Questions tagged [academic-life]

Questions related to academic culture, academic communities, and the coexistence of "life" and "academia."

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How to deal with career anxiety and manage to remain concentrated on the matter in hand?

I am just over 30 years and about to finish my PhD. I will obtain my PhD from an EU country, and I must obtain residence permit to keep staying in EU. My thesis is almost a staple thesis which ...
padawan's user avatar
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64 votes
10 answers
13k views

What should I do the day before submitting my PhD thesis?

I am submitting my PhD thesis in less than two days. I have checked all the tables, figures, appendices, references, and also checked spelling and any potential typos (which I believe there might be ...
Josee Luis's user avatar
58 votes
11 answers
21k views

My PI is publicly humiliating me: Why would a PI do this and what can I do to mitigate the damage from this?

My principal investigator (PI) and I tend to get along pretty well; however, he is often moody and has some quirks about him. Sometimes this means that he is in a bad mood and will take it out on me. ...
user135806's user avatar
7 votes
3 answers
2k views

What day rate should I set for consulting work?

I am a final year social sciences PhD student in the UK. A professor reached out to me and asked if I am interested in a three-day consultant work for their project and if so, what my day rate is. I ...
Josee Luis's user avatar
1 vote
6 answers
4k views

Is there any way to do good research without people noticing or follow up on my work?

My research, which in my opinion, is quite important, has unfortunately been getting noticed by people who has previously ignored them and systematically avoided to cite them. This is not ideal for me!...
Sin Nombre's user avatar
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3 votes
0 answers
125 views

Government versus Private Institute as a Faculty in India [closed]

I am from India. I have two different offers for Assistant professor (computer science) positions in India. The one of the institute is government funded and second is private college. The main ...
Coreman's user avatar
  • 71
3 votes
2 answers
834 views

Can phd students submit their paper on their own?

Can phd students submit their paper on their own? I have finished writing and polishing my manuscript (with my advisor listed as the corresponding author) and then sent it to my phd advisor almost a ...
sbd's user avatar
  • 31
3 votes
0 answers
128 views

Articles about different types of colleges and universities, from math faculty perspective

I'm looking for an article, web site, book chapter, whatever, that I can share with some math graduate students so that they can read and learn a little about some of the different types of colleges ...
Zach Teitler's user avatar
-1 votes
2 answers
155 views

Importance of campus for mathematicians [closed]

I am a graduate student in mathematics, currently working from home due to the COVID crisis. Even though , yea, pure mathematicians can work from home, but I really miss the campus and the environment ...
MA1001's user avatar
  • 9
1 vote
3 answers
351 views

Should I leave this PhD and start another one? Would I be in trouble?

I am currently doing a fully funded PhD in a European country. I just finished my first year. The topic is ok but i dont feel very passionate about it. I dont feel i connect with the topic even though ...
Peter's user avatar
  • 59
8 votes
1 answer
219 views

Problem with online class

I am a student at my local community college taking pre-nursing classes. My professor for A&P II requires a 360 camera while taking all the tests online on response. I have two small kids who I ...
awuor A's user avatar
  • 81
0 votes
1 answer
209 views

Writing grant applications as a new academic/faculty member [closed]

I am a new faculty member at a University. In the last 5 months since I started, I have applied (or in process of applying) 4 research grants (2 internal applied, 2 external in the process). What I ...
SJa's user avatar
  • 3,496
6 votes
4 answers
995 views

Questions about Mathematicians [closed]

I will be completing high school at the end of this academic year. I have a strong love for Maths, and I am considering becoming a pure mathematician or pure mathematics researcher when I'm older. I ...
A-Level Student's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
101 views

Would it be a good idea to drop out of my Bachelor's program and look for scholarships to restart abroad?

Currently, I study BA in Mathematics, and because of some problems related to the environment I found myself in, I cannot complete my studies in this place. I studied most of the courses, except ...
user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
144 views

Removing a grant number from a published paper [closed]

How can I remove a grant number from the acknowledgment of a published paper? since my institution refused to pay the reward for publishing this paper.
Ahmed's user avatar
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37 votes
3 answers
5k views

Is it okay to send a thank-you-for-teaching to a professor who taught a course a few semesters ago?

In my first semester of Ph.D., I took a course about machine learning (ML), because I find it very fancy and interesting (however, my field of research is theoretical physics, far away from ML). The ...
Luqman Saleem's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
385 views

How do (STEM) professors keep up with the latest tech or development in order to publish research?

From an outsider/student's view, STEM professors are: not taking courses mostly not doing things outside of their research comfort zones not (?) studying up much except for their research, certainly ...
Coco Jambo's user avatar
  • 1,013
0 votes
1 answer
265 views

Should I let a bad mark from 10 years ago discourage me from taking on a TAship? [duplicate]

10 years ago it was my first year in University and I bombed a course in programming. I had no programming experience and was competing with people have been programming since 10. I felt stupid and my ...
Sin Nombre's user avatar
  • 1,029
4 votes
1 answer
127 views

Research between different campuses of the same university

I was recently applying for a tenure track position at a university. I had found people who had adjacent research interests, and thought it would be good to mention them as possible collaborators for ...
user5644262's user avatar
5 votes
2 answers
386 views

How can faculty best telegraph work-life balance challenges under COVID to our administration?

Work-life balance is more challenging for faculty than ever under COVID-19. What are equitable, privacy sensitive ways to telegraph needs at the individual level? What are acceptable accommodations ...
Industrademic's user avatar
35 votes
7 answers
5k views

How to deal with animosity between different "factions" in a certain field?

In academia, there are sometimes sort of "feuds" between different researchers. For example, one such situation is described here: https://www.quora.com/Mathematicians-What-is-the-story-...
user avatar
5 votes
4 answers
2k views

How can teaching assistants deal with grade disputes?

From the answers to this question, it is clear that TAs in the US are usually responsible for grading students' work. In my country, most of the TAs face the following challenges: Students confront ...
hanugm's user avatar
  • 7,779
8 votes
7 answers
3k views

Is it normal to have several one or two month extensions after a fixed term contract postdoc?

I'm frustrated by these short term contracts and would like some advice. I've been offered several one or two month extensions after my fixed term ended in May. My PI said he may have longer term ...
Reginaldv's user avatar
  • 111
2 votes
1 answer
314 views

Is being an event planner also part of being an academician? How do you cope?

My question is, is being event planners every semester (unrelated to deep research) considered part of being an academician? And how do you navigate or balance all of your tasks (including organizing ...
kate's user avatar
  • 769
3 votes
1 answer
105 views

How Can I Specialize In Two Different -but related- Areas

I am a freshman math major. I am very excited to be in university because I want to be a scientist, researcher. I have interest in different areas like sociology, economics, artifical intelligence, ...
Leinoce's user avatar
  • 33
0 votes
1 answer
1k views

I wasted a lot of time during my PhD. As a postdoc, I don't see much progress in my abilities. How can I make progress? [closed]

I made several mistakes in my PhD: Joined a PhD advisor who didn't have direct knowledge/experience about my PhD topic. She worked with nanomaterials, my work was on continuum mechanics. I had both ...
argmt's user avatar
  • 305
38 votes
11 answers
16k views

Was my student being disrespectful by using shouting language in her email to me?

I have a PhD in statistics and teach statistics for humanities students in a university. One week before the start of the semester I posted all the required information regarding the course textbook, ...
Alice's user avatar
  • 750
3 votes
3 answers
2k views

How do I explain my failed career decision to a potential postdoctoral/academic manager/employer, when I'm almost seven years past my PhD?

First a bit of chronological background: PhD in pure math (2 publications, 1 preprint), 1 year of postdoc in pure math (unproductive) 2 years of postdoc in computational medical imaging (1 publication ...
Science Man's user avatar
  • 3,238
2 votes
0 answers
264 views

Is it ok to upload encrypted pdf file on arXiv?

Is it ok to upload a pdf file of my paper with "edit with permission of author-password encryption" on arXiv? Is it good? And also please answer, can your paper show "submitted" ...
Dumb's user avatar
  • 83
40 votes
10 answers
12k views

Is "flowery language" frowned upon in engineering and STEM related research?

I work in an engineering field (related to AI, machine learning, etc.) and something I found interesting is whenever I use "big words" or even long words like "substantiate" or &...
Coco Jambo's user avatar
  • 1,013
6 votes
2 answers
1k views

Can I write that I had a phobia in my personal statement?

I am writing a personal statement for a Ph.D. position. I had phobias of animals earlier which I overcame during my in-vivo lab experiments (for which I am really proud of). Do you think its a good ...
Black Sheep's user avatar
  • 1,996
31 votes
6 answers
5k views

Professor uses academic employees to write proposals

I am working at a German university after I obtained my PhD. My professor asked me to write project proposals to get funding. One and a half years ago, I spent all my time during 6~8 months writing a ...
Alpha's user avatar
  • 343
3 votes
0 answers
419 views

When to decide quitting academia? [closed]

I am in my third year of postdoc in Germany. Working in CS, I published only very few papers (3 in A* venues) during my postdoc. There are several reasons why I couldn't publish a lot of papers ...
Capsule's user avatar
  • 604
6 votes
0 answers
151 views

Has the popularisation of online conferencing tools made research positions at smaller universities more attractive? [closed]

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent confinements in various countries, there has been a tremendous development of the use of online collaboration tools (e.g. daily use of video conferencing ...
Thomas Sauvaget's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
228 views

What can we do about being dissatisfied, morally and practically, by the business-like tactics shown by Universities (in the US and elsewhere)? [closed]

I asked this question: Are universities run more and more like businesses? What are the consequences? A couple days ago. The title was edited by someone and I believe the conversation got a bit ...
user avatar
41 votes
7 answers
8k views

Are universities run more and more like businesses? What are the consequences? [closed]

I watched an episode of "Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj" called "Is College Still Worth It?" In there the point was made, with ample evidence, that universities are increasingly ...
user avatar
44 votes
15 answers
9k views

Is it important to maintain a work-life balance as a PhD student?

My apologies in advance for asking such a trivial question. My concerns may not be as urgent or serious as some of the others on here, but I have been worrying about this for some time now. My life ...
user avatar
5 votes
3 answers
585 views

How do I move forward after working with a toxic academic supervisor?

How do I move forward after working with a toxic academic supervisor who ruined my all job opportunities by giving negative referrals, when my next job is asking referee report from him? If anyone has ...
Dendrobium's user avatar
0 votes
2 answers
302 views

Are reputations earned and questions answered on Stack community considered as worthy publications?

Are reputations earned and questions answered on Stack Exchange community considered as worthy publications? Can they be included or considered as publications?
Deepak Tatyaji Ahire's user avatar
2 votes
3 answers
439 views

Research outside academia without Ph.D

I had some Ph.D positions available to me after my undergraduation which I could not take owing to some personal reasons and instead chose to take an industrial job which basically is also research ...
jvb's user avatar
  • 21
2 votes
0 answers
74 views

Visualizing the list of all active academics for a given topic

For a long time I have been interested in visualizing the network of all active academics of a certain discipline worldwide (e.g. computer science, mathematics, or by a set of keywords). I imagine a ...
Archie's user avatar
  • 1,135
2 votes
1 answer
125 views

non-responsive academic program advisor/manager

My graduate program advisor/manager (one, who manages logistics of students; not for thesis) and I had arguments about how he proceeded the work (e.g. dropping my course without notice by self-...
Acer DC's user avatar
  • 245
3 votes
2 answers
1k views

What is the meaning of 'six-week course'?

Edit: I found the answer. In the preface to the english edition it says This book is a translation from the orginal Chinese text of notes based on a six-week course on algebraic curves and Riemann ...
BCLC's user avatar
  • 1
5 votes
6 answers
3k views

How do I determine if a PhD is financially feasible for me?

Pursuing an academic career involves risk, including financial risk. My question is: what factors should one consider when deciding whether these financial risks are worth it in one's personal ...
user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
200 views

Improving work relationship with my advisor

I'm new to the research scene. I asked my advisor questions about the suggestions he gave in a couple of meetings. From then on, he insulted me a few times whenever he has to provide feedback on my ...
user140547's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
700 views

Is researchgate still useful? [closed]

It seems that researchgate is gaining some popularity in recent years. However, there is some criticism on their habit of sending requests and unsolicited spam emails?. What is your experience of ...
Doctoralstudent 's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
171 views

Confusion - “CV including a summary of teaching experience”

I am going to apply for a visiting lecturer position at a US university. The job posting is mentioning that applicants should send (email) CV including a summary of teaching experience, and a teaching ...
Extremal's user avatar
  • 123
7 votes
2 answers
1k views

Social media vs. academic career [closed]

After an incident where a complaint has been submitted against my private social media profile by students (with whom I had no interaction, nor were my posts directed towards) I felt attacked in a way ...
kindasorta's user avatar
6 votes
2 answers
964 views

Before entering into a computational research PhD, should one gain strong coding & software engineering skills?

Main Question: Should someone gain good computer programming skills/experience through a software engineering job before entering a 5-year PhD program in Computer Science (Tentative specialization: ...
Zero_Cool's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
398 views

Stress and anxiety related to competition

Regarding stress in mathematical research, I saw posts like Is Mathematical Research Stressful? But it seems that most answers there don't stress what I mainly feel, that much of my stress (even as ...
AskingQuestions's user avatar

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