B.S. Electronic Systems at IIT Madras: 1,500+ active students in Year 1 of hybrid course

IIT Madras B.S. Electronics Systems course offers industry-oriented curriculum with flexible entry and exit options for students.

Some 1,500 students are actively enrolled in the IIT Madras B.S. Electronics Systems course since it was introduced little over a year ago.

The immediate attraction for the course is IIT Madras offering it to anyone who has passed Class 12 with Maths and Physics. This means JEE is not a requirement.

The bar for entry is lower than JEE. But there is no compromise on IIT standards.

The hybrid course is conducted through pre-recorded lecture videos, live online classes every week in which faculty talk to students and clear doubts, exams at nearly 100 centers all over India, and experiments supervised by faculty at home culminating in one week of lab work in IIT Madras. It requires a certain time commitment, an interest level, and some aptitude, which will be tested within one month of starting of the course.

The introductory programme runs for a month featuring Maths, programming fundamentals, basics of circuits and English. The one-month programme has assignments too.

After a month, an exam is conducted that tests the commitment of the students and gives them a sense of what would be expected of them. Those who pass can proceed with the course and at their own pace.

Course coordinators Prof. S. Aniruddhan and Prof. Boby George say the course has multiple entry and exit features. Every four-month term has four-five courses and one lab, typically.

Explaining the programme, Prof. Aniruddhan says completing one year and earning 43 credits gives a foundation level certificate. Typically, industry professionals do this course to brush up their skills. Completing two years and earning another 43 credits brings a diploma. Completing four years and a further 56 credits brings a degree. An optional apprenticeship is also there. Students can choose to take fewer course at their own pace and complete the various levels, he adds.

Prof. Boby George says there is no limit on how many students can take the course. “The Data Science programme has more than 25,000 students and they have not reached the limit. The B.S. Electronic Systems programme is completely scalable,” he adds.

Labs are the big feature of any engineering course. In the B.S. Electronic Systems course, students do some of the experiments in their own place. Towards the end of the term, they come to IIT Madras and spend one week at the lab for each lab course.

Alignment with industry

What distinguishes the B.S. curriculum from BTech is that it was formulated after extensive consultations with the industry and, therefore, highly industry oriented. Professionals from the industry teach some of the courses. In the first year, for instance, the Analog Systems is co-taught by an industry professional.

“The B.S. curriculum is narrower than the ECE curriculum,” says Prof. Aniruddhan. The ECE curriculum is wider in range. It includes communication courses, signal processes, microwave, as well as devices. But the applications of the B.S. curriculum are numerous, such as automotive and IC design, and have been directly derived from the industry. “Straight after graduation, the student is able to apply skills to those industry applications,” says Prof. Aniruddhan.

How are the B.S. students different from those who cracked the JEE? Prof. George says the profiles of the students are very diverse. From industry veterans wanting to brush up their skills to Class 12 passouts who are doing some other course, the B.S. course attracts a range of students.

The typical B.S. student is the amateur electronics tinkerer we see in so many places. They are the ones we see engrossed in taking apart television sets, even laptops and trying to troubleshoot. Lacking a formal grounding in electronics, the IIT degree is a godsend for them. “While JEE students take the ECE course in-part because they have got a certain rank in the exam and are very smart, the B.S. students, smart in their own way, have enrolled out of sheer interest. The B.S. students enjoy the courses and the companies love them too,” he adds.

The professors understand that the surge in interest in semiconductors is a driver behind B.S. Electronic Systems enrolment. There are dedicated semiconductor electives in the third and fourth year for these students.

Published - November 27, 2024 08:45 pm IST