Famous Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho once said that ‘And, when you want something, the entire Universe conspires in helping you achieve it.’ Harneet Kaur Kalsi is perhaps one of the best brand ambassadors of these lines. She really wants to join the Civil Services. Apart from that she had no goals for all these years. Finally, what Paulo Coelho said came true. And, Harneet became deputy collector, after cracking the MPPSC-2019. She achieved Rank 6 in her very first attempt.
She was clear from the starting that she would join civil services and that’s why she did not even participated in campus selection. Her hard work, dedication and perseverance now paid off with this success.
JOURNEY SO FAR
After completing graduation in 2017, she started her preparation. She has few officers from IT companies, but she refused. She gave her attempt in 2019 and cracked it too. MPPSC-2019 exam procedure got delayed for some reason and result was declared after 4 years.
In the meantime she appeared for MPPSC-2020 and other exams, but did not achieve success.
Speaking to Indian Masterminds, she said, “Ups and down are part of life. But if you are persistent towards your goal and you want nothing but that, then nothing can stop you from achieving your goal.”
BACKGROUND
She hails from Jabalpur, MP. Her father was running a transport business, but with growing age, he is now retired, only doing sewa in a Gurudwara. Her mother is homemaker. She has an elder sister and a brother.
She did engineering (B. Tech) in Computer Science in 2017. After that, she started preparing for Civil Services.
She said that her sister and brother-in-law helped her lot and always motivated her to continue preparing till she got success.
CIVIL SERVICES PREPARATION
Her key strategies in preparation were consistency and covering each topic by day wise planning. She accepts that Syllabus is very vast for this exam. So one need to be consistent then can cover it all in time.
After studying basic and standard books for exam, she made her own notes. She focused on solving Previous years question papers and test series.
Apart from that, for interview preparations, she joined a coaching in Indore, and gave many mock interviews.
INTERVIEW
Her interview was good. She was grilled properly. She was asked questions from her background, hobbies, current affairs and vision for society.
She was also asked questions on Madhya Pradesh issues and solutions.
She said, “You have already passed prelims and mains exam, so they are not going to test your knowledge. It’s all about your personality that ethically or morally how you react.”
SUGGESTIONS
Giving suggestion to aspirants, she said, “If you are 100 per cent sure that you want do it, then start preparing, Otherwise, not. If you are doing it in parallel then say yes, let me do this and that too. If this is done then it is fine, otherwise there are other options too. This will not work here. You have to show all dedication here.”
“If you have a craving for civil services and want to do something for others, then you can do this easily. So, please don’t cheat yourselves, figure it out, then, do it,” she added.
FUTURE AIM
She is continuing her preparation and not leaving it even after becoming deputy collector. It is because of her aim is UPSC CSE now. She said, “I will do UPSC now. I have time and further, will prepare for it. In this MPPSC service, I will do my work with full of integrity and understanding the problems of common man.”
