{"id":37502,"date":"2023-10-02T11:11:55","date_gmt":"2023-10-02T05:41:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=37502"},"modified":"2025-04-22T22:56:48","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T17:26:48","slug":"arts-programme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/arts-programme\/","title":{"rendered":"IIT Bombay\u2019s liberal arts programme for engineering undergrads"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Why in news?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>LASE programme at IIT Bombay<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>How can a student get admitted to the LASE programme?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Why could the program not commence in the past two years?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What\u2019s next for LASE?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why in news?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>In 2021, IIT Bombay announced a liberal arts programme called <strong>\u2018LASE\u2019<\/strong> for its undergraduate students admitted via JEE Advanced.<\/li>\n<li>Touted as the first-of-its-kind in the country, the programme was supposed to give the students a chance to customise their degree as per their interests.<\/li>\n<li>Two years since the launch, however, <u>the programme has not found enough takers to begin operations<\/u>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>LASE programme at IIT Bombay<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>About<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>LASE stands for <u>Liberal Arts, Social Sciences, and Engineering<\/u>, and was a one-of-its-kind multidisciplinary program launched by IIT Bombay in 2021.<\/li>\n<li>It was aimed at giving the undergraduate students a chance to move out of their respective engineering departments at the end of first year, and customise their degree as per their interests.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Degree to be awarded after completion of the course<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The students under LASE would graduate with a Bachelor of Science at the end of four years in one of the following:\n<ul>\n<li>Natural Sciences;<\/li>\n<li>Engineering Sciences;<\/li>\n<li>Social Sciences;<\/li>\n<li>Art and Design.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The institute promised to assign each student with a faculty advisor to help them choose and customise their coursework.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Idea behind the programme<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The idea behind the programme was to give greater flexibility to students who may be interested in disciplines other than their respective streams of engineering.<\/li>\n<li>It aimed to provide an alternative of a choice-based education to a student at IIT Bombay, as opposed to a predefined branch of engineering.<\/li>\n<li>The programme also came on the back of the New Education Policy advocating for multidisciplinary education.\n<ul>\n<li>The recently released school curriculum framework, following from NEP, allows students to choose subjects across streams of Science, Arts, and Commerce in Classes 11 and 12.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Difference from a conventional BTech degree at IIT Bombay<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Students were free to enroll in courses from other departments at IIT Bombay earlier too.<\/li>\n<li>However, the number of such courses was limited by the requirements of their respective streams of engineering.<\/li>\n<li>Under LASE, however, a student could take any number of courses from any department at IIT Bombay.<\/li>\n<li>An undergraduate student pursuing an engineering degree at IIT Bombay graduates with a Bachelors of Technology (BTech) at the end of four years.<\/li>\n<li>A student admitted to a LASE programme would graduate with a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>How can a student get admitted to the LASE programme?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Students could migrate to LASE from their respective streams of engineering at the end of first year, after having gone through the selection process.\n<ul>\n<li>Students at IIT Bombay begin studying the courses under their respective branch only from second year onwards, and study common subjects in their first year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The programme was to select about 30 students, who would then take up courses from different departments at IIT Bombay.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why could the program not commence in the past two years?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The programme was not met with as much enthusiasm as its makers had hoped for.<\/li>\n<li>As a result, the number of students who made it to LASE in 2022 and 2023 (3 and 6 respectively) were less than the minimum number required to run any course at IIT Bombay i.e., 10.<\/li>\n<li>There are number of reasons for the low levels of interest:\n<ul>\n<li>apprehensions about a BS degree in LASE instead of a traditional BTech degree from an IIT,<\/li>\n<li>the risk aversion towards something novel and unfamiliar, and<\/li>\n<li>the dismissal of liberal arts as a concept.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What\u2019s next for LASE?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>IIT Bombay has discontinued branch changes from next year onwards, owing to the suicide of a first-year-student earlier this year.<\/li>\n<li>In this context, how LASE will function is yet to be decided.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1) What is Bachelor of Science?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>A Bachelor of Science (BS) degree is an undergraduate degree that focuses on the technical aspects of a field. It&#8217;s often a requirement for competitive jobs and can open doors to many careers and further study options.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2) What is Bachelor of Technology?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>A Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech.) is an undergraduate degree program that covers all fields of engineering and technology. The program is designed to provide comprehensive knowledge of: Mathematics, Engineering principles, Computer applications, Programming, Electronics.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/iit-bombays-no-takers-8963985\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Why IIT Bombay\u2019s liberal arts programme for engineering undergrads has not found takers<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LASE was a one-of-its-kind multidisciplinary program launched by IIT Bombay in 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":37503,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-37502","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}