IIT Hyderabad launches India’s first academic credit course on ‘Goodness’

IIT Hyderabad has introduced a one-credit elective on goodness, character and human flourishing. Open to undergraduate students, the seven-session course explores personal responsibility, different dimensions of well-being and the idea of success beyond income and professional achievement.

Hyderabad: Moving beyond academic and professional skills to focus on character, responsibility and personal growth, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad has launched Goodness: Character, Responsibility and Human Flourishing (LA2270), the first academic credit course on goodness in India.

The one-credit elective is open to all undergraduate students, including BTech students across years I to IV and BDes students, with no prerequisites. More than 140 students have already opted for the course, a press release said.

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The course encourages students to reflect on what constitutes a good life, how success can be defined beyond income and position, and what responsibility individuals have towards society. Rather than prescribing a single model of a “good person”, it invites students to examine goodness critically and consider how it can be practised in everyday life, it said.

Across seven sessions, students explore the Goodness Index framework, human flourishing through the physical, mental, emotional, social and spiritual dimensions of life, Character Infrastructure, the Character Dividend, Personal Social Responsibility (PSR), and the connection between goodness and Viksit Bharat, it said.

The course aims to move students from understanding goodness to practising it and becoming more responsible individuals, concluding with a reflection on the kind of India they wish to help build. The course concept was proposed by the Institute of Goodness and adopted and approved by IIT-Hyderabad as an academic credit course, it added.