Which one is right?   the degree is imperative to consolidating my grasp on concepts and keeping me abreast of upcoming upgrades the degree is imperative to consolidate my grasp on concepts and keep me abreast of upcoming upgrades.
122487
Is it correct to write: "An agreement is imperative to tackling the problem"?  Or should it be: "An agreement is imperative to tackle the problem"?  Thanks
97144
I always find it hard to see when it's best to use &quot;that&quot;. Which of these sounds best?  There are many reasons I am confident I will excel at this job. There are many reasons that I am confident I will excel at this job. There are many reasons I am confident that I will excel at this job. There are many reasons that I am confident that I will excel at this job.  Are there ways of looking at this that I can apply elsewhere? Is there a completely different formulation that works better?
20231
I was reading this today:  We look forward to following your progress.  Am I correct in thinking that it is missing a be or that -ing should be removed?  So  We look forward to be following your progress.  or  We look forward to follow your progress.  Interestingly I get the same jarring feeling when reading the examples here
100351
The essential gist of my question relates to what the real, unvarnished realities are of graduate, post-graduate, research, fellowship, and professorship attainment - when you aren't a single person with no pressing demands other than feeding yourself.   [EDIT: I am humbled by the incredibly helpful and thoughtful responses so far, all of which are +1 from me. I'll leave the question open a few more days before clicking 'accept' on any one, but you all have my gratitude and I hope others will benefit anywhere near as much as I have. ]  What I don't know is what succeeding in this path truly requires in time committment and family support.   Right now I can handle a 12-14 credit course schedule with 3.7-4.0 GPA (in the top 5-10% for college and program, dean's list, etc), work part-time, and still have time to be home and not have a burn-out/breakdown - and the academics are the easy part by far! I could do more, but I need to work more too.   What I really need to know is how sharply different is the time/dedication curve of graduate work and above. I realize each step is a filter that removes most of the entrants (most people don't get a degree, most who do don't attend/finish graduate school, most who do don't seek a PhD,  most who do don't seek/gain professorship...and on and on). But I don't know how severe the stepping is - I'm not talking "tenured professor at MIT or bust" - I realize that bar is many orders of magnitude higher.  Background Details: As an "adult, returning" undergraduate student with a (disabled) wife and kids, I'm halfway through a bachelor degree now. I've located a field of study (in a focus of Industrial Engineering) that has made me very interested in altering my life path to include seeking a Masters and maybe even a PhD/professorship (my father was a professor, so its not a purely novel concept to me). I've met and spoken with my advisor and 2 other professors with experience in related fields, and all is encouraging; I have a graduate school in mind, I've received lots of great advice on preparing for school (on this forum and in person), I test well (no GRE fears remain), good grades/class rank, good prospects for future strong referal letters, etc - a comparitively charmed existence for which I am very grateful! I just have to investigate whether I can make it through with an intact, cared for family!  Any guidance you could provide me, and other aspiring "non-traditional" students alike, would be appreciated immensely - thank you!
12078
We had this argument today at work regarding which one of those two is more correct. Neither of us is a native English speaker. A simple Google research would reveal that most Wikipedia articles use the bachelor of format.  For example:        Bachelor of Arts   Bachelor of Science   Bachelor of Laws   Bachelor of Commerce      The particular case we are having is to describe a person’s education within the contact information of a company's website.  Here’s a partial example:     John Smith      Professional experience         ...   ...         Education         Bachelor [in/of] Accounting and Control      Which one is more correct? Or are they equally suitable?
42217
Trying to figure out the difference between these. I've lost completely as different source/answers interpret it differently. Does anyone have clear understanding about what does undergraduate/graduate/post-graduate student mean in USA?  I've seen this nice timeline in  however answers are still controversial.  As well, trying to figure out who the hell am I - I have a Bachelor in Computer Science, Master in Computer Science and another Master in Business Information Systems. Is that graduate or post-graduate? Also, I'm not a student anymore.
49820
When someone states "I have a Masters in Computer Science" should the word masters have a capital M?  I've seen arguments for both and can't determine which is correct.
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?
98496
First of all, English is not my first language. I have a question, maybe a basic one, about this phrase:     The situation highlights the mismatch between some areas of training and available jobs to/for them.   Should it be "available jobs to them" or "available jobs for them"?  Sorry if the question is really basic.
83325
I would begin by apologizing for a soft question. Reading the FAQ, I have tried to formulate my  question precisely in the last paragraph and you may skip the following paragraph where I make subjective observations, which I think may be relevant and any comments would be more than helpful. By formal education I mean registering in an academic department in a university as a grad/Phd Student.  Subjective belief: I feel I am personally not upto the mark of high-quality physics students. I need to learn a lot more, and do a lot more problems to be any good. I've noticed that Physics particularly is a very selective field dominated by hard-working and primarily young people who accomplish a lot at an early age (olympiads/contests, early phd's from very good places, etc). Even among this bunch a lot get filtered out and wouldn't get faculty positions. Theoretical Physicists tend to be outliers in a field almost entirely composed of outliers. And to learn from such a community, I feel an academic environment is essential, and not just reading books in isolation. So I beleive academia is the only legitimate environment that functions to produce sane physicists who know their field. However, if one has been set-back for some reason but carries the self-beleif that he can be smart enough to do it, would ageing be a parameter. I read a statement in Kleppner's undergrad mechancis book that "by finishing all this at the age of 26, Newton set the trend which follows today, that great advances are made by young physicists". I haven't found a counterexample so I would trust academic departments have the same criterion.  Q: Do people who missed out all the action in their 13-20 ages miss out on having a good career? What are the possible reasons to take a hiatus of "self-study" for a 22-year old so that he may be a good candiate for a respectable physics career (Phd/postdoc etc) later.
72674
By 2013 the theoretical and practical courses are organized   Is it already organized or is it about to get organized? I mean, is it past or future?
105803
Which of these is correct or more natural?        One of my greatest strengths is critically analyzing.      One of my greatest strengths is critical analyzing.     One of my greatest strengths is critical analysis.
36506
I've been admitted to more than one PhD program, and I'm having a very hard time making a decision.  The programs I'm accepted to have advantages and disadvantages with respect to one another. How do I weigh the relative importance of difference aspects of the program in order to make an optimal decision?  Ultimately, this is not a decision that anybody else can make for me, because everyone has different values and priorities, and the right decision for me may not be the right decision for somebody else. However, you can help  by giving me more information about how different features of a program will affect my experience in graduate school and my future career.  The offers under consideration differ in a variety of ways:          I need to know more about what kinds of things are important and how these will affect me, so that I can make an informed decision about balancing competing criteria.     Note to readers: These answers quote extensively from other answers on this site (and link to them). If you read something quoted here that you find helpful, please follow the link to the original source and vote it up!    This is a special community wiki 'canonical' question that aggregates advice on a very broad topic - see more information in this .  Each answer here relates to a different metric that one might take under consideration. If you have a new "critical" metric not in the list above that you believe should be an important part of the decision, post a new answer. If you want to add something related a metric that's already represented in its own answer, edit that answer.
102234
I am asking myself the question "Should I do PhD or should I leave academia and go for an industrial career?"  My life-goal is being a professor. And I love to do research.   PhD is surely a bite that not everyone can chew. But I wonder who can chew it?  I never was good at tests and exams. My BSc. GPA was 2.84/4.00 but finished my MSc. with 3.50/4.00  However, currently I am working on a conference paper and I feel like even that is too much for me. It has been nearly 3 months and still, the paper draft is to be improved (not the wording but the content).  I am surely a hard-worker but not always. Sometimes, I let go of my work and absorbed in other stuff (composing, amateur radio etc). If this period is too wide, I have to spend double effort to warm-up and remember where I left.  I don't know how things work in PhD. It usually is 5-6 years. It is the one of two most-challenging milestones in academic career (the other is getting the title Assoc. Prof). Should I completely be a "nerd" and work on my thesis systematically (something I could never make in my entire life) or working periodically but with extra effort is still sufficient?  So, here's my question: If I say "I'm considering to do PhD" and ask your advice, what would you ask me? What kind of skills/characteristics do you look for a potential academician?  I know it is way too late for me to ask this kind of question, as a person who almost finished his master's degree. But better lose the saddle than the horse.
62169
I've been working in the "private sector" since my late teens. I've gathered good web-development experience to be able to find work quite easily thankfully. I was never really interested in getting a degree, I only have a high-school diploma. I was passionate enough to study for myself and learn new things from colleagues and friends.  Web-development is still my passion, however recently I've been thinking about the actual work that I've been producing over the years for the companies I've worked for. It seems as though that even if the work is fun and challenging, I still get very little recognition for it: once the work is produced, my name is barely ever mentioned. I've been asking myself if all these things I'm building are really going to change someone's life.  Then I look at academia and research. Here people are doing things they actually love and study those subjects deeply with passion and generate new knowledge to help others within a specific field.   Has anybody ever switched from an industry job to an academic job? I'm wondering if it's possible to do research without a degree. What suggestions might you have for someone in my situation that wants to get a glimpse of the life of an academic where you can build and study something you actually love and not always do what "the company" wants.
103135
I'm thinking about pursue my studies and doing a PhD in information technology.  My problem is that I would like to create something new (== write code), and focus my thesis on how this new technology works (each component and global interactions), what it can do, and how it can evolves / be improved. I'm not against doing research, reading books and work on theory - but I want to be more practical than theoretical.  I'm starting to think that a PhD is not a valid option if my goal is to develop something new instead of conducting pure research. Am I wrong ?  About my cursus: I will receive my master degree soon (~= 3 months). I come from a highly technical background, with 5 years of programming and project management.    Edit &amp; more information My university doesn't offers PhD courses, thus my supervisor don't care about   my choices. Another consequence is that I have no other choices than to go to another university.
56132
I'm submitting an mathematics article concerning research that was done entirely while I was an undergraduate at University A.  This August I will be a graduate student at University B.  The only funding I received came from NSF through a ten week program at University C at the very beginning of the project, after which I finished the research on my own while attending University A.  On the other hand, while University B has nothing to do with the publication, it is the most up to date institution as far as contact information goes.  Should I put University A or University B as my affiliation (or both)?