UPSC Aspirant experiences

When my joining was delayed and there was no update in joining, I started looking into UPSC. I got enrolled in VisionIAS, and used to attend online classes. The UPSC syllabus is very broad but the depth of things is not alot. You are expected to have a general understanding of everything. An in-depth understanding is good, but it's fine if you just know the basics. The UPSC syllabus official notification also very clearly mentions this, that no specialized knowledge is expected for the Mains paper. Although your optional should be veryyyyyy strong. The syllabus is broad, it includes History- Ancient, Mediaeval, and Modern. Focus is on Indian and some world history is also there. Art and Culture is also covered, you have Geography and both world and India. You have Science and Technology, International Relations, Biology - these are mostly current affairs based. My favourite is Polity though, fucking loved reading the constitution and devling into the depths of it. I think a lot of this 'broad knowledge' just directly comes from reading the newspaper in depth daily. If you read the newspaper daily, especially the editorials, you'll be having this 'broad knowledge' too. Now that I've started my job, I am sadly not able to dedicate a lot of to my prep. Let's see how it goes next...

IISc grad, prepared for it for 5 years. Wrote 3 mains, gave interview this year and missed on the final list by just 22 marks (Gen category). It is a life changing experience for sure and the knowledge you gain is immense. However, when it doesn't work out, it can be very tough to deal with mentally. One puts in so much time and effort for no tangible result. Started afresh after 5 years and had I taken a job right after college/gone to some IIM (which I believe I could have cracked), would have been making atleast 4-5x of what I'm getting right now. In my current company, people do look at you with respect so that's an added advantage. Also, someone who has prepared for UPSC *can* have a conversation on almost any topic.

I started preparing for it, family problems came as someone became really really sick and I spent more than 5 months sleeping on hospital floors and sitting all night and day on chairs. I went into financial crises, thought this isn't sustainable for me and my family with very slim chances of clearing for anyone. Started looking for jobs, now working as a Frontend developer SDE-1. Looking for a switch after 1.5yoe and will start interviewing once I start getting calls from decent enough companies. I'm far from where I want to be, but I'm trying and I know I will be there because I'm going to take actions for it

I too started binge watching the mock interviews of drishti ias even though i never had even 0.00001% inclination towards UPSC. They are so damn amazing and makes you feel about yourself that you know nothing about this world and that the candidate is so damn knowledgeable and def deserves to be there. I have huge respect towards the candidates. I love the interviewer named Dr. Vijendra Chauhan. Ps: Last year, a girl named Ankita Agarwal was UPSC all India rank 2. She was once a very close friend of mine in school. 😊

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