Jonathan, of course, is right that the programming language should not
be the factor to decide on a university. The overall university is not
that important IMHO. The scope is narrower than that.
I'll tell you a few things about my experience in choosing a university
professor to work with (Ph.D 1990-1994). In 1989/1990, I researched
universities from all over the world for several months, with
particular emphasis on Commonwealth countries. By early 1990, I was
fortunate to have several postgraduate scholarships and my pick of
universities. There were many factors that influenced my decision.
Some of my priorities were:
1. To work with a supervisor that is as knowledgeable, intelligent,
challenging, enthusiastic, rigorous yet open-minded as possible. As I
point out on my home page, it's been important to me to try to work
with the best, brightest minds as possible. (Looking back, my best
experiences have been in those contexts.) Then one has to turn around
and give the same opportunity to others. I also wanted to work with
someone whom I felt was RIGHT. That's a tough criterion and one that is
not often mentioned. But one does encounter intelligent people who
unfortunately do not seem to be heading in the right direction. See:
www3.telus.net/lucb for details on the foregoing aspects of my choice.
My undergraduate supervisor (Dr. Claude Lamontagne, 2001 Professor of
the year at U of O, and also nominated for a major 2002 teaching award
whose details I can't announce yet) recommended to me a certain
Professor who met all of these criteria, and who I decided I wanted to
work with. Claude fondly remembered this professor having the ability
of attending lectures on any subject and being able, at the end of the
presentation, to eloquently distill the essence of the presentation,
raise any ambiguities, and then launch in with a major proposal or
criticism.
One thing about working with great minds is that one can feel
comparatively weak and that can impact on one's major decisions (such
as career choices). See Albert Bandura's work on "self-efficacy" (a
short-hand term for beliefs about one's competence).
2. To work in a school (department) that respected the methodology I
wanted to use. (See Chapter 1 of my thesis--available from my web
page--for details.) I did not want to have to argue frequently and
extensively about HOW to do my research (in terms of the major,
coarse-grained parameters). I wanted to be able to get on with the job
of doing my research. I was offered a position and some money from the
Psychology department of McGill University. There were some interesting
people there and my potential supervisor was working on the problems
that interested me the most at the time (causal reasoning). And I had a
backup plan of someone else trying to recruit me in that department.
Both these McGill profs seemed to accept my belief in an "AI type"
methodology. However, the department was empirical. If I had chosen
McGill, I would have had always to justify how I was doing research
with people who "just didn't get it" (i.e., data collectors of the type
criticized by Popper and others, yet who form the majority in most
psychology departments).
3. Not to study at a university that emphasized the kind of cramming
and coursework that I had often experienced as an undergraduate. I
wanted to be able to launch into research, to be treated with respect,
and to be given the opportunity to formulate my ideas and to have them
vigorously critized. (Cf. Popper, Lakatosh and Sloman) That basically
meant studying in Britain rather than the US, Canada or some other
countries not to be named.
Aaron Sloman kindly took a chance by accepting me as a Ph.D. student
and I had the time of my life. My only regret is that I didn't stay
longer in Birmingham.
I was fortunate in that my choice of principles and their applications
turned out as I expected them. My years with Claude, Aaron and Steve
Leach who provided much mentoring "shaped" (for lack of a better word)
my mind.
This kind of decision doesn't always work out exactly as planned. I's
difficult to tell from the outside how things will be on the inside.
The fact that my undergraduate mentor knew Aaron, however, put me in a
good position to judge. I.e., if you know someone who knows the
supervisor that can be of help. In any event, success isn't based on
the supervisor: one has to take ownership of and responsibility for
one's actions and their outcomes.
On the subject of programming languages, I have an anecdote. I went
into my Ph.D. thinking that I knew what language I wanted to use:
Smalltalk. My thinking was: I don't care about the language. A
programming language to me (a Cognitive Science student) was just a
means to an end, a tool to express a theory. I didn't want to "waste"
time on learning another programming language, I just wanted to get on
with the job of theory building. Aaron challenged me on this point. I
remember he told me something which I interpreted as "Why did you
bother coming here if you aren't willing to learn a new programming
language". To which my response was: I didn't come here to program, but
to do theory. I don't know if he realized this, but that upset me
considerably at the time, though briefly. I (reluctantly at first)
decided to give Pop-11 more of a try. Well, needless to say, I soon
fell in love with the language! It had so many facilities. One could
always learn more and more with it! I never reached the expert status,
but that's a good indication of how long one can keep learning with
that language. (As I understand it, it's a different story with Java
and C. Not that I'm expert at Java--and I don't use C.) And the Poplog
community was very supportive in answering my questions. When I
started getting into the virtual machine, I just couldn't contain my
pleasure. I recall that some of my student friends (C programmers, poor
things) just couldn't understand what I was experiencing--though I
certainly was an evangelist.
Another anecdote: My intention when going into my Ph.D. was to study
causal reasoning. Yet Aaron was studying motivation and emotion from an
AI perspective. A few months into my programme, I decided that I would
get more out of my Ph.D. if I worked on the same project as him, which
I realized also agreed with my previous interests. I fell in love with
the project. The principle here is: working in a team can often be more
rewarding than going solo. There are obvious reasons for this.
Another anecdote: I was given advice which to my regret I didn't heed.
I received in in 1990 from a U of Ottawa Math professor. (who did his
Ph.D. somewhere in Scotland, I believe.) he said: Take your time to do
your Ph.D. I took 4 years, but I should have stayed at Birmingham
longer during and after my Ph.D. Such is life.
Well, it appears that I've been rambling.
All the best,
Luc
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