IIT Madras to offer academic flexibility to students – BusinessLine

Chennai News

Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, will offer students the academic flexibility to choose 50 per cent of the courses that they will be studying (with some restrictions), including having the option of studying entire semester in a foreign university as well as pursue electives from any department.

Of the electives, students are free to choose about eight courses (called free electives) from any of the 16 departments of IIT-Madras 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. For example, if a student chooses four courses in economics, IIT-Madras will confer a minor in economics to that student. There are a large number of minor courses being offered by IIT-Madras, says a press release.

Foreign universities

IIT-Madras has MoUs with many foreign universities, most of them are in Europe, besides some in the US and other countries. Students have the academic flexibility to pursue one entire semester in any of these foreign universities. Whatever courses these students pursue in those foreign universities, IIT-Madras will transfer them to their curriculum in the institute.

Another academic option being offered 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 the institute, the release said.

V Jagadeesh Kumar, Dean (Academic Courses), IIT-Madras, said, “I do not think any other IIT offers the academic flexibility being provided to students by IIT-Madras. Students can have fun and earn credits too.”

Source: https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/education/iit-madras-to-offer-academic-flexibility-to-students/article32895054.ece