Facing growing backlash, the Computer Science Department has decided to revise acceptance criteria for first-year students
Content warning: mentions of suicide.
Over the past few years, the UofT Computer Science (CS) Department has faced much controversy surrounding their program of study (POSt) requirements. The number of applications to CS has soared in recent years, with 537 applications in 2014 compared to 981 in 2018—all while the number of admissions stayed roughly the same. With the increased number of applications, the median average of accepted students also inflated from 78.5 in 2014 to 89.2 in 2018 (for the Specialist and Major programs). This growing pressure led to much backlash from students and created a harsh environment of competition and resentment.
Following multiple student deaths by suicide at the Bahen Centre for Information Technology—the location of the CS Department offices, the Computer Science Students Union (CSSU), and many of the CS classes and the CS community—it was announced that a change was being made to the POSt at a mental health town hall in March of 2019. It was stated that the number of students admitted would be increased by around 10 percent and the requirements would be adjusted for those accepted into the CS stream (CMP1) from high school. These changes have now been finalized in what the department is calling “A New First-Year Experience”. Their site now states, “Changes include new courses and an admission guarantee. All students admitted to the CMP1 admission category are guaranteed a place in the Computer Science Specialist, Major or Minor program of choice after first-year, provided that conditions of their guarantee have been met.” The department is eliminating the old required courses of CSC165H1 and CSC148H1 and replacing them with CSC110Y1 and CSC111H1, aiming to interweave 165 and 148 together to allow for better understanding of the material. Incoming students must achieve at least a 70 percent in CSC110 and at least a 77 percent in CSC111 if applying to the Specialist or Major program as well as completing MAT137H1/157H1. For a minor, they must achieve 70 percent in CSC111 and complete at least 4.0 credits.
While the department hopes this will help to mend the future CS community and foster a better environment for mental health, many current students have cautious or even negative reactions to these changes. Samia Muqeem, who is specializing in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology due to not being admitted into CS, had this to say about the changes: “It’s frustrating to see these changes now. I don’t imagine that it’ll be easy, but I achieved higher than the new requirements when I applied. Though it is good for the incoming students, so I am happy for them.” She further explained how she, like many other students coming from overseas, were unaware of POSt to begin with saying, “I only discovered POSt after I came to university. I thought since I was accepted into the CS stream that meant I was actually in CS.”
No changes are being implemented for students outside of the stream
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