Preparing for GATE with Job

I was not originally planning to write a post on this topic, but I had been asked this question so many times that I thought it would be more convenient to just write a post about it than to reply to everybody individually. A lot of people ask me how did I go about preparing for GATE when I was doing a job. To tell you the truth, I haven't done anything different for preparing for GATE with job. I would have almost followed the same path if I was not working. Anyways, I will still narrate my experiences, just in case someone finds it useful.

The Beginning 

I started in September. Initially I thought I would be able to make it, but now I think I was late. I should have started maybe a month earlier at least. It is important to start early because if you are preparing for GATE after a gap of few years, its hard to get the momentum in studies from the day one. So starting at the right time is crucial. Remember that GATE syllabus is huge.

Initially I spent a lot of time just gathering resources like books, online materials, previous papers, GATE question banks etc. I preferred studying from text books and so had to get a lot of books. I have listed the books I used in my previous post. I also enrolled myself to the 'British Library' so that I have access to a lot of books. My pace of studies was very slow at this time.

Gathering Steam 

By the end of September I was done gathering all my resources and had been studying about an hour at max per day. Initially it was difficult to concentrate on studies. On weekdays I thought I will study properly on weekend, and on weekends I thought weekends are for rest so let me take some rest now and will concentrate on studies from Monday. Anyways, slowly I started getting used to it. At this stage, I didn't have to compromise on office work and would study only as much as time permitted.

Managing Work and Studies

As I entered the month of December, I knew that I will have to step on the gas pedal. Now it was not sufficient to study leisurely, and only in spare time. Now was the time to make compromises, at least for the next two months. I will now have to start taking time from office to be able to finish the vast GATE syllabus. 

At office it was really important to ensure that I kept myself from taking too much work. Anything that I could avoid, I avoided. Obviously, this did not put a very good impression on my colleagues or my manager, but this is a risk I had to take. I tried to politely stay away from hectic projects and just took up smaller tasks. I woke up early and studied in the morning. I reached office only by 11 AM. My manager was always unhappy with me coming this late, but I knew this was only for a couple of months, and so somehow kept the schedule.The biggest thing that one needs to remember is that at this stage, discipline is everything. If you plan your studies, make sure you execute those plans. This is not the time for loosing focus.

All this definitely slowed down my professional progress, but this is a cost I had to pay for having a shot at GATE. I know that after Feb, I can make up for all this.

The Compromise

GATE syllabus is huge. When you are preparing for it after a gap of few years and along with a job, its very likely that you might not be able to finish all of it. In such cases, it is important and practical to leave out some of the syllabus. As far as GATE is concerned, its better to know some subjects extremely well than knowing all subjects on the surface. I was in this situation too. I choose to ignore most of the Engineering Mathematics part. The reasons were two - Firstly, Engineering Maths is very huge and studying after such a long gap would have required a lot of time. Secondly, Engineering Maths is not very useful in CS in general. So it won't hurt if I don't know about it that well. I can't say that about core CS subjects like OS, DBMS, Networks etc. If you are faced with such a situation, be prepared to do some compromise here and there. Know that when you say "No" to a subject, you are saying to "Yes" to some other subject. Just make sure you don't leave out some important one.

The Final Phase

The final phase of my GATE studies was the time after 15th Jan. I had reserved this time for solving previous GATE papers, and revising the syllabus. I had also made a list of topics that I felt I was weak at, so I could revise them later. I spent the last month solving previous year papers completely and trying to find out the answer to each question. This gave me a lot of confidence and cleared my concepts like anything.

Finally I took a couple of days leave just before GATE so I can study in full force. These were the only leaves I took for studies.