The Department of Electrical Engineering at IIT Madras currently offres B.Tech, M.Tech, Dual Degree, M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in the following broad areas:

The students for thr eight semester B.Tech undergraduate degree programme are selected through the highly competitive Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) conducted at the national level in which only about 1% of the candidates who appear for this examination are selected for admissions to different IITs. The M.Tech. programme is a four semester post graduate programme which consists of two semesters of course work and two semesters of project work. The students for this programme are admitted based on their percentile score in the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) and personal interviews conducted at IIT Madras. The M.Tech students can specialize in any of the following fields:

Additionally, a User-Oriented M.Tech. Programme in Digital Signal Processing is being offered by the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Madras to outstanding engineering graduates. The programme is jointly sponsored by M/s. Philips Semiconductors, Analog Devices, Ittiam Systems and HCL Technologies.

In addition to the regular B.Tech. and M.Tech. degree programs, the department also offers a Dual Degree programme in which the students receive B.Tech. degree in Electrical Engineering and M.Tech. degree in Electrical Engineering with specialization in Communication Systems or Microelectronics and VLSI Design at the end of 10 semesters of course and project work. The admission to this programme is through JEE.

The M.S. programme is a research based post graduate programme which consists of five courses and a thesis work which is more advanced than that in M.Tech. programme. The progress of each M.S. student is monitored through a Graduate Test Committee (GTC) which consists of the Head of the Depatment, guide(s), one member from the department and one member from an allied department. The Ph.D. programme in the department trains the candidates to pursue original research ideas and add to the current state-of-the-art and prepares them for academic as well as research and development works in the following fields:

The admissions to the research programmes (M.S. and Ph.D.) are through interviews conducted in the department.

The Department of Electrical Engineering, consisting of Communication Systems, Power Systems and Instrumentation and Microelectronics divisions is one of the largest departments. Postgraduate programmes are offered by all these four divisions with a wide choice of specialization. Over one hundred elective topics are offered to the graduate and post-graduate students.