Is writing the UPSC exam for you? (Part 2)
Outlining the five things you need to write the UPSC CSE
The UPSC Aspirant stops for no one. Armed with more books than a raddiwala and her trusty study desk, she slogs day and night. She has to have at least 2 full-sized maps on her wall if she’s even hoping to clear prelims. He gives up his friends, family, food and exercise in order to study at least 15 hours a day. An aspirant who is foolish enough to start a relationship during preparation is certainly doomed. If an aspirant so much so takes a holiday once a quarter, he is not a ‘serious’ aspirant. It’s such a difficult exam, after all. It must require some amount of sacrifice.
It’s natural to feel nervous when taking up any new and challenging task. But somehow, nothing else has ever felt as daunting as UPSC to me. The sheer length of the exam, the all-or-nothing outcome and the immense personal sacrifices that one needs to make are what makes simply writing the UPSC an immensely overwhelming, life-changing experience. Explaining what it feels like to write UPSC is like trying to explain what swimming is like to someone who has never entered a pool. You can’t really understand it until you dive into the exam process yourself.
The one thing that everyone will agree upon is that the UPSC exam is really challenging. This much is obvious from the statistics themselves. While the debate around which exam is truly the toughest continues, I honestly think mere numbers shouldn’t deter aspirants. After all, we’re not numbers, but we’re people. Everyone tries to look at UPSC toppers and determine how this person managed to reach the summit. Was it their education, exam preparation method, sari they wore to the interview or the pen they wrote mains with? My answer is — it’s all of these, and none of these, at the same time. It’s a culmination of multiple factors and broad generalisations.
What I will do is, I will outline a couple of factors that I think help you to write UPSC well. It’s not that I say that these factors are completely necessary, but they can be broad guidelines to someone trying to figure out if the exam is a good fit for their personality.
Factor 1: You need to have a strong motivation
The why is much, much more important than the how. It might seem like a question from Roadies, but ask yourself this — ‘Why I am writing this exam?’. Before I wrote UPSC, I sat down and wrote a small paragraph about what I thought I would get from this examination. On days when I absolutely did not feel like studying another second, I’d open this note and read it. It was basic, but it always helped me look at the larger picture.
I personally believe that external motivation is not that long-lasting. If you’re doing this exam on a whim or because someone else asked you to, then it’s not going to work. If you have internal motivation and you feel like the job is going to be suited to you, then go for it. You should talk to people who’ve been in the services and closely understand the pros and cons of the range of jobs this examination offers. If you have a clear picture, then you avoid a lot of moments of confusion.
Factor 2: You need to develop discipline
I’d read this piece of advice during my preparation, and I thought it made a lot of sense. The trouble with chasing motivation is that people tend to go overboard. Spending 5 hours a day on Instagram following the minutest details of the lives of IAS officers is not ‘motivation’. Motivation needs to be used to bring you back to discipline. You have to give this exam the amount of time you would give to any full-time job (as if you are vying for a promotion). Every day, your focus should be to complete the list of tasks on your agenda, because you have already figured out why you’re doing this task (You can find advice about making a plan for UPSC here).
Discipline also does not mean just sitting down and studying. It means being able to check your progress, being genuinely open about feedback and working on weaker parts of your personality. I tend to be a little distracted and hyper, so I worked on trying to keep distractions at a minimum by keeping all electronic devices away for most of UPSC preparation. I went largely old school because I found that digital medium was too distracting for me. This isn’t rocket science, but it’s a solution-oriented mindset. That is the one you need to develop for the UPSC exam. Excuses are easy, and change is not. Discipline is actually the highest form of self-love, because you are forgoing temporary happiness for long-term happiness.
Factor 3: You need a strong support system
It’s hard to fight against the world, and sometimes it seems that aspirants are. We don’t use social media, we don’t go out, we don’t watch movies. Events in our lives are not marked by seasons but by prelims, mains and interview. It is a fully engulfing and somewhat isolating world. I felt overwhelmed only thinking about UPSC all the time, and so… I didn’t. Instead, I won over whoever I could to my side, and ignored those who didn’t understand. And then, once I cut out the noise, I truly understood who was there for me in this hard time.
Maybe your family isn’t able to afford coaching. Fine then, prep on your own and try to get into free coaching institutions. Maybe it’s not possible for you to prepare from your home. Fine then, find a library nearby. Maybe exam pressure is stressing you out. Fine then, do some meditation or therapy. There’s numerous problems you will face, and you need to be able to solve them in a way that’s best for you. But I think it’s hard to do that alone. I think you need someone to stand by with you during preparation. It can be family, friends or study buddies. Maybe that’s the extrovert in me speaking, but too much isolation and obsession with UPSC Exam is harmful.
Factor 4: You need to be content and happy
I always imagined that the amount of studying that UPSC requires means that you would not be able to have time for anything else. But as my preparation began, I found that I was able to make time. I met my friends once a week. I attended all the functions of my cousin’s marriage a month before mains. I had Whatsapp on throughout my preparation. But… I also wrote all the tests, gave all the mock interviews, and read all the required books. I planned out both my studying and relaxing time. For example, I took a half day off on Sundays for the first couple of months of preparation, but then had to cut it down closer to the exam. I worked out 3 times a week, but went to cult classes which are time-bound. All you really have to do is make sure you’re doing the required tasks, and doing them well. If you are, I don’t see why you can’t spend your free time doing things that make you happy. It is actually better for preparation as well, and better for life.
I think that people confuse being sincere and being serious. They imagine that the archtype nerd can clear UPSC — big glasses, ugly clothing and 24/7 obsession with studying. That’s maybe true of some aspirants, but not of every single aspirant. If that’s you, go ahead and be the serious person that you are. But I don’t think everyone is, and neither does everyone need to be. Be sincere, but seriousness tends to stress and increased cortisol levels are bad not only for your health, but also for your preparation. Don’t worry if you don’t ‘look serious’ because you play sports or go out with friends. Worry if you aren’t sincere with preparation. Honestly, most of my law school classmates who droned on about UPSC strategy failed to clear the exam.
Factor 5: You need to have patience
UPSC CSE is primarily a test of resistance and patience. You will take a long time to even understand the needs of the exam, let alone complete the syllabus. The level of the content isn’t very tough — except for optional subjects, perhaps — but the volume compounded by the level of competition makes it a long-drawn process. So you need to sit and learn things which are quite boring (I never understood it when people called UPSC preparation the best phase of their life). Also, you need to have patience with yourself as you would undergo normal ups and downs through the course of this examination.
The actual length of giving the UPSC Exam is also going to be longer than you expect it to be.A year or two of your life exchanged for an exam — it doesn’t seem so bad, does it? But as experience shows, time is relative. A holiday that is 4 days long seems to go by in the blink of an eye, and UPSC preparation seems to consume your entire life. Even for those who start preparing for UPSC with a very certain exit strategy, those plans tend to fall apart when you realise you might not get the service or cadre of your choice. You may not realise it, but even about 60% of the IPS batch each year writes UPSC again (and yes, I am in this 60%). Another thing you should have is patience with the outcomes. So the idea is that when you write the exam, you should be okay getting any rank, any cadre and any service. Or, you should have patience for repeated attempts until you get your desired service and cadre.
Keep reading! I’ll be covering whether you are suited to the jobs that the UPSC CSE offers in Part 3.
If you have any doubts, suggestions or feedback, feel free to email me on nirjashahcse@gmail.com. I actually respond to most emails within a week.
