Gandhinagar: Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITGN) welcomed the new batch of BTech students yesterday in virtual mode. A total of 249 students from 18 Indian states have joined the batch of 2021-2025, with the highest number of students coming from Maharashtra (62), Rajasthan (49), and Gujarat (38). These are followed by Andhra Pradesh (17), Telangana (16), Uttar Pradesh (14), Madhya Pradesh (12), Bihar (10), among others. Notably, the gender ratio in BTech students is continuously improving at IITGN, with around 21% of female students joining the Institute in various disciplines compared to around 19% female students in the batch of 2020. The new batch has two OCI students as well, from USA and Canada.
With this, the Institute also kick-started its flagship Foundation Programme in virtual mode. Prof Sudhir K Jain, Director, IITGN, interacted with the new batch online and introduced them to the unique qualities and institutional culture that put IITGN ahead of the curve. He encouraged students to start taking responsible decisions for themselves and said, “The fundamental quality of IITGN is that we focus on preparing our students for life and not just for their first job so that they can take on any challenges with confidence. We make extraordinary efforts to provide our students a strong foundation to build their personalities and values and improve their attitude towards life. Just as one needs to release the thread to let the kite fly high, IITGN gives its students freedom and wings to succeed.”
The Foundation Programme 2021 is designed to be a five-week holistic development programme with an interesting mix of engaging topics and activities. Apart from orientation on various institutional activities, facilities, and campus life, this year’s Foundation Programme includes various sessions on team-building through online gaming exercise, time-management, stress-management, well-being, cyber criminality, cooking and engineering, design engineering, leadership, inclusivity, academic integrity, social awareness, venture capital, introduction to sketching, emotional intelligence, creative learning, and so on.
The first year has been partitioned into three terms for the incoming BTech batch covering the essential core curriculum while achieving overall development of students. While Term I will be conducted online, Term II and III are planned to be conducted in offline mode. Explaining about the specially designed three terms, Prof Dilip Srinivas Sundaram, Associate Dean, Undergraduate Studies, IITGN, said, “We designed the academic plan for the 1st year UG students in such a manner that takes care of the delayed admission; the first term is short and enables us to synchronise the academic schedules with our regular semester cycle within six weeks of their joining. It also provides us an opportunity to teach students courses in an immersive manner. During the first five weeks, the students would also be engaged in interesting courses on Computing, Writing, and Learning How to Learn.”
The programme is being coordinated by Prof Karthik Subramaniam Pushpavanam, Prof Tanya Srivastava, and Prof Biswajit Mondal. It will go on till December 28, 2021. IITGN places great emphasis on shaping students not only as successful engineers of the future but also well-rounded personalities, who contribute to society, are respectful of and can adapt to their surroundings, and prove themselves to be thinkers and problem-solvers in all avenues of life.