3 min readNew DelhiMar 19, 2022 09:12 AM IST
First published on: Mar 17, 2022 at 06:07 PM IST
IIT Kanpur graduate, Saurabh Singh Yadav Thursday secured the all India rank (AIR) 1 in the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) 2022 (Environmental Science & Engineering) with a score of 77 out of 100.
In March 2021, Yadav started preparing for GATE 2022 and aced the exam on his first attempt. Apart from environmental science and engineering, Yadav also secured an AIR 3 in the civil engineering paper.
The 24-year old civil engineer from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh said he developed an interest in environmental engineering after his initial experiences on various projects at IIT Kanpur.
“Environmental engineering is a crucial field, but it has not garnered much interest among the candidates as it continues to be taught as part of the civil engineering curriculum. Engineers are responsible for almost every man-made structure in the world, but they must also work towards ensuring that the environmental balance is not disrupted,” Yadav told indianexpress.com.
Yadav completed his BTech in Civil Engineering from IIT Kanpur in 2020. After graduating, he took up an analyst’s job at an analytics firm. “Civil engineering is a conventional branch, but it does not fetch many job offers. Even at IITs, the number of options available for civil engineering graduates is limited. Hence, I decided to work as an analyst but could not continue for long,” he said.
Despite getting a score of above 90 marks in civil engineering, Yadav achieved AIR 3. On the other hand, he got an AIR 1 in environmental science and engineering with 77 marks. “Environmental engineering is a low scoring paper and not many students appear for the same,” he said.
The environmental science and engineering paper had two kinds of questions—static and dynamic. “While static questions can be solved easily after understanding the basic concepts, dynamic questions require candidates to be well-versed with the world’s present condition,” said Yadav, adding that he lost 23 marks in dynamic questions.
According to the topper, aspirants do not need to go through a lot of books to qualify for GATE. “The exam can be cracked with basic knowledge of engineering with an in-depth understanding of the opted paper, but they do not need to get too involved in going through multiple books. For me, my classes at Unacademy and BTech concepts helped me score well,” said Saurabh.
He advises aspirants to take “a huge number of mock tests”. “Practice helps in minimising mistakes and allows one to achieve a high score,” Saurabh added.
He does not intend to pursue an MTech, but rather to work for a public sector undertaking (PSU). However, he aspires to venture into research at a later point. “My short-term goal is to join a PSU as a civil engineer, but I will later want to contribute towards application-based research with my industrial experience,” said the IIT Kanpur graduate.
GATE 2022 results have been declared at gate.iitkgp.ac.in, for the exam which was held on February 5, 6, 12, and 13, 2022 by IIT Kharagpur. (Graphic: Abhishek Mitra) 
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