Can you elaborate about what BITS Pilani offers as a campus in terms of education, admission and academics?

Let me just begin with a first statement or a vision which is being given by late Shri GD Birla, who is the founder of BITS Pilani that  "What do we propose to do here? We want to teach real science whether it is engineering, chemistry, humanities, physics or any other branch. We want to develop a scientific approach in Pilani, which means there would be no dogma. There will be a search for truth. What we propose to do here is to cultivate a scientific mind." So, keeping this preamble in mind, I would like to say that BITS Pilani has a very unique culture in terms of the academic curriculum which has been set up. Students who come here, get an opportunity and they are not compounded or restricted by a particular specific specialisation.

To give you an idea about our integrated first degree programs, we offer a bachelor's program which is called B.E in Chemical Engineering, Computer Science Engineering, Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering, Electrical and Electronics, Manufacturing, Mechanical Engineering and also we have B.Pharmacy. Further we have a five years program in M.Sc in Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Economics, Mathematics, Physics, and General Studies. So this is something which we called integrated first degree and the students will have an opportunity to do inter disciplinary, a lot of flexibility in terms of  combining the two programs together and convert them to multidisciplinarity. Apart from these, there are other possibilities such as minor in state of Arts niche areas which are also being provided to the students like in Pilani  we offer, film and media, finance, physics, data science, philosophy, economics and politics, english studies, entrepreneurship, material science and engineering. So, to begin with at the first degree level and combining with the other minors that we give. Higher degree is what we call the master's program where the students can go into biotechnology, chemical engineering,civil engineering has three specialisations: structural engineering, infrastructure engineering and management and transportation engineering, communication engineering, computer science engineering, design engineering, embedded systems, manufacturing system engineering, mechanical, micro electronics and software systems. Apart from that in pharmacy, we have a M.Pharm program. The kind of program which is given is like an integrated first degree program or the high degree program. Students have an  opportunity to choose what exactly they want to do and there is a lot of flexibility in terms of the way in which course content has been articulated at BITS Pilani.  I think among the education institutions in India, BITS Pilani is on front in terms of some of the very innovative programs such as practice schools i.e. PS 1 and PS 2 and students have an opportunity to spend two months in PS 1 and almost 6 months in PS 2 in industry which gives them an all round preparation to be more industry relevant apart from being a part of engineering.

Prof. Sudhirkumar Barai
Director, BITS Pilani, Pilani campus