This program is a unique combination of Computer Science and Social Science. I am not aware of any other under-graduate program in India with this combination. Of course in US universities (and other places around the world), one could do a double major but such flexibility is missing in Indian universities. And even where such options are available, most students consider studying anything other than Computer Science as waste of time. So, IIIT-Delhi has decided that instead of only offering a regular BTech (CSE) program with options of doing a second major in different disciplines, they will offer programs where the student commits to the second major right at the time of admission. This allows tailoring of program right from the 2nd semester. (There are other programs of this nature: Computer Science and Applied Maths, Computer Science and Design, and there are plans to offer more such programs in future.)
The program requires you to study all the core Computer Science courses, and a few electives in CS, but it also exposes you to social sciences. There are three Social Science streams offered: Economics, Psychology, and Sociology/Anthropology. The student has to choose two streams to do at least four courses in each of them, and do at least one course in the third stream. Besides, there are some foundation courses, and a few electives that have to be done in any social science discipline. (Besides these three disciplines that we will be offering several courses in, we do offer a few courses in Philosophy, Literature, History, and so on.)
Since one of the goals of this program is to produce social scientists who can understand and use computational technologies, the social science content has been chosen with a view that a graduate can seek admission in any reputed Master's level program. So suppose you want to do Masters in Economics, not only you will do minimum 4 courses in Economics compulsorily, but can also choose a few more electives, and with 6-7 courses in Economics, will be ready for admission to the relevant Masters programs.
The society and the industry today desperately need people with such combinations. If one wants to be an entrepreneur, understanding technology is not enough, the exposure to social science is extremely important. The same is true for those who want to be managers and administrators. Even product development will be significantly enhanced if one really understand the society for which that product is being developed. On the other hand, there is a serious need for social scientists who can use Computational technologies to improve our understanding of society. Data analysis has become an important tool for social science research. And of course, one can do inter-disciplinary work that overlaps with both CS and Social Sciences. Since there is a huge gap, it translates to a huge opportunity for the graduates of this program.
More details of the program can be read from this link on IIITD website.
We had an open house yesterday, which had a focus on the two new programs, including this one on ITSS. I am mentioning here a few typical questions or concerns that were expressed by students or parents in the open house.
The foremost was this: I am only interested in Computer Science, and I am considering ITSS only because I am unlikely to get admission to CS. Is the social science component a waste of time for me, or is it useful.
There is one question that many students ask us all the time. Why should a CS student study Chemistry or Thermodynamics or Sociology. Vikram has recently explained the need for diversity of courses in an educational program really well. To add to what he has already written, broad based education will really help in future because today, we have no idea what kind of jobs and careers would exist just 15-20 years from now. And remember, the person entering higher education today will probably be an active worker 50-55 years from now. How do educational institutions ensure that today's education remains relevant in an uncertain future world. Really speaking, the only thing we can do is to impart some knowledge and skills which are likely to remain relevant in the next 10 years, and impart the most important skill of learning new things on one's own. And learning becomes easier if you can make connections of new knowledge with the knowledge you already have. And therefore, having a broad based education ensures that you can learn more easily throughout your career, since it would increase the chances of making connections with past knowledge. This is one reason why liberal arts education is getting so popular lately. The hope is that a broad based education will enable you to do anything that you may want to or have to do in future.
So, coming back to the original question, my take is that even if you are not deeply interested in social science, having a diverse set of courses would be immensely useful to anyone. Of course, we would love to have students who are equally interested in CS and SS. That would make for a more interesting class and everyone learns better as a result.
Also, anecdotally, when ever we have asked senior alumni of IIT Kanpur regarding what courses have really benefited them in life, surprisingly, a large number of them mention social science courses. My personal belief is that studying a large number of social science courses is very positive even if someone was only interested in CS related careers.
The second question was: Is this program better or worse than Computer Science program.
It is difficult to compare two programs. However, one should note that whenever any university will think of starting a new program, it will certainly think of whether the program fills a need of the society and whether it can be offered with at least similar quality as its existing programs, if not better. It would be trivial for IIIT-Delhi to expand by simply increasing the number of seats in its existing very successful and popular programs. There was no need for a massive one year effort in planning a new course, which included taking feedback from 100s of people in India and abroad, personally visiting several universities and checking out websites of a lot more, having multiple workshops of subject experts as well as people from industry and academic thinkers of the country. So it is a program that we have invested in heavily because we believe that this combination is a great need of the society and the graduates will contribute in leading India to greatness.
Question 3: Would it be difficult for non-science students to compete with science students in the same class.
The IIIT-Delhi curriculum does not have any compulsory physics/chemistry/biology courses. And Mathematics at the 12th class level is required for admission. There may be 1-2 courses (like a course on circuits) where some exposure to Physics could possibly help, but in everything else Maths is sufficient background to perform well. We believe that a mixed class would lead to better learning and we are really hoping that many non-science students (from Delhi) will seek admission to the program.
Question 4: The all important question of placements/internships.
Howsoever I may like to convince students and parents that if you get good quality education, you will not have to worry about jobs and careers, this question keeps coming up. Well, obviously, we don't have data and won't have data for 4 more years. The only thing we can say is that even the first batch of IIIT-Delhi that graduated in 2012 had great placement, and they are currently either studying in great universities around the world, or working in top companies of the world, or are doing other interesting things like their own companies. And we have not looked back since then. The placement (if we consider the median salary offers) is one of the best in the country. And this is purely based on the quality of education that IIITD provides. If we could have a great placement for our first two programs when no one knew us, it should give confidence to prospective students and parents that it can only get better after we have made a mark in the education sector. So look at our faculty, talk to our students, convince yourself that we continue to provide high quality education and trust us that quality leads to great jobs and careers.
In terms of sectors and kinds of jobs/careers that could find this education very useful (though I must warn again that good quality education allows you to learn many new things quickly and hence get into other sectors/careers quickly), I think the Data-centric approach of some ITSS courses (Econometrics, Networks (Social Science Research Methods), Machine Learning (Pattern recognition, etc.)) are contemporary areas with a lot of job opportunities that will only grow in the shorter-run. Specific sectors include e-commerce/retail, Banking/Insurance sector, credit card companies with risk-management roles, consulting sector, data-driven journalism, new media/social media roles, and many more. Of course, any IT product company like all well known MNCs, would find this education highly desirable.
To end this article, let me quote from an article in Quartz:
As the vociferous Shark Tank host and entrepreneur Marc Cuban has recently observed about business careers: “I personally think there’s going to be a greater demand in 10 years for liberal arts majors than there were for programming majors and maybe even engineering, because when the data is all being spit out for you, options are being spit out for you, you need a different perspective in order to have a different view of the data. [You need] someone who is more of a freer thinker.”
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6 comments:
Sir BITS Pilani also offers an option of dual major in engineering and science where on can do 2 engineering major,2 science major and an engineering and science major in addition to that it also provide minors in finance, philosophy,politics,english etc.
It's good to see other institutions also providing such flexibility to their students
Why is there a lot of buzz(here, open house and Facebook group) about ITSS why not CSD ?
@Sahil, From IIIT-Delhi perspective, both programs are very exciting. However, many people seem to believe that Design is a more natural combination with CS than Social Science, and therefore, there are more questions about ITSS. People want to make sure they understand this and not miss out on a great program.
@Shikhar, BITS Pilani has been a pioneer in many ways. But as you point out BITS dual degree is between two engineering/science disciplines and not social science disciplines.
Sir, I have been called for counselling at iiitd for CSAM. Nobody seems to know much about the course as it is new, so I have contacted you. Is the course different from CSE? Is it better?
@Yatin, if you ask the question on the FaceBook group for Aspirants to IIITD, you would get quick answers. There is information about this program on the institute website. It is running for a year and the second batch is getting admitted. If you have a specific question which is not answered by the website, you can ask that either in the FB group or from me. Best wishes.
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