IIT Kharagpur top academic body approves wellbeing courses, ETEducation
Kolkata: The top academic body of IIT Kharagpur, the Senate, approved the two well-being courses — life skills and joy & success — on Wednesday, paving the way for their rollout from Jan. The move was initiated in the backdrop of a spate of suicides that occurred this year. The life skills course, compulsory for 2,000 first-year students, is a one-credit course but joy & success is optional for seniors and is a three-credit course.TOI earlier reported that the institute will roll out these courses from Jan 2026 to equip students with the emotional intelligence and psychological resilience necessary to “not only excel but also flourish in life”.Director Suman Chakraborty said, “The Senate has approved the life skills and joy & success courses, and they will be rolled out from Jan. Through pioneering courses like these, we are empowering our students not just to excel, but to flourish — to build resilience, empathy, and meaning alongside academic brilliance.”
An official said, “Faculty members, student representatives, and administrators from IIT Kharagpur and IIT Madras came together to frame the courses based on lived experiences of students, such as homesickness, feeling lost in a new academic environment, being ‘stuck’ in a branch one never chose, navigating freedom for the first time, managing rejection, comparison, failure, money, food, identity, relationships, language barriers, discrimination, and the silent pressure of expectation from family, peers, and oneself.”
A faculty member said, “Nearly 20 faculty members have been involved to conduct the life skills course in 10 batches comprising 200 students each. Students will engage in small peer circles, micro-communities based on interests, strength-mapping exercises, community cooking, campus exploration, failure stories shared by faculty and seniors, and problem-solving workshops rooted in hostel life. It will focus on building a sense of belonging and friendships, navigating self-worth and identity, understanding failure and developing resilience, learning emotional first-aid and knowing when — and how — to seek help, exploring the campus and finding purpose, communicating across cultures, languages, and differences, and managing hostel life.”He added that since the joy & success course is an elective one, students from second to fifth years can choose it and earn three credits. “The course follows an experiential structure with 10 sessions of two and a half hours each. Some of the core modules are habits, happiness & success, aspiration & awareness, re-framing failure & managing emotion, and gratitude & positive emotion.”
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