Hello
Yes, you can definitely join coaching or start your preparation for upsc from 1st year of graduation itself but you can give upsc examination after graduation only as to he eligible you should be a graduate in any discipline and 21- 32 years old .You can check upsc eligibility criteria at https://competition.careers360.com/articles/upsc-ias-eligibility-criteria/amp
Also, it 's good that you are starting upsc civil services preparation in your 1st year of graduation itself as you will get more time in which you can ace your preparation and many of the UPSC rankers like srushti Jayant Deshmukh had prepared for upsc during their graduation itself. One important thing is that you will have to maintain balance between college studies and studies for upsc preparation and to maintain balance you can divide your time table into two parts i. e one for college studies and other one for upsc preparation and 2-3 weeks before your college semester exams, you can keep upsc studies on hold, so that you can prepare well for your college exams.
Follow the below tips to prepare well for your UPSC examination :-
-------) To start your preparation first of all understand the examination pattern and go well through syllabus :-
>>>> Examination pattern :- UPSC examination has 3 stages listed below :-
prelims exam :- it is objective paper and is of qualifying nature , there are 2 papers in prelims
Mains exam. :- it is descriptive /written examination . There are a total of 9 papers in Mains examination
Interview :- After qualifying mains, you have to go through interview round, and it is more of test of your personality rather than knowledge.
To know exam pattern in detail visit :- https://competition.careers360.com/articles/upsc
>>>> syllabus :- In prelims, your paper 1 general studies 1 in which you have History, Indian Polity, Geography, Environment, Current Affairs, Science and technology, etc. Your paper 2 in prelims is general studies II or CSAT in which you have reasoning, Maths, English, Hindi, etc. Similarly, you can check the complete syllabus of both prelims and mains at
https://competition.careers360.com/articles/upsc-ias-syllabus
-----) Top books which you can follow for UPSC examination preparation are listed below subject wise:-
HISTORY
*NCERT XI (Ancient & Medieval)
*NCERT XII (Modern Indian History)
*Facets of Indian Culture Spectrum
*From Plassey to Partition - A History of Modern India
Indian Art & Culture
*Indian Art & Culture - Nitin Singhania
Polity
*NCERT IX-XII
*Indian Polity M Laxmikanth
Geography
*NCERT VI X (Old Syllabus)
*NCERT XI, XII (New Syllabus)
*Certificate Physical Geography G C Leong
World Atlas
Economics
NCERT XI
*The Indian Economy Sanjiv Verma
*Indian Economy by Ramesh Singh
*Economic Development & Policies in India Jain & Ohri
Environment
*Class XII Biology (last 5 chapters)
*Environment by Shankar IAS Academy
International Relations
*NCERT XII (Contemporary World Politics)
*Current Affairs ( read newspaper )
To get the complete list of books go through
https://competition.careers360.com/articles/books-for-upsc-ias
------) Discipline is the key to crack UPSC, so you need to make a routine/ time table and follow it .
------)Read newspaper like the Hindu or Indian Express and magazines like Yojana, Kurukshetra, Economic and Political Weekly to keep yourself updated with the current events and issues.
------) take short breaks in between your studies, studying continuously can be brain tiring and it becomes difficult to focus and study with concentration, so take breaks to relax and refresh your brain otherwise you won't be able to retain whatever you read.
------)Choose your optional subject wisely , choose the subject you have interest in.
------)Make short notes for each subject, these will be your life saviour and will help you in your revisions a lot as syllabus is wide
------)Set daily goals like I have to cover these many topics today, weekly goals like I have to cover these chapters this week and practice their questions too, by the end of this week and similarly set monthly goals to cover the syllabus and meet them without any fail.
------)Revise :- there's no point of preparing for the exam if you couldn't recall anything in the UPSC Examination so you should stress on revision as well.
------) Your mains examination is in written, so you need to work your speed and also work on improving how to present the knowledge you have on paper, so answer writing practicing should be your priority
------)Solve previous year question papers and mock test papers ;- You should solve these , it will give you idea of types of questions asked and their difficulty level and will help you a lot.
------)Also work on your communication skills and personality development as it plays an important role in your interview round.
For more tips go through
https://competition.careers360.com/articles/how-prepare-for-upsc-ias
Thankyou
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