Civil Services Mains 2020 Results: In or Out ? Way ahead, gratitude and Pain

cultural differences yes. but i just felt the vlogger made some relevant points and raised genuine concerns. especially considering he would have to face direct brunt of the stereotyping unlike us. personally i felt it was in poor taste. but honestly im not surprised. as much as we admire the japanese or other great powers, i feel we should be cautious about how they, as a nation, view us. nobody is our 'friend'. especially not if they look down upon us in this way. i may be overthinking but i feel east asians dont see india/indians in good light. thats what i have gathered from several hours of youtube vlogs :P

Haha the last part :D

I’ve personally started feeling so much better since I stopped looking at what time it is to study. Or even monitor the hours I put in for that matter. I decide on a few broad targets for the week and the day and do it. It means studying throughout the day, but in bursts and with intermittent breaks. Never been a big fan of time tables.

I think there exists a big difference between how India is perceived as a state, and how Indians in general are thought of as. The latter is shaped a lot by personal dispositions of a person, their lived experience, biases and so on. 

@Steph_Curry I have also struggled with that desire for being perfect or nothing a bit. And I never had a problem with staying calm, never really experienced real anxiety about anything until this mains. I just have one experience to share.

Like the others said, I think the solution is to just slowly let go of some ideals we create and hype up in our our own heads. For example, at the very start of my prep I decided two things: I would become a morning person, and I would follow a daily plan on my whiteboard. I did these things meticulously everyday all the way until after prelims. I rarely woke up later than 7, almost never slept without clearing my whiteboard and writing the next day's plan. I enjoyed this routine a lot, found it very satisfying and somehow connected it firmly in my head to success in this exam. 

The problem started when I started having those classic symptoms after prelims that most of us here are familiar with, racing heart and sleepless nights. I couldn't fall asleep until 3 or 4 at night, so I couldn't get up early. I couldn't stick to my whiteboard plans because somehow everything took longer than I planned no matter how carefully I tried to allocate time. That led me into a self-imposed horrible couple of weeks, because the loss of those two habits made me feel like a utter failure. After a few days I pulled myself together and decided that studying is the main part, hours and plans are secondary. So I started studying until 6am and slept peacefully until 12pm. Ultimately the change in routine that felt so disastrous to me didn't matter. 

I don't really have any other advice for specific situations like the bench or fan thing. But for the general anxiety of preparation, I think it is very healthy to keep these arbitrary standards of perfection in check and measure ourselves against just our actual progress and nothing else. Hope this means something to you. :) all the best!

I'm very (pleasantly) surprised to know JEE prep wasn't a traumatic hellscape for everyone :p

For me the only value of that time has been that it is so entirely the opposite of this current phase, that it helps me remember how good I have it now. I hated those JEE prep days, partly because I was immature and partly because I had never wanted to do engineering. It gave me a horrible fear of competitive exams (because I never ended up in an IIT) and crushed my self-esteem. 

But it is valuable today because I know I am on the right track now when I think back to those days. There was discipline and consistency then too, but it didn't come from a love for the dream like it does today. So that experience taught me how things should NOT be. I feel very happy about how happy this prep makes me (not right now, but generally speaking :p), irrespective of the result. 

it does to an extent. for me it gave clarity about my study habits. that coaching wouldnt click for me. group vs alone. or my optimum hours etc. but that can be realised by anyone within a couple of months of serious study i feel. as for isolation, i think in jee years i wasnt isolated per se as i had fellow coaching guys working all day long alongside me.

fatigue may arise from competitive pressure but never from the studying itself. atleast in the first or second attempt. upsc subjects are a breath of fresh air for any engineering graduate i feel. it is a welcome change. after 4 mentally challenging years to come here? barring the competition pressure, its desirable. as for competition, many do like the adrenaline rush. but i personally am just pushing along frankly. 

thanks for putting the question out there. now ill benefit from reading the answers as well :)

Allow me to jump the gun here. I would put forth my answer later. Your question reminds me of a contextual debate- the performance of Humanities and Engineering students in CSE. It has been observed that engineering students are more successful in general. 

Preparing for JEE was my first tryst with competitive exams. To learn something impactful so early in life is rare. So, I did not have an epiphany back then. However, in the hindsight, I realize it was then when I developed my mental faculties and set a bar for myself. I could not raise the bar any further in subsequent years. Prior to JEE, our school education had failed me as it does every other student in our country. I was a rote learner. 

JEE preparation is the phase in the life of a science student where he/she creates a threshold for himself/herself. It is this threshold that determines their performance in the competitive exams in the future. It is then when we start to develop ourcritical powers of assimilation(an oft-mentioned phrase we see during the CSE preparation) unknowingly. It is then we become interested in the 'why' and not the 'what'. I have only been on a downward trajectory as far as mental abilities are concerned ever since I entered the engineering college. It was never the same after I left the JEE preparation. 

So, if you would ask me a single-word answer to your question, it would be 'yes'. That being said, I have absolutely no knowledge of the way social sciences are taught in colleges. So, it would be blatantly unwise of me to criticize the pedagogy used to teach social sciences in our country. However, I am certain of the following points-

• The inertia of rote learning till the class 10th might be a significant roadblock given the nature of social sciences. It is not so for science students as the change in pedagogy is right from Day 1 (for those who take coaching for JEE preparation).
• Not many colleges offering social sciences would be having a decent pedagogy that would push students to think and question as science students do. Thanks to the JEE coaching industry (Credit to coaching institutes where it is due).

With regards to mental fatigue, there are a few things-

• The first being the choices and habits one developsduring this phase. During my JEE phase, I used to play book cricket, do commentary in my head, talk to myself, and many little things. Even after being alone, I was engaging with a hypothetical personality while doing these activities. That conditioning kind of helped me to remain self-engaged without feeling the need for a company during CSE preparation too.
• Secondly, thefamily plays a crucial roletoo. My parents believe I am doing my best at all times. So, I did not feel the burden until now. Now, my age is asking me tough questions!
• Thirdly,if your past performances have been good, they bear testimony to the aspirations you seek now.  They help overcome the negativities.

I have highlighted these points from my own experience only. Please do not construe this as an attempt to draw generalizations.

The only thing which I have seen in those who managed to clear those early life competitive exams is deep rooted belief that clearing an examination is not tough. That 'padhenge to ho hi jaayega waali baat. Ki utna kar ke aise kar liya to thora aur kar ke behtar to kar hi Lange' attitude.

However, things go wrong later on, but still I would not say that the confidence was made out of thin air. They genuinely believe in that ' jitni achhi practise utna achha performance' principle.

And it is quite natural. Even in this exam when one gets a not so desirable service they start thinking in quantitative terms while aspiring for top ranks. Ki iss paper me ye sab nahi padh ke itna mil gaya ,next time ye sab padh lenge to utna mil jaana chahiye.

As far as second thing is concerned ,speaking subjectively, I never met someone who said that mental fatigue was such that they got overwhelmed and would hate being again in a similar position in the future. This was true only for those who could get through those exams which anyways dont extend for far too long.

This may not be true in case of CSE where there may be people who get into after 5 -6 years and with all the experience and maturity gained would hate being made to do that again. 

I thing final outcome as well as the period of grind matters.

How are you managing at home? My JEE phase at home was pretty different from now. I used to study for hours in my room but when I shifted back to my home for upsc prep thinking Jee mein padh liya tha toh ab kya issue h. But not getting that momentum at home, found delhi better in this aspect. 
I did join the library in my city, it was pretty decent. In fact as good as my college library hall but then another lockdown :) 

I never prepared for JEE but I did buy many books for it, joined a local coaching and gave that exam and after results, wondered why I was not selected. 

This was itself a message for CSE preparation, and I didn’t repeat the mistake  : )

But a shubhchintak shared detailed info of a meeting here on forum recently. Prashant kishore of forum. Was he making it up? What a shocker! Im stunned :P

Thank you peeps for sharing your past experiences and learnings. It is always good to know different past stories and how they shape the present. :)

My queries have been suitably attended to. Thanks. 

Yes stereotyping is bad, I am so much sorry for Japanesse :D

I found the video more of clickbait kind of, and accordingly content was prepared.

Indians there could help them realise the true spirit of India through their deeds

This fellow in video forgot the doctrine of Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam and speaking stuffs like his tax money is gift to old age pensioners. That was bad aspect. 

East Asians, I am not sure how they look us, but there are so many other big nations playing a role out there, that India’s contribution is definitely marginalised