TakeruK

I also agree that this idea is not really realistic. I don't even see the purpose of a tenure-tracked teaching position and I really think teaching is an important part of being a grad student and/or professor! To me, tenure is granted so that you can have job security despite fluctuations in your research output or the controversial nature of your research. The idea of tenure is to protect researchers from negative effects due to people not agreeing or liking their outcome. It's to protect the integrity of their work. If a prof is dependent on grants from source X and they do research and find out something bad about X, tenure protects them when they publish this knowledge so that X cannot directly influence their job status. In addition, tenure is being vetted as someone who is able to produce useful results for the field, so that even if a tenured prof gets "writer's block" or does not produce anything for e.g. 5 years in a row, they don't have to worry about losing their job. Instead, they can keep on working until they reach that next important result. It prevents people feeling pressure to make up fake results because they are afraid of losing their job. Of course, this view of tenure is also idealistic. But to me, tenure is all about protecting research / scientific inquiry / scholarly work. I don't think a "teaching tenure track" makes sense. Most educators do not have permanent job security like tenure provides. However, this doesn't mean they are completely unprotected. Instead, I think teaching staff at universities should be hired in permanent positions instead of yearly contracts, and be protected like any other permanent employee at any other job. At least in Canada, everyone in the teaching profession is unionized and so there are a lot of protections so that schools can't just fire people without a just cause. Layoffs should happen in reverse order of seniority and so on, so that a prof that has been teaching for 20 years doesn't suddenly have to find something else to do if the budget is cut one year.

I agree that there is a fine line between respecting people for what they are and coddling/enabling them to further harm themselves. I think where this line is also depends on your relationship with the person in question. If someone in my family is self harming, for example, if my younger cousin decided that they want to start smoking, I would agree with you and do something about it before it got worse. But if I am on the Internet or in the real world, and someone was smoking, I try not to judge. I mean, I wouldn't directly help them harm themselves but I'll respect their decision and stay out of it. I think that in this thread, none of us knows the OP very well (I mean, the OP hasn't even posted again so as others have pointed out, this might just be a troll/fake/whatever). I think that in this specific case of this thread, it does no good to try to "terrorize"/"shame" the OP until they "get better". I think that "tough love" only works in cases where there is some pre-existing relationship and that ultimately, you know that the other person means the best for you. For example, a coach being hard on his/her team for a crappy practice/performance. A parent who knows their child could have done better letting them know that life will expect 100% effort from you. etc. Also in all of these cases, it really only works when the "tough love giver" knows the other person well enough to know what works and what won't. But random person on the Internet? Just my opinion, but I don't think this is an appropriate place to do this kind of thing. Also, I don't think I would really agree with/like a society where the weak is pushed to change by their peers. Maybe I am just not a good capitalist, but I also don't always think competition is good. In your sports teams example, what is so bad about two teams of crappy players just having fun on the field and then going for pizza afterwards? I mean, this is basically the definition of the intramural sports teams I play on right now, as an adult in grad school! Why can't we have competitive leagues for those who want to get better and improve themselves and also recreational leagues where everyone is welcome, and the point is to just play the game/have some fun, not actually win. This is how most sports at my school is structured, and I think it's good to have kids sports go this way too (I have no children so I have no idea how kids sports are actually structured--but I would not think a world where only competitive leagues are available would be a good one!). I don't have my own kids but I have coached plenty of kids* (actually teens) teams in different types of competitions. When my kids lose a competition, I agree, we don't just say "oh well, maybe next time" because hey, they signed up for this competition to win! We figure out why we sucked and we work on it. But I also try to make sure they get positive feedback on the things they did do well. And the kids still worked hard to get to where they are, so they deserve a reward (e.g. pizza) too. There are ways to reward your team when they lose without letting them be complacent with losing! tl;dr: Yeah, I agree that we can be "too soft" on people and enable their problems. But there is a right time and place for "tough love" and I don't think strangers on the Internet with very little information on the actual problem is neither the right time nor place.

If you are on a contact and TAing next semester/quarter (i.e. in a few weeks), and if you are worried about losing your TA position, then I would say to wait until you sign that contract before you inform your department. At places where I've been that TA's are contracted, the school cannot terminate a contracted TA position unless the TA is not doing their job (even if the course gets cancelled, the school must still pay the TA). Of course, if you sign the contract and then immediately say you're leaving, this could cause some tension / burn bridges but it's something you could do if you really want to keep the TA work and pay. I don't know how dependent you are exactly on getting the grad student pay, how tied down you are to your current place (e.g. on a lease?) and how much you want to continue working in your current program. For example, if they did dismiss you right away, could you just accelerate your move to your SO's place? Or visit family/home for awhile? Ultimately, it's in everyone else's best interest if you can tell the department sooner, but you are stuck here and you need the grad stipend, then I think you should put your own interests first and make sure you don't put yourself in a bad position when you tell your department!

I think it just depends on the culture of where you are and your department. At my undergrad program, once you get past 2nd year, your courses are like 4-5 people per class and everyone is on a first name basis. For some profs, we would forget their last name since we never saw (except for on the course syllabus on day one) and no one would ever use it. I would group Masters students with PhD students--whatever they do, Masters students would generally do too, from what I've seen.

How about "I should respect them because they are people." You don't have to agree with their diet choices, their academic choices, or their drug choices. Why are we so quick to judge and consider those that we deem "inferior" less worthy of our time/efforts? I would say if you come across someone who e.g. failed because they were partying and you wanted to help them and they wanted the help, then why do you need to judge? If you don't want to help (or they don't want your help), then that's fine too, both of you never need to interact. What I don't understand is when people like you take the time to criticize/judge/shame people for making bad decisions. What good does it do?

To me, if the person in question says that they can't do it, then they can't do it. If they say that they are not trying hard enough, then they are not trying hard enough. Since I am not them, I cannot know how they feel. I don't any reason for me to pass judgement on them or why people need to "prove" that they are trying hard enough to others. Oops. I meant if a person eats less they would gain less weight (let's say gaining negative weight = losing weight). In my opinion, when it comes to matter of guilt or fault, then we should focus on the choice. When it comes to matters of "how to keep the public safe" then we should also consider consequence. In your example, if a murderer is deemed** to not have been able to prevent himself from killing a person (e.g. psychological issues), then I don't think the person should be guilty of murder. However, it would not be in the interests of everyone (included the person accused) if we just do nothing and keep the status quo (they might hurt others or themselves). So, it would make sense for our society to do something to help prevent any more people getting hurt. What actually should be done would depend on the specific circumstances, in my opinion. But I think that the goal of the procedure should be to 1) get help to those who need it and 2) prevent further damage (to everyone). Punishment definitely should not be the goal (I don't think punishment should ever be the goal of corrective action even if the person knowingly chose to kill). **This part is tricky since we are still working to understand human psychology. But we have to make do with what we know for the time being!

EmperorRyker, I understand what you are getting at in the earlier part of your post (obviously if a person does not eat, they would gain less weight than if they did eat, no matter what other circumstances are at play). But let's move beyond that because I think this sentence: is actually incorrect. Psychological factors don't simply "make it harder" for someone to do (or not do) something. I feel that statements like this imply that people suffering from mental health issues are "weak" because they are not able to overcome the "extra difficulty" that the psychological factors add. I think this is both incorrect and insensitive. It also implies that if you are facing psychological issues and you cannot overcome it, then it is your fault. That is not true. I think saying something like that would be equivalent to saying that it is my fault that my arm bones were not strong enough to not break when I fell off my bike!

I'm sorry to hear about your current experience! It does not sound ideal at all! First, I don't think any of us can really comment on whether you have to pay back your fellowship, because it is probably something specific to your contract and you would have to talk to people who know about the contract to get real advice. However, I would think it's pretty rare that a departmental fellowship will come with the condition that "you must graduate or pay back everything on your fellowship". More commonly, I see clauses like "if you do not finish the term(s) that you have been paid for, you must pay back that part of the fellowship". So if you left in the middle of a term, you would only have to pay back the money that was paid for you to complete that term/semester. Also, it would not make sense to take money back for services performed (e.g. your fellowship was paid for you to have done some work such as TA/RA) after you have already completed that work. There are many non-service fellowships as well, but then they can't say that since you didn't TA/RA, you'd have to pay it back because non-service fellowship means that you did not have to provide any services in order to get the money. But there should be a way for you to discuss this with someone outside of your department (e.g. the graduate school) in a hypothetical manner so that you don't have to tell them you plan to leave or reveal why you want to leave. Anything I or anyone else writes here can only be guesses based on our own previous experiences! Your specific contract may be very different. Also, there are some things you list that are actual unethical behavior that should be reported if you feel comfortable doing so (or talking about with your advisor) but there are also many things that aren't unethical at all--they may not be the best behavior, but nothing actually that might violate laws, University policies, or constitute academic dishonesty. Since you asked for advice, here is what I think your description of your advisors' actions lie and I hope this might help you decide what issues to focus on reporting if you do go that route. Also, some of this is subjective so other people might have other opinions: Actions I think are definitely wrong and should be reported / brought up with your advisor if you want to: 1. Putting your name on papers without your permission 2. Plagiarizing your work Actions that are questionable but not necessarily unethical/violations depending on your Universities' policies or other situations/details not known here 1. Last minute editing of a paper without telling you (if you're not first author, the advisor has the right to decide what goes in the paper, although he should have at least shown his coauthors the final draft before submission and allow anyone who doesn't agree to withdraw their name and their contributions to that paper). Without further information, I wouldn't necessarily call telling/suggesting that you remove some statements that the editor won't like to be censorship (if he's right then the editor will tell you to remove those statements anyways). Presenting your work in any medium (talk, paper, poster, whatever) means knowing your audience and strategically deciding what you want to convey. If you want to convince people of A, B, and C (your claims), it might make sense to first present only B if you think A and C are too controversial and might make people ignore your very good points in favour of B. 2. Sleeping with his students--this might be a violation of University policy. Unless the student is underage, it's probably not illegal. I know my current school has no policies that prevent a relationship between a professor and a student. Actions that are crappy things to do but probably not something a prof can actually get in trouble for: 1. Lying to you about himself, the program, and how he feels about your research interests (it's hard to tell between outright lying and changing your mind, or a misunderstanding, anyways). 2. Choosing to publish only in certain journals 3. Not reading the papers cited in his work--75% is a large number, but I'd say many people won't read the entire paper when they cite a work, depending on the reason for the citation. 4. Poor quality of the education provided by the school--this is super crappy but unless the school promised certain things in writing and then did not follow through, I can't think of a way you can hold the school to providing a certain level of education. I agree that an ombudsperson would be a good path to go. Maybe it's a bit different in the US, but you might want to consider another route too. In Canada, the ombudsperson is a neutral third party that mediates a tough conflict/dilemma. You can/should also seek out someone who would play more of an "Advocate" role--that is, someone whose job is to be on your side. In Canada, these people tend to be employed by the Undergrad/Graduate Student Association at that school to provide legal advice for their students (sometimes they are volunteers from the school's Law program). It might be good to have both an ombudsperson and an advocate with dealing with tricky legal issues like this case.

I think your viewpoint here is a little naive. I don't actually know you but I feel like your statements are showing that you don't understand the nature of addiction. A person can be completely aware of their bad choices, and hate themselves for making them, but at the same time, cannot control their compulsion to do so. A lot of poor nutrition choices can also be linked to poor education and bad habits forming during childhood. You are right that people with these problems can seek help and do something about it. But the way you are saying it is unnecessarily harsh and would not actually help a person with these issues. And it's totally possible to feel bad for someone who is making bad life choices even if it is their "fault". I have relatives who smoke and it's hurting their health. Do I think "Hah! You deserve to get lung cancer and die because you are an idiot!!!!"? No! Even if they have made bad choices, I still care for them as a fellow human being and (in this case) as part of my family. I wouldn't enable their bad choices and I would still encourage them to think about their health in the future and help them quit if they want to. Having the attitude you express in the posts above would not help them get healthier and really would not do any good at all.

Congratulations (on both the upcoming marriage and your successful application to a new PhD program)!! This must be exciting and stressful!! Here's what I think: 1. You should tell your current school as soon as you are able to do so without jeopardizing your current status (although waiting too long can hurt you in the long term too). Telling them now means that you will probably be able to wrap up whatever you're working on now over the summer and the school can plan for the extra spot you'll create when you leave. 2. What do you really have to lose if they dismiss you right away? It's not like if you finish this summer you can get a Masters degree right? You already got into another PhD program so you don't "need" the next 4-5 months to build up your CV for grad school either. I would guess that potentially you will miss out on 4-5 months of funding, but you can probably find another job that pays close to what they pay grad students! 3. What do you really have to gain if you stay the next 4-5 months? Overall, since it seems like whether you stay for the summer or not would not really make a huge difference in your career, I would think the best thing to do is to first accept the other school's (or the job) offer and inform your current program director of your plans. This way, perhaps a plan can be worked out so that no one's time will be wasted over the summer. Who knows, maybe one of the labs need someone to help out with some grunt work or something over the summer anyways.

Actual conversation I had with a doctor during a fairly....umm, uncomfortable, part of my physical: Doctor: "So what are you studying?" Me: "Astronomy, specifically, the planets!" Doctor: "Oh, I have always been really interested in that field." Me: "Cool." Doctor: "Yeah, I think Jupiter is in retrograde right now, and that's the reason for all of the Arab Spring events." [This was in 2012]. Me: "Oh...yeah......."

I did this twice -- in 2010, moving across Canada for a MSc program with my then-girlfriend of 5 years, and in 2012, moving from Eastern Canada to Western US for a PhD program with my now-wife. The moving part is tough because we wanted to find places that were great fits for both of us (my SO is not a student). Fortunately, in both moves, both of us were able to visit the cities/schools during prospective student visit days so we were both able to make informed decisions. Luckily for us, both times, when we compared our top choices, we had the same one! Although maybe this wasn't so lucky because we both had veto power in the application stage (I only picked schools that were good fits and then we removed all schools/places that my SO felt that she did not want to live in / would not have opportunities in). So, even at the application stage, all of the possible schools were places that were exciting for both of us! I also agree with Munashi about the finding a new job for the SO. This was extra stressful for us because we had to go through a long process with US Immigration in order to get her work authorization so it was almost 8 months before she felt settled and even longer before she had a permanent position. I have not yet to experience being "between employment" myself, but from her experience, it's definitely true when people say that not having a job is way more stress/work than actually going to work full time every day! I don't think it is especially difficult to maintain a relationship in grad school, and this is year 4 of grad school+relationship for us. You definitely need to plan your time better, but this works for me. I know some grad students prefer the flexibility of working whenever they want / feel the juices flowing and this is not as possible when you want to sync your schedule with a partner that does not have a flexible schedule. That is, I mostly maintain a 9am to 6pm workday, which currently matches my wife's 8:30 to 5:30 workday. Unless I am feeling a lot of pressure or am behind, I usually try to keep my work at work and not think about science at all during the evenings. I do a bit of work on the weekend sometimes. To me, I always want to treat grad school as a "9 to 5" job, not continued perpetual stress/work that was my undergrad experience so this works really well for me. Another difference between being in a relationship in grad school vs. my single friends is that while my SO is friends with most of my colleagues, and we do a lot of things together with our SOs, the students in relationships will also have a different social circle because of their SO's friends etc. Or, the attached students may have other arrangements that don't match up well with our colleagues' social plans. So, ultimately, my SO and I don't always go to every social gathering of my grad school friends. This is okay of course, but we are sometimes worried that we are the "boring married couple that never hangs out". I think a good strategy is to make an extra effort to prioritize going out with new people when you first start a new program and making new friends for the first time. I think the first few months is critical for forming new friendships since everyone is in the stage of "looking for friends". Afterwards, it's easier to settle down into whatever balance of spending-time-with-just-SO and spending-time-with-SO-and-grad-school-friends that the two of you are comfortable with. In my opinion, if you decline too many invitations at the start, people will stop asking you to do things! Although it is some "work" to maintain a relationship while in grad school, all relationships need time/effort in order to stay healthy and fun! I don't think it's any more or less work to do this as a grad student vs. any other job. And obviously, there are tons of great positives about being in a good relationship (whether in grad school or not). I am 100% positive that the amazing support I have from my spouse is a big part of all of my past successes and it's something I can count on to help me feel confident about whatever challenges and crappy days that grad school throws at me in the future.

I think you did the right thing. To officially accept/decline, you usually have to do it through the Graduate School (some places let you do it through a web form, some places want you can scan+email, fax, or snail mail a signed decision letter back (it's basically one of those Do you like me? Yes/No [check one] type notes). But it's also good to let your department know directly, which is what you did. Perhaps they aren't able to move forward until they get the official letter. Although I agree that some kind of confirmation would be nice! I got a reply within the same day from the school I accepted (but this was after the official letter was already sent to me--I had just emailed the department letting them know that I plan to accept and had just submitted my official response form to the Graduate School that morning!). I agree that it does not sound like you could have done anything wrong. You should get the official letter soon, hopefully, so maybe when you submit the real thing, you can also let them know

I just want to add that there is another type of conference -- super specialized international symposiums on a particular problem in a subfield. I would rate this at one of the highest priorities because usually everyone who's anyone in the subfield will be there, and usually participation is limited. This means much longer interesting talks and more chances to connect/network with people one-on-one. The sizes are probably field dependent, but in mine, these meetings are usually 150-250 people (national professional conferences are about 1000 people) and most talks are about 25 minutes (national conferences usually have 7 minute talks). And, I wouldn't say it's just for the extra line in your CV. I think the experience of actually being there, meeting people, exposing your work to others is far more valuable than adding it to your CV! So, I would say "better" conferences are ones where the people you want to see your work go to. Usually prestige means more interesting people so prestige ends up correlated with "better" but not always! For the OP's question, I agree with everyone else that it should be okay to back out of it. Just send a polite email informing the organizers of your conflict!

I was reading the "Terms of Participation" on the website (https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/how-why/terms-participation) and it says nothing about being a citizen! In the FAQ, the answer to "Who can participate in We The People?" is Anyways, so I figure this means I'm allowed to sign it and so I did! (Although I imagine this is part of the reason that the wording of the petition is from an American point of view.)

Are you asking about the OP's specific case, or just in general? If in general, then yeah I do know many students who do this. I know some profs who do this too during the summers. I would say that during the school year, it's helpful to be around the department in order to attend seminars, meet visitors, work as a TA as necessary. But in the summers, some students (and some profs) spend most of their time elsewhere and work remotely. This tends to be more common with, but not limited to, grad students in long distance relationships.

This also really depends on where you are in Canada. In Ontario, there is a 60 day notice to vacate provincial law, so landlords will usually know by July 1 if their unit will be open on Sept 1. In some places, all of the good (and well managed) places disappear within a few days of being listed. We signed our lease something like June 5 and we moved in August 1. When we gave our 60 day notice, the landlord informed us someone already took our unit only 2-3 days after we told them that we were leaving! In BC, there is only a 30 day notice to vacate. With student tenants, sometimes landlords will still know that their tenant will move out by Sept 1 (or at the end of an academic term, for example). But I think it's a really good idea to keep these time spans in mind when planning your search. It's helpful to make contact with the landlord a few weeks before the 30 or 60 day mark and let them know you are interested in their building(s) and they might contact you as soon as something is available.

For astronomy/physics images, try Astronomy Picture of the Day: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html Many of these images are created by NASA which usually means they are in the public domain and free to use! The images on the site range from pretty pictures of the night sky/telescopes, false colour images (but actual scientific ones) and actual straight up data/plots (like today's!).

The memory of opening up that rejection letter haunts me to this very day. I am actually relieved to open my mail to find a bill instead of another stinging rejection letter.

The movie was filmed at Caltech with mostly Caltech affiliated people. Caltech is a tech school, so there are no PhD programs in theatre/film studies/performing arts etc. There is a very active theatre group at Caltech though and they put on several productions per year. I don't think any of the main cast and crew are theatre/film related people but since the Caltech community often includes a lot of non-students, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the people that run the theatre club (who are actual actors and/or trained in theatre/film) played a part in creating the PhD Movie too!

Good points, fuzzylogician! I was under the impression that a third-country visa renewal (i.e. doing it at an US embassy in the country of the conference) was the same as doing it in your home country (except for the location). If it actually is unreliable and that you're supposed to do the application in your home country, then wow, that sucks!

A visa is only required to enter the United States (or any country), so it doesn't matter if the visa is expired and you are already in the US. In fact, some countries have visas that are only valid for one single entry so as soon as you cross the border, it's expired/invalid. I know a lot of people with visas that are valid for just one year (so during the first year, you can enter/leave as much as you want, but afterwards you must get a new visa). If you have an expired visa and you leave the US, then you must get a new visa before you can return, unless you are leaving to go to Canada or Mexico. So this means if a F-1 (or J-1) student goes to a conference in France after their visa has expired, then they cannot re-enter the US until they get a new visa. For some people, this is very inconvenient (and expensive) to stay in France and apply for a visa through the US Embassy/Consulate in France. So, what a lot of people do when they know they need to travel later is to go to Canada or Mexico or home (or anywhere else really) and get a new visa ahead of time. Or, if they want to visit home they will be stuck there until they get a new visa issued. I haven't known anyone to be extremely inconvenienced by this, though. One time, my TA was stuck for an extra week in China as he got extra paperwork to complete (or something) so he missed the first week of class. I think it will be a fact of life though. I can understand the extra security for someone to have to leave to the US in order to get their visa approved. Also, I think this will create problems if someone's visa application is denied while they are already in the US. Unless the denial is an administrative issue (e.g. missing paperwork), the decision would make no logical sense, since how can you deny access to your country to someone already in it? At the same time, the US doesn't want to grant visas to everyone already holding a visa. Instead, it makes far more sense to only decide on the visa application when the user actually needs the visa to enter the US. It's far easier to keep someone out of the US than to remove someone who is already in the US. And, I think approving visas within the US might encourage some people who get their visas denied to remain in the US beyond their F-1 or J-1 status because they know they won't be able to return. Maybe there are other arguments for allowing visa renewals within the country? I agree (and I think it is already possible) that one should be able to extend their I-20s or DS-2019s within the US if they end up needing more time to finish and so on. But visas (permission to enter) should be applied for and granted when the applicant is outside of the country in question!

I have a section called "Publications" and then two subheadings "peer-reviewed" for submissions to journals etc. and "selected conference presentations and proceedings" where I list some* of my talks, posters, and non-peer reviewed proceedings. (*I say some because for some work, I've presented it at multiple places [either two different conferences with different audiences or updates in later years] so I just include the most recent/most interesting version)

Definitely check out the rules for the society/organization that is hosting your conference (perhaps just email the appropriate contact person). In my field, it's the same as fuzzy and St Andrews Lynx--papers are often withdrawn from proceedings if the author is not presenting it (except for special cases, like when the sequester prevented government funded people from attending certain meetings). Also, in my field, the benefit of actually being at the conference and giving your talk, meeting the people, having people see you etc. is way more beneficial than a line on the CV about your proceedings. But each field is different!

I agree with jenste--there has to be some reason that the OP needs an actual rejection, and not just withdrawing. But the OP may not want to share, for privacy reasons! To the OP: I assume that you know there is no practical difference for you between a withdrawal and a rejection. If you don't think you will get an unwanted acceptance and you are patient, you will most likely get a rejection by the time the summer comes around. Or at least, by then if you call them and ask what's going on, they will likely tell you it's a rejection. If you are afraid you will get accepted and you don't want others to know that you got accepted and then turned down the offer, you might try to call them to ask them to reject you and give a reason and they might do it. Or, they might not, because perhaps the department gets their admission decisions audited and it might hurt them if they rejected you, a great candidate, and accepted a lesser candidate. However, your application and the admission decision is private information and you don't have to disclose it to any other agency if you don't want to. If for some reason, you have to demonstrate that the school you actually want to attend was the best one you applied to, then just don't even disclose the fact that you applied to this school. Also, if you need a rejection letter for some non-official reason (e.g. jenste's example of family pressure), you can easily fake a rejection email, or just tell them you got rejected. Some of the places that rejected me just sent me a one line email like "Dear TakeruK, Unfortunately we could not accept you to _______ because we were only able to admit X out of Y great applications. Best of luck, Prof. X"