My Strategy
Neha Kumari. Rank – 26, CSE – 2014
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is the result of living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
These are golden lines spoken by Steve Jobs which i truly believed in. With these words in my mind and the beautiful dream of getting into Indian Administrative Services I left Jamshedpur to Bangalore.
The obvious questions in people’s mind—BANGALORE?? who goes to Bangalore for Civil Service preparation? Are you crazy? But call it destiny or intuition , I followed my heart which said a 1000 times not to get trapped by the Delhi coachingwallas.
On reaching Bangalore, I met Vinay Sir. Simple, dedicated, encouraging and inspiring ,He is an epitome of hard-work and courage. His emphasis on writing practice can be seen from the fact that just after half an hour of landing in Bangalore, I was made to answer questions from Ethics Mains paper! 🙂 🙂 🙂
He has been a guru,mentor and guide, more of a friend than a teacher in this most grueling and challenging journey of civil service preparation. Whenever in self doubt I would pour out our fears and inhibitions to him, and he like a very patient listener would say — ” Neha,You have nothing to lose. You can do it. Just believe in yourself and be consistent.”
It was the first offline batch of insightsonindia.com. Calling it a coaching institute would be degrading the philanthropy and high ideals which run in the background behind it. This site is extremely helpful for those people who live far away from the so called Meccas of UPSC preparation and are unable to afford the high coaching fees or can’t spare so much time to be physically present.
The prelims test series covered almost all the portion on which I solely depended, and the awesome result and feedback of prelims speak for itself. It is elaborate and covers the entire portion to suit us such that even a novice like me does not get overwhelmed by seeing the huge portion.
There is also a section called– Insights Secure Daily Answer writing Challenge — where descriptive questions from important articles from The hindu, Business Standard and other important papers are posted for the aspirants to write online. This is an excellent idea which help in building conceptual clarity and cultivating the essential traits of time management. Feedback from sir and other co-aspirants will help in filling the loopholes and lacunae in our preparation. It is the best way of reading the newspaper and helps in better memorization.
I strongly recommend the future aspirants to take daily at least 1 hour of answer writing practice to improve their presentation skills, answer structure, speed and time management, finally to maximise their marks. I followed it for one year and the result is there to see.
I was fortunate enough to manage to get enrolled in the Mains offline programme of Insights which did not include any conventional classroom program like typical coaching institutes.
We were given daily targets to read for the various topics in CSE Mains exam and we were expected to answer them in the limited time. This was extremely strenuous and needed 100% concentration and dedication. Few people found it hard to cope up or did not believe in the strategy, hence left it midway, unable to handle the pressure. But Vinay Sir would always say –” If you are able to handle this pressure, you will surely come out successful.” We as an uncut piece of diamond, would be chiselled to shine one day through this programme. 😀
It would have been impossible without Insights to succeed in this exam. Thank you Insights!
Post the Mains exam, though it was a relaxation phase, I was constantly in touch with the newspaper editorials. And after that I was told to work and prepare on my DAF. The personality test does not only check the depth of knowledge but more of what you principles you stand for. I tried to fine tune my opinion on various issues.
I took interview guidance from Vinay Sir and Kerala Samajam Academy, who had organised mock interviews with IAS,IPS,IRS and other officers already in service. This was an eye-opener for me and the fear and nervousness of facing the final interview board was not there.
Though I thought I did well in interview, I have been awarded 157 marks.
The journey was full of challenges but at every stage I could feel the grace of god, where I would get an internal drive to achieve what I aspired for. The life stories of great people like George Washington, Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam gave me strength and courage.
Family support at each stage was very crucial and helped me to fall back upon.
My friends Sameer, Ankita, Himanshu, Rinkesh, Aditi, Laxmi, Punitha,Krishna, Nitin, Mahendra, Ashish, Shailendra were pillars of strength and I owe this success to them too.
Mrunal (of mrunal.org) has been a great help and source of inspiration for me. If it was not for you economy would have been a very hard nut to crack! Thank you Mrunal.
Sir N.K.Vaid’s test series for Anthropology was also very helpful.
I thank all those people who have been a part of this beautiful journey.
I thank all of you for being there. 🙂 🙂
Note from Insights:
Neha came to Bangalore leaving her well paying job at Tata Steel. She started her journey in January – 2014. It was going to be her first attempt. From the Day – 1 to till Mains – 2014, she worked very hard. Almost every day she wrote something. She revised what she read. She followed a single strategy – read and write relentlessly what’s relevant for the exam. In her very first attempt, she has secured All India Rank – 26 in 2014 Civil Services Examination. She is an example to prove that anyone who works hard consistently by following a right strategy, would succeed no matter what comes in their way. Few days ago, before the final result was announced, she was already again into practising answer writing! Neha’s Mains marks is among Top Ten scores in 2014 exam. We wish her good luck in her future endeavours. You too can succeed if you have faith in you abilities and in a strategy that you choose to follow. Follow one strategy that works for you.
Neha has profusely thanked us which we honestly do not deserve. It was solely her hard work which earned her the Rank. It is us who are proud to have got such student amongst us. It is we who need to thank her for showing us that anyone with strong will power and right desire can succeed in this exam.
Disclaimer:
We are not promoting our classes through this article. Our intake will remain less than 30 and eventually (may be 2 years down the lane) we will strive hard to make this free for deserving candidates. We are posting it so that you can draw inspiration and know that you too can succeed in this exam in one single attempt if you work hard in a systematic way. To be honest, we follow the same strategy we follow on website in our class. It is just you need self-motivation to follow things posted here and work hard consistently (As Raju Mishra, Abdaal, Aparna, MSI and scores of others have done) Success will be yours today or tomorrow if you have put your 100% efforts in achieving it.
Note: We will notify admission details for Mains Offline Batch soon after Prelims – 2015. Now, admissions are closed. Please mail us only after the notification. Thank you for your support.
