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Although there are some amazing institutions that offer courses in interior design and architecture design, there are hardly any options available that are the combination of both. As a student, I was interested equally in both career paths and wanted a programme that would combine the knowledge and skills required for both disciplines in a single course. While I was researching for potential colleges and universities for enrollment, I came across IIAD (Indian Institute of Art and Design). It was one of the very few institutions that offered a programme in Interior Architecture and Design, so it became the obvious choice. I am currently finishing my third year in a four-year programme, and I can proudly say that enrolling here was probably the best career decision that I made and here’s why:The institute offers a double degree - one from Kingston University and one from (UGC recognised) Lingaya’s University. The Kingston University degree caught my eye because I have always wanted to move to the UK for studies, and it would surely help if I’m already certified by one of their best schools.All of IIAD’s courses are designed in partnership with Kingston School of Art, London , which meant that I would get internationally paralleled education right here in India. Which I can confirm is the truth. My last three years at IIAD have been the best years of my life, professionally and personally. I have had very hands-on experience where most of my learning came through the projects I did outside of the classroom.Another thing that I love about IIAD is that they offer placement support. When my seniors were all set to graduate, they received a lot of support and guidance from not only the college’s placement services but also our teachers. From what I have observed, students in their final year of every course receive support in creating and enhancing their portfolios and preparing for job interviews. And if you take a look at my institute’s recruiter list, I am sure you will find that most of the top industry firms visit the campus for placements every year.If you too are looking for a course that is the combination of interior design and architecture, I am sure IIAD would be the perfect place for you as well. I do, however, recommend that you do your own research about it.

I see 2 questions in this: how do they gain enrolment into college, and how do they ‘survive’ in college. I will attempt to answer both.Enrolment into CollegeMost students actually have to sit for a separate exam after they finish their ‘finals’ in whatever high school they were from called the CSAT (College Scholastic Ability Test). Essentially, it is the Korean equivalent of taking SATs. Now for most of these idols, they barely made it in high school, most of them skipping many classes and probably sleeping through half of them as well. So the thought of them trying to go through (and stand out academically) amongst the hundreds of thousands of Korean students taking the exam is extremely unlikely; statistically if not for the sheer fact that many of them would probably not understand at least 50% of the exam.So how do they get it? Well, universities actually have this thing where they just accept you into a university. In fact, some of the idols actually make it into pretty prestigious universities (see here if you want). Why would these universities accept them? Well, who doesn’t want to be able to claim that famous people came from their school. By doing this, they can bypass the CSAT, and still obtain a university education. However, there are a few ‘requirements’ (trends might be the more accurate word) that I’ve noticed:You have to come from somewhat famous. I think this is pretty self-explanatory. If you aren’t famous, there really isn’t much of an incentive to accept you, is there? So as a famous idol/comedian/actress, it is pretty easy to snag yourself an entrance letter. If you are a new/unpopular group, unfortunately I doubt they will accept you.You have to study something ‘related’. Many of these idols go into more artistic schools (basically, no one is going to KAIST or SNU; these are Korea’s top universities and they mainly have a more engineering/science background) (note: some people have indeed gone to these schools, but they went there on their own merits, and they were not recipients of any preferential treatment). The most common thing to study is acting or film studies, as done by Girls’ Generation members, Big Bang’s Seungri, some members of APink, groups here and there. I think some pursue vocal training, but it seems to be a rarer course that not as many universities have (as opposed to acting, which apparently is pretty common in Korea). Essentially, you’re not going to study whatever you like, firstly because you probably aren’t learned enough to take that physics/engineering course that you want, and also because why would anyone accept you because of your celebrity position, and then let you take something unrelated? It doesn’t make much sense.How they survive in collegeThe short story : Survive as an active idol? You don’t really.The reality is that as an idol, you are still subject to the various rigours and demands of both your industry and the education system that you applied to (and agreed to attend). This is why in my opinion, many idols choose to enter university when they have already established some kind of grounding and fanbase. (alternatively, like the other answerer mentioned, you could choose to do online courses, but I don’t know so much about that)(This of course, is a two-birds-one-stone kind of thing, since only by being famous do you get this preferential treatment to begin with.)Most groups tend to taper off somewhere around the 4/5/6 year mark; they are still active, but they stop running at the killer pace of ‘new album -> repackaged -> variety/reality -> concert -> prepare for new album’, and stick to maybe just one album a year or something. I would say that as a new idol/unknown idol, you simply don’t have the time to just slow down or take a break as if your popularity is confirmed (if it exists at all) and it will wait indefinitely for you to come back. Examples would be like Red Velvet’s Irene, who hasn’t gone to college (and given her age, she probably won’t).So let’s say you’re at least semi-famous, and you are in this one-album-a-year thing I’m talking about. Can you still survive? No, of course not. I mean, we all watch the same idols right? We’re talking 14 hour a day dance practices, long schedules essentially all day err day. How will you ever have time to complete all your modules?Well, they just have to take less modules per semester (or skip entire semesters) and study during the down periods. Let’s look at Girls’ Generations’s Yuri and Sooyoung. They enrolled into Chung Ang University in 2010. They graduated in 2016, which is seven years. That is basically almost twice the time a regular person spends in university. But it works, I guess, so there are no complaints. It’s certainly better than having no degree I suppose.In conclusion, my two cents worth about the issue. Yes, the system seems very unfair to these idols who are just trying to work while also improving themselves as people. But then again, these are idols who’ve trained essentially their entire lives (surely through elementary/middle school) to sing and dance instead of learning about math and science and what not. They might not see it as restrictive, but rather a chance for them to get some kind of formal education in place (albeit slowly, and very, very scattered) that they’ve never got to have as children. And I think that for that reason, you have to give the idols who do choose to go to university a lot of credit.

The Journey has just started.I don’t want to remember my IES preparation journey as days of struggle, uncertainty or fear of failure rather friendships, knowledge, perseverance and lots of fun.A little background about me:I had completed my engineering in 2010. I was below average student with less than 60% marks in Engineering. In my entire career, I had never got more than 80% marks.Engineering services were my dream when I was pursuing my B.E., but due to cutthroat competition and my poor record in academics, I thought it was not my cup of tea. So I had dropped the idea of preparing for ESE and joined Infosys.How it all began !!!!:My Journey started way back in 2014 when I was working in Mercer Gurgaon. I was settled in my career and was doing well. I completely forgot about UPSC. I could recall one incident when one of my colleagues had asked “what was the subject taught in the final year “believe me I could not recall the name of 2 subjects.Actual Journey started when my brother Rahul Singh had cleared Civil Services exam and he reminded me of my dream to become an IES officer. He was an average student like me but watching his strategy and hard work I was motivated. His success pushed harder to pursue my goal. The other reason was over the period of time my job became monotonous and the work became less challenging day by day. I was working in night shift. My health condition was started deteriorating. I was reluctant at the beginning but after analyzing my situation and with some motivation I decided to join made easy weekend batch.Coaching Days:On the first day, there was an Orientation class in which the faculty motivated us and it really helped me in building my confidence level.Since I was working at that time and attended classes from 9 to 5 after spending 5 days in office was a very tedious task at the beginning, that too during night shift. Sitting in class for such a long time and concentrating on each and every topic discussed was a very difficult task at the beginning.Since I was not in touch with engineering books in those 4 years of my life so and could not recollect any topics. The first subject taught was Network in which when Sir was teaching us Thevenin's Theorem the only thing I was able to recall was the name of the scientist. I was not able to recall for what purpose we used this theorem. I didn't know how to apply KCL and KVLs.I started losing confidence in myself. I was not comfortable with the basic words. For example, whenever any faculty came across any word like a unit step function, ramp function etc immediately I used to search those terms on google literally.After reaching home first thing I did was to revise the basics and then went through the concepts that were taught in the class.First attempt 2015 :I knew that I would not be able to make my name in the list still I work hard. I had given test series very diligently. My rank ranges from 300 to 700. As expected I failed in my first attempt.After analyzing my performance in the exam I was weak at few subjects as I was not able to attend their classes so I had decided to join rank improvement batch.Leaving Job for UPSC :Initial days of rank improvement batch was fine, I was able to solve the problems which lead to increases in my confidence level. But after some time It became very difficult for me to manage job as well as coaching. I started feeling that in such intense competition what if I will miss by few marks. What If I will be selected and would not get the desired service. Then I will blame myself throughout my life for not taking action at the right moment. Why not leave this job and fully focused on the exams. My parents were reluctant at the beginning but after seeing my dedication they started supporting my decision. I knew that it was a big risk as I don’t have any backup plan and again getting such a job after a gap of 1–2 years will be very difficult.”This is your life and whatever the decision you are going to take, own it !! The responsibility lies solely on you and if you are brave enough to carry the burden or guilt of your failure then take your decision audaciously. ”After inferring the meaning of the above quotation my motivation level shot up and I decided to quit my job. I wanted to give myself at least one chance to fulfil my long-term dream. I could not imagine myself in a situation where I retrospectively reflected upon my life and thought that had I done x,y or z thing I would have cleared this exam.Second attempt 2016:My preparation was going in a smooth way but somehow I was not able to perform well in the classroom test series. I started increasing my study hours. My marks in the subjective test were increased but I was performing average in the Objective paper. My rank ranges from 100–200.After checking the answer key from made easy answer key it became clear that I would not be able to make into the list. I was frustrated but wanted to give one more try. I decided not to join any coaching and preparing by self-study. Since there is a gap of around 1 year in between result and joining so I decided to give GATE seriously as I need a job in that duration.ESE 2017 and GATE 2017:I had performed well in the prelims and immediately after prelims, I started preparing for GATE 2017. I had done few blunders so my GATE exams were screwed up but somehow I managed to get AIR 604. I had applied for BSNL JTO in Gujarat circle but I was not able to make into the list. After GATE I started preparing for mains. I was doing pretty well in mains test series. I got All India Rank 1 in ACE Test series three times. I was hopeful of my selection. Mains went well.Mains Result day:On 21st June 2017 after a long wait, UPSC has declared its mains exam result. I checked the result but I was not able to find my roll number. That was my third attempt as well as my third failure. My inner voice immediately went about searching for excuses. “It should be some clerical mistake? Surely I must have been wronged!” I was not able to digest the facts that I have failed in mains after performing well in prelims as well as in mains.That was the lowest point of my UPSC journey. At 28 year I did not have any job nor have any hope for UPSC which I started believing that I was daydreaming. The immediate thought that came into my mind was “ Its being 7 years I have passed my engineering all my friends were settled in their career, most of them are married or getting married and I was just preparing for an exam “. All my saving were exhausted. I didn’t know what to do at that moment.I eagerly looked forward for my marksheet, mostly to confirm my own prejudice. When the marksheet finally arrived, the scores were as follows,After preparing for 3 years I was not able to score 50% marks in the technical paper.Most of us begin our UPSC preparation treating it only as an exam. But slowly and surely, as we face hurdles and endure suffering, the exam takes centre stage and getting through it becomes our only objective. So when we are defeated in this exam, we almost feel defeated in life. And so it was with me.The failure crept inward into other aspects of my being. It eroded my confidence. Both professionally and personally, I turned indifferent and under confident. My day to day life became lethargic, timid and was one of mere existence. I was convinced that I am not good enough. I was indeed devastated.I thought that I will leave my UPSC preparation and I will join some software company. I had started applying for the job. But destiny has its own plan. After a few days, I got to know that BSNL will release the second list since most of the students from the first list had not joined. I felt relaxed, my problem of unemployment was solved, as if God was throwing signals all around to toe the line and follow my dreams.I decided to give one more try, I prepared my mind that this will be my final attempt and I am going to clear this exam in this attempt. I promised myself that one day, I am gonna tell myself “I made it”.I started analyzing my condition. Mains was never a problem I was not able to perform well in prelims so I had started focusing on Objective questions. I enrolled for Made easy offline test series. I worked hard, started increasing my study hours. My marks in test series were improved a lot but still, I was not able to get rank under 10. Again I reviewed my conditions prepared a new plan and started executed those in test series.One day when I was enjoying my tea in the evening, I checked made easy test series result and voila I got AIR 1. Although I have got the first rank before but only in subjective papers. I have never performed well in the objective paper.My confidence level increases exponentially.All through this rigorous exercise, my aim was not to clear the exam but to prove a point to myself that I am not a loser at this exam. The battle became intensely personal.Prelims 2018:I had done well in Prelims and after checking it from made easy I was getting a score of 295. I felt relaxed.In between Prelims and mains I had joined BSNL as a JTO (Since I was able to make into the Second list). Again It became difficult for me to manage my job as well as studies. But somehow I managed. Mains went well.9th November 2018:When the final results were declared on November 9, 2018, the immediate feeling I had was one of overwhelming disbelief. Finally, I have cleared the so-called most coveted exam for engineers.Next day my name was published in all the local newspaper. My parents were happy.I felt relaxed and the immediate thought that came into my mind was now I don’t have to study again for this exam.I am blessed because there were people in my life who looked after me when I was in utmost need. If you have a purpose and some good friends around you, you'll find a way to do something good in your life. It doesn't have to be an exam or any post make you feel motivated. Improvement should be the guiding principle.The Takeaways:Anyone can clear this exam what you need is believe in yourself.Hard work and perseverance is the key to success.Prepare yourself to take calculated risk whenever needed.Believe in God. Faith is indispensable.You are going to be alone in this fight, the fight to live your dream. Expecting someone else to understand your dream, your mindset and your struggle is a mirage. Never settle down for things you never wanted. Settle down with your dream only.Thanks.Aishwary Anand Singh (AIR 41 UPSC ESE 2018)