Choosing optional

Choosing an optional is a very important stage for UPSC preparation. Optional can make your or break your selection. Choosing the right optional for you is thus very essential.

I chose PSIR because I loved its syllabus. Political thought (Paper-1 Section-1) was new, but had interesting topics which I felt are essential for understanding our political system and society like JUSTICE, EQUALITY, RIGHTS, and DEMOCRACY etc. Also, PSIR has lot of overlapping syllabus with General Studies and helps in essay and interview. It touches almost every paper and subject and is very multi-dimensional discipline

  • GS1: Art & Culture (Buddhism and Indian thought); Modern History (almost entirely); World History (Cold War, socialism, capitalism, disarmament); Post-independence (politics part, social movements etc.); society (women empowerment, regionalism, religion, caste etc.); geography (geo-politics, geo-economics)
  • GS2: Polity (almost entirely); governance (local bodies, corruption etc.); international relation (almost entirely)
  • GS3: Economics (green revolution, socialist economy, liberalization, land reforms etc.); security (terrorism, border and external security)
  • GS4: understanding topics like consequentialism, deontology, justice etc.; philosophers.
  • Essay: many topics are related to political science (Ex. border dispute topic in CSE-2018); also, the diversity of application of political science topics gives you lot of content to write in essays (Ex. in topic “The past’ is a permanent dimension of human consciousness and values” of CSE 2018, I based my entire essay on the topic- historical approach of comparative politics.)
  • Interview: PSIR comes in handy in interview since polity and international relations are favorite topics of the interviewers.

Presence of guidance was also another reason I chose PSIR. My college room-mate Karn Satyarthi (AIR-9, CSE-2015) had already cleared the exam with this optional. Also, PSIR had an excellent teacher in the form of Shubhra Ranjan mam along with her famed notes. Thus I felt, this is an optional in which I will not be lost.

There are various criteria on which you can choose an optional:

  • First and most important is your interest. Since, optional subject requires deeper study and good understanding of topics; it will be difficult to tide over the syllabus if you get bored in reading. Choose an optional which you can study as if you are pursuing a hobby or atleast can study with interest.
  • Next, guidance is very important. Your seniors, any good coaching centre or online blogs may be your guides, but ultimately they should help you in streamlining your preparation. Otherwise you may waste a large amount of time in reading material irrelevant to UPSC.
  • Scoring of recent past years. An optional which is not being rewarded well may not be the best choice. Optional like Anthro, PSIR, Maths, Geography are being increasingly taken up since they are being rewarded well.
  • If you do not find an optional of your interest, try to find one with limited syllabus and as static material as possible. Anthropology is one such optional. Students are taking up literature subjects a lot owing to same reason.
  • Finally, no optional is perfect and choosing an optional should be an exercise of finding the right trade-off. PSIR has lot of dynamic portion and large syllabus which makes it a difficult optional; however, the overlap with GS syllabus and presence of guidance makes it worth taking up. Similarly, Math has a vast syllabus, however, the high scoring nature of this optional makes it very attractive.

Thus, you need to choose wisely. I felt PSIR was the right optional for me. However, choosing the right optional and having the right guidance itself does not cut it out. I had to learn this the hard way. In my first attempt, despite having confidence on my optional, I performed badly and scored mere 211 marks which was an extremely poor score that year. It brought me to my senses and I could thankfully score well this year with a score of 297 marks. In my next post, I shall discuss my PSIR strategy, the mistakes that I committed in my first attempt and the preparation which led me from 211 marks to 297 marks.