Back from #Paradox2025 at IITM! I have always had this sense that their online BS program attracts a diverse audience and "democratizes access", and it was nice to see this feeling being quantified in the numbers that were presented in the opening ceremony of the convocation. 🧵
Background: the program implements a "funnel approach".
Rather than having a restrictive admission with ~everybody graduating, the program has a rather low barrier to entry and gets progressively more challenging. Multiple exits, retries... a lot of flexibility overall.
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It's also accessible in terms of finances. It is naturally more affordable than comprable offline programs. Further, there is a lot of support for financially weaker students, or students coming from financially weaker sections of society.
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As a result (I imagine), the program attracts a really diverse set of learners. There's diversity of age: learners the full range is <20 to >70, with a substantial number of them being retirees or mid-career folks looking to upskill/transition/learn for fun.
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Although not surprising, fairly incredible geographical diversity too!
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I want to bring up and partially address two questions that often come up in the context of online programs:
(a) what about the lack of offline features?
(b) is the program rigorous, do students do well/have a future/etc?
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Offline aspects. Many learners are doing this program on top of a regular college degree and/or job.
When possible, the online programs have offline features. For example, the ES program is smaller than the DS program, and they actually run offline labs at IITM every term.
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The program has regular offline social events... several meetups across the country and even beyond. Reminds of when Coursera had just started and I was doing a course that had a study circle that met at Lalbagh on weeknds or something like that :)
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The program has a number of fairly active student clubs. Although most of their activities might be coordinated online, this is something that still gives a sense of community, which is an important part of the offline experience.
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I caught some glimpses of the cultural events at Paradox and it's really impressive how the teams planned/rehearsed all their performances weeks in advance and mostly online!
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At IITGN, we have been hosting a small number of students during summer. One of these students from the cohort last year spent a year at IITGN working with CCL, and another is joining the PhD program later this year.
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IITM is actively partnering with various organizations to do more of this sort of thing -- offline courses, workshops, internships, etc. The program opens doors to a bunch of such opportunities. This brings me to the other question, of how well people are doing in the program.
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I'm not sure what are good proxies for performance/legacy, especially for a program that's just started. But if it's any indication, a chunk of the top GATE rankers were students of the BS/DS program.
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Higher ed admissions are also looking very promising:
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I'm sure we'll be hearing more about placements in the days to come. I am aware that there has been some debate on this particular aspect, but based on my anecdotal interactions, I am super optimistic about how things will pan out. Meanwhile, learners have been going places:
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Also a huge shout out to the team that keeps this going. The logistical aspects of running a program at this scale... 🤯 Can't overstate how impressive the whole team is: from the folks who had the vision and conviction... to those managing operations, and the last-mile gang.
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Overall, it's been a privilege to have had a chance to observe this program come together, even if from the very distant sidelines. Congratulations to all the learners who are working through this, and shout out to the team that made all this possible.
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Watch Andrew's presentation here (snapshots are from his slides):
youtu.be/Ed0eBCuOxrU?t=1989
/FIN