IAS Shubhankar Pratyush Pathak who cleared UPSC in 1st attempt

Shubhankar Pratyush Pathak is one of the fortunate candidates who passed the UPSC exam on his first attempt and finished 11th. The UPSC has begun the application process for the 2023 exam. If you are preparing for the UPSC and are about to take the exam, you can draw inspiration from Shubhankar Pratyush Pathak’s story.

Shubhankar Pratyush Pathak is from the Bihar district of East Champaran (Motihari). Despite the fact that he has spent the majority of his life in Kolkata and Delhi due to his father’s posting.

He attended Sanskriti School in New Delhi for his 10th and 12th grades. He was taken aback when he failed his first attempt at the IIT-JEE. He wanted to study at IIT, so he decided to take a year off and re-study. Passed the JE exam on his second attempt, in 2016, and will graduate as an Electrical Engineer from IIT(ISM) Dhanbad in 2020. Shubhankar had finished his internship at Cisco Systems in his third year and received a Pre-Placement Offer (PPO).

Following that, he joined Cisco Systems as a software developer in August 2020 and resigned in February 2021 to fully prepare for the UPSC CSE exam.

Why should you choose UPSC?

My father is a civil servant from the 1995 batch, according to Shubhankar. Having followed his career closely, I was aware of the ups and downs, as well as the positive and negative aspects of the services. Furthermore, because I always lived in government quarters, I was constantly surrounded by civil servants.

Civil services as a career has always piqued my interest. However, the process of becoming an IAS has always been difficult for me. I often focused on rote learning in social science subjects in school, but I was very good at math. That’s why, after 10th grade, I decided to major in science.

This is how the planning process began.

Shubhankar said, I decided in the third year that I will prepare for CSE with all my heart. I read many toppers’ blogs, watched videos, and compiled a list of books. I attempted to read NCERTs but found them difficult to understand. Then I planned to work for a year before taking the exam.

Fortunately, the Covid lockdown was announced in March 2020. I was supposed to start at Cisco in July, but it happened in August. Then, thanks to Kovid, I was able to work from home. During this time, I decided that now would be the best time to prepare for the UPSC.

I began serious preparation for CSE in June 2020, with the preliminary exam scheduled for June 26th, 2021.

NCERT was misunderstood.

Shubhankar felt lost while studying NCERTs because he couldn’t understand most of the concepts. So I knew I needed assistance with the GS syllabus. As a result, I began taking coaching classes.

“I would like to clarify – coaching is neither necessary nor sufficient to pass the CSE exam,” he added. Many people passed the exam without coaching, and many others failed even after receiving coaching. Even if you choose one, self-study is the best option. Joining a coaching programme is not enough.

During his UPSC preparation, Shubhankar had a similar timetable.

‘I used to work for 8-10 hours a day,’ he explained. After that, I would watch the recorded videos of the classes that my coaching had uploaded. Every week, there were two 2-hour classes. On a daily basis, it used to take me about 3 hours to cover these (as I had to make notes as well). I didn’t have much time left by the end of the day, so I couldn’t read much. I used to get up at 5 a.m. and study independently until 7 a.m. Then he would take an hour to read the newspaper before getting back to work in the office. When I finished my classes in the evening, I would study for 30-45 minutes after dinner and go to bed around 11 p.m. My job was so routine for me.

In contrast, when he left his job in February 2021. Following that, I used to study for 8-10 hours per day. I divided my day into two halves: one for optional preparation and the other for GS preparation. Simultaneously, as the examination date approached, so did the amount of time spent studying.

Shubhankar provided advice.

Make notes only after reading the book three or four times, according to Shubhankar. When you do this, you will notice what you missed and what you forgot on subsequent readings. Along with this, make a note of the important topic that you frequently forget. Underline or highlight it and continue to revise later.