Questions tagged [career]
For questions about careers and jobs in mathematics (inside and outside academia)
178 questions
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How seriously should a graduate student take teaching evaluations? [closed]
Pretty much the question in the title. If a grad student gets bad reviews as a TA, how much does that hurt them later? How much do good reviews help? What if the situation is more complex? (For ...
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Does your dissertation matter for industry research jobs?
Suppose Mr A. is a graduate student who, for some reason, does not want to go into teaching or academic research. Mr A. did a Doctoral dissertation, but it is in a narrow area. This area is not ...
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Collaboration or acknowledgment?
This post is a sequel of: When should a supervisor be a co-author?
This time the topic is about the interaction between two professional mathematicians (in particular junior-senior, but not ...
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8
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2
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Publication in proceedings
Why and how publishing a paper in proceedings?
What are the difference with a "classical" journal?
What's the list of the main proceedings in which one can publish?
Do proceedings papers (never, ...
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How to make the move to a research university from a liberal arts school?
Some mathematicians are in positions that emphasize teaching at predominantly undergraduate colleges but find themselves desiring positions at research universities. This may happen because their ...
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Graduate program applications that require questionnaires and other non-letter material
In the December 2014 AMS Notices, a letter to the editor (http://www.ams.org/notices/201411/rnoti-p1311.pdf) by Deconinck and Medlock addresses the problem of (math) graduate programs requiring letter ...
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What universities have laid off tenured math faculty for financial reasons?
When a math department lays off tenured staff, people cry out loud.
But, 10 years later, such memories are no longer popular discussion subjects, and so the information doesn't always spread.
Those ...
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49
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4
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How much reading do you do before you attack a problem?
When going off on a tangent from your regular area, where, presumably, you have such mastery of all cutting-edge research from your routine reading that you hardly need to do any extra (if this is ...
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7
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Where to find (personal) motivation [closed]
I think it would be appropriate to make this question CW...
It is likely that this question will not survive here on MO for long, but I do hope that the community gives it a chance. I also hope to ...
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transition from academia to industry [closed]
crossposted to https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/23644/transition-from-academia-to-industry
I am currently doing a post-doc in pure Math [teaching and research] in the US.
The academic ...
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13
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How does an academic mathematician educate him/herself about job opportunities outside academia?
One of the contradictions of being a math professor is that a big part of your job is to train people to do things which are quite different from what you do yourself professionally; this is ...
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0
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How to choose a good place for postdocs [closed]
I am finishing my Ph.D. and I am waiting to hear back from postdocs. I don't have offers yet (although I heard that some schools have already offered) but I have a question about how to tell which ...
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Advice for pure-math Phd students [closed]
Pursuing a Phd in pure math can be a daunting task. A number of students who begin a Phd in pure math don't complete it, and there are high-quality dissertations and those which are not so high ...
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How to transition from pure math PhD to nonacademic career?
I'm finishing up a PhD in math and am thinking about options outside of academia. So far, I've really only focused on pure mathematics, but I have a year left of grad school. Suppose I am interested ...
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7
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What items MUST appear on a mathematician's CV?
Writing a CV makes me paranoid that I'm failing to abide by unwritten rules. Of course CVs are flexible to capture the diversity of accomplishments someone might have. But there must be plenty of ...
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How should I publish my "story"? i.e. strategies and advice on chopping up a thesis [closed]
Background
In my thesis I look at same problem from a couple of different angles. To state it roughly, in each chapter I use a different technique or area of mathematics to try and gain further ...
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2
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Industry jobs involving mathematics, machine learning and biology [closed]
I have a MSc in Mathematics and a PhD in Bioinformatics (in two different European countries); during the PhD I was developing computational methods to analyse DNA sequence data, mainly using a ...
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5
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1
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Preparing for Set Theory Research
Is reading Jech's text on Set Theory too little, just enough, or overkill to prepare oneself to do independent research in set theory? This would be my first attempt at doing independent research ...
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7
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1
answer
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How to find a topic to do research with as a Post-Doc? [closed]
I will soon finish my PhD in arithmetic geometry. My advisor told me that I will have to find my next research topic on my own. How do I do that? (Except for "continue where the PhD thesis ends") Can ...
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16
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12
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Which magazines should I read? [closed]
Suppose you are a mathematics student who has just graduated and you haven't yet come to graduate school, or maybe you are in your first year of graduate school. Which magazines should you read? I ...
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5
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What does a mathematician expect from mathematics education? [closed]
Consider that my question is not a personal and/or subjective question. Perhaps, you have hired a mathematics educator in your department and you are interested in finding a way to communicate with ...
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4
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1
answer
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how do I withdraw my submitted paper? [closed]
I submitted a paper and unfortunately, about a week later, found a glaring error in reasoning in one of the proofs. Since the paper had been submitted only 1 week, the journal website said it hadnt ...
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1
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How should a professor feel peace of mind when a student leaves academia? [closed]
I apologize if this is the wrong forum for this question -- if so, could somebody please point me to the correct one?
I'm a professor who recently started advising graduate students, and I'm trying ...
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17
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3
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Contacting an eminent mathematician
I have recently started a PhD. and am researching an area that two now eminent mathematicians devoted considerable time to in the 1980s. However, there appears to have been fairly moderate focus on ...
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3
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0
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Some career start-up (postdoc) questions [closed]
Hi, I hope below can be categorized under career questions.
Based on your experiences what are the major issues/concerns and differences of professor sponsored postdoc positions (compared to ...
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1
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Shortlists and job offers [closed]
I hope this question is appropriate for MO. I started application process this year. I've searched several online ads for a job and found a wiki page, which contains names of people that have been ...
- 73.2k
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8
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Publishing a bad paper?
First, I apologize if mathoverflow is a bad fit for this question, but it is the only place where I can think to get advice from professionals given my circumstance. I'm also sorry about any vagueness ...
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2
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4k
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The non-traveling mathematician problem
This is a career question. I have just begun a research postdoc position in Southern California. It has been hard, but I've enjoyed teaching my first graduate courses and working on research and ...
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2
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3k
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Publication and Career as a fresh Ph.D
This may be a little off topic.
But as new Ph.D in geometry/topology area, I have a feeling that it is relatively harder to publish a descent paper. However after seeing some peers who study PDE or ...
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17
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1
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Seven pages -- too long for a research statement for postdoc application?
My question is rather straight forward. I am currently applying for postdoctoral positions in (pure) mathematics. I am almost done writing my research statement and it seems to come out to about seven ...
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2
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Does it ever make sense NOT to go to the most prestigious grad school you can get into? [closed]
I'm a senior undergrad at a top-ish(say, top 15) math school. I'm a solid, not stellar, student. This year I'm taking the qualifying exam grad courses in algebra and analysis and have been taken aback ...
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What can an algebraic geometer do outside academia? [closed]
This question is inspired by this
and this. But it is not a duplicate, read on. Please don't close it: I choose to be anonymous just not to be identified.
About to be on the job market, disenchanted ...
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5
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5
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Universities not listed on mathjobs
I am now applying for postdoc positions and faculty positions at teaching colleges, all through mathjobs. I have a location constraint, and so am applying to universities all within a single ...
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going from one subject in PhD to another in Postdoc. [closed]
Hi, my question is:
Is it acceptable to do a PhD in mathematics in a topic such as Number Theory and or Analysis and change subjects in postdoc to something different than these topics such as ...
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4
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Changing field of study post-PhD
I am doing my PhD in algebraic graph theory, for not much more reason than that was what was available. However, I love deep structure and theory in mathematics, and I do not particularly want to be ...
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How Much Work Does it Take to be a Successful Mathematician? [closed]
Hi Everyone,
Famous anecdotes of G.H. Hardy relay that his work habits consisted of working no more than four hours a day in the morning and then reserving the rest of the day for cricket and tennis. ...
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122
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16
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How do you keep your research notes organized? [closed]
One of the things I struggle with most in doing research is keeping my notes organized. Since research tends to do a lot of branching, keeping notes in a linear fashion seems useless to me. On the ...
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3
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How to assess research "impact" for tenure/promotion committees
Over the last several years, the college-level promotion & tenure committee at my university has increasingly been seeking to apply "objective" criteria for assessing the impact of candidates' ...
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Informal online seminars or reading groups via videoconferencing?
Does the following exist, and if not, does anyone besides me wish it did? A web site where a mathematician (say) could find other mathematicians who want to study the same book or paper, and arrange ...
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12
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How important are publications for undergrads?
I have heard vastly conflicting statements about whether undergrads applying for PhD programs should have published already, or what level of research will be expected of them. Looking at CVs of some ...
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When should you, and should you not, share your mathematical ideas?
Perhaps this is a biased forum for this "downer" question, but I've never figured this out. At what stage is it safe to share mathematical ideas? Many have told me that there is serious danger of ...
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0
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Advice on giving a good job talk [closed]
Dear Mathforum,
I am giving a job talk in the next couple of weeks and I am still struggling
to come up with a suitable talk.
I graduated in september of 2010 and so I have been a post doc for a ...
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Presenting work in progress [closed]
At some point in the evolution of a project, one has to decide when to start talking about it in seminars and at conferences. I am interested in hearing about how other mathematicians make this ...
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2
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What are an adviser's responsibilities? [closed]
There seems to be a wide variance in what faculty members view as their responsibilities as a student’s adviser. I understand that some advisers go above and beyond what's expected and we can't hold ...
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29
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Can breadth hurt a job candidate? [closed]
I am a junior mathematician, currently on the job market. I have been involved in a number of projects spread over several very different topics of mathematics, some being very mathematical projects ...
- 32.5k
8
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3
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2k
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Switching tenure-track position [closed]
I have a tenure-track position at a research university (among top 20 in USA) in a decent city. This has been my fourth year as a tenure-track. I still have not heard from my department regarding the ...
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0
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Job applications: how important is it for letters of recommendation to be on letterhead? [closed]
Hello,
The context for this question: for liberal arts colleges, one of my letter writers is a fifth-grade teacher that I spent a year teaching with. She has written her letter, but is having ...
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4
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6
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2k
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Level of detail on a Phd application [closed]
I am a graduate student planning to apply in Australia for a PHd very soon.
I have observed that most of the universities require the applicant to provide a 100-words summary of the research they ...
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14
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3
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Things to keep in mind while looking for a Postdoc overseas
Hello,
I would like to receive some suggestions about what you think to be the best important things that should be kept in mind while looking for a postdoc position. I'm not considering (in this ...
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How important is it for one on the job market to have thought about suitable REU projects?
An REU is a "Research Experience for Undergraduates" and entails undergrads (usually after their junior year) coming for 8-10 weeks out of the summer to University X to learn about and work on a ...
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