How do I judge a professor's quality while choosing  a PhD?  I have completed my Masters in Pure Mathematics. I want to work in fields which involve Algebra,Functional Analysis,Complex Variables.  I also have my own funding to pursue my research.I have passed a qualification exam which will fund my studies for 4 years.  But I have the following questions:   Most of the questions asked here for example  asks to visit the labs. In Mathematics we don't have any labs. I searched some Professors working in the areas I have mentioned. Some of the Professors had great citations in the period 2005-2010 but now they don't get enough citations hardly 1 or 2. Also should I try to join a reputed University as I believe all professors will have great publications there? Or should I not judge a Professor on where he/she teaches? Also it is not possible to visit every Professor personally    In other words I am confused. I don't understand what to see and what not.  Can you kindly say how I should judge a professor or what factors should be taken into account ?
122328
I am planning my PhD and am applying to various labs and professors.   I am getting positive responses, but I am having trouble making a decision as to which lab to go for. How can I judge the quality of research of a group? What parameters shall be kept in mind while making a decision? I usually look for relevant research interests.
71397
I am a Ph.D. student in theoretical computer science. I meet my research supervisor once a week for around 2 hours. I prepare some of my research and try to present in front of him. I always try to make a list of theorems and claims given in the paper to discuss with him in a certain flow but most of the time he starts asking questions and then we go in other directions (which is okay from a research point of view). Due to this, it sometimes takes 2 months to read a single paper.  I always try to follow my designed plan but it rarely works. Also, I don't feel satisfied most of the time because many times I am only able to discuss 50-60 percent of what I have planned. Please help.
52442
I've heard from people saying that while applying for PhD, you need to have past experience in researching something and should have international publications. I was like more concentrated towards practical experience and have't had any publications. If I am aspiring to do PhD and want to apply, it would be impossible if such a criteria exists!
99895
I  am a PhD student in Mathematics. I have found one advisor in my local University who does not know my research field at all, but  has allowed me to choose my own problems and solve them independently. Initially, I was quite happy as I didn't need to switch places (which I don't want at all). The problem started when my advisor could not assist me in solving the problems I chose. It even happened that I chose a problem to work on and when I told him about it, he said that's an excellent problem and I should solve it.Later on after meeting another professor  in this field he told me that it has been solved long before and hence I had no point working on that again. He does listen to me when I say something about the problems but fails to give me any critical feedback in my topic. I searched the web but there are so many directions of the topic I am working on, I am feeling puzzled which way to go. Moreover there is no research group existing in this field in my local University with whom I can discuss or get some inputs abut my problems. I am unable to answer the following questions of mine which is affecting my research considerably:  1.Has my decision to stay in my hometown and not go to reputed institutes and talking to experienced professors backfired on me? How can I come out of this situation? 2.Is  PhD done in this way only without any help from anyone ?At least my advisor says so.  Any comments/advice will be helpful.
23545
In short, How does one go about hiring a professor or someone really well established in their field for a private tutoring session?  I tried looking online but can’t find much, mainly websites for tutors that are practitioners or “experts” as in with with n years of experience at best. This doesn’t cut it at my level as I am a researcher with a PhD and already have published papers on my topic.   However, I am very passionate about my subject and always looking to grow. So I do have questions, very technical (in my case computer science) and would happily pay a fee for consulting with a professor in the field.  Any advice?
84726
Recently, someone analyzed  and found that over half of the professors at the top 51 universities graduated from a top 10 university.  have also brought this up. From my personal observations, most schools do hire graduates from better ranked schools.  Is this because of the competitive job market? We have so many good applicants, we have to narrow it down some how! Or is it simply that these schools produce the most PhDs? Has this always been the case? How rare are exceptions to this? I know of a few people who graduated from a top 75 school and got hired at a top 50 school. But what about bigger gaps? The top 10 schools seem to just swap graduates, do they ever hire from a 50+ ranked school?  Update 2018: I have accepted a tenure-track position at a top 75 department at an R1 university immediately after graduating from an unranked department at an R2 university. It does happen! This may or may not generalize to other fields and countries.
90935
I know you should build a good network with your professors as early as possible, not only it will help your study, but also you can get great recommendation letter from them.   But not all students aim at graduate school when they start their undergraduate, for example, I only became interest in research and decide on going to graduate school after my third year of undergraduate. At that time, I have done a research project with a professor and certainly I can ask him for one. However, most schools require 2-3 recommendation letters.  I know a good recommendation letter should speak about the candidate research potential instead of 'did well in my class', but in my case, only my undergraduate adviser can speak about that. What should I do besides asking recommendation letter from professors I get A grade in their classes?
27741
I'm a junior hoping to do a PhD. I'm in a graduate level class right now in a different field. I believe almost all the other students are PhD students. The first couple weeks of the course were just barely accessible, though very challenging. Now, however, I really find myself unable to complete the problem sets. There are no office hours either.  How bad would it look to pass/fail this class? It's not particularly related to my intended research focus in the PhD. I believe I am a strong candidate aside from this class.  Also, I'm really not sure what grade I would get in this class. Probably a B at worst. I'd rather not mess up my GPA though. All of my other technical classes are A's or A minuses.
38135
I am a senior who is graduating in December with a Bachelor's Degree in Pure math. I would really love to apply to the PhD program. However, I have been really depressed because even though I have a good GPA (3.85), and I have gotten mostly A's in all of my math classes (I have taken math classes up to Topology, measure theory, and Algebra), I feel like this is not good enough since I have 8 W's [withdrawals--no grade given] on my transcript. The horrible part is that 6 of these W's are on math courses. All those W's occurred during my first year at my university. The second year up to now I haven't gotten any W's.  My question is: How horrible (by the Committee who selects candidates for the program) is a W seen on a transcript? Is there anything I can do about it?  I feel like I have a big hole on my transcript, and it has been chasing me throughout my undergrad years even though I managed to hide myself from this monster and continued to take a lot of math courses, earning A's (and two B's) in all of them.
123469
I am a postdoc at a European University. However, I am planning to quit my postdoc in a month or so since the research environment and the city life is not to me liking.  Also, I work with a Professor who is very polite, but also very busy with meetings. My salary comes from the project he administers, so he is the boss of the organization and the project.  For the past four months I have been working on a problem day and night including weekends as I found the problem very interesting and challenging. The theoretical part of the work is complete. It is a "complete" solution. He had NO contribution at all in this. Not even a single email exchange. He is too busy with meetings all the time. He is in the department twice a week for two to three hours at a time. I am also managing his master student as he has no time.   He is definitely polite and nice though, but I have not received any input from him other than giving me printed research papers. But he always asked me to give him the PDFs of lengthy derivations which I did. But I am dealing with analytical/numerical Navier-Stokes equation and its variations, so you can imagine how much terse that is. He has the entire theory now with him from my work. He may have been a good researcher in the past but no contribution to this work. And he had no proper publication in the work that I am doing so I am not sure how much he can contribute in writing the paper.  Now remains the numerical part which I believe I can do in next 2/3 weeks. And I have the ability to write the paper by myself when I have the numerical solution.  I talked to him and asked if I can work for him based in another city. He said if it is a week visit, that is fine, but not otherwise. He said it clearly that "I will not pay you to work somewhere else."  I still have a cordial relationship with him. No worries on that part. So, I am going to leave the place and the position in a month or two for sure.  So, he gains co-authorship just because he has the authority to provide employment? What should I do? Please help. I could have continued to live in the city though it was little boring for me, provided I was able to get inputs from my collaborator, or if he had given me necessary freedom to collaborate with other researchers, which he hasn't.    Update 10th June, I have resigned now. This problem has evolved into a new stage. Please post your replies there:    and
70651
When applying for PhD programs (or  or ) that require only a statement of purpose and , I was advised to first check if some faculty members (or is one good enough?) in the university have the same research interests as I do. I remember reading or hearing something like, it may be helpful to read up on the research that those faculty members have done and possibly contact some of those faculty members, and then incorporate the reading and contacting in the statement of purpose.   So what could I ask those faculty members? What I think:      Hello Prof/Dr ___ .I'm interested in applying in your univ and am interested in X. Can I ask more about what you research? This is my  (I'm from blah blah blah. I have a master's, but it's in applied not pure math. I've done some self-study blah blah blah). Do you think I am a good fit for the university? Would you consider taking me on as a PhD student? Do you think I am better suited for MS/MPhil than a PhD?    And then how do I incorporate the e-mails in my statement of purpose?
116121
When I was 23, I quit my computer science undergraduate studies at USC with only one semester worth of units left and a low (less than 3.0) GPA due to personal reasons.  I just turned 30 and have rekindled a desire to pursue research in computational neuroscience.  Is there any realistic hope of eventually getting into a PhD program and pursuing a career in academia, or is it too much of a long shot given my personal circumstances and the job market?    Basically, what I want to know is, if I were to finish my BS, kick ass in a master's program (applied mathematics), and have great GRE scores, would that overcome my abysmal undergraduate record and gap in years away from school?  The biggest obstacle in my view is getting into a terminal master's program with my undergraduate record.  If I were to get into a 1-year terminal master's program in mathematics at a sub-par university and do great, would I have a chance at a higher ranked university for my PhD?
57958
I am currently finishing my PhD thesis (in Mathematics) and trying to find a post doc position.   My PhD supervisor is a very nice person and is, of course, one of my referees. However, most places need 2-3, so I am not sure who else to ask.  I have a secondary supervisor but we only talked once really during a formal thing. So asking a referee who does not know much about the work or the personality is a bit... weird...  I had a decent relationship with my Master's supervisor, but unfortunately we have not corresponded once in the 3+ years after my masters, so me writing  "hey, do you remember me from waaaay back then, would you please write a reference for me" seems a bit ... strange .. too.  I have published several papers already but I don't have any co-authors whom I could ask.   I have given one talk outside my university but I am not sure who to ask there. I don't actually know these people, my supervisor referred me to them and they were OK so I gave the talk.  Any ideas?
59685
I'm interested in cutting edge string theory studied by research physicist. I'm wonder what  mathematics is needed and how far am I in terms of mathematics background needed and how much more mathematics do I need in order to study it properly and reach my goal. My mathematics level is at calculus/Linear algebra.
62618
I am a PhD student (mid stage) and my work includes the use of mathematics. I try to learn as much as possible. I am facing a problem: I spent enough time on the mathematics required for my research, and according to my research supervisor I am good at understanding proofs, theorems, etc. at an intuitive level, but in writing I still have some work to do. Many times I try to write things and, although I think I am not that so bad, there is still a problem to be resolved.  Question: Is writing in research so very important? I have seen some research papers of some star people whose writing does seems to be very impressive to me (although I may be wrong).  Edit: Please note that I don't consider myself a star: that's why I am asking this question. I am trying my best to improve my writing skills and it has improved to some extent, but to me it appears that I may not get that much better at writing. Let me tell you a story: once during my PhD I worked with a professor other than my supervisor, and then we got some result so he ask me to write a paper. I took 4-5 days write a paper 8-9 pages long, then he told me that I wrote in a cryptic manner. (This happened in my first year.)
94595
I would love to know the circumstances under which people opt for a second doctorate degree.   Could a professor working in a university write up a thesis and submit it to his department to earn a second doctorate? Do only those who want to remain in the university forever as students go for a second doctorate?   Are there any general merits/downsides to earning 2 PhDs, if you are perhaps assured of a research career after a good first one?
96897
I am in the second year of a research degree, and with one more year I could finish my PhD. However, I got a very good job offer at a leading company in the field, which would mean I'd have to finish my degree now (which would then be an MPhil) and start working.  I am hard pressed to make a decision, but I find it very hard to judge: what are the benefits of finishing a PhD over taking a job at a good company? Often people do a PhD to get into such a company, but what if that is not the case? Also, I feel that at this point, a job would be more challenging than a third year of a PhD, which would just be a continuation of the same thing I've been doing for two years now.  On the other hand, people tell me it would be silly to quit now that I am so close, because "a PhD is worth so much more." I would very much like some extra input on this: is a PhD 'worth more' in the end? And what are other things that I'd have to take into account to make an informed decision?   I'm only 23 years old, so I could even do a PhD later, but I'd have to start from the beginning again. Would it be an advantage or a disadvantage to have worked for a couple of years, when applying for a PhD again later?