 Good evening all right so you are all here for the optional orientation right is there anyone sitting with any other thoughts in mind how many of you already decided and recording in progress like already taken the admission anyone like that here all right okay so the rest of the people are undecided all right fine so I am Rajita and I be handling your entire sociology optional I happen to be one of the first batch students of Shankar sirs and I did my undergraduate in engineering and subsequently my masters in public relation and regarding my UPSC experience I went to two UPSC interviews and subsequently I got selected with the all India 7th rank in CSIR's administrative services examination of 2009 I didn't quite like the job because it was very desk oriented job and I quit my job and then I've been into teaching so initially I started teaching for students who are preparing for personality test for group discussions for CAT that is for the management aptitude test and then for IT Madras there's a humanities entrance coaching it's called as HSE which students take up up for an integrated course soon after your 12 standard doing MA in development studies economics and all that so I started taking classes for that and since 2013 I have been into optional teaching so this is how I started my career with civil services teaching as such so it's been almost 10 years since I started taking classes and so here I am to tell you about the optional subject alright okay so as far as optional is concerned any optional subject for that matter there are usually two papers that you have paper one where you'll have 250 marks on world level and paper two of the same subject will be of India level so any optional you take this is how it is going to be alright so sociology is also very similar to that paper one deals with world sociology and paper two deals with Indian sociology and now we'll go into what exactly is present in this particular option I just go and tell you unit wise what is there alright okay so paper one it's called as fundamentals of sociology and in this particular paper totally there are 10 units and the first unit is about how the subject evolved and exactly what are all the things which had been the background regarding the emergence of sociology as a subject so somewhere in 1839 is when this subject started taking its shape and ever since it has been you know regarded as a social science so it started like that so the first unit deals with it second unit is when initially it was like considered that Europe is where this entire subject got created so there was this idea about how to believe the subject so many theories etc there can I believe it or not and Europe entirely was believing in science they wanted to have proof for everything so then there were these set of people who created the subject who wanted to make sociology also very provable so to align sociology something like how physics or chemistry or biology would get regarded at that time they started creating certain methods and so the second and third unit is about that how did sociology get its prominence how did it become believable how did it become credible as such how to improve the research that we do in sociology etc okay so let's take a very common statement so you would have all heard about something called as the nazi theory right the Aryan superiority theory which was held very strongly by a person called Adolf Hitler he was the previous ruler of germany right so if you look into this particular theory certain things which are there among the people as a theory is it actually true do Aryans actually have that kind of superiority like how Hitler regarded or is it like it is something that he only created or is it that the society had created so when you take something like a theory when you take take something like a statement or you take something like a rumor you start doing research on that to find out whether there is any authenticity in that statement for example we recently saw about a news getting circulated from money some incident which had happened very long back but it's getting viral right now so there was a lot of discussion regarding fake news so whether a news is real or whether it is fake etc the discussions began so how do you verify so there are separate authorities who verify the credibility of a particular news before it gets on to the public but social media as such is not having any regulator so come come to a press come to a newspaper come to a video there is a difference in how you take a news to a person isn't it so like that if I have something like a statement if I have something like a rumor is it true or not I want to verify like that I do in sociology some statements are there is it true or not like that they started creating methods so how will you find out for example you go and watch a movie right you order something on swiggy or zomato at the end of the day there is a feedback which you give as a customer to the delivery agent right to the to the person who had given you the food and the hotel which had served you that kind of a food you give a rating from that rating you kind of identify so when you want to book an ola cab you look into the star rating of that particular driver whether he or she is actually having a very good rating that decides so a person who is having anything about 3.5 only is considered to be more trustable so whenever a person does an ola ride the drivers always have this habit of telling us if you like the journey please do mark me at the end like this they will tell you isn't it similarly when you call a customer care executor say you are making a call to an air tell and then you are making some query and then at the end of the day they will tell you see there will be a feedback thing that comes in the end so please give your comment at the end and which is used for recording purposes for training purposes like that they will say so what am i doing i'm conducting a survey right so survey is a research technique right like i do a scaling i do a star rating that's called as a scaling so we'll use those technical terms which we use practically in how this research work is done so just that your swiggy is going to become some gender studies so instead of swiggy you're going to analyze gender instead of zomato you're going to analyze race instead of any other thing where you have done the rating you're going to analyze some other topic which is here and that all is what we do in the research now the fourth unit is about who are all the main people who created the subject who all contributed to this particular subject so what did they say what are their theories and are their theories actually applicable now or not say for example during the covid time we saw a scenario where a large number of people were doing online classes right so online classes became something like very common till then some people only were doing but then it became very mandatory at that time so when i look into that i'm sitting inside a room or i'm sitting in a space sharing that room with other people how comfortable am i in doing that online classes sometimes what happens i'm not having interaction with any other person like how i had in school so some people they found it very very frustrating so there's a term for this it's called as alienation that that word was given by maths it's present in your syllabus but then when we study alienation first we will study from his perspective and then we will try to apply like currently is there any perspective for alienation right we all wore masks during the covid time so even otherwise we all wear masks isn't it we are not what we are inside outside to all the people we don't show what sort of a person we are so even this mask is just a physical mask even if this mask weren't there we still wear masks we mask up personality we are someone else but we show that we are someone else so the mask actually gave us a huge cover it was like one like how we wear some uniforms and the camouflage our identity you know mask gave that kind of a it made it very easy for some people some people liked it some people didn't like it isn't it because then you smile also you'll not even know whether the person is smiling then we started looking into the wrinkles that will come in the eye as to whether the person is actually smiling or not right so some current applications of what exactly is this alienation is it good is it bad what does it do to the society so like that something on a theoretical base and then we try to connect whether this has any kind of weightage in the present day society okay so here we do have some kind of applicative part as well next all these units that whatever you have it is very highly correlated paper one and paper two we'll get correlated okay so if you take this unit five stratification and mobility so here what we do is we study about a cast we study about class etc okay let me come up with a very practical thing some of you would have gone through competitive exams even before you came to UPSC like in your 12th class some of you might have written neat some of you might have written other competitive exams isn't it so when you gave that there would have been something called as OBC NCL OBC non creamy layer so OBC is based on your cast and creamy layer is based on your monetary position that is it's based on your class right so practically speaking we use this called as OBC creamy layer in general we talk about EWS economically weaker sections right so like this practically whatever we are discussing those things what is the technical word behind it is what is there in the fifth unit okay so we'll be studying some theories and we'll be studying something very practical similarly you would have heard about something called as a decriminalization of homosexuality right and recently also in the supreme court there are some cases which are going on into legalizing homosexuality so as of now we have only decriminalized it right but we have not permitted marriages among homosexuals in India but world in some other parts of the world these things are considered okay these things are considered absolutely normal fine so when I discuss about gender I discuss about gender fluidity I discuss about transgenders all these topics is what you will be studying here in the fifth year okay and the sixth unit is from which all subjects there have been contributions to sociology this is something like a fusion okay so sixth unit is from economics what has come to sociology next unit is from political science what has come to sociology from philosophy what has come to sociology ninth unit from anthropology what has come to sociology and tenth unit is presently how sociology is changing how is technology influencing sociology how is education influencing the society like that so this subject because it was one of the last social sciences to have got created it is something like a little bit of everything is a part of sociology so when you study sociology it is like literally something like general studies wherein you get a taste of little bit of politics little bit of economics little bit of history little bit of anthropology everything is a part of it and what part of it has come that part alone we are studying okay so that's what you have as 10 units in paper one now paper two there are certain specific unit certain units are correlated to paper one okay so specific units is like say for example the entire paper two we will not be telling one two three four we'll be saying a b and c it's divided into a b and c and under everything there are subsections so totally there will be 15 units that we have so in total there are 25 units but practically speaking there are not 25 units because everything will get correlated in paper two I'll tell you how it is getting correlated okay so perspectives of Indian society like we had world thinkers here we are having Indian thinkers so here we are having three important Indian thinkers so there six and here three nine thinkers totally we are having thinkers means who have contributed to the subject who have created or who have added to the subject are called as thinkers okay impact of colonial rulers from history what has come to sociology so here we'll be studying about freedom movements how did it create social reform how did it change the position of the people all that will come as a part of it right caste system already in paper one we studied something called as race like that and all we I told you the word class I told you the word caste there itself so this unit and that unit is actually correlated so here we'll be studying more in terms of Indian sociology right so how is caste and politics getting correlated how are their issues in the society how are their conflicts in this conflict means fights okay then tribes in India this is exclusive this is something from anthropology to sociology and only Indian tribes will be studying we are not studying world tribes and in tribes also we are more studying tribal policy we are not going to study this tribe this is the characteristic this is the feature and all that that will be done in anthro in socio we are more bothered if you become a collector in a tribal region what is the kind of policy that you'll do different between a normal rural area and a tribal village or say you get posted in the northeast so there you have cities which are tribal cities the present problem that's going on in manipur cookies versus mateys so one is a group of people who have a tribal status and another is a group of people who do not have a tribal status and who are aspiring for a tribal status so when I have to talk about a conflict like this some communities presently having a reservation and a new community wants to have a reservation and the existing community is not ready for it right state of Tamil Nadu also had a very similar issue there was a community called as Devendra Kula Velalas they come under SC status they wanted to move out of SC to become OBC but existingly there is someone called as Velalas Velalas are already having OBC so they've created a they had some differences of opinion that if you give the same name it will become confusing so you create a separate name so that if people want let them move out of SC status it is a willingness no if I want I take it up if I don't want I don't know it's like that okay so discussing about all that is what we will do in the practical sense fine next classes there in sixth unit we studied something called as influence of economics here it is again the influence of economics here influence of anthropology in paper two so this one unit and this one unit is the influence and religion and society there we studied influence of philosophy here also it is in paper two perspective Indian society perspective so it is many things are getting repetitive that means I will study a concept that concept example world level example India level that's all that concept thinker world level thinker India level that's all concept is not going to change so half of it is going to be repetitive according to paper one and paper two they are getting interrelated only okay this is the last portion that you have vision of social change so creating some legislations like let us take for example we created a legislation called as mtp medical termination of pregnancy act so in a society we found that over a period of 50 years population we wanted to control so we asked people to do family planning we started this right from 1952 but when people started to do family planning they started killing their girl children and they wanted to have only boy children even economic survey 2019 discussed this scenario called a sun meta concept that is people want to have as many sons as possible and we are killing our daughters so we are facing not just a revenue deficit or a current account deficit or a fiscal deficit we are facing a daughter deficit in India okay so when I face a daughter deficit right what do I do to overcome the daughter deficit I have some law for it and that's called as mtp so finding out the sex of a fetus and aborting the fetus because it is going to be a girl baby or aborting a fetus because it's going to be a boy baby it is going to be an injustice to the either of the child right so you're not supposed to do that we had a legislation for it so how does a society change when you bring a law so we were a society which practiced sati a law came in and over 150 years 1829 1929 1987 three times we had to keep on making amendments today to some extent we know that known instances of sati is not so certain things when you create a law-based change it will take a lot of time to trickle down in the society so like that what change is getting created in the society how did constitution create a change how did education create a change like that what do we want India to be all that is a part of this vision of social change and rural and agrarian transformation so you would have heard about certain things no PM Kisanski in PM Kisanski 6000 rupees directly to the farmer the government is giving in three installments of 2000 2000 2000 so I'm going to launch a scheme like this what is the kind of transformation that is happening in rural India is it creating a rural development is it alleviating or is it bringing down the poverty all that did green revolution actually make us to come out of our bad situation did it show the fault lines in the society did it tell us where we are going wrong can we improve from there all that in terms of our agriculture what is the current status where we have to go what are all our problems all this is covered here as well as in unit B some parts are static some part of okay then already we study politics and society I told you in paper one same thing in paper two also social movements this is a part of this only separately we are having it as a unit but it is a part of politics only population dynamics this is unique I told you about dotted deficit like that you'll keep hearing certain terms no Japan actually is facing a scenario called as deep population so there is a shrinking of the Japanese population age is going higher number of new bonds are reducing in the society so we call that there is a reduction in the population size a reduction in the population rate like these some terms and all we use know all that is a part of population dynamics similarly you'd have heard certain words that during covid time lot of people who migrated they were reverse migrating they are coming back to their villages itself so like this we hear certain things so those terms are all what we have here in population dynamics okay so this is an error it's like uh challenges to social transformation is the word okay so what are the challenges that we are having right so what are all the challenges that we have one big challenge that is there is say some issues like communalism uh issues like fundamentalism violence against women then environmental degradation presently what are all our current affairs related problems all that is what we have but here we'll not be studying it like GS we'll be studying it is in terms of what is the consequence on the society how does it impact the people so I have a okay Chennai declared a day zero a few years back day zero means zero water no new water for drinking purposes supply for water was entirely cut in every part before this we had a day zero declared in South Africa right so like this if I have some situation called a day zero how am I going to tackle so this is a problem of urban spaces similarly Bombay is getting heavily flooded urban flooding is a problem so when I study this in geography I study it as a concept called as urban flooding I talk about tribute trees distribute trees aquifers how we make constructions on top of it and all that that's very technical but what we study here is say there is a problem in terms of urban flooding how does it impact the old how does it impact the children how does it impact the people who are living in slums who gets more impacted like this we start making a sociological analysis about it see usually when there are floods there are also situations when new crimes come up isn't it it becomes very easy to create some you would have never expected such a situation will happen like that right so certain things about that kind of an analysis is what we do here right so these are all the changes that are happening to the two-hour society okay so one part of the syllabus is exclusively for paper one exclusively for paper three 60% of the syllabus is correlated between paper one and paper two okay so this is how you have as the pattern in the syllabus all right okay so now for people who are new to sociology what are the pros and what are the cons okay so syllabus is like from scratch you don't have a background in sociology and you want to start you know to read you can read sociology and you need to have five to six months of time to prepare when you start from scratch you don't need to have any you know proficiency in the subject previously to pick up the subject you can start from scratch subjects like these are easy to pick up because it's very highly correlated to what you read in the ncrt itself so whatever you see around you you try to give it a new dimension and you start writing so from the basics and degree level is what is expected out of here and the syllabus itself is very beautifully correlated okay next is the results i'll talk to you about the results it's very highly clearing 16 to 19% clearance rate is there among those candidates who appear for means right and syllabus syllabus is very limited as i told you because it's correlative half of the time so you study a concept just your examples have to change and one important aspect is you don't need to recreate textbooks that means if you are a person who understands a concept you can write it in your own language in your own sentence you don't need to mug and reproduce it onto your textbook if you want to do it you can do it if you don't want to do it you need not do it so it gives the freedom for any kind of a student to survive in this particular subject just retain the keyword and write it in a way that it is understandable to the evaluator that's more than enough all right and reference books plenty available and of course i'll cover entirely whatever is your syllabus what are the challenges if you are a person who can't create sentences that is you should write simple ncrt language like full sentences if you have a problem in sentence creation no that means you can't write broken broken sentences you're writing for example uh say i want to tell the temperature has risen in the classroom so just temperature is rising alone is not enough i have to say temperature is rising because of this and i have to complete the sentence so you have to complete the sentence you have to write it in a sentenceical format and for this matter any optional subject you have to write it like this gs it's enough if you write half answers that means hanging points are okay in gs hanging points means only keyword is there you're not writing it in sentence it's okay but you can't survive in any optional subject with writing only keywords you have to write it in sentence so sociology you need to write you want to know what level you have to write just pick up the ncrt and see what level it is there that level if you have simple basic level it is there it is more than enough but you should write sentence and down south there is very very less awareness about sociology because science usually dominates if you go to the northern parts of india the arts groups dominate so there is a general more awareness in southern india that is not their professional courses are very highly regarded and so there is definitely which is like half of the time people want to pick up something which is very aligned with what they have studied in school half of the people who didn't have studied these things in school so it's new for them so that's that's something which they don't so they feel scared but there's nothing to feel scared about it but yeah this is the general thing that we have down south okay now whatever whoever tells anything this option is better than that optional please don't believe anything every optional creates equally good results you compete within that optional okay there used to be a time wherein marking patterns of optionals were very different from 2019 onwards all the optionals they are fetching good enough kind of marks you have to do well in that option so you have to find where where you like something where you're able to relate to something and of course where you have some kind of a guidance so there is nothing like this is better than that that's then if you have any doubt in what i say you just take the top 20 rackers and you see the background of their persons you'll find that they are belonging to different optional so i'm not telling this for the sake of it you can just check and see all right and yeah this thing i've already explained okay so what do you get if you do sociology other than this what all does it help you with uh yeah so it helps you with your gs paper one so gs paper one there is something called a society in india and on an average you have six questions so 75 to 85 marks comes from that and essay writing usually you have at least one essay which is based on some particular core subject the content that you build from the optional you can use it in the essay writing as well so that's one and of course irrespective of your background anyone gets only social issues in the interview they ask you about your district issues your state issues your profession related issues all that so everyone has to touch base on social issues because we are going to deal with social issues only in reality so interviews are generally very helpful when we have this background and in state services examination many state services examination either it's a part of a general study so some places like in up in karnataka in west Bengal in all this there is a separate option subject there also it is the same syllabus only that you're having one or two keywords will be different but otherwise you can just keep repeating so many people they clear other public service commissions group one also with this preparation and of course say for example let's be practical we put in some years we are not able to crack the prelims after a particular time say we've given two to three attempts and then after three attempts we are looking for something like a backup because we have the age but after a particular time we can't keep stagnating there so we look for other options which is with whatever we have already studied so that we can create a backup and continue with our preparation so usually students get into consulting policy consulting so they get placed into ipad they get placed into so they do some kind of you know skill upgrade courses for example in aim bangalore there is a rural fellowship program so there it's like a it usually happens in the month of october and you get recruited like as of it is a carder placement only around 600 candidates get placed you get a stipend amount also but the core portions there it is like very similar to how you have a zu upsc preparation so you have a written round you have a you know a discussion round and then you have an interview stage and all that so many people keep that as a backup option they go into that they take one year there and then finally they give the exam so just in case the prillins gets a little delayed your main preparation should be such that whenever you clear prillin you should be in a position to get into the rank list so for that some backups like this in terms of policy in terms of research work right for example you would have noticed two years back gate sociology has come so it is offered a pg program in sociology so the same and the thing that you study for the optional it will help you to clear that entrance examination you can do your masters you can do your phd as well and then partly you can do the preparation so for people in case after a couple of years we feel stagnation at the prillin's level and we are looking for something like a backup this could be some kind of a backup wherein you stay rooted in your preparation and you don't need to be financially dependent on your folks anymore okay so for that this is there is some kind of other avenues which are available but people generally don't talk about it you need to know when you get into something you need to know in and out of what you're getting only then it makes sense all right okay so fine so now after what we'll do with sociology is we'll cover everything from the syllabus and we'll be starting classes from coming Thursday the class time will be five to seven thirty it's not five thirty to eight it is five to seven thirty okay and we'll be classes having classes on all weekdays a few days if in case we have any other extra classes because this means if there is any pattern change I might have to cover that as well so ideally if we start now I will complete by January I'll take time till January to complete so on an average we will have at least 90 classes it might stretch to 100 to 103 classes it depends okay depends is because it will if I have to create results I have to go in depth and you have to be with me you have to just follow the course so after you finish each and every unit we will be having sectional tests so sectional test means say I we do unit one unit two then you will be writing small portion tests out of that and you will be going in a integrated manner that means initially you'll be doing one hour three questions then one hour four questions then one hour five questions then one hour six questions and you will be writing tests till March your exam is on May 26th so till March until you complete the portion so classes will be done apart from your classes you will be having this test so 10 tests will be conducted for you and in these 10 tests all the portions will be covered so that you write and see one round before you go for the preliminary examination so this is this will be the plan so you write your papers will be evaluated there will be separate mentoring for optional and these mentors will be people who are either interview candidates or people who have taken a sabbatical like who have skipped this attempt this year so there will be two to three people from the previous path students who are either posted in Chennai or who are based or who can come to Chennai from the previous you know batches okay so this will be the people who will be your mentors and your papers will be evaluated and your feedback will be given and you will be continuously monitored in terms of like say test one to test four what sort of a progress you're making for example see some people they study but then when you're presenting it on to writing you might not be able to do it so how each person will have some exclusive challenge exclusive problem so that will be monitored and your mentor will be helping you as well so this is the plan okay so writing practice periodical tests and evaluation this is how the UPSC does so we will also be doing it in a similar way and all your feedback will be one to one that means there is no group feedback in all it's one to one that means you write your paper your paper your feedback will be given to you okay so this is how it is going to happen all right so this is about the optional what is the syllabus what is the plan and what are all the challenges that all you are having okay so now for the results so this year's I'll show you till 2019 because there are a lot of candidates maybe once you come to the sessions we interact further okay so there are more than 300 people whose names are there here okay so now I'm open for questions if you have any questions you can ask yeah like I spoke to you already in uh in freelance there is no correlation as such but it means if you take in GS one there is society in India which is exactly a ditto of what you have here in the syllabus but society has more of generic content we go a little depth here in paper to GS two there is something called as social justice which is a part of governance and that has an overlap and in GS three there is no overlap but in GS four in case studies there are at least two case studies from social issues and there are some statements of philosophers which are asked in ethics part so there is some kind of an overlap and of course as I spoke to you already on the essay so this is the overlap that time so if in case you decide to come to sociology we'll be starting from coming Thursday Thursday class will begin at five o'clock so five to seven thirties when you'll be having the classes we usually run it on weekdays uh sometimes we might have class on Saturday but I will never keep a class on Sunday okay so uh again I'll inform to you in prior okay nothing on last minute and all that we'll go as per a regular schedule and there will be a telegram channel and there is a separate student telegram group that we will create after people decide okay so this one group is going to be how the institute is going to communicate to you regarding any any changes or anything whatever and this will also be the official medium of communication for student interactions like say specifically you have any queries like any academic doubts and all that for that students usually maintain a particular group and I participate as a part of that particular group so that I can also help you if in case you have any doubts and so there will be a particular schedule that we are following so once we start the classes initially we'll be starting with what is the focus of each and every part of the syllabus what is the weightage which unit from where to study how they have asked the questions how much marks is coming from every unit and then how to base the preparation from there and how to make best use out of the classes and you will be given proper material you will be given three books and in this book itself there will be everything covered that means all the reference materials that are there usually we follow around the six to seven textbooks from those textbooks whatever is the important portions that has been compiled together and it is given to you as a material so apart from your class if you follow that itself you will be getting up you don't need to go searching for material and all that it will be given to you and any current affairs upgrade whatever we are doing we'll be doing it in the classes itself as and when it happens so usually once we are done with the classes subsequent year when students write the main examination we have something like a you know some set of revision classes and all which we give and that differs so initially students were appearing for the mains I'll complete the revision and then I do it for the students who are writing for the subsequent thing so we have like two phases so that any new upgrade anything that happens you are like staying in touch with it because little bit of what you have in paper two when we write like this know the marks go up like anything because this year people have scored up to 159 so you saw Abhinav you saw you saw all these people they have scored above 290 so five students have scored above 290 and all of them they have like scored above 150 in pay each of the papers and that doesn't come by just like that you know we need to put in some effort and we need to go it go in the basic direction and if we do that we'll be able to so telling that we'll have a magic figure of 300 it is not something which is you know always the case because they have to give 300 only then we can get sometimes the average scores like for example gs3 this year the average score itself is only 67 68 so how will I get 100 when they are giving only 68 there is some kind of a pattern in how so in that subject we have to come within the top 10 percentile of students top 20 percentile of students only then we will stand a chance to go to the interview so that level of preparation when we do we are like irrespective of which center in India we write the exam from we have a higher chance of getting very good marks in the optional okay so we need to base so the people whom you see around you know who who might be in your classes they are not your competitors the real competitors are not just beside you they are sitting in different parts of India so half of the people are whom you don't even know but always from school college and all that no we make comparisons to the people who sit beside us who you know whom we know and all that but here half of our people are unknown isn't it so that way we also need to gear up our preparation all right okay fine so you are very very dull dull what happened you have nothing to tell you have any questions nomas be spoken there's no need to replicate anything just if you hold you understand the meaning and you write it in your own words by just retaining certain keywords so what is the keyword we will be discussing in the class so this topic means these are the keywords you should retain the keyword and the rest of it however you write it doesn't matter because see if you repetitively write same answers the first person who writes that answer will get very good marks but subsequently same answers if it gets repeated in the paper the marks keep going down so it's always better that you retain your originality and just retain the keywords because in UPSC keynote they give only the keywords they don't give you sentences they don't give you thinkers means nothing you can write anyone that doesn't matter any example that doesn't matter so you have the freedom to be on your own provided you just need to write the answer to the question and for that you need to have concept clarity you need to have subject so if you build the subject knowledge this year and you get all your notes everything ready once you finish your prelims you can start with your revision phase and you can start with your writing phase in a full fledged manner so now you have to ensure that the next five to six months you are kind of ready with all the content that you need alright guys if there are no questions I think we can leave