Meet the CS exam topper who balanced self-study with coaching
by institutions. There is no central agency defining the policies and processes and hence how the Indian three-year degree is viewed differs from one institute to another in the US.
“There are institutions which do not accept any Indian three-year degree. Those which do so accept it on the basis of some qualitative criteria. And there’s the other extreme of those accepting all Indian threeyear degrees as equivalent. The fundamental difference is based on the institutional viewpoint of the accepting the qualitative rigour and academic equivalency of what students learn in three-year degree as compared to the American four-year degree,” he says.
Students need to do their checks before applying to a US college or university as most will have different rules of admission. The US Department of Education says there is no single authority in the US for the recognition of foreign degrees and other qualifications. International agreements, US education system and labour market recognise some competent authorities for matters pertaining to recognition. These include the admitting higher education institution taking in international students who present credits or qualifications earned abroad and the employer hiring foreign workers.
Admission to US graduate programmes is highly competitive. Kimberly Dixit, cofounder and president, The Red Pen, a Mumbai-based overseas education consultancy, says, “Applicants really have to carefully research this on a college by college and course by course basis. It’s a very institutionspecific requirement. And if in doubt, they can email the graduate admissions department directly to find out. For example, many MBA colleges will accept a three-year bachelor’s from India, but (universities offering) master’s in social work will not.” Harsh Gupta from Haryana’s Bahadurgarh has been enjoying a dream run. Ranked number two in the recently declared company secretaries (professional) examination, he secured rank 40 in the chartered accountancy (CA) final, was number four in CA IPCC (integrated professional competency course) and 14 in CS executive.
How does he do it? Now completing his CA articleship (practical training when students work on actual assignments for real employers) Gupta combines cricket and badminton, studies and entertainment for success. Snappy, entertaining television series like Suits and Sherlock (at times) provide ‘instant’ relief.
A star performer at Bal Bharti School, Bahadurgarh, he topped commerce with 95.75% in Class 12 and got an aggregate of 87% in BCom (hons) at Hans Raj, Delhi University. He started studying for the CS professional programme just after clearing CA inter in November 2013 and CS inter in June 2015. Preparation for the exams started 2.5 years after he became eligible to write the CA finals. Self-study was balanced with coaching.
CS TOPPER HARSH GUPTA HANDLED INFORMATION SYSTEMS CONTROL; AUDIT AND COSTING HIMSELF AND GOT COACHING FOR THE REST