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I got kicked out from graduate school in the past. How do I include this on my CV?
I got kicked out from graduate school in the past. The reason was that I had very poor GPA, and I failed to meet the academic criteria (some administrative regulations, nothing personal like disciplinary action or anything). Actually I left before I got technically kicked out, but you get the idea.
So I do not know how to include this on my CV, because I believe it is too long a time frame to ignore - almost 2 years.
After getting kicked out, I managed to get into another program (THANK GOD), and I am getting back on my feet again. Obviously I need a CV, and I need some help with that.
In addition, I also had a decent scholarship there. Is it reasonable if I omit the university on "Education" section but include my scholarship in "Awards" section?
I have "Education" and "Experience" sections on my resume.
Option 1: Including it on the "Education" section as "Graduate student", and including it on "Experience" as "Research Assistant"
Option 2: Omitting it on "Education", and only including it on "Experience" as "Research Assistant".
Option 3: Your suggestions?

Are there records of you being kicked out publicly available? It is not unheard of that people change schools or even change from university to industry or vice-versa, even before finishing. If you are prepared for the question why you changed, I see no problem with mentioning that you went there for some time.

There are no public records me getting kicked out, but a Google search quickly shows that I had been there for some time.

If you left before being kicked out then you werent kicked out. If you were formally employed as many places demand PhD students to be these days, then you can list it as employment.

Hmmm. Kicked out for failure to pass qualifiers is quite different from kicked out for academic (or other) malfeasance. You don't say.

There are quite some smart folks who lose the drive to impress teachers or professors with high marks around PhD studies age. Don't sweat it. It's completely natural. Would have been worse if you had stayed mentally a little insecure pupil even higher than that.

Just to say, resist any temptation you have not to mention it. We had a person who was awarded special scholarship for a PhD project that they had to interview for. All was set and ready to go until it emerged that they had previously started a PhD elsewhere and quit/got kicked out/something like that. The uni receded the PhD and scholarship offer as they felt the person had purposefully mislead about their past.

Please don't use code markdown as quotes or for emphasis. Screen readers will not interpret them correctly. You also don't need to put a note in your question after you edit it. Anyone who cares about the edit history can look at it (and most people don't, they just want to see the question in its best form.)

"I left before I got technically got kicked out".  So... you were NOT kicked out.

@RonJohn I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong in this case, but suppose someone was going to be expelled for plagiarism, but quit first. Would you consider it ethical for them to hide that that fact just because they weren't technically expelled?

@Ray tell the truth, but tell the minimum necessary amount of truth on the CV.  Only when they look at your transcript and ask why you left/changed schools do you tell the whole truth.

I would only mention it as part of your work experience. The Education header in a CV is usually where people put their finished and ongoing studies. Since you have not, and will not ever, actually graduate from your previous program it is essentially just a work experience now.

@ndpl Not the studying in itself, but working for 3 years as a research or teaching assistant would definitely fall under "work experience".

What about including my scholarship as an Award? Should I omit that as well?

When an interviewer wants to know what this three years of "work experience" meant in practice, whatever the OP is trying to hide won't stay hidden for long.

It's pretty common for an applicant to have an otherwise good record but a period where their academic performance was unimpressive. If they were impressive afterwards, I read such an application as "they figured their stuff out". Whether they changed institutions or not is less relevant to me.
I would simply list your former graduate program under "Education" with accurate years (and certainly list your award as well). If you choose to say something honest about that circumstance in your application, frame it however you want (but I do recommend saying that you left the program, rather than were kicked out, because it's accurate and does avoid a red flag phrase). If you choose not to say anything further about it, that's a reasonable choice too (although I suppose many opportunities would want your transcripts from there)—just know what you'll say if asked about it.
Never never lie, of course, and never even write something that's technically true but would be considered as clearly misleading by someone who knew all the facts. But you can choose how to present the truth in a way that reflects best on you—indeed, that's more or less the whole point of a CV or application. And as I said above, it's really not that big a deal to a random CV-reader.

Re: "I would simply list your former graduate program under 'Education' with accurate years": Wouldn't that make it sound like the OP completed the program, with whatever degree the program was for?

There's surely a way to annotate it so it doesn't appear so. Also, the OP's current program will know what degrees they have already, and future readers will have the benefit of the CV listing the current program as another piece of data.

Re: "There's surely a way to annotate it so it doesn't appear so": Oh, certainly. But your phrasing -- "simply [...]", with a few details but no mention of such an annotation -- seems to imply that you're not recommending any annotation. And since the OP's question is specifically about how to include this on their CV, I think you should give some indication of what that annotation would be (preferably even sample wording).

imo, you can easily and unobtrusively indicate that you didn't matriculate by formatting your education section appropriately, e.g., use a table layout where the first column is the school, the second is the years attended, and the third is the degree earned. Simply put a dash or leave a blank for the degree earned at the school where you did not complete the program.

Or maybe something like “[University name]: [Degree Name] 201X-201Y (Incomplete)”.

Our CV is a way to guide the interview/selection procedure to a path were we feel comfortable and gives us the high ground during the negotiation. You should include anything that would make you feel comfortable if the discussion is drawn towards it during the encounter with the company/institution representative.
If you feel that the time you spent there changed you as a professional and added something to your arsenal then you should definitely include it in the corresponding section but be ready for questions. The way you prepare yourself for those questions and the attitude you show when those questions are brought up can definitely turn the tide to your favor.
So, instead of hiding it try to make the best out of it!

This is highly location specific. Some locations require more information than others. It would help if the OP included their location. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curriculum_vitae#Contents

I would include it, and if it gets brought up during an interview I would be honest but obviously try to paint it in a nicer light.
If the job does end up hiring you and does a background check similar to the one my job does (software company) they will find it and rescind the offer. I couldn't believe the things they went through the effort of finding, I had to explain away a job I held for two months in highschool that I didn't disclose (they asked for entire 10 year work history, I omitted that one but included jobs before and after.) They also questioned me about my previous living history, as they found my name and SSN tied to a comcast account at a friends house that I put in my name so her kid could have internet for school (she owed comcast a lot of money) so I had to explain that away as well. They also contacted my college to verify education history (I said I graduated) but somehow they only verified I received a certificate from the university and not an actual degree (I completed a certificate program post graduation, so I had both a degree and certification from there.) so I had to send HR proof of my degree prior to beginning employment.
Since starting here I have heard of two individuals failing their background checks due to not disclosing information. Better honest and asking for forgiveness than dishonest and subsequently asking for forgiveness.

What sort of software company do you work for that requires background checks to that level of detail? Defence contracts or something?


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General idea on how do Committee Members read PhD thesis
The question is divided into two parts and related to the situation like:
Committee gets PhD thesis to read through/give comments/report on it.
Thesis is written based on several publications.
1. What is the chance that Committee members are going through the papers as well as the thesis? For the purpose of comparing/so on...?
2.I am wondering because if they would find that some information which was published looks different in your thesis (reevaluated or even corrected because in the paper there was not-fully-correct data)...how will defense then go and how to turn it to a safe ground?
(P.S. corrections which do not change the main idea and conclusions are still the same. As an example it can be like you corrected the background of your signal in one way for publication,then you realized that it was rather stupid and corrected it in different way. Signal is still there, interpreted the same, but qualitatively Figure looks different.)
Thank you for your answers!

It may well be that some committee members have already read some of the papers.

I think that many, though not all, committee members will try to do a good job, but they may fail. My perspective is mathematics in which a dissertation is very arcane (or can be, anyway) and few people in the world are as well versed in the particular tiny research area as the author, and, perhaps, the advisor. It may be a bit different in some other fields and perhaps wildly different in dissimilar fields.
But people are also busy with their own work and don't have the time or the inclination to learn every part of the background of a given (math) thesis. Many will try to read it, but will get stuck at some point. Questions from those people are likely to be to ask for some explanation of what is going on at the point that they got stuck. If you know your work well, these are fairly easy to answer, though it is possible to give an unsatisfactory, overly pedantic, answer. If you can provide insight about how to continue then you get a win.
But many people, being busy, will just defer to your advisor. This is especially the case if your advisor is a well respected mathematician. A couple of days (maybe hours) before the oral exam, they will go the the advisor and ask: "This is ok, right?". The advisor will assure them that all is well and so they have the confidence to sign off on your work. Proof by Authority, I suppose.
If you think this is cynical, then ask around. I know that it happens, both from being a student and from being an advisor. I won't admit, of course, to that behavior when I was another committee member.
However, as Bryan Krause says, things differ. You may get an eager committee member who has examined your work in detail. If they disagree with it or have a certain sort of personality, you might get uncomfortable questions. You need to give reasonable answers, of course, but you can, I hope also depend on your advisor to serve as your shield from overly critical things. You won't be required to give a perfect answer to every question, but need to demonstrate mastery of the ideas in the thesis and the surrounding micro-field.
But, in particular, you can't be expected to give snap answers to questions that require study and reflection to properly answer. If someone has seen a paper that you don't know about and it seems to say something different from what you have written, then it may take a lot of analysis to see (a) whether there really is a difference and (b) why the different results arose.
My committee was something like the following. My advisor knew everything that I did and he supported the work. Another faculty member was in the same research group and understood it well, but had few questions. But he had the background to follow it without a lot of detail. Another one, I think, just deferred to my advisor. Another who didn't ask questions in the "defense" came to me afterwards and admitted that he couldn't understand it very well (his sub field was different) but he found a few typos and gave me a list.
On the other hand, I heard of a case at the time, possibly apocryphal, in which a candidate in chemistry was denied a degree because the talk mentioned ph throughout. In that place, an external (out of field) examiner was required and that person asked for a lay-person's explanation of ph. The candidate froze up and couldn't answer, though it is a subject studied in first year chemistry. But, the fact that such a story was remembered (or made up) points out how rare such things really are.

What is the chance that Committee members are going through the papers as well as the thesis?

This of course depends on the specific committee members...some may take their jobs more seriously and read in a lot of depth; others may mostly trust the thesis advisor to do that job and simply verify that enough effort has been put in to grant the degree.

As an example it can be like you corrected the background of your signal in one way for publication,then you realized that it was rather stupid and corrected it in different way. Signal is still there, interpreted the same, but qualitatively Figure looks different.)

You should be prepared to explain differences like this at your defense. I might not suggest calling your work "stupid" (although, I would have felt completely comfortable describing it as such to the people on my own committee who were somehow both excellent scientists and living human beings) but research is typically an iterative process. If you changed part of your process at some time during your work, hopefully you did so for a good reason, and you are (hopefully) the best expert in your own work, and you understand and can explain your reasoning better than anyone else.
Adding in the appropriate details:

Signal is still there, interpreted the same, but qualitatively Figure looks different.

is exactly the type of explanation your committee will want to hear at a defense.

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Did Cambridge award LLB?
Please see the titled question.  Like Oxford's, Cambridge's undergraduate and first law degree  is a BA, not LLB. But SCC Justice Ian Binnie exhibits

University of Cambridge (1962) LLB

Andrew Lewis and HK barrister Cheng Huan do too.

He holds an LL.B. degree from Trinity Hall, Cambridge where he also completed a thesis on the legal aspects of boundary disputes between China and the Soviet Union.

Is this a typo?

@Poidah How is a question about academic qualifications not relevant?

The question seemed to be focused on whether these people are seeking to misrepresent themselves. We would never know that.

The Cambridge LLB was a Master's level qualification, which was renamed to LLM in the 1980s in order to avoid confusion with the more widely used meaning of LLB as an undergraduate degree.

To add to the confusion, the Cambridge MA is not an academic qualification at all - basically it confirms your voting rights in the university governance procedures, and has a few nice side effects like lifetime membership of the University Library. https://www.cambridgestudents.cam.ac.uk/your-course/graduation-and-what-next/cambridge-ma

To add to the confusion, before the renaming of the LlB in the 1980s, Cambridge also awarded a higher LlM master's degree in law. There are probably some old-style Cambridge LlMs still aroung.

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Can authors email you for free PDFs of their textbook sold for profit
I'm asking just about textbooks that are sold for profit, not free ones. I know journal authors can email their papers or articles free, but textbook? Is Reddit comment wrong?
I ask all subjects like finance, economics, law, not just science.

Science textbooks. When a scientist gets published, he/she doesn't get any profit if the schools use it. Every textbook I've had hasn't been free, so I just email the publisher and find out one of the names (of whom was published) to email them. Since they get no money, they'll be glad to email you back the entire book, to which you can print off yourself. It's a life hack people should know instead of having to pay thousands for college textbooks. Edit: I did this with my Calculus/Geometry professor in ISU (Indiana State University) and he said that he only got one overall pay for being published with other professors, and that he would be glad to give it to me, as he would all of his students. I'm not lying.

"... he/she doesn't get any profit ..."; that's not (always) true, at e.g. Cambridge University Press, all authors get a small share of each book being sold.

This will strongly depend on the exact licensing deal between the author and the publisher.

is it illegal in the US to download the epub and books by E-mule and Torrent ? i get some books from torrents and Emule

@JoseJavierGarcia - With torrents, you usually download from some people and upload pieces to others. The uploading part would be illegal. I'm not sure if downloading is illegal, but it is probably against university policy for their students.

I am the author of a textbook. The book retails for $50. I get 50cents for every copy sold.
I do not own the copyright on the book and it would be illegal for me to sent you a copy, even if I had a copy to send (I mean, I have the original word documents, but the final PDF looks nothing like that).
The book has been scanned, and when it was not so old I know that copies of it did float around Pirate Bay. I wasn't particularly upset.

One cent on the dollar? Ouch...

Your better off firing them and selling it for $2 as an ebook. Everyone wins.

I’m quite perplexed in the licensing deal established between you and the publisher. I’m asking as someone outside the academic world of publishing, is this the norm? You authored an entire textbook and only 50 cents is remitted for your efforts? Why is this the case?

I'm the co-author with one other author. We each get the same in royalties. The book was the third edition and I was only and author on that third edition. I didn't write for money.  The book was commissioned from us by the publisher, we didn't go to them with a book and ask them to publish it. The book is over 10 years old now and was written in a time when e-textbooks weren't really a thing and typesetting, printing, binding and distributing was a big deal. I don't think our deal was particularly unusual.

1% royalties sounds really poor and well below industry standards. Is it a typo for $5 / copy? That (10%) is much more common.

Textbook authors can be classified into two groups:

Authors who don’t wish for a free PDF of their book to exist online, available via a simple google search.
Authors who wish for an easily searchable, free PDF of their book to exist online.

For the record, I belong to group 2, so I make my book available for download for free from my webpage (with my publisher’s permission) - you don’t even need to email me. But if I belonged to group 1 I would never email someone I don’t know a PDF of my book, even if I were okay with just that one person getting it, since I could not trust them not to share it with others, who would share it with yet more people, essentially guaranteeing that a bootleg copy would end up on the web somewhere.
It may be that some authors belong to group 2 but for one reason or another haven’t made their book available for download for free as I have. Such an author might be okay with emailing a PDF of their book upon request.
It may also be that some authors belong to group 1 but don’t agree with my reasoning that emailing a PDF of their book to a stranger is the same as essentially expecting it to be made available for download online. Such an author may also end up emailing a student the PDF.
But I suspect that the large majority of authors in group 1 wouldn’t grant the email request, for the reason I explained (and/or other reasons, such as respecting their contractual obligations to the publisher, not wishing to forego royalties, and moral disapproval of the request for a free copy).

Getting publisher permission: is that something you have to ask for in advance when you sign your contract with the publisher? and are there certain publishers who typically grant it and others which typically don't?  Just curious how it works...  (I do know I've seen free pdfs of out-of-print textbooks where the author says he "got the rights back from the publisher" - and I always appreciate that when I see it.)

@davidbak I can’t speak to which publishers will let an author distribute their book for free online, but some publishers, under some circumstances, will be okay with it. And yes it has to be agreed to by the publisher and written in the contract.

To make it even worse, some authors in group 1 don’t even want the books in libraries or the table if contents being made available,

@Stevetech that sounds very strange, do you have any examples of authors expressing such sentiments? I cannot imagine why an author would object to those things.

Terry ‘what a twat’ Deary https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/feb/13/libraries-horrible-histories-terry-deary

@DanRomik Good on you for making your knowledge free.

The author's wishes are secondary to the publisher's permission.

@IanKemp People are in the academia business to give away information (for a salary, not entirely for free; but certainly not for a premium on extra information). That's what academia is about. If you want to profit from information differentials, go to industry, law, or the army.

That quote is somewhat wrong.

When a scientist gets published, he/she doesn't get any profit if the schools use it.

The typical book published by a for-profit publisher will generate royalties for the author when sold. (I say typical because there are books that work differently, e.g. they're given away for free or are open access.) These contracts typically tie the amount of royalties to the sales generated. If the publisher offers a discount, the authors get less. If the book is pirated, the authors get nothing. If you're interested in how much, see my answer to that question.
But this statement doesn't say the book is sold, it says "... if the schools use it". In this case, strictly speaking, they indeed don't. If a professor starts using so-and-so textbook for their class, the authors of the textbook indeed get nothing. However if the professor does that, then we can expect the book to sell more copies, in which case the authors indirectly get more royalties too.

Every textbook I've had hasn't been free, so I just email the publisher and find out one of the names (of whom was published) to email them.

Why would anyone need to do this? The names of the authors are not just public knowledge, they're generally on the front cover.

Since they get no money, they'll be glad to email you back the entire book, to which you can print off yourself.

Chances are the author cannot send the entire post-production book (usually - they can if it's open access, a special case, etc). They might be willing to send the draft, however. It will come down to each individual author. They might be happy if they just wanted to be read; others might react as Taylor Swift did when Apple tried asking for her music for free.

In the vast majority of cases: No. It's conceivable that a publisher might allow an author to give away their commercial assets, but unsustainable and rare.
The author's contract assigns the publisher the exclusive right to the text, for use in the book, which is a creation of the publisher. The author is no longer free to give the text to anyone else for the duration of the contract.
Other elements of the book, such as images, or chapters written by others, plus editorial alterations and the typeset design, will not be the author's intellectual property.
With regard to pricing, a typical academic text book breaks down as follows:
50% of the recommended retail price (RRP) goes to the bookseller. Large book chains with clout can negotiate up to 60%. They can discount the retail price from their end, if they wish. Booksellers usually get books 'sale or return', so they can return any unsold stock to the publisher without loss.
Royalties are payable to the authors, usually 8-12% of the retail price, depending on the type of sale and book, and as pointed out in other answers, a team of authors have to share the fraction available. Royalties are usually paid as an advance on the first print run's quantity, so if the book doesn't sell, the authors still get paid.
Royalties are also payable on images used throughout the book: in a large illustrated textbook, these can be considerable.
From the remaining 30% or so, the publisher must pay for printing, distribution, warehousing. The publisher must also pay the editors, designers, salespeople, marketeers and others who work on the book, plus all the overheads of running their business before any profit is collected (probably less than the author's royalty). A publisher 'invests' in the creation of a book and takes the risk of it not selling.

There is no unique answer, as there are dozens of subtleties.
However, in the standard situation on a non-open-access book, if the authors distribute their copies, they are likely to reduce the profit of the publisher and, by the law of most countries, may face legal claims of lost profit from the publishers.
Still, some authors send their PDF on a case-by-case basis (simply to ensure high visibility or because of a personal relationship with the recipient) upon getting an ok from the recipient that they won't distribute the PDF further. I got several books via e-mail this way, and I never distributed any book further.

That sounds like someone conflated a few mechanisms that are unrelated.
If you are working on your own paper, you are expected to cite any relevant work, and being cited improves your own standing, so authors will happily send you a copy of their papers if your university for some reason doesn't have access to the journal it was published in.
Generally if you need access to a paper you'd talk to your local librarian first, and they would check if they have a subscription for the appropriate journal, and emailing the author is a last-resort option. In some universities, that is also handled by the librarians, who will archive a copy in the local library as well then.
For textbooks, that mechanism doesn't work because you are not working on your own papers yet, so there is no direct incentive for authors to bypass the publishers. Some still do that, because having textbooks available to all students streamlines the lectures quite a bit, which produces better evaluations.

Er, who told you that people stop reading textbooks when they start writing papers? And why would a textbook author care about my students' evaluations of me?


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Websites to publish for mathematics and statistics similar to arXiv.org?
What are websites similar to arXiv where there's feedback that one can submit to for Mathematics and Statistics?

Why not use arXiv?

See: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/37976/19607 for some other preprint servers.  I don't know if any of them have a feedback option.

I don't know about statistics, but in mathematics it isn't common practice to post preprints to any website, which has any sort of feedback or commenting mechanism on the site itself. Such sites might exist, but they aren't in common use.


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Which level of sloppiness is forgivable at PhD thesis completion
The question can be really irritating for most of the people and I am sorry for that. Surely, the right answer should be "no inaccuracies, everything should be right!". However, let's take a look at real situation...
...when you realize that you were sloppy PhD student and carrried some experiments in inaccurate way, but there is no time to repeat them again.
You try to explain it in your thesis that the observed effects are still there, just the exact quantification is not clear because of raised issues.
Is it possible still "defend" thesis? You learned from your mistakes how you should not do it in the future and PhD thesis is a qualification work, so...are mistakes forgivable at this position of PhD student?
How to formulate an answer for the defense, which reflects that you understood it was not right what you did and you will do better next time?

Very dependent on different schools, universities, advisors, reviewers, committee members. I don't think it can be answered. Only the advisor will know.

You make it sound personal "you were a sloppy PhD student" when it really is not about who you are as a person or what traits you may or may not have. You should really think about the quality of your results and how they are standing up. The PhD degree is not awarded to confirm you are a certain type person, but to  confirm you did certain type of work.

Might depend on the field a bit and what exactly you mean by sloppy. In my field, there is no such thing as a perfect experiment, and you can always find something to critique in any work. Knowing those limitations is as important as knowing the strengths.

As you describe it, I'd say that it isn't "forgivable" at all.
But, it may be that you sneak through the process and get the degree.
Doctoral research is about extending knowledge, just as is all research. The difference in doctoral research is that you get a certain kind of help and guidance in it and a certain kind of evaluation of your results. Your results don't need to be earth-shattering, but they need to be correct and to extend knowledge in some way.
But in mathematics, if you can't prove the main result, you really don't have anything. I chemistry, if your technique is so sloppy that your results aren't valid, you don't have anything. In biology, if you make certain kinds of sloppy errors but your results are believed, you can kill people.
I question your example, in fact. If your experiments were inaccurate and they show "the observed effect" how do you know it isn't just experimental noise? Every experiment results in something, of course.
But experiments can fail in a lot of ways, just as can mathematical proofs. Sometimes, it is possible that one learns something unexpected from carrying out an experiment and the result gives knowledge that points in some new and valuable direction. The same is true of a failed proof in math. It may give insight into some other ideas that are valuable on their own. But that is very unlikely to result from sloppiness, as the sloppiness itself makes analysis very difficult.
I would guess that trying to finesse it with a committee is likely to fail. Someone will probably object if you just "promise to do better in the future". There is no evidence of that in your past. Passing you would reflect badly on them and on the university. Only luck and the carelessness of the committee will save you in such a situation.
But I'm pretty sure it happens. Rarely, I hope.

Dear Buffy, experiment result contains two components - the one you look for and the background signal. Inaccurate/sloppy experiment is that the background signal may be subtracted incorrect. So, for example, you have the peak on the measurement curve. This curve besides the peak has an additional linear contribution. And the way you subtract it depends on your reference background signal (which could be different due to technical reasons). You can substract whatever you want, the peak remains (this is an effect), but this background correction may be questionable. Hope it is understandable.


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What is the difference between a 'materials and methods' section and an 'experimental procedure' section?
What is the difference between 'material and methods' section and 'experimental procedure' section in a scientific article or report or assignment? Does they differ at all?
Elaboration :
If I'm told to write a scientific article or assignment whose outline contains a 'materials and methods' section and 'experimental procedure' section; should I write 2 separate sections for them? Or should I use a single section (any one of the 2) Because i perceive like introducing both section would make much of the part of assignment redundant because I perceive like 'method' and 'procedure' as very much same thing (don't know if I'm wrong).

If this is an assignment, then ask your professor for clarification.

@Buffy initially it is an assignment but if the professor thinks it is not too bad the they may include it as a publication.

But what are the general conventions for these 2 terms? Are they same?

The differences between the sections can even be different between journals. Have you read any articles for class? Does your professor have a favorite journal s/he has published to? I would try to skim / read some of the articles to find out what the norms are for that community.

okay thanks @Van i am very new to research based academia and I yet studied papers only to find protocols/methods and concepts. I don't remember the professors' favourite journal.

The names of sections tend to be arbitrary. Most fields have some variety of "Methods" section, but some call it different names, some fields allow you to name it whatever you want and no one will complain, some fields use sub-sections, some use the term "materials" and "apparatus" interchangably, etc. For publication this is usually one of those things you either use a set template for which is generic to your style/field, or you play around with during late editing phases trying to decide which organization makes the most sense (and fits any page limit).


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How do you manage to study and have a balance in your life at the same time?
Over the last couple of years, math and programming have become a big part of my life; I know I’ll pursue a career involving CS and math (most probably machine learning) and usually, my days revolve around these two. Now, I do not have a problem with doing either of those things; in fact, I love doing math and programming. I literally can’t tell you how much I enjoy opening my number theory book and tackle difficult problems for hours, or create a neural network that plays a video game. My main issue is the things I miss - since I go to school, I only have so much free time and most of that time is spent doing math or programming so I don’t get to do anything else. No more exercising, reading books, hanging out with friends, etc. On a normal day, I do around 4 hours of math and programming and the rest of it is taking a shower, eating, just basic things, with no time to do fun stuff. So every now and then, I try reducing that 4 hours but I feel like if I study for less than 4 hours a day at least, I won’t be able to be a top tier data scientist or mathematician.
My question is, how do you manage to study and have a balance in your life at the same time? Is that even possible or do you have to sacrifice one in order to achieve the other?
A couple of things to note:

If it matters, I’m in grade 9.
One of the reasons I feel like I have to study at least 4 hours a day is because there are so many things I’m currently studying - for olympiad: number theory, geometry, and algebra; grade 10 math; competitive programming; and machine learning. I don’t study all of these in one day - I usually only do 3 of these a day but even then, if I spend 80 minutes, that’ll take up 4 hours. So maybe stopping doing one of these things is a good option?

Speaking as a former high school student with exactly this problem, the trick is to secretly do what you actually want to do while hiding at the back of the classroom. Frees up six hours a day at least.

While many of the answers below are very good, I feel like there also needs to be at least one answer challenging the "I feel like if I study for less than 4 hours a day at least, I won’t be able to be a top tier data scientist or mathematician" part of the question. If no-one else gets to it first, I'll try to put one together when I have a little longer later...

I'm a university student, and you're pretty much describing my life.

By "grade 9" do you mean secondary eduction such as High School in the United States? Important to note in this context, as most topics on this site address University life.

Not a full answer so I'll leave it here: As far as the exercise part goes, during high school and college I would often read textbooks or books for leisure while on a stationary bike--You get to enjoy reading while also making endorphins and staying fit :)

In my experience, many years later after completing your studies all that remains from the life part is being in a good shape if you're exercising and eating healthy, photos, and memories. Out of those, it is health and fitness that really matter. The knowledge and skills that you gain while studying are a valuable asset that will stay with you for the rest of your life.

What does "grade 9" mean? Not everyone here is from your country (which you have not specified) or familiar with your schooling system.

You don't need to study 4 hours a day to become a top data scientist. You are probably quite a good one already. The main thing here is that you simnply cannot have it all! A day has only 24 hours, We cannot decide for you how to use them, but if I were you, competitive (olympiad) math is the most overhyped thing I've ever encountered! Also, what's the point of studying grade 10 math if you are already going to face it next year anyway?

I'm surprised nobody's talking about networking. It's so damn important, that I wonder if you can even become a top-tier scientist without networking a bit.

At such a young age, please question the credentials and expertise of internet strangers! Measuring happiness and fulfillment of strangers over the internet is a very difficult task

Yes, it matters that you are in grade 9. It is probably a good thing that you are able to do what you like to do (math and computing), but it seems too early to focus yourself quite so much on narrow interests. The problem that might arise is that you get burned out before you are 20 years old with no backup plan for your life and also poor health and no relationships with people. That would be sad.
It is good to work intensely at something, but not quite as good to do so to the exclusion of other things. There is a lot to learn, and you are recognizing that now, at least a bit. In fact, making time for those other things, such as exercise (aerobic especially) and relaxation (reading, talking, ...) can actually make the intense study that you do more effective. At least this is true for most people, though there are exception. But, for most, continuing to push hard against an intellectual problem, say in math, can just waste time and lead to a deeper block, than taking a break. It turns out that, again, for most people, the brain/mind will continue to work on putting connections together when you are engaged in other activities, even sleeping.
But, for someone as young as yourself, I'd suggest that you think about the following priorities. First, your health, both mental and physical. Next, your relationships, both family and friends. Next, getting a lot of experience of different kinds, studying lots of things with deep study of a few of them. You seem to have the deep study part mastered, but may be missing out on the wide experience that can make the deep study more meaningful and also give you options to change direction as you grow older.
It is good to have some direction in your life, but not, yet, a good idea to exclude all other potential paths that you might follow.
As for time management, you can do it formally, or informally. If you joint a sports team or other directed activity, then your schedule will be set for you. But you can also just decide that you will ride your bike for an hour every day - preferably with a few friends. Or you can just decide, even more informally, that when you get stuck on a math problem that you take a walk in the woods for half an hour, or read a chapter in a book. Something to provide a bit of variety.
At a later stage in your life you will be forced by circumstances to specialize in something. It is good if you put that off for a while so that you have the opportunity to make the decision about where to specialize with more background knowledge and experience than you now have.

Returning the favor, good advice on yours as well

Be careful with putting family and friends relationships on the top. There's people that do nothing with their free time, have no personal aspirations and no personal projects and can and will happily add you to their hang out group of people that do nothing else than pass their free time in front of the tv/at the bar with a beer, talking about others, etc. Its ok if you like it, but for some of us these are devoid of value. I'd put family and friends in the position where you see them enough for them to not miss you, but not above your interests. They can and might take all your time.

I agree in general with this answer, but I find it problematic to say that the OP shouldn't go deep into studying any particular topic just because of their age (it feels like you're implying that, please do correct me if I've misinterpreted). If the OP is really interested, I think it is more than reasonable to dedicate time and effort towards studying the subject if they truly feel rewarded by the experience (and it isn't a chore), treating it much like a hobby. Getting too absorbed isn't good of course, but not getting absorbed enough isn't good either.

@YiFan, I think a small misinterpretation, anyway. I recommend only not going into one subject to the exclusion of all else. Getting a broad education early gives you more flexibility as you grow and mature. See the first sentence of the second paragraph for the emphasis.

@Oxy I would not call people like that friends.... Familiy can be toxic, but if they are not quite often these are the people that will support no matter what. You describe a quite bitter view, this is not how I can see things, but everyone and their circumstances are different.

@KamiKaze I'm not saying that everybody is like this. It's just a note to add nuance to the blanket statement of putting family and friends before your aspirations. I personally think it's important to keep in touch and keep them happy, but some people do not reciprocate, don't seem to understand that free time can have much more value for some people when spent growing/making/learning than just hanging out and going to the beach and the bar. In those cases I'd put them at most at the same level. It can be hard to balance attention given to slightly toxic people that you love.

Time management and reasonable expectations.  You need to determine what, specifically, your goals are, and why.  It sounds like you enjoy what you are learning, but you are letting learning take over other aspects of your life.  This is bad almost always.  Here are my suggestions:

You shouldn't be studying everything every day.  This is for many reasons, but one of them is that you literally will learn better if you don't.  Our brains need time to process and contextualize information.  This is why sometimes leaving a problem for a while and coming back to it leads to a solution you didn't see before.  Say you drop one thing per day, so now you're only doing 2 per day, not 3.  That frees up an hour and 20 minutes per day, and it gives you time to think.
With the free time, again, prioritize.  You will now have about an hour to do something else.  Perhaps you choose to exercise three times per week, do some de-stressing (read, play a game) twice per week, and see friends twice per week.  Don't try to do it all at once.

Finally, we get to reasonable expectations.  Regardless of your age, excelling at something is not equivalent to doing it as much as possible.  Practice doesn't make perfect - it makes permanent.  That means a few things:

If you are practicing the wrong thing, you get really good at making mistakes.
If you spend all of your time learning things in isolated fields, you will become a walking book.
It's not what you put in that matters, it's what you get out.

Point 3 bears more discussion.  Just because you are implementing algorithms doesn't mean you are learning anything.  If I play the piano but I stick with pieces I've played since I was 6, I don't get better at piano.  Choose to focus on very challenging problems.  For instance, if your algorithm can play flappy bird for 2 minutes without failing, what, specifically, is required to get it to play for 10% longer?  Are you focusing on really solving the problems, or are you just using someone else's code and seeing what happens?  If it's the latter, don't waste your hour and twenty minutes, it won't help you in your goal.
Top-tier scientists in machine learning (for example) understand both the algorithms they work on as well as the problems they are trying to solve.  They are technical experts, but that doesn't mean that they are hermits working away forever without any access to the outside world.  Having a passion is important, but don't become your passion - be a well-rounded person with exceptional expertise.  This means that you will need to accept that your progress will be slower than it could theoretically be if you only dedicated yourself to your studies.  I assure you that every "top-tier" researcher I've ever encountered has had something that isn't their central problem to solve.
I think that's one of the things you will need to set an expectation for.  You seem to think that it is impossible to be a top-tier researcher if you don't exclusively focus on your studies.  Try...not doing that, as I suggested above, and really, honestly evaluate your progress.

Well, I can't upvote my own, so I'll upvote yours. Good advice.

+1 for mentioning about becoming a walking book. Nowadays, there seem to be too many people who learn things but can't apply those in real life.

@David: ah, yes of course.  Edited, and thanks

To add on to the other two excellent answers, I want to say that you perhaps are putting too much on your own plate.

number theory(for olympiad and not applied), geometry(again, for olympiad), algebra(olympiad again), grade 10 math, competitive programming and machine learning

This is way too much to learn at the same time, especially since you are still going to school. Even undergrad students don't do so much at the same time: they might take a few classes on different topics concurrently, sure, but they have the luxury of time. All or most of the classes they take will be on these topics that they are studying, which I bet isn't the case for you.
I would suggest picking one thing to do at once, and doing it well. You can't learn effectively within time constraints if you're doing five different topics at the same time. Your brain needs time to digest new information that is learnt, and you have to give it space to do so. If your brain has no space to breathe, you'll not learn effectively, not to mention that it will (needlessly) take away time from other things in life while not giving you anything good to make up for it.
In addition, don't just study a topic because you feel like you "should" (e.g. because that's what's tested in Olympiads), do it because you like it. Try out a bunch of different things and try to see what you like, instead of doing it for the sake of doing it. If you already have a strong passion for everything you're currently doing, great! Keep that up and also be on the lookout for other things on the horizon. Otherwise, find a passion in one particular item and stick to it for a while. (Note: I'm not suggesting that you abandon everything else, but you can't do everything at once. Focus on this one thing that seems interesting at the moment for a while at least--perhaps a few weeks. But don't get sucked in so much that you ignore everything else.)
Practically: don't feel "obliged" to study four hours a day, in the fields that look like you "have to" study. Just pick one thing you like, and do it as a hobby. Stick to it for a while, but it you ever get disinterested, don't be afraid to switch. You'll come out liking math better, and you'll be much better at it too (ironically). Be careful not to get absorbed, or it will suck away the rest of your life, as you observed!

A couple of ther points to consider, at least from my own experience.
1) "Study" has diminishing returns, at least in programming-related things.  It's much more efficient to focus on understanding broad principles, and on where to look up the details when & if you need them.
2) Your mind will function a lot better if it's in a healthy body.  And a corrolary to this is that I do some of my best problem-solving when I'm out hiking, cross-country skiing, or doing other physical things.  The subconscious part of your brain will do a better job of integrating the things you've studied if your conscious mind is doing something else. Or else it's just increased blood flow to the brain :-)

It seems like you know at least as much CS/math as the average sophomore in college, and you're only in grade 9. You're well on your way to being a top-tier data scientist/mathematician... spending 4 hours a day right now isn't at all necessary. I'd recommend picking the subjects you enjoy the most and studying for roughly 2 hours.

To add on to the fantastic answers: while some of the topics that interest will stay the same (i.e. math), the 'popular' topics may change (i.e. machine learning). It is absolutely fantastic that you are practicing so young, but do not burn yourself out on a topic that may look very different in 3-5 years (i.e. by the time you are in the midst of university). It is a skill in and of one's self to be adaptable.
For example, widespread 'popular' machine learning started in about 2013/2014 (although it had been in development long before that). In another 5-10 years, there will likely be another 'popular' field (that may be describable with combinations like 'data chemist', 'deep biologist', 'data engineer for economics', etc) which may be attractive to you. So, read carefully what others are saying: while it is certainly advantageous to have a foundation in mathematics, computer science, etc., the problem you apply it is also immensely important.
What parts about life interest you? Do you like history? Perhaps you'd like to analyze historical records for trade trends, or map historical routes using satellite sensors that pierce into the earth. Do you like study the human body? While we have the most advanced medical interventions the world has known, the cause of many diseases remain completely unknown (search 'Neglected Tropical Diseases'). Perhaps you are more interested in art? Well, there is a large section of chemistry and materials engineering trying to figure out how to better preserve the historical objects in museums.
Your intense efforts so young are commendable and will likely pay off, but remember that many great researchers make achievements through passion about the subject (not to mention a heavy dollop of being in the right place at the right time). So read broadly! Examine your interests! Be open to change, and accept that your interests will likely change over time.

My opinion differs somewhat from the current answers (which primarily focuses on doing less and exploring more), which is why I'm writing an answer to perhaps balance things out a bit.
Some context. I worked pretty hard when I was 15 to end of 16 (I'm in Singapore which follows roughly the UK GCSE system so providing the specific age is probably more helpful here) in preparation for the O level national exams. That single exam determines your high school choices, which may affect your A level exams (at age 18), which affect your university choices, etc. So yeah, stakes were high. I was pushing myself to the point where I had my notes almost everywhere I go, to pull out and read whenever. This include family dinners, toilets, buses, you name it. I photocopied my notes so I can fold some and keep in my pockets at all times. That was more than 10 years ago, so looking back, these are my thoughts.
First, the pros. If you persist with this for long enough, everything else is going to feel like a breeze later on. You'll see people complaining about their long 9-6 hours and you'll go lol in your head. It translates into a strong work ethic, if only because you'll feel guilty about "wasting" time. You'll be really good at picking out lost time packets, those 5-15 minute chunks that people just dismiss. These obviously manifest itself into academic (and probably career) success later on, because what felt hard to others in terms of time devotion feels easy to you. A similar concept applies for jobs with long working hours (e.g. investment bankers, lawyers, doctors, when they're at the junior level), in that everything that comes after is going to feel trivial when compared to how hard they had to push themselves previously.
Second, early childhood academic success frequently leads to a higher self-esteem and greater confidence in what you can do and achieve. You're probably still going to feel self-conscious about your looks and stuff, but that positive feedback loop of working-hard=>achievement-praise-directly-related-to-hard-work (which apply in schools but may not in workplaces) is probably going to give you that assurance that so long as you work at it, you can achieve whatever you want. That you're good enough, and all that is lacking is work that you have the proven ability to commit to and deliver. This makes things like learning new hard subjects and skills easier and so likelier for you, which comes in handy. Career switches, esoteric subjects you need for your major/job, or just trying out skiing for the first time, it's fairly generic.
Third, and this is a point that may invite some disagreements. It's easier for you to commit to such a schedule now, when your life is simpler. I presume you don't have to worry about food, accommodation, you have splendid access to a pool of people from which it is very easy to make friends (school, common interests, stuck together during most of the day), and you kind-of only have one thing to do now to obtain "success", namely study. It's harder in the future when success is far more ambiguous and you find yourself having to perform well on several axes all at once, not all of which is evident to you until you learn it the hard way. So if you don't work hard now, it isn't going to be easier to work hard, or to figure out what to work hard on to get what you want later on.
So, yup. My advice would be this: Continue to do what you do. Never feel guilty about spending too much time working. (honestly, crucify me but I really don't agree otherwise. When you're 30 and neglecting your family and kids, sure. When you're 15 and healthy and your family members are healthy and there's a positive feedback effect in how success compounds itself in life? Err, no, clearly not.) Go all out for it. Put in your best shot. Exploit your potential to the max, never hold back. Know that what you have, is precious. Guard this motivation, defend it jealously, and exploit it fully. It will not last forever.
But.
Take note of the cons. Mitigate them somewhat, in an efficient manner. There's this maximisation-satisfaction idea, that you spend enough time and effort to satisfy some stuff, and then spend the remaining to maximise your performance in something else, in this case your work.
So, what to satisfy. This is obviously a non-exhaustive list, so be open to the fact that there will be others and look out for them, but otherwise here it goes.
First, your family. I don't have much information to work with, with regards to your family practices, so I'll just throw out a few. Try to spend time with them efficiently. Optimise for fully interactive activities that involve all, so you clear them all at once. Things like family dinners with everyone, somewhere nearby since the transport process isn't efficient for interactions. Talk to them more if you don't mind, your time is spent anyway so make the most out of it. Avoid things like long drives, movies, you know what I mean, the less efficient ones. Try to go for at least one proper dinner like this once a month. Or even family board games night, whatever works for your family. By the way, in case this is taken wrongly, I don't mean you spending this time as a checkbox thing. Genuinely interact with them. Have the mindset that you want to spend time with them, but time is limited so you'll make the best out of every second, instead of thinking of it as clearing a quota.
Second, your classmates and friends. Now, there are several time periods in school that is inefficient for studying, but optimal for such interactions. Things like recess, physical education classes, that sort. Make full use of them, drop those books then (maybe, decide for yourself which sessions are worth doing so or you want to do so) and commit fully to your friends and classmates. Again, see mindset from family, same thing here. Make friends, make new friends, but never feel obliged to go for stuff that you don't want. It's just going to breed resentment, you're going to hit the books harder because of the guilt and frustration, you'll be inefficient because of that, and yeah it just goes down from there. It's not worth it. You matter. Your choices, your decisions matter. Your time is yours, nobody has a right to them. Nobody. So, commit mostly only to those you want to go (but try to make your word count. Say no a lot right from the start, I know peer pressure, but trust me it's better than bailing later). I assure you, people care about your presence far less than you think. So, don't worry about it.
Third, physical health. Meh, you'll be fine, combine it with the friends time (or even family if they like that kind). PE lessons, go all out for it. Go for (some) badminton/soccer/whatever outings, you satisfy your friends/family along with physical health. Otherwise, it's mostly k, take care of your eyes, get a bigger monitor so you can increase font size/print your notes in larger font. People are going to ask why, they're going to say it's unnecessary, you're wasting paper/money. Whatever, ignore them, your eyes are worth way more. Distance matters a lot, try to increase it. Avoid strongly studying in low light. Also take note of your posture when studying.
Fourth, mental health. I split this from physical because it is important, even though you may not realise it now. You have to spend some time doing what you like. For yourself, not for others, not because it's efficient, not because it satisfies whatever. For yourself. Obviously don't take it to the extreme, but an hour a day on average is ok. On average, so if you're spending half a day gaming on a weekend, yeah that cuts into the rest. Two points here. First, this guy gets a free pass. If you need to extend, so be it. Console yourself by thinking that you'll be more efficient if you're motivated, and you'll be more effective. What's the difference? Being more efficient means you spend less 15-second blocks staring at the blank wall because you're bored. Being more effective means when you encounter a problem that you can solve but it reminds you you're not actually that familiar with a particular concept, you go to your book and read that section, rather than subconsciously dismissing it (you can solve it, right?). It matters quite a bit to your overall performance, more than what you might imagine, and happens more than you think. Be aggressive about filling in the gaps, but know when it's a fruitless time-sink and cut losses then.
Second point, see the above time spent on family/friends? Try to combine them, so you try to go for stuff that you genuinely enjoy, and avoid stuff that you don't. Think of it as a freebie. Viola, free time yo. Of course, if your family really wants to try that mexican restaurant but you hate mexican food, do it once in a while still.
Finally, explore other academic areas with a view on ensuring that you're not pigeon-holing yourself due to your interests. It's far too easy to say oh maths is really good as a college major/career choice, and incidentally I like maths. The former may be true, but you need to be aware that you're just rationalising here (but, the former may be true, so don't just dismiss). I'm not going to pretend that I know what the requirements for a top-tier data scientist 20 years down the road is going to need (although it sure as hell isn't geography or literature), so try to talk to some people who are in that field. Be aggressive about asking, put yourself out there, so long as you're genuine and nice and polite people will be ok with it. Send them a thank-you message/email after. Think of it as free advice, just grab it whenever you have the chance. Three points here. First, don't place too much weight on what your teachers say, they're detached from the job market, and many may never have even tried to get into industry, so they haven't gone through the what-are-they-looking-for search at all. Second, don't place too much weight on a singular person, no matter how esteemed. Obviously weight it by who they are, but don't place all your bets on a single horoscope reading (because predicting the future is). Third, trust yourself. If it smells like rubbish, it *probably is, even if that someone assure you it's not. Unless it's a few, in which case do some research on your own. Also, don't pigeon-hole yourself into single careers. Explore a bit, try more if it's fun, especially if it's assessed in your exams. Might as well.
That about sums it up from me. In direct response to your questions, yes studying for less than 4 hours isn't going to exclude you from whatever circles you wish to join. Still, if pretending that that is true helps in motivating you, go ahead. Some circles are quite competitive. No, I don't think you should drop any. If you like them, go for it. They're all really useful skills that scale very well. Number theory is highly abstract and that mathematical mental framework helps in making many college-level maths subjects easier to gain a deep understanding, I *think, depending on which level you're at. At a high school or US non-grad college level, yes it's quite transferable. Geometry scales well up to and incl college physics/maths, algebra scales to when you die, competitive programming and optimisation helps you understand OS/systems stuff at a deep level, machine learning is the new black (and everyone's wearing black, which is bloody annoying but whatever). By the way, and I don't mean to burn the US here, but you need to be aware that US standards for maths and related is kind of low. To put things in perspective, the singapore PSLE maths exam (which is taken at age 12) is comparable/harder than the SAT maths. Like, it's obvious it is, I'm not exaggerating. So, yeaaaaah. You can go a lot further, it's k, you're probably/definitely not so far ahead that you should stop.
Trust, but verify. You're a really mature and intelligent individual, your weakness is probably in experience. So trust yourself in the calls you make, but verify with some people whose opinion you trust. Some, not just one/a few, otherwise there's a tendency for selection bias. But make the call yourself, and bear the consequences yourself, you'll be fine. Dare to ask, many people (as you may have realised here from my long story) have too much time on their hands and are too eager to spew their hard-earned bullshit to anyone who would listen. So ask, accept first, and then verify, through personal research and perhaps asking others.

Does anyone look back on their life and say “If only I had studied more” [maybe a school drop-out would say that, but certainly not OP], “If only I had worked more”, “If only I had earned more”, “If only I had been promoted more”? I think it’s a bad idea to waste ones best and healthiest years on a career.

Citation needed for the second point

If you haven't built relationshipss at 15, you probably won't be able to do it at 30 anymore

This answer needs more upvotes. Studying at an early (middle-high school) age is not something that should be shamed upon or that people should be discouraged from, having a variety of benefits (which this excellent answer touches on). Young people (like OP) need to take note not to have it suck up the rest of their life, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with working hard in studying.

most of that time is spent doing math or programming so I don’t get to do anything else. No more exercising, reading books, hanging out with friends, etc.

So, this is bothering you, on one hand, but you're drawn to go on studying, on the other hand. Consider helping your balance of motivation by adding some kind of "pull" from the non-study activities side.
For example, if there's some kind of group activity you could participate in, and you took on some sort of responsibility (e.g. simple and maybe-irrelevant example - you're the person who brings the ball to a soccer game), or be in a situation where other people depend on your attending - that should help pull you away from your studies to some extent. Or - you enroll in some group at a community or sports center, e.g. sports, theater, film or whatever: You will have officially committed to it, and although you won't be formally penalized if you don't show up, that commitment has its psychological effect.
These two examples also demonstrate how setting time-slots may help you. You don't have to make the decision "I'll stop studying now" every single time, you're just deciding on a schedule once.

One thing to add to the other, great answers is that it's also important to back off sometimes in order to see how much effort you actually need.
When we're passionate enough to want to work at the highest level, it's easy to act on that by filling every hour.
But of course, if you think about it more objectively, that may or may not be best.

As a serious student, don't forget it is a genuine question to ask if you might do equally as well - or rather well enough - with less time.

You might try taking one topic or activity and cutting back it's clock time slowly
and see if you can't actually maintain the growth or success you want.

There are about seven great answers to this question, so there is not a lot to add here, but still, I find this 3500+ year old quote quite interesting to mention.

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Religious matters aside, I think it's critical to take one day per week off, distracting yourself with other matters (family, friends, sports, games, hobbies...). The main reasons are those stated in previous answer (your brain needs resting and operating in "subconscious mode"). This will also give you time to build your relationships with other people and/or to exercise.
Still, I think once a week is probably not enough. At least two more times a week it is good to have a couple resting hours to dedicate to these activities, but anyway this is up to you. You have to figure out yourself what works and what doesn't, because it's different for each of us!

Don't worry, if you study 2-3 hours a night instead of 4 hours a night, I guarantee that you WILL be top-tier in your field. I can also pretty much guarantee that if all you do is study and practice, you will NOT be top-tier. Your life will suffer in ways you do not currently understand. To torture some AI terms: you are overfitting. You are obsessing about a local minima and missing the larger picture that contains a more global minima. I suggest watching Are you GETTING AFTER IT too hard - Jocko Willink
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LWPC-jaqkY
You are a human, programming machines. You are not a machine. Take time to be human.
It's awesome that you are so intrigued and dedicated to your studies :)

Just wanted to point out your sentence that states: "I won't be able to be a top-tier data scientist or mathematician if I don't study this much every day." This is unfortunately true, unless you're a da Vinci level genius.
I would recommend re-evaluating your goals. Do you really need to be top-tier? You can be mid-tier and get an excellent job that pays well and has benefits. Keep in mind that the harder you work to get to the top, the harder you'll likely have to work at the top, as the most "successful" people generally work very long hours and sacrifice things like fun and family.
As Michael says in his comment, don't waste your life on your career. Put time into it, but don't make it your everything. It's important to diversify what brings you joy and validation and self-worth so if one thing falls through, you won't be totally devastated and depressed.

"This is unfortunately true" no, it is not. There is especially no necessity to start so early in one's life.


text:
What is the most likely cause of short, quick, and useless reviews?
My theoretical computer-science paper that I submitted to an Australian (i.e., located in Australia this year) B-level (according to http://portal.core.edu.au/conf-ranks) DBLP-listed computer-science conference was accepted 4 weeks later, but the reviews are short:

5 sentences (accept)
2 sentences (accept)
3 sentences (reject)
3 introductory sentences + 3 sentences noting weak points + 3 sentences noting strong points (borderline)

All four reviews are superficial. They partially contradict each other. The buzzwords and phrases that occur there are: well organized, good presentation, minor format errors, sound results, no theorem proofs, highly relevant, well written, convincing, weak motivation, no empirical study, no clear justification of the contribution, only theoretical analysis, no explanation of contribution, no clear structure, results useful for practicioners and theoreticians.
There is nothing beyond these high-level claims in the reviews: no page numbers, no section numbers, no quotations, no citations, no related work, no examples/counterexamples. None of the reviews substantiates any of its claims.
It's the first time I get this kind of reviews. Usually, I get longer and deeper reviews that show that the reveiwers understood the technical contents of the submission at least a bit beyond the abstract and that elaborate on a technical level at least a little bit.
My questions are:

What is the likely cause of such short and useless reviews?
Is the conference really serious? (The paper submission site stayed open long after the formal submission deadline.)
Are my concerns groundless? Is what happened normal for B-level Australian conferences?
Is there any way to extract more information, say, by writing the PC chair(s)? If so, how do I formulate the message, or even what do I ask? Or is it better to keep silent and be satisfied with acceptance?

The proceedings will be handled by IEEE Conference Publishing Services.
I know that the exact answers might be hard to tell, so I'd be happy with answers based on well-informed guesses.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

The basic idea is simple: reviewers have no incentive to write good reviews apart from their desire to see the conference succeed. Seeing an abundance of short, superficial reviews with a high acceptance rate indicates a low quality conference.
An alternative explanation might be that this is a non-archival conference, often referred to as a workshop. In that case reviewers mostly care about the general problem the paper presents and whether it sounds interesting/relevant. Program chairs are usually those who go through the papers to see what fits (and there’s a small number of submissions).
If it’s not a workshop, the program committee/organizers aren’t well-respected researchers, and they charge you a lot of money in registration fees, I’d consider retracting.

Agree in general except that the sentence "reviewers have no incentive to write good reviews apart from their desire to see the conference succeed." is false. Sub-reviewers at least have no incentive to make the conference succeed. Why would they?

Sub-reviewers are not reviewers. They are often assigned by a reviewer (or program committee members as they're called sometimes), and do a good job because they're beholden to the reviewer (reviewer is advisor/mentor/friend etc.). Reviewers/PC members are selected and can choose to say no (I say no to conferences I don't enough care about all the time), and are almost never paid.

@Spark, "Sub-reviewers are not reviewers. "--- They certainly are in the context of this question. OP has concerns about the reviews he got. It is highly reasonable that the reviews were written by sub-reviewers not PC members.

My field is statistics and I know that in computer science conference publications have a different (higher) standing than in statistics, so what I write may only be marginally relevant. However, I would distinguish between the high level conferences with top-level high impact publications and high rejection rates, and conferences that are in the first place there in order to foster exchange and scientific discussion, where results are also published but not aiming at particularly high impact. In statistics this is the norm rather than the exception. It doesn't mean at all that the conference is "not serious" - it may still be a fine conference. However it won't give your paper a high impact. If that's not what you're after (and I have no idea whether your paper is of a standard that would allow you to aim high), you could well be fine with that conference (of course I can't know for sure not knowing the conference). I don't believe, by the way, that any conference will have negative impact on your CV. Zero is the worst that can happen, unless you boast about that conference as if it was the pinnacle of anyone's career.
As for explanations, it may be that they use a small pool of reviewers whom they send several papers with very tight deadlines. Then that's what you get. Not top level practice but not necessarily a sign for a crappy conference either.

The fact that the conference is on an international rotation makes it at least decent. The issue here is the quality of the feedback and the frustration that the feedback has not provided more direction in your work. Unfortunately this happens. It could be the reviewer of your particular section. It could be that the conference organisers discouraged or made decent feedback difficult (as others have remarked here).
Maybe focus on getting more feedback and support at the conference itself? Write to presenters and people attending about your work. Organise a time to meet them. Attend relevant preconference workshops. These skills are important in developing collaborations and opportunities even if you are going to leave academia. Hopefully they would be happy to help and give your issues some thoughts and suggestions.
Slamming the conference and conference organisers is poor form. It could be that the conference is run by and managed by emeritus professors and this is their retirement gig. It could be that it is not as rigorous as other places. But you have to make do with the situation as it is rather than what you would like it to be. Plan to exit and platform out of your toxic environment as quickly as you can.

What is the likely cause of such short and useless reviews?

This depends on the field I guess, but:

People being reviewers in multiple venues with large numbers of submissions - not enough time to do proper reviews.
People not taking their duty as a reviewer seriously enough (which also relates to...)
Lack of oversight/meta-review by PCs / PC chairs / editors of reviewers' reviews.
Reviewers not having the necessary background actually review the work.
A scathing argument for rejection which renders a detailed review of the rest of the work irrelevant (at least in the reviewer's view) <- although that should not be useless

I agree mostly with Spark's answer, but let me give my own bits:

The conference is not a good one. A B-level conference (based on CORE) means a not a very good conference. A B-level journal is not that bad, but for a conference the situation is different. That is, it is futile to have papers in B-rated conferences. Remember also that ratings start with A*, A and only then B. So a B-level means third-rate!

Conclusion: There is no reason in my view to submit to a conference which is not A* or A-rated since:

You get meaningless reviews like you did.
It does not contribute to your reputation (looks bad on CV).
It doesn't contribute to your research (in most cases you won't meet anyone to cooperate with in a B-rated conference, unless they are also doing uninteresting research).
It is better to submit to a good journal.


text:
My teachers refused my BSCS thesis proposal. Were they legit?
When I was a computer science student at my university, I wanted to delve into the code of operating systems. I was (and still am) attracted to such software and hoped for a course project that allowed me to add or modify some code to it.
Unfortunately such course project never happened, so I thought that maybe I could do something similar in occasion of my BSCS thesis.
Once I completed all my courses, I started googling the web looking for a specific topic or argument about OS to discuss for my thesis.
After some searching, I found a thesis discussed by a MS graduate in computer engineering: it was about operating systems reliability.
More specifically, this thesis discussed an implementation of a monitor that could detect faults triggered by faulty device drivers due to their bad programming. The candidate implemented this monitor by modeling a finite-state machine of the disk device driver and then implementing
the monitor based on such FSM with a specific scripting language. Finally, the candidate measured the overhead introduced by
this monitor of his creation.
This thesis impressed me and I hoped that I could do something similar, so I started asking my operating systems and computer
architecture teachers about it.
In particular, I consulted these two teachers of mine:
Teacher 1: this teacher taught me the lab part of the computer architecture course, where I programmed in assembly language and
even made an (simple) exercise about I/O programming. He also taught me the fundamentals of I/O like interrupts, isolated-I/O, memory-mapped-I/O
and I/O ports.
When I showed him the thesis I found, he said that such a thesis was possible only for computer engineering students for the following reasons:

There's hardware;
The computer engineering programme has more credit hours of operating systems than CS does;
Knowledge about automation is required.

Despite these reasons, I explained him that I found the knowledge required for interpreting this thesis on the Tanenbaum's
computer architecture book that we used to study during our CA course, but then he replied me that "Computer engineers students study from the Tanenbaum's
books too". Then I recalled him the exercise about I/O programming and the fundamentals about I/O he taught me and said
"That's just to show".
Teacher 2: this teacher is a computer engineer, from his BS all the way up to his PhD and teaches the computer architecture and operating systems course.
When I showed him the thesis, he said that I couldn't do anything similar because it was more hardware-related. He then said

"If you were going to develop a gps navigation software, would you care about the computer on which this software will be run?"

I was to reply with a "Yes" but he immediately changed the example:

"If you were going to develop a gps navigation software, would you care about the shock absorbers?"

I was going to reply with a "No, since the shock absorbers do not provide any relevant information about geolocalization" but I preferred not to rebut.

"In order to develop such a thesis, you need to know everything about the device. This is the reason why such thesis can be discussed only by electrical engineers"

he said, but when I pointed out that the thesis was made by a MS graduate in CE he replied

"The candidate of this thesis is a liar!".

In the end of the conversation, before I left his room, he stated that

"Java is taught to CS students because they must not know what's underneath it!".

With this thread, I don't want to blame these two teachers of mine, I only want to know if there's something questionable about what they said to me. Were they thoroughly right?
Since then, I've made searches on the web and found projects and even theses of CS students that were about device drivers development.
I feel that I could have done such a thesis but my teachers weren't skilled enough about that topic. But am I right?
I'm not a CS educator, and this is the reason why I've written this thread: I want to know your opinions.

This is much more a rant than a question.

In the 1970's I became project leader for the core of a proprietary operating system, including I/O and device drivers. I had a master's degree in CS, no computer engineering education. Of course, I had to learn on the job, but that is normal.

I expect your teachers know about the specific requirements of the research component of your degree, and they understand it to mean more of a focus on software. At other universities the requirements may differ, which is why you've found theses of computer science students with more of a hardware focus.

At my university the rule was "They have to give you a thesis, but they have to right to decide the topic". So, there are two possibilities, either your topic was just not in their field of interest. Which is ok, why should they provide time and resources to further a topic not of interest?
The other explanation is, that your topic is not "hard enough" in a scientific sense. So if it is too easy, like "i just wanted to delve into code and do something" then it usually is not scientific enough. Research has to further the known area in some kind of way. Just doing what everyone before did is not enough for a degree.
That said, i highly doubt that the professors are not skilled enough for the topic. I rather suggest, they know enough not to waste time on that topic. That other students on other universities did these thesis does not really say anything. It all depends on the time, the place and the area of interest of the professor, the student, the research and everything around.
The way i would propose to handle this, is to ask them what they would offer you knowing what you would like to do. Maybe there are topics interesting to both sides.


text:
Interview for a faculty position after accepting a postdoc offer
I recently talked with a professor about his offer to me a postdoc position. Later on I was notified about an interview for a tenure-track faculty position. So, I am wondering, if I have accepted the Postdoc offers, can I still proceed with the faculty position interview? I don't want to lose the postdoc offer, and also the opportunity of the faculty position. How should I deal with the situation without causing any ethic issues?

Are you saying you accepted the post doc offer, or just talked about it?

Officially I haven't got the offer because the professor is also concerned if I can stay with him for a long time of period. If I accept the offer, does that mean I have to quit my job searching?

How long is the post doc position for? When would the faculty position start? Sometimes the academic hiring process is slow and one would expect to be applying for jobs around the time you start another one (during the post doc years).

If you haven't yet accepted an offer you can search and evaluate other offers freely. If you get an offer but haven't accepted it, that doesn't change. But ethically you should cease efforts after you accept an offer unless you also ask the PI to let you explore something that might be better. That puts you at risk of having the offer withdrawn, of course and bad feelings all around. And accepting an offer may be legally binding in some cases, depending on various things.
But until you accept an offer, even if it is offered, you are still free to explore all options. It is actually wise to do so.
In the current situation, if I understand it correctly, the professor may not be able to make you an offer adequate to your needs. In such a case it is more important that you keep your options open.

"ethically you should cease efforts after you accept an offer.." -- usually yes, but a postdoc is always looking for the next job, because the current one is temporary.

My understanding of the norms in academia is that tenure-track and tenured positions are generally accepted to be rare opportunities, and that taking those if offered is the right thing to do. As such, it is perfectly acceptable to attend an interview for a tenure-track position, and to accept it if offered, even if one has already accepted a conflicting postdoc. In such case one should, however, be apologetic to the snubbed postdoc mentor, and do ones best to minimize the inconvenience to them.

+1, and I'd add to this: once a tenure-track offer is in hand, it can sometimes be deferred for a year or more, if the candidate wants to take up a good postdoctoral opportunity first.

I have a suggestion that might win you the best of both worlds. Why not accept the postdoc position for a fixed term, say for 6 months or 1 year as convenient to all parties. Then, in case the tenure track position works out, you can always give (or negotiate) a join date for right after you finish your postdoc position. The additional experience of a postdoc just before you start a faculty position can be invaluable for getting a smoother transition from being a graduate student to being a professor.

This might not work for teaching-oriented institutions.  They are hiring because they need somebody to teach.

Sure. Even so, might not hurt asking about what kind of buffer is available before joining.

My 2 cents (alas no guarantee for success because it depends on the externals as well).
It depends a bit on the professor, but they are academics and they know the game. I would be frank and open to them. Everybody knows a ternure-track is a superb opportunity for someone at postdoctoral level.
I think the main thing here is to see what the time scales are (and I think it is ok to ask the other group what their expectations on the duration of the process are).
If it's short, you may arrange with the postdoc-prof that you take some time to think about the acceptance, or you could ask the other group to delay the hiring a bit. It's a long-term position anyway so funding running out is probably not an issue. Also, they probably have to take into account that people move in from far away, needing them to organise stuff which takes time. This meanse there could be some time in their process that you could use to get a decent postdoc job done.
If it's going to take half a year to a year, you can just start the postdoc and happily continue the application process.
Yes, this could get the offer withdrawn but starting a search is quite some work as well so if you and the professor have a cooperative attitude finding a solutions should be doable.


text:
Review conference papers under supervisor name
I work as a researcher in a private company and my supervisor, who was previously working as a university professor, asked me to review papers for a conference he's co-organizing. He mentioned the review will be under his name.
Is it normal for a researcher with a PhD to review papers without any type of exposure in return? Do you have tips on how to proceed? I have to mention that I come from a different field.

In my experience practices around this vary considerably, between "this is completely normal" to "this is an unthinkable breach of ethics". I recommend talking to trusted colleagues (not your supervisor, whose opinion on the topic is fairly clear through their actions) about whether this is considered acceptable in your field or not. If it turns out that this is uncommon or considered unethical in your field, you may want to approach the supervisor directly and state that you are not comfortable with the arrangement that part of your duty is to review papers in their name. However, I would honestly only suggest doing this if you feel rather strongly about this issue and you have a working relationship where concerns can be raised without fear of fallout. Yes, every working relationship should be like that, but if observing this forum for many years has taught me one thing it is that not all supervisors actually act like that.
Some further considerations:

I wouldn't over-value the exposure one gets from reviewing papers. It's not 0, but realistically the benefit is small enough that it would not seem a worthy hill to die on in case the supervisor is not reasonable or does not see anything wrong in farming out their reviews (in my personal opinion).
Your exposure is one thing, but the more relevant question may be how happy the journal / conference is about how your supervisor handles this. Typically, one invites an individual to review because of their personal expertise on the topic. If your supervisor farms out review requests to other, more junior, researchers without actually checking the manuscript themselves, the journal / conference is not getting the expert review they signed up for.
In many fields it's fairly common to have junior researchers review papers assigned to their supervisors as a training experience. However, part of this is also that the supervisor also reviews the manuscript and validates/corrects the review of the junior. Since you are a newcomer to your field this may be a valuable exercise for you as well (although you already hold a PhD) - but of course it's only of value as a training instrument if your supervisor actually sits down with you afterwards and discusses the review with you (and ensures that the review outcome is consistent with their own expert opinion).

About your last point. It must be considered that a supervisor is reviewing his/her students. To give them papers to review or not will depends on the level of the paper and its bearing (poster, little talk, publication) and the individual student characteristics. Plus one


text:
How would co-authoring a paper whose main subject isn't about what I'll do in the future help me?
So in the Summer, I was offered to work on a paper with a doctor at my local university. The main goal of the paper is to try and predict the amount of displacement when pressure is applied to a 3D-printed ball of titanium using machine learning. The thing is that the main focus of the paper is about 3D printing with titanium but machine learning is used to achieve some of the results that couldn't be simulated easily.
Fast forward a couple of months, my work ended and I did what I was supposed to do. The other day, the doctor I was working with called me and told me I did a good job and offered me to work on it during the school year as well. The thing is, I have to put quite a few hours into it and I go to school so I don't want to do it if it won't help me that much in the future. So my question is, how would working on this paper, which is mainly about something I won't do in the future, help me later?
By the way, I'm a freshman in high school.
Thank you so much in advance!

The future is unknown. To you and to everyone. Do what you like to do. Very few people get that opportunity, actually. Sadly.

I'm a freshman in high school --- What age is this? In the U.S. this would be roughly age 14-15, and at that age most (among academically able) students probably have little more awareness of what they want to do in undergraduate college (let alone afterwards) than general descriptions such as science, humanities, social science, etc. A former student of mine from the late 1990s (his last 2 years of high school), before and during the first semester of his Junior year (age 16-17), was planning to study history in college. Eight (8) years later he got a Ph.D. in math from Rice University.

I'm a freshman in high school

And you’re already sure about what you’ll do in the future? I’m impressed. In any case, you shouldn’t worry too much about what your future research topic would be. I was sure I’d be a chef and ended up with a PhD in math. People’s interests vary wildly over time.
What does matter is that you have the capacity to do research at a very young age, which is impressive to anyone reading your CV when considering you for undergraduate programs or hiring you for a job. If this is a legit opportunity I’d take it even if it’s not 100% within my field of interest.

Spark gave a really good answer above, but I want to note another aspect: not only are you young enough that you might not know what you want to do or might change what you want to do, but the experience of research in general will be helpful. This will be helpful in at least two ways. First, and most cynically, it will look good for college (and later grad school if you choose to go that direction). Second, some of the skills from research apply to research in general, or to related areas; if you are working on a project that involves both hands-on work as well as machine learning then that means you are likely both learning good lab habits as well as getting exposure to programming and related topics. It may also help produce a good general approach to research.

how would working on this paper, which is mainly about something I won't do in the future, help me later?

You did not really hint about how distant this machine learning and 3D work is from the field you are interested in. The skills and relationship with the doctor would be helpful in helping you differentiate yourself from your other high school colleagues. However, I suspect you are similarly accomplished in the field that you are interested in and would be likely doing relevant projects instead. If that is the case, then maybe spreading yourself thin may not be a good idea.
It also depends on how competitive the field that you are interested in is as well. If you can easily get into the course that you are passionate about, then diverting your time and effort to challenging work is definitely worthwhile. However, if your course requires jumping through and having strong scores in high school, then maybe this distraction may not be as beneficial...