Customisable and Industry-linked Curriculum
Individualized learning
NU achieves this by offering unusual flexibilities to students to customise their curriculum and by combining academic rigour with experiential learning through projects and internships in industry.
Customisable curriculum linked to industry
Students can customise their curriculum in various ways.
- Elective Courses (Professional Electives and Open Electives): In every programme, students can choose six to seven elective courses of their choice. This is equivalent to one full semester. This enables students to pursue courses in line with their interests and career goals right from the starting line.
- Projects as part of the prescribed course: Project-based learning is an integral element of the pedagogical approach at NU. As part of the prescribed course work, students can choose to work on projects that have a bearing on their career choices. The learning becomes even more meaningful and impactful because the projects are usually based on real-time problems faced by specific industries.
- Project courses: Every programme also includes Project courses, which are drawn from industry. Students can choose to work on problems related to their field or area of interest in these courses.
Industry-linked curriculum
NU is a keen proponent of collaboration between industry and academia as well. This is reflected in our curriculum, which is designed with inputs from and keeping in mind the needs of industry.
This is also evident in our pedagogical initiatives such as the Learning Premier League, which is based on project-based learning in a research and discovery mode.
Irrespective of their stream, all our first-year students participate in the Learning Premier League, a game-like competitive structure, where they work in teams on inter-disciplinary projects with industry connect. The projects are chosen in such a manner that they will be relevant to the industry four to six years down the line when the students graduate. The students continue to work on these projects as part of their coursework in their second and third years as well.
In addition, under the Capstone Project Course, students get to design and develop practical solutions to industry problems using the prevalent tech stack. This prepares them for their Industry Practice in the final semester.
The curriculum also includes practical experience in the form of:
- Summer internships: NU encourages students to take up a two-month summer internship in an industry or research organisation or university of their choice during their summer vacations. They have three such opportunities and can earn credits for the same. Students can thus test the waters and build their chosen career path in a planned manner through successive Summer Internships.
- Industry practice: This is NU’s flagship industry-linked programme and is the pathway for placements in an industry of the students’ choice. Industry Practice provides valuable experience to students in their chosen field as they get to apply their classroom knowledge in the real world besides gaining exposure to workplace culture. Students have the flexibility to decide the type of organisation (research, service, consultancy, marketing etc) they would like to join and the work they would like to do during Industry Practice. NU accordingly offers Industry Practice opportunities so that they can realise their aspirations. Many students, in fact, secure pre-placement offers and embark on their career journey through the Industry Practice.
