Hi everyone, I'm currently a Masters student and will be presenting my dissertation paper this week and as this is my first time ever presenting at a conference, I am a little nervous, but very much excited about it. What should I do to be better prepared? Do you guys have any tips or tricks?

Thank you very much in advance!

I am doing a an entrepreneurship program at school and I need to do a survey asking about our issue (procrastination). Please respond to the survey: https://forms.gle/wC4MfCbswm49ueen7

So I'm the lead PI of a mid-sized grant with a few other co-PIs. One co-PI has been difficult to work with since the very beginning. Recently this co-PI's relationship with their institution took an awkward turn (based on what I heard, it's mostly this co-PI's problem) and this co-PI would like to take their fraction of the grant to a new institution. I am aware that grants are awarded to the institutions rather than individuals. But generally many institutions in my field are okay with grants being transferred, unless it's some multi-million major grants we're talking about. I'm guessing if this co-PI has pissed off their home institution, their home institution has the right to force this co-PI to transfer the grant to another personnel...? Do you see things like this happen in academia? Like PI is forced to transfer grant when they're moving? I'm in the US if that matters.

Several mentors of mine suggested I as the lead-PI should do some damage control at some point. One suggestion is to get rid of this co-PI and work with someone else at the same institution. I'm guessing because this co-PI wants to move and it might be in the interest of their institution to keep the money. I myself really don't want to cut this guy loose (I am okay with them taking their fraction of the grant) unless the situation escalates further. But I'm curious, does the lead-PI of a grant have the authority to cut out a hard-to-deal-with co-PI at a different institution and transfer the unused (still quite substantial) grant to someone else at the same institution? I would imagine this would be a red flag in the eyes of the funding agency?

Thanks in advance!

While researching the history of education in New York State, I found this eBay listing. The fourth picture shows a high school entrance certificate, but I am confused about why it says that the student "completed the requirements for admission to academic grade"... what did 'academic grade' mean in this context?

I’m in the final stretch of my PhD and currently applying for assistant professor roles. I’ve got an interview coming up with a faculty search committee, but I don’t know exactly who will be on it apart from the chair, which makes it tricky to prepare. I'd appreciate any tips or experiences you can share!

Hello, Basically the title. I'm pursuing an undergraduate degree in a top design college in India. As a part of completing our bachelor's, we are tasked with writing a dissertation for which guides are assigned on the basis of faculty work and their relevance to your topic. The guide that I've been assigned (I'm just sorry for myself) quickly learnt that I could bite off and chew a little more than what others could and commended my topic and it's relevance. But apart from the praises and unhinged expectations, he doesn't help me with actual work. He mentions that I'd need a graph showing so and so features inorder to prove my point, and if I ask any more than just one simple question, it's apparent that he doesn't know what he's talking about and quickly concludes saying that I could figure it out. He mentioned that he'd get my work published and I was excited about that, but I'm concerned about the quality of my work. So far gpt has been a better guide, although I know whatever LLM recommends is baseless and can't be relied on.

Is there a place where I could ask questions about research methodology, specifics and hopefully get a sound answer?

I am current taking Intro to Microeconomics and it is kicking my butt. I am a straight A student and while I think I would be able to get an A in the class, I am putting more effort into this one class than every other one of my classes combined. I really can't take it anymore, I really do not have a mind for economics and this class is not required by any means I was just forced into by a bad guidance counselor; had I never taken this class I would still be able to graduate at the end of next year with no additional credits needed.

I'm a philosophy major if that affects anything. I skipped two years of high school so even though I am 18, i am technically a junior. I say technically because I recently transferred to a new school. I had a 4.0 GPA at the school I spent my first two years in. This is my first semester at this new school. It is a very prestigious program that did not take transfer credits; the only reason I was even able to go in after two of years of college was because of my young age; had I been 20, I would have been considered too old for it. I managed to get them to change their policy for me, however, and get them to take all of my credits. I am not sure if this being my first semester at a new school would make potential law school admissions for forgiving of a withdrawal. I am doing excellent in every other class I am taking this semester.

Does any one please have any tried and true tips or recommendations. Often losing my argumentation thread. Thanks in advance.

I'm British but faculty at a US university. I get asked fairly frequently to write letters of reference but I somewhat struggle with how positive I should be. My experience of letters of reference in Britain is that they are fairly honest and representative of the candidates abilities while over here in the US they all seem very inflated. Like most letters I read seem to think the candidate is 'gods gift to science'. So if I am writing letters of reference to a US audience how much is it expected that you should exaggerate?

Hello there hope you are doing well. I am finishing my masters and wondering if I should start a PhD. I heard of Marie Curie project and wondering how much they pay in your country if you are a recipient (I know that salady doesn't match the one written on the website with country coefficient)

Hi,

I've got a (quite general) question about how to anticipate how 'theory-heavy' or theoretically grounded a particular MA program is. Financially, I cannot afford to pursue my masters in the United States, Canada, or the UK – so I am looking at Europe. I'm interested in an interdisciplinary program with emphasis on anglo literature and culture, with a strong theoretical foundation. I'm interested in media and cultural production, literary theory and history, literature as an object of critique. basically i'd like something interdisciplinary with the opportunity to read philosophy and theory and the chance to write a strong thesis at the end of the program. interested in 19th and 20th century American literature and speculative fiction.

I'm certainly curious about program recs, but I'm more so wondering if anyone has any wisdom regarding the role of the thesis in a program vs. a course of study that's plainly advertised as critically engaged and theoretically driven i.e. berkeley, the new school, etc – which are regrettably beyond my ability and interest to pay for. post-MA goals might include an American PhD however

and indeed, this post is a bit vague - but I'm really curious about general trends in literature programs. and anyone's experience. I'm a bit nervous (based on what I'm finding online about some European programs I'm considering) that they'll be a little lackluster relative to what I'm looking for...

thanks!

Hi, as probably most novice researchers, I was lucky to identify a gap in the literature. For a publication, I want to dig deeper and identify, why there is a gap in literature, identify common challenges other researchers have faced, etc. But I'm having trouble finding a suitable methodology for this goal. I'm currently exploring literature grounded theory, but I feel like it is just not the right fit for my task.

Are there any methodologies you can recommend? I'm in information systems research. Any help is greatly appreciated appreciated!

I might be an outlier in that I really love peer reviewing journal articles. I get a lot out of it, including getting a chance to deeply read something that I probably wouldn't otherwise, and seeing other people's writing process has definitely improved my own writing and the way I approach articles.

More recently, I've noticed that I am rarely, if ever, invited to review for the same journal twice. I'll do a review, submit it, and then never hear back from the editors. I get requests to review articles from 2-3 (new to me) journals per year, which result in 5-6 reviews per year (I usually end up reviewing thematic issues, so I'm asked to review several articles at once all from the same journal).

Is the fact that these journals don't ask me to review anything else a sign that I'm not doing reviews correctly? I see other academics on here complaining that they are constantly being asked to review articles and frequently have to say no; that isn't even close to my experience. What gives? Would an editor tell you if you were screwing up as a reviewer?

I’m a foreign med student that made a research with some USA friends. I was navigating and found this page where you can apply your research and you can get the opportunity to present it on a medical conference. So we finish the research and apply to this conference. Me and my friends were super excited until we start to looking around the offices page. It says it’s an Indian research company ( first red flag) and all the foto looks kind of sketchy, so I dig more and found they offer visas (second red flag ). So Reddit family dos anyone know if I’m getting scam or it is really an Indian company for research and I have nothing to worry about. This is the link they sent us to register: https://scienceleagues.com/events/registration.php?id=2621676

I am writing a book on a particular business topic, which is not well covered in most colleges. I receive strong demand on social media for this particular topic (I can't share what but it relates to a large part of business) and I am wondering if I should write this book with a curriculum in mind. Some professors initially shared interest.

Would universities or instructors have interest in using materials to correspond with a book, if our team created them? Would the book need to be accompanied by 12 weeks of curriculum with slides, lesson plans, etc? What about a smaller module?

I am trying to assess whether framing this business book with college and academia in mind makes sense. It will be published for a general audience and not published from an academic publisher.

To anybody who has an MBA on here, was it difficult landing a remote role with the MBA being part of your resume? I have listed my MBA as one of my qualifications in my current Virtual assistant role searches and honestly it's been really hard to come by something concrete. With 7 years of work experience in Administrative roles that covered customer service and accounting, finding a remote role that could at least pay me $600 a month either permanent or otherwise hasn't been easy.

So recently I had this conversation with my friend who has a Masters degree in Computer science, told him about my predicament and his top suggestion was that maybe I shouldn't include my Masters as part of my resume. I'm conflicted about this . To the potential employers and those who've gone through the same, I'd kindly like to know your thoughts about this.

I'm reading papers and my task is to seek out arguments made in the paper and assess them on their logical strength. Do the premises support the conclusion and whatnot. But I want some guide in assessing arguments effectivity. For example here's an argument I came across: "wealth at the very top is primarily in the form of business ownership, which is by definition divisible in shares and hence can be easily taxed: a 1 per cent wealth tax implies that business owners should simply give the govern-agrument 1 per cent of their shares. Therefore the proper way to tax billionaires is a progressive wealth tax."

How do I go abouts assessing this?

I need some advice. I teach at a SLAC and have for five years, but I am so sick of it. I get put on useless committees, where idiot faculty members debate nonsense for hours and never do anything. I'm on a university senate that meets for hours each month to discuss childish issues, not realizing that the university senate has zero power. I have never seen grown adults act like children and consume themselves with trivial issues, like what font the syllabus should be. On top of that, the department requires a 5/5 load and any time a single student gives a bad review (luckily, I haven't had any, but I'm sure it's a matter of time), the administration goes crazy, expecting you to be perfect. And the chair and dean schedule utterly useless monthly meetings where we talk about absolutely nothing. I come from the real world. Academics are so clueless and specialize in wasting time and getting upset over nothing. The useless meetings, the ridiculous committees, and the pressure to literally give out grades to avoid bad student reviews is unreal. Why are academics so dumb?

I am a Research Scholar from Civil Engg. background. It's a 5 year PhD program (July 2022- July 2027 and after 5 years no more stipend however PhD can still go on) and I am 2 years and 3 months into it. However, I am undergoing severe depression and I'm feeling lost. So far, I have submitted one review paper which is under review post revised submission. As for my project work, it is largely based on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), however, if the need arises I'd have to do experimental work in the future. The issues that are troubling me are as follows:

1. At the time when my comprehensive presentation happened (18 months into PhD), I had decent enough literature survey to kickstart my first phase of work , however, this first project (or objective) that I had decided for myself was based upon reading 4-5 research papers. I had noticed a pattern in them (they pertain to pedestrian level wind study) and I had decided that I would add to their work however my methodology would remain the same. My comprehensive got over in Feb 2024 and its Nov 2024 now and I've barely gotten anywhere. I'm still trying to complete numerical validation with experimental dataset and parametric work is yet to begin. Is this long validation normal or I wasted way too much time?

2. At the time of my comprehensive, I had set multiple objectives to show to the research committee but the truth is that my literature review is lacking in 2 of those objectives. So the tension that is killing me is that is it still possible to do literature survey and carve out work plan for those remaining objectives or I screwed up by not having proper work plan prepared for them at the time of Comrehensive exam?

3. I want to have 5 publications by the time I complete my PhD in July 2027 to have a chance for job somewhere in Academic line but I've lost all faith that I can accomplish it and I just feel let down all the time by the mistakes that I've committed till now (procrastination etc.). I'm ready to devote myself fully to my work but is there any chance left to get 5 papers published or has it turned unrealistic now? To add to my woes, my supervisor is no help, I didn't opt for any co-supervisor either and there's no point in discussing anything with my supervisor because she has zero knowledge of anything (This is not me judging her, it's a Fact).

Any response would be deeply appreciated. Thank you.

Hey all, same as title. I'm interested in visiting an collection in the US National Archives- as part of my literature review beforehand, I want to see who's cited the archival material in their research, who's been in before me, how they used the material. Is there any good way to do this? I'm sorry if I'm not making myself clear enough, let me know if I need to clarify. Thank you!

Hello everyone! Can you please share your opinion about publishing a review article as a preprint (I’ve already sent it to a peer-reviewed journal)? And if you support such approach, which platform would you prefer: bioRxiv or Preprint.org?

Howdy,

So my situation is that I'm working on a niche problem in a niche field, there are two labs on the planet that do what I want to do and they don't do them how I want to do them.

The general impression I get is that you need to be prepared to mold your proposal to the existing direction of a research programme to see if it will land with a prospective supervisor.

I am pretty inflexible and I don't exactly care for PhD although it might provide a nice environment to work on this niche of a niche, the other option is simply to commercialize as it's niche but it's not worthless niche.

So fellas, should I just forget about the PhD entirely while I'm this stubborn - kinda need this idea put to bed by people who know more about academia.

Hey Reddit people!

I have recently graduated with a bachelor's degree in computer science. I have research experience, 2 internship experiences, plenty of extracurricular activities both within and outside my university, and an international research award for undergraduate research in artificial intelligence and machine learning. The universities I have applied to align heavily with my research interests, I have thoroughly done my research on the labs, research groups, and certain publications from faculty members that interest me. I have applied to MS/PHD in these universities: Carnegie Mellon, Rochester, Nebraska-Lincoln, and George Mason (all in order of highest ranking to lowest). Although my case may be pretty good, but I can't help but feel paranoid and worried for being from Iraq. I know no one from my surroundings in Iraq, both academics and industry who have applied to graduate school in the US for computer science, let alone have received funding packages so as to obtain PHD while simultaneously do a RA/TA to help with their cost of living and studying.

I don't know the point of my post, to be honest. Maybe words of reassurance? Maybe you know people with similar cases if not identical? Maybe roast me for being overly worried about something outside my control and not focusing on my applications? You do you.

Looking forward to all the responses...

Dear altruists,

I’m reaching out for guidance. I’m a recent graduate from an interdisciplinary subject, and my thesis (human behavior focused) where I'm the first and corresponding author, has been submitted to a Q2 journal. After multiple Q1 rejections, the paper finally got through an initial review round. One reviewer noted the study's practical and theoretical contributions and how it reflects the current situation in the study area, which I’m taking as positive feedback.

However, I’m currently facing a challenge with Reviewer #2, who wants further justification for my choice of a 6-point Likert scale instead of the more widely accepted 5-point version. The reasoning behind this decision was to avoid neutrality and potentially lazy responses, which my supervisor had advised. However, the established research method I followed used 5-point Likert scales to measure responses.

My reliability metrics (Cronbach’s alpha, KMO, etc.) were strong across all constructs, meeting the required standards for further analysis. Although I cited two papers where authors discuss avoiding neutral responses with even-point Likert scales, my defense still seems weak. Apart from this one point, I’ve revised the manuscript thoroughly, addressing all other comments carefully, and honestly, I believe the paper is now stronger. But I’m a bit worried—could this specific choice lead to rejection?

If anyone has insights on stronger defenses for the 6-point Likert scale or references that could support this choice in social science research, I’d be incredibly grateful!

Note: This is my first ever submission to any journal. Thanks so much for any help you can offer.

I hoped some UK academics might be able to help me identify a gown which belonged to my grandfather. It's black, has lots of pleating around the yoke, very long sleeves that are rectangular at the end with a little flare, and strings. The search result that looks most like it is a master's graduation gown but I'd love a second opinion. My follow up question is if it is a master's graduation gown, can I wear it? I did my BA at Cambridge long enough ago to be a Cambridge MA. Does that call for an MA gown or an MA status gown?

Hi all,

I've been out of school a while, but I'm doing a project (personal, creative, writing) and I'm wondering if there are articles or resources that you've come across that have helped you design how you collect and reference your own research?

I got my MBA a long time ago, but it was largely finance driven and pretty light on the papers and writing, so anything I researched was relatively straightforward. So I'm out of practice!

Just looking for practical help on how to set up an efficient workflow to capture and reference my research. It's mostly reading engineering documentation and referring to old books and other story-driven content. I'm not doing surveys or fieldwork or anything, and won't be handwriting notes. I'm just pulling down articles or other documents to reference later.

If there's a formal type of research methodology (at any level) that's out there, similar to how there's a 'correct way' to cite various things, I'm all ears. Just trying to help my research go smoothly and not be a rats nest of information in a year's time!

Edit: I'd like to stay away from any AI or automation - the effort has to be all mine

Thanks for any direction here.

Hi All, I have an interview coming up this Monday, and I’m feeling a bit anxious about it. I reached out to an amazing professor and doctor at a university for a research internship (cancer/immuno-oncology), and he kindly offered me the choice of an in-person or virtual meeting. I decided to go for the in-person option, as I believe it leaves a better impression and feels more personal for situations like this.

Although I’m not a PhD student (I’m a non-thesis MS student), friends of mine who are a PhD student and a PostDoc suggested that I ask plenty of questions during the interview, especially since I don’t have much actual research experience (other than some rotations).

I would really appreciate your advice on how to formulate my questions, what types of questions to ask, and any tips that could help me increase my chances of landing this internship. I really need this opportunity, especially since I wasn’t able to secure one over the summer.

Thank you all for your help! I appreciate it!

What were your experiences/observations like?

My supervisor suggested me to write one conference paper as part of my Master's. I did and it's now ready to be submitted. He hasn't provided feedback for 2 months. I follow up multiple times. Should I proceed to submit? I put him as co-author, that's why I wait.

My post did well in the gradschool sub so i'm posting here as well.

I don’t condone this type of thing. It’s unfair on students who actually put effort into their work. I get that ChatGPT can be used as a helpful tool, but not like this.

If you're in uni right now or you're a lecturer, you’ll know about the whole ChatGPT echowriting issue. I didn’t actually know what this meant until a few days ago.

First we had the dilemma of ChatGPT and students using it to cheat.

Then came AI detectors and the penalties for those who got caught using ChatGPT.

Now 1000s of students are using echowriting prompts on ChatGPT to trick teachers and AI detectors into thinking they actually wrote what ChatGPT generated themselves.

So basically now we’re back to square 1 again.

What are your thoughts on this and how do you think schools are going to handle this?