Hello Komal,

I would suggest you to go for Engineering. In recent years, many top scorers of the UPSC exam have been engineers, as quantitative optionals are proving more scoring than subjective ones.

Any degree or graduation/post-graduation in any subject is alright. For higher education, one should always pursue the subject which one finds interesting and is comfortable with. Academic career and interest should not be compromised for an uncertain and highly competitive career in civil service.

If you find physics or chemistry really exciting, please go for that. I always feel a good science student has greater flair and ability to write precise answers in a logical and objective manner.

It greatly enhanced my ability to study subjects like history, geography, economics and civics that are included in General Studies papers with clarity and precision. My science background was very useful in studying topics with an analytical mind.

One should not choose an art subject for graduation with the sole intent of doing well in the GS papers in the UPSC exam. The simple and plain truth is that if you really have the potential to clear this exam, managing the GS papers to a satisfactory level is not a big deal. For the GS subjects like polity, economics or geography, extent or coverage is more important than depth. You should be in a position to write a decent answer on any issue that affects the life of an ordinary citizen. One should collect as much information as possible on issues that are crucial for the exam. By careful scrutiny of previous years’ question papers, a fairly intelligent person can easily find out the important topics or areas for each subject. Regular reading of a good daily newspaper with wide coverage is also very important to do well with up-to-date inputs in areas like social problems, Indian economy and international events and issues.

To sum up, there is no best or worst degree or discipline for pursuing a career in the higher civil services like the IAS or IPS at a later stage. You should choose a subject which you find quite interesting and in which you are confident of doing very well in the university exam. You can also consider taking the same subject as your optional for the UPSC exam, in case you are really serious about joining the civil service after completing your academic course.

All the very best!

Hello Komal, See it's not necessary to take BA subject. You can take commerce also or you can take science also. But before jumping to the conclusion you should know something - whatever subject you take in graduation should help you in UPSC...

Syllabus -

Prelims - Has two paper GS and CSAT (Both are objective). Subject covered in GS (Geography, History, Science & tech, polity, Economy, Art and culture, Environment, and current affairs) and CSAT (Basic maths, comprehension, and decision making questions)

Mains - Has total 8 paper. 1 essay, 1 Hindi, 1 English, 4 GS paper, and 1 option paper (I & II).

See if you don't want to do BA then do Honors in one specific subject (which you can take as an optional subject while preparing for the UPSC because optional paper consists of 500 marks. This would help you to gain good marks)

All the best...