Motivation

The need for this program has been felt in recent years with declining strength of PG programs. With the boom in economy, the salaries for engineers, particularly in the area of computer science, have skyrocketed, and are many times the MTech stipend. Furthermore, the huge demand in software industry for software engineers have started hiring most of the graduates from institutions that traditionally provided inputs for MTech program. The situation implies that it is unlikely that we will be able to attract good students in required numbers to our MTech or PhD programs. For similar reasons, it is also very unlikely that we can attract reasonable quality graduates to work for us as research engineers. The fallout of this is that in Computer Science, with the current setup, we will have little research manpower. The proposed program has been designed to make it attractive for a good student to do an MTech, and thus contribute to the research efforts of the department. The student benefits by getting an MTech degree with just one year of extra effort, thereby saving at least six months. The popularity of similar programs can be judged by the fact that IIT Bombay has steadily increased its intake in five-year dual degree program, and now more than one-third of the students admitted through JEE are in such programs. Good quality MTech students are also expected to give a boost to undergraduate education, since they can help undergraduates in labs, and interact with them as teaching assistants. Dual-degree program is being proposed instead of an integrated 5-year MTech program, as the BTech degree is the hallmark of IITs, and without offering this, the interest in the program will be low. Integrated 5-year programs don't seem to have succeeded in other IITs also.

Curriculum

The curriculum for the dual-degree program is roughly same as the combined requirements of the BTech and MTech curriculum. All requirements such as core courses, HSS, ESO/BSO, etc. will be adhered to. Since there is a reduction of six months in the time, a small amount of reduction from the combined requirements (mainly BTP requirement) is proposed. All this is consistent with the generic course structure approve by the Senate for dual-degree programs. There is one small change we are proposing here. In the summer term after the 8th semester, we are proposing an option between the thesis units and the summer training. This will allow students to work in a research lab or in industry. This exposure will be good for the student. The thesis supervisor and DPGC will decide whether a particular place for summer training is appropriate from the thesis point of view, and whether the student should be permitted to proceed on summer training or stay at IITK and work on thesis here itself..

Program Structure

The proposed curriculum is as follows: (A complete curriculum for all 5 years is given in Section 5.) First three years: Identical to the existing BTech program. 7th semester: 1 HSS course, 4 Departmental Electives (at least one PG elective). 8th semester: 4 PG Electives and 4 units of MTech thesis. Summer semester: 4 units of M Tech. Thesis OR Summer training. semester: 1 PG elective and 12 units of MTech thesis. 10th semester: 16 units of MTech thesis. Since an Under Graduate Review Committee (UGRC) is looking at the curriculum for all BTech programmes in the Institute, and is likely to suggest modifications to the same, we can modify the dual-degree programme, if needed, suitably after their proposals are approved by the Senate.

Other Details

Graduation Requirements

The minimum graduation requirement is a CPI of 6.5, which is same as the requirement for MTech program. For those students who have a CPI between 5.0 and 6.5 (BTech graduation requirements is 5.0.), they can either try to improve their CPI by doing additional courses, or they can be given a BTech degree after the normal five-year duration of the dual-degree program. For receiving the BTech degree, the student should have completed all requirements of the BTech curriculum. The BTech Project requirement in the BTech curriculum can be substituted by 12 units of MTech thesis.

Branch Change

For the purpose of Branch Change at the end of 1st year, the dual degree program should be treated as a separate program, with its own sanctioned strength, etc.

Applicability of UG/PG Rules

For registration, overload, underload, summer term registration, warning, academic probation, dismissal, leave of absence, thesis committee, submission of thesis, and other such purposes, a student in the dual-degree programme will be governed by UG rules until s/he registers for thesis units. In the normal course, it means until the beginning of eighth semester. After the student registers for thesis units, MTech rules become applicable. This can lead to one anomaly. A student with a CPI of greater than 5.0 but less than 6.5 will be considered a normal BTech student, but as soon as MTech rules become applicable, the student will be dismissed. To avoid such anomaly, proper rules will have to be framed for this program. Once the academic programme is approved, a committee may be appointed to look into all the relevant rules, and suggest appropriate changes.

Financial Assistantships

A student should be considered equivalent to an MTech student once s/he starts working on thesis (registered for thesis units). At this time, the student shall be given TAship. All existing rules governing TAship will be applicable to these students as well.

When Does the Program Start

Admission to the dual-degree program is proposed to be started from JEE-2001. The new program will have an intake of 10 students. This intake will be in addition to 40 students that we admit to our BTech program every year.

Detailed Curriculum

As per the existing BTech and MTech curriculum, the curriculum of the five-year dual-degree program in Computer Science & Engineering will be as follows.