 I'm really happy to see a lot of faces in the class especially in the live classroom because the last batch that we took everything was online and I think things were very difficult for the students as well as the faculty because when you don't see a person's face you really don't understand whether the concept is clear or not anyway so first of all I'm very happy to see all of you and let me just introduce myself. Can you hear me? Yes, I'm Rajita and I'm here to handle your optional classes the entire optional classes I'll only be handling for you. So UPSC has been pretty long journey for me it's like I'm almost 18 years into this field but into teaching it's like almost 14 years and UPSC teaching is kind of 9 to 10 years right now and I started with taking classes with sociology as an optional that's where I started taking classes for civil services okay so as in when we decide to take up the optional as such then maybe I'll talk to you further about myself now let me not waste your time okay so some of you might have decided on sociology some of you might be having the confusion whether you should pick up the subject or not so first I just tell you what is the plan I'll keep you here for an hour maximum not more than that so today we'll be having an orientation and in this orientation I'll tell you what is the nature of the subject what are the kind of things that you should get exposed to and certain things which are required for the optional and then we'll have a Q&A session wherein I'll just take up your questions and I'll try to give as much as possible my own opinions about it and after that we'll be starting regular classes from Monday that is from 18th only we'll be starting the classes okay so after today you will have a week's break time for you to decide and those of you who already taken the decision I'll tell you what to do in this one week and then we need for classes we'll be starting from Monday okay so fine so first and foremost sociology as a subject some of us we already have the exposure some of us we really don't know anything about the subject I was one such person I did not know anything about humanities because entirely in school and all I have only taken science subjects so exposure to sociology is coming only with UPSC so if that is your first doubt I don't have any background in sociology whether it will suit me I am your category after that you kind of start developing love for this subject that's how it is it kind of motivates you it kind of keeps you hooked you kind of understand what's happening around you the same thing which we have viewed you start viewing it from a very different perspective so I'll just give you an example very recently we were watching this movie Vikram which is the movie in Tamil obviously it has come in multiple languages as well thanks to OTT right so hot star has kind of released it on July 8th so if you take this movie there is something about the revival of a hero isn't it after a very long time a person is getting a commercial break there is something about gun violence something which the US society has been dealing with so when you see the movie as a movie we kind of see the star we kind of enjoy the movie there's kind of entertainment in that but then when you start understanding why exactly the movie is there what do people love why PUBG was banned why people start internalizing all these values onto themselves you start of you kind of start getting a very different perspective as to what exactly is this topic that they're kind of dealing what is this spying how does a nation work with another nation you start getting a lot of perspectives so simple movie which you've only watched as an entertainment before starts giving you new meanings that's what the subject does to you you start identifying you start relating next we'll take a small thing you kind of call a person or you kind of text a person the person doesn't reply to you normally it happens now every two minutes we'll keep checking our phone you send a message to a person why the person is not responding many a time oh is that person angry with me have i done something wrong we kind of get a lot of questions sometimes only we say oh maybe that person was actually very busy and so maybe the person was driving or riding and so the person did not respond we have so many meanings that we can get but then first what do we think maybe that person is very angry that's why the person didn't respond and then what we do we keep calling the person again and again some of us we do have that habit right but then so surely changes our perception about things that a person can be doing multiple things and because of that you need not think bad about a person you don't get to judge a person you you don't come up with good or bad you don't come up with being a judge you kind of look a person as it is okay so these are the practical things that you get out of the subject all right so that's how it has changed me as a person from not having a background in sociology to developing some kind of a background now there will be some other people who studied something from humanity right from school for you obviously this is a cup of cake you're already having that person you know the way of looking into things so maybe this is only going to be something like a reiteration but then what is the difference is when i do a UG or a PG or even a PhD in sociology i do it for an academic work but here we are doing it for a competitive exam so the level is just BA honors level so even if you start from now three to four months into the subject it that much of reading is enough to clear the UPSC exam so the way we'll be doing this preparation is not to get a PhD in sociology but to clear the examination our objective will be very very clear so the conceptual understanding plus doing things on your own to deal with the examination that's how we will be discussing okay so let me go into what is there in the subject so there are two papers each paper is for 250 marks paper one has 10 units and paper two it is divided into three portions and each of these things are some of the subjects are very different some of it is very correlated okay so this is what is the topic that you have the 10 units that i told you it is there in the optional paper one this is paper one okay so the first unit it introduces you to the subject the second unit is it takes you one step ahead as to when the subject was actually developing how to study the subject some people told us because subjects like physics chemistry philosophy they were all there before sociology this subject came in only in 1839 after that only this came so it's pretty young so there have been so many things which have come up as inputs to create the subject so how to do this subject third thing is what are the ways that we study the subject in detail we will be going like for example you would have recently come up across something in the paper called national family health survey five no ma'am now only newspaper only i'm just opening and saying some of you like today only i started class and you're telling something in the okay there is something called as census we all know that every 10 years they are taking that so they come to each and every house and they ask us all our details and all the details is put into something and they analyze that so what do they do they get data from us and the data is kind of analyzed put into some format now what you do here if you're going to do it for sociology that is going to be third unit that's all okay so survey is a method that we are doing that survey if you do here that is what is the third unit yeah it's as simple as that fourth unit it you just get a little deeper here there are some six people who've laid the foundation for sociology three of three of these people who are from europe three of these people who are from america because before it came to india say there were a lot of research which happened in those countries so we'll be introducing ourselves to those people what they have said but the lucky thing here is if you only understand what they have told us the concept it is enough you don't need to put it exactly in their words and all that so for example there is someone called as Karl Marx now this Karl Marx has told something about capitalism very good stole something about class okay something which is applied very recently you would have heard about naxilism right even recently there was a telugu movie which was discussing about it what is that we don't watch movies and all we're discussing about the red corridor and all that naxil how people become sympathizers to naxil right so what is naxilism based out of it is based out of something which is like revolting against the ways and means of the state so Karl Marx had written something about it so it's like what you find today what this guy had written 200 years back all right so like that what does the thinker say is it practically applicable today or not that's what you get out of this this unit is very important because we get 50 marks in the examination from here so the first three units each of these units what is the weightage and all once we go into the classes we will discuss but as of now you'll remember that unit 4 is quite very important 50 marks 50 marks comes out of it okay that means 220 markers and 110 marker comes out of it and how much ever you kind of avoid you can't avoid writing these three questions that's how the nature of the paper will be 50 unit this is something about how do we group ourselves in the society like we say we get a community certificate right we get something called as caste certificate right so what is this caste what is this race what is this gender right today we we discussed about homosexuality we talk about homonormativity we talk about heteronormativity we kind of discuss all these things post the supreme court judgment he said there has been a decriminalization of homosexual marriages but still homosexual marriages are not legal in India so some nations in the world they permit it so how does this concept of gender come in is transgender a simple word or does it just have one meaning right we look at a person we say there's a this person is a transgender but we understand it's not a transgender there could be a trans sex there could be a cisgender there could be multiple connotations that are involved in this we kind of get exposed to that fine then race so we've heard in history about how there was this always a discussion about black and white common things if you see when you take a chessboard and you have the black and white coins there say the white moves first why does the white coin have to move first why why not the black coin why does the person who has the white make the first move what is it based out of you start thinking is there some symbolism associated with it why is it only black and white why can't i have red and blue colored chess coins no man online when we play we'll have all that but all the coins that have seen they look like this isn't it so we start asking a lot of questions there are some practical applications of what we see around us then we talk about all these things so these are all the words that we have under stratification mobility so you would have heard people telling that see we send everybody to school we have given right to education but just because we sent a person to school does that person get the equal opportunity we give equal input to everyone but everyone we give the common input but the way the person receives the input will be different why how is it different personally biologically i might be different right my circumstances might be different my access to resources might be different i might be sitting under a street light and reading i might not have power in my house and i might be reading i might not have internet connection all through sometimes we do that no the data patala data is not enough so i'll not do a video call i'll do only an audio call why is data not enough i did not manage my 2gb data properly i might have watched some serial more so for something important that i need in the day i might not have right but then we have a limitation of these resources so resources how do we use them how do people get the access for it all this is obviously going to change and is that person actually having a movement this movement is not what we say as migration this movement what we say as mobility is then my name comes on the list of the upsc in that one day my life changes completely i get a mobility it's not just the mobility for me is a mobility for the people in my family my friends we find people celebrating that is it why because that one moment can change people's generations lives all together isn't it that is what is mobility it's not simply moving from one place to another moving from one place to another is some other kind of mobility what we call as physical mobility this we say as social mobility so that is what we discuss here fine now in class we will be going up to this as per the order as soon as we finish this we will go to paper 2 okay because the correlative portions begin from here in paper 2 that is in Indian sociology which we have in paper 2 first is like we have thinkers in paper one like i told you know Karl Marx like that there are many people like that in Indian sociology we had our own people who started studying Indian society who spoke about various things that we have here how to look at Indian society and all that right so that is what we have in perspectives there we call it as thinkers here we are not using the same name we are using some other name but it's the same concept impact of the colonial rule so this is the impact of history that we have on sociology now you start understanding from here various subjects we are having as a mixture in sociology so that is one of the reasons why studying it becomes very easy i know something in gs i know a little bit of history allow a little bit of economics i know a little bit of polity all that is applied here i can easily correlate so here impact of colonial rule is what is studied in history we start looking at it from sociology that means we discuss about tribal movements worker movements women movements all these names you would have studied in history here what happened because of that consequences of it how did the society change because of it we start discussing all that okay then once we get an idea about what all is there in indian sociology then we will do this portion what is this portion yeah fourth unit we have and second unit that we have caste system what we studied as social stratification in paper one we have an applicative portion here called caste system so we'll do this together then we will do social classes because they're also class here also class so we'll not study as two standalone paper one fully i'll finish paper two full it doesn't work like that you have to study it correlatively only then we can cross the 270 mark so ma'am 300 300 if it happens it's good because every year 300 might not be the case because this year and the previous year if you take 270 280 is what the top 50 people have got so one or two odd people get it that might not be the average 300 happens when they decide to increase the mark for the optional that is where all they're giving 12 marks there they give 14 marks where all they're giving five marks they decide to give six marks then the 300 will happen so what normally will be a 270 will become 300 automatically then UPSC is marking pattern changes so first drop this i will get 300 if they give only you'll get okay what you need to do is among people who are writing sociology from India i should come within the top 10 percentile so normally we have 1600 to 1700 students who will be writing mains with sociology looking into the previous UPSC report so if i come within say 160 people or the 170 people in India from that subject i'll definitely get into the top 100 if i come within the top 250 i come within the first two or three choice services depending upon my category of competition so your bandwidth is to come within the top 250 out of people who write sociology from India that should be the way you start thinking so that means if you ever you have a doubt this subject is better or that subject is better i think i have answered that question better is always what is better for you you only have to decide done okay so once we are done with these two correlative portions then we will once again go back to paper one work in economics like economics whatever we study what is the impact of that in sociology that means what about labor code today say july 1st onwards we have introduced something called as an industrial relations code labor code has changed that means you'd have heard people telling hybrid work four days you work three days are going to be holidays for you but those four days you have to work 12 hours a day instead of eight hours five days you work a little more but you will get three days completely off so some things are changing people are working in multiple companies so what is that how does it impact the money of a person covid has told us a lot of things isn't it you don't work in only one company you work in two three companies even if they shut down one company you'll get the money source from another he studied about savings and its importance so like this those terms which are important for people you'll have that in the sixth unit okay so as and when we finish this the portion in paper two we will finish politics in society name itself you can understand whatever is the influence of quality governance public administration etc like party system democracy movements protest agitation revolution all this that we hear no green revolution information technology revolution like these some terms you know we keep on hearing right so what is the impact of that on people eighth unit religion this is impact of philosophy on sociology that means you would have again heard recently they have they have excavated certain things right they have found out that there is a shiveling that was found in yanwapi mosque so that became a controversy and then there was a lot of questions regarding is there a religious polarization happening in the society is it something that we need to talk about right we have a lot of questions isn't it and then supreme court says something then there was something called as the hijab row and we discussed about whether it is a woman's right to wear the hijab or is it something which is imposing like patriarchy on her so why should a woman clothe herself in a particular way does she want to be that way or is the society asking her to be that way so that's the debate that we have like if i want or is somebody else asking me to do so we discussed some term called as religious feminism shabarimala entry into shabarimala right so you don't let menstruate or women who are in their menstruation cycle to enter into the premises we discussed about the sanathan brahmachari right you you discuss about some terms like that the supreme court also came up with something like that so what is the meaning of all these things in everyday life how does it impact people you take tribal societies they have their own gods if you take non-tribal societies they have their own gods religions are so complex and more and more you say no i won't talk about religion not talking about religion itself is talking isn't it that i don't have an opinion is itself an opinion that's how we are right they don't ask me about that when you say that means what you don't want to tell that means you have some opinion that opinion is don't ask me isn't it so what is the impact like that right and then the ninth unit this is about family how is the family system changing because today we talk about live-in relationships we discuss about patchwork families patchwork families means what say for example there is a married man and his children and he takes a divorce there is another married woman she's also taking a divorce and then they remarry and then there's a new family which is like all brought together it's like literally a patch up that you have created so now there is new family with people who do not have blood relation as mother and father but literally you call the other person as a mother you so you talk about social father biological father we have a lot of concepts like this similarly with surrogacy with IVF like a lot of things have changed because the way we look at family the way we look at children all this has actually changed right so that all is what we have in the ninth unit and like from the sixth unit we will be doing it together only what is here in paper one we'll finish immediately we'll do so world what we're doing say in India how it is like that we'll be going correlated and the last unit that we have is social change so how does education change the society how does technology change the society so you talk about say recently you'd have you'd have heard that v-tech sports were banned you'd have heard about southeast asian nations saying that we will not let palm oil export similarly some terms like this like some country saying no we will import this some country saying why do they talk about all this we live in a globalized world we trade in a basket of currencies so we are dependent on the other person other country for example our covid vaccines when we develop the first time we develop the vaccine we took the formula and we customized it for us isn't it so we are dependent on some other group of nations as such and some other nations are dependent on it so we study about dependency concept right so that is what we have in the 10 units so this is what is there in the portions so one part of it is theoretical one part of it is completely correlative and practical what you see around you is what you will be studying here right exclusively there are some units in paper too that is this tribal community is in India so this is studied in detail in anthropology in sociology it is a small unit anthropology it's like a little bigger tribal societies are studied in detail for us it's only about tribal policy something unique about the ways tribe people integrate with a non-tribal part like that cultural changes whatever is happening but it is also quite an important unit we study it here separately rest all is then this portion rural and agrarian transformation of India this is very unique to Indian sociology alone we have something like what are the land reforms that we have done then green revolution rural development programs poverty alleviation programs are they successful or not if they failed what did we learn from those failures like that we have a unit and this one population dynamics population dynamics again it's pretty unique because we study completely about Indian population alone we don't have this in the world perspective so some units are exclusive for paper one like four units are exclusive for paper one some four or five units are exclusive for paper two rest is all coordinated that's how it is okay now if in case you need to choose sociology what are the things that is must okay first is syllabus itself is like from scratch only you don't have a background still you can make something out of it so there's it is like from the beginning it will be started and it will take you to the level what it is needed okay obviously there's a very high clearance rate from sociology because normally when we take any optional subject this one subject it is like whoever goes not everyone will pass not everyone will fail one standard percentage will keep on clearing so it varies between 16 and 19 percentage but it is always like that you will never have a time where it whoever writes means passes and whoever writes main fails that never happens so it's something like which is very what do you say fail safe bargain that you do right okay you put in well you do good you will get it is like that limited syllabus if you are only preparing sociology three months is enough if you're going to prepare sociology with something else then obviously you'll need to take five to six months to prepare only that is with gs when you're preparing to get the background about it it will take you six months it will take double the time okay this is something which might interest a group of people if you want you can repeat what is there in whatever material you're reading if you can if you can't you write the concept in your own words without changing the meaning then it is still okay fine so the keywords are important but the way you understand it you can write it in your own words why because if you take India many of the people would have written sociology in English and also in the regional languages so obviously literature is available in multiple regional languages so you are going to write it in a medium that you choose so obviously there is going to be some interpretation things that we are going to do and if you take world scholars they would have written in French and German and many thinkers would have translated them on to English we are taking from the English sources and then we are reading those thinkers are not alive if they are alive then maybe they'll say oh no i didn't say that right okay reference books readily available and textbooks so there are very few textbooks that you have to read we will we'll talk about that and of course you get the material you get three books totally like i've revised it just before i went in for the break so it is like two books for paper one and one book for paper two so it's like from all the important sources that we have you just put it together and it's like you read something standard and you consolidate it with your textbook with the class notes that you're making it is more than enough for you to get a very very decent score provided you apply that onto your paper when you're writing reading alone is not enough isn't it you need to translate it onto paper so that another person is able to get that you have understood the concept and syllabus i'll cover everything like whatever is there in the syllabus every single word every single unit will be covered for you you don't need to worry about that nothing will be just left off right now come to the challenges if you are a person who writes broken language you know like some people have this point of writing hanging points i tell you what is this hanging point i didn't come today that's a full sentence right so if you're making hints out of this you'll simply write two to three words out of it now you take a complete sentence um india did not respond to a gesture which was made by china on the border like you would have heard that indian army is recruiting mandarin speaking personnel to train our army personnel you would have read no yesterday's paper it was there so we are not alienating ourselves from understanding what mandarin is we understand that if you want to work in the border especially a sensitive area we need to have some idea about what the chinese culture is tibet is a very unique part china is another unique part and china is also not very it's as diverse as we have here in india so i need to have some understanding if i speak that particular language isn't it so when i want to tell this i need to tell it in a sentence so you should have this thing of writing it in sentences simple language simple sentences are enough but if you just write keywords and leave it point point point it doesn't work you have to write it in a sentence so how do i understand whether i get this sentence writing take the 12th standard sociology ncrt you take sociology don't take sociology still everybody has to study it for gs one okay you take that you see if you can understand that language see if you can replicate that ncrt language if you can do that that is enough ability to write in those that kind of a language and obviously in many parts that we have in southern india our exposure to science and our exposure to science-based subjects is pretty higher but if you take in the northern part of india and the northeastern part of india and the eastern part of india there the exposure is there for humanities people take up a lot of humanity subjects so down here in the south this exposure is little tilted it's a little different so there's always this fear factor haven't studied about these things in school will i be able to pick up right that factor is there that's because you don't know to know it just go through the ncrt you can easily get it okay two ncrt's are there for 12th standard just go to the epa chala download it from there and you read it online itself or if you have the textbook take the hard copy of the textbook and just go through it that is enough that level is enough okay fine all right so what do you get when you take up the classes so first syllabus i've already talked to you about second is you'll get a step-by-step assistance in your preparation that means we have classes classes we will be having on weekdays okay monday tuesday venice day and friday up to september we'll be going four days a week Thursdays alone i'll be going to your senior batch for their main test discussion so i won't be able to come to your class so four days we're doing once your seniors complete their main examination that is by september end they'll be finishing they're starting on september 16 october onwards you'll have five days regularly weekdays weekends i will not call you you can plan your reading on the weekends fine if in case there needs to be something extra to be done or whatever i'll try to manage it little bit before little bit after during those days only if in case i want to ask you something extra i'll give you just at least one week before itself i'll tell you so that you can rework or replar accordingly you can take it up okay so sometimes if the mains is reflecting some new trend i might want some extra classes to complete that trend so for that for safety sake i'm telling you that i might but i will not call you on all days and all that i'll finish it within the limited time and next is like say every two units that you finish then you'll be writing class test so class test will be like obviously on thursdays i will keep it because that day anyway you don't have class so you can get engaged in the test and for whatever unit is completed say 10 days time will be given for you to read and then you'll be writing the class test okay so obviously we are starting on july 18 maybe by august mid we will be starting with the test whatever we are covering in the class based on that previously it will be told to you and then you will be having the test okay so after you complete the test test will all be for one hour initially i'll be training one hour making you to write four questions then i'll take you to five questions then i'll take you to six questions then i'll take you to seven questions because we need to complete six to seven questions in one hour because 19 questions we have to write in sociology and i can't create this magic in you know few months i need a years time with you and then only i can create that kind of a result okay so we will do it in a constant manner and once you finish the class test the class test papers will be evaluated there will be two mentors for you those mentors will be service candidates my previous batch students they will be they or they will be the interview students but who have cleared the i mean either cleared the interview or who have gone to the interview stage and who've got very good marks in the optional so three of us me and my students they will be we will be shuttling the papers within us and we will be giving you the feedback so once you write the test then you will be asked to fix up a time for the feedback and then the feedback will be given to you feedback will be one on one it is personally what you write based on that only the feedback will be given to you okay and we'll be monitoring your progress like you might have a problem in language another person might have a problem in concept understanding another person might have a problem in like translating the concept onto the paper so each person's problem will be different so you can't have a customized thing i mean you can't have one thing one custom package for everyone right you need to make it like little different for every single person so that will be done for you so we will complete the classes by maximum December 1st week we will complete after that also you will be continuing to write the test so we will ideally finish five tests during the time of the classes and after that you will be writing a series of tests these tests will go on till March May 28th is your exam so ideally you come once in 14 days after the classes get over to write the test and then this process will keep going on so idea is one full round of optional you will complete before you go for your preliminary and you will have two months time solid to sit and read obviously you might need four months time to prepare for pre-live but optional little bit you need to keep writing practice so for that sake you will be coming say once in twice a month like that to write the optional test all right so this is what is the main writing practice so this comes as a part of your training for the optional we'll finish off all the class test by the time we come to maximum by March clear then yeah these are the parameters which UPSC looks in so these parameters help you to score better so evaluations will also be done on the same way starting initially it will be done with content relevance and all that and then slowly that innovation and all those factors will be brought in so first step will be to build the content and then to give sensible answers for the given question in the given time then rest of the things you have to work on you have to do some self-practice also and that you should perhaps do it after your preliminary examination okay and yeah so right now myths some myths are there isn't it always in student community we keep discussing this this option is better than that option this optional got this rank and so yes ranks are important we are writing it for a competitive exam but then uh every optional has its own way of having its own results okay it's about the student's ability to perform in that optional that's the only thing that you need to keep keep in your mind and that's what that's all you have on the second point all right now in case you decide to choose sociology what are the other things that you come with it automatically one is in gs paper one you have close to 85 marks if this subject is not there for your preliminary examination it is only a mains and interview thing that you have every optional that you take it will be covered in two phases of the examination either some objects are there in prelim and main some objects are there in main and interview this optional is there for main and interview it is important for that so gs one you're having close to they're asking six questions one question which is like along with post independence history which has a little bit of sociology connection so you can say minimum 85 marks comes out of this essay writing eight topics that they give two topics one in each section they come with sociology only so if you have some content that you have built from this you can easily build use that for the essay as well one thing that we do is here we'll say this thinker said it another thinker said that we'll drop the thinker's name and we'll just write what the thinker said that that's how we convert our optional to the essay okay why some terms some names it might be familiar to only that group of people general studies means it should be understood by everyone the evaluator might not be from sociology background and there if you go and dump all the words there you'll literally kind of not impress the examiner right when you don't speak a common language so that common language is right sentences but drop the thinker's names that's all interviews yeah in interview every single person we get questions regarding our own district regarding our state regarding some national issues ideally we get in the five member board at least four to five questions come based on social problems sometimes we even get you know hypothetical situations they ask us to take you know take a stand they ask us to tell what will you do in this situation they ask us questions like that case studies also we get no in GS paper four six questions come from case studies at least two case studies are sociology based they are society based you can easily make your course of action out of this and state services examination if you take many states leave Kerala and Tamil Nadu rest most of the states they have sociology as their optional paper it's similar to what you have in UPSC now ma'am I don't belong to that state can I write the state examination obviously anybody can write any state level examination provided you compete in general category you cannot compete in so a community might be an OBC in that state that community might not be an OBC in another state so I can go and write Uttarakhand Public Service Commission if I if I am going to compete in general category I can't claim an OBC reservation when I go in there but yes I can do is it mandatory to know Hindi to go and write there some some states they have language compulsory but majority of the states now what they do is after you get selected in that state's group one then within two years like how you have in this UPSC same way within two years you study the state language you can that is enough you just pass those examinations you can take up you finish your probation and you take up service so many state services examination for example Karnataka Public Service Commission West Bengal Public Service Commission UP Public Service Commission they all have sociology as an optional subject so you obviously have the scope wider you can attempt for group one also there and these days after a couple of attempts we always look for backup right we kind of want to be very grounded and very practical so I prepare for the main examination but sometimes what happens is my prelim itself might be a roadblock for some time and my family situation might be in such a way that after a point of time I can't just keep pursuing only UPSC for some it might be like that for some people it is very easy like first itself or second attempt you're like clearing in one shot you clear the prelim you start getting the hope but sometimes that gets delayed for people like I want to tell two people whom I know personally one was a senior of mine he is Mr Saravanan he is kind of placed in Rajasthan right now in the IAS carder so he took six attempts to clear prelims and when he cleared prelims he was in IAS okay similarly there is another person whom I know her name is Nikita Bogha she is right now in forest services Telangana she got in civil services also in IRS so for her for three attempts prelims was only tough the moment she cleared prelims civil also came forest also came so sometimes prelims is a gamble you know you just come points somewhere nearby that doesn't determine you or your you know merit as a person so ma'am is that okay it's not always okay but sometimes you know that you've tried but somewhere that misfortune comes in right so in case there is some kind of a stagnation then obviously look for something which keeps us with UPSC and we can come you know continue with our preparation like that if I'm going for going for some kind of a backup option we do have a lot of backup options as well that is recently from last year gate sociology has come up that means I can take up masters even if I do not have a background I'm having some other background I clear the gate of sociology I can take up in IITs I can take up post graduation in sociology and I can build my career in that itself once I complete my PG then I might get some jobs related to that some research work related to that that's possible similarly there is another scope that as in when we you know give GRE or GMAT with GRE or GMAT also we can get into IITs direct PhD if we have an undergrad four year undergrad it's possible so like that there are many opportunities that are available today then you are going to take up for or going for some kind of an alter-liter and another thing that you will remember is in state services commission also in the general studies papers sociology is included like we have in like we have in GS1 like there also social issues are a part of it so it it is like comprehensive coverage only thing format will be different here we will be concentrating on explanation of points their state services will be tending to write many points within the given time the approach might be different compared to what we write here but the content what we make here it will be useful and of course there are some post graduation options that we have so some students they took up the post graduation option like for example Atul Kulkari he's placed in IPS Maharashtra right now so he did Tata Institute of Social Sciences urban urban studies and after he completed urban studies he got selected so he had to take a break for two years and then he was parallely preparing and then he got in so he was consulting with Nashik corporation Nashik municipality and then then he got selected into the UPSC similarly there is a person called Anu Senapati she is from Kerala she is in IAS Tamil Nadu Kada she got 42nd rank so she was pursuing her post graduation and then she had registered for her first year PhD that was the time when she cracked the examination and she got so for her it took a little more took a little more than three years so she started doing this and she still got selected so it's not that you just leave your hope so why i'm telling you all these things is generally people don't tell these things and we start losing hope in between right so first we'll always try to attempt whichever attempt we give the first means we have to go into the final list that should be our way of we never prepare for prelims we should always prepare to get into the final list that should be the way prelims first let me pass prelims then let me start what is the use can you put anywhere i pass prelims as a degree nowadays you can't even tell people also you cleared up 13 000 people are clearing prelims what is the big deal here yes or no that's how it is and now with name also they are putting the prelims list so you simply can't tell people i cleared but i didn't go to the means i mean i cleared prelims but means only was a problem everybody will find out whether you actually cleared prelims or not means you actually have to pass previously in all we used to have some people right or what happens is like two to three years it becomes and then parental pressure starts come back come back enough of studying right so then no i've cleared one level let me give me some more time that give me some more time to tell first level i have cleared next level let me go now you have to show proof for everything isn't it so let's proceed in that direction or actually getting into the list fine okay so these are the people of course last year i did not take classes but i had some eight students from the previous batches who had cleared one such person was pratik mantri this year he had scored 280 marks 2020 he was there but last year i just because i was on a break i just corrected a few papers of his but i can only show you 2020 from that time last year i can't show you because i have not done work last year so you know mira jubin they all had wonderful marks so this is the highest that i have come till now all india ranks sixth so before that i've not had any student and i hope one of you sitting here will be that who'll take me to that ai r1 okay because with every success that you get i'm also getting one step closer to my dream so these are the people they're anyway available in shankar's website so roughly 27 and then last the previous year they were 27 people then they were pre before that they were 24 people so we've had kind of very good results out of the people who have so neha neha is from iml so she she was actually writing the exam for quite a quite a while before she actually made it i showed her first attempt itself she got in and she got into iras and then she migrated to is so there are lots of people you can find them on the website itself out of this i think yeah malavika is writing this year you can see the names shaktivel is also writing samir is also writing so these are all the people i can just show you your seniors who have made it into the list obviously each of these people are an inspiration so this is what i have for you these are all in the book that you get all these names will be there and whenever we look into that nera number my number is going to be the next right that's how we think this was my first batch my 2013 batch the first ever batch that i had to this is where you know from the class batch 33 students were there in that batch and out of that these four got into service so that is when i decided that okay it was not that i didn't study that i didn't make it so maybe there was something else so that was the thing because missing out on the list was by two marks for me so it was kind of very difficult to accept you start entering into a self-questioning mode right what have you actually gone wrong with but then when these people cleared then you know that okay so you are in safe hands don't worry about it i'll do everything possible from my side to help you out okay so now it's for your questions about your classes right 530 we'll start 530 you have to be in the class okay obviously if i am going to be late on someday i'll inform to you which rarely happens i try to be on time as much as possible because sometimes there will be some you know weather issues there might be some network issues whatever be the case but it can be informed you will never delay classes we start on time and 530 when we start initially uh five to ten minutes we'll be just going through what we've studied the previous day like we'll just have an overview like these these topics i'll not be doing it in detail these these topics we have covered then we will go to that particular day's portion we'll do one half of that till say six fifty seven o'clock within that time we'll get a break you'll have a maximum five to ten minute break and then we'll be continuing with the next topic up to eight o'clock this will be the plan so normally the way that we'll do it is 535 start till 540 uh 645 650 when we do the topic after we finish that all the questions that you have i'll handle offline or online we'll have it because in between the class i might not be able to take your questions finish one topic then take your questions finish the next topic and then take your questions and beyond eight it is a little difficult for me to stay so maximum i might need time to say eight five eight ten after that i will i'll not be taking on here if there are any pending queries then i'll come to the previous little earlier the next day and handle your queries and obviously we are going to have i'll give you my mail id we'll have the telegram group personally we are available here mentors will be available so don't worry about as much as possible try to absorb maximum in the class and i will not dictate any notes in the class okay you will have to make running notes but this will be the pace of my speech printed material will be given to you so extra whatever you need it will be given to you whatever we are discussing in the class you make proper notes out of it as and when there is some topic which is actually very difficult for you to create there may be to show you how to handle answer writing that we will be doing so i'll tell you what will be the class plan so we complete a line of the syllabus then based on the client how the previous year they have asked the questions how to structure answers for that so i'll first orient you hand hold you in the class how to do your introductions how should be your paragraphs i'll show you some demo papers from how they have written those answers and then as and when you start writing obviously that will come to you so little bit of hand holding will be done initially so that you get into the groove and then you proceed okay and we'll have English as the medium of instruction uh inside the classroom outside the classroom if you speak if you and i speak a common language you can definitely ask maybe two to three languages i might know or i might put you onto someone who can speak that language but primary mode of instruction would be English because we have students from various parts of India inside the class okay and when we go for upsc obviously we also need to escalate ourselves to what is a common language and for us now English is a common language so we are going with English okay it will be kind of similar to this only like that break time that i told you know that will be the time for the offline as well as the online and for the online candidates uh anyway like the the paper evaluation like students who are here they'll be doing it uh they'll be coming and they'll be getting the papers for the students who are online you scan the papers and you mail it and then based on the scanned paper a telephonic feedback or a zoom feedback will be given to you so i think process is the same but i would definitely want you like uh you know at least once in a while to visit maybe monthly ones or something if you can visit any center i keep fleeting to all the centers so wherever the center Shankar center is there i'll be available at a stipulate i'll inform to you which whichever is the nearest place that could be the case uh so regarding the logistics i think you'll have to talk but i'll tell you my understanding uh normally if there is a particular portion that is taught they have a stipulated period of time for the online candidates alone where they might have a portal through which the video is given uh the logistics regarding the videos of the classes you'll have to discuss it with the optional coordinator uh but yes it is available but it seems it's like of a stipulated duration of which i'm not aware right now i know it on 18th of july only because they have to freeze the vendor through which they are going to give this normally when a student is online um we ask the student to post the questions on the chat box and the chat box will be visible to me and i'll take up the questions from the chat box whatever is not repeated in the offline class some extra question is asked i'll deal it after that so switching on the audio or the video might take a longer period of time so we use the chat box for that but seeing you i'll be seeing it you from here but asking the question if you if you switch on and off then it might take a longer time so we take the questions pile up the questions together and common questions i'll just take it up from the thing so that i'll do it two intervals one the break and one at the end of the class so the books will be given to you two weeks after you begin classes and books will it'll all be given to you at the stretch so first i think they'll give you paper one unit one to five which i'll be dealing first and then they'll be giving you the rest of the books so normally it'll be done in i think two times they will be giving you totally three books given to you at two different points of time so once they get an idea of how many people are there in a batch then they give it for printing so printing time will normally take seven days so it will be that time that they will be taking to give huh so once you come to class right during the first day of the class hours i'll be talking to you in detail about whatever we study i'll be orienting you like each topic what is the mark weightage what are the reference books etc we'll be discussing because now we have a group of people who might not even want to take up sociology so that that thing might not be relevant for them so for a relevant audience we will discuss that separately so i'll be talking to you about reference books everything okay reference books paper one we will go with just one book and paper two we will go with two books that is only reading extra reading but it is not like university wherein everything in the reference book will get repeated that's why the printed notes is given to you um it doesn't work like the university wherein from five units this book exactly it doesn't work like that so maximum what is getting covered like paper one we have a book called harry lumbo's we use it in that harry lumbo's also it is not a language which you can't understand it's a simple followable kind of language only paper two we go with indian authors but paper two that is a difficulty every line is a book every line in the syllabus is a book and we are going to write maximum four pages so sitting and reading one entire book to write four pages doesn't make sense no so we'll do that often class and extra whatever you need we'll collate it and give it to you and see there are certain things like current affairs which will be important right so as when we do that topics we'll be integrating the current affairs like in today's orientation session i was talking to you about two three concepts no like that whatever is important for that topic we'll be dealing examples and all we'll be dealing with right and magazines we follow some magazines but synopsis of those magazines i'll be giving it to you i'm integrating that and giving it to you in the book itself other than that what is happening from this july that we will be doing in class so you'll have something with you solid apart from that you pick it up from the class okay so you asked about reference books class ppt's whatever i use in class i'll be giving it to you in optional if i use a ppt you don't need to make notes of what is there in the ppt i'll put it to you in the telegram group itself what you will make class notes is based on that so obviously if tomorrow i'm going to do some topic one week before itself i'll give you the ppt so in the class the interpretation from the ppt is what you will be doing you'll not be making notes from the ppt i'll give everything to you there's nothing which i'll have which i'll not give it to you whatever i do in class i'll give it so don't need to worry about giving it to you will be done through the group telegram group we'll be using that the same format of the question paper what is given in the offline the booklet which is given in offline we'll be doing it in white sheets with that upse boundary the same thing will be given that question paper will be posted on the group as well so students will be taking the question paper from the group and they like the offline students write it on hard copy the online students also parallely you'll be doing it at that time normally i will give a window period because sometimes i have the test but students might fall sick or they might be working they might have called it so i give a three-day window period for people to complete the test because we have to keep that human element always it's exactly not rigid as the upse that you don't go for an exam and so your candidature itself is not it's not like that so our objective is to learn so you finish the papers can it and then you send it to a stipulated mail ID which will be shared with you and we will take the papers from that and we'll evaluate it and call you for the feedback that's how it will be done okay the class timing is monday tuesday venice day friday 5 30 to 8 p.m after september it will be monday to friday 5 30 to 8 p.m if in case there is a need for something extra it will be informed two weeks prior or maximum one week prior so regular is this will be the time that we are having if it is the same mentor who will be dealing with the offline as well as the online the slots alone will be different that's all yes you have to study because even if a student has idetic memory idetic memory is like shitty robot you see once everything comes to you some people are like that they have photographic memory whatever they see everything you can get some people pass university exams only because of that right so even if you have a memory like that the nature of questions whether it is general studies or essay or optional has a little bit of application so you need to tune yourself to think that means apart from the class hours you definitely need to spend sizable amount of time that means i think you need it depends upon every student's reading and comprehensive capacity but to complete whatever portions that is taught in the class during the weekends is something which is mandatory otherwise it will just pile up in the end easiest ways before every class test if you start preparing portions will just get completed automatically so you keep your thinking like for every test i will study and write the test that way it makes it very simple yes you have to spend other than class hours to study it is needed it is needed for everything in ups see the class test program will take you in line with what is needed for the exam and after you finish this one round then next year there will be some main test series but that is not paid with this you'll have to enroll separately for it but this itself is adequate for you to cover it because the mentorship and what you get if you do that itself it is automatically helping you to enter more and obviously we are not going to tell you don't bring answers other than whatever is there we are here to help you so you write and bring we will evaluate and give it to you whatever you help you need you ask we will do it and give but structurally this is what i'm offering this i can do i will definitely do extra whatever you want from your set you have to tell your league so for students who have already opted for the subject until i come to me take your classes next week first you start going through unit one that is 11th standard ncrt there is something called as emergence of sociology so this emergence of sociology is the first unit that we have you go through this in the 11th standard first ncrt okay so four books of ncrt are there 11th standard there are two books and 12th standard there are two books 11th standard books are for paper one and 12th standard books are for paper two okay so that's why those who want to decide on sociology i asked you to read this because this topic is common for gs1 notes okay but those who have decided you first start with 11th standard in that if you take the index now remember whenever you read ncrt for uh the upc exam you don't need to read complete ncrt like that okay just take the topic see the index page whether that line is there in the syllabus only that you do don't do book by book it is of no use go unit by unit topic by topic whatever you're reading go like that okay so you go for 11th standard ncrt where you will find something like introduction to sociology like that will be there and another parallel uh reading that you can do is download da ignu sociology material it's a freely downloadable pdf okay five pdfs will be there it will be readily available you download that in that pdf the same topic will be there that you go through line by line in ignu they would have covered okay simple language you'll be getting similarly in youtube there is a video on industrial revolution it will be a 24 minute video which gives you a complete understanding of industrial revolution for some 24 something okay i'm not able to exactly recollect and it will be like in black and white with all pictures it will show you exactly what happened it's a very nice uh movie kind of thing which tells you uh about industrial revolution it has a lot of correlation to history also you read that it'll commonly cover that and it'll also cover a sizeable 20 marker that you have in our optional also so you watch this uh in this meantime so to read this and to go through this i think ideally one week time pakka you'll have for it if many materials will be there just go with whatever is similar to what line you have in the first unit in the syllabus do that work start with that if you're doing the work this one week okay can you switch offline to online i think there will be some process to do that which means if you want to migrate from one thing to another you'll have to approach the HR department and logistics should be done through the uh the optional coordinator it will be possible but they will have some formality or some kind of payment for a reason is when a student joins online they buy the space accordingly so if there is a migration then they will need to increase the license that they have for it so accordingly they will have to plan so they might have to any transition like that they might take but yes it is possible on social media my account is this that is i think in telegram it is with an underscore and any other space that you're using i'm only regular with telegram okay fd insta and all that i'm only once in a while but yes i'm pretty active on everything but insta i'm really bad but yes i do check at least once a day that i check but if you're going to ask academic queries it's better that you please come to my telegraph or to this other than academics you have nothing to ask me right that is uh you will have to make running notes as and when i do the topics in the class that will be the more there will not be dictation dictation like say for definitions i might dictate certain things like certain things which i would want you to replicate exactly that i'll be telling it to you but other than that like each and every point dictation i will not be done i think we have taken up all the questions if in case you have anything else please reach out all right thank you for your time we'll catch up on 18th of july monday 5 30 p.m thank you