u/Boringselfdiscipline

Bhai UPSC mein ek alag hi problem hai 😭
Abhi Vivek Singh ki Economy book dekhi, phir ye ₹1000 ka complete Economy course bhi aa gaya. ₹1000 honestly koi bahut badi amount nahi hai, but problem ye hai ki aise ₹1k–₹2k ke courses/modules har subject mein aate rehte hain.
Aur phir samajh nahi aata ki kaunsa actually useful hai aur kaunsa bas “cheap entry” wala course hai.
Especially jab teacher ki book already itni popular hai, toh aur confusion hota hai — ki course mein genuinely kuch extra hai? Ya wahi content recorded lectures mein de diya hai jo book se ho jayega?
Kisi ne Vivek Singh se padha hai ya unka course try kiya hai?
Honest review chahiye — book + self study enough hai ya course actually adds something?

I was revising Economy recently and came across Vivek Singh’s book again. I think most UPSC aspirants who have done Economy seriously would have at least heard of it.
And then I randomly saw this — he has now started teaching at LevelUp IAS.
It actually made me think about how much the UPSC ecosystem has changed.
Earlier, you’d have a few standard books/sources and that was pretty much it. Now a teacher can start with a book, then YouTube, Telegram, test series, courses… and eventually their own coaching ecosystem.
Not saying this is necessarily a bad thing. If someone has actually spent years teaching and building good content, makes sense that they’d eventually build something around it.
But as an aspirant, sometimes I do wonder — how much of our teacher selection is actually based on teaching quality, and how much is just familiarity with the teacher’s name/brand?
Like, if you’ve already read someone’s book or watched their free content and then they launch a course, does that automatically make you more likely to trust them?
Curious what people here think.
Do you guys choose teachers based on content → teaching → results, or does the institute/brand matter just as much?

An app called Goblin Tools helped me break down any task into small, actionable checklists. I simply enter a task I want to complete, and it automatically breaks it into smaller steps that I can tick off one by one until I achieve the main goal.
Loved the app! I thought it might be helpful for my fellow members as well.

I think the couple are UPSC aspirants.