 Hello Rumeja, you are welcome to this program Success Speaks and first of all I give you a lot of congratulations to your family for securing all India 185 ranking you really fast again. Thank you so much sir. How are you feeling and how is the feeling in your family going on these days? Sir, I'm feeling very very happy at the moment. My family is over the moon. To add celebration is the fact that very few people in fact nobody in the recent past from my region has cleared the exam. I have topped the district as well as become one of the youngest in the state as well as the country. So everybody is really excited about it. People of my town are celebrating. So it's a very very happy feeling to be in especially for my parents. You are the youngest right now overall in the country as you said. I'm one of the youngest is what I've been told sir. Actually the very first 22. I'm 22 years currently so I've been told. Very very early age that is 21 is the first age limit when you start and 22 years. Yes sir. Definitely you are going to get Indian police service I believe. Yes sir. So and I hope you're going to appear again as you can understand from the space in there right? Yes sir. I will be applying. First of all I would like to know about the place where you were born and brought and who are there in the family. So that the audience understand about you more in the success story. Yes sir. I was born in a small town called Pulari in Trishu district of Kerala. I did most of my schooling here itself until 12th standard and after that my big change came when I moved to Chennai for my degree which is a BA in economics. So from there it you know broadened my mindset and from a small town I was suddenly exposed to the lives and you know life of a big city and it changed my worldview and mindset a lot. I was exposed to a lot of new ideas and new people and it really inspired me to take the civil services seriously. So before we come to talk about how the journey began. Who are there in the family and what they're doing. Can you just say a little bit about them? Yes sir. My father is a businessman. My mother is a homemaker. I have an elder sister and an elder brother. My elder sister is a doctor dentist by profession and currently she is staying abroad. My brother graduated in law and is currently doing an MBA from IIM core code. Okay. So how this idea came for you especially because your sister is going to abroad. Yes sir. Your father in the business but how this idea of getting into civil services came. Which service primarily you want to go for? Sir primarily I want to join the Indian Foreign Service. However the idea of civil services itself was not new to me at all because in Kerala we see the district collectors are respected by a lot and whenever they are here or whenever they do something good for the society it is often you know discussed a lot and it inspires a lot of youngsters especially me when I was a young school student. However I realized that I had more of an aptitude for the Indian Foreign Service when I went to college and I started taking part in debates and competitions such as the Model United Nations. So from then on I thought maybe I should you know steer the course into the Foreign Service. As you are very clear about Indian Foreign Service that you have to go. So what kind of role is that you can play if it is attracting you to join the Indian Foreign Service? I have a background in economics. So I have always been interested by the dynamics of trade and relationship between different countries and how the world entirely revolves around money. Whenever any major thing happens be the global recession or the ongoing trade war. So I believe that with my background in economics I would be able to you know give the best in terms of strategic policy and decision making at the highest level. It would be I would consider it the utmost of honor to be able to represent my nation at a multinational institute such as the World Trade Organization or the IMF where you know a lot of my core interests meet and that sir would be my dream job. This is a very wonderful clarity about your goal. This is a wonderful clarity and concept which is in your mind which has become one of the biggest region for your selection in the past attempt itself. Because when you are preparing naturally you develop that kind of attitude very naturally with that. And I wish you in advance next year you will be one of the top. When it comes to preparation of course this decision must have become the family that you should know. Everybody came to support you. What was kind of atmosphere of course Kerala is known for education and development. So what kind of atmosphere you had in the family from the beginning? Sir I would say my family has played a huge role in you know making me what I am today. So from when I was young my parents have played a huge role in inculcating a healthy reading habit in me. So that I used to read a lot be it both fiction and nonfiction. I grew up reading many such books and my father is also responsible for inculcating the habit of reading the newspaper in me. So I could say that as a child I was quite aware of what was happening around me. And moreover they supported me all throughout when I wanted to take part in any kind of competitions. They used to go out of the way and make special efforts to take me to different places and other schools. So that definitely helped me a lot. It means the family wanted always to give you wider exposure. Yes sir yes yes. Now it's a question of preparation because it's a very fast attempt. It is not the young and early age you got selected with such a beautiful rap. So definitely it will be of great interest to the audience who are learning to appear. Those all as parents who are stuck somewhere in the preparation to understand from you how it all happened with you. So well began is half done. This is a very old saying. I can understand from your rank in the very first attempt at such a young age as 22 you have got 185 back. So definitely you have begun very well. So how did you begin your preparation? Sir indeed I agree with the statement that you mentioned sir. So before beginning I would say that the thing that I did the most was to find out the right strategy and right methods as to how you can clear the exam. So just like any other aspirant I spent a lot of time browsing on Google and YouTube looking at the various strategies that are told by topers. However in addition to that I also did another thing which is to find out how exactly to study. That is most often topers and people are very keen on telling you what subject to study which books you should refer to. But most often they stop short of telling you how exactly to study and what are the best methods of studying. So apart from UPSC I looked at other websites telling what are the best scientifically proven methods which help you retain your information better and improves long term memory. Because for UPSC you definitely need to remember things for at least one one and half years. And it's not like how I used to study in college where you study just on the day before the exam put an all nighter and go into the exam hall half asleep. So I knew that I had to change that habit and make it more sustainable. Okay so the point here is like at which standard or you say at what age you begin preparing. Sir preparing seriously for the civil services began only after I finished my graduation. So after my graduation in Chennai I went to Tiruvannapuram where I joined an institute and from then on I prepared for 11 months and then wrote prelims of 2019 and then the process began sir. So it was all after you began after the graduation was over then you started making the preparation. But initial exposure to the exam and research work you had already done as you nicely say right now. Now for any first timer or anybody who stuck in this preparation. Right. What would you like to suggest what should be the first strategy first approach that one should follow so that you can have a sense of surety to get this service. Sir like I said equal importance should be given as to how exactly you should study. There are various ways of tackling each subject be it quality or geography or modern Indian history or even economics per se. So each aspirant should make sure that they are doing it in the right method possible. For example when you are looking at quality there is a very good method of studying that is by connecting it to your current affairs. For example if there is an ongoing issue with regards to governor and there is some problem some political happenings within a particular state. That would be a good time to refer to the textbook the standard textbook and look at what are the constitutional provisions. So in that way you are able to connect what is happening to what is theory. So in that way it will retain or you know stay in your memory in a much better format. So likewise there exists similar strategy for each subject and following that will make the journey more pleasant and you know it will make it more enjoyable. Rather than studying by road. You have picked a very nice thing you said about the current affairs it is a challenge for most of the students. They read this paper they don't know what to read what not to read. So how to select relevant news or articles and material from the newspapers and current affairs sources. What should be the right approach. I would say there is just one word that is syllabus of UPSC. UPSC has given a very comprehensive syllabus as far as mains is concerned. So what I used to do was whenever I was reading the newspaper I would maintain a digital record using an app called Evernote which is free of cost and is available to everyone. So I would make specific note titles with each of these syllabus and whenever I saw an interesting topic an anecdote a statistic or an interesting infographic. I would add it to that particular note. So that way all the information that I gathered came up in a very systematic manner and it helped me a lot when I was you know preparing for mains and it helped improve the content of my answers. From a discussion what important thing has come that to get to what is relevant and not relevant. The most important guidance would come from the syllabus. Yes sir. Nicely prepared. Yes, yes, yes. With that quality economy, current economy everything is going to be there. But the next important thing which you say that we have used technology. Yes sir. For preparation. So how in the present time technology can play such a crucial role in preparation. With your experience I would like you to speak a bit more on that. Absolutely sir. Sir, I am proud to say that I've used it a lot and we all know that UPSC preparation entails a lot of materials. So very often you walk into an aspirin room. You can find it to be having a sea of books all around them. The aspirin would be sitting in the middle of it. So I prefer to do a lot of things in a digital format and that streamlined my preparation. And overall it gives you a very clean organized outlook for everything. So like I mentioned earlier, I use the Evernote note taking app for making current affairs notes, as well as integrating notes from my classes or even notes which are available online. I used to rely on previous year stoppers notes. Apart from these, I used flash card apps which were very helpful in memorizing some hard facts. For example, some things in art and culture, map study, memorizing articles of our constitution, all of these may not always have a logical connect. These should be memorized by repetition at regular intervals. So for doing this, the use of flash card apps helped me a lot. So that is something fresh aspirin can try. Very nice, very nice that these are actually how much organized your preparation. That makes a lot of difference also. Did you also have a start with NCRT books you study? Yes sir, I did start with NCRT books. However, I focused more on higher level classes, especially for polity. And I think for history, all books from 6th standard and upwards is important for when it comes to history. So to clear the fundamentals, I think in NCRT, a book of 10 plus people are going to be, how many times you read only once or you repeated some of the reading? Sir, I believe in the philosophy that if you are reading something, then you should always go back to it. So aspirins always tend to get in that kind of look where they try and refer to maximum of resources. It gives them a false sense of security or feeling that I have studied a lot. But in fact, it may not help you retain everything at the same rate. So I refer to limited sources, but I went back to them multiple times, like four or five times I went back to it. So it solidified the knowledge in my head, sir, and it really helped me a lot. This is very important because no matter how you are going to repeat the things of scanning through so many resources, if you are having some defined resources and you are going to focus on that, makes the difference there. Now there are three stages of examination. How do you feel about free and means? Should there be separate preparation or you according to should be integrated preparation for free and means? Sir, I believe that it should be a mix of both because at the end of the day syllabus does not exist in silos. But in the strategy with which how we are going to do the exam is where all the difference comes in. The studying or retaining of information is almost similar for both the topics. But for Prelims, you need to give specific, let's say, preparation or strategy for learning how to answer questions more effectively. For that you need a lot of practice. In some questions, some guesswork is required. In some question, you need to practice skills such as elimination of options, which will help you get to the right answer, even if you don't know the answer to that question. Similarly for Mains, studying part would be similar to that of Prelims. Again, the practice should come when you should be writing questions in order to be well-versed with the structure of how your main answer should be. You should be well-versed so that you will be able to finish your paper and time. So for all of these is where the difference comes in. This is very interesting that everybody should know. Integrated preparation, but there should be some approach, which is different from each other. That has to be kept in mind. Now if I ask you some crucial things to keep for Prelims in mind, to qualify because you adapted once and you have already qualified for final success also. Some special things to keep in mind so that one gets a sense because now the Prelims exam is about to come. Give a good message to the students. What are the factors that they should keep at this point of time? And what should be the area of focus? And what kind of practice or the thing they should do? What would you like to add on that? Sir, with less than two months to go, I think around 55 days are left for Prelims. So I would say that for every aspirant, they should stop looking up new books or new topics per se. Instead they should focus on what they've already studied in the period of time that they have. Assuming that the student has started preparation at least a minimum of six months before. So they should focus on revising and recollecting all that they've already looked at once. The second thing is that stick to the basics, sir. So every year we see enough and more questions from topics such as quality, economics and modern Indian history. So if you have these three topics very well versed, it will definitely help you clear. But if you try and focus a lot on some topics such as science and technology or art and culture, the problem is that you may not always be able to predict what kind of questions UPSC may ask. Because the area is very dynamic and very vast. So as an aspirant, you might feel very helpless if you're trying to study all of it in one go. So I would say stick to the three core topics very well and make sure that you're 100% well versed in all of that. And the last thing is definitely to practice more question papers. I used to do at least one paper every day in the past, in the previous two weeks leading to mains. So that really helped me to the prelims. Basically at the last moment, especially not to pick up so many new things, but to revise all what you have made. And then also to focus on some core areas where there could be a large number of questions to come. But on the day of examination, that is again a very important thing. Just a few days before the exam and on the day of the exam. What are the basic parameters or you can say the questions important for the aspirants? Please tell something about that. Sir, on the eve of the exam, I made sure that I had closed all my books. I did not study anything or look at books on the eve of the exam. Because I knew that it might trigger some kind of nervousness in me. But it varies according to the individual. It was like that for me. Every student must try and work out what works best for them. But the core idea is that on the eve of the exam and on the day of the exam, you should be pleasant. You should be relaxed and you should be happy. And you should feel happy that you're going to do this big thing which can potentially bring a lot of change in your life. That's the positive work in place of thinking that tomorrow exam and what will happen. If going with this anxiety and stress, the mind will not be efficient to take the right decision during the exam. It is a motion of just two hours in the exam. That's very good. You are very clear about that. Now let's talk something about the main subject. Of course you said about the integrated preparation but we can take paper wise. A bit of discussing on that. The first thing I would like to know from you about essay paper. Most of the time the students do the mistake they take the essay at the last moment. Or they don't prepare it at all. Do you think it is correct to take at the last moment or it should be done from the beginning itself? What do you need? Sir, essay again has a huge chunks of marks which if ignored can make or break you. Very often aspirants either get a very good rank because of essay. Or they miss out from the final list because of a bad essay. So essay is very important. So what every aspirant must do is that along with mains preparation and answer writing. At least once every week they should write an essay. They should practice it. Especially if you are a person who have trouble elucidating you should definitely do more practice. Sir as far as I was concerned I was lucky to have a good command over the language. As well as I had interest in writing. So essay kind of came in a not so difficult manner for me. However that did not stop me from preparing because for UPSC essay the requirements are different. Because you need to make sure that every point you make is substantiated with facts, examples and good anecdotes. So whenever I used to read the newspaper I would keep a separate note in my Evernote app for essay and ethics. So whichever thing I found to be very interesting or very nice. For example a good incident happening, a good ethical incident that happened in the country. Some example from around the world. All these tiny anecdotes I will collect it. This may not seem like current affairs or newsworthy at the moment or it may not be important for prelims. But these kind of small things will come handy to you when you are writing an essay or tackling your ethics paper. So that is something that really helped me a lot sir and I would do that. As we although there are three parts of that, body and control. So I would like you to highlight a bit on that. I would usually start off the essay using a brief introduction. And introduction would almost always be either a quote or an anecdote. Sir in the actual mains 2019 I took up the topic of related to success. That is hard work and perseverance and the willingness to change lead to success. The topic was something along those lines. So I started my essay sir by quoting an incident related to disaster management. That is I quoted saying that in 1990 when a huge super cyclone hit Odisha more than 10,000 people were killed. However, years down the line almost 20, 25 years down the line when in 2019 another super cyclone hit Odisha. The casualty came down to less than 10. And that was something I defined as an example of success, which was done from improvement of the past. Like the state administration and the national administration made a lot of changes in the disaster management policy. That helped you know succeed in that is that is kind of how I define success. So that is where the importance of anecdote comes in. So I started off like that and then try to define success in multiple areas. So when an aspirant is writing an essay make sure that it does not go in a linear fashion or it is not unidimensional. Rather they should try and bring in elements of social, political, economical, gender-related, environment issues to even a philosophical essay. So that way your essay would be very interesting and vibrant. You read the disciplinary approach of examining things which are kind of lateral approach of thinking. Yes sir, yes sir. And when you would write the main body, what are the precautions to be taken care of so that it goes in flow? The main precaution is that you need to plan your essay. That is as soon as you get the topic you shouldn't like jump into writing it rather you should take a moment. I used to take at least 20 minutes before writing the essay. Like in the total I think 3 hours that we get I would spend the first 20 minutes before each essay trying to brainstorm. I would make a mind map or I would jot down the points. Once I have jotted down the points the next thing I would do is I would number them. That is I would number them on the basis of priority. Like I know that this point is most important so this should come first. And then I would put number 2. In the order of priority I would do that. I would save a good anecdote for the ending so that the conclusion is also good. You must ensure that the conclusion is also good because it is the last thing that the examiner is reading before putting marks. Likewise we should make sure that it is a well balanced essay. Why the conclusion is so important? Sir I think just like how you make a parting shot the conclusion is the last thing an examiner might potentially be reading. And it can either leave a good impression upon the reader or leave them in a bad taste. So conclusion is very important and it gives an overall summary about your essay. So that the examiner would be again the idea would be reinforced in them that we have covered all these topics and it gives your final opinion etc. Sometimes the examiner makes an opinion by your introduction and reading your conclusion. They understand what you might have written in the body. Yes sir that is also true. Going to be very very important with that right? Yes. I am sure your sharing experience on essay paper will be really important. Ramayana I would like to get your inputs also on the gender studies because there are four papers. Yes sir. You have spoken very well about essay paper. Now let's take paper wise to ask you how to prepare paper one of the gender studies it makes which includes history and culture, geography and also society. So what will you say on that? Sir for GS1 I found it one of the most challenging to score high marks. Because for some reason I was not so good with geography and because the art and culture topic was so vast it was slightly difficult to cover everything. However I would tell you what actually worked in enriching my answers. So for mains preparation I used to maintain a notebook which was dedicated specifically for statistics, diagrams, some quotes or in terms of GS2 articles of the constitution pertaining to certain topics and committees related to important issues. So for GS1 in that book I would add all the figures which were related to geography such as how to explain a cyclone, how does the continental drift theory can be explained, what are the different faults etc. Similarly for art and culture I would draw the structure of temples and different temple architecture, Gandhara art so all of that I tried to make some kind of figure. And these figures I would try and replicate in my answers. So even if I am not so sure about or not having enough content these figures definitely gave some kind of good impression on the examiner and it definitely enriched my answers. You were using KCH and the figures there that's very well. Yes sir. But how to prepare if you want to suggest anybody about these three people in subjects rather history, geography and societies so what one should do for that? Sir again it is a very tricky area because you also have to deal with topics such as world history and often the aspirant might go astray reading a lot. So here the core idea should be to look into previous year questions of UPSC. For example even this year in 2019 there was a question on Gandhara art. And as far as UPSC is concerned it is not a new topic at all. They have asked Gandhara multiple times. So I would say that if you look into previous year questions itself you will get a very good idea as to what kind of questions and topics UPSC would like to focus on. So we should firstly prioritize on repeated topics and then move on to the others. Same with world history. Important should be given to very important topics such as French revolution, American revolution and industrial revolution all that took place. We should be very strategic while dealing with GS1. If you analyze the previous year questions you will know where the examination tends to focus on. And that will give you a profile about what you should prepare on the screen. What about geography? Sir again for geography we should be actually do it more than I would say art and culture because it will definitely help us in prelims as well. So I focused on preparing by learning to draw figures for all of these also because it will definitely help improve the overall look and flow of our answers. And I referred to standard books itself. I referred to NCRT as well as Go Chen Lyong. Okay so you read all the textbooks and what about society? For society I referred to newspaper notes which I had made it myself throughout the one year and I referred to notes which were provided by my institute. Okay that's fine. Hello friends my name is Dilip Pratap Singh Shakawat I have secured all near rank 72 in this year civil services examination 2018. And now I am here to share my experiences of the mock interview for UPSC. I think mock interview for UPSC is very very important because it helps you to assess your level of preparation for the actual personality test at the UPSC. So in this context mock interviews always help you to give a very good feedback about your strengths as well as weaknesses. So you can always gain confidence from your strengths as well as you can learn from your weaknesses and rectify them in due course of time. In this sense I would like to mention the role of China's IS Academy the mock interview which I gave at the China's IS Academy was very helpful for me. It was the last mock interview which I gave before the actual interview of UPSC and it really helped me to gain that confidence level back because I was facing very low because my final mock interview didn't go really well because I was facing problems like I was nervous before the interview and hence I went to China's IS Academy gave a mock interview there and the board was very professional it was very cordial. They asked me all the questions related to my bio data they assessed my personality in a very nice manner and boosted my confidence in the right time and that helped me to go with full confidence in the actual interview and in this way I was able to get very good marks in the interview which helped me secure IS in this attempt. Talking about paper tools in the studies what do you have to say about your study of professional paper tool? Sir again for GS2 I had prepared by focusing on standard textbooks a lot and then current affairs plays a huge role. For example be it government schemes when it comes from social justice topic and current issues related to law and legislations all of them are mostly related to current affairs related topic. So whenever you are reading the newspaper make sure you go back to the standard textbooks to know what are the actual provisions that are given in the constitution so that linking and studying would definitely help a lot and it will retain the information better and make the process more enjoyable and for international relations I used to maintain very good notes in my Evernote app and would update as in when certain things were happening. So even that was dealt in that manner sir but this year I think I mean last year GS2 was a very tough paper including for myself but with the available knowledge and with the knowledge of certain articles we were able to finish the paper and manage writing. Manage is the term I would say sir I am not sure of how well I did let's wait for the mark sheet. But you were connecting with more with current relevance that would make the paper more meaningful in fact. If you are a historian of economics also and paper 3 which is called Science with Technology Economics another subject first of all I would like to know from you what is the nature of paper 3 because it has got variety of subjects what do you think would be the reason that UPSC skipped all the subjects together. Sir I would say that why UPSC has skipped so is that it makes it a great leveler for everyone that is nobody with any background has any advantage while writing UPSC because at the end of the day you have to know everything I come from economics I know nothing about science there will be engineers with a science background who know nothing about economics so likewise I feel it's a great leveler that UPSC has skipped so everybody is on an equal footing and whoever puts the most effort would come out victorious. It's a level playing and it's more also current best. Yes sir. A lot of reasons that they have. Yes, yes, yes sir. Do you suggest some sources especially some standard books or sources you suggest in paper 3? Sir for paper 3 what I would say to be honest was because my optional was economics I did not have a particular strategy to cover economics because it was done along with my optional prep itself. However for environment science and technology I believe there are a lot of standard textbooks available the environment textbooks by a reputed institute is very good and for science and technology again you have to refer to websites because the news keeps on updating so I used to refer to the internet a lot and using websites of reputed institutes such as NASA, ISRO to know about the recent launches etc. is very good. Okay. Government institutions and institutions, right? Yes sir, yes absolutely, absolutely. Of course this paper 4 which is for a very young like you to go with this paper it will be of special interest for me to understand. What did you understand about the nature of this paper paper for ethics, integrity and aptitude? What examples are looking for? Sir because the paper itself is of 250 marks. This is unlike this, this has ample scope to somehow bring out the character of the student or the aspirant in the paper itself because it's very vast. It's not limited to one or two questions which we had to face when we were in school or something like that. Here I believe UPSC can bring out some shades of the character into the paper. So I had kept that in mind and whenever I was preparing I would make sure that your answers are in a very balanced manner and that none and that we ensure that all sides and dimensions are covered and even if you're talking about one particular topic we talk about both the pros and cons of it. So at the face of it UPSC or the examiner would be convinced that we are looking at a candidate who is level-headed and who has a balanced view of things and that I believe is something is a quality that every bureaucrat must have. Along with this to continue with, if I may add as to how I tackled GS4 is that I used to again maintain separate notes on my Evernote app whereby I would add examples from real life and from books that I read or even movies which kind of describes the value that is given there. So you have to take the syllabus and take each word in that syllabus for example honesty, integrity. So for honesty and integrity we can even quote from our epics like the Mahabharata or the Ramayana. You can quote the integrity of Lord Rama when you're talking about integrity and when you're talking about dedication and perseverance you can quote a particular civil servant who did not bow down to pressure from anybody. So all of these examples are very very important in ethics especially from the 2019 example a lot of questions pertaining to governance and specifically to the Indian civil services were asked. So at one point I even ran out of examples. I thought that I had a lot of examples with me but even then I ran out of it. So every aspirant must make sure that they have a very good reservoir of examples to put in their answers. More and more on the practical side so that you read in the newspaper or you read any one of the impact as you were nicely saying that this can be taken as a reference and more practical or connected information you give better you will do in this paper. This is more of the application side to when you will go into administration. How you are going to maintain the basic three parameters of ethics, integrity and aptitude. That's very important. Now since you have taken, I think you have taken subject to economics, correct? Yes sir, yes. That's your subject there. Mostly people even those who do legislation, post-legislation, they don't really dare to take the subject. There will be kind of subject. So how was your experience? Were you prepared from the beginning to take this obstacle? Or you chose later on? Sir, to be very honest, there were several times when I, second guest, when I was worried if I took the wrong decision by choosing economics because it was a very daunting subject to cover. So having only had a bachelor's degree, I had to face a lot of difficulties in my preparation. But I would say that in the beginning of main preparation I was really scared looking at the entire syllabus and I had not covered it fully before the prelims itself. So a major chunk was done only after the prelims was done. But I tried to come myself and take it one day at a time. And then by slowly and steadily I was able to cover the entire syllabus. And I focused and here again I strategized by focusing on my strong areas. So there were two particular topics in economics that I was very fond of that it was easier for me to learn, which was development economics as well as international economics. So I focused more on that. And as you are aware for optionals, you do have the choice questions. That is, you can choose to answer something or not. And thankfully when the paper was in my hand, I figured that I could choose to answer the topics which I was well versed in. And that I'm hoping worked in my favor. So if I ask you, what should be the criteria of selecting one option subject? With your experience, what would you like to throw out? Sir, the criteria to put it short is something that you as an individual enjoy. Because optional is something that you have to spend a lot of time studying in. Perhaps more than your GS papers itself. So I am a lover of economics from when I was a student at school. And therefore, taking economics was not a tough decision to make. Likewise, for anybody else, even if you are choosing something which you are completely new to, make sure that you play around with it. Like you give it ample time. Like for a week or so, try and attend classes teaching that particular subject. And only if you're really interested in it, go ahead. Otherwise, you have to throw yourself open to other options. You mean to say one should give a main priority to the interest. If you don't have interest, you will not be able to do well. Yes, sir. If you have background or you don't have background, doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Very, very nice. Now, at such a young age, you have gone to civil service or facility test. Yes, sir. And you have an experience there. So I would like to know a bit from you about that. What do you think the selectors look in you in your facility test? When my interview dates were announced, I was really scared. I was almost under verge of tears when I found that my date was 17th of February, which was literally the very first day of the interview. I was very scared and I barely had 20 days for preparing. However, my mentors and my parents gave me a lot of support and they gave me the confidence saying, Rumeza, you have it in you to tackle this. So I believe that I was lucky enough to have had a background of public speaking and debating and that definitely helped me in my communication skill and it helps me think clearly as well. So I believe that the important things that the selectors look in you are your confidence, your clarity and how well you are able to balance things out. Are you diplomatic enough in your answers? These are the few things I believe they look into. How they begin there when you enter the interview board, how it all began. Can you just let me know about that? Definitely, sir. So when I went into the interview room, it was in the afternoon and I was I think the second last one to go. So there was a fair bit of waiting in the waiting room and that is where your nerves really start to take in. So when I was waiting, I used to try some meditation methods, take deep breaths in order to keep myself calm. But once you enter the interview room, then you are completely taken away and you no longer feel scared because you are there at a position where you have always dreamed of being at. My chairperson was Sujatha Mehta, Ma'am IFS and there were four other members. So my questions began with my background. So Ma'am asked me why I had quit or I had rather rejected an offer from an MNC where I had interned at. So I had interned at Goldman Sachs and Ma'am asked me why would you quit such a lucrative job? So it started off like that and they asked me a lot of questions from economics. What do you reply for that audience would be interested to know? How do you respond to that? What did you say? Sir, I said that there were mainly two reasons why I did not take up the job because after my exposure to the corporate world I found that it was not truly my area of calling and I had always been interested in writing the civil services. So I thought I will give it a go right now and then if it does not work out or something maybe I will go back to the corporate world. Do you preference for Sujatha Mehta since she is from Indian Foreign Service and also had a first preference at Indian Foreign Service? Do you get some questions related to foreign service? Surprisingly no sir, everybody had asked me this but for some reason she did not ask me anything about the foreign service. Rather it was entirely about economics and Indian economy issues. Ma'am, any situation where you found that it was difficult for you to come out which would you like to or any stress kind of thing happened in India before? Sir, initially it went very smoothly. There was no cross questioning per se. They asked me what are the issues in health sector, what are the issues in education how would you solve this problem? They were all testing my clarity on certain topics. They in fact asked me about Kerala model of development as well and what are the shortcomings of the same? So all of these I was very well prepared in and I was able to answer with quite a lot of confidence. However towards the end they started asking me more opinionated questions on topics such as demonetization. So the sir asked me what do you think how well has demonetization helped? And then after that I was asked a question about the ongoing student protest and she asked me if campus politics was good or not. So for both of these questions I was able to give a very balanced answer because they were positive sides and they were negative sides to both. So I believe that the way I tackled that would have probably given me good marks in the interview. You were able to sail through and you came out the distance from there. Yes. So Rumaeja as you were also in Chanakya's interview guidance program and talk interview, how this program helped you what experience you got in Chanakya talk interview? So coming to Chanakya I would say that it was a very good experience because it was the interview that was the most close to the actual interview experience. So I had attended around five or six interviews before that but I believe at Chanakya the board and the kind of questions that were directed at me were most similar to the actual interview because they asked me questions which were pertaining to the conceptual clarity as well. Most of an interview tend to focus more on just opinions or questions only about your background. Chanakya had re-emphasized and reminded me that your subject knowledge is also very very important when it comes to UPSC interview exam. So after the experience at Chanakya I went back and within the few days I had left I had tried to read up a lot more about topics which were most likely to be asked so that definitely boosted my confidence a lot. You found a simulating condition there? Yes. Yes. That there you found this situation happening in your interview? Yes. Absolutely. Rumaeja your concepts are very clear and I'm sure your interaction with me definitely would help a lot of the students. Yes. Line their program and we can also dream like you to be successful with good rank in the first time and I am sure in the next attempt you're going to get to your dream career that is in Indian Foreign Service with maybe very top 10 rank kind of figure idea. Thank you sir. Thank you so much. Thank you very much for coming to this program. Success speaks. God bless you. Thank you sir. Thank you so much. Thank you. Don't forget to like share and subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon to never miss an update.