Cities like Delhi and Allahabad have become UPSC Civil Services coaching hubs. Once you start your preparation, many people will guide you to move to one of these cities and join one of the institutes that provide UPSC coaching.
It is a common belief among civil service aspirants that if they do not attend coaching classes, their chances of getting selected in the IAS exam are very less. Breaking these myths, Nidhi Siwach became an IAS officer in 2018. She did not go to Delhi or Allahabad and did not attend any coaching classes. Let’s know their success story.
In an interview, Nidhi spoke about how people manipulate candidates about coaching classes, forcing them to join them for fear of failure.
He said, it is not mandatory to join a coaching institute. Even if there is no one to guide you at home, there is enough material available on the internet to crack the civil services exam.
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Nidhi Siwach is a resident of Gurugram. She is an engineer specializing in Mechanical Engineering. She was a design engineer at Tech Mahindra before she started preparing for the civil services exam. During her college days, Nidhi wanted to join the Indian Air Force.
He took the FCAT exam, passing the first two stages. During his SSB interview, the interviewer convinced him to prepare for UPSC. This was a pivotal moment in Nidhi’s life. He took advice and started preparing for civil services.
After this interview, Nidhi made her first attempt. Though he did not prepare much, but scored better than many other candidates.
After some time Nidhi did not want to leave her job in Tech Mahindra and prepared with it. She could not even complete her syllabus in the second attempt. She failed the prelims again, but she didn’t lose hope. By then, her family started looking for boys to marry her.
Nidhi did not want to get married so soon, she convinced her father to give her one last chance for UPSC. “The paper was not difficult in both the previous attempts, I failed because I didn’t prepare well,” says Nidhi.
Her father gave her the last chance on one condition, if she failed, she would have to marry the person chosen for her without any problem. Nidhi accepted this condition and returned home to start preparations afresh.
Nidhi moved back from Hyderabad to Gurugram in November 2017. His major struggle was when he had to choose his optional subject. Nidhi knew that optional subject played a major role in her civil services exam preparation.
After analyzing the question papers of the last 5 years, they shortlisted four optional subjects, Public Administration, Chemistry, Mechanical Engineering and History. He found that mechanical engineering is possible as an alternative. So he decided to go with it.
Nidhi told in an interview that she did not see the main gate of her house for the next six months. She studied, ate and slept in only one room for the next six months.