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Journalism of Courage
Twenty-six-year-old Divya Sikarwar brought laurels to her village Nagla Rami, a village tucked away in Etmadpur block of Agra district as she topped the Uttar Pradesh Provincial Services Examination 2022 in the third attempt.
Eldest among the three siblings, Sikarwar’s father is a farmer. She prepared for the competitive exams at home. “Going to the big city for coaching was not feasible for me due to financial constraints, hence I decided to prepare from home and only took up guidance from online platforms,” the topper said.
Divya completed her schooling from inter-college in her village through Hindi medium and then pursued higher studies from St John’s College in Agra. “It was here in college that I got to know about UPPSC. With more research and discussion with friends, I understood the exam structure. The process appealed to me as I only had to do hard work to secure a government job. However, after graduation, I decided to pursue an MSc degree and only after that began my UP PCS preparation,” Sikarwar shared.
To prepare for the competitive exam, Divya mostly relied on online coaching classes and learning videos. “I joined Unacademy’s UP PCS coaching online as well as test series for the exam. Apart from this, I only relied on the study material and Youtube channels,” she said.
Sharing her thoughts on the use of social media, Divya said, “While studying online can be time-saving and convenient, it can also cause distractions, especially with platforms like Youtube which shows relative suggestions. If not aware, a student can spend hours browsing videos. Therefore, I had turned-off the unwanted suggestions as well as Whatsapp notifications to avoid distractions. I didn’t use any other social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram during the preparation phase.”
Coming from a Hindi-medium academic background, Divya wrote two main papers – ethics and essay in Hindi. “Ethics and essay writing demand a candidate’s opinions and insights on a topic. Since I have studied for most years in Hindi, I am able to easily express my thoughts through this language. Although, gathering the study material in Hindi was a tedious process. I had to mostly translate the books and notes from English to Hindi,” the topper shared.
Divya qualified for the UP PCS exam on her third attempt. In 2020, she qualified for the prelims but couldn’t crack the main exam while in 2021 she was able to crack both stages and appeared for the interview rounf. However, she could not make it to the merit list.
“These failures only motivated me to try better. With each failed attempt rather than feeling sorry for myself, I evaluated my performance and discovered the mistakes and weaknesses to work harder for the next attempt,” the topper said.
