Phew UPSC CSE. An examination that ensures that you follow a rigorous process will transform you from an aspirant to a Grade 'A' officer. As the Supreme Court of India adopted the line of due process of law with Meneka Gandhi, so is the case of UPSC. The results will be fruitful only if you wholeheartedly accept the process. And, to do this, you need to have command over the subjects that this Constitutional institution has laid out as syllabi. Among these lies your optional. Considering that if the interview panel doesn't ask you questions on optional, still your selection will get influenced by 24.7% marks that come as optional in the mains examination. But why selecting PSIR as optional remains a great question. With this piece, we are here to eradicate and eliminate all your concerns.

A Holistic Coverage

As mentioned that every optional holds 24.7% (i.e. 500 marks out 2025), selecting PSIR will increase this weightage. Why? You take a name, and you will find the influence of Political Science & International Relations, be it History (precisely Modern Indian History), Indian Society (if you talk about feminism and multiculturalism), Polity, International Relations, Ethics, etc. Hence, if you take this as optional, you are preparing yourself for multiple fronts. If you think this subject will limit its presence in GS Paper-II, you need to unfold the syllabus again. Here lies the transformation from an aspirant to an officer. It depends on how you can use the notes and connect your dots everywhere.

Character Building

The UPSC CSE exam is not about finding and recruiting smart people of this country who want to devote their next 30-35 years to the service of this nation. It's about how you build your character during the preparation process. And, with PSIR as optional, you get the chance to explore all those facets of life. Scholars like Hobbes and Plato will tell you that it is mandatory to understand human nature to create a state. Feminism will let you discover how oppressive is patriarchy and how different parts of the world, along with their lawmakers, worked towards women empowerment. Gramsci will make you understand how civil societies and institutions are trying to create their hegemony by consolidating ideas. In a nutshell, PSIR will somewhere develop new attributes in you with every chapter and topic you complete.

Connecting the Dots

As discussed in the Holistic Coverage section, PSIR has a linkage with almost every crucial subject. Hence, somewhere connecting these dots when a specific topic comes will help you prepare something in a full-fledged and proper manner. Having PSIR as an optional also gives you the leverage to give less time to your prelims study. Even within PSIR, you will find several topics that are properly relatable. Take an example of liberalism, and once you complete Bentham and other liberal scholars, the idea of state will have different prospects from that of Marxian. Similarly, you can relate Marx and Hegels with Plato's dialectical method.

A Great Faculty

Who will not know about Oprah Winfrey? She said: "A mentor is someone who allows you to see the hope inside yourself." And, you will find with a faculty like Dr Piyush Chaubey, a name that echoes in the UPSC CSE preparation domain. Dr Piyush Chaubey brings several years of teaching experience and has transformed many aspirants into leading civil service officers. His pedagogy and teaching style allows you to understand the connecting the dots concept. If you are reading realism, he will take you to Alsace Lorraine's journey to understand how the international system behaves at any point in time. Hence, he is one of those tools that garnishes you and your preparation if you have acumen.

Conclusion

Take out the results of UPSC every year, and you will find names who have excelled in this exam by taking PSIR as a subject. Considering this subject's weight, which is quite a hefty one, PSIR may look bulky but ensures that you have control over other GS subjects or a part of them as well.