Surabhi Gautam became an IAS officer by securing the 50th rank in the UPSC Civil Service Examination in 2016.
English is no longer just a language but has become a status symbol or an absolute necessity. Many times, people are not fluent and suffer from communication problems. In the same instance, here we are going to look at the success story of an IAS officer, who once faced insults in a class because of her English. This is the story of Surabhi Gautam, a resident of a village in Satna, Madhya Pradesh. She has been very intelligent in her studies since childhood. She did her early studies while living in the village and always topped the class. She was the first girl from her village to come to the city for higher education.
Surabhi belongs to a small village, and there are not many coaching institutions in villages or small towns. She gave the 10th and 12th board exams without any coaching or tuition. On the basis of self-study and school, she scored more than 90 percent in both the board exams. Her father was a lawyer in the civil court, and her mother was a teacher.
After completing her school education, Surabhi Gautam took the State Engineering Entrance Exam and scored excellent marks in this exam. Let us tell you that she was a Hindi-medium student until the school level. Surabhi did a BTech in Electronics and Communications from Bhopal Engineering College. She was the topper of the university’s engineering exam and was awarded a gold medal for her excellent performance.
The first day of college was quite difficult for the university topper, Surabhi Gautam. Being from a Hindi-medium environment, she was not fluent in English. She was often made fun of in class for not being able to speak English properly. She was made fun of a lot on the first day of college for not being able to introduce herself in English. But then, to improve her communication skills, she decided that she would learn 10 new English words every day.
One day the teacher asked her a physics question in English. She could not understand the question properly and hence gave the wrong answer. After this, the teacher raised questions about her passing class 12th. This incident weakened her morale and made her make up her mind to return home. Then her mother explained that if she returns like this, then the dreams of every girl in the village will be shattered.
Her mother’s words had a deep impact on her. She decided to improve her command over English. To improve her English language, she brought engineering English books from the library. She made slips of all the difficult words and put them up all over the room. The situation became such that she started dreaming in English. She gave her semester exams in English and topped the university in the first semester. After finishing college, she also passed many competitive exams.
Later, she secured top ranks in eight major exams, including ISRO, BARC, IES, and UPSC IAS. After getting an engineering degree, she worked at BARC for some time. In the year 2013, Surabhi Gautam topped the IES exam. Then, in the year 2016, she became an IAS officer by securing the 50th rank in the UPSC Civil Service Examination.
