What is an Integrated/Dual Degree course? How is it useful?

Aim of Integrated/Dual Degree courses

By using the concept of integrated education, nowadays, several universities spread across the state and the country have started offering dual degrees. They include flexible and integrated courses in management and human resources disciplines integrated with engineering programmes. The aim of this initiative is to make higher education more industry oriented.

Integrated/Dual degree programmes

Premier institutions like IITs in the country have taken the leading initiatives towards the induction of integrated programmes. This plan has enabled them to set a trend for other educational institutions to follow as well. For instance, the Indian Institutes of technologies (IITs) offer you a five year term MTech duel degree course in various engineering branches of study. Besides this, the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research is offering students to go for BS-MS programmes. Here the students can study mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and humanities subjects, first. After this, they can go for a combination of subjects, which they intend to study and specialize in it further. The curriculum of an integrated study programme includes the content that is designed by two or more education disciplines jointly. They are regulated by guidelines that are specifically set. In this context, students who are choosing the programme will have to work on well defined periods of study in each discipline according to the duration and terms of study. After completion of the course and relevant examinations, they will be awarded duel degrees by the institution. Nowadays, you will also see that education in management is also being integrated with disciplines like pharmacy, architecture and engineering. These courses offer you immense opportunities in the industry.

Scaling up of integrated/duel degree programmes

It is interesting to observe that integrated duel degree programmes are not new to the system of Indian education system even though a couple of these programmes have been found to be in vogue for the past ten years. But, in the recent past, several universities have taken efforts to scale up these programmes by upgrading them with a more modern perspective.

Why to integrate

The aim of institutions moving in the direction of an integrated degree course design is to create an awareness of relationship among students between their classroom study and the growing complex world today. Under such a scenario, factors like the rapid expansion of knowledge, global interconnectedness, the complexity and increase in pace have brought in growing concerns among students sufficiently over relevancy in classroom studies. Hence, they find lack of connections between education and real world issues. Thus, integrated courses were designed to make a student to prepare himself with a solid response to these challenges that he faces firmly. This helps the student to gain an in-depth application of know-how, encouragement in a multidisciplinary perspective, boosting his relationship between in-house class content and outside realities, encouragement involving breadth and depth of understanding complex issues and increasing his or her engagement through experiments, and learning by practice, and learning supports.

List of available Integrated/Duel Degree courses in IITs

Here is the list of IITs offering Integrated/Duel Degree courses to students to pursue their career:

IIT Delhi

• B.Tech and M.Tech in subjects like Biochemical Engineering and Biotechnology, Computer Science and Engineering

• B.Tech and M.Tech in Chemical Engineering and Computer Applications in Chemical Engineering

• B.Tech and M.Tech in Chemical Engineering and Process Engineering and Design

• B.Tech and M.Tech in Electrical Engineering and Information and Communication Technology

IIT Bombay

• B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering

IIT Kanpur

• B.Tech and M.Tech in subjects like Aerospace Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering, Electrical and Mechanical Engineering

IISC, Chennai

• M.Sc-Ph.D in Operations Research

• M.Tech-5-year duel degree in Biological Engineering

• M.S- 5-year duel degree in Biological Sciences

• B.Tech-Civil Engineering with M.Tech-Specialization in Infrastructure Engineering

• B.Tech and M.Tech in Aerospace Engineering Biological Engineering Chemical Engineering Computer Science and Engineering Electrical Engineering.

IIT Guwahati

• M.Tech and Ph.D in Computer Science and Engineering

IIT Hyderabad

• B.Tech and MS by research in Computer science and Engineering Electronics and Communication Engineering, Building Science and Engineering

• B.Tech in Computer science and MS by Research in Computational Natural Science

• B.Tech in Computer Science and MS by Research in Computational Linguistics

• B.Tech in Computer Science and MS by Research in Exact Humanities

IIT Kharagpur

• B.Tech and M.Tech in Agricultural and Food Engineering

• B.Tech and M.Tech in Farm Machinery and Power Agricultural and Food Engineering

• B.Tech and M.Tech in Soil and Water Conservation Engineering Agricultural and food Engineering

• B.Tech and M.Tech in Dairy and Food Engineering, Biotechnology and Biochemical Engineering, Civil Engineering

• MBA Civil Engineering or Structural Engineering, Civil Engineering or Geotechnical Engineering,  Computer Science and Engineering or Computer and IT Computer Science and Engineering

• MBA in Electronics and Electrical Engineering or Fibre Optics and Lightwave Engineering

IIT Roorkee

• B.Tech Chemical Engg with M.Tech Specialisation in Hydrocarbon Engineering

• B.Tech in Electronics and Wireless Communication with M.Tech Specialisation in Communication Engineering

• B.Tech Computer Science and Engg with M.Tech Specialisation in IT

• B.Tech Electrical Engineering with M.Tech specialisation in MBA

Difference between integrated and Duel Degree courses:

In India you can consider that the engineering course is the most popular course available today. Hence, there is a growing demand and almost all the new colleges offer these courses. By looking into the vastness of study involved in these courses, the courses offered are huge in different branches of engineering discipline. Under the category of engineering, any student will be able to avail a variety of degree courses. Besides, from various trades, students have an opportunity to get into courses with special duration. Under this scenario, both integrated as well as duel degree courses are found to be the finest examples of these varieties of courses available for students to study under one roof. It is true that any student availing either integrated or duel degree course can get two degrees and thereby will be able to save time. But there is a difference between the integrated and duel degree course. They are:

• In an integrated course you can get both the Bachelor and Master’s degree after five years of duration

• Generally, you will take four years to complete a Bachelor level course and another two years to complete the master level. Through Integrated course, you can save one year and get both the degrees.

• In a duel degree course, you can save one year, but obtain the bachelor level degree after four years and the master level degree after an additional duration of one year.

• Another difference between the Integrated and Duel Degree course is with regard to approach of studies.

• In a duel degree, both the faculties teach the course under a regular schedule and complete the course at the same time.

• In an Integrated course, both the faculties have to co-operate with each other to complete the course in specified time duration.

Advantage of cost

mm In  the Indian education market, factors like cost of studying abroad, demand and importance given to overseas degrees have encouraged the Indian institutions to make partnership agreements with foreign universities of repute and technical colleges to facilitate students to earn duel degrees both from India and abroad through well structured, integrated professional courses. In this way pursuing two degrees concurrently saves money and makes you competitive. Besides, it allows you to optimise your course load and time. It is possible for you to get mutual credit for courses that overlap both the degree programmes. Through a guaranteed accelerated learning process, the work load can be substantially decreased.

Accepting potential challenges

As a student, you will have to face your own share of challenges when you take up any duel degree course or integrated degree course. It is a fact, that in every course, you have to come across some difficult subjects and in a duel degree course you will study difficult subjects in both the courses. Furthermore, the time frame allowed for duel degrees is an accelerated one; you will be left with minimal time to pick up when compared to regular degrees. Hence, it will be certainly difficult and you require methods to sustain your will and motivation to continue and move forward for a successful completion. Duel degrees are not meant for everyone as it needs plenty of pre-planning, course hard work, and co-ordination for a successful completion. When once you are through such a course, it will certainly help you to diversify and open yourself to new career opportunities.