Grad students,

Please read this carefully and let me know if you there is something we should do.

Best Regards, Ishtiaque

Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed Assistant Professor Department of Computer Science University of Toronto, ON, CA Ph: +1 647 220 3482 Skype: syed.ishtiaque.ahmed web: https://www.ishtiaque.net/ My Availability: Google Calendar Link https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=ishtiaque.uoft%40gmail.com&ctz=America%2FToronto

---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Graeme Hirst — Grad Chair gradchair@cs.toronto.edu Date: Sun, Nov 24, 2019 at 3:49 PM Subject: [Grad-announcements] All PhD checkpoints require advance notice to the Grad Office! To: phd-students@cs.toronto.edu Cc: supervisors@cs.toronto.edu

*Reminder:* All PhD checkpoints require advance notice to the Grad Office by filling in the appropriate form from this page: https://web.cs.toronto.edu/graduate/forms-and-handbooks (scroll down to near the bottom). And prior to your first checkpoint (the qualifying oral examination), you must first request approval of your supervisory committee, also using a form from that page.

*Here’s why: *

(1) We need to make sure that your committee meets SGS regulations. This is not a rubber stamp, and several students have recently proposed ill-formed committees. Moreover, a purported checkpoint that was held with an ill-formed committee (as happened recently) doesn’t count for SGS, and could have to be repeated with a corrected committee.

(2) In any case, if the Grad Office doesn’t know about your checkpoint meeting in advance, it can’t send the appropriate paperwork to the chair of the meeting, nor ensure that it is returned. If your checkpoint is not recorded, you will in due course fall out of good standing with the department and with SGS.

(3) This is especially so for your final oral exam at SGS. In one recent case, a failure to complete the necessary paperwork for the exam led to the exam being rescheduled, with a consequent high cost to the student for changing their travel arrangements.

*Conclusions and future work: *All this stuff is explained in the DCS PhD Handbook, which is available from the webpage mentioned above and which is also attached to this email for your convenience. All PhD students in the department are expected to have read it and to be familiar with its contents.

*Appendix:* Early next year, we will be transitioning to a new online system that will provide reminders for scheduling checkpoints and which will allow online submission of progress reports and committee reports.

-- :::: Graeme Hirst • Professor and Associate Chair, Graduate Studies :::: University of Toronto • Department of Computer Science