ACADEMICS

The end of the month July marks the beginning of the voyage in the cruise named IIT Guwahati. This 4 years long journey will provide a life changing experience, through various aspects inside this ship which you will witness as you move forward. The most important being the Academics. It is said "Do whatever you want to do, but just don't screw your acads", and well we believe that everyone is entitled to have an individual choice on how do they want to steer, but we stringly urge to abide to the above quote. There are some nitty gritties related to Acads in this ship which we will go through one-by-one.

COURSES AND ATTENDANCE

It does not matter which branch you belong to, It does not matter how many years you have passed, every semester you are assigned to a set of lectures, labs and exams which we collectively call as courses. While we personally advice you to attend all the lectures religiously, the campus anyway imposes a restriction of minimum 75% attendance, if you don't pass this, you automatically get an extension for the particular course in the next semester.

2nd year onwards, you get to choose some of your courses as per your will. We call them Electives. The courses belonging to the HSS department are all electives, also departments float electives in different semesters as per their curriculum, giving you choices to create your own path.

CREDITS

Every course is assigned a particular weightage and this weightage is known as the 'Credits' assigned to that course. Credits are calculated on the basis of number of classes, number of labs and number of tutorial classes per week. These numbers sometimes define how much importance you have to give to the subject while planning your study the night before exams.

GRADING

Marks, Performance, Assessment, Evaluation etc. are some terms you can relate with grading. Every course at the end gifts you one of these as per your conduct throughout the semester, on a scale of 10. If you are looking out for your total semester's performance, you call it your SPI or Semester Performance Index. If you are looking for your overall performance in IIT Guwahati, since the beginning of the time, you should look out for CPI or Cumulative Performance Index.

Now the grading is done in two ways, Relative grading and Absolute Grading. Relative as the name suggests only concerns with your performance among all the students in your class, its a healthy way to study less collectively and get good grades. Absolute Grading however leaves you alone, it does not matter how much the other person gets, you get what you deserve.

BRANCH CHANGE

Did you want Branch X but had to settle for Y? Don't worry the institue has a way out for you. The end of first year gives you a chance to change your department or what we call it your branch on the basis of the CPI you have attained. Obviously you have to be very, I mean very good to do that. A few branch changers narrate their vies on what it takes to get your branch changed.

Shashank Oberoi (2nd year, ECE to MnC)

"Being at IIT is definitely a life enchanting experience. You'll get to explore new things, develop new interests, get reconnected to your old hobbies. At the same time, it's essential not to get carried away and become complacent. Never forget that IIT is an academic institution so you shouldn't have a callous approach towards academics. If you are aiming for a branch change, you need to be sincere with your work and never let the desire to learn and excel weaken. Same applies even after branch change as well"

Krishna Praveen (2nd year, EP to ECE)

- "Hey guys, you are stepping into your college life, and as you think it would be, everything would be different. Explore your talents and interests, the college has a number of clubs which would be happy to have you. As for academics, try to take out time to study every day, just revision of whatever has been taught. Most importantly, eat well and take care of your health. Branch change at IIT Guwahati is definitely a fun experience and if you are one of those students who wish to do so, understand you will have to put in some extra effort to achieve it. Every day revision and attending tutorials should be enough. Identify the subject that are tough for you and reach out to your friends for help"

Vaibhavi Srivastava (2nd year, BT to Mech)

"Hey guys, you are stepping into your college life, and as you think it would be, everything would be different. Explore your talents and interests, the college has a number of clubs which would be happy to have you. As for academics, try to take out time to study every day, just revision of whatever has been taught. Most importantly, eat well and take care of your health. Branch change at IIT Guwahati is definitely a fun experience and if you are one of those students who wish to do so, understand you will have to put in some extra effort to achieve it. Every day revision and attending tutorials should be enough. Identify the subject that are tough for you and reach out to your friends for help."

Saumitra Sharma (3rd year, Civil to EEE)

"Each and every year most of the students join with a pledge of changing their branch. A common mistake is to consider placements as the only criteria. Apart from a job and high packages, student must also consider other factors like the subject of their interest, the current research scope in their desired field, how well the work culture suits them if they wish to get a job specific to that branch. For a branch change one has to plan according to his desired branch. CSE and M&C, famous for their high CPI cut offs, need more efforts than other departments. I changed my branch from civil to EEE with a CPI of 9.57. I used to attended more than 90% of the lectures and tutorial classes. Revision and practice of each and every concept taught to us in the same week made my concepts and basics clear enough. I never relied entirely on lecture slides and always looked for some reference material either on the internet or in books. Since a lot of students look for a branch change, one must identify strategies that would make him more eligible than others. "

Soumik Mukhopadhyay (3rd year, Civil to CSE)

"It is pretty easy to get a branch change if one is regular with his studies. Not that one has to study whole day, just solve the tutorials, and you get to know what's happening. In my case being regular to the lecture helped, might not be the case with others. While opting for a branch change the first thing one must think of is - does he/she really doesn't want to be in his/her current branch. Because if you remain in your current branch you might easily be the topper of the branch. If you really have interest in some other branch, consider looking at the course structures for sure. Usually the cutoff is pretty high for CSE, then comes ECE/MnC then comes EEE, then Design/Mech."

PROJECTS

Now this is something what you find for yourself. It is sort of a quest which you do as per your interest, and you are required to ask for it, no one will come and give it to you. If you have a particular interest or if you want to find whether or not you have interest in a particular something, you go for projects. Some courses have projects attached to them as a part of the curriculum, while others which you do on your own are just for your development.