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1500 questions
120
votes
5 answers
Gender transition as a starting faculty member: a terrible idea?
I'm a computer scientist at the point in my postdoc where I will have to decide soon whether to apply for faculty positions this fall or go to industry, in the US/Canada/UK/maybe Europe.1
But I've also recently come to the realization that spending…
anon
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119
votes
2 answers
What is this "can I hire you as a tutor" scam?
From time to time (presumably because I have an academic address, or am listed on a university web site) I get an e-mail like this: "My son will be in your city next month for two weeks. He is interested in your subject. I would like to hire you…
GEdgar
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119
votes
12 answers
What to remember when supervising female PhD students?
I have been supervising a female PhD student for a couple of months. She is the first female PhD student I am supervising and got the position on merit.
My view is that her gender does not/should not change anything in how I supervise her or what I…
G. L.
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119
votes
9 answers
How to come up with research ideas?
As a very new researcher who is exploring the best way to generate ideas, some guidance on this question would be very helpful. I have found that this is NOT easy. Ideas seem to pop out of my Professor every day and I wonder how he does it. This…
Jase
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119
votes
9 answers
How do you get a bad transcript past Ph.D. admissions?
I have a master's degree in International Studies, and a double major with Computer Science from undergrad. My transcripts suck. There's no other way to dress it up. I have pretty good teaching experience, and my GRE scores are awesome, and I…
user179
118
votes
9 answers
Asking questions in class: how can I "exit" a Q&A when I haven't really understood?
I'm an undergrad and I tend to learn better when I understand the concepts behind things instead of rote repetition. As a result of this, I often have questions.
There are times when I don't understand concepts, so I'll ask questions. If after a…
Melanie Shebel
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118
votes
12 answers
Do academics look down on well-designed academic websites?
Rationally, I should not be concerned about building a well-designed academic website for myself. But academic websites are consistently so visually spare and poorly designed that I would feel like a peacock designing the site in any way. I don't…
jds
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118
votes
11 answers
One of my postdocs elegantly solved a problem another postdoc had been working on for years. I have no idea how to navigate this delicate situation
I run a lab in an applied computational field (e.g. computational biology/chemistry/physics etc.)
One of my postdocs (“A”) has been working on a problem for the last two years. They have made good progress, but the accuracy of their solution is not…
ScoopedPostdoc
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118
votes
9 answers
How to deal with anxiety and depression after being kicked out of PhD program?
I was kicked out of a programming-oriented PhD program at the end of last summer because I failed one of two qualifying exams; the department is keeping me on assistantship for a semester while I finish a master's thesis (which I've done).
Now over…
Bryan Ex-Academic
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117
votes
5 answers
If I request a paper through my university library, must they pay a substantial amount of money?
I was asked to referee a mathematics article, submitted for publication in a reputable journal. To evaluate it, I also wanted to look at a cited article which it claims to extend. Upon searching online (through my university's VPN) I hit a paywall:…
Anonymous
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117
votes
6 answers
What should I do after advisor got upset when I expressed "belief in evolution" and then said he couldn't add me to his research team?
A bit of background: I am a graduate student working towards my Masters in physics. During this summer I signed up for some classes that are somewhat outside my main focus of study. For instance, biophysics; evolutionary physics and so on. The…
user41235
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116
votes
14 answers
How to deal with arrogant e-mail of a student
I have sent the solutions of some assignments to the students of my class.
One of my students sent me a message that reads as follows (not greeting or anything, no closing, just the following):
The proposed solution of Exercise X is obviously…
PsySp
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116
votes
9 answers
How to stop feeling guilty about unfinished work?
My biggest challenge as a PhD student is best summarized by the following from PHD Comics:
"Piled Higher and Deeper" by Jorge Cham
www.phdcomics.com
A consequence of working in research is that the end is never in sight - unlike other jobs, there…
ff524
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116
votes
15 answers
How to react when encountering students who have previously failed my course?
Context: I am an assistant professor of mathematics at a small liberal-arts college in the US.
I did my graduate work at a large public university, and there I rarely encountered students who had previously taken a class from me, let alone ones who…
AegisCruiser
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116
votes
11 answers
Fellow student asked question from take-home exam on Stack Exchange
In an advanced university course on computer science and problem solving, one of my fellow students asked for a solution to a home exam on one of the Stack Exchange sites. The question he asked is taken directly from the exam without modification…
plato
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