Academics
Innovative BTech Program
The curriculum for the BTech(CSE) program in IIIT-Delhi is innovative and "inverts the pyramid". Usual engineering programs start with general courses in sciences and engineering, and then migrate to specialized courses for the disciplines. While these courses are indeed foundational for many engineering disciplines, they are not foundational for IT - rather they can be treated as application domains. Based on this observation, the BTech (CSE) program at IIIT-Delhi starts with computing oriented courses first, and allows the possibility of doing science courses later. Besides being better suited for an IT program, it also enables the possibility of students seeing newer applications and possibilities of relating IT with these subjects.
With this approach, the BTech (CSE) program can be divided broadly in two halves. The first half will focus on building the foundations, and will be highly structured. The second part is for further developing the skills and knowledge of the students in various topics - computing and non-computing. This part also provides limited specializations, and different students may follow different paths and take different set of courses in it.
The Foundation program provides the basic knowledge about CSE/IT through a set of core courses, which are compulsory for all students. This program consists of four major streams: software, hardware, theory, and systems. Besides these, there are courses in Maths and communication skills as part of the core program. Most of the core courses are done in the first four semesters.
The second half of the program consists mostly of elective courses. An elective course is one which is not compulsory, and a student will have choices from which to select the courses he/she wants to do. Some of the electives may be organized as streams, where a stream is a sequence of courses in an area providing a limited specialization in that area. Besides electives and streams for specialized areas in IT, as one of the objectives of IIIT-Delhi is to have teaching and R&D in some domain areas (like health, life sciences, finance, economics, E-Governance, sciences, etc.), streams and electives from domains will also be offered. List of courses in these streams, electives, and further information about the courses is available here. More information on the BTech curriculum is also given here.
The UG Manual of IIIT-Delhi also has provision for an Honors program. An Honors option is designed to challenge the brighter and more ambitious students, without burdening an average student. More information on the Honors program can be found on the program page.
For admission in the BTech program students are required to have 80% or more both in Maths individually as well as total aggregate in class XII exam. Delhi students are admitted after rigorous selection through a non-conventional entrance test. Outside Delhi candidate are selected on the basis of their AIEEE ranking.
The MTech Program
A Masters degree in IIIT-Delhi is primarily industry-focused, though it can also be used as a stepping stone for research. To address the needs of the industry, which today requires more specialized knowledge and skills, the Institute permits a student to do an M.Tech. in Computer Science or M.Tech. in Computer Science with specialization in an area. Currently, the Institute offers specialization in Information Security and Data Analytics, and plans to start new specializations in coming years. More information on the MTech Program can be found here.
Specialization in Information Security
The main objective of this program is to train students to become information security professionals for the high-end jobs in security in the industry. In addition to the core course requirements for the M.Tech. program, to obtain specialization in Information Security a student must complete at least 16 units of courses in the overall area of Information Security. Courses include Modern Distributed/Networked Systems, Foundations to Computer Security, Secure Software Systems, Digital and Cyber Forensics etc.
Specialization in Data Engineering
The main objective of the program is to develop professionals for high-end jobs in data management in the industry. To obtain specialization in Data Engineering a student must complete at least 12 units of courses in the overall area of Data Engineering. Courses include Advanced Algorithms, SE for Information-intensive systems, Database Implementation, Data Mining, Information Retrieval etc.
