MUMBAI: In a major move to reduce academic stress, IIT-Bombay has decided to do away with the option of branch change at the end of the first year. The decision will be reflected in the admission rules as many students who get into the premier Powai institute hope to change the branch after their first year.
There is a lot of undue pressure on students to get high grades in the first year to get a branch change, but usually only the top 10-15% of them manage to secure it.
The recent incident of suicide on the Powai campus has prompted IIT-B to bring about reforms in the system. Additionally, to reduce academic load on first-year students, the IIT-Bombay senate has also decided to reduce one course per semester.
The 256th meeting of the IIT-B senate was held on Friday to discuss several proposals related to reduction of the academic stress for first-year students.
Several students, keen on joining a particular branch but fail to get it based on their JEE (Advanced) scores, strive to get a good score in the first year to change their branches. For instance, a student who secures electrical engineering seat through the Joint Seat Allocation Authority’s (JoSAA) process, butis keen to opt for computer science, will try to score a good grade and go for branch change at the end of first year. This, however, puts a lot of undue pressure on first-year students, when only a few benefit from it.
A statement issued by IIT-B mentioned that they may instead increase the corresponding number of seats at the time of admission in some of the popular branches.
Currently, first-year students must complete 39 credits in each of the two semesters, but IIT-B has decided to reduce it by 6-7 credits -reducing one course in each of them. Thus, those students finding it difficult to cope with the academic load will have more time to work towards theircourses, said the statement.
Among other proposals that were approved by the senate was the decision to merge some of the half-semester courses into full semester. Explaining the reason for doing away with half-semester courses, a professor said, “IIT-B gives grades in the mid-semester exams, which may add to the academic pressure of students who complete only two months on the campus. Now, instead of giving grades after the mid-semester exams, students will be directly graded at the end of the semester based on their performance throughout.”
A proposal to do away with letter grades and to only give pass or fail grades was also discussed in the senate, but it was not passed.
There is a lot of undue pressure on students to get high grades in the first year to get a branch change, but usually only the top 10-15% of them manage to secure it.
The recent incident of suicide on the Powai campus has prompted IIT-B to bring about reforms in the system. Additionally, to reduce academic load on first-year students, the IIT-Bombay senate has also decided to reduce one course per semester.
The 256th meeting of the IIT-B senate was held on Friday to discuss several proposals related to reduction of the academic stress for first-year students.
Several students, keen on joining a particular branch but fail to get it based on their JEE (Advanced) scores, strive to get a good score in the first year to change their branches. For instance, a student who secures electrical engineering seat through the Joint Seat Allocation Authority’s (JoSAA) process, butis keen to opt for computer science, will try to score a good grade and go for branch change at the end of first year. This, however, puts a lot of undue pressure on first-year students, when only a few benefit from it.
A statement issued by IIT-B mentioned that they may instead increase the corresponding number of seats at the time of admission in some of the popular branches.
Currently, first-year students must complete 39 credits in each of the two semesters, but IIT-B has decided to reduce it by 6-7 credits -reducing one course in each of them. Thus, those students finding it difficult to cope with the academic load will have more time to work towards theircourses, said the statement.
Among other proposals that were approved by the senate was the decision to merge some of the half-semester courses into full semester. Explaining the reason for doing away with half-semester courses, a professor said, “IIT-B gives grades in the mid-semester exams, which may add to the academic pressure of students who complete only two months on the campus. Now, instead of giving grades after the mid-semester exams, students will be directly graded at the end of the semester based on their performance throughout.”
A proposal to do away with letter grades and to only give pass or fail grades was also discussed in the senate, but it was not passed.
