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Big life decision: move to a different country to pursue PhD, or stay with my significant other and do my PhD at my undergrad institution?
I have been agonizing over a decision regarding where I should pursue my PhD in theoretical chemistry. My choices are as follows: university A (US) has the best department in the world for my area of research, and my potential PI would be the perfect fit for my interests and career goals. University B (my undergraduate alma mater in the UK) also has a very good department (ranked 5th in the world), although the advisor fit would be less than ideal, since their group is mostly experimental, with only a few people working in theory. The group at university B is very large (~70 people), so the advisor is able to spend very little time with each PhD student. Both potential PIs are very renowned in their respective fields (h indexes above 60).
Here comes the kicker: I am in a very committed 4-year relationship with my significant other, who is going to start a PhD at university B. He is supportive of me pursuing a PhD with my dream advisor at university A, which would involve starting a 5-year (very) long distance relationship. However, I can't help but feel selfish for putting us both through this ordeal.
What would you do in this situation? Since both of us want to stay in academia long-term, I know that at some point in our relationship we will likely have to face similar choices again, so how does an academic couple balance the two-body problem for every new position they apply for?

Another thing to consider here is how very different a US and a UK phd experience is. Are you ok with your partner finishing in 3ish years while you take 5+? Are you okay with them starting real research right away while you have more coursework to take? Or take them out of the picture, which style of phd do you prefer?

Also, depending on your discipline, it may be quite difficult for you to transition back to the UK or your partner to transition to the US post phd. Networks and job connections won't be in the right place. That's something to ask both potential supervisors about.

Don't downplay the huge advantage you would have as a theoreticist among experimentalist: you would have plenty of time on your own. On top of that, you will have an understanding of what are the open issues in the lab-world, which is a very helpful strategy to tune your future fundings application to the requirements of other research groups... on top of your theoretical "network".
Advisor A would make for a great external advisor, while you reside at institution B.

Why are you the one who has to chose? Can the partner not apply in the US?

This is unanswerable here. Your question is essentially about how much you should value your career choices vs valuing a relationship with a partner you love. The fundamental issue here has nothing to do with the specifics of academia. You could answer a separate question about the differences between your PhD choices and then you can decide how those differences affect you and how you value them vs your relationship... But that's a deeply personal question. Good luck!

You might be interested: University rank/stature - How much does it affect one's career post-Ph.D?

The two-body problem tag has 40 questions - "The two-body problem is a dilemma for spouses (or any other couple) working in typically academia". (Different from the classical mechanics one.)

You haven't said where in the US your dream school is. The further west you go makes it more difficult and expensive to maintain an LDR. A plane ticket between Boston/New York and UK will be cheaper than LAX and the flight will be much shorter. Also, in addition to thinking about the path of least regret, you may also think long and hard about where you might want to live after the degree. As you are pursuing a PhD, you also make ties to the region where you are.

If you are academically outstanding you will shine pretty much wherever you go.  The harder task is to find someone special who will make you shine as a person, and this you cannot do everywhere you go.

Agree with this. If you believe your relationship has deep potential, I would hold onto that (as someone who once went with the other option). PhDs are hard and being in the trenches together and supporting each other in a non-co-dependent way can be really affirming. And, to the point of ZeroTheHero, if you have talent you will shine. Ranked first versus fifth is generally a rounding error, and as another commenter noted, the talented PI at the other institution could make for a good external advisor. Also, there are advantages to being a theorist in a largely experimental department.

One thing I’d like to caveat re. my last comment. By deep potential I mean both for you and the relationship — be sure that your partner is willing go compromise to help you achieve your goals too, because given a certain reasonable framing, you’d be doing that by not moving.

Upvoted, but what about the less than ideal fit with advisor that they have at Uni B? Isn't that something significant to consider?

Please consider that the difference between the 5th and the 1st best department in the world is negligible, most likely it exists only in your mind.
To be more specific, for what it matters to a PhD student, as long as fundings are granted, they are equivalent with respect to:

opportunity of building your own network;
quality of the work you are exposed to and potentially that you can perform.

The difference between the 1st and the 5th would be very relevant at a later stage, when you want to have money to build up that additional research group your tenure depends on ...
Ask yourself: do you want to spend 5 years away from what you have now because of present curiosity/eagerness of discover new things (reg. private life, not in the sense of academic research) or because of some future potential advantages?
If it is because of possible future advantages: they will be negligible, since you are already in a good institution, your future, post-PhD chances will strongly depend on what you do during your PhD, not on where you do your PhD.

If your partner is the only reason that you would consider studying in the UK, then I would only recommend it if you are ready to spend the rest of your life with this person, and they feel the same about you. If you aren't sure about that after 4 years, then the relationship isn't one to make big life decisions around.
Making sacrifices of this nature for your spouse/life partner is part of a long term partnership. Sometimes it's you sacrificing, sometimes it's them, and it pretty much works out in the long run provided the relationship is built on a sense of equity and common life goals.
This kind of sacrifice, however, is not for "let's see where this goes" relationships. If that's where you're at, go to your top choice.

The reverse is also very relevant: Many of us enter a PhD thinking this is what we want to do for the rest of our lives. 3 years later (or maybe after a first post-doc) many of my peers decided to leave academia. In other words: "If your PhD is the only reason that you would consider leaving the UK, then I would only recommend it if you are ready to spend the rest of your life with this research field, and [the funding sources] feel the same about you. If you aren't sure about that after 4 years, then the research field isn't one to make big life decisions around."

@Simon the completed PhD is useful even if they don't stay in academia. They are a chemist, it's not like astronomy, they can be a chemist in industry too.

@Clumsycat Sure, but: (1) They would also complete a PhD if they did not move. (2) A completed long-term relationship is also useful even if it is not life-long. They may have children they love, or have more experience for their next relationship, which may be life-long and/or result in (more) children they love.

To clarify: My main point here is that neither the relationship nor the PhD in this field is necessarily permanent. Therefore we cannot use this to argue that we should sacrifice one for the other. More importantly: For the PhD the choice is between two possibly similar options, whereas the relationship choice is between "something that may not last forever" and "long-distance relationship that is significant risk of breaking".

@Simon I don't think we can assume they will complete the PhD if they don't move.  It's never certainl, but odds of completing a PhD significantly improve if they work on what they describe as "the perfect fit for my interests". And relationships don't normally "complete" in that sense, rather we grow out of them. It's a common refrain to talk about a woman's potential future children, and I fear it's reductionist. Most women I know would stop speaking to me if I suggested they factor potential future children into their career plans.

@Clumsycat I am sorry to hear that it is like this where you live. Being from the nordic countries I am used to most men (and not just women) considering children as "something to factor into their career plans". For example, most men here take several months of (paid) parental leave and this is not considered unusual by employers. But of course you are correct that in acedemia "being out of the field" for, say, a year can be bad for the career.

It is for the person asking the question to weigh the relative importance of their relationship. It isn't for us to assume it is long or short term, the genders involved, or whether children are part of the future picture. The question was, how do people deal with balancing partnerships and career. When you have a spouse or equivalent, you take jobs and opportunities that accommodate your partnership. When it isn't long term, it is less typical to do so because the long term payoff isn't guaranteed.

Also, while we are on the topic of women. Women are not a monolith, and each individual may see things differently. That being said, if this was a woman I would be even more in favor of advising she move to the US, precisely because of the fact that many women suffer career setbacks during childbearing years, accompanied by the gender bias in academia they deal with at every level. Why make such sacrifices now? Why should a male partner do exactly what he wants while a female partner should bend to accommodate at the first opportunity? Nope.

I, who have done my undergraduate, masters, and doctorate in three different countries, think making a choice based only on university and research group is a poor choice. We should think about our social life and the quality of our time spent. Don't think of it as another degree, but rather a 5-year period of your adult life that you should obviously spend with your S/O (supposing a serious relationship), especially on upcoming problems, i.e., anxiety and depression. In short, choice A seems adventurous, and choice B is close to common sense. The purpose of a Ph.D. should not be just research and publications, but a great research experience and quality time spent. Otherwise, life becomes painful.

Totally agree. You need a strong support network to deal with the stress and emotional issues that a PhD can cause/surface.

I registered so that I could disagree with most answers here, because I really think there's a perspective that's lacking.
Let me preface this by saying that I am 4th-year postdoc who moved away from her home country (Germany) and committed partner in 2013 to pursue a Master's degree (followed by a PhD) in the UK.
I am still together with that same person and we've been happily married since 2017, even though we have not lived in the same country since 2013 (apart from 10 months during the Covid pandemic).
My current postdoc is in the US and I was previously a visiting PhD student in Canada, so I am well-versed in transatlantic long-distance relationships.
Do I sometimes miss my partner and wish we got to spend more time together? Yes, sure. Do I regret any of my time abroad? Absolutely not.
In fact, I love being able to switch between my life in a new country (the US is the 5th country I have lived in since first moving abroad) and returning to our apartment in Germany, where my partner still lives in the city where we both started studying. I love showing off my new home to him when he visits, and I love returning to the old one.
Now, I am aware that this is not for everyone, but I really want to put out this perspective. It is by no means impossible -- and not even all that improbable. My social circle is full of people who were apart during their PhD or a postdoc and are still happily together.
About the academic choice: People above have correctly written that whether your department is 1st or 5th in the world is completely immaterial, what counts is your advisor and the working environment. (Let me say this as someone who had a very famous on-paper advisor who was not a good fit subject-wise and who she never ended up working with.)
What you have written in your OP sounds like the advisor at A is the much better fit, so that is what anyone making the academic argument should focus on in my view. Yes, it is important that you also have a good social live during your PhD, but you can have that if you move abroad. Making friends during a PhD is very easy. Do not do a PhD with someone whose research topic does not fit your interests and who won't supervise you properly (which is what option B sounds like from what you've written). That way misery lies.
Quite apart from the long-distance issue, I think that moving university for your PhD is generally a good thing to get a broader perspective of your field. Sure, you don't have to, but I have found experiencing different academic environments very enriching.
Edit: Let me add that if you give up what you describe as your "dream advisor" for your current partner, there's a danger that whenever something doesn't go well during your PhD at choice B (and things will go badly at times), you end up resenting your partner for it. That's toxic to any relationship and can just as easily doom it as being long-distance might.

I'm glad you brought up the aspect that your advisor and working environment does matter quite a lot for whether your PhD will be happy and successful. I wish I could upvote that sentiment more.

I always thought of it like this: we all publish to the same journals, so ultimately location is immaterial. However, a good mentor is invaluable. Leaving your home university and country for that matter can be just as expansive an experience for your mind as the phd itself. Take the best opportunity while you have the advantage of youth...often it will seem scary but likely this is also potential for most fruitful experience.

The advantage of youth is that you can make as many mistakes as you want, because you have time to recover, it is not about picking the choice with the assumed best outcome in 5 years from now.

Other answers focused on the academic aspects; I'd add, I don't know anyone who managed to pull off a long-term long-distance relationship, and I know a fair few people who failed at it (often in similar circumstances). Richard Feynman is one counter-example, it seems.
So, in your decision process, I think it would be prudent and fair to both yourself and your S/O to accept, at the very least, that there is a very real and significant chance your relationship wouldn't make it if you are pursuing your career far away. Depending on the personalities of the people involved, asking someone to be in a long-distance relationship is also a big ask, which can either, well, topple the relationship, or create a long-term emotional debt, which, again, you'd need to feel comfortable handling.
Good luck with your decision!

Richard Feynman did fail in quite a spectacular way. His partner succeded, at her own expense, though.

Sorry the multiple comments, here a starting point to dismantle the aura https://thebaffler.com/outbursts/surely-youre-a-creep-mr-feynman-mcneill (but hey, great physics and great lectures from him, I absolutely agree)

I've known quite a few relationships that successfully weathered being long-distance. I have a friend from grad school who was long-distance with his girlfriend for at least 6 years while he was doing a PhD and she was in med school. My wife and I were long-distance (across an ocean and several timezones) for two years of a postdoc. However, I mostly hated it and couldn't wait until we could live together again (although our visits were fun since travel was easy).

From experience, USA Ph.D. doesn't help you to publish as many papers as you possibly publish in the UK. However, you would have no problem with funding and go to conferences. You would work alone and get a self-esteem boost. When I decided to move to the USA, I had a gf for 7 months. We broke up a week after I moved and she said exactly these words "I cannot do this. I went to a grocery store alone today and had a hard time deciding what to pick. I want my bf around me, I want to do things together even the small ones." so we broke up. Did I try to work out? Yes! Am I still single? Yes! Did I have fun and got good education? also yes! Am I regretting even the 5th decimal place? Hell no! Moving to the USA was the best decision I made. It is hard, it is tiring and it has ups and downs. However, people can make sacrifices and tried to work out. It wasn't for us. I hope the best for you.  PS I wasn't moving from the UK so that might make a difference as well.

Stay in the UK if you value your relationship at all
While career-wise, the US is better (not from the #1 vs #5 discrepancy, but because finishing a US PHD will make it way easier to get a US work visa upon finishing and the opportunity pool will be much bigger upon completion), a 5-year, long distance relationship has miniscule chances of lasting the duration.
Consider how many marriages don't survive even a couple years of incarceration and a busy cross-Atlantic PHD schedule leaves less opportunity for personal contact and "conjugal visits" than a non-maximum security prison sentence. Or how many military marriages break up due to multi-month deployments. And those are actual legal contracts that are expensive and tedious to break, made by people who've often been together much longer than 4 years.

While the author almost undoubtedly has considered these things they may not have put enough emphasis on them.  I can't imagine considering a long distance relationship lasting more than 12 to 18 months (and even that would be v hard)

God, this is upsetting. Some of these answers are terribly naive about process. How many people answering actually are professors or run a lab?
If the relationship is meant to be, it will survive distance. If you want to stay in academia, that is much harder these days especially for theoretical chemistry. I am a professor, because I made a good Ph.D. match that led me to the right projects and the right postdoc and most importantly the right environment to get ideas.
You already know the answer here. Losing the relationship (if it is indeed great, which it sounds like you have support) is less likely than being miserable, uninspired and drowning in a sea of indifference in your PhD.
Furthermore, why do you have to chose? Why not the S/O? Go to America. Get set up for academic life. You can always move to switch to a PhD in the UK. Furthermore, if the relationship is meant to be, no amount of distance will conquer it. Best of luck.
PS. Two-body problems are solved during the later stages of a career/job searches by being so well wanted you basically get your S/O a job. You can't do that if you haven't set yourself up properly.

"If the relationship is meant to be, it will survive distance" talking about näive...

This also ignores the fact that for many people a PhD is one of the most stressful and emotionally/mentally taxing experiences of their life, and a strong support network is very important. Being separated from one's S/O by a very long distance and non-trivial time zone difference and in a foreign country is not a challenge to take lightly. Doesn't mean OP and the relationship may not thrive in that situation (people do PhDs on foreign soil all the time and long distance relationships can work), but it's important to consider factors beyond simply career.

+1. While I don't agree with the entire answer, I think OP should realize the potential costs of turning down the opportunity to work at School A. There's always a chance that things could work out optimally at either school, but it's often the case that people in this situation are effectively choosing between their relationship and their career. It is good to be clear-eyed about this.

+1. I get why this would be an unpopular opinion, and I'm not sure it's necessary to call the other answers naive, but I think this is an important perspective. There is a professional cost to doing a PhD at School B since it sounds like it is not a good academic fit. I wouldn't go so far as to say "choose School A for sure," but I would definitely say there's could be a lot of professional costs for going to School B if OP wants a career in academia.


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What does "funding" mean for undergraduate students performing research over the holiday period?
I am currently an undergraduate student interested in gaining research experience. I recently asked the research coordinator of our faculty if there were any opportunities to conduct research over the holidays, in preparation for graduate studies. I was told that there were no available summer research programs at the moment, and that I should approach individual faculty members and ask them. They also told me something about them themselves not being able to support any research students over the summer because they don't "have the funds". I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding what this means, but I'm actually not interested at all in getting paid; I just want to gain research experience. Is this what the individual meant, or does it mean something else?

Someone who is able to pay you might be someone who does a better job.  Other factors could be more important, though.

@AnonymousPhysicist Hmm, why is that? Because having funding available would imply that they might also have more time to invest in you?

Funding is usually obtained through competition.  Skilled faculty are more likely to get it.  Also, people who are spending money are more motivated to use it well.

@AnonymousPhysicist Interesting. Thanks for the information.

The holidays are a terrible time to do research - people are not working as frequently, and it's short. If someone asked me to do research over the holidays, I would chuckle to myself and tell them no. It's their holidays too!

@AzorAhai--hehim My understanding is that the semester "holidays" are only such for students – academics are still working, since it is their full-time job. And as an undergraduate, you typically don't have opportunities to do research during the semester.

@ThePointer What country are you in? If you're referring to the time period around Christmas and the New Year, my comment holds.

@AzorAhai--hehim We have an almost four month break around that time, so I don't think taking two weeks off around Christmas and New Years will be an issue. And this will be mathematics research, so there isn't the same equipment/materials/supervision requirements as research in other areas.

@ThePointer What country are you in? I've never heard of a four month break. Is this a new COVID thing?

@AzorAhai--hehim No, this is typical for Australian universities. Second semester ends November and begins March.

Oh, I see. I'll refrain from answering that part of it, since I'm not familiar with Australian standards for doing research over that time. When you say "holidays" and "summer" are you referring to the same time period, then?

You've been told by faculty members that they don't have the funds [to pay you]. Since you aren't interested in getting paid, you could approach faculty members again. Explain you're willing to work for free. Whether that's possible depends on the country's employment law.
Another answer discusses the ethics of working for free and argues that it benefits the privileged who can support themselves. Some good points are raised and I've upvoted that answer. I don't entirely agree though: Sure the privileged benefit, but the unprivileged do to. Only they do so at greater cost. Perhaps working two jobs, minimising expenditure, or racking up some debt. Ultimately, refusing unpaid interns deprives the unprivileged of a levelling-up opportunity.

Wait, this is considered employment? Can't I just get research experience as a student without having to be "employed"?

That depends on the country's law: Some countries prohibit working for free.

-1 I don't think any answer on this site should include the words "explain you're willing to work for free."

@AzorAhai--hehim You have of course taken the sentence out of context. I'll note that being paid a stipend is pretty much equivalent to nothing (in many countries), that privileged senior academics aren't helping juniors, and that (like many) I've suffered under the system. I certainly advocate changing the current system, but until it does, it'll continue to cause hardship.

@user2768 I don't believe I have.

@AzorAhai--hehim I've done just that (worked for free). Sure that created hardship. But, I believe my career benefited.

@user2768 Well, good for you. Sucks for the people that couldn't take on that hardship.

There are two things that require funds for a summer studentship:

Paying the student living costs
The cost of the research materials themselves (which might be more or less important depending on the subject, but in my field we budget about £10,000 (~$15,000) a for a full time year per researcher.

As has been pointed out it depending on the local laws, you might legally count as an employee. I would expect that to be the case in many european countries. In fact its a big grey area in UK law, and working out if you an employee, a trainee or a volunteer is complicated.
But the law aside, I personally do not take unfunded summer students because the privilege those that have the means to support themselves without income for several months over those who can't. The system of unpaid internships in law, media, politics etc, has long been seen as a source of the unrepresentativeness of those professions and research is no different. There is a big move to here outlaw unpaid internships explicitly. I do not want to be part of that system and mine is not an uncommon position here.

This is mathematics research, so no materials are necessary. Also, I live here, so no living costs are necessary.

What do you mean, you have no living costs? Do you live on the streets? Eat only food from dumpsters? Someone is paying for your upkeep. Not everyone has that. The UK law on internships is laid out here: https://targetjobs.co.uk/internships/advice/275017-the-law-on-unpaid-internships-know-your-rights . Although this is UK specific, I would expect the rules are similar in other EU countries. Although the US is different, I wouldn't be surprised if many prof acted as though it were the same.

Sorry, I should have been more specific: I still live at home (with my parents). Nonetheless, I understand the point you're making.

So you have parents that can afford to keep you. In fact, this is explicitly the complaint that people against unpaid internships make: those with parents that can afford to support them without an extra income, particularly in the expensive cities where such opportunities often arise, get an advantage over those whose parents need them to work to afford rent, or don't live in the expensive, but opportunity filled big cities.

@IanSudbery +1, but, the unprivileged are deprived of the opportunity, which they could have benefited from (with sacrifice, e.g., working two jobs, minimising expenditure, or racking up some debt). The opportunity probably doesn't matter to the privileged, it does to the unprivileged.

Yes. I won't pretend the answer is obvious or cut and dried, and I came to this decision after a lot of consideration. I think others have too.

I've never been faced with the dilemma myself; I've always acquired funds. I appreciate your answer, you raise valid points. I'd need to grapple with those points should I be in a position where I can't acquire funds. I find it difficult because I fear that I'd be depriving someone of an opportunity (especially someone without privilege). I suppose I could always acquire funds in such cases. Many countries pay awful stipends (another problem), so funds are easy to come by.

IMHO there is a range of student jobs/internships/projects that needs to be considered. One extreme would be an internship/practicum that the student can use to fulfill their coursework requirements (e.g. research practicum). The student is typically not paid, but someone else must be paid to look after the student (e.g. a postdoc or experienced PhD student). Net work output is typically < 0 (the postdoc could have done more work in less time than they spent teaching the student), but significant in student knowledge. The other extreme is a student job where the student is paid to produce net

work output, i.e. their supervisor spends substantially less time teaching the student. The tasks here are at a level that the student has already mastered. Student is paid in money, but they won't learn as much. This is really like any other job a student does for money. Of course, that's really a continuum. IMHO these variants are both fair, what would not be fair is a) nto being clear about these, b) obviously, low/no learning and small/no wage, and c) (slightly off-topic, but related to b) presenting a student learning project to the supervising postdoc/PhD student as net help instead of

a teaching project.

source: Stack Exchange

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Will it be a risk for my future research career in machine learning if I avoid learning and using Python?
I started my programming language journey with the C/C++ family of languages (i.e., D, Java, C#, etc.).
In the machine learning field, the most popular tools are written in the Python programming language.
I hate the Python language for many reasons, the primary of which is that it is dynamically typed. Keeping track of its function parameters is a daunting task for me. I am unable to remember these parameters naturally. So, it creates a dilemma: "should I repeatedly look for the documentation" or "should I focus on the algorithm I am trying to solve?"
Should I learn and use Python in my research, even if I dislike it?
I am a 2nd-year PhD student, and I want to remain in academia.
Will it be a risk for my research career if I avoid Python and its likes (e.g., MATLAB, etc.) altogether?

We get it, there are ways to make Python act like a statically-typed language. Comments have been moved to chat; please do not continue the discussion here. Before posting a comment below this one, please review the purposes of comments. Comments that do not request clarification or suggest improvements usually belong as an answer, on [meta], or in [chat]. Comments continuing discussion may be removed.

I would say the question at the end of your statement should be in the title if your question is whether you should follow your supervisor and do it in Python. Then we can say, it depends on your supervisor and also on how big the project is. If small, you can propose a different approach. Otherwise, you have to follow the approach set. But if the question is about programming itself, it better go to Stack Overflow or similar.

oh wow an off-topic CS question with a bunch of upvotes and answers??

It is not a career problem to have a preference or dislike for a language. It is a problem if you cannot work with it if it is required.
You are not working in isolation.
Even as an academic researcher, you are going to collaborate with other people. You will build on work that others have already done, and you will want others to build on your work.
All those people have their own tooling preferences. If you aren’t willing to work with the commonly used tools, this is going to put you at a disadvantage.
How do you choose a language for your project?
The first thing to consider is then whether someone else (either in your group or in open source software) has already solved a significant part of that problem. You might for example be continuing a colleague’s work. In that case, the default choice would be to stick with the programming language that has already been used. If that language is a really bad choice you can still choose another language and either re-implement (which takes time and can introduce errors) or use the existing software as a library (which means you still have to work with that language if you have to fix bugs or sometimes if you want to extend functionality, and makes it harder to debug).
If you are starting from scratch then there are some things you should consider:

The language has to allow you to do what you need it to do, in a reasonably efficient way. So if you want to write a web service you might not want to use assembler and if you want to write a hardware driver, maybe Java isn’t the best choice either. Do you have any constraints regarding runtime, memory usage, compile time etc. that are easier to solve in some languages?
You should already be familiar with the language or expect that you can learn it in a reasonable time (with regard to the time frame of your project).
What are your collaborators familiar with? Or those who might want to use your work?
Consider what is already available in the standard library and in other libraries (depending on your use case you might have to be careful about licences, although I think it’s usually not much of a problem in academic research). Anything that is already available is something that you don’t have to do and is likely to be faster and better tested than whatever you would produce.
What tooling is available for development? E.g. a good debugger helps a lot, especially if you’re running code not only on your PC but also on some embedded device and have to debug remotely.

If after considering these points you still have multiple language candidates, then you can choose the one you like best.
Give new languages a chance.
At first, any new language is going to be harder to use than what you are already familiar with. It takes some time to get to know the language-specific concepts, get familiar with what functionality is already offered by libraries, learn the language-specific coding conventions, learn how to use the documentation effectively etc.
This simply takes time. I switched over from mainly working in C++ to mainly working in Python a few years ago, and I know that it takes some getting used to. But when you are coming from another language, your view is skewed: you mainly notice the things you can't do easily that you could do before, and the new types of errors you encounter. You don't notice the things you can do better (or at all) in the new language unless you go looking for them.
Other people have the same problems. There might be ways to solve or mitigate them.
Look around a bit. For example, for Python you can use Type Hints to indicate which type(s) an input parameter / variable / return parameter is supposed to have. Python itself doesn't check if those make sense, but there are tools to do so.
Implementation is rarely the hard part.
In my experience, the most time consuming part about programming is not the implementation itself but deciding on what you implement. That is, how is your algorithm going to work? What are you optimizing for? Where does your data come from? What do you need to do to clean it? How can you construct representative datasets? How do you evaluate your algorithm?
That’s the hard part. Programming it is easy, even if you have to look up interfaces a bit more often than you're used to.

The success of your career will depend more on the results you obtain and their verifiability than on the specific set of tools you use, whether programming languages than otherwise.
However, using nonstandard tools will make replication, verification, and extension of your work more difficult for many users. It will make your papers harder to read and understand for some. There is value, of course, in independent verification of results, especially, perhaps, when they use different tools.
But maybe a better solution for yourself is to improve your Python skills. There are ways to use the language so that your concerns will be minimized. But less-than-skilled practices are a problem in any language. The potential error sets in C and Python are very different, but neither language makes errors impossible to "achieve". Up your game.
One issue is that Python requires a different mental model than C or C++. If your Python code is just misspelled-C code it will have issues. Python requires a higher level abstraction mentality than many earlier languages, which was the point of creating it.

+1 for "Python requires a higher level abstraction mentality than many earlier languages, which was the point of creating it."

C++ is really something completely different from C. It is no longer just C with classes it used to be 25 years ago. The mental model of C and modern C++ is fundamentally different with template metaprogramming, traits, functional programming features and what not (I am not really a C++ programmer, but even I can see the huge difference). Scientific C++ libraries offer much higher level of abstraction compared to C and often comparable to Python.

Well, yes, though maybe not for the reasons you think. Let me give a more, ahem, high level view than the current answers.

I don’t use technique X because I hate it.

This is a really dangerous mindset for a scientist, be it in academia or industry. Thinking like this will easily lead you into misjudging situations in terms of options and constraints. It will also isolate you from collaborators and peers who approach their tasks more practical minded and goal oriented.
None of this is good for you. Work on challenging your assumptions and it will make you a better scientist.
As a practical example, you mention types on parameters. Well, that alone means your thinking on this topic is almost 10 years outdated (almost 20 if you count the cutting edge). That’s not some hidden knowledge, that’s one internet search - provided that you are willing to look for it.
As a scientist, it’s really dangerous for your career to be in a mindset in which you aren’t willing not even to look, but to not even glance at what you could do.

On the one hand, as Buffy writes, what is important is your results, not your toolset.
On the other hand(s)...

As Buffy also writes, you will have a harder time communicating with others. There are already journals that put a premium on authors' submitting code along with their manuscript, and they may even try re-running your code. That works if the field has essentially converged on one language. Using something non-standard will close this possibility off to you.

In addition, this will make it hard on other people to collaborate with you. Co-authoring papers between LaTeX and MS Word users is hard enough; co-writing code between C++ and Python users is even harder.

Python by now has a huge ecosystem of user-generated packages for pretty much any use case you might imagine. Yes, C++ has also been around for a while... but I would assume that if you want to leverage someone else's tools, you will need to use their Python.

Since you want to stay in academia, at some point you will need to teach students. In principle, you may have some leeway what to do here. However, if 95% of the data science community uses Python (and another 4.9% uses R), then teaching your data science students C++ will likely have them feel like you are not adequately preparing them for the workplace. You will need to work in a "mainstream" language in your teaching at least.

If you leave academia, yes, there are places where you can use C++. But like it or not, again, most data science is done in Python. (Then again, if you have been doing C++, nobody will question your ability to learn Python.)

C++ has improved with and since C++11. It has become a much more convenient language. Certainly, the rest of the argument is fine, but no need to diss C++. Not that it needs protection, but I feel the lack of insight of a language closer to the machine memory model has substantially weakened the understanding of computation by students. It does not need to be C++, languages such as Rust or Pascal would also be fine.

@CaptainEmacs: for the life of me, I can't tell where I am dissing C++. That was absolutely not my intention.

dissing C++ - "then inflicting C++ on your students". I know it is meant to be humorous, but it does not sound flattering. I see where you come from, and can imagine that something like Rust may ultimately replace C++, but we are not there yet.

@CaptainEmacs: I edited.

Funny, as a numerical person, I remember numerical mathematics/scientific computation conferences were all about C++, some Fortran. I really could feel what the OP feels (myself using mostly Fortran) but with C++ instead of Python. And not such a long time ago.

If you're dead set against Python and similar languages, it might make things a bit tougher for you in academia, especially in data science and ML, but it's not the end of the world. What matters most are your research and results. However, teamwork and sharing findings might get more complicated since most people there use Python. So, maybe consider giving Python another chance?

"Will it be a career risk for me if I avoid Python?"

As a data scientist? Yes. Undoubtedly.
Tools like Tensorflow and Pytorch offer huge advantages compared with C++, or even base Python. If you don't use these tools then you will work much more slowly and won't be able to access the work of peers who will almost certainly use these tools.
Python also gives you access to some great web and database tools, which enable you to load data and deploy your algorithms.

"I hate the Python language for many reasons, the primary of which is that it is dynamically typed."

The bits of python that you will use most often are not dynamically typed.
Python extensions such as numpy and tensorflow allow you to define multidimensional array objects but they also force you to select the datatype held in the array. Once the array is created you can't change the datatype, although you can still re-assign the variable name to a new object.
import numpy as np
my_array = np.arange(8, dtype=np.float)    # ndarray(0.0, 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, 7.0, 8.0)
my_array[3:5] = 1                          # ndarray(0.0, 1.0, 2.0, 1.0, 1.0, 5.0, 6.0, 7.0, 8.0)
my_array[6] = False                        # ndarray(0.0, 1.0, 2.0, 1.0, 1.0, 5.0, 0.0, 7.0, 8.0)
other_array = my_array
other_array is my_array                    # True (i.e. the two variable names are pointing at the same memory location)
my_array = None                            # None
other_array is my_array                    # False
print(other_array)                         # ndarray(0.0, 1.0, 2.0, 1.0, 1.0, 5.0, 0.0, 7.0, 8.0)

Notice that my_array contains doubles, even after we assign integer or other exotic non-floating point values to it (assuming that numpy will accept an implicit conversion for the given datatype).

"Keeping track of its function parameters is a daunting task for me. I am unable to remember these parameters naturally."

This sounds like the real issue here. It can be tricky but here are some pointers that might help:

Try not to write functions with a large number of parameters
If you have such a function, consider breaking it down into smaller components, or capturing the parameters in a dictionary object (look up how to use the * and ** symbols to unpack a dictionary within a function call)
Choose better parameter names
Use type hinting
Keep an eye out for Mojo https://www.modular.com/max/mojo (under development, but could be very useful once it matures)

"The bits of python that you will use most often are not dynamically typed." That is false. All typing in Python is done at run time. Variables are untyped. Only values have type. Libraries and preprocessors might do things differently but you need to use those consistently. my_array = 42 would be legal at the end of your example. The fact that you originally assigned it to be an object that has control over its own state and provides conversions doesn't change the fact that my_array itself (as a variable) has no type at all. Only an object it references has type, hence behavior.

@Buffy it's false in some senses but true in others. "dynamically typed" vs "statically typed" isn't always a useful dichotomy and IMO it won't hurt to show the OP that there is a level of nuance present which may or may not appeal to them.

You don't "overwrite" an object. You change a reference to a different object. It will hurt the OP to give them a poor thinking model of Python or any other language. I'm dropping the mic here as arguing in comments isn't appropriate, but I think you need to up your own game a bit. Much of the advice you give here is fine, but be careful about possibly misleading folks.

You're correct. I've made an edit to try to make it a bit more precise.

My opinionated take:

Should I learn and use Python in my research, even if I dislike it?

I'm going to call this an XY situation1. In my opinion, the question should be instead:

Why don't I currently find Python likable and how I can I reverse this?

The Earth has sort-of converged on Python as a scripting language and wrapper for all that is good in software.
I use it to download YouTube videos and grab their transcript text, generate PowerPoint slides, format stuff, do simple math etc. in addition to all the heavy lifting in databases, numerical calculations, etc.
There is very little out there that can't be accessed via some Python wrapper or API. Even if all your hard work and excellent coding is in a compiled language like some flavor of C or FORTRAN, if you wrap it in at least a thin veneer of Python it is much easier to share with the rest of the world.
I think the real problem is that you have not yet had a positive exposure to it, either you haven't attended a good PyCon meeting or a local Python Users Group get-together, or just sat down with a Python enthusiast and been exposed to the wonders and power of this scripting language.

Should I learn and use Python in my research...

Yes!

...even if I dislike it?

You will almost certainly like it once you learn it in a positive way
Find the right way to get help and encouragement, and you'll find it so empowering you'll wonder why you previously thought you wouldn't like it.

1from FAQ see What is the XY problem?

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Was this student's ejection from her PhD legitimate?
A lady named Lakshmi Balakrishnan from India is preparing to file a case against Oxford University.

Help Seek Justice from Oxford for Plagiarism and Racism

Indian student spent Rs 1 crore on PhD, 'forcibly removed' by Oxford in fourth year

Dear Friends,
The University of Oxford has committed an injustice most foul!
Please lend me your ears as I recount my harrowing experiences in this historic institution.
BREACH OF CONTRACT:
Coming from the small town of Madurai in south India, it was truly a dream come true for me when I received the offer from Oxford in 2018 to pursue my PhD on Shakespeare in the English Faculty.
The offer letter gave me the supervisor of my choice, who is an expert on Shakespeare. After I paid my tuition fees and joined Oxford, the University BREACHED THE CONTRACT of my offer letter by appointing a supervisor who does not have even a single publication on Shakespeare and who was also painfully negligent. Despite my pleas, the University refused to address this problem.
Things took a turn for the worse in November 2021 during the fourth year of my PhD studies, by which time I had spent an exorbitant sum of £100,000. My Oxford dream turned into a nightmare when my examiners failed my internal assessment known as the ‘Confirmation of Status’—not due to any shortcoming on my part, but because SHAKESPEARE apparently does not have ‘SCOPE’ for doctoral-level studies!
Well before joining Oxford, I clearly stated in my application that my PhD thesis is on Shakespeare. The ‘scope’ of my thesis has always remained the same since the time of my application. Besides, the assessment rules clearly state that evaluating the ‘scope’ of a thesis is the purpose of having an exam in the first year of PhD studies known as the ‘Transfer of Status’. I had already passed that exam in June 2019 and my previous assessors had already formally approved the ‘scope’ and ‘validity’ of my PhD thesis.
CANCELLING SHAKESPEARE AT OXFORD:
In a letter to His Majesty King Charles III, who is a lover of Shakespeare, I unravelled the cultural underpinnings of this strange decision of the assessors at Oxford:
“This astonishing proclamation that Shakespeare does not have ‘scope’ for doctoral-level study is only the culmination of the symptoms of a deeper cultural malaise of systemic cancellation of Shakespeare that seems to have been allowed to afflict this great institution for quite a while now. An example of this long-standing symptom would be: once we arrive at Oxford, we learn it is an open secret that any implication of Shakespeare being ‘unique’, ‘universal’, or ‘timeless’ in our work would be met with scorn, scepticism, and serious negative consequences in academic progression (two of my own assessment reports being cases in point, as they carry subtle warnings against this implication). In the English Faculty’s Renaissance seminar events, Shakespeare is systemically marginalized.
… Curiously, the assessors did not have a problem with the central argument of my doctoral thesis per se. The problem, as they saw it, is that I committed the original sin of choosing to ‘focus’ on Shakespeare in the first place. They concluded their report by plainly reasoning that Shakespeare does not have ‘scope’ for doctoral study.”
ACADEMIC BULLYING, PLAGIARISM, AND RACISM:
Experts worldwide have testified on record that my PhD research is ‘ground-breaking’, ‘field-changing’, ‘bold, interesting and impressive’.
So, why then is the University refusing to rectify this manifestly unjust decision? All the evidence points to PLAGIARISM by Faculty, followed by BULLYING and HARASSMENT, all aimed at protecting the theft of my intellectual property.
In addition, there is also evidence of RACISM and DISCRIMINATION in regard to the PhD exam, as well as the procedural irregularities involved in my case. The assessors used the prevalent trend of cancelling Shakespeare at Oxford to discriminate against me—for the very same assessors have approved the white students’ PhD theses on Shakespeare.
LEGAL ACTION:
Over the past two and a half years, I submitted several appeals and complaints since December 2021 to the University and the Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA) and pleaded with them to allow me to submit my PhD thesis and have my final viva, but to no avail. Throughout, the University has absurdly maintained that the assessors are ‘credited scholars of Shakespeare’ and that if they decide that Shakespeare does not have ‘scope’ for doctoral studies, then their ‘academic judgement’ must be accepted. The appeals and complaints processes appear to be a complete sham.
I have no choice now but to seek justice by taking legal action against the University, and I seek your kind support to fight this gross injustice.
HELP UPHOLD ACADEMIC INTEGRITY, EQUALITY, AND FAIRNESS AT OXFORD:
International students currently pay nearly thrice more than British students for tuition fees. Degrees are the sole motivation for us to spend such an exorbitant sum of money and come to Oxford.
Hailing from an underprivileged background, my journey to Oxford was marked by immense sacrifices—including by selling all the properties at my disposal and expending all the savings to meet the £100,000 PhD costs. After all this, if Oxford denies me the PhD based on such an egregiously arbitrary and whimsical excuse as Shakespeare not having ‘scope’ for doctoral studies, it is not only inhumanely unfair, but it also sets a dangerous precedent for Oxford to exploit and mistreat other students as well. Given all the important issues at stake here, helping me in my fight for justice will also ensure a fairer and safer academic environment for everyone.
As Oxford’s betrayal has sabotaged my academic career, affected my job prospects, and rendered me destitute, I earnestly seek your financial support to pursue legal action and sustain myself. Any contributions, large or small, will make an enormous difference for my cause.
Thank you so much for your solidarity!

I am not a humanities or literature person.
Can you tell me in layman's terms why Oxford University expelled her from the PhD program?
Has she been a victim of racism, or is she blowing things out of proportion?

Your first question "Can you tell me in layman's terms why Oxford University expelled her from the PhD program?" may be on topic here. Of course, the lengthy quote you give ("my examiners failed my internal assessment known as the ‘Confirmation of Status’—not due to any shortcoming on my part, but because SHAKESPEARE apparently does not have ‘SCOPE’ for doctoral-level studies") gives only one side of the picture, and Oxford U may have quite a different view - which in turn they may or may not make public, so it may be hard to even get the other side's view.

Your second question "Has she been a victim of racism, or is she blowing things out of proportion?" is opinion-based and thus off-topic. Especially since presumably nobody here is privy to the internal workings of her examinations at Oxford. I would suggest you remove this second question, and very much cut down the quote; most of it is irrelevant to your first question. (And your post may still be closed as off-topic.)

I do not think it is appropriate to bring a specific person's case here.

Possibly relevant (and less one-sided) BBC article on the topic.

She has exhausted the appeals process. The dismissal is legitimate under Oxford’s rules. You may not like the outcome, true.

Should have a label: "Asking for a friend"

In the second link you gave, there's this paragraph:

Lakshmi Balakrishnan, who already has two masters degree[s], was told by the assessors that her Shakespeare research wasn't a PhD level work, thus failing her in her fourth year.
"They forcibly removed me from the PhD program and moved me to a masters level course without my consent", she said.

The link goes on to say:

"To achieve Confirmation of Status, progress must sufficiently demonstrate a strong likelihood of successful completion of a doctoral thesis. Unfortunately, not all students achieve this.

When you enroll in a PhD course, you'll have to meet certain milestones. One very common expectation is, sometime soon after enrollment (order of magnitude is ~1 year in for British-style programs, as far as I'm aware) you'll produce a progress report that says This is what my thesis is going to be about, this is how I'm going to answer the research question, and this is the expected timeline. This repeats every year. This is what I have discovered, this is what I'm going to do next, and this is the expected timeline.
If the student is not progressing well, then a poor progress report is when the department will notice and intervene. Usually they'll see what they can do to help the student get back on track, although if that doesn't work out then they'll take more dramatic actions (like downgrade the student to a Masters student).
Presumably what happened is that the people who read her progress report felt that Lakshmi Balakrishnan has not been doing research at PhD level and her thesis is not likely to pass. Accordingly, they recommended she be moved to a Masters student (the alternative is probably to fail out without a degree). Note this means that they think her research has some merit - it's just that the work is not advanced enough for a PhD. She didn't agree with this decision so she filed an appeal, which was handled by another group of people ("Office of Independent Adjudicator"). This group agreed with the assessment that her thesis is not at PhD level and is not likely to pass a defense.
As for whether she's a victim of racism: this is hard to tell from the outside; you'd need internal details. Still, it does not look like her case is a strong one. E.g. she writes:

This astonishing proclamation that Shakespeare does not have ‘scope’ for doctoral-level study is only the culmination ...

I'd be surprised if you can write a thesis on Shakespeare. That's too broad. You can presumably write a thesis on one specific aspect of Shakespeare's work. She appears not to have listed her research question in detail (why?).

So, why then is the University refusing to rectify this manifestly unjust decision? All the evidence points to PLAGIARISM by Faculty, followed by BULLYING and HARASSMENT, all aimed at protecting the theft of my intellectual property.

Alleging plagiarism here would suggest that the faculty has published something using her ideas, without crediting her. If so, she should be able to link the alleged plagiarized work, which she hasn't done.

Over the past two and a half years, I submitted several appeals and complaints since December 2021 to the University and the Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA) and pleaded with them to allow me to submit my PhD thesis and have my final viva, but to no avail.

What would be the point? If her advisors don't believe her work is PhD-level, then she could have a final viva, but she'd fail, so it'd be a waste of time. It'd merely move the complaint to "they let me have a defense and then failed me".
Finally, the argument "I have spent £100,000 for a PhD and now I'm getting a Masters degree" is very off-putting. You don't get a PhD by buying it. You still have to do the work (and do it well). The amount of money she spent is irrelevant.
However: I don't have an internal view of Oxford, and she didn't describe her research question (and even if she had I'm no expert on Shakespeare). There are also at least two professors who think her work is PhD level. So it's possible her complaint has merit; I simply don't know, and probably nobody except those with direct knowledge of the process do.

It also looks very suspicious that she claims that "Experts worldwide have testified on record that my PhD research is ‘ground-breaking’, ‘field-changing’, ‘bold, interesting and impressive’", but does not name any of these experts.

And applying those term to Shakespeare is really hard. Perhaps if you discovered a new play by him…


text:
Does politics and perception play a role in higher education?
One of my friends is now living in North America. He was enrolled in a Social Science-related program in one of the most reputed universities in North America.
Right now, his degree is hanging in a balance as he attended and completed the semester but the department says that he hasn't. Further investigation tells that, his teachers were adjunct teachers and they submitted their grades to the department and the department administration lost them. Repeatedly contacting the administration resulted in banning him from entering the campus, and reduction of some of his grades.
He wanted to get enrolled in a Ph.D. program but he was not allowed because his religious denomination was different. The people who were accepted had lesser grades or performances.
According to him,

GRE and grades do not play much importance in Ph.D. admission.
Personal relationships with teachers are the key to achieving good grades.
Ethnicity and political alliance are important in determining someone's grades.
The ability to pay money solves 90% of the problems.

To what extent are these three points true?
From my personal experience, I found that his thinking and perception are not fully untrue. For instance, my teachers are totally lying to me that a retake cannot be offered. I just discovered that retakes are allowed on the basis of teachers' discretion. I accidentally received one of the teacher's e-mail and it seemed to me that grading is done on the basis of perception, not on the basis of exam papers.
Dear Chairman!
I received the following email from Mr. 'Student'.
I rated part of it as follows:
Mr. 'Student'
Task one: */* (*%)
Task two: */* (*%)
Task three: */* (*%)
TOTAL: */* (*%)
How did the other parts go?
I don't see him as an outstanding student
 - hardworking, but not that knowledge/learning experience.
What is the department's policy in this respect (consultation, review)?
Greetings,
Mr 'Teacher'

---------- Forwarded message ---------
     Date: Day, Month Date, Year at hour:minue
     Subject: Regarding exam.
     To: Mr 'Teacher' <mr_teacher@university.edu>
     Dear Sir,
     My overall score is 3.5 which is unsatisfactory.
     Could you kindly offer me a Zoom session to discuss this?
     Kind regards.
     Mr 'Student'.

Do politics and perception play a role in higher education?

"He wanted to get enrolled in a Ph.D. program but he was not allowed because his religious denomination was different." — Different from what?  Is this a religiously-run school?

@jwodder, No. But, the research was on the religion.

Where in the world? France, United States, Iran, Russia?

@henning--reinstateMonica  first para North America.

Is this really "your friend"?

(1) Also, I'm really confused about how your title relates to the body, what politics, what perception? (2) Are you really claiming that a professor cc'd you, a random student on an email to the chair? (3) Those are four points. (4) Edited tags because this has nothing to do with grad school.

@Solar Mike right there, thanks.

I voted to close because, among other things, there are too many premises that I find confusing or difficult to credit. I do know that inappropriate things happen in academe... but most of the premises of this question would be incomprehensibly anomalous, from my experience. I suspect that there are many missing facts/details, and/or serious misunderstandings about events.

@user366312 If you want an instructor to increase your score, or let you retake an exam, then you need to offer a good reason why they should. For example, because one of your solutions was correct but marked wrong, or because you were ill or dealing with an emergency. Otherwise, "a retake cannot be offered" strikes me as an appropriate response.

I am willing to believe that your friend is not lying in the sense that he believes that what he is saying is true. However, that does not mean that that is the whole story. University is a tricky place to navigate. It is a huge bureaucracy with lots of rules that many people who work there are so used to, that they consider them self-evident. It is very easy for someone with a different background to break such rules. Now university employees have a bad impression of the "rule-breaker", while the rule-breaker does not know what (s)he has done wrong and is angry at being punished. It is easy to see that the rule-breaker misinterprets the punishment as evidence or racism or religious discrimination, while that is not the case. There is still a problem, but it is not discrimination. You can imagine that such a misunderstanding can get out of control very quickly. You don't have to be a foreigner to experience this situation, being born in the "wrong" social class will have the same effect: https://www.asanet.org/sites/default/files/attach/journals/feb15asrfeature_0.pdf .
Since the conflict escalated to the extend that the police got involved, your friend is in real trouble. What he could do is try to find someone withing the university he trusts (e.g. has the same religious denomination, since he perceived that to be part of the problem) who can help him "decode" the problem: what actions did your friend do, that was perceived by the university as problematic. With that knowledge, your friend and that trusted individual could try to de-escalate the situation.

Does the question say the police got involved? Ctrl + F "police" turns up only one result.

@Allure one comment by the OP makes it clear that the "friend" was arrested - that is usually the police...

In main stream higher education, your friend's beliefs would be considered unreasonable and possibly paranoid.  Most universities consider bribery to be very serious misconduct.  Racism and nepotism are at least frowned upon, and often forbidden.
There are certainly corrupt universities which do all sorts of bad things.  But your question is about higher education as a whole.

how would you explain the incident regarding his grades?

I don't believe him.  You do not get banned from campus for "repeated contacts."

He is telling 100% truth. I saw it myself.

He got arrested for attending a seminar.

I worry that his "repeated contacts" were perceived as abusive or threatening. That will get you banned.

@user366312 I wouldn't put much past US police right now, but one doesn't simply get arrested for attending a seminar.


text:
As an instructor, how to use the first day of class?
I found some relevant advice on the first day of teaching online (e.g. here, here, here, and here). Common themes include setting expectations, motivating the course content, and having two-way interactions with students.
Besides for reviewing the syllabus (and relevant university-wide policies referenced but not located in the syllabus), how can an instructor most effectively use the first class session? Are there any especially effective ways to do these things on the first day of a class?

I took a great number of classes where the professor handed out the syllabus on the first day -- which was usually already available online -- and then told us to go home. I recommend against that strategy!

What level of students you are about to teach? Kindergarten or PhD?

Show a movie; everyone will love you!

@Ooker OP mentions university policies, so it is at least undergraduate level.

Everyone knows that on the first day of class, you've got to find the biggest, meanest-looking student and take him down in front of everyone. Er, wait, maybe that advice wasn't for classrooms.

As a recent student, please don't waste everyone's time reviewing the syllabus! Make it available, tell the students they're responsible for reading thoroughly and understanding it, then start teaching.

I do an ice-breaker activity to make sure students learn each other's names and relax.  Cheesy, but it helps. And I always hope it leads to students forming study groups.

@MatthewLeingang: Of course, that's only sometimes possible. Depending on the class size and the university, classes may be too large (100+ students) to have any expectation of learning each other's names, or even with smaller classes, participants may have the expectation to remain anonymous listeners rather than a visible party in a public conversation. In the latter case, trying to "break the ice" might rather have the effect of a "scarecrow" and instantly relieve you of most of the audience. (Sure would have that effect on me when I just expect to listen to a lecture.)

@O.R.Mapper: no, I don't do this in large lectures. In those I do an intro slideshow with useful info and jokes.

@Robert, it is not a waste of time. Even doing that I still get students asking stuff that was covered on that part. It is important that the basic rules are clear from the go. I even had a case when the professor asked us to sign the syllabus, saying that we read and understood it...

@FábioDias You spent the class's instruction time reading the syllabus and still had students fail to understand? Sounds like a waste to me. Of course it's important for everyone to understand the basic rules. The question is whether it's necessary or helpful to read it to them. I think it's reasonable to hold adult students responsible for reading and understanding the syllabus on their own time.

Students basically want to know if they should take your class.  To that end I would include

A short (10-15 minute) sales pitch explaining what exactly your class is about and why your topic is interesting.
Administrative details of the class (I would cover this after the sales pitch, so students who are late don't miss anything).
A presentation on the first topic in your syllabus.  This is important because hearing your first lecture will give them a good idea of the difficulty of the class, which prerequisites are required, and the style/quality of your lecturing. Also, if your entire first lecture is a sales pitch, students will feel like they wasted time coming to your class, or that your class is "easy"/not serious.

...and students that choose not to follow the course don't have to listen to the administrative stuff! :)

The importance/duration of #1 should be dependent on the level of course that you're teaching.  If it's a common course that people are already familiar with and that has a self-explanatory title (like "Intro to Chemistry" or "Probability and Statistics"), I would recommend spending less than 10 minutes on the intro.  If it's an advanced course or has an obscure title (e.g. "Defense Against the Dark Arts"--a real course title where I'm studying), a full 10-15 minutes is time well spent. (My $0.02.)

@anorton Have a link for the real-life DADA course?

@FedericoPoloni The only public course site I can find offhand is pretty old, but the course is still taught: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~cs351-dada/

Sometimes professors spend 10 minutes to discourage students from taking the class (because the class is unexpectedly packed).

There's really no need to cover administrative details.  They're all online, and your students are perfectly capable of looking them up themselves.  Just get to the content!

Yeah, you can also try to be as boring as possible to make students drop the class if the class is packed.

If you do it correctly you can make the unprepared students want to drop while the prepared students stay in the class.

@sapi: As a student, I always found a presentation of administrative details very helpful; like any information, administrative details can be subject to inquiries that are best discussed in class. Nonetheless, even if one relies on much administrative information being available online, one bit of such information that we usually make available only in the class is the access data to much of the course material and course systems. And lastly, don't forget that the administrative information is just as much a part of the "sales pitch" as the course contents (which is of course online, too).

may actually be mandatory. At my university, regulations require the teacher to fix e.g. the mode of the exam during the first week of the lecture period. (I'm not sure if an online listing is sufficient.)

@O.R.Mapper I always found it a waste of my time (in my experience this is also way less common in Europe than the US) - any student not capable of reading a simple A4 page of information should fail any course by default. If there are any questions, students can always ask at the start of the next lecture (and if it's a reasonable confusion, the teacher should fix the syllabus for next year). Teach me stuff that I couldn't comprehend as easily by just spending five minutes reading a sheet of paper!

As a TA: Presentation of administrative details is extremely important. You can't depend on a student to look them up and understand that they, for example: "can't take the exam copy from the classroom", because as soon as they're brought in for academic violations, they say "Well, I was never explicitly told..." The factual in-class presentation puts the onus on the student to live up to the course expectations. The class I taught even had students physically sign that they understood the course policies. Some students claim they didn't see the policies, until they see their own signature.

@FedericoPoloni a recent link for dada: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~ww6r/CS4630/

I took a course in abstract algebra that spent the first week (three lectures) reviewing basic computations on classic groups (eg. addition over a small modulus) and by the fourth week attempted to prove Schur-Zassenhaus. The onus of "hearing your first lecture will give them a good idea of the difficulty of the class" falls on the professor, imo.

My perspective is as a student of physics; I hope this answer generalizes sufficiently.
I have had several teachers in physics who have presented on the first day whichever tricky mathematical theorem, process, or derivation will be used most frequently throughout the semester. This becomes valuable because each time the concept comes up during the rest of the course, the teacher can say, "Now I'm using the Helmholtz theorem (or whatever), which you'll recall from our first class," and the distinction of having been the very first material presented means the students actually do remember it, or at least remember of it. Whereas a proof done sometime in the middle of the fourth lecture will as likely as not need to be reviewed each time it recurs, because the students don't recognize it when it resurfaces.
So if the item is well-chosen, it can save enormous amounts of time in the presentation of later material, since it can essentially be skipped each time it comes up with a casual "…as you'll remember from our first class" in a way that material introduced later often sadly cannot.
Obviously you have to determine if there is a similarly valuable sort of thing in whatever field you teach.

Presenting stuff on the first day of class makes it more memorable to the students who show up; less so for the ones who decide to add the class late.

@BenBitdiddle: presumably that's the kind of thinking that eventually leads to the practice deprecated by rhombidodecahedron in a comment to the question: do nothing in the first class, since it's not really "the first class" until everyone who might take the course is present. It's correct if your university decided that the purpose of the first week of the semester is not to learn anything, rather to try before you buy ;-p

@BenBitdiddle I agree that presenting tricky material on the first day is probably not a great idea (for various reasons). But, I don't think that you should hold off for the stragglers. Reward those who show up with a brief review of knowledge and a general assessment of where the entire class stands. Make it "worth" their time. (Students don't realize how much useful administrative info they may get the first day.)While the reviews are typically helpful to get the students in the right mind set, I don't imagine it's too detrimental for those who add the class late.

From a relatively recent student point of view, once you have discussed the syllabus, university policies, and your rules for e.g. how homework should be turned in, try to make as much as possible of the class typical of what the rest of the course is going to be like. Think of it as a sample.
Students may be faced with having to make a decision early in the session on which classes to take. The more typical the first class is, the more valid data they have to make that decision. If, on the other hand, you spend the whole of the first class doing things other than teaching in your normal style for the class, they have no way to evaluate whether that style works for them.

Good point, I definitely agree with this in principle. But in practice it can be hard to do, because the material that needs to be covered at the beginning of a course is often review/background that is handled (qualitatively) differently from the regular material.

I'll add something more to the already good answers from the perspective of a student, what he expects his first lecture to be.
One of the things which, apparently, is pretty common throughout the academic life is, seriously listening to the advice of the so called Seniors.
  The Seniors will advise you to take a particular course regardless of the teacher / teacher regardless of the course.
Something along the lines of
"Dont take that professor's course, he will screw you up every class with tonnes of homework & will not give good credits even if you manage to pull it off."
OR "Take this particular course. It has great opportunities. The recruiting companies want this course as a prerequisite."
So, professors, during your first lecture, assuming you are privy to this gossip of Seniors being passed down since generations, please address each & every
rumour & clear the thought process of the naïve juniors & be absolutely truthful about it. Then the students can really decide for themselves whether to take the course or not

Sorry, I know I'm gonna lose a great deal of rep for this, but I couldn't resist (from Spiked Math):

Show the students why this class is awesome.  You want to sell them on the class.  Covering a syllabus or the policy on late work isn't going to do any of that.  Students come to the first day with very low expectations because they are conditioned to the fact that it's a "do nothing" day where they just cover administrative crap.
Give demonstrations of why your subject is amazing and relevant.

Show awesome chemistry or physics (something that produces fog or involves lasers!)
Show math puzzlers (I once had a teacher "prove" that pi=2 and nobody could refute it.)
Read touching poetry or even meaningful modern song lyrics (show you are in touch with their generation)

I've been out of school for a long time, but still remember my greatest teachers and they always loved the subjects they taught and kept it interesting.

For undergraduate courses your "first day of class" is really an administrative meeting with students that are signed up for your class. Often students are still arranging their schedule for the semester. In this light, the first lecture is an opportunity to get them excited about the course topic and familiarize them with your approach to teaching it.
In my experience, it's a good idea to do something real in the first lecture in any case, to give the students an idea of what your lectures will be like and to give them a taste of the course material. Just keep in mind that anything important that is touched on in the first lecture should be revisited in a subsequent lecture--basically treat it like a bonus lecture that most of your students didn't attend.
In my view, the first session should be used to accomplish the following:
1. Motivate the course topic and your syllabus.
Try to communicate why this course is important and why you are interested in teaching it. Your engagement and enthusiasm can have a strong positive influence on the engagement and learning potential of your students. Whenever possible, take the opportunity to relate the course topic to current events, new approaches/practices, or recent research results.
2. Clarify your expectations for the course.
Don't read information verbatim from the syllabus, but try to quickly sum up what you expect from your students and what their grades will be based on. Here, a little information on yourself as and instructor, and a little friendly advice on how to stay on your good side is often helpful.
3. Highlight any important or unusual requirements for the course.
If your course requires background in another subject, or if past students have had lots of trouble with certain topics, try to give students a heads-up regarding any difficulties they can prepare for.
4. Get a feel for the level of your students and their expectations.
A short quiz or survey can often be helpful as a segue or starting point for a discussion of the course topic in addition to giving you some idea of how familiar your students are with prerequisite material and material to be covered in the course.

Tell them about the history of topic, get an idea what your students know about it. Then relate it how is it different from that or how is it related. Let them know, Why they are studying this topic, What is application of this and what can be the possible future of the topic. Sometime, even pros and cons can be discussed.
Then, You can start about the topic lecture, This will create some idea to the students in the practical life and they can get more valuable information and study with more interest.
Let the conversation flow from both the sides and motivate them to ask more questions they can ask.

At my top 10 US university, some of the math professors do not care about grades, or administration, etc. They would rather teach. So within one minute of starting the class, they begin the main material. Any administration information is placed on the website or sent through emails, if necessary.
But the (undergraduate and graduate) students are at a sufficiently high level that grades are not an issue either. Virtually all my friends are hovering around the 4.0 range. So this may not apply to other situations with lesser students.

I fail to see what you second paragraph has to do with the answer.

The professors are able to ignore grading because it is of low importance. In a more judging environment, such concerns may be more pressing and require the professor to devote time to them.

The answerer is probably not intending to sound arrogant, but he is correct that in some universities and some disciplines the culture is such that grades and administration are neglected.  A fellow graduate student colleague of mine would tell the students he was TAing: "remember, the quality of your homework directly correlates with the amount you deserve your A."  But this environment is the exception, not the rule.

The not caring much about grades thing is certainly not limited to "top ten" anything. Nor to elite students. Really passionate teacher often have that attitude in any environment because it is the learning that matters: grades are an necessary nuisance that take up too much of my valuable time and cause students to focus on the wrong things at times.

@dmckee I totally agree. I wish students would stop asking me what it takes to get an A. If they care about learning the material, the grades will follow.

@dmckee: While true specifically for grades, I think there is a significant difference between a lecturer who does not focus on grades (conveys the fascination of their topic, rather than what has to be done for a particular grade as the main motivation) and one who does not focus on administrative stuff (talks about their topic in a bubble disconnected from reality, rather than acknowledging the context the topic is being presented in by integrating hints on where or how to find more information, help on current issues etc. related to the topic throughout the class).

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Ask the author of paper about an idea
I am doing my MS thesis on wireless networking, I give the codes from the author of the paper, for some month, after reading his paper and also working on the some aspects of his codes (the implementation of his paper). Now it is the time to create the idea, Can I send him "Do you have any idea which improve some aspects of your paper ?  "
would you please give me some advises ? can I ask him or not? how to ask that ? what I should say to him ?
NOTE: my reason for asking him is this: I am sure he knows his codes better than every body, also I am afraid in implementing any idea which do not lead to good result at the end. By the way I do not have lot of time to try and test another ways I mean try and implement one idea with bad result and after that switch to another idea.
UPDATE: If I ask him, "... , that is  my idea, what do think about my idea?" what will happen? what is his possible respond?
UPDATE2: The meaning of idea in my question is "HOW TO EXTEND HIS WORK"

You may find this awkward. He is probably trying to extend his own work and may not be willing to share his ideas beyond what's already in the "Future Work" or "Discussion" sections of his papers.

@BillBarth, thanks I added an update, what is your idea in that case?

He can respond anything in the world! You may find that you're giving your ideas away or that you find a great collaborator. As such, it seems better to me to sit down with your thesis supervisor and work on your ideas with them.

What does "I give the codes from the author of the paper" mean? Did you ask the author for the codes, or obtain them some other way?

@MadJack I send him an email and send his codes for me

Right, you've already sent him a first email to get the codes, so it seems to me that it'd be fairly straightforward to send him a follow-up email using the same email exchange from before as a starting point, i.e. this isn't your first time "pestering" the author. Not sure what's holding you back since you've already made contact.

Since you are now doing your MSc thesis, you are relatively new to research. Still, you have to learn a very valuable lesson. Good research ideas are hard to find, when thousands of smart people are competing for limited slots in journals or CS conferences. In this spirit, people do not want to share their good ideas or inform others about what they are planning to do, more than what they state in the future work section. In this SE community, there are many posts about supervisors or collaborators stealing idea from their students, or vice versa. If you cannot always trust your advisor or student, can you trust a stranger with your good research idea? The obvious answer is NO, unless you simply cannot implement the idea yourself without his help or you do not have the time to do it by yourself (which is solvable if you delegate this work to more collaborators, like undergraduate students or colleagues). Sharing ideas should be limited to people you absolutely trust.. Do not get me wrong. By people you can trust, I do not necessarily mean people you interact socially with. It might be the person in your next office or another scientist 1000s of kms away. But trust in a necessary component before any type of sharing and "brainstorming".
I would therefore suggest: Try to do it yourself. Extend his work the way you see fit and try to publish the results. If you succeed, then he will know that you are good enough and perhaps suggest collaboration himself. Of course you may find that your idea was not that good and you have wasted a significant amount of time. Or your idea was good but parallel to you and without him knowing what you were planning to do, he implemented it faster and got it published. In any case, you should base your option on what you want to do. Do you want to finish your MSc thesis as soon as possible and go to industry? Then by all means, share your idea and use his help. But if you want to continue in research, you must choose the hardest way and do it yourself with all the risks and time included.

This is field-dependent - in particular, many established researchers in my field of theoretical particle physics have more ideas than they know what to do with.

@Alexandros, +1 your answer depict realities, thanks for this great advise

Sharing ideas should be limited to people you absolutely trust. — I disagree! Keeping ideas secret should be restricted to people you absolutely distrust!

It never hurts to politely ask!

I think this could be implemented as an automatic response!

@Davidmh I know, but the person who asked the question, has a problem in the essence of asking something from someone, and I tried to keep it short and sweet :-). I'm not a robot, I like Pink Floyd and rainbows ;)

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How much does a publisher charge authors if they want to make their book open access?
Is there any research/study/survey that looked at how much publishers charge authors if they want to make their books (textbooks or research books) open access?
I am most interested in the field of computer science, and English-speaking venues, but interested in other field and languages as well.

Where did you get the idea that publishers ever charge book authors money to make their book open access? I have never heard of such an arrangement and it does not seem like something a publisher in their right mind will propose or an author in their right mind will agree to. I know this happens with journal articles but book publishing is a different world with its own quite different rules. With book publishing (of the legitimate, non-vanity variety) money will only flow from the publisher to the author (usually in not very large quantities as was recently discussed here) AFAIK.

@DanRomik personal experience.

Could that have been based on experience with a vanity publisher or predatory publisher?

@DanRomik No, happened with some renown publisher.

@DanRomik if the book's being made OA, and thus has a negligible revenue stream, if the publisher doesn't charge the author (or author's institution, funding body, etc), how exactly are they going to get the money to publish it? In practice, this doesn't happen much at the moment - but conceptually, it's no different from an OA article publishing charge...

@Andrew your "thus" is a non sequitur. Academic book publishers make much of their money from sales to libraries, and to academics who pay for books with their grants and prefer paying for a hard copy even when the book is available online for free. Many publishers these days have no problem with authors making their books open access. Personally I believe doing so may in fact be good for hard copy sales in certain cases. (Disclosure: I published a book with Cambridge University Press and am making it available to download for free, which CUP happily allowed me to do.)

@DanRomik This may vary a lot by field. My understanding is that a lot of the work towards OA mongraphs is driven heavily by the humanities, where library acquisition budgets have already collapsed to some degree, and so the revenue streams may differ from other fields. It's certainly incorrect to say that this never happens - CUP even quote a standard charge! http://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/cambridge-open-access/cambridge-open-access-books/gold-oa-monographs

@DanRomik my feeling (this is not my speciality) is that in some fields you're right; a free download won't significantly limit print sales and so they'll happily set it up. But in others, it definitely would cannibalise an already limited print market. Horses for courses, I guess.

@Andrew thanks for the CUP link. I didn't say that this never happens, and it's indeed interesting to discover that it does. I guess I stand corrected on my statement that "it does not seem like something a publisher in their right mind will propose". The question remains as to whether "it does not seem like something ... an author in their right mind will agree to" is also wrong.

For SpringerOpen to publish an open access book, author fees vary according to page length, where 525 words = 1 page, and costs start about €7,000.
One option to publish a book for free would be to self-publish it using the open-source, free Open Monograph Press software.

The Costs of Publishing Monographs: Toward a Transparent Methodology was published earlier this year. It looks at the actual costs to publish rather than charges made by the publisher, but given the very limited size of the OA monograph market at the moment, this may actually be more useful. Given the relative rarity of OA monographs from mainstream publishers, it's likely that many are specifically negotiated on a case-by-case basis and general numbers are not available.
In terms of published charges, Ubiquity offer some indicative figures here, with the caveat that they will vary in practice based on length and other issues. These are probably at the low end of the market, and a traditional publisher is likely to charge more. There are more indicative figures in this report from OAPEN, ranging from under £3000 (Ubiquity) to above £10,000 (Palgrave).
As noted in the comments above, this will vary a lot by discipline and by the type of book - a scientific textbook and a humanities monograph are very different things with different markets, and this will influence what publishers are willing to arrange.


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Are faculty applicants hired at a level based on their current position?
When a university appoints a faculty applicant, the rank is based on his/her current position or the university will judge about the academic rank independently?
I understand that each university has its own regulations for academic rank/promotion, but how much they consider the current position of an applicant?
This should be a serious issue when an applicant comes from another country with a different academic system.
Is it (even rarely) possible to appoint a currently full professor as assistant professor or vice versa?

Jobs are usually advertised with a specific rank in mind ("So and so college is opening applications for an assistant professor of Stack Exchangology"). With the world economy doing so poorly, my private universities has had tenured full faculty apply for entry level positions -- even knowing that they'd be giving up tenure in the process. That's their prerogative.

Details may vary but in essence the following applies (assuming it is a research/teaching university):

Scientific publications. The list is judged on quality, usually determined by h-index, number of citations and publications per year in some combination.
Funding. The ability of the applicant to attract funds.
Academic experience. This could be anything from teaching through administrative tasks, within  a university or in international circles. the latter may be important since the person brings in a network of contacts.

Clearly, it is possible that a department may look for a younger promising scientists to build a new environment and many positions may be strategic to expand a department or to strengthen it uncertain ways. Hence the current position may have very little influence on the appointment. It all boils down to what the department is looking for.
Whether it is possible to employ a full professor as assistant or vice versa, is difficult to answer. generally, yes, but the meaning of full, associate, assistant professor varies and does not exist everywhere. So the picture is more complex here and I believe the search criteria is what is looked at. I can imagine, that being full professor may be a disadvantage if the position is looking for someone to be assistant but then it is up to the applicant to accept (or not) the conditions.

"being full professor may be a disadvantage if the position is looking for someone to be assistant". The main problem in the USA is not even the title, but tenure and very few full professors will go for a tenure-track option that is normally associated with the assistant professor rank instead of tenure (I certainly won't) even if they do not care about the titles at all.


text:
Where to find latest videos of colloquia or other talks in your field?
I am wondering how I can find and keep updated of the latest colloquia and talks videos. I imagine that schools may take videos of talks they hosted and upload them somewhere. Of course not every school/department does this, and this depends on the field that one is interested in. But if I know where they are, I can check for updates manually, or set up some sort of feed/automated notification with keyword filtering.
To be more clear I am not looking for videos of online classes (e.g., http://coursera.org), but talks about the latest work in one's field.
The only ones that I found are Stanford and UC Irvine, but I suspect there must be more out there that are not on youtube.

In many life sciences conferences it is standard to present unpublished material, but in contrast to some other fields there is no associated publication. As a result, many conferences do not record talks, and those that do usually make them available only to participants.

Mathematics
From my experience not very many schools record talks as a matter of policy. But the special institutes often do.

MSRI has videos available for workshops dating back to at least 2004.
Fields Institute also has a large collection.
Newton Institute records almost all of its seminars and colloquiums.
IHP has a Youtube Channel, and if you follow them on Google+ you get updates (sometimes even hourly) on new videos.
Clay records their research conferences.
Simons Center for Geometry and Physics no longer maintains a central list of videos. But if you visit the individual workshop pages the videos are made available very soon after the talks.
QGM (Centre for Quantum Geometry of Moduli Spaces) records their conferences and master classes.
Banff International Research Station (BIRS) makes conference/workshop videos available.

(marked as CW, feel free to edit and add new Math ones)

videolectures.net hosts a large collection on a wide variety. They started as more computer science oriented (I usually watch the machine learning ones), but there are also other fields of study.
I've seen some major conferences and workshops utilize youtube lately.

Adding one web site that I found: Berkeley Institute for Data Science.