Convocation 2015

“I was offered a position in Seattle, but I requested a transfer to Amazon’s Toronto office because I want to give back to the University of Toronto by volunteering as a student mentor in the Department of Computer Science’s Innovation Lab (DCSIL),” Sejapal said.

Sejpal just graduated with high distinction from the University of Toronto with a specialist in computer science focusing on artificial intelligence – but he took a roundabout route. Sejpal — who grew up in Rajkot, the fourth largest city in the state of Gujarat — was initially accepted to U of T but decided to stay in India for financial reasons. He began his academic career at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Indore —one of that nation’s top technical universities.

“I realized that IIT was not going to challenge me,” said Sejpal, who finished at the top of his first-year class in India. “I wanted nothing more than to continue my education at U of T.”

He reapplied to U of T as a transfer student and was accepted again but the move required sacrifices.

“My family still didn’t have that much liquid cash, so my parents took out a loan to help make my university dream come true.”

Despite having only one computer science transfer credit, Sejpal completed his U of T degree in three years.

“I studied very hard because I knew how much my family had sacrificed,” said Sejpal. “I wanted to show everyone that this was the right decision and that it was worth every penny spent.”

His transition to Canada was challenging: everything was different — the weather, the culture, the food — and he missed his family, not to mention his mother’s vegetarian cooking.

“I did a lot of walking that first year — rain, snow or hail, it didn’t matter — it didn’t seem worth it to spend the money for two subway stops,” said Sejpal. “We took out a loan and I wanted to be responsible.”

When he didn’t land a summer internship after his first year, Sejpal decided to spend the break at home in India.

(Below: Sejpal with his parents Dipti Sejpal and Mayur Sejpal at Convocation Hall)

Refreshed, re-energized and well-fed thanks to his mother: “I gained back the 20 kilograms I lost from all that walking,” Sejpal returned to U of T ready to redouble his efforts.

He ended up with a 4.0 GPA while taking six 300- and 400-level computer science courses in his second year at U of T. He also worked as a teaching assistant for Data Structures and Analysis.

That helped him land his first summer internship in Seattle at Amazon.

Sejpal worked on full stack development of an automatic email notification service containing donation metrics for Amazon’s Smile project — a corporate philanthropy program launched in 2013.

“It was a great experience. There were rooftop parties every month that ensured we had fun while working. I learned a lot, but was especially thrilled with the $30,000 I earned,” said Sejpal. “That paid for my last year of school — my parents were incredibly proud of me and it felt great to take my first steps towards financial independence.”

Before Sejpal returns to Amazon later this summer he plans to show his parents — who are visiting for his graduation ceremony — around Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Quebec City. And he says he wants to stay in close contact with his mentors, Mario Grech and Helen Kontozopoulos, DCSIL’s co-directors and founders.

“After learning as much as I can at Amazon and saving some money, I plan to become an entrepreneur,” said Sejpal. “A startup — perhaps in robotics — is definitely in my future.”

Read about more Faculty of Arts & Science grads:

Theodora Bruun

Clive Davies

Daniel Derkach

Nicolai Farber

Adlai Salcedo

Convocation 2015: from political refugee to political science degree

sgupta — Mon, 16 Nov 2015 14:57:02 +0000

Convocation 2015: from political refugee to political science degree sgupta Mon, 11/16/2015 - 09:57

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Political science grad Sara Rahimi grew up in a family that believed in debate and freedom of expression, even when it came at a cost (photo by Ken Jones)

Don Campbell

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Don Campbell

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After fleeing Iran in 2001, alumna and her family settled in Canada ten years ago

When Sara Rahimi took to the steps of Convocation Hall to receive her degree in political science, it fulfilled a very important wish of her late father.

“He was a political cartoonist,” she says. “Even though he was forced to flee his country for what he drew, he never gave up on his passion.”

Rahimi grew up in a political household. Her family always talked about politics and her father, Said Rahimi, always encouraged debate. Her father’s cousin, an investigative journalist, covered politically sensitive stories that the mainstream media in Iran didn’t touch – including bloody tribal conflicts.

Rahimi distinctively remembers sneaking into a private meeting between her father and his cousin one time, while they were reviewing footage of a man being tortured to death in a rural area of Iran.

“I was only 13 but I remember that footage to this day,” she says. “This was before the Internet and social media made these stories more accessible. It also wasn’t safe to be an investigative journalist, especially in Iran, so they often had to keep the stories they were working on private.”

Her father’s publication was known for tackling political issues in Iran that others simply wouldn’t touch. It soon began to attract attention overseas, especially in Germany, which in turn attracted negative attention from the Iranian government.

“My father was approached by government officials and warned to stop publishing or else. So he decided it was time to leave.”

Leaving under the cover of darkness

Using contacts in Azerbaijan and with the help of a smuggler, Rahimi’s family took a bus from their hometown of Qom to the border, where they had to walk the rest of the way.

“We couldn’t officially cross the border because it would have alerted the Iranian government. I remember it was a 20-hour walk, most of it in the dark, across some fast running rivers. Once we got across the border we had to connect with my father’s contacts and hide.”

After a meeting with the United Nations office in Azerbijan about being relocated as refugees, they found out there were several countries in the West willing to sponsor the family. This was 2001, right before the 9/11 attacks. The Rahimi family would remain in Azerbaijan until 2005 before a spot finally opened up in Canada. They settled in Hamilton, Ontario.

A new life

Adapting to a new life in Canada was not easy for Said Rahimi. In Iran he was responsible for illustrating important political issues but in Canada it was a struggle to find meaningful employment. He persisted and eventually began to find his way, enrolling in Mohawk College’s police foundations program while taking English classes at night.

But, in 2007, Said died in a car accident while at work as a delivery driver. It was a difficult time especially for Sara, who had to step in and fill many of the roles her father had played for the family.

Before he died, Said Rahimi had started re-drawing his old political cartoons while crafting new ones in preparation for a public exhibition. Many of his most poignant cartoons touched on the themes of conflict, the effects of war, the meddling of the West on politics in the Middle East as well as human rights.

More than a year after his death the exhibition was held in his honour, attended by some of Canada’s best known political cartoonists, including Brian Gable, Graeme MacKay, Roy Carless and the legendary Terry Mosher.

“My father was definitely a big influence on my life. He firmly believed in free speech and wasn’t willing to compromise on that even when he was threatened,” she says.

Politics runs in the family

Rahimi was attracted to political science at U of T mainly because of her background but also the many disciplines that connect with politics, namely psychology, philosophy, economics and sociology.

“Sara was a diligent student who actively participated in class discussions, was genuinely engaged in her studies and never shied away from a challenge,” says Renan Levine, who taught Rahimi several political science courses at UTSC.

“Her memorable life story informed her research, in particular a paper investigating whether young immigrants to Canada from non-democratic countries are more cynical about government and less trusting of government compared to their non-immigrant peers.”

In addition to her family, Rahimi says she is thankful for the extra help and guidance she received from her high school teachers, Carol Town, Jeff Pattinson and especially, Ian McSkimming, her high school English teacher at Sir John A. MacDonald in Hamilton.

“I was 18 when I came to Canada and started high school. Without his help and guidance I’m not sure where I would be.”

As for the future, Rahimi will soon help her mother open a new restaurant in Burlington while also working as a paralegal in the GTA. She hopes to attend law school one day but, in the meantime, she's celebrating convocation and being the first in her family to graduate from university.

It’s something she knows would make her father proud.

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Convocation 2015: social media highlights from the fall ceremonies

sgupta — Mon, 16 Nov 2015 10:02:34 +0000

Convocation 2015: social media highlights from the fall ceremonies sgupta Mon, 11/16/2015 - 05:02

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(photo by Roberta Baker, Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering)

Sarah McDonald

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Sarah McDonald

U of T's grads are top ten in the world for employability, survey says

sgupta — Thu, 12 Nov 2015 15:24:02 +0000

U of T's grads are top ten in the world for employability, survey says sgupta Thu, 11/12/2015 - 10:24

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(Photo by Johnny Guatto)

Brianna Goldberg

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Read the full THE article on the 2015 rankings

Laurent Dupasquier, associate director of Emerging, told THE that as “recruiters develop a better knowledge and understanding of the global higher education market, reputation plays less of a role and expertise [plays] more.”

“The nationality of young graduates, the country in which they studied and the nationality of the company that employs them is becoming increasingly irrelevant,” he said, adding that employers from all continents seek specific skills as the most important factor, then work experience and degree area, with grades at the bottom of their priorities.

This is the latest of 2015’s global rankings in which U of T performed highly, including Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings (19th globally, number one in Canada), Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Academic Ranking of World Universities (25th globally, number one in Canada), U.S. News & World Report’s Best Global Universities ranking (16th globally, number one in Canada) and the National Taiwan University Ranking which set U of T at third place in the world behind only Harvard and Johns Hopkins.

Convocation 2015: meet honorary grad Sir Richard Peto

sgupta — Wed, 11 Nov 2015 15:18:35 +0000

Convocation 2015: meet honorary grad Sir Richard Peto sgupta Wed, 11/11/2015 - 10:18

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Sir Richard Peto, FRS is professor of medical statistics and epidemiology at the University of Oxford, and co-director (with Professor Sir Rory Collins) of the Clinical Trial Service Unit and Epidemiological Studies Unit (CTSU).

He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1989 for introducing meta-analyses of randomised trials, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1999 for services to epidemiology, and received in 2010 and 2011 the Cancer Research UK and the BMJ Lifetime Achievement Award.

On Nov.11, the University of Toronto recognized Peto's extraordinary accomplishments during fall Convocation ceremonies with the awarding of a Doctor of Science, honoris causa.

Peto, Collins and others in the Oxford CTSU have, by their large randomised trials, significant prospective studies and worldwide meta-analyses, increased substantially the estimated importance of blood lipids, blood pressure and smoking as causes of premature death. Peto founded the Early Breast Cancer Trialists’ Collaborative Group (EBCTCG), which has demonstrated many moderate effects on long-term survival. He has recently collaborated in major studies of alcohol in Russia and of malaria in Africa and India.

His investigations into the worldwide health effects of smoking and benefits of stopping at particular ages have helped to communicate effectively the vast and growing burden of disease from tobacco use, have helped change national and international attitudes about smoking and public health, and have helped many smokers to stop.

He was the first to describe clearly the future worldwide health effects of current smoking patterns, predicting one billion deaths from tobacco in the present century if current smoking patterns persist, as against “only” 100 million in the 20th century.

Below, see Peto deliver an address at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine on Interpreting Large-scale, randomised evidence:

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Remembering the veterans of Sunnybrook: a Convocation 2015 story

sgupta — Wed, 11 Nov 2015 09:47:28 +0000

Remembering the veterans of Sunnybrook: a Convocation 2015 story sgupta Wed, 11/11/2015 - 04:47

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Canadian flags on grounds of Sunnybrook Hospital (all images courtesy Sunnybrook Hospital)

Heidi Singer

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Heidi Singer

Rank	Institution	Country
2	University of Cambridge	United Kingdom
3	University of Oxford	United Kingdom
10	University of Toronto	Canada

Rank	Institution	Country
1	Harvard University	United States
2	University of Cambridge	United Kingdom
3	University of Oxford	United Kingdom
4	California Institute of Technology	United States
5	Yale University	United States
6	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	United States
7	Stanford University	United States
8	Columbia University	United States
9	Princeton University	United States
10	University of Toronto	Canada

Convocation 2015

#UofTGrad16: this computer science grad is already planning to give back

Theodora Bruun

Clive Davies

Daniel Derkach

Nicolai Farber

Adlai Salcedo

Convocation 2015: from political refugee to political science degree

Convocation 2015: social media highlights from the fall ceremonies

U of T's grads are top ten in the world for employability, survey says

Read the full THE article on the 2015 rankings

Read more about Rankings

Convocation 2015: meet honorary grad Sir Richard Peto

Remembering the veterans of Sunnybrook: a Convocation 2015 story