IIT Bombay, Delhi to allow branch change option for new students; Madras suspends it

Most engineering institutes, including IITs, allow a percentage of their students to change their branch of engineering if they score above the qualifying grade point

After the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras announced that it would suspend the option for branch change for the incoming batch of students, its sister institute at Bombay has clarified that its new batch will still have the option to change their branch at the end of their first semester.

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Most engineering institutes, including IITs, allow a percentage of their students to change their branch of engineering if they score above the qualifying grade point. This is allowed at the end of the first semester or in some cases, end of the first academic year.

However, last week the senate of IIT Madras passed a resolution to suspend this option for the incoming batch of 2020-21 in view of the Covid-19 pandemic. While the option is unavailable to the new batch, the institute is yet to decide on reinstating the option for future batches.

“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 programmes, ranging from fields like nanotechnology, biomedical engineering to computational engineering, data science, energy system, robotics and Quantum Science,” said V Jagadeesh Kumar, Dean (Academic Courses), IIT Madras.

Meanwhile, IIT Bombay has decided to continue with the option for the incoming batch of students. Its director Subhasis Chaudhuri said, “There is no change in the existing IIT-B policy of allowing a certain percentage of students to change their respective branches based on their academic performance. However, only a few are successful in doing so.”

V Ramgopal Rao, director, IIT-Delhi, too, posted on social media that the institute would allow branch change at the end of the first year. “Over 100 students are allowed to change their branch every year based on their first year performance,” Rao said in his tweet.

IIT Madras, however, claimed that the institute offered students a flexible curriculum so students could pick and choose their electives or receive a minor degree in a different field. In a statement issued on Monday, IIT Madras said that students have the freedom to choose nearly 50% of the courses that they will be studying, with only some restrictions. Out 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. They can get 72 credits from pursuing courses as diverse as ‘History of India,’ ‘Psychology’ and ‘Economics’ to ‘Artificial intelligence’ and ‘Machine Learning.’

“For example, if a student is interested in building things and builds a robot, the student can avail credits for the same. Students can earn as many 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,” said Jagadeesh Kumar.