What changes in the present academic structure do students at the IITs consider will arouse interest in them to study for practical engineering rather than for grades?

I agree with most of the answers here, but would like to add an extra point. This is just my personal point of view and a lot of people may disagree, but here it is.. In almost all colleges, IIT or otherwise, the first year (or even the first 3 semesters) are devoted to common courses for all branches together. This is mostly a repetition + extension of JEE stuff. Students lose interest. Only by the end of our second years have we done a couple of meaningful department courses. (That thardly feels like having completed 50% of engineering.) I feel this is a waste of time and can be condensed into a single semester. (If not, it could be interspersed with department courses.) When suddenly thrown into the sea of the department, students tend to feel lost. We don't know enough to do a meaningful internship. We haven't had a taste of what research is like. We are expected to find our areas of interest when we have barely wet our feet in the field. If students are given an early glimpse of what they are actually going to do, it might help in increasing their interest.

Taking about the present scenario. A student starts taking coaching to crack JEE from 8th standard itself. He becomes a machine for solving problems. He doesnt have innovative ideas ,but he knows how to solve problem of particular pattern. Although he make it to IIT aftrt cracking JEE . He's just a machine studing to earn and become rich. He is not curious In science . He's curious in making money.   My suggestion would be change the JEE pattern so that student are selected on basis of natural talent rather than trained problem solving machine.   in this way we will get enthusiatic real IIT scholars not the one who are running just for the sake of money.

Flexibility in the course structure.! I don't want to code all day long. 2 years are enough for me to understand that I am not cut out for coding. But there is no such flexibility in the curriculum (at least at IIT(BHU) ) that I can take some courses of my choice. Obviously there are electives but I have no idea what they are. If anything the professors have done then it is that they have made me hate computer science even more. Whatever little love I had was killed.. :P There is a huge difference between a teacher and a professor.!! While hiring one why do they only look at his degrees and research papers.? That in no way guarantees quality teaching. Duh..! even my school had a better hiring procedure. As for the professors, they should be evaluated the same way students are. I have heard that in each and every IIT , students are required to fill out feedback forms. Are they even taken seriously? Or is it just another jibe.? Pay cuts maybe..? but wait we may see the same scenario as this mentioned below. I remember in a certain lab course we filled feedback forms and we were asked to give good remarks and were promised good grades.(the so called "attendance ke marks") I have seen professors struggling with starting the projectors or just reading out the slides. Is that the quality of professors we deserve. My worst coaching teachers were better than these professors. At least they put in some effort. So yes professors definitely need to improve their teaching skills. Students are not to be blamed for poor attendance in classes. I have seen my whole class flocking to attend Maths lectures even though the teacher didn't give a damn about attendance. catching the drift? Why have compulsory attendance threshold at all..? Assignments and TAs Do they even want to teach at all..? Or is it just for the stipend..? The quality of PhD scholars is so damn poor that I feel my blood boil when they try to threaten you for grades. Don't know how to install ubuntu and are given the charge of programming language lab. Is this some sort of joke? Scrape off all of this tutoring non sense.!! Or find someone who actually wants to teach..!! P.S. I am not generalizing. All this is from my experience so far at IIT(BHU).

Introducing more department specific courses from the beginning and distributing courses of other departments as Open electives and non-departmental electives rather than compulsory. Many of the courses are taught as an instruction of a lot of theory with a small project sometimes at the end. Eventually at the end, people just want to rush through the project and it loses the purpose. If the courses start with a project and we go on learning whatever is needed to cover that project then it is a better learning experience. There are some courses which require more time and involve much more concepts than others. Yet they are tried to squeezed in within a semester. A bifurcation or splitting half way would help a lot. I have done 2 courses which were taught in a single sem as a single course previously. I used to dread how it all would have got spoiled if it was a single course. There are a lot many tools and methods used in industry which are not known to students. A course can either make use of one tool for the project and several can get covered over the courses or a single course can be introduced which is like introduction to industry methods or something like that. A small course with half as many credits can be introduced in the initital semesters which is something like "Research methodology" where profs can instruct how research is done, how topics are found, how papers are to be written, and all such information. It can involve presentation of research papers by students in groups and maybe assisting some profs in completing their papers. Yes there are always some profs who are not good at teaching. It is not about capability or lack of knowledge but just that they are not of that type. I have also had the misfortune of being taught by a prof who was not confident in doing V = IR type calculations and solving 2 linear equations for 2 variables was a 5 minute job for him. I also suffered when a prof was made to teach a course which was not his specialization. And a prof who was an enthusiastic student of his course. The rigidity in the courses is visible almost everywhere. Profs stick to some very old things which are obsolete now. There are a few who keep modifying their course material and I am a big fan of some of them. They work very hard and I have been fortunate to get a chance to assist them and that made me think whether profs like to take assistance from some senior or PG students to improvise on their course material. Maybe it may hurt their pride or maybe they are not very confident of their subordinates. It may vary from person to person. The grading policy has improved a lot in many courses but still in many of them it is very rigid. If I am willing to demonstrate my understanding of concepts by working on a project rather than giving an exam then it doesnt get digested by any prof. I understand that they have to maintain a uniformity over entire class but this just strengthens mob mentality, It may increase work load on the profs but he may use another level of evaluating where he assigns evaluation of stud A's project to stud B, anonymously and randomly and asks him to submit a report of how B evaluated and what is his evaluation of As project. Can be done closed room. At least such an experiment can be done. I know there are many factors to account for while bringing any change but sometimes these factors are backed by rigidity in methods. I have been in EE department and most of my inferences and suggestions are based on my own experiences. I hope it helps

Note : answer below isn't giving any solution but have measures for prevention * Stop giving everything to them on the basis of their GPA (minor allotment etc) * Stop judging them on thier GPA (BTP, MTP allotment) If you stop being judgmental, we would focus on doing some REAL work

One thing most have missed is the ATTITUDE problem of IIT Professors. Not all but I would say at least 60% of them seem to have attitude problem towards UGs, at least. Also, the attitude problem varies with different departments. At IIT KGP, I would rate ECE as the most psycho department (during my stay at KGP in 2000s). I've seen professors both at IITs and at US universities. Almost all professors at US universities are super friendly. They are very busy but still highly accessible. One can approach them without fear and discuss about anything: homework, any concept taught in the classroom, any innovative idea, or even their personal life. This friendly approach ignites respect in students towards the professor and what he teaches. In contrast IIT professors seem to suffer from perennial constipation or perhaps they always have brawls with their wives. Professors are always angry and they like to shout for no reasons or for some small mistakes. They assume themselves as some god in front of UG students. With this attitude of professors, students fear them and even worse students disrespect professors. In our hostel wing during my IIT UG days, number one discussion on the billboard was how pathetic or stupid that professor was. And we used to make fun of those professors. I don't think anyone makes fun of his professor at a US university. It is always difficult to learn from someone while disrespecting him. No doubt professors at IITs need training on their teaching skills, attitude improvement is another area of focus. Please don't generalize my answer to all the professors. Some professors at IITs are super awesome with excellent teaching skills and have great attitude. And they all get their due respect. However, the sad part is that a student, who has already been harassed by a bad professor, will also fear a good professor and would like to avoid him too. I am not sure if the bad attitude of IIT professors is only towards UG students. I had visited IIT for recommendation letters two years after my graduation, and same professors were treating me well.

Dear Sir, Thanks a lot for asking the question and I appreciate your effort towards understanding the short comings in the course. Well, as a matter of fact, the course content might be developed in the right manner but the delivery part is seriously lacking. What I personally feel is that instead of giving notes, writing complex mathematical equation on board, giving handouts etc. a professor should focus more on concept. I will cite an example which I faced when I visited one of the world''s best B-school (I choose not to disclose the name). In a Rural Marketing class to make the students understand the importance of packaging in sachets, the prof allotted them 5 USD per day and asked to spend a week in rural area. This gave the students an understanding why it is important to sell FMCG goods in small sachets and pouches. I believe in IITs too we can have something of the similar sort where understanding at the ground level is more important than books and formulas. I hope this helps.

Really people can't blame student for losing interest. Sir if you see when companies comes for campus generally people are filtered on the basis of grades. So it is obvious that people who want to crack into top companies will generally study to get good grades as they know once they crack into good companies they will have lot of opportunities to show there innovation skills. Also IIT's don't provide world class R n D lab as you can compare with universities like MIT, University of California etc. If we have to be practical the project that student is planning to take up needs lots of funding i don't see any such companies deliberately trying to invest in big and challenging projects. Also if people have to make there career out of R n D they should be paid handsomely not peanuts

Before starting with curriculum I would like to say that professors must create a healthy environment during the course i.e encourage learning than mere grades.This is absent nowadays with the exception of a few .This may include giving extra credits for some project work,paper work or some other academic activity related to the course but not in the curriculum. The curriculum is much of a research based i.e. it is more of based on rigorous mathematics and is highly mathematical.Students divert away from it mainly due to the uselessness (they see)in http://these.So apart from this theory some real life experiments and uses must be discussed during the lectures which would provoke interest in the students. More stress must be given on projects and students must be given an option if they want their project to be graded and displayed on the CV,thereby reducing the stress on mere theory.