S. Vishnu Sharma
IIT Madras is one of those educational institutions that is said to be having best academic curriculum in the world and offers an academic flexibility that is unrivalled.
That is not all, even among the IITs, IIT-Madras has a distinction of being the only education institution that is said to have retained No1 rank (NIRF rating) among the engineering institutions for five consequtive years.
IIT Madras provides great academic flexibility to students
The highlight part of the academic activity at the institution is that the institution gives freedom to students to choose nearly 50 percent of the courses they will be studying.
Out of the electives, students are free to choose about eight courses (called ‘Free Electives’) from any of the 16 departments of the institution as well as other approved institutions.
The students can get 72 credits from pursuing courses as diverse as ‘History of India,’ ‘Psychology’ and ‘Economics’ to ‘Artificial intelligence’ and ‘Machine Learning.’
If a student chooses four such courses in one contiguous area, they will be conferred a minor in that field.
Should a student choose four courses in Economics, the institution will confer a Minor in Economics to that student.
There are large number of minor courses being offered by the institution.
The detailed curriculum and syllabi for each program can be found at ‘https://www.iitm.ac.in/academics/academic-curricula’
Highlighting the salient points of the academic programmes of the institution, Professor V. Jagadeesh Kumar, Dean (Academic Courses), IIT Madras, said I do not think any other IITs offers the academic flexibility being provided to students by IIT Madras.
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Students can have fun and earn credits too, he said.
If a student is interested in building things and builds a robot, the student can avail credits for the same, said Professor Jagadeesh.
‘Students can earn as much as 36 credits in all departments, with certain departments even offering up to 48 credits for such activities.’
This is not part of a class but something done for fun and if it clicks, it can be converted to credits under the IIT Madras System, he added.
Speaking about the branch change option at the end of the semester being dispensed from this academic year Professor Jagadeesh said this is not an impediment.
IIT Madras admits about 1,300 students and only about 25 to 30 students get a branch change.
So, the probability of a student getting a branch change is really small.
On the other hand, a student in the fourth semester or fifth semester can upgrade to a large number of interdisciplinary programs, ranging from fields like nanotechnology, biomedical engineering, computational engineering, data science, energy system, robotics and Quantum Science, he said.
He further said a new specialization on Dynamical Systems recently will soon be added.
‘This year, nearly 200 students have upgraded to such specializations, which is large numbers when compared with the branch change students.’
More such specializations will be added by IIT Madras, said Professor Jagadeesh.
That is not all, IIT Madras has MoUs with many prestigious foreign universities most of them are in Europe besides quite a few in the U.S. and other countries.
IIT Madras students have the academic flexibility to pursue one entire semester in any of these foreign universities.
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Whatever courses these students pursue in those foreign universities, IIT Madras will transfer them to their curriculum in the Institute.
The list of foreign universities with which IIT Madras has MoUs can be viewed at ‘https://oir.iitm.ac.in/mou/’
Another very unique academic option being offered by IIT Madras is that if students decide that apart from their B.Tech., they also want an MBA, they need to spend only one more year and they can get both their B.Tech. and MBA degrees from IIT Madras.
IIT Madras has several initiatives to encourage women students to apply.
Elaborating on these initiatives, Professor Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director, IIT Madras said that the overall average of women students in IITs was 8 per cent in Undergraduate students a few years ago.
‘However, even at that point of time, IIT Madras had women students accounting for 14 per cent of the overall student strength in UG courses.’
IIT Madras director further said in recent years, with the introduction of supernumerary seats specifically for girl students in IITs, the fraction of girl students in UG courses at IIT Madras has hit 20 per cent.
Typically, at IIT Madras, the fraction of women students in the PhD Program is quite high, it is almost 30 percent, added Professor Bhaskar Ramamurthi.
IIT Madras has established itself as a premier centre for teaching, research and industrial consultancy through the 16 academic departments and several advanced research centres in various disciplines.
The courses of study are organized as two semesters and a 3-month summer term.
Students are evaluated on a continuous basis throughout the semester.
Evaluation is done by the faculty, a consequence of the autonomous status granted to the Institute.
The Institute also offers scholarships to students sponsored by government, alumni and corporates.