Effects of having a few publications in predatory journals in the beginning of my research journey?

Question

The question might feel a little common out here, but allow me to explain more.

I am a Junior Year CS Student and in my early days of getting involved in publishing conference papers, research articles in journals led me to certain journals which apparently fell under the Beal's list of Predatory Journals.

My question is How does a publication in such journals affect my profile in two domains:

1. Academia - Where all professors are highly educated and experienced and may/may not know about such journals. I would love to hear from anyone from the academia how do you treat such a candidate, whose early experience has been publishing in Predatory Journals? Does this affect my prospects of Further Studies such as MS/PhD?

I have transitioned from that phase and have a paper in progress worthy of publication in an IEEE Conference. My prior publications belong to IJRASET, IJSER - both apparently falling under Beal's List of Predatory Journals.

2. Industry: Assuming I switch from Academia to Industry and have mentioned publications from these predatory journals on my Resume/CV, How does the Industry perceive this and whether it affect my prospects of bagging an offer from them?

Looking forward to a healthy discussion, worthy suggestions and insights from the users will be highly appreciated and helpful!

Answer 1

You don't have a say, anymore, over what you have done in the past, so, having published once in a predatory journal is not a concern. It is what it is. But you do have a say in what you do in the future.

I's recommend that you not publish in journals that many consider disreputable. The main reason is not that they publish for money, but that they will publish just about anything for money. They don't have the same standards of scientific review that reputable journals do. You don't want to get associated with disreputable practices or low-quality work.

You are early enough in your career to make a turn to the light side, so that you won't be judged much, or for long, for your early actions. But if you continue on that way, you are unlikely to prosper.

If your work is of such low quality that you can publish only on predatory journals that will be recognized. The solution isn't to publish again in such places, but to improve the work sufficiently (as necessary) to be published in reputable venues. Quantity doesn't trump quality in academic work.

But the fact that you are doing any research as a Junior in college is impressive. Don't dilute that by going to the dark side. The more you do that, the worse it will get.