IIT Hyderabad and IIT Indore – both established in 2008 – are the two second generation IITs that are being chosen alongside established and older IITs by the top 1,000 JEE-Advanced rankers, admission data from the last five years show.
Flexible curriculum, industry-oriented courses including those on new-age technology, emphasis on entrepreneurship and an interdisciplinary approach are reasons why the students are opting for them, the institutes say.
In the 2022 academic year, 40 out of the top 1,000 students confirmed their admissions to IIT Hyderabad – an increase from the 23 in the category in 2018. The institute also saw an inclined growth in the period. IIT Indore, on the other hand, witnessed a variation in the number of seats in the last five years but has consistently remained in the category.
B S Murty, director, IIT Hyderabad, attributed the shift to curriculum and the courses offered. He said the institute has a multi-disciplinary credit system and is offering the possibility of a double major, with students with a CGPA over 8 opting to get two BTech degrees.
IIT Hyderabad also encourages entrepreneurship, says Murty.
Saying that he “envisions a future where nobody will discuss pay-packages and the focus shifts from creating job-seekers to job-creators”, Murty added: “In a bold step, students are allowed a semester break if they want to work on an innovative idea. As the innovation may or may not work, students gain as many as six credits for it while remaining credits can be covered in other minor courses. Students are also provided seed money of Rs 1 lakh on proposals. We revamped the curriculum with industry inputs and have included credit scores for internship, which is not a practice in any other IIT. This allows the much-required industry to connect.”
Director of IIT Indore, Suhas S Joshi, said that their institute was “adapting to the changing global environment with several modifications of existing courses” and has introduced four BTech programmes – Space Science and Engineering, Mathematics and Computing, Engineering Physics and Chemical Engineering – in the 2023-’24 academic year.
“The course syllabi and content are framed by creating more hands-on training with lab work, internship and fieldwork. Students have options for multidisciplinary courses that help them with a wide range of placement opportunities. We have taken several initiatives to engage with the industries in our neighbourhood,” Joshi said.
He added: “We conducted a corporate and industry connect programme this year in which 36 participants from 15 major industries from Indore, Pithampur, and nearby areas – Volvo Eicher, Force Motors, Case New Holland, Bridgestone, Crompton Greaves, JBM Auto, Rajratan Global Wire, TCS, Pratibha Syntex, EKA Mobility, IMA PG, Eicher Gears, Gufic BioSciences, PAR formulations, and TAFE – participated. We engaged with the industry members to understand their technological issues and are working towards providing them viable solutions.”
Underlining IIT Indore’s strong collaborations with many international and domestic universities for exchange programs as well as joint degrees, Joshi added that the institute “provides the students with ample opportunity to develop their innovation and entrepreneurship skills and thus convert their ideas into reality”.
As per information provided by the institutes, courses such as engineering science, computational engineering are becoming popular choices in IIT Hyderabad, while advanced specialisations such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, data science, internet of things are attracting students at IIT Indore.
However, the most sought-after course continues to be Computer Science Engineering (CSE).
At IIT Hyderabad in 2022, the opening rank for CSE was 360, whereas the closing rank was 560. A total of three branches had opening ranks below 1000 and two of them also closed below the number. CSE’s opening rank was 671, while its closing rank was 1204 in IIT Indore.
Courtesy : The Indian Express