Engineers More Successful in UPSC Civil Services Exam?

On September 24, the UPSC released the final results of the Civil Service 2020 examination, and this year, six of the top ten scorers are engineers, mostly from one of the Indian Institute of Technology's branches (IIT). Except for two (2011 AIR 1 Shena Agarwal and 2015 Tina Dabi), all UPSC CSE toppers in recent decades have been engineers, defying the popular belief that the test is easier to pass for those with a humanities academic background.

Engineers are more likely to join the administrative services despite excellent placement offers. While some begin their preparation immediately after graduation, many people leave their corporate jobs to focus on the test.

According to data on the DoPT website, the number of engineers who have passed the UPSC Civil Service test has climbed during the previous ten years. Because many officers with an engineering degree are classified as 'graduates' by the DoPT, the figure might have been substantially higher in 2019.

The UPSC Merit List Is Dominated By Iitians.

AIR 1 Shubham Kumar and AIR 8 Jivani Kartik Nagjibhai are both IIT Bombay graduates, while AIR 7 Praveen Kumar is an IIT Kanpur graduate and AIR 3 Ankita Jain is a DTU Delhi graduate.

Apart from this, 17 IIT-BHU (Varanasi) students qualified for the Civil Services Exam 2020. IIT-BHU alumni now hold monthly counselling and knowledge-sharing sessions for UPSC hopefuls as a result of the growing interest among students.

Better Analytical Skills Play A Key Role In Qualifying Prelims

To qualify for the preliminary exams, you must have better analytical abilities.

Experts say that the analytical abilities engineers develop when studying for engineering entrance exams and later during their education offer them an advantage in passing the preliminary exams.

AIR 2 Jagrati Awasthi holds a bachelor's degree in technology. Engineers qualify for CSE, she continued, since they have a strong analytical ability as a result of their four-year engineering courses. However, regardless of their background, a candidate's hard work and drive are what enable them to pass a difficult test like the Civil Services.

IFS Ankit Kumar, a 2019 batch officer, feels that the CSAT test's introduction has benefited engineering students taking the exam. "Each year, the difficulty level of the CSAT paper has eventually increased. This usually costs a chance for many non-engineering students, whereas science students ought to perform better here, hence successfully qualifying for the first stage," Kumar explained.

Many give up corporate perks to take the civil services route.

Many people choose public service over the business world because it offers more benefits. IIT Kanpur alumni Ankush Kothari, IRS class 2019, turned down a Rs 19 lakh campus placement offer to take the civil service test.

"During the final year of graduation, I enrolled as an intern with the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Govt. of India. I had to report to a joint secretary-level IAS officer who also assigned us work. I was fascinated with the idea of how an IAS officer carries the authority to bring a change in society with his actions and responsibilities. It motivated me to become a civil servant and work for the nation and its development," Ankush said.

Radhika Gupta, who qualified for the UPSC CSE 2020 this year with an all-India rank of 18, has a similar story. Radhika, a GSITS Indore BTech Mechanical Engineering graduate, worked for Honda Motors for a year before quitting to take the UPSC civil service test.

"As I am a native of Alirajpur, a tribal district of MP, I wanted to work for the upliftment of tribals and women’s education and civil services seemed the best possible way to pursue my motive effectively. Hence, I decided to quit my job and prepare for this examination. Had I not cleared the examination in this attempt, I would have gone back to my corporate career and would have pursued my motive through some other channel," Radhika said.