BI program proves catalyst for change 

When Oliver Daniel opened a University of Toronto newsletter back in 2021, he wasn’t looking for a new academic path. But a familiar face and a program he had never heard of – the Bachelor of Information (BI) – changed the course of his studies. 

At the time, Daniel was enrolled in Arts & Science, pursuing a double major in computer science and linguistics. Still early in his undergraduate experience and coping with impact of the pandemic on his education, he found himself questioning whether the structure of his studies was the right fit. “I remember one morning I just woke up and said, ‘this isn’t for me,’” he recalls. 

After reading the newsletter article about the first cohort of BI graduates, he reached out to the grad he knew to ask about the program. And soon after that, he made the decision to switch to the Faculty of Information and pursue a BI degree. 

In the fall of 2021, Daniel entered what was then the two-year BI program, accepting students who had already completed the first two years of an undergraduate degree. While that program is now being phased out, it will be replaced with a four-year Bachelor of Information degree. Applications are set to open in the fall of this year and the first class of an anticipated 100 students will begin their studies in the fall of 2027. 

What Daniel found in the BI program was not just a new course of study, but a fundamentally different way of learning. Coming from computer science and linguistics, disciplines that often sit on opposite sides of the academic spectrum, Daniel was used to toggling between technical and theoretical thinking, but the BI program erased that divide. “It felt like it was no longer ‘this and then this.’ It was the two of them melded together,” he says. “Even in the studio courses focused on your technical skills, you were still encouraged to keep human behaviour, political concerns and environmental concerns in mind.” 

The Faculty of Information’s interdisciplinary approach was also reflected in the diverse backgrounds of students in the BI program. They came from fields like coding, design and the humanities, giving Daniel a foretaste of the kinds of teams he would later encounter in the workplace. While his coding experience initially gave him an edge in the more technical courses, he quickly found himself learning from peers with strengths in areas like graphic design and ethics. 

Some of the most lasting lessons came from courses he might never have chosen on his own. In an information governance course, for example, he learned about the ethics of telecommunications policies, including their intersection with systems like the penal system, where prisoners are often charged exorbitant fees to make phone calls that cost the public next to nothing. Those lessons, he says, have stuck with him and he considers switching into the BI program “the best choice I could have made for my higher education.” 

Daniel now works as a full-stack engineer for Katalyze AI in Toronto, a startup that uses artificial intelligence and statistical modeling to improve pharmaceutical manufacturing processes. The work is highly technical, but also deeply human, focused on reducing costs for life-saving treatments. 

For prospective students considering the Bachelor of Information, Daniel’s advice is “make decisions that surprise and scare you.” In a university as big as U of T, he says, “you will always find what you are looking for,” but you also need to explore to find the things you might not have thought to look for. 

During his time at U of T, Daniel pursued his passion for musical theatre. And thanks to the connections he made there, he recently appeared in a professional production of Merrily We Roll Along, an experience, as unexpected as his first encounter with the BI program.