Atharva Gawde, a student at SIES High School, Matunga, has achieved a remarkable 97.2% in the Maharashtra SSC Class 10 Board exam. “My preparation journey was all about consistency,” he told The Free Press Journal. He solved question papers repeatedly, and was big on getting guidance from his teachers. ”Once you leave something to be done for the next day, it never gets done,” he said, adding that he made sure to get his doubts solved as soon as they occurred to him.
His strategy was to study throughout the day, not for a fixed time, while also dedicating time to play. Gawde played tennis at his school, and football at a club in his locality. “Sports helped me be stable,” he highlighted. His most-liked subjects were Math, Science, and especially Physics. Gawde has already begun preparing for JEE Mains. He intends to enroll at IIT Bombay in the future to pursue studies in either Computer Engineering or Chemical Engineering. “I will take a year more to ascertain where my interests lie,” he said.
Being the Head Boy of his school, Gawde had an added responsibility on his shoulders. “I was completely focused on my duties in school, and when I came back I was equally focused on catching up with studies,” he said. Upon arriving home from school, Gawde took a brief half-hour nap to recharge from his responsibilities as Head Boy before heading off to his tuition classes. On his experience of being a head boy in his final year of school, Gawde said that before the Covid-19 lockdown, he was a thorough introvert. “When I became the headboy of my school, I learnt how to balance life as well as duties. It made me into a changed person”.
Talking about the distractions that teenagers face, which come in between their Class 10 studies preparation, Gawde said that his parents helped him focus and move away from distractions by sharing their own life experiences with them. “They were the frankest parents I could have asked for”, he said. His mother helped him with the subject he found to be the most challenging, Marathi. “She sat with me and took my Marathi lessons for a whole month,” he said, adding that if it was not for her, his total marks would have been significantly lower.
