VTU: UG students can intern for full final year, take theory online

BENGALURU: Visvesvaraya Technological University will allow internships and projects up to a year in semesters 7 and 8 for engineering students. The students will get to complete their theory subjects for these semesters online instead.
Currently, students are mandated to complete an internship of 6-8 weeks in their seventh semester.
As per the decision, the full final year can be set apart for internships and projects by engineering students.Those courses that students are expected to be completed in this period along with the project work can be done in an online mode in the platform provided by the college. Or else, the students may be permitted to take up these courses well in advance—like in the 6th semester. With this, the students can complete the courses within the academic duration of the programme.
The proposal was put forward at a discussion of the board of studies held in January and finalised soon after. The change, if implemented will be from the 2022 batch and is in accordance with UGC guidelines regarding academic collaboration. The 2022 batch students will be in their final year of the course in 2025-26.
“As we interact with the companies, we realised that they are unhappy with the non-flexibility of the current academic programmes. The students are worried about attending classes for their theory subjects while interning with companies. So, it has been decided that students can dedicate their full time to internships and later projects, or vice versa. They can complete their theory subjects online,” said Vidyashankar S, vice chancellor.
“UGC allows online learning up to 40%. This is therefore permissible under the norms,” he added. The students can do internships within the country or abroad. They can also do it online with foreign companies.
The university will also build a platform which will collate all the internship opportunities which students can apply to. “We will guide the students for internships. They have to intern with credible organisations. Bringing an internship certificate from any organisation will not help,” he said. Students can intern and complete projects with the same company or various ones.
A committee will be formed to finalise and suggest the draft modified scheme for the 7th and 8th semesters of the 2022 scheme. The same is being proposed for postgraduate programmes as well with a one-year internship leading to the completion of the project work.