• How to start preparing for IIT-JEE right after 10th boards?
  • I joined the hostel of Aakash in Delhi within a week after the last paper of 10th boards. I am not sure what to recommend, but you can browse wikipedia for curiosity about relevant topics. Complete a course from edX, Coursera, or OCW on closely related topics to JEE (like mechanics, electrostatics, etc.). Or maybe just go through NCERT on your own (it’s quite exciting to read)
• Should one participate in Olympiads during JEE Preparation, will it benefit in JEE or will it disturb JEE preparation (especially Mathematics and Astronomy)?
  • Firstly, I think the only time to participate in Olympiads (except IJSO) is during JEE preparation. Secondly, I can say that participating in Olympiads, especially Mathematics and Astronomy, helped me a lot in enhancing my problem solving skills, increasing my speed, estimation abilities, and ability to assimilate new concepts rapidly. Obviously, the syllabus of these are far from JEE syllabus but the skills gained helped me a lot. Moreover, I was able to participate to my full extent as I had ‘time’ to do that. What I can say, at most, is that if you are already ahead of your preparation and have enough time to revise and practice before JEE then go for olympiads. They are an amazing, once in a lifetime experience, especially the camp, and I don’t think you want to miss that. For physics and chemistry, a significant part of their syllabus coincide with JEE syllabus and the dates of their JEE levels are not near JEE-advanced, so I don’t think there is any hindrance in taking those.
• What was the effect of your friend circle during your preparation? What kind of people, in your opinion, should one surround themselves with during their high school years?
  • I vehemently feel that peers were an important motivating factor in my preparation. I was in the CoE batch with high achievers from all across India. Moreover, in most camps, programmes, or even exams I went to, I could connect with brilliant peers from all fields and having those connections helps a lot. This type of setting helped me in two ways:
• We could collaborate and help each other to achieve more than what one could accomplish alone. There are many grunt work which could be distributed and everyone could still have the benefit from individual work.
  • Competition among us also played a major role in motivating us to work hard. It is difficult to compete and be accountable with only oneself and having a peer group to ‘compare’ with, especially a good one helps to keep us in check.
  • However, I would recommend not to misuse the above points. Hurting others, wasting peers’ time to get ‘ahead,’ not helping others even if it leads to a positive benefit to your group, will hurt you a lot in the end. You have to remember the fact that in these major exams, your classmate succeeding would have negligible impact on you. There are literally so many batches across the country who all are competing for some ‘coveted’ positions. Your friends succeeding might make you feel bad (idk why, but 3 idiots), but in the long term you will have awesome connections ‘through’ your friends and it will have a major positive impact on your life in the end. So, find an awesome similar minded peer group and collaboratively achieve your goal together.