Wardah Khan: From Corporate Job to Following Her Dream of Civil Servant

Brief Introduction

Wardah Khan, a 24-year-old, cracked UPSC CSE in her 2nd attempt and got AIR 18, which was the result announced in 2024. She was born and brought up in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh. She completed her schooling from there, and then she went to Khalsa College, Delhi University, to complete her graduation in B.Com.

Then, she briefly worked as an Audit Associate at a big consultancy for eight months. She started preparing for this examination in 2021. Her mother is a mathematics teacher at Kendriya Vidyalaya school. Her father passed away nine years ago. She is the only child in her family. Her Optional subject was Sociology.

Motivation and Strategy

She was inspired to pass this examination in college. There, she decided that she wanted to represent India at the International level and wanted to become an IFS officer. Her mother also motivated her and supported her decision to take this examination and leave a high-paying job. 

She couldn’t clear Prelims on her 1st attempt. Then she started preparing again for it, and when she gave her 2nd Preliminary, she was confident that this time she would crack prelims. After taking Prelims, she went on vacation to give herself a break, and when she came back, the result was announced, and she cleared it; then, she started preparing for Mains with complete dedication, and she followed her timetable so rigorously. She could afford that break after prelims because she had completed her base and made her foundation very strong after her 1st failure in prelims. 

For CSAT, she focused on her weak areas and solved questions on it and took lessons from YouTube and solved topic wise questions from online websites. And she also solved PYQs during the time of examination. 

She enjoyed the preparation of Interview very much. She prepared for it with her group of 5 friends and also took mock interviews of different coaching institutes. Her peer group was very beneficial for her, she got critical analysis of her preparation from them. She also made notes for her interview which she revised multiple times which helped her alot. 

Books Recommendation

In order to have a strong foundation, she emphasized on reading NCERT books. Then, she gave importance to standard textbooks of every subject like for Polity – Laxmikant, for Modern History – Spectrum etc. Apart from that she emphasized on daily newspaper reading and monthly compilation of current affairs and made notes from it. 

Marksheet

Message to Aspirants

She gave importance to completing the foundation first very well, then making notes for every subject, and not taking CSAT lightly. Apart from that, she emphasized solving PYQs and analyzing them very carefully. It is also important to give a test series to improve your preparation. Also, students can use online resources to understand difficult topics easily. She also gave importance to keeping the resources limited and revised them multiple times.

Conclusion

She always wanted to represent her country at International forums and multilateral institutions, and she made her dream a reality by becoming an IFS Officer by doing and giving her everything. This can be taken as an inspiration for all those who want to do something for their country and want to represent it at the international level and make their country proud. It can also be seen that when you give your best and prepare for it with hard work, dedication, and resilience, it will come true.