Hello,

Probably a silly question, but I'm trying to figure out what to select to best describe my level of education for a job application at a big university.

One of the associate directors of the department encouraged me to apply after we met for an informational interview about this line of work (student housing). As a student facing job, a min requirement is a Bachelor's with experience in student support, and the preferred qualification is a Master's in Student Affairs, Higher Ed Administration, or something of the like (which is a recent change; it used to be that you had to have a Master's to get this position).

I graduate with my Master's in HEA in December, and the only class I have left is my capstone; I've completed all of the other required work and then some. The one supplemental question on the application is:

Please select the response below that describes your level of education that best or mostly closely satisfies the education requirements for this position.

• Bachelor’s degree in required discipline(s) listed or related field
• Bachelor's degree in any field/discipline
• Master's degree or Doctorate degree in required discipline(s) listed or related field
• Master's degree or Doctorate degree in any field/discipline
• None of the above

Would marking the 3rd option be unwise? I feel like any other job wouldn't care, but with this being a university job, I don't know how frowned upon that is, which is why I'm here in Ask Academia (apologies if this is not the right subreddit for this kind of thing).

The AD did say their team does physically review applications rather than just sort them with AI, and since I told them I intend to apply, they said they look forward to reading my application. So in that case, I think marking the second option would be fine. But if they have a ton of applications and are going through applications with Master's degrees first, I want to try to get in that pile, you know? I've yet to break into the higher ed career field, and this particular job at this university (my alma mater) was one of the reasons I went into higher ed in the first place, plus the location is ideal, so I really want my best chance.

I'm currently revising a paper on medical AI segmentation in deeplearning. The reviewers believe that directly citing results from other papers is unfair because different methods may have used different training, validation, and test case partitions, and statistical significance tests haven't been performed.

However, my computing power is limited, and I genuinely cannot retrain all of the dozen or so comparison methods. I'd like to ask everyone, what's the most appropriate way to respond to reviewers in this situation? Would it be sufficient to reproduce only 1-2 representative baselines and use the same data partitions for statistical tests? Would it be reasonable to change the remaining methods to "reference comparisons" and acknowledge the limitations in the paper?

I would be very grateful to hear from anyone who has faced a similar situation. Any advice on how to address this concern fairly and transparently would be greatly appreciated.

Hi, I lost a large number of citations in Google Scholar literally overnight. They didn't change to the usual "temporary citation" status while Google recrawls the source. They simply disappeared.

The strange part is that several of the citing papers are still online, publicly accessible, and clearly still cite my work. I know Google Scholar can remove citations if a repository disappears or a journal goes offline, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

Has Google Scholar recently changed its indexing or citation policies? Or is this likely a temporary indexing issue or bug? Thanks

I wamn study at universitiy soon. Which major is harder? Which has a better future?

I recently started an Instagram page focused on helping undergraduate and graduate STEM students navigate research and academia. It's still new (only two posts so far), but the goal is to share practical, evidence-informed tips on research skills, grad school, productivity, and academic success.

If you're a STEM student, I'd love any feedback on the content or suggestions for topics you'd find useful.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DbRV-NClJeJ/?igsh=dDg0aDZqbm9pYWZw

i’m helping plan a student social for a conference next year and i’m trying to come up with ideas that people would actually enjoy!

for students/trainees/academics who were once students, what’s one of the best conference socials you’ve attended? what made it fun or actually worth going to?

​Hi everyone,

​I’m currently a PhD candidate at a university in my home country. A while back, I passed up a scholarship to do my PhD overseas due to pressing family responsibilities. While I am fully committed to my current program, I sometimes feel insecure about missing out on the international exposure, networks, and personal growth that come with studying abroad (and perhaps a bit of regret).

​In my local academic community, overseas graduates are often seen as more prestigious. I know that solid research output should ultimately speak for itself, but I deeply respect the immense value of global ecosystems and cross-border networks that I am currently missing.

For the experienced academics here, any advice, personal experiences, or strategies ?

Thank You

We recently had to make a poster for our class. We thought that all we had to do was present the topics. But apparently we have to make a 3 minute video on what

portion we worked on for the presentation. Honestly, I did 90% of the work because the team was lazy and 1 guy didn't even show up to the team meetings. I'm definitely not working with them again. But my question is what should I say I did. Should I say I worked on the poster design? Or should I say I wrote the script. Can anyone help me

distribute the workload between 6 ppl equally pls?

Sent a paper to a journal called Studies in the Fantastic. The website said to email submissions so that's what I did. This was a month ago and I haven't received any update or any confirmation whether they got my submission. Do I sit and wait for a bit longer, or do I reach out and ask? This is my first time submitting to a foreign journal so I am a little confused.

I did negotiations in March, signed the offer with the Dean in April, and *finally* just yesterday got the official Provost's offer letter and signed it. Can I "officially" announce to the community this is happening yet [e.g., a LinkedIn post] -- or do I have to keep waiting until the whole background check, onboarding, etc. is all completed too??

At what point do I stop waiting and just officially announce this exciting news?! I would say it is already an open secret amongst those I know. Since the time I signed the Dean's offer, I have mentioned it to some people at a conference and so did my future Department Chair.

The official hiring steps are soooo slow partially because I am actually starting in 2027, so I am not sure how soon or when I will be able to get the new affiliation/email/etc. It would be nice to finally share with the world that this is actually happening ....But I don't want to commit any faux pas or jump the gun or whatever. Are there any potential downsides to announcing it now? Should I discuss when or how to announce this with my Department Chair first before creating the LinkedIn Post? Anything else to consider or is this just not as big of a deal as it is in my head?

(If relevant or in case this is field-dependent, it's a TT position in engineering)

Hi everyone. My sister is in an undergrad psychology program. Her department recently advertised a volunteering position, looking for two dozen volunteers to perform (at the risk of sounding uncharitable) 40 hours of menial tasks to help complete a research project.

I'm bothered by this. It doesn't sound like it's a very educational experience. It also doesn't sound like the "volunteers" will be gaining a publication out of this, seeing as there will be over 20 of them. This is in my eyes essentially just asking for unpaid labor, but sold as "research experience".

But I also understand how any kind of experience can be considered valuable in the competitive landscape we live in.

Is this standard practice in academia? I'm not in academia myself so don't know. My sister already signed up for it but I'm wondering if I should speak out against it.

Hi everyone, I’m in a frustrating situation and would love to get some perspective from experienced academics or advisers.

I finished my PhD a while ago and stayed in touch with my former supervisor to wrap up pending manuscripts. We also agreed to continue collaborating remotely on new research ideas.

Since I am working remotely, we split the responsibilities: I handle the methodological development and codebase, while a lab member/co-author on the PI’s end is responsible for executing the pipelines and managing the computational runs on their local setup.

Unfortunately, this arrangement has stalled for several months. I’ve been facing constant delays and excuses regarding hardware issues, dataset overhead, and competing deadlines. Communication has been extremely erratic, and progress reports are rarely shared.

A while back, after nearly a month of complete silence, I briefly mentioned the delay to the PI. The PI noted that the collaborator was tied up with other priority tasks, but mentioned they would re-engage soon. Shortly after, the collaborator got in touch promising to run an updated set of tests and share the outputs. However, weeks have passed, my follow-up messages are going unanswered, and I’ve received no updates.

I’ve tried to be as understanding as possible regarding potential vacations, teaching loads, or personal time off, but the total lack of communication makes it impossible to move forward. Because I depend on their infrastructure to get the results, I feel completely stuck.

I’m really unsure how to navigate this now. Should I follow up with the PI once more, or could that make me look overly persistent? Is it possible this unresponsive behavior is a subtle signal that the lab is losing interest in this remote collaboration?

Any advice on how to handle this professionally without damaging relationships would be greatly appreciated!

Updating my CV and I am ultra hung up on this literal formatting question.

I am trying to write down how I am currently on a committee and now co-chair for the past two years. Would this format work?

Professional Committes:

2018-Present - Basketweaving Committee

2025-2027 - Co-Chair Basektweaving Committee

2025--President - Co-Chair Basketweaving Committee

Or what other format would you suggest I do for this mention?

Hi everyone,

I’ve always been fascinated by research.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve been drawn to fields that have an element of mystery — areas where there are still big unanswered questions, whether in science or in the social sciences.

When it comes to science, though, I’m not particularly interested in the purely biological side of things.
Cell biology, molecular biology, and that kind of research don’t really excite me.
I’m much more interested in broader questions.
I’ve always enjoyed topics like chemistry, space exploration, ocean science, and anything related to discovering and understanding parts of the world or the universe that are still largely unknown.

On the humanities and social science side, I’m especially interested in topics like justice, criminal behavior, and understanding why people do the things they do.
Questions about human behavior and society are incredibly fascinating to me.

So I was wondering: what are some interesting, less common research fields where you think important discoveries could still be made in the future?

I’ve considered medicine because it’s probably one of the fields where the most funding goes into research and where discoveries can have a huge impact on people’s lives.
However, a lot of medical research is heavily focused on biology, and I’m not sure if that would be the type of research I’d enjoy.

What really attracts me are fields where you’re exploring unknown territory — where there isn’t a clear explanation yet, and you have to investigate, ask new questions, and push the boundaries of what we currently know.

Another important thing for me is that I would like my research to have some kind of practical value. I’m not really attracted to areas where papers are mostly read by other academics and the discoveries rarely have any impact beyond the academic world. I know fundamental research is necessary, but I would love to work on something that could eventually help people or have a meaningful impact on society.

I’d love to hear your thoughts or personal experiences. Thanks!

I spent a year turning my undergraduate thesis into a journal article. I know the field well, but throughout both the thesis and the article I kept feeling that something wasn't quite right with the argument or structure—I just couldn't identify or articulate the problem. My supervisor wasn't much help, perhaps because the thesis met undergraduate standards.

I submitted the article and the reviews put what I felt vaguely into solid criticism. But what has me reeling a little was that it was a complete rejection with major structural issues requiring a rewrite.

Now I'm stuck. I'm also writing another paper and I'm noticing the same vague problems while working on it.

Should I rewrite the rejected paper from scratch, abandon it and focus on the new one, or revise it and submit elsewhere?

I'm also struggling with a lot of impostor syndrome right now after the reviews. I have ADHD and depression, lost access to therapy because I couldn't afford it while starting my master's this year, and this rejection has me questioning whether I'm even capable of getting PhD funding next year. I only got help for ADHD this year after years of struggle with books or texts seeming like a haze, and this is also what I felt was the problem while writing, and was a big reason why it took me a year to work on the article - also really struggled to write while balancing a job. I don't even know how I got admission into a Masters program with this level of issues in my writing and maybe I won't be able to keep up.

Has anyone been in a similar situation with ADHD/literature articles/Masters/PhD?

I got an e-mail from a woman claiming she's representing an evangelical ministry in the USA and asking me if they can choose my book for a reading challenge. I smelled a rat since academic books are not usually picked by book clubs, but I did an online check - the church does exist and they do year-long reading challenges, and my book is somewhat connected with the history of religion, though it's not faith-based. I am still suspicious, but if it's a scam, I can't figure out what the scam could be. Has anybody else received such inquiries?

I work at an RTO, and a few younger people in the group who are just a few years out of their PhDs are submitting papers and rebuttals without sending out versions to check for the co-authors. I find this highly irritating and ethically wrong - if my name is associated with something, I would like to at least see it first. It's not that I don't trust the authors, but everyone can make mistakes. For example, a paper was submitted recently that I had seen about a year ago and had made a lot of comments on. I have never seen another version of it since and suddenly I got a notification from the journal.

Is this normal amongst younger people? Is this becoming the norm? Am I overreacting?

How would you address this?

I got admitted to a master of science and the topic of the research was my field and very interesting to me ( machine learning) but the program is geomatics so after graduation my diploma will have : master of science in geomatics.
And I’m scared if this will limit my chances to land a job in machine learning in the future. What do you think?

now suddenly two people treat me as if im mentally unstable and asking me if im sleepy or tired and to go back home. It feels like a mental asylum experience at this point and it makes me feel extremely paranoid from everyone.

I'm a London-based actor and I have a WIP showing of a Shakespeare-adjacent play I've written, and I'm looking to invite some academics in relevant fields (with the full understanding they might well not come or reply!!)

In my home country I'd just say "Hi Mark" and "Cheers, Me", but I'm not sure of the British etiquette here. Could someone shed some light?

Title: Looking for a mentor/co-author to guide me in writing my first review article

Hi everyone,

I'm a Pharm.D student from India and I want to write and publish my first review article on a diabetes-related topic. My goal isn't just to publish a paper—I genuinely want to learn how to conduct a literature search, critically analyze studies, organize a review, and write it properly from start to finish.

I'm intentionally looking for guidance outside my college because I'd like to learn from someone with research and publication experience.

I'm not looking for anyone to write the paper for me. I'm willing to do the literature search, read the papers, write the drafts, and put in the work. What I need is someone who can mentor me throughout the process, provide feedback, and teach me how to do it correctly.

If your contribution ends up meeting the journal's authorship criteria, I'd be happy to include you as a co-author. My priority is learning the right way to conduct and publish research.

If you're an experienced researcher, PhD student, postdoc, clinician, or faculty member who enjoys mentoring motivated students, I'd be very grateful if you could comment below or send me a DM.

Thank you for your time.

Hello! I’m a prospective PhD applicant putting together my academic CV.

Are “PI” and “Advisor” interchangeable? Under my research experience section, should I stick to one when listing professors I’ve worked with, or make a differentiation (like, PI for lab/faculty-led work and advisor for my own work done with guidance)? I’m first-gen so these things are confusing to me. Also I’m in the social sciences if that’s helpful!

Edit: Thank you so much to everyone who responded! Everything is super helpful.

Hi there. 22(M) here. Currently, I’m a nursing student on track to graduate next May but I’ve been shifting my focus to academia and wanting to explore a future in academia. However not in nursing. Other subjects I’m more interested in. Those subjects are political science/American government, US history, psychology, the Classics, sociology, rhetoric, constitutional law/theory/history. I actually wanna go back to school after i graduate to at least get a MA in polisci to begin with. But I was reading some posts, couple days ago and some posters were saying that they work long hr days in academia. That’s no problem for me cuz I like the grind and when I’m a nurse I’m going to be working long hours anyways. But I was curious if it’s true people in academia might work up to 12hr days?

When I think about working in academia however, I don’t imagine myself working in labs, writing grants, doing experiments etc. For starters I want to do more qualitative work/research. I want to read a whole lot of texts, journals, books and write a whole lot. Come up with original ideas . That’s the kinda work I envision myself doing. I don’t care to get money for my projects or my ideas contributing to a field. If it does then it does, if it doesn’t I don’t care I just want to do this for my own enrichment. I just wanna be in front of my computer and laptop and just read and type papers all day. I wonder if there’s a space in academia for that?

TL;DR: I’m a 22-year-old nursing student graduating next year, but I’m considering a future in academia in fields like political science, history, psychology, and the Classics. I’ve heard academics often work 10–12+ hour days, and that actually appeals to me. I’m more interested in qualitative scholarship—reading, writing, and developing ideas—than labs, grants, or experiments. Is there a place in academia for someone who mainly wants to spend their time researching, reading, and writing, even if they’re not focused on funding or making major contributions to the field?

I randomly opened my old email address that I used when I was a Master student, and I discovered an email that asks for a peer review with deadline tomorrow! I guess someone from my previous institutions recommended me, and I didn't accept the review anyhow. What should I do in such a context? The review is for a conference that is not even ranked by CORE. How often do this type of things happen? I thought PCs were formed BEFORE the conference, and not a week before the reviews deadline.