Star Performers: Learning to excel, students share their success stories

Students often reflect on their academic progress, sharing their experiences with exams, study habits, and learning support. These insights offer a glimpse into the typical journey of managing studies, setting goals, and learning from outcomes.

Meet three such students of Class XI-C, academic year 2024-25 — Shrija Saharia (85%), Nethra Verma (83%), and Arindam Prakash (72.6%) of Apeejay School, Noida, who have proved that hard work and dedication pay off. In a candid interview, they share their study strategy.

Shrija, who had expected to do better, shared that she has Commerce with Psychology. My percentage fell due to Economics. This is because I am a major. I studied for unit tests and half-yearlies, and because I have a good memory, I didn’t have to push myself too hard. I mostly listened in class. I’m grateful to the teachers at our school; they explained everything so well that it stayed in my brain. So, there wasn’t much pressure during exams,” the Class XII student said and added that the teachers were always available for doubt solving and even ready to take extra classes. Before exams, they even held online sessions and took calls to clarify doubts.

Nethra, on the other hand, was thrilled with her result. “I have Commerce without Math since I aim to pursue law. My optional subject is Painting,” she shared.

And while she did find the academic transition from Class X to XI a bit nerve-wracking and trying to navigate the change, she started her entire academic life afresh. “I decided to erase whatever I had learnt and take a fresh start with everything. That approach worked well for me. The teachers were great at teaching. I had a great faculty in every subject. Just asking one doubt used to clear up an entire topic for me.

Arindam, a dedicated student of Commerce with Math, plans to pursue a five-year integrated BBA + MBA programme, possibly at IIM. His study strategy proved to be a bit of a challenge since the transition from Class X to XI can be quite drastic.

“I realised that instead of just learning, I had to focus on truly understanding the concepts. For practice-heavy subjects like Accountancy and Math, I practised regularly. For conceptual subjects like Economics and Business Studies, I read the chapters on my own and used YouTube videos to recap and understand the material better,” he shared and added that the teachers explained the concepts clearly in class, made notes in our registers, and helped us solve example-based questions.