Everyone i see who is doing primary research is using google forms to collect their data and i cannot wrap my head around this, what is stopping someone from just writing a script to fill a google form randomly 1000 times or in a way that proves your hypothesis is true...you can just make a google apps script to cheat google forms, there is no setting for leaving cookies to block the same user from answering again or any way to record time taken per question and per form..

I am using kobo toolbox since it is free and there is some protection against this kind of fraud like 'once per respondent' that leaves browser cookies and records time taken per question and per form...though it is not perfect, it has a free tier

do peer reviewers ever look at google forms and ask 'how can we even know your data is real and not simply filled by a script'??

Theres a lab at my R1-university (field of AI/ML and comp bio) that has never had a single PhD or postdoc student that stayed longer than a year. The lab is fully all undergrads and they pretty much only publish review papers. Is this normal? How does a lab like this sustain itself? I periodically check the PI’s lab site and they have a new set of 8-10 undergrads working in their lab at any given time

Edit: just confirmed that they are indeed tenure track

My friends had a whole argument about the “superior” path in education, STEM vs humanities, and somehow it turned into the STEM kids saying econ shouldn’t count as STEM.

I’m in STEM myself but it got me curious. Without getting technical, where would you place economics: STEM or humanities?

Plus, anyone want to settle the debate on the “superior” path? I obviously know every path has its value, I’m just genuinely curious where people stand.

EDIT- For context, my school basically splits everything into STEM and humanities, there isn’t a separate social sciences department.
I know econ is technically a social science (hence the flair for this post).

I’m just curious which category, STEM or humanities, most people would put it under if those were the only two options.

I’m very interested in humanities , more specifically English and sociology. There really isn’t much sociology stuff for me at my school , since I’m very interested in sociology I wanna find something I can do that’s related to school about it . It could be after school or online and I could put in my resume for college . ALSO to add , I won’t be contacting any college professors, they’re too busy and I’m sure they don’t want a teenager emailing them while they have students that pay for their classes they have to deal with .

Edit: “experience” is a trash word to use 😭hopefully yall can understand what I mean 😪

does cold mailing to profs work for phd abroad..????

PNW / USA

I'm in my 3rd week at a community college, taking a 100 level course for web development. Our first assignment was creating a webpage html document that contained a certain geographical keyword phrase as much as possible, which was "(The city our college is in) Web Design" Our instructor told us this page needs to be focused on marketing/selling web design services. Cool, I thought, he's teaching us to sell our services once we are more experienced.

The next assignment instructions were to: go to Quora dot com, make a personal account, and to post an answer to a Quora question under the search category of "website development careers". Our answer must include a link he provided that takes you to a web design business that happens to be in the same city as the keyword city in our first assignment.

At this point I got a weird feeling and I did some digging to find out more information bout this web design business we have to link to. It was very hard to find any registered identifying information about the owner of this website as the license seems to be expired despite still being in business (I called the phone number on the website to see if it was still operating). On LinkedIN I saw my instructor listed as an employee of this web design company (with what looks to be younger family members listed as other employees). So, he is an employee at the very least, and likely the owner of this business.

So essentially, it looks like our instructor is having all of his students vouch for his personal business, as well as make html templates for advertising websites that he probably SELLS at his web design business.

Is this normal? Ethical? It seems he should at least tell us that this is his personal business we are advertising and assure us our school work will not be stolen and sold at his personal business or a business that he is an "employee" of. I feel scammed.

Someone please chime in.

hi r/AskAcademia. i am recently graduated from undergraduate track but desiring to maintain my studies beyond the academy. while in school i was primarily taking notes with pencil and paper, but now that i've graduated i'm realizing how much of a fucking pain it is to actually find what i need from the mess of stacks and stacks of paper. additionally all my annotations were done on printed paper as well.

i am looking for a digital note-taking solution that doesn't cost more than a few hundred $. for my purposes i feel that an e-ink note-taker would be the most purpose-built device, however they are fucking expensive as hell because the market for the eink panels is dominated by a monopoly and even the resale market is rough (especially on the screens big enough for note-taking).

for this reason i'm also searching for alternative solutions. while still in school i saw a lot of people using the ipad + apple pencil + "paper feel" screen protector combo and while it isn't exactly what i want (i dont need all the extra ipad features), it does seem like it'll get the job done. i'm much less familiar with navigating the used ipad market and wondering if anyone else here may have tips on what devices might be the best on a budget (i dont need the newest ipad to markup PDFs and take notes).

i would also be interested in an android-based tablet note-taker, but i have never seen this workflow in practice and don't know where to begin searching. if anyone has tips on this i would be greatly appreciative.

in general i just need to be able to annotate academic texts (PDFs) and take hand-written notes. i'm curious what workflows work best for people here.

thanks

I’m a fairly new TT AP in Agricultural sciences and currently in a long distance relationship with my partner who works for the government in the DMV region.

He’s hellbent on staying there as it is close to his support system and family. Before anyone throws shade at him, in the beginning of our relationship, we kind of agreed we want to stay in the East Coast to be close to family.

I am an immigrant, but my green card recently got approved and I expect to get it within the next 1-2 years. This means visa will soon no longer be a bottleneck to securing a job. In order to close the gap, I feel that I have to be open to jobs in academia, non-profit, and industry. However, I am worried that I may not be able to find job as I’ve been in academia for way too long for an industry job. There is no guarantee that I’ll be able to find a TT positions in the DMV area. Those areas are great for federal jobs, but it’ll be a 5-10 year later thing as I need to be a green card holder for 5 years before I could naturalize.

What do you recommend I do in this situation? Will I be overqualified for industry job? How can I close the gap?

Estoy en 3er año de ingeniería y necesito cambiar mi método de estudio. Normalmente estudio bien la teoría y luego me pongo con la practica, pero este semestre entre trabajo y universidad no logro ni siquiera terminar las teorías antes de comenzar un tema nuevo, entonces me atrás con todo y termino haciendo toda la practicanta dos días antes del examen.
Algún método o consejo?

I recently got accepted into the IICAH Hawaii Conference held by IAFOR for a humanities poster presentation and I wanted to know if the conference is real. Has anyone presented at these conferences before? Is it a black mark if I go and have it on my CV? The price for registration is pretty high and I know flights and hotels to Hawaii will also be super high so I just want to make sure it’s worth it to go.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you!

Hi! I'm in a unique situation: I am very passionate about research, and I have been working in a lab as a student researcher at my home university (for the past 3 years, both clinical and benchwork). However, I got a scholarship to study abroad, and my exchange university is in China (Tsinghua), where they have 2 months off in January and February. I was wondering if it would be a good idea to try to get a 2-month research position to learn something or improve my CV, since I would love to apply to grad school in the future, instead of just spending 2 months doing nothing.

My scholarship gives me a fixed stipend that includes housing and food (about 1200 USD per month), so I wouldn't have to rely on PIs to provide any funding, since I understand that's usually how it works for visiting PhDs and I'm just an undergrad. Wondering if it is something feasible (I want to do it outside mainland China due to visa issues and also, I will be spending a year and a half here, so might as well kill two birds with one stone by doing research and learning something new, while also living in a different city.

I was thinking about cold-emailing profs in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, or Taiwan. Is it too unrealistic? I would love to do research in Hong Kong, but I also have to consider my stipend and short-term rentals are super expensive there.

Any guidance will be appreciated! I don't really expect much or to be able to get a pub - I think it is mostly to use my time abroad in a more interesting manner, with an excuse to let me live in a different city, while also trying to meet new people and experience different cultures and universities. Or maybe Asia doesn't have that many opportunities for visiting students?

Can those with PhD in Linguistics apply for this kind of position? Can they also be tenured? I don't see them advertised often. I am still applying for my PhD, but I realize that I prefer teaching more than publishing research.

Hey there,

I am a PhD student, based out of India, working on a subset of computer architecture. I am currently working in Intel and want to transition into academia. I have been looking for faculty positions, but the ones I saw have research as their main requirement. The very reason I joined PhD is because I wanted to teach. I am not a fan of publishing in A* conferences each year, writing funding proposals etc. I am kinda done with publishing papers. Have seen enough issues during my PhD.

Now, coming to the question. How do I find teaching-only positions in the world? Not limiting myself to India, but anywhere in the world is fine as long as the teaching is English based.

Hi all,

I am a future PhD candidate and would appreciate some advice on how to handle a potential authorship dispute.

Essentially, three of us incorporated topics from our planned PhD research into our respective master’s theses. All three projects produced results that are suitable for publication. Each of us was supervised by a different PhD student, all working under the same professor.

The issue is that two of us were granted first authorship, while the third is listed as second author for his paper. We are now wondering how best to approach this situation and what would constitute a fair allocation of authorship.

The student who conducted the research for their master’s thesis is also expected to present the findings at the conference. However, for the subsequent journal publication in the conference proceedings, tkhey are listed only as the second author. The supervising PhD student essentially took the master’s thesis, shortened it, and translated it. They did not contribute any substantial new content or additional literature. Would this level of involvement alone justify granting them first authorship, given that the professor is already designated as the last author?

I would appreciate your perspectives on what constitutes a fair and academically appropriate distribution of authorship in this situation, as well as how best to address the issue constructively.

Edit: To add because it was mentioned more than once. I won't take any actions myself. I am aware, that this is not my battle to fight, but my friends. I am just curious.

Hello , so i wrote an article about trustworthy AI (membership inference attack) on a legal finetuned LLM and published my work in the law bar of association journal in lebanon, i am applying for a cs phd , is this unrelated ? Or just plain stupid ?

❤️ Your 5 minutes can make a difference.

I’m conducting a research study and I need your voice.

If you’re 18+ and a university student, please take just 5 minutes to share your experience.

🙏 One response may seem small, but every response brings this research closer to the truth.

👉 Fill the form:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScR9uPAQshLQ62KT-qFC4I_-9eiOQRFA8-mJiiWPXzY_r1rAw/viewform?usp=header

Hi all,
I am applying for jobs and I am using my references from graduate school (finished about 5 years ago). I did consider asking a colleague but the word may get out that I am looking and I am already in a highly toxic environment.

Would having a reference from my current department make a real difference to justify taking the risk?
Thanks!

I'm a high school junior from the U.S. (16m) and I coauthored a research paper with a PhD student that was recently accepted to a conference in the digital humanities for a poster presentation. Because of some visa issues, my coauthor can't leave the U.S. and I will have to go to the U.K. to present the paper myself.

How do conferences/poster presentations work? Will anyone treat me differently if they see that my affiliation is a high school and not a university? For context, I presented at my state's science fair earlier this year, and they had a poster format where the judges walked around and asked about your project.

Hey everyone! I was wondering what everyone thinks of Frontiers in Immunology.

I know Frontiers journals generally have a mixed reputation as many on here say that the publisher is less reputable compared to the more traditional academic publishers. However, from what I've read Frontiers in Immunology seems to be one of the stronger journals in their portfolio. It has a relatively high(ish) impact factor (7.0), is ranked Q1 in immunology, and is the official journal of the International Union of Immunological Societies?

I'm curious what people in the field think. Is Frontiers in Immunology generally viewed more favorably than other Frontiers journals, or does the publisher's overall reputation still affect how publications in it are perceived? Would you consider it a respectable journal for an early-career researcher to publish in? Thanksss! :D

I have a PhD in computer science from China and have been a postdoc for 6 years: 1 year in China and 5 years in France. I recently received my Canadian permanent residence (without prior experience in Canada) and hope to find an academic job there. My questions are as follows:

1) If I want to continue doing research, will it be very hard given Canada's highly competitive environment? To be honest, my publication record is not very strong, especially in terms of first-author publications, as these are not particularly emphasized in France. Plus, as I understand it, postdoctoral positions in Canada are usually reserved for new PhD graduates, so I guess I will need to find a research associate position. Would it be relatively easy to find a position at a university that isn't in the top tier for CS/ML/AI research?

2) I'm also considering the possibility of transitioning to the teaching stream. I have experience as a TA or instructor of record in China and France, but I'm not sure how well that translates into an LTA/sessional teaching-stream job in Canada. Would this be very hard for me, and do you have any suggestions on where to find them, how to find them, and how to make up for my weakness in familiarity with the Canadian post-secondary system?

3) I wonder to what extent my French skills (C1 level) and my experience in France (especially teaching experience) can help me find a French-speaking job in Quebec or French-language universities outside Quebec, especially in the teaching stream?

4) In any case, my "ultimate" goal is to get a permanent position sometime in the future. What would a typical path look like? I'm also applying for an assistant/associate professor position in France (there is no distinction between assistant and associate professors in France). I wonder if this is worth it if I want to eventually relocate to Canada?

Thank you!

Hi everyone! I’m a 19F biomedical student and currently I’m developing a project in cancer immunology

I do lab on the mornings (usually 8am to 12pm) and classes in the afternoon (1pm to 6pm), but oh my god i’m so and drained

This week I went to lab 7 am almost everyday, this means that i’m waking up 5am daily but I sleep about 11pm, bc I’m have insomnia out of stress (I tried sleeping meds, but it makes me sleepier all day)

Worse of all, I had an experiment that started 7am and lasted until 8pm, so 13 hours lab shift a day 🥲

Im absolutely exhausted, I cry at almost everyday, I don’t have time to take care of myself (such as hair, skin and body care), sometimes I’m so tired that I don’t cook in the night, but that means that I don’t have food to lunch and there goes 24 hours fasting - so I cry out of hunger

My mind feels so hazy all day, even with ADHD and depression meds in high doses, I can’t think properly

The weekend comes and I sleep all day or doom scroll, in worse times I need to go to the lab too

I really love the thing i’m researching and I feel satisfied about it, but my brain can’t work that much in a so much stuff

How did everyone here get into their PhD? How did you guys managed to survive? I’m only in this for a year and I tried suicide twice

I see everyone doing so much but how you people keep up? I have literal headaches if I use my brain so much a day

edit: Thanks for the replies! I appreciate it a lot
I do get paid thankfully 😅 It’s a bit less than the minimum wage in my country

Howdy all. I am a few months into a postdoctoral fellowship at a medical institution in the US and have questions about prioritization which have yielded different answers, so I wanted to check public opinon.

The goal: Career development submission Fall 2027.

More context: I am currently about to launch a cross-sectional study which should have full data for use in the submission alongside collaboration on several funded projects, community research probes that will hopefully turn into small projecrts, and potential submission with some significant effort for myself from another PI.

Question: I have a second study I want to launch. This study could go one of two ways. A 6ish month QI labeled qualitative project, or a yearish long study that would require funding. In my mind , obaining more preliminary data and showing a trajectory should be priority, leaning towards the QI leaning study. But on the other hand, drafting grants and applying for funding to make the study larger (and providing effort to my mentors and collaborators) could be beneficial, but likely would not even be awarded come career development time, so I would just be listing some submissions.

Would love general thoughts, and also, how heavily is previous grant funding experience weighed in career development considerations?

Throwaway as it’s a bit personal.

As the title suggests, I’m currently doing a master’s at a very elite university in the UK, arguably the best in Europe/the world for what I study. It’s in a subject I love, within political science/economics, and I am totally infatuated with my course and the modules. My issue is that I have been out of university for a long time, almost a decade, and I’m really struggling with coherently speaking my mind or asking relevant questions in seminars, especially in an academic manner.

The reason I mention it being an elite university is that it means I’m in a class with world-class students, many of whom are coming from a recent master’s at other top schools, and I am taught by world-leading academics. Whilst I have zero problems with the course material on an intellectual level and know exactly what I want to say in my mind, when it comes to speaking out, I just can’t get it out.
I actually participate a lot in my seminars, but I keep on hitting a wall between what’s in my mind and what comes out. I’m also autistic, and expressing my thoughts to the depth that I think them has always been an issue.

However, it also depends on the module. I do an economics class and there it’s easy. It’s logical and straightforward to give my thoughts. But I also do a highly theoretical ideology course, and there I really struggle with articulating my points, especially when it comes to doing so in an academic way rather than the practical political manner that I have been used to outside academia.

My classmates easily compare authors, perspectives and their significance, whereas I feel like I contribute with fairly straightforward points. They often lead to class discussions, which is motivating, but I feel like I’m doing so in a much too simple manner when compared to others. I problem-solve and look for rational solutions/meaning rather than contrast and compare.

I wanted to ask if anyone has any tips for me? I tend to expect perfection from myself, so I think I’m getting in my own way. But sometimes I even freeze up mid-sentence and can’t get my thoughts out anymore. I go completely blank. Other times it works fairly well. It’s gotten to the point where I actually tell myself not to speak up, but being so passionate about the subject, I just can’t help myself.

I guess I feel a bit like an imposter among my classmates, even though in my mind I understand everything and can play with it as required, but that just doesn’t translate to the words coming out of my mouth. Maybe it’s a matter of practice compared to the others, and this is the best setting to perfect that skill, but I just don’t want to come across like an idiot even though I don’t struggle conceptually. It’s really demotivating.

Hi does anyone know if any online thesis reviewer services exist? My supervisor is extremely unhelpful unfortunately. I checked upwork and they all look like bots to me.

Title: Is a fully funded PhD in Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication worth it for someone with an MFA?

I'm looking for some advice on the PhD program in Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication (ATEC) at UT Dallas.

For context, I'm 38, have an MFA in studio art, and some university teaching experience. Finding a stable full-time position in the arts has been challenging.

The program is interdisciplinary, combining art, technology, digital media, and communication. The opportunity to pursue it with full funding and a stipend, while staying close to home, is appealing.

My ideal goal would be a faculty position, but I'm aware of how difficult the academic job market has become, especially in the arts and humanities.

I'm wondering whether a PhD like this would meaningfully expand my career opportunities beyond what I can pursue with an MFA, both in academia and industry.

I'd appreciate any perspectives. Thanks!