Self-study is the key

Excerpts from the Hindustan Times, 06 June, 2013. (To view the full article online, click here.)

LUCKNOW: The ‘Rank No.1’ holders in UP Board class 12 exams have one more thing in common apart from sharing the top slot — their belief in self-study.
The three joint toppers -Harshit Srivastava of Lucknow, Arjita Verma of Barabanki and Manu Singh of Unnao – who secured 484 marks out of 500 (96.8%) never attended any coaching classes….

With spiritual leader Swami Vivekananda and former president APJ Abdul Kalam as his ideals, (Harshit) Srivastava wants to be a space scientist. Though he could not crack the IIT test, he would not give up easily.

After topping the UP Board examination on Wednesday, cracking Indian Police Services (IPS) is the next mission for Manu Singh, a student of Triveni Kashi Inter College in Unnao. Daughter of a gunman who works in Awadh hospital, Manu believes that self-study is the key to success.

“I never attended a coaching class. In future also, I would better study myself than register in any coaching programmes,” she added. For Arjita Verma, from RS Yadav Smarak Inter College in Barabanki, another Rank 1 holder, it was just a step towards realising her dream of becoming a judge. Daughter of Jagannath Verma, principal of the same college, Arjita would pursue her LLB from Lucknow University. She scored 98 in computer science, 98 in physics, 96 in chemistry, 96 in Biology and 96 in Hindi. “I never attended coaching classes. There your knowledge would remain limited,” she said.