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High-school Grades effect on graduate schools admission
I'm planning to apply for a Master's program in Germany, but the final grade I received in high school was awful (67%) due to the grief I experienced after the death of my parents. Although my grade in high school was sub-par, my GPA was excellent for my bachelor's degree.
Are low high school grades a problem if I want to get admitted into a graduate school in Germany? They (the university) and the embassy ask for it in the acceptance requirements.

Are you sure they ask for High School grades, and not just for your High School diploma? I have never seen a graduate program asking for high school grades, but they might ask for the diploma (not to look at grades in particular)

Are these percentages even directly translatable to a particular German mark? I am not from Germany, but if I just saw the number I would not know whether it is awful or not, I am not used to look at percentage marks.

there is an agency that deals with just that: https://www.kmk.org/zab/central-office-for-foreign-education/general-information-about-recognition/academic-recognition.html

Just a terminological remark: I'm not sure whether it gives the right impression to describe a Master's program at a German university as "graduate school". (In particular, since for the majority of students a Master's program in Germany probably doesn't feel much different from a Bachelor's program in Germany, apart from some of the courses being a bit more advanced.)

In general, university admission in Germany is pretty bureaucratic. You have to fulfill general requirements, and if you meet them, you get into the program. The requirements for a master's degree are a bachelor's degree in the same / closely related field and proof of a high school diploma (in Germany, Abitur). For foreigners, proof of language proficiency is often required as well. Letters to the admission office explaining why your grades are not as good as they could have been will probably not be read and will certainly not matter.
For a reason stated above (general requirements), the university asks for a high school diploma---not necessarily because of the grades but to see that you finished high school. Many master's programs will admit (almost) anybody that fulfills the abovementioned requirements, as applicants do not overrun them. Others are more competitive, but the deciding factor will then either be the grade of the Bachelor's degree or a combination of BA grade and high school grade.
Ask the uni(s) you want to apply to about admission requirements; with a good BA, you will probably quickly fulfill them.

I would say that your bachelor's GPA will count significantly much more toward the application process to graduate school (compared to your high school GPA).
If someone asks why your high school GPA was low, you can simply give them the straightforward answer as you wrote above. They will understand.
Some graduate schools may ask for your high school GPA just for the record. What matters the most is your bachelor's GPA.

"you can simply give them the straightforward answer as you wrote above. They will understand." Not sure if this will hold true in Germany. If there is a rule about your high school grade, and you do not meet the requirements, reasons probably won't matter.

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава


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Found errors in paper: What happens now?
As second-year bachelor students, we “validated” a scientific paper from our university. We took the raw data, evaluated it independently of the original paper, and then compared it back to see if there was a difference. It had recently been presented at a conference but has yet to be published in a journal. The task was assigned as part of our course project work. We were more successful then we imagined: We found rather large errors in some of the calculations. This was very satisfying for us, although probably less so for the people who wrote it.
It was a fair bit of effort and we worked more than the other groups. Each group were assigned different papers or projects, i.e. nobody else was working on the same stuff. It was not compensated or anything being university coursework.
We hinted at the problem to the authors weeks ago but only submitted our work the other day.
Disclaimer: I am completely inexperienced/unknowledgeable in this academia thing. I might be completely off here.
This has lead me to wonder however:

What will happen to the conference proceedings in questions? The paper with mistakes can still be found online.
Can (or should) we expect any credit for our work when they correct their paper? I know people acknowledge help with, say, a novel or computer program, but does the same principle apply to finding a problem in a scientific paper? Our would this have been caught in peer review later?
Certainly not saying we are going to do this, but do people publish counter-articles to papers with corrections?

The field is aerospace engineering.

"It had recently been presented at a conference but has yet to be published in a journal." - what field are you (and the paper) in (and, related to that, are there even plans to publish it in a journal, or was that conference paper supposed to be a final product standing for itself, which is well possible in some fields)?

@O.R.Mapper The field is aerospace engineering. I was told by one of the authors they wanted to publish it later this year in a journal.

@MikeFoxtrot, do you think there will be any merit in the work once your group's findings are taken into account?

@aparente001 it will, the results more closely match what was expected.

@LegoStormtroopr the experimental result now more closely matches the theoretical result. We were also able to replicate their results, find their mistake in interpretation and describe it.

@aparente001 I looked it up again, they actually even briefly mention this discrepancy (that we now found the reason for) in the conclusion but offer no explanation for it. So not only is some of the graphs wrong, but the conclusions would also be affected.

The very first thing you should do is notify the authors that you found errors. This serves two purposes:

Gives the authors the chance to correct their results and publish an erratum to their paper.
Gives the authors the chance to rebut your arguments in case it is you who is wrong. Since they are obviously familiar with the work they might be aware of something you have missed. It would be very embarrassing for you to publish a Comment pointing out a problem that doesn't exist.

Be extra careful and polite when notifying the authors about the error and give them the benefit of the doubt. If you are helpful they would and should acknowledge your help in the erratum or revised paper. Since you said they are going to submit the work to a journal it could be that they even offer coauthorship.
They might choose to ignore your comments or, if they disagree with them, not take any action. In that case you can submit a Comment to their paper, write to the editor, or write a paper yourself with the correct result. Some authors have a hard time acknowledging mistakes and some editors might be unresponsive about wrong results that have already been published, so you might hit a wall or two along this road.
Again, whatever you do, make sure it is not you who made a mistake before making any claims.

Thanks for the answer, you are indeed correct in that we should not overrun them and act with respect. I clarified my question; we have stayed in touch with the authors remotely and hinted at our discoveries. We have not published our stuff in any way, we just sent it back and explained why we thought it was wrong. I was wondering what were the implications of this would be, since we are fairly sure we are correct.

@MikeFoxtrot The implications will strongly depend on the authors' response and how bad the error actually is. If the authors agree with you, the usual thing to do would be to publish an erratum. If they don't, they could ignore you or if you try to press the issue there could be some back and forth with the editor in the middle, to complicate things. You would have to decide if it's worth going down this road. The best advice is: ask your professor.

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presenting evidence of research to grad school committees
I am filling in a form for a Masters application. At the top is a question asking to describe research experience (if any) and interests. It's in an engineering field, if that matters.
I have worked on a research project where something somewhat novel was designed, but unfortunately, did not publish a paper. However, I would still like to mention this and talk about it. Since committees are usually looking for strong evidence of research potential for grad programs, what is the best way to express this outside of a 1-2 paragraph description in the form? Would a simple website suffice? Would people in the committee click a link to an external page?

While a link to a website is probably fine, it might not be followed up, so make your short description clear. A link to a page on a university site or other obviously "safe" domain is preferred, of course.
And, if you have a CV to submit, you can mention it there as "unpublished undergraduate research".
But the "best" way is to have one of your letter writers mention it in their LoR. This is especially true if the project supervisor is one of the writers. But another professor who knows of the work can also make a brief mention.

If your project is on a website, then by all means link to it. Whether they click on the link will depend on how the admission decisions are made, but it will definitely not hurt. When I was submitting applications for Master studies, the committee did look at and take interest in my published resources, even though, like in your case, they were not peer reviewed. At least where I am (Germany), applicants for Master studies are not necessarily expected to have publications. PhD is a different story.

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Citing propositions etc. in a master's thesis
So in my mathematics master's thesis I am mainly following a certain paper, trying to understand it and present it's results in my own way. Now for a few chapters in my thesis I am basing them off of chapters in the paper and I'm unsure on how and what I need to cite. I generally start of these chapters saying something like "this chapter looks at ...blah blah blah....following (cite source)". Also for remarks and analysis I've taken from the paper I also cite those. But what about Propositions or proofs I've taken from the paper? (Stuff which is not'common knowledge').
As these are generally interspersed throughout the chapter, writing things like "this result taken from (cite source)... nearby each of the results seems clumsy and breaks the flow of my writing, so I would prefer not to do something like this if it is necessary to cite each of them.

Including propositions from elsewhere with just a generic remark at the start of the chapter is risky, and I would strongly advise against it.
In particular when it comes to proofs this makes it very difficult to see what is going on: Are you providing your own proofs for statements deemed to be "obvious" in the paper? Are you expanding a proof from the source? Are you merely paraphrasing?
For propositions, a rather elegant way that does not impact the writing flow would be:
\begin{proposition}[\cite[Proposition XX]{source}]
...
\end{proposition}
For proofs, you can just put a sentence outlining the extent of your contribution at the start, where it also does not break the flow.

Does the same apply for Propositions out of a textbook (which could be assumed as common knowledge)?

If it is from the text book, add something like "e.g.~" in front of the citation to make clear that you are not citing the one original source (or, if the textbook gives the citation, use the original source). If you are using something extremely well known, giving a reference is not needed (Zorn's Lemma, Fundamental theorem of analysis, etc)

As long as you make it clear where your information comes from everything is fine. Just take care not to quote any text literally, except of course equations or important definitions.

I mean it's clear to me because I wrote it and know all the sources, but I don't know if the markers will see it the same way. Surely there is just a rule about this sort of stuff?

The main part of my answer is the word "clear". If you make it clear what the source is, everything is fine. If it is unclear at some points, add a reference. You don't want to leave the markers guessing.

And my comment says that I don't know what clear means in this context...do you perhaps have examples as to what you mean?

You are overthinking it. Cite where needed to make it unambigiously clear where your information comes from. We cannot write your thesis for you.

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Unpleasant situation with a collaborator made worse by supervisor. Am I overreacting?
I've been involved in a collaboration project for the past year or so (the collaborator was the one who approached me and they were leading the project), the problem is that the progress from the collaborator side was slow and sometimes clumsy (they would often call for meetings without all things figured out, they would be late in meetings, talk on the phone during meetings and would act as if I had to do part of the project for them [this specific part is already published, so I offered to train the collaborator instead of repeating my whole project, but they refused to learn and said that I should be the one running the experiments since it was my expertise]).
Since I'm at the end of my studies and am managing 2 completely different projects at the same time, my supervisor thought it was best to call off this collaboration. I wasn't too keen on doing so because I knew it would look bad on me, but my supervisor thought it was for the best and also said that they would sort things out with the collaborator.
Turns out that my supervisor corresponded to the collaborator saying that I did not want to continue on the project because I was too busy at the moment (which is true, but not a great way of parting ways). Needless to say, I was embarrassed beyond words, and am feeling like this is going to taint my reputation with the other group that I was working with.
How bad is this situation gonna look for me, professionally? Is it normal in academia to pull out contributions from projects that one feels that is most likely going nowhere? Was my judgement in regards to the attitudes of the collaborator unfair?

If you don't like to work with them, why are you worried, they wont work with you again? Concentrate on your positive activities, the rest just hinders you. And as i see it, no, that wont be a problem in the long run for you. Calling off collaborations in the scenario you stated, should be seen as a good call, not a bad one. If something does not work, it is GOOD to do the right stuff and call it off.

Your relationship with your supervisor would be more important than with an erratic, underperforming, uninsightful collaborating team (I agree with Buffy).
I think your supervisor seems to have summarised the situation well and spoke on your behalf in what sounds like a reasonable way. You are at the end of your studies, you would be likely to move on. You were not keen to keep going after your finish your studies by the sounds of it. It sounds like there is not enough staff to finish the collaboration after you leave. It sounds like you have expertise that your supervisor is not keen to replace once you leave. He would probably be keen to use you leaving and finishing your studies as an excuse to move on than flogging a difficult collaboration that would unlikely be fruitful or produce publications. He would have had more experience cancelling and moving on from collaborations than you have.
Recognize that your efforts are underappreciated and unlikely to be replicated in the future. You sounded far more patient and far more thoughtful than collaborators would have done in your situation. Most other grad students would have "lost it" by now. Most students would not have appreciated being rebuffed and for expected work to be returned back to them.
I think your emotional difficulty seems to revolve around your inability to accept that this collaboration was likely manipulative and also possibly verging on abusive? It is hard to accept that some people or groups are keen to take advantage and abuse agreements using guilt and aggression. It sounds like the collaborating team was really leaning on your emotions and disrespected your time while not producing the work that both of you agreed upon?
There is no need to "report" or confess to failed collaborations in your cv or in any future applications. So from that point of view, there is minimal or little impact on your employment or reputation. The only impact is the "wasted" time and investment in the collaboration. However, if you use your experience and demonstrate your insight from this experience, it might be helpful for future applications.

I agree that your supervisor has not acted appropriately in putting the sole responsibility of discontinuing working with the collaborators on your shoulders only. He should have said that "we decided not to continue the collaborations".
On the other hand I do not think that the collaborator will be hostile to you personally. It is a bit inconvenient but not as dramatic as you may think. You can still have time to rectify your relationship with the collaborator in the future.

I think that how it plays out in the future depends on you and on your relationship with your advisor, so protect that relationship carefully.
You seem to be frustrated and speaking from that frustration only. This isn't, generally, a path to success.
It also reads as if your advisor "blamed" you for ending the collaboration just as a way to save face. This is a sign of weakness, of course, but not necessarily ill intent.
Find your own path, but make sure that your advisor supports what you do and is happy to support your next steps with recommendations, etc.
After you finish the degree it is unlikely that anyone will remember what is happening here for very long, unless you act in a way that makes it memorable. I recommend against that.


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Have there been famous/documented cases where people die from working too hard in the lab?
Have there been famous/documented cases where people die from working too hard in the lab, similar to this and this in finance/marketing?

I really don't like sharing tidbits about such tragic circumstances as a matter of curiosity.

@ff524 For cases like the ones I linked to, they're in the news and highly public anyway. I see them as sobering reminders not to work too hard.

I've seen the stories in the news too, I realize they're public. I just can't help imagining coming across a post like this as a friend or family member of the deceased. It reads (to me) more as "morbid curiosity" than "reminder not to overwork."

@ff524 Okay, I guess I have to respectfully disagree with your opinion there. If anything, answerers can share links to such stories with no further comment.

A colleague of mine died of a heart attack among the electronics racks a number of years ago. Working long hour because (a) it was crunch-time on the experimental build and (b) I suppose it kept his mind off his divorce. Just an everyday tragedy but not something that I would want to see discussed more than that. Let the man and his family be, already.

I don't know of any specific case, but surely death from overwork is possible also in academia. However, many more are those who died in the labs due to exposure to hazardous materials and experiments, especially during the pioneering days of radioactivity and electricity. Here, examples abound, and are a continuous warning at working safely.

Does this include suicide?  In Japan, suicide caused by overwork is deemed to be the fault of the organization (see the famous Dentsu case). If so, I think you would find much more data.

Sadly, I suspect suicide is by far the most common way to die from "working too hard".

Proving that the death was due to overwork, as opposed to happening on the job because that's where the individual was spending most of their time, is probably impossible. You might beable to get some statistics, but I seriously doubt that anyone could produce a credible "documented case".

The term that is typically used for this is karoshi (unsurprisingly, a Japanese term).  To the best of what I have been able to determine, there have not been any cases where an academic at a university has been diagnosed as having died through Karoshi.  There are some significant deaths, however, of people in industry who could certainly be considered as being part of the broader community of scientists, notably a lead engineer at Toyota and more than one engineer in Taiwan.
Note, however, that there is also a strong cultural component, both in the manner of death and the classification of that death.  An American, for example, might be less likely to die quietly at their desk and more likely to commit suicide or engage in criminal activity (see, for example, the tragedies in the development of the Apple Newton).  Moreover, since karoshi is not generally recognized in American culture, deaths that might be attributed to it in a Far East nation would likely be blamed on the proximate cause of death instead.

A Harvard Law student named William Thornton Parker, Jr. died of over-studying (according to Harvard).
EDIT:
There is a much newer reported case of someone dying from playing Starcraft for too long without eating or sleeping properly.  Some of the comments point out Parker Jr. could have had a pre-existing condition that was exacerbated by fatigue.  I present the StarCraft case shows that someone with no outward signs of a fatal illness can die from exhaustion.

I strongly doubt the scientific validity of the article, which is over 100 years old and draws on the hoary old chestnut of "brain fever".  Not saying it's a lie, just saying that i think we'd end up with a very different diagnosis today...

As someone died from playing Starcraft too much (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4137782.stm) , I'm inclined to give the article the benefit of the doubt.

Marie Curie might fall into this category, although her death was not from working too hard per se. To quote wikipedia:

Marie Skłodowska-Curie (7
  November 1867 – 4 July 1934) ... conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person (and only woman) to win twice, the only person to win twice in
  multiple sciences, and was part of the Curie family legacy of five
  Nobel Prizes. She was also the first woman to become a professor at
  the University of Paris, and in 1995 became the first woman to be
  entombed on her own merits in the Panthéon in Paris.

Regarding her death:

Curie died in 1934 at the sanatorium of Sancellemoz (Haute-Savoie),
  France, due to aplastic anemia brought on by exposure to radiation –
  including carrying test tubes of radium in her pockets during research
  and her service during World War I in mobile X-ray units created by
  her.[7]

Im not sure what limits death through working too hard, as im not sure what that would do to the body.   However, there are some cases when working too late or 'hard', accidents happen.  A student was killed working at night on a lathe.  This type of late night work accident is used in my schools as the reason not to work while tired or alone at night.

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Job application with contradicting/invalid student feedbacks as supportings
I am applying for a post that requests me to provide student feedbacks. While my evaluation scores are pretty good, the feedback written by students sometime contradict each other. Some student wrote, "He is very nice and caring," while another wrote, "He is too harsh! :(" (yes, with the :( )
The contradicting one could be explained somehow, as students have different perspectives, but some feedbacks were invalid. For example, a student wrote "did not mark homework quickly," but my course did not have any homework.
I could foresee the interviewer will ask me to comment on these review—what is the best way to address them, particularly, for the invalid comments. For instance, I worry that the interviewer won't believe me when I say my course did not have homework.
(My university uses electronic feedback system so all the comments were printed on 2 A4 sheets, thus I cannot skip those invalid feedbacks.)

Why do you think the ones that you disagree with are necessarily invalid?

because my course did not have homework.... another comment was "He was late for class but I was never late."  I kind of suspect it was from a student that I caught him plagiarizing and he wrote that on purpose. But surely I don't want to bring that up during the interview.

I have a question for the experienced instructors. I know when I look at product reviews, there will always be a few bad ones, no matter how good the product. Does the same principle apply to student feedbacks?

@PatriciaShanahan yes, this is completely normal.  Any individual comment should be taken with a grain of salt.  If there are many comments that say similar things then that starts to become believable.  It's quite common to see negative comments that are completely unsupportable (like my lecture based math class being criticized for "poor lab equipment" when there weren't any labs or a negative review on "Rate My Professor" for a course that I've never taught...)

Everybody who evaluates student feedback expects a certain number of false positives / negatives. If a small-ish fraction of your students gave bad or just plain false feedback this is nothing to worry about.

I could foresee the interviewer will ask me to comment on these review, what is the best way to address them?

If those are only a few, then I doubt that an interviewer will be overly concerned by them. If she is, you can truthfully explain that it is simply not possible to be everybody's perfect teacher. Student's expectations differ, so it is infeasible to be great for everybody.

In particular those comments which were invalid. For instance, I worry the interviewer won't believe me when I say my course did not have homework.

Why do these specifically worry you? Frankly, "did not mark homework quickly" is not exactly a crushingly bad feedback even if correct.

(My university uses electronic feedback system so all the comments were printed on 2 A4 sheets, so I cannot skip those invalid feedback)

Of course not :) what would be the point if you could just pick-and-choose which feedback you consider valid?

Thank you, now I am much less worried, most of my feedback were good so it is likely to be okay! :)

Actually, it would be even worse if all the students have written "what a perfect teacher!" or so.
If the commitee has a little bit experience with student feedbacks (and I think they have), they will understand the standard deviation of the comments.
Since you are applying, you are the one who is going to explain these. So, they will not try to explain the comments by themselves.
I would suggest you to read them once more to remember for which course and semester they are written. In my opinion, it is more important for someone to keep track of his/her past.
All in all, if they are looking for someone with zero negative comments, they probably will end up with noone. And they know this

Agree about the validity of about all students wrote "prefect", did not think about that at all.


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What are valid publications to put on a grad school application resume?
I am in the process of applying for MS in CS and saw that an academic CV is pretty long and detailed (not like the business ones max. 1-2 pages). Apparently it is common to list all publications. However, I am wondering what counts as a valid publication?
I have a section Publications (peer-reviewed) and one Publications (non-peer reviewed). Is it valid to state publications which exist, but are not publicly downloadable (e.g. confidentiality)? For example I wrote research paper and teaching material at my company or uni research project papers etc. Are these eligible?
I am asking because I don't want to put something in my resume that might make me look like a fraud (because of unknowing).

Ah OK, if it actually has to be published I probably have to scrape all of them, besides of the peer-reviewed conference ones. I just wanted to somehow emphasize in my resume that I am willing and able to write academic paper (also in regard of TA/RA positions)

Of course I see your point, but I could provide them the documents. Isn't it the same with research projects that I am mentioning in my resume. How should the admission committee actually check that I did what I am claiming (don't get a wrong impression; I did everything I'm stating :))?

My LoR actually do, so should I still keep it in the resume or is it enough if the letter state it?

It's enough for the letter to state it.

I think you are confusing an academic CV that an applicant to, say, a tenure track position would submit with a simple CV that an applicant to a master's program would submit.  Keep it short, sweet and strong.  We want the admissions committee to be able to read the great things you've done, without exerting themselves to sort out what was what.

The type of publications that you should list in the publications section of an academic CV are those writings that contain technical work at the level of a typical scientific publication.  This can include non-peer-reviewed and unpublished works, but they should be the sort of thing that, if circumstances were different, might be reasonable to send through peer-review.
With regards to the examples that you list, then:

Confidential company research paper: this would be reasonable to put in a non-peer-reviewed research section, with a note that it is not available due to confidentiality restrictions.
Company teaching materials: these would go in "teaching experience," not publications.
University research project papers: these would generally not be listed, unless something above and beyond the usual happened, like they were actually sent off for peer reviewed publication.

I wish I had read this answer two decades ago (of course, it's not possible). I had an opportunity to enter (re-enter?) a PhD program during my industry career. I was unable to come up with a list of publications (although I had quite a few company confidential papers), I had to give up the opportunity. Sigh.


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Should I mention professors in a Masters application?
I am wondering if I am supposed to mention in my statement of purpose/research objective/reason for the masters program that I like the research of Prof X.
Lets assume for example a Master in Computational Science Engineering. The area is relatively specific: stochastic, machine learning and a bit of other stuff. Should I still mention a professor and his work, or does it not matter at all for the application?
However, if I would apply for a "regular" masters program where I have to choose a department that I prefer, should I mention a professor and some of his work in this case?

I personally wouldn't. You should mention your interests, not the work of another.

Well, I will eventually work as grad student for a prof, supporting them with their research. Wouldn't it then  make sense to mention that I like project/domain/topic XYZ?

You can certainly mention a professor and his/her research in your statement of purpose as long as it is genuine.  This can show that you are a) familiar with the school/the department and its faculty and b) you have a good understanding of the field and your interests within it.  There is certainly nothing wrong with saying 'One of the reasons that I chose this school is because Prof. X's work on XYZ is very interesting, and I would love the opportunity to learn from him/her and his/her work.'  Don't, however, try to name-drop for the sake of it.
You should also make sure that you do a little research to make sure that that professor is actually still going to be doing work during your time at that school.  It looks kind of bad if you say 'I really want to work with Prof. A,' but Prof A is going to be on sabbatical or something like that.  This kind of information is not always readily available.
In short, don't be afraid of mentioning a prof if you really mean it and are really excited, but don't look up someone from each school you are applying to for the sake of putting a name in your paper.


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Correct name for experiment aimed at confirming an alternative Hypothesis?
I am running a series of surveys with single variant A/B tests aimed at gathering information about how different groups of users perceive a series of website designs with different distortions applied. Each participant will be able to rate the various design/distortion combinations using a single metric using a slider rating system (-100 to +100). The aim being to identify which elements/features of a design, when removed or distorted, have a greater or lesser effect on the different groups of users and what is the comparable level of effect on them.
The Null Hypothesis is that there is no perceived difference. The alternative is therefore that there is a perceived difference.
The second stage of my research will involve creating different designs based on this information which I will test using the same apparatus. The aim being to see if I can evoke a specific response among particular user groups to particular designs based on the information gleaned from the first series of experiments. My problem is that I don't know the correct terminology to describe this second stage.
What is the correct name for this type of 'confirmation' experiment?
I have been using variances of "alternative Hypothesis confirmation experiment" but that really does not seem right.
Any help is much appreciated.

If you are doing a bunch of hypothesis tests in the first phase, you are likely to detect false positives unless you correct for multiple comparisons.
In the second phase, you commit to a particular intervention so multiple comparisons is not an issue.
You could call the first phase exploratory and the second phase confirmatory. But, there is nothing special about the experiment. You are simply applying a intervention and comparing its affects vs a control group. Your motivations or hopes don't make any difference.
But maybe I've misunderstood your experimental design. You aren't very clear in your description. Specifically, I don't see how the second phase is "rigged".
Further, if you are being scientifically honest, the goal of the second experiment shouldn't be to confirm the alternative hypothesis, but rather to see whether the null hypothesis can be rejected. The experiment would be successful no matter what you learn.


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Traveling with textbooks
So I am finishing my MSc in Europe and it looks like I will be headed to the US for a PhD. Along the way I have collected a small set of textbooks that I find particularly useful. From my experience, most academics have a reasonable number of textbooks in their offices so I cannot be the only one in this situation. These books can be hard to find and are costly to replace.
However, textbooks are pretty awful to carry around. Even a modest number make any box very heavy.
So what I am asking is this. Is it worthwhile to transport books around the world? Is there a best way to do it? Since I an impecunious student I am hoping to do this cheaply.

Unfortunately I don't think this applies to international shipping, but for shipping books within the US one can use USPS "media mail" (formerly called "book rate".)

"most academics have a reasonable number of textbooks in their offices" - I have seen that, and more often than not, those seemed to be whatever was left back from previous occupants of that office, books for which no space was left anywhere else, books that the office holder never looks into but which were distributed as "free" copies, and a few books that were actually used, but that were ordered on department funds by whoever sits in the office after they had started working there, or a combination of these.

Don't know if this applies to shipping things yourself, but I have had books mailed to me (in western USA) from UK booksellers, for not much more than shipping within the US.  You might look into freight shipping for anything you won't need immediately: it doesn't have to go by air.

Of course, one can always go digital, but pdfs look way less impressive sitting in one's bookshelf! ;)

I took a couple with me, and left most at home to pick up again once I knew where I'd be long-term. The library at your university may have a lot of them anyway (and you can probably check that before you go).

You might find it cost-effective to pay for a moving company to shift your things, rather than go through the hassle of trimming your whole life down to a couple of suitcases. If you have, say 1 m^3 of things you want to ship, the cost to share part of a shipping container would likely be much less than the cost of selling and re-buying everything. Your new university (or supervisor's grant?) might even provide a relocation allowance - it's worth asking.

I vote for freight (see jamesqf's answer-as-a-comment). I've got a friend who sometimes ships something like a cubic yard of stuff (maybe a third of which is books) from Canada to a land far, far away for about a hundred bucks. That's roughly US$80 or ~ €70.

I think you're over-estimating the volume and/or under-estimating the cost, here. A third of a cubic yard of books is going to weigh upwards of 250kg (500lbs) so you're talking about 500 large-ish books, there. Freight shipping isn't expensive but, as I recall, I paid plenty more than $80/€70 to ship maybe 50kg of books and so on from Greece to the UK nearly ten years ago.

Thanks, I think I will look into freight shipping. I did not realise that it could be econmical for small shipments...

Okay, so I was seriously overestimating the size of his boxes. They're 20.5" x 21.5" x 24" (in Canada our tape measures are in inches, sorry), which is 10 578 cubic inches. (A cubic yard is 46 656 cu in.) Thus, he's got about 3500 cubic inches of books, assuming he packs it pretty well, which I think he does. Holding 9 1/4 x 11 x 8 3/4 ~= 890 cu in. of books (about 7 - 10 textbooks) in my hands raises my weight, per the bathroom scale, by 25 lb, with about 2 lb error--the thing's not real accurate and the tick marks are too small to read.

Thus, 3500 cu in. * (25 lb / 890 cu in.) means he's got about 98 lb of books, so 100 lb or 45 kg. It appears that books weigh more than I thought. Also, his destination is about 130th on the nominal-GDP-per-capita lists, so that might cost less than shipping between two fairly prominent European nations. Also, his shipper is a guy with a pickup truck.

Destinations in faraway places may well be more expensive to ship to than sending stuff between European countries that are interconnected with extremely frequent and high-volume traffic.

Have you considered using ebooks in situations where they're available and reasonably priced (and don't have Digital Rights Management)?
A few years ago when I went to Los Angeles for a sabbatical leave, I made it a point to get electronic copies of as many of my frequently used books as possible.  I bought a few, but mostly I was able to work with freely available copies.  This dramatically reduced the number of printed books that I had to take with me.

Taking this suggestion to extremes, you could simply cut of the spines and scan them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP4NbFaYZVI  (I have a colleague who actually does this with every book he buys.)

If you don't have qualms about it, you can often find illegally scanned .pdf's of books online with a google search for the title.  Be careful of the dodgy web sites that host this stuff...

I don't know what it is but I don't find ebooks, and particularly scanned PDFs, to be as user friendly as paper books. Guess it is better than nothing though!

I like the convenience of ebooks for indexing and searching, and printed books for actually reading extended sections of the book.  I've kept the print copies of technical books that I own in my office, but really find the electronic copies to be useful when I'm travelling.

I find the remark about DRM a bit uncalled-for. It does not really matter in this case, does it?

DRM on ebooks is always a bad thing.  The schemes used by Amazon and B&N are not technically difficult to break, so this is only a minor inconvenience if you want to get rid of it.

I moved from Australia to the Netherlands, then the Netherlands to Belgium, then Belgium to Sweden, all the while dragging hundreds of books along with me.
It's expensive. I don't even open many of them. I don't regret it.
That said, it's often easier just to buy the books again when you decide that you really really need to own them. Otherwise, just borrow them from a library or get an electronic copy.
That said, I'd drag them across the world again.

You don't regret it because of sentimental value, or because you could not have known which you would open, and it was worth it to open the ones you did?

I don't regret it because I love having my books surrounding me. Sometimes I just look at the title and get reminded of the wonderful contents ... okay, now I'm not talking about science books.

This actually sounds like me. I have already studied in 3 countries and haven't even got my MSc yet. How did you move them about?

@JPJanet: First move I sent them through the post (not cheap). Second move was in a van (small move). Third move was in a moving van (subsidised). And every time I go back to Australia I bring some with me.

Whether it is worthwhile doing so is something that you need to decide yourself.
As far as the best way is concerned, when the more senior people move to a different institution, they often transport lots of personal stuff with them (as they only have "one home", so all contents need to be moved). Adding a few books to the movers' workload does not cost much. Also, some books that are bought from the institution's money may actually have to stay at the institution and moves to its library, which reduces the volume of books to move.
More junior people (e.g., Phd students) often only carry few books with them when they switch continents and temporarily store the rest with friends or parents. One way of doing so cheaply is to move them book-by-book by filling the checked luggage for flights up to the maximum allowable weight. Every time they travel "home", they would take a few more books. Obviously, this strategy can take years (depending on how full your luggage would normally be) even when doing 2-3 trips a year, but it is quite cheap (if you have a sturdy suitcase - if not, it may be quite expensive). Also, it avoids trouble or fees with the custom office, which can happen when sending parcels.


text:
How do I comment the code I wrote for a course I am lecturing in?
I am an assistant professor for a course on audio signal processing (for engineers) and I often write snippets of code to try to help the students follow the material. In addition, I get to lecture (1) one session of the course.
I have a lot of code I wrote over the last couple of years for this particular session but I realized my comments on it are not consistent at all and I have not found any sort of standards or guidelines for pedagogically appropriated commenting style.
Should I comment this code like I normally do with any code?
I usually add a header comment explaining which course the code was written for and something about what it is showing. But I also tend to comment the code with some trivialities in order to state somethings that I think would be obvious to developers but not to engineering students.

I don't really understand what you're asking us.

I am looking for some kind of standard/guide and/or advice as to how to comment code that has educational purposes.

This is not a standard, but these are some considerations that have helped me:
If I give code for students I take special care to be consistent (I am not always successful). Students tend to find inconsistencies and think there must be a reason for that and start looking for reasons where none exist.
I also consider the purpose of the snippet: is it an example of best practice or an illustration of how such code works. In the former case I would be less verbose with my comments then in the latter case.
Sometimes it helps to have a list of trivial tricks separate from the example code. Here is an example I have used. This can be an alternative to commenting tricks in your code that are not central to the point you want to make with that example.

I love the idea of a list of trivial tricks. I try to explain these sort of things either orally or with comments on the first code they appeared in. That wasn't working for me.
When I add a snippet of code to the beginning of the course I have to track down where I commented why I do it like that just to make sure I am consistent with the reasoning.

Ask your students for feedback on mistaken comments and such.

I think the Linux kernel is a good standard.
In general, don't explain what are you doing, that should be obvious from the code. Do tell why you are doing it. Let me show an example:
data_padded = pad_with_zeroes(data, 2**ceil(log2(len(data))))
fft(data_padded)

Everybody can see that I am padding it with zeroes, and any engineer student should see I am doing it to the next power of two (modulo bugs). But they may not be aware why are you doing it: a comment should point out that a FFT is fastest when the input length is a power of two.
Also, since this is a very technical setting, add the full names of the algorithms, with alternative names if they are common, and at least a reference using the same definition as you are. Tracking down factors of 2 π can be a pain.

This is true advice and not only for educational purposes but for your own sanity. What makes perfect sense now won't in 6 months time when you need to make a feature change.

Until now this is the best answer. I do tend to make my code as readable as possible. In my work, I keep comments to a minimum and have never received complaints about it. My problem comes when I want to explain that a portion of the code should be an independent function or that you can call only a portion of a vector inside a plotting method. My comments are in the lines of 'Pay attention to the way this function treats its inputs, do you see room for optimization?'

@AndrésMarafioti, perhaps complement the code (written in your customary style) with external highlights/explanations. That way you can even have different explanations according to audience.

The same way you would comment this if writing it professionally -- unless you really think you're doing something too obscure for the students to follow after you've pointed it out.

Should I comment this code like I normally do with any code?

Apart from the answers on good commenting style, I would consider copyright or license in the header comments. Make it explicit. See https://stackoverflow.com/a/134249/1168342 for the accepted answer that mentions copyright/license (and other perspectives).
My university uses similarity-detection software in programming assignments (MOSS), and also requires students to cite sources of reused information (code). Adding license/copyright info could be useful if students copy your code and re-use it in a project without citing the source.
Since adding a header to every file could be a lot of work, there's a possible solution. Assuming you want it to be open source, putting all your code snippets in a github repository with a chosen license might be a good idea. See https://help.github.com/articles/open-source-licensing/ for details.

This does not answer the question.

Is that last edit better @jeffe?

I'm not sure that "the repo license covers all" is legally correct.

@vonbrand I agree lawyers can always argue it. But I added a link to what github says about it.

Not really, no.  OP is asking about pedagogically appropriate commenting style.  Your answer is about licensing, which is an entirely orthogonal issue.

@JeffE In software engineering courses licensing and intellectual property are part of our pedagogy. A great real-world example of ignoring this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_America,_Inc._v._Google,_Inc. In 15 years of instructing I have been solicited twice as an expert witness in IP trials regarding "reused" source code in Montreal (which is hardly silicon valley, so it's a real problem everywhere).

I think this is a great commentary about my original question and something I had not thought about. As my students are not studying software engineer but electronics engineer, I didn't felt the need to get into this in the course. I will be presenting the matter to the professor.

There is a fundamental conflict in producing code for teaching in terms of comments between providing the high level of detail required for people who are learning and will not understand even the simpler parts of the code, and acting as a role model for how professionals should be commenting their code.
The majority of example and tutorial code I have seen solves this by simply ignoring the second of these aims. I do not think this is necessarily a bad thing, however, if you are more concerned about demonstrating the latter then I would suggest that you comment your code with a more minimal approach and then provide an annotated version of the code with the additional information needed for teaching.


text:
Is it ok to add a bit of humor and sarcasm to academic presentations
Is it frowned upon to add slight humor and sarcasm to academic presentations? For example, I flip to a background slide and say "This is a typical slide used by researchers in (field) just to show off how difficult their work is." before going through the content of the slide. Is there a difference in doing that in different settings, like a department seminar vs an international conference?

If the previous speaker's talk is filled with slides like that, your innocent funny remark could strike home in an embarrassing way. :)

As an ordinary speaker at a conference you're unlikely to have got the time or the recognition to spend on something like this.  That's not to say you can't (try to) raise a smile or even a laugh -- many conference sessions could be improved by loosening up a bit.  But be careful not to deprecate anyone except yourself.

I had a technical writing professor who once told my peers and I that "Humor is the best way to make a good presentation great. It's also the best way to make a good presentation terrible."

I'd say you should know what audience you're presenting to. If you're presenting groundbreaking (or at the very least, important) information at an international conference full of notable researchers in the field, you might be able to get away with a single joke or sarcastic comment. Most people are there to learn, not to laugh.
On the other hand, if it's among people who know you well (e.g. department seminar or something of the like), you can add a little more humor to lighten the mood a bit.
One thing to take away from my answer is that you should reread your question:  you're giving an academic presentation, not touring as a stand-up comic. A little humor can be well-received, but too much will make you seem foolish.

@dan1111 - one does have to be more careful at international conferences because the presenter's humor may not translate well. The better you know your audience the easier it is to have most understand the joke.

@JonCuster That was exactly my reasoning

@TheRumpler - indeed. I was only trying to be explicit with the other commenter.

I think it depends if it related to the content of your presentation. Nothing wrong with a little bit of humor. But in this particular example, it looks it only serves to rediculise other people their presentations. I think that is inappropriate.

hmm..  I have mixed feeling about this...
Adding jokes makes it easier to get people attention and some time help to convey the message.  However, there are many better ways to achieve this without using jokes or sarcasm.  Having a clear,  focused presentation is much better than adding jokes..

One thing to consider is that humour is subjective. Not everyone finds the same thing funny, and it's possible that not everyone will realise that a statement is a joke. As a comment on another answer points out, this is particularly true if the first language of the audience isn't the same as that of the speaker.
In particular, unless you know your audience very well, don't make hyperbolic statements on the assumption that your audience will realise they are untrue. 95% of the audience might find "and this identity can be used to solve five other grand challenge problems before breakfast" mildly amusing, but the PhD student who wastes a month following up on idea won't.


text:
Search for authors on Google Scholar by their field of study and country
On Google Scholar, you can do an author search based on keywords. For example, if I find an author who has "Robotics" as a keyword, and I click on that keyword, it lists all the authors with that keyword, in order of the number of citations.
What I would like to do, is see that same list, but:
1) Only for authors in my country
And:
2) By combining it with another keyword, e.g. all the authors who have "Robotics" and "Machine Learning".
Is this kind of advanced author search possible?

As an aside, it's worth mentioning that Google Scholar Author search only lists authors who have signed up to google scholar.

You can search multiple keywords with something like this:
label:robotics + label:machine_learning

in the author search. Narrowing by country can be trickier. You can potentially narrow by the email address. For example, if their profile is verified with a UK email address it will end in .ac.uk. Thus you can search:
label:robotics + label:machine_learning + .ac.uk

and only get UK researchers. You'll probably get some false positives and negatives with this technique so it's not perfect but will help narrow the scope.
Here's a related question pertaining to narrowing country on Google Scholar:
Google Scholar: how to exclude some countries from the search?

Any insight on scenarios when it may generate false positive?

A complimentary answer to CephBirk if you want to do it programmatically via Python. Additionally, you can add functionality to save those results to CSV/Excel or to DB.
Code and full example in the online IDE to test out extraction part:
# Iterates over all pages and extracts profile results.

from parsel import Selector
import requests, json, re

# https://docs.python-requests.org/en/master/user/quickstart/#passing-parameters-in-urls
params = {
    "view_op": "search_authors",  # author results
    "mauthors": f'label:robotics + .de + "University of Freiburg"',  # search query
    "hl": "en",  # language
    "astart": 0  # page number
    }

# https://docs.python-requests.org/en/master/user/quickstart/#custom-headers
headers = {
    "User-Agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/98.0.4758.87 Safari/537.36",
    }

profile_results = []

profiles_is_present = True
while profiles_is_present:

    # make a request
    html = requests.get("https://scholar.google.com/citations", params=params, headers=headers, timeout=30)

    # pass response to HTML/XML processing library
    selector = Selector(text=html.text)

    print(f"extracting authors at page #{params['astart']}.")

    # iterate over profile results from one page
    for profile in selector.css(".gsc_1usr"):
        name = profile.css(".gs_ai_name a::text").get()
        link = f'https://scholar.google.com{profile.css(".gs_ai_name a::attr(href)").get()}'
        affiliations = profile.css(".gs_ai_aff").xpath("normalize-space()").get()
        email = profile.css(".gs_ai_eml").xpath("normalize-space()").get()
        cited_by = profile.css(".gs_ai_cby *::text").get()
        interests = profile.css(".gs_ai_one_int::text").getall()

        # append extracted result to the list
        profile_results.append({
            "profile_name": name,
            "profile_link": link,
            "profile_affiliations": affiliations,
            "profile_email": email,
            "profile_city_by_count": cited_by,
            "profile_interests": interests
            })

    # check if next page token is present -> update next page token and increment 10 to get the next page
    if selector.css("button.gs_btnPR::attr(onclick)").get():
        # https://regex101.com/r/e0mq0C/1
        params["after_author"] = re.search(r"after_author\\x3d(.*)\\x26",
                                           selector.css("button.gs_btnPR::attr(onclick)").get()).group(1)  # -> XB0HAMS9__8J
        params["astart"] += 10
    else:
        profiles_is_present = False

print(json.dumps(profile_results, indent=2))

Part of the JSON output:
[
  {
    "profile_name": "Wolfram Burgard",
    "profile_link": "https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=zj6FavAAAAAJ",
    "profile_affiliations": "Professor of Computer Science, University of Freiburg",
    "profile_email": "Verified email at informatik.uni-freiburg.de",
    "profile_city_by_count": "Cited by 94818",
    "profile_interests": [
      "Robotics",
      "Artificial Intelligence",
      "AI",
      "Machine Learning",
      "Computer Vision"
    ]
  }, ... other results
]

Alternatively, you can achieve it using Google Scholar Profile Results API from SerpApi. It's a paid API with a free plan which differs by providing a complete solution without the need to figure out how to extract the data and maintain it over time.
# Iterates over all pages and extracts profile results.

import os, json
from urllib.parse import urlsplit, parse_qsl
from serpapi import GoogleSearch

params = {
    "api_key": os.getenv("API_KEY"),  # SerpApi API key
    "engine": "google_scholar_profiles",  # profile results search engine
    "mauthors": f'label:robotics + .de + "University of Freiburg"'  # search query
    }
search = GoogleSearch(params) # where extraction happens on SerpApi backend

profile_results_data = []

profiles_is_present = True
while profiles_is_present:
    profile_results = search.get_dict() # JSON -> Python dictionary

    for profile in profile_results["profiles"]:
        thumbnail = profile["thumbnail"]
        name = profile["name"]
        link = profile["link"]
        author_id = profile["author_id"]
        affiliations = profile["affiliations"]
        email = profile.get("email")
        cited_by = profile.get("cited_by")
        interests = profile.get("interests")

        profile_results_data.append({
            "thumbnail": thumbnail,
            "name": name,
            "link": link,
            "author_id": author_id,
            "email": email,
            "affiliations": affiliations,
            "cited_by": cited_by,
            "interests": interests
            })

        if "next" in profile_results.get("pagination", []):
            # splits URL in parts as a dict() and update search "params" variable to a new page that will be passed to GoogleSearch()
            search.params_dict.update(dict(parse_qsl(urlsplit(profile_results.get("pagination").get("next")).query)))
        else:
            profiles_is_present = False

print(json.dumps(profile_results_data, indent=2))

Part of the JSON output:
[
  {
    "thumbnail": "https://scholar.googleusercontent.com/citations?view_op=small_photo&user=zj6FavAAAAAJ&citpid=6",
    "name": "Wolfram Burgard",
    "link": "https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=zj6FavAAAAAJ",
    "author_id": "zj6FavAAAAAJ",
    "email": "Verified email at informatik.uni-freiburg.de",
    "affiliations": "Professor of Computer Science, University of Freiburg",
    "cited_by": 94818,
    "interests": [
      {
        "title": "Robotics",
        "serpapi_link": "https://serpapi.com/search.json?engine=google_scholar_profiles&hl=en&mauthors=label%3Arobotics",
        "link": "https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&view_op=search_authors&mauthors=label:robotics"
      },
      {
        "title": "Artificial Intelligence",
        "serpapi_link": "https://serpapi.com/search.json?engine=google_scholar_profiles&hl=en&mauthors=label%3Aartificial_intelligence",
        "link": "https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&view_op=search_authors&mauthors=label:artificial_intelligence"
      },
      {
        "title": "AI",
        "serpapi_link": "https://serpapi.com/search.json?engine=google_scholar_profiles&hl=en&mauthors=label%3Aai",
        "link": "https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&view_op=search_authors&mauthors=label:ai"
      },
      {
        "title": "Machine Learning",
        "serpapi_link": "https://serpapi.com/search.json?engine=google_scholar_profiles&hl=en&mauthors=label%3Amachine_learning",
        "link": "https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&view_op=search_authors&mauthors=label:machine_learning"
      },
      {
        "title": "Computer Vision",
        "serpapi_link": "https://serpapi.com/search.json?engine=google_scholar_profiles&hl=en&mauthors=label%3Acomputer_vision",
        "link": "https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&view_op=search_authors&mauthors=label:computer_vision"
      }
    ]
  }, ... other results
]

Disclaimer, I work for SerpApi.


text:
Is there deliberate gender preferential treatment in hiring or admission in STEM fields?
By "gender preferential treatment" I mean: Person A is selected ahead of Person B partly because of gender. In other words, Person B would have been selected ahead of Person A had gender not been taken into account.
By "deliberate" I mean: as a matter of policy at the department  or university or state or national level, or at the discretion of the committee that makes the decision. This does not include unintentional bias, which might occur as part of human nature.
By "STEM fields" I mean: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
I'm interested in four stages.

Graduate school admission
Postdoc hiring
Professor hiring
Tenure or promotion decision

Answers can be about any country. But please keep in mind that the question is not about why deliberate gender preferential treatment is a good or a bad idea. It is about what happens in reality.
Answers should be supported by either references to publicly available policies, research, or firsthand personal experience (e.g. on hiring committees).

In the UK it is illegal to choose A by gender over B if B would have been preferred, but I think it would be legal to choose A on the basis of gender if A and B are considered to be equally qualified for the job. In practice I'd imagine that would be hard to quantify in academia.

It's important to note that non-deliberate bias does exist; the most clear-cut example I know is this research. Faculty shown identical CVs 'rated the male applicant as significantly more competent and hireable than the (identical) female applicant'. Does this count as deliberate? How much does intent matter if the nondeliberate is this clear-cut?

In my undergraduate computer science program there was a total of SIX females.  There isn't a  lack of female graduate students in the field because of 'discrimination' but rather because of lack of applicants.  On the contrary, in STEM related fields academia and industry are practically giving positions to any woman that applies.

@easymoden00b "On the contrary, in STEM related fields academia and industry are practically giving positions to any woman that applies" ... citation needed ... I highly doubt this.

@WetLabStudent believe whatever you want.  Affirmative Action exists.

@easymoden00b affirmative action is not the same as "practically giving positions to any woman that applies."

@WetLabStudent when <14% of top university computer science undergraduates are female any company or place of study in the country would put them at the first position in any hiring queue they've set up.  After recent public 'diversity' attacks against technology companies positioned in The Valley they're all more than willing to cut off both arms and a leg and to put more females in such roles, not based upon ethic nor quality but solely upon sex and diversity.  Like I said believe whatever you want.

The answer to the question rests, at least partially, on the assumption that candidates can be uniquely ranked 1 through n for a given position (perhaps less so for 1 above than for 2-4).  In any real hiring decision there are multiple factors to take into account, and a unique and objective ranking is absolutely impossible.  Gender and diversity can (and should) be one of them.

@easymoden00b I think if your claims were true, then the gender gap would close with seniority and not expand

@easymoden00b The way you say "believe whatever you want" in your posts strikes me as condescending and disrespectful.

@E.P.  I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the bias uncovered by that study--which you yourself characterized as "non-deliberate"--doesn't count as deliberate :-)  As for your second question, I suppose the answer depends on what you mean by "matter".  The OP chose to ask specifically about deliberate preferential treatment, which is certainly a topic that can stand on its own (especially because it may go in a direction opposite that of non-deliberate preferential treatment.)

@easymoden00b If what you say is actually true, then women in IT should experience virtually no unemployment of any kind and men should be vastly more likely to be unemployed. They should be quickly rising to high positions in disproportionate numbers, being thrown higher pay than men to keep them around, etc. Women in IT now have a similar unemployment rate to men (previously men always had lower rates), women certainly don't get paid more than men, and it's so rare for a women to be in high positions that it's news. You are naturally entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.

@BrianDHall That would be true if a) there were enough women with the right qualification and if b) enough women wanted these kinds of jobs. That is, if there were enough (qualified, motivated) female applicants to fill all these positions. This important, necessary condition for "closing the gender gap" is often overlooked. From talking to several corporate representatives and STEM women, job offers themselves rarely seem to be the problem. On the other hand, "how can I possible combine this (STEM) career with family?" is, to name just one example.

One can maintain an argument that gender discrimination exists as a matter of policy when one only gender is singled out in hiring applications, something like " “We especially welcome applications from members of visible minority groups, women..." as Janice Fiamengo does here: http://pjmedia.com/blog/academic-hiring-and-the-diversity-mandate/  That said, this is just an a comment here, since Janice Fiamengo was referring to an English department http://pjmedia.com/blog/academic-hiring-and-the-diversity-mandate/

@JessicaB That's not correct. Any explicit policy to prefer one gender over another for any hiring decision is illegal, period (or full stop).  I am assuming that gender is not a vital part of the job description of course and it's hard to imagine how it would be for an academic position.

@DougSpoonwood There is a legal distinction between advertising in a biased way (for example putting up adverts in places where minorities are more likely to see them) and discrimination in hiring.  I think the former is called positive action and the latter positive discrimination. The former can be legal in some cases, the latter is hardly ever legal.

@Lembik See the first example on p7

@JessicaB " Positive action provisions mean
that it is not unlawful discrimination to take special
measures aimed at alleviating disadvantage or
under-representation experienced by those with
any of these characteristics. "  You are quite right (and I am quite out of date) if there is indeed under-representation of women in the job you are applying for.  I suppose this might apply equally to men applying to a predominantly female department.   I am not at all clear how the law applies to graduate school admission

@Lembik Hiring rules where the female candidate is automatically chosen if she has the same qualification as the male candidate are widespread. So does Hiring policies where the final round requires at least one female candidate (else the committee has to do a lot of painful paperwork ). Also, beyond affirmative action there are several scholarships and tenure track positions that are explicitly women-only.

In Germany, women are in some instances preferred over men for professor positions, to the point of excluding male applicants at all.

There are scholarships and other forms of funding specifically (and
exclusively) geared towards women (at all levels). A prominent example is
special funding for female professors by BMBF:

[Secretary of Education Schavan:]
  "There are not enough female professors, most university teachers
  are men. [...] 260 new positions have been established [between 2008 and 2012]
  thanks to the Female Professors Program and have been staffed with women.
  This is a success - but not nearly enough. Therefore we have
  initiated a second round."
[...]
Up to three [female] professor positions per university [are
  possible]. [We make] an additional 150 million Euros available
  for this purpose until 2017.
Best-effort translation by myself from the German original.

There are professor positions offered only to women¹.
For one thing, there are "additional" positions like those mentioned above
or e.g. at FU Berlin
(1, 2).

[Departments] could apply for being assigned [such a position]. [...]
  [The applicants] must bring forward proof of at least one highly
  qualified female applicant.²
Best-effort translation by myself from the German original.

This is probably an effect of additional funds for women being available (cf 1).
But also regular positions can be designated for women only, see e.g. these
commission minutes
from FHTW Berlin (page 8):

One of the two professor positions will be tendered twice as
  women-only position.
The [Academic Senate of the FHTW Berlin] passes the motion
  [with 9 yes, 0 no, 4 abstention].
Best-effort translation by myself from the German original.

Official statements regarding systemic discrimination (of men) are hard to
come by (even if it is effectively encouraged/enforced by policy at times).
See some press on one case here and here.
There are support structures available only to women, such as the concept
of Frauenbeauftragte
(Am. women's affairs officer)
(who have special roles and privileges) and often have funds spent on e.g.
training seminars only open for women (which is not always enforced).

You hear stories, but there will often be no paper trail as these things
can and tend to be decided behind the curtains. The way
hiring of professors works in Germany, if the commission wants phenotype X,
they can get it (if they play their cards right). In the gender question,
this may be a result of a) policy makers demanding more female professors
(by way of blocking any other choice) and b) the funding situation (cf 1),
esp. in the light of decreasing funding across the board.).
They then say, "after the position has been assigned to the department,
a regular hiring process ensues". I'm not clear if that means male applicants
are admitted, or if only the process itself is a regular one.

@dirkk I seem to remember that there is an extra law specifically for hiring of professors, stating that the best candidate has to be hired, period. Since academia laws overrule normal employment law in other instances, that may take priority over the article you cite, but I don't know for sure. I don't remember enough to find the article I mean.

Sure, this always applies after the qualifications. One can often see the sentence "Schwerbehinderte werden bei gleicher Eignung bevorzugt eingestellt"  (Persons with disabilities with the same qualifications will be hired preferential), the same thing is possible with Women in STEM, as they are severely underrepresented in many fields.

This seems like could somewhat offensive to some women because they are basically treating being a female the same as having a disability, and they need to have an advantage otherwise they won't get a job.

A little background might help though—the situation regarding women in faculty positions in Germany is much worse than it is in the US. The current attitude is trying to undo the pattern of active discrimination that took place for many decades.

@aeismail There more male professors the female, that's true. The implicit assumption that this is bad and the result of "active discrimination" is harmful, imho. The situation is far more complex and unlikely to be remedied by saying, let's hire only women for a while. Also, I refuse to agree to having my career sabotaged by active, intentional gender-based discrimination for (vacuous, imho) reasons outside of my control. Some "feminists" try to establish some kind of original sin there, and I refuse to buy into that.

@aeismail That said, the facts of my answer stand. At least in this version, I have consciously tried to avoid judgement, hence reasoning. The system actively, consciously discriminates men today -- that's a fact. Whether you think that's okay is another question.

Removed my down vote, as you have now provided evidence and some context. I will change it to an up-vote if you include something about how females are underrepresented in Germany far below the levels seen in most developed countries e.g. in Engineering in the US women make up 21% of professors in Germany 9% in natural sciences (US=40%, Germany=12%). You can still disagree with what Germany's doing, but this information is necessary of us to be able to understand why Germany is doing what it's doing.

"In Germany, women are in some instances preferred over men for professor positions, to the point of excluding male applicants at all."
Wow.  Whoever is making these decisions must either not know or not care that unemployment is a risk factor for homelessness and suicide.

@WetLabStudent I don't think how such data serves to answer this question better. Since I don't think (as I said above) that a simple percentage is enough justification for the measures, and there's no room here for an in-depth  discussion, I'd rather not include anything like a justification attempt. People will have to make up their own minds and decide whether the ends justify the means, and whether the ends are well-chosen.

@Doug Spoonwood The proponents of these measures probably think that there are no differences between genders, so any real-life difference must be the result of discrimination. It's an ideological view ignoring interest and performance. And they focus on high-status jobs only (not on, e.g., jobs outside academia with a high mortality rate). I think the goal here is to a) assist unqualified academics and b) to promote conflict between genders. Just imagine the situation reversed with quotas for men. There would be an outcry. You can't create a fair world via unfair methods.

Regarding the "Frauenbeauftragte" -- it's "funny" that the position for "Gleichstellungsbeauftragte" (person in charge for equalization) is often limited to women only and can be elected only by women. Even in institutes with 2/3 women. Personally, I can accept not being selected due to my performance. I either try harder in the future or leave academia. But this kind of "positive" discrimination ... what can it provide but mediocrity and quarreling?

There's a posting on a German website (with a strong ideological slant), but which refers to a MPI paper regarding discrimination of men in sociology: http://cuncti.net/haltbar/864-erstmals-klar-belegt-systematische-diskriminierung-von-maennern-an-universitaeten Haven't read it yet but might be interesting.

@Raphael You can certainly protect a gender from unemployment, say by making the job open only to the gender that you want to protect.  I'm not saying that such should get done, just that it can.  My point wasn't also that anyone can or should try to protect "n-k" individuals from unemployment.  My point was just that gender discrimination against men in hiring practices, makes it more likely that men become unemployed and thus such discrimination can influence things such that serious negative consequences happen or become more likely, such as homelessness and suicide.

@Raphael you misread my comment. Germany is taking extreme measures that seem to be very unique to Germany. People from other countries may have trouble believing your answer if you don't provide at least some context as to why Germany would even consider taking such extreme measures. The percentages may not provide adequate justification for what they are doing, but without including them the scenarios you provide sound implausible.

Please take extended discussion to [chat].

@WetLabStudent IIRC, there are similar measures in Scandinavia. I still don't understand you fully (How can the scenarios sound implausible? They are fact.), but let's follow eykanal's request and discuss in [chat].

Several of the comments in the answer here (support systems, funding)
have little to do with the question, which was about hiring and admission. They color the answer strongly.

@aquirdturtle Funding is highly relevant. If the hiring department gets extra millions in funding if they hire a woman, that shifts the competition considerably. (And this is not fiction.) The support structures are maybe less relevant, but (in Germany) Frauenbeauftragte can directly influence admission processes on behalf of participating women. More indirectly, receiving special training and other support while training and/or applying is clearly an advantage.

@aquirdturtle But yes, item 3 is weaker than the others, which is why it comes last. Imho, it belongs there for completeness: it's gender-preferential treatment.

It's rather subtle trying to decide what counts as gender preferential treatment.  For example, suppose the hiring committee decides to interview Bob, Carl, and Dave.  As a sanity check, someone goes through the applications from women to see whether anyone was overlooked, and they are impressed by Alice's application.  There's some debate about whether she looks quite as strong on paper as the other three, but the department decides to interview her as well.  Alice is extraordinarily impressive in person, and once all the interviews are complete and the department has learned more about her work, she is the unanimous first choice.  Does this count as preferential treatment?  A male applicant might not have been rescued from being overlooked the way Alice was, but he might have been less likely to be overlooked in the first place, so it's difficult to give an objective answer (it depends on which counterfactual scenario you imagine).  Gender was not relevant for the decision once all the information was gathered, but deliberate steps were taken based on gender to minimize the potential for bias in the process.
In my experience with mathematics in the U.S., these sorts of steps are pretty common.  In the committees I've served on (for both admissions and hiring), people have often gone out of their way to try to identify diverse sorts of candidates and make sure they are not overlooked or disadvantaged.  Not everyone participates eagerly in this, but some do it out of conviction that it's intrinsically worthwhile, while others play along to keep the administration from complaining.  On the other hand, I've never seen this process extend to advantages in the final decision.  In particular, I haven't seen a case in which Alice was hired or admitted instead of Bob just because she was female, although the committee was more impressed by Bob than Alice otherwise.
Tie breakers are the closest I've seen to an explicit preference.  In graduate admissions many decisions are easy, but there's always a (small) group of comparable candidates right near the borderline for admission, where nobody can give a compelling argument for why one is superior to another.  Within that group, being female could prove an advantage: if Alice and Bob are equally strong candidates in other ways, but Alice would help bring gender balance to the department and Bob would not, then that's a good reason to admit Alice.  This doesn't generally arise in hiring, since few enough people are hired that there are many strong opinions and the hiring committee is unlikely to decide two candidates are truly tied.  However, it can happen in admissions, which is a lower-stakes process carried out on a larger scale and with less information.  I'm mainly mentioning it for completeness, since few applicants are actually close enough to the cut-off for this to matter.

This is exactly my experience from a department in Germany. An additional thing was the unofficial policy of the university president to prefer female professors to male ones if they were ranked equal on a list forwarded by the hiring committee. The solution, if you did not agree with this, was simple: Always express your preferences clearly.

@GregorBruns Afaik, if you invite a woman for interviews and not put her on the shortlist, special reasoning is necessary (not so for men). A common solution is to not invite women for interview if you are not already certain they can make it to the top.

and to add a bit, contrary to what some anti-feminists might believe ... the same thing happens in fields where women dominate. In nutrition, gender studies, etc. they make a conscious effort not to overlook qualified men.

@Raphael I consider inviting someone for an interview the same as putting them on a short list. What is the difference in Germany. I would love to see some written documentation that says special reasoning is required.

@StrongBad A hiring commission has to prepare a three-person list for vote in the senate. When approved, the three candidates will be offered the position in the given order. This is the list I was referring to.

@StrongBad As for evidence, it's an effect of several things. See e.g. here(in particular 4.3.3). In a nutshell, 1) all decisions have to be explained in writing w.r.t. all criteria, 2) gender is a criterion (in the sense that women have to be preferred given equal qualification) and 3) the women's affairs officer has to be involved in all steps. In effect, this means that you have to argue why you put men (higher) on the list than/but not a woman, in case that happens.

I'm curious as to why they have to prefer a woman given equal qualification? Like what if they interview both their qualifications are equal but the in the interview the woman bombs and the man does, would they still have to choose the woman over the man given that their qualifications are still equal, but the woman didn't interview as well. I'm also curious why you have to argue why you put men higher, to the women's affairs officer, is there a men's affairs officer as well.

@user25345 It is due to the fact that there has not existed a systemic effective restriction against men, so no special defense of men specifically/generally has been put in place. It would be impossible to say that there didn't at least use to be such bias against women and other groups. So it's called affirmative action - an attempt to fix past wrongs and correct known extant bias. One isn't required to like it or agree with the policy, but that is the explanation of 'why' in the causal sense of the question. Now if men continue to drop in rates of college enrollment and graduation...

@BrianDHall Here's a recent article which indicates that the rate of admission in the U. K. for men is continuing to drop as you suggested in your last sentence: http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/jan/21/gender-gap-university-admissions-record

@WetLabStudent "and to add a bit, contrary to what some anti-feminists might believe ... the same thing happens in fields where women dominate. In nutrition, gender studies, etc. they make a conscious effort not to overlook qualified men. "  But are there special scholarship programs and other sorts of support networks for men to anywhere near that such support networks exist for women in male-dominated STEM fields?

@DougSpoonwood probably not because there is very little money in those fields to begin with. My point was about hiring. In gender studies and nutrition, there is affirmative action for men. I was simply stating that as is, I was not talking about scholarships and support networks.

I can only provide answer about Graduate school admission.
In the countries where graduate school admission is based on written exams and the student names on the exam papers are sealed when grading, the gender preferential treatment is next to impossible.
In Taiwan, where I live, this was the case a few decades ago. However, the sytem has been changed to include written exams, oral exams and recommendation letters in some cases, no one knows how much bias is there. As far as I know, there are more female scientists than in the past. I will find some hard data if there is some available in English and update my answer here.

The University of Melbourne has instituted the sex of the applicant as a requirement for some positions.

On February 2017 Trump signed laws designed with the purpose of promoting women in STEM.
Multiple universities have Women In Science Programs (WISP) that "promote the full realization of equal employment opportunity for women", sometimes along with "minorities, persons with disabilities and veterans". Some of these programs involve paid internships for women only.
The Mickey Leland Energy Fellowship (MLEF) Program is an internship program for women and under-represented minority students is a 10-Week Summer Internship sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy. It is directed towards students who are pursuing academic majors in science, technology, engineering, and math. Only women and "minority" students need apply.
In 2016, seven global engineering and tech companies (IBM, Intel, General Motors, Booz Allen Hamilton, Cummins, Caterpillar, and Johnson Controls) piloted re-entry, paid internship programs for people who had taken career breaks of two years or longer. In IBM, selected participants are all women.
In Australia, there's the Edith Dornwell Internship for Women in STEM, which is a program provides that one woman each year with three months full time or six months part time fully paid employment with an organisation whose focus is on STEM.
These are but a few examples of the many programs that result in women generally being favored over men. A 2015 study demonstrated an overall 2-to-1 advantage for women in being ranked first for the job in any STEM field.

Fixed an apparent typo; please rollback if intended.

Downvoted for lack of context.

@henning--reinstateMonica : What do you mean with "lack of context"? I'd gladly add some context if you tell me what you think is missing here;


text:
How to deal with an unprepared professor?
For one of my classes (upper-level), the professor seems to be quite unprepared for the class. More specifically,

As they openly disclose, they haven't looked at the course material in many years (prior to the preparation of the course), and are formally teaching that specific class for the first time ever. Although the professor offers nice explanations and new insight in some course topics, it's clear that they lack the necessary knowledge to fully teach the course. Many of the students, including myself, ask questions on covered & related material to gain a deeper understanding, but we're far too often met with "Oh I can't help you with that. Sorry." Then we read the standard literature (textbooks) on the subject, and see that the answers to our questions are standard knowledge (i.e. should be known by an instructor).
The professor has been packed with other obligations/commitments that are intruding in on his obligation to teach the course (or, more generally, be prepared for the course). These include graduate student advising, personal issues (family most probably - their health seems fine), and research-related stuff. As a result, the professor has literally ended class early and even cancelled class altogether on multiple occasions because, as they have openly disclosed, they "didn't have anything else prepared". On top of that, they have severely cut down on the number of exams and homework.

For students who really only care about getting the course over with, having no intention of using and exploring the material covered in the class, this is heaven. But for those who care deeply about the quality of the class, most of which are paying, this is hell.
What could I do to make this situation better? I haven't talked to the professor about this, because (1) I believe the problems are external to the professor, and (2) the professor is a bit hot-tempered. I don't know if I should talk to his authorities, because then I'd feel bad/mean. Obviously I try hard to supplement by studying the material on my own, but that shouldn't be the case for a payed class.

Which country is this?

@henning United States of America.

One important thing about higher education is that in general nobody else than you takes responsibility for your learning. So if you decide to learn the material from books/other resources this should be fine. However, teachers/lecturers are still responsible to deliver good lectures. So the teachers set the stage to learn, but you can learn in any way you like.
That said, it still makes sense to try to improve the teaching. You write that the problems are external to the professor. This should make it easier to approach him. For example you don't have to say "I would like more explanation and better answers to our questions" but you can ask for additional material where you can find answers to your questions.
However, if you think that the assignment of this professor to this class was in general a bad decision (due to, for example, lack of expertise, lack of time, too many other commitments…) you can bring this up to people in the department who are responsible. However, it is important to focus on facts and describing the situation in neutral, non-judgemental terms.

If you aren't comfortable bringing this up to the instructor, you should definitely bring this up to someone in the department, such as the under/grad coordinator or chair.
Like you said, you paid for this class. Things like this can slip by without the department ever being aware of it but I would hope that they would take this very seriously.

For what it's worth, this has nothing to do with having paid for the class (you would be equally entitled to complain in a country with free higher education.)