Give all Computer Science students at UofT the option to graduate together, as a program!

As it stands, every CS student will be graduating with their respective College; there is no option of having a Computer Science Convocation, and we have no chance of graduating with our department.

But today, you can change that.

The University of Toronto is currently reviewing all Convocations, and we need your signature & comment on the form to give all future CS grads the option of graduating together.

By graduating as a program, we can spend the last moments of our undergrad with the people that helped us make it through the good times and the bad; with the people that pulled all nighters with us at Bahen, the ones who convinced us to buy that ice-cream sandwich, and also yelled at the computer when there was a segfault.

Let us celebrate with the profs that gave us so much of the knowledge that got us here, the ones that helped us read through our one piece of code that didn't compile, only to find that we were missing a semi-colon.

Let us celebrate together.

Whether you're a student, alumni, professor, friend, or parent, please let us have the option of celebrating our graduation with the people that helped us make it to that day, with the Department of Computer Science.

In addition to signing our petition, please add your own comments for the UofT Convocation Advisory Review Committee to read.

We will present this petition along with the forms submitted by students, alumni, and members of our community to the committee for the following reasons:

Just like Rotman Commerce, we want to give Computer Science students enrolled in our major, minor, or specialist program the option of graduating together as a program.

We have:

1) PEY-COOP: Computer Science students have the option of interning for 12-16 months after their second/third year. Therefore, a lot of CS students graduate in 5 years rather than 4. It would be so much more fulfilling for these students to graduate with their fellow classmates, who are in the same year as them, and have also been at the University of Toronto for 5 years. If they had no option but to graduate with their college, they would be graduating with students who were a year younger than them and who may not have been part of their particular CS undergraduate experience.

2) De-regulated Fees: Our program has de-regulated fees and therefore has unique requirements that are different than many other programs, making it so much more worthwhile to graduate together .

3) An extremely strong community within the Department of Computer Science: We have a strong localised community where the undergraduate office, student union office, help centre, communications office, and professor offices are in the same building as computer labs, student study spaces, and most of the lecture halls and tutorial classes. The Bahen Centre for Information Technology is the hub for our student academic and social activity and has allowed for a thriving Computer Science community that deserves its own convocation. By just looking at our yearbook ( https://cssu.ca/yearbook/ ), you would understand how strong and precious our community is within the Department of Computer Science.

4) The Comp. Sci culture of hard work and collaboration: We are always working, always trying to improve, and always collaborating. We go to weekend-long hackathons together, attend conferences together, and work on side-projects together. We are constantly interviewing for research opportunities, internships, and COOPs. We are practicing for technical interviews, reading the most recent papers, implementing things we find cool, and all of this we do outside of class time and with the members of our community. It is the innovative culture of Computer Science that constantly challenges us, and the collaborative culture of the field that brings us together. By having the option to graduate together, we are staying true to this collaborative and innovative environment and celebrating our achievements with the people that were by our side through it all.

5) A grade-based program admission process to get into CS POST: It’s an extremely high-demand process for getting admitted into the program, and this hardship should be respected, and further bond us.

FAQs:

How will signing this petition make a difference?

The most impactful way to make a difference is through expressing your opinion through the form . However, the committee is reviewing the convocation traditions and have told us that they will take this petition into consideration! It is a great opportunity for our community to express our opinion as a whole and push for the option of graduating together as a program!

What if I want to graduate with my College? You will still be able to! We are asking that every Computer Science student be given the choice of either graduating with their college or program. If you want to graduate with your college, you can still opt in to do so. And if your peers want to graduate with their program, you are giving them the chance to choose that option too.

Does this petition apply to all future CS graduations? Yes! We are requesting that every future Computer Science graduate from UofT be given the chance to decide on whether they want to graduate with their college or program.