What's VTU topper Suchitra N's secret to bagging 9 gold medals?

Last week, when Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) announced the names of the toppers, Suchitra N was understandably elated. An alumnus of Jain Institute of Technology from Davanagere, she secured the first place in Civil Engineering and won the highest number of gold medals. Nine, if you're particularly interested in putting a number to it.

She also topped the subject Irrigation Engineering and Hydraulic Structures which is considered as one of the toughest subjects around. Understandably, this sets her knee-deep in the super-study category. She says that this was an in-your-stride thing, "We have a tough subject in every semester. The toughest subject in sixth semester was Irrigation Engineering and Hydraulic Structures as we get less than six months to learn the basics and all the other concepts of building dams and water reservoirs. We are taught to draw the sketches and designs of dams and various irrigation techniques using surface irrigation and sub-surface irrigation are discussed."

On the top rung: Suchitra N ( from first left) along with other toppers was felicitated on March 18 at a VTU convocation held in Belagavi

She further adds that drawing sketches was the toughest and the most important part in this subject. "The total marks for this subject is 100 and we get only three questions to answer. While one is 60 marks, the other two questions are 40 marks (20 marks each). When it comes to practising sketches and drawings, I would do each sketch more than 20 times. Even if one measurement would go wrong, I would draw it again and again until it became perfect," Suchitra explains.

She's also the poster girl for VTU's whole no-social-media policy. A secret to her gaining the first rank and scoring good marks was to go offline from social media during exams. "It was in my first semester that I scored only 60 per cent and my parents were upset with me. I figured out that it was my presence on social media which led to my scoring less marks. From the second to eighth semesters, I went on and off on social media. During my internal assessment exams and my final exams every semester, I would uninstall my Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts. I was surprised to see that I scored 76 per cent in the second semester and it went on increasing gradually. Now my aggregate percentage stands at 88 per cent," she concludes.