Nurturing the new age Engineering talent
Chennai, July 2017: Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal University, one of India’s premier engineering institute announced an enhanced curriculum for the academic year 2018. As pioneers in personalizing curriculum based on interest and aptitude, the institute aims to provide students a holistic learning experience.
In a general scenario, while selecting elective subjects students are given a limited choice of subjects that they can chose from. The University introduces a major change at regular intervals and the next one is scheduled to take place in 2018. With the curriculum revamp, students will be able to take up ‘Open Electives’ – subjects which are not essentially from the same area of specialization they have chosen as their main stream.
The University is continuously enhancing the curriculum to make it more relevant to the changing requirements in today’s work place. The revised curriculum allows students to select electives that they are passionate about, even if it does not fall under the scope of engineering. An Engineering student can even chose to study journalism if it interests him and still manage to get credits.
Speaking on the occasion Dr. G K Prabhu, Director of MIT added “Our industry is going through a tremendous overhaul and there is an increasing need for students to upskill and stay relevant in today’s workplace. As a world-class institution, we are taking up numerous initiatives to provide students the flexibility and freedom to follow their passion. With this curriculum change, our students can chose electives that are outside the program, for instance an Electronics and Communication branch student can study foreign languages or chose another engineering subject as an elective. This will help them earn the prescribed credits as well as explore multiple areas of interest”
The interdisciplinary nature of Manipal University adds to the feasibility of this syllabus advancement. The University is home to over 30 different institutions from Medicine and Hotel administration to Communications and Nursing. This makes it possible for an Engineering student to even take up journalism with easy access to the highly recognized Communications School or even Culinary Arts at the Hotel Management institute, all under one campus.
“We place a lot of emphasis on providing students hands-on experience through student projects. Students who are working on a particular project can also chose it as their elective and gain credits. Every year our students work on various projects that are well received in several competitions, we hope to offer such major projects as open electives for students” added Dr. G K Prabhu.
Students who have opted for more open electives than they are required to, can convert them into a certificate course which will be a part of their final transcript as a minor specialization. Apart from this, students can also choose to pursue a semester in an approved college abroad and have the credits transferred. Similarly, students can also take online courses through the Coursera portal and get certificates from overseas universities offering such courses on the portal. These opportunities offer several advantages to the students, such as, bringing in an element of flexibility in curriculum, develop self-learning skills, encourage International student mobility and also improve their employability potential.
The University is also working at including off-beat courses like Music, Dance, Drama, Yoga and Yakshagana to their credit offering in the years to come. Through timely upgrades to the curriculum MIT is focused at providing students holistic education with a keen focus on practical knowledge and flexibility to choose their area of interest.