Branch-change: In a bid to reduce student stress, six Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have discontinued the branch-change option available to students after their first year. This brings the total number of IITs discontinuing this practice to nine. The branch-change option in IITs allows students to transfer to a different engineering stream at the end of their first two semesters, provided they achieve the required cumulative grade point average (CGPA) score in their first year. Each branch in each IIT usually has specific cut-off scores to admit students from other streams. Earlier this year, IIT Madras, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Dhanbad, IIT Dharwad, IIT Mandi and IIT Bhubaneswar have discontinued the branch-change practice. Earlier, IIT Bombay, IIT Hyderabad and IIT Jammu had discontinued it in 2023, 2021 and 2018 respectively. This has been done reportedly to reduce pressure on already stressed students. Experts have noted that although about 50 percent of freshers want to change their branch, only 10 percent are successful in doing so. Generally, if a student has a CGPA above 7.50 (general category) and has earned more than 32 credits by the end of the first academic session, he or she can apply for a branch change at the end of the first year. Additionally, branch changes are granted strictly on the basis of merit, which is determined by the CGPA at the end of the first year. To meet the criteria, many students spend most of their first year secluded in their rooms or libraries, completely immersed in their studies. The limited number of seats available and the high CGPA requirement further increases the competition for students. As a result, many students miss out on participating in fresher activities, joining clubs or groups, getting involved in extracurricular activities, attending college fests, and spending time with new friends. Experts believe this could have a negative impact on students, especially when most engineering students have spent at least the last two years of their schooling focusing on clearing the JEE Main and JEE Advanced exams.
