How can an engineering student (first year) prepare for a civil services exam (UPSC/IAS/IPS)?

"With Self Discipline Most Anything is Possible"-Theodore RooseveltIt is Great  that you are thinking about it in First year. You have enough time to prepare for UPSCFirst Develop your Interest. Prepare Mentally yourself for it.        Improve your Learning Skills.Know more about UPSC exam, read and watch Success Stories of IAS.Read about Life after IAS. So that it become your Passion. It become your first Priority in your life. You start feeling that you are born to become an IAS.And you can do anything to make this dream true. First go through Syllabus. Find which areas are of your interest. And start to improve your basics as well as to develop a Friendship with all these. NCERT books are must have option so start with it. Develop a Learning, Reading  and Note taking Style. Use Pencil, Highlighter, A tablet/Phone/Laptop make these a very important part of your study. Develop Creativity in you. Become an Open Mind. Improve your IQ, EQ and SQ                                 How to improve Learning skills   1.   "Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe." - http://brainyquote.com/http://brainyquote.com/. So you have to increase your efficiency to Remember, Retain and better Recall all those content and study material. So spend some of your time (daily)  to improve your cognitive skills i.e. Memory improvement, learning skills, Pimsleur graduated-interval recall (http://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?sa=L&ai=C9oyp0S7fVtioO9GRogOrgruABZPwqckG08LNtbAB3r35gnAIABABYOWCgIDUDqAB7Zmm3wPIAQGqBCtP0POVVHeCbexTz5iVIYCxIKoFUfBI6KWMJIxd1xC3cBt4XYsLcPSEBvY1iAYBgAf75dkgiAcBkAcCqAemvhvYBwE&ohost=www.google.co.in&cid=CAESIeD28rkcGineaPi4tqndVMZ7kslnM7VfPBF0QgDTXs7wzg&sig=AOD64_3H_UEH4C3jAfQvPKcEwr2Q4ZfLyg&adurl=http%3A%2F%2Ftracker.marinsm.com%2Frd%3Fcid%3D518lun35648%26mkwid%3DsMT0x6rCn%7Cdc%26pcrid%3D47352250891%26pkw%3D%252Bpimsleur%26pmt%3Db%26lp%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Foffers.pimsleur.com%2FSpecial_Offer006%253F%2526utm_source%253Dgoogle%2526utm_term%253D%252Bpimsleur%2526utm_campaign%253DInternational%2B-%2BG_Pim_Brand_Alone_Broad%2526utm_medium%253Dcpc&clui=0&q=) or http://www.languagesurfer.com/2013/02/14/do-you-need-spaced-repetitio/.Recall is very powerful technique. You can memorize and recall anything and whenever or wherever you want. 2. There are always some logics behind any data, facts or piece of information. The thing is that we have to do active reading.  What does it mean....What we are reading, why we are reading, why this happened, what was the main reason, what were the consequences of this, how this happened, where this happened, when this happened and so on....Thus there are so many dimensions of a single fact. The more dimensions you will analyze,  the information will last long in your memory. In history,  constitutions,  political science, science general facts can be retained very easily with a mental map and as a visual story(i.e. why Akbar  attacked, why this law become part of constitution, even english words also have their story). When ever you will need all these facts and information you will be able to recall as a visual movie. And to remember Dates, Places, Names, Technical Terms or Data we have to do some serious efforts like quick revisions, recall, mnemonics etc.      Give equal importance on recall what you have learnt in last one hour (do quick recall). Then make one recall on next day  after 24 hour . Then one recall for last one whole week  and so on ( if you are not already following)3. Learn being a teacher not merely being a learner. It is my personal experience and i observed it many time that when a student try to explain something to others he uses hidden powers, unexplored knowledge,common sense and pay all his attention. So being a teacher, he always performs better than being a student only. In short make a small group of your friends, discuss with them, try to explain them. You will be able to better understand, recall and retain. You may find many teachers teach IAS subject and also prepare for IAS exam simultaneously.  It works. 4. Develop the habit of positive attitude and mindset. Motivate yourself, connect yourself with CREATIVE  aims of life or something very big and most important .If you seriously  want something, then you definitely can do, nothing can stop you. If other can do, then why you cannot. Calm down, relax, put aside all stuffs that intimidating you. You should make your own way. First make believe yourself that you can do this and you have to do this, this is the only way you can survive.                                                   How to Start5. Warm Up Reading (Interest Development) : First 15-20 read the subjects or chapters you find very easy and interesting. At Start read for Fun. Find out interesting facts and information, play with  them, enjoy and share with your friends relatives or Facebook/ Quora etc. Thus you can do friendship with all your subjects. It will boost your confidence enough and using this positive energy as a fuel you can move one more step ahead. Taking one step at a time, you can achieve your goal.....      "slow but steady wins the race"                                                 How to Overcome Fear6. Eradicate all negative and intimidating thoughts from your mind. Light and darkness both cannot coexist. With fear, how will you be able to win the most important race of your life. And this is the only difference between winner and loser otherwise all persons are equal in efficiency, capacity and qualities.                                        How to Motivate and Feel full of energetic7.  http://quotationsbook.com/quote/27427/ and like food Everyone need it daily.     About IAS:    Dream it.    Live it.    Be passionate about it.    Your are born to do this only.    Talk about it.    Read about it.    Praise about it.   Love it.    Link it with the thing  most matter in your life.   Enjoy it.    Challenge yourself.   Feel the power, respect and importance of it.Take dreams with open eyes what big you can achieve after  IAS. Read success stories about IAS toppers and achievers.  Read about life of an IAS officer. Doing this you can motivate yourself. Feel the energy and vibration of it in your body.Feel the great FUN (KICK) you can achieve by preparing, facing IAS exam and becoming an IAS. Accept importance of these in your life, in your future, in your family, in thousands of people, in your country.You will find yourself a different person. You will find that whole world has changed for you. You will feel nothing is impossible for you, no one can stop you. You will feel you are one of the persons who can change the world positively in the right direction.8. Reconsider your eating habits: It affects  memory,  activeness of body and mind, sleeping patterns, recalling and analytical power, easiness and comfortness of  body, thought patterns.  So avoid oily, junk food, fast food and any other Foods With Almost Zero Nutritional Value..... (http://workoutmommy.com/2010/04/02/25-popular-foods-with-almost-zero-nutritional-value/..)  ( https://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwiW4YKT8bHLAhWRA44KHXxiAI0QFggeMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.prevention.com%2Fhealth%2F5-foods-affect-your-memory&usg=AFQjCNHJQs1E3jrq1AI5VlHvh352gtb8Pg&sig2=jKWBWlJ1YZx_P4EL5zruqQ&cad=rja) (https://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0ahUKEwiW4YKT8bHLAhWRA44KHXxiAI0QFggkMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnewsroom.ucla.edu%2Freleases%2Fscientists-learn-how-food-affects-52668&usg=AFQjCNFX9C_he5NO3ay4AlouUUsNUF2YpA&sig2=9QfIC2rdH9Z1mElLcIiysg&cad=rja).                                           How to be creative 9.   http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/556030-imagination-is-more-important-than-knowledge-for-knowledge-is-limited" -http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/556030-imagination-is-more-important-than-knowledge-for-knowledge-is-limited Be creative in your learning. Give creative rewards yourself if you are able complete any topic, any important point. If you are able to   understand or  recall any fact.  (I just tried to give findings of my observation. However i am not an expert of  it. )DO YOUR BEST.

I to faced this problem initially as I was an engineering student completed first year at present and preparing for civils.initially go for self preparation ,during your engineering third year on wards take help from coaching institutes ,attend mock test series to rectify mistakes and for mains answer practice,follow their suggestions and set a target depending upon your capacity and strenghten your preparation to the pinacle and be a master before going to exam which will definitely make you clear ias exam.its a smart initiative to start ias preparation during the graduation itself and I appreciate you for that.preparation strategies and recommended books are similar for all graduation backgrounds like science ,humanities,technical etc as syllabus is common to all.First step: Learn the requirements of the UPSC Civil Services Exam!No. You don’t need to know everything under the Sun to clear this exam. That’s the first thing to get into your head. There is a prescribed syllabus by UPSC for the three stages of this 1-year long exam, ie Prelims, Mains and Interview. A good understanding of upsc syllabus and exam criteria is the first step for all freshers. Also, understand the eligibility criteria. The new pattern, which has been introduced from this year by the UPSC for civil service examinations, have 2 exams:Preliminary (Qualifying nature) and Mains followed by a Personality test. Mains has six papers – Four General Studies, One Essay and One optional paper. They altogether carry a total of 1750 Marks.Add to this 275 Marks allotted for the Personality Test. So, a total of 2025 Marks decides the fate of a candidate whether he would be in the Final List or not.For all of the above, one must proceed in a systematic manner so as to clear in as many less attempts as possible or even in first attempt.prelims cum mains integrated appraoch  is smart and short to clear the civil service exams and smooth to handle.the main reason behind this is their is a lot of mains syllabus overlapping with prelims.the following are the steps to achieve IAS when 9-11 months are left for preparation and also  recommended for early birds.1.during first month of preparation start habituating reading hindu newspaper and one local news paper ,yojana magazine ,watching discussions on loksabha and rajya sabha tvs etc.2.after habituating the reading of newspaper, dig deeper  in to it.try to complete reading it  in maximum of 90 minutes by adopting reading of selective topics,at this stage start reading ncert books recommended for upsc which will give you clear idea of complex topics with its easily understandable content .they give basic idea and act as a foundation material .ncerts have a lot of significance because there are people who passed upsc only with ncerts and also many standard books for ias preparation are from ncerts.hence master ncerts. 3.try to master ncerts with in 3-4 months .then go for standard books recommended for civils services much most and  developing  analytical way of thinking which is relevant in mains answer writing .refer all standard books with in 6-7 months of time. for standard books refer the following book list hardly 20  books are more than enough to crack upsc with a rank below 10 as most of the mains syllabus overlap with prelims it should  be noted how much you understand is relevant than how much you read.Essential Books For IAS Prelims – GS/CSAT*History of Modern India – Bipan Chandra. (History) or spectrum's brief history of modren india*India’s Ancient Past – R.S. Sharma. (History)History Of Medieval India – Satish Chandra. (History)*Indian Art and Culture – Nitin Singhania. (Culture)*Geography of India – Majid Husain. (Geography)*Certificate Physical and Human Geography – Goh Cheng Leong. (Geography)**Indian Polity for Civil Services Examinations – M. Laxmikanth. (Polity)*Indian Economy – Ramesh Singh. (Economy)*Economic Survey. (Economy)*Science and Technology in India –  (ncerts 6-10)*Environment for Civil Services Prelims and Mains –(ncerts 6-10) and shankar ias  academy environment book.*Manorama Yearbook. (current affairs ) optional*CSAT Paper – 2 Manual by TMH or CSAT-II – Arihant (CSAT – Paper 2)[no other book is required for csat paper]Books for UPSC Civil Service Main Exam Preparation.India’s Ancient Past – R.S. Sharma. ( ncert book for acient indian history and culture).Indian Art and Culture – Nitin Singhania. (Culture).History Of Modern India – Bipan Chandra. (History) or spectrum breif history of modren india..Certificate Physical and Human Geography – Goh Cheng Leong. (Geography).Indian Polity for Civil Services Examinations – M. Laxmikanth. (Polity).Indian Economy – Ramesh Singh. (Economy).Economic Survey. (Economy).Science and Technology,environment (refer ncerts 6-10)..India Year Book (Current Affairs) or manorama*.Contemporay Essays by Ramesh Singh OR 151 ESSAYS For UPSC Mains(Essay Paper)*.India After Gandhi – Ramchandra Guha (History – GS1)*.Norman Lowe OR History of Modern World – Jain and Mathur (World History – GS1)*.Social Problems In India – Ram Ahuja. (Indian Society – GS1)*Pax Indica – Shashi Tharoor. (Foreign Policy – GS2)*.Challenges to Internal Security of India. (Internal Security – GS3)*.Lexicon for Ethics, Integrity and Aptitude. ( Ethics – GS4)there are many sources more than above are available in market in which allmost of all of them are not worth reading and waste of timebooks that are not marked * in mains list are the books that overlap with prelims. the above list of books recommended for mains there are many books that overlap with prelims as syllabus for prelims and mains is almost similar.refer one loacal news paper ,hindu and yojana magazine for current affairs which are moooore than enough and please do not go for any other news papers and magazines.4.at this stage you should be covered all most of all the syllabus. after referring standard books go for referring previous year papers and practice them ,which will help you know where you are. practice  great number of mcq's for prelims .5.self preparation is good and its must for exams containing vast syllabus like upsc. but answer writing is the deciding factor for selection in mains .  there are few aspirants succeeded with out any coaching at the same time,  there are many intelligent candidates who failed in upsc because of lack of coaching and answer practice  .its better if you join any coaching institute for mains answer practice which will help you for rectifying mistakes from your answers ,clarifying doubts, attending mock test series and obtaining suggestions from them on your performance. this will help you to strengthen your preparation in all possible ways. hence most of the ias aspirants join in coaching institutes during their preparation. at this stage select a appropriate optional subject depending on your interest and expert advice and complete preparation for optional subject with in 2 moths of time.6.before some days left for the prelims revise all the syllabus from  previously referred sources .do not  for new sources at this stage. focus on topics which you feel difficult and confusing. practice more number of previous years papers for time management and rectifying mistakes.http://7.in/ addition you will get 4-5 months of time after mains. use this time for smart preparation .revise all the mains syllabus. their is a great advantage because all most of all mains syllabus overlap with prelims syllabus. attend maximum number of mock test series for mains answer practice during this time ,because there are many intelligent aspirants who fail to give upsc of not attending or attending less number of mock test. hence large numbers of answers have to be practiced for success in mains.8.coming to major riddle for those who cleared mains is the personality test . prepare for this only in the time left for interview after clearing mains. questions are asked on based on your profile ,graduation background,optional subject ,general studies,your interests for being an ias etc.adopt your own strategies  after following tips and suggestions from experts and attend mock interviews in your coaching institutes ,which will help you to rectify mistakes.most important thing to score well in interview is be honest and  do not try to bluff the interviewer.interview will be very scoring with smart preparation. Stop worrying too much; just do it!Well, why don’t do get your feet wet? You have nothing to lose. But you will be a totally different person, well aware of our nation and things around you once you step in. Don’t worry about your age, financial background, lack of time or any other usual excuses. You are never late. Get involved. Just jump in and do it! Understand that a journey of thousand miles starts with a single step.if you follow above steps you will definitely achieve IAS or even secure an all India rank of below 10 with in the time that you are left with.ALL THE BEST.

1. Make it a holy practice to read a good newspaper (preferably The Hindu. Its the best ) Much of political news wont necessarily help. The editorials and the international columns are a must read. 2. Magazines ( the chronicle, yojana and kurukshetra are good ) 3. Keep the history , geography books of class XI and XII( both ncert and tmh). 4. There are few other books such as ..Indian polity by lakshmikant (mcgraw hill ) and India after gandhi by ramachandra guha which you might want to read. 5. Visit http://www.upsc.gov.in. You will get the idea about the exam, previous year papers etc. 6. Think clearly as what subject you want to take as optional. See the previous year questions and accordingly make your decision as to what choice makes it the most feasible. 7. There are multiple blogs you can find on google where you can read or watch the top rankers' intetviews. That will tell you much more you want to and need to know. One of the blogs i know is http://www.mrunal.org. 8. Be regular, dedicate yourself. Believe in yourself. Its your hardwork only that will fetch you the result. BEST OF LUCK !!

Start Reading Newspapers regularly. Read one magazine, chronicle or times.