According to IAS Yashni Nagarajan, it’s not necessary to leave your job to prepare for UPSC exam. With effective time management, one can continue working and preparing for CSE at the same time, like she did!
Good time management ultimately helped her to get AIR 57 in the 2019 exam. All along she was working in the Reserve Bank of India. With her high rank, she easily made her way into Indian Administrative Service.
Yashni was allotted AGMUT cadre and is now Assistant Deputy Commissioner (Trainee) in the East Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh.
BACKGROUND
Yashni Nagarajan’s family originally hails from a small village of Tamil Nadu. Her father Thangavel Nagarajan is a retired PWD engineer and mother is a retired superintendent of the Itanagar branch at Guwahti High Court Registry. Her younger brother is an Alumni of IIM Indore.
Though Yashni was born in Tamil Nadu, she was brought up in Arunachal Pradesh because of her father’s posting in the state.
She did her schooling from Kendriya Vidhyalay, Naharlagun, and in 2014, she got admitted in National Institute of Engineering, Yupia to do her B.Tech in Electrical and Electronics Engineering (EEE).
FULL-TIME RBI EMPLOYEE
It’s not an easy task to clear a tough examination like UPSC while doing a full-time job. However, Yashni Nagarajan left all in awe by cracking UPSC with flying colours while she was working as a Grade B employee in the Reserve Bank of India.
IAS Yashni had told media that making a proper study schedule worked really well in her favour. She stuck to a schedule to study for at least four hours after her work in the bank. “I often tried to read newspapers on lunch breaks in the office,” she said.
She spent most of her weekends by reading newspaper and financial magazines for her UPSC preparation.
According to her, UPSC aspirants do not have to leave their job to prepare for the exam. Right time management and smart work can help them to clear it.
Being a former employee of Reserve Bank of India, Yashni says, “One should make time for studying even on the weekends. If you are determined towards clearing the most competitive exam, then your studies should take priority over anything else.”
OPTIONAL SUBJECT
Yashni opted for Geography as her optional subject. However, she couldn’t perform well in the subject in her first three exams. She said that she chose this subject under the influence of other people.
She said, “Aspirants should choose their optional subject according to their interest. If you like the subject, only then you will read it deeply. Optional subject is a scoring subject and plays an important role in UPSC exam.”
MESSAGE TO ASPIRANTS
Yashni said that young people should not worry much about their career. They can become IAS and IPS officers by fully committing themselves to hard work and patience.
She specifically had a word of advice for the young UPSC aspirants who are working as well as preparing for CSE: “I know it’s a tough job to manage both the things, but it will benefit you, as you will not be tensed even if you fail to clear your UPSC attempts.”
