At least 19 students from across the country have enrolled for the newly-introduced M.Tech courses in cyber security and forensics and data analytics at IIT Bhubaneswar. It's the only IIT in the country to have introduced these courses.
Finding resources for conducting the courses in cyber security and forensics and data analytics and machine intelligence is a difficult task. The institute's director, RV Raja Kumar, said the classes for these sub-specialisation courses had begun from July. "We didn't get appropriate faculty members for cyber forensics in the country. Thus, we will be taking help of faculty members from other countries. The lectures in these off-beat courses will be delivered by the foreign faculty members through video-conferencing," Kumar added.
However, the institute has not been able to continue with its dual degree programmes at the undergraduate level this year due to accommodation crunch on its campus.
During the past two years, the institute had accommodated its students in the hostels of other institutes like NISER to tackle the situation and not compromise with intake of students. But, this year the institute hasn't been able to arrange the same. On its new campus, it has a capacity of providing accommodation to 1,000 students after completion of the first-phase of construction. The institute will soon overcome this challenge as separate hostels are being made for boys and girls. The construction is expected to get over by the end of this year.
Regarding this year's admissions, the director said the same trend was continuing for the past four to five years. "Computer science is the most preferred course for students because worldwide the jobs offered in this stream have good pay packages. It is closely followed by electronics engineering with communications. The jobs in civil engineering has witnessed a slight slump in the past four years. Though our country is focussing on large-scale infrastructure development, the construction companies aren't doing great. However, there are always exceptions who don't go by the trend and follow their passion. On a welcome note, the percentage of students who are not going by the trends has increased this year," he added.
The director claimed that he noticed a change of mindset among the students, who got admitted into the institute this year. "In the past, the students were not educated in a proper manner because of the grinding coaching culture in the country. But, this year the students have come with a concern and are ready to turn around. They have come with an intention to be educated in true sense," he added.
The Institute offers 6 B.Tech, 9 dual degree programmes, 5 M.Sc, 11 M.Tech programmes and Ph.D in its 7 Schools. The admission for the academic year 2018-19 to the above courses took place on 20th and 25th July, respectively.
Out of 369 offered B. Tech seats and dual degree programmes, 354 students (including 2 preparatory course completed students of last year) joined this time. Further, 5 students joined preparatory course at other institutes and they would be joining IIT Bhubaneswar next year. Out of 95 offered, 75 students have joined M.Sc and out of 160 offered, 156 (including 3 sponsored from DRDO) students have joined various M.Tech programmes. As many as 58 students were admitted to the Ph.D programme.
This year, there is a steep rise in the number of seats got filled up in MSc, MTech and PhD programmes over the previous years by 7 per cent, 15 per cent and 95 per cent respectively. To encourage girls to pursue higher studies, as per the directives of the government of India, 19 girl students, who were offered seats on supernumerary basis have joined, over and above the sanctioned strength to various undergraduate courses to take the number of girl students admitted to 55, which makes it over 15 per cent.