Aman Bansal (AIR 1) is the golden boy of JEE Advanced 2016. With a score 312/372, he overcame competition from his friends at Allen Coaching Institute. The Jaipur boy, who is looking forward to moving to Mumbai, had some interesting opinion to share with PaGaLGuY. In his own words…
Unlike many IIT aspirants, I wasn’t focused on JEE coaching since school days. In fact, even during class 11 and 12, I only took part-time coaching, which was 3 days a week for 4 hours each in the evenings. The rest of the time was spent studying in a local school and in home study. The general notion that students who take coaching in class 9 and 10 have an upper hand than those who take only 2 years of coaching, is not true. There is a huge gap in what we learn in class 9 and in class 11. _The topics we learn in the later classes have more depth. Even if those topics are taught in class 9, they are usually brushed away quickly without much practice or in-depth learning.
The two years I went for coaching were obviously very stressful. Occasionally we used to hear about student suicides in different coaching institutes. The competition level in these institutes is very high and students are pushed into a race, but such competition motivated me to study harder, unlike those unfateful students who ended their life. My toughest competition in Allen was my batch-mate and AIR 3, Kunal Goyal. But we were and are friends as well. We used to study together and discuss our doubts. There was no bitter rivalry.
Like most other top rankers, I also want to go to IIT Bombay for computer science. Obviously, Kunal will also be in my class. In fact, AIR 9 and 58, who were also my batch-mates in Allen, will be coming to IIT Bombay with me so I am not scared to come to Mumbai or start college. I know I’ll be with my friends. Although it’s sad that most likely, we won’t have a single girl in our class at IIT Bombay, since the girl topper is on AIR 133. Unlike the previous years where there were quite a few girls in the top 50 ranks, this year the results have been unfortunate for them.
About my future, I am as blank as most students of my age are. But I intend to make a career in the education field. I had an idea to create some software that provides home teaching facilities to students who cannot afford to go to school. Now that the internet has spread in all corners of the country, my software will aim to provide free education to children.