UPSC-CSE makes you a person who feels more than see

The compactly-tightened cycles of prelims-mains-interviews along with prelims_result-mains_result-final_result come with their own fun and challenges. Many of us might have felt very close to all stages in various cycles. Sometimes you lose prelims by 0.5 marks, some time you lose final selection by 8 marks. And the deep desire to clear the exam feels like “Kasturi hiran”.

I have seen my strongest of friends including myself in their weakest of times. Simply because, they had put their 100% for an exam that gave the best administrative positions based on a combination of marks of 1 essay paper, 4 GS papers, 2 optional papers, and 1 personality test.

Now interestingly, varying performance in each year is not taken into account. For example, a person named “Ram” might have got 120 in 2016, 142 in 2017, and 110 in 2018 in let’s say paper of Essay. Now how come one can judge his/her brain’s articulative capacity? Plus it’s not easy to create a good exam mechanism. So, you just total up marks from all subjects that have been checked by hundreds of different teachers with some so-called normalization process.

So, basically, it is like a First-Past-The-Post system with little complexity. Certainly, missing out on the proportional representation of knowledge or maturity of a person. In a particular year, in a personality test, you could get 200 marks and in another, you could have degraded and got 140 marks. Now, of course, this can happen, but can you see the subjectivity?

More interestingly you can see a visible difference of marks in optional paper. Actually what formula in the world could compare a best IAS officer if they are comparing Pali with Physics, or Political Science with Mathematics?

To little more salt, how and who is deciding the number of seats? If you would have given the exam with full concentration in year XXXX, with the same rank (not just marks) you could have become a different officer in another field altogether.

Exam of CSE is basically a combination of your temperament on the exam day, your smartness in hard work throughout the year, your positive attitude, persistence (in case you devoted more than 2 years), and your luck which comes from a lot of subjectivity involved in combinations of 7 papers + 1 Personality Test.

So, the question that are we hiring the best officers is out of the question because it is already complicated. Somehow the exam ensures that whoever is clearing has something special. Rest special, can just be collateral damage.

Then should you be disappointed if could not clear?

Yes, of course, one will/should be. You give your complete self with almost the sincerity you could have. Yes, yes, if could have done that, on that year or this, on this year then you might have cleared. But still, it’s not that bad.

In fact, I can just keep writing and writing about my experiences when I was down for days. But let’s focus on what you become rather than how you become-:

1) High emotional quotient: You tend to become highly intellectual when it comes to your or others’ emotions. You witness multiple kinds and types of traumas and down phases, so eventually you relate to multiple feelings.

2) Multi-dimensional Business thinker: Because your tiny brain cells carry a memory of the history of the Indian economy, planning, types, differences in demographics and cultures, international business and economic dynamics, tens of case studies of depression, recession, and so on. This all reflects on how you form your business problem statement for given variables.

3) Creates Marketing Understanding: Because you know how, how many and what type of poverty or richness is existing. Your guestimate skills can very simply add parameters in 5 minutes which might not have been thought of by your manager. So you know how many can like what type of type.

4) Stakeholder Management: Because you studied a plethora of things about government, businesses, and new research and you can follow with the emotional temperament in the room. Your ego has already been pushed down so you keep aside your wisdom, knowledge, and hard work for the sake of achieving a personal or organizational goal.

5) Team Management & Leadership: Because you lost your time and energy in keeping up your confidence and in managing time. So, you simply create and set good examples by yourself. Basically, you lost so much blood in one battle that every other feels very small. Since you lost so much you are hungry and generate a different perspective on failures. Your perspective on failure makes you give lee-way to your team members in a very good way. And your hunger pushes you to work even when no one is motivated around. So, aren’t you a cool manager now?

Finally, you start valuing money not just for you but for the people around you. You invested valuable time and you got nothing much in hand (In both cases you failed or passed :P). You know how important is the fact that people around you grow with you so that you yourself can sustainably grow. Won’t you become a cool CEO then?