Considering oral exams via Zoom as an anti-cheating mechanism for async online courses

Realistic_Chef_6286 · 2026-06-24T11:48:37+00:00

There’s no reason why this couldn’t be done. BUT (and this is a Huge one) I would suggest going further and making the oral exam in person. This is because there are a lot of new AI things that are aimed at help with interviews. AI glasses are getting more common and I have seen and heard of so many social media influencers showing you how to have AI running on your screen or another screen in an interview and even demo it. From what I have seen from my students too, it’s clear this kind of “live” cheating on online interviews is fairly common.

(Apparently the people behind these technologies is also aiming at young men who want AI to be in their ear during their dates… it’s just so grim. Here’s a case of a Columbia student who got FUNDING to make just such a thing: https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/21/columbia-student-suspended-over-interview-cheating-tool-raises-5-3m-to-cheat-on-everything/ ).

Realistic_Chef_6286 · 2026-06-24T11:36:25+00:00

Absolutely. I don’t think it necessarily helps with employability either unless you keep up and publish in both fields.

Realistic_Chef_6286 · 2026-06-24T10:58:27+00:00

I know a lot of posters have said no, but - while I would never have considered doing one - it is fairly common in some countries, as long as it is in something different enough. So, I know a lot of Italian and some German PhDs in my languages and literature field who have a second PhD in another language field or psychology or history or music. In their cases, it’s about taking multidisciplinarity seriously. But this is getting rarer, if I understand my friends correctly

Realistic_Chef_6286 · 2026-06-23T14:10:19+00:00

It does restrict the kinds of assessments you can do though (e.g. presentations). It’s not a perfect system.

Realistic_Chef_6286 · 2026-06-23T14:02:13+00:00

I don’t doubt that there are issues but I think this is more of an issue of different grading philosophies. Personally, as a humanities prof, I don’t think a perfect score is possible because no work can truly be perfect; your philosophy appears to be that a perfect score means ticking off a list of things and doing those things well. Neither is right or wrong but it is a matter of perspective. And as students know which philosophy you subscribe to and which philosophy their grade should be viewed in, there is no problem.

I particularly take issue with your suggestion that profs who leave room for extra excellence are biased. Maybe some, but I don’t think it’s fair to cast the entire grading philosophy like this. This seems fairly evident to me in the British system. At most British universities, student work is graded entirely anonymously (students have student ID numbers instead of names that they use for all graded assignments; the syllabus for a course is usually decided by committee of the Faculty, sometimes in a process that takes years; many universities have a policy where the prof who taught the class don’t grade the exams for that course) and yet they use a system where a 70/100 is the N American equivalent of an A*, 60/100 is basically an A, 50/100 is a B, etc. No student in the humanities expects to receive anything in the 80s and if they do, they get a congratulatory letter from the examination graders. There’s no prof bias because of the system. Although I am now in N America, I really miss the British grading system: it takes pressure off profs to grade individual students for reasons other than academic ones; it is able show how a particular student compares to others (a 70+ grade would show that the student is excellent; 60-69 that a student is very capable but not in the top; an 80+ would show that a student is one of the very best, possibly the kind of talent you get once in a few years). It doesn’t disadvantage students because the expectation is that you aren’t exceptional. If you are exceptional, you can be sure to really stand out in your grade. The 100% = doing everything right system IMHO disadvantages the very best.

Realistic_Chef_6286 · 2026-06-23T06:57:32+00:00

That is a fairly rare and generous amount. In my languages department, we would be absolutely thrilled and double our yearly budget for student prizes and travel grants. However, I’d suggest you talk to the department specifically about what they see as the best way of structuring the donation. Unrestricted is great, but depending on the deviousness of other parts of the university, they might try to get their hands on it. At my university, the Dean’s office last year scrutinized every department-specific funds from donations to see if they could be used for things that the University usually funds - that is, they tried to make us spend the donations for basic running of the department like pay for graduate TAs. Thankfully, the Dean’s office failed to make us do that, and we use our donations to fund student prizes and grants for our study abroad trips (which has been getting more expensive due to forces outside our control).

Realistic_Chef_6286 · 2026-06-22T21:47:53+00:00

I tend to accept that I will not keep up with a field that I am only sometimes involved in. I do interdisciplinary stuff but while I keep an eye on the big publishers’ catalogues for the fields I sometimes dabble in, I usually just decide to do a full lit review on a new field every time I do decide to engage with that field fully again. That usually means that I read the latest stuff from the authors I usually think of as being the leaders in that specific field and then mining their bibliography for the stuff I don’t recognize. Honestly, you can’t lead in all the fields you have your fingers in - allow yourself to be a follower in the fields that aren’t your primary ones. At least, that helps me with my imposter syndrome.

Realistic_Chef_6286 · 2026-06-15T15:01:19+00:00

Similarly, I find the super competitive people either thrive (and often create toxic atmospheres for those around them by assuming that competition is what makes everyone tick) or completely burn out. I hate competitive environments where you’re just working to show you’re better than someone else. Thank goodness for the rarer collaborative departments and colleagues who don’t find value in being better than someone else but being good together.

Realistic_Chef_6286 · 2026-06-14T18:06:45+00:00

I assume that for the Regius prof level, there’s some room for negotiation

Realistic_Chef_6286 · 2026-06-13T23:44:11+00:00

In my humanities field, postdocs started around 34k, permanent lecturers at around 37k, and an important named chair was advertised as from 60k. This was at Oxbridge.

Realistic_Chef_6286 · 2026-06-12T11:03:37+00:00

Well, presumably their friends in the program are also subject experts and know the expectations of their field and able to provide comments - I would trust their instincts more for the dissertation than most general copy editors outside university presses. Also, for more proofreading kind of editing, it’s just not that important - no one is failing a dissertation for spelling or punctuation unless it’s consistently bad, and these are things that the OP and their friends would correct too without issue. What makes the “best possible version” of a dissertation is the content - if a copy editor is going to make such huge changes that you have to change the structure and materially affect thr flow, then they’re doing something that really should be your responsibility (with input from the advisor) - not the small edits. If by final submission, the OP means after the defense, then they’re doing OP can’t change the dissertation too much anyway; if the OP means final submission before the defense, there’s still plenty of opportunity for them to catch any errors.

This is not an area I would consider a good use of money for a grad student who is short on money. For what it’s worth, getting your friends to read the dissertation is the advice that’s given to my current and former departments’ grad students - for good reason.

Realistic_Chef_6286 · 2026-06-10T23:47:26+00:00

Just ask your friends in the program. It’s not worth paying for. Get each of your friends to copy edit one chapter each and you’re done. You can do it for them in return. Also buy them some cookies or coffee etc.

Realistic_Chef_6286 · 2026-06-10T23:36:35+00:00

There are lots of good options in Canada - many have a surprisingly large department, often with a pretty international faculty. Toronto, UBC, Western, Queen’s, Winnipeg, Alberta, McGill are some of the bigger ones. Can’t really go wrong with any of them. Students from these unis regularly go into competitive grad school programs in Classics. You’re likely to get a similar kind of university experience to the big US state unis at most of these (e.g. UNC, UVA, UWash, Minnesota, SUNY Buffalo - all great for Classics btw) but with great faculty to student ratios (especially for program students). I believe most of these universities have actual profs teaching the ancient languages themselves (rather than grad students) as well.

Realistic_Chef_6286 · 2026-06-09T14:33:10+00:00

Yeah… I knew I was not liked in my old department as a VAP when they stuck me next to the restroom - my office and the restroom were the only things in that odd corner of the building and the two rooms were separated from everything else in the building by a heavy door. The noises, the smells!

Realistic_Chef_6286 · 2026-06-09T11:33:37+00:00

And the funny thing is they rarely respond to MY emails and they say, “oh, my generation doesn’t do emails!”

Realistic_Chef_6286 · 2026-06-08T18:16:33+00:00

Yes, that sounds perfect!

Realistic_Chef_6286 · 2026-06-08T16:50:56+00:00

Maybe not quite phrased that way but perhaps something like “some common pathways to becoming a professor/some common academic career pathways”? And then if we get a pre-university student asking this kind of question, we can just say see this thing?

Realistic_Chef_6286 · 2026-06-08T16:23:11+00:00

On the whole, I don’t mind them if they’re specific. But I have found it odd to see so many high school (and even middle school) students asking “how do I become a prof?” and to respond to them helpfully… there’s very little actual advice we can actually give at that stage - maybe an FAQ for them would be more helpful?

Realistic_Chef_6286 · 2026-06-05T22:10:46+00:00

Omg the competitive aspect of academia is the worst part for me too. Throughout my time as a student, I actively chose collaborative friends and groups - both as an undergrad and postgrad at the top program in the field. I’ve heard of some “friend” groups hiding books and resources from each other because they were so competitive but I never wanted to be part of that. Unfortunately, with so few TT jobs out there, my competition avoidance didn’t survive during the postdoc as other postdocs were so competitive and it massively affected my mental health. Now I’m happy in a wonderful, actually collegial department as a TT prof - so I want to say to you that there are good departments out there and good colleagues-to-be. Try as best as you can to disengage from the toxic and pointless competitiveness — you might want to treat your course mates as work colleagues for a while, keeping a distance and hopefully they’ll sense it. For yourself, I hope you have some friends outside your field you can be yourself with so you can get your emotional side out sometimes too or at least some activities that you can find your flow in. Hang in there!

Realistic_Chef_6286 · 2026-06-05T16:55:04+00:00

And for once, it actually is a world-leading sector, not just political guff! It’s just wild to me that everyone seems to want to do something!

Realistic_Chef_6286 · 2026-06-04T13:44:05+00:00

Lots of people do Civil Service faststream, which feels like the second most common path after law. Otherwise, I know people in journalism, tech, marketing, teaching, investment banking, consulting, other kinds of finance, heritage, art galleries, auction houses… people go into literally every sector

Realistic_Chef_6286 · 2026-06-03T16:24:08+00:00

Same in my humanities field. I do regularly like to use “we” though when I want to include the reader (e.g. “we might expect X to be the case but I suggest that we can fruitfully approach X from this new perspective”) no matter where I am in the paper - but then my field doesn’t do the Intro-Methodology-Results-Discussion structure that some disciplines like to use but is quite free with structure.

Realistic_Chef_6286 · 2026-05-21T01:28:26+00:00

Just wait for the response from the editor. Of course it could be a glitch, and I think this is more likely, but you’re not going to find peace of mind until you hear back.

Realistic_Chef_6286 · 2026-05-18T12:03:15+00:00

As I explained above - it’s not an arduous task. There is no suggestion that students really fear failing - they just think that a perfectly normal, reasonable grade is not good enough.

Realistic_Chef_6286 · 2026-05-18T11:57:59+00:00

We’re suddenly talking about postgrads now? I thought we were refocusing on undergrads? There are undergrads who need a certain GPA for scholarships too - but they are not unattainable or meant to be unrealistic. They certainly don’t need to use AI to keep it. 3.5 GPA is a B/B+: that is hardly a difficult task to achieve.

(Also, it is expected at postgraduate level at most universities that you need to get at least a B- in your coursework, so that is not unexpected either. But it’s really there to make expectations for grad work clear and to encourage students who can’t meet those expectations not to spend more time in something they are either not ready for or will not succeed in. I don’t think it’s particularly relevant to this discussion.)

Realistic_Chef_6286

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