We are reaching the end of the first session of the Python Specialization capstone. We have two things planned to celebrate the time and commitment of the students who have made it through five classes, 25 weeks of work and completed the capstone.

First, the University of Michigan School of Information will be sending signed paper certificates, a temporary tattoo, and a waiver of the application fee to the University of Michigan School of Information Masters Program to everyone who completed the Capstone. We will be sending the packet to every student that has completed the first capstone regardless of geography.

Second, we will be the first MOOC to have an online, live, graduation ceremony and we want to invite anyone to watch our celebration. The graduation ceremony will be held:

Wednesday June 8, at 9:00AM Eastern time

Location: http://live.dr-chuck.com/

The URL will be ready Tuesday night. The ceremony will be streamed live on YouTube using Google Hangouts and then later a recording will be uploaded to Coursera for those without access to YouTube.

The agenda for the graduation ceremony will be to (1) thank those who have worked behind the scenes to make the course successful, (2) hear a short commencement speech from my colleague Colleen van Lent (who also teaches the Web Design for Everybody) specialization, and then (3) read the student’s names as we show each student’s picture.

There are 1165 students who have completed the capstone – but it is optional to participate in the ceremony.

If you have completed the capstone session 1 and want to participate in the graduation ceremony, go back to the course site and read the instructions for joining the ceremony that we sent you in email.

Thanks to everyone who made this possible and congratulations to the graduates on finishing the specialization.

I hope to see you at graduation.