Degree Of Freedom: IIT Delhi Takes Future-Ready Course

New Delhi: In a landmark overhaul, IIT Delhi has restructured its curriculum for the first time in 12 years, introducing sweeping reforms aimed at enhancing flexibility, hands-on learning, and aligning with global trends and sustainability. Undergraduate students can now pursue an integrated MTech, enabling them to graduate with both a bachelor's and a master's within five years. Students can petition for an MTech degree in any available MTech programme at the end of their third year to pursue this option."We reviewed and revamped our curriculum to make our graduates future-ready. The new curriculum emerged after extensive stakeholders' feedback and provides flexibility and hands-on learning for our students," said Rangan Banerjee, director of IIT Delhi. The changes are part of a curriculum overhaul initiated in 2022 and will be implemented in the 2025–26 academic year. The last curriculum review at IIT Delhi happened in 2013.The institute also kept in mind the concern over student suicides and academic stress. Some key changes introduced are a reduction in credit requirements and a decrease in class sizes in the first year from 300 to 150 students. "These concerns are always at the back of our minds when we undertake such initiatives," Banerjee said. "We believe that some of the changes we've introduced — such as lowering the credit load, offering smaller class sizes, and more hands-on learning — will support student well-being."Minor degrees or specialisations in a variety of areas and an honours programme as an add-on to the BTech degree have been introduced. The revised undergraduate programme is an outcome-based, flexible curriculum that allows for choices in general engineering, basic sciences, and humanities courses. Based on students' feedback, the institute decided that the candidates joining through JEE (advanced) will be able to continue changing their programme based on merit at the end of the first year.Sustainability has become a key focus area for the institute. Previously, a single course on sustainability was available to interested students. The approach has now evolved to integrate customised sustainability modules within disciplines. For example, chemical engineering students will study sustainability through topics such as aerosols and environmental impact, while those in petroleum engineering will learn sustainable practices of the petroleum industry.The curriculum places an emphasis on hands-on learning. Students can gain early exposure to their departments from the first year. Laboratory and tutorial components have been expanded across most departmental courses to foster deeper faculty engagement. A key innovation is the integration of AI-based code generators into the introductory programming course. "We mandated that all academic programmes include exposure to artificial intelligence and machine learning. Most departments have already incorporated the elements, ensuring that all graduates from IIT Delhi will soon possess strong proficiency in AI. To guide this transition, a committee was formed to determine the best approach for integrating AI," Banerjee said.The MTech/MS (research) curriculum has a rationalised, outcome-based programme structure, with an emphasis on industry connect and project-based learning. Flexibility is built into the revised curriculum, allowing students to explore courses outside their core academic unit. Professor Narayanan Kurur, dean of academics, discussed the comprehensive curriculum review undertaken by the institute. "In 2022, we initiated a thorough review of all our academic programmes, a process that typically occurs once every ten years — the last one being in 2013. A faculty-led committee was constituted. They collected extensive feedback from thousands of stakeholders, including current students, alumni, recruiters and academics from peer institutions."Professor Shouri Chatterjee, associate dean of curriculum, said: "Students can now pursue minor degrees across various disciplines. For instance, a student enrolled in a BTech programme in Material Science can opt for a minor in Computer Science. We have streamlined the process for pursuing an MTech across departments. This means that a material science undergraduate student may now petition to pursue an MTech in computer science."The revised MTech/MSR curriculum equips students for professional research through training in communication and ethics, with an option to convert to a PhD.