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1500 questions
57
votes
7 answers
What do I do when a student working in my lab "ghosts" me?
I am in my first PhD year and have some teaching duties -- assisting my supervisor with his lectures and also advising students. At the beginning of the semester, a student started working on his Bachelor's thesis and initially everything was…
lucky_luke
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57
votes
7 answers
Do I have an "anti-research" personality?
I am a second year Ph.D. student in a North American university who is mostly working on applied mathematics with a supervisor/advisor/PI. I have been troubled by a pattern of my own behaviour that seems to go against the seemingly correct way to…
Curaçao Hajek
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57
votes
7 answers
(How) can you teach a subject effectively for which you are a skeptic without biasing students?
I recently accepted a tenure-track position at a university and will be on a 1-1 load my first year. My first course I will teach, I will get to modify and alter based on my expertise.
In my second semester, I am taking over a graduate course that…
JWH2006
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56
votes
5 answers
Final report rejected, institution asked to return funding and prosecute my supervisor
When I finished my PhD, I was working on a small grant project worth €6000 with the aim of integrating computational software and public services offered by another institution. In our final report, I stated why we did not achieve one of the…
TJK
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56
votes
4 answers
Should I omit a citation if the authors ask me to?
"Program MARK: A gentle introduction" by Evan Cooch and Gary White
is a guide to using a particular piece of statistical software. It is available in print form as well as in a free, online version.
The foreword to the book contains the following…
user2390246
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56
votes
6 answers
Asking 'silly' questions to doctoral supervisor
My doctoral supervisor is very helpful and I really enjoy working with him on various problems. I have officially entered my second year of doctoral research this month. During discussions, I get few basic (probably, 'technically silly' as I would…
Coder
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56
votes
5 answers
How to deal with the frustration of doing PhD at a low-ranked university
Though I did my bachelor's at a top-notch college, because of low GPA I had to settle down for PhD at a low ranked university. Now I see that there is lack of intellectual atmosphere and very few people to discuss academic stuff in and around my…
physicsenthusiasist
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56
votes
10 answers
Age and Graduate school
I am 33. I live in the US. I am a neither a US citizen, nor a green card holder. I have worked in various jobs as a research assistant (physics, biology, economics) usually involving programming, mathematics or statistics. As a newly minted…
Tim
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56
votes
11 answers
Should I warn colleagues of another colleague's sexism?
Over the years, I have had experiences at some conferences where more senior faculty members have been—shall we say—less than appropriate to women in the field. The same can be said about colleagues being heterosexist and/or racist, but I digress.…
T K
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56
votes
3 answers
How common is it to inadvertently "reinvent the wheel" in academia?
When engaging in research, I know its a good idea to read lots of papers and talk to others about what has been done before and what is currently being researched to avoid "reinventing the wheel". That is, to avoid researching/publishing a result…
Paul
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56
votes
11 answers
How old is too old for a PhD?
Are there any age limits (formal, informal, or guidelines) that schools use when deciding to accept someone into a PhD program? I'm most curious about the upper age limits. For example, will most schools accept someone in their 40's? How about their…
earthling
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56
votes
5 answers
Teacher takes pictures of students during exams and posts them on social media
There's this teacher who takes pictures of his students during exams, and posts them on social media, with the knowledge of the students. A lot of people enjoy these pictures (including the students), but I'm not sure how I should feel about…
Zaenille
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56
votes
6 answers
If someone conducts unethical research unbeknownst to anybody, but produces positive results, what would happen to the research once discovered?
I was just wondering about this specific scenario.
Say someone was researching nature vs. nurture, but his experiments involved keeping babies in a controlled environment for the first 10 years of their life. His research is secret and he has ways…
Zaenille
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56
votes
13 answers
Should I inform students that there are cheaper alternatives to the on-campus book store?
The bookstore at my American university is an outpost of Barnes and Noble, charges much higher prices than can be found on Amazon, and in my opinion offers very poor service. Among other things that upset me, they prohibit students from browsing the…
Anonymous
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56
votes
15 answers
The more I improve the quality of my course, the worse the student evaluation becomes. Should I provide low quality lectures?
For almost 6 years, I have given courses on different CS topics at my university. This year, I decided to make my lectures and tutorials for a specific master course as perfect as possible, so I and my team (tutors) put an enormous effort (compared…
Yacine
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