High school students Milley Peny, grade 9, and Mokorinayo Olowoyeye, grade 11, collaborate on their project at CS Academy. (All photos by Matt Hintsa)
During Ontario schools’ March break, the University of Toronto’s Department of Computer Science hosted 28 high school students for the second annual CS Academy, offering students in grades 9 to 12 a comprehensive view of life as a graduate student, including lectures, hands-on lab activities and advice from 16 graduate student mentors.
CS Academy began in 2024 with a focus on the Dynamic Graphics Project (DGP) lab and expanded in 2025 to cover a broader range of computer science areas.
Leading CS Academy for the second time, PhD student Otman Benchekroun aims to expose students from diverse backgrounds to computer science research and encourage them to join and enrich the research community. Fellow PhD student Kinjal Parikh joined Benchekroun as co-lead of this year’s program.
"High school students who are interested in computer science or other STEM disciplines will learn a lot here," said Danya Lette, PhD student and graduate student mentor. “They will explore specific disciplines, collaborate on projects, understand the process of applying to grad school and discover ways to make their undergraduate applications more competitive.”
During the week-long experience, Artus Siu, 16, joined the artificial intelligence group, where he learned about neural networks and large language models. He worked on a project to develop an AI-based recipe tool that suggests suitable ingredient replacements while maintaining the same nutritional values.
Reflecting on his decision to participate in the program, the grade 11 student said, "There's a lot of potential in technology and computer science, so I'm very curious about this field. It's a very useful thing to learn."
Lette wishes she could have experienced something like CS Academy when she was younger.
“In high school, computer class meant opening a word processor, so this is a very different experience from what I had,” she said.
She also expressed how impressed she was by the students’ motivation.
“We’re working on material that could be part of a fourth-year undergraduate course, and we’ve made much more progress than I anticipated,” she noted.
As she went behind the scenes to develop her own computer animations, grade 11 student Mokorinayo Olowoyeye, 16, reflected on the unique opportunity to delve into university-level work.
“This experience has helped me understand what I want to do for my post-secondary education a bit more, and it's cleared up some things I thought were scary or different from what they actually are,” she said.
“I would definitely recommend this experience to high school students, even if you're not thinking about going into STEM,” said Olowoyeye. “High school is the perfect time to explore different things. You will gain valuable experience and make connections with people your age.”
