Academics

There is a high probability that you have spent the last two or three years appreciating the beauty of physics, chemistry and math and toiling over a hoard of problems meant to drive concepts in. Your entry to IIT Bombay marks a paradigm shift in the way you view academics. Academics form a central aspect of your life at IIT Bombay. Here, you are provided with a basic structure to understand your major and you get to mould your curriculum and churn the maximum out of it. You could choose to explore a breadth of courses from various streams and provide a unique perspective to your major, or you can dive to the depth of the field and become the authority in it. You can contribute to the vast body of theoretical knowledge or bridge the chasm between theory and real world applications.The faculty members here strive to expose you to the latest technological developments in the world and engage in tackling all kinds of problems. While they are going to grade you on courses, they are also open to any projects you initiate and will always be willing to discuss your ideas. The experience of studying with the best minds of the country, steps up the challenge a notch.It is all about how you use the resources innovatively and carve a niche for yourself.

For more information you can contact:

Madhav Gupta
General Secretary Academic Affairs (GSAA)
IIT Bombay
Email: gsecaaug@iitb.ac.in

The undergraduate curriculum at IIT Bombay is modelled after the curricula of the best universities in the world, and is truly one of the most exciting and versatile in India. It blends flexibility with academic rigor, allowing students to take up some courses of their own choice, both within and outside their departments, apart from completing a certain minimum requirement of “core” courses.

Here at IITB, the academic year is divided into two semesters, each lasting about 16 weeks. Each semester, you have to complete a certain number of credits/courses. Based on your performance, you are assigned a grade at the end of each course. The weighted average of your grade points for all the courses in a particular semester gives your Semester Performance Index (SPI). The weighted average of these SPIs gives your Cumulative Performance Index (CPI). CPI gives an overall impression of your academic performance and plays an important role in course/project allotment in later semesters, not to mention internships and placements.

A word of caution: The institute expects a minimum attendance requirement from the students (80%) for the courses. If a student does not meet this specific requirement, the professor is fully within their rights to award them an ‘DX’ grade, in which case one will have to repeat the course. So do make it a point to be regular in all courses. In case a student is unable to achieve the minimum cut-off marks in a particular course they fail and receive an FR grade.

Exceptional performance in a course can even earn you the highly valued AP grade in that course. Awarded rarely to less than 1% of the class strength, it is a feather in a cap worth striving for.

The most exciting part of the system, for any student interested in exploring interests outside their department, is the concept of Minors & Honors. Starting from third semester, you will be allowed to take up courses in any discipline that you might happen to be interested in (say, Electrical Engineering or Biology). You can earn a Minor in specific discipline by doing a certain number of extra courses in that discipline. Be warned that registration for Minor courses, particularly in ‘popular’ departments, is very competitive, with a seat-cap on all courses. If you are serious about your Minor ambitions, then be on your toes and maintain a good CPI right through your degree programme!

The B.Tech students have the option of completing a certain number of these elective courses in their own department and earn a ‘B.Tech. with Honors’ degree. Honor courses give a better idea about your subject and discipline. Finally, if you happen to have any backlog(s), you will have to repeat (and this time around, hopefully pass) the course(s).

A short introduction to various departments, Department Activities and Alumni

This site is meant for you, the future entrants into the IITs, to get an idea of what the different branches actually do and what engineering/sciences really involve. We, the students of IIT Bombay, have prepared this material describing the programmes offered at IIT Bombay based on our experience here. The description of each programme is focused on how it is structured at IIT Bombay and the nature of similar programmes offered at other colleges might be different. To get an in-depth description of all the departments and programmes, do check out the individual websites of each IIT.

Please note that this information is NOT officially endorsed by IIT Bombay and merely represents the opinions of the students who have contributed to it.

If you have any doubts, please feel free to post your questions at the bottom of the respective department pages. If you have any other general questions you can post them here.

Humble Appeal : Countless students have fallen bait to the practice of blindly following the cutoffs of the previous years and ended up hating the branch that they choose. We hope YOU, the future IITian will make judicious use of this initiative and make an informed choice.

Students are eligible to apply for a change of branch/programme after completing the first two semesters and before the start of the third semester.

1. The Eligibility Criteria for applying for a change of branch / programme are:
   
   1. Completion of the prescribed course credits in the first two semesters
   2. No backlog at the end of the first year
2. 1. Before beginning the allocation, additional seats are made available in each branch, limited to a maximum of 10% of its sanctioned strength
   2. While students are allotted seats of general and reserved type during admission, this data is not used during branch change. Each available seat may be occupied by students of any category.
3. An eligible student's request for a shift from branch A to branch B will be considered valid if any one of the following two sets of criteria are satisfied.
   Set 1
   1. The CPI of the student is at least 9
   2. There is a seat available in Branch B
   Set 2
   1. There is a seat available in Branch B
   2. The strength in branch A, from which a change is being sought, does not fall below its sanctioned strength by more than 25%.
   3. There is no student with higher CPI who is currently being denied a change of branch to “B” due to rule (ii) Procedure Among all valid requests, a student with the highest CPI is chosen and a shift performed. If a student with CPI x is shifted from branch A to branch B then every student with CPI x with a request for branch B will be shifted to branch B, even if their request violates (ii) above. If necessary, extra seats will be created to accommodate them. Shifts as above are performed as long as there are valid requests. Note that even though a student may have been allotted a seat of lower preference earlier due to unavailability of a seat of higher preference, his/her request for the higher preference seat may become valid later because of availability of seats.
4. All branch transfers can be effected only once at the beginning of the second academic year. No application for change of branch during the subsequent academic years will be entertained.
5. Students may be permitted to change from B.Tech. to Dual Degree Programme in the same department at the end of third and fourth semesters subject to the department’s recommendations.

‘Just clear the JEE once, you’ll have fun forever’ might be a little exaggerated but if marvelling at the Eiffel Tower or basking in the breath-taking exuberance of Times Square in New York or just lying on the ground watching the Northern Lights is your idea of fun, you can surely do that here.

IIT Bombay provides you with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to study abroad at universities across the globe while you’re still a student here. The institute has partnerships with a multitude of universities as part of which you can spend up to two semesters there taking up courses which you would otherwise have to finish at IIT Bombay. Another advantage? You don’t need to pay the humongous tuition fees at the foreign university!

Semester exchanges are often a life changing experience, and the perfect way to immerse yourself into a completely different culture. You get to live as a local in a new country for four months and party like you’ve never done before. Besides this, the fact that you now have friends all over the world who introduce you to their own cultures is one of the major reasons students opt to go for exchanges.

For more information you can contact:

Mrigi Mungal
Institute Secretary | International Relations
IIT Bombay
Email: isecir@iitb.ac.in
Blog : https://exchangeblogiitb.wordpress.com

Calculation of SPI and CPI

Suppose in a given semester a student has taken four courses having credits C1, C2, C3 and C4 and grade points in those courses are G1, G2, G3 and G4 respectively. Then,

SPI = (C1 x G1 + C2 x G2 + C3 x G3 + C4 x G4) / (C1 + C2 + C3 + C4) CPI = (SPI1 x Credits in semester1 + SPI2 x Credits in semester2 + ...) / (Total credits)

For example, if in a given semester a student has taken four courses having credits 6, 6, 8, and 6 and grade points in those courses are 10, 9, 8, 6 respectively. Then, SPI = (6 x 10 + 6 x 9 + 8 x 8 + 8 x 6) / (6 + 6 + 8 + 6) = 7.62

If the student has an SPI of 7.62 in the 1st semester worth (say) 32 credits and 8.2 in the next semester worth 36 credits, CPI (at the end of 2nd semester) = (7.62 x 32 + 8.2 x 36) / (32 + 36) = 7.93

Do note that all semesters have more or less equal credit weightage, so it is important to do well throughout, and not just in final exams, in order to maintain a good CPI.

Grading

The system of grading here, in most courses, is relative. The highest grade (worth 10 points) is set according to the highest score obtained in the class, and proportionately, grades are allotted to all students. Grading, in integral values out of 10 is done based on the student’s performance throughout the semester and goes from 10 to 4 (AA-10, AB-9, BB-8, BC-7, CC-6, CD-5, DD-4).

Detailed rules can be found in the ‘Rules and Regulations’ booklet which you will receive subsequently. Parents and students are requested to go through and understand it carefully.