Economics as an Optional for UPSC

Why Economics ?

• Economics is a very interesting subject. Almost every human experience has an Economic Angle to it. Reading economics optional help to decipher some of these phenomenon. So, even if, god forbid, one does not do very well in Civil Services exam, knowledge of economics would always help, in diverse domains, in other exams like RBI to real life stock trading .
• Also, my personal understanding says that people from Engineering Background can do very well in Economics, since it happens to be a very logical paper. There are numerous ( generally quite easy ) diagrams , and they are not very different from the basic diagrams of Physics or Engineering papers.
• Additionally, there are overlaps between Economics and GS3, which has its own benefits.

Issues

But, let me point out, interest alone is not sufficient. I always had very high interest in Economics. That was the sole reason why I took the paper. But, interest alone does not give marks. Hard work does. Solving past years papers does. Assimilating and writing does. But, last year I did not appreciate these properly. No wonder, I had one of the lowest marks in optional last time, only 218

There are other caveats as well. There is virtually no coaching, no good test series, and very few fellow aspirants to take help from. The syllabus is also vast, and Paper 2 does require good memorising skills .

But, overall, I would say that those who have had exposure and are interested in Economics, can and should go for it, provided they are willing to channelise the interest to hard work in the right direction 🙂