Pujya Priyadarshini, Topped UPSC after appearing for the 4th time.

“If you are a UPSC aspirant prepare for the worst, that’s the best and first strategy because when will failure hit you, you will never know and that might break your confidence most of the time but the ones who show the courage to stand up and face the failure again, wins in the long run” this was pretty much the life strategy of UPSC topper Pujya Priyadarshini whose journey is one of the most aspiring one and every aspirant who are trying hard and are still failing must get to know this incredible woman.

The educational journey of Pujya Priyadarshini.

Pujya Priyadarshini always knew she had something big to do but was figuring it out all through her former educational journey.

• Pujya did her B.com from the prestigious college of commerce, you might have already guessed it, YES, its SRCC Shree Ram College of Commerce which comes under Delhi University
• After her undergraduate degree, Pujya Priyadarshini did her masters in the city of dreams, New York City, where she pursued her post-graduation in Public administration from Columbia University
• Her working career started by working at PWC, after she returned to India where she worked for almost 2.5 years in Delhi, and after that, she also joined Reliance foundation in Mumbai
• While pursuing this she always had this passion to work as a civil servant and she never left her passion behind. 

Cracking UPSC was not easy! 

Pujya Priyadarshini cleared her exam on the 4th attempt which wasn’t an easy journey and took almost 5 years to crack the exam.

Pujya started her journey back in 2013, this was her 1st attempt and she wasn’t able to clear the prelims as well, though this year she was preparing for her final year B-com honors as well, and tackling both the preparations wasn’t proved to be a very good decision for her.

After this, she went to New York for her master’s and came back in 2016, when she wrote her UPSC paper for the second time this time she was able to do better than the last time and was able to go up to the interview round and was placed in the reserve list but sadly this time also she wasn’t able to make it. This was one of the toughest years faced by Pujya and she also admits it in many of her interviews.

In the year 2017, this time also Pujya gave the exam but this time was worse than the last time as she did not clear the prelims round, this was very tough for her to take and this time she was on the verge to quit !! 

The frustrating and ever tiring preparation journey seems never-ending but she was hanging with a string of passion moreover, her family members were also tremendously supportive of her and motivated her endlessly and this was also one of the biggest reasons that she gave herself one more chance in the year 2018.

And to everybody’s surprise in 2018 not only Pujya was able to clear the prelims and mains but also she bagged the AIR 11 in that year and was able to achieve her dream and passion of being a civil servant.

Marks sheet of IFS Pujya Priyadarshini

Top strategies by topper to crack UPSC ft Pujya Priyadarshini

• Prelims id one of the first and foremost steps of the examination and for the prelims, especially Pujya’s approach was very simple and approachable, she tried to keep her resources very sorted and less rather than going for various writers and publications for the same topic which is rather a waste of time, she went up to the institutes, self researched and picked the most valued source
• Priyadarshini also suggests that NCERT for ancient and medieval history was more than enough
• For modern history, she suggests Bipin Chandra in both the novel and the Modern History of India
• Taking up as many as tests before the prelims is also a must, as mentioned in a few interviews Pujya took almost 70-80 tests before her actual prelims, she used to take one every day at a fixed time. Taking tests gives you awareness of the value of the paper, whether you need to attempt 80 questions or 65 questions and this evaluation comes only when you have already attempted multiple tests
• Priyadarshini also mentions that her prelims were the hardest part and there is no surety if she could do it again, according to her the prelims were the biggest roadblock, and out of the four attempts she has not cleared the prelims twice
• For the sake of saying, it’s said that the whole universe is the syllabus, but that’s not practically possible right so the thing that you can do is practice and practice
• Another prospect of the Prelims preparation is Time management, sometimes you might feel that it’s not the bigger issue, but this comes into play when it’s time for taking up the educated guesses. In the paper, you will always find out 40-50 questions that you are confident about but the deciding factor comes when it about the later part of the questions where you do not know the sure answers and you need to make guesses and eliminate, and choosing between the question that you want to attempt and the one you should rather attempt takes time and analysis which comes over practice and here where the time management plays its part
• Apart from prelims, mains and interview rounds also play a significant part and for these rounds, every aspirant has their approach what works for them is needed to be found out by the hit and trial method sometimes because all different kinds of students can’t do their preparation with the same kind of strategy
• So to be the chosen one, it is very important to try a different method in the starting days to find out the perfect routine or sometimes it is advisable to try out different possible ways to improve in different ways

How to stay motivated after multiple failures in UPSC?

•  There are many times when you might think that “why am I doing this? If I want I can do a lot of other things and why only this?” also to achieve something you need to make a lot of sacrifices as well, sometimes thing comes to people at the different time some might clear the exam in the first go and the other might take ages but that doesn’t mean that the position was not meant for the later one, both the candidates deserve all of it, and it’s only a matter of time, hard work and of course luck.

• All the individuals must know and have a clear conscience of what they are doing and what they want, similarly, IFS Pujya always knew what she wanted no matter how hard the journey was but still never completely left her passion besides that P. Priyadarshini always planned an alternative option and thus she completed her master well and also kept her job.

           This shows that keeping a second option is not that bad and depends on the preference of the individual and has completely nothing to do with the success.  

FAQs