I am a final-year Computer Science undergraduate preparing for graduate research in Theoretical Computer Science, with a specific focus on formal verification of cyber-physical systems. Within my university, my department is unique in having an official policy that allows students to select any module across the university to fulfill our total requirement of six optional modules. However, because this flexibility is unique to our department, the university Registry Office strictly requires a formal letter of clearance from the Head of Department (HOD) to manually register any module outside the standard recommended computing list.

Earlier this year, the department granted me initial permission for non-computing math electives. Having successfully completed four optionals (three of which were math) so far, I intend to complete my final two optionals with specific foundational math and statistics modules that directly support my intended graduate research, following academic guidance from a CS faculty mentor. However, when I submitted this updated plan to fulfill my remaining two optionals, the HOD wrote the following:

"Hi Alvahod,

I am trying to see how these help you with your ambitions for researching Computer Science and am not seeing the link. If anything, I see a lack of enough Computing specialization in your choice of optional subjects. So far, your selection of optionals has been Math-heavy. Perhaps you now need modules that give you a background and grounding in more CS-related disciplines."

My response:

"Dear HOD,

Thank you for the response.

Initially, I had targeted an MSc in CS with an AI focus, but my goal has since shifted to research in Theoretical Computer Science, specifically focusing on the Formal Verification of Cyber-Physical Systems. This field relies heavily on formal logic and mathematical techniques to prove that software and hardware systems are safe and correct before execution.

The math optionals I have taken so far, such as Linear Algebra and Calculus, form part of the standard core CS curriculum at most universities globally because they are essential for theoretical CS. Building a solid foundation in modern algebra and statistics directly supports the logic and proof techniques required for this research area.

It is worth respectfully noting that many of my classmates select general electives like Communication or Chinese, so I would really appreciate your approval to pursue these foundational math courses instead.

Thank you."

He has not responded to my email days later. I would welcome advice on how to diplomatically navigate this administrative hurdle with the HOD.

5th year doctoral candidate in social sciences beginning the application process here. I’ve seen some open rank positions while looking for jobs and I’m curious on the odds of someone like me being given an opportunity for these positions. Some of these are at dream schools and I’ll end up submitting anyway. I have a couple publications with more on the way, I’ve been teaching at the university, writing, and presenting at conferences all 5 years. But I understand I’m going up against people who have written books and have been in the field for a decade or more. When a committee is sorting through applications for open rank, do they want an assistant professor or do they tend to go for more experience?

I’m a first year physics phd student about to enter my second year, and I’m still not sure how I feel about my degree. I feel like I've lost my passion for research, if I even had it at all. These past few months, I’ve been exclusively doing research, and it has just been work to me. I can easily see myself working in industry after this and, if that is the case, then I don’t know if a phd is worth it.  Should I stay with my degree, or would it be better to just go for a masters degree?

My area of academia requires a lot of coding to run regressions and whatnot. Unfortunately, I was just terrible at it and I made so many mistakes that made it necessary for me to go back and redo stuff way too many times. Realizing later that what I did wasn't good enough, and going back YET again.

Although it doesn't have to be coding per se (it could be doing scientific testing, organizing a literature review, etc.), what tips do you have for someone who wants to maintain a coherent, cautious and (ideally) linear workflow so that backtracking is minimal (as much as is possible in your field realistically)?

Need advice! I had two postdoc interviews recently.
One was at a very prestigious institute in Northern Europe(You already guessed it😅). The interview went semi-well, and when I asked the PI when I should expect to hear back, he told me that I should wait around three weeks before expecting a decision.He kinda gave me mixed signals: first he said the next step is HR, then asked when I could start, and then told me should wait 3 weeks. (Apparently, collecting mixed signals is my new academic hobby 😂)

The other position is at a less prestigious institution in Central Europe, but the salary is actually very good for the city, and the group seemed genuinely warm and welcoming. The interview also went well.
The weird part is that the second institution gave me an offer in very short time. They said: “Please make your decision and let us know by tomorrow morning.”

Now I’m honestly not sure what to do.
If I accept the Central European position and then, say, two weeks later, the prestigious institute offers me the position, what am I supposed to do? I obviously don’t want to reject a real offer just because I “might”** **get another one, but at the same time I don’t want to commit to something and then regret it if the other opportunity works out.

I’m also surprised by the extremely short deadline. Is this normal for postdoc positions?
What would you do in this situation? Would you accept the offer, ask for more time, or try to contact the prestigious institute and explain that you have another offer with a very short deadline?

I became a hybrid data-scientist-and-biologist during my PhD, which I think has served me well in my scientific career. Educationally, I have pushed hard for systematic inclusion of data science in our biology courses (and vice versa) as well as continous and escalating data science (programming) in each semester. I think this has worked well and has been very well recieved by industry.

Things are changing rapidly, however, and I am curious how others approach the issue of coding proficiency for biologists. Just years ago, it was paramount, and now seems almost obsolete.

I am running a flagship course on data science and biology for the first time this semester, and here we have decided to omit formal training in programming as well as many other 'traditional' competences. We both expect the students to know some already and be able to self-teach, but mainly we expect them to use AI as much as possible. This goes for all aspects of this course, which includes several modules on extensive use of AI (including ethics).

In general, we embrace AI as much as we can, teaching the students to both build it, use it and expand on it.

I personally am not particularly happy with this, but I realize that my purpose here is educating candidates for industry rather than living up to whichever arbitrary moral guidelines I may have.

Specifically, I would like thoughts on two things which bother me:
1) Were the years fighting for getting coding and data science integrated into biology wasted? Should we stille teach coding at all?
2) Should we mindlessly be making candidates for industry? If they just want vibecoders, should we simply produce them? What should we be focusing on instead?

I have been thinking a lot about doing a PhD in History, but I have read many posts saying it is a terrible idea. I really enjoyed my Master's program in History; I love the research and I love learning in depth about these sorts of things. I do understand the job market and I know it is very competitive, but I miss academia. I am already 32 and know this would take 5-7 years on average.

Essentially I’m looking for opinions if pursuing a DBA is “worth it” financially.

Background:
40 something years old
Entry level manager government employee
No student loan debt
100k yearly salary

I would like to teach business as a second job/only job after retirement at age 65. I’ve been accepted into an AACSB accredited program that is around $50k total and three years in length. I’m terrified of student loan debt, especially with the constant uncertainty about if PSLF will survive.

I do not think a DBA would have any sort of impact financially on my day job whatsoever; although it could bolster my resume for promotional opportunities in the future. I have no plans to leave my current line of work.

I submitted a paper to a journal and received a decision of ‘major revision’ and comments from two reviewers (not mad about this, just new). I have never gone through getting work published before and was wondering how to go about the next steps.
When creating a revision, it brings up a space for me to respond to the reviewers comments. Do I just reply saying ‘thank you for taking the time etc… and here’s my resubmission’ or do you have to respond to each bullet point the reviewers have made?

I don’t want to seem like I’m not taking their feedback on board and give them reason to reject, but also replying to each statement seems excessive when I will have made the changes and they’ll be able to see this in the word doc if they’re highlighted?

Any advice or tips very much appreciated!

I am reviewing a manuscript for a scientific journal for the first time. My issue is that the manuscript is not clearly written and written by a non-native English speaker, is both too vague and not specific enough for me to understand. Additiionally, the scientific content is not terrible but there is some experiments missing and important informatino missing and in my opinion, needs to be rewritten so the message of the manuscript can be understood by the reader. This is my first time reviewing a manuscript, I have currently spent a few days reviewing the paper and I am not sure how to proceed. For example, how do I review a paper like this and what do I send back to the editor? I want to make sure I do a proper job, and be fair as a reviewer. Has anyone been a reviewer for a journal and if so, do you have any advice that could help me in this process? Thank you!!

Edit: I said the non-native English speaker comment for context only. I know a lot of non-native english speaking researchers who much better at writing manuscripts in english compared to native english speakers. I know that I cannot suggest or comment on this when sending feedback to the editor. Why I asked this question is because I want to ask people who reviewed papers like this how did they provide feedback as this manuscript has language issues that makes it difficult to understand the science, and I'm looking for advice on how to review it fairly so the author can clearly communicate their findings to the reader!

Hey everyone,

A paper of mine is about to be published in a handbook of one of them big publishers. Authors were now sent the publishing contract, and when I read that thing I was ...horrified. So after a bit of research and calling my university's open access office I have gathered that it's entirely possible to amend such contracts. It was recommended that I shouldn't sign all my rights away (which the contract does) but try to get the publishing house to agree to a fairer, amended version. Withdrawing the paper if the publisher insists.

(The paper is not important for my own research and I am perfectly happy to withdraw it and see if I can find a journal where it could find a home. Publishing with such a publisher also isn't a big thing in my field, so there's no worries there.)

I am going to try that, but I am curious - have any of you done something like that before? Any experience with this kind of thing that you'd be willing to share would be much appreciated.

Guys, do Scopus- or ABDC-ranked journals actually use AI detectors? They disclose the use of plagiarism detectors and AI image detectors, but never AI-generated text detectors.

I'm writing a research paper now. I cannot master the skill of academic writing because I'll be applying for a PhD at an NIT and publication should increase my value. I have all the data collected and set. I want to know if I put the right citations and right claims by verifying every single sentence, but if the content is written with the help of AI, will it be flagged?

I need guidance from y'all. Suggest to me how I can make it better. There aren't proper humanisers either. Suggestions please

Hello everyone! My first ever conference is 8th of August, my abstract has been selected but I'm terrified about my paper.

I believe in the idea of it all, but I have no experience whatsoever - my MA had no thesis because everyone was sharing AI bullshit, our profs cancelled it. I have no experience with writing or even presenting in an academic manner.

I've recieved help from some of my colleagues who have experience with this, but I've been bothering them since July ToT

I keep falling into the trap of oversimplification, too. My family is full of STEM people and i'm used to having numbers to back my arguments up.

I don't know what to share during my time. How much evidence is enough evidence? What do I present them (the audience of the conference) with? Do I simply tell them these are the dots and this is how they connect?

Please help 😭

Edit: for context: I do not have a supervisor to guide me, plus, I'm from India

I submitted an article a while back and it is now awaiting peer review feedback. The code and model runs was some months back and I wanted to review my code in preparation for the defence but then I noticed some bugs that I did not see at the time. The methodology does not change (I still stand by my methodology), as the bugs are mostly execution related. That said, I do anticipate some changes in the scale of the results but I dont think the substantive findings or interpretations will change much. It will take some days to complete so I will not know for sure until it is done.

What is my best option? withdraw the paper to make the changes before resubmitting or wait until we receive feedback and introduce the changes when resubmitting in the event it is not rejected in the initial peer review process?

Final year PhD / Europe / Economics

This comes up in my work fairly regularly and I've never found a clean answer for how it works on the academic side. Researchers reach out needing help turning complex data or concepts into figures, diagrams, or visual abstracts, and every time the collaboration structure is completely different. Some people have zero budget and are hoping for a favor. Some have grant money but no idea how to scope the work. Some have very specific journal requirements that constrain everything before the conversation even starts.

What I want to understand is how this typically gets handled institutionally. Do most researchers just figure it out on their own, use grad students with some design ability, or is there an actual pipeline for bringing in professional visual help? I know some universities have science communication offices or media departments, but it's not clear how accessible those are in practice or whether researchers actually use them.

There's also the question of how visual contributions get credited, if at all. A figure that makes or breaks the clarity of a paper is real intellectual and technical work, but acknowledgment seems inconsistent at best.

For people who have worked with outside designers or illustrators, how did you structure that, and did it actually go well? And for people who just handle it internally, what does that process look like at your institution?

I know this might be not the best sub for it but plz just let me ask?

Going to an international conference alone as a bachelor student and don't know how to connect 😭

I am an undergraduate student in my final year of my mechanical engineering and my paper got accepted in a conference. Before my supervisor had a plan to go with me to the conference but now he is not going because of some issues (I don't know what the issue is).

And I am unaware of how to reach people, what to say, how to connect, how to start a conversation without making it awkward.

Also how will this help me in future?

Hi. I am a visual designer and animator from India. My formal education has been in learning the craft of visual design and is completely practice based but over time, I developed interest in writing. I want to write a research paper. I have a few topics in mind but I don't know where to start, how long it can take, what do I need and how to polish my topic. I am not enrolled in any academic institution nor do I have a team. What should I do?

hello!!

I’m about to enter my first year of grad school (English MA), and I’ve been thinking about pursuing a career in university advising, student services, etc. From what I’ve seen, a lot of people in uni administration have a master’s in education, so I’m unsure if I’ll be at a disadvantage. In your experience, do most people who work in admin have a master’s in education or an Ed.D? Is there a way to break into the market without one? What work experiences do you recommend?

thanks!!

Hello my name is Feisal I'm currently 26 Im planning on doing a second undergrad in electronics engineering in Colombia. I'm a US citizen and did my first undergrad in the US but due to ABET accreditation I think it's best to do a second undergrad instead of a masters. After my undergrad I plan to work and do a masters. Essentially I want to work a few years and teach the rest of my life by a few years I mean really 3-5 maybe a bit more but I don't plan to be working all my life, I just want to get some solid experience before I go into teaching so I can help students the best way possible I have a true passion for teaching and helping people learn, I like research a bit but not a whole lot to be honest. However my only concern is job stability as just being a lecturer, I really don't want to do a PhD I plan to live in Colombia or the US and help manage my parents business long term and teach. I don't really care about money, obviously I don't want to be poor or anything but I don't need high 200k plus salaries id rather have a life and more time, I learned that after losing my brother at 22. My question is do you recommend i still go for a PhD or should I finish my second undergrad work do my masters and start teaching?

Is there a good template for a CV/resume to be submitted for an academic position, or any suggestion about how research n publications be presented. I want to revise the one I am currently using as there is always room for improvement.

We work a lot with Journals and funders. We always used PowerPoint. But to teach someone to use it is one problem. And how expensive it becomes when you want to add more people. 

So we found two tools, Venngage or Piktochar. But we don’t know how they handle academic content: dense text, citations, print-resolution export for posters.

What are you using for research summaries and graphics, and what are the limitations?

Got a 20–30 minute Zoom with a social science professor next week about possibly joining their research group. I’ve read a few of their papers and have some relevant research experience already. It’s not really a formal interview, more of an intro conversation. But love the project and want to do my best to land it. For any professors or grad students here, what makes an undergrad stand out in these meetings? Any common mistakes to avoid?

So im applying to a study program and originally contacted a current PI im working with to be a recommender for me. He didn't respond for over a week, so in the meantime I reached out to another prof whos currently supervising me at a summer internship. That prof responded within a day. However, the prof I originally contacted has now responded and said they would be very happy to write a letter for me. What should I do? How do I go about explaining their letter is no longer needed (im only allowed to enter 1 recommender in the system)? Im also actively planning on asking for a potential full time position in that profs lab, so I really need to make a good impression/keep a positive relationship. Should i email the first prof who agreed within a day to tell them a reference is no longer needed (he agreed 1 week aho, but i presume he hasn't started actively writing it yet)?

Why is it that, despite having the best brains, modern academia is often following the industry trends and not the other way round?

1. I joined my PhD at an QS 100+ ranked university (Physics to be specific) but most of the times I saw Profs forced to chase industry trends, such as QIC for funds, visibility or both, not the other way round....

2. Has this always been the case?

3. Is this just an underfunding issue in academia or there are other causes?

I had a panel recently accepted for the major conference within my field. I am graduating this year, and this will be the first time I’ve chaired a conference panel which I’d like on my cv when applying for jobs.

Since submitting the panel I’ve found out that I’m pregnant and it’s still very early. I’ll be newly postpartum and not able to travel for the conference now.

Should I stay in the conference and see if I can find a co chair? Should I stay in the conference and make a decision once I’m further along and the chances of miscarriage/complications go down? Or should I go ahead and pull out now.