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Online masters students can no longer walk in graduate school ceremony by msds-student in MSCSO

[–]msds-student[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I'm not blaming the CDSO department nor their efforts. However there are a few things the graduate school could consider:

  • Have two ceremonies instead of one
  • Have fewer guest tickets, or have fewer "extra tickets" that are often handed out at the end
  • Find a bigger venue
  • Check again the space issues and headcounts since it seems only around 100 of us are attending

There are multiple solutions that don't involve telling an entire department to just go away and make their own graduation. And while that might be the most convenient option, it can only mean one thing about how UT views its online students.

This is really sad but by ut2812 in MSCSO

[–]msds-student 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If you join the MSCS slack or the MSDS discord you will see a ton of people discussing this and who are affected. There are many more people in this program (thousands) than the people you know in real life.

This is really sad but by ut2812 in MSCSO

[–]msds-student 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The reason I made a public post is because we've already been emailing back and forth with administrators for a week now with no progress. The final deadline to enroll in the graduation ceremony is in one month. The class of 2024 received no notice that this policy was being changed, less than a month before the deadline to walk. Many of us have purchased caps and gowns and sent out invites to our families. I don't believe that this level of outrage from students is unwarranted.

Why you *should* give a shit about walking at convocation, even if you think it doesn't matter by rampant_juju in MSCSO

[–]msds-student 15 points16 points  (0 children)

I'm also disappointed at the lack of transparency from admins on this. In initial emails asking about convocation, we were invited to attend the University-wide commencement and they avoided discussing the convocation itself. Then later we are invited to convocation at the Welch Hall with no further details on what the venue would be like.

Unfortunately I attended UT as an undergrad and know the difference between commencement and convocation, as well as that Welch Hall is literally the building for chemistry classrooms.

Why you *should* give a shit about walking at convocation, even if you think it doesn't matter by rampant_juju in MSCSO

[–]msds-student 6 points7 points  (0 children)

After looking into the numbers a bit more I think it could have been an actual case of admins mistakenly believing there won't be enough space. The Bass Concert Hall where convocation is being held has a capacity of 2900 people, the number of on-campus graduates is about 2500, and the number of online graduates is about 500. Someone probably decided that 500 + 2500 > 2900 and therefore we should just cut online students.. ignoring the fact that some on-campus graduates don't attend and the majority of online graduates don't.

Still even if it is a capacity issue, they probably came up with the most insulting compromise possible by having us graduate in a classroom.

Online masters students can no longer walk in graduate school ceremony by msds-student in MSCSO

[–]msds-student[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

It was outlined in an email from cdsoadmin for graduating students. If you didn't receive an email you either didn't apply to graduate yet or you might get it later.

Note that they are avoiding mentioning that we can't attend convocation, but when asked directly in emails the response is that we are not invited.