am not going to change how I give my quizzes for such a tiny irrelevant fraction of quizzes.

So the frequency of mis-copying is at most 2/1500 or 0.13%?  Just toss the occasional unusable quiz score.  The alternative would be to give the student the opportunity to make up the quiz.  But if you don't do quiz make-ups when students are out sick (and I gather you don't), then it wouldn't be worth the trouble.  Also, because there are so many quizzes.  (How many per course per semester?)

@aparente001 Well I have to enter in SOMETHING in the gradebook for the quiz is my point. I have to enter in SOME score. It's not a big enough problem for me to change how I give my quizzes but I do want to know what to enter in my the gradebook. And no, no make up quizzes. I have 80 students with 21 quizzes per semester so 1680 quizzes.

Why don't you just follow the same procedure you do when a student misses a quiz because s/he is out sick?

@aparente001 the procedure for when they're out sick is that they get a 0

That doesn't seem fair.  It sounds to me like your gradebook software is pushing you into a corner.

@aparente001 They drop the lowest 3 quiz scores and sure, it doesn't seem very fair but I'm just a grad student and have no say in how things are run (there are much larger things I think are unfair). I just want to know how to grade the occasional quiz that was miscopied to a point of being a different problem.

In your situation, I would treat the miscopied problem of the wrong type just like a missed quiz due to illness; and I would ask the professor if s/he has a better idea.  As a TA, I would not be the one with the ultimate responsibility.  (But I still think a better solution would be to average only the valid quiz scores.)

I've downvoted this question because of its last sentence. You first describe a problem due to how you give quizzes and then proceed to say that you are not willing to change how you give quizzes. One should always try to fix the cause of a problem.

Agreement with @Roland. Stated differently, why are you even asking if you're not willing to change any behavior based on the feedback? If it's important, then fix it. If it's not important, then why ask in the first place?

If it is such a rare case, it shouldn't be a problem. Even if one make a mistake and loosing a point out of 21, it should not influence the grade, especially not in significant ways

@Greg It's not a big deal, but I do need to enter in SOMETHING in the gradebook. Should I just pick numbers from a hat?

I was a TA for a class where an exam question asked students to find the inverse of an exponential function that had a constant added onto it. Since many of the students were new to logs, including that constant was important as it revealed whether or not students understood log rules (and many did not).
When solving the problem, several students left off the constant altogether- whether they missed it in the problem or chose to ignore it wasn't clear.
If they did that, and then solved the problem they wrote down correctly, they could get partial credit. We treated those answers the same as ones where students acknowledged but misused the constant.
So if you can identify how exactly the student has oversimplified the problem, then give them no credit for that part of the question, but let them earn partial credit for rest of the question.
Whatever you choose to do, make sure to state it up front- perhaps students will be more careful about copying down the problem in that case.

You state in your question "I don't want to penalize the student". This answer penalizes the student. I fail to see why you accepted this answer.

My solution is rather boring and simple. What if, after writing the problems on the board, you read the problems outloud with and or to the students. Hearing the problems will reduce many mistakes due to mis-seeing what's on the board.
After reading with or to them you can then ask the students if anything is unclear on the board. They ask and you can clarify your handwriting.

In one semester of teaching, I give 1500-2000 quizzes. There is maybe one or two of those quizzes where someone copied down a problem incorrectly. I am not going to change how I give my quizzes for such a tiny irrelevant fraction of quizzes.

So are you going to give this reply to every answer?

There is a real problem here in trying to deliver exercise/quiz questions to the students when they are not received in a consistent manner. Grading really should apply a consistent procedure so that it is fair to all the students. So it is my suggestion that when the problem arises just throw out this exercise/quiz. Then start again with a clean slate.
The clear solution here, in the absence of authorization to use paper and ink for physical handouts, is to leverage modern technology. Distribute the "handouts" in electronic format. The distribution method can take a number of paths:

Each student would have submitted an email address as a requirement to attend the class or the institution. Paste the text of the handout into an email body and send to all.
Create a PDF file of the handout and store that file at a commonly known file server location at the institution.
Copy the handout as a downloadable file to a web site that is used by the department for such things. The download could also be the convenient PDF type file.
Create an HTML web page at the department web site that shows the handout material.
Utilize the educational cloud services package that is in use for this course and make the handout available using the appropriate features of that package.

This is a good suggestion for the future, but it does not answer the question. Note the OP's comment that explicitly says: "The question is GIVEN that students copied down a problem incorrectly in a way that significantly changed it, how should I grade it?"

@O.R.Mapper - I agree with regards to the specific question.......but I see a direct problem of trying to grade these exercise/quiz questions that are not communicated through to the student in an consistent manner. My direct answer I will edit into the above.

Seems like the XY problem. "Given students copy badly, how do I change marking to account for this?" - well, you fix the bad copying so that there's no need to change marking based on quality of copying the problem, such that any error is entirely within comprehension of problem and explanation of solution. So question is really "how do I minimise amounts of bad copying of problems?".

@Nij Agreed. Randomly introduced mistakes in a question setting can create arbitrary variations in the difficulty of a question. E.g. seek positive integers a, b, c such that a^2+b^2=c^2; change 2 to any other larger integer for an example. Thus, everything indeed hinges on making sure the students have an accurate version of the question, I do not see a way around it.

In one semester of teaching, I give 1500-2000 quizzes. There is maybe one or two of those quizzes where someone copied down a problem incorrectly. I am not going to change how I give my quizzes for such a tiny irrelevant fraction of quizzes.

@CaptainEmacs the small change in your example doesn't make too much of a difference. I can explain, but my proof will not fit within this comment unfortunately.

@DanRomik Except for a solution to be or not to be...

If the problem the student solved is pretty similar to the one you intended, then don't take any points off.  You really have to decide whether you are testing your students on their understanding and mastery of the material, or their ability to decipher your handwriting.
There are many reasons a student sometimes solves the wrong problem.  Sometimes he simply misreads what he himself wrote.  Sometimes he misreads a typed, xeroxed problem.  But the important thing is whether he can solve a certain type of problem.
If the problem the student solved is significantly different, then treat the quiz the same as if s/he had missed class due to illness.

But what if it ISN'T similar to what I intended is my question.

@mmmmmmm - See comment above.


text:
Should I inform my potential advisor that my paper got rejected?
I am a recent M.Sc. graduate and I have applied for a few PhD programs abroad.
A few months ago, we submitted our paper (which was about my thesis results) to a journal and also uploaded it to a pre-print server. Then, I mentioned the paper in my CV with the status "submitted to journal X". In my Skype meeting with a potential advisor from a university abroad, I mentioned the fact that we submitted the paper and we have not been notified about the result yet. Then, I sent the link of the paper on pre-print server to him according to his request.
Today, I got informed by the journal's editor that our paper got rejected from journal X. Now I don't know if I need to tell this fact to the potential advisor in our next Skype meeting or through other mediums like email? In general, I guess he will not ask about the status of our paper. If he asks about it, I definitely would answer truthfully. But I don't know should I tell him about the rejection even if he does not ask about it?
Actually, the journal quality is very high and we believe that we can publish our paper in another good journal elsewhere. However, the professor is from a different field and he may not know how hard it is to publish in journal X. Thus, I think that this news unfairly ruin my admission chance.

Personally, my view is that when you write "submitted" it mainly indicates that you finished writing the paper and it is in a state that is ready for submission. That means the stage after "in preparation" and before "accepted" (to some journal). Beyond that, it does not really matter if it is actually in review or in between submissions - that is just part of the process. So unless it is accepted or you decide to completely give up submitting (which is rare), I don't think it really matters.

I think this question really implies an underlying second question. Breaking it into two parts;
(1) Does getting a paper rejected look bad on your application?
(2) Do you have an obligation to tell your potential advisor?
In regards to (1), the answer is no, not really. Of course, if you had your paper accepted, that would be better...but only marginally. Papers get rejected all the time, even really good ones. One almost never gets a paper accepted on the first submission, so taking in the feedback from the reviewers and resubmitting is just a part of the process. Also, keep in mind the professor has already seen the paper. This means they know whether it's a good paper that got rejected as a part of the standard process, or whether it's just such a terrible paper that it will never be accepted. So I wouldn't worry at all about the potential advisor changing their opinion about you based on getting your paper rejected. The only way it would be very problematic is if you said something like "my paper got rejected and it hurt my ego so much I don't want to ever submit again" (PhD's require determination), or "my paper got rejected by a bunch of simpletons who clearly don't understand how great my work was" (arrogance is probably one of the harder traits to deal with in a grad student). On the other hand "my paper got rejected, but the reviewers pointed out a few ways I could clarify/improve my work so I'm going to fix it up and re-submit" is a great attitude to have.
In light of my response to (1), I think (2) is not such a big deal either way. I don't think you need to immediately email your potential advisor and tell him the news, that would be kinda weird. If he asks about the paper, you should certainly tell him. Whether you want to tell him if he doesn't ask is up to you. Personally, I think discussing that it got rejected and that you want to resubmit after cleaning it up shows a good attitude, so I would push for that. For example:
Maybe future advisor: "So what's new since last time we talked?"
You: "Well, just got back the decision on the paper we talked about. It got rejected, but the reviewers pointed out that I need to work on X and Y. So I'm going to clean it up and resubmit."
Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with not discussing it if it doesn't come up in conversation either.
Side note: if the above conversation leads to an engaging discussion about the merits of X and Y with your potential advisor, that's just about the best interview you could have in regards to finding out how the advisor/student relation will work between the two of you.

"One almost never gets a paper accepted on the first submission.." Hm? That would mean you are constantly wasting your own and the editors and referees time by submitting sloppy work and/or to unsuitable journals. Of course the acceptance is nearly always with "pending minor revisions", did you mean that?

@Karl: Of course I try to have my first submission accepted, but I cannot say that's reliably how it works (especially for earlier career researcher). My PI, who is a top researcher in their field, still has this experience. They were just telling me how they've never had a paper accepted to a given conference despite submitting many times...yet they've been asked to be a keynote speaker at that conference. I think acceptance rates may be very different for different fields?

This "conference only" publication scheme of some fields is somewhat alien to me, but if everybody submits each of of his papers to three journals/conferences before they are accepted, don't you think that is a huge wase of everyones time and there is something rotten in the system?

@Karl: yes and no. I wish that all my papers got accepted on their first submission, both for my time and the reviewers' time. On the other hand, the back and forth of these papers has greatly improved the quality of some of them (note: my field, statistics, does not do the conference system, but machine learning does).

That sounds slightly unethical to me: You are cashing in on the unpaid, unrewarded work of anonymous referees. That's of course OK, always happens to a smaller extent, but it's a bit shady to regularily submit papers to journals with too high standards, and hope the referees give you the missing ideas. They should be authors, then! Everybody accepts that if it happens with one in five papers, but four out of five? (Hope you get my drift, I don't mean to insult your work. Just my thought.)

@Karl, I just want to note here that no one said "I submit work I know is shoddy, since I know the reviewers will help me fix it up." Nor "I intentionally submit to journals that are way out of my league, in order to get free expert help!".  I highly doubt that reviewers will take a lousy paper and work with the author to turn it into a good one.  It seems dramatically more likely that the reviewers, being adults and experts in their fields, recognize a paper that they feel should be published in their journal once a few points are addressed and they suggest the necessary improvements.

@msouth Of course, that's how it is usually done! I have three first-author papes, one "accepted pending major revision", two "with minor revisions". But if it takes several tries, moving to less reputable/differently oriented journals on the way, then I think there was really something wrong with the original manuscript or choice of journal. No?

@Karl: No one said anything about switching journals, at least as far as I can see...

@WillR Add "possibly" to "move to other journal". The point still holds, imo.

@Karl: JCGS is a very good, but not quite top journal in my field. Their most recent acceptance rate listed here was 18%, although this is the lowest of a steady downward trend. But my point is that your idea that "4/5 of your papers should be accepted on the first submission" is not really realistic in my field.

I don't think that being rejected by a top tier journal of your field should reduce your chances to get the PhD position in any way. Your potential advisor most likely knows this all too well. This is part of the scientific professional life. I would assume that s/he can judge the work you did regardless of his field of expertise our whether it got accepted or not. But if it was well written, presented in a clear and structured way, he or she will appreciate that because it is such an important skill.
You don't need to mention it yourself if you feel uncomfortable about that. However if you want, you can say that you got rejected by X, but think that with the feedback you got you can really improve the manuscript and will try to publish it elsewhere. This will show your motivation. Most likely your advisor will be happy about that.

I don't want to put in a separate answer, but I would just like to point out that it's a very bad idea to write "submitted to xxx". Just leave it as "submitted". People probably don't care, only believe that it's suitable for xxx when it's accepted, or even think that you're full of yourself and sent a weak paper to xxx just so you could put this in your CV. With a (probably) high rejection rate you're just setting yourself up for situations like this.

@VonBeche If you only write "submitted", I will immediately suspect that you have submitted a substandard (in relation to the reputation of the journal) paper. Leading me to the suspicion that you are either overambitious or an underperformer. ;-)

You don't need to tell them as long as they don't ask. You did not lie in your application, that's all that count.

And, by the same reasoning, if you see somebody about to step into the path of a moving bus, you don't need to shout at them to stop. After all, they didn't ask you if there was a bus, so you're under no obligation to tell them. How, exactly, is the potential advisor going to trust this student after they've failed to pass on potentially important information? Lies of omission are still lies.

@DavidRicherby: I think there's a pretty big difference between not telling someone they are about to be hit by a bus and not telling someone your paper didn't get accepted. When I'm reviewing resumes, I read submitted as "might have this published in a year or two", not "definitely will be accepted any day now". Lying about it would a huge problem, but if it's not brought up, you don't need to (although I think you should, see my answer).

To name a less drastic example than the otherwise fitting one by @DavidRicherby, in particular one that does not invoke an obvious conflict with a moral obligation to tell about something, how about submitting a paper or an application for a funded project and getting a rejection in response to that? Would you tell your coauthors only if they ask rather than as soon as the message arrives? Keeping such news on progress to yourself does not seem conductive to team-based research endeavours, and working with an advisor (and, thereby, also with their team) is typically a team-based thing.

@CliffAB: "might have this published in a few years" - field-specificity-alert ;) In applied-CS-related areas I'm most acquainted with, "remaining unpublished for more than some 12 months" usually implies it's outdated in one way or another and will never be published in a similar form to the current one. And while this varies a lot by field, processing times of job/study program applications may not vary quite that much, meaning that expectations on whether a submitted manuscript will have been accepted/published by the next contact with the prospective advisor can vary considerably.

@O.R.Mapper: ah, interesting. In statistics, quite a different story. For example, take a look at the submitted and accepted dates for this paper. And keep in mind, Gelman is easily one of the biggest names in statistics! Maybe I should move toward CS...

@CliffAB Sure, the bus example is hyperbolic. But that's why I continued my comment explaining why it's still important to volunteer information even when people's lives aren't at stake.

"might be published in a year or two" sounds funny to me: Do you stop working on the subject in the meantime? Otherwise you'd have to completely re-write the article after six months, latest.

@Karl: your comments in general suggest that your field works much differently than mine. Yes, you submit and move on to the next research project. If it gets rejected, and you're convinced that your work is still novel and important, you take the reviewers comments, fix it up and resubmit. I will point you again to the paper I linked; it took over three years from submission to acceptance (admittedly, this is an extreme outlier). What's even more amazing is that paper was really just a formality; Stan has widely embraced by many fields well before this paper was published.

There are no rejected papers
Assuming that you're doing proper research with no shenanigans, there are no rejected papers - there are just papers that aren't accepted yet, either because they need some more work or they had been submitted to a place that's wrong for that paper (either focus or ranking-wise).
Yes, generally a paper that's awaiting review with unknown status is considered more valuable than a paper with a known negative review, but 'Rejected' is a status of the editor/journal workflow, not generally a status in the workflow of authoring a paper.
Report on what you did or are doing
For a potential advisor, the current "paper count" isn't as important as knowing how you handle your research work. What you need to do here is (a) take appropriate actions depending on what exactly your reviews said, which in some cases might even mean simply resubmitting the exact same paper to a less selective venue; and (b) report to the advisor on what you did/are doing and what is the current status of the paper.
"Rejected" is a meaningful status only if the review made you understand that the effort should be cancelled - otherwise it's just a limbo for a few days while you make a decision on how to proceed. When you report the paper status, it should be e.g. "submitted to the other journal", "rewrite of section Y as per reviewers suggestions", "ongoing extra experiments to clarify effect Z" or something like that. Of course, it also should be that way in practice.

Well, realistically, there are some additional external factors that can leave a paper in "rejected" state. As time moves on, the project the paper was based upon is over and there may be no more resources/direct motivation to work on publishing this concrete paper. The primary author may have come to submit their (e.g. PhD) thesis, which may already cover the findings from the paper. And while it might still be possible in theory to publish the paper, this may not seem as interesting any more (the information is out there by means of the thesis), nor practically feasible (the author may ...

... have to focus on some new topics in the beginning of their postdoc time, or they may have left academia altogether and have no further time (or even rights) to publish papers). Ultimately, the longer a reviewing-revision-period for a given paper project takes, the greater are the chances that someone else has meanwhile found and published the same technique/findings (and, in my personal experience, usually in a much wider and more general way than I had previously thought of ;) ).

Your argument seems reasonable in general.  However, in this case the OP put "Submitted to Journal X" on his CV.  That is no longer the case, so while the paper need not be considered "rejected" in general, it does have that status with respect to Journal X.

Of course noone puts a paper with the mark "rejected" in his CV. However I'd find it dishonest to hide the fact that I've resubmitted somewhere else, and certainly one should not conceal it if the paper is back in the "in preparation" status, becase it needed large additional work before resubmittance.


text:
Should I do Master or PhD to teach in community college?
I currently have Bachelors in Economics and Math, and I'm doing full-time research in Economics right now.
My initial plan was to do PhD in Economics and work in academia, but after doing research, I realized that I'm not very interested in doing research in Economics, but rather I'm interested in teaching Economics at a post-secondary level.
However, I do know that professors in major universities are usually very researched-driven, so I was considering teaching in community college level (or PUIs, as commented by @NMJD). However, even to teach at community college level, at least Master in Economics is required, if not PhD.
While I'm open to the idea of doing Master in Economics, I feel that it doesn't have much value, other than the certificate of graduation itself, because Masters in Applied Economics is very similar to advanced undergrad Economics that I've taken (at least when I looked at their courses). I've already taken multiple PhD courses as undergraduate, and doing research in Economics in my workplace is generally considered equivalent to completing Masters. Financial burden of enrolling in Masters program is undesirable as well.
My question is: Should I pursue Masters in Economics, knowing that I'll repeat many courses that I've taken as undergraduate while putting myself in a debt? Or should I go to PhD, even though I understand that PhD is a very research-intensive degree?
NOTE: I've read similar article
Can you teach at a community college with a master's degree?.
Although it is similar, it doesn't not quite answer my question, as my question is Economics-specific, and I'm comparing the option of doing Masters or PhD to teach in community college.

Just wanted to throw out that in the United States, there are lots of primarily-undergraduate institutions (PUIs) such as small teaching-focused, liberal arts schools, where research expectations are mild if any. This is another option in addition to community colleges.

Thanks for the information @NMJD! Never heard of the term PUIs before, but teaching in those institutions were something that I had in mind! I did a quick search, but it seems like graduate degree is most likely to be required, at least in the US though.

Often, but it can depend on the school. Top-tier PUIs will generally require a terminal degree. Second or mid-tier PUIs can vary on this requirement; especially if you have experience doing distance or online teaching. The thing with small PUIs is that there are so many of them, it can be hard to find ones well aligned with your priorities, who want your skills. Often, the mid-tier ones are in tiny towns and they are hard to find. They're great though!

It should also be noted that many institutions who will hire someone with a masters still have requirements about tenure and promotion based on the degree. In some places you can be hired with a masters but you can't actually receive tenure without a PhD. Some allow you to attain tenure, but will not promote to full professor ever without a terminal degree, etc. So there's going to be a difference (often by institution) on being hired, being hired full-time tenure track, receiving tenure, and ultimately receiving "final" promotion, and opportunity to go an admin route (chair, dean, etc).

@BrianDHall does that apply to community college/PUIs? I'm only aware of tenure track when it comes to research-driven, 4-year universities. It seems unnecessary to go through arduous research during PhD to have opportunities to have promotion in teaching-oriented institutions.

Yes, even at 4-year teaching institutions there are often tenure-track and non-tenure track positions (sometimes non-tenure track is just called adjunct, but it varies), and tenure-track often implies very little research requirement at such a teaching-focused institution. One common affiliation is state schools (part of the larger state system) that have few or no graduate offerings (sometimes they offer a masters in something, not always). And yes, it does seem rather arduous if you only want to teach, but that's part of the system as it is today.

@Hosea, to elaborate on BrianDHall's comment, some community colleges offer tenure, some do not.  Also, teaching and research overlap a lot more than you seem to realize.  Explaining things to people is a very important part of research.  Maybe even the most important part.

Since teaching positions do not involve research, a PhD and publications do not in themselves improve an application to teach at a CC. I have served on such hiring committees.

A large portion of the community college workforce is part-time.  When there are full time job openings, they are quite competitive.  I will assume you are looking for full time work.  I have observed that many community college job advertisements say that a PhD is desirable, and I think that the applicant pool will typically contain many PhDs.  So I would suggest getting a PhD.
Be sure that during your PhD, you demonstrate that you know how to teach.  You can find quite a bit of information about how to obtain a job at a community college in columns on Inside Higher Ed.  If you earn a masters in the course of earning your PhD, teaching part-time at a community college during your PhD could be a good strategy.

Thank you for your answer! Although I feel that going through rigorous process of PhD is an over-kill if my goal is just to teach basic Economics, I guess that's just the way how the system works here. It'd be interesting to write my SOP when I do apply for PhD next time haha

If the master's program you are contemplating enrolling in has nothing to offer, then look for a different master's program.
Some ideas for what you might look for:

a program with a specialty in something challenging and/or intriguing, something different from what you've already done
a program that would allow you to be a teaching assistant, with a stipend and tuition deferment
some other area that can help you with your employability, for example education (pedagogy), business or public administration

You can of course start applying for jobs with your Bachelor's under your belt and see how it goes.


text:
Is it OK for a professor to refuse access to individual test marks?
I received a very low grade in one of my Master classes. This is not a failing grade but close to it. Such low scores are highly unusual in this  country (Japan), 90/100 or more is the norm and even a 80/100 is frowned upon sometimes. My score is much lower. Therefore, although I will obtain the credits for the class, there may be prejudice.
The strange thing is that this class was anything but hard. It consisted in about a dozen of lectures, one every week, done by different scientists. The evaluation consisted in a very small quiz (A5 sheet) at the end of each lecture, to be answered in 10 minutes. Usually the question was: `what did you think of this lecture, and how does it relate to your research topic ?’. I would answer it normally, in a few paragraphs.
Because my final grade is so low, and because I was very surprised, I asked the responsible professor for the details of my marks. I would like to know how well I performed in each individual test. Unfortunately, he refuses categorically to provide me with this info. Is this legal or common behavior? What should I do?

I recommend seeking out a Japanese-language forum in which to ask your question, as most users of this site are from the US or Europe. I am an American academic, and I have a little bit of familiarity with the Japanese system -- but only enough to know that customs are often very different there! I can tell you that your professor's behavior would be considered unacceptable in the US, but this doesn't answer your question. Good luck!

How does one even grade something like that?!

Here is a possible "elephant in the room" answer: you somehow offended the professor (something you wrote, said, or did, or even just who you are), and he is retaliating / negatively biased against you -- but likely, in this jurisdiction, there may not be much you can do about it.

What does your university policy say?

I read (skimmed) through the statues in Japanese law and the associated statutes it links.
Moreover, a legal case called the Toyama Daigaku incident clarifies that universities have large leeway in these matters. Here's the opinion of the Japanese supreme court:

大学は、国公立であると私立であるとを問わず、学生の教育と学術の研究とを目的とする教育研究施設であって、……一般市民社会とは異なる特殊な部分社会を形成しているのであるから、このような特殊な部分社会である大学における法律上の係争のすべてが当然に裁判所の司法審査の対象になるものではない。

Translated:

A university regardless of whether it is a national or public university or a private university is an education institution with the objective of the education of students and academic research ... Since these differ from normal society precisely in being founded to be a special type of society, the features of these institutions with respect to this special society, of course, do not fall within the purview of the court to investigate.

While I think it's terrible,  I can find no basis for requiring the professor to supply you with the rationale for the grade you received. If anything, there's wide berth for professors to determine grades.
Your specific institution may have more precise rules but most of the institutions I looked at specified:

60% as passing
15 class sessions of 90 minutes each
grades based on some combination of classroom attendance, tests, and papers

(this is also the same where I am teaching).

Thanks! I also skimmed through a few Japanese laws related to education but found nothing either. I reckon it has to exist somewhere, otherwise anyone could put a failing grade to anyone, then disappear without comment? That sounds really bad.

I'm not sure why you think it would exist in Japanese law. I would expect there is no fundamental right in Japan to challenge grades.

‘Knowing my grades’ and ‘challenging my grades’ seem very different to me. I’ve just asked to know my grades so far, though I admit I also have the latter in mind

You do know your grade. You want to know the basis of your grade. This is different -- and as you can see with the edit, this (supposed? natural? deserved?) right does not seem to be actionable in court. If your specific institution supplies a regulation, then you might be able to challenge it internally. But caveat loquens in Japan.

Unless university policy states otherwise, seeing your markings should be a     incontestable right.
First, sincerely ask the reason he refuses to show. If he does not give a reason, discuss the matter with department head or dean. Ultimately, you will need to form a complaint about the matter.
But before starting the process, ask yourself the question would it really worth going through these unpleseant processes?

He said he will be prejudiced. In Japan, that may have consequences, so, I believe the student may well be right to pursue this.

Thank you! You wrote ‘should be a legal right’: does someone have anything more precise? If there is a rock-solid regulation to back me up I might try to go further, but without such regulation it is risky.

We don't know the exact regulations, as these are often variable across universities and departments. "Should be" means "It is highly unusual for students not to have this right" -- there could be a local regulation forbidding it, but in general universities welcome it if students try to find out which areas they still need improvement in.

Skeptical that a "legal complaint" would have any traction here. Can you expand your answer with some evidence or precedent that that's feasible in the Japanese jurisdiction?

This makes no sense. If it's a legal right, then university policy can't state otherwise! And "legal right" on what grounds? In the UK, I guess because of data protection legislation (broadly, you have the right to see data that an organization holds about you, and to have it corrected if it's wrong) but the question isn't about the UK.

I removed the word legal to avoid ambiguity.

@Zozor It is best to find the regulations about studies. There should be some bullet stating if students can see their detailed markings on request. Maybe I can help if you give me the link to your university webpage.

Thank you for removing the "legal" claim. Now, unfortunately, I'm unsure that the other claims have evidence, e.g., " should be a incontestable right". Any support/evidence for that in Japan?

@DanielR.Collins well, that much I do not know. If OP tells the university, I may look at regulations.


text:
Is it possible to change the major from engineering to humanity (after master) for phd?
I'm a M.A.Sc (equivalent with M.Sc.) student majoring in electrical and computer engineering at a top-tier Canadian university. My undergraduate studies were, reasonably, related to computer science and engineering. Robotics and implementation of human mental (cognitive) capabilities is my main research interest within these years. So, I had to learn a lot about cognitive processes of mind, biological aspects of nervous system and psychological concepts. Right now, I'm thinking about not to pursue technical majors towards Ph.D. and switch to psychology field. In no doubt, I have no classical background in psychology in view of previous degrees, but I have some fairly-strong reasons to justify my new idea to change the major:

First of all, I was already interested in study of psychological affairs within the artificial intelligence (AI) framework, but now I'd changed my mind because I feel I am actually interested in WHAT natural aspect of psychology, not artificial HOW perspective. Furthermore, I think my contribution to psychology will be more gratifying (for myself) than AI, since the impact of the former will directly affect human-beings, whereas real imitations of AI are just like dreams, currently.
(As I stated above) However I have no official preparation in psychology, my research experiences may show that I'm not an alien in this field. I have a couple of conference and journal papers, most of which are about implementation of cognitive processes into computer procedures. Hence, I am aware of them partly.
My ideas are coherent enough to let me write a proposal to address what sort of contribution I've in mind to have. Obviously, that proposal will reflect a literature review that is by itself representative of my acquaintance with this field.

My target programs are well-known ones in US and EU, such as University of Cambridge. I've tracked some faculty members whose researches need background and mental preparation approximated by mine.
With all being said, my main concern here is whether aforesaid stuffs and justifications have any merit to help me get in such (at least in first sight!) irrelevant program compared to my background or it is impossible for me to hit this mark (I'll be carrying water in a sieve). In other words, how do universities typically analyze applications of fellows like me and what sort of credits are often important for them (which should be reflected into my application)? What are typical admission committees' assessment criteria in such situations?
PS. The probable answer might be:

Just pursue another master degree (in psychology, this time), and then
  apply for Ph.D.

Actually, I'm an international student and humanity funded positions (at least here) are very rare, typically granted to aboriginal candidates. So, please assume that pursuing another master is not pretty feasible for someone in my situation.

My guess is you can add a lot more value to society by improving AI than by doing whatever it is that psychology graduates do.

@DepressedDaniel: Thanks, but the question is not about finding a way to convince me that my decision is wrong! (As I made it after sufficient thinking about my future, goals and capabilities.)

That's why I put it as a comment rather than an answer.

Cambridge apparently welcome applicants with engineering or computer science degrees, so what's the problem?

@101010111100: Thanks to addressing. I mentioned Cambridge just as an example of well-known programs.

Given the financial considerations you mentioned, perhaps an interdisciplinary approach, with home base providing financial support, would be the practical way to proceed. // For less technical fields, it can be helpful to work on standardizing one's writing in English and improving one's writing skills in English, to ensure that readers will not have any trouble understanding your ideas.

@aparente001: I don't realize how your comment addresses the question. Could you explain?

It's not an answer, it's a comment.  It has two parts.  In the first part, I connect the financial dots.  I suggest that you consider choosing a home department where you can work as a TA, but with interdisciplinary studies.  In the second part, I provide a warning that a switch from a STEM field to a field like psychology is likely to involve higher expectations with regard to clear, standard writing in English. I believe it would be helpful for you to be aware of this. Such an awareness could help you make improving your writing in English a higher priority if you decide to study psychology.

@aparente001: What do you mean by standard writing?! If you think the question's composition is not flawless, you better stick to the applied mechanisms like editing. I've a cure for you: "Just open a text editor and press your fingers on buttons of keyboard, as much as you need". It may prohibit you from sending spams as either comments or answers, here.

I do not mean anything offensive or impolite.It is only advice intended to help you be successful in your studies. I can see that you are upset about what I said, but, as is often the case with your posts and comments, I cannot understand precisely what you are trying to convey.  Look, I only speak two languages well. There is a third in which I make a lot of mistakes, and there is a fourth which I totally butcher; I wouldn't venture to use it at all if I weren't trying to support my children bonding with their other parent's home culture. Not everyone writes flawlessly in all their languages.

I think it is pretty much dependent on the program you choose if they like you. As others pointed out technically it is possible - asking for general criterias for special situations like that might not be useful

I think @aparente001 was saying that the style of writing in a humanities field may have different conventions and styles than a STEM field.

@mkennedy - That's true, but what I'm trying to say is that STEM fields tend to be more forgiving of language deficiencies than the humanities, which are more language intensive.  Since OP is asking a career guidance question, it would be doing him a disservice not to point this out.