I am applying for a small travel grant to fund a trip to a semi-local conference. The problem is that I have no idea how to write one! [more inside]
posted on Apr 21, 2008 - 7 answers

Looking for summer courses in differential equations, online or in the Los Angeles area. [more inside]
posted on Apr 16, 2008 - 3 answers

I just found out that I have an phone interview for a faculty (assistant professor) position (biology) at a liberal-arts college this Wednesday afternoon. Yay! But I've never actually had a formal interview before. Help! Also, I'm pregnant. Questions and advice requests inside. [more inside]
posted on Apr 14, 2008 - 23 answers

Please help me make the right decision about graduate school. [more inside]
posted on Apr 11, 2008 - 15 answers

How should I deal with an uncomfortable/inappropriate situation with an ex-advisor? [more inside]
posted on Apr 10, 2008 - 20 answers

I am interested in finding a good, interesting online academic community—discussion boards, chat rooms, and the like. I am primarily interested in Literature and Philosophy. Do these places exist, or are internet fora pure lulz?
posted on Mar 23, 2008 - 9 answers

I was tentatively offered a lecturer positions at a University for the coming spring semester, which I'm psyched about but has led to a dilemma. [more inside]
posted on Mar 20, 2008 - 8 answers

What can you (you wonderful, bright, worldly people, you) tell me about legal anthropology? I'd like to know about its ideological construction, presence in academia, personal experiences, applications in the non-academic world, and whatever you've got. Thanks!
posted on Mar 17, 2008 - 4 answers

Interesting careers with a social sciences PhD? / Talk me out of grad school! [more inside]
posted on Mar 1, 2008 - 13 answers

How do I get excited about my research or is academia really for me? [more inside]
posted on Feb 19, 2008 - 19 answers

Should I include personal information on my cv? [more inside]
posted on Feb 14, 2008 - 23 answers

When addressing a professor by a title via letter or email (e.g., Dr. Smith), and they respond by signing their name (e.g., John), are they inviting you to refer to them by their first name? [more inside]
posted on Feb 7, 2008 - 20 answers

Throughout my college career, I could probably count on one hand the number of professors I've seen who wear wedding rings, and this includes professors who mention their spouses. Is this just coincidence, or is there something to it? [more inside]
posted on Feb 6, 2008 - 25 answers

What is the correct way to pronounce the name of the feminist/psychoanalytic critic Mary Jacobus? Which syllable is stressed?
posted on Feb 3, 2008 - 9 answers

If anyone has any experience with postdoc- or young faculty-type work as a foreigner in China, I'd be interested to hear how it worked out for you. [more inside]
posted on Dec 31, 2007 - 0 answers

Has anyone had success doing an academic lit review of business topics, particularly marketing? I am asking if such things lend themselves to learning and staying competitive along the lines of a bioresearcher subscribing to Journal of Biology. Are top executives and consultants going through graduate-level text? [more inside]
posted on Dec 10, 2007 - 2 answers

I will finish my PhD in a few months, and now is the season for postdoc applications. Thing is, I am not sure if I want to stay and academia. Should I apply for postdocs anyways and keep my options open? If not, any Ph.D.s out there (especially physicists) who have any advice on making the transition away academia? [more inside]
posted on Nov 18, 2007 - 16 answers

Posting this for my sister. She is in a MSW program at a small private college, and wants to transfer to larger state college. [more inside]
posted on Nov 8, 2007 - 5 answers

I am a new college dropout. The whole incident behind it came as a total shock. I've messed up, I'm lost, and I'm not sure what to do. Naturally, there's a lot more inside. [more inside]
posted on Nov 4, 2007 - 45 answers

Are there different expectations for academic job applications in Norway vs. the United States? [more inside]
posted on Oct 4, 2007 - 4 answers

When I was younger, I read a sociology textbook trying to find out why sociology was treated as a separate discipline and how it differs fundamentally from the other social sciences. I learned a lot about Weber and Durkheim, but I still don't get it. Can you help? [more inside]
posted on Sep 11, 2007 - 12 answers

I always hear that blogging and YouTube are (and/or will be) revolutionary in American politics. Is this true? How so? Can you recommend recent books, academic articles, extended blog posts and other media that demonstrate (or argue against) the effects of blogging, citizen journalism, social networking web sites and YouTube on American politics? Differing viewpoints would be appreciated!
posted on Aug 11, 2007 - 8 answers

Is it weird to ask a university professor if you can audit his/her class without officially enrolling in the university as an auditor ... and, as part of the arrangement, asking the professor if you can submit papers and have them graded and evaluated? [more inside]
posted on Aug 8, 2007 - 43 answers

What does it mean to have someone nominate you for a non-faculty professional position at a university? [more inside]
posted on Jul 24, 2007 - 1 answers

Tomorrow I have my annual appraisal with the deputy head of the department at the Uni. where I work. This is not my first time, as I been in this job for several years, but this time I am looking for advice on how to make this into a meaningful and useful meeting instead of the usual box-ticking exercise. Also, what is the best way to answer the standard questions they ask such as: "What were your most significant achievements since the last interview?" [more inside]
posted on Jul 12, 2007 - 3 answers

What are the pros and cons, professionally and personally, for an American taking an academic postdoc in Europe? [more inside]
posted on Jun 12, 2007 - 10 answers

Please help me set up a spreadsheet to tally certain courses taught by our faculty and keep track of their "values". This must be a solved problem in the business-savvy world, but, alas, we are ivory-tower types and utterly bamfoozled. [more inside]
posted on May 11, 2007 - 10 answers

Decision-making strategies filter: How to make a hard decision regarding art, uncertainty, academia, a move and major fears? [more inside]
posted on Apr 26, 2007 - 10 answers

I know where to go for gossip within my own academic discipline, but are there canonical blogs (on moves, hiring, graduate apps, big books, occasional meta-discipline discussion, etc). or rankings in other disciplines? The Chronicle and Arts and Letters Daily are more general. I'm looking for more discipline specific stuff. [more inside]
posted on Apr 25, 2007 - 6 answers

My partner has just been caught for plagiarism. I don't know many details because she won't talk about it, but I want to know what effect this will have on her future. [more inside]
posted on Mar 8, 2007 - 36 answers

I need to find a summer job. Ideally I'd like to do something related to education, as I'm hoping to work in education (explained in more detail inside) when I'm finished with my own education - but I am much more interested in research and theory than in classroom work, so I'm having a hard time coming up with ideas. I'm interested in ideas that are very tangentially related to education as well as ones that are very related. [more inside]
posted on Jan 9, 2007 - 6 answers

How do I remotely install a Windows xp based disc image to ~50 PC's at the same time? [more inside]
posted on Dec 15, 2006 - 7 answers

I am a fourth year Computer Science Ph.D. student, ABD, and am hopefully going to graduate summer next year. I have started up on the job process in the academia for a professorship (a bit late I guess - it’s December already). I am still in the semi-early phase of application: got done with the CV embellishments and the research & teaching statements, asked everyone to be ready with my reference letters, and am on the verge of selecting and sending out applications to about 50 universities of the 100 in the list I put together from postings on Chronicle and ACM Jobs. At this point I am interested in any advice I can get on this whole apping process, specially this part before the interview. If it matters, I am specializing in multi-agent systems (though I have done work in almost every major field in CS) and hopefully move to east coast.
posted on Dec 4, 2006 - 3 answers

I am a college sophomore who will be applying to graduate school in history from a somewhat mediocre university, and I need help with a course of action to follow in order to improve my chances of getting accepted. Much [more inside]
posted on Dec 1, 2006 - 20 answers

I need a metaphor and an analogy for an application of social network theory. [more inside]
posted on Oct 21, 2006 - 15 answers

I am in the first semester of a phd in history at a respected state school, with an M.A. under my belt. My wife and I just had our first baby in May, a beautiful daughter with a smile anyone in their right mind would die for. As my wife has a decent job that pays very well, I'm the stay-at-home-dad, but I'm finding it increasingly difficult to juggle parenting with graduate school. I can take a part time job with a record labe where I set my own hours and work from home; the perfect job for a SAHD (stay-at-home-dad). Do I throw away all the hard work to get into this phd program and the (potential) future career of a professorship, or do I sweat this out and stick with the phd program while fathering? [more inside]
posted on Oct 20, 2006 - 19 answers

Recommendations for good explanations of waves and vibrations. I'm taking a college-level course (includes DiffEQ and some linear algebra) on the physics of waves, and it's completely stumping me. I need help parsing the topic as a whole. Much [more inside]
posted on Oct 17, 2006 - 12 answers

Academic writer's block: tips, strategies, experiences, psychology for dealing with it? [more inside]
posted on Sep 27, 2006 - 19 answers

What do you know/think about the University of Roehampton, London? Most especially I am interested in its School of Arts, and its MA in Creative and Professional Writing.... [more inside]
posted on Sep 7, 2006 - 7 answers

How much research is being conducted that never crosses the language barrier into English and/or how long does it typically take research to disseminate into English-speaking journals? [more inside]
posted on Jul 19, 2006 - 9 answers

How can I best position myself in my PhD program to get a job overseas when I complete my dissertation? [more inside]
posted on Jun 24, 2006 - 15 answers

How good is the reputation of Swinburne University in Victoria, Australia? Are they more focused on teaching or research? [more inside]
posted on May 15, 2006 - 7 answers

Is the choice between academia and “real world work” a lose-lose situation? Is it possible for someone with a BA in English to transition into PHD programs involving poli sci, government work, public policy / advocacy thereby offering non-academic options? [more inside]
posted on Apr 14, 2006 - 23 answers

I want to become a professor of political science. What do I need to know? [more inside]
posted on Feb 7, 2006 - 19 answers

Does anyone have any experiences with pregnancy and postpartum hormones having a negative effect on mathematical or logic skills? [more inside]
posted on Dec 16, 2005 - 19 answers

How do I go about getting adjunct prof/tutor/instructor jobs with aging, mostly unused credentials? [more inside]
posted on Sep 5, 2005 - 6 answers

Has anyone here successfully challenged the use of securexam or other computer-locking tools on the grounds that your school's honor code already provides sufficient protection against cheating? [more inside]
posted on Apr 24, 2005 - 8 answers

When I was a kid, I remember hearing on the news about a study that had determined that there were a few specific life-cycles for the way a hypothetical person's might react to any new pop-song. One type of song would get more popular the more times it had been heard and then would plummet in popularity when a person had heard it around fifteen times. Others took longer to get popular but would stay at the top longer. These studies were used to help radio networks determine what to play - how to make songs into hits and how often to play them once they had become hits. Does anyone know anything about these studies and where I might be able to find them?
posted on Apr 4, 2005 - 3 answers

Grammar/ Style Filter:
I'm writing an undergraduate history thesis. Should I do all I can to avoid the passive voice? [More has been placed inside]
posted on Jan 25, 2005 - 55 answers

I'm in the early stages of writing a paper on professor-student romantic relationships/affairs and am looking for some pop culture to back me up. Can anyone suggest any novels, movies, etc., that deal with this topic? I'm looking primarily for male professor/female student, but the other way around works, as well. Thanks.
posted on Dec 22, 2004 - 44 answers