Radhika Sarawagi
Radhika Sarawagi, a topper from Fountainhead School, Surat has some really effective study tips for you all. A true girl-next-door, she doesn’t have many demands. Instead of wanting her life to be extraordinary, she just wants her life to keep teaching her and making her a better person each day. As a child, she dreamt of being a teacher but with growing up, learning and understanding things, she finalized to work in the domain of finance, and be a CFA holder in future.
Apart from studying, her interests include dance and music. She has also completed 3 levels of Classical music in keyboard. She loves helping people and has been an active participant of social events outside as well as inside school such as the Service Sessions where the students teach, play and spend time with underprivileged kids, spreading smiles across. Her school played a very important part in her success journey and she would like to express her gratitude by sharing a few words about her school.
“Fountainhead school started with the dream of making a significant change in the Indian Education System. It started with a preschool in 2005 and a school in 2008 which has now flourished, imparting high-quality innovative education. Our school believes in “nurturing leaders through primary greatness” and providing a happy, purposeful and safe environment to help learners like us achieve sustainable success in life. Our school provides an International Curriculum, which empowers students with skills, courage, optimism, and integrity to pursue their dreams and enhance the lives of others. It promises to holistically develop a child showing them direction to foster themselves and achieve their aims.”
Radhika Sarawagi, Fountainhead School
Good schooling and proper parental support are the main pillars behind every student’s success. What role did your teachers and parents play in your success?
>> Life feels beautiful, satisfactory and successful with the access to good education. Schools exert great influence upon us. They shape our character, mould our mental attitudes and fashion the basic principles of life while our parents are our backbones who give us constant support to achieve success. Success for me is not just the grades I achieve but is my progress and journey through it where I have kept climbing up the stairs to reach my aim and learned some of the other small yet significant lessons of my life. To help me thrive and get success in my life, my parents and teachers (my second parents) have been there for me as the most important pillars of success. All of them not only helped me with mental support but gave me spiritual support as well. They had firm faith and trust in me and my capabilities. They never let me lose my faith in myself and kept motivating me to help me reach where I am today. I especially thank my mother, who without any frustration kept handling my morning and exam time mood swings, while my father kept showing me the right direction for success. And last but not the least, I feel really blessed to have teachers like friends, who not only taught me the syllabus but also made me feel like their own child.
Positive thinking is an essential trait that differentiates the toppers from struggling students. It helps them to meet the challenges of life head-on and achieve success. Can you suggest a few habits which can help your juniors remain positive in today’s world?
>> Being a topper, I feel it is in itself a designation that you have achieved from which you can’t step out. There would be times where you feel stressed or overstressed for your results because, firstly you have worked hard for it and secondly being a topper there would always be expectations of your family members, teachers etc. attached to it. This would in a way make your brain see the negatives rather than the positives, which I have felt too. Therefore, to remain positive I used in a way ignore things by diverting my mind by either listening to songs or by doing what I love to do. Also, reading some motivational quotes every day gave me the strength to fight the odds during the tough days. And lastly, giving myself at least 15 minutes to relax and reflect on my day helped me to set my goals for next day and be a much better and positive person.
A good revision is the key to excelling in exams. During exam days, how do you revise your lessons and ensure a quick brush up?
>> As we had been given study leave of 1 month from our school before our CIE exams, so the first thing I did was make a list of lessons where I am weak or where I feel I need give more time because working on your weaknesses always helps to build up confidence. So, I took up those lessons first and studied them. If they were theory subjects, I used to first read and then make notes in short for the same. If I didn’t have time for it, I just used to highlight the main important points in the textbook itself.
Secondly, CIE provides us with an abundance of past papers through which we can understand the exam pattern in a much better way. So, after completing my lesson revision, I used to do past papers year wise.
And during all this, I used to make sure, that I don’t overstress or overburden myself. If I felt that way, I used to take a break and yes, always remember a break of a day or two is okay sometimes in order to get the required energy and motivation back.
Lastly, for a quick brush up, I just used to scan through my notes at night till 10 pm, and then wake up early at 6 pm and do the same for the leftover.
Doing all this, helped me to achieve distinction in CIE exams. However, there may be other methods and tricks which are efficient and can yield you good results.
Routines are important to lead an organized and successful life. Though most students are good at setting routines, when it comes to following them, they fail. Any tips for such students?
>> Where students go wrong in making routines is that we list down so many to-dos for a day which is out of our capabilities initially. What we need to make sure is that we set a realistic routine and a routine which is a mixture of studies, healthy diet, enough sleep and the needed relaxation as in the motivators (hobbies). The tips which I want to give them is, start with the things which are easy and need less time to complete because they are just the starters of your routine and if you take a work which requires a lot of attention, it will eventually make you tired and thus demotivated to follow the long list of the routine you made.
Then you can work out on things which are important to the hour and work on the same and trust me this is the difficult part if you have a lot of things which needs your immediate attention. However, here your self-management skills would come into hand where you prioritize, manage time and complete the tasks.
Also, the last tip, which I found very essential is taking breaks between tasks or in between a task. They are very important as it gives the required time to brain to capture the work you just completed and gives it time to relax and regain the power to focus again.
Winners often live in the present. They don’t waste their time lamenting about the past or unnecessarily worrying about the future. How do you ensure that you make the most of your time by being present in the present?
>> I am a person who holds on to past and also worries about future a lot. But to focus on something one needs to move on from the past and to achieve your aspirations and make a future one needs to start working for it in present. Therefore, in order to make myself present in the present, I used to focus on a single task at a time. This helped me to effectively do my work and be present in what I am actually doing and not dwell upon things which I am yet to complete.
The second way to be present in the present is doing things at a slow pace and living the things you are actually doing, even if it is eating food or talking to family members. This would help to find joy and stillness in everything you do.
Thirdly, repeat “no no no” as soon as you start drifting into your past or start stressing over your future. This would give the brain the signal to stop the thought process and help you to stay in present much more where you can just examine your present surroundings or just focus on the work you were currently doing.
This is my way of being in present. However, I also believe that remembering your good times (in past) can sometimes be pleasant. Also it is important to plan your future so that you can earn for yourself and be happy and content in life.
Finally, remember: “There are two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live.” – John Adams
In the journey of life, we pass pleasures and pain, there will be sunshine and rain, there will be loss and gain, but we must learn to smile again and again. I wish you all, all the success and happiness in life. May God always be there for you all. Best of luck for your journey of life.
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