One graduate student is elected each year by his or her peers to serve on the Graduate Student Council. Also, the departmental Curriculum Committee and the Graduate Studies Committee will ask a graduate student to serve on their committee.
The Department of Computer Science sponsors a series of colloquia during the academic year. These talks, covering many areas of computer science, have several purposes: to acquaint the audience with the frontiers of research in a particular topic; to give an exposition of some problem, study, or topic of wide interest; or to give an historical perspective and/or survey of some problem, study, or topic of wide interest.
Graduate students benefit from the colloquium series by being exposed to computer scientists, from outside the University, who may be actively involved in problems or topics in which they are interested or have worked. In addition, graduate students will, in some colloquia, be exposed to topics of computer science that are not emphasized within the Department. Thus, the colloquium series helps to reinforce and broaden the student's graduate education and experience. For these reasons, graduate student attendance at department colloquia is strongly urged.