Hi

After your 12th you can choose any degree course

This is because,

to be eligible for UPSC  examination there is no compulsion to be a graduate in a particular discipline.

For reference, UPSC eligibility  criteria is provided below:-

*You  must  have  a  bachelor's  degree in any, discipline    from a  recognised university.

*Minimum  age  limit :-  you  need to  be at least  21  years  old   to be  eligible as on 1st of August of the year of filling the form i. e as on 1st August 2021 for UPSC 2021.

*Maximum  age  limit :-  32 years , also there's 3  year  relaxation on upper age limit for  obc and of  5 years  for sc/st category.

For detailed  information related to UPSC eligibility criteria ,  you can visit our page at

https://competition.careers360.com/articles/upsc-ias-eligibility-criteria/amp

So, from above it is clear that all you need to be eligible is that you should be a graduate in any discipline . So, you  choose any course  based on your interest for your graduation after your 12th

But yes,

When it comes to having a back up plan then your profile suggests that you are engineering aspirant and to be honest doing engineering instead of any other degree course can be  the best back up  you can have  as UPSC examination is not that  easy to crack so in the worst  if you are not able to crack it then with your engineering degree you will have plenty of  job opportunities and you can go for  decent jobs.

Also, these days it has become very common to go for UPSC examination after engineering, a lot of students complete their engineering and then go for writing UPSC examination and not only  appear for UPSC examination, they qualify it as well also and some even top the exam .

For Instance,

UPSC 2019 topper, Pradeep Singh was an engineer. Again Kanishak Kataria  who topped  UPSC civil services examination in 2018 was an engineer. There are many more such examples.

Thank you

Hello,

From your profile it seems you're an engineering aspirant, so you can definitely go ahead with degree in engineering as per your preference, what happens in many cases like engineers after completion of graduation earn few years of experience in their relative domain to explore things and later on if the desire to appear for UPSC is still there they go ahead with the choice, some may leave the job while in other cases they continue with the preparation of UPSC along with work, so it depends on the individual basically, there is no barrier as such of belonging to specific stream for UPSC, so you can go ahead with whatever career plan you have, only thing is unlike humanities stream students people belonging to other streams have to start everything afresh as they didn't study the subjects at their 10+2 or graduation level, but eventually the diligence, single minded focus, dedication remains the same for every aspirant of UPSC.

After 12th, first I would advise you to pursue your Graduation seriously. And since youre already up for UPSC and Other Government Service Exams, would be better if you could move to Delhi NCR for your Graduation and parallely take up Serious Preparation for UPSC from your 3rd/2nd Year. Staying in and around Delhi NCR does give a boost to your Preparation, with UPSC Study Circles, Reputed Tutors who themselves are Ex Civil Servants or Top DU/JNU Professors,Coachings and Test Centers. However, this isnt mandatory, you may start with preparation from any place though.

As far as backup is concerned, besides UPSC CSE, you may even prepare for Exams like State PCS, SSC CGL, SBI PO, RRB Railways, RBI Grade B and Other Government Examinations besides taking up a Job in your Field of Graduation or moving to MCA/MBA later in life.

For more information about UPSC CSE do follow the link below

https://competition.careers360.com/exams/upsc-civil-services-exam/amp