Concerned body: Senate, Dean UG, undergraduate program evaluation committee

Flexible Curriculum
There is a need to develop a curriculum structure which will enable the students to develop an
intricate understanding of their core fundamentals. This helps develop a greater strength in
context and realization of design, a better systems perspective, and the possibility of focus in
an area of interest whether it be in engineering or in a completely different field. The student
is given the freedom to develop his/her own interest in a particular field with the liberty to
select courses and projects from a variety of departments.
Present Curriculum
The current structure of the UG curriculum is rigid and comprises of depth subjects,
compulsory non-core courses (Biology, Economics) and breadth (maximum of 3) courses till
third year. In the fourth year the students are given a choice for electives from the core
department and open electives (maximum of 2). The students are discouraged from choosing
a B.Tech Term Project from outside their respective departments by department authorities.
Along with this structure, the student can choose additional subjects and work towards
securing a minor degree only if the student has a minimum CGPA of 7.5.
From the responses from alumni and faculty of IIT Kharagpur through a survey, the
challenges in the current curriculum are,
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A significant amount of time and resources are lost for both the students and faculty due to
the presence of large number of mandatory departmental courses outside the student's field of
interest
A rigid curriculum structure discourages independent learning among students which is an
important factor to build a research temperament.
Low performing students are debarred from taking additional courses which might amount to
receiving a minor degree in the student's field of interest
Registration of minor is required for choosing an open elective.
Proposed Structure
Based on the suggestions acquired from the survey, following proposals have been
developed.

Changes in UG regulations
Undergraduate students should be given the privilege of opting for a minor and choosing one
additional subject from second year irrespective of their CGPA. The choice of further
additional subjects and continuation of minor should be decided on the additional CGPA
which will manifest how interested and dedicated students are to their choice of field. This
will increase the involvement of UG in academic activities and will further lead to an
increase in the institute outcome in the long run.

Courses from other departments should be made available in open elective slots irrespective
of whether a student is pursuing a minor degree or not, since a student might want to take
courses from multiple departments for his research work or out of interest. This will limit the
course workload since the student will not have to take up additional subjects but instead take
those subjects as his/her open electives thus allowing him/her to balance the workload.
Necessary impetus should be provided to undergraduate students who are interested in interdisciplinary research areas to pursue their B.Tech Term Project. This will enhance the
institutes inter-departmental research and may progress swiftly in untapped areas of research
and development.
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Flexible Course Curriculum

With a rigid course curriculum, it results in a diminished scope of students to
develop in their interested fields. They can be given a choice of choosing their
speciality from the third year which will give them ample time to gather knowledge
and an in-depth understanding. With this immense knowledge and a number of
projects taken by them, the number and quality of research will improve which will be
evident from the new research base of the institute.
All the courses in the curriculum should hold a maximum of 3 credits. The
course structure of first year will remain unchanged. Second year curriculum will
have an optimal mixture of fundamental core courses and the non-departmental
mandatory courses (like economics). Autumn semester of third year will have the
remaining fundamental core courses required to get knowledge of the basics of all the
branches. In addition to that, this semester will have departmental elective subjects.
The spring semester will have all the subjects as electives and one open elective (no
breadth courses). Fourth year will have all the courses as electives and open electives.
This will encourage students to take courses from other departments.
The faculty and course feedback will guide the students through the selection of
electives. Because of lower credits of subjects, students can complete all the relevant
departmental courses by the autumn semester of fourth year. This will give the
students an entire semester comprising of 4-6 months to go for an industrial internship
or a research internship at national or international level. This will increase the
amount of research completed by IIT Kharagpur.
If a student has taken up projects in 2nd or 3rd year, he/she can have the choice
of terming these projects as their BTP or MTP. In such a situation, the students will
end up taking more courses in their final years or devote more time to work on a
breakthrough technology. As most start-ups are developed in pre-final or final year,
such a curriculum can help students to develop their entrepreneurial skills.
In case of Dual Degree students, they should have only elective courses in
their 5th year instead of mandatory ones so that they can choose courses that will aid
them in their research work. This will ensure better research reports and eventually a

higher percentage of them being published in journals. An additional benefit will be

that the dual degree student can then go to other institutes possibly abroad to complete
his/her thesis which will help to increase university relations as well as boost the
students research morale.
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Course feedback
For assisting the students in selecting their electives and breadth courses, the
students have access to the data provided in ERP which includes the course content,
professor taking the course and the statistics of grades from the previous batch.
The proposal is to include a student feedback system in the ERP in a separate
link under Curriculum Syllabus details where reviews of the subjects, in the form of
an abstract, will be taken from the students who have taken the course. Students may
write the benefits, impact, difficulty, importance and about the accessibility of notes
for the courses. This will aid students to carefully choose the electives.
This proposal can be implemented department wise. A committee should be
set up comprising of students from various departments. These can be the department
secretaries, whose will verify the reviews and delete old reviews which have become
irrelevant by then.
Challenges faced

Students might get lost in deciding the choices for their curriculum.
A student might yet not have decided his interests and might be hanging in a dilemma
between the variety and the number of choices.