Sujit Kumar, GATE AIR 2 : The Pursuit of Success

We had the privilege of talking to Sujit Kumar, Final year, Mining Engineering who has scored an All India Rank – 2 in GATE 2017. Besides humility and amazement, Sujit also offered important tips for every GATE aspirant. Here’s an excerpt from our chat…

Question: – Congratulations on getting AIR 2!  Were you expecting this Rank?

Sujit Kumar: – Thank you. No- Though I was expecting to be in the Top 10, but getting rank 2 was astonishing.

Question :- Sir, I have to ask, what’s on your mind right now, the happiness of getting rank 2 or a bit of disappointment on missing  rank 1?

Sujit Kumar: – Even I’m a bit confused about this- I don’t know why tears keep rolling down my face all by themselves. Perhaps it’s for getting rank 2, and not for missing 1.

Question: – Terrific! So what are your future plans?

Sujit Kumar: – I want to pursue M.Tech. in Rock Mechanics from IIT Delhi.

Question:-. So, when did you start your preparation for the GATE exam? How many hours did you put in per day for your preparation?

Sujit Kumar: – I started my preparation after 5th semester because I felt that in final year, students are mostly busy in placements and don’t get enough time to prepare for GATE. About the hours that I put in each day, I must say “Engineering students don’t have a fixed routine, and they don’t need to make one”. Let yourself free and study whatever you love to. However, you must be concerned about your weak points and overcome them as quick as possible.

Question: – Did you take any coaching? If yes, please mention and how did it help you?

Sujit Kumar: – No, I didn’t take any coaching. I believe self-study is the best study.

Question:-. Anything unique about your preparation strategy? How did you manage your time among classes, assignments, projects and preparation?

Sujit Kumar: – The only strategy that I believe to be quite unique was “Practice”.

Whenever and wherever someone put forward his or her queries regarding any subject, I loved to clear them if I could.

Managing time is not at all a big deal when you are studying in BIT Sindri: you get ample amount of time to prepare for any external examination and even when you attend your classes regularly, do your projects and assignments, you get to learn something from them.

Question: – How should one schedule answering the Gate exam? Which sections to attempt first and which later?

Sujit Kumar: – There are only two Sections in GATE, one is Quantitative aptitude and other is your Technical paper. If you have prepared well it doesn’t matter which section you attempt first, because if you start from Technical section, you will solve those questions which you know, otherwise you’ll leave that question and move to the next one. And believe me you get 3 hours for 65 questions which is more than enough. During the examination, you may encounter some ‘alien’ questions as well, about which you will have no idea. So you may start any of the sections as per your convenience.

Question: – Name some topics that you feel are a must read for any student attempting GATE exam? Any topic to lay stress on for Mining Engineers?

Sujit Kumar:  -When preparing for any exam you need to use limited resources so that you don’t waste your time in studying the same thing from different books, so I used to make notes of the important laws and theories. Math and aptitude are scoring sections, you can easily fetch more than 25 marks out of 30.

For quantitative aptitude you can follow R.S.Agarwal if you are not a CAT aspirant and for mathematics B.S.Grewal is enough. About Specific topics for Mining engineering, one should study Mine ventilation and Rock mechanics thoroughly as these two sections carry about 25 to 30 marks.

Question: – What did you do in your leisure time? Any specific activities that helped you unwind?

Sujit Kumar: – At leisure I used to watch TED talks through which I got to know many informative things as well. I also used to listen to old songs as these keep me cool and calm.

Question: – Any amusing incident of your GATE preparation that you would like to share?

Sujit Kumar: – When talking about amusing, I must mention my two friends Ankit (L&T placed) and Mrinmoy (Vedanta), these two people were more than about my Rank, they always used to tease me as well. On 14th September 2016, I filled the application form for GATE, and on the same evening I was talking to one of my friends about this….and then she suddenly asked,

“Can I expect you to be within Top 14?”,

I said”I will be in Top 10″.

“Then why not Rank 1?”, 

“I will be happy if I get 2”.

And then again she asked why it was so?At that time I answered “Arey instinctive tha yaar, bs aise hi!!”. After declaration of GATE results we discussed about that incident, laughed about it and then she again asked me that question and I retorted,

“Getting Rank 1 means you are perfect but getting 2 means there is some scope of improvement in you and I always want to be in queue to achive perfection but never actually want to achieve it “.

Question: – Any advice for future GATE aspirants?

Sujit Kumar: – Only suggestion that I would love to give – refrain yourself from absent minded studies, be dedicated towards your core sector and everything will go well.

Question: -Any other thing which you would like to add?

Sujit Kumar: -I would like to thank my branch mates for always being there for me, for their unbreakable trust and the much needed support.

 

Special thanks to Shruti Jha, 2K14 for her valuable contribution to this interview.