IIT Madras boosts academic flexibility, entrepreneurship opportunities for students
The Indian Institute of Technology, IIT Madras has reinvented the BTech curriculum for India to help its students meet the demands of modern and technological developments. This is by far, the most student-friendly engineering curriculum in India, in terms of curricular demand as well as flexibility. The newly revamped programs also allow for early exits from the programs, for those that desire freedom.
These changes have been implemented following the rigorous recommendations of an Institute Curriculum Task Force, orienting it towards employment, research, innovation and entrepreneurship.
The institute has updated the academic system to offer unprecedented flexibility, increased interdisciplinary learning, hands-on projects and entrepreneurship opportunities as early as in the second year of the BTech programme.
The total number of credits in BTech has been rationalised after extensive feedback from alumni and students, resulting in the wall clock hours of demand per degree reducing from 436 to 400 hours. This allows students greater scope for exploration of professional and entrepreneurial possibilities.
IIT Madras also offers MTech along with BTech in 5 years, besides Interdisciplinary Degrees in cutting-edge domains like Nanotechnology, Data Science and Electric Vehicles, among other fields that are in demand by the Industry. These degrees can be pursued seamlessly along with their BTech programmes.
Welcoming students to avail these unique opportunities, Professor V Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, said,”IIT Madras will accord the highest priority for Innovation and entrepreneurship. With more than 380 patents filed in last financial year, IITMadras has launched an ambitious start-up 100 program – every third day, a start-up will be born at IITMadras.”
IIT Madras Incubation Cell is India’s leading deep-tech incubator that has nurtured disruptive start-ups like Agnikul, which recently launched the world’s first 3D-printed Rocket Engine, Mindgrove, which designed, manufactured & booted up India’s first commercial RISC V-based secure IoT system on chip and Ather, which is leading the EV scooter revolution in India besides Planys, which pioneered underwater, AI-based remotely operated vehicles, among many others.
Students can choose about 40 percent of their courses, which enables customisation and personalisation. IIT Madras has 18 academic departments and numerous advanced research centres, which allow students to explore diverse interests and build a unique academic profile.
CURRICULUM AT IT MADRAS FOSTERS INDIVIDUAL EXPRESSION
Highlighting these opportunities, Professor Prathap Haridoss, Dean (Academic Courses), IIT Madras, said, “IIT Madras has a curriculum that helps the student express their uniqueness while still maintaining a core identity. Competence with a personality. We are delighted that students can rediscover the joy of learning thanks to the flexibilities and features of the new curriculum.”
These major updates have eliminated the need for a branch change option. Further, the institute also has an ‘Early Exit’ option to pursue alternative paths.
Further, IIT Madras also offers an improved first-year experience with four weeks of extra vacation time for students in the first year and has also introduced a new ‘recreation’ course. Students have the option of taking an Entrepreneurship elective as early as in their second year.
The academic programme at IIT Madras is split into courses, which are academic subjects offered by various departments. Each course has a specific number of credits. The credits represent the ‘weightage’ or ‘importance’ of the course. The Core Courses are mandatory for students of a particular department, while elective courses are optional courses that students can choose from a pool. This means students can build their curriculum.
IIT Madras also has state-of-the-art infrastructure for activities such as sports, research, innovations, entrepreneurship and student clubs.
