A farmer’s son in Giridih has grabbed AIR-8 in the prestigious GATE exam. 20-year old Salu Kumar, a resident of Bengabad block of Giridih district has made his parents proud with the achievement. His parents from poor economic background were toiling hard to fund his education at IIT ,Gawahati.
Born in a poor farmer family and with limited resources to fund his higher education, Salu right from the start knew that he would never be able to have facilities that his batch mates could avail like private tuition and tutorials to crack engineering exams.
As soon as the GATE result was announced it was like a dream come true. March 16 brought smiles and happiness to Kumar who secured an all India rank of 8 in GATE 2018 for physical, inorganic and organic. Salu Kumar a budding Msc in Chemistry at IIT Gawahati spoke to about his preparation strategies, time management and difficulties faced during preparation. He stressed on the need to keep one’s fundamentals strong while studying in college and focusing more on important topics rather than the entire syllabus.
Salu secured 79 per cent in both for his X and XII from Bengabad High school, Giridih and Inter science college, Hazaribagh and also topped Vinoba Bhave University for chemistry and took admission at IIT Gawahati to pursue his master degree.
“I think GATE difficulty levels are seeing a drop each year. So we have relatively easy papers leading to high GATE cutoffs. But an easy paper doesn’t mean you take it easy. You will have to cover the entire GATE syllabus and leave no stone upturned to be successful, said Kumar.
Recalling his journey so far he said that his father is small farmer. “My elder brother is an auto- rickshaw driver and younger one is a salesman. I am the only sibling to have reached this far,” he added.
He said that his younger brother had to quit his studies to support his education was perhaps the biggest sacrifice made by his family .